Civility, Nonviolent Resistance, and the New Struggle for Social Justice 9789004417571, 9789004417588

Table of contents :
Civility, Nonviolent Resistance, and the New Struggle for Social Justice
Copyright
Contents
Notes on Contributors
Introduction
1 The Language of Civility and Resistance: A Critique of Tolerance and Violence
2 Civility, Ethical Democracy, and the Pacific Faith
3 Gandhi, Epictetus, and Political Resistance
4 Howard Thurman and the African American Nonviolence Tradition
5 Contesting Religious Governmentality: The Bhakti-Sufi Movements of Medieval India
6 Decolonizing Paradigms of Normative Evaluation: The Coloniality of Just War Theory
7 Cry "Genocide!" for All the Good It Will Do
8 The Enlightenment's Post-9/11 Legacy
9 Why Do Poor Whites Vote for Republicans When Republicans Hate Them?
10 How Mind Viruses and Rhinoceroses Promote Tyranny
11 Josef Pieper's Defense of the Geisteswissenschaften
12 The Quest for Genuine Democracy: A Promise of Democracy to Come
Index

Citation preview

Civility, Nonviolent Resistance, and the New Struggle for Social Justice

Value Inquiry Book Series Founding Editor Robert Ginsberg Executive Editor Leonidas Donskis† Managing Editor J.D. Mininger

volume 342

Philosophy of Peace Edited by Danielle Poe (University of Dayton)

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/vibs and brill.com/pop

Civility, Nonviolent Resistance, and the New Struggle for Social Justice Edited by

Amin Asfari

leiden | boston

Cover illustration: Image by Warren Wong on Unsplash. Used with permission. The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at http://catalog.loc.gov

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. ISSN 0929-8436 ISBN 978-90-04-41757-1 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-41758-8 (ebook) Copyright 2020 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi, Brill Sense, Hotei Publishing, mentis Verlag, Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh and Wilhelm Fink Verlag. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Contents Notes on Contributors  VII Introduction  1 Amin Asfari 1

The Language of Civility and Resistance: A Critique of Tolerance and Violence  9 William Gay

2

Civility, Ethical Democracy, and the Pacific Faith  27 Andrew Fiala

3

Gandhi, Epictetus, and Political Resistance  49 Sanjay Lal

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Howard Thurman and the African American Nonviolence Tradition  65 Kipton E. Jensen

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Contesting Religious Governmentality: The Bhakti-Sufi Movements of Medieval India  90 Farrukh Hakeem

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Decolonizing Paradigms of Normative Evaluation: The Coloniality of Just War Theory  111 James R. Walker

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Cry “Genocide!” for All the Good It Will Do  127 Paul Wilson

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The Enlightenment’s Post-9/11 Legacy  142 Kimberly Baxter

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Why Do Poor Whites Vote for Republicans When Republicans Hate Them?  163 Robert Paul Churchill

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How Mind Viruses and Rhinoceroses Promote Tyranny  181 Paula Smithka

11

Josef Pieper’s Defense of the Geisteswissenschaften  203 Rashad Rehman

12

The Quest for Genuine Democracy: A Promise of Democracy to Come  234 Edward Demenchonok



Index  261

Notes on Contributors Amin Asfari Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at Wake Tech College, and an adjunct Professor in the Department of History, Criminal Justice, and Political Science at Campbell University, where he teaches criminology, ethics, and American government. Amin recently published an article in Tikkun Magazine titled “Who Gets to Define Anti-Semitism?” (with Ron Hirschbein, 2019). He also co-authored a book chapter (in press), examining the conspiratorial roots of Islamophobia and Antisemitism, titled “Elders and Brothers” (with Ron Hirschbein, 2019). Other forthcoming works include an empirical assessment of Muslim attitudes toward police in America; a study of Muslim victimization in the US and Canada; and a co-authored book explicating the relationship between conspiratorial thinking, Islamophobia, and Antisemitism (with Ron Hirschbein). Kimberly Baxter teaches philosophy at CUNY John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, NY and Montclair State University in Montclair, NJ. In addition to peace studies, her research interests include anarchism, human & animal rights, Asian philosophy, and philosophy of mind. She holds a Ph.D. in political philosophy from New School University. Robert Paul Churchill served as Romeo Elton Professor of Moral and Natural Philosophy at George Washington University, where he was also chair of the department, and director of the Peace Studies Program. His published books include Becoming Logical; Democracy, Social Values and Public Policy (ed.); The Ethics of Liberal Democracy (ed.); Human Rights and Global Diversity; and most recently, Women in the Crossfire: Understanding and Ending Honor Killing, from Oxford University Press. He is presently at work on a book about gun violence in America, toxic masculinity, and sub-cultures of shame and honor. Edward Demenchonok has worked as a Senior Researcher at the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, and is currently a Professor of Foreign Languages and Philosophy at Fort Valley State University, USA. He is listed in 2000 Outstanding Scholars of the 21st Century. His numerous books and articles are in the fields of the philosophy of culture, political philosophy, and ethics. R ­ ecently

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he edited and contributed to A World Beyond Global Disorder: The courage to Hope (with Fred Dallmayr, 2017); Intercultural Dialogue: In Search of Harmony in Diversity (2016); The Quest for Change: From Domination to Dialogue (2016); Philosophy after Hiroshima (2010); and Between Global Violence and Ethics of Peace: Philosophical Perspectives (2009). Andrew Fiala Ph.D., is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Ethics Center at California State University, Fresno. His published work includes: Transformative Pacifism (Bloomsbury, 2018), The Routledge Handbook of Pacifism and Nonviolence (Routledge, 2017), The Peace of Nature and the Nature of Peace (Brill 2015), The Bloomsbury Companion to Political Philosophy (Bloomsbury 2015), and the 9th edition of Ethics: Theory and Contemporary Issues with co-author Barbara MacKinnon (Cengage, 2017). Fiala is a past President of Concerned Philosophers for Peace. He writes a weekly column on religion, politics, and ethics for the Fresno Bee. For more information: www.andrewfiala.com. William Gay is Professor Emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Within Concerned Philosophers for Peace, he has served as President, Executive Director, Newsletter Editor, and “Philosophy of Peace” Book Series Editor. He has published seven books and over 100 journal articles and book chapters on issues of violence, war, peace, and justice. He also serves on the editorial boards of the journals The Acorn: Philosophical Studies in Pacifism and Nonviolence, Philosophy and Social Criticism, and the Journal of Globalization Studies. Farrukh Hakeem Associate Professor, Criminal Justice, was admitted to the Bar, Bombay High Court and also earned an LL.M from Bombay University, before immigrating to the US where he earned an M.A. (Sociology), Univ. Of Arizona and, a Ph.D. (Criminal Justice), from John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He has written many articles and recently co-authored a book (also available in Urdu)—­ Policing Muslim Communities. Comparative International Context (Springer). His current Indian research interests: legal history, comparative law, police reform, gender violence, human rights and policing minorities. Kipton E. Jensen is an associate professor of philosophy at Morehouse College, the director of the Andrew Young Center for Global Leadership, and the co-director of the International Comparative Labor Studies program. He earned a doctorate in

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philosophy from Marquette University and was a Fulbright Scholar at MartinLuther-Universität. Jensen is the author of Hegel: Hovering (2011), Parallel Discourses (2012), Howard Thurman: Philosophy, Civil Rights, and the Search for Common Ground (2019), and coeditor of Howard Thurman’s Sermons on the Parables (2018). Sanjay Lal is senior lecturer of philosophy at Clayton State University in Morrow, GA. He has authored many scholarly works related to peace and nonviolence. His book Gandhi’s Thought and Liberal Democracy (Lexington Books) was published in 2019. Lal has served on the executive committee of Concerned Philosophers for Peace since 2012 and is currently an associate editor of The Acorn: Philosophical Studies in Pacifism and Nonviolence. Rashad Rehman BA, PhD(c), is a doctoral student in Philosophy (Collaborative Program in ­Ancient and Medieval Philosophy Track) at the University of Toronto. He has spoken at The University of Toronto, Western University, King's University ­College, York University, The University of Victoria, and The University of British Columbia. He has published articles in journals such as Meteorite, Sophia, ­Conatus, Sapere Aude, et cetera. While he works primarily on characterology in St. Augustine's Confessions, his current interest is in the defense of the liberal arts found in the writings of Josef Pieper. He also maintains strong interest in St. Thomas Aquinas, G.K. Chesterton and Plato. Paula Smithka is an associate professor of Philosophy and program coordinator for Philosophy and Religion at the University of Southern Mississippi. She received her Ph.D. from Tulane University. Among her publications, Smithka has co-edited three books, two with Courtland Lewis, Doctor Who and Philosophy: Bigger on the Inside and More Doctor Who and Philosophy: Regeneration Time and one with Alison Bailey, Community, Diversity and Difference: Implications for Peace. Her research interests include philosophy of science, in particular, philosophy of biology; social/political philosophy, particularly issues in peace and just-war theory; and the intersections between popular culture and philosophy. James R. Walker Ph.D., RN, is currently a professional lecturer of Peace, Justice, and Conflict Studies at DePaul University in Chicago. He is also the executive director and co-founder of the Asteroidea Health Alliance, a nonprofit organization that

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works to equip community-based health initiatives in Northern Uganda with the tools and resources to improve the health and well-being of their communities. James holds not only a Ph.D. in philosophy, but also has worked as a registered nurse, and has spent significant time in Northern Uganda working with community-based organizations there. Paul E. Wilson is a Professor of Philosophy and Religion and an Adult Degree Site Coordinator for Shaw University, Raleigh, North Carolina. His areas of interest are ethics, philosophy of religion, and online learning. Some of his essays have appeared in the Journal of Social Philosophy, Journal of Business Ethics, Vetus Testamentum, and the Journal for Philosophy in the Contemporary World. He serves as the general editor of the online journal of the North Carolina Religious Studies Association (NCRSA), Thinking About Religion: http://organizations.uncfsu.edu/ncrsa/ journal/index.htm Since 2013 he has been researching and writing about nonviolent resistance, terrorism, and genocide and ethics.

Introduction Amin Asfari As Nietzsche once quipped, philosophy is self-confession. It is fitting for me to confess that I am a social scientist, trained in the positivist tradition. While my interests are eclectic, I am a criminologist at heart. As a criminologist, I am puzzled by the rigid approach taken by fellow scholars in understanding the causes of violence as well as ways to ameliorate their consequences. Criminological inquiry is limited in its quest to answer questions about human behavior and violence. Theoretical explanations for violence rely on current conceptualizations of human action. Specifically, our units of analysis focus on the individuals’ choice (free will), the environment (sociological determinism), the individuals’ makeup (biological and psychological determinism), and structural and institutional correlates of crime (radicalism/critical theory). Although pragmatic scholars understand the need to go beyond unyielding, often dogmatic adherence to theoretical and epistemological “camps,” many still pledge allegiance to single, ad-hoc explanations of violence, crime, and deviance. Moreover, as C. Wright Mills reminds us, social scientists rarely historicize their research, preferring instead to examine localized phenomena and are concerned with research design and sample sizes for generalizing their results— what Mills referred to as “abstracted empiricism.”1 Philosophy, however, allows us to view the world in more realistic, historical terms. Consider an example; the criminality of a black person cannot be explained by mere impulse or a lack of proper socialization; it must be viewed in light of the individuals’ lived experience. This experience stretches back to slavery as well as subsequent racist policies that have left blacks oppressed, repressed, undereducated, made to live in inferior homes and neighborhoods (see, for example, redlining policies that expressly prohibited blacks from living in white neighborhoods in addition to sundown towns2), underserved, over policed, and relegated to the margins of mainstream society. Moreover, the limitations of criminological inquiry into the causes of violence exist because of a focus on acts that violate a criminal law—a codified statute. However, not all violence is criminal, and not all criminality is violent. 1 C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination (New York, 1959). 2 Sundown towns are towns wherein blacks were excluded after the setting of the sun. For a detailed history, see James W Loewen. Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism. New York: New Press: Distributed by W.W. Norton, 2005.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���� | doi:10.1163/9789004417588_002

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Consider State violence, often justified through political expedience or cause and rarely deemed criminal. Such violence is seldom considered in mainstream criminological scholarship.3 Additionally, the research on State violence remains largely descriptive, with no meaningful prescriptions to reduce its occurrence or frequency—this renders those concerned with these issues largely helpless in the face of growing global conflicts. This volume attempts to address not only the possible causes of violence by taking a multidirectional approach, but it attempts to examine the psychology, history, and group dynamics that act as antecedents to violence—a multidisciplinary perspective. Moreover, rather than merely describing violence, this volume seeks to prescribe nonviolent ways of confronting ongoing individual, group, and State violence—all through a broader historical and philosophical lens. Lastly, some of the contributions included in this volume don’t directly address violence; rather, they explore the conditions that may produce violence in its many forms. This unique approach allows us to broaden our understanding of violence from physical violence to psychological, emotional, environmental, and economic manifestations of injustice. In the first chapter, William Gay introduces what he calls, “The Language of Civility and Resistance: A Critique of Tolerance and Violence.” Here, Gay argues that contemporary discourse, especially what is expressed by many conservatives in a post-Trump era, is aimed at neutralizing voices of dissent or those countering policies of injustice. Given the common refrain from conservatives that “political correctness” is a weakness that stifles free speech, Gay explains that such sentiments only arise to promote a certain type of free speech—namely that which emboldens individuals promoting prejudiced views and unjust policies. Relying on Herbert Marcuse’s concept of “repressive tolerance,” Gay explores the ways in which calls for “tolerance” only mask the States’ legitimization of institutional and structural injustice. Lastly, Gay argues for a need for continued resistance, a civil form of resistance that challenges what he calls “uncivil speech,” in ways that are “compatible with a properly activist and democratic form of civility.” Andrew Fiala’s “Civility, Truth, and the Pacific Virtues: In Search of a Civil Republic” is a call to civility in seemingly insurmountable odds—especially in the era of Trump. The chapter analyzes the virtue of civility to bring about a 3 I am aware of scholarship on State violence in criminology, but such scholarship lies at the periphery of the discipline, often relegated to scholars working through the lens of critical theory, (i.e., critical, radical, and Marxist criminologists). However, such works are often denounced by abstract empiricists as lacking the complexity and causal inferences of empirical enquiry, and therefore viewed with less urgency than street-level offenses, those visible to most citizens, and for which a necessary prescription may be conceived.

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civil republic, one in which civility is not a mirage disguising egotistical ends but a resolve to “say what we mean and mean what we say.” Fiala contends that striving for civility is tantamount to dreaming, for it requires strong convictions in that which does not now exist. Relying on the Gandhi-King tradition truth and nonviolence, as well as modesty and self-control, Fiala assures us that we must strive to ensure civility as an outcome in our republic. His call to the civility encompasses an unrelenting—and surely difficult adherence—to virtues grounded in a commitment to justice, respect, compassion, and truth. There are challenges to civility, but our struggle to embody it in its various forms should not waiver if we dream of a more civilized society. Reflecting on and drawing from the experiences of Gandhi and Epictetus, Sanjay Lal seeks to reframe our understanding of nonviolence and political resistance. He sets out to do this by demonstrating that Stoicism should not lead to nor imply a sense of passivity or resignation. In his analysis, “Gandhi, Epictetus, and Political Resistance,” Lal seeks to show that a Stoic conception of harm is central to a philosophy of nonviolence by emphasizing that Stoicism is the central idea of nonviolence. Moreover, he tells us that “genuine harm is ultimately self-inflicted by one who has compromised moral worth.” Lal’s position diverts from the inclination to passive resignation and clarifies our rightful targets of resistance. Lal’s analysis should be cause for contemplation, especially in the current state of political apathy felt by so many whose beliefs in a representative, electoral political system have been dashed in recent years. Far from giving into the urge to withdraw from social and political engagement, Lal’s chapter is a “call-to-arms,” an attempt to prioritize and engage with those issues most pressing to the maintenance of a civil and democratic society. In the fourth chapter, “Howard Thurman and the African American Nonviolence Tradition,” Kipton Jensen explores the roots of African American connections to philosophical pacifism. Although Martin Luther King Jr. was no doubt influenced by the Satyahraha tradition of Gandhi, he was also influenced by a largely unexplored tradition of pacifism developed by AfricanAmerican activists. In this chapter, Jensen explores the influence of Howard Thurman, an African-American pacifist of the early twentieth century who believed “that the religion of Jesus requires it [pacifism].” Howard Thurman’s influence on King was visible in King’s determination to challenge and overturn the systems of oppression through pacifist, nonviolent means. Thurman’s belief in philosophical pacifism stems from his conviction that engaging in violence—physical or psychological—was insufficient. Rather, argues Jensen, one must also work to change socioeconomic conditions that lead to violence. Jensen demonstrates that “nonviolence is something more than resisting or

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negating violence: it is something in its own right … something positive, the negation of which is called violence.” Just as Paulo Freire argues in Pedagogy of the Oppressed, violence is predicated on the cultural artifacts we employ and the messages we pass to our children.4 Thus, overcoming cultural violence cannot be done without positive nonviolent engagement, and Jensen demonstrates that the lessons of Gandhi, Thurman, and King are essential tools in guiding our struggle. In “Contesting Religious Governmentality: The Bhakti-Sufi Movements of Medieval India,” Farrukh Hakeem uses Foucault’s concept of power-knowledge to explicate the Indian government’s use of religious factions to its advantage. Power-knowledge, simply put, is the idea that State power is reinforced by existing knowledge. Moreover, the State creates new knowledge and manipulates existing knowledge to maintain its power over its citizenry. Turning to Foucault, Hakeem uses “biopolitics” as a lens through which Statecraft is shaped and control over citizens is maintained. Biopolitics represents the creation of knowledge through the examination of subjects for the purposes of control. As Hakeem observes, “The prevailing sensibility of its greatest champions was mainly medical. They examined everything from sexual behavior to social organization for relative pathology or health. They sought out the ‘deviant,’ but less in order to eradicate it than to keep it in acceptable check.” Indian efforts to exploit the religious differences between the Bhakti and Sufi sects failed largely because both sects were able recognize and challenge religious governmentality—the attempted manipulation of their differences by the Indian government to assert its supremacy. Hakeem concludes by informing us of the successes of the saints of the Bhakti and Sufi movements in challenging government power, stating that “they [the saints] addressed the problems of the day and championed the rights of downtrodden, excluded and marginalized sections of society.” By doing this, the Bhakti-Sufi movements limited the government’s ability to exploit citizens because they were not passive to their afflictions. In Chapter 6, “Decolonizing Paradigms of Normative Evaluation: The Coloniality of Just War Theory,” James Walker explores the relationship between a liberal-humanitarian conception of just war theory as one of coloniality. By using just war theory to justify Western militarism under the guise of liberating an oppressed people, we act in similar fashion to the colonialists we seek to overthrow. Walker reminds us that the effects of militarism on the lives of

4 Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, New York: Continuum, 2000.

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those subservient to it are no different, whether they be actions of the colonizers or Western forces. In Walker’s conclusion, the reader is compelled to go beyond existing paradigms to consider alternatives: “we have to be at the frontiers … the critical question today has to be turned back into a positive one: in what is given to us as universal, necessary, obligatory, what place is occupied by whatever is singular, contingent, and the product of arbitrary constraints.” A Eurocentric analysis and rationale, Walker argues, should be resisted as much, if not more, than the logics employed by colonizers. Only a counterhegemonic narrative can free us to be fully human and resist ongoing tyranny. Paul Wilson’s contribution in Chapter 7, “Cry ‘Genocide!’ for all the Good it will Do,” asks us to consider the moral imperative to call attention to genocide. Wilson reflects on Raphael Lemkin’s efforts to bring global attention to the harms of genocide. Genocide is not unpredictable but occurs in phases, such as those identified by Alexander Hinton, upon whom Wilson relies for conceptual clarity. According to Hinton, the antecedents of genocide are predictable, and they are known as genocidal priming—usually in the form of hate speech and propaganda against a group or a facet of society. Priming is indicative of things to come, a process of dehumanization that takes various forms but stops short of bloodletting. In recognizing genocide, Wilson argues, we become morally responsible for calling attention to it, and equally culpable for failing to do so. Wilson states that “the cry [of genocide] can enable some individuals who would be bystanders to emerge from a blameworthy indifference to the suffering of others. For reluctant perpetrators it provides a reason to resist as well as a means of resistance.” In “The Enlightenment’s Post-9/11 Legacy” Kimberly Baxter reexamines our assumptions about the social contract and its legacy in a post-9/11 era, with attention to the changes that occur in times of conflict or states of emergency. Given the abstract nature of the social contract, Baxter seeks to understand how it materializes in the modern nation-state with respect to laws protecting civil liberties. Moreover, Baxter asks us to consider the ways in which laws affect us in states of emergency and how these effects reflect the changing understanding of the Enlightenment’s most cherished and enduring principle of a social contract. Referring to the Kantian view of human beings as persons possessing intrinsic values and dignity, Baxter asks us to consider the ways in which we ought to treat one another, especially in light of the use of torture in a post-9/11 world. However, Kant’s views of the social contract do not always align with most Enlightenment thinkers—that people are inherently good and

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motivated by their goodness for the betterment of society. Thus, Baxter asks us to consider Kant’s alternative view of the social contract, one in which “he acknowledges that in reality not everyone is well-intentioned. Thus the state can violently compel them [citizens] to conform; for him, such use of force is not only legitimate but obligatory—and punishment for crimes is an example of it.” Baxter concludes by stating that “a social contract is a living pact” and that we must uphold this pact by punishing transgressions. However, we can do so justly if we “ensure that the necessary conditions for actualizing our social contracts exist … transparency … and the legal mechanisms to punish transgressors.” In Chapter 9, Robert Paul Churchill explores a timely paradox by asking “Why do Poor Whites Vote for Republicans when Republicans Hate them?” The phenomenon addressed in this chapter is not new—Churchill acknowledges this by citing Thomas Franks’s 2004 book What’s the Matter with Kansas?—but it is more salient today in the Trump administration. Poor whites, argues Churchill, are frequently duped by Republican legislators, who consistently vote to reduce funding for educational benefits, healthcare, and unemployment insurance. Yet consistently, those same poor whites continue to support these legislators, voting for them at increasing rates, at a cost to their own economic interests. To explain this cognitive dissonance, Churchill turns to studies of cognitive linguistics and cognitive neuroscience to advance his position. It does not suffice to examine this paradox through the lens of enlightenment rationalism, which stipulates that humans are rational beings acting for their self-interest. Churchill recognizes what Erving Goffman referred to as “Frame Analysis.” Specifically, unlike natural frames (i.e., the rising sun and the setting of the moon), social phenomena and institutions are social frames, constructed and communicated in ways that are purposeful and express ideas in ways that are beneficial to the “agents” who seek to convey them. As such, Churchill considers the nationalistic “messaging” conveyed by the Republican Party as a means of overlooking economic issues, preferring instead to infuse their supporters with jingoistic rhetoric. Turning to Chapter 10, “How Mind Viruses and Rhinoceroses Promote Tyranny,” Paula Smithka examines the effect of memes—“tunes, ideas, catch phrases, clothes fashions”—on cultural homogeneity, which in turn promotes tyranny. Treating memes as viruses that infect the mind of consumers, Smithka relies on the work of Richard Dawkings and other scientists who view this through a biological lens. Mind viruses act in hosts just as regular viruses do, rewiring the thoughts of their host and multiplying to ensure survival. The effect of these viruses is that they transform seemingly benign thoughts into unshakable convictions. Recognizing that not all memes are bad, Smithka

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demonstrates how they may cause “cognitive paralysis,” rendering their hosts unable to make their own judgements in deference to uncritical ideas and judgements. Smithka’s work is an important contribution to further our understanding of the role of prejudice in our society as well as the need to treat this malicious mind “virus” through increased emphasis on multicultural education and pluralism. Smithka’s views present new understandings of prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness. The proliferation of social media and the rise of white nationalism make this study both timely and unique. This chapter adds to our understanding of prejudice, largely conceived by the seminal work of Gordon Allport in his 1954 “The Nature of Prejudice” and Jack Levin’s 1975 work “The Functions of Prejudice.” Smithka suggests that any meaningful results in countering this epidemic must come from collaborations between educators, policy makers, and individuals in society. In the eleventh chapter titled, “Josef Pieper’s Defense of the Geisteswissenschaften,” Rashad Rehman attempts to answer the question “What are the conditions, within and fostered by contemporary educational institutions, for social justice to be grounded philosophically and be put into concrete action?” With his chapter, Rehman asks us to consider the challenge, and subsequent defense, of liberal arts education. Contemporary challenges to the liberal arts rest on the preference for an education that is seen as “practical” leading to some tangible benefit. Given the challenges posed by scientism—“an epistemological standpoint which suggests that it is only through science that we have knowledge”—it stands to reason that liberal arts are seen as mere extensions of human thoughts and emotions, lacking in a rigorous methodology for investigating and understanding the world. To such sentiments, Rehman states that “a world in which there was scientific practice but no reflection on the meaning of it all would be an image ‘of extreme human privation, of misery, not of the material but rather of the existential kind.’” Rehman’s contribution addresses the increased anti-intellectualism in today’s political climate that stems from extreme conservative political views challenging both the natural sciences as well as the liberal arts. Finally, Edward Demenchonok’s “The Quest for a Genuine Democracy: A Promise of Democracy to Come” reminds us that the normative conception of democracy is not ideal. Demenchonok points to the failings of the ideals of democracy in a system replete with socioeconomic inequality, from local municipalities to the upper echelons of the federal government. Demenchonok “supports the idea that local struggles of individuals and groups against concrete cases of exclusion and injustice are indispensable for the process of democratization. At the same time, the paper argues that they are necessary, but insufficient to fully achieve rights, freedom, or equality.” Given the failure of

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recent grassroots efforts to challenge structural inequities, such as the Occupy Wall Street Movement in the 2000s, Demenchonok’s concluding advice should be heeded. He outlines a basic formula for successful activism, one in which grassroots efforts must challenge not only isolated sectors or institutions, but the entire structure which makes up the current system of oppression, from the judiciary, to the executive, to the criminal justice system, the educational and healthcare systems. Moreover, such efforts should not limit their organizing to the American context, because America functions within a broader system of oppression, one in which all nations are interconnected and complicit. Rather, organizers should tackle injustices locally, nationally, and internationally, to eradicate systemic injustice—the cause of all ancillary forms of oppression. Demenchonok concludes by telling us that such movements must not be spontaneous; rather, they should be well-organized, with clear strategies and leadership, lest they be doomed to fail like preceding attempts throughout the world.

Chapter 1

The Language of Civility and Resistance: A Critique of Tolerance and Violence William Gay One of my aims is to reclaim the language of civility and resistance from recent mischaracterizations in the public sphere concerning the nature and scope of both civility and resistance. From modern and contemporary philosophical sources a better understanding can be gained of these terms. I will apply this understanding to what I regard as the improper and proper use of the language of civility and resistance. On the one hand, the term “civility,” as often currently used, is overly restricted. In part I will use Herbert Marcuse on repressive tolerance to bring out the overly restricted view of civility. On the other hand, the term “resistance,” as often currently used, is overly unrestricted. In part I will use Étienne Balibar on cruelty and the inconvertibility of violence to bring out the overly unrestricted view of resistance. In the current climate of public discourse, many groups are escalating their criticisms of “political correctness” and political activism. In relation to civility, they are feeling emboldened not only to scoff at the restraints of what they term “political correctness,” but also to speak and act on the basis of a wide range of their prejudices. Likewise, in relation to resistance they increasingly are trying to neutralize or weaken efforts at protest and resistance against social injustices and often are all too willing to sanction violence against even nonviolent expressions of such resistance. “Civility” too easily gets presented in euphemistic discourse as “polite.” Also, persons working for social justice are told that they need to be “tolerant” of reactionary views and practices. My position is that we need to oppose uncivil speech and efforts to undermine gains in social justice. Now, as in the past, many forms of injustice should not be left unchallenged because of a misguided or misused concept of tolerance. We do not always need to be polite or tolerant. A “politeness” or “tolerance” that silences oppositional discourse is one that also legitimates injustice and continues tacit forms of structural and cultural violence if not also direct violence. “Resistance” too readily gets dismissed or repressed when it is identified or conflated with violent expressions. The establishment generally views resistance as uncivil and violent even if the force exerted is only against property or

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merely loud verbally or simply a sit-in or similar non-cooperative behavior. Such mischaracterization of resistance de-legitimates needed protest against injustice. In contradistinction, resistance needs to be directed against “repressive tolerance” and other forms of social injustice. Social protest, at least when nonviolent, can and should be a part of civility—a part needed for social responsibility and moral accountability. “Civil resistance” is not an oxymoron. Language and action aiming to transform societal institutions can operate within civility in both words and deeds. Such discourse and action should not be narrowed or constricted in a manner that disallows, discourages, or otherwise undermines or de-legitimates anti-establishmentarian speech and behavior. Part of the assessment of civility needs to uncover how calls for politeness and tolerance can undermine the speech of protest. At the same time, fears of violence or mischaracterizations of all resistance as violent can undermine campaigns and practices of nonviolent resistance. Overall, I will argue that civility can and should avoid linguistic violence and resistance can and should avoid physical violence against persons. 1 Civility 1.1 Civility and Legitimacy in Social Contract Theory Those theorists who affirm civil society generally try to find some way to legitimate the state or government. Within modern political philosophy, Social Contract Theory has been the most influential among such efforts. Leaving aside that this theory is speculative anthropology and not historical fact, it served to legitimate the modern nation state and rise of capitalism. Civil society and the state or government supposedly moved us from anarchy and the threat of death in a supposed state of nature to authority or consent and protection of life and property in a supposed legitimate government and civil society. Thomas Hobbes claimed that the state of nature was “nasty, brutish, and short.”1 In a similar vein, John Locke stressed the “inconveniences” of the state of nature.2 By contrast, Jean-Jacques Rousseau offered an alternative view that human beings moved from freedom in the state of nature to oppression in civil society, saying “more murders were committed in a single day’s fighting, and more 1 Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan or the Matter, Forme, & Power of a Common-wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civill. (London: Andrew Crooke, 1651), p. 78. https://socserv2.socsci.mcmaster.ca/econ/ ugcm/3ll3/hobbes/Leviathan.pdf. 2 John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, ed. C.B. McPherson (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1980), p. 22 (Ch. 2, sec. 13).

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violent outrages in the sack of a single town, than were committed in the state of nature during whole ages over the whole earth.”3 From Rousseau’s perspective, if legitimacy requires an unobtainable unanimity, human beings appear to be left with hegemony or anarchism. So, typically “civility” gets associated with “law and order” and on this view, a “crisis of civility” can get characterized as a breakdown of “law and order.” Alternatives to civility, then, are cast as anarchy, violence, or chaos. To avert a lapse into the state of nature, we are told civility (law and order) must be maintained. Civility thus becomes the handmaid or bedfellow of the state in its efforts to maintain legitimacy and hegemony. The state is the supposed paradigm of “counterviolence,” by which the state refers to its efforts to repel the “violence” of armed (and too often unarmed) opposition. The state does not describe its force as “violence.” Its establishment and maintenance of order is supposedly redeemed by the “convertibility” of its violence into “legitimate authority.” The “convertibility of violence” is a phrase used in an attempt to neutralize the violence of actions taken against a perceived threat. Calling actions “counterviolence,” however, does not “neutralize” or “convert” their excessively violent or lethal force. The linguistic form that designates the action is changed, not the substance of the action. Groups with power typically re-designate their actions and employ euphemisms that mask the violence of their actions. For example, governments refer to “capital punishment” as an “execution,” not a “murder.” (I elsewhere discuss such linguistic changes more extensively.4) Given the linguistic re-designations regarding violence by the state or government, a tension has always been present in relation to the proper conduct of a citizen within civil society. With the philosophical and historical triumph of liberal and democratic political theory and the presumed eclipse of Hobbesian authoritarianism, constitutionalism and parliamentarianism seemed to guarantee the rights of the citizen. In principle, liberal and democratic political theory allows questioning and criticizing laws by means of the “Right to Free Speech” and the “Right to Assembly and Protest.” In practice, however, the state never ceased its aim to exclude unlawful behavior in words and deeds and this aim can—and often has—become excessive. In contrast to traditional social contract theory and even more contemporary expressions, I maintain that positions that try to justify the violence committed by governments, as 3 Jean Jacques Rousseau, “On the Origin of the Inequality of Mankind,” The Second Part, par. 38, https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/rousseau/inequality/ch02.htm. 4 William Gay, “The Language of War and Peace,” Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, and Conflict, 2nd ed., ed. Lester Kurtz (Oxford: Elsevier, 2008), vol. 2, 1115–1127.

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well as the violence committed by groups that seek to replace them, are misguided. However, before turning to Marcuse to support my critique of politeness and tolerance and to Balibar to support my critique of violence, I will comment briefly on language and politics in George Orwell and bell hooks. 1.2 The Continued Relevance of George Orwell Mark Thompson, the President and ceo of The New York Times Company, begins and ends the first paragraph of his 2016 book Enough Said: What’s Wrong with the Language of Politics? with a short, catchy, and important sentence. He says, “Public language matters.”5 While he may be playing on similar recent phrases, like “Black lives matter,” he is giving this expression a different twist. He is stressing how public language shapes public mood and behavior. Some public language is honest and praiseworthy, but it often is manipulative and irresponsible—culpable and deceitful. Our contemporary problems with civility, including civil discourse, he laments, are not new; they have been a subject of study and debate for thousands of years. Now, of course, social media have made public language much more widely available and often much less subject to critical scrutiny. He points to George Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language,” saying it is the “best known and most influential reflection on public language written in English in the twentieth-century.”6 He may be right, though several less well-known writers have made equally important observations, such as Haig Bosmajian.7 Nevertheless, given how recent political developments have brought renewed attention to Orwell, I will comment briefly on him. At the beginning of the Cold War, George Orwell warned against threats posed by the decline in the language of politics and the rise of government propaganda. Today, he might add others, such as the rise of reactionary groups and their rhetoric. Since November 2016 sales of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four have skyrocketed for understandable reasons, but his “Politics and the English Language” (1946), which was written between Animal Farm (1945) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1947), may well have greater relevance.8 Animal Farm and Nineteen Eight-Four gave allegorical and fictional accounts of how authoritarianism 5 Mark Thompson, Enough Said: What’s Wrong with the Language of Politics? (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2016), p. 1. 6 Ibid. p. 125. 7 Haig Bosmajian, The Language of Oppression (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1983). 8 George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language,” 1946; Available in print, including from Penguin Modern Classics, and on line, including at http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/ politics/english/e_polit/.

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or totalitarianism might develop. “Politics and the English Language” treats the reality of what has developed and the role of language in facilitating the degeneration of politics. Orwell strongly criticizes the intentional and inexcusable misuse of English, particularly by politicians. While the first half of his essay addresses imprecise or unnecessary words, the second half addresses the consequences of imprecise and distorted language used for political gain by those in power (or seeking power). He makes some classic remarks on how public discourse suppresses and distorts the truth. He says, “The present political chaos is connected with the decay of language…Political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible,” and he also says “Political language…is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”9 Public language becomes confusing and vague. Such language aims to “anaesthetize” clear and coherent thinking and makes genuine political debate difficult or impossible. Although Orwell provides a clear description of several problems with the current language of politics, he does not offer much on how to forge an alternative discourse. In my treatment of the language of civility and resistance, I am supporting the alternative of nonviolent responses. I am not, however, addressing the legal question of what is permissible or what writing or speech (or what protest and action) may be subject to punishment—or even to the threat of punishment. Both punishments and threats are forms of coercion; ideally, the discourse and practice of civility and resistance should aim to follow a nonviolent strategy that avoids such forms of coercion.10 (I am aware of, but do not develop here, the distinction that Todd May presents between the acceptable “coercive nonviolence” of Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. and the unacceptable “psychological violence” of many other forms of coercion.11) Nonviolence needs to be operative in the means, regardless of the ends. Hate speech and other forms of linguistic violence can and should be countered, and linguistic nonviolence is an appropriate and often effective response that at the same time maintains civility and promotes preferable modes of civility. Granted, some of the discourse and practice of civility and resistance will continue to have the hate speech and linguistic violence allowed legally under “freedom of expression,” but we should not endorse or support such expressions. 9 Ibid. 10 William Gay, “The Practice of Linguistic Nonviolence,” Peace Review 10, n4 (1998): 545–547. 11 Todd May, Nonviolent Resistance: A Philosophical Introduction (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2015), esp. p. 55 and p. 74.

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Nevertheless, if the means of linguistic nonviolence is paramount, the question of whether it is successful in dislodging continuing or residual hate speech is secondary. 1.3 The Contribution of bell hooks The problem of the language of politics goes deeper than the abuse of public discourse and also involves the official language of the oppressor. The languages of establishments are typically languages of oppression. bell hooks is keenly aware of the violence done by such language. At the same time she also affirms that we need to employ this language (and I would stress in its nonviolent forms) in our response to the many forms of injustice. In her chapter titled “Language” in her book Teaching to Transgress, bell hooks quotes and supports Adrienne Rich’s line “This is the oppressor’s language yet I need it to talk to you.”12 For bell hooks, “It is difficult not to hear in standard English always the sound of slaughter and conquest.”13 Along with the oppressed, persons responding to uncivil discourse—from hate speech to attacks on “political corrections”—need to use language in a way that expands the space for and practice of alternative cultural production. While language is not the only form of resistance, it can be very effective. In order to respond to uncivil discourse without turning to linguistically or physically violent means, we need to resist more than hate speech and the language of white supremacy; we also need to create spaces for what bell hooks terms “alternative cultural production and alternative epistemologies—different ways of thinking and knowing” in order to create “a counter-hegemonic worldview.”14 A language of linguistic nonviolence, of linguistic peace and linguistic justice, can reduce the manifestations of cultural violence found in uncivil discourse and various forms of linguistic imperialism and hegemony.15 Just as language has been used to justify cultural violence, language can be used to reduce cultural violence, even if such discourse cannot ever fully eliminate cultural violence. The fault is not with language, but the responsibility is with us in how we speak and act. Nevertheless, just as we need the language of the oppressors for this purpose, we also increasingly need English, because English largely dominates international communication. Patricia Friedrich makes this point quite clearly in her book Language, Negotiation and Peace: The Use of 12 13 14 15

bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom (New York: Routledge, 1994), pp. 167–168. Ibid., p. 169. Ibid., p. 171. William Gay, “The Role of Language in Justifying and Eliminating Cultural Violence,” Peace, Culture, and Violence, ed. Fuat Gursozlu (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2018), 31–63.

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English in Conflict Resolution where, as a linguist, she addresses this issue in relation to a nonviolent quest for peace and social justice in our language and actions.16 Like bell hooks, she supports linguistic efforts (largely in English) to counter the linguistic distortions of the establishment, even if these alternatives introduce their own “distortions.” I have argued elsewhere that, in relation to how terms distort, some terms constrict and narrow our vision (obscuring and legitimating social injustice), while other terms expand and augment our vision (revealing social injustice and forging emancipatory alternatives).17 I contend that terms that are more inclusive, that do less harm, and that expand our semiotic and semantic field are preferable. Insofar as justice should be for all, a language of inclusion and respect, that does little or no harm, is preferable.18 For the task of reshaping English (the language of global hegemony and oppression), I stress here how bell hooks and Patricia Friedrich provide useful and needed strategies. Of course, beyond the problem of linguistic violence, the problem of physical violent against persons remains in part because a nonviolent and emancipatory civil discourse alone will not be sufficient to achieve social justice. 1.4 Rejection of Repressive Tolerance in Herbert Marcuse Uncivil discourse and conditions should not be tolerated because such tolerance can mask unacceptable social injustices. In particular, tolerance can function like silence. While silence is sometimes consistent with agreement, silence is not synonymous with agreement. Tolerance can facilitate an impression of acceptance of words or actions and can be misrepresented as “tacit consent.” In this regard, in responding to calls for “politeness” and “tolerance” in the discourse of civility, the work of Herbert Marcuse can be quite helpful. Marcuse was a leading member of the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research in Frankfurt am Main that was founded in 1922. Many members, including Marcuse, went into exile in the United States in the 1930s during the Third Reich. While most members, like Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, returned to Germany after wwii, Marcuse remained in the United States. His key essay for responding to calls for tolerance is “Repressive Tolerance” in which he lays out his thesis that “Tolerance is extended to policies, conditions, and 16 17 18

Patricia Friedrich, Language, Negotiation and Peace: The Use of English in Conflict Resolution (London: Continuum, 2007). William Gay, “Ricoeur on Metaphor and Ideology,” Darshana International 32, n1 (January 1992): 59–70. William Gay, “Exposing and Overcoming Linguistic Alienation and Linguistic Violence,” Philosophy and Social Criticism 24:2/3 (1998): 137–156.

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modes of behavior which should not be tolerated.”19 He also says, “What is proclaimed and practiced as tolerance today, is in many of its most effective manifestations servicing the cause of oppression”20 He later adds, “Democratic and authoritarian governments engage in violence. People are socialized to view such violence as needed to preserve the status quo. As a result, we tolerate the intolerable.”21 Governments employ the educational system to legitimate the status quo. Governments also employ the police and criminal justice system to enforce the status quo. We face the danger of “repressive tolerance” when governments, “Foster a mental attitude which tends to obliterate the difference between true and false, information and indoctrination, right and wrong.”22 Repressive tolerance is fully operative when governments “Offend…by being calm where one should be enraged, by refraining from accusation where accusation is in the facts themselves.”23 Tolerance can serve the perpetuation of overt violence. Social and political institutions tend to legalize violence or suppression of the disadvantaged by means of the police, armed forces, and other mechanisms of forceful control. These forces are presented as serving to maintain “law and order” (more accurately, protecting the status quo). In addition, tolerance can perpetuate covert violence. Persons in privileged positions tend to perpetuate their economic, social, and political interests, practice “pure tolerance” (abstract tolerance), and refrain from taking sides; at the same time, however, they also typically take or even welcome the advantages of their status and want their power and wealth to be protected. 2 Resistance Whether Violence against Injustice Is Justified: Marcuse and Sartre vs. Camus and Deming How should we respond to repressive tolerance? I have suggested that silence is not the needed response. In addition, civil discussion is not always successful. 2.1

19

Herbert Marcuse, “Repressive Tolerance,” originally published in 1965 in Robert Paul Wolff, Barrington Moore, Jr., and Herbert Marcuse, A Critique of Pure Tolerance (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969), pp. 95–137; online at: http://www.marcuse.org/herbert/pubs/60spub s/65repressivetolerance.htm. 20 Ibid., p. 82. 21 Ibid. 22 Ibid., p. 97. 23 Ibid., p. 98.

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So, are violent protest and resistance needed? Is violent response effective? Is a violent response appropriate? How is the language of resistance used, and how should it be used? Before turning to resistance per se and to discourse about resistance, I want to address Marcuse’s response to these questions. In brief, despite the value of Marcuse’s analysis of repressive tolerance and his contributions to the critique of culture, he still relies on the traditional distinction between the “revolutionary violence” of the opposition and the “reactionary violence” of the oppressors, and he largely associates the former with “counterviolence.” His use of “counterviolence” is unfortunate since the establishment also sometimes uses this term to justify the force it employs in response to violence against it. Just as states or governments that are regarded as oppressive regimes re-designate their violence against dissent, even so Marcuse wants to “excuse” or “annul” the violence of the force used to resist or overthrow them. Even if one terms as “counterviolence” the violence used to resist the unjustified violence of a supposed “legitimate authority,” this violence is still violence. Marcuse, of course, is hardly alone among leftist intellectuals in trying to justify or even deny the violence—from non-lethal violence through large-scale lethal force— employed in efforts to displace an oppressive regime. Even Paulo Freire uses such language in his Pedagogy of the Oppressed where he contends that violence is never initiated by the oppressed.24 In his essay “Repressive Tolerance,” Marcuse relies on a quote from Jean-Paul Sartre’s “Preface” to Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth to justify “revolutionary violence.”25 Fanon himself supported the justifiability of the oppressed using violence to oppose their oppression, and Sartre, in agreeing with Fanon, associates nonviolent responses to oppression with “passivity.” (In “Repressive Tolerance,” which Marcuse wrote in English, he leaves the key quote from Sartre in French.26) In relation to nonviolent alternatives, Sartre also implicitly

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Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, trans. Myra Bergman Ramos (New York: Herder and Herder, 1972). Jean-Paul Sartre, “Preface” in Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, trans. Constance Farrington (New York: Grove Press, Inc. 1963), pp. 7–31. Also available at https://www .marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/1961/preface.htm. Marcuse, “Repressive Tolerance,” pp. 103–104. The key quotation from Sartre, as translated on p. 25 in the English edition of Fanon cited above, says, “Try to understand this at any rate: if violence began this very evening and if exploitation and oppression had never existed on the earth, perhaps the slogans of non-violence might end the quarrel. But if the whole regime, even your non-violent ideas, are conditioned by a thousand-year-old oppression, your passivity serves only to place you in the ranks of the oppressors.”

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criticizes Albert Camus’s position in Neither Victims Nor Executioners.27 While I am prepared to defend Camus’s position, I will cite instead an alternative interpretation of Fanon’s still very pertinent analysis and one that does not equate nonviolence with passivity. In her essay “On Revolution and Equilibrium” Barbara Deming, in supporting much of what Fanon observes and claims, also suggests that in almost all cases his use of the term “violence” in The Wretched of the Earth can be replaced—without a loss of meaning—with the phrase “radical and uncompromising action.”28 In this regard, she is rejecting the view that persons who practice nonviolence are passive. Marcuse, Sartre, and Fanon all three seem to fall into the trap of discrediting pacifism and nonviolent methods by equating them with passivity and ineffectiveness. Interestingly, to set up her argument, Deming quotes in the header to her essay (without citing pages references) passages from Fanon where he writes, “What we want to do is to go forward all the time…But can we escape becoming dizzy?”29 When violent action is used to “go forward,” we risk becoming “dizzy.” However, for Deming, when we use nonviolent action we are not being passive, and we can “go forward” without becoming dizzy. In this regard, her concerns are pretty close to ones addressed by Balibar: any attempt to end an oppressive regime—in both its displacement and its replacement— risks lapsing into the very violence it abhors. Dizziness or vertigo is one of the possible consequences. Fanon saw this prospect and suggests one can escape from it, but he, unlike Deming and Camus, is not explicit on how to “escape becoming dizzy” as a consequence of the turn to violence to fight violence. Deming and Camus not only lament but also oppose such lapses into violence in the first place, and refuse to use a term that justifies it. They also point the way to more healthy (and moral) nonviolent action against oppression. Transition from a Critique of Overly Restricted Civility to a Critique of Overly Unrestricted Resistance My discussion of civility focused on the danger of letting civility do less than it can and should do. More specifically, I criticized notions of civility that try to reduce the meaning of the term and actions associated with it to a politeness or acceptance that permits forms of discourse that should be opposed. I associated 2.2

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Albert Camus, Neither Victims Nor Executioners, trans. Dwight MacDonald (Gabriola Island, BC, Canada: New Society Publishers, 1986). 28 Barbara Deming, “On Revolution and Equilibrium,” in Nonviolence in Theory and Practice, eds. Robert L. Holmes and Barry L. Gan (Long Grove, Illinois: Waveland Press, Inc., 2005), p. 138. 29 Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth; the two phrases quoted by Deming are, respectively, from pp. 314–315 and n.p. 253.

