Munich
Munich reminds me of something for which Harold Bloom argues in The Western Canon: Great literature may make you a better person or teach you something, but that is secondary to what makes it great literature, which is its aesthetic value. The same, obviously, applies to movies. And regardless of whether you agree with its message, Munich is a damn good movie.
I think in this case, however, aesthetic value is closely linked with the message of the film. If there's one thing this film says, it is that terrorism, war etc. have left us with a world with a lot of moral ambiguity. You can say that something is wrong, or that it's right, but the reality is this: most of the time you don't have time to decided if you're really doing the right thing or not. Which means that you might be doing the wrong thing alot of the time. Democracy is notorious for its 20-20 hindsight; on the other hand military and intelligence organizations are notorious for their desire not to look back. We need some sort of middle ground: we should seek to understand what has happened but do so with the knowledge that we'll generally know a lot more from an historical standpoint than we did in the history we're studying.
I think the movie also points out something else, which contradicts something I just said: terrorism didn't bring these questions into view. They've always been there and we're not gonna get rid of them. In the end, ambiguity is always going to be there. The question of whether or not the movie correctly portrays things is sort of bullshit: don't go to a movie for your historical fact, or, for that mattter, to learn anything, except for the Weltanschauung of the creators.
I think in this case, however, aesthetic value is closely linked with the message of the film. If there's one thing this film says, it is that terrorism, war etc. have left us with a world with a lot of moral ambiguity. You can say that something is wrong, or that it's right, but the reality is this: most of the time you don't have time to decided if you're really doing the right thing or not. Which means that you might be doing the wrong thing alot of the time. Democracy is notorious for its 20-20 hindsight; on the other hand military and intelligence organizations are notorious for their desire not to look back. We need some sort of middle ground: we should seek to understand what has happened but do so with the knowledge that we'll generally know a lot more from an historical standpoint than we did in the history we're studying.
I think the movie also points out something else, which contradicts something I just said: terrorism didn't bring these questions into view. They've always been there and we're not gonna get rid of them. In the end, ambiguity is always going to be there. The question of whether or not the movie correctly portrays things is sort of bullshit: don't go to a movie for your historical fact, or, for that mattter, to learn anything, except for the Weltanschauung of the creators.
posted by Austin 5-000 at 1:25 AM
7 Comments:
Doesn't moral ambiguity only arise with an incomplete or incoherent set of ethics?
On the micro level, I can't think of many sets of ethics that are completely internally coherent, or that can account for every novel situation. On the macro or metaethical level, even if you possess a complete set of ethics, someone else will possess a different one, and that will lead to conflict and ambiguity. Spinoza's ethics were about as complete as you could hope for, but he obviously had many detractors.
I think Austin is also pointing to the psychological aspect of ethics, that many times, no matter what we think we believe, we act differently from situation to situation, often without recourse to a rational plan of action. I endorse the "middle way" he outlines. To me, it seems that moral ambiguity helps us to fine tune, pragmatically, what we can point to as acceptible and unacceptible behavior. But it also chips away at the old Platonic myth that with the correct epistemological understanding of the just, someone will "always" choose the right path. I'm a bit unclear on what you mean, Austin, when you say "we should seek to understand what has happened but do so with the knowledge that we'll generally know a lot more from an historical standpoint than we did in the history we're studying." Which history that we are studying?
Scanlord-
I should have written "during the history we are studying". It is a horrible sentence, but with the deadlines around here one must do one's best. Don't you agree?
Austin-5000
To further clarify [to be read in robo-voice]:
#include "iostream.h"
Assume two points in time.
Let "a" be historical; that is, in the past.
Let "b" be now.
Let us assume "A" to be that set of "a"'s upon which some "b" can reflect (historically).
Let "B" consisted of all "b"'s from which we can look at some "a".
THEREFORE: "A" consists of all moments up until now.
THEREFORE: "B" consists of all moments except for the first, during which there was nothing to reflect upon.
WHEN: we consider any "a" from any "b", we should consider variable MORAL AMBIGUITY AND variable LACK OF INFORMATION THAT IS ACCESSIBLE CURRENTLY before running program JUDGMENT.
