Comments on: Guns as Witchcraft

By: pxib

pxib — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 20:59:45 +0000

As individuals, in dangerous situations, limited action is frequently safest.

Obviously if Adam Lanza had chosen to do nothing, those first-graders would still be alive. The only one who lived did nothing: laid completely still in the blood of her friends until she was sure the “angry man” had gone. The same is true of teachers who successfully saved their own students not by organizing a charge and tackling the shooter, but by hiding kids in classrooms, bathrooms, and closets.

Yes, there is a non-zero chance that any person might have made a difference by attacking rather than retreating, but they also might simply have died. And failed to more capably protect others as they did so.

In terms of government action, doing nothing doesn’t have to be better than doing the best thing, it only has to be better than doing the wrong thing. There exists a real threat that serious gun control measures may lead to more angry, desperate people feeling that they have no hope in their lives, and deciding it’s time to show the government, the legal system, and the world that they are not going to go quietly.

As a society, in dangerous situations, limited action is frequently safest.

By: Doug

Doug — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 16:03:55 +0000

The folly of doing nothing is as clear as 20 fresh graves with first graders buried in them.

By: Withywindle

Withywindle — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 13:13:44 +0000

Ah, still wanting to comment … yes, you did say, “I don’t say this to characterize guns (or anything else that falls into the big domain of “culture”, e.g., distinctive everyday practices and forms of consciousness) as something which should not be subject to official, governmental or institutional action, nor as something we cannot change.” Digging at this: I take this to be only a partial move toward the awareness of folly, insufficiently reflexive. I.e., you go so far as “they are fools; let us tread softly”, but not quite so far as, “we are all fools”–we mandarins of the God-State are High Witches too, moving the levers of the Great Machine so that the rains may fall. I do think you should complete the journey, proceed from “those fools” to “we fools.”

I blame a cruel God for the fact that I am up so early on a Saturday morning.

By: Withywindle

Withywindle — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 05:25:17 +0000

And then, it is one thing to be complaisant about sorcery elsewhere; another if the witchburners are coming after you. What if I think the gun control people believe in a bunkum witchcraft, a juju that will abridge my freedom and endanger my life? Perhaps I will emphasize resistance over comprehension. You can put the case in reverse, but the same point holds.

By: Withywindle

Withywindle — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 05:14:28 +0000

I feel a vague urge to argue that you should pay greater attention to the truth value of beliefs under discussion. E.g., in the last analysis, I would take witchcraft to be balderdash and the efficacy of individual action to be at the very least endlessly disputable, with a strong case for indisputable. So, you might disagree–but your comparison only works if the truth value of the beliefs in question is comparable, and I think that requires a bit more argumentation.

Rephrased: your tactical argument for caution about treating people’s beliefs does not require a judgment of the truth value of beliefs–but there is a larger imperative toward action/inaction which requires such a judgment. I think your polemic is aimed toward people who only consider the imperative, and not the tactics/respect for belief, irrespective of truth value–but I think you might add a sentence saying, “This is only half the story.”

Rephrased again: “Make haste slowly”–but don’t delete any one of those three words.

By: Nord

Nord — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 19:14:25 +0000

Very well put. I think this debate works well, whether guns or alcohol during prohibition … every age has its scourge ….