“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”
–Bishop Desmond Tutu (via 321gold)
Slightly modified version:
“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of”…neutrality. “If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral,”…. the mouse may not appreciate your neutrality, but the citizens of your country probably will…especially when you find out the mouse has been poisoning the elephant and the elephant was ready to nuke you if you interfered.
Tutu’s quote, taken to its logical ends, would seem to condemn all of us for not meddling in other’s problems. Am I really responsible for all the world’s evils?…simply because I don’t take up arms and/or send money? I don’t buy that. This is precisely the guiltridden mindset that both the military AND the ivory tower class tries to push on us.
I’ll defer to Jefferson’s sage advice, to avoid foreign entanglements….which our pols with their world-cop mentality would be wise to heed.
How often is it that we really even understand these “injustices” anyway? Their origins are often not even understood by the people actually doing the head-lopping, bombing, and otherwise murdering their fellow human beings. And how many times has a murderous war or ethnic cleansing been stopped (by well-meaning 3rd parties) only to have the victims pick up the machetes and start hacking away their former attackers.
Quotes like this by Tutu need to be prefaced with “Depending on critically important variables…”
Jeff
Yes..but then that precedes every quote, doesn’t it..
I don’t absolutely agree with everything I post..
as long as I find it provides some insight into something I think about..
But I do think libertarians don’t seem to have a sense that no position is really pre-political..
or neutral
It’s like trading..you’re always either long or short something. You’re never out of it and neutral..
being in cash isn’t neutral – you’re long cash
and like trading, there’s always the risk that any move you make will make things worse
so you pick your moves
but you relate to the world..you don’t become disengaged..’
often you don’t have to do more than learn about something..even that’s a kind of engagement and support..
so yes, in order to know who an oppressor is, you have to study a bit..
and you have to pick the problems that most relate to you or are closer to home
but we are our brothers’ keepers ultimately..
eventually we have to share the world with him…we can’t entirely flee to an island
You are a coward. Think about the time that Apartheid was strong in South Africa, and both the US and the UK were behind them, but pretended they were neutral.
Well, er, Peter –
That was my point.
You CAN’T be neutral….
But engagement is not the same as partisanship or ideology, is it?
What if you find apartheid objectionable but think that those who oppose it might have their own, not so admirable, reasons for joining in the fight?
Youre’ right on one thing, though. I tend not to trust mass movements. To effect large-scale change you need to lower your reasoning to the lowest common denominator.
It’s the same reason I distrust mass market capitalism.
There’s good in both, but it comes at a very high price to individualism.
Unfortunately, there’s not easy answer to these sorts of problems.
I can’t tell who’s right or wrong, who’s a stooge, a patsy, a criminal, on “our” side or “theirs” or whatever else. I try my best..but at some point, you have to admit, you don’t know.