Topic: Hijack!
Critical decision making requires that all possible outcomes of a situation are assessed and the action taken meets all objectives with the least possible risk. U.S. Counterterrorism policy states:
"The United States Government will make no concessions to terrorists holding official or private U.S. citizens hostage. It will not pay ransom, release prisoners, change its policies, or agree to other acts that might encourage additional terrorism. At the same time, the United States will use every appropriate resource to gain the safe return of American citizens who are held hostage by terrorists. Hostage-taking is defined under international law (International Convention Against the Taking of Hostages, adopted December 17, 1979) as the seizing or detaining and threatening to kill, injure, or continue to detain a person in order to compel a third party to do or abstain from doing any act as an explicit or implicit condition for the release of the seized or detained person."
Terrorism as defined in Wiktionary is the "deliberate commission of an act of violence to create an emotional response from the victim in the furtherance of a political or social agenda." Some would argue that this country wouldn't exist without terrorist acts preceding our War of Independence. This country's history is full of examples of the US government supporting terrorists in foreign nations in the form of money, weapons, idealogical empathy, and intelligence to bring about military coups, rebel insurgencies, and/or civil war to further the goals of the United States. As the cliche goes "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." It is unfortunate that it takes violence to bring about change.
A nation is like any other form of life. It exists among other such entities and seeks out ways to "feed" itself in order to keep its processes going ie to continue to exist. Sometimes having to exist means encroaching upon the rights of other such organisms. Other times, it helps to make friends with entities with common needs, interests or tradeable resources. Our nation just happens to be the biggest fish in the pond. However, even big fish have to swim prudently.
In the United States and I'm sure in many countries, if terrorism is being employed against the state, it is to be viewed as a crime against the state. It is a mind game with the biggest stakes between the plotter and the state, with the state having the most to lose in terms of prestige, security, morale, and even identity. So how does our nation's government deal with such a threat and still maintain a good game face?
In the topic link above, the example is given of a plane being hijacked and the passengers and crew being held hostage. Several methods can be employed to bring about resolution and ensure that the majority of the hostages survive. A Delta Force team sent to infiltrate the plane to kill the hijackers, dispersing a sleeping gas into the airplanes' ventilation system, holding the hijackers' families hostage, etc. If you watch "24" you could probably think of more outrageous ways of to bring about resolution. I think it's best to say the counterterrorists of this nation will always do their best to ensure the safety of their fellow citizens while maintaining the stance of not negotiating with terrorists.
Terrorists aren't afraid to die for their cause. Soldiers and police officers risk their lives for their duty to the public and the nation. We, too, should not be afraid of dying . It is demoralizing to be expendable for being John or Jane Q. Public, but it is our role as citizens. Like it or not, we choose to be a part of this nation and it's policies. The best we can do to bring about change is to choose our leaders and hope that they know what they are doing in our interests: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Ain't No Right
Topic: Right or wrong
"Ain't no wrong now, ain't no right.
Only pleasure and pain."
Jane's Addiction "Ain't No Right"
Classic Western thought is a funny realm indeed. What seems like a great need to categorize intent, action, and existence into nice, clearly defined packages to offer society an explanation of the nature of things has been a grand undertaking full of inconsistencies, paradoxes, and contoversies. For the average person, such as myself, we worry more about day to day issues, for example: Are the bills paid? Did I set the alarm for AM or PM? Should I do the laundry tonight or tomorrow? It seems to me the task of pondering cosmic quandaries such as moral absolutism vs moral relativism has been approached incorrectly. If they are to be viewed diametrically, that's where you wind up with the philosophical pitfalls, for example, who determines what is morally absolute? Or how do you decide between two absolute truths in a situation where you must pick one moral action? As I understand it, any sort of non corruptable standard is simply an ideal, one that cannot be obtained by human beings but is one hell of an admirable concept just the same. Thus, if I were to choose between moral absolutism and moral relativism, I would have to pick moral relativism, because circumstances should determine action but tempered with responsibility.
Personally, I see moral absolutism as a "standards" list: Don't lie, Don't cheat, Don't kill, etc. Moral relativism, in my opinion, is my response, the exercise of my free will. In fact, the beauty of relativism is that it validates free will as a great responsibility. It gives mankind the opportunity to evaluate a situation and make decisions that have real consequences, not idealized ones. I've never seen heaven or hell, but I do know if I rob a bank, I might get caught and go to jail, therefore I don't steal because that is not a consequence I'm willing to face. At the same time, if my family is starving in the wake of a natural disaster, say of Katrina proportions, I would steal food in order to feed them if I can't find employment, a shelter, or a lawful means of feeding them even if it means taking the risk of incarceration or getting killed.
