The GOOD L!FE:

Obviously, the defense of innocents against murder is never the expression of a partisan bias or an attempt to preserve some cozy and complacent state of privilege. Life is not a privilege, but a right, regardless of the extent to which one goes to preserve it in one’s self or other people, and even if an extremely comfortable life could be considered tantamount to murder in the context of more pressing matters, that would not justify retaliation without violating the most sacred principle of civilization: treating others’ Lives as values. Furthermore, the comfortable life, if lived in accordance with certain principles, might very well be the most modest and virtuous life, irrespective of the grandiosity of the means within which one might operate. In the absence of political certainty, martyrdom of any kind can turn to vainglory, and it follows logically and instinctively to suspect that happiness and peace of mind are symptoms not only of a clean conscience but of genuinely good behavior. Additionally, the entire question of what is to be regarded as good or bad, tragic or comic, imperative or negligible, requires a certain faculty of mind which is at once alert and relaxed, diligent yet receptive. The ethical principles governing such a life are Universal in the sense that anyone who can afford to live this way would probably choose to, and because the pursuit of this lifestyle is justifiable the lifestyle itself cannot be evil. It is embarrassing to the sane mind, therefore, to hear people denounce our rightful feelings of indignation in the wake of tragic violence, appealing to the delusion that our posture is a privileged one and that our intent is to exclude. One cannot rightfully and reasonably hate a man whom one wishes to become. If we show less sympathy for violence outside of our neighbourhoods, it is still a greater sympathy than the members of weaker neighbourhoods show one another, which is why we come to take for granted those tragedies which have become customary for those people, often by their own consent and veneration, though this does not, of course, excuse the matter either; it simply places the responsibility in the hands of those whom inhabit those same areas.

[({Dm.A.A.)}]