[WAR] US government set on complete destruction of Ukraine

[xorcist at sigaint.org]

>> > I staked out a stronger position than I actually hold, a hopefully
>> > forgivable mistake in response to Zenaan's black-and-white "Russia
>> > good, US evil" propagandizing. Thanks for the thoughtful response.
>>
>> OK, I can understand that.
>>
>> Yes, there is a lot of ideological stuff like that here, it seems. I
>> look at geopolitics from a merely strategic point of view,
>
> Another moral relativist?

No. Moral relativists believe all moral codes of behavior are subjective,
and intrinsically equivalent, and cannot be judged nor ranked. I hold no
such opinion.

If really pressed, I suppose I would say that I think that moral codes
are, at their core, ..illusions.. but that isn't really the right word. I
guess the word I'm looking for is "artifacts." Yes, I like that. Artifacts
in the sense that morality appears due to a fundamental deficiency in our
way of observing and thinking about the world: the difficulty in
appreciating "the big picture." And the possibility for the double
entendre in terms of an object made by a human being, and typically old
and culturally normative, tickles my fancy for word play. And such
artifacts can be disturbingly grotesque, and immensely beautiful. Yes. I
think "artifact" is the perfect, actually.

There is behavior. Some of it is destructive, some of it is beneficial.
The difficulty is that people believe they can somehow be destructive to
others, while benefiting themselves. They believe this is true, because
they are unable to see the big picture. It is not possible to harm someone
else, without harming oneself; try as you might, be as cunning as you
dare, it is futile. When one sees this, one sees morality for what it is:
a set of arbitrary, and usually senseless delusional notions, needed to
compensate for a basic futility that people persist in engaging in.
Morality is the marriage of a delusion, to a futility.

The irony is that once perceived, the only sensible way to behave -
regardless of the outcome, is to try to benefit as many people as
possible, in all circumstances. A way of acting that most people would
consider quite moral. It is similar, I think, to the people who get into
the free will/determinism thing, and find that by really believing that
their actions  are pre-determined, they become 'courageous' enough to be
spontaneous, and therefore, free.

So, there is that. But that isn't even what I meant.

What I meant is, I do not believe the influential decision makers and
policy makers make a great concern for applying a moral code when making
geopolitical decisions. Rather, they define aims, and try to find
strategies to meet those aims. Some strategies they may reject, perhaps
even on moral grounds, and will then pursue some other strategy. But, when
there is only ONE workable strategy, regardless of the morality of it, it
will get put in place. Because the important aspect is not morality, it is
positioning.

Therefore, in my analysis of geopolitical happenings, I try to leave
moralizing,  ideology, and even my own opinion, out of it.. or at least
relegate it to a side bar, or after thought. As it has no bearing on "that
world" it is superfluous, and even misleading, in analyzing it. It leads
to ideological propaganda, and so on. Such things make it too easy to
generalize about "The Americans" or "The Russians" .. speaking of
cultures, rather than the powerful few who actually do this stuff.

If you think Putin spends a great deal of time thinking of "combating the
evil of the West" you may want to reconsider. I would suspect that Putin
spends his time analyzing how to counter the aims of rival nations. He
thinks of it, just in those terms.