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Could it be that the film 300 -- plus the grassroots sensation of my friend Evan Sayet's YouTube video (160,000 views and counting) -- signal the beginning of the end of moral ambiguity?
Here's Victor Davis Hanson on 300:
The phrase "300 Spartans" evokes not only the ancient battle of Thermopylae, but also the larger idea of fighting for freedom against all odds - a notion subsequently to be enshrined through some 2500 years of Western civilization.
...almost immediately, contemporary Greeks saw Thermopylae as a critical moral and culture lesson. In universal terms, a small, free people had willingly outfought huge numbers of imperial subjects who advanced under the lash. More specifically, the Western idea that soldiers themselves decide where, how, and against whom they will fight was contrasted against the Eastern notion of despotism and monarchy - freedom proving the stronger idea as the more courageous fighting of the Greeks at Thermopylae, and their later victories at Salamis and Plataea attested.
And here's Glenn Reynolds on 300:
... the movie industry -- or at least the critic section thereof -- is stuck in the 1970s, when moral ambiguity and angst used to be groundbreaking and novel. Now they're overdone, predictable and boring.
Is it a coincidence that at this moment, Sayet's YouTube video is attracting such attention, that Victor Davis Hanson and Dennis Miller were talking about Evan, enthusiastically, on the radio last night? Sayet makes powerful points illuminating the absurdist logic of moral ambiguity.
An end of moral ambiguity could have a massive impact on global geopolitics. To take one example, it's time for Israel to thrill the world by saying, loud and clear, that Israel stands for freedom, democracy, achievement, science, and equality of the sexes, and that those who do not recognize its right to exist, have neither freedom, nor democracy, nor achievements, nor science, nor equality of the sexes. That alone would electrify - and change - the world.
#1
#2You are very right. Unfortunately, at this moment in time, Israel is run by a party that epitomizes moral ambiguity. You have a Prime Minister who is deluded and believes that every decision that he makes is the right one and that he is not accountable for any mistake that has been. Last summer's war is a case in point. He was interviewed about it about a month after the war ended, and he was a lawyer through and through. He had an answer for everything, and in all cases, he was either not to blame, or it was some-body else's fault. But, as your article mentions, there is a general shift to the right in Israeli thinking. The majority of Israel fully comprehends that the Palestinians are not interested in peace and that there is no hope for another unilateral withdrawal bringing any sort of peace. Of course, this hasn't stopped Olmert from saying that the Israeli people are prepared to make sacrifices. Of course we are, but not while those sacrifices are made for nothing but empty words from a people calling for our utter annihilation. Olmert doesn't listen to this part. He is ONLY a 3% approval rating, and just brushes this off by saying "I am not a popular Prime Minister, so what?" In any case, when this government falls, you will see the disappearance of that moral ambiguity with the right parties decimating the voices of moral relativism. That's when you will see us stand tall. That's when you will see our freedom and democracy in action and speaking volumes.
-OC
#3I had no idea Olmert's approval rating was so low. Thanks for this great post, Olah.
#4Hi! Your site appeared very useful to me. Excellent work, thanks.
#5I don’t think that end of moral ambiguity could change the world.
#6I don't think that moral ambiguity will end.
Why are people so afraid of it? They seem to equal moral ambiguity with lack of morality. And they're wrong.
#7Israel is in the fight for her life. In this day and age protecting ones self is a balancing act. Unless of course your George Bush, then you give 'm 24 hrs to get our of town. True patriots will fight to the death for Freedom. Its a powder keg in the middle east, and its fixin to blow. The threats against Israel and America are loud and clear, its amazing to me that so many wont hear it
I don't think that end of moral ambiguity could change the world.
Moral ambiguity will exist forever.