Naughty Boyz

 Bad bad, bad, bad boy,
you make me feel so good
You naughty, bad, bad, bad, bad boy 
--Bad Boy, Gloria Estefan

 A bad little kid
Moved into my neighborhood
He won't do nothing right
Just a sitting got to look so good 
--Bad Boy, the Beatles

 Bad guy (slang) n.:
a morally bad person or character. 
A villain
 --Merriam-Webster online  

Welcome to hell  
--Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988)
_______________________

Three bona fide terrorism subject matter experts speaking in a recent Charley Rose round table all referred to the Islamic State as the "Bad Guys", reflecting the general consensus of United State's government and military leaders. So this is what the Phony War on Terror (PWOT©) has devolved to -- getting bad guys.

You know what Ranger is going to say: in what code book, Hague Convention or United Nation guidelines is "bad guys" defined? When did being a Bad Guy earn you a death sentence?

"Since August, 2014, the United States has invested more than eleven million dollars a day in military operations, including almost nine thousand airstrikes on Iraq and more than five thousand on Syria" (How the Curse of Sykes-Picot Still Haunts the Middle East). The U.S. is dropping bombs faster than they can make 'em, hoping that we will hit a bad guy in the bursting radius.

The problem with "Bad Guys" is that the descriptor depends on which side of the fence you house your goats. To some people, President George W. Bush is a very Bad Guy -- war crime sort of bad. To others, he is a hero. Go figure.

How do you define Bad Guy? Is he a fundamentalist who likes terrorism? Is he a guy who will torture someone whom his government calls a Bad Guy, with nary a qualm of conscience? Do they trade in oil and deceit? Are they the arms dealers represented by U.S. interests?

Know this: the fundies and terrorists of ISIS would not exist without a U.S. foreign policy that affects oil and arms in the region. 

What color is your bad? 

When the objectives of war are the killing of bad guys, we have entered a vague moral ground and left a legal, political or military one. Bad guys is a concept a religious person can utter with certainty: "bad" or "evil" is something which is not them. Moreover, it must be destroyed. The problem is, only gods do battle with amorphous concepts like evil. 

When secular states like the U.S. kill on the basis of eradicating "badness" or "evil", we should recognize the futility of the mission. All of the evil in the world cannot be bombed into submission or non-existence. 

Know this, too: we are playing the devil's game, and there will be hell to pay.

Truth or Consequences

Perhaps all fields are battlefields,
those we remember
and those that are forgotten
--Reality Demands,
Wislawa Szimborska

~I did a bad thing...
~It's o.k., you get three!
--The Invention of Lying (2009)

Everybody Lies
(or, Truth begins in lies)
--Dr. Greg House, House

Thou shalt not bear false witness (lie)
--Ninth Commandment
_________________

Ranger finally consented to discuss a piece he had written 16 Jun 11 on the matter of truth. The wheels move slowly but inexorably. I hope to get some conversation going here from our readers, both military and non, on a foundational concept -- the Truth.

First, I will post Ranger's original thoughts, then will fill out the ideas per a recent discussion. Philosophy 101 by RAW -- your one-stop metaphysical shopping center. (This entire piece is important to a future one which will draw on the ideas presented):

"Ranger often is forced to have discussions with our editor Lisa, usually as a result of being water-boarded and forcefully led into discussions of Truth. Since Ranger exists in moral ambiguity, his most common reply to most questions is, "Can't it be both!", which he considers a good-faith effort in a grey world.

"Last night a vision came to me: 'Truth is irrelevant to our lives. Whether we exist in truth or lies it matters not if the truth is as destructive as a lie. The truth of our lives are often based upon lies, be they personal, societal, political or religious.'

"I'll stick with my standby and say, "Can't it be both?"

For me (Lisa), terms must be defined -- what is an absolute, and when or why is deviation from the absolute justified or imperative.

First we pitted "Truth" vs. "Fact" (T vs. F, from here out). T is not equivalent to a fact, as it depends upon which facts one sees or uses. Other related but not equivalent terms are, "Good", "Bad", "Right" and "Wrong". Notions of "good" or "bad" are imposed upon our perception of the facts, therefore altering our T.

