Criticizing the unjust wars our country has fought is as appropriate and important today as is honoring the brave soldiers who died fighting for our country in wars both just and unjust.<\/p>\n
I wish however that this criticism came in a different mode than I\u2019ve seen a lot of today, one that embraced humility and self-awareness. I know I’m not the only one who has been terribly wrong in my political judgments in the past, including judgments about war and peace. I know I’m not the only one who is capable of such errors. Unjust wars Mare not just created by those different from us who act out of greed and selfishness and aggressiveness. They are also created by people like us who act out of misplaced idealism as well as by people like us who deceive themselves and think that their selfishness, greed, and aggressiveness is justified their ideals.<\/p>\n
In fact, it seems to me that some of the criticism of unjust war I\u2019ve seen in the last day or so is motivated by the moral rage that too often characterizes political debate today on all sides. That holy anger, which is found in far too many of our political and religious traditions, is the center of the human dispositions that has made our species so prone to destructive, unjust war. The prophetic voice has too often been used to justify as oppose war. And too often it oversimplifies difficult debates and encourages us to think the worst not the best of our fellow human beings.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m as guilty of moral rage as most people and, given the path of political engagement I\u2019ve chosen, perhaps even more so. (It was easier to avoid it when I was primarily a teacher and writer whose professional obligation was to make sure my students and readers grappled with every side of every issue.) So on this Memorial Day is I\u2019m resolved to do my best to hold it in check in the future and embrace a gentler form of political engagement.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Criticizing the unjust wars our country has fought is as appropriate and important today as is honoring the brave soldiers who died fighting for our country in wars both just and unjust. I wish however that this criticism came in a different mode than I\u2019ve seen a lot of today, one that embraced humility and self-awareness. I know I’m not the only one who has been terribly wrong in my political judgments in the past, including judgments about war and peace. I know I’m not the only one who is capable of such errors. Unjust wars Mare not just created by those different from us who act out of greed and selfishness and aggressiveness. They are also created by people like us who act out of misplaced idealism as well as by people like us who deceive themselves and think that their selfishness, greed, and aggressiveness is justified their ideals.\u2026 Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1896,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[14,268],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p35YuU-2BQ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10034"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1896"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10034"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10036,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10034\/revisions\/10036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}