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such an overly restricted civility with what Marcuse termed “repressive tolerance.” We should not tolerate in the name of civility forms of discourse that seek to slow or reverse progress toward social justice and full human emancipation. Now, having looked at understandings of civility that restrict it too much, I turn to views of resistance that restrict it too little when they employ physical violence against persons. I will associate such an overly unrestricted resistance with what Étienne Balibar terms the forms of violence that employ “cruelty” and with the dangers for establishment and insurgent groups that assert the “convertibility of violence.” He provides valuable insights into the improper use of the language of resistance and points to a more appropriate language and practice of resistance. Balibar’s Critique of the Political Claims of the Convertibility of Violence Étienne Balibar is a contemporary French philosopher and one of the most erudite and rigorous scholars in contemporary politics and continental political philosophy. He is the leading student of Louis Althusser and has contributed to Althusser’s perspective on Karl Marx. In Violence and Civility: On the Limits of Political Philosophy, Balibar assesses the unavoidable extent to which politics is entangled with violence.30 In response to violence in society, the establishment’s supposed remedy is in what he terms “antiviolence.” Both the establishment and resistance to it need vigilance to avoid lapsing into similar forms of violence—regardless of how they term their effects to maintain or achieve justice. Of particular concern to Balibar is what he terms the “cruelty” found in the modern state, and he distinguishes two interrelated types that he terms “ultraobjective violence” and “ultrasubjective violence.” “Ultraobjective violence” treats groups of persons as things who are regarded as worthless and to be ignored and who are reduced by means such as starvation, child trafficking, and organ harvesting. “Ultrasubjective violence” treats groups of persons as incarnations of evil to be eliminated actively by means such as “liquidation” or genocide. Both of these types of violence employ “cruelty” that gets masked by being re-designated as a “problem” for which the state is not responsible and that it can ignore, even though the state remains directly or indirectly the perpetrator. Balibar’s reflections are very deeply steeped in the traditions of continental political philosophy, and his language is filled with complex formulations that employ, often without full definition, technical terms drawn from a wide array 2.3

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Étienne Balibar, Violence and Civility: On the Limits of Political Philosophy, trans. G.M. Goshgarian (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015).

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of sources. While these features of this rather eclectic text hinder access to its message, Balibar offers insights that are very important to persons who advocate peace and social justice and who criticize the employment of physical violence against persons. Balibar’s analysis provides a challenge both to advocates of some type of political state as needed to protect citizens from violence and equally to advocates of a vision of social justice that pursues human emancipation without recourse to “counterviolence.” In the end, Balibar rejects the “convertibility” of violence. For Balibar, forms of violence associated with attaining, maintaining, and transforming a political state cannot be redeemed or eradicated. Violence by any other name is still violence; justice under any scheme is not exempt from the prospects for the continuation of and lapses into violence. Balibar recognizes that violence is more than physical; crediting Marx, he says many forms of institutional injustice—legitimated by virtually all forms of social, political, and economic organization—are properly termed “structural violence.” He contrasts “civility” and “citizenship,” though his treatment of their differences is underdeveloped. He recognizes (following Max Weber and also like Jürgen Habermas) that political states seek to cultivate a belief in their legitimacy or, more accurately, their monopoly on the use of force (and the instruments of force). Proper citizenship is integral to effective state leadership; socialization into the roles and confines of citizenship can serve as means for political states to achieve large-scale obedience to their norms. Under these conditions, deviation by citizens or outsiders can be termed as and treated as violent behavior—as illegal or criminal—and thus “justly” repressed or punished. As opposed to such system legitimating citizenship, Balibar affirms a view of citizenship associated with what he terms “antiviolence.” He regards such citizenship as a form of civility that offers “our best hope” in resisting the reduction of others to an “anonymous surplus” or a “diabolical Other.” The civility of citizenship oriented to “antiviolence” resists both ultraobjective violence and ultrasubjective violence. However, such civility and its anti-violence can never be finished; they are part of the “precariousness of politics” that “inscribes risk and discontinuity…in the everyday reality of conflict.”31 Civility, while closely connected to the type of citizenship desired by the state, can have some independence in the sense that it can provide the space within which protest against and resistance to the political state can operate. Such civility is not the type found in the hegemonic state. Balibar notes three types of civility, namely, the hegemonic, majoritarian, and minoritarian. The 31

Ibid., p. 97.

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state pursues from above the hegemonic type by seeking to impose as “right” or “moral” the inequalities and violence upon which it is based and that it seeks to preserve. By contrast, the other two types work from below, but in different ways.32 As Alexander Livingston puts it, “Acknowledging the ambiguity of collective identities, Balibar seems to suggest, opens the way for an antiviolent revolutionary consciousness concerning the limits of political mastery over violent means. This will not be a revolutionary struggle that justifies its use of terror by appeal to the laws of history. It will rather be a struggle for equaliberty that remains tragically aware of its inability to speak for the universal without remainder, and so exercise moderation in the use of force.”33 (Balibar coined the term “égaliberté,” translated as “equiliberty,” to suggest the tension between the needed and competing political ideals of “equality” and “liberty” in a democracy.) The state has an interest in keeping civility from turning against its supposed “legitimate domination.” At the same time the state regards the violence used in its establishment (and maintenance) as justified; for the state, such violence was and is “convertible” or annulled by the “greater good” supposedly achieved. Likewise, the violence to which the opposition may turn in its resistance to and overthrowing of what it regards as illegitimate domination and social injustice too easily and too readily can lapse into its own rationalizations of the “convertibility” of its own “counterviolence” as a justified means. Subsequently, a “victorious” opposition too often responds to reactionary efforts against it as actual or potential violence that need to be eradicated. Basically, as Fuat Gursozlu has shown, the less monolithic the state (where there are weaker demands for and imposition of an identity), the more likely are prospects that within the public sphere (in public spaces) contestation and disruption can prevent, reverse, or at least soften the “settlements” and “sedimentations” that divide citizens into the established “we” and the marginalized “them” who can become increasingly subjected to characterization as a danger or an enemy that needs to be controlled, “disciplined,” and, at the extreme, expelled or even eliminated.34 Balibar regards affirmations of the “convertibility of violence”—whether by the state or by insurgent groups seeking to 32 33 34

Ibid., pp. 115–124. Alexander Livingston, “Review of Violence and Civility: On the Limits of Political Philosophy,” Contemporary Political Theory 16:2 (May 2017), pp. 303–307. https://link.springer .com/article/10.1057/s41296-016-0008-8. Fuat Gursozlu, “Cultural Violence, Hegemony, and Agonistic Interventions,” Peace, Culture, and Violence, ed. Fuat Gursozlu (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2018), 84–105; Fuat Gursozlu, “Democracy and the Square: Recognizing the Democratic Value of the Recent Public Sphere Movements,” Essays in Philosophy 16:1 (2015), pp. 26–42.

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replace what they perceive to be the calcified and narrow view of the state—as part of “mystical,” “mythical,” or “eschatological” visions and practices of politics that continue and even exacerbate reliance on violence, on cruelty, to maintain power.35 For Balibar, the exercise of power seems inseparable from the lure of violence as the final, if not regular, arbiter of its legitimacy. Civility, however, is needed and generally is to some extent allowed. The goal, for Balibar, is to restrict civility to “antiviolence.” He prefers to present antiviolence as an alternative to what he terms “nonviolence” and “counterviolence.” What he means by “counterviolence” is straightforward, but what he means by “nonviolence” can be confusing, especially when he contrasts “antiviolence” to it. Also, Balibar says near the beginning of the book and without much clarification “nonviolence is the worst form of violence.”36 Balibar sometimes sees nonviolence as a mere abstraction from violence, as inaction or passivism. He also sometimes sees nonviolence as a calculated means, despite claims to the contrary by its advocates. In the passage just quoted, he may be referring to nonviolence as inaction. Regardless, he also raises questions about Gandhi and never addresses the nonviolence of King and Gene Sharp, as Todd May has observed.37 The state wants nonviolence among its citizens and seeks to retain its monopoly on what Balibar calls “counterviolence,” but, as Livingston notes, “a violence used to punish and control outbreaks of violence” is never complete: “Acts of violence are ever-present possibilities in civil society that demand ever-greater uses of state counterviolence to police and control.”38 I find three dimensions of Balibar’s analysis to be particularly insightful and helpful. First, he thematizes and criticizes how the establishment and the resistance can lapse into, if not regularly rely on, violence. Basically, Balibar presents the contingency of the avoidance of violence in various quests by the establishment and the resistance for power, legitimacy, peace, and justice. In this regard, Balibar gives a contemporary response that echoes what G.W.F. Hegel said in criticism of Immanuel Kant’s notion of perpetual peace. Hegel notes that peace is “inflected with contingency.”39 Balibar stresses that political, if not all, uses of violence are “inconvertible” at least when they cross over into what he terms the “cruelty” of “ultraobjective violence” and “ultrasubjective 35 Balibar, Violence and Civility, p. xiv. 36 Ibid., p. 1. 37 Todd May, “Review of Violence and Civility: On the limits of political philosophy,” http:// ndpr.nd.edu/news/violence-and-civility-on-the-limits-of-political-philosophy/. 38 Livingston, “Review of Violence and Civility.” 39 G.W.F. Hegel, Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, trans. T.M. Knox (London: Oxford University Press, 1967), Par. 333, p. 215.

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violence.” For Balibar, this contingency applies equally to the establishment and to the resistance. Second, for Balibar, politics cannot escape a “tragic” dimension, because politics by the establishment or by the resistance is inseparable from being or having the prospect to become violent. This tragic dimension, as illustrated in Greek drama, expresses the folly of mythical, mystical, and eschatological visions and presentations of the convertibility of political violence. Humans are flawed creatures. Humans, as Paul Ricoeur noted in his early philosophical writings, are fallible and, as a consequence, occasionally succumb to or, if not vigilant, regularly fall into, “evil” or into immoral or unethical practices.40 Philosophical criticisms of political examples of such evil can be found in Hannah Adrendt’s classic treatment of “the banality of evil” and in Elizabeth Minnich’s recent book The Evil of Banality.41 The tragedy goes further, though, than what Ricoeur suggests. Balibar, unlike Ricoeur, does not place hope in a mythology of religious or soteriological redemption of individuals or in the historical or eschatological political claims of any political movements and systems. This observation resonates with the manner in which the agonistic perspective denies the attainment of any political state in which dissent is no longer needed. The violence of cruelty remains not only inconvertible but also cannot be eliminated as a human capacity and, hence, is an ever-present political possibility. Third, civility, when its form of citizenship is practiced as “antiviolence” in Balibar’s sense, offers our best safeguard against and corrective for our fallibility and the inescapable and, hence, tragic lure of all envisioned conversion of violence and cruelty. We should recognize and admit and be prepared for the fact that political establishments and resistance movements have lapsed, do lapse, and will lapse into extreme violence. The sooner we recognize this capacity the better able we may be to recognize its emergence, persistence, and expansion and, then, to resist and reduce its scale. 3

Neither Tolerance Nor Violence: The Nonviolent Practice of Civility and Resistance Oriented to Social Justice

To conclude, I will summarize my critique of the language and practice of tolerance and violence. Tolerance, as Marcuse has shown, too easily includes 40 41

Paul Ricoeur, Fallible Man, trans. Charles Kelbley (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1967); The Symbolism of Evil, trans., Emerson Buchanan (Boston: Beacon Press, 1967). Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (New York: Penguin Books, 2006), originally published in 1963; Elizabeth K. Minnich, The Evil of Banality: On the Life and Death Importance of Thinking (Lantham, MD: Rowman & Littlefied, 2017).

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repressive tolerance that does not question in words or challenge in actions social injustice. Civility properly obligates us to speak out against injustice. When speaking out we should avoid linguistic violence, but we do not always need to be “polite” and sometimes we should not be “tolerant.” Resistance properly obligates us to act out against injustice when civil discourse is inadequate. When acting out we should avoid physical violence against persons, but we do not always need to act calmly and sometimes we may even engage in damage to or destruction of property. Many of us, myself included, need to make more concessions to our vulnerability, to our fallibility, to our inclinations toward and practices of violence or its occurrence within the movements we support and the modifications in political systems that they seek to achieve. If this position should properly be termed “tragic,” then so be it. I prefer a tragedy of unattained goals to a folly that tries to excuse its violence. I reject eschatological mythology and inadequate political as well as other excuses for violence. I reject that violence is convertible. Discourse and action that accept violence as convertible are politically dangerous and morally unacceptable. If not all violence, some violence, at least extreme violence and cruelty, is inconvertible, is irredeemable. To think otherwise is folly and paves the way to disaster. The rejection of the convertibility of violence does not leave us speechless or immobilized. In neither our words nor our actions should we be tolerant of the intolerable. We can and should practice civility without linguistic violence, and we can and should practice resistance without physical violence against persons. Bibliography Arendt, Hannah. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. New York: Penguin Books, 2006. Originally published in 1963. Balibar, Étienne. Violence and Civility: On the Limits of Political Philosophy. Trans. G.M. Goshgarian. New York: Columbia University Press, 2015. Bosmajian, Haig. The Language of Oppression. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1983. Camus, Albert. Neither Victims Nor Executioners. Trans. Dwight MacDonald. Gabriola Island, BC, Canada: New Society Publishers, 1986. Deming, Barbara. “On Revolution and Equilibrium.” In Nonviolence in Theory and Practice. Eds. Robert L. Holmes and Barry L. Gan. Long Grove. Illinois: Waveland Press, Inc., 2005. 136–149.

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Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. Trans. Constance Farrington. New York: Grove Press, Inc. 1963. Friedrich, Patricia. Language, Negotiation and Peace: The Use of English in Conflict Resolution. London: Continuum, 2007. Friere, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Trans. Myra Bergman Ramos. New York: Herder and Herder, 1972. Gay, William. “Exposing and Overcoming Linguistic Alienation and Linguistic Violence.” Philosophy and Social Criticism 24:2/3 (1998): 137–156. Gay, William. “The Language of War and Peace.” Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, and Conflict. 2nd ed. Ed. Lester Kurtz. Oxford: Elsevier, 2008. Volume 2, 1115–1127. Gay, William. “The Practice of Linguistic Nonviolence.” Peace Review 10, n4 (1998): 545–547. Gay, William. “Ricoeur on Metaphor and Ideology.” Darshana International 32, n1 (January 1992): 59–70. Gay, William. “The Role of Language in Justifying and Eliminating Cultural Violence.” In Peace, Culture, and Violence. Ed. Fuat Gursozlu. Leiden. Boston: Brill, 2018. 31–63. Gursozlu, Fuat. “Cultural Violence, Hegemony, and Agonistic Interventions.” In Peace, Culture, and Violence. Ed. Fuat Gursozlu. Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2018. 84–105. Gursozlu, Fuat. “Democracy and the Square: Recognizing the Democratic Value of the Recent Public Sphere Movements.” Essays in Philosophy 16:1 (2015): 26–42. Hegel. G.W.F. Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. Trans. T.M. Knox. London: Oxford University Press, 1967. Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan or the Matter, Forme, & Power of a Common-wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civill. London: Andrew Crooke, 1651. https://socserv2.socsci.mcmaster. ca/econ/ugcm/3ll3/hobbes/Leviathan.pdf. Accessed Nov. 2, 2017. hooks, bell. “Language: Teaching New Worlds/New Words.” In bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom (New York: Routledge, 1994): 167–175. Livingston, Alexander. “Review of Violence and Civility: On the Limits of Political Philosophy.” Contemporary Political Theory 16, n 2 (May 2017): 303–307. https://link .springer.com/article/10.1057/s41296-016-0008-8. Accessed Oct. 25, 2017. Locke, John. Second Treatise of Government. Ed. C.B. McPherson. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1980. Marcuse, Herbert. “Repressive Tolerance.” Originally published in 1965. In Robert Paul Wolff, Barrington Moore, Jr., and Herbert Marcuse, A Critique of Pure Tolerance (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969), 95–137. Online at: http://www.marcuse.org/herbert/pubs/ 60spubs/65repressivetolerance.htm. May, Todd. Nonviolent Resistance: A Philosophical Introduction. Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2016.

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May, Todd. “Review of Violence and Civility: On the Limits of Political Philosophy.” http:// ndpr.nd.edu/news/violence-and-civility-on-the-limits-of-political-philosophy/. Accessed Nov. 2, 2017. Minnich, Elizabeth K. The Evil of Banality: On the Life and Death Importance of Thinking. Lantham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017. Orwell, George. “Politics and the English Language.” 1946. In print from Penguin Modern Classics, and on line at http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/ english/e_polit/. Ricoeur, Paul. Fallible Man. Trans. Charles Kelbley. Chicago: Henry Regnery Co., 1967. Ricoeur, Paul. The Symbolism of Evil. Trans. Emerson Buchanan. Boston: Beacon Press, 1967. Rousseau, Jean Jacques. “On the Origin of the Inequality of Mankind,” Second Part, par. 38, https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/rousseau/inequality/ ch02.htm. Accessed Nov. 2, 2017. Sartre, Jean-Paul. “Preface.” In Franz Fanon, Wretched of the Earth. Trans. Constance Farrington. New York: Grove Press, Inc. 1963, 7–31. Also available at https://www .marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/1961/preface.htm. Accessed Nov, 2, 2017. Thompson, Mark. Enough Said: What’s Gone Wrong with the Language of Politics? New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2016.

Chapter 2

Civility, Ethical Democracy, and the Pacific Faith Andrew Fiala I am the eternal optimist. I think that over time people respond to civility and rational argument. barack obama1

The American philosophical tradition is hopeful. It contains extensive discussions of the power of civility, rationality, and democracy. Thinkers in this tradition have been influenced by pacifism; they have, in turn, influenced the philosophy of nonviolence. But traditions are not monolithic and history rarely moves in one direction. Recent developments in American political life show us a different vision of the world: one that is more uncivil, less concerned with nonviolence, and less devoted to the ethical ideals that undergird democracy. This chapter has four sections. First, I provide a historical overview of thinking about civility in the American democratic tradition and its linkage to the philosophy of nonviolence. I then outline the problem of ideological applications of civility, truth, and rationality with reference to the contemporary example of incivility found in Donald Trump’s Presidency. The problem identified in this section is an old one, which is that civility can be employed ideologically as a “trump card.” In the third section, I articulate a response to this problem, which involves a clearer understanding of the way that civility, ethical democracy, and a pacific faith seek to unify means and ends. In the final section I consider another objection, which is that the shared vision of a peaceful and democratic world is merely ideological. I conclude by arguing that we are confronted with a choice of faiths. A “faith” in my usage here is a pragmatic declaration of hope that aims to bring into existence what is hoped for, while believing in the possibility of that thing. As Dewey explained in A Common Faith, “all endeavor for the better is moved by faith in what is possible, not by adherence to the actual.”2 Dewey also explained that democracy rests on faith: “The foundation of democracy is

1 New York Times, Feb. 9, 2009: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/09/us/politics/09textobama.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all (accessed March 1, 2018). 2 John Dewey, A Common Faith (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1934), 23.

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faith in the capacities of human nature; faith in human intelligence and in the power of pooled and cooperative experience.”3 Similar declarations of faith are found in the nonviolent tradition. Gandhi, for example, linked “hope for the future” to “undying faith in nonviolence.”4 The pacific faith is built upon a set of virtues, which are understood as both the means of making progress and the ends to be enjoyed. These virtues include civility, rationality, hospitality, mercy, forgiveness, and love. Similar virtues are found in the democratic tradition along with faith in liberty, fraternity, and equality. In both traditions, the idea of a unity or continuity of means and ends is central. An important example of this is found in the value of civility. Civility is based upon self-restraint, respect for human dignity, and faith in the power of rationality and truth. These values are essential for a flourishing democracy in which there is social peace: civility is both a value to be enjoyed and a means toward democratic peace. It is faith in the power of civility that helps us remain civil; and by remaining civil, we help to create the civil space we are hoping for. 1

A Brief History of Ethical Democracy and the Pacifist Tradition

The tradition of American philosophy that runs from Emerson and the New England Transcendentalists through Thoreau, Addams, James, and Dewey can be regarded as a tradition that advocates “ethical democracy.” In an essay from 1888 entitled “The Ethics of Democracy,” Dewey pointed out that democracy is not merely about the brute force of the majority: it must also rest on the democratic character of individuals and upon an organic connection between citizen and government.5 Later, in 1939, as the global struggle with fascism and totalitarian communism was on full display, Dewey maintained that “democratic ends need democratic methods for their realization.”6 In an essay with that title, Dewey explained that resort to force and military solutions indicates 3 John Dewey, “Democracy and Educational Administration” in Jo Ann Boydston, ed., The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume 11: 1925–53 (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1987), p. 219. 4 M.K. Gandhi, Harijan, 23-11-1947 in The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (Electronic Book; New Delhi, Publications Division Government of India, 1999, at: http://gandhiserve.org/e/ cwmg/cwmg.htm; accessed March 1, 2018), vol. 97, p. 278. 5 John Dewey, “The Ethics of Democracy” in John Dewey, The Early Works (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1969/2008), vol. 1, 240. 6 John Dewey, “Democratic Ends Need Democratic Methods for their Realization” (1939) in Jo Ann Boydston, ed., The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume 14: 1939–41 (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1988/2008), pp. 367–68.

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the failure of democracy. While Dewey is not a pacifist, his ideas have much in common with the philosophy of nonviolence and what we might call the “pacific faith.” Unlike contemporary liberalism, which focuses primarily on procedural justice and democracy as a form of government, ethical democracy is more focused on the virtues of citizens and on democracy as a way of life. Ethical democracy is similar to what is called “deliberative democracy” and thus different from “agonistic democracy.” Deliberative democracy aims to achieve consensus, while relying on norms of civility that set parameters for deliberation. This rests upon certain virtues and the idea that there should be a continuity of means and ends. Dewey provides an explanation in his 1939 essay: The conflict between the methods of freedom and those of totalitarianism, insofar as we accept the democratic ideals to which our history commits us, is within our institutions and attitudes. It can be won only by extending the application of democratic methods, methods of consultation, persuasion, negotiation, cooperative intelligence in the task of making our own politics, industry, education—our culture generally—a servant of an evolving manifestation of democratic ideals. Resort to military force is a first sure sign that we are giving up the struggle for a democratic way of life, and that the Old World has conquered morally as well as geographically. If there is one conclusion to which human experience unmistakably points, it is that democratic ends demand democratic methods for their realization…. Democracy can be served only by the slow, day by day adoption and contagious diffusion in every phase of our common life of methods that are identical with the ends to be reached.7 A different approach—that of agonistic democracy—does not expect consensus or rely upon a common set of virtues. Agonistic democracy sees consensus as the result of temporary hegemonies in a world of radical diversity. It also warns that the effort to prevent conflict can provoke further antagonisms which, as Mouffe puts it, “can tear up the very basis of civility.”8 Mouffe recognizes that there are limits to agonism and that civility remains a key value, if we are not to slip beyond democracy and end up with raw struggles for power 7 Dewey, “Democratic Ends Need Democratic Methods for their Realization” (1939) op. cit., 367–68. 8 Chantal Mouffe, “Deliberative Democracy or Agonistic Pluralism” Reihe Politikwissenschaft (Political Science Series) 72 (December 2000), p. 17; also see Jacquelyn Ann K. Kegley, “Democratic Theory” in Andrew Fiala, ed., The Bloomsbury Companion to Political Philosophy (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015).

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that give us fascism and other totalitarianisms. The possibility of that slippage is what grounds the commitment to ethical democracy, which postulates a set of democratic virtues including civility, rationality, and nonviolence. The tradition of ethical democracy takes it for granted that concrete human relationships are the locus of value. Thus this tradition is critical of unthinking and sentimental patriotism. It celebrates self-reliance. And it seeks to reduce irrational political power, the use of violence, and mindless conformity to structures of authority. An obvious example is seen in Thoreau’s essay “Civil Disobedience,” which begins by saying, “That government is best which governs not at all.”9 Thoreau downgrades the import of the pomp, power, and procedures of democratic governance while emphasizing the virtues of democratic individuals. Key values for ethical democracy are nonviolence and civility. Thoreau’s complaint against government is linked to his critique of militarism and slavery. His tax resistance is grounded in his desire not to support the Mexican War and southern slavery. But his practice of civil disobedience is based upon a claim about civility—that is about what counts as “civil” disobedience. Importantly, Thoreau did not advocate violent resistance—at least in his influential essay on civil disobedience, although Thoreau later defended John Brown’s use of violence and his slave insurrection. But his focus in his essay on civil disobedience is tax resistance, which he claims could lead to a “peaceable revolution.” The idea of civil resistance pioneered by Thoreau went on to inspire Gandhi, King, and other nonviolent activists. Thoreau’s ideas have a source in Emerson, who criticizes corrupt political life while defending the need to develop morality, civility, and virtue on the part of individuals. He claims that “every actual State is corrupt” and that “good men must not obey the laws too well.”10 And he says, “there will always be a government of force where men are selfish…”11 The solution to the need for governmental force—and war and violence—is to develop beyond selfishness. This problem came to a head in the Civil War, where selfishness and incivility gave way to violent conflict. In his essay “American Civilization,” written at the outset of the Civil War, Emerson writes, “civilization depends on morality.” And: “one condition is essential to the social education of man,—namely, 9

10 11

Henry David Thoreau, “Civil Disobedience” in Walden and Other Writings (New York: Modern Library, 2000), 667. I connect the American tradition to sympathy for anarchism in Andrew Fiala, “Political Skepticism and Anarchist Themes in the American Tradition” European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy vol. 2, (December 2013). Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Politics,” Essays: Second Series in Ralph Waldo Emerson: Essays and Lectures (New York: Library of America, 1983), 563 Emerson, “Politics,” 570.

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morality. There can be no high civility without a deep morality.”12 The point here is that civilization and the cultivation of civility have little to do with government and everything to do with the moral development of individuals. Furthermore, Emerson indicates that progress in civility—or civilization— involves moving beyond war toward what he calls in that essay, “the arts of peace.”13 Emerson is not a pacifist. But Emerson and Thoreau developed their ideas against the backdrop of the explicit pacifism and pacifist anarchism of people such as Adin Ballou, Bronson Alcott, and William Lloyd Garrison—whose work inspired Tolstoy’s thinking about Christian pacifism.14 The American Transcendentalists and abolitionists were generally sympathetic to what was then called “non-resistance” and the idea of spiritual renewal grounded in peace. This thread—that links civility with peace, nonresistance, and democratic virtue—influenced both the subsequent American tradition and the development of pacifism and nonviolence in the Tolstoy-Gandhi-King tradition. For example, Tolstoy quotes with approval, in his The Kingdom of God is Within You, Garrison’s 1838 “Declaration of Sentiments” from the Boston Peace Convention, which led to the foundation of the Society for Non-Resistance.15 Tolstoy also recounts personal correspondence with Ballou. And, as is well-known, Tolstoy’s work helped to inspire Gandhi. Gandhi’s life, work, and writing explicitly links civility with nonviolence. Gandhi explained in his Autobiography: “Experience has taught me that civility is the most difficult part of Satyagraha. Civility does not here mean the mere outward gentleness of speech, cultivated for the occasion, but an inborn gentleness and desire to do the opponent good.”16 Civility for Gandhi is one of the pacific virtues, linked to gentleness, benevolence, and love, which is also linked to truth-seeking and nonviolent action in the concept of Satyagraha.

12 13 14 15 16

Ralph Waldo Emerson, “American Civilization” in The Atlantic April 1862; at https://www .theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1862/04/american-civilization/306548/ (accessed March 10, 2018). Ralph Waldo Emerson, “American Civilization” in The Atlantic April 1862; at https://www .theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1862/04/american-civilization/306548/ (accessed March 10, 2018). See Andrew Fiala, “Political Skepticism and Anarchist Themes in the American Tradition” op. cit. Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God is Within You (New York: Cassell Publishing, 1894— electronic text at www.nonresistance.org, 2006), Chapter 1. M.K. Gandhi, “The Onion Thief” in Autobiography: Story of My Experiments with Truth (Bombay: Gandhi Book Center, ebook at https://archive.org/details/AnAutobiography OrTheStoryOfMyExperimentsWithTruth; accessed March 1, 2018), p. 232.

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The connection between Emerson and Thoreau and the work of later American philosophers such as James, Addams, and Dewey is well-known. Less wellknown is the link between this tradition and Tolstoy. Most importantly for our purposes here is Jane Addams’s encounter with Tolstoy. In 1896 she travelled to Russian where she met the great Russian advocate of Christian non-resistance. This episode, recounted in Twenty Years at Hull House, brings up the question of the unity of means and ends. Tolstoy charged Addams with a kind of bourgeois hypocrisy: pointing out that her elaborate clothing and lifestyle were at odds with her democratic commitment to the people she served. Upon her return to Chicago, Addams more carefully attempted to unify means and ends—even devoting herself to working in the bakery in solidarity with the people. Addams, James, and Dewey help to flesh out the idea of ethical democracy and the idea of the unity or continuity of means and ends. These thinkers traced much of their thinking back to Emerson, whom Dewey once called the “philosopher of democracy.” He meant that Emerson was devoted to the common sense of the common man, which was connected to faith in truth, rationality, and the power of virtue.17 In “The Ethics of Democracy” (1888), Dewey explained that democracy was not merely a form of government based upon voting, “rule by the masses,” or atomistic individualism. Rather, Dewey maintained that democracy is an ethical way of life: “a form of moral and spiritual association.”18 The democratic way of life assumes personal responsibility. Individuals must govern themselves as persons in order to participate in the larger project of self-government. Individuals ought not merely to be regarded as free atoms seeking to maximize their liberty at the expense of others. Rather, they should be understood as free “persons” or “personalities” who selfregulate according to the idea that all persons are free and according to the idea that each person is equally deserving of respect. Fifty years later, as the Western world confronted the crisis of Nazism in 1939 Dewey, explained, “Democracy is a way of life controlled by a working faith in the possibilities of human nature.”19 Dewey also provides us with a useful working definition of civility. He explains:

17 18 19

John Dewey, “Emerson-The Philosopher of Democracy” International Journal of Ethics Vol. 13, No. 4 (Jul., 1903), pp. 405–413. John Dewey, “The Ethics of Democracy” in John Dewey, The Early Works (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1969/2008), vol. 1, 240. John Dewey, “Creative Democracy: The Task Before Us” in John Dewey, The Later Works (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 19888), vol. 14, p. 226.

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The essence of civility, or of civilization, is the ability to live consciously along with others, aware of their expectations, demands, and rights, of the pressure they can put upon one, while also conscious of just how far one can go in response in exerting pressure upon others.20 Civility is thus grounded in moral sensitivity to the other and the effort to avoid exerting pressure on them. This results from a consideration of freedom and from a critique of violence. Force and violence are irrational, ineffective, and disrespectful of human personality. While Dewey is not a pacifist, his work with the Anti-Imperialist League can be associated with critics of militarism; and Dewey was in conversation with critics of war and advocates of democracy such as James, Addams, and Randolph Bourne.21 Dewey’s democratic faith is melioristic, pragmatic, and pluralistic. The democratic faith helps to create the object that it intends. When we have faith in civility, rationality, democracy, and peace, we help to actualize these goods. When we lose faith, these goods tend to disappear. 2

Incivility as Trump Card

Given the history of American thinking about the importance of civility, rationality, pluralism, democracy, and peace, it is disheartening to see the American system developing in a different more agonistic direction. The hopeful civility of the Obama era has given way to an era of unprecedented incivility. Donald Trump’s campaign and his mode of governing are uniquely uncivil. And Trump’s incivility has prompted incivility among his critics. We could describe this as a move away from deliberative democracy toward a more agonistic form of democracy. This move may represent the result of unleashing pent up antagonisms that were kept at bay by the prior regime of civility and “political correctness” (as Mouffe might suggest). But whatever the cause, incivility is dangerous and threatens democracy and social peace. To flesh out the new incivility, let’s consider some recent events. Trump’s Presidentialcampaignemployedendlessadhominemarguments,includingpejo­ ra­tive nicknames for his opponents. During the campaign, he mocked the disabled and engaged in racial stereotyping. He threatened to jail his opponent. 20 21

John Dewey, “Militarism in China” in The Middle Works of John Dewey (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1982/2008), vol. 11, p. 220. See Andrew Fiala, “Pacifism in the Twentieth Century and Beyond” in Andrew Fiala, ed., The Routledge Handbook of Pacifism and Nonviolence (New York: Routledge, 2018).

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He compared the intelligence community to Nazis. He insulted cultural icon John Lewis and Hollywood hero Meryl Streep. Since taking office, he has continued to insult and malign his opponents including James Comey, Michael Cohen, and others who have been involved in the scandals plaguing his administration. Often these insults and attacks include racist and misogynist overtones. Consider his attacks on the intelligence of African-Americans such as LeBron James, one of many who ended up on the receiving end of a Trump tweet in August of 2018. Or consider his attacks on women such as msnbc’s “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski, whom Trump attacked in June of 2017, calling her “crazy” and accusing her of “bleeding from a facelift.” Racism and sexism combined during the summer of 2018, as this chapter was being completed, when Trump attacked a long-time aid, Omarosa Manigault-Newman—calling her a “dog” and a “crazed lowlife” in a tweet. And, it is important to note, Trump’s assault on the rules of civility are not merely verbal. He has fired people and sued them—and (as we’ll discuss below) he has insulted foreign leaders in ways that risk war. In response, Trump’s opponents have often resorted to similar tactics. Trump—and his family and cabinet members—have been accused of a variety of vices, character flaws, and intellectual failures. One obvious example comes from the world of political comedy—on Saturday Night Live and other late-night comedy programs—in which mockery of Trump has become cruel, vindictive, and ad hominem. This includes merciless caricatures and imagery that is violent and cruel. Famous examples include: an image of comedian Kathy Griffin with a decapitated head of Trump, a Snoop Dogg video with a simulated assassination of Trump, and (as this chapter was being completed) a Pearl Jam poster featuring the destruction of the White House with Trump’s corpse lying in front of it. Much more would need to be said here about free speech, power dynamics, the role of art, and the connection between images of violence and actual violence.22 But there is no question that public discourse in the United States has become less civil. And with each attack, the other side responds with further insults, accusations, and attacks. With each insult and ad hominem tweet, our discourse becomes less rational, enmity is created, democracy is weakened, and social peace is put at risk. So far, American democratic institutions and the rule of law remain strong. But incivility does seem to pose a threat to democracy, peace, and the rule of law. One startling example occurred at the end of the summer of 2018, when 22

See Andrew Fiala, “A Critique of Thug Culture” in Fuat Gursozlu, ed., Peace, Culture, and Violence (Leiden, NL: Brill, 2018).

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Trump revoked the security clearance of James Clapper, the former cia Director because Clapper had publicly criticized him. With cases like these, we move beyond mere incivility and begin on a slippery slope that leads toward authoritarianism—a slope that is made more slippery by Trump’s attacks on the free press and his claim that the press is the enemy of the people. The problem is that if citizens—and their leaders—cannot find common ground in shared facts and shared norms of public rationality, then democracy is in jeopardy. If citizens view one another as enemies to be hated and defeated rather than as member of a shared project of building consensus through civil discourse, then social peace is in jeopardy. There is a vicious circle here: incivility increases hostility and distrust, while causing further incivility; hostility and distrust cause us to lose faith in common rationality and shared facts and values. Unfortunately, incivility, irrationality, and distrust have become common in the Trump era. Current affairs provide a case study of the pernicious power of incivility. And indeed, we see here a significant problem for advocates of civility and associated values (rationality, democracy, nonviolence, etc.). The Trump example shows us in stark relief what we might call the problem of using incivility as a trump card. Schematically, this occurs as follows: – Person A behaves in a rude, obnoxious, or uncivil manner. – Person B responds by calling out Person A and accusing them of behaving in a rude, obnoxious, or uncivil manner. – Person A responds by accusing Person B of being rude, obnoxious, or uncivil. This dialectical struggle could be reiterated in a variety of ways. Person A could be accused of being irrational, violent, racist, sexist, or undemocratic. And in response the accusation can be turned against the accuser. This is similar to what is called “the paradox of toleration.”23 In this iteration of the problem, Person A behaves intolerantly; Person B refuses to tolerate A’s intolerant behavior; and A then accuses B of intolerance. In such cases, a key value (civility, toleration, nonviolence, etc.) is turned into a trump card, which each side employs against the other. One solution to this problem would seem to rest upon a finding of truth. The conflict would seemingly be resolved if one of the parties is making a true accusation about the others incivility. It is not uncivil to point out incivility—if the accusation is true. But in many cases, the claim of truth is itself contested: each party believes that its accusation is justified, while claiming that the other 23

I discuss this in Andrew Fiala, Tolerance and the Ethical Life (London: Continuum, 2005).

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is lying or uncivil. Of course, it could turn out that each is lying and that each is behaving rudely and obnoxiously, while accusing the other. Another solution would bring in a third-party arbiter who would decide which side is at fault, who is lying, and who is uncivil. This third-party might be, for example, the news media. But this solution runs the risk of reiterating the problem at a larger level. It is possible that A and B could each accuse the third-party of being rude, intolerant, violent, undemocratic, or what have you. And thus we have seen accusations about fake news and attacks on the press. Trump’s cohort calls the press “the enemy of the people”; and Trump’s detractors claim that Fox News, Breitbart, and the rest of the pro-Trump media is a “propaganda machine.”24 And with each accusation, there are counter accusations—and the problem is reiterated. At issue in all of this is the distinction between truth and ideology. Are accusations of incivility based upon truthful claims about real, uncivil behavior? Or are they merely ideological accusations divorced from truth and grounded in political self-interest? Trump’s victory demonstrates that incivility is a useful political tactic. Moreover, Trump has routinely employed the strategy of using incivility as a trump card. He has used accusations of incivility to turn the tables on his interlocutors.25 Trump has engaged in an outright war against truth and has disregarded norms of civil behavior. The accusation of “fake news” is a sign of incivility and a struggle about truth: it is a blatant act of name-calling, which has no relation to the truth of the story; and it serves to deflect the accusation of incivility by making it appear that the accusation is not true, but merely ideological. When the accused Party A (Trump in this case) accuses his accuser, Party B (the news media in general), of rudeness and fakeness the conversation is cleverly shifted. Now instead of discussing the initial reports about A, we focus on

24

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For example, a former Fox news commentator—Ralph Peters—quit Fox in the summer of 2018 claiming, “With the rise of Donald Trump, Fox did become a destructive propaganda machine” (New York Times, June 7, 2018: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/07/ business/media/ralph-peters-fox-cnn.html). The “enemy of the people” claim is a fre�quent Trump phrase. A large number of newspapers responded to this accusation with a set of editorials published on August 16, 2018 (see New York Time, August 16, 2018: https:// www.nytimes.com/aponline/2018/08/15/us/ap-us-newsrooms-vs-trump.html). For example, when cnn’s John Acosta persistently asked Trump a question at a pre-inaugural press conference, for example, Trump said, “don’t be rude,” while accusing him and cnn of being fake news. Video and transcript available here: https://www.realclearpoli�tics.com/video/2017/01/11/trump_vs_cnns_jim_acosta_im_not_giving_you_a_question_ youre_fake_news.html (accessed March 1, 2018).

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the retaliatory accusation against B.26 There are many examples of how Trump has employed accusations of incivility and untruthfulness as trump cards thrown down in Machiavellian fashion.27 The result of all of these tit-for-tat accusations is that we lose faith in civility in general.28 This points to a very significant problem for the norms of democracy and civil discourse. The incivility trump card changes the subject and ends debate. But when this tit-for-tat incivility spreads, we begin to think that incivility is normal, that civility is phony, and that there is no non-ideological truth behind judgments and accusations that are made about civility and incivility. Truth provides a key to solving this problem. It is not uncivil to say that the President, or anyone else, is being rude—so long as the critique is true. An accusation of incivility is not necessarily an ideological trump card, which is used to overwhelm and surprises an adversary by shifting the debate and 26

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This Trumpian strategy—responding to accusations of rudeness with a retaliatory accusation—has become quite common. Another interesting episode occurred when Vice-President elect, Mike Pence, went to see Hamilton on Broadway during the transition period. The cast offered a direct comment to Pence about toleration and democracy, during the curtain call. The audience booed Pence. In response President-Elect Trump suggested that the cast of Hamilton was “very rude” when they “harassed” Mike Pence. cnn, Nov. 20, 2016: https://www.cnn.com/2016/11/18/politics/mike-pence-hamilton-musical/ index.html (accessed March 1, 2018). Another episode from the transition period also shows this problem of tit-for-tat accusations of rudeness and incivility. At the Golden Globe awards in early 2017, Meryl Streep called out Trump. She said, “disrespect invites disrespect, violence incites violence. And when the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose.” New York Times, January 9, 2017 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/09/movies/trump-meryl-streep-golden-globesspeech.html (accessed March 1, 2018). Streep is right. But, as we might predict, Trump responded with accusations. He called her “over-rated” and a “Hillary-flunky.” Others attacked her for rudely politicizing the award show. And so it goes: calls for civility are greeted with contempt; and each side accuses the other of incivility. During the 2016 debate season, I joined with the National Institute for Civil Discourse (nicd) in their call for civility in the debates. I spoke with community groups and students about civility. Most people said they were appalled and disgusted at the level of public discourse in the campaign. And, what is remarkable, is that most thought that there was incivility on both sides of the political spectrum. During the final presidential debate, I asked my students to use the nicd’s “civility scorecard” to track civility in the debate. The civility scorecard can be found here: https://nicd.arizona.edu/sites/default/ files/Debate%20Civililty%20Score%20Cards.pdf (accessed March 7, 2018). Students found Trump to be much more uncivil than Clinton. But students concluded that Clinton and Trump were both uncivil. Some of Clinton’s apparent incivility was a reaction to Trump’s incivility. Clinton called Trump supporters a “basket of deplorables.” Was it uncivil of Clinton and other Democrats to call Trump and his followers rude, sexist, and racist? Or was Clinton merely calling a spade a spade?

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changing the subject. The accusation of incivility can in fact be a true claim. It is not a false exaggeration, for example, to claim that Trump engaged in misogynistic behavior. He was recorded, for example, bragging about grabbing women by the crotch. The truth is that he said those words. And yet, because truth is contested in the political arena, even accusations of incivility that are based in truthful claims about rude behavior are contested. This problem runs very deep: if we do not agree about what counts as a true account of rudeness and incivility, then each side will continue to make accusations against the other. In such circumstances, we lose track of the substance of democratic political discourse, which is to find common ground in pursuit of the common good through free expression of citizens in the public sphere. Let’s note a further problem, connected to the complexity of hermeneutics: even apparently rude and obnoxious behavior can be explained away. As a case in point, consider how Trump’s comments about grabbing women’s crotches were explained away as “locker room talk.” Or consider the episode in which Trump appeared to mock a disabled New York Times reporter, Serge F. Kovaleski. Trump has repeatedly denied that he was mocking Kovaleski’s disability. What is at issue here is a hermeneutical problem: words and actions that appear to mock and disparage can be explained away; and accusations of incivility can be turned around by appeals to hermeneutical complexity. Trump implies that those who claim that he mocked Kovaleski are the ones who are rudely twisting his words for their own ideological purposes. This hermeneutical problem rests upon the question of intentionality. It is true that Trump said he grabbed women’s crotches. But was his intention to disclose something he actually did or was he merely “falsely” bragging and boasting in a form of “locker room talk,” as he and his defenders claimed? It is true that Trump waved his arms around mimicking Kovaleski—but was his intention cruel and mocking (as his accusers claim) or not (as Trump has claimed)? Trump maintains that he had no intention to mock Kovaleski; other claim he is simply lying about that.29 And so it goes in a world in which words and actions are subject to ongoing deflection, reinterpretation, and ideological manipulation. Democracy devolves when we live in a world of “alternative facts” (as Trump spokesperson Kellyanne Conway infamously put it) and “fake news”—where each side believes that the other is lying or insincere. When the free press is ca­ lled “the enemy of the people” we are left without a common source of informa­ tion. When each side believes that the other is manipulating the hermeneutical 29

The attack on Kovaleski was one of the things that prompted Meryl Streep’s protest at the Golden Globe awards: New York Times, January10, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/ 2017/01/10/public-editor/trump-streep-golden-globes.html (accessed March 1, 2018).

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and deliberative space to their own advantage democratic deliberation is impossible. Consensus cannot be achieved and common ground cannot be found when each side is mocking and belittling the other, and when each side attacks the other’s truthfulness, honesty, loyalty, and integrity. We might like to simply draw a bright circle around the truth and side with those who declare that Trump is a rude, misogynistic, and racist liar. But the political difficulty of making such a declaration is that such declarations will be subjected to the accusation of politicization. In an agonistic world of politicized truth, declarations of truth are drawn back into the contested region of politically charged truth-claims and hermeneutical obscurity. Clever politicians muddy the water with a variety of deflections, equivocations, and revisionary explanations. And when called to answer for rudeness and incivility, the Machiavellian politician responds with the trump card accusation of rudeness and incivility. This is not a problem that is specific to Trump and the present era. Rather, Trump merely puts an old problem in bold relief. This is the problem of truth in the political arena. We can see this in dialectical struggles about truth and political ideology that are as old as Socrates.30 History teaches that Socrates was falsely accused and convicted by the Athenian democracy. But his accusers and those who voted to convict him did not think that the accusation against Socrates was false. We could draw further historical connections and examples here. The Marxists thought that the claims made by the Kant, Hegel, and other liberals were merely apologies for the bourgeois ideology. Nietzsche thought that truth-claims were grounded in will-to-power. And so on. In the early part of the 20th Century we see this problem in the debate between Dewey and Walter Lippman about public opinion. In Public Opinion (1921) Lippman expressed despair for democracy because of the role of propaganda and political manipulation. Dewey addressed this problem in The Public and Its Problems (1927). Dewey’s solution is more transparency and more democracy. He explained, “Until secrecy, prejudice, bias, misrepresentation, and propaganda as well as sheer ignorance are replaced by inquiry and publicity, we have no way of telling how apt for judgment of social policies the existing intelligence of the masses may be.”31 His solution is to empower the masses and encourage democratic deliberation by defending truth, civility, and other democratic values.

30 31

See my discussion in Andrew Fiala, The Philosopher’s Voice (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2002). John Dewey, The Public and Its Problems (Chicago: Gateway Books, 1946; originally published Henry Holt, 1927), 209.

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This historical excursus could be extended through the dark years of the 20th Century when Fascists and Communists turned against the norms of democracy. The dialectic of incivility has world-historical implications. When world leaders insult one another, it increases distrust and hostility. In the Trump era, long-standing alliances among democratic nations have been weakened by internationally oriented incivility coming out of Washington. For example, the American alliance with Mexico has been permanently damaged by Trump’s rhetorical strategies.32 Trump has damaged relations with nato allies. And he absurdly attacked Canada, calling Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “dishonest and weak” in June of 2018. This becomes dangerous when name-calling and insults are exchanged by nuclear armed nations. The most dangerous case occurred when President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un exchanged insults, culminating in Trump threatening North Korea with nuclear annihilation.33 Incivility and accusation of incivility can lead to war. But in less extreme cases, they disturb social peace. When truth and civility become trump cards, we are unable to reason together. We are thus unable to pursue the common good, discuss shared values, or build consensus. And—as might be expected— each side will accuse the other of disturbing the peace and of ideological employment of the trump cards of truth and civility.

