ciphergoth | Internationalism and voilition (Reply)

Thanks for some thought-provoking responses to my small rant about internationalism in my previous journal entry.

It would help if people made it clear whether they consider what they are describing to be essentially an involuntary feeling that they report on, or a chosen stance. Who we fancy, for example, is almost entirely involuntary, but who we have sex with is chosen. It's a normal part of human life that these two can be polar opposites, as when we resist the temptation to do some immoral thing, or when I declare that I value human life more than animal life even though I have felt more grief over the death of one cat than over the death of 10,000 people in an earthquake.

By this distinction, who we feel for is an involuntary feeling, while who we wish victory or good fortune to is a voluntary stance. When I say that I had hoped to see a greater spirit of internationalism, that's in reference to the chosen stance that people take: that we should consider the life of an Iraqi soldier or civilian to be as valuable as the life of an American or British one. What people described in response were their involuntary feelings about the lives of these people, which is an interesting but distinct discussion.

I recognise the feelings that people describe. For example, I feel a closeness to London that comes from having been born and raised there, and from living there a long time. I know and like London and its people. Where my stance is that something doesn't really matter one way or the other, I can relax and enjoy my involuntary feelings, for example by cheering on the London team in a London vs Baghdad game of Which Rabbit. But it seems inappropriate to say the least to allow our hearts to rule our heads in matters of global life and death; to be internationalists, we must make a deliberate effort to put aside any biases we may carry with us about who is most similar to ourselves and choose a stance based on the interests of all of humanity.

Furthermore, though I describe these feelings as "involuntary", that's only a partial description. We experience them as involuntary, but that's not to say we have no power over them; people make deliberate efforts to change their feelings in order to quit smoking, recover from a phobia, or get over a lost lover. When we catch ourselves affected by, for example, the sexist feelings that the society we live in encourages, we make a deliberate effort to change the way we feel about that too. I would have hoped that people would see feelings of national loyalty in the same light, as an involuntary feeling, in contradiction to our chosen stance, that we would make a deliberate effort to change.

Footnote: I don't really want to spark off a big debate about free will by using the words "involuntary" or "chosen". For these purposes, consider "chosen" to be "that for which we hold you responsible". Since we're all happy to sometimes hold people responsible for some things that they do, we can all recognise this distinction.