While the opposite of the Truth is a lie, perhaps Ranger's Catholic background allows him gradations of non-truth, or as he put it, "unprovable constructs". Some intentional non-truths may even be considered to be in the realm of sin, but even there we have venal vs. mortal sins, and the former need not even be Confessed. So many ways to slice things when one steps away from absolutes!

Ranger contends that T is subjective and constructed, either by society or by ourselves (who are influenced by our society.) Therefore, T. differs from fact (though they may be coincident). Truth is based upon facts, either arrived at via corruption or denial of the facts (cognitive dissonance) or in accordance with them; however, not all facts are evident, and this is a limiting factor on achieving T.

Therefore, no absolute truth is possible, Ranger maintains, as all of the facts of any situation will never be revealed. (This implies conversely, if one could see all the facts, one could arrive at T.)

Further, Ranger feels the lie is justified when the T. is inconvenient or uncomfortable. He feels lies were developed to protect the group or individual as societies developed -- they were a survival modification. He noted that skin readings belie the liar on polygraph tests, which seems to indicate that lying is not a comfortable or natural state for humans, and many body gestures reveal dissimulation. For him, lying is a sometimes necessary discomfort.

In a word, Ranger is a Situational Ethicist.

We agree that facts and truth do not have an absolute direction or quality: Truths or facts can be good or bad, and the individual makes that determination. Further, a T (be it based upon facts or incorrectly arrived at because based upon corrupt data) will lead to another fact (regardless of the goodness or badness of it's origin.) This subjective nature of digesting facts (=data) suggests an infinite regression would be necessary to arrive at the ground of any T.

Lisa suggested that Ranger's way is to view the Truth as a strategic quantity, where one weighs the pros and cons of its revelation. This seems a difficult and fraught task. It suggests a mental computation like a flow chart, in which one must anticipate the result of one's choices in order to achieve a desired outcome.

Lisa sees situational ethics as an oxymoron, and hews to a more Manichaean view. This renders her more rigid and therefore, more vulnerable. She is an idealist, in a fallen world. The argument for truth lies in its simplicity and the opportunity for growth. It doesn't matter whether the T (as I know it) is good or bad; it is imperative that I tell it, for that gives my interlocutor the best possible data, and the opportunity to act in accordance with his or her beliefs and values.

Truth-telling is like the game of Telephone -- even with the best efforts, something will get lost in the telling, or the hearing. But the effort to understand and to express is a noble one, if one is to achieve the best possible actionable information. However, If one begins with a faulty construction (due to misrepresentation, subterfuge or poor communication), any future decisions will be misshapen offspring.

The problem with using the human mind to function in a mathematical, flow chart model is that there are outcomes that may be unforeseen -- Mr. Rumsfeld's koan-like "unknown unknowns". Therefore, how can one decide upon obfuscation as the best path, when one cannot foresee the manifold responses to that (un)truth?

To me, this possibility of the chance for correction due to unknown future paths is an argument for telling the truth as one knows it (regardless of its limitations due to not having every single fact required to create an unassailable truth.) I challenge Ranger's contention that a lie is as good as the truth if the outcome will be bad simply because the quality of the outcome matters.

Ranger uses the teleological argument to justify a lie in the case of a bad outcome with the T. It seems to me that choice is made from a limited perspective, as it considers only the immediate cause and effect. Just as he argues for never knowing all of the facts, so one cannot know all possible outcomes. The fractal model helps show why the trunk of the tree must be sound, the trunk being basic precepts like a dedication to revealing and understanding facts and definition of terms.

If you say a "bad" T. with contrition and desire for correction, you may possibly enjoy a good ultimate outcome; you can attempt to alter what may seem a poor outcome. However, if you tell a lie, you damn the project to the waste bin at the point of dissimulation. It can never be good if good equates with "real, "honest", "growing" and all the qualities that bespeak of life and health. The lie kills the ebb and flow of life; it is a controlling action which stops honest reciprocity.

Like the early programmers said, GIGO -- Garbage in, garbage out.

What do you think about the Truth?