A behaviorist would possibly view that an organism's natural inclination is to derive some sort of reward from its actions and tries to avoid a negative stimuli while doing so, ie punishment. If an amoeba moves towards a source of nutrition in order to sustain itself, the question arises, then what would the amoeba do if it's food supply is separated by some sort of hazardous medium? More than likely, the amoeba would not survive. It would starve because it can't make the cognitive decison to pass through that media. It might attempt to skirt the boundaries of such a hazard to get to it, but more than likely it would never reach it's food supply. Human beings are different in that regard. We have free will, we have cognizant qualities in which we can determine if the reward outweighs the risk. What makes it more interesting is what is determined to be the reward. This is also a choice. If we go by the bank robbing example, I could say that the reward of going through with robbing a bank could be the thrill of pulling it off, the money I could steal, or thumbing my nose at society and its laws. If I set my rewards even higher or by different standards, I would not go through with the plan: living a life of freedom and safety, pleasing a Higher Power,or being viewed positively by society.
In conclusion, moral absolutism has its merits because it brings to light what actions are ideally favorable and which ones aren't. However, human beings aren't faced with ideal conditions in order to make those choices. Moral relativism takes into account those situations in which one must choose between absolutes and between pleasure and pain. Moral relativism elevates free will from "doing what you want" to a process of assessing risk, reward/punishment, and responsibility to one's self, one's family, one's society, and one's diety (if he/she chooses to believe in one).
"Ain't no wrong now, ain't no right.
Only pleasure and pain."
Jane's Addiction "Ain't No Right"
Classic Western thought is a funny realm indeed. What seems like a great need to categorize intent, action, and existence into nice, clearly defined packages to offer society an explanation of the nature of things has been a grand undertaking full of inconsistencies, paradoxes, and contoversies. For the average person, such as myself, we worry more about day to day issues, for example: Are the bills paid? Did I set the alarm for AM or PM? Should I do the laundry tonight or tomorrow? It seems to me the task of pondering cosmic quandaries such as moral absolutism vs moral relativism has been approached incorrectly. If they are to be viewed diametrically, that's where you wind up with the philosophical pitfalls, for example, who determines what is morally absolute? Or how do you decide between two absolute truths in a situation where you must pick one moral action? As I understand it, any sort of non corruptable standard is simply an ideal, one that cannot be obtained by human beings but is one hell of an admirable concept just the same. Thus, if I were to choose between moral absolutism and moral relativism, I would have to pick moral relativism, because circumstances should determine action but tempered with responsibility.
Personally, I see moral absolutism as a "standards" list: Don't lie, Don't cheat, Don't kill, etc. Moral relativism, in my opinion, is my response, the exercise of my free will. In fact, the beauty of relativism is that it validates free will as a great responsibility. It gives mankind the opportunity to evaluate a situation and make decisions that have real consequences, not idealized ones. I've never seen heaven or hell, but I do know if I rob a bank, I might get caught and go to jail, therefore I don't steal because that is not a consequence I'm willing to face. At the same time, if my family is starving in the wake of a natural disaster, say of Katrina proportions, I would steal food in order to feed them if I can't find employment, a shelter, or a lawful means of feeding them even if it means taking the risk of incarceration or getting killed.
A behaviorist would possibly view that an organism's natural inclination is to derive some sort of reward from its actions and tries to avoid a negative stimuli while doing so, ie punishment. If an amoeba moves towards a source of nutrition in order to sustain itself, the question arises, then what would the amoeba do if it's food supply is separated by some sort of hazardous medium? More than likely, the amoeba would not survive. It would starve because it can't make the cognitive decison to pass through that media. It might attempt to skirt the boundaries of such a hazard to get to it, but more than likely it would never reach it's food supply. Human beings are different in that regard. We have free will, we have cognizant qualities in which we can determine if the reward outweighs the risk. What makes it more interesting is what is determined to be the reward. This is also a choice. If we go by the bank robbing example, I could say that the reward of going through with robbing a bank could be the thrill of pulling it off, the money I could steal, or thumbing my nose at society and its laws. If I set my rewards even higher or by different standards, I would not go through with the plan: living a life of freedom and safety, pleasing a Higher Power,or being viewed positively by society.
In conclusion, moral absolutism has its merits because it brings to light what actions are ideally favorable and which ones aren't. However, human beings aren't faced with ideal conditions in order to make those choices. Moral relativism takes into account those situations in which one must choose between absolutes and between pleasure and pain. Moral relativism elevates free will from "doing what you want" to a process of assessing risk, reward/punishment, and responsibility to one's self, one's family, one's society, and one's diety (if he/she chooses to believe in one).
