MORAL EQUIVALENCY?
I'm just about to commit the ultimate journalistic sin--talk about a movie I haven't seen yet. So I apologize in advance, especially to the people who made Munich and those serious reviewers who have gone to the trouble of seeing it first. But the key term I keep seeing in other people's reviews of Spielberg's latest film is "moral equivalency." Spielberg either is or isn't (the reviewers have a hard time agreeing) saying that the Palestinian terrorists who murdered 12 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympic games in 1972 were no worse than the Israeli intelligence agents who assassinated the terrorists.
The dispute over "moral equivalency" had its beginnings not long after the actual occurrences of Munich in 1972. That was roughly when an increasing proportion of the American and European Left began to see the Palestinians as "freedom fighters" and the Israeli government and its various military and civilian agencies as fairly close to fascism. It was also, not altogether coincidentally, right around when the US finally made a mutual defense treaty with Israel (1974, to be exact.) It was right around when the Know-Very-Little wing of the American Left began simultaneously denouncing Israeli influence on US foreign policy and denouncing Israel as a puppet of US imperialism in the Mideast. (Never before or since have I more deeply regretted my inability to draw--imagine a cartoon of two puppets, Uncle Sam and Moshe Dayan, for instance, pulling each other's strings!)
I don't know whether Spielberg's film espouses moral equivalency or not. I rather suspect not, judging from the large number of people denouncing it from both ends of the political spectrum. He must be doing something right.
But I'm not sure I am totally opposed to "moral equivalency", either. No, I don't believe the Israeli Army in any significant way resembles the SS. But, if I were a Palestinian civilian, I might have more trouble telling the difference. From the point of view of the average civilian in any war zone, it's hard not to see the soldiers on both sides, and for that matter their spies and secret agents, as virtually identical. As Joseph Heller's Yossarian said in Catch-22, "the enemy" is anyone who's trying to get you killed. In that WWII classic, Yossarian decided that the enemy was not only the Axis powers and their armed forces, but the Allied brass, who kept requiring his squadron to fly more and more missions when they obstinately kept coming back alive from the last batch.
And then there's the matter of theological equivalency. If you start with the premise that all human beings are made in the divine image, then all homicides are at least equally problematic, if not equally sinful. All homicides should impose at least an equal spiritual and emotional cost in decision-making beforehand and in trauma afterward. I hope this is what Spielberg is saying.
The dispute over "moral equivalency" had its beginnings not long after the actual occurrences of Munich in 1972. That was roughly when an increasing proportion of the American and European Left began to see the Palestinians as "freedom fighters" and the Israeli government and its various military and civilian agencies as fairly close to fascism. It was also, not altogether coincidentally, right around when the US finally made a mutual defense treaty with Israel (1974, to be exact.) It was right around when the Know-Very-Little wing of the American Left began simultaneously denouncing Israeli influence on US foreign policy and denouncing Israel as a puppet of US imperialism in the Mideast. (Never before or since have I more deeply regretted my inability to draw--imagine a cartoon of two puppets, Uncle Sam and Moshe Dayan, for instance, pulling each other's strings!)
I don't know whether Spielberg's film espouses moral equivalency or not. I rather suspect not, judging from the large number of people denouncing it from both ends of the political spectrum. He must be doing something right.
But I'm not sure I am totally opposed to "moral equivalency", either. No, I don't believe the Israeli Army in any significant way resembles the SS. But, if I were a Palestinian civilian, I might have more trouble telling the difference. From the point of view of the average civilian in any war zone, it's hard not to see the soldiers on both sides, and for that matter their spies and secret agents, as virtually identical. As Joseph Heller's Yossarian said in Catch-22, "the enemy" is anyone who's trying to get you killed. In that WWII classic, Yossarian decided that the enemy was not only the Axis powers and their armed forces, but the Allied brass, who kept requiring his squadron to fly more and more missions when they obstinately kept coming back alive from the last batch.
And then there's the matter of theological equivalency. If you start with the premise that all human beings are made in the divine image, then all homicides are at least equally problematic, if not equally sinful. All homicides should impose at least an equal spiritual and emotional cost in decision-making beforehand and in trauma afterward. I hope this is what Spielberg is saying.
posted by WiredSisters at 11:52 AM
2 Comments:
I'm curious, have you been to see it yet as of 1/21?
My take was that the movie didn't really present any kind of "moral equivalence" between the two killing sprees but rather presented the descent and the recognition of that descent into moral ambiguity by the main character. He grows to see himself as a political pawn, but still presses ahead for what I would consider ever murkier reasons.
Maybe things could be summed up with "Revenge is not an action movie." Eric Bana is not playing some Steven Seagall character.
I liked that the ending was left so unresolved and emotionally ambiguous. It fit the notion of "righteous man" trying to do more good than evil in the world but never really sure that it is true.
I can see where some would read moral equivalence--the set piece speech by the young Palestinian about his dreams the night before his death could be construed as the setting up a parallelism to the "right to exist" of Israel. But I think ultimately what is parallel is the fact that both streams of violence were but smaller moments in a longer history in which justifications rarely had a great deal to do with the actual actions.
Sorta twisty prose...hope it gets the idea across.
Jon
No, I still haven't seen the movie. Mr. Dissociated and I normally buy the DVD when it comes out, and watch it when we feel like it. Better screening and sound, cheaper popcorn, better company. Thanks for your review.
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