010000111010010101000101011001010110101010001010101000101010100111101010100101010010101001
-steez
Just because two people disagree, that doesn't mean that there's ambiguity, it just means that there's disagreement, unless of course you're a relativist, then you can go off and do that.
W/r/t the psychology, isn't it ultimately a pathological situation wherein we choose the unjust over the just even in light of all of the available information? I think that the ambiguity is not so much a good thing as it is a case wherein we lack a persistence of belief or conviction. Oftentimes it may be justified, if we in fact recognize a heretofore unthought consequence or entailment of our ethical system. Perhaps this is the best use of moral ambiguity, but it ultimately reflects back on the psychology...
Not sure though, that just because we're horrified by the entailment of our ethics that we should reject it. It would seem to me that this is no real reason to disavow an ethical action. What is to say that even though we won't be compelled to make the 'right' decision, we shouldn't anyway. The disavowal would seem to ultimately point to the preferencing of our feelings of disgust or some other generic psychological-behavioristic reaction to a phenomena or scenario. The problem with this kind of reaction is that it is so reductive, it fails to recognize the possibility of a greater good, that which our feelings must be suboordinated under.
I don't quite understand this middle way that's being discussed, are we just saying that we'll do what we do now, and be able to judge the past wrong later but not blame those people because they "knew not what they did"? Please clarify
I guess I would say we have to recognize the following distinction: maximizing vs. satisficing. Maximization is a simplification of behavior based on an outdated model of "Homo economicus", the rational consumer. When we maximize, it is assumed that we have all the information we need and are able to make a correct choice simply by consulting our preferences. This ignores 1) the fact that information is a scarce resource, or more appropriately, the time needed to acquire information is scarce, 2)the fact that the existence of preferences is questionable (are preferences revealed, where do they come from, etc.).
Thus a more apt model for human behavior is one that recognizes that we satisfice (maximize: utility maximized :: satisfice:basic level of utility satisfied). The time we devote to acting comes out of the same pool that must include the time we consider acting and everything else we do.
A Concrete Example
We have two choices, going to get a fine indian meal or going to a "Bob Dylan" concert. Later, we want to go to an X-Rated film.
If we were pretending that human beings were utility maximizers, the following would occur: since a person knows whether they would prefer a "Bob Dylan" concert or a fine indian meal, they would simply decide, go do it, and then go to the X-Rated Film.
If, instead, we must satisfice, we would do the following: (1) Accumulate a satisfactory amount of information (note that this is not as simple as it sounds: we have to estimate the expected value of each piece of information, plus the expected cost in time and other resources needed to obtain it) (2)Consider the information we have and make a decision (this process takes time as well. Also, (1) and (2) are not necessarily mutually exclusive... a lot of the time we are considering our decision while we attempt to obtain more info and so on. this is confusing). Remember that the whole time we are juggling all sorts of information: expected value of more info, expected value of time spent eating instead of thinking about whether to eat or not, expected value of a whole bunch of other shit etc.
That was probably wrong, and may seem irrelevant, but I'm trying to make a point: when we look back at any decision we tend to think about it much more concretely than it probably was when it occurred. So, we might ask "was so and so justified in killing this guy, or did he think he was justified?".
The reality is that he was probably never completely sure (1)whether killing is justified in any situation, (2) whether killing was justified in the situation he believed himself to be in, (3) whether he had enough information to be sure of (2), (4)whether he had enough information to be sure of (1), (5) whether he could afford to spend any more time thinking about it, etc etc etc etc.
So I guess I'm just saying that we try to make things clear in hindsight, when clarity is not an aspect of any part of reality. Ambiguity is the essence of life. That's what makes smart people smart: they are able to make good decisions about whether to get more information or to act or not. We are constantly making shitloads of decisions, and we probably aren't even conscious of it. So I guess here's what I would do: kill everyone that fuked with me. I apologize for the didactic and pretentious post that wasn't even informative, meaning that it didn't even have a right to be didactic or pretentious, but on the other hand I guess its alright or whatever.
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