[MD] atomic bomb and torture

[Platt Holden]

Another morning missive to Arlo, 

I wonder if at your convenience you would take some time to document  
the moral positions you describe below, citing quotes to substantiate 
your interpretations of the MOQ. I've tried to come up with suitable 
references but couldn't find where Pirsig said the things you attribute 
to him. 

Thanks,
Platt

> [Platt]
> There's a curious reluctance on the part of many posters here to admit
> that Pirsig justifies killing people under certain circumstances "before
> those biological patterns destroy civilization itself." (Lila, 24)."
> 
> [Arlo]
> Although a nice "soundbite", it fails to capture the depth of Pirsig's
> message, which includes the important constraint that "killing people"
> is only justifiable when the "threat" is immediate and actual.
> "Preemptive killing", such as bombing Harlem because it houses potential
> "biological threats", is outside the "morality" of MOQ-supported
> killing. Remember that even the criminal, the biological threat, is not
> justifiablely killed once the threat to society is contained.
> 
> Second, and relatedly, the MOQ does not justifiy the killing of "others"
> to stop the biological threat, it only justifies the killing of the
> threat itself. How many people killed at Hiroshima and Nagasaki
> represented individual, biological and immediate threats to American
> social patterns? Maybe some, but certainly not most. Although civilian,
> non-combatant, casualties are a sad, and likely unpreventable
> consequence of war, the immorality of their deaths should be always
> foregrounded. With a weapon such as a nuclear bomb, the murder of these
> non-threats is of such a great extent that one can hardly see it in any
> way other than the willful killing of innocents. This is what made the
> 9/11 tragedy so, well, tragic. It sought to achieve military goals
> through the destruction of civilian innocents. Our napalming... sorry,
> "Mark V firebombing"... civilian streets in retaliation is hardly "more
> moral".
> 
> Finally, society has no moral right to defend itself from intellectual
> threats. If an idea destroys a society, so be it. I realize the great
> impetus among the state-apologist right is to redefine every action
> undertaken by the U.S. as morally-justified actions against solely
> biological threats, but given that the world still functions in an SOM
> mindset, I wouldn't be so sure that ANY ONE COUNTRY can claim such
> absolute practice of moral judgement. Sometimes, yes. Sometimes, no.
> Until we are able to face that, and stop waving our Holier-Than-Thou
> Moral Dicks in the wind, there will be other nuclear mass destructions
> of human beings. And the kangaroos will keep laughing....
> 
> Arlo