Southeners who take pride in their Confederate ancestors don't believe that the Civil War was over slavery. Get into this argument with one, and I guarantee that you will quickly be informed that the first side to begin freeing slaves was the South.
That's true, but again, could be evidence that they should be more understanding: "they thought they were coming to free the slaves...just like we're liberating Iraq..."
I'm not disagreeing with the main thrust of Cole's post, but I wonder if the right way to estimate the badness of the situation is to multiply casualty figures by the ratio of US citizens to Iraqi citizens. That seems to rely on the nation as the relevant unit of comparison, as if the deaths of n people are worse in smaller countries than in larger ones. I'm just saying.
"Speculatively, I'd say Americans are sanguine about Iraq because they think Iraqis are savages, and the total breadown of the social order must not bother them so much--and they were living under Saddam, after all, so this has to be better."
No, I'd say Americans are sanguine about Iraq because they cannot possibly imagine the breakdown in social order--they can't imagine life under Saddam and they cannot imagine what it is like now.
The *assumption* of democracy and fundamental civility is so deeply ingrained...it is like a fish being able to imagine being out of water.
I believe this is true even in the most disadvantaged situations (inner cities, the ghetto)--the police may be perceived (may even be) brutal and corrupt, but there is the imbedded underlying assumption that This Should Not Be So.
My problem with JC's post is that there is a different psychological impact with larger numbers, which he is using to manipulate the reader.
I'm not sure I get that, Ditz. Shouldn't they then think, "Iraq is unimaginably bad?"
FL and Michael, agreed on the numbers: the multiplication thing also bothers me when the Israelis do it to justify their responses to bombings, but I don't think the force of the post depends on the numbers.
Unfogged: the genial weblog! We agree, and there may be no other way to get the basic point across, and it's important that it gets across. Still, it's a little bit weird.
It's also helpful to be reminded that abstract goods ("freedom") are of little use under severe privation ("the lights are out, the insurgents are in charge, and the only thing on TV is some guy getting his head sawed off"). This reminds me a bit of the Elian discussions four years ago.
I dunno. I understand your point about overstating the importance of the nation-state, but sometimes the numbers get awfully abstract without a meaningful denominator. Like, X thousand Chechnyans killed by violence over the past decade versus 10% of all Chechnyans killed by violence. Or Trying to Count claiming that you're more likely to get killed in an auto accident than on active duty in Iraq.
Anyhow, just about all of Iraq is engulfed by violence and near-anarchy and it's hard for Americans (we who start making angry calls when HBO On Demand is misfunctioning) to get our collective head around that scale of mayhem.