Talk:Theory of the two demons

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[edit] Formulation of the thesis

I've just reverted a small change in this paragraph:

The thesis of this doctrine is that violent subversive actions undertaken by some radical groups prior to and during the rightist dictatorship (such as bombing state buildings or kidnapping and murdering government officials) in order to establish a leftist dictatorship are morally comparable to the actions and tactics employed by the military junta at the time to counter that kind of subversion and suffocate violent dissidence.

The addition in bold is controversial POV and needs at least some sources to show that in fact the subversive actions intended to bring about a left-wing dictatorship. Besides that, the comment clearly does not belong, since the mention of this alleged goal creates a "mirror" effect ("rightist dictatorship" ... "leftist dictatorship") that can be easily taken as support for the doctrine of the two demons, since that's precisely what it claims: that the Dirty War was really a war between two comparable armies of opposing ideologies ("right" vs. "left"). --Pablo D. Flores 14:20, 17 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Article as a whole is not appropriate (methodological issue)

You could argue that there is no such doctrine, i.e. that nobody ever embraced it (the way some people did embrace Socialism or Fascism); the "doctrine" is just a rhetorical device used in partisan debating. This argument does not necessarily implies a position on the issues. elpincha 01:03, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

Is it the article or the title? I used "doctrine" because that's the term I found doing research in English. "Theory" seems extremely inappropriate; maybe "thesis" would be better. But in any case, the name does not have to imply a position; it can be taken as just a label. The article is appropriate, IMHO, in the sense that it refers to something important, well-known and often found in discussions with people who deal with the issue of state terrorism, even if the name is not the best choice. What do you suggest? --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 02:26, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
I'm not sure the name is not correct but I can't think of any better. Pinchex, you don't give any option to prefer. -Mariano(t/c) 07:50, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
I am aware I raised a problem and did not suggest a solution. But (in my experience) 2-D is raised by some persons to disqualify their dialectical adversary—in a way akin to the use of "liberal" as a code word for "leftist, pro-gay, anti-war, bad person, etc" in parts of the USA political landscape. Somebody with command of rhetorics or political science will be able to produce the correct name of this device (it has some similarity to "straw-man argument"). Once again, this is a formal/methodological note, unrelated to the substance of the matter. elpincha 20:20, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
I see. The title implies that there is a doctrine some people follow, or a thesis they support, when in fact it is only their oponents who have invented the term and labelled them. It's very difficult to solve a problem like this, because the mere existence of the article seems to be supporting a particular POV. However, I believe that deleting the article would be a net loss. Suppose you're looking for info on the Dirty War, and everywhere you find this 2D thing popping up. So you go to the source of all knowledge, i. e. Wikipedia :), and find out that the article on such an important term is missing. It happened to me, and that's why I started the article, trying to keep as neutral as possible. If it is deleted, someone else will re-create it, one or ten years from now, because the history of Argentina and the Dirty War is simply not complete without a reference to 2D, or with a reference to those who made up 2D as a rhetorical device, if you will. --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 02:04, 3 September 2005 (UTC)


Mariano et al: take a look at Elpincha:2D and see if you're convinced.

[edit] Let's see

I think we should go from the general to the particular. The opening paragraphs could be refactored like this (+/- some copyedit):

Teoría de los dos demonios (Spanish: "theory of the two demons") is a rhetorical device used in Argentine political discourse to disqualify arguments that appear to morally equate violent political subversion with repressive activities carried out by the state, and thus justify the latter.
Pablo... you are sadly lost here. Decent people that think that the atrocities of repression during the Proceso do not give Montos/ERP a free ride... Sabato, for example... have been accused of adscribing to 2D. The criterion is not justifying the repression; the criterion is smoetimes "not being 100% one sided on the issue". The extremism displayed by the Bonafini strain has contaminated any attempt to be objective about 2D. Anybody in those parties can call anybody else a 2D supporter; it carries no consquences...
Since the end of the Dirty War, when guerrilla groups (such as...) were persecuted by the armed forces (as well as...), this term has been in wide use by people mainly in human rights movements, the political left, and former guerrilla members and supporters. These people argue that a national state, even one controlled by a de-facto government, cannot be compared to a guerrilla or other subversive group, the difference being precisely that a national state is assumed to be a guarantee for ethical law enforcement, including the use of repressive violence (when needed) in a lawful way, because its power emanates from the people.
The ones employing the term then claim that certain people support this thesis. Among the people "accused" of professing the two-demon theory are journalists and other personalities who plead to support "national reconciliation", sometimes out of a well-meaning Christian impulse to forget and forgive. Notable examples are La Nacion op-ed columnist Mariano Grondona and... These are sometimes perceived as having ulterior agendas. Since the image of the military has been deeply tarnished by human-rights debacles, economic chaos and the Malvinas war defeat, advocates of the right-wing repression must resort to reconciliation rhetoric, because a plain admission of support would disqualify them in the eyes of most Argentines.
As nobody actually owns up to endorsing this "theory", it can be said that this rhetorical device (its currency in the political debate notwithstanding) is actually a type of straw man argument.

