Reconciling "Intellect" and "Feeling"

Ever since I was introduced to the world of Cultural Anthropology (which I eventually chose as my major in college), I've been faced with the challenge of coming to terms with what I can see with my own two eyes and come to understand as fact, and what I feel based on my deeply engrained cultural notions. In other words, when I or someone is put in a situation or given a piece of information, we have the choice of reacting cerebrally, i,e. intellectually, or viscerally - deeply emotionally. These two concepts are polar to one another. To better illustate this I made a little picture:

I kind've see these two images as a representation of these two polar opposites - Mr Spock, lacking any emotion at all, and a stereotypical hippie, who I see as someone who reacts off of what they "feel" rather than what is actually out there simply because "they know."

So why am I even talking about this? During my travels I've been faced with a lot of gut feelings regarding the people I encounter and the things I do. During the day I have a lot of down time, so I take the opportunity to read different articles from different view points. As I've mentioned in previous posts, I spend a lot of time reading articles from Sabawoon Online, which has a really good database of articles relating to Afghanistan. They pull articles from almost every source available, from The Economist to Reuters to The Washington Post.

I consider myself to be relatively "patriotic" (for lack of a better term). I love my country, I spent 5 years in the Marines, and if I could get a decent job (while taking care of myself, of course) in the capacity of government work that I found enjoyable and fulfilling, I'd much rather do that than work for some CEO who's getting some serous coin off of my efforts.

I've always considered myself a realist, and questioning things isn't a new revelation that I'm just coming to terms with. It's not like I just graduated a highschool from a small farm town and am just beginning to realize that politicians tell lies and have ulterior motives. For me, it's an ongoing process - when we stop questioning what's around us and simply decide on a viewpoint, locking out all new information for what we feel to be "so," we turn into the hippy and are no better than many typical college students who gets a piece of information and runs with it without exploring other sides, because it makes "so much sense."

...But we are human, and as humans we are deeply emotional and in many ways slaves to our culture and upbringing. This is not a bad thing - it's what has made us successful and able to survive, but it's also an integral part of [our] destructive nature and ability to cause conflict among one another.

I thought I'd put this out there because it's something that is very much a part of my life out here, and something I've thought about after reading a lot of articles about a lot of suffering in the name of the prevention of suffering. Am I doing the right thing? Is democracy right for these people? Are the sacrifices these and many other people are making at present in good proportion to their society as a whole/the future of the society? How does one measure proportionate suffering? For those of us who are not in the midst of the horrors and ghastly results of modernization and democratization, it's easy to brush it off as a necessary evil in the name of social progress. However, I encourage you to read the following article which is about the long lasting effects of uranium depleted weapons that the USA uses on a reglar basis, and the long term effects it seems to be having on rural Afghanistan:
The Silent Genocide from America

Let me mention that I take issue with the term "genocide" used by the author in this article. Genocide implies an intentional, systematic extermination of a populace with the aim of wiping it out. The author, Mohammed Daud Miraki, is obviously putting a great deal of his own emotion into this article (what authors don't?), but he still has some compelling data.

The author quotes an Afghan who has seen some of the effects on his children:

"Tell the Americans, they kill us to sustain your way of life, when they enjoy living, they better think about the 15 members of my family. Tell them that they are guilty. Only if they had conscience, they would know that they are as guilty as their government."

I'm sure most Americans would be appalled by some of the images shown in the article, and would have nothing but sympathy for the father who was quoted. However, at the same time they would still be sure, whether outright or on a subconscious level, that this was a necessary suffering because the life that they enjoy should be enjoyed by everyone in the world, especially when considering the alternative, which was an oppressive theocracy where women had no rights and human rights violations were a rule rather an an exception.

So that's the reality. It's difficult to find a happy medium between things. Was liberating these people from an opperssive regime worth it? Should the USA just leave them alone and turn its head, just as its turned its head on areas of lesser strategic value?

The thing underlying these questions is the fact that as a society, we are allowed to ask these questions, are educated enough and informed/have access to enough information to be aware of international situations, and have the capacity to analyze them. These are not privledges extended to everyone in the world, and I'm sure that most Americans wouldn't see these things as privledges, but rather as their rights as a human being. However, these freedoms have come at an enormous cost. I would hope that the people who enjoy these percieved rights understand the value of them, and remind themselves to put a little bit of "Mr Spock" in analyzing the foundations of their perceptions regarding the rest of the world, and acknowledge the amount of suffering and sacrifice made by individuals before them to allow them to have such opinions for no cost and without responsibility.

That's all I have for now. Thanks for reading--