by Laurence Peterson at 3 Quarks Daily: I do not specifically remember when I lost my you-know-what about the way the word “humanitarian” is being tossed around these days. Possibly it was when a State Department spokesperson referred to what he called “humanitarian circumstances”, implying thereby that the designation could be sensibly applied to purely chance events. Or maybe the sheer obscenity of tagging the word to “zones” in middle of what is probably the most hellish place on earth right now (only to bomb the same areas anyway, subsequently) did the trick. Whatever it was, I have decided to try, for what it is worth, to come to terms with the matter. So here goes.
In my lifetime, which has spanned 63 years and some change now, I don’t recall the word being used that much except to describe individual persons and certain organizations, until rather recently. But, maybe starting in the ‘nineties, conditions began taking on the designation, especially in the media and in public relations; and phrases like the one I have chosen for my title, “humanitarian disaster”, or “humanitarian catastrophe” became more common. I distinctly remember at this time being annoyed by this: was the disaster supposed to be experienced primarily by the humanitarians? It kind of sounded to me like that was a real possibility. If that was not the case, why use the word humanitarian at all? Why not just call it a disaster or catastrophe? It seemed like something unseemly lay at the core of the reasoning that surrounded the employment of such phrases; like something rather sanctimonious was being smuggled in, too.
So I decided to try to understand what might be at the logical core of this kind of usage of words. What struck me at first was the employment of the word humanitarian was possibly being invested with a tacit, but palpable preeminence amongst possible adjectives in any specific case. Humanitarian concerns are somehow supposed to reflect a self-evident moral superiority over other ones, so that when the word is employed, there is a suggestion that the humanitarian concern should, perhaps prima facie, be considered the most important consideration. I am certain many people would, naively or otherwise, assent to this assertion (some environmentalists might consider environmental concerns to be paramount compared to humanitarian ones in certain cases, but, even here, many of them would consider both environmental and humanitarian matters to be of utmost importance).
More here.
