OK, so the other day, I was in a bar with a few friends and we ended up two steps away from a nice round of waltzing Matilda with this guy who basically claimed that we had no authority to speak on the Vietnam War because we weren’t there……man.
The aspect of knowing war aside, sure, I will freely admit that there is no way that I can know exactly without a doubt every aspect of a war without seeing every aspect of that war firsthand. However, I have some serious issues with this argument that empirical knowledge trumps reasoning in all cases.
First, by using only empirical knowledge (knowledge taken from experience), any given event will have a very detailed accounting. However, this accounting is not neccessarily accurate. Suppose that the person is scared, drunk, angry, horny, happy, or just plain stupid. All of these emotions can easily cloud a persons judgement into distorting his or her account of an event.
Secondly, who is right? Suppose I have three different accounts of an event which all differ equally? Which one is right? The one which merely agrees with whatever theory I am trying to support. I guess that could work, seems to have worked for the Bush Administration.
Thirdly, my account represents a microhistory. One small tiny piece of the entire story. I can tell you about my personal experiences in Iraq, or Afghanistan, and they would be true stories, however, they would not reflect the same story as any other Marine, even those in my own unit. And it is very likely that my account and personal history would be very different from the story an entire army or country would tell regarding the war. Although, my account would be true, and so would theirs.
Take this simple test to determine whether you believe that a empirical evidence trumps reasoning: Take a fork, and stick it into your eye……Done? Good, now post a comment and tell me how it feels, and then I will have an idea of how it feels, although I would not know with certainty until I stick the fork into my own eye. Now, don’t use a knife, it might feel different, I’ll let a spork slide, since it does incorporate some aspects of a fork, spoon and knife.
What? You didn’t do it? Well then, that clearly means that you believe that reason is more important than experience. You didn’t stick the fork into your eye because you know that harming your own body will cause pain, and that pain isn’t a good thing, and therefore, you shouldn’t do things which are likely to cause pain, i.e. sticking a fork into your own eye.
Of course, in retrospect, maybe I should have asked you to stick the fork into your heart, or brain. This would also be an effective solution to convince the population that reason is better than experience. Even better, I should ask everyone to cut out their own tounges.
Now why would this have any impact upon the rest of the world? Well, yeah, i’m an Iraq and Afghanistan vet. OK, guess what, I can tell you first-hand that getting shot at sucks. Its better than the alternative, of getting shot. or at least, so I would reason, I can’t tell you for sure, and I don’t really want to find out. But did I really need to tell you that?
