orthogonal
Registered Senior Member
I occasionally force myself to walk down aisles of the library that I would otherwise seldom visit. It's a mostly futile effort to prevent my reading from becoming too inbred. Last week while doing just this, I found myself in the history stacks. One of the books I pulled from the shelf was titled, The Rape Of Nanking. As I flipped through the pages, I noticed some photographs towards the middle of the book. I looked at perhaps half a dozen of these photos before I put the book back on the shelf and found a place to sit.
Is it odd that our culture finds humor in situations where strong men swoon? Well, I didn't faint but it was some hours later until I'd completely recovered from my nausea attack. I know enough, indeed too much, about the horrors of Stalin, Hitler, Poi Pot, and so on, and so forth. Yet viewing that fifty year old photo of a young woman tied to a chair left me feeling both ashamed and weak. In another photo, a live Chinese boy is propped on a stake so that a Japanese soldier may better learn the fine art of bayoneting. My last look before I put the book away was of a man kneeling moments before his beheading as Japanese soldiers stand smiling in the background.
Why were the Japanese smiling? Even if they viewed the Chinese as nothing more than animals I wouldn't think the Japanese would normally smile as they view an animal being butchered. Were they smiling at the thought of victory? This was not a war, the entire Japanese excursion was best described by the book's title; it was a rape rather than a fight. I believe these soldiers were smiling to hide their own fears; fear for their own life, and fear for what they were doing to both themselves and to the Chinese. Tears would have been seen as either a sign of weakness or a sympathy for the enemy. Smiles and laughter occasionally belie our preference for tears.
I wonder about the soldier who tied that poor girl to the chair. Did he live through the war? If he later married would fate have been so cruel as to grant him a daughter? When he kissed his daughter's cheek or cradled her to sleep some evenings, what might he have been thinking? Would he be moved to smile?
Morality is purely a social concept. A man alone on an island has no more need to study morality than he has a need for Tango lessons. Though he may have it mind to be an utterly evil bastard, what is the worst he can do; split his firewood more aggressively? Similarly, the universe might be filled with extra-terrestrial life, but as of yet there has been no pressing need to consider moral questions between humans and aliens. Man is driven into social contact for the same reasons as is the chimpanzee; both to cooperate and compete. The generally accepted code of social conduct represents man's fragile agreement to reduce the anarchy resulting from pure power struggles. Those who respect this agreement may describe themselves as civilized men. Those who disregard this agreement may describe themselves as shaven apes.
We understand that men are capable of both wonders and horrors, though we understand it less when the same man displays both extremes. The Japanese soldiers that raped and murdered their way through Manchuria were doubtless capable of sending home loving letters to their mothers. We are ape-men. The ape is an amoral creature. Man is a product of culture. David Barash imagines the ape-man, that is the ape and the man, "... as two people chained together; one barely able to hobble and the other a world class sprinter."
The world is roughly half as we find it and half as we make it. When we treat other men with respect there is no need to wait for a heavenly reward; the reward is instantly given to all of us. When men behave savagely towards each other they just as quickly create a credible imitation of hell for all of us. We live in no greater a paradise than the worst of us allows, or the best of us demands.
Michael
Is it odd that our culture finds humor in situations where strong men swoon? Well, I didn't faint but it was some hours later until I'd completely recovered from my nausea attack. I know enough, indeed too much, about the horrors of Stalin, Hitler, Poi Pot, and so on, and so forth. Yet viewing that fifty year old photo of a young woman tied to a chair left me feeling both ashamed and weak. In another photo, a live Chinese boy is propped on a stake so that a Japanese soldier may better learn the fine art of bayoneting. My last look before I put the book away was of a man kneeling moments before his beheading as Japanese soldiers stand smiling in the background.
Why were the Japanese smiling? Even if they viewed the Chinese as nothing more than animals I wouldn't think the Japanese would normally smile as they view an animal being butchered. Were they smiling at the thought of victory? This was not a war, the entire Japanese excursion was best described by the book's title; it was a rape rather than a fight. I believe these soldiers were smiling to hide their own fears; fear for their own life, and fear for what they were doing to both themselves and to the Chinese. Tears would have been seen as either a sign of weakness or a sympathy for the enemy. Smiles and laughter occasionally belie our preference for tears.
I wonder about the soldier who tied that poor girl to the chair. Did he live through the war? If he later married would fate have been so cruel as to grant him a daughter? When he kissed his daughter's cheek or cradled her to sleep some evenings, what might he have been thinking? Would he be moved to smile?
Morality is purely a social concept. A man alone on an island has no more need to study morality than he has a need for Tango lessons. Though he may have it mind to be an utterly evil bastard, what is the worst he can do; split his firewood more aggressively? Similarly, the universe might be filled with extra-terrestrial life, but as of yet there has been no pressing need to consider moral questions between humans and aliens. Man is driven into social contact for the same reasons as is the chimpanzee; both to cooperate and compete. The generally accepted code of social conduct represents man's fragile agreement to reduce the anarchy resulting from pure power struggles. Those who respect this agreement may describe themselves as civilized men. Those who disregard this agreement may describe themselves as shaven apes.
We understand that men are capable of both wonders and horrors, though we understand it less when the same man displays both extremes. The Japanese soldiers that raped and murdered their way through Manchuria were doubtless capable of sending home loving letters to their mothers. We are ape-men. The ape is an amoral creature. Man is a product of culture. David Barash imagines the ape-man, that is the ape and the man, "... as two people chained together; one barely able to hobble and the other a world class sprinter."
The world is roughly half as we find it and half as we make it. When we treat other men with respect there is no need to wait for a heavenly reward; the reward is instantly given to all of us. When men behave savagely towards each other they just as quickly create a credible imitation of hell for all of us. We live in no greater a paradise than the worst of us allows, or the best of us demands.
Michael