Wednesday, August 20, 2003
The Opposite of the Absurd
I realise that this is another media-driven whinge, but one of the myriad things that affect me is the propensity our leaders have for making statements of the bleeding obvious every time there's an atrocity like yesterday's bombing of the UN HQ in Baghdad.
I suppose it's the fault of the media sticking microphones under their noses and demanding that they say something - as if they're going to tell us something we don't know - but I always get the feeling that an opportunity's been somehow missed when the best they can do is trot out platitudes.
As an example, George Bush said something along the lines that the perpetrators of the bombing wouldn't decide the future of Iraq. I realised this morning that a good test of such statements is to look at the opposite of what's been said - in this case to imagine him saying "I've decided that the perpetrators of this bombing will decide the future of Iraq". If, as in this case, the statement is just absurd, you get a proper measure of just how empty their contribution was.
Am I being unreasonable to expect our esteemed leaders to offer something more substantial than the opposite of the absurd?
posted by Plig |
08:38 |
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Forget the sentimental notion that foreign policy is a struggle between virtue and vice, with virtue bound to win.
Forget the utopian notion that a brave new world without power politics will follow the unconditional surrender of wicked nations.
Forget the crusading notion that any nation, however virtuous and powerful, can have the mission to make the world in its own image.
Remember that diplomacy without power is feeble, and power without diplomacy is destructive and blind.
Remember that no nation's power is without limits, and hence that its policies must respect the power and interests of others.
Hans Morgenthau
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts
Bertrand Russell
The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one
Albert Einstein
When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative
Martin Luther King Jr.
Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man
Bertrand Russell
I think it would be a good idea
Mahatma Gandhi, when asked what he thought of Western civilization
There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence, transform a yellow spot into the sun
Pablo Picasso
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others
Groucho Marx
Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it
Mahatma Gandhi
Always make new mistakes
Esther Dyson
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