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Not only has Trump accused Mexicans of being rapists and murderers, but he has also insisted that Mexico pay for a wall that will be erected to keep Mexicans out of the United States. All of this has been viewed as insulting by the Mexican people. And diplomatic relations between the countries have rapidly deteriorated to the point at which Mexican President Pena Nieto has refused to visit Washington and meet with Trump. See New York Times, February 25, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/25/us/politics/trump-mexi� co-pena-nieto-visit-wall.html (accessed March 1, 2018). In a script that would seem more appropriate for a kindergarten playground, Trump called Kim “little rocket man” and claimed that his own nuclear button was bigger than Kim’s. Trump has also insulted Kim in other ways, calling him a “sick puppy” and a “madman.” Kim returned fire, calling Trump a “mentally deranged U.S. dotard” and “a rogue and a gangster.” See New York Times, January 11, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/11/ us/politics/trump-kim-jong-un-north-korea-relationship.html (accessed March 1, 2018). This exchange has included Trump making an outright threat against North Korea, saying that the U.S. will attack North Korea with “fire and fury, like the world has never seen.” New York Times, August 9, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/09/world/asia/north-ko� rea-trump-threat-fire-and-fury.html (accessed March 1, 2018).

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Civility, Virtue, and a Pacific Faith

The cure for these problems returns us to faith in democracy, rationality, peace, and civility. Civility, rationality, democracy, and nonviolence are not ideological values used to gain advantage in a zero-sum political contest. Rather, they are values that help individuals and societies to flourish.34 Civility is a moral value that undergirds democratic life. It is an essential virtue for democratic deliberation and for philosophical dialogue. Peace, democracy, and philosophy rest upon a commitment to honesty, truthfulness, and sincerity. Truthful sincerity prevents civility from being merely ingratiating and obsequious. Civility, truth-telling, and the nonviolent virtues are not phony and fawning. Nor are they easy. Civility is not duplicitous politeness; nor is it cowardly compliance. Rather, it requires us to have the strength to say what we mean and mean what we say. But it also requires us to have the wisdom to be modest and moderate, to be motivated by justice, to be concerned for truth and the common good, and to understand that peacemaking and conflict resolution often require that we listen as much as we speak. This last point is easily overlooked: civility is often understood as a restraint upon speaking. But civility also asks us to listen. It is essential to the art of dialogue to know when to speak and how to speak—and to know how to listen and what to listen for. Masters of civility are responsive conversationalists. When they speak, they support the pursuit of truth; but they also support their partners; and they seek to support the dialogue itself. Civility creates a peaceful, democratic, and rational space of conversation. Civility conjures these goods, even when they seem not to exist in the “real world.” Practitioners of civility are thus hopeful and optimistic. They tend to believe that if we engage thoughtfully with one another, the world will become more thoughtful. They tend to think that peaceful and generous dialogue is self-catalyzing or self-actualizing: when we are peaceful and generous in dialogue with others, there is reciprocity and a virtuous circle is created. This is not always true: sometimes civility and nonviolence will be responded to with incivility and hate. But pacifists and proponents of civility and democracy tend to be melioristic or optimistic. The civil, democratic, and nonviolent tradition believes that people are basically reasonable and interested in truth and that 34

I have described civility as a virtue in another essay, where I traced out connections in liberal-democratic political philosophy: Andrew Fiala, “The Fragility of Civility: Virtue, Civil Society, and Tragic Breakdowns of Civility” Dialogue and Universalism no. 3 (Summer 2013), 109–122.

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people are made more reasonable by treating them as if they are reasonable. The democratic and pacific faith believes that treating others with civility is a way to help build kindness, generosity, peace, and a flourishing democracy. An important shared principle of the democratic and pacific faith is the idea that human beings are basically reasonable beings. Among reasonable beings there should only be minimal amounts of conflict; and violence should only be employed in rare defensive cases in response to irrational violence. There will be diversity among reasonable beings. However, reasonable beings should strive to resolve their differences without resort to force. And when conflicts remain, reasonable beings should agree to find ways to live together tolerantly. This commitment to rationality is pragmatically idealistic—in the sense associated with Dewey’s discussion of faith in A Common Faith (as discussed at the outset of this chapter). It maintains that we can improve human life through the application of reason. Pragmatic faith is self-actualizing or selfcatalyzing. The belief that human beings are reasonable can provide us with the sorts of energy and attention that help to make the belief come true. The self-actualizing or self-catalyzing nature of faith has long been recognized by philosophers: we see it Kant’s claims about the spread of reason and morality, we see it in the work of the American pragmatists, and we see it in the activism and philosophy associated with nonviolentists and pacifists such as Gandhi and King.35 This faith cannot deny that there are ignorant, mistaken, uncivil, and violent people. But nonviolentists and democratic pragmatists focus our attention on the possibilities for growth and development—and on the idea that there must be a continuity of means and ends. To resort to violence and incivility is to give up on peace and the possibilities of deliberative democratic rationality. To behave with incivility is to undermine civility. Civility and nonviolence open up the possibility of improvement. In conflict situations there are many possibilities, which remain open when we respond with civility. Incivility closes off those possibilities. To respond to incivility with incivility—to respond to aggression with aggression—prevents further inquiry. It prevents us from making progress toward recognition and understanding. Violence—even defensive violence—represents the failure of reason. Most advocates of violence believe, in one way or another that “might makes right.” 35

See: Andrew Fiala, The Philosopher’s Voice (Albany: suny, 2002); Andrew Fiala, “Nero’s Fiddle: On Hope and Despair and the Ecological Crisis” Ethics and the Environment 15: 1 (Spring 2010); Andrew Fiala, “The Moral Imperative of Hope in the Age of Ecological Calamity” in Andrew Brei, ed., Ecology, Ethics and Hope (Rowman and Littlefield, 2015).

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When a person wins in a fight or a nation is victorious in war, there is a natural tendency to think that the triumphant party was right or justified or had truth on their side. But this is false: winning in a fight is about physical strength and physical strength. If I defeat you in battle, my victory is not necessarily connected to any moral claim about me. My victory has nothing to do with whether I am a good guy or a bad guy. Victory in battle is about physical strength, cleverness, quick-thinking, and good luck. Violence places its faith in physical strength and luck. That is why those who have faith in reason find it hard to support violence. A similar problem occurs when we give up on democracy, rationality, and civility. When we resort to incivility or to the tit-for-tat of ideological battles, we have moved beyond rationality and democracy and find ourselves in a struggle for supremacy that has little to with the effort to find consensus and common ground. Philosophers, ethical democrats, and advocates of peace hope that human beings are reasonable, interested in rational argument and truth. Moreover, proponents of civility, democracy, and nonviolence do not think it is proper to use violence to create social transformation. Power and violence can be useful tools of social transformation. But they are not the right tools for the job of transformation. Violence can change us—but it does not provide the right sorts of reasons for these changes. Violence can be used to gain access to a person’s sexuality: but that does not make rape into love. Violence can be used to force a spiritual conversion: but forced conversion is not a genuine spiritual rebirth. And violence can be used to transform a political system: but that is not genuine self-government. The problem with violence in democracy and rational discourse is that its causal power is not continuous with the end it is seeking. Violence is an external force that is only contingently connected to the effects it is creating. But civility, love, truthfulness and the other pacific, democratic, and philosophical virtue are intrinsically connected to the larger vision of the world as it ought to be. When we engage civilly, we make the world more civil. When we behave peacefully, we make the world more peaceful. And when we engage reasonably, we make the world more reasonable. 4

An Objection and Reply

Peace, rationality, and civility can be employed ideologically. It might be that this account of peace, civility, rationality, democracy, and truth simply articulates a set of values from a limited political point of view. We might object that these values only make sense from within a given social perspective. Those who claim that “pacifism is pathology” as Ward Churchill once put it, will suggest

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that peace, civility, rationality, and the like are merely the preferred virtues of the bourgeoisie or of the comfortable class who avoids the struggles for supremacy being waged out there in the “real world.”36 This objection is linked to the Trumpian problem. The assumption here is that there is no non-ideological or objective basis for the commitment to peace, truth, civility, or other virtues. This is a kind of relativism, which prevents critical discussion and reasonable debate. It leaves us with agonistic contests and zero-sum games that can easily devolve into violence, incivility, and the like. Relativism forecloses the possibility of making progress through rational discussion. Relativism leaves us without truth, without peace, and without hope for democratic progress. It throws us back into a world of endless ideological struggle. The antidote for Trumpianism and for ideological articulations of peace, truth, and civility is to avoid playing with the poison of ideology. We must avoid the game of tit-for-tat. Rather, what we need is a renewed commitment to objectivity and civil discourse. Reasonable and civil dialogue are tools for discovering truth and achieving democratic consensus. This is a form of objectivity, which has philosophical roots in the pragmatism of Dewey and his pragmatist colleagues. This does not require an adamant declaration of foundational truths. Rather, it requires us to believe that we can make progress toward truth through shared inquiry and reasonable debate. We ought to hope that through civil dialogue and peaceful discourse we can build solidarity and develop consensus. Civil discourse provides a common space in which we can discuss what is true or false, right or wrong, while weighing evidence using rational, public argument. Tolerance, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and other values related to civility are essential for inquiry. Civility creates the open space in which ideas are explored and truth is discovered. And yet, some will argue that the time-honored value of an open and civil public sphere is biased. Some critics on the Left view science, reason, and liberalism itself as patriarchal, Eurocentric contrivances designed to advance the interests of the dominant culture. Critics on the Right argue that science, reason, philosophy—academia as a whole—is a propaganda machine, designed to propagate Leftist ideology. There are no easy answers here. On both sides in the culture wars, there are emotional and politically charged issues. Our judgments about these issues are 36

Ward Churchill, Pacifism as Pathology: Reflections on the Role of Armed Struggle in North America (Winnipeg: Arbeiter Ring Publishing, 2005). See Jose-Antonio Orosco, “Pacifism as Pathology” in Andrew Fiala, ed. The Routledge Handbook of Pacifism and Nonviolence (New York: Routledge, 2018).

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influenced by our political upbringing, our peers, and our implicit biases. And yet we must hope that the pursuit of objectivity through civil discourse can provide us with some common ground. If not, we are left with a world familiar from Machiavelli, Marx, and Nietzsche: a world in which insults, propaganda, ideological warfare, and incivility are tools of the trade. In this debate, proponents of civility, democracy, and truth are not neutral. Civility begins with a commitment to sincere and honest speech. Defenders of civility maintain that it is possible to discover truth and achieve consensus through open inquiry. This means that truth should never be sacrificed in the name of decorum. Nor should justice be ignored in the name of good manners. But we ought to avoid uttering the truth in an accusatory fashion. Truth can be used to taunt and mock—as when a winning team lords its victory over the loser. Civility requires that we temper truth and justice with moderation, the golden rule, and concern for the common good. But it is not uncivil to point out someone’s lies and incivilities—as long as the accusation is true. Nonetheless, critics should tread carefully and avoid returning evil for evil, lies for lies, and incivility for incivility. Civility is thus not a stand-alone virtue. It is connected to truthfulness, modesty, justice, integrity, and respect. These values are not merely the possession of a certain class of people. They are universal. Thus we can respond to the above objection by being self-conscious, modest, and universalistic in our call for civility, peace, and democracy. If someone offers racist or sexist opinions, it is not intolerant or uncivil to say so. But we must stick to the facts, avoid exaggeration, and not create caricatures or attack straw men. Civility requires us to criticize sexism, racism, rudeness, and hate without also engaging in stereotyping, prejudice, and vulgarity. Critical responses to incivility ought to remain civil. 5 Conclusion We have seen that civility—like rationality and even peace—is a politically charged term that can be used for ideological purposes. Defenders of civility hope that civility will resolve conflict. But there are deep and abiding conflicts. Each side will blame the other for failing to be civil—or peaceful or rational. And some will claim that civility, rationality, democracy, and peace are merely ideological. And so we are left with a declaration of faith. Those who favor peace, democracy, and rational deliberation will declare that we need to unify means and ends in pursuit of a rational, humane, democratic and peaceful world.

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From this point of view, civility is the preferred means of proceeding within a world of contentious disputes. Civil disagreement ought to appeal to reasonable arguments, avoid name-calling, and respect the intelligence of those with whom we disagree. Civil disputants should exhibit self-restraint, patience, humility, and a commitment to the common good. Rather than insulting their opponents, civil people should put themselves into the other person’s shoes. The goal is to create an area of overlapping consensus, a civil public sphere in which we can disagree without shedding blood. But this is more than a procedural matter. It is a matter of faith in democracy, nonviolence, and rationality as an ethical way of life. Civility is most needed most when it seems most impractical. In this sense, civility is similar to a number of other pacific values. Love, forgiveness, tolerance, mercy, and kindness seem to be absurd values when confronted with hate, cruelty, intolerance, greed, and violence. But these pacific values are most needed when they are most threatened. Civility seems absurd in the face of Trumpianism. But obnoxious rudeness provides the greatest opportunity to take a higher path that creates the world as it ought to be. Civility enacts the change we want to see in the world. Like hope, civility aims to create something that does not yet exist. Civility may not always work as a strategy. But as a practice of nonviolence and democracy, civility is both a means and an end. Civil discourse is the best means for building solidarity and for making progress toward understanding truth. James Lawson once said that nonviolentists were living in a “non-existent country.”37 The same is true of those who dream of a civil and peaceful democratic republic. The hopeful vision of a world of reasonable and civil argument will only come true if we enact it. To create the world we want to inhabit, we must employ means that are consistent with the ends we seek. If it is a peaceful, democratic republic we want, we must build it using civil means. Bibliography Churchill, Ward. Pacifism as Pathology: Reflections on the Role of Armed Struggle in North America. Winnipeg: Arbeiter Ring Publishing, 2005. Dewey, John. “Creative Democracy: The Task Before Us” in Jo Ann Boydston, ed., John Dewey, The Later Works. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1988, vol. 14. 37

James Lawson, “Nonviolence and the Non-Existent Country” in Andrew Fiala, ed. The Routledge Handbook of Pacifism and Nonviolence (New York: Routledge, 2018).

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Dewey, John. “Democracy and Educational Administration” in Jo Ann Boydston, ed., The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume 11: 1925–53. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1987. Dewey, John. “Democratic Ends Need Democratic Methods for their Realization” in Jo Ann Boydston, ed., The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume 14: 1939–41. (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1988/2008). Dewey, John. “Emerson-The Philosopher of Democracy” International Journal of Ethics Vol. 13, No. 4 (Jul., 1903), pp. 405–413. Dewey, John. “Militarism in China” in Jo Ann Boydston, ed., The Middle Works of John Dewey. (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1982/2008), vol. 11. Dewey, John. “The Ethics of Democracy” in Jo Ann Boydston, ed., John Dewey, The Early Works (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1969/2008), vol. 1. Dewey, John. A Common Faith. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1934. Dewey, John. The Public and Its Problems. Chicago: Gateway Books, 1946; originally published Henry Holt, 1927. Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “Politics,” Essays: Second Series in Ralph Waldo Emerson: Essays and Lectures. New York: Library of America, 1983. Emerson, Ralph Waldo, “American Civilization” in The Atlantic April 1862; at https:// www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1862/04/american-civilization/306548/ (accessed March 10, 2018). Fiala, Andrew. “A Critique of Thug Culture” in Fuat Gursozlu, ed., Peace, Culture, and Violence. Leiden, NL: Brill, 2018. Fiala, Andrew. “Nero’s Fiddle: On Hope and Despair and the Ecological Crisis” Ethics and the Environment 15: 1 (Spring 2010). Fiala, Andrew. “Pacifism in the Twentieth Century and Beyond” in Andrew Fiala, ed., The Routledge Handbook of Pacifism and Nonviolence. New York: Routledge, 2018. Fiala, Andrew. “Political Skepticism and Anarchist Themes in the American Tradition” European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy vol. 2, (December 2013). Fiala, Andrew. “The Fragility of Civility: Virtue, Civil Society, and Tragic Breakdowns of Civility” Dialogue and Universalism no. 3 (Summer 2013), 109–122. Fiala, Andrew. “The Moral Imperative of Hope in the Age of Ecological Calamity” in Andrew Brei, ed., Ecology, Ethics and Hope. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2015. Fiala, Andrew. The Philosopher’s Voice. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2002. Fiala, Andrew. Tolerance and the Ethical Life. London: Continuum, 2005. Gandhi, Mohandas K. “The Onion Thief” in Autobiography: Story of My Experiments with Truth. Bombay: Gandhi Book Center (ebook at https://archive.org/details/ An Autobiography Or The Story Of My Experiments With Truth; accessed March 1, 2018).

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Gandhi, Mohandas K. Harijan, 23-11-1947 in The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (Electronic Book). New Delhi, Publications Division Government of India, 1999, at: http://gandhiserve.org/e/cwmg/cwmg.htm; accessed March 1, 2018, vol. 97. Kegley, Jacquelyn. “Democratic Theory” in Andrew Fiala, ed., The Bloomsbury Companion to Political Philosophy. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015. Lawson, James. “Nonviolence and the Non-Existent Country” in Andrew Fiala, ed. The Routledge Handbook of Pacifism and Nonviolence. New York: Routledge, 2018. Mouffe, Chantal. “Deliberative Democracy or Agonistic Pluralism” Reihe Politikwissenschaft (Political Science Series) 72 (December 2000). Orosco, José-Antonio. “Pacifism as Pathology” in Andrew Fiala, ed. The Routledge Handbook of Pacifism and Nonviolence. New York: Routledge, 2018. Thoreau, Henry David. “Civil Disobedience” in Walden and Other Writings. New York: Modern Library, 2000. Tolstoy, Leo. The Kingdom of God is Within You. New York: Cassell Publishing, 1894— electronic text at www.nonresistance.org, 2006.

Chapter 3

Gandhi, Epictetus, and Political Resistance Sanjay Lal It is not implausible to think that when followed to its logical conclusion both stoicism and nonviolent philosophy inevitably give rise to an attitude of resignation (an impression that prevents many from seeing the viability of these ethical systems). However, I will argue that instead of implying resignation (in the sense of passivity) proper consideration of harm from a Stoic (and thus nonviolent) perspective helps to clarify what our rightful targets of resistance should be given the never ending myriad of causes demanding our attention. I maintain that such clarity, in turn, will serve to better illuminate ways in which Stoic thought can offer needed solace to the politically concerned while showing just what kind of resignation is implied by nonviolent philosophy. That stoicism and nonviolence lead to resignation (understood to be synonymous with passivity) is implied by the way the most devoted proponents of these schools have regarded harm. According to this conception, genuine harm is ultimately self-inflicted by one who has compromised moral worth. Specifically, I interpret both Stoicism and nonviolence as calling on us to only resist that which threatens the moral worth of our own actions and to resign ourselves to our own powerlessness over the outcomes of our actions. Recent election results in liberal democracies and the corresponding responses they have elicited help to show the importance of this project. It is clearly not the case that among the public in these societies any noticeable kind of mass resignation, attributable to election results, can be seen. However, the intensity of activist responses spawned by recent political developments nonetheless present obstacles for the prospects of Stoic and nonviolent insights to be widely applied in society. This follows since it is commonly assumed that both Stoicism and nonviolence imply a kind of passive resignation; specifically a withdrawal from real engagement in the public sphere. Thus as the motivation to become politically engaged becomes more strongly felt, it is less likely that the viability of a Stoic and nonviolent approach to political activity will be noticed among the members of the societies I have in mind. This, in turn, would be unfortunate as I hold that it is just such an approach to politics that is conducive to realizing an ideal social order—one in which inner peace and tranquility emanate from those who comprise civil society into the

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���� | doi:10.1163/9789004417588_005

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formal institutions that structure the state. Beyond this brief description, I will forgo further discussion of this point. 1

On Interpreting Nonviolent Resistance within a Stoic Framework

Epictetus, commonly placed among history’s greatest proponents of Stoicism, declares “Make it your study…to confront every harsh impression with the words, ‘You are but an impression, and not at all what you seem to be.’”1 And “What disturbs men is not events but their judgments on events.”2 When considering the actions of some of the great exemplars of nonviolence in light of these words, the basis for thinking of Stoicism and nonviolent resistance as going hand in hand becomes clear. A seemingly essential characteristic common to these actions is the refusal of their agents (i.e. practitioners of nonviolence) to be affected by the mistreatment others have inflicted upon them. Whether it involves being the recipient of physical blows against one’s person, a prisoner who has been unjustly sentenced, or someone whose adherence to cherished principles has threatened her prospects for a long life, what has notably characterized the great exemplars of nonviolence (as we will see more clearly below) is their freedom from hostile reactions to what others have done. These kinds of reactions (which underlie so much of the violence around us) are undoubtedly spawned by, what Stoicism regards to be, mistaken judgments regarding what one has experienced. Thus, for example, because being struck by an opponent is understood to threaten one’s overall worth and dignity he feels anger and therefore justification in responding to this opponent with hostility and violence. Alternately, the common Stoic view holds both that it is ultimately futile to seek to control the regard with which one is held by others and that (contrary to the violent individual’s judgment) considerations of such matters are not relevant for securing one’s own inner peace and contentment. As Epictetus additionally states: Remember, that not he who gives ill language or a blow insults, but the principle which represents these things as insulting. When, therefore, anyone provokes you, be assured that it is your own opinion which provokes. Try, therefore, in the first place, not to be hurried away with the 1 Epictetus in Epictetus: The Discourses and Manual, reprinted in Ethics: History, Theory, and Contemporary Issues (5th ed.). Cahn, Markie (eds.) Oxford: University Press 2012 (p. 203). 2 Ibid. p. 204.

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appearance. For if you once gain time and respite, you will more easily command yourself.3 Epictetus, like the Stoics in general, adamantly holds that our own will is all that is within our power and that it can always be controlled in such a way a way that our inner well-being is never contingent on external events. We are always able, in other words, to adjust our desires in a way that conforms to how the world is even as we are powerless to control the course of outside things. For the purposes of this paper, the story of Socrates’ last days is quite suggestive. As A.A. Long has shown, the Socratic imprint on Epictetus’ thought is undeniable.4 I note, specifically, the attitude Socrates exhibits in Plato’s dialogues regarding the unjust death sentence he received. This attitude is hailed as morally exemplary not just in the Stoic tradition but by the likes of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Thus Socrates’ example serves to illustrate the strong connection I see between Stoic thought and nonviolent protest. Epictetus unequivocally extols Socrates’ example in The Crito story when he declares, “For he did not choose…to save his poor body, but to save that which is increased and saved by doing what is just, and is impaired and destroyed by doing what is unjust.”5 Gandhi, in discussing the defense and death of Socrates, favorably paraphrases the Greek philosopher’s words to mean “I do not think that it is possible for a better man to be injured by a worse. He may perhaps have me condemned to death, or banished, or deprived of civil right; and he or others may perhaps consider these as mighty evils. I, however, do not consider them so.”6 Indeed, Socrates’ example leads Gandhi to conclude, “In Socrates, therefore, we have one of the greatest breakers as also respecters of law.”7 For Epictetus the apparent take away from Socrates’ response to his punishment regard the maintaining of inner serenity even in the face of what seems to be the most dire of circumstances. Gandhi’s focus, on the other hand, emphasizes the willingness with which he believes we should accept the consequences of following the dictates of conscience. We should however keep in mind that only someone whose inner serenity has been impacted by external 3 Epictetus in The Enchiridion v. 20. As found on http://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/epicench .html. 4 Long, A.A. “The Socratic Imprint on Epictetus’ Philosophy” in Stoicism: Traditions and Transformations. Strange and Zupko (eds.) pp. 10–32; Cambridge: University Press (2004). 5 Epictetus in The Discourses Book iv Chapter I. As found on http://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/ discourses.4.four.html 6 Gandhi, M.K. “The Story of Satyagrahi” quoted in “Influence of Thoreau and Emerson on Gandhi’s Satyagraha” Hendrick, George in Gandhi Marg, Vol. 3 1959. 7 Ibid.

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events would relent on his adherence to professed principles when said adherence lead him to face unsavory consequences. Furthermore, it is clear that Gandhi, not unlike Epictetus, was above all motivated by the desire to realize a state equivalent to ultimate peace (referred to as “moksha” in the Hindu tradition). This is underscored by the Mahatma’s reflection of his life’s works: What I want to achieve—what I have been striving and pining to achieve these thirty years—is self-realization, to see God face to face, to attain Moksha. I live and move and have my being in pursuit of this goal. All that I do by way of speaking and writing, and all my ventures in the political field, are directed to this same end.8 Thus, I maintain that the differences in emphasis noted above are merely on the surface. Ultimately, if it is true that a philosophy of nonviolence requires one to maintain adherence to cherished principles no matter the external costs it follows that such a philosophy calls on us to accept a Stoic conception of harm (which holds genuine harm to stem from one’s own mistaken judgments). I will now explore what is apparently a more basic difference between the outlooks of Epictetus and Gandhi (and thus Stoicism and a philosophy of nonviolence)—whether there is a point to actively engage with the world. That, along with Epictetus, Gandhi can be said to also hold that the outside world cannot truly harm us and that this conclusion is entailed by a philosophy of nonviolence seems to inevitably imply that nonviolence means disengagement from the outside world. After all, not even when the events of this world result in our deaths can it be said that the world has harmed us. Thus, it seems to follow that there is no point in concerning ourselves with what happens in the world since whatever the events are that take place there they ultimately do not have to have any bearing on our well-being. This conclusion seems part and parcel with well-known Stoic beliefs about the wise slave being free and the sage being happy even if he were on a rack. Indeed, the Gandhian view seemingly concurs with the standard Stoic notion that whether outside events have a bearing on us is completely up to us (insofar as outside events affect us only to the extent that we choose to focus on that which is outside our control). In keeping with the virtue of equanimity by his beloved Bhagavad-Gita Gandhi declares “The result of an action is not

8 Gandhi, M.K. Gandhi: An Autobiography. The Story of My Experiments with Truth (1971) Boston: Beacon Press, p. 5.

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within our control. God alone is the giver of fruit.”9 In discussing this aspect of, what he calls, “moral non-attachment” in Gandhian thought Steven A. Smith illuminates its affinities with Stoicism: Benign forbearance—the willingness to allow events to unfold according to their own imperative, in the belief that the process may be trusted— may be termed moral non-attachment, to distinguish it from a normative moral stance that seeks to force compliance through various sanctions… In its more heightened forms, moral non-attachment merges into a loving acceptance of all that exists, the mystic’s blissful embrace with the universe.10 Smith’s analysis underscores the link between taking a nonviolent approach toward happenings in the world and having an apparent attitude of resignation regarding those happenings. Being willing, after all, “to allow events to unfold according to their own imperative” and eschewing the desire to force compliance with one’s wishes clearly seems to imply resignation and even outright passivity. 2

Gandhi and Epictetus as Advocates of Resignation

Indeed, a brief consideration of the respective thoughts of Gandhi and Epictetus regarding how we should feel about death seems to un-mistakenly indicate an underlying advocacy of resignation by both philosophers. Gandhi states: Why should we be upset when children or young men or old men die? Not a moment passes when someone is not born or is not dead in this world. We should feel the stupidity of rejoicing in a birth and lamenting a death…The eternal process of creation and destruction are going on ceaselessly. There is nothing in it for which we might give ourselves up to joy or sorrow. Even if we extend the idea of relationship only to our countrymen and take all the births in the country as taking place in our family, how many births shall we celebrate? If we weep for all the deaths in our

9 10

Gandhi in The Moral and Political Writings of Mahatma Gandhi. Ragahavan Iyer (ed.) Vol. ii Claredon Press. (1986) p. 55. Smith, Steven A. “Gandhi’s Moral Philosophy” in Gandhi’s Significance for Today. (Hempel, Hick eds.) New York: St. Martin’s Press. (1989) pp. 109-ff.

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country, the tears in our eyes would never dry. This train of thought should help us to get rid of all fear of death.11 Within Epictetus’ writings we find a similarly detached, nonchalant attitude called for toward death: It is in our power to discover the will of Nature from those matters on which we have no difference of opinion…Apply the same principle to higher matters. Is another’s child or wife dead? Not one of us but would say, “Such is the lot of man,” but when one’s own dies, straightway one cries, “Alas! Miserable am I.” But we ought to remember what our feelings are when we hear it of another.12 Given such words, common criticisms leveled against nonviolence for supposedly implying passivity and against Stoicism for supposedly leading to quietism become understandable. If the seeming evilness of others (like our own loved ones) dying should not evoke our misery and thus motivate us to work to change the world it seems there can be no real reason for engaging in such work at all. What, after all, can be a more compelling reason for taking action that seeks to influence external events? Such an apparent problem is clearly in line with philosopher Nigel Warburton’s 2016 election night tweet declaring “Stoicism, I refute you thus” as well as his professional colleague, Sandy Grant’s, lament two days later on the same social media platform that “(The) last thing we need is quietistic Stoicism. We need resistance. Things are not beyond our understanding, nor our capacity to change them.”13 In a spirit similar to these remarks, Martha Nussbaum criticizes the alleged Stoic view on material aid (within the context of Stoic ethical beliefs). She states: It is incoherent to salve one’s conscience on the duties of material aid by thinking their non-necessity for true human flourishing and, at the same time, to insist so strictly on the absolute inviolability of the duties of justice, which are just other ways of supplying human beings with the external things they need.14

11 12 13 14

Gandhi writing in Young India October 13, 1921 p. 326. Ibid. p. 208. Tweets shared on https://aphilosopherstake.com/2016/12/15/we-care-a-lot-stoicism-and -troubled-times/. Nussbaum, Martha. In “Cicero’s Problematic Legacy” ibid. pp. 214–249.

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In what follows I will argue that, contrary to Grant’s suggestion and Nussbaum’s remark, that both an attitude of resistance and strict insistence on duties of justice are indeed compatible with a Stoic approach to the world. The connection between, on the one hand, resistance and honoring duties toward others and, on the other, a philosophy of nonviolence (rather than Stoicism proper) is not really doubted. Thus my argument here consists primarily in showing that the compatibility between common understandings of duties, resistance, and Stoicism becomes clear by a closer examination of the connection between resistance and nonviolence. Ultimately, it is my hope that the following discussion can serve to provide greater clarity on matters relating to what exactly activists should resist. 3

A Closer Look at How Nonviolence Connects with Resistance

It would be a mistake to not interpret Gandhi’s above comments on death within the greater context of his overall philosophical thought. Specifically, Gandhi is adamant that the fear of death should not be seen as an adequate reason to do that which violates one’s sense of morality. He also states: Man does not live but to escape death. If he does so, he is advised not to do so. He is advised to learn to love death as well as life, if not more so… Life becomes livable only to the extent that death is treated as a friend, never as an enemy. To conquer life’s temptations, summon death to your aid. In order to postpone death a coward surrenders honor, wife, daughter and all. A courageous man prefers death to the surrender of self-respect….15 A death makes us indulge in orgies of loud lamentation which condemn the neighborhood to sleeplessness for the night. If we wish to attain Swaraj (freedom), and if having attained it, we wish to make it something to be proud of, we must perfectly renounce this unseemly fright.16 Clearly Gandhi would not agree with the argument that since death should not be feared as a harm by us it consequently follows there are no harms we should be on guard against while we are alive. It is specifically the harm that he believes we inflict on ourselves when we act in ways that violate our sense of right 15 Gandhi writing in Harijan November 11, 1947 p. 437. 16 Ibid.

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and wrong that Gandhi sees as most real and calls on us to resist. For Gandhi, in other words, it would be a mistake to think that a world in which death is not a harm to humans is equivalent to a world in which there exist no harms for humans to be concerned about. This is the case even though he would ultimately agree that that which truly harms us is self-inflicted given that it is brought about by our own mistaken judgments. Additionally, like the Stoic tradition, Gandhi also holds our world (in which death is no harm to humans) is a world in which moral duties nonetheless hold for us and that when we fail to uphold such duties we inevitably bring harm to ourselves. It is this kind of harm that he says we should vigilantly avoid even if doing so means we will die. Thus, we can interpret both Gandhi and the Stoics to concur that the proper targets of our resistance can only be whatever impels us to diminish our moral worth. We can now turn to the implications this understanding of Gandhi’s views has for adopting a Stoic attitude toward world events even after someone like Donald J. Trump assumes the office of presidency. It should not be lost here that Gandhi’s views are in keeping with the famous Stoic prescription to remain focused on only that which is within one’s control. After all, whether one acts morally would clearly seem to be among the class of things within her control. Part of why this would be the case is that consent (such as for immoral actions) can be given not only silently but unconsciously. Furthermore, it is plausible to identify the traditional Stoic notion of assent with both consent and the “bearer of all moral responsibility”.17 Indeed for Gandhi, in keeping with such an understanding, we have such ultimate control over whether we are doing right that it is really up to us if we allow even the fear of death (which he sees to result from our own mistaken judgments) to interfere with this endeavor. Book iv of the Discourses, clearly indicates that such is also Epictetus’ view. Consider the following hypothetical dialogue we find there: Is any man able to make you assent to that which is false? ‘No man.’ In the matter of assent, then, you are free from hindrance and obstruction. ‘Granted.’ Well; and can a man force you to desire to move toward that to which you do not choose? ‘He can, for when he threatens me with death or bond, he compels me to desire to move toward it.’ If, then, you despise death and bonds, do you still pay any regard to him? ‘No.’ Is, then, the despising of death an act of your own, or is it not yours? ‘It is my act.’ But

17

Ibid. See Ebbesen pp. 108–132.

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to desire to move away from a thing, whose act is that? This is also your act.18 For Epictetus making clear to ourselves our indomitable ability to withhold and grant assent is crucial to our overall inner well-being. Acts of political resistance, to whatever extent, are always characterized by someone affirming this ability. Crucial to Gandhi’s understanding moreover is that our control only extends to the matter of whether our actions are right and not to whether those actions produce the outcomes we’d like. This is, of course, the central message of the Bhagavad-Gita—a text Gandhi repeatedly identifies to be among his greatest influences. Consider the test Richard Sorabji, who has extensively discussed the parallels that he sees between Gandhian thought and Stoic philosophy, sees Gandhi to have applied to the motives of those who joined him in the famous Dandi Salt March: People could join Gandhi’s ‘Salt March’, both to make the British withdraw their tax on salt, and to practice confronting danger, while retaining good will towards their British adversaries. There would be a test of whether they had the second, spiritual motive. If it became clear that the march would be politically ineffective, would they continue with it? If they would, that would be evidence that they had the further, nonpolitical motive. There would also be a test of whether one motive was subordinate. Would they give up the march if it encouraged violence in the participants?19 We can clearly see the indispensable place moral worth has in the above formulated test given the importance Gandhi places on confronting danger, retaining good will toward opponents, and avoiding perpetuating violence in developing proper character. Political involvement can be seen as necessary for developing these kinds of traits even though their development should never be seen to Gandhi as subordinate to gaining political success. It is only to the extent we believe political involvement requires thinking political success should have a greater priority to us than our own moral worth will we

18 19

Epictetus in The Discourses Book iv Chapter I. As found on http://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/ discourses.4.four.html Sorabji, Richard. Gandhi and the Stoics: Modern Experiments on Ancient Values. P. 52. Chicago: University Press (2012).

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think the conclusion that Stoicism is incompatible with political resistance will follow. From a Stoic perspective one clear implication that follows in regard to this point is that our concern should not go any further than whether we have done all that is within our power to ensure that morality flourishes in the world. There is, in fact, no reason to believe any inconsistency can be found between living a Stoic life and holding that one must engage in morally motivated actions in order to maintain freedom from inner disturbance. Indeed, the practice of Stoicism can be seen as not just compatible with but to actually entail a Gandhian-like view that engagement in the political sphere is essential for the realization of individual freedom. We, in fact, seem to see this point underscored by the way Epictetus, in distinguishing his teachings from those of the Epicureans, favorably refers to engaging in “public matters”.20 The value of such engagement could follow, from a Stoic perspective, for any number of reasons. Perhaps, for example, engaging in right action (which would include political activity) is necessary to the Stoic so we can assure ourselves we have done all we are capable of to keep self-inflicted, inner wounds (of whatever kind) at bay. In other words, performing such acts are necessary for affirming and realizing the degree of control we actually have in the world—something that is, in turn, vital for attaining inner peace. Indeed, for Epictetus, to act in accordance with nature (and thus natural impulses which are indicative of virtue) seems clearly to include performing morally correct action. Thus, he recommends the willingness to sacrifice life for friends or country if that is what duty requires as well as honoring moral obligations even if doing so will bring public condemnation.21 Additionally, political activity can be interpreted as a form of ethically motivated behavior and it is in line with Stoicism to hold that it is in our nature as humans to engage in such behavior. Furthermore, it would seem clear to a Stoic that immoral acts (by their very nature) are such that engaging in them (even indirectly) perpetuates our illusions of having unrealistic amounts of control over the outside world. This conclusion follows since immoral acts can be plausibly and essentially characterized by one seeking ends that will always be out of his/her hands (including whether harm—as it is conventionally understood—will befall us). As Gandhi puts it when giving his summary of the Gita’s central message “When there is no desire for fruit, there is no temptation for untruth or violence. Take any 20 21

Epictetus in The Discourses Book iii 7. As found on http://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/ discourses.3.three.html Ibid. pp. 209–210, 211.

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i­nstance of untruth or violence, and it will be found that at its back was the desire to attain the cherished end.”22 In other words, Stoicism can too regard immoral acts to be brought about ultimately by an individual’s own mistaken judgments (which the judgment that the attainment of certain ends is within one’s control clearly is for Gandhi). We should remember trouble only ensues, the Stoic holds, when we seek to control that which is out of our hands—regardless of how morally regrettable it may be. The morally regrettable aspects of a situation after all have (by themselves) no impact on whether we have the power to change that situation and acting under a contrary assumption only yields unneeded disturbance (e.g. tormenting stress). Epictetus states further: Apply your conception of good and evil to those things only which are in our power, and not to those which are out of our power. For if you apply your notion of good or evil to the latter, as soon as you fail to get what you will to get or fail to avoid what you will to avoid, you will be bound to blame and hate those you hold responsible…Men’s religion is bound up with their interest. Therefore, he who makes it his concern rightly to direct his will to get and his will to avoid, is thereby making piety his concern.23 The implications for matters of resistance now become clear. Given the above explication, the conclusion to be drawn should not be that the proper Stoic response to things like the policies put forth by the Trump administration is indifferent acquiescence. Instead from the Stoic perspective it follows that our resistance to such policies should be consciously directed toward attempts by others (e.g. authority figures) to compel us to act in ways that go against our sense of morality. This point seems to be on Epictetus’ mind when he discusses the question of whether it would be rational to do something like torture another person in a situation where refusing to do so would keep the one told to torture from receiving food. Epictetus elaborates on how he would counsel an individual in such a situation: If…you ask me whether you should hold the chamber pot or not, I shall say to you that receiving of food is worth more than the not receiving of it…so that if you measure your interests by these things, go and hold the 22 23

See Gandhi, The Gospel of Selfless Action: The Gita According to Gandhi. p. 132. Translated by Desai, Mahadev Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House. 1946. Ibid. p. 209.

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chamber pot. ‘But this,’ you say, ‘would not be worthy of me.’ Well, then, it is you who must introduce this consideration into the inquiry, not I; for it is you who know yourself, how much you are worth to yourself, and at what price you sell yourself; for men sell themselves at various prices.24 It is notable that attempts to compel us to act in ways that go against our sense of morality are successful to the extent it is believed others can inflict harm on us when we act in ways not in line with their will. However, as Sorabji puts it, for the genuine Stoic “there is nothing you could do against a person with the right values that he would see as a harm to himself rather than an indifferent, unless you could make him go against his values and commit injustice.”25 Ultimately, criticisms like those put forth by Warburton and Grant can be interpreted (at their core) to mean that a Stoic mindset is inevitably void of an affective dimension deemed necessary for the motivation to engage in political resistance. There is no reason, however, to assume that Stoicism is incompatible with a complex affective life when such is required for taking part in the kind of activity one needs to engage in for preserving her own virtue.26 To reiterate, whether or not our actions are moral (not what results they yield) can plausibly be thought of as a matter that is entirely within our control. Indeed, the extent to which we act in ways that violate our consciously reflected upon sense of right and wrong is largely proportional to the extent in which we feel powerless over things. It becomes as if outside events are happening to us and shaping our overall identities (which are largely formed by the actions of ours that we regard as genuinely our own). We thus allow our feelings to become prone to the ever changing circumstances of the world around us. To quote Epictetus again, “he who desires or avoids the things which are not in his power can neither be faithful nor free, but of necessity he must change with them as in a tempest, and of necessity must subject himself to others who have the power to procure or prevent what he desires or would avoid.”27 Such a state would surely lead to us becoming likely to lose sight both of what our proper ultimate aims are and how best to realize them (not unlike the unjust one who is unable to flourish who Socrates describes in The Republic). This point indeed shows us how non-religious, Stoic insights can be helpful in substantiating Gandhi’s view that when we act immorally we bring great 24 25 26 27

Epictetus in The Discourses Book 1, Chapter 2. Found at The Internet Classics Archive: http://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/discourses.2.two.html. Ibid. p. 62. See Becker, Lawrence C. “Stoic Emotion” ibid. pp. 250–273. Ibid. Book 1, Chapter 4.

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harm to ourselves. Resisting a state in which we are controlled by the changing circumstances of the outside world (and thus become less capable of effectively acting) entails affirming that it is within our power to ensure that the moral worth of our acts are never compromised by outside events (no matter how objectionable we may find those events to be). Additionally, such resistance entails affirming our own capability to preserve our individual moral worth regardless of what external costs doing so may bring about. My arguments are intended to make clear the distinction between, say, accepting that one is powerless to change the processes by which others are lead to willingly implement a Muslim travel ban yet affirming that it is entirely within one’s power to refuse to give such a ban any personal support (regardless of what harm such refusal may befall a person) and thus act immorally. In contrast to those like Warburton and Grant, it is my understanding of the basic Stoic insight which allowed me to find immense solace in the days and weeks after the 2016 election. Accepting that I, an individual living among over 300 million others in America, had done all that could reasonably be expected of a private citizen to enable having someone other than Donald Trump assume the office of the presidency and that what choices others make is beyond my control was a source of immense inner peace. Owing to Stoic considerations, I came to see that as long as I can authentically affirm that nothing I have done, in regard to the election, diminishes my own moral standing and that whether my moral standing gets diminished is entirely within my control. Thus I could find no legitimate basis for living in a continual state of lament. It should be acknowledged that many would say that a serious problem regarding political involvement is that no moral options are ever available when we vote. Thus, if as I’ve been arguing, we act morally as long as we do not diminish our moral standing it would seem to follow that we act morally by not voting (in other words by avoiding engaging in politics at all). We should remember however that voting is not necessary (and likely not even sufficient) for engaging in political activity. Furthermore, it is implausible to think that one can ever be in political situation in which she is unable to do something to keep from diminishing her own personal moral standing (even if this means, as the Stoics and Gandhi argue, accepting her own death). Therefore, even if someone is convinced that she is presented with no moral choices on her ballot card there is no reason to conclude that she can thereby do nothing to diminish her moral standing. It is nothing short of a feeling of relief which comes from knowing that it cannot be expected that I (a single, isolated being) be the one responsible for ensuring that a country that is comprised of hundreds of millions individuals votes in a particular fashion. The burden felt from living as if such is not the

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case is surely not conducive to one realizing the Socratic, Gandhian kind of inner peace which has been seen to so effectively move the hearts and minds of people the world over. Thus, the irony referred to by Stoic thinkers that by letting go of attempts to control one can actually achieve the highest degrees of control becomes clear. What’s more is that we should consider the fragile nature of political progress in societies like ours as well as the concomitant push to continually protect the gains we believe our activism to have yielded. Given that it clearly seems all of our best efforts to proactively effect the outside legislative world are always only one election away from coming undone, a Stoic mindset regarding politics seems to rationally follow from thinking about the reality we live within. To engage in political action while under the illusion (however implicitly held) that our power to control outcomes has such a reach that the achievements we realize can withstand whatever unforeseen future may arrive is not only hopelessly unrealistic but needlessly pressurizing. No amount of wishful thought or self-aggrandizing can alter the fact of such an illusion. Additionally, it is worth considering here the actual position we in present day democracies occupy by necessity even before the outcome of any given election is known. Regardless of whether we are part of a voting community of three or three hundred million or how much previous activist energy we have expended to secure a given result there will inevitably come a time when we can do nothing more than wait for the entire community’s preference to be known (for, as they say, the results to come in). In other words, there will always necessarily come a time for us in any political system we’d ever want to live under when all we can do (regardless of the degree or intensity of our earlier involvement) is sit back, wait for, and then adjust ourselves to the outcomes of a given electoral process. As so many of us learned or re-learned on the night of November 8th 2016, our knowledge of future events (like election results) can never be guaranteed as our actual powerlessness regarding electoral processes is perhaps made most clear by such instances. Thus, given clear political realities it seems that either we adopt a Stoic mindset regarding our political activity, act under (what amounts to) a severe illusion about how much power we really have, or fruitlessly seek to overcome the limits of our actual power and thereby bring about greater mental frustrations to ourselves—feelings which can do nothing to make the world a better place. Since, as has been noted above, political involvement can clearly be said to be required for attaining inner Stoic peace, it seems only the first option is philosophically viable. Lawrence Becker remarks, “Stoic ethical theory entails only that we make our emotions appropriate, by making sure that the beliefs implicit in them are true, and by making them good for…the development and

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exercise of virtue….”28 My arguments here show that the emotions underlying our political activity can clearly fit this description. Thus, political activity is indeed compatible with Stoic ethical theory. 4 Conclusion Those of us who can accurately be described as “political junkies” are often criticized for taking politics too seriously. In so far as our concerns and involvements in the political sphere are based on attempts to control that which outside of our power such a criticism is legitimate. However, Stoic insights (which are embodied in the examples of great nonviolent activists) give us a way to properly resolve this kind of problem. When political happenings are such that others seek to compel us to violate our own sense of morality resistance on our part is not only justified but seemingly required. Additionally, since adhering to a personal system of morality can be seen as necessary for preserving one’s inner peace there is no reason to think the adoption of a Stoic mindset should imply an attitude of quietism toward politics. On the contrary, there is good reason to think that it is by taking a Stoic approach to political involvement that one stands to realize the greatest success. Bibliography A Philosopher’s Take blog “We Care A Lot: Stoicism and Troubled Times” https:// aphilosopherstake.com/2016/12/15/we-care-a-lot-stoicism-and-troubled-times (accessed March 20, 2019). Epictetus, The Enchiridion http://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/epicench.html (accessed March 20, 2019). Epictetus, The Discourses Book ii http://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/discourses.2.two .html (accessed March 20, 2019). Epictetus, The Discourses Book iii http://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/discourses.3.three .html (accessed March 20, 2019). Epictetus, The Discourses Book iv http://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/discourses.4.four .html (accessed March 20, 2019). Cahn, Steven, Peter Markie (eds.), Ethics: History, Theory, and Contemporary Issues (5th ed). (Oxford: University Press, 2012).

28

Ibid. p. 251.

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Gandhi, M.K., An Autobiography. The Story of My Experiments with Truth (Boston: Beacon Press, 1971). Gandhi, M.K. In Search of the Supreme vols. i–iii. (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 1961). Gandhim, M.K., The Gospel of Selfless Action: The Gita According to Gandhi (Ahmedabad: Navajivan Publishing House, 1946). Hempel, Lamont and John Hick (eds.) Gandhi’s Significance for Today (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989). Iyer, Raghavan (ed.) The Moral and Political Writings of Mahatma Gandhi vols. i–iii. (London: Claredon Press, 1986). Mukherjee, Subrata, Sushila Ramaswamy (eds.) Non-Violence and Satyagraha. (New Delhi: Deep and Deep Publications, 1998). Sorabji, Richard. Gandhi and the Stoics: Modern Experiments on Ancient Values (Chicago: University Press, 2012). Strange, Steven and Jack Zupko (eds.) Stoicism: Traditions and Transformations (Cambridge: University Press, 2004).

