Tag: World War I

Importance of being intolerant

Posted on by kathiemm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYPRudsBzBY
Following the mindless slaughter of the First World War, the failure of the League of Nations, the horrors of the Holocaust, and the unendurable losses of World War II, nations came together as the United Nations.

In the Preamble to the United Nations Charter, we find the words:

‘We, the peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, … to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, … and for these ends to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours…”

The theme of tolerance appears frequently in U.N. documents. At the urging of UNESCO, 1995 was declared the United Nations Year for Tolerance. The year-long campaign for tolerance and non-violence was followed by the selection of November 16 to be the annual International Day for Tolerance.

Tolerance means respect for differences, appreciation of diversity. It means liberating oneself from the chains of prejudice, the burden of discrimination,  and achieving freedom from hatred of others who happen to differ in skin color, religion, language, sexual orientation, and other human characteristics.

For peace and social justice to be achieved, tolerance for diversity must go hand-in-glove with intolerance for many barbaric practices that continue to create suffering and anger in today’s world, including:

  • Rape
  • Female genital mutilation
  • Torture
  • Violence against women
  • Violence against children
  • Violence against men
  • Murder, including capital punishment and war-time killing

Tomorrow is the day to show tolerance for other human beings and intolerance for inhumane practices.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

War kills workers (Labor Day 2012)

Posted on by kathiemm

You are probably familiar with the names of some Nobel Peace Prize winners—for example, Desmond Tutu, Linus Pauling, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Jr., Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

Leon Jouhaux
Nobel Prize portrait of Leon Jouhaux, in public domain.

But can you name the 1969 winner of the Peace Prize?

It was the International Labour Organization (ILO). Yes, a labor organization won a Nobel Peace Prize. This should not be surprising given the historical connection between labor movements and peace movements.

The ILO, like the League of Nations (forerunner to the United Nations), grew out of the deadliness and devastation of World War I. It was the first specialized agency within the U.N.

Included in the Treaty of Versailles that ended WWI, the preamble of the ILO constitution says, “Universal and lasting peace can be established only if it is based upon social justice.”  Can anyone fault this belief?

The Treaty of Versailles also included three proposals from American delegates to the peace commission:

  • “that labor should not be treated as a commodity;
  • that all workers had the right to a wage sufficient to live on;
  • and that women should receive equal pay for equal work.”

Have these commitments been achieved? Won and lost? Why?

In their 1969 acceptance speech, the ILO quoted 1951 Nobel Peace Prize winner Leon Jouhaux, who warned that:

“War not only kills workers by thousands and millions, and destroys their homes…but also, by increasing men’s feelings of impotence before the forces of violence, it holds up considerably the progress of humanity toward the age of justice, welfare, and peace.”

On this Labor Day, let’s honor the work of labor on behalf of peace and social justice.

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Morally disengaging from drone warfare

Posted on by kathiemm

The headline of a Sunday New York Times article by national security reporter Scott Shane declares “The Moral Case for Drones.” A more appropriate title might well be “A Case Study in Moral Disengagement.”

The arguments in the article illustrate many of the principles of moral disengagement  previously discussed in this blog, including:

Drone launched off Navy ship
Drone launched off U.S. Navy ship. Image in public domain.

Shane begins by noting that critics of President Obama’s drone program focus on issues such as “collateral damage” (a favorite euphemism for killing children and other innocent civilians). He then comments that people may be surprised to learn that “some moral philosophers, political scientists and weapons specialists believe armed, unmanned aircraft offer marked moral advantages over almost any other tool of warfare.”

As an example of a moral philosopher, he cites Bradley Strawser, a former officer in the Air Force and assistant professor of philosophy in the Naval Postgraduate School who told him that using drones “to go after terrorists” was “not only ethically permissible but also might be ethically obligatory.”

Why? Drones are advantageous for “identifying targets and striking with precision.”  In making such a statement, Strawser is using euphemisms for murder (“striking targets”) while framing it in pseudo-moral language (“ethically obligatory”).

Strawser identifies “targets” as “terrorists” and “extremists who are indeed plotting violence against innocents” (demonization). He says drones are better than any other weapon in avoiding collateral damage (advantageous comparison), and suggests that drone operators can time their strikes so that innocents will not be nearby and can even divert a missile if a child happens to wander into the target area (misrepresentation of consequences).

Most historians seem to agree that one of the major causes of World War I was not the killing of an archduke, but the eagerness of weapons specialists in different countries to try out their great new weapons and prove how invincible they were.

One can argue that World War II ended up with the U.S. trying out its great new atomic weapon to prove how invincible it is—and thereby initiating an arms race that continues to threaten life on earth.

Might we make better moral choices than unleashing the favored weapon of the hour?

Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology

Religions as revolutions

Posted on by kathiemm

By guest author Majed Ashy, Ph.D.

Moses and escape from Egypt
Israel's escape from Egypt. Image in public domain

From the time of…

  • Moses, who helped guide the Israelis out of slavery and oppression to freedom, to
  • Jesus, who preached equality and love and changed the whole human understanding of power structures, to
  • Mohammad, who fought tyranny and oppression in Arabia and preached for justice and human dignity …

… one can see that these religions were in some ways revolutions, forces against existing oppressive power structures and traditions.

No doubt, some of the followers of religions established their own oppressive power structures and committed violence, but violence and oppression can be committed by non-religious as well as religious individuals and forces.

What did any religion have to do with the 20 million people killed in WWI, or the 60 million killed in WWII?  With Vietnam, Korean, or Japanese wars, the Cambodian or Rwandan genocides, or the dropping of the nuclear bombs over Japanese civilians?  Or the oppression and killing of millions in Russia and Eastern Europe by Stalin and other dictators, or the oppression committed by military dictators in the Middle East, Africa, Europe, Latin America, among many others?

Linking violence to one religion or another reflects:

  • Selective attention and reading of the history of violence and oppression that existed before and after any of these religions were established
  • Overlooking the role of religions and religious people in fighting oppression and contributing to humans’ well being in many areas of life
  • A dangerous way of offering unexamined answers that feed popular cultural prejudices and fears
  • A simplification of the problem of human violence,l which transcends race, culture, or religion

Instead of falsely attributing violence to religion, we need a serious scholarly non-ideological discussion to find the real roots of violence and the way toward greater peace.

To achieve peace, we need courage to look in the mirror and see our own faults before we point fingers at others, and we need courage in our struggle to be fair — even with those with whom we disagree.

Dr. Majed Ashy, assistant professor of psychology at Merrimack College and research fellow in psychiatry at McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School