On Fonts and Phrases
Has it ever bothered anyone else how when you leave the cursor right after certain letters in certain fonts, it overlaps with part of the letters, making that part turn white? When I was a kid, I used to hit the space bar (or end punctuation, then space bar) really quickly after certain words because I thought it looked like the cursor was hurting the "t." (And I often still do, even though many fonts - like this one - don't overlap with "t.") I think I was typing in Helvetica, though maybe sometimes Courier.
You know what else gets me? The way the phrase "the ends justify the means" has become eeevil. Ha! Look at that! You probably thought something scornful and/or apprehensive just reading it! Think about it, though, what it's actually saying. It says "I have judged my goal to be worth what I am doing to reach it." There is no inherent implication of anyone being hurt or anything bad happening. In a sense, every single time you do something, you've decided that end justifies the means you use to do it. "The end of having a carton of milk justifies my spending this money." "The end of being in shape justifies my going to the gym." Certainly, I can see a problem with the statement if you think it applies to ALL ends and means, but that doesn't even make sense. Of COURSE not all means are justified by all ends. If someone tried to sell you an ordinary carton of milk for five hundred bucks, you'd probably decide that the end of getting the milk did not justify the spending of that money.
I know that's not the usual use of the phrase. It's usually used to denote things where the "means" involve bad stuff happening, like people getting hurt or killed. It's an interesting thing the way our society often portrays heroes who don't have to actually make choices about ends and means. Watching action movies, you commonly come across the villain who kidnaps two or more of the following: protagonist's love interest/protagonist's family member/protagonist's best friend/a bunch of orphans (or other innocent civilians), then goes, "Bwa ha ha, now you must choose who to save!" (I think the first time I saw this was waaay back when I watched Little Nemo as a kid.) Usually, there's the corollary, "If you don't choose, I'll kill them all." We learn from most of these movies that the one morally right choice is, "No, you psycho! You can't make me make a choice like that!" (Followed by rescuing everyone.) Anyway, what I'm getting at is: We mostly see heroes who don't have to take losses. Given a scenario with an end that saves most people but requires a means that hurts a few, versus a scenario where everyone gets hurt, the hero says, "I choose C, save everyone and beat the crap out of whoever dared to give me such a messed-up choice!" Thinking of recent superhero movies, I remember not only Spider-Man's rescue-Mary Jane-or-the-train-car-full-of-people dilemna (good guy casualties: zero), but the ferry dilemna in Dark Knight. Obviously it's great that everyone on both ferries refuses to play by the Joker's screwed-up rules, but the fact that - guess what? - everyone on both ferries survives - reinforces the idea that real good guys won't even make these choices.
I don't really know why I'm going on about this. I'm a huge idealist, and I really like it when everyone's okay. No one should ever have to weigh lives (or injustices, etc.) against each other, and obviously any person who tries to force such a choice is a baddie who must be thwarted. Still, I guess I maybe feel like this leaves people unprepared to deal with real situations - rare in the lives of individuals, but maybe more common on a larger scale - where everyone just isn't going to be okay.
As an alternative example, has anyone seen the movie Storm of the Century? *Spoilers, but it's an old movie* Basically, a demonic being shows up in a small, isolated town, kills a couple of people, then kidnaps all of the town's children. He explains to the rest of the town's people that he doesn't have that much longer to live, and wants an apprentice, but the town has to willingly give him a child for the purpose. He says that, if they do, he'll go peacefully away. If they refuse, he'll kill all the children and everyone else in the town. (He explains that this is, in fact, what happened to the lost colony of Roanoke Island.) The town takes a vote wherein every single person except the protagonist goes, "Um, let's not let him kill all our kids and all of us, give him one kid." (I remember them using the phrase, "Better to lose one in life than all in death.") The protagonist, on the other hand, gets morally outraged and is the only person to vote against it. But he doesn't save the day. He can't fight the guy. The guy's a freaking demon. The protagonist is outvoted, and the demonic guy takes one kid and goes peacefully away, as promised. And in this situation, I have to say, I'm on the rest of the town's side. It's very well to be the one person who stood against the demon-guy when you're outvoted, and your position isn't responsible for EVERYONE'S DEATH. I guess maybe if you're religious, it might make more sense (I don't mean that as an insult to anyone, just thinking about possible explanations), but to me, if your righteousness wipes out the town, sorry, you lose.
I guess it's kind of like the issue of negotiating with terrorists. I can see that it's bad, obviously. You don't want to encourage them, etc., etc. Still, if they captured someone I cared about, I'd be like, "WHO CARES? GIVE THEM WHATEVER THE HECK THEY WANT!" Sure, I'd rather be an awesome heroine who said, "I don't negotiate with terrorists!" and then went out and rescued my loved one and whomped up on said terrorists (or, better still, used my awesome peace powers to turn them all into good people who don't want to hurt anyone), but what are the chances of my having that option?
I'm still not sure any of this is coming across right. I find the idea of being offered such a choice completely repugnant. I guess I mostly just find it interesting that fiction seems to mostly fall so strongly on the side of refusing the choice altogether - or at least choosing the option that involves not doing something, i.e. not negotiating with bad guys. I wonder how often such situations come up where the choice really doesn't come from a person - like that ethics question of the trolley car without brakes and the two tunnels. Do you divert the car to kill only one person or stay on track to kill several? It's a cop-out answer to say, "I do neither - I use my crazy powers to stop the car!" It's a terrible thing to have to make a decision that gets people hurt, but wouldn't you feel even worse if your refusal to make such a decision meant that MORE people got hurt?
This puts my original point into weird context, because it starts to make it sound like I am arguing about means that hurt people being justified by ends. Here I'd been trying to talk about the phrase "the ends justify the means" as totally separate from just that kind of situation. Oh well.
