What's the bigger tragedy?

[David]

Further on the news story Jezza just posted in the ISIS thread, what do people think about this op ed piece?

http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2015/aug/24/razing-palmyra-mass-murder-isis

Frankly, I find it a kind of appalling argument. Not because I think that people upset about the destruction of ancient monuments are sociopaths (I think it testifies more to our natural inability to feel empathy from a distance) but that the justifications he offers are so bad.

For me, the destruction of these ancient sites is a jaw-droppingly awful act of vandalism. But it is not as much of a crime or tragedy as the death of one single person.

That's how I should think, at any rate. Anything less is barbaric. And I think most of us would agree with that on some level. But how many of us genuinely believe it? And if we do, why don't we feel more anger or sadness about the latest car-bombing story as we do about the destruction of a site of archaeological importance?

[Wokko]

To me it comes down to the way you want to think about things. Purely on a rational level there is very little value, historically speaking in 1, 10 or 1000 humans, we are, to be brutally honest, a plague and until you start on genocide (ISIS massacring and displacing Christians certainly applies), there is little that human communities wont adapt to, these same areas have been brutally conquered over and over again for generations. Put that next to the historical record of 1-2 thousand year old buildings and the knowledge they represent and I can appreciate where the author is coming from.

If however you 're capable of 'remote empathy', of imagining in any way the horror and suffering of the human victims then it's very hard to argue for a pile o bricks. I'd say it's similar to people who can empathise so strongly with people they see in refugee camps vs the many more they never see who drowned on leaky boats on the way here. Empathy is a very rare commodity beyond the local, the seen or the experienced.

[think positive]

I just can't understand why they would destroy that temple, any temple. It's just disgusting.

The archeologist, so brave til the end. Thing is though, they would have killed him anyway.

The scum that is Isis does not deserve to walk this earth, the sooner they are eradicated, exterminated, shot, killed whatever, the better. Evil, just pure evil.

[HAL]

Is that a fact.

[Tannin]

Classic short-termism in David's thinking. In 100 years or 1000 years, individual lives - you life, my life, any group of lives - will count for nothing. The priceless history we share, however, will be more valuable than ever. You just can't replace it. Ever.

[pietillidie]

Not to be a thread wowser, but surely you're allowed to feel simultaneously horrified by different things in different ways and for different reasons, everyone!

[Mugwump]

^ i was thinking the same, PTID - these things do not really intersect, unless some strange quirk of fate forced you to choose between them - the Picasso in a burning house analogy in the article. Because they don't really intersect, even that scenario is hard to frame rationally. I think most of us would save the person over the Picasso, but that quite possibly depends on what you know about Picasso, that picture, etc. They don't really exist in the same realm of evaluation.

As for IS, well, until the regional players all get together and decide to kill the snake, it'll no doubt go on with its particular brand of putrescence, born of a harsh environment and a debased ideology. I dubt there is much we can do about it, and of we were to try, our Arab and Persian enemies would no doubt add it to their cherished grievances about our interest in their lands.

[Pies4shaw]

No, you save the Piccaso every time. It's no trouble at all to make a replacement human.

[think positive]

[David]

[Pies4shaw]

Well, people are also valueless except for the value that we place on them, too.

[luvdids]

[David]

^ That's probably more of a reflection of how you feel about sites of archaeological importance than how you feel about human beings. I wouldn't have thought that I (or Tannin) care less about the deaths of innocent people than you do.

Personally, I have to confess that I feel much the same as you. Once people have taken a few photos, done various scientific tests, drawn historical conclusions and so on, what purpose do these sites really have aside from tourist destinations?

That's an interesting question, but it's considerably less interesting than the central philosophical problem here (which is, more or less, "how much is a life worth?). If archaeological ruins don't do it for you, perhaps transpose something that is important to you – in my case, say, every European film ever made. Would/should I be willing to sacrifice that for the life of one person? What about 100?

[Pies4shaw]

Everyone dies, so no death is "unnecessary". The confronting thing about seeing ancient monuments destroyed is that it tends to demonstrate that even that which is wonderful and "permanent" is, in truth, anything but.

People are always being killed in large numbers in some war or other and whilst we can empathise and wish each war (or all wars) would end, another violent, depressing, murderous conflict comes along - but this sort of deliberate cultural vandalism is, even in times of warfare, a little unusual.

The worst aspect of this deliberate destruction is the message it sends, namely that the perpetrators would wipe out anything that came before them, unless it met their particular ideological requirements. The eradication of ideas is much, much more dangerous than the killing of large numbers of people.

[David]