Palestinians: Raman or Varelse?
Palestinians: Raman or Varelse?
by Bill Levinson
Science fiction writer Orson Scott Card offers terms that can be very useful in defining Civilization's conflict with Islamofascism: raman and varelse. Raman are creatures with whom we can communicate and reason even if they do not resemble us physically. Varelse are creatures with whom no communication or reason is possible. As stated by Card,
...by definition a varelse is someone so alien and dangerous that you can't know them and can't reach an understanding with them; but that inability to know them makes it quite possible that they are potentially raman after all, but you have no way of discovering it. Thus the tragic misunderstandings of the "Bugger Wars" in Ender's Game and between other aliens and humans in the later books in the series. Yet for the survival of your own people, you can't just assume that currently unknowable aliens mean well after all. What if those aliens are led by a Hitler and they simple will not express their "better nature" until it's too late for you? Thus the right of communities to defend themselves against those who appear to have both the capability and the desire to exterminate them must remain -- the right, in short, to decide that, as best you can determine, another community is varelse.
In Card's science fiction, the issue of whether an alien species is raman or varelse is an ethically-complex one. Even on our own world, animals of known intelligence (like dolphins) may communicate in ways we cannot easily imagine, and space aliens would present an even greater challenge. On the other hand, Islamofascists are physically just like ourselves and they communicate in words as we do. It is the Islamofascist mentality that makes them varelse.
As we shall see, varelse is probably a far more precise description than "subhuman." A rabid animal may be considered varelse because the disease that is destroying its brain makes it irrational. Punishing such an animal is both ineffective and useless sadism because, as the animal is not rational, punishment cannot modify its behavior. It must therefore be either quarantined or euthanized.
Normal human beings are rational, i.e. they act in their own interests. Even the most murderous dictator is acting rationally when he tries to take a neighboring country's land and wealth by force; he is seeking to enrich himself. The same goes for the most violent armed robbers and bandits. They are all, however, rational, and this means that they can be deterred by the threat or use of force.
The Islamofascist is not rational because it often does not even act in its own interests. When the Palestinians took over Gaza, for example, they were presented with abandoned synagogues and greenhouses that had been purchased as gifts for them. Instead of converting the synagogues into houses, schools, hospitals, or even mosques, they destroyed them. They also looted and destroyed the greenhouses in which they might have raised food. These are not the actions of rational creatures: even the lowest animal will take advantage of shelter that will put a roof over its head.
The Palestinians have also created a culture of death that previously existed only in science fiction stories. In Robert Sheckley's The Victim from Space, a man lands on a world whose inhabitants wanted to die violently. Violent death, a reward from the god Thangookari, was earned by performing deeds that served the society. "Rewards" (in ascending order) included being bashed over the head with a mace, having poisoned slivers driven under one's fingernails, being burned alive, being staked out on an anthill, and something known as "The Ultimate." Suicide, such as arranging to have a tree with long spines fall on yourself or arranging to have a bridge collapse under you, was considered a sin that resulted in punishment in the afterlife (because you had not done anything for the community that "merited" such a violent exit). This is in fact the kind of culture that the Palestinians have created, with children being raised from infancy to seek violent death as suicide bombers.
Finally, the Palestinian leaders have themselves said that the peace agreements they sign are hudnas or phony peaces whose only purpose is to gain concessions and to place them in more advantageous positions so they can destroy Israel. The very thought of negotiating with such entitites is inconceviable; the only responsible and rational response is to destroy them totally.
What Western Civilization has failed to recognize is that it is dealing with varelse, creatures that are so irrational that it is not possible to negotiate with them or make any kind of lasting peace with them. The only way to enjoy safety and peace is to quarantine and remove the varelse from contact with civilized societies, e.g. by expelling the Palestinians from all occupied territories.
Posted by Bill Levinson at December 9, 2005 05:51 PM
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1.
Anton
said:
Robert Sheckley died this morning in the Vassar clinic.
RIP.
Posted by: Anton on December 9, 2005 06:47 PM
2.
Rich
said:
That was a good analysis. But of all the fictional species, I'd compare the "palestinians" to Orcs from LOR.
Posted by: Rich on December 9, 2005 08:38 PM
3.
Bill Levinson
said:
Anton, I looked at Sheckley's site; a great loss.
Rich, there was actually a Palestinian Orc in the movie "The Two Towers." The bad guys set explosive charges under the walls of a fortress and the Palestinian Orc did an Olympic torch run right into the gunpowder and blew himself up along with the wall. (Most military engineers use fuzes they can light so they can get well clear of the blast before the charge detonates.)
Posted by: Bill Levinson on December 10, 2005 12:06 AM
4.
george
said:
What Western Civilization has failed to recognize is that it is dealing with varelse..
yes indeed, and even more disturbing is the moral degradation that it has sunk to.
truth and lies are irrelevant, victims are as guilty as aggressors, and we will willingly sell the hangman the rope to destroy us.
in its present degenerate state , it cannot defend itself from the exterminationist islamofascists
The refusal to condemn terror and instead attack those who seek to defend themselves pointing them out as perpetrators of "cyles of violence" is morally corrupt and indicates what we see in the UN and elsewhere. And all the hudnas lapped up by the western polticians and Journalists who know full well what they are!As soon as a jihadist agrees to longer behead infidels, he becomes a "moderate"!