Chapter 4

Howard Thurman and the African American Nonviolence Tradition Kipton E. Jensen And if I work for social righteousness so that every man can sit under his own fig tree and be unafraid—if I work to provide the kind of climate in which it is a reasonable thing that men may trust each other, then—then there will be the kind of atmosphere in which it becomes a possibility for nations to beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning-hooks. howard thurman1

Although some assume that the origins of philosophical pacifism within the African American tradition stretch back only as far as Martin Luther King’s storied pilgrimage to nonviolence and trip to the land of Gandhi, recent scholarship suggests that the philosophical and theological sources of nonviolent resistance tradition within the African American community are much older than that. Twenty years prior to King’s adoption of Gandhian methods of civil disobedience in Montgomery, Howard Thurman met with Gandhi in 1936 to discuss the plausibility of satyagraha, construed as nonviolent resistance, to the longer civil rights movement in America. King traces his own conversion to Gandhian pacifism back to a sermon in 1949 by Mordecai Johnson in Philadelphia. King visited the “land of Gandhi” in 1959. In Black Fire: African American Quakers on Spirituality and Human Rights,2 Weaver, Kriese and Angell suggest that the origins of African American pacifism reach back at least as far as William Whipper (1804–1876) and Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), whose annual almanacs advocated for religious and philosophical pacifism, the disuse of oaths, and the abolition or reduction of the death penalty. The African American nonviolent resistance tradition constitutes, writes Preston King, an “interesting and pertinent case of the particular interplay between democracy

1 Thurman. Papers, 1949/2018: 7. 2 Weaver, et al, 2011.

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and violence.”3 The following essay describes the role of Howard Thurman (1900–1981) in the longer nonviolent resistance tradition that culminated in the Civil Rights Movement. 1

Howard Thurman: African American Pacifist

As a sophomore at Morehouse College, in 1921, Howard Thurman joined the Fellowship of Reconciliation (for), an international pacifist organization that is still in existence. But prior to his formal adoption of pacifism, as expressed by his membership in for or as espoused in his philosophy of nonviolence as part of the Pilgrimage of Friendship in 1935–36, Thurman claims that he learned about the central ills or the admonitory lesson of violence from his grandmother, Nancy Ambrose, a freed slave in Daytona Beach, Florida, where Thurman grew up. Thurman was also a pacifist because he believed that the religion of Jesus requires it and, more generally, again like Gandhi, because he was acutely aware of how violence distorted the soul or, put differently, the personality. “The fact that the first twenty-three years of my life were spent in Florida and Georgia,” wrote Thurman, in Luminous Darkness, “has left its scars deep in my spirit.”4 Pacifists not only refrain from physical and psychological violence, they are also compelled to work diligently to change the socio-economic conditions that contribute to physical and psychological violence. Similar to Thurman, Johan Galtung defines violence quite simply, almost axiomatically, as “the absence of peace” and argues that “violence is present when human beings are influenced so that their actual somatic and mental realizations are below their potential realizations.”5 Thurman’s political conscience was piqued by how violence of sundry sorts, proximate or remote, whether direct and personal or indirect and impersonal, arrests the development of the personality and circumvents the democratic process. Luther Smith claims that “the development of a philosophy of nonviolent protest for the black struggle is a foremost achievement of [Thurman’s] social witness.”6 In his encounter with Gandhi in 1936, Thurman was keen to understand the theory or philosophy of ahimsa.7 Gandhi’s use of the Sanskrit “ahimsa” 3 Preston King, 2013: 17. 4 Luminous Darkness, 1965: x. 5 Galtung, 1969: 167–91. 6 Smith, Mystic as Prophet, 1992: 133. 7 Thurman discusses the doctrine of ahimsa as an ethical doctrine with a spiritual foundation as means of dealing with their poverty, of which the spinning-wheel was the symbol, his 1953

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was significant, since it alludes to the ancient karmic religions, especially pro­ minent within Jainism, for whom “ahimsa stood for a commitment to refrain from harming [all] living things.”8 Although it may be easy to comprehend the socio-ethical doctrine inherent in ahimsa, understood as a difficult path and a demanding prescription for practical behavior, Thurman was interested in the metaphysical doctrine at the heart of the philosophy of nonviolence qua ahimsa. “At the center of non-violence is a force which is self-acting,” Gandhi claimed, “a force more positive than electricity” and, as Eisenstadt and Dixie amend, beautifully, “subtler and more pervasive than the ether” (ibid.). With an eye turned toward the spiritual resources available within Christianity, thought Gandhi, and Thurman agreed, ahimsa was best thought of along the lines of “‘love’ in the Pauline sense, yet something more than the love defined by St. Paul, although I know St. Paul’s beautiful definition [in I Corinthians 13:4–8] is good enough for all practical purposes.”9 Whereas ahimsa is a philosophical or religious creed, saytagraha can be adopted merely as political method. Though Gandhi translated “ahimsa” negatively, as “non-violence,” he stressed that nonviolence “does not express a negative force, but a force superior to all the forces put together; one person who can express ahimsa in life exercises a force superior to all the forces of brutality.” Dixie and Eisenstadt elaborate on the metaphysical strain in Gandhi’s theory of ahimsa: For Gandhi nonviolence was not really an idea at all. It was, as he told the delegation repeatedly, a force, a physical reality, a metaphysical substrate that underlined and defined all reality, a deeper truth behind the dross and flux of the world, the truth beneath and beyond the seeming brutality that apparently confined both human life and the world of nature to endless cycles of gratuitous violence. Ahimsa was a force, as Gandhi indicated, “the force, in the constitution of the universe.”10 The effectiveness of satyagraha as a socio-political method depends, ultimately, on one’s vital commitment to the philosophy of ahimsa. Inversely, though ahimsa actively requires Satyagraha: “It is not possible to be actively nonviolent and not rise against social injustice no matter where it occurs.” The methods and philosophy of nonviolence converge, certainly, the one entailing

lecture on Gandhi, which was part of a series called ‘Men Who Walked with God’: http:// hgar-srv3.bu.edu/web/howard-thurman/virtual-listening-room/detail?id=367489. 8 Dixie and Eisenstadt, 2011: 104. 9 Thurman. Papers [1936] 2009: 335. 10 Dixie and Eisenstadt, 104.

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the other, but we should not conflate them. Gandhi believed that satyagraha would succeed, sooner or later, because “[a]himsa was a force, the force, in the constitution of the universe.” As Thurman might have expressed it, injustice or evil is bound to fail, eventually, because “the source of life is alive” and because “there is a heart at the heart of the universe”; the strategy of active nonviolence was animated, for Gandhi and Thurman as well as for Lawson and King, by the abiding conviction that “the cosmos is the kind of order that sustains and supports the demands that the relationships between men and between man and God be one of harmony [and] integration.” In Search for Common Ground, in the context of his analysis of the “structure-functional integrity” of living organisms, Thurman suggests that “the intent [of life] is for integration, for wholeness, for community within the limits of the organism itself.”11 Following Thurman: “It is not unreasonable, then, to assume that as he seeks community within himself, with his fellows, and with his world, he may find that what he is seeking to do deliberately is but the logic of the meaning of all that has gone into his own creation” (ibid.). The practical path of ahimsa, insisted Gandhi, this “art of dying,” requires courage as well as self-sacrifice. Though open to all, mastery of ahimsa was granted to very few, if any. Thurman asked Gandhi whether it was possible for an individual who had mastered or otherwise embodied ahimsa to hold violence at bay in its entirety. And while the answer admits of multiple interpretations, some specific to Gandhi and others more universal in their application, Gandhi replied, “If he cannot, you must take it that he is not a true representative of ahimsa.” (But if he were, presumably, following the implicit logic of Gandhi’s reply, then he could.) Gandhi’s response alludes, it seems, to what Dixie and Eisenstadt isolate as “one of the peculiarities of Gandhian nonviolence.”12 The success or failure of the struggle in India depended not only on the degree of vitality inherent in ahimsa, as embodied in a single individual, though that is also part of the teaching, suggested Gandhi, but also “on the degree to which the masses of people are able to embrace such a notion and have it become a working part of their total experience.” Gandhi believed that the soul’s strength grew in proportion to the extent an individual “disciplined his [or her] flesh”; thus, ahimsa as well as satyagraha consists in an exercise in restraint not altogether unlike fasting and chastity, which Gandhi considered to be various means by which one clings to the truth and accumulates a vitality of “soul force.”

11 12

Common Ground, 1971: 41. Dixie and Eisenstadt, 106.

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Gandhi bemoaned the fact that the masses did not seem to have enough vitality to embrace ahimsa. In practice, the vitality of the disinherited is diminished not only by a lack of bread, although that’s no small part of the problem, but also by a profound lack of self-respect, which, claimed Gandhi, was lost to the Indian masses because of “the presence of the conqueror in their midst” and the injustices within their own communities (e.g., the institution of untouchability). Thurman already described how racial oppression and the constant fear of violence undermined the self-respect of the disinherited and distorted the integrity or vitality of the personality of the oppressed as well as of the oppressor. Eisenstadt and Dixie speculate that “[b]oth Thurman and Gandhi saw the impetus for movements of social change arising less from mass politics than from a handful of persons who had realized the proper techniques for self-mastery and could, by their example, show others the way.”13 Thurman’s significance and role within the civil rights movement consists in the tasks associated with what Gandhi called “constructive preparation,” that is, someone committed to “cultivating non-violence among the brave in thought, word and deed.”14 In a 1943 letter to James Farmer, Thurman recalled Gandhi’s observation that civil disobedience broke down in India because “the masses of the people were not able to sustain so lofty a creative idea over a time interval of sufficient duration to be practically effective. They were unable so to do, not because they lacked in courage or in unwillingness, but rather in vitality.”15 In this same letter, in reply to Farmer’s for Nonviolent Action Committee and core proposal for a civil disobedience campaign, one announced by A. Philip Randolph in December 1942, Thurman wrote that he considered it to be a very good thing “provided it is built upon definite disciplines so that the masses of the people will not be inspired by fear, revenge or hate”;16 otherwise, suggested Thurman, “civil disobedience wider spread now, is the final gesture of the human spirit before martyrdom.” The campaign was subsequently and indefinitely postponed. Like Thurman, Farmer was worried that “shootouts in the sound and bloody massacres [would] set back the non-violent movement in the US for decades.”17

13 Ibid., 108. 14 Gandhi, Essential Writings. [1951] 2002: 100. 15 Papers, ii, 2012: 32. 16 Ibid., 329. 17 Farmer, 1985: 156.

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The Influence of Thurman on King and the Civil Rights Movement

Walter Fluker claims “several writers have made reference to the influence of Howard Thurman on his younger fellow visionary, but no scholarly treatment has demonstrated a formal tie between the two.”18 The evidence of influence should not be limited to their formal correspondence, which, as we now know, was careful monitored by the fbi. In 1966, for example, in response to a brief letter and donation to the sclc from Mr. and Mrs. Thurman, King wrote, “In the meantime, I solicit your continued prayers and support in these difficult days. These are trying times for the philosophy and method of non-violence, but I will continue to go on with the faith that this approach is right.”19 The typed reply strikes the reader as perfunctory. But by 1966, Thurman and King understood themselves to be seasoned allies in a shared struggle against what they both decried as the triple threats of racism, materialism, and militarism. Thurman considered himself to have been “a fellow pilgrim with [King] and with all the host of those who dreamed his dream and shared his vision.”20 Thurman’s philosophical influence and spiritual genius significantly shaped what was to become a distinctively African American philosophy and method of nonviolence; beyond his influence on King, Thurman’s influence extended also to heroes and heroines of the Black pacifist tradition during the longer civil rights movement in America from James Farmer and James Lawson to John Lewis and Andrew Young. When discussing Thurman’s role in the civil rights movement, Albert J. Raboteau concedes that “influence is difficult to measure” (2001: 157). Fair enough. Though in some ways unique, Thurman is also representative of an entire generation of black social gospel activists. Recent scholars are not only eager to document the textual evidence for Thurman’s influence on King, they are also keen to emphasize the lasting influence of King on Thurman. Thurman’s influence was significant in terms of how his teachings set the tone and the timbre of the civil rights movement. As a case in point, Thurman’s commitment to nonviolence loomed large over the initial meeting of the sclc in 1957: “Do you remember,” Rustin asked King, “what Gandhi told Howard Thurman in India, many years ago?” And then Rustin quoted Gandhi’s words [namely, ‘Well if it comes true it may be through the Negroes that that unadulterated message of non-violence will be delivered to the world’]. The trajectory of the movement was from the outset informed and shaped by the Gandhian 18 19 20

Fluker, 1990: 36. mcmlk, 1.1.0.46790_005. Head and Heart, 1975: 255.

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tradition. In their exchange in 1936, at his ashram in India, Gandhi told Thurman and Bailey that the effectiveness of the struggle depended on “the degree to which the masses of people [were] able to embrace such a notion [i.e., ahimsa] and have it become a working part of their total experience.” Thurman claims that “it struck me with a tremendous wallop that I had never associated ethics and morality with vitality – it was a new notion trying to penetrate my mind.”21 In his December 1956 Address to the Montgomery Improvement Association at the Holt Street Baptist Church in Montgomery, King claimed that the boycott and its achievements did not in themselves represent the goal of the struggle: “The end is reconciliation, the end is redemption,” King said, “the end is the creation of the beloved community.”22 In his 1966 “Non-violence: The Only Road to Freedom,” which he intended as a defense of the scls’s position on nonviolent resistance, King claimed that “[o]nly a refusal to hate or kill can put an end to the chain of violence in the world and lead us toward a community where men can live together without fear. Our goal is to create a beloved community, and this will require a qualitative change in our souls as well as a quantitative change in our lives.”23 Thurman believed that there was a social taboo against disclosing one’s hatred of another person, or group of persons, “except in times of war, when hatred becomes quite respectable, even though it has to masquerade often under the guise of patriotism.”24 Although it may seem that King’s 1966 argument in defense of nonviolent resistance and his reference to the beloved community is perfectly consistent with his earlier pronouncements apropos the logic of the beloved community, things had changed considerably between 1956 and 1966. King’s commitment to the philosophy and method of nonviolence, not altogether unlike Thurman’s, was contested in 1966 by “logistical imperialists” and “black-national ideologies” who argued for their strategies and demeaned nonviolent direct action. The technique of satyagraha, or the method of active yet nonviolent civil disobedience, as a means of clinging to the truth and combating injustice and other forms of violence, claimed Gandhi, toward the conclusion of his meeting with Thurman, could be successful only if a critical mass of individuals were able to unwaveringly embody, perhaps to the point of death, the vitalizing truth of ahimsa (qua the philosophy of nonviolence). Not altogether unlike Thurman and King, Gandhi said that he would not hesitate to say: “God is love.” 21 Dixie and Eisenstadt 1949/2011: 107. 22 King, Papers. iii. 1992: 316. 23 Testament, 1991: 58. 24 Jesus and the Disinherited, 1949/1996: 74.

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But when it comes to articulating an “unadulterated message of nonviolence” in the United States, between 1936 and 1966, more or less, it would distort history to reduce the sense of “the beloved community” in Montgomery or the “Promised Land” in Memphis to Gandhi’s karmic “Kingdom of Heaven” in India. The success of the satyagraha campaign, which is not to be determined by the body count or by the achievement of one’s demands, though these are things worth pondering, depends on the means rather than on the ends: in this case, the end coincides with the means. Gandhi’s philosophy and methods of nonviolence aimed at translating ideas into action. Nonviolence, Gandhi teaches us, in its active form, is “good will toward all life” – pure love as described in the Hindu scriptures, as agape in St. Paul. Resist, actively but nonviolently, all forms of ill will against life – i.e., conscientiously object to actions and policies as well as arguments or thoughts that are inwardly inconsistent with good will toward all life. In his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (1963), e.g., King writes, “The means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek.” Along these lines are the words of Mahatma Gandhi: “They say, ‘means are after all means.’ I would say, ‘means are after all everything.’ As the means so the end. There is no wall of separation between the means and the end.”25 Martin Luther King claimed that the revolutionary consciousness achieved in America during the early civil rights movement combined the political stratagems of Gandhi with the “love-ethic of Jesus.” Similar to Thurman, perhaps in part because of him, Martin Luther King was convinced that the religion of Jesus combined with the nonviolent resistance philosophy of Gandhi “was the only morally and practically sound method open to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom.”26 It was easy to draw analogies between the plight of the colonized masses in India or in South Africa and the historiographical narrative of super-exploitation of Blacks in America, especially in the South. Martin Luther King, who visited India in 1959, famously referred to Gandhi as “the guiding light of our technique of non-violent social change” (5:231). King 25

26

In his Eulogy to Martin Luther King, just fifty years ago, on the evening of April 4th, 1968, Thurman claimed (1975: 224): “Tonight there is a vast temptation to strike out in pain horror, and anger; riding just under the surface are all the pent-up furies, the accumulation of generations of cruelty and brutality. A way must be found to honor our feelings without dishonoring him who sudden and meaningless end has called them forth. May we harness the energy of our bitterness and make it available to the unfinished work which Martin has left behind. It may be, it just may be that what he was unable to bring to pass in his life can be achieved by the act of his dying. For this there is eloquent precedent in human history. He was killed in one sense because mankind is not quite human yet. May he live because all of us in America are closer to becoming human than we ever were before.” “My Pilgrimage to Nonviolence.” 1958: 9.

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argued that the Gandhian philosophy was “the only morally and practically sound method open to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom” (4:478). Though beholden to both Gandhi and the Boston Personalists, James Cone insisted that we acknowledge that Thurman and King drew most heavily from “the faith contained in the tradition of the black church.”27 Within that tradition, claims Cone, “theology was conducted in other forms than rational reflections. We sang and preached our theology in worship and other sacred contexts. The central meaning disclosed in these non-rational sources is found in both their form and content and is identical with freedom and hope” (417). “Although both [Thurman and King] were educated in leading white liberal seminaries and universities,” writes Fluker, “their respective understandings of community arose initially from their common experience of oppression and segregation as black Americans in the deep South” (1989: 35). Black churches provided a structure-function of hope, derived from the “the context of hundreds of years of slavery and suffering,” writes Cone, “that prevented despair from becoming the defining characteristic of the lives by looking forward to God’s coming, eschatological freedom” (1984: 419; also see Raboteau 1978, 2003).28 Cone argues that “[t]he white public and also many white scholars have misunderstood King,” as well as Thurman, “because they know so little about the black church community, ignoring its effect upon his life and thought” (1984: 414). Similarly, Lewis Baldwin claims that the “failure of many scholars to recognize that King’s genius was folk, black, and southern may be attributed in large measure to racism and to some extent southern bias.”29 Baldwin’s main contention is well taken also when it comes to exploring Thurman’s appropriation of Gandhi’s message of nonviolence: The main contention here is that we cannot possibly understand King’s interpretation and appropriation of the Bible, of Gandhian ideas and methods, of Western philosophical categories, of principles of American participatory democracy, of Reinhold Niebuhr’s Christian realism, and of Personalistic and Social Gospel concepts without carefully considering how the black experience of oppression and the traditions of the black church influenced him (1991: 2). The central themes that Baldwin explores are the recurring tropes of liberation and millennial hope as expressed in terms of the Christian doctrine of the 27 28 29

Cone, 1984: 413. Raboteau, 1978: 251. Baldwin, 1991: 3.

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Kingdom of God conceived of as the locus of love and forgiveness. African Americans in the South, notes Preston King, did not “simplistically learn nonviolence from the admirable Mahatma Gandhi” (2004:10). Baldwin’s well-taken point apropos of King, i.e., that it was his background in the Black church that made him temperamentally and theologically receptive to the philosophy and methods of nonviolence, could be applied also to Thurman. 3

Howard Thurman and Martin Luther King on Nonviolent Yet Active Resistance

Nonviolence is something more than resisting or negating violence: it is something in its own right, perhaps something positive, the negation or violation of which is called violence. That said, there are ways of clarifying peace or nonviolence by inverting various definitions of violence. As a case in point, one amplifies the nature of nonviolence when one transforms various definitions of violence, e.g., Vorobej’s definition of cultural violence, into working definitions of nonviolence. (a) Cultural violence exists when we employ arguments, stories, or symbols that are designed to legitimate the existence of physical or psychological violence.30 (b) Cultural [non-]violence exists when we employ arguments, stories, or symbols that are designed to [de-]legitimate the existence of physical or psychological violence. The essence of nonviolence consists in more than resisting the urge to act in violent ways. It’s also more than our efforts to stop or delimit acts of violence when they occur, whether individually or collectively. Nonviolence does include those things, but thoughtful pacifists and advocates of nonviolence are committed to understanding—and thus more efficiently eliminating—the conditions and causes that lead to violence. In this sense, the work of nonviolence includes “delegitimizing the existence of physical and psychological violence.” And while it is important to understand the psychological dynamics that lead to acts of violence, directed toward oneself or others, it must be acknowledged that anger or hatred are not conceptually connected with acts of violence: it is possible to be angry without being violent and it is also possible to be violent without being angry. Indeed, focusing on hatred or resentment as animating violence may be misguided. 30

Vorobej, 2016: 191.

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In 1916, Dewey wrote: “Belief that war springs from the emotions of hate, pugnacity, and greed rather than the objective causes that call these emotions into play reduces the peace movement to the futile plane of hortatory preaching.”31 Though willing to concede both these points, those articulated in King and Dewey, it must also be admitted that much if not most of what has passed as philosophical analysis, whether justifying the use of violence (e.g., Frantz Fanon or Richard Wright) or delegitimizing and discouraging violence (e.g., Howard Thurman and Martin Luther King), has focused on these emotions of hate, pugnacity, and greed; indeed, several recent analyses of violence have also resorted to analogous preoccupations with emotive states if not also a certain amount of philosophical hortatory preaching. Thurman defines violence in ways that resonate with contemporary definitions;32 and similar to Audi and Galtung, Thurman believes that “to confine the definition of violence to its physical expression is too restricting and limiting.”33 He also concedes, alluding to an example set by Gandhi, that “[l] ove itself may be a form of nonphysical violence” (112). More Thurman: When violence is met with violence, the citadel of the spirit is not invaded. The most that is accomplished is a limited truce—a standoff—a stalemate. The fact of isolation becomes a way of life. All communication breaks down, and slowly the spirits of men become asphyxiated. For this reason, the only thing that can maintain the mood of violence between men beyond the heat and excitation of direct encounter is hatred…Violence is the act through which such a will is implemented, and hate is its dynamic (ibid., 113). Perhaps it was Richard Wright who best expressed, in Native Son, in the figure of Bigger Thomas, though James Baldwin captured similar sentiments in The 31 32

Dewey, 1976: 214. Thurman writes that “[t]he term ‘violence’ usually carries with it the connotation of physical force of some sort. Violence as physical force, when employed directly in face-to-face encounter, may be overwhelming and compelling. It is quick, decisive, and definite. There is a certain limited efficiency in its use. It tends to inspire fear and often makes for temporary capitulation. Its central purpose is to make it possible for one man to impose his will on another. As an instrument of national policy, its purpose is to impose one nation’s will on another nation” ([1963] 2003: 112). Thurman occasionally quoted Ortega y Gasset, who suggested in Revolt of the Masses that “violence is always present, in fact or threat, in all human relations. The thing that distinguishes the barbarian from the civilized man is the priority given to the use of it. The civilized man postpones violence until all other methods are exhausted; while the barbarian resorts to it as soon as his will is thwarted” (ibid.). 33 Thurman. Disciplines of the Spirit, 1963: 112.

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Fire Next Time, what Eddie Glaude calls “the radical rage that results from the conditions of black living in the United States.”34 Elaborating: One would expect individuals who experience systemic degradation to be angry. This is not to suggest that rage should completely define their lives. For some this may be the case. But for the majority of African Americans rage stands alongside the joys of living, and it is precisely in this intense juxtaposition that the edginess of some facets of black life can be found. Indeed, Baldwin renders intelligible the strangeness of the Nation of Islam’s theodicy by translating it into the idiom of everyday black life, where rage is a constant companion: we all have our private Bigger Thomas living within our skulls (ibid.) Thurman could be fruitfully interpreted as a response to the advocacy of violence expressed in Wright and promoted by subsequent anti-colonialists and advocates of emancipatory violence. Thurman was also preoccupied with providing an antidote to fear, hatred, deception, rage, bitterness, and resentment. The power of love is also cathartic, at least potentially, in ways analogous to the power of hatred, but the power of love is uniquely creative and redemptive rather than destructive. Thurman and King also believed that love, whether in the religion of Jesus or in the philosophy of Gandhi or in the spiritual teachings of Hanh, does not discriminate: we are encouraged to love one another, to love in some nontrivial sense, with perfect equanimity, to love even our enemies. What will it take for us to recover sovereignty over ourselves? In each of the cases mentioned above, from Gandhi and Thurman to King, the quality of their respective religious experiences was inextricably intertwined with the vitality and intensity of their respective acts of political activism. Their political activism arose out of their respective religious experiences. In each case, their commitment to social justice required the courage of risking their lives for the sake of the disinherited. It is Gandhi who claimed, but Thurman would have concurred, that anyone “who says that religion is unrelated to politics understands neither religion nor politics.” Thurman argued that hatred destroys the inner bearings of the individual and, little by little, it slowly yet ineluctably undermines the meaning of life. Nihilism comes in an array of forms, observed King in Strength to Love, some better suited to the “tender-minded” and others to the “hard-hearted,”35 but in each case, inevitably and tragically, warned Thurman, as a social psychiatrist, meaninglessness 34 35

Glaude, 2007: 12. [1963]1986: 495

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poses a genuine threat to our collective well-being. Hate takes on a life of its own.36 As Thurman put it in 1949: “The logic of the development of hatred is the death of spirit and disintegration of ethical and moral values.” Above all else, however, “it must be borne in mind that hatred tends to dry up the springs of creative thought” and the “urgent needs of the personality for creative expression are starved to death” (88). In short, “Jesus rejected hatred. It was not because he lacked the vitality or the strength. It was not because he lacked the incentive. Jesus rejected hatred because he saw that hatred meant death to the mind, death to the spirit, death to communion with the father” (ibid.). In the case of Thurman, …the imperative of social action is not merely to improve the condition of society. It is not merely to feed the hungry, not merely to relieve human suffering and human misery. If this were all, in and of itself, it would be important surely. But this is not all. The basic consideration has to do with the removal of all that prevents God from coming to himself in the life of the individual. Whatever there is that blocks this, calls for action.37 Martin Luther King understood Thurman’s insight into the inner logic of hate among the disinherited in his well-rehearsed sermon “Loving Your Enemies” (1963). Similar to fear and deception, argued Thurman in Jesus and the Disinherited, hatred distorts and also destroys the soul of the oppressed as well as of the oppressor. Thurman describes how hatred can “cripple a person in reverse” (1949: 88; Nietzsche, § 42, Thus Spoke Zarathustra). This belongs to what King called the “why” we refuse to hate and strain to love, which is a theoretical matter, as opposed to the practical business of “how” we might reduce hatred and increase the power of love. Thurman asks us to consider the socio-historical context of Christ’s command that we love our enemies: “Is it reasonable to 36

37

In a sermon titled Love or Perish, Thurman says; “When it moves from me out this way, it doesn’t know that it was created as a sense of defense. All it knows is how to reproduce itself: and the thing that it does to me, hate, when it reaches you, it bears the same fruit. If I don’t want to do this, if I don’t really mean to do it, then the only way I can handle the raw materials of my life is to discover another dimension of life. I am never under obligation to exchange hate for hate. My responsibility does not rest, ultimately, with the person who hates me, but rather what I do with that: return it in kind, withdraw and organize to destroy, all manner of things, but it is my responsibility, since God has snatched from us our final alibi. I must learn to hate them with a perfect hatred. But hate is hate, whether concentrated and integrated or loose, and hate is against life; and that which is against life is against God; and that which is against God cannot stand. We may choose: but if you choose hate, my God have mercy on your souls” (1953A). “Mysticism.” 1970: 23.

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assume that Jesus did not understand the anatomy of hatred” (1949: 86)? Although Thurman and King bore heavy burdens in their respective efforts to “achieve full status as citizens and human beings” for African Americans, “allhere-now” (1963: 154), they firmly believed that “hate [was] too great a burden to bear” (1968: 67). In what I take to be an allusion to Thurman, King wrote: Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Many of our inner conflicts are rooted in hate. This why the psychiatrists say, ‘Love or Perish.’ I have seen that expressed in the countenances of too many Mississippi and Alabama sheriffs to advise the Negro to sink to this miserable level. Hate is too great a burden to bear…. For the salvation of our nation and the salvation of mankind, we must follow another way. This does not mean that we abandon our militant efforts. With every ounce of our energy we must continue to rid our nation of the incubus of racial injustice. But we need not in the process relinquish our privilege and obligation to love. (1968: 67). King goes on to quote from Frantz Fanon, who wrote “that humanity is waiting for something other from us than such an imitation [of Europe],” saying that “we must turn over a new leaf, we must work out new concepts, and try to set afoot a new man” (ibid., 67–68; Fanon, 1966: 255).38 Advocates of violence adopted Fanon’s position that “violence is the only thing that will bring about liberation” and “that violence is a psychologically healthy and tactically sound method for the oppressed.” King’s critique of Fanon consists in pointing out the contradiction involved in “seeking ‘to work out new concepts’ and ‘set afoot a new man’ with a willingness to imitate old concepts of violence.”39 Thurman encouraged us to “remember that the violent act is the desperate act. It is the imperious demand of a person to force another to honor his desire and need to be cared for, to be understood” (1963: 112). Most of those identified with the Black radical tradition would argue that Thurman and King are guilty of a false equivalence when it comes to prohibitions against violence. Walter Rodney, for example, in “Black Power, A Basic Understanding,” writes: By what standard of morality can the violence used by a slave to break his chains be considered the same as the violence of a slave master? By what standards can we equate the violence of blacks who have been oppressed, suppressed, depressed, and repressed for four centuries with the violence 38 39

Fanon, [1966] 2004: 255. Chaos or Community? [1968] 2010: 56, 69.

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of white fascists? Violence aimed at the recovery of human dignity and at equality cannot be judged by the same yardstick as violence aimed at maintenance of discrimination and oppression ([1969] 2016: 222). In Disciplines of the Spirit, Thurman writes: “The spirit of retaliation must be relaxed and overcome. Here again the reconciliation must go on in a man’s [or a woman’s] spirit before he [or she] can be at one with the technique of nonviolence he [or she] employs as an instrument for social change.”40 Mozella Mitchell claims that “Thurman is first and foremost, a philosopher of freedom.”41 Not unlike Angela Davis, in her 1969 “Lectures on Liberation,” Thurman contributed to “the crucial transformation of the concept of freedom as a static, given principle into the concept of liberation, the dynamic, active struggle for freedom.”42 In this “concretized notion of freedom,” again Davis, “resistance, rejection, on every level, on every front, are integral elements of the voyage toward freedom.”43 In this respect, Fanon suggests: “No, there is no question of a return to nature. It is simply a very concrete question of not dragging men towards mutilation, of not imposing upon them brain rhythms which very quickly obliterate it and wreck it.” And yet the choice between slavery and death, or “or slavery or liberation at all costs,” writes Davis, referring to Sartre’s preface to Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth, is unnecessarily extreme. Davis is also keen to show that liberation worthy of the name is quite distinct from the freedom to exploit, demean, or brutalize. Again Davis: The collective consciousness of an oppressed people entails an understanding of the conditions of oppression and the possibilities of abolishing these conditions. At the end of his journey towards understanding, the slave finds a real grasp of what freedom means. He knows that it means the destruction of the master-slave relationship. And in this sense, his knowledge of freedom is more profound than that of the master. For the master feels himself free and he feels himself free because he is able to control the lives of others. He is free at the expense of the freedom of another. The slave experiences the freedom of the master in its true light. He understands that the master’s freedom is abstract freedom to suppress other human beings. The slave understands that this is a pseudo concept of freedom and at this point is more enlightened than his master 40 41 42 43

1963: 117. Mitchell, 1985: 24. Davis, 2010: 47. Ibid., 56.

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for he realizes that the master is a slave of his own misconceptions, his own misdeeds, his own brutality, his own effort to oppress (49). What is one to make of all this? What is the conceptual relationship between violence and freedom? In Where Do We Go from Here, King claimed that “one of the greatest problems of history is that the concepts of love and power are usually contrasted as polar opposites” and that “love is identified with a resignation of power and power with a denial of love” (37). This, thought King, was not only Nietzsche’s mistake – it’s our mistake as well. On the contrary, power “is the ability to achieve purpose” and the “strength required to bring about social, political or economic changes” (ibid.). In this sense, violence and nonviolence are both, at least potentially, forms power. Elaborating: What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive and that love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love. There is nothing essentially wrong with power. The problem is that in America power is unequally distributed. Part of this definition concerns the goals to which power is put. King believed, as did Gandhi, that the means and the ends must coincide. Though many scholars suggest that King was increasingly radical, perhaps even militant, he did not waver in his commitment to nonviolence. 4

The Kingdom of Heaven and the Beloved Community

King scholars from Lawrence N. Jones to Rufus Burrow have suggested that “blacks have been searching for the beloved community for as long as they have been in this country.”44 Not altogether unlike Gandhi and Tolstoy, Thurman and Farmer as well as Lawson and King were convinced that authentic social transformation was impossible without the quest for personal spiritual development. Thurman’s bold adventure, one that he often associated with his mystical experience overlooking the Khyber Pass overlooking Afghanistan, consisted in restoring or otherwise intensifying the spiritual vitality of the disinherited. Although Thurman’s “approach to social justice issues has been called ‘mystical’ and unresponsive to the concrete realities of oppressedpeoples,” argues Fluker, “this reading of Thurman is misinformed and 44

Jones. 1981: 12–19; Burrow. 2015: 134.

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unjustified.”45 Thurman asked Gandhi, explicitly, “how to train individuals or communities in this difficult art [i.e., ahimsa].” Gandhi’s reply also serves as a description of Thurman’s “bold adventure”: There is no royal road, except through living the creed in your own life, which must be a living sermon. Of course, the expression in one’s own life presupposes great study, tremendous perseverance, and thorough cleansing of one’s self of all the impurities. If for the mastering of the physical sciences you have to devote a whole lifetime, how many lifetimes may be needed for mastering the greatest spiritual force that mankind has known? But why worry even if it means several lifetimes. For if this is the only permanent thing in life, if this is the only thing that counts, then whatever effort you bestow on mastering it is well spent. Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven and everything else shall be added to you. The Kingdom of Heaven is ahimsa. “Like Thurman,” writes Walter Fluker, “community is the single, organizing principle of King’s life and thought” (1989: 159; also 1990: 43). Thurman’s most succinct formulation of his theory of the beloved community is to be found in an essay that Thurman wrote in 1966 but that was only recently published, titled “Desegregation, Integration, and the Beloved Community.”46 In that essay, Thurman attempts “to analyze the significance of desegregation against the background of segregation in American society, to interpret integration in the social context created by segregation, [and] to assess the meaning of the ‘beloved community against such a total background.”47 And while Thurman suggests that his theme had been, already in 1966, prior to the assassination of his colleague associated with the phrase, “well-nigh exhaustively mined,” his thoughts on the beloved community in particular seem—fifty years later— poignant and profound if not more than a little prophetic. For our present purposes, I wish to focus primarily on the distinction Thurman draws, one of many helpful distinctions drawn in this essay,48 between integration and community.

45 46 47 48

Fluker, 2013: 164. Samuel DuBois Cook, 2009. 1966/2009: 197. Thurman also thought that it was important to “delineate the difference” between segregation in “the closed system of the South,” which he described as “formal, deliberate, open declaration” (201), and the “basic immorality and dishonesty of the systems of power” disclosed within the “de facto segregation in the North.” Along similar lines, Thurman recognized that certain forms of token integration could inadvertently provide “protec-

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According to Thurman, genuine integration cannot be achieved “by any kind of mechanical arrangement of persons or rules or regulations.” Rather: It may be facilitated by changes in policies and regulations—it may be provided for in the structure of the organized life of the community or an institution; but integration can never be achieved as an end in itself. It must emerge as an experience after the fact of coming together. The damage to the body politic growing out of ancient patterns of segregation in our society is so profound that the meaning of integration is most often limited to the superficial and mechanical juggling of different kinds of belonging.49 As an interesting case in point, Thurman quipped that “unless some other forces are at work, which disturb power and controls, then power and social controls use the ballot as a viable instrument in their hands.” Thurman is working with two distinct meanings of integration. The legal aspect of integration, as Thurman calls it, by which he means that “there must be no closed systems which operate automatically with reference to any members of society,” is expressed in a formula describing an oversimplified process “from segregation to desegregation to integration” (205). This legal aspect of integration, which is a necessary yet insufficient condition for “dynamic integration,” something that should be guaranteed by our political contract, suggests Thurman, “can never be achieved as an end in itself”; although enactments of legislation are necessary, “they cannot determine or guarantee the quality of the personal adjustment within the broad range of open privilege.” Dynamic integration and wholeness can only emerge out of a “natural communal association” sustained by meaningful experiences of togetherness that are “multiplied over an extended time.” Thurman maintained his conviction, which was confirmed in India thirty years earlier, that “[m]eaningful experiences of integration between people are more compelling than the fears, the inhibitions, the dogmas, or the prejudices that divide. If such unifying experiences can be multiplied over an extended time, they will be able to restructure the entire fabric of the social context.” This “unscrambling process,” as he refers to it elsewhere,50 by which legal integration is qualitatively transformed over

tion to the pattern of segregation by which the character of such a group is determined” (204). 49 Ibid. 50 Jesus and the Disinherited, 97.

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time into something more dynamic and dependable, gets us a little closer but not quite yet to what Thurman means by—in 1966—the beloved community. The Beloved Community is created by the quality of the human relations experienced by the people who live within it. The term itself is an abstraction and becomes concrete in a given time and place in the midst of living human beings. It cannot be brought into being by fiat or by order; it is an achievement of the human spirit as men [and women] seek to fulfill their high destiny as children of God. As a dream of the race, it has moved in and out on the horizon of human strivings like some fleeting ghost. And yet, it remains to haunt and inspire [human beings] in all ages and all conditions. In some sense, it is always vague, and the blueprint for it is often outmoded before it can be translated into living texture (206). When Sue Bailey asked about how to live the creed, in practice, when one’s back is really against the wall, when suffocating from injustice and trapped by the enemy, systemically threatened and personally injured, Gandhi suggested that “it is always possible to protest in such a way as to transform injustice by severing the ties that make us complicit with evil.” To illustrate his point, Gandhi described the process – both literal and metaphorical – of self-immolation. Not altogether like Socrates, perhaps, Gandhi was a fallibilist, but one who strove to live up to the whole truth beyond the half-truths – in thought, deed, and motive: “It is not given to man to know the whole Truth. His duty lies in living up to the Truth as he sees it and in doing so to resort to the purest means, i.e. to non-violence.” The Gandhian campaign against injustice entails a profound commitment to the philosophical if not religious principles of ahimsa. Mastery of ahimsa, thought Gandhi, required great discipline, both of flesh and spirit. This practice would require the complete removal of hatred, fear, and deception. Gandhi said that it took him thirty years to overcome his proclivity toward hatred and other forms of violence. Anything that stood between Gandhi and the Kingdom of Heaven, qua ahimsa, must be removed. Thurman espouses a similar doctrine. Although he “could accept Jesus as a martyr, an embodiment of sacrifice and a divine teacher,” Gandhi claimed that “philosophically there was nothing extraordinary in Christian principles.”51 In his Eulogy for Gandhi, Thurman wrote that Gandhi “had a great reverence for Jesus” and, indeed, that “there is a striking similarity between [Gandhi] and Jesus, and it is this: That Jesus believed that the only way by which his people could be released from 51

Fischer, 1962/2010: 41.

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Rome, was by loving the Romans” (2/2012: 261). It is sometimes suggested that for Gandhi the primary inducement for embracing ahimsa was less non-contamination than it was a profound reverence for life. For Thurman, the primary inducement toward nonviolence and social activism was “his desire to remove all the barriers or obstacles that stood between him and God.”52 In some sense, ahimsa is the means; in another sense, it is the end. Similarly, nonviolence is the means to truth; in another sense, the truth is nonviolence. Although King’s conception of the ‘beloved community’ represents “a vast synthesis from a wide range of thinkers,” suggests Fluker, “a simple working definition is a community ordered by love.”53 Though diversely devoted to the service of God or Rama, rather than of Krishna, drawing on the Bhagavad Gita, Thurman and Gandhi, as well as King, could be said to have “expressed their love in desire-less and self-sacrificing action on behalf of others, especially the weak members of society.” In the concluding lines of his Eulogy for Gandhi, Thurman wrote: “Once again violence wins a battle, but it is my confidence that only love will win the war.”54 Reflecting on the mixed success of his earlier campaigns in South Africa, Gandhi suggested to Thurman and Bailey in 1936 that it was not necessary for all of those who participated in nonviolent civil disobedience to master, completely, ahimsa and satyagraha; and yet, he believed, it was necessary for a critical mass of people within the movement, and not just the leaders, or a singular satyagrahi, to embrace nonviolence completely. Not altogether unlike Gandhi, Thurman strove to purify himself as a means of confronting violence and injustice with the power of nonviolence. Thurman also sought to provide, by means of philosophical meditations and spiritual exercises as well as by means of experiments in reconciliation and community-building, psychological resources and spiritual succor to the disinherited. 5 Conclusion Thurman and King were separately but quite profoundly influenced by Gandhian teachings. Both Thurman and King believed, as King expressed it, that “Gandhi speaks for us: ‘In the midst of death, life persists. In the midst of darkness, light persists.’ We are today in the midst of death and darkness. We can strengthen life and [light] by our personal acts by saying ‘no’ to violence… 52 53 54

Smith, 2007: 45. Fluker, 1990: 39. iii. 2015: 261.

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by saying ‘yes’ to life.”55 This concise insight constitutes the philosophical core of King’s final speech in Memphis. The quote from Gandhi to which King alludes goes as follows: “And is this power benevolent or malevolent? I see it as purely benevolent, for I can see that in the midst of death life persists, in the midst of untruth truth persists, in the midst of darkness light persists. Hence, I gather that God is Life, Truth, Light. He is Love. He is the supreme Good.”56 Surface differences obscure our appreciation of significant similarities between Gandhi and Thurman or King; but there are also surface similarities that tend to distort important differences between their respective theories and projects. Gandhi, Thurman, and King were deeply yet diversely if not uniquely committed to the philosophy as well as to methods of nonviolence. But each of these heroes of the civil rights movement resisted violence because they believed that their complicity, proximate or remote, perpetuated “the evils of racism, materialism and militarism,” which corrupt the souls of the oppressed as well as the oppressor. Lewis Baldwin argues that King “stood squarely in the tradition of William Whipper, Frederick Douglass, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (naacp), and the National Urban League (nul), all of whom had emphasized nonviolence and moral suasion as the most practical methods for achieving integration and basic constitutional rights for black Americans.” Though they were committed to nonviolence, Thurman and King knew all-too-well that – as Walter Rodney expressed the point – “violence in the American situation is inescapable. White society is violent, white American society is particularly violent, and white American society is especially violent towards blacks.”

55 56

mcmlk 2.6.0.180_001. Young India, October 11, 1928, 340. Expressed elsewhere, Gandhi wrote: “I have found that life persists in the midst of destruction and therefore there must be a higher law than that of destruction. Only under that law would a well-ordered society be intelligible and life worth living. And if that is the law of life, we have to work it out in daily life. Whenever there are wars, wherever you are confronted with an opponent, conquer him with love – in this crude manner I have worked it out in my life. That does not mean that all my difficulties are solved. Only I have found that this law of love has answered as the law of destruction has never done…. It is not that I am incapable of anger, for instance, but I succeed on almost all occasions to keep my feelings under control. Whatever may be the result, there is always in me a conscious struggle for following the law of non-violence deliberately and ceaselessly. Such a struggle leaves one stronger or fit. The more I work at this law, the more I feel the delight in life, the delight in the scheme of the universe. It gives me a peace and a meaning to the mysteries of nature that I have no power to describe” (Young India, October 1, 1931, 286).

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Thurman said that he “never considered himself as any kind of leader” nor “a movement man.”57 And yet, Albert Raboteau argues that “Thurman believed – as did another twentieth-century activist contemplative, Thomas Merton – that true social change must be grounded in spiritual experience and personal transformation.”58 While I agree that King and perhaps also Thurman “stood squarely in the tradition” of Whipper and Douglass as well as of the naacp and nul, as Baldwin contends, Thurman and King were also committed to the philosophy of nonviolence that extended well beyond the method of nonviolence espoused by, for example, the naacp. Thurman and King also stood squarely in the tradition of Gandhi; institutionally, they also stood in the tradition of the for as well as the sclc and, at least early on, sncc. Although it is certainly possible to compare Thurman’s philosophy of nonviolence to what Gandhi taught or what King put into practice, perhaps merely as a dialectic exercise, an effort that could be easily extended to comparisons with Tolstoy and Thoreau or Banneker and Lawson, the pragmatic value of that strand of scholarship consists in translating these ideas into action. Otis Moss, himself an unsung hero of the civil rights movement, suggests that while Thurman “did not march from Selma to Montgomery, or many of the other marches, [he] participated at the level that shapes the philosophy that creates the march – and without that, people don’t know what to do before the march, while they march, or after they march.” If King represents the American Gandhi of the Movement,59 and Mays the Schoolmaster of the Movement,60 then Thurman should be recognized as the Chaplain or Minister-at-Large of the Movement, as someone committed to creatively intensifying “the degree to which the masses of people are able to embrace such a notion [of nonviolence] and have it become a working part of their total experience.” Thurman spent his life “cultivating non-violence among the brave in thought, word and deed,” which is how Gandhi described the task of “constructive preparation.” It has become popular to attend to the radical King.’61 But what is meant by the radical King cannot refer to a pivot away from the African American nonviolent tradition; rather, it is his effort to understand the socio-political structures and economic condition that animated racism, including materialism in the form of his critique of racial capitalism and police brutality at home as well as militarism or imperialism in terms of international relations (e.g., in his opposition to Vietnam and 57 Bennett, 1978. 58 Raboteau, 2002. 59 Dorrien, 2018: 74. 60 Jelks, Schoolmaster. 2012. 61 Radical King. 2015.

