For those of us, unfortunately, in the imperial core, what steps should we take to stop a US war with China over Taiwan? I’ve honestly been pretty scared since the war in Ukraine started knowing that China is next. We must avoid this at all costs to save the thousands of Chinese lives that will be sacrificed by the west in their bid to reestablish a unipolar world.

While I’m not discounting the achievements of the anti-war movement in support of Vietnam, the war still waged on for years. The same with Iraq. What should be done differently?

    • severien@lemmy.world
      53·
      1 year ago

      If you condemn the events leading to the status quo, then it’s necessarily the case that you should not take the status quo as any sort of ethical baseline.

      That’s quite impractical since all nations and their borders were established as a result of unethical conquest. This can be used as a justification for an unending cycle of violence.

        • severien@lemmy.world
          11·
          1 year ago

          My POV is that old events whose participants are dead stop being relevant for future moral actions. We should prefer justice for the living as opposed to justice for the already dead.

            • severien@lemmy.world
              11·
              1 year ago

              The problem is that it’s all a huge “what if” amenable for any narrative you want. In the end it provides justification for the never ending cycle of violence on people having no personal guilt.

                • severien@lemmy.world
                  11·
                  1 year ago

                  Forcing people to be responsible for more than their immediate actions

                  What you’re saying is that children should carry the responsibility for the acts of their ancestors.

                  if I include an unjust status quo in my reasoning, then I might also use violence to free myself from the consequences of past violence, but that would not create a “cycle” wherein a stable, nonviolent state cannot be reached, since every “allowed” instance of violence would still only be associated one-to-one with an equivalent instance of “disallowed” violence.

                  Who’s the judge of whether it’s “allowed” violence? If we say that the status quo of Franco-German relationship is built on the past injustice, and that this should be fixed, who will count all the past centuries of wars and massacres and calculate the outstanding balance?

                  Because if you let it both sides do it for themselves, then they both will naturally come to the conclusion that they’ve been unjustly treated and that the other side has to pay for that. In the end it will be the stronger one, not the morally correct one, who wins. For a time, then the sides will switch => cycle of violence is IMHO unavoidable if you hold the opinion that past sins are never forgotten.

                  Now, if my family’s wealth was robbed long ago, I would have a right to recover it

                  History is basically never so nicely clear-cut. I mean, have you studied your family tree and made sure that all of that family wealth was gathered via perfectly moral means? What if it turns out that your grand grandfather was a soldier who brought home some gold of dubious origins?