It is really incredible that Pinochet escaped any punishment at all. I was just at the Chilean Museum of Human Rights in Santiago a couple of weeks ago and it was heartbreaking reading about all these crimes against people. Horrific, and particularly horrific knowing that US was either abettor or architect of the whole operation, down from the top to the Chicago Boys.
Still, Chile seems to be faring fairly well now, so good for them. I found Salvador Allende's final speech as the coup succeeded to be so inspiring for someone on the threshold of death as his democratic government was to be savaged by a military junta.
> Other men will overcome this dark and bitter moment when treason seeks to prevail. Go forward knowing that, sooner rather than later, the great avenues will open again and free men will walk through them to construct a better society.
It was really something to see all this recent history of atrocity in a city and country that was otherwise fairly modern. What a tremendous use of this technology!
His greatest sin was getting too close to the Soviet Union. That's it. Comparing him to Pinochet is like saying that Roosevelt was just like Stalin because he was fine with putting the Japanese in the US in the internment camps during WW2.
A very well made documentary about Atacama desert, ALMA and people still looking for their relatives in the desert from the Pinochet killings. It's ranked as one of the greatest documentaries ever made.
There was actually a really interesting 2 hour interview with one of the CIA officers who was a part of that amongst many other controversial programs that just got posted in the last 24 hrs here https://www.youtube.com/live/WCgKF3RtTS0?feature=shared.
He talks about this and what a fuck up that was and how those things came to be which if you have some spare time is worth checking out.
Some of the stuff he has to say about Iraq (around 1hr mark) where he was the chief of operations was fairly jaw dropping and the bush administration really has a lot to answer for.
I know it's hard to believe but we live in an incredibly safe world compared to our forebearers. We get easy access to news so it seems not. Sorry for the Quora link but the answer is worth it, even though it's written in 2019 and so doesn't include recent tragedies:
Humans are terrible to each other, we are animals after all and sometimes I figure, well some people are still in their unevolved state and live in a dog-eat-dog world in their minds.
On a related note I highly recommend the 2022 film El Conde (The Count), where Pinochet is portrayed as an aging vampire. It's very on point. https://youtu.be/YGvX7ma7Xnk?feature=shared
I suppose the common consensus seems to involve some of these:
- It is partly in our heads / rose tinted specs / things are actually getting better / media reports on bad things more than good
- The system favours the unethical (it is easier to make it to the top of government if you are less ethical - or at least, less idealistic)
- Being ethical in general has a cost (you do everything that your competitors do, + also an ethical thing on top, which adds an extra cost and makes you less 'competitive')
- Maybe some of the things we see are just pragmatism, not evil (not the things you mention of course, but in general people may see the things they are doing as a consequentialist move).
- They may think they are the lesser of two evils, or otherwise justify their actions
- Differing views (You might see it as evil and they think it's good. Most people wake up with some kind of 'good intentions', they just are not good intentions in our view)
- Difference in 'individualism vs collectivism' values. Some people just think that the sacrifice is worth it for some supposed common good.
- People that are power hungry, are more likely to go after that power. Power hungry does not positively correlate with morals, or at least diverts attention away from morals.
- “power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely” and all that
- Idealists possibly get into power only to find that it's different on the inside. The 'grey hair effect' - Young bright anti-war meritocratic PM gets into office, sees something we don't, gets disollusioned or 'pragmatic', ends up committing to several wars.
- They don't see what they have done / they don't get the full impact delivered to them / they have a skewed picture of what's happened
- They don't control their generals as well as they thought
- Racism and other hate/fear
- Tragedy of the commons + a single person can't change the direction of the behemoth
- It gets funding from other nation states / actors that gain from the events
- The person may think that life is a zero-sum game, and they have to take from others rather than thinking synergy & cooperation would work
On top of your in-group, out-group business, the more your hands are on the levers of The Machine, the more its components look like dull, replaceable little cogs. It's almost a self-protective mechanism. Imagine your compassion fatigue if you had to evaluate your every action through fourth-order effects out in countries you've never visited.
Still, Chile seems to be faring fairly well now, so good for them. I found Salvador Allende's final speech as the coup succeeded to be so inspiring for someone on the threshold of death as his democratic government was to be savaged by a military junta.
> Other men will overcome this dark and bitter moment when treason seeks to prevail. Go forward knowing that, sooner rather than later, the great avenues will open again and free men will walk through them to construct a better society.
It was really something to see all this recent history of atrocity in a city and country that was otherwise fairly modern. What a tremendous use of this technology!