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his criticism of racial capitalism). Like Thurman, King was steadfastly committed to nonviolence from start to finish. The radical King, like the radical Thurman, was radical in the sense that they were committed to “dangerous unselfishness” and “a love that goes beyond simplistic notions of justice.” Bibliography Baldwin, Lewis V. There Is a Balm in Gilead: The Cultural Roots of Martin Luther King, Jr. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991. Bennett, Jr., Lerone. “Howard Thurman: 20th Century Holy Man,” Ebony, February 1978. Burrow, Rufus. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Theology of Resistance. McFarland Press, 2015. Cone, James. “Martin Luther King, Jr., Black Theology – Black Church.” Theology Today 40, no. 4, 1984. Cook, Samuel DuBois. Benjamin E. Mays: His Life, Contributions, and Legacy. Franklin, Tenn.: Providence House, 2009. Davis, Angela Y. In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself: A New Critical Edition. Open Media Series. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 2010. Dewey, John. The Middle Works, 1899–1924. Edited by Jo Ann Boydston. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1976. Dixie, Quinton and Peter Eisenstadt. Visions of a Better World. Boston: Beacon Press, 2011. Dorrien, Gary. “True Religion, Mystical Unity, and the Disinherited: Howard Thurman and the Black Social Gospel.” American Journal of Theology and Philosophy. Volume 39, No. 1, January 2018. Fanon, Frantz, Jean-Paul Sartre, Homi K Bhabha, and Richard Philcox. The Wretched of the Earth. Translated by Richard Philcox. New York: Grove Press, 1966/2004. Farmer, James. Lay Bare the Heart. New York: Arbor House, 1985. Fischer, Louis. Gandhi: His Life and His Message for the World, Signet, 1962/2010. Fluker, Walter. “They Looked for a City: A Comparison of the Ideal of Community in Howard Thurman and Martin Luther King, Jr.” in the Journal of Religious Ethics, 1990. Galtung, Johan. “Violence, Peace, and Peace Research.” Journal of Peace Research 6, no. 3, 1969. Gandhi, Mahatma and John Dear. Mohandas Gandhi: Essential Writings. Modern Spiritual Masters Series. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1951/2002. Gandhi, Mahatma and John Dear. Young India, October 11, 1928, 340.

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Glaude, Eddie S. In a Shade of Blue: Pragmatism and the Politics of Black America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007. Jelks, Randel Maurice. Benjamin Elijah Mays: Schoolmaster of the Movement. Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 2012. Jones, Lawrence N. “Black Christians Antebellum America: In Quest of Beloved Community.” The Journal of Religious Thought 38.1, 1981. King, Martin Luther, Jr. The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr. Ed. Clayborne Carson, Peter Holloran, Ralph E Luker, Penny A Russell, and Ralph Luker. Volume 3: 316. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. King, Martin Luther, Jr. The Radical King. Edited by Cornel West. The King Legacy Series. Boston: Beacon Press, 2015. King, Martin Luther, Jr. Morehouse College King Papers, MCMLK 2.6.0.180_001. King, Martin Luther, Jr. Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? Boston: ­Beacon Press, 1968/2010. King, Martin Luther, Jr. “My Pilgrimage to Nonviolence” Fellowship 24, 1958. King, Martin Luther, Jr. Testament of Hope: Essential Writings and Speeches. Edited by Washington. San Francisco: Harper Collins Publishers, 1991. Mitchell, Mozella G. Spiritual Dynamics of Howard Thurman’s Theology. Bristol, IN: Wyndham Hall Press, 1985. Preston King, Walter Earl Fluker. Black Leaders and Ideologies in the South: Resistance and Non-Violence. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis; 2013. Raboteau, Albert J. Slave Religion: The Invisible Institution in the Antebellum South. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978. Raboteau, Albert J. “In Search of Common Ground: Howard Thurman and Religious Community.” In Greil, Arthur L., Richard Madsen, William M. Sullivan, Ann Swidler, and Stephen M. Tipton. “Meaning and Modernity: Religion, Polity, and Self” in Sociology of Religion. 64, no. 2. 2002. Smith, Luther E Howard Thurman: The Mystic as Prophet. 3rd Ed. ed. Richmond, Ind.: Friends United Press, 1991/2007. Thurman, Howard. The Papers of Howard Washington Thurman. Volume 1: “My People Need Me,” Edited by Walter Fluker, et al. Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 2009. Thurman, Howard. Volume 2: “Christian, Who Calls Me Christian?” 2012. Thurman, Howard. Volume 3: “The Bold Adventure.” 2015. Thurman, Howard. Volume 4: “The Soundless Passion of a Single Mind, June 1949–­ December 1962.” 2018. Thurman, Howard. With Head and Heart: The Autobiography of Howard Thurman. 1st Harvest/HBJ ed. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1981. Thurman, Howard. Sermons on the Parables. Edited with an introduction by David Gowler and Kipton Jensen. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 2018.

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Thurman, Howard. Jesus and the Disinherited. Boston: Beacon Press, 1949/1996. Thurman, Howard. “Mysticism and Ethics.” Journal of Religious Thought 27, 1970. Thurman, Howard. Disciplines of the Spirit. New York: Harper & Row, 1963. Thurman, Howard. Luminous Darkness, New York: Harper & Row, 1965. Thurman, Howard. The Search of Common Ground: An Inquiry into the Basis of Man’s Experience of Community. New York: Harper & Row, 1971. Vorobej, Mark. The Concept of Violence. Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy, 78. New York, NY: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2016. Weaver, Harold D. and Paul Kriese, Stephen W. Angell and Anne Steere Nash. Black Fire: African American Quakers on Spirituality and Human Rights, FGC: Philadelphia, 2011.

Chapter 5

Contesting Religious Governmentality: The BhaktiSufi Movements of Medieval India Farrukh Hakeem 1 Introduction Carl Hempel, a positivist philosopher had faulted the human sciences for failing to achieve the conceptual or methodological rigor of physics or mathematics. Foucault also found fault with them, but decisively rejected the positivist view that the methods of the pure or natural sciences provided an exclusive standard for arriving at genuine or legitimate knowledge. His critique concentrated instead upon the fundamental point of reference that had grounded and guided inquiry in the human sciences- the concept of “man” (or woman). The individual of this enquiry was a creature purported, like many preceding conceptions, to have a constant essence, or a double essence. On one hand, the individual was an object, like any other object in the natural world, subject to the indiscriminate dictates of physical laws. On the other hand, this individual was a subject, an agent uniquely capable of comprehending and altering worldly conditions in order to become more fully, more essentially, himself or herself. Foucault reviewed the historical record for evidence that such a creature had ever existed, but to no avail. Looking for objects he found only a plurality of subjects whose features varied dramatically with shifts of time and place. The historical record aside, would the dual “man” (or woman) of the human sciences perhaps appear at some point in the future? In The Order of Things1 and elsewhere, Foucault suggested that, to the contrary, a creature somehow fully determined and fully free was little short of a paradox, a contradiction in terms. Not merely had it never existed, in fact, it could not exist, even in principle. Yet a further puzzle remained—how could such an erroneous, such an impossible figure have been so completely taken for granted for so long? Foucault argued that in the emerging nation-states of seventeenth and eighteenth century Europe, the individual was a conceptual prerequisite

1 Michel Foucault, The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences (New York: Vintage Books, 1970).

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of social institutions and practices that were then necessary to maintain an optimally productive citizenry. With the advent of “man,” (or woman) the notion gradually emerged that human character and experience were not immutable, that both body and soul could be manipulated and reformed. The idea of reform provided the technologies and institutions of modern policing their enduring rationale. For Foucault, these institutions were epitomized in a modern prison known as the “Panopticon.” Conceived by the eighteenth century philosopher and social reformer, Jeremy Bentham, the prison’s circular design lay each inmate open to the scrutiny of the dark eye of a central watchtower. It was an institution of “discipline,” a mode of domination that sought to render each instance of “deviance” utterly visible, whether in the name of prevention or rehabilitation. Though discipline worked on individuals, it was paired with the current of reformism that targeted entire human populations. The prevailing sensibility of its greatest champions was mainly medical. They examined everything from sexual behavior to social organization for relative pathology or health. They also sought out the “deviant,” but less in order to eradicate it than to keep it in acceptable check. This “biopolitics” (examined later) of the reformers, according to Foucault, contained the basic principles of the modern welfare state. A thinker more inclined to strict materialism might have added that in both discipline and biopolitics the human sciences served an ideological function, cloaking the apparatuses of arbitrary domination with the sober aura of objectivity. Foucault, however, opposed the tendency to construe science as the simple handmaiden of power, and opposed any identification of power with knowledge. Instead he called for an appreciation of the ways in which knowledge and power are always entangled with each other in historically specific circumstances, forming complex dynamics of what he termed pouvoir-savoir or “power-knowledge.” According to Foucault, domination was not the only outcome of these dynamics. Another was “subjectivation,” the historically specific classification and shaping of individual human beings into “subjects” of various kinds, including heroic and ordinary, “normal” and “deviant.” The distinction between the two came somewhat late to Foucault, but once he made and refined it he was able to clarify the status of some of his earliest observations and to identify a theme that had been present in all his writings. His understanding of subjectivation, however, changed significantly over the course of two decades, as did the methods applied to its analysis. Intent on devising a properly specific history of subjects, he initially pressed the analogy between the corpus of statements about subjects produced and presumed true at any given historical moment and the artifacts of some archaeological site or complex. He was thus able to flesh out the sense of his frequent allusions to

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“discourses” and to those loose agglomerations of discourses that he called, borrowing the ancient Greek term for science or systematic understanding – epistemes. He was able to reveal the inherently local qualities of past con­ ceptions of being human, as well as the frequent abruptness of their coming into being and passing away. The Archaeology of Knowledge2 nevertheless had its shortcomings. Among other things, its consideration of both power and ­pow­er-knowledge was at best partial, if not oblique. In 1971 Foucault already had demoted archaeology in favor of “genealogy,” a method that traced the ensemble of historical contingencies, accidents, and illicit relations that make up the ancestry of some currently accepted concept or theory in the human sciences. With genealogy, he set out to unearth the artificiality of the dividing line between the putatively illegitimate and its putatively normal and natural opposite. Discipline and Punish3 was his expose of the artifices of power-knowledge that had naturalized the “criminal character,” and the first volume of the History of Sexuality4 was his expose of the Frankensteinian machinations that had naturalized the distinction between “homosexual” and “heterosexual.” Yet, even in these luminous “Histories of the Present” something still remained out of view- human freedom. In order to bring it into focus, Foucault turned his attention to “governmentality,” the artful management of relations of power in those arenas in which individuals, despite being dominated, have been able, to some extent, to govern, to be, and to create themselves. He expanded the scope of genealogy. No longer focused exclusively on the dynamics of power-knowledge, it came to encompass the broader dynamics of human reflection, of the process of posing questions and seeking answers, of “problematization.” It could thus chart the possibilities, past and present, of ethics - the reflective practice of freedom - a domain in which human beings could exercise their power to conceive and test the modes of domination and subjectivation under which they lived. Foucault’s increasing concern with ethics led him to a far-reaching revision of the design of the subsequent volumes of the History of Sexuality, all of which were to have addressed subjectivation primarily in the nineteenth century. Seeking greater genealogical depth, he turned to the classics and, after a long delay, published a study of the ethical questioning of carnal pleasure in ancient Greece. The next volume dealt with the “care of the self” in later antiquity. His concerns with ethics led him in later work to study how people care for one another in social relations such as friendship, and it led him finally to 2 Michel Foucault, Archaeology of Knowledge (New York: Routledge, 1972). 3 Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (New York: Vintage, 1979). 4 Michel Foucault, A History of Sexuality (New York: Vintage Books, 1990).

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an eloquent meditation unpublished at his death, on the conduct of modern philosophy, the title of which is that decidedly open-ended question to which Immanuel Kant and Moses Mandelssohn had been asked to respond to, some 200 years before – What is Enlightenment? Foucault appropriately placed himself in the critical tradition of philosophical inquiry stemming from Kant, but his thought matured through the variety of its engagements. He rejected both Hegelianism and Marxism, but took both quite seriously. Although he diverged with respect to their approach to the teleological philosophy of history. The work of the French modernist writers Raymond Roussel, Georges Bataille, and Maurice Blanchot galvanized his conviction that neither a proper epistemology nor a proper metaphysics could be founded on a general and ahistorical conception of the “subject.” The writings of Friedrich Nietzsche directed him to the history of the body and the collusion between power and knowledge. It also offered him prototypes for both archaeology and genealogy. In the work of the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze, Foucault discerned elements of a general logic of problematization. His conversations with philosopher Hubert Dreyfus and anthropologist Paul Rabinow stimulated his turn toward ethics and the genealogy of problematization. Due mainly to his mentor, Georges Canguilhem, a historian of science, Foucault came to regard human life as a discontinuous, clumsy, disruptive, and sometimes despotic quest to come to terms with an ever recalcitrant environment. A history of systems of human thought would thus have to be a persistently local history. It would have to recognize that, all ideas are normative, no matter what their content. It would be a history of truth, but it also would have to be a long – and in its own way tragic – history of error. 2

Influence of Foucault

Foucault has been widely read and discussed in his own right. He galvanized an army of detractors, the less attentive of whom have misread his critique of the individual as radically anti-humanist, his critique of power-knowledge as radically relativist, and his ethics as radically aestheticist. Still, Foucault continues to inspire increasingly important alternatives to established practices of cultural and intellectual history. In France and the Americas, Foucault’s unravelling of Marxist universalism has continued both to vex and to inspire activists of the left. The anti-psychiatry movement of the 1970s and 1980s owed much to Foucault, though he did not consider himself one of its members. His critique of the human sciences provoked much soul-searching within anthropology and its allied fields, even as it helped a new generation of scholars to

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embark upon a cross-cultural dialogue on domination and subjectivation. Foucault’s elucidation of discipline and biopolitics likewise had a noticeable impact on recent studies of colonialism, law, technology, gender, and race. The first volume of the History of Sexuality has become canonical for both gay and lesbian studies and “queer” theory, a multidisciplinary study aimed at critical examinations of traditional conceptions of sexual and gender identity. The terms discourse, genealogy, power-knowledge, have become deeply entrenched in the lexicon of virtually all contemporary social and cultural research. In this context, Lenin had posed the great abstract question: What is to be done? Foucault rephrased and refined this to ponder: What, in a given situation might be done to increase human capacities without simultaneously increasing oppression? 3

The Origin and Nature of Biopolitics

Biopolitics is a complicated concept developed and used in the social sciences by Michel Foucault. It was employed to examine the strategies and mechanisms through which human life processes are managed under regimes of authority over knowledge, power and the processes of subjectivation. This term was initially coined by Rudolf Kjellen5 in 1905 in his two-volume work, The Great Powers. Kjellen was a Swedish professor of political science who looked at biopolitics from a historical and political context. He developed it further in a 1916 book6 entitled The State as a Form of Life. Because of the organicist analogies used by Kjellen, his biopolitical theory of the state is regarded as a form of vitalism or organicism in the contemporary literature on biopolitics. Based on a further examination of the texts in German and Swedish, it fails to account for a strong state and Kjellen’s analysis of the rationality of state action in a multiplicity of areas of state intervention, including the guarding, refining, and securing of the population stock. This account brings the concept of biopolitics much closer to the reality that Foucault described using the same concept, more than a half century later. As per Kjellen’s organicist view, the state was a quasi-biological organism, a super-individual creature. He studied the civil war between social groups, comprising the state from a biological perspective and named this putative discipline biopolitics. The Nazis also used this term occasionally through Hans Reitter, who used it in a 1934 speech to refer to their biologically based concept of nation and 5 Robert Kjellen, Stormmaterna (Stockholm: Hugo Gerbers Forlag, 1905). 6 Robert Kjellen, Staten Som Lifsform (Stockholm: Hugo Gerbers Forlag, 1916).

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state and also their racial policy.7 Modern usage of the term biopolitics in the nineteenth century began with Walter Bagehot’s work8 Physics and Politics, in which he reflects upon this term and looks at the issue of natural selection and politics. In 1938, Morley Robert’s book9 Bio-Politics, argued that a correct model for world politics is a loose association of cell and protozoa colonies. Robert E. Kuttner used this term to refer to his brand of scientific racism, which he worked out with Eustace Mullins. In current political science studies, the use of this term is divided between a poststructural group using the meaning assigned by Foucault that looks at social and political power over life, and a second group that uses it to denote studies relating to biology and political science.10 According to Foucault, the style of government that regulates populations through biopower is the application and impact of political power on all aspects of human life. According to Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri11 anti-capitalist insurrections use life and the body as weapons. These include the flight from power, and its most tragic and revolting form, the phenomenon of suicide terrorism. It is conceptualized as the opposite of biopower, and may be seen as the practice of sovereignty under biopolitical conditions. According to Agni Vlavianos Arvanitis12 biopolitics is a conceptual and operative framework for societal development, which promotes bios (Greek=life) as the central theme in every human endeavor, such as policy, education, art, government, science or technology. This concept refers bios to all forms of life on our planet, including their geographic and genetic variations. 4

Colonial Applications of Biopolitics

In colonial applications of this concept, states periodically used catastrophes to effect historical transformations. European states usually found themselves 7 8 9 10 11 12

Laurette T. Liesen and Mary B. Walsh, “The Competing Meanings of Biopolitics in Political Science” (apsa: Annual Meeting Paper, 2011). Walter Bagehot, Physics and Politics: Or Thoughts on the Application of the Principles of National Selection and Inheritance to Political Society (London: Kegan Paul Trench Trubner, 1900). Morley Roberts, Biopolitics: An Essay on the Physiology, Pathology and Politics of the Social and Somatic Organism (London: Dent, 1938) Markus Gunneflo, “Rudolf Kjellen: Nordic Biopolitics before the Welfare State,” Retfaerd 35 (2015): 24–39. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005). Agni V. Arvanitis, Biopolitics - Dimensions of Biology (Athens: Biopolitics International ­Organization, 1985).

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grappling with the sociobiological propensities of populations. The capitalist mode of production coupled with mercantilism led to a biopolitical approach to famine. The modern state depended on providing a diet sufficient to keep the biological machines of industrial capitalism running. The British set up biopolitics along with colonization to help solidify their control over the Irish. The French Third Republic in West Africa employed biopolitics in their colonial efforts. The fin-de-siecle revolution in microbiology and other particular developments in public health legislation helped French colonists. With the discovery of the germ theory of disease by Robert Koch and Louis Pasteur, the etiology of some of the most deadly diseases such as cholera and typhoid began to be understood during the 1890s and the French used this new scientific knowledge in the tropics of West Africa. Illnesses were isolated (bubonic plague) and vectors were identified (yellow fever and malaria) for the political purpose of public health. As a consequence, public health laws were introduced with respect to health standards. Its purpose was to have African subjects respond in the same manner as metropolitan citizens, to market initiatives and new technologies being imposed by the progressive state. Public health became a political concern in the sense that the state hoped that citizens would be more productive if they lived longer. 5

Foucault on Biopolitics

Foucault addressed the concept of biopolitics in his lecture series, Society Must be Defended.13 According to Foucault, biopolitics is mostly derived from his own notion of biopower, and the extension of state power over both the physical and political bodies of a population. While this was only briefly mentioned in this lecture, his concept of biopolitics became prominent in the social and humanistic sciences. According to Foucault, biopolitics is a new technology of power that exists at a different level, on a different scale, and has a different bearing area, and makes use of very different instruments. Besides being a disciplinary mechanism, biopolitics acts as a control apparatus exerted over a population as a whole, or as a global mass. In later lectures, Foucault continued to develop his ideas of the biopolitical in The Birth of Biopolitics14 and the Courage of Truth15 lectures. He referred to many examples 13 14 15

Michel Foucault, Society Must Be Defended: Lectures at the College de France 1977–1978 (New York: Picador, 2009). Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the College de France 1978–1979 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). Michel Foucault, The Courage of Truth. The Government of Self and Others 1983–1984 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).

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of biopolitical control when he first mentioned this concept in 1976. His examples included the ratio of births to deaths, the rate of reproduction, and the fertility of a population. He contrasted this method of social control with political power in the Middle-Ages. While pandemics during the Middle Ages made death a permanent and perpetual part of life, this began to shift in the eighteenth century. The development of vaccines and medicines dealing with public hygiene enabled death to be controlled from certain populations. This led to the introduction of more subtle and rational mechanisms such as insurance, individual savings, and collective savings. Though discipline operated on individuals, it was paired with a current of reformism that was aimed at entire human populations. The prevailing sensibility of its greatest champion was markedly medical. Reformers began to scrutinize everything from sexual behavior to social organization for relative pathology or health. They also sought out the deviant but less in order to eradicate it than to keep it in acceptable check. This biopolitics of the reformers, as per Foucault, contained the basic principles of the modern welfare state. A thinker more inclined towards strict materialism may have concluded that in both Discipline and Biopolitics, the human sciences served an ideological function, cloaking the apparatuses of arbitrary domination with the sober aura of objectivity. Foucault contested the tendency to regard science as the simple handmaiden to power, and he opposed any identification of power with knowledge. Instead, he called for an appreciation of the ways in which knowledge and power are always entangled with each other in historically specific circumstances, which form complex dynamics which he called power-knowledge (pouvoir-savoir). According to Foucault, domination was not the sole outcome of these dynamics. Subjectivation was another outcome, which meant the historically specific classification and shaping of individual human beings into subjects of various types, which included heroic and ordinary, normal and deviant. 6

The Conceptualization of Governmentality

Governmentality was a concept developed by Foucault in later years of his life (1977–1984). This concept has been referred to in Security, Territory, Population.16 1. Governmentality can be defined as the way governments try to produce the citizen best suited to fulfill those policies. 16

Michel Foucault, Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the College de France 1977–1978 (New York: St. Martins Press, 2009).

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2. The organized practices (mentalities, rationalities, and techniques) through which subjects are governed. According to Foucault, it is the art of government that is not limited to state politics and includes a wide range of control techniques that apply to a wide variety of objects from the control of the self to the biopolitical control of populations. This notion of governmentality is linked to the other concepts of biopolitics, power knowledge, and subjectivation. This genealogical analysis of the modern nation state as a problem of government does not only deepen the analysis on sovereignty and biopolitics, but also analyzes government that refines both, his understanding of power and that of freedom. Governmentality provides a new perspective on power by encouraging us to think of power not only in terms of a hierarchical, top-down power of the state. Rather, he widens the concept of power to also include the forms of social control in disciplinary institutions (schools, hospitals, asylums, etc.) along with the forms of knowledge. Power is manifested positively by producing knowledge and certain discourses that get internalized by individuals and guide the behavior of populations. This results in more efficient forms of social control, since knowledge enables individuals to govern themselves. The concept of governmentality addressed a variety of historical periods and diverse power regimes. But it is mostly used to refer to “neoliberal governmentality” – one that characterizes advanced liberal democracies. It refers to societies where power is de-centered and its members play an active role in their own self-government. Due to this active role, individuals need to be regulated from the inside. A specific form of governmentality is characterized by a certain form of knowledge. With respect to neoliberal governmentality (based on predominance of market mechanisms and restriction of the action of the state) the knowledge produced allows the construction of auto-regulated and auto-correcting selves. For Foucault, governmentality had three main components. The first was the ensemble formed by the institutions, procedures, analyses and reflections, the calculations and tactics that allow the exercise of this very specific but complex form of power, which has as its target population, as its principal form of knowledge, political economy, and as its essential technical means apparatuses of security. It includes all the components that make up a government that has as its end the maintenance of a well ordered and happy society. The governments’ means to this end is its “apparatuses of security,” meaning the techniques it uses to provide this society a feeling of economic, political, and cultural well-being. The government accomplishes these ends by enacting “political economy,” particularly, the meaning of economy is the older definition of the term, which is economy at the level of the entire state, which implies

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exercising towards its inhabitants, and the wealth and behavior of each and all, a form of surveillance and control as attentive as that of the head of a family over its household and goods. Governmentality is a government with specific ends, and particular practices that should lead to these ends. The second is the tendency which, over a long period and throughout the West, has steadily led towards the pre-eminence over all other forms of this type of power which may be called government, resulting, on the one hand, in formation of a whole series of specific governmental apparatuses, and, on the other, in the development of a whole complex of saviors. This represents governmentality as the long, slow development of Western governments which eventually took over from forms of governance like sovereignty and discipline into what it is today – bureaucracies and the typical methods by which they operate. The third part refers to the process, or the result of the process, through which the state of justice of the Middle Ages, transformed into the administrative state during the 15th and 16th centuries, and gradually became “governmentalized.” It refers to the evolution from the Medieval state, which maintained its territory and an ordered society within this territory through a blunt practice of simply imposing its laws upon its subjects, to the early Renaissance state, which became more concerned with the “disposing of things,” and so began to employ strategies and tactics to maintain a content and thus stable society, or render it governable. Using this lens on governmentality, we can decipher the increasing reliance of the modern state to legitimize its power through the institution of organized religion. The adoption of this religious paradigm has led to particularly circumscribed discourses. In the Indian context there is the increasing use of religious symbols, rites and discourses being utilized to consolidate vote banks and accumulate power for control by ensuring political outcomes. In the modern context, each of these religious discourses have been refined and tailored towards shaping and controlling vote banks. In India this trend is being played out by the Bharatiya Janta Party (bjp) through its Hindutva agenda. These religious paradigms have each led to their own exceptionalisms and in the current globalized context are used as justification for creating divisive wedge issues and even instigating violence to acquire and consolidate political power – institutionalized riot systems,17 structural dynamics of ethnic violence,18 ­ 17 18

Paul Brass, The Production of Hindu-Muslin Violence in Contemporary India (Seattle: Univesity of Washington Press, 2011). Donald Horowitz, The Deadly Ethnic Riot (Los Angeles: Univesity of California Press, 2001).

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s­ tructure of civil society and ethnic violence,19 and the political determinants of ethnic violence.20 This has had a very negative effect of splintering society into contested narratives and truths. The focus in all these religious governmentalities is to merely adopt the superficial and external forms of religion in order to construct a mechanism to strategically win elections and accumulate political power. These superficial discourses and attempts at political power grabs have led to vigorous contests in the public sphere. In this context the focus will be on the rise of one of the popular syncretic movements that laid emphasis on the substantive religious functions in order to challenge this religious governmentality. The Bhakti movement was a protest religious movement that represented a civil and non-violent response to the corrupt use of religion. It posed a challenge to the power of the sovereign and the religious elites. It represented a movement that showed its disdain and disgust towards the self-serving and corrupt rituals and practices of the religious elites. 7

Impact of the Bhakti Movement

The Bhakti Movement was a theistic devotional trend that commenced during medieval Hinduism and was then revolutionized under Sikhism. It started during the 8th century in south India and then spread to the northern parts of India in the 15th century. This movement was a civil and non-violent response against caste divisions, social exclusion, untouchability, and ritualism. It represented a backlash to the malpractices by the people who had been oppressed and suppressed. The impact of Bhakti was that it was a devotional transformation of Medieval Hindu society, where Vedic rituals or ascetic lifestyle for attaining moksha (emancipation) gave way to an individualistic loving relationship with a personally defined god. The previous belief that salvation could only be attained by the Brahman, Kshatriya or Vaishya castes was replaced with the belief that it was available to everyone. The Bhakti movement gave women and Shudras and untouchables an inclusive path to spiritual

19 20

Ashutosh Varshney, Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002). Steven Wilkinson, Votes and Violence: Electoral Competition and Ethnic Riots in India (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

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salvation.21 As the popularity of the poet-saints grew, the literature on devotional songs in regional languages became more profuse. A wide range of philosophical positions came to be challenged by these poet-saints. These ranged from theistic dualism to absolute monism. Kabir, one of these poet saints, wrote about knowing the state of truth thus: The State of Truth There’s no creation or creator there, no gross or fine, no wind or fire, no sun, moon, earth or water, no radiant form, no time there, no word, no flesh, no faith, no cause and effect, nor any thought of the Veda, no Hari or Brahma, no Shiva or Shakti, no pilgrimage and no rituals, no mother, father or guru there… kabir, shabda 4322

Further, the fifteenth century Bhakti poet-saint, Pipa states: Within the body is the god, within the body the temple, within the body all the Jangamas. Within the body the incense, the lamps and the food-offerings, within the body the puja-leaves. After searching so many lands, I found the nine treasures within my body, Now there will be no further going and coming, I swear by Rama. pipa, gu dhanasari23

The impact of the Bhakti movement in India was that it resulted in civility and shared religiosity, a direct emotional and intellection of the divine, and the 21 22 23

Shima Iwao, “The Vithoba Faith of Maharashtra. The Vithoba Temple of Pandharpur and its Mythological Structure.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 15 (1988): 183–197. Karine Schomer and W.H. McLeod, eds, The Saints: Studies in a Devotional Tradition of India (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidas, 1987). Winand Callewaert, The Hagiographies of Anantdas. The Bhakti Poets of North India (Sussex: Curzon Press, 2000).

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quest for spiritual ideas without the overhead of institutional superstructures. This led to new practices and forms of spiritual leadership and social cohesion in society.24 The Bhakti movement also led to voluntary social giving like seva – service to a temple or guru, school or community construction. Dana – charity, and community kitchens with free shared food. With regards to community kitchen concepts, the vegetarian Guru ka Langar which was introduced by Nanak, became an established institution over time, commencing with northwest India, and gradually expanding to all Sikh communities. The saint Dadu Dayal championed a similar social movement – one that believed in Ahimsa (non-violence) towards all living beings, social equality and a vegetarian kitchen, along with mutual social service concepts. Bhakti temples and Hindu monasteries incorporated social functions such as relief to victims after natural disasters, helping the poor and marginal farmers, providing community labor, feeding houses for the poor, free hostels for poor children and the promotion of folk culture;.25,26 8

Contributions of the Sufi Saints

As a complement to the Bhakti movement, the Sufis also added an Islamic flavor to the quest for social justice and concern toward improving the condition of the individual. Organized Sufi mystical orders had evolved in south Asia through two main orders – the Chistiyya and the Suhrawardiyya.27 The Chistiyya order was brought to south Asia by Hasan Muin al-Din from Chist near Herat in Khurasan. He was later made famous in popular religion to be the prophet of Hind (Nabi al-Hind). He came to Delhi in 1193 CE when the Ghaznavid ruler Muiz al-Din Ghori conquered Delhi and finally settled down in Ajmer, Rajasthan, near Lake Pushkar where he eventually died in 1236 CE. His shrine is one of the most popular in Indian Islam and signifies, like other shrines, the site of local cults that were practiced long before the arrival of

24 25 26 27

John Hawley, A Storm of Songs: India and the Idea of the Bhakti Movement (Boston: Harvard University Press, 2015). Helmut Anheier and Stefan Toepler, International Encyclopedia of Civil Society (New York: Springer, 2009). Jill Mourdaunt and Rob Payton, eds, Thoughtful Fundraising: Concepts, Issues, Perspectives (London: Routledge, 2007). Khaliq Ahmad Nizami, Religion and Politics in India During the 13th Century (Delhi: Oxford, 2002).

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Islam.28 Muin al-Din Chisti was a disciple of Najm al-Din al-Kubra (1145–1220 CE) and Najib al-Din al-Suhrawardi (1097–1168 CE). Muin al-Din Chisti was succeeded by Bakhtiar Kaki (d. 1235 CE) and then by Farid al-Din Ganj-e Shakar (d. 1255/6 CE) Farid’s devotional poetry led to his veneration in the Sikh tradition. He settled in Pakpattan, Punjab, a major stop in the trade-routes from Multan to Delhi. Nizam al-Din Awliya (d. 1325 CE) was the successor to Baba Farid, and he accorded an all-India status to the Chistiyya order. The other orders also exercised a major impact on ruling parties, but, there were also regional localized orders – the Firdausiyya in Bihar and the Aydarusiyya in Gujarat and the Deccan.29 Thus the Sufi shaikhs were a contest to the power of the Ulema and represented a powerful source of authority in medieval India. These Sufi saints provided a civil and non-violent response to the entrenched rulers and religious elites. The Chisti tradition attained dominance over the Suhrawardi order in the Turkish Sultanate of Delhi. This occurred due to two factors. The first is that the central Asian rulers preferred the Chistiyya order since it retained some of the features of a nomadic culture.30 And secondly, due to the fact that all the three leading lights who received royal patronage at the courts of early Indian Islam were the followers of Nizam al-Din Awliya in Delhi- the poet Amir Khusraw (1253–1325 CE), Amir Hasan Sizji (1254–1328 CE), and Zia al-Din al-Barani (1285–1357 CE). Khusraw’s poetry had a major impact beyond the court31 According to Digby32 no other Indian Sufi shaikh had a comparable panegyrist, and no competing shaikh had a comparable publicist as a disciple when it came to the duo of Khusraw and al-Barani. Further, Amir Hasan’s fifteen year record of Nizam al-Din’s conversations, the malfuzat (sayings) referred to as Fawaid al-Fuad was widely read, which was not an advantage available to other shaikhs and rival orders. They paved the way for Chishti Sufi hegemony in south Asia during this time and also provided for a Muslim sanctification of the newly appropriated land and Muslim identities which were necessary for the immigrants and Muslim converts in the Delhi sultanate. Though the Delhi 28 29 30 31 32

P.M. Currie, The Shrine and Cult of Muin al-din Chisti of Ajmer (New Delhi: Oxford Univesity Press, 1989). Alexander Knysh, Islamic Mysticism: A Short History (Leiden: Brill, 2000). Thierry Zarcone, Central Asian Influences on the Early Development of the Chistiyya Order in India, in The Making of Indo-Persian Culture. Eds. Muzaffer Alam, Francoise Delvoye, and Marc Garborieau (New Delhi: Manohar, 2000). Paul Loensky and Sunil Sharma, In the Bazaar of Love: The Selected Poetry of Amir Khusraw (New Delhi: Penguin, 2011). Simon Digby, “The Sufi Shaikh as a Source of Authority Medieval India. A conflict of Claims to Authority in Medieval India.” Iran 28 (1990): 71–81.

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Sultanate vanished the Chisti order remained popular because the memory and image of the activities of the earlier Chisti shaikhs remained intact, and their disciples had set up networks of influence and new centers in Punjab, the Deccan and other places. Amir Khusraw, author of Siyar al-Awliya (Biographies of the Saints), was instrumental in propagating the idea that the Muslim presence in India was a miracle (karamat) of the legendary Muin al-Din. The devotional legends of Chisti saints provided the textual basis for the historical consciousness of south Asian Muslims. The Sufis preached social equality before God and lived in social and spiritual hierarchies. One exception being shaikh Hamid al-Din Nagauri (1192–1274), who according to the Surur al-Sudur is an important example of a Sufi who modestly tilled the soil.33 9

The Sindhi Resistance Saints

In Sindh the vernacular poetry was in unison with the local environment, unconstrained by proximity to political power or narrowness of a purely communitarian world view. The poetry of Shah Abdul Latif of Bhit Sharif (1689–1752) conveys his deep attachment to the Sindhi soul and recounts the lives of ordinary rural folk weighed under by exploitive landlords and moneylenders. He was an iconoclast who acknowledged no authority that encumbered his thought, abjured religious orthodoxy and lashed out at what he regarded as social injustices. Shah Abdul Latif is one of the finest exponents of resistance poetry. He firmly believed in the doctrine of Wahdat-ul-Wujud (Unity of Existence). This made him a renegade by those subscribing to the orthodox, transcendentalist point of view. Bhitai’s poetry which was compiled from what has been related via a chain of local bards in his magnum opus Shah-jo-Rissalo (the book of Shah) is not any less Muslim for its rejection of social conventions which were devoid of aesthetic qualities. This work is divided into a number of chapters – surs (or melodies) each of which in the Sindhi culture in its different settings. His message covers a wide spectrum, a moralism and a code of ethics based on the poets’ own interpretation of the Quran. Being immersed in the Sufi concept of tasawuff (contemplation of God) Bhitai’s poetry is deeply spiritual, which articulates a philosophy of love which puts him in the same league as other Muslim mystics removed both in space and time. Bhitai is very much a Muslim and a Sindhi. But at the same time, his poetry displays a wide-ranging humanism based on its principal inspiration, the idea of Divine Love. All these 33

Saiyad Rizvi, A History of Sufism in India (New Delhi: Munshiram Manohar Publishers, 1978).

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features combined make Bhitai the leading cultural protagonist of Sindh in ways which only one conversant with the vernacular can really appreciate. But it is still possible to salute Bhitai, a Muslim mystic whose poetry, while regionally situated, had the broad-mindedness of vision to ascend to the heights of a humanism so that no social demarcator matters, where only the spirit and soul take flight. Accordingly he exhorts the believers: Oh my lord! Bring prosperity on Sindh My beloved Allah, render everyone comfortable in this world34 10

The Sufi Saints of Punjab

The oral literature of this region was disseminated by bards and later recorded. Through this medium, the autonomy of the individual found voice through the Sufi poetry of Punjab. Some of these being - Baba Farid Shakargunj (1175–1265), Shah Hussain (1539–1593), Sultan Bahu (1631–1691), and Baba Bulleh Shah (1680–1758). The pure joy in the ordinary delights of life and familiarity with which Bulleh Shah addresses God is just one aspect of the kind of poetry which has, through the centuries, imbued subjectivity to the common folk of Punjab. It is the subjectivity that resists submitting to the religious authority of the local mullah and demands complete freedom on matters dealing with the worship of God. Bulleh Shah was a fiery protagonist of the individual Muslims’ sense of identity. In one of his kafis or poems is the assertion that he was not a mullah, a kafir or even Pharaoh; not an inhabitant of Arabia or of Lahore; he knew of no religion and was neither Muslim nor Hindu. These bards of Punjab transmitted gems of wisdom, love and spirituality which stud their mystical poetry. Through this medium they advocated for the poor and marginalized members of society in a civilized and non-violent manner. Bulleh Shah’s assertion of his individuality in all its multifaceted dimensions was combined with a sense of balance. Punjabi literature borrowed copiously from the bhakti tradition and incorporated strands of romanticism into the poetry as well as the qisas (stories). Along with this there is a sense of active involvement with a social setting that is predominantly rural. This defiance of political and societal authority is a theme that is amplified in all regional literatures of the northwestern part of India. It is a corollary of the idea of an unmediated relationship

34

Muhammad Bachal Tonyo, Legacy of Bhitai Shah Abdul Latif (Karachi: Muhammad Bachal Tonyo, 1992).

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between God and the believer, and historically provided legitimacy to stolid regional resistance to would-be overlords, irrespective of religious denomination. Portrayals of the folk heroes and heroines of Sindh and Punjab, in spite of their Islamic idioms, are full of dauntless acts of resistance against the political authority centered in Delhi. The Punjabi Sufi poet Bulleh Shah, was also a humanist and a philosopher. He employed the verse form called kafi, a style used in Sindhi, Punjabi and Siraiki poetry used by the Sufis of Punjab and Sindh and also by the Sikh gurus. Bulleh Shah’s poetry and philosophy strongly criticized the Islamic religious orthodoxy of his time. His life was marked by religious strife between Sikhs and Muslims. However, Bulleh Shah was a beacon of peace and hope for the residents of Punjab. He was also a humanist who sought solutions to the social problems of the world around him. His poetry highlighted his mystical spiritual voyage through the four stages of Sufism. Shariat (path), Tariqat (observance), Haqiqat (truth), and Marfat (union). The simplicity with which he was able to address the complex fundamental issues of life and humanity is a major part of his appeal. Many artists have put his kafis to music, from humble street singers to the renowned singers like the Waddali Brothers, Abida Perveen, and Pathanay Khan. Bulleh Shah’s popularity spans uniformly across Sikhs, Hindus, and Muslims. Much of the literature about this philosopher is from Sikh and Hindu authors. In one of his poems (Neither Hindu nor Muslim) he makes a powerful argument for peace: Neither Hindu nor Muslim Neither Hindu nor Muslim, Sacrificing pride, let us sit together. Neither Sunni nor Shia, Let us walk the road of peace. We are neither hungry nor replete, Neither naked nor covered up. Neither weeping nor laughing, Neither ruined nor settled, We are not sinners or pure and virtuous, What is sin and what is virtue, this I do not know Says Bulleh Shah, one who attaches his self with the lord. Gives up both Hindu and Muslim.35

35

Taufiq Rafat, Bulleh Shah: A Selection (Lahore: Vanguard Publications, 1982).

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The Sufi Reformative Discourse

New social groups emerged based on trans-regional economic affiliations and these supported the development of new social formations. The dominant discourse of these reformers was focused on a severe criticism of their respective societies (Hindu and Muslim). Similar developments were also seen in other regions of the heterogeneous Islamic world at a time of historical transition with the disintegration of empires to the establishment of new territorial states in the eighteenth century. The old pre-bendal system was gradually being replaced by the mercantile system. At this juncture society was undergoing far reaching cultural and socio-economic transformations. The reformers tried to purify religion by eliminating folk-religious rites and attempted to interpret God’s message independently and individually via the revealed text. This led to the weakening of immediate and direct ties of authority on the one hand and the reconstruction of Islamic society by them on the other, thus referring to the early Muslim period as the ideal standard. This was in turn operationalized as ijtihad in the broadest sense, evincing a desire for differentiation;.36,37. The past that was referenced was not perceived as an era of heroism that would return, but as a social and political utopia that required individual effort in order to be realized. Memory was energized via a mood of powerful expectation. However, this approach differed from the traditional pedagogy, that emphasized a compliance with the law and authority, or taqlid, which was the case with the better part of the imperial service elites. Along with the claims of reinforcing ijtihad, theoretical elaboration of the ethical concept of Tariqahye-Muhammadi (the Muhammadan path) transformed mystical piety into action piety. Due to these developments there was a rise in the study of prophetic tradition (hadith), and the transmitted sciences. Due to structural amnesia- a shortening of the traditionally accepted ascription of the chain of authorities (isnad) – a quick and effective affiliation with Prophet Muhammad was possible and his Sunnah was considered the paradigm for political and social reform of society. The collective and individual perspective and action which was motivated and oriented through religion represented a ‘sunnatisation’ of lifeworlds, and went along with a process of the subtle humanization of the Prophet and now experienced religion came to be conceptually reflected. Along with this a developing anthropocentric world view coupled with a new 36 37

Wael Hallaq, “Was the Gate of Ijtihad Closed?” International Journal of Middle East Studies 16 (1984): 3–41. Rudolph Peters, “Idjtihad and Taqlid in 18th and 19th Century Islam.” Die Welt Des Islams. 20 (1980): 131–145.

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consciousness of the equality of all human beings along with the belief in universal human dignity found expression in vernacular literatures, which were able to adapt and relocate local concerns into their regional traditions. A new public constituted itself, articulating their interests in certain institutional spaces and patterns like the literary salons (mushaira) within the sensible circles of friendship. In these, different societal groups found a rank-free communication zone which functioned as an alternative to the court, where critical and receptive competence could be acquired and intellectual class heterogeneity prevailed.38 The Sufis were at the forefront of these developments and the growing popularity of vernacular languages like Urdu, socially, linguistically and ideally expressed the cultural emancipation process from the pristine culture languages of Persian and Arabic. These ideas resonated with the new trading groups who had benefited by contacts with European traders during the crisis of the Mughal Empire and were situated near the borders of the new national markets of the successor states. This enfranchising approach was grounded in sound political, social and economic interests. These traders attempted to eliminate the traditional social hierarchy and status and sought out more virtue and morality. The social esteem of the individual was more important than ascribed status. This in turn implied equality and was more important for these new trading communities and crucial for the evolution of the new regional states. Muslim thinking and politics gradually started to become more heterogeneous and complex.39 12 Conclusion By using the concept of governmentality coined by Foucault one may glean how religion is being used to enhance, accumulate, and hold on to power by the elites. Religious forms are being used to govern and control individuals. The Bhakti and Sufi movements posed a challenge to religious governmentality and addressed many substantial social issues of the time. Through its advocacy it pushed the religious and political elites to focus on the substantive aspects of religion as opposed to its outward forms and rituals. Due to the syncretic efforts of the poet-saints a more caring, just and equitable society was envisaged. The saints of the Bhakti and Sufi movements were thus able to challenge the system of ascribed status and privilege in a civilized and peaceful manner. They addressed the problems of the day and championed the rights of

38 39

Jamal Malik, Islam in South Asia: A Short History (New Delhi: Orient Blackswan, 2012). Ayesha Jalal, Self and Sovereignty: Individual and Community in South Asian Islam since 1850. (New York: Routledge, 2000).

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the downtrodden, excluded and marginalized sections of society. Their message of love, dignity and equality resonated within society and was a challenge to the governmentality of their times. This could be instructive to reformers in the current era. Bibliography Anheier, Helmut and Stefan Toepler. International Encyclopedia of Civil Society. New York: Springer, 2009. Bagehot, Walter. Physics and Politics: Or Thoughts on the Application of the Principles of Natural Selection and Inheritance to Political Society. London: Kegan Paul, Trench Trubner & Company, 1900. Brass, Paul. The Production of Hindu-Muslim Violence in Contemporary India. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2011. Callewaert, Wenand. The Hagiographies of Anantdas: The Bhakti Poets of North India. Surrey: Curzon Press, 2000. Currie, P.M. The Shrine and Cult of Muin al-din Chisti of Ajmer. New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1989. Digby, Simon (1986). “The Sufi Shaikh as a Source of Authority in Medieval India. A Conflict of Claims to Authority in Medieval India.” Iran 28 (1990): 71–81. Foucault, Michel. Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the College de France 1977–1978. New York, NY: St. Martins Press, 2009. Foucault, Michel. The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the College de France 1978–1979. New York, NY: Palgrave McMillan, 2011. Foucault, Michel. Society Must be Defended: Lectures at the College de France 1977–1978. New York, NY: Picador, 2009. Foucault, Michel. Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason. New York: Vintage Books, 1988. Foucault, Michel. Order of Things. An Archaeology of the Human Sciences. New York: Vintage Books, 1970. Foucault, Michel. Archaeology of Knowledge. New York: Routledge, 1972. Foucault, Michel. A History of Sexuality. New York: Vintage Books, 1990. Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. New York: Vintage Books, 1979. Fowler, Jeaneane D. The Bhagvad Gita. Sussex: Academic Press, 2012. Gunneflo, Markus. “Rudolf Kjellen: Nordic Biopolitics before the Welfare State.” Retfaerd 35 Iss. 3 (2015). Hallaq, Wael B. “Was the Gate of Ijtihad Closed?” International Journal of Middle East Studies 16 (1984) pp. 3–41. Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri. Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005.

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Hawley, John. A Storm of Songs: India and the Idea of the Bhakti Movement. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015. Horowitz, Donald. The Deadly Ethnic Riot. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2001. Iwao, Shima (1988) “The Vithoba Faith of Maharashtra. The Vithoba Temple of Pandharpur and its Mythological structure.” Japanese Journal of religious Studies 15 (1988): 183–197. Jalal, Ayesha. Self and Sovereignty. Individual and Community in South Asian Islam since 1850. New York: Routledge, 2000. Knysh, Alexander. Islamic Mysticism. A Short History. Leiden: Brill, 2000. Liesen, Laurette T. and Mary Barbara Walsh. The Competing Meanings of Biopolitics in Political Science: Biological and Post Modern Approaches to Politics (2011). APSA 2011 Annual Meeting Paper. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1902949. Losensky, Paul and Sunil Sharma. In the Bazaar of Love: The Selected Poetry of Amir Khusrau. New Delhi, Penguin India, 2011. Malik, Jamal. Islam in South Asia. A Short History. New Delhi: Orient BlackSwan, 2012. Mourdaunt, Jill and Rob Payton eds. Thoughtful Fundraising: Concepts, Issues and Perspectives. London: Routledge, 2007. Nizami, Khaliq Ahmad. Religion and Politics in India During the 13th Century. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2002. Peters, Rudolph. “Idjtihad and Taqlid in 18th and 19th Century Islam.” Die Welt Des Islams 20 (1980) pp. 131–145. Prentiss, Karen Pechillis. The Embodiment of Bhakti. Oxford University Press, 2014. Rafat, Taufiq. Bulleh Shah: A selection. Lahore: Vanguard Publications, 1982. Rizvi, Saiyad A.A. A History of Sufism in India. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 1978. Roberts, Morley. Bio-Politics. An Essay in the Physiology, Pathology and Politics of the Social and Somatic Organism. London: Dent, 1938. Schomer, Karine and W.H. McLeod eds., The Saints: Studies in a Devotional Tradition of India. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1987. Tonyo, Muhammad Bachal. Legacy of Bhitai Shah Abdul Latif. Karachi: Muhammad Bachal Tonyo, 1992. Varshney, Ashutosh. Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life. Hindus and Muslims in India. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002. Vlavianos-Arvantis, Agni. Biopolitics. Dimensions of Biology. Athens: Biopolitics International Organization, 1985. Wilkinson, Steven. Votes and Violence. Electoral Competition and Ethnic Riots in India. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Zarcone, Thierry. Central Asian Influences on the Early Development of the Chistiyya Order in India, In The Making of Indo-Persian Culture, eds. Muzaffer Alam, Francoise Delvoye, and Marc Garborieau. New Delhi, Manohar. 2000.

