This morning I had one of thouse thoughts, when suddenly… many little issues become clear in the ‘bigger picture’. Its both really amazing and really exciting, I find.
Warfare has been such a fantastic subject, really. Its the only subject I’ve done this year that has actually made me THINK about stuff. What do I, ME, think about a given issue. Today was the last or possibly second last warfare lecture, covering the issue of the use of the atomic bomb in Japan. While most lectures are more focused on facts; x fought y in z and won, this one was much more on.. opinion. Why did the americans use the atomic bomb on Japan – when the war was set to last for less than a few months. Was it to warn off the soviets? Was it to ensure the soviets didnt get enough time moving through asia to take over land? More interestingly…. why does Japan still dodge the topic of their past, and treat themselves as the victim. Look at it today, the whole textbook issue, why does the Japanese leadership continue to be such dicks over the issue of their past?
And that got me thinking…
On another tangent, history isn’t really all that clear cut. While I know that one of my grand fathers was involved in the air force in WW2, I found out last night he was transferred to the RAF as a navigator – quite possibly involved in the bombings of Germany. Those strategic bombings – by definition – we about the strategy for victory, not for.. key asset destruction, eg factories. Much of their targets handed down by the british strategic command were the destruction of areas, partly packed with civilians, partly military targets. Ethically, how do I feel about this? That’s a big thing to think about…
WW2 is defined by nature as ‘total war’, like WW1, and unlike say Vietnam. Total war is either you win or they win, and the loser will deal with severe ramifications. Loss of their country. Instalment of a new regime. Chances that this regime will be much harsher/unfair to civilians. Civilians will die, and your country will end. With this kind of attitude, can you justify killing half a million citizens of your enemies country, if it puts you closer to victory and saving your own? If it was my decision, and my country and neighbouring countries were being rorted by a virally spreading genocidal terror of the world as we know it, I’d probably do ‘whatever necessary’ to ensure my country survived. Does that include killing half a million civilians? Well, it might save millions of my own… tough topic.
Hence the realisation came. Warfare, history, religious matters – all boil down to opinion. This isnt some dta shit that comes from old lev manovich telling us how the digital age will be. This isnt logic I can break down and code. This isnt black or white, yes or no logically based thinking. This is… your own opinion. For once I feel like I’m finally learning something at uni. All this technical ho-ha is good and well, it makes us think a little critically, but it hasnt really pushed me over the edge into changing the way I see the entire world based on what I think from what its taught me.
Continuing on, getting into more touchy grounds, last night I had a discussion with a family friend about religion, in particular Islam. Overall I’d say his view was very negative of Islam as a religion, but its hard to draw the line from that between a religion per say, and the people who practice it. While I dont share his viewpoint about Islam, the line is still tough to draw in that were to divide between discussing the individual, the religion, and the combination. Additionally and not neccessarily to counter that I threw in my view that the church is far too conservative and that they are hence losing touch with people and reality. I spend pretty much the whole night thinking about that, and again more today. On the spur of my good progress of thinking after warfare, I finally broke down how I feel about it. You can think of religion, discrimination, etc in three ways or on three different levels. One, you can consider a person for who they are based on how they behave in society. Two, you can think of a religion based on its merits and how its fundamentally structured, and how it does or doesnt integrate with your perception of your slice of the world. Three, you can generalise people as a subset of their religion and hence impose your views of 2, onto the individual, 1. I’ve come to the thought that… while to a degree people are a subset of their religion and inherit (or in flash, we call this prototyping..) the fundamental values of a religion and then change it to their personal flavour, its fundamentally unfair to generalise and discriminate based on person x is a member of religion y therefore… whatever my views are on religion y. Only after careful examination of what my friend was saying did this finally become clear to me… while he believes Islam is not ‘compatible’ as a religion with the western world (very touchy, but his view was… treatment of women, violence in that and justice, lack of freedom in a democratic sense), and while he had specific examples (those gang rapists and their lack of condemnation) – he did not at all impose those views on all members of that religion. So, is that racist. What is racism? The dictionary defines it as “Discrimination or prejudice based on race”. In that case, no its not racism. Its a little shafting to a religion though… but fundamentally – everyone has their own OPINION. And everyone can think about their own opinion. And in my opinion in this country we should give everyone who agrees to obey by our moral codes a fair go, and removing this right based on their religion is inherently breaching our own structure as Australians. Food for thought.
So yeah, you can say a whole lot of issues twigged. Life, religion, history, warfare. So much of it comes down to opinion. No opinion is right or wrong in a sense; it can be hotly contested, but really, no one is wrong. I had this challenged to me last night, and lately have been thinking about it a fair bit.. but you know… forming opinions is good. Slowly I feel like my view of the world is changing from little opinions on ’should america have gone to iraq’ and ‘was vietnam the right thing to do’ are slowly starting to build up into more world views. I feel its going to take a long time… but in a way I look forward to having… a world view where all of that gels. Got to be careful now however, touchy time 
Freedom is good. Resistance against a regime thats unfair to its people… go for it. Viva la resistance. Religion, each to their own, and respect people for it. Warfare? good and bad, but the world has formed because of it. My life? think I might go get something to eat
Final conclusion: thinking about these kind of issues is really self developing/mentally expanding. So this is why I went to university all along hey… to make me think, haha