Poor, Edmund W wrote:
Maveric said,
Slamming civilian commercial jets into civilian
office
buildings killing thousands and destroying a national icon
is terrorism no matter how you parse it! I for one was
depressed for a month after I saw the towers fall on live
television even though I live on the opposite coast and do
not directly know a single person killed that day. That's
terrorism.
Even if I agree with you, it's still nothing more than your
point of view (POV) and mine. Even if 50% or 80% or 95% of
Americans (or Westerners in general) maintain this POV, it's
still a "point of view".
A lot of this comes down to the nature of a point of view. I can
sympathize with someone's month-long depression over these events, but I
can hardly take that as evidence that someone responsible for events on
the opposite coast is a terrorist. The real issue is the distinction
between fact and opinion. That it should come up over the application
of the word "terrorist" is secondary; it could have come up in relation
to many other contentious term. These terms can have either a positive
or negative import.
Critical thinking is one of the most important elements in the good
education of a child. (As strongly as I may believe that, it is still
an opinion.) It is important to learn how to read, but that skill is
wasted if the child is unable to interpret what he has read and make it
meaningful. Critical thinking is also important in evaluating TV toy
commercials where the only factual statement contained is often, "Each
sold separately." Critical thinking allows a child to think
independently even when majority opinion is overwhelming; it gives the
child the skill to recognize those dangerous situations when he must
say, "No!"
The first lesson in critical thinking is to know the difference between
a fact and an opinion. Knowing and understanding that distinction is
essential to maintaining intellectual rigour; it is important to the
scientific method, it is important to the development of an objective
and neutral encylopedia such as we claim to be developing. It is most
important in the context of evaluating those ideas which we hold most
strongly.
It is not always easy to distinguish between fact and opinion, and a lot
of the agreed facts themselves depend on arbitrary assumptions. Having
an undisputed definition of something helps. That definition tends to
be lacking in many "-isms" and the "-ists" who practise them. If
there
is serious opposition to our claim that something is factual, then we
would do well to stop treating it as factual. In this regard we can
certainly do better than resort to weasel words purporting truth by
innuendo.
There is no universally agree-upon definition of
terrorism, no
formula into which we can "plug in" some values to distinguish
what as "really" terrorism and what isn't.
That's a big part of the problem.
Even formulas which mention "innocent people"
fail, because of
a hot dispute over who is "innocent". Are anonymous Israeli
civilians riding a bus or sitting in a caf"innocent", from
the perspective of the group which sends a 'human bomb' on a
'mission' to blow them up? You and I may think so, but I
gather that the Arab nationalist groups which the US labels
"terrorist" regard these civilians as somehow complicit in the
"crimes" of their regime.
Even "innocent" can be a loaded opinion word used with the intent of
evoking an emotional response. Some will only regard the civilians in
the occupied lands as complicit, while accepting that those within the
internationally recognized borders have a right to be there.
Anyway, the solution is to back away from anything that
smacks
of official Wikipedia endorsement, when there is a hot
controversy. Just figure out as accurately as we can, which
groups of people (like "Americans" or "Westerners") espouse a
particular POV, and say that they espouse it.
But simply saying "Americans" is inappropriate when American public
opinion is divided.
The great thing about Wikipedia is that it does NOT
have any
particular slant on current events or history. We can get into
all the in's and out's of public opinion. A conservative news
outlet or radio commentator or historian can get away with
cherishing a bias. He can easily twist things to support his
POV; easiest way is to quote a lot of people who agree with
you and omit mention of (or say nasty discrediting things
about) anyone who disagrees. Liberals can (and do) join in the
fun, too!
Indeed!
Unlike the Bush Administration or the New York Times,
this
revolutionary, ground-breaking, historically unique scholarly
project -- Wikipedia -- has no axe to grind, no point of view
to defend. So we can delve into the issues and report
accurately about all the major and minor variations of thought
on any subject, no matter how controversial.
We do have a point of view to defend, the neutral point of view. Alas,
some of us don't defend it very well.
This is so wonderful, that maybe some of us are still
reeling
from the shock of such freedom and haven't figured out how
to handle it. I'm still trying to get a grip on it, myself.
This is perhaps more true than even you may believe. Freedom is pretty
shocking stuff. If freedom is taught with hierarchical techniques, in
the course of which we are told that we are free and that such and such
are the characteristics of freedom that we must show on an examination
paper, are we really free? People who are apparently free can have a
tough time with the responsibility part of it. Sometimes I read and
hear things that leave me terribly pessimistic.
Ec