Chapter 6

Decolonizing Paradigms of Normative Evaluation: The Coloniality of Just War Theory James R. Walker This then is the great humanistic and historical task of the oppressed: to liberate themselves and their oppressors as well. The oppressors, who oppress, exploit, and rape by virtue of their power, cannot find in this power the strength to liberate either the oppressed or themselves. Only power that springs from the weakness of the oppressed will be sufficiently strong to free both. Any attempt to “soften” the power of the oppressor in deference to the weaknesses of the oppressed almost always manifests itself in the form of false generosity; indeed, the attempt never goes beyond this. In order to have the continued opportunity to express their “generosity,” the oppressors must perpetuate injustices as well. Any unjust social order is the permanent fount of this “generosity,” which is nourished by death, despair, and poverty. paulo freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

1

The Colonial Matrix of Power

It is evident from even a cursory examination of Western narratives of conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa that they manifest a dehumanizing, and ultimately, colonial logic.1 Here I will argue that a colonial logic similarly underlies the traditional approach taken in the West to providing a normative analysis of how its states and their militaries ought to engage with these conflicts and those living within them. This normative framework, Just War Theory, in one of its most recent instantiations specifies the notion of a “just war” in terms of the aim to liberate oppressed peoples from the tyranny of those that subjugate them to 1 Sverker Finnström’s work on the conflict in northern Uganda between, most prominently, the Ugandan government and the infamous rebel militia the Lord’s Resistance Army, makes evident how such a colonial logic is operative in the “official” narratives of that conflict. Living with Bad Surroundings: War, History, and Everyday Moments in Northern Uganda, Durham: Duke University Press, 2008.

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processes of domination and dehumanization.2 Yet this manner of framing the analysis of war can be found to manifest a similar logic to that which underlies the very systems of oppression, the dehumanizing consequences of which, it is ultimately aiming to mitigate. This logic, I will argue, is fundamentally colonial in its nature. Such logics shouldn’t be underestimated in the effects they have upon the lives of individuals, for they provide the normative framework by which we engage with the world and others. The engagement of the West with the rest of the world is structured by, and is inseparable from, the logics relied upon in narrating and conceptualizing their lives and the circumstances within which they live. As long as these logics remain colonial, so too will the West’s engagement with them. Displacing such colonial frameworks is important not only because it is part of the long-overdue and crucial process of decoloniality. Moreover, in so far as such a dehumanizing framework can be revealed to be lurking within the foundations of the liberal-humanitarian casting of Just War Theory, this also can serve as a powerful impetus to move those in the West away from the militarism of this paradigm and towards more nonviolent means of engagement. Of course, the same colonial logic found in this manifestation of Just War Theory is also found within a broad range of nonviolent means of engagement that share its liberal-humanitarian spirit, including a significant portion of ngo and “humanitarian” operations in the Global South. Indeed, as will be demonstrated, it is the liberal-humanitarianism that cuts across the debate between militarism and nonviolence that is fundamentally problematic. A commitment to nonviolence in no way absolves one’s manner of engagement from the charge of being dehumanizing, and, in fact, quite often ends up creating increasingly stubborn forms of concealment of the extent to which we dehumanize others. Nonetheless, it could be quite plausibly argued that the liberal-humanitarian version of Just War Theory is one of the most significant theoretical challenges to pacifist orientations toward war and conflict. Thus, unmasking the ways that such an approach is rooted in a colonial, dehumanizing logic, can serve as a powerful tool in overcoming this challenge. This then leaves us the important task of crafting manners of engagement that do not succumb to the same colonial weaknesses. Yet, so far as we are committed to the avoidance of dehumanizing manners of engagement, the

2 See Fernando Tesón, “The Liberal Case for Humanitarian Intervention,” and David Luban, “The Romance of the Nation-State,” both in Morality of War: Classical and Contemporary Readings, eds. Larry May, Eric Rovie, and Steve Viner (Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2006), 348–360 & 344–348, respectively.

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hope is that such work now can be done with one of the most significant challenges to nonviolence cleared from the field. I here hope to illuminate the extent to which actions deriving from positions of privilege within a still dominant colonial system of power – or in any such oppressive system of power – reinforce the very colonial hierarchy one is attempting to rail against the dehumanizing consequences of, even when undertaken with benevolent “humanitarian” aims of “liberating the oppressed.”3 For not only is one’s status as an agent capable of providing such “liberation” itself a feature of the very colonial hierarchy that is oppressing those one is hoping to “save,” but moreover, from such a position of privilege one will be incapable of grasping the nature of that oppression, and thus, not be in a position to offer a legitimate prescription for its alleviation, nor to even have sufficient rationale for one’s manner of engaging that oppression. In part, this derives from an inadequate conception of power within the dominant colonial logic of the West. A fundamental aspect of power structures is the way in which they shape not only institutions, lived realities, and social hierarchies, but also how they shape knowledge of the world in its construction of the logics, or categorical schemes, by which we ultimately interpret and give meaning to it, not to mention create identities for others within it. It is through this process of conceptually framing the world, and imposing a normative schema of relations upon it, that it has meaning for me and becomes the landscape upon which I can navigate and operate as an agent.4 Given the persistence of colonialism in our lived global-political reality, this brings to the fore the sense in which we must critically reflect upon the manner in which our gaze is laden with the mentality of colonization and is structured by the normative software of such a mentality.5 3 My use of the word “oppressed” throughout this paper often reflects my indebtedness to Paulo Freire’s work Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York: Bloomsbury, 2000). Nonetheless, I often use scare quotes to indicate that I find the term problematic in the manner in which it could be taken as objectifying individuals and ascribing an identity to persons which obscures the singularity of those persons, as well as the complexity of the power relations they are forced to navigate. Ultimately, this language itself is an instance of the problematic logic that I will argue underlies Just War Theory as well as other attempts to analyze conditions of structural oppression from a third-person position of privilege. 4 Yet one mustn’t lose sight of the reciprocity that exists in the relationship between the world I engage with as a subject and the logics that impose meaning upon that world. As G.W.F. Hegel recognized, our epistemic perspectives upon the world, and the fundamental normative schemas that define these perspectives, are conditioned by the historical circumstances we come to inherit within it. 5 It is worth underscoring here that the central thesis of this paper, that Just War Theory in its liberal humanitarian manifestation manifests a fundamentally colonial logic, is a component

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In keeping with many of the leading voices in the decolonial literature, I take the power structures of colonialism, which subjugate communities to the dominance and exploitation of external powers – roughly, what Aníbal Quijano and Walter Mignolo call “coloniality” - in their very essence, to be forces of dehumanization. Aimé Césaire, in his Discourse on Colonialism, emphasizes this dehumanization in his characterization of colonization as a process of “thingification,” in which the colonized is treated not as a human subject, but rather as “an instrument” to be used by the colonizer.6 Franz Fanon, in his The Wretched of the Earth, also draws out the essential dehumanizing element of colonialism in his characterization of the counter-act of decolonization as a process by which “the ‘thing’ which has been colonized becomes man.”7 In order to adequately grasp the dehumanizing essence of this colonial logic as it is manifested in the historical situation of the colonialism and neo-colonialism of the Western imperial powers in relation to the Global South, one must not only recognize the more direct manners in which it degrades and objectifies the “colonized individual.” For, as both Quijano and Mignolo point out, a further essential element of this coloniality of power is its underlying Eurocentrism, which refuses to recognize the fact that this logic is the manifestation of a particular positionality upon the world, and is ultimately optional, not only historically speaking but also in terms of its normative validity.8 In other words, of a much broader attempt to unveil, and ultimately dislodge, the fundamental colonial structures that are pervasive throughout the current geo-political reality we are embedded within. Thus, it is true that the charge here being levied against Just War Theory is not something unique to that theory. Yet that doesn’t in anyway disarm the significance of this critique. For not only is it essential to extend the process of stripping away the veil of Eurocentric coloniality and to reveal the oppressive structures concealed at the root of our current global-political reality into yet to be plumbed areas, but, moreover, this becomes ever the more important when we are talking about one of the dominant manners of justifying the use of the colossal force of Western militaristic violence against human lives around the world. As I hope to show, unveiling the underlying coloniality of the Just War Theory, as a mode of analyzing questions of the use of violence and the possible manners of overcoming oppression, will also tease out some important points that can aid us in developing conceptions and narratives of war and peace more copacetic with the aspiration of eliminating oppression and dehumanization. 6 Césaire, Aimé. Discourse on Colonialism. Translated by Joan Pinkham (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2000), 42. 7 Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. Translated by Richard Philcox (New York: Grove Press, 2004), 37. 8 See Quijano, “Coloniality and Modern Rationality,” in Cultural Studies, 21:2, 2007, pp. 168–178 and Mignolo, “Decolonizing Western Epistemology/Building Decolonial Epistemologies,” in Decolonizing Epistemologies: Latina/o Theology and Philosophy (New York: Fordham University Press, 2011), 19–43.

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this logic contains the meta-level presupposition that it itself, even if not “objectively true,” is at least, distinctive historically in the progress it represents over other possible conceptual schemes that “less civilized” peoples have come to find themselves embedded within. In other words, as Nelson MaldonadoTorres puts it, this meta-level feature of Western coloniality is its presupposition that Europe represents the “telos of civilization.”9 Loosening the pervasive grip of colonialism on the peoples of the Global South must begin with a decolonization of the epistemologies, or logics, that provide the very rules of engagement between them and the West.10 An essential step in this process is a decentering of this uncritical eurologocentrism. This paper is an attempt to work towards such a decentering in relation to the dominant paradigm of evaluation relied upon in much of the West for providing both analyses of and prescriptions concerning an engagement with violent conflict in the Global South. 2

Just War Theory – the Liberal Humanitarian Version

In the Western philosophical tradition, Just War Theory has long served as the framework for engaging in moral discourse concerning war. Central to this framework is a division between the question of jus ad bellum (When is one justified in engaging in warfare?) and jus in bello (What is permissible/forbidden in war?).11 Throughout much of the twentieth century, the answer to the question of jus ad bellum was formulated in terms of a commitment to a principle of respect for the political sovereignty of nations and of their right to defense against aggression.12 This Aggression-Defense paradigm ultimately blocks any notion of justified wars of intervention, as such wars, prima facie, violate the inherent “right of sovereignty” of any nation thereby intervened within.13 As the twentieth century came to a close, resistance to this paradigm 9 Maldonado-Torres, Nelson. Against War: Views from the Underside of Modernity (Durham: Duke University Press, 2008), 3. 10 Here I am indebted to Walter Mignolo, “Decolonizing Western Epistemology/Building Decolonial Epistemologies,” in Decolonizing Epistemologies: Latina/o Theology and Philosophy (New York: Fordham University Press, 2011), 19–43. 11 For the purpose of this paper, I am only concerned with the former of these questions, though I think the conclusions here drawn can be easily extended to the latter. 12 Indeed, the letter of current international law regarding conflict, as it is articulated in the Charter of the United Nations and other relevant treatises and covenants, follows just such an approach to the issue of the permissibility of engaging in armed conflict. 13 Cases of justification that could be read as “interventionist” in the sense of an interference with a sovereign nation without the permission of that nation, were carefully crafted

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grew as it became apparent that strict adherence to its principles handicapped the world in relation to intrastate conflicts with immense levels of violence against non-combatants. Resistance to the non-interventionism of the Aggression-Defense Paradigm led to the emerging dominance of a “humanitarian” recasting of Just War Theory, which in thoroughgoing liberal spirit privileges the protection of individual human beings and their rights over the sovereignty of states. As formulated by Fernando Tesón, this humanitarian version of Just War Theory “rests on a standard assumption of liberal political philosophy: a major purpose of states and governments is to protect and secure human rights” and that “governments and others in power who seriously violate those rights undermine the one reason that justifies their political power, and thus should not be protected by international law.”14 According to this liberal-humanitarian recasting of Just War Theory, war is justified as a response to humanitarian crises where individual human rights are being violated in some systematic and fundamental way by an oppressive force, and so long as such intervention is “welcomed by the victims.”15 In this liberal expression, Just War Theory presupposes a particular conceptual scheme both in its normative role of prescribing action to those “powers” capable of wielding military force against others, but also in its fundamental analysis of the nature of the violence within those situations it is concerned to redress, and upon which it then bases its normative prescriptions. The fact that there is some conceptual scheme, or discursive framework, is not specific to the Just War Theory, but is simply a feature of any paradigm of evaluation and

14 15

in language intended to show that such action was necessary so as to keep unrest from spilling beyond the borders of the nation where intervention was to take place, and thereby impinging upon the peace and security of other sovereign nations. It is worth noting that various attempts have been made to craft “conditional” notions of sovereignty to allow for intervention in certain cases and, yet, still be able to justify “intervention” in cases of extreme atrocity. Tesón, Fernando. “The Liberal Case for Humanitarian Intervention.” In The Morality of War: Classical and Contemporary Readings, edited by Larry May, Eric Rovie, and Steve Viner, 348–360 (Upper Saddle River: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2006), 348. Tesón further specifies the nature of those situations whereby a nation would possess moral justification for engaging in war in terms of attempts to end “tyranny or anarchy” (“The Liberal Case for Humanitarian Intervention,” 349). This basic commitment is then elaborated upon and expanded to make sure that any such humanitarian intervention does not violate the stock and trade of other principles for normatively evaluating the question of whether to engage in war, such as the principles of proportionality, probability of success, last resort, etc. For the purposes of this paper, it is merely in terms of its fundamental humanitarian principle of just cause for engaging in war that I will make my case.

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analysis. All analysis, all normative pronouncement, occurs from somewhere, and will presuppose a distinctive conceptual framework that structures an agent’s view from that position upon the world. 3

The Coloniality of the Liberal Humanitarian Version of Just War Theory

The Just War Theory presents to us a Manichean world: a world characterized by a struggle between the forces of goodness and light, on the one hand, and those of evil and darkness, on the other. This world is composed, in part, of subjects of domination whose being lies in their need of liberation, or at least, the amelioration of their suffering, from forces that are subjugating them and, thereby, denying them their ultimate due: their autonomy. The other part of this world is composed of two classes of subjects, each capable of exerting force upon these subjects of domination: there are the oppressive forces denying the oppressed their autonomy, and there are the forces of potential liberation that have the capacity to nullify this oppressive force, and in doing so, to some degree restore the lost “humanity” of the oppressed. It is worth noting, that for Fanon it is a hallmark of a colonial power structure to impose upon the world just such a logic, which contains strict conceptual divides between human beings, and, more particularly, one where such a parsing of humanity takes on a fundamentally Manichean nature.16 The irony of this manner of conceptualizing the world is that in its very logic it reinforces the subjugation of the “oppressed” and, thus, further entrenches an architectonic that denies their humanity. Indeed, I contend, the liberal expression of Just War Theory is defined by the very colonial logic of domination and dehumanization that those endorsing it are concerned to mitigate the dehumanizing effects of. This, however, is not surprising. For the very world they are attempting to right, in large part, only exists as needing this manner of righting because of the system of colonization – of dominance and subservience – which is, at the same time, the very foundation of their own position of privilege, without which they would not possess the capacity to be the “liberator” of those oppressed by this very system. Their status of privilege in the geo-political hierarchy, and, thus, their capacity as “liberators,” can only be conceived according to a logic that preserves the very structural inequalities that leave people under the proverbial boot of colonialism. How can an oppressed class 16

Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. Translated by Richard Philcox (New York: Grove Press, 2004), 39–42.

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be “lifted up” – freed from the oppressive force of a boot – when the only ground upon which the would-be-liberators stand is that of their continued domination and subjugation? To return to the epigraph above from Freire: “Any attempt to ‘soften’ the power of the oppressor in deference to the weakness of the oppressed almost always manifests itself in the form of false generosity; indeed, the attempt never goes beyond this. In order to have the continued opportunity to express their ‘generosity,’ the oppressors must perpetuate injustice as well. An unjust social order is the permanent fount of this ‘generosity,’ which is nourished by death, despair, and poverty.”17 Ultimately, Just War Theory, in its liberal expression, doesn’t have the capacity to conceive of those individuals it seeks to liberate as human beings in their own right. It is for this reason that its attempts at “liberation” merely reinforce the colonial power structures that continue to subjugate these people and to continue a systematic process of attempting to dehumanize them. This failure is based upon an inability of the liberal-humanitarian perspective to grasp, or give expression to, the nature of the power relations that affects those who are not in the colonial position of the privileged. Carolyn Nordstrom attempts to re-orient our studies of conflict in a manner that is capable of grasping the “realities” of war, violence, and power for those living within war. Nordstrom writes: Before beginning a study of war, a researcher must decide where to look for it. In much of academe, I have been encouraged to find war in libraries amid tomes of second- and third-hand accounts of ‘politics by other means.’ These tomes themselves (mis)locate war in a powerful way. Military science locates it in the acts of rational soldiering and political science locates it in the acts of mostly rational political elites – and both do it in a largely irrational world. If there is even an iota of truth in Alfred Vagt’s claim that military history is consistently written with ‘polemic purpose for the justification of individuals or armies and with small regard for socially relevant facts,’ then an analysis restricted solely to the institutions of war and politics will not provide a comprehensive understanding of the realities of war and peace.18

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Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Translated by Myra Bergman Ramos (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016), 44. Carolyn Nordstrom, Shadows of War: Violence, Power, and International Profiteering in the Twenty-First Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), 46.

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Although the liberal-humanitarian recasting of Just War Theory is intended to liberate those suffering under the oppressive force of others, it is in terms of a notion of power, and from the perspective of one of those “others,” that its very comprehension of war is crafted. As such, it misses the “reality of war” for those occupying a more vulnerable position in relation to the violence and power structures that are constitutive of it. Power, within such theories, is viewed in what Michel Foucault would characterize as its sovereign expression. It is a force pressing down upon the oppressed from agents and institutions that wield it. The forces of liberal-humanitarianism, with their promise of liberation, as well as the “oppressive force” that the “justified” use of military power will aim to nullify in its mission to “liberate the oppressed,” fit this notion of power. “Liberation,” removal of oppression and dominance, comes through the latter’s nullification of the former. The problem is that this grasps neither the nature of the violence suffered by those in need of such “liberation,” nor the realities of power in their lives. Grasping these can only arise from the phenomenological perspective of agents that are embedded within the complex web of power relations constitutive of war as a lived phenomenon in their day-to-day lives, and who, thereby, experience the way that those forces impose meaning upon their lives. Consider the case of the civil war that ravaged northern Uganda from 1986 – 2006. Those supporting a liberal humanitarian call for intervention will often focus upon the brutal and oppressive force brought to bear upon the Acholi people by the rebel movement the Lord’s Resistance Army and its leader, Joseph Kony. Yet this focus does not address, nor capture, the reality of what it means to live within this conflict, nor does it give any voice to the power structures that operate upon individuals within that context. In particular, nowhere does this perspective upon the conflict attempt to give voice to those that have to live within a context where extensive structural violence is an omnipresent feature of their lives (including those that rebelled against the Ugandan government). Nowhere does it acknowledge in any substantive manner that these individuals find themselves faced with the sort of choices, for instance, that arise for one raising a child in a context where that child stands a good chance of dying from easily treatable and preventable illness. (Children born in Uganda, today, face a 1:14 chance of dying before the age of five – and this is a dramatic improvement over what those odds were during the Northern Ugandan civil war.) It does nothing to give voice to the sorts of power relations that could motivate someone no different from any of us to take up arms in order to overcome structural conditions that make life, quite literally for some, impossible, and, to do so for several generations. Only when our paradigm of analysis for war gives voice to the perspective of those within such situations, will it be

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capable of not only grasping the nature of the violence and “oppression” such individuals are suffering from, but also of acknowledging those individuals as human beings themselves. Furthermore, it is only when those two pieces are in place, would any normative prescriptions concerning how to engage with such situations carry any authoritative force. Much of the oppression operative in the lives of those that have been systematically dehumanized by a deeply rooted system of colonialism, as well as the violence they suffer, is structural in nature.19 This is not to deny that there are non-structural episodes of violence against individuals within such oppressive structures. Nonetheless, such specific acts of violence are rooted in a system of structural oppression that not only cannot be undone by removing such agents of violence, but which becomes further reinforced in actions that simply aim to replace one agent of power and violence with other agents of power and violence within the very same structure, even if these latter are more “benevolent” in their disposition and intentions. As Iris Marion Young puts it, “We cannot eliminate this structural oppression by getting rid of the rulers or making some new laws, because oppressions are systematically reproduced in major economic, political, and cultural institutions.”20 The nature of the power effecting individuals within the situations that the liberal-humanitarian aims to intervene within must be grasped at the level of the matrices of power relations that these individuals are embedded within. It is only at this level that one can grasp how such power-relations affect those persons. As Nordstrom puts it, in order to understand war, violence, and the power structures constitutive of it, we must capture … not only the site, but also the smell, feel, taste, and motion of a locale, of a people that share a common space and intertwined lives. It must be able to grasp at least a fleeting glimpse of the dreams that people carry with them and that carry people to distant places of world and mind; of the creative imaginary through which people give substance to their thoughts and lives. And quite pragmatically, it must be able to delve into 19

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Iris Marion Young characterizes this structural oppression in the following way: “But oppression also refers to systematic constraints on groups that are not necessarily the result of the intentions of a tyrant. Oppression in this sense is structural, rather than the result of a few people’s choices or policies. Its causes are embedded in unquestioned norms, habits, and symbols, in the assumptions underlying institutional rules and collective consequences of following those rules” (Young, “Five Faces of Oppression,” in Justice and the Politics of Difference, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011, p. 41). Young, Iris Marion. “Five Faces of Oppression.” In Justice and the Politics of Difference, 39–65 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011), 41.

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why a soldier pulls the trigger against one human and not another; to illuminate how people suffer the ravages of violence and grieving and still craft humanitarian resistance; to chart the realities of how weapons are traded for diamonds and power, and the lives of those who trade them.21 The failure to grasp these lived realities not only leaves our analyses of war sterile and abstract, it leaves them lacking the normative authority to legislate actions intended to address the suffering endured by people in such situations. Consider an analogy with medicine: a physician’s prescriptions of treatment are invalidated if she is incapable of comprehending the true nature of the illness afflicting her patient. Likewise, prescriptions passed from positions of privilege, that are thereby incapable of grasping the lived realities of war, simply have no normative force. Furthermore, they dehumanize in a thoroughly colonial manner by virtue of the fact that the “persons” that are the target of benevolent “liberation” cannot themselves be grasped in their singularity as concrete human beings in isolation from a comprehension of how the structural relations of power shape those individuals and their lives.22 The only sense of “human” graspable within the liberal humanitarian system, which situates the normative perspective within a position of radical privilege, is an abstract vestige of a person, which, in and of itself, dehumanizes subjects in a negation of their singularities.23 The only way for the liberal advocate of Just War Theory to grasp not only the nature of the oppression of those s/he wishes to liberate, but consequently, those individuals themselves as fellow human beings possessing singularity, would be by relinquishing his or her own privilege – or, to use Freire’s terminology, of 21 22

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Nordstrom, Carolyn. Shadows of War: Violence, Power, and International Profiteering in the Twenty-First Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), 13. As Michel Foucault puts it: “This form of power that applies itself to immediate everyday life categorizes the individual, marks him by his own individuality, attaches him to his own identity, imposes a law of truth on him that he must recognize and others have to recognize in him. It is a form of power that makes individuals subjects. There are two meanings of the word ‘subject’: subject to someone else by control and dependence, and tied to his own identity by a conscience or self-knowledge. Both meanings suggest a form of power that subjugates and makes subject to” (Foucault, “The Subject and Power,” in Power: The Essential Works of Foucault 1954–1984, New York: The New Press, 1994, p. 331). As Albert Memmi writes, the “leftist colonizer,” who wishes to renounce and dismantle colonization because of his sympathies with the colonized, will be unable “to conceal the revulsions he feels and which manifest themselves in remarks which strangely recall those of a colonialist. It was really a long time ago that he was certain, a priori, of the identity of human nature in every dimension. True, he still believes in it, but rather like an abstract universality or an ideal to be found in history of the future” (The Colonizer and the Colonized, Boston: Beacon Press, 1965, pp. 25–6).

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taking on the “radical posture” of solidarity with them.24,25 Of course, such a rendering oneself vulnerable, no matter how “radical,” would never be wholly adequate. For the very act of doing so is itself an act born of the privilege that one is attempting to deconstruct, and it will always keep one external to the perspective of those who have been systematically denied such privilege. The denial of the possibility of making this renouncement of privilege is one pointed out by Albert Memmi, who says that what this individual would be “renouncing” in such a move “is part of himself.”26 “He discovers that if the colonized have justice on their side, if he can go so far as to give them his approval and even his assistance, his solidarity stops here; he is not one of them and has no desire to be one. He vaguely foresees the day of their liberation and the reconquest of their rights, but does not seriously plan to share their existence, even if they are freed.”27 On the one hand, even the most well intentioned of liberal humanitarians never intends, quite literally, to become “oppressed,” and thereby denied their own privilege; but actually being so denied is what it would take to fully deconstruct their inadequate epistemic perspective and to take up that of the those they are intending to assist. More importantly though, regardless of their desires, moving from such a position of privilege, within a hierarchical system, to stand in “solidarity” with those being subjugated to oppression within that same system, through some manner of conscious decision to do so, itself negates the very attempt to achieve solidarity, for such a manner of “entering into the fray,” so to speak, will never reflect the manner in which those that have been systematically oppressed find themselves embedded within the structural conditions of violence they are enduring.

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26 27

Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Translated by Myra Bergman Ramos (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016), 49. I take this to be in the spirit of what Friedrich Nietzsche is getting at in the following passage: “And perhaps the great day will come when a people, distinguished by wars and victories and by the highest development of a military order and intelligence, and accustomed to make the heaviest sacrifice for these things, will exclaim of its own free will, ‘we break the sword,’ and will smash its military establishment down to its lowest foundations. Rendering oneself unarmed when one has been the best armed, out of a height of feeling – that is the means to real peace, which must always rest on a peace of mind … Rather perish than hate and fear, and twice rather perish than make oneself hated and feared – this must someday become the highest maxim for every single commonwealth” (The Wanderer and His Shadow, in The Portable Nietzsche, ed. Walter Kaufmann, New York: Penguin, 1954, p. 72). Memmi, Albert. The Colonizer and the Colonized (Boston: Beacon Press, 1965), 20. Memmi, Albert. The Colonizer and the Colonized (Boston: Beacon Press, 1965), 23.

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Herein lies the crucial dialectical tension within the liberal-humanitarian version of Just War Theory: In order for the advocate of this theory to function as “liberator of the oppressed,” he must maintain his position of privilege; but to maintain that position entails that he cannot grasp the experiences of those that have endured such oppression, nor the nature of the conflict, violence, and oppression they endure, which, ultimately, means he cannot grasp them as human beings, but rather continues the colonial legacy of dehumanizing them. 4

Towards a Phenomenological Analysis of Conflict and Peace

Yet, isn’t this paper vulnerable to the very same charge? I’m the product of the same colonial world order, and my perspective – my conceptually laden gaze – is infused with the oppressive machinery of this unjust world order. As such, it also risks reinforcing that oppressive power structure. Nonetheless, I don’t think this admission invalidates the critique I have provided here. I urge you to resist seeing this critique as what Foucault terms a “gesture of rejection.” Rather, “we have to move beyond the outside-inside alternative; we have to be at the frontiers … the critical question today has to be turned back into a positive one: in what is given to us as universal, necessary, obligatory, what place is occupied by whatever is singular, contingent, and the product of arbitrary constraints? The point, in brief, is to transform the critique conducted in the form of necessary limitation into a practical critique that takes the form of a possible transgression.”28 I believe that what reveals itself through this sort of genealogical critique of our own privileged perspectives and logics is the importance of counter-narratives. Liberation from an oppressive system can only come from those who can envision alternative logics. As Freire recognized, it can only come from the “oppressed” themselves. The only agents capable of grasping the nature of the oppression endured at positions of radical subservience in the colonial hierarchy, at least in a manner that carries with it any possibility of authoritatively grounding normative prescriptions, are those whose lives are embedded within those situations. Nonetheless, this doesn’t mean there is not a role to be played in deconstructing such systems of oppression from positions of privilege. In his famous call for decolonial revolution, Concerning Violence, Fanon concludes with the following: 28

Foucault, “What is Enlightenment,” in Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth: The Essential Works of Foucault 1954–1984 (New York: The New Press, 1994), 315.

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This huge task which consists of reintroducing mankind into the world, the whole of mankind, will be carried out with the indispensable help of the European peoples, who themselves must realize that in the past they have often joined the ranks of our common masters where colonial questions were concerned. To achieve this, the European peoples must first decide to wake up and shake themselves, use their brains, and stop playing the stupid game of the Sleeping Beauty. fanon 1963, p. 106

Opening ourselves up to these counter-narratives, allowing for them to displace the dominant narratives and the power they exert, should be able to enact a corresponding sort of power reversal over those in a position of privilege, in the capacities of such counter-narratives to reshape and determine the nature of the privileged themselves as subjects, and thus helping to transfigure them in radical and fundamental ways – in helping them to “wake up.” To quote Freire on the crucial importance of having the voices of the “oppressed” heard: Sooner or later, a true revolution must initiate a courageous dialogue with the people. Its very legitimacy lies in that dialogue … [this] dialogue which is radically necessary to revolution corresponds to another radical need: that of women and men as beings who cannot be truly human apart from communication, for they are essentially communicative creatures. To impede communication is to reduce men to the status of ‘things’ – and this is a job for oppressors, not for revolutionaries. freire 2000, p. 128

One problem here is to learn how to listen to “others.” We only hear through the tangled web of concepts deriving from our position in the nexus of power relations. The hope is that through sustained critical efforts to open ourselves up, in an attempt to hear “others,” that their discourse will begin to have a transformative effect upon us, and thereby pave the way for the liberation of both the “oppressor” and the “oppressed.” Of course, to follow the thread further, such “dialogue” mustn’t simply occur at a level of cognitive reflection upon the discourses of those in positions of subservience within colonial power structures. What is more, it must, ultimately, manifest itself for both, those who are in positions of privilege, and those who are not, in praxis - the dynamic process of “reflection and action upon the world in order to transform it.”29 Understanding what

29

Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Translated by Myra Bergman Ramos (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016), 51.

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is required in order to transform structures of injustice and oppression, much like learning to swim, is not a task that one can legitimately engage in from the shores of privilege and the safety therein provided, but rather, is a task that can only be accomplished by those who are submerged within the waters of those oppressive structures. If what we are truly concerned to see and enact are resistances to the forces of dehumanization, and the securing of justice for those subjected to such forces, and, ultimately, the creation of sustained positive peace, then the first crucial step is the radical deconstruction of the hegemonic Eurocentric analyses and normative prescriptions concerning war, and concordantly, peace, that have become mythologized as objective and impartial. The very structures of such analyses and prescriptions are themselves hegemonic, and incapable of being the point of departure for any truly liberatory engagement. War, violence, and oppression, just like illness, are lived realities. Until narratives that give voice to such lived realities finally break through the structures bent on silencing them, and can truly become heard, and, ultimately, become the focal point of engagement, those processes of dehumanization will continue to grind away, undeterred. These counter-hegemonic – revolutionary – narratives must be spoken from the position of those who, on a daily basis, in order to “live” and to carve out their own sense of “being human,” must navigate the complex web of oppressive forces conspiring to deny them these very things. Those who live in a position of privilege within these same structures simply do not have access to these lived realities of violence and oppression. It is time to shut up, to listen, and, for the sake of a better world, to allow ourselves to be awoken. Bibliography Césaire, Aimé. Discourse on Colonialism. Translated by Joan Pinkham. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2000. Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. Translated by Richard Philcox. New York: Grove Press, 2004. Finnström, Sverker. Living with Bad Surroundings: War, History, and Everyday Moments in Northern Uganda. Durham: Duke University Press, 2008. Foucault, Michel. “The Subject and Power.” In Power: The Essential Works of Foucault 1954–1984, Volume 3, edited by James D. Faubion, 326–348. New York: The New Press, 1994. Foucault, Michel. “What is Enlightenment?” In Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth: The Essential Works of Foucault 1954–1984, Volume 1, edited by Paul Rabinow, 303–319. New York: The New Press, 1994.

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Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Translated by Myra Bergman Ramos. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016. Maldonado-Torres, Nelson. Against War: Views from the Underside of Modernity. Durham: Duke University Press, 2008. Memmi, Albert. The Colonizer and the Colonized, Boston: Beacon Press, 1965. Mignolo, Walter. “Decolonizing Western Epistemology/Building Decolonial Epistemologies.” In Decolonizing Epistemologies: Latina/o Theology and Philosophy, edited by María Isasi-Díaz and Eduardo Mendieta, 19–43. New York: Fordham University Press, 2012. Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Wanderer and His Shadow, in The Portable Nietzsche, ed. Walter Kaufmann, 68–73. New York: Penguin, 1982. Nordstrom, Carolyn. Shadows of War: Violence, Power, and International Profiteering in the Twenty-First Century. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. Quijano, Aníbal. “Coloniality and Modernity/Rationality.” Cultural Studies 21, no. 2 (2007): 168–178. Tesón, Fernando. “The Liberal Case for Humanitarian Intervention.” In The Morality of War: Classical and Contemporary Readings, edited by Larry May, Eric Rovie, and Steve Viner, 348–360. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2006. Young, Iris Marion. “Five Faces of Oppression.” In Justice and the Politics of Difference, 39–65. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011.

Chapter 7

Cry “Genocide!” for All the Good It Will Do Paul Wilson Raising a fire alarm is a serious action. In a crowded building, you would not glibly raise your voice and cry, “Fire!” Most major municipalities have an ordinance governing true and false fire alarms, and those ordinances stipulate that the second false alarm shall result in a fine. In this instance, the municipal ordinance calls attention to a wrong that can count as a morally blameworthy act. An actor is responsible for a blameworthy act if he or she raises a false alarm. Likewise, an actor is responsible for a blameworthy act if he or she fails to raise an alarm when a life-threatening danger is imminent. In the first case, one commits a serious, untoward act, and in the second case, one omits a serious and possibly life-preserving act. This study invites the listener to consider a protocol for the cry of genocide. It is a defense of the notion that it is a morally blameworthy omission to fail to raise the cry of genocide, when genocidal action is occurring. Like sounding a fire alarm, the protocol for raising the cry of genocide may be governed not only by prudence but also by morality. 1

What the Cry Is “Genocide!”

A long awaited dream of Raphael Lemkin was achieved on December 11, 1946, when the United Nations declared genocide to be “a crime under international law, contrary to the spirit and aims of the United Nations and condemned by the civilized world”.1 Lemkin is credited with coining the term “genocide,” and he was largely responsible for lobbying the U.N. to recognize it as a crime. Lemkin wrote, “genocide has always existed in history.”2 Nonetheless, it took considerable work in the twentieth century to distinguish genocide from other significant harms to humanity such as mass murder. By international law, genocide is a crime, and by moral reasoning, it can be seen as a morally blameworthy harm, but what sort of harm or wrongdoing is genocide? The term genocide combines two fundamental elements: “geno” for 1 John Cooper, Raphael Lemkin and the Struggle for the Genocide Convention (New York: Palgrave McMillan Press, 2008). 2 Raphael Lemkin, Lemkin on Genocide (New York, New York: Lexington, 2012).

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���� | doi:10.1163/9789004417588_009

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people and “cide” for destruction.3 By definition genocide is the destruction of a people, that is, an ethnic group. In most instances, this may have been achieved by mass murder, but genocide is not confined to destruction by murder. Lemkin was adamant that genocide can take the form of physical destruction, biological destruction, or social destruction of an ethnic group.4 If genocide is unchecked, the outcome is either the complete extermination of an ethnic group or its social degradation or both. While genocide is recognized as a crime against humanity by an international tribunal, the U. N., I shall discuss it as a morally blameworthy harm. Genocide is not necessarily a mortal harm. Not all crimes perpetrated against humanity are mortal crimes, and not all morally blameworthy harms performed against humans are mortal harms. Some acts of genocide are mortal harms, and others are not. Perpetrators of genocide may rely not only on killing but also on violent acts such as sterilization and rape to achieve their intended destruction. Sterilization insures that there cannot be future offspring of those people sterilized, and rape resulting in impregnation insures that no pure bloodline in an ethnic group is preserved. Implicit in the notion of genocide is the value of both bodily life and a cultural way of life. Genocide may end the mortal lives of a people by mass murder, while cultural disruptions of various types can end the social life of an ethnic group. If an ethnic group finds its identity not in its biological basis but in its “way-of-life,” then with minimal loss of life cultural genocide may still be achieved, that is, the cultural destruction of an ethnic group. For example, confining a nomadic tribe of Native Americans to a territorial reservation could possibly destroy their way of life. The cry of genocide is a descriptive cry and a prescriptive cry. The cry of genocide discussed in this essay aims to address genocide that involves mass murder rather than social genocide executed apart from mass murder. The cry describes an act or set of acts that are intentionally destructive of either human life or human culture. It prescribes that the action toward the victims be condoned or condemned. Where the act or series of acts brings about a loss of life, it follows that the outcry prescribes the moral condemnation of the act or acts. The outcry says some action is genocidal and it ought not to be happening. Genocide is perpetrated by violence that aims at the destruction of an ethnic group. Destruction of that ethnic group is not necessarily achieved by means of mortal harm. The biological basis of the ethnic group can be corrupted 3 Cooper, Raphael Lemkin and the Struggle for the Genocide Convention, 86. 4 Cooper, Raphael Lemkin and the Struggle for the Genocide Convention, 91.

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beyond repair or the cultural basis of the group can be so disrupted it defies reassembly. So, the resulting logical relations follow: All acts of genocide are morally blameworthy acts against humanity. Not all morally blameworthy acts against humanity are mortal harms. Some acts of genocide are mortal harms performed against humanity, and some acts of genocide are not mortal harms performed against humanity. 2

When and Why to Give the Cry “Genocide!”

A single person or a collective may become the voice of the cry of genocide. As he began, his appeal to members of the U.N. Lemkin was that single voice until he successfully lobbied for others to join the outcry. Lemkin said in the opening lines of his project that he intended to identify instances of genocide past. This study focuses upon the value of raising the cry before or during an outbreak of genocidal action. The value of raising a cry of genocide after the fact should not be underestimated, though this is not the focus of the present essay. Raising the cry of genocide after the fact may have value historically, and it may confirm the judgment of moral blameworthiness for past actions. Scholars and advocates who dedicate their efforts to the prevention of genocide can discover in historic cases warning signs and genocidal priming that preceded full-blown genocide. Likewise, the proper identification of past instances of genocide could prompt reparations for wrongs committed. For instance, reparations are being made by the state of North Carolina to survivors of a eugenics program that targeted some individuals for sterilization. Identifying this as an instance of genocide could serve as a deterrent to future eugenics campaigns that aim to eradicate a specific population. Raising the cry of genocide should prevent harm rather than precipitate harm, but that is not always the case. Those who engage in genocidal acts most often describe their behavior in euphemistic terms. Perpetrators may raise a disguised cry of genocide to solicit support from sympathizers. For instance, in the Nazis’ “Final Solution” Jews are targeted for elimination. That document states: In the course of the final solution and under appropriate leadership, the Jews should be put to work in the East. In large, single-sex labor columns, Jews fit to work will work their way eastward constructing roads. Doubtless the large majority will be eliminated by natural causes. Any final

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remnant that survives will doubtless consist of the most resistant elements. They will have to be dealt with appropriately….5 To call the Final Solution a thinly veiled cry of genocide is an understatement. The plan anticipates that most Jews sent to Nazi run work camps would succumb to starvation, overwork, or exposure to the elements. The solution proved to be a plan to exterminate Jews in central Europe and elsewhere, and the Nazis may be seen as perpetrators caught in the act of committing genocide. It is evident that the solution targets Jews for elimination, that is, death through intolerable conditions at the labor camps. The solution contains a euphemistic promise that survivors of work details “will be dealt with appropriately.” Readers who are familiar with the Nazis’ treatment of Jews will understand this statement to refer to the execution of the survivors. Jews transported to work camps like Auschwitz were examined to determine if they were fit to work, and at Auschwitz, the unfit were immediately chosen for killing in gas chambers. The Nazis’ final solution was blatant, overt and intentional, and it may count as an instance of raising the cry with a morally blameworthy intention that would precipitate harm. To raise the cry of genocide in order to avoid harm or to prevent further harm is to solicit help in stopping genocide. The speaker must understand the available vehicles for communicating this information to mobilize help in its various forms. Help can come in the form of resistance of force, and the right to defend (R2D) has been deemed a justifiable use of force by some international tribunals such as the United Nations. The most efficient intervention should be able both to stop short of reliance on retaliatory violence and to prevent genocide. Since the outcry is both informative and persuasive, those who cry genocide must strategically time its use. If perpetrators do use the outcry, they may solicit allies in their reign of terror. To use the outcry for good it must both inform the hearers and persuade them of the harm of genocidal action. In moral agents whose sense of care and empathy are properly developed the outcry may elicit moral revulsion. So, the outcry of genocide has the potential to evoke moral revulsion, call attention to victims’ moral outrage, and promote a broad based opposition better to meet the threat of genocide. The outcry of genocide may be addressed to mass media, to social media including those dedicated to upholding the rights and welfare of humanity, or to conventional audiences of many or of one. Through mass media such as 5 Mark Roseman, The Wannsee Conference and the Final Solution: A Reconsideration (New York New York: Henry Holt and Company, LLC, 2002), 184.

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television, radio, and newsprint the outcry can come to the attention of international tribunals such as the U.N. Social media found on the internet that would be receptive to the outcry may be classified as social media dedicated to the pursuit of justice, and the cry may be promoted on non-dedicated or general social media. Examples of justice seeking or dedicated social media on the internet include Movements (movements.org); Human Rights Watch (humanrightswatch.org); and Amnesty International (amnestyinternational. org). General social media where the outcry may be raised include Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn. Finally, the outcry can be addressed to conventional audiences such as clubs; religious assemblies like churches, synagogues, or mosques; and in private conversations. It seems likely that John G. Heidenrich could count the outcry of genocide as a form of diplomatic pressure. In contrast to a right to defend (R2D) solution that would empower the victims to retaliate with force, diplomacy attempts to find a non-violent solution. In his book, How to Prevent Genocide, Heidenrich suggests that there is an incremental sequence of diplomatic steps that are non-violent and precede the use of retaliatory force to stop genocide.6 Heidenrich could be suggesting that the violence is escalating while diplomacy is unfolding, but I shall assume that is not the case. Instead I assume that the perpetrators’ genocidal intentions are already settled and there are clear signs that genocide is already happening. Based on Heidenrich’s discussion one is led to believe that diplomatic pressure is exerted sequentially. I shall liken these nonviolent diplomatic steps to a series of tollbooths with increasingly higher tolls. Payment could be counted as the number of lives lost. The tolls continue to rise as long as genocide is perpetrated with an increasing loss of life. The opening step is quiet diplomacy, and the endpoint is full-blown publicity. Between the beginnings of quiet diplomacy and the end of full-blown publicity Heidenrich identifies several steps of non-violent diplomacy that may be deployed such as verbal maneuvering, friendly and unfriendly warnings, moral and material support of opposition, breaking diplomatic ties, and publicity locally and internationally.7 These steps of diplomacy may work for the resolution of some economic or social ills, but the same steps may prove ineffectual when human lives are at stake. If it is probable that early steps of diplomacy like quiet diplomacy or verbal maneuvering would only delay the cessation of genocidal killing, they should be abandoned as weak and inept. I suppose that the last diplomatic step of full-blown publicity would count as raising the cry. If the final step of full-blown publicity proves to be an effective countermeasure, then the 6 John G. Heidenrich, How to Prevent Genocide (Westport, Connecticut: Prager, 2001). 7 Heidenrich, How to Prevent Genocide, 94.

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earlier that the outcry of genocide is raised the more effective may be the campaign to reduce the death tolls or cultural destruction. 3

The Choice to Give the Cry “Genocide!”

At public airports, passengers and the public are admonished through public announcements not to leave their bags unattended and to report any suspicious activity. Airport administration hopes these simple steps mobilize a population that could otherwise become bystanders to acts of terrorism. Not only is speaking up seen as a prudent course of action, but it is also seen as one’s patriotic duty. Perhaps a better understanding of the cry of genocide could result in the idea that it may be one’s moral duty to raise the cry. In his book, The Psychology of Genocide¸ Steven K. Baum offers a characterization of three classes of actors – perpetrators of genocide, rescuers of genocide, and bystanders to genocide.8 There is an implicit fourth class of actors in a lexicon of genocide, and that is the victims of genocide. If these three or four types of actors do best describe how actors relate to the problem of genocide, can any further distinctions be made among these actors? I suppose that for each type of actor in genocide there are gradations of involvement that would warrant more or less praise or blame depending on the actor’s relationship to genocidal acts. In other words, some perpetrators could be directly responsible for the slaying of thousands. Other perpetrators would be responsible only for acts that indirectly supported genocide such as maintaining the German rail lines that have instrumental value for both the supply of food to German citizens and soldiers and the transport of prisoners. In addition, victims may be caught in a web of complicity that inflicts harm on other victims as they are forced to comply with the demands of the perpetrators. Regarding the variable responsibility of bystanders Baum asks, “Who becomes what kind of bystander and why and how do they differ from the perpetrators and rescuer counterparts?”9 Both perpetrators and rescuers are to be identified by the actions they perform. Bystanders not acting under coercion are not identifiable by their positive action per se. In addition, victims acting under duress are not identifiable as free agents of their actions. Earlier it was suggested that perpetrators could use the cry for perverse ends, but some reluctant or uncommitted perpetrators could benefit from the outcry. In discussions of the Holocaust, some may suppose that all members of 8 Stephen K. Baum, The Psychology of Genocide (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008). 9 Baum, The Psychology of Genocide, 153.

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the Wehrmacht or similar German military units were perpetrators, but this would be a false assumption. Guenter Lewy says, “We know of eighty-five cases of members of the Wehrmacht who actually refused orders to execute civilians or prisoners of war. We can assume that the majority of these refusals were motivated by the desire not to have to kill defenseless human beings.”10 Though too few availed themselves of the choice to opt out of killing, it was possible for military personnel to refuse to kill others if they lacked “strong conviction.” These were individuals whose constitution would not allow them to kill another person even if they were acting under orders. Likewise, individuals could declare that they chose to opt out on religious grounds. Opting out of killing was possible, but protest or obstruction of killing was not tolerated.11 Hearing the outcry of genocide could persuade the reluctant and the indecisive to opt out of the killing process. It seem likely that if those opting out were to join in the cry of genocide, it would be seen as evidence of insubordination. While opting out was a form of passive resistance, also raising the cry would constitute a form of active resistance. In Nazi concentration camps like Auschwitz, not only local citizens but also victims preformed forced labor. There victims as well as bystanders were manipulated to complete the tasks assigned by perpetrators. Jews who were responsible for supervising other Jews were identified as Capos. To delay their inevitable killing these individuals would supervise the work forces in the camps. Primo Levi, an Auschwitz survivor, described how some Jews were corrupted by their selection to supervise their fellow prisoners. He said, If one offers a position of privilege to a few individuals in a state of slavery, exacting in exchange the betrayal of a natural solidarity with their comrades, there will certainly be someone who will accept. He will be withdrawn from the common law and will become untouchable; the more power that he is given, the more he will be consequently hateful and hated. When he is given the command of a group of unfortunates, with the right of life or death over them, he will be cruel and tyrannical, because he will understand that if he is not sufficiently so, someone else, judged more suitable, will take over his post.12 The cry of genocide aims to identify those responsible for killing as perpetrators, but the process of identification is complicated when killing happens at a 10 Guenter Lewy, Perpetrators (New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 79. 11 Lewy, Perpetrators, 78. 12 Levi, Primo. Survival in Auschwitz (New York, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986), 91.