I don't really like the last part, but that must be because I'm a damned lefty. :) What we really need is people quoted on the record as actually saying something. The Christian impulse thing, if anyone actually employed that argument, could be mentioned (as a quote), but "well-meaning" is subjective POV. --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 16:06, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Pablo: You are correct... the way the draft is written, I gave some people a free pass. I just wrote it "longhand" while waiting for some computer job to fail... but with some decent editing (I very much liked yours) it could become appropriate. This here article kinda isn't (see my points above). And about using Christianity as a "shield": Most right-wing commentators adhere to conservative strains of the Catholic church, and used that card extensively during the exit phase of the Proceso (Malvinas to roughly 1984); some are associated with Opus Dei.
I also tried to convey that the Spanish edition of Gillespie's book was widely read and had a devastating effect... the middle-class, which continued to be mainly "fubista"-left-wing-liberal, took to deploring Montoneros (it needed a jolt after its flirt with left-wing Peronism in 1973). I did not succeed in conveying this, but it was important. elpincha 22:42, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
Haven't read that book. Please tell us about it.
By a very weird coincidence I was just proposing a slightly different version just when I saw you were replying... What I was going to say is that this 2D is a meta-thesis, not a thesis. It is a thesis¹ about the existence of a thesis²; some say that certain people support the thesis² but hide it (using other, politically more acceptable excuses), while these certain people claim that the thesis¹ is false.
Teoría de los dos demonios (Spanish: "theory of the two demons") is a thesis, postulated by some people in Argentine political discourse, about the existence of a doctrine that morally equates violent political subversion with repressive activities carried out by the state, and thus justifies the latter.
Since nobody actually and overtly supports this purported theory, the very idea of the "theory of the two demons" could be called a rhetorical device, of the straw man kind, employed to disqualify opponents by attacking a position that they do not support. People in favour of this thesis contend that the "theory of the two demons" underlies milder, more politically correct justifications of the crimes committed or consented by the state.
Un filósofo a la derecha... (hey, I did that meta-thing again - I meant this but got this! --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 22:56, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
PS: In the hurry, I missed the first comment you made (about my sad mistake). I'm not sure what you think now, and I'm not sure how to interpret the comment. I didn't know about Sabato. You're of course absolutely right about Bonafini and the radicalization of her discourse. I believe that the meta-thesis presentation might solve the problem. By explicitly telling the reader that the theory does not exist as such, but as a construct within a particular view of the Dirty War, we can then simply let people and facts speak for themselves. Of course this needs huge lots of well-phrased content. --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 23:05, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
Sorry for inserting my earlier comments in several steps... I did like your edition, save for the part I struck out. The meta-thesis stuff... it is kinda correct on an "amateur" level. As I said before, to write the "methodologically correct" version requires a person who knows rhetorics.
Also: since "accusation" of 2D can be issued by moderates or by radicals, the weight it carries has diminished over time. This has led to a drop in usage outside left-wing circles since... circa 1990 (Menem's first round of pardons)? Maybe the meta-message of my insistence on this issue is that, among educated people, brandishing straw-man arguments such as 2D actually makes your position weaker; in the wider audience, though, the effect may differ. (Yes, elpincha voted Conte for diputado in 1983...) Also, sorry—but I cannot document or provide quotes. I am quite far from Argentina these days. elpincha 23:59, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
I've just rewritten the page incorporating the above. Feel free to edit. I still feel something's not right; if you approach the issue from outside, the article is not as clear as it should be, and I'm sure it's not simply because the matter is complicated. I also still feel that 2D is mostly claimed to be used to justify the military's crimes and the accused are mostly you-know-who and so on. The "national reconciliation" thing seems a disconnected except if we explicitly mention the sequence of purported claims: "2D is valid, ergo it was a war, and after a war the two sides must reconcile, ergo let's pardon the military". I really need to get Gillespie's book. You google for 2D and inevitably get a load of primary-school-level leftist "analyses" of the thing, and nothing really NPOV. --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 11:14, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Giussani

I'm fixing the reference to Pablo (not Raúl) Giussani's book. My copy is from the 3rd edition (in 3 months, 5K each); that turnout hardly can be assessed as "poor reception" at that point of time in Argentina. Ejrrjs | What? 22:26, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't want to be argumentative, just to clarify... Yes, the name was Pablo. Yes, it was definitely a best-seller. Yet, it was received with strong criticism by the "intellectual" circles that were close to Human Rights organizations and/or publications of that time like "El Porteño" and/or the Humanities and Social Science faculties (Filo y Socio, for us :-) It was a book that had a thesis and used every shred of a fact to justify the required analogy, even when it was a stretch. Contrast with Gillespie's book, which provided the public a much needed critique of Montoneros with less animosity and a large body of evidence such as quotations from publications and interviews with the relevant people. (Sidenote: looks like the article stays within the parameters I asked for, which I like. Also, for some relief, go read Edmundo Rivero) elpincha 23:49, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Epithet? Rename?

Maybe we should rename this to "Theory of the two demons" and be done with it. I named it "doctrine" initially because "theory" sounded so wrong, but it's just a label...

I passed by Fascism (United States) and Fascist (epithet) and I think we should explain that 2D is not only a rhetorical device but also, or alternatively, a political epithet. It seems this article must be in that list. --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 15:04, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Subversive actions

I've just reworded the latest addition to the background section.

  • It's unwise to use the euphemistic term "collateral" (as in collateral damage), least of all in "quotes". It makes the sentence look ironic. "Incidental" means "casual", "concomitant" or "following as a consequence".
  • I also deleted "... including women and children". "Civilians", with no other qualifications, makes it clear that they were all kinds of civilians.

Finally, I added a {{fact}} tag to get proper sources about the figures. "Thousands of bombings, hundreds of kidnappings" is vague and I'm not sure by whom, or how, they were counted. Could the editor who added the text say where s/he got it from? Other than that, we should stick to the vague but safer "many". —Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 02:29, 10 August 2006 (UTC)