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Main Entry: re·flect
Pronunciation: \ri-ˈflekt\
Function: verb
Etymology: Middle English, from Latin reflectere to bend back, from re- + flectere to bend
Date: 15th century
transitive verb:
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archaic to turn into or away from a course: deflect
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to prevent passage of and cause to change direction <a mirror reflects light>
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to bend or fold back
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to give back or exhibit as an image, likeness, or outline <the clouds were reflected in the water>
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to bring or cast as a result <his attitude reflects little credit on his judgment>
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to make manifest or apparent <the painting reflect>s his artistic vision> <the pulse reflects the condition of the heart>
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realize, consider
intransitive verb
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to throw back light or sound
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to tend to bring reproach or discredit <an investigation that reflects on all the members of the department>
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to bring about a specified appearance or characterization <an act which reflects well on her>
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to have a bearing or influence
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At the risk of extreme pedantry, the distinction between transitive and intransitive verbs has a meaning worth considering in our thoughts about the Torture Memos. A transitive verb has an object eg <a mirror reflects light>. An intransitive verb has no object. It is an action performed by the subject, but performed on nothing else. In a sense, reflect is a perfect example. In it’s second meaning, it means look in the mirror and think about what you see. My previous posts about those Torture Memos are about looking at what they did and what to do about them. I make no apology about that. Something needs to be done.
But what about us. What have we done to contribute to the intense hatred expressed in the 9/11 attack, the fury of the Jihadists, the state of our relationships with the Arab world? What have we done to produce the possibility of a Bush Administration, an American government capable of doing the kinds of things that went on in the last eight years? I don’t want to think about that, but it’s a reasonable request…
We talk about cruel and inhumane regimes like Hitler, Stalin and people shudder with memories of their wicked and sadistic acts. Will President Obama open his eyes and see that we have to prosecute the criminals in our own country. We need to show the world that we punish people in our country when they do awful things to other human beings. We can’t just expose awful acts and say we won’t do that in the Obama Administration. Obama has opened pandora’s box.
There is darkness in the human soul and you ask us to consider it which is an utterly ‘reasonable’ request.
It involves deep currents of unreasonable reptilian reactivity in keeping with the “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” principle (I think anyway). I knbow I felt guilty when I experienced a rush of something akin to happiness upon learning that 3 hapless criminals fell as dead as fish on the deck of that lifeboat in the Indian Ocean last week. I recall my disturbance that the GI who uncovered Saddam in his hole restrained himself by not simply pulling the pin on a grenade and dropping it into the hole. If I could catch bin Laden or Zawahiri, my desire would be for them to walk up every step of the Empire State Building on all fours like a cur and then to jettison them from the top. I would love to take Rummy and Dick and others out into the Mojave desert, strip them naked and stake them to the ground with an attractant so that ants could get things going enough to bring on the buzzards and coyotes. I am not proud of these urges and gratifications of fantasy.