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distance or indirectly. When Jews were killed with bullets, perpetrators could more easily be identified as the shooters. When carbon monoxide or Zylon B was used to kill Jews in factory-fashion, the perpetrators were not so easily identified. For instance, Gustav Munzburger was notorious for his cruel treatment of Jews as he forced them to enter a gas changer in Treblenka. When he underwent trial for his participation in the deaths of approximately three hundred thousand Jews, the court ruled that he was merely an accomplice who worked in the “machinery of extermination.”13 In the twenty first century, we are familiar with weapons of mass destruction. One can press a button and kill thousands if not millions. However, in the Holocaust Nazi perpetrators could not have been successful in their efforts to kill Jews without the active participation of either non-military personnel or victims. Guenter Lewy said, “In each of the death camps of Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblenka, no more than twenty to thirty-five Germans supervised some 700 to 1,000 Jewish inmates and 90 to 130 Ukranians. The fact that much of the work in the extermination factories was done by others served as an excuse by German defendants at post-war trials.”14 In many instances bystanders or victims outnumbered perpetrators. Perpetrators may have promoted the false notion that they were invincible or that the victims and bystanders were helpless and incapable of mounting resistance. The cry of genocide is informative, evocative, and empowering. By raising the cry victims demonstrate that they are not altogether powerless. The cry identifies the action of the perpetrators as intentional harm that is blameworthy. If perpetrators can use a thinly veiled cry of genocide to advertise their agenda, rescuers can raise the outcry of genocide as an effective counterbalance. Rescuers have an interest in insuring that genocide be avoided, lives be saved, and cultures not be destroyed. Even victims can raise an outcry in hopes of being heard by rescuers or in hopes of compelling some possible perpetrators to opt out. Could bystanders raise the outcry of genocide? Victoria Barnett has done extensive study on the phenomenon of the bystander. In her book, Bystanders, she points out that the residents of Mauthausen knew that the Nazis were building concentration camps in their neighborhood and engaging in genocidal acts. Barnett says, “The genocide of the European Jews would have been impossible without the active participation of bystanders to carry it out and the failure of numerous parties to intervene to

13 Lewy, Perpetrators, 105. 14 Lewy, Perpetrators, 61.

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stop it.”15 In this instance Barnett sees the bystanders at Mauthausen as active participants, but were they? She supposes that without the participation of bystanders as supporting laborers the events at the Mauthausen concentration camp could not have had their disastrous outcomes. Ironically, perpetrators may even have counted on bystanders to fail to act as rescuers. If bystanders were simply to raise the outcry, they would cease to appear to be indifferent to the plight of the victims. Perpetrators have counted on bystanders to remain indifferent to the fate of the victims. The supposed neutrality of bystanders allows perpetrators to achieve their desired end with minimal resistance. Without action, bystanders do not uphold the side of the victim. Bystanders are supposed to be both indifferent or to be non-participants in genocide, but is that necessarily so? To answer that, we must determine both the degree of involvement of bystanders in genocide, and if they are truly non-actors in the face of genocide. Barnett and others like Baum want to argue that bystanders are not necessarily innocents even if they are non-participants. To determine the degree of involvement of a bystander in genocide one must determine if the bystander is a remote or an immediate bystander. Bystanders may not be absolutely innocent as incompetent persons are thought to be innocent. I suggest that the bystander’s innocence may be contingent upon a number of practical barriers. Spatial and temporal proximity to acts of genocide pose practical barriers to involvement, and lack of information may pose a noetic barrier to involvement. Remote bystanders may bear little or no responsibility for some acts of genocide. Consider a most unwelcome supposition that a new genocidal conflict erupts today between surviving Hutu and Tutsi residents in Rwanda. A citizen of the United States residing in a rural community in the southern Appalachian Mountains may have no spatial contact with fighting residents of Rwanda engaged in genocidal acts even if he or she is their contemporary. While social media could remove some of the practical and noetic barriers of bystanders’ proximity to genocide, it remains unclear whether a remote bystander bears a significant responsibility for the conflict. For immediate bystanders these exculpating circumstances would not apply. The rural mountain dweller is relatively innocent of the imagined conflict in Rwanda. Citizens of Rwanda or other neighboring nations in Africa not engaged in genocide as perpetrators or rescuers may count as immediate bystanders, and they could not rely on the excuse of remoteness. 15

Victoria J. Barnett, Bystanders (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1999), 11.

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The degree of blame to be placed upon perpetrators of genocide is contingent upon their participation in acts of genocide. The degree of praise given to rescuers is likewise contingent upon the rescuers’ intention to resist and thwart of acts of genocide. While more blame or more praise may accrue based on the outcome of their actions, the threshold for blaming perpetrators or praising rescuers is their taking action consistent with their intentions toward victims of genocide. For instance, a rescuer should be praised for making available transport to carry victims out of harm’s way, even if the vehicle did not reach its intended destination. Were bystanders to act to aid and abet either perpetrators or rescuers they would cease to be bystanders. The difference that may allow bystanders to be distinguished from either perpetrators or rescuers may be their inaction or their omissions. By their actions, perpetrators give reason to raise a cry of genocide. Rescuers either raise the cry of genocide or act as if the cry were raised. Immediate bystanders are strategically positioned to raise the cry of genocide, but if they omit the outcry, they fail to condemn the action of the perpetrators or condone the action of the rescuers; and they are blameworthy for their omission of the cry of genocide. 4

Some Risks in Raising the Cry of Genocide

An objector may argue that raising the cry of genocide places potential victims and bystanders at great risk. For victims the outcry may hasten the cycle of violence and killing. Perpetrators eager to silence the outcry may redouble their efforts to eliminate the victims. Possible victims must weigh the risk of suffering swift reprisals against the possibility that the outcry could benefit them. The possible benefit could take the form of intervention from rescuers, the uncommitted abandoning their participation as perpetrators, or seeing bystanders motivated to come to the aid of the potential victims. This essay focuses on the obligation to raise the cry of genocide and the claim that failure to raise the cry is a blameworthy omission. By comparison, one who raises a false alarm of genocide commits a blameworthy act. Given the recognition today of the wrong of genocide, it is not surprising that some individuals have appropriated the term for use to describe any mass murder. Posted to the website of the Center for Constitutional Rights is the 2016 article, “The Genocide of the Palestinian People: An International Law and Human Rights Perspective.”16 In the article, Ilan Papp’e speaks of an incremental genocide 16

Ilan Papp’e, The Genocide of the Palestinian People: An International Law and Human Rights Perspective.” Center for Constitutional Rights. August 25, 2016. https://ccrjustice .org/genocide-palestinian-people-international-law-and-human-rights-perspective

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of Palestinians by Israelis. One scholar asks, “How do you understand talk of ‘incremental genocide’?” Is this a false alarm? The killing of Palestinians by Israelis can count as mass murder that targets an ethnic group. Is this genocide? Mass murder targeting ethnic groups does not necessarily count as genocide. The acts of mass murder the article describes do target an ethnic group. For the sake of argument, I assume that the acts are not part of a plan to exterminate Palestinians. Does that justify the mass murders? No. Elsewhere I have address the problem of the wrongful killing of citizens in wartime. Failure to count some mass murders as instances of genocide in no way diminishes the heinousness of the acts. If we suppose this is a false alarm, we may still ask in what way false alarms are harmful. If mass murders are wrong and genocidal killing is wrong; then what is the harm of identifying mass murders that target ethnic groups as genocidal acts? False alarms of genocide may prove to be harmful in more than one way. They can act as a false positive that desensitizes the international community to the gravity of the harm. In the case just cited, the perpetrators of mass murder can be identified, the ethnicity of the targeted group can be identified; however, the clear intention to exterminate the entire ethnic group is not evident. If it cannot be shown that the killing does qualify as an instance of genocide, then the resources available to redress genocidal killing may not be mobilized to address the harm. Responders could be mobilized to intervene on humanitarian grounds, but responders would lack justification to act as if they were responding to genocidal killing. Objectors may find the obligation unreasonable for bystanders, since raising the cry may place bystanders at risk of suffering from retaliation. The supposed risk is that the bystanders who object could be subject to the same violence as the victims of genocide. This danger is real and is not unlike the danger of retaliation facing whistle blowers. However, that does not necessarily relieve bystanders of an obligation to raise the cry of genocide. It may be prudent for bystanders to reflect upon the cost of raising the cry, if their own lives would be at risk; but dismissing the obligation to raise the cry of genocide in cases where the bystander would not suffer mortal harm seems to be a mistaken response. It is possible that the risk of retaliation could be neutralized, if a sufficient number of bystanders were to raise the cry of genocide.

Accessed March 11, 2019. An anonymous reviewer called my attention to the article from the Center for Constitutional Rights. The reviewer likewise raised the associated questions about false alarms.

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The bystander or victim who would choose to raise a cry of genocide does place himself or herself at risk. If the bystander or victim had opportunity to appraise the risk of raising the cry, then he or she would have to consider no less than three factors; (1) the likelihood of retaliation, (2) the possibility of gathering allies to assist in raising the cry; and (3) the likelihood of being heard by others who would intervene. Retaliation is a serious risk for the individual who would raise the cry, but it is not an inevitability. In some instances, the resistor may be exposed and vulnerable to retaliation with no effective means of self-defense. In other instances, retaliation may be a threat that never materializes. First Lieutenant Albert Battell not only refused to murder Jews, but he also engaged in subversive acts designed to thwart attacks on Jews. Though his superiors officially reprimanded him, he suffered no further reprisals. The threat of retaliation is real, but someone who is committed to the cause of justice may choose to test the threat knowing that it may also be a bluff. Battell’s insubordination demonstrated how the threat of retaliation might prove to be a bluff. Retaliation is not an inevitability. The individual who cries out risks acting alone. Whether he or she can gather allies or if not remains uncertain. If the same person succeeds in recruiting allies, then the cry may be heard more easily. The voice of a mass is harder to silence than the voice of a single individual. When the victim or bystander appraises the risk, he or she must reckon with the likelihood that others will join them in raising the cry. Finally, the crier must determine if anyone is listening or cares. Lemkin worked tirelessly to ensure that the international community was prepared to recognize genocide as a crime against humanity. In response to Lemkin’s efforts, some watchdog groups have sprung up like the Genocide Prevention Task Force launched in 2007. Likewise, today the international community of the U.N. is prepared to recognize the cry when it is raised from within its lines of communication. In this well-defined circle of nations, the right to defend (R2D) is sanctioned as an appropriate way to reply to the threat of genocide. That says the international community is listening to its own voice, and it is prepared to support its members to resist genocide. Lemkin’s success came too late to relieve the problems of the Jews in the Holocaust. The fact that it did not prevent further genocides such as those in Cambodia or in Rwanda suggests that the cries of victims in those communities were ignored. Therefore, those who raise the cry of genocide must gauge the readiness of communities like the U.N. to hear the cries of genocide. Those who choose to raise the cry must determine whether anyone is listening to their cry and if the listeners will be prepared to respond. The probability today that the cry will be heard is much

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greater, given the availability of the U.N. and the emergence of the Genocide Prevention Task Force. Nonetheless, those who are committed to raising the cry must determine if their outcry is taken seriously by these agencies or if they must direct their outcry elsewhere. Baum observes that no one condition creates genocide, and no single factor produces bystanders to genocide.17 While bystanders may be drawn into genocide unintentionally, intentional action may be required to stir bystanders from their moral indifference. Those who aim to stir bystanders from their indifference should be familiar with the formative conditions that give rise to bystanders. In a list of formative conditions for the creation of bystanders one finds the following four conditions: (1) the valuing of insulation of group security; (2) compartmentalized thinking; (3) self-protective dissociation; (4) and the willful surrender of autonomy.18 The moving of bystanders to abandon indifference and raise the cry of genocide serves the interests of both rescuers and intended victims. However, the latter two conditions that create bystanders – self-protective disassociation and surrender of autonomy – suggest the bystanders are entrenched in a social network that may be prepared to condone genocide. What is of special interest to rescuers and moral theorists is the surrender of autonomy of bystanders. Perpetrators of genocide act upon the assumption that their plan of action will meet with no resistance from bystanders, and through their inaction, bystanders confirm this assumption. The cry of genocide may allow bystanders to break away from the constraints of their social network and reclaim a sense of autonomy needed to withstand their domination by the perpetrators. An objector may also argue that the cry of genocide is incapable of addressing the harm of genocide. The objector’s too-little-and-too-late objection to the cry of genocide is and is not sound. The risk that the cry may come too late to prevent the killing of some members of the ethnic group targeted for elimination is undeniable. The cry of genocide supposes that full-blown genocide is impending or in progress. If the cry is raised before the complete annihilation or destruction of the targeted ethnic group, then it is neither too little or too late to rescue those not yet killed.

17

Stephen K. Baum, The Psychology of Genocide (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 31. 18 Baum, The Psychology of Genocide, 156.

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Alexander Hinton suggests that genocidal priming is an identifiable phase that precedes full-blown genocide.19 During genocidal priming, persons ready themselves to participate in genocidal action, but genocidal activation must accompany the genocidal priming to set genocide in motion.20 Propaganda and hate talk that target the intended victims can count as genocidal priming, but those activities stop short of the shedding of blood. While watchdog groups like the Genocide Prevention Task Force are on the lookout for signs of genocidal priming, they can only forewarn the international community that harm could ensue if genocidal activation follows. The cry of genocide does not preempt processes such as genocidal priming that precede full-blown genocide. If alternate preemptive measures could be developed to safeguard lives while genocidal priming is occurring, this would be a valuable complement to the outcry of genocide. In the absence of those preemptive measures, the cry of genocide may halt the killing that has begun before the extermination of an ethnic group can occur. 5 Conclusion At first glance, the act of raising a cry of genocide may seem altogether inadequate to confront the problem. The outcry is not a magic pill. However, the value of the cry of genocide should not be underestimated. The cry aims to identify as genocidal a set of acts that are intended to destroy either the lives or the culture of an ethnic group if not both. Raising the cry is a judgment on harmful acts and an intervening strike against genocide. While raising the cry of genocide can positively affect the lives of intended victims, it can also positively affect the lives of bystanders and even reluctant perpetrators. For bystanders the cry provides a way to condemn what is happening and to alleviate indifference. The cry can enable some individuals who would be bystanders to emerge from a blameworthy indifference to the suffering of others. For reluctant perpetrators it provides a reason to resist as well as a means of resistance. Raising the cry of genocide is valuable for the prevention or the cessation of genocidal acts. Yes, moral agents interested in preserving life and culture should raise the cry of genocide for all the good it will do.21 19

Alexander Laban Hinton, Why Did They Kill? (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 2005), 34. 20 Hinton, Why Did They Kill? 280. 21 I would like to thank all who offered comments on an earlier version of this essay read at the 2017 meeting of North Carolina Philosophical Society and the 2017 meeting of

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Bibliography Barnett, Victoria J. Bystanders. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1999. Baum, Steven K. The Psychology of Genocide. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Cooper, John. Raphael Lemkin and the Struggle for the Genocide Convention. New York: Palgrave McMillan Press, 2008. Encyclopedia of Genocide. Edited by Israel W. Charney. Santa Barbara, California: ABCCLIO, 1999. Heidenrich, John G. How to Prevent Genocide. Westport, Connecticut: Prager, 2001. Hinton, Alexander Laban. Why Did They Kill? Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 2005. Lemkin, Raphael. Lemkin on Genocide. New York, New York: Lexington Books, 2012. Levi, Primo. Survival in Auschwitz. New York, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986. Lewy, Guenter. Perpetrators. New York, New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. May, Larry. Genocide. New York, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Papp’e, Ilan. “The Genocide of the Palestinian People: An International Law and Human Rights Perspective.” Center for Constitutional Rights. https://ccrjustice.org/ genocide-palestinian-people-international-law-and-human-rights-perspective Accessed March 11, 2019. Rice, Earle. The Final Solution. San Deigo, California: Lucent Books, Inc., 1998. Roseman, Mark. The Wannsee Conference and the Final Solution: A Reconsideration. New York New York: Henry Holt and Company, LLC, 2002. Roth, John K. Genocide and Human Rights New York: Palgrave McMillan, 2005. Straus, Scott. Fundamentals of Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention. Washington, D.C: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2016. “The Genocide of the Palestinian People: An International Law and Human Rights Perspective.” Center for Constitutional Rights, August 2016. Accessed July 23, 2018, at https://ccrjustice.org/genocide-palestinian-people-international-law-and-human -rights-perspective. Concerned Philosophers for Peace. In addition, the essay has benefited from comments from two anonymous reviewers for this volume.

Chapter 8

The Enlightenment’s Post-9/11 Legacy Kimberly Baxter Modern ideas about human rights and social contract theory are two of the most important legacies of Enlightenment thought. But contemporary societies that ostensibly aim to uphold them often fail abysmally on both counts. We must critically assess Enlightenment thought in order to discover the reasons for these failures. What is the nature of the modern social contract? (How) do rights function as the philosophical basis for our laws? Does law have a different function in a state of emergency? Under what circumstances (if any) is a wartime state of emergency compatible with a social contract? What effect should the enactment of national emergency measures have on the protection of rights included in a social contract? Immanuel Kant—who in 1784 offered his own influential answer to the question, “What is Enlightenment?”—created a critical philosophy which many view as “a kind of culmination” of the Age.1 He defined Enlightenment as the individual’s ability to “make use of one’s own understanding without direction from another.”2 He argued that a society can slowly achieve Enlightenment if people have freedom of expression—freedom to exercise their reasoning ability in a public marketplace of ideas. The notion of autonomy is central to both Kant’s concept of Enlightenment and his practical philosophy. Kant believed humans have infinite value because they are rational, autonomous moral agents. Although Kant offered an ethical theory binding on all rational beings and independent of religion, he understands this autonomy to have a metaphysically transcendent origin. Rationality—in particular the practical reason that enables us to be moral agents—separates humans from the rest of nature; it is the source of the inherent universal dignity of all humans. Kant distinguished two kinds of value corresponding to two sides of human nature. He wrote “In the system of nature, a human being (homo phaenomenon, animal rationale) is a being of slight importance and shares with the rest of the 1 Simon Blackburn, ed. Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 115. 2 Immanuel Kant, “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?” in Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant: Practical Philosophy, trans. Mary Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 35.

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animals, as offspring of the earth, an ordinary value….But a human being regarded as a person, that is, as the subject of a morally practical reason, is exalted above any price; for as a person (homo noumenon) he is not to be valued merely as a means to the ends of others or even to his own ends, but as an end in itself, that is, he possesses a dignity (an absolute inner worth) by which he exacts respect for himself from all other rational beings in the world. He can measure himself with every other being of this kin and value himself on a footing of equality with them.”3 Prior to Kant, dignity was a wholly civil status but one that provided its bearer with a certain legal inviolability.4 All citizens in Ancient Greece and Rome enjoyed a certain relative dignity: For example, torturing citizens was strictly prohibited—though slaves endured it.5 Kant ushers in the era of moral modernity by expanding dignity from a civil-legal status enjoyed by some into a universal moral status. In his book Universal Human Rights, Jack Donnelly notes that the Kantian conception of human dignity is “an historically important source of the idea that human rights rest on the inherent dignity of the human person and was one of the inspirations for the Universal Declaration.”6 He credits Kant with providing in his ethical theory the philosophical foundation for a “democratization of dignity.”7 Thus Kant is an important Enlightenment contributor to the concept of universal human rights, which informed the French and American Revolutions and has since attained worldwide hegemony. Despite this success, many egregious human rights violations have occurred since Enlightenment theorists proclaimed them. The UN’s 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights was a direct response to one example—the genocidal atrocities of the first half of the 20th century. Member nations of the new intergovernmental organization cooperated in attempt to restore faith in a narrative of progress. The 3 Immanuel Kant,“The Metaphysics of Morals,” in Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant: Practical Philosophy, trans. Mary Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 434–435. 4 The English word dignity derives from the Latin noun dignitas; this term and the adjective dignus and the verb dignor all refer to worth. Dignitas means being worthy, merit or desert. In Ancient Rome, dignity was a term of hierarchical distinction. It was a virtue in the Aristotelian sense of a learned habit or disposition that actualizes human excellence. Dignity also referred to acquired social and political status, implying important personal achievements in the public sphere and moral integrity. Dignitas was a virtue of great people—what was most excellent in those who merited special honor or distinction. Practices of dignity involved public recognition and respect; the worth to which dignity referred was a feature of the few. 5 Jack Donnelly. Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice, 3rd ed., (Cornell University Press, 2013), 121–123. 6 Donnelly, Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice, 128. 7 Donnelly, Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice, 127.

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Enlightenment had engendered optimism that reason could triumph over difficulties that cause human misery. But subsequent history proved the naiveté of this view since what passed for “reason” in some circles spawned ideological justifications for multiplying misery. In the mid-20th century, political leaders and scholars sought to ensure that the future would bring only expansion of human rights protections worldwide—or at least no more backsliding from gains already achieved. It was an effort to reinforce the Enlightenment ideal of universal human rights. But regressive episodes have recurred, including such extreme examples as genocide and ethnic cleansing. In the 21st century the United States and its allies, countries thought to represent the vanguard of human rights advancements, have rationalized violating various fundamental rights of terror suspects, including their right to due process and to not endure torture.8 Are Enlightenment ideals too impractical to uphold in the contemporary era, as some argue? The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy’s entry on the Age reads: “Although it is difficult to find positive doctrines common to all these thinkers, the Enlightenment is associated with a materialist view of human beings, an optimism about their progress through education and science, and a generally utilitarian approach to society and ethics. However, the Constitution of the United States, which is not a utilitarian document but one based on an ethic of natural rights, is frequently cited as a concrete embodiment of Enlightenment ideals.”9 As I will explain, this unresolved tension led to destructive combinations of materialism and idealism. However, the Italian Enlightenment philosopher Cesare Beccaria (1738– 94), who vehemently opposed torture, also presciently resolved the tension in Enlightenment thought that on some occasions led to the subsequent dissolution of its core principles. If Beccaria’s thought had had more influence on posterity relative to other Enlightenment philosophers, this may have been avoided.10 8

For example, in a 2002 memorandum, White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales “argued that the new paradigm of the ‘war’ against terrorism ‘places a high premium on other factors, such as the ability to quickly obtain information from captured terrorists and their sponsors,’ and thus the Geneva Conventions’ strict limitations on the questioning of enemy prisoners were ‘obsolete and even ‘quaint.’” [Alberto R. Gonzales, Counsel to George W. Bush, President, “Memorandum on Decision Re: Application of the Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War to the Conflict with Al Qaeda and the Taliban” (January 25, 2002)],quoted in Michael Scharf, “The Torture Lawyers,” Duke Journal of Comparative & International Law 20 (2010), 395]. 9 Blackburn, Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, 2nd ed., 115–116. 10 Stating that is not to deny that his legacy is already vast, though not duly appreciated (and not fully actualized despite its appearance in the letter of the law): Ideas such as due

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Complacency is evident in Kant’s optimism—shared by other Enlightenment theorists—that reason would henceforth play a central role in a linear process of humankind’s liberating itself from superstition and traditional authority to create a new reality that is more just and conducive to human thriving. But as Adorno & Horkheimer demonstrated in Dialectic of Enlightenment, reason when combined with utilitarian elements of Enlightenment thought can become a tyrannical dogma of instrumental reason. Instrumental reason is governed solely by a logic of means and ends. The only goal this form of reason recognizes as legitimate is a transformation of the world into an object that can be subjugated and manipulated—a collection of resources to be exploited. Adorno & Horkheimer discuss Kant’s notion of Enlightenment reason: Knowledge consists in subsumption under principles…Reason contributes nothing but the idea of systematic unity, the formal elements of fixed conceptual relationships….The system which enlightenment aims for is the form of knowledge which…most effectively assists the subject in mastering nature….Everything—including the individual human being, not to mention the animal—becomes a repeatable, replaceable process, a mere example of the conceptual models of the system….In confirming the scientific system as the embodiment of truth—the result arrived at by Kant—thought sets the seal on its own insignificance, because science is a technical operation, as far removed from reflection on its own objectives as is any other form of labor under the pressure of the system.11 The dogma of instrumental reason entails an imperative of self-preservation that obviates thought and leads to self-destruction if unchecked. “Selfpreservation is the constitutive principle of science, the soul of the table of categories, even if, as in Kant, it has to be deduced idealistically…Reason is the organ of calculation, of planning; it is neutral with regard to ends; its element is coordination.”12 Kant values consistency above all else within practical reason. The categorical imperative is universally valid. One can determine one’s duty formally with indifference to the context in which the principle is applied

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process, equal protection, and the guarantee against cruel and unusual punishments found in the Bill of Rights originated with Beccaria. Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno. Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments, trans. Edmund Jephcott (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002), 63–66. Horkheimer, and Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 68–69.

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and the ends of practical activity. This inelastic adherence to a moral imperative that transcends reality is also evident in Kant’s political thought. Social contract theorists aim to trace all political obligations to an express, tacit, or hypothetical contract wherein the members of a society have agreed to renounce certain freedoms in exchange for certain benefits. If the government that the contract creates fulfills its obligation to provide these benefits, it is legitimate. Although lists of Enlightenment social contract theorists sometimes include Kant’s name, as some scholars have noted, his point of view is different from other contractarians. For example, J.W. Gough writes, “For Kant…[The social contract] was altogether superfluous, since political obligation could quite well be founded directly, without any interpolation of a contract, on the moral obligations which he has already recognized as universally binding.”13 Kant formulates an ideal agreement achievable if everyone were motivated exclusively by a good will. He acknowledges that in reality not everyone is well-intentioned. Thus the state can violently compel them to conform; for him, such use of force is not only legitimate but obligatory—and punishment for crimes is an example of it. Kant’s “contract theory” is, like his ethical theory, based on his division of the human being into two aspects—animal (homo phaenomenon) and person (homo noumenon). He emphasizes this distinction in his criticism of Beccaria’s argument against the death penalty. Beccaria writes, “By what right can men presume to slaughter their fellows? Certainly not that right which is the foundation of sovereignty and the laws. For these are nothing but the sum of the smallest portions of each man’s own freedom; they represent the general will which is the aggregate of the individual wills. Who has ever willingly given up to others the authority to kill him? How on earth can the minimum sacrifice of each individual’s freedom involve handing over the greatest of all goods, life itself?”14 Kant dismisses Beccaria’s argument as “sophistry and juristic trickery…. The chief point of error in this sophistry consists in its confusing the criminal’s 13 14

J.W. Gough, The Social Contract, (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1978), 183, quoted in Vernon Sarver “Kant’s Purported Social Contract and the Death Penalty,” The Journal of Value Inquiry 31 (1997): 464. Cesare Beccaria. On Crimes and Punishments and Other Writings. Richard Bellamy, ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 66. Against Beccaria, Rousseau understands the general will to be the rational will of each individual in favor of the good of the whole community, as opposed to one’s particular interests; the general will is not the aggregate of the individual wills. Rousseau distinguished the general will from the will of all, which is the majority preference on a particular occasion. Rousseau’s definition of the general will is correct. But Beccaria’s rejection of torture and capital punishment are consistent with both versions of the general will.

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own judgment (which must necessarily be ascribed to his reason) that he has to forfeit his life with a resolve on the part of his will to take his own life.”15 Kant argues that it is impossible to will to be punished; anything that one wills could not by definition constitute a punishment. “As a colegislator in dictating the penal law, I cannot possibly be the same person who, as a subject, is punished in accordance with the law…when I draw up a penal law against myself as a criminal, it is pure reason in me (homo noumenon), legislating with regard to rights, which subjects me, as someone capable of crime and so as another person (homo phaenomenon), to the penal law, together with all others in a civil union.”16 Here Kant is the one engaging in sophistry. While he is correct that lawmakers cannot literally will their own capital punishment, they can will that the state provides, as Beccaria writes, “useful and necessary punishment for the security and good order of society.”17 Kant’s assertion that the makers of the social contract are not identical to the ones bound by it is false—and it calls into question Kant’s designation as a social contract theorist. He seeks to derive judicial authority from the dictates of pure reason, but doing so precludes a social contract. True, all Enlightenment contract theorists believe that the parties to a social contract will employ reason in creating the contract. If they aim to maximize individual liberty, the goal of creating a stable society constrains that liberty: They think rationally about how to realize a functioning society, to some degree subordinating their particular interests to that goal. But within these parameters they aim to create the best possible society for the individual members (i.e., themselves). Neither capital punishment nor torture is necessary or useful. On the contrary, the sovereign’s use of these makes society less stable. Kant believes reason mandates the death penalty. But in fact, it is inconsistent with his own categorical imperative—and with the social contract, as Beccaria correctly states.18 15 Kant, “The Metaphysics of Morals,” in Works of Immanuel Kant: Practical Philosophy 335. 16 Kant, “The Metaphysics of Morals,” in Works of Immanuel Kant: Practical Philosophy 335. 17 Beccaria, On Crimes and Punishments and Other Writings, 30. Beccaria offers compelling arguments for why capital punishment is not in this category. [Beccaria, 67–71.] For example, he suggests that protracted deprivation of freedom and compulsory labor is a greater deterrent than death because it creates a repeated rather than a fleeting impression in the mind. He also argues that the death penalty sets an example of savagery that will promote violent crime. 18 Jacques Derrida argues that Kant’s faulty logic which permits capital punishment effectively entails the absurd requirement that the death penalty be self-inflicted. On Derrida’s reading, Kant unintentionally collapses a distinction he aims to uphold—between punishment by a court (poena forensis) and natural punishment (poena naturalis), “in which vice punishes itself and which the legislator does not take into account.” [Kant, “The Metaphysics of Morals,” 331.] Derrida believes Kant secretly (and irrationally) desires a

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We should abolish capital punishment because its effects on both the penalized and all those involved in carrying out the execution are unacceptable. Because the death penalty is not reversible, it necessarily fails to provide the consideration to which, according to Kant’s categorical imperative, a human being is entitled. A person is entitled to relief from the harmful effects of a punishment if their innocence of the crime is established either during or after the punishment occurs. Since capital punishment makes this impossible, it constitutes a failure to regard a person as an end-in-himself or -herself. Thus Kant contradicts his assertion (quoted below) that the categorical imperative is the ultimate justification of juridical punishment. Kant writes, “Punishment by a court (poena forensis)…can never be inflicted merely as a means to promote some other good for the criminal himself or for civil society. It must always be inflicted upon him only because he has committed a crime….The law of punishment is a categorical imperative.”19 If one commits murder, Kant writes, “he must die. Here there is no substitute that will satisfy justice. There is no similarity between life, however wretched it may be, and death, hence no likeness between the crime and the retribution unless death is judicially carried out upon the wrongdoer…this is what justice, as the idea of judicial authority, wills in accordance with universal laws that are grounded a priori.”20 For Kant, life represents the incalculable dignity that elevates a human being above his biological existence. Thus he thinks only the death penalty can create the required symmetry between two immeasurable, absolute ends. This is a prime example of the “practical tendency toward selfdestruction” that Adorno & Horkheimer argued is inherent in Enlightenment

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poena forensis that functions as a poena naturalis –a psychical punishment in the form of guilt or remorse. [Jacques Derrida. The death penalty, volume 2, seminar of 2000–2001, trans. Elizabeth Rottenberg (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017), quoted in Michael Naas, “Kant with Freud: Derrida’s Analysis of the Ancient Dream of SelfPunishment,” Law Critique 27 (2016): 161.] Though external and institutional, Kant’s poena forensis always aims at the perpetrator’s inner being. In the context of defending the death penalty, Kant argues for example that if given the choice, a man of honor would choose the death penalty over convict labor, whereas the “scoundrel” would choose convict labor as punishment for the same crime. “Since the man of honor is undeniably less deserving of punishment than the other, both would be punished quite proportionately if all alike were sentenced to death; the man of honor would be punished mildly in terms of his sensibilities and the scoundrel severely in terms of his.” [Kant, “The Metaphysics of Morals,” 334.] Derrida’s observations echo those of Adorno & Horkheimer; both detect self-destructive irrationality at the heart of Kant’s ostensible rationality. Kant, “The Metaphysics of Morals,” in Works of Immanuel Kant: Practical Philosophy 331. Kant, “The Metaphysics of Morals,” in Works of Immanuel Kant: Practical Philosophy 333–334.

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“rationality.”21 Beccaria also intuits this irrationality when he asks how the death penalty can be “reconciled with the other principle which denies that a man is free to commit suicide, which he must be, if he is able to transfer that right to others or to society as a whole?”22 Kant explains in his Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals why he believes suicide violates the categorial imperative.23 Kant’s Enlightenment perspective focuses on the authority and rationality of moral rules and principles—and the allegedly rational agents who follow them. Because he neglects the perspective of the accused criminal, Kant’s hypocritical philosophy of retribution is no more successful than utilitarianism in safeguarding human life. There are two dominant theories about how to justify punishment: as a criminal-focused, temporally backward-looking effort to balance the scales by punishing the guilty (retributivist theories); and as a community-focused, future-oriented effort to achieve objectives such as deterrence that benefit society in general (utilitarian theories). In his analysis of punishment of crimes, which influenced Jeremy Bentham, Beccaria embraced the utilitarian belief that deterrence is one of its important functions. If penal practices are based strictly on deterrence, however, the state may punish anyone (even those innocent of crime) to whatever extent—as long as the punishment produces the maximum deterrent effect. Thus, “[Beccaria’s] argument was essentially that whilst the basic purpose and rationale of punishment was utilitarian, its application had to be limited by retributivist considerations of guilt.”24 Beccaria rejects the notion that aggregated outcomes that ignore individuals should guide action: “it is a false idea of utility to…separate the public good from the good of the individual.”25 He reasoned that for punishment to function as a deterrent, it must cause the criminal pain that slightly outweighs the pleasure the offense provides: [t]he purpose of punishment is not that of tormenting or afflicting any sentient creature…Can the wailings of a wretch, perhaps undo what has been done and turn back the clock? The purpose, therefore, is nothing other than to prevent the offender from doing fresh harm to his fellows

21 Horkheimer and Adorno, p. xix. 22 Beccaria, On Crimes and Punishments and Other Writings, 66. 23 Immanuel Kant, “Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals” in Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant: Practical Philosophy, trans. Mary Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 4: 422. 24 Bellamy, “Introduction” in Beccaria, On Crimes and Punishments and Other Writings, xxiii. 25 Beccaria, On Crimes and Punishments and Other Writings, 102.

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and to deter others from doing likewise. Therefore, punishments and the means adopted for inflicting them should, consistent with proportionality, be so selected as to make the most efficacious and lasting impression on the minds of men with the least torment to the body of the condemned.26 The avoidance of pain (wrongful convictions and unduly harsh punishments) rather than the pursuit of pleasure is the decisive feature of Beccaria’s philosophy of punishment. He aims to limit arbitrary and excessive state violence against criminals. J.M. Bernstein identifies the “Beccaria thesis”—the “idea that the rule of law is constituted by the absolute incommensurability between the force of law and the kind of force represented by state violence to the human body. Beccaria does not argue from the possession of rights to the necessity for the abolition of torture, but, rather, from the devastation of torture to the necessity of the rule of law.”27 Beccaria’s 1764 essay On Crimes and Punishments was a reaction to the European criminal justice system which he viewed as brutal and ineffective. European monarchs had used penal torture as public spectacle to assert their authority. These spectacles were festive occasions to celebrate the community’s recovery from an injury the criminal caused. But in the 18th century these events came to be seen as an attack on the community. Beccaria was a key figure in the Enlightenment rejection of arbitrary state violence which frequently took the form of torture. He maintained that even if severe punishments serve the public good through a deterrent effect, they are nonetheless contrary to enlightened reason. The elimination of certain forms of suffering is the imperative that justifies the existence of the modern state; certain acts by the state render modernity unintelligible. By taking the experience of the sufferer to be the foundation for rights, Beccaria succeeded where Kant failed in identifying what is universal about humankind that is relevant to ethics: It is not a metaphysical, indestructible quality; on the contrary, it is our vulnerability. The Kantian notion of human dignity entails inviolability because the source of human dignity (our reason) is transcendent: Jean Hampton writes, “A Kantian theory of value insists that human beings never lose value as endsin-themselves, no matter what kind of treatment they receive”; rather, what

26 Beccaria, On Crimes and Punishments and Other Writings, 31. 27 J.M. Bernstein, Torture and Dignity: An Essay on Moral Injury. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015), 36.

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occurs as a consequence of a wrong action is only the “appearance of degradation.”28 This understanding of dignity as indestructible leads to complacency. On the contrary, Bernstein argues that it is important to acknowledge the possibility of destroying dignity. He insists that the Nazis destroyed Holocaust victims’ dignity—for example, through their manner of slaughter and disposal of human bodies. He describes a scene from the French documentary “Night & Fog” about the Nazi death camps, “in which we see a bulldozer pressing a pile of dirt and human bodies forward until they tumble, helplessly, uselessly, into a large ditch in the ground. What is unspeakable here is that our response to these scenes is not one of pity or grief, but rather one of horror and disgust….The turning of these human forms into so much garbage completed the process of robbing death of its meaning and thereby destroyed the dignity of these humans.”29 The existence of an indestructible aspect of the human being (a soul) is a metaphysical postulate that can be neither proven nor disproven. Thus it is irrelevant to the question of how to treat embodied humans (including dead bodies) so as to preserve their dignity. By focusing on eliminating kinds of suffering no human should endure, Beccaria’s ethical thought implicitly acknowledges the possibility of destroying dignity and the imperative of protecting it. Another important insight of Beccaria is his recognition of the vulnerability of the social contract. Neither retributive nor conventionally utilitarian, Beccaria’s theory of criminal justice incorporates elements of both theories. But he also believes punishment—and laws generally—serve an additional purpose, expressivism. A third approach to justifying punishment emphasizes its expressive—or communicative—function.30 Expressivism is an essential feature of laws and punishment in contractarian societies. Crimes are violations of norms that are essential to our self-understanding. Punishments are mechanisms to express indignation or reprobation—to reassert those norms and demonstrate our conviction of their rightness. But Beccaria rightly notes that 28

Jean Hampton, “Defining Wrong and Defining Rape,” in A Most Detestable Crime: New Philosophical Essays on Rape, ed. Keith Burgess-Jackson, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 127, quoted in Bernstein, Torture and Dignity 130. 29 Bernstein, Torture and Dignity 278–279. 30 Joel Feinberg was a groundbreaking theorist of expressive punishment who argued that its function of expressing social disapproval distinguishes a punishment from a penalty. While both are authoritative deprivations for failures, unlike penalties, punishments also serve to communicate public reprobation of the crime. Proponents of the view that punishment has an expressive role suggest either that this is the primary justification for the institution of punishment—or that its expressive role justifies only certain instances or features of punishment.

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punishments should also reflect our general moral temperament. Thus while cruel punishments would express extreme disapprobation for the crime, they would simultaneously express our affirmation of the appropriateness of acting cruelly. Beccaria insisted that the state must preserve our sense of the worth of citizens found guilty of a crime. It should not treat them in ways that undermine the principles of mutual respect that are the basis for the rule of law as a product of social contract. In social contract theory, the state is the realization of the general will; its actions should reflect an image of our ideal self. But this ideal self is not to be confused with Kant’s homo noumenon, the purveyor of pure reason whose lawmaking produces abstractions that tyrannize real people (homo phaenomenon). Laws should reflect who we are—not just as rational beings, but as potential accused criminals and administrators of punishments. They reflect our ideal self as an actor in the world who recognizes the physical and spiritual vulnerability of both oneself and others. Laws’ expressive function serves to reinforce our social contract and to inspire each of us to actualize our morally ideal self. The nation sets the standard for who we are as individuals. Thus Beccaria intuited that cruelty by the state encourages citizens to act likewise, turning them into “a herd of slaves among whom timorous cruelty is rife.”31 Kant thinks “disgraceful punishments that dishonor humanity itself (such as quartering a man, having him torn by dogs, cutting off his nose and ears)”— which are “more painful than loss of possessions and life”—are impermissible.32 He correctly intuits that torture is worse than death. Most people know intuitively that rape and torture are worse than death. Bernstein writes, “I cannot conceive of a set of circumstances of justifiable rape…Even those who think torture is justifiable concede that the requirements for its use are more stringent than those for killing; if an intruder enters my home, I might well be justified in killing him; no matter the level of threat, however, I would not be justified in dragging him into my basement and torturing him.”33 In its own way, torture is irreversible—or at least very difficult to overcome—for both 31 Beccaria, On Crimes and Punishments and Other Writings, 13. 32 Kant, “The Metaphysics of Morals,” in Works of Immanuel Kant: Practical Philosophy 463. Though he favored it, Kant wrote that the death penalty must “still be freed from any mistreatment that could make the humanity in the person suffering it into something abominable.” [Kant, “The Metaphysics of Morals,” in Works of Immanuel Kant: Practical Philosophy 333.] He also wrote, “I cannot deny all respect to even a vicious man as a human being; I cannot withdraw at least the respect that belongs to him in his quality as a human being, even though by his deeds he makes himself unworthy of it.” [Kant, “The Metaphysics of Morals,” in Works of Immanuel Kant: Practical Philosophy 463.] 33 Bernstein, Torture and Dignity 6–7.

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victims and perpetrators. Nazi torture victim Jean Améry wrote, “whoever is tortured, stays tortured. Torture is ineradicably burned into him, even when no clinically objective traces can be detected.”34 Studies have shown that soldiers who tortured detainees develop more severe forms of ptsd than those who did not. Psychology professor David Foy, who researched cases of veterans affected by prisoner abuse during the war on terror as a consultant for the National Center for ptsd said, “doing things in the context of war zone duty that involves activities that…challenge someone’s sense of moral correctness, even if it’s required for survival or if they’re ordered to do it, leaves them with an altered sense of correctness about themselves. That’s what we would call a “moral conflict,” or more generally an inner conflict, that may be connected to ptsd. So, there’s the mental health consequence…but then there’s the spiritual injury or moral injury.”35 In the years following 9/11, various parties (soldiers; military police; cia agents; employees of government contractors) engaged in torture while employed by the U.S. government. Some attribute the spread of detainee abuse to the fact that White House and Pentagon officials drafted memos sanctioning torture techniques for use at Guantánamo, and the techniques spread when Guantánamo officials were transferred to Iraq. But Phillips notes that “this fails to explain how and why troops turned to torture in Afghanistan and elsewhere prior to this string of events.”36 Based on interviews with soldiers who tortured, Phillips attributes it to various reasons, such as lingering anger over September 11, or rage and frustration with the chaotic situations in which they were deployed. But Phillips documents that many of the soldiers who engaged in this abuse suffered long-term ptsd as a result. Much of the torture endured by post 9/11 terror suspects is at least officially interrogational—not penal—torture.37 This is not torture as an engine of state performed on individuals whose guilt for a crime is not established, nor is there certainty that they possess the information sought.38 Torture of terror suspects renders Americans’ 34 35

Quoted in Bernstein, Torture and Dignity 84. Quoted in Joshua E.S. Phillips None of Us Were Like This Before: American Soldiers and Torture (London: Verso, 2010), 134. 36 Phillips, None of Us Were Like This Before, xi. 37 Bernstein identifies several purposes of torture: “acquiring a confession (judicial torture); punishment (penal torture); acquiring information (interrogational torture); intimidation or getting a sufferer and relevant associates connected with the sufferer to act, or cease acting, in desired ways (terroristic or deterrent torture); to destroy the other without killing (dehumanizing torture); to please the torturer (recreational torture).” [Bernstein, Torture and Dignity 76.] 38 Bernstein argues that the idea of pure interrogational torture is illusory: it “must devolve into some form of dehumanizing torture in order to accomplish its own narrow

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self-understanding and our relationship with other countries incoherent; it morally and spiritually injures the entire society, not just those directly involved. But some defend these practices with consequentialist arguments. Post-9/11 torture is a contemporary example of how the Enlightenment imperative of self-preservation—in the form of the perceived need to violently extract information from terrorists to “save lives”—turns self-destructive.39 The pursuit of the utilitarian objective destroys the lives of both the tortured and the torturers, due to their physical and spiritual vulnerability.40 Experts who perhaps should have known better played key roles in endorsing these destructive acts: Psychologists Bruce Jessen and James Mitchell produced a memo in 2002 proposing harsh techniques be used on terror suspects thought to be resisting interrogation.41 The cia adopted nearly all their proposed

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(interrogational) purposes. For the torturer, breaking the victim is the mechanism for connecting pain to the extraction of truth…whatever its final purpose, torture is a process of devastation.” [Bernstein, Torture and Dignity 77.] Many scholars have noted the flaws in a utilitarian argument that is frequently used to justify torture—the hypothetical “ticking time bomb” scenario in which an individual in custody has knowledge of an imminent terrorist attack that threatens multiple lives. As LaGuardia notes, one problem with this argument is that it “completely avoids the question of law enforcement’s accuracy in evaluating the situation.” [Francesca LaGuardia, “Imagining the Unimaginable: Torture and the Criminal Law,” Columbia Human Rights Law Review, 46, no. 3 (Spring 2015):65]. Author Philippe Sands documented that the television series 24, which reinforces the myth that ticking time bomb situations in which torture is effective are realistic, influenced interrogators at Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere. [Philippe Sands, Torture Team: Rumsfeld’s Memo and the Betrayal of American Values. (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008)61–2.] Phillips explains that the myth of torture’s effectiveness in a ticking time bomb scenario originated in a work of fiction about the Algerian War of Independence. [Phillips, None of Us Were Like This Before, 106–7.] cia torture whistleblower John Kiriakou said of the ticking time bomb scenario, “That happens only in the movies…There’s never a ticking time bomb. And besides, even if there was, the cia is a big, lumbering heavy bureaucracy and…they couldn’t possibly move quickly enough to do something about it, torture or no torture.” [Kiriakou, Interview, Youtube, uploaded by The Zero Hour with RJ Eskow, 1 April 2015, https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=nQZGD1d9aeI at 14:23.] The current epidemic of U.S. military veteran suicides is empirical evidence of how misguided policies intended to preserve lives can tragically backfire. In 2015, two former detainees and the family of a third who died in custody filed a lawsuit against Jessen and Mitchell seeking unspecified punitive and compensatory damages. “The plaintiffs said that Drs. Jessen and Mitchell, former military psychologists, profited from their work as contractors for the c.i.a. The men received up to $1,800 a day and later formed a company that was paid about $81 million to help operate the interrogation program over several years.” A settlement in the suit, the terms of which are confidential, was announced in 2017. “The parties agreed to a joint statement in which the psychologists said that they had advised the c.i.a. and that the plaintiffs had suffered abuses, but that they were not responsible.” [Fink, “Settlement Reached in c.i.a. Torture Case”]

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methods of mental and physical torture. They included techniques used in sere [Survival, Evasion, Resistance, & Escape] training—survival skills taught to select military personnel. These training techniques, created after the Korean War include “sleep deprivation, ‘mock rape’ scenarios, sexual and religious degradation, ‘noise stress,’ deprivation of food, exposure to extreme temperatures, and simulated drowning.”42 These brutal, dehumanizing techniques which were ascribed to the enemy were not designed for obtaining information—and there was (and is) no evidence that they are effective ways to gather information. Questions about specific techniques’ effectiveness are not relevant, however, when we are talking about torture. There are many unspeakably cruel treatments that might “work” to compel someone to do (or say) what we want them to.43 But their dehumanizing effects on the victim and/or the perpetrator are sufficient reasons not to use them. Discussions of torture’s “effectiveness” are short-sighted in that they fail to take into account the full array of consequences of its use. They destroy individuals and with them, the fabric of the social contract. They are incompatible with the notion of a rational agreement among voluntary social contractors that expresses their self-understanding of who they are and want to be. Widespread abuse and torture of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq became public knowledge in 2004. cia, department of Defense employees including military police, and private contractors (caci and L3) were all involved. A Red Cross report stated that 70–90% of persons deprived of their liberty in Iraq were arrested by mistake.44 In 2008, the Center for Constitutional Rights filed a lawsuit (Al Shimari v. caci et. al.) against U.S.-based government contractors including caci, 42 Phillips, None of Us Were Like This Before, 77. 43 Although these techniques may “succeed” in coercion, they fail abysmally with respect to the objective of obtaining accurate information when (as is almost always the case) it is not certain if the detainee actually possesses the sought intelligence. Thus they can have dire consequences. For example, “much of the U.S. invasion of Iraq may be linked back to the torture of one detainee [Libyan national Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi (1963–2009)]…whose statements that there were connections between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein were used to justify the U.S. invasion. The detainee later stated that he had fabricated the connections in order to satisfy his interrogators.” (LaGuardia, “Imagining the Unimaginable: Torture and the Criminal Law,” 71.) 44 Coalition forces military intelligence officers provided this estimate to the icrc. “Report of the International Committee of the Red Cross (icrc) on the Treatment by the Coalition Forces of Prisoners of War and other Protected Persons by the Geneva Conventions in Iraq during Arrest, Internment and Interrogation,” February 2004, retrieved online 3/22/18, from http://www.derechos.org/nizkor/us/doc/icrc-prisoner-report-feb-2004.pdf.

