Different Slants

THE PROBLEM:

I was wondering about the complex issue of where American Jews should stand in regards to the 1915 genocide of 1.5 million Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Turks; Israel’s very good current military and economic relationship with Turkey; America’s military vulnerability if the Turk’s withdraw their use of Turkey as a staging area for resupplying our troops in Iraq and how can we demand the world must remember our slaughtered families and not acknowledge the Armenians frustration, anger and pain with little international recognition of their people’s losses?

Personally, I find it to be a conundrum because of the vastly evolved current circumstances from what they were 92 years ago. All positions are effectively, correct.

If we antagonize the Turks, everybody loses and the benefit to the Armenians is something that can’t be measured. If we ignore the Armenians, it undermines the Jews’ moral foundation that the World should recognize and deplore all national or racial, etc. slaughter. The debate is dividing Jews from Jews and all sorts of other combinations in this country.

POSSIBLY, A SOLUTION:

Not that anyone asked me, or anything like that, but after deliberating about the Turkey / Armenia nexus, I decided that the only viable way out (if I was in a position to mediate) that would leave the US –Turkey relationship intact and all that that entails and not risk American Jews causing a rift between Israel and Turkey by their support of a congressional resolution condemning Turkey for genocide in 1915, would be to drop the House resolution as a sop to Turkey, disengage the US Government from any further criticism of our current and strategic ally and have top US leaders meet in a bi-partisan effort to assuage the politically powerful and wealthy Armenian/American community.

Then what? (Read on …)

I just came across a great 15 minute video by Dan Dennett titled “Ants, terrorism and the awesome power of memes.” For me it tied together in a scientific way, a number of concepts brought out in “The Power of Nightmares” and by Neal Stephenson’s book “Snow Crash.”

Memes can be thought of as infectious ideas. Mr. Dennett compares the role of memes in the interaction of cultures to the role of germs as described by Jared Diamond in “Guns, Germs and Steel.” He suggests that we try to reduce the virulence of our memes in an attempt to protect cultures to which they are toxic.

We often try to protect endangered species because we believe that biological diversity is good (another meme). Since I also believe that cultural diversity is a good thing, it should follow that I would want to protect other cultures from the potentially toxic memes of my own culture. On the other hand, I do not want to be shielded from foreign ideas, I just don’t want them forced on me. (Read on …)