“The Medium is the Message”
This painting addresses the deep unrest I feel about our government's increasing use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV's or drones) to assassinate people we assert are a threat to us and our interests. We assert that we have intelligence linking to the Taliban or Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Our government takes these actions in secret and don't acknowledge publicly that they are taking them.
There appears to be no check on our government's executive power to kill anyone, anywhere in the world we deem a threat.
Social Assassination
I completed this piece in response to the Brehm Lectures. The day after I completed it this week Israel launched their offensive near Gaza. Not only have they made heavy use of UAV missile strikes for targeted assassinations openly, but they have been using twitter to post links to video from the drone strikes and Photoshopped images of people they have killed listing the alleged crimes for which they have been judged and executed - their faces rendered in red.
Shane Hipps, Barry Taylor and Ryan Bolger discussed Marshall Mcluhan's assertion that all technology is an extension of one or more human senses. We are now witnessing an extension of not just our senses but our agency to kill with the technology of UAV's and the strikes they enable and justify. The fact of our being able to do them is being mistaken for a value or moral imperative to do them. The minimized "collateral damage," to nearby women, children and other unintended targets is taken as a supporting argument.
My Objections
I object to people killing people. I especially object to governments killing people. I object even more when they do it without any check on that power and without transparent oversight. Secret courts don't count as a check precisely because they are secret.
We have extended our selves to our great moral, ethical, economic and human peril.
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Matthew Lumpkin is a polymath. That's all he wanted his bio to say. If you want to know more, visit his website where you can learn about the music he makes, the talks he gives, the images he sketches, and the conversations he is starting.
Comments (8)
As I said, I object to people killing people. When they do it often causes retaliation and the retaliator to feel justified in taking the same sort of action. In short, violence causes us to become the "monsters" who hurt us. No matter how far we distance ourselves through drones, rockets or bullets, the use of violence transforms and deforms both the giver and the receiver.
I singled out Israel in the post but my painting is critiquing all those who would turn their human brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, daughters and sons into "collateral damage," "monsters" or any other mask that makes them easier to kill. To say that Israel has had to adopt the tactics of terrorists (assassination etc.) to fight terrorists or that America has had to do the same is to admit that we are becoming what we most fear and deride.
Sen. John McCain, himself a victim of terror, torture and detention without due process, said it best, I think when he said that it comes down to what sort of nation we are going to be after 9/11; that is, how are we going to let it change our character or not. I'm afraid it has hastened our path toward becoming something we would once have despised.
Thanks for taking a look and reading what I had to say.
However , no matter how well intended, your positions are morally confused, and imply a reluctance to make distinctions between good and evil; and they show a lack of understanding of the seriousness and difficultly of dealing with evil. They are simplistic liberal positions based on emotions and lofty intentions, untempered by history, logic, and reason.
Perhaps you feel the restatement of your position serves as an answer to my earlier questions. It doesn't. It's avoidance, and doesn't suffice as a respectful academic response. Thus has to be the end of our conversation. Perhaps you will engage more seriously to questions others present to you in the future.
However, I also believe it is unrealistic to expect any government to accept Jesus' ethic and act accordingly. After all, we do have a secular government in the United States, and many people strongly believe in the separation of church and state. I don't think we can have it both ways: both a separation of church and state, AND the expectation that the state will accept the church's ethics on the use of violence (then there would be no separation of church and state). So either we demand that our government practice non-violence as much as possible and accept that the separation of church and state isn't the best idea, or we stick with the church/state separation and acknowledge that this means less religious influence on the state's actions and ethics.
Also, I don't believe that all use of violence is strictly condemned in scripture or Jesus' teaching. It is certainly the least desirable path. If we examine all of Jesus' teachings, we see that he emphasized peace making, but also acknowledged the reality of violence and defense (admonishing disciples to take a sword, becoming irate and using violence to overturn the money changers' tables, etc).
Certainly, as a Christian, I believe that non-violence is the best course. But I also acknowledge that sometimes violence is a reality. All forms of human government have had a basic mandate to protect it's citizens through the use of military, if necessary. Many governments have gone far beyond that and caused much harm in using too much violence. Using UAV's might be leaning closer to the latter. However, one of the primary reasons that government exists is to protect citizens and make war when necessary. I think it was pretty clear that our government's response to the terror attacks on 9/11 required military intervention to protect citizens from further attacks. I also think Israel has a responsibility to protect it's citizens from suicide bombers, rockets, and other terror attacks through the use of military intervention. However, as your article points out, there is a fine line between protecting lives and becoming monsters, and both the United States and Israel have sometimes crossed that line.
Therefore, I believe that a reasonable Christian understanding of this issues is realistic in acknowledging the reality of violence and secular governments, while also looking toward Jesus as a model and acknowledging that peace making is always superior to war making.
Should the U.S. just let terrorists plan, operate, and attack us and our soldiers, or might bumping off a few key Taliban monsters via drones, in the conflict areas, cause less suffering for all sides in the long run?
Suggest you write to the president, who has run the defense department for the last 4 years, and give him your opinion.