George Bush made a mistake when he referred to the Saddam Hussein regime as 'evil.' Every liberal and leftist knows how to titter at such black-and-white moral absolutism. What the president should have done, in the unlikely event that he wanted the support of America's peace-mongers, was to describe a confrontation with Saddam as the 'lesser evil.' This is a term the Left can appreciate. Indeed, 'lesser evil' is part of the essential tactical rhetoric of today's Left, and has been deployed to excuse or overlook the sins of liberal Democrats, from President Clinton's bombing of Sudan to Madeleine Albright's veto of an international rescue for Rwanda when she was U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Among those longing for nuance, moral relativism—the willingness to use the term evil, when combined with a willingness to make accommodations with it—is the smart thing: so much more sophisticated than 'cowboy' language.
Christopher HitchensTags: morality evil liberalism united-states george-w-bush iraq sudan anti-war iraq-war rwanda bill-clinton united-nations leftism democratic-party-united-states ba-ath-party saddam-hussein rwandan-genocide peace-movement madeleine-albright presidency-of-bill-clinton absolutism al-shifa-pharmaceutical-factory moral-absolutism moral-relativism opposition-to-the-iraq-war presidency-of-george-w-bush
Responsibility I believe accrues through privilege. People like you and me have an unbelievable amount of privilege and therefore we have a huge amount of responsibility. We live in free societies where we are not afraid of the police; we have extraordinary wealth available to us by global standards. If you have those things, then you have the kind of responsibility that a person does not have if he or she is slaving seventy hours a week to put food on the table; a responsibility at the very least to inform yourself about power. Beyond that, it is a question of whether you believe in moral certainties or not.
Noam ChomskyTags: morality wealth freedom responsibility privilege police moral-absolutism
I am a firm believer that there is rarely a straight line between good and evil.
Nicholas DenmonTags: moral-absolutism
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