I was in Afghanistan, first serving with the Dutch armed forces and later working for a company that built clinics and schools. After that I worked in eastern Africa for a rural electrification programme. While parts of these efforts may have been fruitless in hindsight, I still stand by these choices.
What have you done? I feel like I was (and am) willing to work towards putting an end to atrocities, at least within my limited influence. I am willing. Therefore I expect a similar level of caring for the lives of others from others.
Congrats. It seems the rhetorical device is lost on you, and you’re not inclined to view the statement more broadly from the perspective of the majority. The rhetorical device isn’t meant to be applied to a single individual case, but rather interpreted as a broad concept highlighting the situation of what people would envision for a ‘regular’ citizen. From that vantage, you’d be looking at a majority who simply try to make ends meet and who’s focus is largely on treading water in a system increasingly aimed at crushing the agency/freedom of its people. Most can’t afford to be altruistic, and there isn’t enough revenue to support larger volumes of people working in organisations aimed at helping impoverished areas.
But further, to put your situation slightly differently: it sounds like you were provided with an opportunity to work for the armed forces and for a company that built clinics and schools, because others in dutch society produced what was needed to maintain dutch lifestyles, and the excess of their labour allowed you to pursue more altruistic goals. It’s the same general concept as the rich being able to give to charities / social causes because they’ve fucked the poor and created social issues to become rich, but abstracted a bit to social values. And the practical reality that there are some people working in those countries towards worthwhile ends, isn’t really material to the broader situation: just like the fact that some rich people are philanthropists, doesn’t realistically change the amount of damage done by the wealthiest demographic collecting/hoarding the wealth that some of them trickle back via charity.
Your framing is bizarre to me, as it was never meant as a directed/individualistic comment. The presence of outliers doesn’t really impact the point I had been making, which is what I had to re-iterate once someone declared themself an outlier and pretended like that’d somehow be material.
Like if you make a post saying “People are struggling to afford groceries these days”, and someone responds back saying “I can afford groceries”, it doesn’t really change the validity of that first statement. It’s just that the person responding back doesn’t understand the context or something.
it was never meant as a directed/individualistic comment
You should probably have said something like “my bad” and explained yourself then, rather than insult people who read your words and all took the same thing away from them. Your intentions are meaningless when your words don’t explain them
Oh Boy. A keyboard warrior who tries to compensate for a lack of courage with a wall of text. Have a great life. I hope you come up with something good to do during the rest of it.
I was in Afghanistan, first serving with the Dutch armed forces and later working for a company that built clinics and schools. After that I worked in eastern Africa for a rural electrification programme. While parts of these efforts may have been fruitless in hindsight, I still stand by these choices.
What have you done? I feel like I was (and am) willing to work towards putting an end to atrocities, at least within my limited influence. I am willing. Therefore I expect a similar level of caring for the lives of others from others.
Congrats. It seems the rhetorical device is lost on you, and you’re not inclined to view the statement more broadly from the perspective of the majority. The rhetorical device isn’t meant to be applied to a single individual case, but rather interpreted as a broad concept highlighting the situation of what people would envision for a ‘regular’ citizen. From that vantage, you’d be looking at a majority who simply try to make ends meet and who’s focus is largely on treading water in a system increasingly aimed at crushing the agency/freedom of its people. Most can’t afford to be altruistic, and there isn’t enough revenue to support larger volumes of people working in organisations aimed at helping impoverished areas.
But further, to put your situation slightly differently: it sounds like you were provided with an opportunity to work for the armed forces and for a company that built clinics and schools, because others in dutch society produced what was needed to maintain dutch lifestyles, and the excess of their labour allowed you to pursue more altruistic goals. It’s the same general concept as the rich being able to give to charities / social causes because they’ve fucked the poor and created social issues to become rich, but abstracted a bit to social values. And the practical reality that there are some people working in those countries towards worthwhile ends, isn’t really material to the broader situation: just like the fact that some rich people are philanthropists, doesn’t realistically change the amount of damage done by the wealthiest demographic collecting/hoarding the wealth that some of them trickle back via charity.
You could just say “good work” and move on rather than debase yourself like this
Your framing is bizarre to me, as it was never meant as a directed/individualistic comment. The presence of outliers doesn’t really impact the point I had been making, which is what I had to re-iterate once someone declared themself an outlier and pretended like that’d somehow be material.
Like if you make a post saying “People are struggling to afford groceries these days”, and someone responds back saying “I can afford groceries”, it doesn’t really change the validity of that first statement. It’s just that the person responding back doesn’t understand the context or something.
You should probably have said something like “my bad” and explained yourself then, rather than insult people who read your words and all took the same thing away from them. Your intentions are meaningless when your words don’t explain them
Oh Boy. A keyboard warrior who tries to compensate for a lack of courage with a wall of text. Have a great life. I hope you come up with something good to do during the rest of it.