Also, a friendly side note. If anyone is thinking of asking me the follow-up question to the trolley thing, the one with the orgran transplants, the one that was on my final exam in that miserable Philosophy class: Please don't. I really wouldn't appreciate it.
You know what else gets me? The way the phrase "the ends justify the means" has become eeevil. Ha! Look at that! You probably thought something scornful and/or apprehensive just reading it! Think about it, though, what it's actually saying. It says "I have judged my goal to be worth what I am doing to reach it." There is no inherent implication of anyone being hurt or anything bad happening. In a sense, every single time you do something, you've decided that end justifies the means you use to do it. "The end of having a carton of milk justifies my spending this money." "The end of being in shape justifies my going to the gym." Certainly, I can see a problem with the statement if you think it applies to ALL ends and means, but that doesn't even make sense. Of COURSE not all means are justified by all ends. If someone tried to sell you an ordinary carton of milk for five hundred bucks, you'd probably decide that the end of getting the milk did not justify the spending of that money.
I know that's not the usual use of the phrase. It's usually used to denote things where the "means" involve bad stuff happening, like people getting hurt or killed. It's an interesting thing the way our society often portrays heroes who don't have to actually make choices about ends and means. Watching action movies, you commonly come across the villain who kidnaps two or more of the following: protagonist's love interest/protagonist's family member/protagonist's best friend/a bunch of orphans (or other innocent civilians), then goes, "Bwa ha ha, now you must choose who to save!" (I think the first time I saw this was waaay back when I watched Little Nemo as a kid.) Usually, there's the corollary, "If you don't choose, I'll kill them all." We learn from most of these movies that the one morally right choice is, "No, you psycho! You can't make me make a choice like that!" (Followed by rescuing everyone.) Anyway, what I'm getting at is: We mostly see heroes who don't have to take losses. Given a scenario with an end that saves most people but requires a means that hurts a few, versus a scenario where everyone gets hurt, the hero says, "I choose C, save everyone and beat the crap out of whoever dared to give me such a messed-up choice!" Thinking of recent superhero movies, I remember not only Spider-Man's rescue-Mary Jane-or-the-train-car-full-of-people dilemna (good guy casualties: zero), but the ferry dilemna in Dark Knight. Obviously it's great that everyone on both ferries refuses to play by the Joker's screwed-up rules, but the fact that - guess what? - everyone on both ferries survives - reinforces the idea that real good guys won't even make these choices.
I don't really know why I'm going on about this. I'm a huge idealist, and I really like it when everyone's okay. No one should ever have to weigh lives (or injustices, etc.) against each other, and obviously any person who tries to force such a choice is a baddie who must be thwarted. Still, I guess I maybe feel like this leaves people unprepared to deal with real situations - rare in the lives of individuals, but maybe more common on a larger scale - where everyone just isn't going to be okay.
As an alternative example, has anyone seen the movie Storm of the Century? *Spoilers, but it's an old movie* Basically, a demonic being shows up in a small, isolated town, kills a couple of people, then kidnaps all of the town's children. He explains to the rest of the town's people that he doesn't have that much longer to live, and wants an apprentice, but the town has to willingly give him a child for the purpose. He says that, if they do, he'll go peacefully away. If they refuse, he'll kill all the children and everyone else in the town. (He explains that this is, in fact, what happened to the lost colony of Roanoke Island.) The town takes a vote wherein every single person except the protagonist goes, "Um, let's not let him kill all our kids and all of us, give him one kid." (I remember them using the phrase, "Better to lose one in life than all in death.") The protagonist, on the other hand, gets morally outraged and is the only person to vote against it. But he doesn't save the day. He can't fight the guy. The guy's a freaking demon. The protagonist is outvoted, and the demonic guy takes one kid and goes peacefully away, as promised. And in this situation, I have to say, I'm on the rest of the town's side. It's very well to be the one person who stood against the demon-guy when you're outvoted, and your position isn't responsible for EVERYONE'S DEATH. I guess maybe if you're religious, it might make more sense (I don't mean that as an insult to anyone, just thinking about possible explanations), but to me, if your righteousness wipes out the town, sorry, you lose.
I guess it's kind of like the issue of negotiating with terrorists. I can see that it's bad, obviously. You don't want to encourage them, etc., etc. Still, if they captured someone I cared about, I'd be like, "WHO CARES? GIVE THEM WHATEVER THE HECK THEY WANT!" Sure, I'd rather be an awesome heroine who said, "I don't negotiate with terrorists!" and then went out and rescued my loved one and whomped up on said terrorists (or, better still, used my awesome peace powers to turn them all into good people who don't want to hurt anyone), but what are the chances of my having that option?
I'm still not sure any of this is coming across right. I find the idea of being offered such a choice completely repugnant. I guess I mostly just find it interesting that fiction seems to mostly fall so strongly on the side of refusing the choice altogether - or at least choosing the option that involves not doing something, i.e. not negotiating with bad guys. I wonder how often such situations come up where the choice really doesn't come from a person - like that ethics question of the trolley car without brakes and the two tunnels. Do you divert the car to kill only one person or stay on track to kill several? It's a cop-out answer to say, "I do neither - I use my crazy powers to stop the car!" It's a terrible thing to have to make a decision that gets people hurt, but wouldn't you feel even worse if your refusal to make such a decision meant that MORE people got hurt?
This puts my original point into weird context, because it starts to make it sound like I am arguing about means that hurt people being justified by ends. Here I'd been trying to talk about the phrase "the ends justify the means" as totally separate from just that kind of situation. Oh well.
Also, a friendly side note. If anyone is thinking of asking me the follow-up question to the trolley thing, the one with the orgran transplants, the one that was on my final exam in that miserable Philosophy class: Please don't. I really wouldn't appreciate it.