So . . . there has been a bit of a meaningless storm over some comments that Tony Bennett made on the Howard Stern show last week. Personally I don't think he said anything too controversial, if you actually think about the content of his words. I'm not "blame America" type, nor am I a conspiracy theorist when it comes to 9/11 - mass murder was committed that day and those responsible should pay (some have). But I do think this illustrates a good example of how polarizing an issue can remove some of the opportunity to learn.
Here's a clip of Bennett on the Stern Show. What does he say, really? "Who are the terrorists? Are they the terrorists or are we the terrorists?" This same question is frequently applied to any armed conflict, and we have a tendency to blind ourselves to other perspectives. In times of war, this is particularly useful to governments, because you don't want soldiers or civilians questioning the will of the state. But this us-against-them, "with us or against us" mentality dehumanizes the adversary and rationalizes terrible actions. Especially considering that the other side in a war most certainly considers our side to be the equivalent of terrorists. Are they right? I can't say. But does it really matter? Whether he meant to or not, all Bennett was saying was that there are multiple perspectives. Nothing wrong with that.
He then explains (if you can call it that; Tony Bennett seems to be far from an expert on the history of conflict) that "we were bombing them and they asked us to stop." From there he says it escalated to the point that "they" needed to disproportionately react, which incidentally is a response many support in opposition to terror attacks. Note that Bennett isn't saying that they were right to do so, just that they had a rationale. This should not be controversial. Anyone who does anything has a rationale; otherwise they would be crazy. No one is claiming the 9/11 terrorists were clinically insane. They believed they had a valid reason to do what they did. By any standard of decency or morality they were wrong, but they did have a point of view.
The danger here is that we confuse "rationale" with "valid reason that supports the action taken." All events have causes, even if we don't or can't know and understand them. A person murders another because of a perceived slight; the murderer has a rationale, but the murder is still wrong. The 9/11 attacks were wrong (which sounds way too weak), no matter what the rationale.
I remember getting into an argument with a friend shortly after 9/11. He was saying, similar to what Bennett said, that America invited the attacks through its behaviour towards other countries. I disagreed, and likened that to saying that if a woman who dressed provocatively were raped that she was "asking for it." At that time, I was behaving like those who are overreacting to Tony Bennett's comments. It is entirely possible that the rapist in my scenario committed his crime because of how the victim was dressed. That does not implicate the victim nor does it excuse the crime, because to do so would be to say that a reason is the same as an excuse. In any such scenario, the offender has the choice of whether or not to commit the act, and if he does so, he is guilty despite any potential reason.
ABC News' blog has a post saying that Bennett "changed his tune" about his comments on the Stern Show because he posted on his Facebook page that there is no excuse for the murder of 3000 people. He never claimed there was. He just said that the perpetrators believed they had a reason, not that it excused them. To oversimply and say that there is no rationale for a crime assumes that people do not have the capacity for complex thought. If we continue down this path, we may very well lose that ability.
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