A curious hypothetical dilemma for you all

[Marshchild]

While watching a current affairs programme recently about the sorry state of affairs that still exists in Afghanistan, I wondered how many of the country’s inhabitants would be hankering for the “good old days” of the Taliban, and how many would be waxing nostalgic for the equally “golden era” of the country’s former Marxist dictatorship. This in turn led me to contemplate a dilemma that requires one to choose between two truly unpalatable alternatives: if you had to live in one or the other, would you prefer to reside in a Communist dictatorship or an Islamic fundamentalist one? Myself, I’d choose the former one (if only because, for all their faults, the Communists at least never listed “dragging society back to the Dark Ages” among their stated aims), although, given that I’ve been fortunate never to have lived under either kind of tyranny, my choice is by no means an informed one.

 

[Contrabass101]

None of the two types of government are unambiguous.

It depends on how severe they are, which can vary wildly.

 

[Marshchild]

That’s true. I’ve heard that the rule in a lot of Communist countries became progressively more relaxed before those countries discarded that ideology for good. Hungary is an example that springs to mind, as is Afghanistan; I once heard that the latter country’s Marxist regime was reasonably liberal during its final years, certainly compared to the Taliban regime which followed it a few years later.

On the Islamic side of things, I believe that Iran - once the model of a repressive Islamic state - has been liberalizing a lot during the last decade or so, although it’s still not a terribly free country by Western standards. Saudi Arabia would be another country I’d consider to be a hardline Islamic dictatorship, although the fact that there are Muslim extremists there seeking to overthrow the current rulers would seem to suggest that some people don’t regard it as hardline enough.

 

[Sair]

As a woman, I think I would have to say that communism would be preferable to the selective oppression exercised by the Taliban. However, I too have been fortunate never to have lived under either, so can’t make a genuinely informed choice. I think the looking back and preferring the ‘good old days’ would definitely depend upon the position you held in the former social structures.

 

[St_Francis]

Questions like these are kind of weird because it’s rather like asking would you prefer to be hanged or electrocuted?

 

[Marshchild]

Questions like these are kind of weird because it’s rather like asking would you prefer to be hanged or electrocuted?

Actually, I’ve probably asked myself that sort of question as well before (and while I know you’re only posing it rhetorically yourself, I’d probably go for hanging - it strikes me as marginally less unpleasant)! I don’t know - I just like contemplating really thorny dilemmas (while hoping I never have to confront them in real life!), and posing them to others, to see if they’d make a different choice to mine (and if so, find out why).

 

[St_Francis]

Actually, I’ve probably asked myself that sort of question as well before (and while I know you’re only posing it rhetorically yourself, I’d probably go for hanging - it strikes me as marginally less unpleasant)! I don’t know - I just like contemplating really thorny dilemmas (while hoping I never have to confront them in real life!), and posing them to others, to see if they’d make a different choice to mine (and if so, find out why).

However, you don’t get a choice in these situations, so there’s no point. God gave us our imagination for a reason, and I don’t think that speculating about things that are extremely unlikely and in which you would have no choice is a good thing. I myself used to misuse my imagination and it had a bad effect on me, because I would imagine *having done *things and then I had a lot of trouble slogging through the doing, iyswim.

 

[Marshchild]

God gave us our imagination for a reason, and I don’t think that speculating about things that are extremely unlikely and in which you would have no choice is a good thing.

Oh, I don’t know. In my spare time, I do a lot of fiction writing, and I find that agonizing dilemmas make for compelling storytelling.

 

[St_Francis]

Oh, I don’t know. In my spare time, I do a lot of fiction writing, and I find that agonizing dilemmas make for compelling storytelling.

I hope that you are Catholic, because we need more good Catholic literature