What I've been reading

Freedom's battle : the origins of humanitarian intervention  by Gary J Bass.
Picked up this book after reading mixed reviews (here & here) and also driven by the curiosity by the books title. Did it full fill my curiosity? Yes and No. I was little disappointed not because of the fault of author but because of my own expectations. It was naive of me to expect people raising to revolt against the slaughtering of thousands in an another country which doesn't happen to this day. The philosophy of recusing the strangers in far away land started in 1800's although it was instigated by religiousity. Yes, it all started with Christian/Muslim animosity but there is more to it than that in this book. It fills all the historical gaps which the quintessential history books miss out.


Does everyone feels empathy for a strangers in a far away land? This question has been asked for generations with no precise answer. Adam Smith wrote in his famous (& lesser read) book, Theory of Moral Sentiments - "If he were to lose his little finger tomorrow, he wouldn't sleep tonight but provided he never saw them, he will snore with the most profound security over the ruin of a hundred millions of his brethren and the destruction of that immense multitude seems plainly an object less interesting to him, than this paltry misfortune of this own."

David Hume wrote before Adam Smith - "The Breaking of a mirror gives us more concern when at home, than the burning of a house, when abroad, and some hundred leagues distant." 

Neuroscience agrees with Hume and Smith about our nonchalance but at the same time, having equipped with mirror neurons, we drool with empathy. I think, mirror neurons play one of the most crucial role in feeling empathy for strangers or not. There is no point being the most intellectually equipped creatures and feeling no empathy, when even a mice can feel it. (Having read this book, it makes me wonder if Peter Singers philosophy of expanding our circle of morality to animals, is ever possible.) One thing that stands out prominently is its the people of arts were the surrogate voice for the suffering strangers, starting for Poet Lord Bryson to current day Bono and George Clooney et al.

It's a historically enduring  coincidence but obviously they have fame their side to make their voices heard. To be fair, as the book reveals that the adversaries of humanitarian intervention weren't lacking empathy but were pragmatic about the political intricacies, which in hindsight makes them look bad. This vacillating debate is carried since the Greek genocide to till date in Dar-Fur. This book enlightens us that there is no right answer since international politics is not naive as we expect it to be and inveils the power of media to drive the cizitens and policy makers alike.


The end of US humanitarian ideology started with Black Hawk massacre in Somalia, which made us question the cost of sacrificing American lives for a civil war in a far away land. This debate is going to carried on for generations to come but my guess is science can stop it. With Robotics, American lives need not be sacrificed in vain. Drones and the other futuristic devices (PW Singer's eyeopener Wired for war), lot of civil wars can be stopped right in their roots. Omnipresent tools like google earth can be used to increase the awareness of the people and even if governments refused to intervene, humanitarian organizations can even rent Drones etc to act with assertiveness. The greatest beneficiaries of this fascinating technological advancement in next few decade might turn out to be the voiceless strangers under a despotic state.


To sum it all up, these lines from Victor Hugo,  tells us what makes this world a special place and why goodness prevails in the end.


"There are hours when human conscience speaks and orders governments to listen. The governments stammer a reply… To quibble with public indignation, nothing more miserable. The attenuations aggravate. It is subtlety pleading for barbarism. It is byzantine excusing Stamboul. Let us call things by their name. To kill a man at the corner of a wood called a Forest of Bondy is a crime; to kill a people at the corner of that other wood called Diplomacy is a crime also - a greater one. That is all the difference. Does crime diminish in proportion to its enormity? Alas, that is indeed an old law of history. Kill six men you are Troppmann, kill 600,000 yopu are Caesar. To be monstrous is to be acceptable.. "But," we are told, "you forgot that there are questions!" To murder a man is a crime, to murder a people is a question! Each government has its question, Russia has Constantinople, England has India, France has Prussia, Prussian has France. We reply, "Humanity also has its question," and that question is this. It is greater than India, England, and Russia. It is the infant in it's mother womb. Let us supersede political question by the human question."