Sunday, January 21, 2007
A Handful of Sand
Topic: Perception
This passage comes from Robert M. Prisig's famous book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance :
" I should talk now about Phædrus' knife. It'll help understand some of the things we talked about.
This passage comes from Robert M. Prisig's famous book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance :
" I should talk now about Phædrus' knife. It'll help understand some of the things we talked about.
The application of this knife, the division of the world into parts and the building of this structure, is something everybody does. All the time we are aware of millions of things around us...these changing shapes, these burning hills, the sound of the engine, the feel of the throttle, each rock and weed and fence post and piece of debris beside the road...aware of these things but not really conscious of them unless there is something unusual or unless they reflect something we are predisposed to see. We could not possibly be conscious of these things and remember all of them because our mind would be so full of useless details we would be unable to think. From all this awareness we must select, and what we select and call consciousness is never the same as the awareness because the process of selection mutates it. We take a handful of sand from the endless landscape of awareness around us and call that handful of sand the world. "
The above passage suggests that what we know as reality is the sum of parts we choose to retain, consciously or unconsciously. From this grab bag of information we define the existance of people, places, objects and events. We relate to others the least common denominator of what we perceive these things to be. It is funny that when we first encounter Gorgias' statements that "Nothing exists." or "If anything does exist, it is unknowable.", that we pause to ponder them and often refute them. In essence, he is absolutely correct. How would one describe a red,shiny apple if there were no descriptors to give it it's quality? You wouldn't even know if it was an apple. It would exist as a thing.
Alternatively, Socrates avoided the debate over what existed or didn't exist in the physical world. His ideas revolved around having the individual pick and choose through personal moral dilemma how he/she existed in the world and what his/her duties were.
Neither philosophers are wrong in my opinion. They both have valid points for different aspects of what life is about as they have understood what existance and ethics are. However, what happens to individual thought or perception when someone else supplies you with the adjectives or the tag of quality for you to choose from? We see this everyday: the opinionated peer; the images and commentary on the daily news; the required reading in our schools. These descriptors that we are offered have distorted our perception. It would be exceptional for someone to use their free time to pursue a path of knowing the truth of a situation, a population, or a belief system. In this age of instant information, we are not given a choice to know the essence of anything. We are merely treated to a brief synopsis, some images and a commentary which pass for the truth.
I recall back in 1993 when I was in Pakistan studying medicine. There was political turmoil in the city of Karachi. A political party known as the MQM was vying for power for representative seats and had employed the disenfranchised youth and criminals to use terror tactics such as bus bombings or drive by shootings to paralyze the city. The US Embassy would issue out warnings for US citizens to return home (as I'm sure other embassies had). The news back in the States would mention a brief soundbyte of bombings taking place in the city of Karachi. I remember that my parents would call me almost everyday to see if I was alright. As for my personal experience: there were isolated instances of terrorism taking place. It wasn't happening in the part of town where I resided. All I ever encountered were police checkpoints and maybe occassionally being pulled off a bus to be frisked down for weapons. There was only one instance where I was in the vicinity of a drive by shooting, and traumatic as it was at the time, it didn't take on the mask of what others were perceiving back home or those that were directly affected.
On the other hand, I remember how I felt when 9/11 occured and I was living in Alabama at the time. I was more terrified then because I saw the images as the second tower went down. Not because of the threat of an outside force attacking my country but rather, what the backlash would be against me, an American Muslim. Thankfully, nothing untoward happened to me, except having to explain (in my words, through my experiences and my perception) who I was, what I was, and why I was to random people who couldn't make sense of what happened either. There's nothing more invasive or aggravating than that in my opinion. And, in the end, it doesn't lead to any true relevance in any one else's life. If you go about speaking of what your experiences were or what your thoughts are on a topic, people will generally have a preformed truth regardless of your input. They just need a consensus or additional ammunition in the form of information to make their truth seem more relevant.
If I had enough people to agree with me to say, for example, that white people are the most barbarous race of man and are responsible for most of the suffering in mankind's history, wouldn't my truth be right? If I had documented information of atrocities to support that claim, wouldn't I be correct? If I had TV shows and movies to show that it's the sterotypical white man that shows up, kills multitudes of people and then takes over the land of the vanquished, wouldn't my truth be more relevant?
The problem of this age of information is that the information that is out there is biased and interlinked with commentary and filtered through the hands of a few and it makes for a tough material to cut through if we choose to use Phaedrus' knife.
