A bit of rambling, but I worry if I hesitate on this, then you will be directionless and might…panic.
On last week’s Slate’s Political Gabfest John Dickerson makes an interesting observation. He notices that in the 1950s and earlier officials did not make tornado predictions because the science was so bad at predictions. The risk to making a faulty prediction is the potential for causing a public panic. These days, however, that’s not a concern of public pronouncements. In fact, just the opposite: politicians and the media encourage panic inducing pronouncements. It used to be that we accepted risk in our lives.
Now we do not accept risk. The War on Terrorism is a great example. Now, this is not a bin Laden is gone ergo we ought to ramp down the WoT post. I believed the WoT needed to be ramped down beforehand. It definitely should be now that their leader — yes, he was important even if al Qaeda is cell-ed up — is gone. One note about the bin Laden event. It saddens me that we live in a culture so horrific and horrified that we celebrate the death of a person. This is not to say there are not enemies, but to actively celebrate their deaths seems barbaric to me. It’s that line of thinking that causes actions we see as good (we are, after all, motivated to stop evil) and others as evil.
‘Evil’ is an unproductive concept. I would even argue it is counterproductive. ‘Evil’ stops creative efforts at conflict-resolution. ‘Evil’ stops cooperation and necessitates cyclical violence. I do not believe violence is always bad, but in the service of manichean ethics it is merely cycle inducing and not conflict resolving. It is ‘evil’ which allows us to believe panics are beneficial.