Judith Butler Quotes
Cameras help to minimize collateral damage, and very often, without a camera a missile cannot fire. Certainly, without a camera a drone can't function, which means that the very ways in which we wage war are determined in part by how cameras work and whether they work at all.
Butler, Judith. Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable?. Verso Books, 2009.
Mahathir, in his moral assessment, fails to come to grips with the fact that the Coalition forces in their Afghan and Iraq activities attempt to kill and injure as few people as possible to accomplish their objective. The terrorists attempt to kill and injure as many people as possible. In the September 11 attack, the buildings could have been attacked late at night so there would be few casualties, and in Bali they could have bombed the facility after it had closed instead of waiting until there was the largest audience. And the terrorist bombs include nails, rat poison, and other additional material designed not to do more building damage, but to kill and maim more people which is their specific objective. Most wars have collateral damage and the parties are required to make a good faith attempt to minimize that. But the terrorists not only make no attempt, but make strong efforts to kill as many as possible. That is a huge moral and ethical distinction.
Judith Pamela Butler is an American philosopher and gender theorist whose work has influenced political philosophy, ethics, and the fields of third-wave feminist, queer, and literary theory. In 1993, Butler began teaching at the University of California, Berkeley, where they have served, beginning in 1998, as the Maxine Elliot Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature and the Program of Critical Theory. They are also the Hannah Arendt Chair at the European Graduate School.
