Izdaari said in the Jane Fonda thread:



Her comment intrigued me, but my question about it was off topic, so I thought I'd ask about it here:

Is this an accurate comparison?


If so, does that mean imposing brutal totalitarianism on people, or enabling a brutal dictator to stay in power, or knowingly consorting with a brutal dictator, is as evil as giving a child to a pedophile, enabling a pedophile to molest, or knowingly consorting with a pedophile? Why or why not?

saving a nation from a brutal totalitarianism is as righteous as saving a child from a pedophile.


Is this an accurate comparison?

I don't think this is a very helpful comparison. I think it is comparing apples to oranges-- the collective to the individual. When you save a child from a pedophile there are not very many variables. The pedophile is clearly evil and the child innocent and in need of help. The child cannot defend itself against the pedophile. Assuming you can save the child it is uncomplicated in the sense that no innocents can get hurt. When you have a brutal totalitarian government, it too is "evil", but the way to save a nation is much more complicated and innocent people can and will get hurt. I suppose you could compare the end result. Child saved. Nation saved. But the comparison is just not useful as they are two entirely different situations.

If so, does that mean imposing brutal totalitarianism on people, or enabling a brutal dictator to stay in power, or knowingly consorting with a brutal dictator, is as evil as giving a child to a pedophile, enabling a pedophile to molest, or knowingly consorting with a pedophile? Why or why not?

Again, I don't think we can draw any useful comparisons. What does it mean to enable a pedophile to molest? What is an example of enabling a brutal dictator to stay in power? Enabling an individual to commit certain actions vs. enabling a collective government to stay in power are two entirely different situations and the latter seems much more complicated. It also raises issues about whether inaction is wrong in certain instances.

1. Is this an accurate comparison?

It might be. I think it works in the metaphorical sense which is what Izdaari was trying to convey. Obviously they aren't identical things. Saving a child from a pedophile doesn't require killing numerous other human beings to save said child. If you wish to save the child, you would simply call the police and they would apprehend the suspect, usually bloodlessly. There are no longterm potentially unpleasant side effects to the entire society from which the child is "saved", as well as the entire society doing the "saving".

Of course, on the other hand, in the case of a brutal totalitarianism many innocent lives are eliminated if you do nothing. Far from the singular ' molested child', there are present, past and future scores of dead people. That regime might also spread and endanger other societies.

2. If so, does that mean imposing brutal totalitarianism on people, or enabling a brutal dictator to stay in power, or knowingly consorting with a brutal dictator, is as evil as giving a child to a pedophile, enabling a pedophile to molest, or knowingly consorting with a pedophile? Why or why not?

I don't know. I can't think of an example in life when anyone would be forced to turn a child over to a molester. In the real world, supporting one less than wonderful regime might be preferable to having a worse one. Given only the choice of having a child raised by a molester or a person who would burn him on a stake and sacrifice him to the "weather god", or something, I'd go with the molester.

Excellent point Mrs. Pigpen. Perfect example of the complexity of the latter situation. With a child molester you would not be choosing between lesser degrees of molester. In the real world, it may be a situation where supporting one totalitarian government is preferable to supporting what would come into existence if that one were ousted.

Whether the comparison is apt or not, it was wildly mis-applied. Our actions in Vietnam were subverting choice, not enabling it. We committed a genocide there.

Other than that, I don't really think it's an apt comparison. However, I don't feel the need to explore it in depth, because I don't think that Izdaari put it forward after intensive analysis of the two subjects. I think she just wanted to say it was noble (saving a nation from totalitarianism), and so came up with a comparison. For us to spotlight that and over-analyze it is a disservice to Izdaari.

I wasn't trying to be critical of the act of comparing, I do it all the time, most of us do. It's just a feature of our language. But it rang wrong with me because it seemed it was okay to say that saving a nation from a dictator is like saving a child from a molester, but left a hole where its opposite has to be to make it a viable comparison. Simply put, if saving a nation from dictators is always good, putting a nation in the hands of dictators is always bad.


On a parallel note:

Since America has both toppled and installed dictators, and continues to do so, it seems to me that anyone who implies or states that America goes to war in the service of freedom is innaccurate. If that is ever a consideration, it must not be the primary consideration.