The above passage suggests that what we know as reality is the sum of parts we choose to retain, consciously or unconsciously. From this grab bag of information we define the existance of people, places, objects and events. We relate to others the least common denominator of what we perceive these things to be. It is funny that when we first encounter Gorgias' statements that "Nothing exists." or "If anything does exist, it is unknowable.", that we pause to ponder them and often refute them. In essence, he is absolutely correct. How would one describe a red,shiny apple if there were no descriptors to give it it's quality? You wouldn't even know if it was an apple. It would exist as a thing.
Alternatively, Socrates avoided the debate over what existed or didn't exist in the physical world. His ideas revolved around having the individual pick and choose through personal moral dilemma how he/she existed in the world and what his/her duties were.
Neither philosophers are wrong in my opinion. They both have valid points for different aspects of what life is about as they have understood what existance and ethics are. However, what happens to individual thought or perception when someone else supplies you with the adjectives or the tag of quality for you to choose from? We see this everyday: the opinionated peer; the images and commentary on the daily news; the required reading in our schools. These descriptors that we are offered have distorted our perception. It would be exceptional for someone to use their free time to pursue a path of knowing the truth of a situation, a population, or a belief system. In this age of instant information, we are not given a choice to know the essence of anything. We are merely treated to a brief synopsis, some images and a commentary which pass for the truth.
I recall back in 1993 when I was in Pakistan studying medicine. There was political turmoil in the city of Karachi. A political party known as the MQM was vying for power for representative seats and had employed the disenfranchised youth and criminals to use terror tactics such as bus bombings or drive by shootings to paralyze the city. The US Embassy would issue out warnings for US citizens to return home (as I'm sure other embassies had). The news back in the States would mention a brief soundbyte of bombings taking place in the city of Karachi. I remember that my parents would call me almost everyday to see if I was alright. As for my personal experience: there were isolated instances of terrorism taking place. It wasn't happening in the part of town where I resided. All I ever encountered were police checkpoints and maybe occassionally being pulled off a bus to be frisked down for weapons. There was only one instance where I was in the vicinity of a drive by shooting, and traumatic as it was at the time, it didn't take on the mask of what others were perceiving back home or those that were directly affected.
On the other hand, I remember how I felt when 9/11 occured and I was living in Alabama at the time. I was more terrified then because I saw the images as the second tower went down. Not because of the threat of an outside force attacking my country but rather, what the backlash would be against me, an American Muslim. Thankfully, nothing untoward happened to me, except having to explain (in my words, through my experiences and my perception) who I was, what I was, and why I was to random people who couldn't make sense of what happened either. There's nothing more invasive or aggravating than that in my opinion. And, in the end, it doesn't lead to any true relevance in any one else's life. If you go about speaking of what your experiences were or what your thoughts are on a topic, people will generally have a preformed truth regardless of your input. They just need a consensus or additional ammunition in the form of information to make their truth seem more relevant.
If I had enough people to agree with me to say, for example, that white people are the most barbarous race of man and are responsible for most of the suffering in mankind's history, wouldn't my truth be right? If I had documented information of atrocities to support that claim, wouldn't I be correct? If I had TV shows and movies to show that it's the sterotypical white man that shows up, kills multitudes of people and then takes over the land of the vanquished, wouldn't my truth be more relevant?
The problem of this age of information is that the information that is out there is biased and interlinked with commentary and filtered through the hands of a few and it makes for a tough material to cut through if we choose to use Phaedrus' knife.
Introduction
My name is Kamran Khan and I'm currently a student at Macon State College. I was born in Boston, MA and spent most of my youth in Talladega, AL. I dropped out of college in my sophomore year to study medicine abroad in Karachi, Pakistan which provided me with a lifetime of experience both good and bad. Since I'm not sure whether I want to take on the responsibilities of being a physician in the States, I've decided to return to school in order to pursue a degree as a Physician's Assistant. I've decided that the best approach to my studies is to erase previous knowledge and start afresh (you learn much more that way and are open to different perspectives). I'm really looking forward to what my experiences on this career path will provide.
The reason I'm naming my Blog " A Cornered Mind" is simply because I view experience as a forward progression. With two walls meeting at your back (essentially having nothing behind you), you have an open expanse of information, experiences, and people. How those things are dealt with are up to the individual. Hopefully, these blog entries will enhance that experience by relating how I view particular topics and can open up opportunities for discussion.
The reason I'm naming my Blog " A Cornered Mind" is simply because I view experience as a forward progression. With two walls meeting at your back (essentially having nothing behind you), you have an open expanse of information, experiences, and people. How those things are dealt with are up to the individual. Hopefully, these blog entries will enhance that experience by relating how I view particular topics and can open up opportunities for discussion.
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