::INSERT SWEAR WORDS::

[trinityvixen]

(Trigger warning. I never give trigger warnings, SO BE FUCKING WARNED, ALL RIGHT?)

What the fuck?

No, really: WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK!?!


...people do some fucked up shit in war. (Not to mention in the name of God.)

For one second, I was able to peak past the horror and go, "Wow, that is devastatingly effective." Then I went back to being horrified. Whattheshitshitshitshitshit!?!

Comments

[wellgull.livejournal.com]

I think what you're saying here is absolutely true.

But I think you're also overlooking two factors: first, the way that a climate filled with generalized violence and uncertainty can radicalize people and remove their normal inhibitions against awful things; and second, the way that people will overlook all kinds of moral restraints if they think they're doing something that will result in the "greater good."

If relatively non-traumatized American neoconservatives are willing to kill hundreds of thousands of civilians for the sake of some idealized world-building, we shouldn't be too surprised that a brutalized woman, who grew up in a repressive religion under one dictatorship, only to see her country then handed off to a new, foreign, power, would be willing to brutalize other women as a way of getting back at anything within reach...

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Good points, of course, and ones I hadn't really brought up. There are lots of cases where abuse/violence leads to desensitized people who are then capable of horrific behaviors because their metric of moral good/bad is messed up. Do I think that that is a dominant factor in this case? Eh, not so sure. Yes, it's a violent world she inhabits, but how much of that violence shaped her, at her later age versus how much was shaped by her experience before it is up to debate. Not that Saddam's reign was great and totally nonviolent, just that open guerilla warfare that has led the insurgents is more a feature of the Iraq war than not. So she probably developed her depraved indifference long ago and not necessarily as a response to her own trauma. (I'm not ruling it out, though.)

The "greater good" argument against religion is very damning. Without the sort of supernatural backing that religious zealots claim, they would have less influence over people who are more or less anesthetized against physical violence and doubtful of physical comfort or safety. With beliefs that encourage a focus on the afterlife and its rewards you get people sufficiently worked up to a point that they overlook the overwhelming biological urge of self-preservation. It's not impossible to do that without religion--plenty of "atheist" movements have slaughtered people just as wantonly--just that it's easier.

[wellgull.livejournal.com]

Eh, I figure she could just as easily have been traumatized by living in Saddamist society -- it wasn't exactly rosy, and they weren't kidding when they talked about the "rape rooms" and such. I don't know anything about her biography; I'm guessing that she must have been radicalized by something that happened during the Occupation (because she started doing this), but maybe that was just an opportunity to let loose with the crazy?

I'm interested in the phrase "the 'greater good' argument against religion." How do you mean? I mean, personally I am highly suspicious of most violent acts done in the name of the greater good, and of "greater good" arguments generally--such that I think that they may actually taint whatever ends they're applied to, though I haven't really decided on that--but I hadn't meant to go there with this; do say more!

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

What I meant was that religions, by dint of appeal to a super-human creator being have established unassailable beachheads of thought that can reconcile any demand or dogma with the "well, the Sky Fairy says it has to be this way, too fucking bad if you disagree." Their "greater good" is thus structured to ignore any signs of suffering on Earth--and their thinking cannot be challenged by suffering on Earth. Their illogical, unreasonable demands lead them more often than not back to the "greater good" argument because they can't defend much otherwise. Non-theist dogmatics also appeal to "greater good," but with rare exceptions, they tend to lose power if there isn't some proof that their deeds actually produce a tangible, physical improvement in general welfare. A religious zealot has no such limitation--everything can go to Hell on Earth so long as the greater good is done by Heaven.

That's why I call it the "greater good" argument against religion: people who judge what is good and what is not entirely by rules that are immutable and out-dated and who will ignore the evidence of their eyes and their experience are not worthy to hold power over anybody. In essence, if someone starts spouting about the greater good their work will do by your soul rather than your mind, body, or spirit (in this case your emotional response/joie de vive more than soul), DO NOT TRUST THEM.