Pat C. said:
Still, it's the impossibility that you mention here that strikes me. I wonder what it would be like were it indeed possible for Boucher and
Nation
to have continue to valorize Blake at the same time that real political groups were using similar tactics against the British State. Were it possible to do this, would B7 have possibly opened up a space of debate
about
the nature of "terrorism" that it is now virtually impossible to locate
let
alone discuss?
But except for absolute pacifists, everyone accepts that under some circumstances, the use of violence is justified. The question is whether a particular use of violence is justified or not (or whether the degree is excessive). It's quite unusual for people to think of THEMSELVES as terrorists--instead, they believe that they must fight oppression/defend order; that they must contain aggression/defend their homeland's interests, etc.
I'm not quite sure what this space would look like but it seems that in valorizing Blake's actions as a "freedom fighter" I guess Boucher and
Nation
run the risk of possibly having their audience see the tactics of say the
IRA
as legitimate political actions, no less legitimate than Blake's.
But why? Apart from the yawning gap between fiction and reality, someone could argue that the IRA (as a whole, or in a particular action) was justified and Blake was not, or vice versa.
And second, I'm also wondering what possible effect it may have had in
terms
of reformulating the debate about what is and isn't "terrorism." The fascinating thing about B7 to me is the way in which it makes me take seriously the actions (blowing stuff up) that in another context I would
be
likely to dismiss out of hand as unacceptable, simplistically violent and illegitmate.
And to me one fascinating thing about B7 is that it makes me think about the moral implictions of blowing stuff up, whereas other "action-adventures" just blithely assume that blowing stuff up is a postulate of the genre.
-(Y)
PS--Pat and I had dinner last night in New York City, in a Mexican restaurant, and the ONLY dessert they had was fried ice cream.