Whatever tiny reasons are invented to justify the violence of arab muslims, they are purely for the west to agonise over and ingest into their hatred for their own society.
it is our vey existence not what we do or say that angers islamofascists, something few seem to be able to understand. And of course this does not apply only to israel and its Jews. We spend our time looking for reasons for our destruction!- Bush, Israel, neocons, marginalisation of immigrants- any reason to divert us from the truth that we simply have virtually no right to life , as it was for the Jews under Hitler.
How can we seek "a peaceful solution" when we fail to understand the problem?
Posted by: george on December 10, 2005 01:14 AM
5.
t
said:
You know there is a very simple way with dealing with this culture but no one save for the russians has the stomach to do it. I they send there son or daughter to kill your family, kidnap their remaining family and send their fingers and ears until they surrender! It's amazing how human they really can be!
Posted by: t on December 10, 2005 10:01 AM
6.
Bill Levinson
said:
Re: "You know there is a very simple way with dealing with this culture but no one save for the russians has the stomach to do it. I they send there son or daughter to kill your family, kidnap their remaining family and send their fingers and ears until they surrender! It's amazing how human they really can be!"
I read that the Palestinians kidnapped and killed four Israelis, and then exchanged the bodies for something like four hundred Palestinian terrorists. The Israelis actually released the terrorists so they could bury the four dead Israelis. Had it been up to me, I would have had forty terrorists selected by lot and executed, and then offered to exchange their bodies for the dead Israelis. (The lesson being that it is heap bad medicine, heap bad juju, to kill Israelis and expect to get anything back but dead Palestinians.) Of course, if I were running Israel, I would not have had four hundred terrorists to exchange in the first place because any Pallie caught conducting military or paramilitary operations while dressed as a civilian would have been shot as a spy.
Posted by: Bill Levinson on December 10, 2005 12:28 PM
7.
daniel horowitz
said:
Before liberalism was invented this was all a reality.
Posted by: daniel horowitz on December 10, 2005 06:44 PM
8.
Rajiv Singh
said:
Lefties are going to get us all killed. I agree entirely with Bill Levinson in "6".
Frankly population transfer of the Arabs is the only viable medium term solution which might be acceptable to a world that is busily getting rid of the death penalty.
Actually, you can never reason with Islamofascists, in Israel or Bali or anywhere else including Iran, so it is either them or us. However, this would be REALLY unpalatable to our sensitive Lefties.
Posted by: Rajiv Singh on December 11, 2005 06:13 AM
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Palestinians: Raman or Varelse?
by Bill Levinson
Science fiction writer Orson Scott Card offers terms that can be very useful in defining Civilization's conflict with Islamofascism: raman and varelse. Raman are creatures with whom we can communicate and reason even if they do not resemble us physically. Varelse are creatures with whom no communication or reason is possible. As stated by Card,
In Card's science fiction, the issue of whether an alien species is raman or varelse is an ethically-complex one. Even on our own world, animals of known intelligence (like dolphins) may communicate in ways we cannot easily imagine, and space aliens would present an even greater challenge. On the other hand, Islamofascists are physically just like ourselves and they communicate in words as we do. It is the Islamofascist mentality that makes them varelse.
As we shall see, varelse is probably a far more precise description than "subhuman." A rabid animal may be considered varelse because the disease that is destroying its brain makes it irrational. Punishing such an animal is both ineffective and useless sadism because, as the animal is not rational, punishment cannot modify its behavior. It must therefore be either quarantined or euthanized.
Normal human beings are rational, i.e. they act in their own interests. Even the most murderous dictator is acting rationally when he tries to take a neighboring country's land and wealth by force; he is seeking to enrich himself. The same goes for the most violent armed robbers and bandits. They are all, however, rational, and this means that they can be deterred by the threat or use of force.
The Islamofascist is not rational because it often does not even act in its own interests. When the Palestinians took over Gaza, for example, they were presented with abandoned synagogues and greenhouses that had been purchased as gifts for them. Instead of converting the synagogues into houses, schools, hospitals, or even mosques, they destroyed them. They also looted and destroyed the greenhouses in which they might have raised food. These are not the actions of rational creatures: even the lowest animal will take advantage of shelter that will put a roof over its head.
The Palestinians have also created a culture of death that previously existed only in science fiction stories. In Robert Sheckley's The Victim from Space, a man lands on a world whose inhabitants wanted to die violently. Violent death, a reward from the god Thangookari, was earned by performing deeds that served the society. "Rewards" (in ascending order) included being bashed over the head with a mace, having poisoned slivers driven under one's fingernails, being burned alive, being staked out on an anthill, and something known as "The Ultimate." Suicide, such as arranging to have a tree with long spines fall on yourself or arranging to have a bridge collapse under you, was considered a sin that resulted in punishment in the afterlife (because you had not done anything for the community that "merited" such a violent exit). This is in fact the kind of culture that the Palestinians have created, with children being raised from infancy to seek violent death as suicide bombers.
Finally, the Palestinian leaders have themselves said that the peace agreements they sign are hudnas or phony peaces whose only purpose is to gain concessions and to place them in more advantageous positions so they can destroy Israel. The very thought of negotiating with such entitites is inconceviable; the only responsible and rational response is to destroy them totally.
What Western Civilization has failed to recognize is that it is dealing with varelse, creatures that are so irrational that it is not possible to negotiate with them or make any kind of lasting peace with them. The only way to enjoy safety and peace is to quarantine and remove the varelse from contact with civilized societies, e.g. by expelling the Palestinians from all occupied territories.
Posted by Bill Levinson at December 9, 2005 05:51 PM