Thursday 26 November 2015

Rationalising and Justification of Actions

Hello Reader,

It's been a while since my last post, I guess those juices just haven't been flowing lately. But this morning I suddenly started on what I found to be an interesting chain of thought while considering Russia and Turkey's actions around the Turkey/Syria border while I was showering (strange thing to be thinking of in the shower I know).

So I recall reading several times throughout my life this idea that no one actually believes or thinks of themselves as "bad" or "evil" and that the human mind will always find a justification for what they do so that they can still consider themselves "good" in the long run. This never quite rang true to me as I've always thought I know when I'm doing the wrong thing (and convince myself this is okay by telling myself we all do the wrong thing some times which ultimately supports what currently speaking against).

But in the extraordinarily complicated situation involving ISIS, the Western coalition against ISIS, Russia and every other player on the board, which I would rather not try to dissect, I have to say I think Russia is doing the most right. Not entirely right but more than the coalition is doing and I'm sure I don't need to explain more than ISIS. But particularly the actions of the USA have been questionable to me, they seem to have made no real progress in stopping ISIS from doing whatever they feel like, terrorising people all over the world, destroying sites of immense historical and cultural value and committing any number of atrocities upon those caught in their areas of operations.

Anyway to get to my now belaboured point; there appears to some people who don't actually want to see such terrible acts come to an end and instead enjoy the profits that they are in position to receive when the world is in such a terrible state (for example certain media outlets who enjoy increased sales when people are in a more emotional state). So how do these people justify what amount to (if indirect) an endorsement of terrorism, murder, destruction of mankind's cultural history and much more? Before I'd have just thought they are aware what they are doing is wrong and accept that. But perhaps there is merit in the idea that no one believes their wrong by operating on a level I did not consider. That their national or organisational ties might serve as the justification. That some of these people are able to think "my actions don't matter, I'm doing this as part of America which is a force for good, so I'm doing good" or "the news is about giving people the truth even if it's ugly, so im doing good even if it drums up people's fear and mistrust and hate".

I don't think any solid conclusions could be made without lengthy examination of people's thought processes before, during and after such actions but I still found it interesting to consider.

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