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­ eadquartered in Arlington, VA, on behalf of four Iraqi civilians tortured at h Abu Ghraib in 2003–04, all of whom were ultimately released without criminal charges.45 caci was paid more than $19 million for its work at Abu Ghraib prison, and it continues to collect millions in government contracts.46 These private companies are not subject to the military justice system, and attempts to hold them accountable in federal courts have been largely unsuccessful.47 In 2013 a Virginia judge, citing a recent ussc precedent (Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. 2013),48 threw out the case on a technicality.49 Although military

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“The lawsuit was originally brought against L-3 Services Incorporated (formerly Titan Corporation), caci International Inc., and Timothy Dugan, a former employee of caci. caci and L-3 Services were the U.S. government contractors responsible for interrogation and translation services, respectively, at Abu Ghraib prison and other facilities in Iraq. L-3 Services and Timothy Dugan were dismissed as defendants in the case in 2008, and the litigation has proceeded against caci.” https://ccrjustice.org/home/what-we-do/our -cases/al-shimari-v-caci-et-al 46 Editorial board. “Will anyone pay for Abu Ghraib?” New York Times, February 5, 2015, Retrieved online 3/31/18, from https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/05/opinion/will-anyonepay-for-abu-ghraib.html 47 An exception was the first successful effort by lawyers on behalf of detainees from Abu Ghraib and other U.S. detention sites when in 2013, Engility (parent of L-3) paid a settlement of $5.28 million to 71 former inmates—a meager compensation given the number of people and the amount of abuse they endured. (“U.S. Contractor to Pay $5.28 million to Abu Ghraib Prisoners,” January 8, 2013, Retrieved from: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ us-contractor-to-pay-528-million-to-abu-ghraib-prisoners/) 48 In Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court dismissed a case brought by Nigerian citizens against the corporation because the alleged violations took place in Nigeria and the British-Dutch multinational corporation lacked sufficient ties to the U.S to apply the Alien Tort Statute (ats). The Alien Tort Statute, part of the Judiciary Act of 1789, reads “the district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.” Its original purpose was to give U.S. federal courts (rather than state courts) jurisdiction in international civil cases where they have jurisdiction over the defendant. Only two courts based jurisdiction on the ats between 1789 and 1980, when the virtually forgotten law was reconceived to encompass basic human rights protections— and subsequently upheld in many cases. 49 The judge said the ats lacked jurisdiction because Iraq was outside U.S. territory— though Abu Ghraib was an American-run prison, and the company is an American company. But at the same time he said the only law that applied in Iraq were the regulations of the Coalition Provisional Authority—the transitional government of Iraq that was created and funded as a division of the U.S. Defense Department after the 2003 invasion— which (according to him) said that caci cannot be sued under Iraqi law, Virginia law or any other law.

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police have been court martialed for these abuses, corporate actors who are at least equally culpable have evaded justice.50 In 2004, the Center for Constitutional Rights filed a federal class action lawsuit (Saleh, et al. v. Titan, et al.) on behalf of over 250 Iraqi civilians against caci International, Inc. and Titan Corporation, for their role in torture and other illegal acts committed at Abu Ghraib prison, where they were hired by the U.S. to provide interrogation and translation services. The plaintiffs believed the Foreign Claims Act, which provides compensation to inhabitants of foreign countries for personal injury, death, or property damage caused by, or incident to noncombat activities of United States military personnel overseas, supported their right to seek redress in an American court. But on June 27, 2011, the Supreme Court declined without comment to take up the case after a federal appeals court in Washington dismissed the case, ruling that a doctrine the two majority judges called “battlefield preemption,”—the notion that their actions were combat activities and thus exempt—precluded claims against the contractors.51 These contractors’ evasion of justice for heinous acts committed while in the employ of the U.S. government constitute a fundamental threat to the social contract—as do secret cia actions in secret locations for which they too can never be held accountable.52 Having a social contract empowers the 50 “caci’s involvement in Iraq began in 2003 after the US military asked them to provide intelligence assistance…Charles Graner and Ivan Frederick, the two military police members who were convicted of charges related to the abuse of Abu Ghraib prisoners specifically named caci contractors Daniel Johnson and Steven Stefanowicz as ordering various types of abuse of prisoners.” [Maha Hilal. “Abu Ghraib: The legacy of torture in the war on terror,” Al Jazeera, October 1, 2017, https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/abughraib-legacy-torture-war-terror-170928154012053.html] 51 The majority also found that the Alien Tort Statute claims, including claims of torture, could not be brought against these corporate contractors because “there is no consensus that private acts of torture violate the law of nations, such acts are not actionable under the ats’s grant of jurisdiction.” [Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Opinion, Saleh v. Titan Corp., 580 F.3d 1 (D.C. Cir. 2009). Retrieved from: https://www.courtlistener.com/ opinion/187456/saleh-v-titan-corp/ on March 31, 2018.] 52 Some North Carolinians recognize the severity of this threat and have taken steps to repair the social contract and make accountability for torture possible. The North Carolina Commission of Inquiry on Torture (nccit) held public hearings in Raleigh, NC, November 30 – December 1, 2017. (Coincidentally, two weeks after the annual Concerned Philosophers for Peace conference took place in the same city.) nccit “is a 501(c)3 organization set up to investigate and encourage public debate about the role that North Carolina played in facilitating the U.S. torture program carried out between 2001 – 2009. This nongovernmental inquiry responds to the lack of recognition by North Carolina’s publicly elected officials and the U.S. government of citizens’ need to know how their tax dollars and state assets were used to support unlawful detention, torture, and rendition. The nccit will establish a highly credible, blue-ribbon panel of policy experts, academics, and

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contracting parties to have full awareness of what is done in their name. They must also have the ability to use the expressive power of laws and punishments to redress any acts agents of the sovereign commit that violate the terms of the contract. There are many historical examples when war has become a pretext for violating rights that were codified in a social contract. Laws take effect that curtail or eliminate citizens’ rights and consolidate power within government in ways that are at variance with the foundational law (ex. the Constitution) and that permit violations of international treaties. These laws effectively suspend parts of the social contract, unless the circumstances in which they emerge conform to guidelines previously specified in the contract. In 2017, Donald Trump became the third U.S. president to renew Proclamation 7463—Declaration of National Emergency by Reason of Certain Terrorist Attacks. George W. Bush originally signed it on September 14, 2001, giving himself sweeping powers to mobilize the military, hire and fire military officers, and bypass limits on the number of generals who can serve. All three presidents have annually renewed it; a now routine notice in the Federal Register states that they are extending the proclamation for a year, in accordance with the National Emergencies Act. But the president is supposed to have these emergency powers only temporarily until Congress has time to act. The law also requires the president to report to Congress every six months about the cost of the national emergency. This has never happened for the 9/11 proclamation.53 The notion of a “war on terror” is prima facie unconstitutional because the nation’s founders provided no guidelines for conducting war against such a nebulous enemy. Some cite this lack of Constitutional directives for the situation as an excuse for enacting unconstitutional policies. But we fail to weigh the dangers of the perceived threat against the dangers of breaching the social contract.

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community leaders to do the job that their government refuses to do: investigate North Carolina’s involvement in the U.S. torture program and its resulting obligations under international treaties and domestic law. The nccit will serve as a model for other accountability efforts, and will help create momentum for full official transparency and accountability for the U.S.’ use of torture and rendition.” Retrieved from http://www.nccit.org/ on March 31, 2018. In fact, Congress has not reviewed any emergencies that a president declared since the National Emergencies Act, a law intended to prevent open-ended states of emergency, took effect in 1976. More than 30 remain in effect. [Korte, Gregory. “A permanent emergency: Trump becomes third president to renew extraordinary post 9/11 powers,” usa Today, September 14, 2017, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/09/14/ permanent-emergency-trump-becomes-third-president-renew-extraordinary-post9-11-powers/661966001/.]

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Like Beccaria, John Rawls offers a social contract theory that incorporates expressivism as an important role for laws. In his notion of the “law of wellordered peoples,” Rawls’s analysis of international justice reflects Beccarian insights. Rawls was largely responsible for a 20th century revival of social contract scholarship. As a social contract theorist, Rawls investigated principles of political philosophy that the participating parties either have or would agree to. Rawls admired Kant, and Kant’s influence is evident in Rawls’ original position, where moral agents exercise their reasonable and rational nature. But the original position also reflects the social basis of justice. Though Rawls believes we have natural rights, he thinks they don’t provide adequate guidance for what rights and duties we have in a social contract. Thus unlike Kant, Rawls does not seek an a priori basis for morality. Although particular facts are kept from theorists behind the veil of ignorance, they can make use of contingent assumptions and general facts as they strive to reach an agreement about how to actualize justice in a society of which they will be members. Because he conceives justice socially and focuses on institutions, Rawls’ social contract theory is not excessively abstract like Kant’s. In The Law of Peoples, Rawls reflects on what rules societies that aim to comply with the laws of international justice would choose to follow.54 The book was written in 1999, and one imagines that Rawls would have been aghast at some of the injustices that occurred after his 2002 death; clearly political leaders did not follow the principles he presents in the book; in many instances, the U.S. and its allies took actions that were the opposite of Rawls’ directives for “well-ordered peoples.” “Well-ordered peoples do not initiate war against one another; they go to war only when they sincerely and reasonably believe that their safety and security are seriously endangered by the expansionist policies of outlaw states.”55 Such societies engage in war in self-defense only to protect its citizens’ basic freedoms. They also have a long-term goal: “to bring all societies eventually to honor the Law of Peoples and to become full members in good standing of the society of well-ordered peoples. Human rights would thus be secured everywhere.”56 Rawls insists that utilitarian reasoning about

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Critics of Rawls’s Law of Peoples, such as Thomas Pogge, rightly point out weaknesses of Rawls’s analysis of transnational justice, such as his implicit endorsement of double standards that favor affluent societies. Despite the book’s shortcomings, the basic principles of just war and just conduct during wartime Rawls presents are useful for assessing a nation-state’s actions. John Rawls, “On the Killing of Civilians in Wartime,” in The Norton Introduction to Philosophy, eds. Gideon Rosen, et al. (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2015), 912. Rawls, “On the Killing of Civilians in Wartime,” 912.

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actions or policies must always be strictly limited by the concern to protect human rights. He writes that during wartime, well-ordered peoples should respect the human rights of enemy civilians and soldiers as much as possible for two reasons. One is because they have these rights. The other is “to teach enemy soldiers and civilians the content of those rights by the example set in the treatment they receive. In this way the meaning and significance of human rights are best brought home to them.”57 By their actions and proclamations, well-ordered peoples should try to “foreshadow during a war both the kind of peace they aim for and the kind of relations they seek.”58 Having a social contract and laws that express the values we have committed to in the contract is essential to the modern society. But just having such laws is insufficient. As Feinberg notes, “Sometimes the state goes on record through its statutes in a way that might well please a conscientious citizen in whose name it speaks, but then through official evasion and unreliable enforcement, gives doubts that the law really means what it says…A statute honored mainly in the breach begins to lose its character as law, unless…it is vindicated (emphatically reaffirmed); and clearly the way to do this (indeed the only way) is to punish those who violate it.”59 National and international laws should reflect our collective sense of moral correctness—and they should not be violated for any reason. But as we have seen, both kinds of laws concerning torture have been egregiously violated since 9/11. Recent history teaches us the harsh lesson that humanity has yet to truly enjoy the fruits of the Enlightenment. Some of its offerings have been employed in ways that turned out to have perverse results. We need to recognize the sacred role of the social contract in protecting humankind in its spiritual 57 58 59

Rawls, “On the Killing of Civilians in Wartime,” 914. Rawls, “On the Killing of Civilians in Wartime,” 914. Joel Feinberg, “The Expressive Function of Punishment,” in Philosophy of Law, 9th edition, eds. Joel Feinberg, Jules Coleman, & Christopher Kutz (Boston: Wadsworth, 2014), 793. Few people have paid a price for involvement in America’s torture program. Though presidential candidate Obama repeatedly vowed during his 2008 campaign to review evidence of criminality in the torture programs, he soon made it known that he was opposed to such investigations. He expressed a desire to look forward rather than backward. In 2012 Attorney General Eric Holder announced the closing without charges of the only two cases that were under investigation. [Glenn Greenwald, “Obama’s justice department grants final immunity to Bush’s cia torturers,” The Guardian, August 31, 2012, https:// www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/aug/31/obama-justice-department-immunity-bush-cia-torturer.] Obama’s failure to punish was a missed opportunity to reaffirm the rule of law. President Trump’s appointment of Gina Haspel—who not only was involved in torture at a cia black site(s) but destroyed evidence thereof—as cia Director compounds Obama’s failure and is another example of misusing the expressive function of law by expressing exactly the opposite of what the law should stand for.

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vulnerability. The social contract performs this function through its expressive dimension. Bernstein writes, “While the possession of dignity is neither automatic nor a metaphysical necessity, but some sort of social accomplishment, that accomplishment is not wholly one sided: society bestowing dignity, and the individual receiving it; dignified and self-respecting behavior belongs to the logic of dignity as much as being treated with dignity and thereby having one’s dignity affirmed. Human dignity can be destroyed.”60 A social contract is a living pact that we must continually reaffirm in order to reinforce its values in the minds of the contracting parties, i.e. all members of a particular society or—in the case of international treaties—the world community. We reaffirm the contract by conforming to it and by inflicting expressive punishments upon those who transgress it. We need to ensure that the necessary conditions for actualizing our social contracts exist: transparency, so that we are aware of transgressions that occur; and the legal mechanisms to punish transgressors. With this foundation in place, we empower ourselves to engage in the selfrespecting behavior whereby we preserve our social contract and thereby protect our all-too-fragile human dignity. Bibliography Beccaria, Cesare. On Crimes and Punishments and Other Writings. Richard Bellamy, ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Bernstein, Jay M. Torture and Dignity: An Essay on Moral Injury. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015. Blackburn, Simon, ed. Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Donnelly, Jack. Universal Human Rights in Theory and Practice, 3rd ed., Cornell University Press, 2013. Feinberg, Joel. “The Expressive Function of Punishment.” In Philosophy of Law, 9th ed., edited by Joel Feinberg, Jules Coleman, & Christopher Kutz, 789–800. Boston: Wadsworth, 2014. Fink, Sheri. “Settlement Reached in C.I.A. Torture Case” New York Times, August 17, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/17/us/cia-torture-lawsuit-settlement.html on 3/22/18. Greenwald, Glenn. “Obama’s justice department grants final immunity to Bush’s CIA torturers,” The Guardian, August 31, 2012. https://www.theguardian.com/comment isfree/2012/aug/31/obama-justice-department-immunity-bush-cia-torturer.

60 Bernstein, Torture and Dignity 280.

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Hilal, Maha. “Abu Ghraib: The legacy of torture in the war on terror.” Al Jazeera, October 1, 2017. https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/abu-ghraib-legacy-torturewar-terror-170928154012053.html. Horkheimer, Max & Theodor Adorno. Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments. Translated by Edmund Jephcott. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002. Kant, Immanuel. “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?” in Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant: Practical Philosophy, translated by Mary Gregor, 11–22 [AK 8: 35–42]. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Kant, Immanuel. “Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals” in Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant: Practical Philosophy, translated by Mary Gregor, 37–108 [AK 4: 385–463]. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Kant, Immanuel. “The Metaphysics of Morals,” in Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant: Practical Philosophy, translated by Mary Gregor, 353–603 [AK 6: 205–493]. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Kiriakou, John. “A CIA Whistleblower Speaks.” Interview by RJ Eskow, The Zero Hour with RJ Eskow, 1 April 2015, Youtube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQZGD1d9aeI. Korte, Gregory. “A permanent emergency: Trump becomes third president to renew extraordinary post-9/11 powers,” USA Today, September 14, 2017. https://www .usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/09/14/permanent-emergency-trump -becomes-third-president-renew-extraordinary-post-9-11-powers/661966001/. LaGuardia, Francesca. “Imagining the Unimaginable: Torture and the Criminal Law.” Columbia Human Rights Law Review 46 no. 3 (Spring 2015): 48–103. McKelvey, Tara. Monstering: Inside America’s Policy of Secret Interrogations and Torture in the Terror War. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2007. Naas, Michael. “Kant with Freud: Derrida’s Analysis of the Ancient Dream of SelfPunishment,” Law Critique 27 (2016): 151–69. New York Times editorial board. “Will anyone pay for Abu Ghraib?” New York Times, February 5, 2015. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/05/opinion/will-anyone-payfor-abu-ghraib.html. Phillips, Joshua E.S. None of Us Were Like This Before: American Soldiers and Torture. London: Verso, 2010. Rawls, John. “On the Killing of Civilians in Wartime,” The Norton Introduction to Philosophy, Rosen, Gideon et al., editors. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2015, pp. 911–18. [excerpt from Rawls, John. The Law of Peoples. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999.] Sands, Philippe. Torture Team: Rumsfeld’s Memo and the Betrayal of American Values. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. Sarver, Vernon. “Kant’s Purported Social Contract and the Death Penalty,” The Journal of Value Inquiry 31 (1997): 455–72. Scharf, Michael. “The Torture Lawyers,” Duke Journal of Comparative & International Law 20 (2010): 389–411.

Chapter 9

Why Do Poor Whites Vote for Republicans When Republicans Hate Them? Robert Paul Churchill 1 Introduction This paper will explore two closely related and troubling issues. The first, which will occupy the majority of the paper, is the apparently paradoxical relationship between the voting behavior of many poor and lower-class whites, on the one hand, and on the other, Republican legislators in Congress and state legislators that regularly enact into law programs antagonistic to the interests of poor and working class whites. Wealthy Republicans in Congress and Red state legislatures consistently seek to deprive vulnerable Americans of health care, educational benefits, and unemployment insurance, for example, and to do so with a zealousness that leads commentators on the left to characterize Republicans as callous, cruel, mean, and even hateful?1 The apparent paradox arises because so many working class, poor, and vulnerable whites continue to reward punishing Republicans at the ballot box. Because both claims about many Republican legislators and so many working class, poor and vulnerable voters are true, as I argue here, the paradox appears to be real, and not merely apparent. The consequences of accepting the reality of the paradox are highly problematic, however. We would be required to accept, as one consequence, that millions of voters consistently vote against their own economic and social interests, as Thomas Frank concludes in his

1 Carol Anderson, “Why Do Republicans Hate America?” Huffington Post, 2017, https://www .huffingtonpost.com/entry/opinion-anderson-republicans-america_us_5a58defe4 b04df054f8b0a/. Accessed Mar. 22, 2018; Chauncey Devega, “Why Are Republicans So Cruel to the Poor? Paul Ryan’s Profound Hypocrisy Stands for a Deeper Problem.” Salon. March 23, 2017. https://www.salon.com/2017/03/23/why-are-republicans-so-cruel-to-thepoor-paul-ryans-profound-hypocrisy-stands-for-a-deeper-problem/. Accessed Mar. 24, 2018; and Paul Krugman, 2017. “Republicans Despise the Working Class.” The New York Times, December 14, 2017.https://www.nytimes.com/20/17/12/14/opinion/republicans-working-class -taxes.html. Accessed Jan. 12, 2018.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���� | doi:10.1163/9789004417588_011

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2004 study of Republican controlled politics in the state of Kansas.2 Also, we would be constrained to accept that, just as many voters are self-deluded, far too many Republican legislators, potentially thousands, are duplicitous swindlers intent on making those they claim to represent worse off. In this paper I will argue that, while both central claims about working class and poor whites and about Republicans are true, the ways in which they are true differ. And this difference brings to light something radically new and problematical for American politics. As we shall see, understanding Republican legislative behavior and political interests requires more than reliance on traditional political science and psychology, such as theories of class interest, identity politics, group behavior, or even political hypocrisy and delusion. As I shall show, understanding why many Republicans do not understand the real nature of their legislative programs (e.g., why cutting taxes that most benefit the wealthy), requires that we bring to bear recent research findings in cognitive psychology and neurobiology, including brain imaging, and doing so in a manner similar to the ways in which the new fields of behavioral economics and cultural and moral evolutionary sciences have applied such research. Hence, the second troubling issue that concerns me. In part, this paper can be understood as a case study of the ways cognitive linguistics, and the cognitive neurosciences can illuminate political behavior, and hence, why these sciences, including false claims about “scientific” research, are likely to have an increasing impact on political discourse and debate in America. There is likely to be increasing temptation to exploit research findings in the cognitive and neurological sciences for partisan political gain. Such an outcome would be most unfortunate, for such exploitation would increase the viciousness of partisan and political tribalism, currently afflicting the conservative/Republican— liberal/Democratic split, as well as factions within each alliance. Thus, in the last section of the paper I suggest, albeit very briefly, a more constructive way of employing this knowledge. Of course, the paper’s title is also intended to be provocative, and hence it presents the two questions as what logicians call complex questions, each one presupposing the truth of a statement in declarative form, viz. Republicans do hate the working classes and poor, and poor whites do vote for Republicans. There are senses in which both claims are true for reasons soon to be pre­ sented. Note, in addition, that each claim overgeneralizes. Obviously, it is necessary to qualify my claim about the working-classes and poor to except poor

2 Thomas Frank, What’s the Matter with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2004).

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(working or unemployed) African Americans, Asian Americans and LatinaLatino Americas, as well as minorities, such as the lgbtq community, whose primary identities make them more likely to vote Democratic. Certainly not all of those who are poor and white vote regularly for Republicans. However, it is adequate for my purposes to identify a majority of working class and poor white males in Red states and in former rust-belt Democratic strongholds, at least since the Reagan presidency. Turning to the claim that Republicans hate poor and working class whites, there can be no doubt that most, if not all, Republicans will object strenuously to the notion that they hate any Americans, and many might believe this honestly. Well, do they? My point here is that the rhetoric and actions of many conservative Republicans strongly suggests a visceral repulsion toward many of those who are poor, and working class. Frequently called out for scorn are the homeless, the shiftless, those addicted to drugs or to opiates, and whites among so-called “welfare queens” and “cheats.” But do they also hate those they claim to represent—the law-abiding, white, working-poor; and the socalled “deserving poor,” to use their own term? “Hating” has some strong connotations, including detesting, despising, and abhorring. In this sense of “hate,” it can be conceded that perhaps most conservative Republicans do not hate poor, or less-advantaged whites. However, in another sense, “hate” connotes a general antipathy and disdain. In this second sense, hate means to look upon and treat with contempt, or scorn. And, of course, what fills one with contempt one seeks to avoid, to ignore, to put away, and to be rid of. Hence, one does not act intentionally, if one can do so with impunity, to benefit or promote the interests of those for whom one holds contempt. Thus a central claim of this paper is that conservative Republicans hate poor whites in this second sense. Even thus weakened the claim may occasion alarm. Republicans will clamor that they could hardly disdain the constituents who vote for them; that would be political suicide, after all. Neocon economic policies are endlessly purported to benefit the poor; after all, that’s the point of a pseudo-religious reliance on the free market and the frequency of metaphors such as the “trickle-down effect” and “a rising tide raises all boats.” Moreover, ever since the media proclaimed George W. Bush was much more likely than Al Gore to be the guy you’d want to have a beer with at a backyard barbecue, pundits have continually chirped about how Republican candidates score higher on some sort of “likability” factor than do wonkier Democrats. Many fallacies of reasoning are apparent in political discourse, but their persistence, and apparent immunity against fact-checking directly points to the need to get at the roots of false ideologies and fallacies in the unconscious. Is it possible that what one

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consciously says she thinks and believes, is not what she actually believes and is motivated to do? Yes, indeed, and quite often. Since the work of Sigmund Freud, we have accepted the unconscious as a huge repository of unsorted notions or ideas, sensations, feelings, intuitions, and dreams, and phantasies. Yet while Freud treated the unconscious as largely irrational, and illogical, research in recent decades has demonstrated the existence, as well, of the cognitive unconscious. The cognitive unconscious is causally significant for our behavior, but also responsible for the vast majority of thinking and logical inference, typically between 83 and 98 percent.3 In addition, whereas post-Enlightenment thinkers have typically believed there is a sharp division between rational, or logical, thought processes, and our emotions, research shows that “emotional processes are tightly coupled to complex and high-dimensional belief systems”4 possibly including unconscious inferences that are blocked from conscious awareness. So, yes, a representative or senator may in the cognitive unconscious hate the poor, believing that poor whites do not deserve health, while consciously and verbally denying that she harbors any prejudice against poor and working class Americans, and even congratulating herself for her commitment to equality. What this congresswoman overlooks, however, is that her unconscious hatred is the cause of her commitment to Republican programs, including legislation deeply cutting welfare programs and tax concessions benefiting the ceos of large corporations, rather than any sincere commitment to improving the lives of the poor and those less-advantaged. 2 Why Do Poor Whites Vote Republican? In his well-received book, What’s the Matter with Kansas?, Thomas Frank seeks to explain the puzzling phenomenon already mentioned, namely, why so many poor and lower-middle class voters elect Republicans.5 Because Republicans do not promote the economic and social interests of workers, Frank identifies 3 Andrea Rock, The Mind at Night: The New Science of How and Why We Dream (New York: Basic Books, 2005); George Lakoff, The Political Mind: Why You Can’t Understand 21st-Century American Politics with an 18th-Century Brain (New York: Viking Press, 2008), p. 3. 4 Anna Khan, “Conservative and Liberal Brains May Be Wired Differently,” The Washington Post, November 3, 2014. https://washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/conservativeand-liberal-brains-may-be-wired-differently. Accessed July 8, 2018. 5 For the sake of brevity and clarity, I depend in this section fairly exclusively on Thomas Frank’s research, although it would not be difficult to provide additional data, examples, and illustrations supporting the same conclusions.

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Red state voters as casting ballots against their own self-interests. The basic problem, as Frank sees it, is thus to understand how people can get their fundamental interests wrong, behavior Frank describes as a “species of derangement.”6 Frank’s explanation for this “derangement” is straightforward. The success of conservative Republicanism since the 1970’s—which Frank characterizes as the “Great Backlash”—results from first mobilizing voters with explosive social issues, brewing a heady “moral” outrage, and then marrying the resultant populist outrage to pro-business economic policies.7 In effect, Republican operatives succeed in marshalling cultural fear and anger in order to achieve Republican economic objectives. Republicans have won over the working and under-classes, Frank claims, because they succeed in dramatically redefining the contest between themselves and their Democratic foes. The traditional clash between class interests, featuring the historical alliance of blue-collar labor and poor whites with the Democratic Party, has been supplanted by a Republican engineered cultural “war.” Thus what increasingly matters for poor and blue-collar voters are not class interest (workers versus business elites) nor hardcore policy issues but “basic values,” where actual or imagined lifestyles are accepted by voters as reliable indicators of a candidate’s and party’s basic values.8 In this cultural war, Democrats consistently characterized as obnoxious, self-important, effete, and atheistic elites, are also portrayed as mocking the values of honest, down-to-earth, hard-working, straight-talking, and humble Red-state voters. Consider a 2004 conservative Club for Growth TV ad against Howard Dean, former governor of Vermont who at the time was running for nomination as the Democratic presidential candidate. In the TV ad two very average looking people advise Dean to “take his tax-hiking, governmentexpanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading, body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing, freak show back to Vermont, where it belongs.”9 By contrast, average and authentic Middle Americans, whom the poor should emulate, spend their evenings watching TV, drink diet coke and beer, eat at Bob Evans, drive pick-up trucks, shop at Walmart, listen to country music, enjoy nascar, go to church, and own guns. Spokespersons for conservative Republicans such as Anne Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Gordon Liddy, and Gary Aldrich, not only sling around derogatory terms (a study shows that, when on air, Bill 6 7 8 9

Frank, 2004, p. 1 Frank, 2004, p. 2. Frank, 2004, pp. 13–27. Frank, 2004, p. 17.

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O’Reilly does so every 6.8 seconds, on average, or nearly 9 times every minute), they also have fashioned a narrative of victimhood for Middle America.10 This worldview predominates even when legislatures in Red states such as Kansas, or the U.S. House and Senate, are in the grip of the Republican Party. Somehow, honest, little guys are always betrayed by liberals who control our culture, and the institutions that undermine culture: schools and universities, the fake media, and the Hollywood entertainment industry. Frank reports a bumper sticker at a Kansas gun show that completely reverses the equation between the “little guy” and the two political parties. The bumper sticker proclaims: “Voting for a Democrat is like a chicken voting for Col. Sanders.” Liberals “ridicule the pious, flatter the shiftless, and indoctrinate kids with all sorts of permissive nonsense.”11 The Republican Party thus makes itself out to be both the defender of true American values, and the party of the disrespected, the downtrodden, and forgotten underdogs. Frank claims, “The existence of profound, all-corrupting liberal cultural influence is an absolute ontological necessity if conservatism is to make sense.”12 Only such persistent and converging conspiracy theories could account for the fact that, despite electing Republicans, whites whose plight continues to worsen, continue to blame Democrats for their suffering and turn to Republicans for salvation. Equally important, “Great Backlash” writers and pundits deploy conspiracy theories to obscure the absence of business and economic analyses and explanations from Republican discourse. For these spokespersons, Frank notes, “the operations of business are simply not a legitimate subject of social criticism. In the backlash mind, business is natural; it is normal; it is beyond politics.”13 Only this combination of ignorance and willful obfuscation can account, Frank says, for the willingness of poor whites in Red states to cast ballots against their own interests. As Frank wryly adds, “Apparently, there is no bad economic turn a conservative cannot do unto his buddy in the working class, as long as cultural solidarity has been cemented over a beer.”14

10

11 12 13 14

Mike, Maria Elizabeth Grabe, and Kevin Grieves, “Villains, Victims and the Virtuous in Bill O’Reilly’s ‘No Spin Zone.’ Revisiting World War Propaganda Techniques.” Journalism Studies 8, Issue 4 (2007), 197–223. Online at https:/doi.om/1080/14616700601148820. Accessed Mar. 24, 2018. Frank, 2004, p. 119. Frank, 2004, p. 136, emphasis added. Frank, p. 128. Frank, p. 118

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3 Why Do Republicans Hate Poor Whites? When we turn to the second question embedded in my title, we must remember that the inquiry here concerns what might be motivating many Republicans at a subconscious level. The point is to show that it is possible for a Republican to act on the basis of disdain and scorn for the poor, despite what this person says to the contrary, and even if she consciously believes she is not biased. Thus finding a satisfactory explanation requires a deeper inquiry into unconscious cognitive processes and especially the role of unconscious and automatic reflexive thinking, in contrast to conscious reflective reason. It should be noted, of course, that we can equally well note that some, if not many, Democrats hate the wealthy, especially the one-percent super-wealthy, even if they consciously accept that they are comparatively very well-to-do. It is necessary, therefore, to recognize the distinction between describing why a legislator might act on the basis of covert, unconscious, reflexive inferences, on the one hand, versus whether and to what extent these reflexive inferences, if made reflectively conscious, can be logically and morally justified. In a later section I emphasize the need to subject frames, metaphors, and narratives in politics—insofar as they can be consciously grasped—to the scrutiny of reason and morality; at present, my task is to explain how and why political behavior can be dominated by the unconscious. To conduct this investigation, we must consider how extensively values in politics and positions in the “cultural war” depend on the salience of unconscious scripts, metaphors, frames, and narratives among competing actors. According to George Lakoff in The Political Mind, we need a deeper and more accurate account of why Red state voters so often fail to vote for their economic and social interests.15 Although Lakoff does not discuss Frank specifically, he would say that Frank’s explanation is problematic, and not because it is literally false. Rather, Frank’s explanation depends on an unconscious narrative that most conservative Republicans have jettisoned but liberal Democrats continue to embrace. This unconscious narrative describes reality from a worldview that Lakoff calls “old Enlightenment rationalism.”16 Enlightenment rationalism, like classical economics, maintains that people are rational and seek to maximize, or optimize, their interests. However, people do not, and usually cannot, behave as rational action theorists assume, because thought, including inference, is not just largely unconscious, but also embodied, mythic, metaphorical, and emotional—indeed we cannot be rational if 15 16

George Lakoff, The Political Mind. Lakoff, p. 13.

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we cannot be emotional. The life stories we seek to live out are, like fairy tales, novels, and dramas, complex narratives each consisting of multiple frames involving structured roles, like casts of characters.17 Frames and narratives permeate our lives. By 1975, Charles Fillmore had demonstrated that all words acquire meaning in relation to conceptual frames, or semantic fields; in 1974 Erving Goffman explained why roles in institutions are best understood in terms of frames; and, most recently, Dan McAdams’s work in personality theory demonstrates that we, as individuals, interpret our lives in terms of unfolding stories, or narratives.18 However, frames and narratives are not whimsical or arbitrary; rather, they are the results of the activation of neurological networks in brains. We come into the world with a brain endowed by biology and our evolution to be predisposed to respond in certain ways, but also characterized by “plasticity.” Hence, evoked feelings and repeated experiences, as well as novel impressions, can become embodied in neural circuits as aspects of thought and feeling in both the physical and social realms.19 As neuroscientists say, “Neurons that fire together wire together,” and frequent activation of a neural circuit causes its synapses to fire repeatedly, thus increasing the circuit’s number of receptors for neurotransmitters, thereby making the circuit increasingly robust.20 When it comes to thought, robust circuits are more likely to become conscious, and conscious frames or narratives are like the tips of icebergs: they represent the relatively small part of unconscious circuits that emerge into conscious awareness. However, most frames and metaphors are far from ephemeral. Rooted in the brain’s physical structure—in neural circuity involving neural binding at sites in different parts of the brain—frames and metaphors are ontologically real. Moreover, because each neuron has between 1, 000 and 10,000 incoming and outgoing connections with other neurons, a robust neural circuit, whose synapses are firing, can “recruit” a weaker neural circuit when the synapses of the two fire together.21 This is why a mental frame such as “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people,” will evoke the frame “Only way to stop the bad man with a 17 18

Lakoff, pp. 17–111. See, respectively, Charles Fillmore, “An Alternative to Checklist Theories of Meaning,” in Proceedings of the First Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Linguistics Society, 1974), pp. 123–131; Erving Goffman, Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience (New York: Harper and Row, 1974); Dan P. McAdams, The Redemptive Self: Stories Americans Live By (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006). 19 Lakoff, The Political Mind, p. 10. 20 Lakoff, p. 83. 21 Lakoff, pp. 25–26.

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gun is a good man with a gun,” and their liveliness is likely to recruit a range of frames comprising a conservative worldview, including, perhaps, immigrants are stealing jobs, and cutting corporate taxes and government spending leads to increasing salaries. As neuroscientists also point out, however, because the human brain is a physical system, it works like any other physical system, according to principles of least-energy. Given multiple possibilities, the brain will exhibit a “best fit” position by activating neural pathways that require the least energy.22 This is especially worrisome, first, because alternative neural circuits are mentally inhibiting—when one fires at its synapses, an alternative neural circuit shuts down.23 There is a second concern, especially worrisome for scientists, logicians, philosophers and anyone else concerned about the discovery of truth. As neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky points out, truth-seeking, that is, identifying fallacies, drawing inferences based on facts, and forming explicit and reasonable arguments requires considerable conscious thought, and thus, comprises hard “mental work.”24 “Harder work” is also required in order to respect others as equals and to have empathy for strangers. In a series of studies, Dacher Keltner has shown that, across the socio-economic spectrum, the wealthier people are, the less empathy they report for people in distress and the less compassionately they act.25 Moreover, as Sapolsky says, “wealthier people are less adept at recognizing other people’s emotions and in experimental settings are greedier and more likely to cheat or steal.”26 Unfortunately, good fortune, in terms of socioeconomic success or benefit and higher rank correlate with other widely available frames in our culture; hence, wealthier people are also more likely to endorse greed as being good, to view the class system as being fair and meritocratic, and to view their success as deserved as based on their independent ­efforts—all great ways, as Sapolsky notes, “to decide that someone else’s distress is beneath their notice or concern.”27 Once these frames are integrated into robust brain circuitry, then emphasizing with someone less fortunate is simply too “costly,” that is, it over taxes one’s prefrontal cortex. To make matters 22 23 24

Lakoff, p. 103. Lakoff, pp. 70–73. Robert M. Sapolsky, Behave: The Biology of Humans at our Best and Worst (Penguin Press, 2017), pp. 46–55. 25 Dacher Keltner, Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2009), and Keltner, The Compassionate Instinct: The Science of Goodness (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2010). 26 Sapolsky, Behave, p. 534. 27 Sapolsky, p. 534.

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worse, Lakoff points out that when one no longer experiences her beliefs about her wealth, identity, or morality, and the like, as contested, then one’s views and attitudes are usually underwritten by additional frames supporting the belief that one’s commitments are obviously true, or morally right.28 It is reasonable to ask which comes first: whether miserable, greedy, and unsympathetic, people are more likely to become wealthy or whether increasing wealth also increases the odds of becoming that way?29 As we might expect, heredity and environmental influences are both involved, and in ways that reinforce each other. Some research suggests that heritability plays a part in predisposing an individual to adopt a political orientation.30 However, predispositions end up being shaped and given content from what individuals learn to regard as significant within their environment. Consequently, political and moral frames and narratives depend upon socio-cultural determinants. Research stresses the importance of the family as original source for simple moral frames which continue to be shared among peers and then enlarged and modified throughout life.31 Consequently, child-rearing practices, the structure and functioning of the family, and its economic success and status are enormously important, as well as peer influences during the teen years. Sapolsky asks, “Why are conservatives more concerned with ‘binding [moral] foundations’ like loyalty, authority, and sanctity,” which are “often steppingstones to right-wing authoritarianism and a social dominance orientation?”32 Answering this question fully would require more than can be done here, as it would require showing how differences in values and in political ideology correlate with different stages and processes of individuals’ intellectual and emotional development—for instance, parenting styles, forms of childhood attachment, Kohlberg’s stages of moral development, and much more. Nevertheless, experimental research has begun the project. Researchers have found, for example, that young persons who become conservative are generally more fearful and anxious than those who become more liberal.33 Likewise, those who are conservative continue throughout their lives to have a much lower threshold for disgust than do liberals, and even the behaviors and attitudes of nursey and kindergarten school children turn out to be reliable

28 Lakoff, Political Mind, p. 58 29 Sapolsky, Behave, p. 534. 30 Anna Khan, “Conservative and Liberal Brains May Be Wired Differently.” 31 Lakoff, Political Mind, pp. 55–91. 32 Sapolsky, Behave, p. 450. 33 Sapolsky, p. 452.

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predictors of whether, when they are adults, they will self-identify as Republicans or Democrats.34 Cognitive psychologists at Northwestern University have found that, even in problem solving, “conservatives tend to be more structured, rigid and to prefer clear answers, whereas liberals have a higher tolerance of ambiguity and complexity, and greater openness.”35 In addition, brain imaging studies indicate that persons with liberal attitudes and values tend to have larger amounts of gray matter in the cingulate cortex—an area highly associated with empathy. By contrast, conservatives can be seen to have less development in the cingulate cortex and much more in brain areas associated with concerns about purity, as well as an enlarged amygdala that has, as Sapolsky says, a “starring role in threat perception.”36 Lakoff offers a schematic overview of the way conservativism arises within paternalistic family structures which replicate more or less the same myths, frames, and narratives. Very simple behavioral scripts must be connected and combined with values and beliefs, but Lakoff asserts that the outlines of the basic narrative emerge in early childhood. While the basic narrative is enlarged and refined as life progresses, for most Republicans the core remains basically the same. According to Lakoff the core narrative has the following dominant features. Fathers must be tough because it is a dog-eat-dog world, and supporting one’s family requires that a man ward off the efforts of others to take advantage of him, as well as win in office and public struggles for success. A powerful, nononsense father is also needed to protect his family from evil, a protective role mothers, who are sentimental and less rational, cannot fulfill, given that they were born to be nurturers. Moreover, a strict father is needed because children come into the world in an unregenerate state—doing just what they want to do, and not knowing right from wrong. Again, mothers are too soft, so fathers must punish children when they do wrong. Through punishment children develop an incentive to obey, become responsible for their actions, and thus acquire self-discipline. Thus, a child’s most important obligation is obedience to a strict father-protector, since obedience enables the father to succeed in public and the mother to be a good homemaker. Through identification with fathers, and loyalty to paternal principles, young men acquire the self-discipline 34 35

Sapolsky, p. 452. Carola Salvi, Irene Cristofori, Jordan Grafman, and Mark Beeman, “The Politics of Insight,” The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 69, issue 6, 2016. Online at http://www .tandfonline.com/do/full/10.1088/17470218.2015.1136338. Accessed July 8, 2018. 36 Sapolsky, Behave, p. 454.

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and self-reliance they will need to enter the workforce and win; that is, to become prosperous enough to have their own families.37 In addition to recognizable roles—the strict but upright father, the weak but loving mother, and potentially rebellious children, the conservative narrative comes with a number of built-in assumptions. One assumption is the unconscious but pervasive folk theory of inherent essences, which don’t change over time, and are causal sources of natural behavior. Another assumption concerns natural order. Although individuals come into the world with a predilection for evil, the natural order is itself benign. God presides over the natural world, and governments, fathers, business leaders, and police officers act with legitimate authority in society. Because the neural circuits for these deep assumptions map onto conservative life-narratives, perceived violations of them, e.g., an African American president, a woman running for the highest office, gays allowed to marry, are experienced as threats to conservative Republicans’ worldviews and identities. Additional assumptions made by most conservative Republicans have to do with freedom and capitalism. Although libertarians see themselves as staunch advocates for liberty, they, like socially conservative Republicans, are really thinking of freedom within the confines of order. A woman should not be free to have an abortion without her husband or father’s consent, bi-and transpersons should not be free to use public restrooms of their choice, Black athletes must stand when the national anthem is played, and so forth. A hierarchy of authority is required to maintain order, and, in turn, loyalty and obedience are required from individuals to maintain this social hierarchy. Moreover, no one should be free to do what is disgusting to “every right thinking man.” Freedom is seen as functioning within such an order: as long as you follow the rules within the hierarchy of power, and do not violate basic values you are free to act. Hence we hear claims made by Republicans that are otherwise unintelligible, such as former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani’s assertion that “Freedom is about authority,” and president of the Mormon Church James E. Faust’s claim that, “obedience leads to true freedom. The more we obey revealed truth, the more we become liberated.”38 A major reason why Republicans love big business and the “free market,” has to do with the frames for fairness—big businesses get what they deserve—and the frame for freedom within an ordered system,39 even when this order is 37 Lakoff, Political Mind, pp. 77–81. 38 Both Giuliani and Faust are quoted in Lakoff, Political Mind, pp. 60–61. 39 Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion (New York: Random House, 2012), pp. 150–179.

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more mythical than real. Because the market is itself, natural, it is assumed to be a moral authority, and therefore, should be “free” from government regulation. The market is also, metaphorically, an ordered system, and therefore legitimately confers economic freedom on individual “players,” who as competitors, are free to make money in business in any way the law allows. The market confers status, dominance, and wealth as a matter of “merit.” Moreover, as an individual or nation, one ought to strive to achieve these ends, as President Trump indicated while congratulating the Chinese for becoming an economic powerhouse. Campaigning in Red states, Trump consistently invoked the victimhood narrative, blaming Chinese cheating for the United States’ trade deficit. In Beijing, however, Trump resorted to the frame of merit, blaming the United States for not competing more effectively against China.40 In unconscious Republican thought processes, people are inherently greedy and unscrupulous, although some are potentially redeemable. What is needed, then, is self-disciple imposed through the family, but also hierarchical structures of order such as churches, states, and markets. The free market is also, metaphorically, a legitimate authority making rational decisions (“let the market decide”), and imposing discipline. It rewards those who acquire such discipline and punishes those who do not. Hence, the market is not only a system of hierarchical order, it is also fair and moral. Market outcomes are fair because they are based on desert and merit, and they are moral because they reflect conservative moral foundations: self-reliance, discipline, obedience to authority, loyalty to the system, and disgust over whatever upsets it.41 By the logic, or rather illogic, of this narrative network of frames, if one is not prosperous, then she is not disciplined, and therefore, cannot be fully good or moral, and so she deserves her place in life. Moreover, if one is poor, then he is wholly undisciplined, and therefore wayward and unreformed, or “degenerate”—as it was put by a Republican in Red Carroll County, Maryland, where I live, and therefore, deserves his poverty or marginalization. Moreover, welfare programs won’t work, because they violate Republican fundamental values. If people are given benefits, or “handouts,” they have not earned, then they become dependent, and their capacity to be disciplined will be corrupted along with their capacities to obey legitimate authorities.42 While research shows that Democrats and liberals are generally concerned about harm suffered by the vulnerable and interpret fairness as sharing resources equally, this is not true for Republicans. For the latter, fairness means proportionality and people 40 41 42

See Lakoff, Political Mind, pp. 51–70. Lakoff, pp. 51–70. Lakoff, p. 61.

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should keep what they have won. Whether or not the “poor will always be with us,” care as harm-avoidance and justice cannot compete with legitimate authority, purity, and loyalty among conservative Republicans.43 Note, as well, that there is no place in the grand Republican story-line for a sub-plot about a reversal of fortunes for the formerly prosperous. If former blue collar factory workers and small businessmen are doing poorly since the Great Recession, then this cannot be the fault of Republican policies such as tax-cuts, privatization and deregulation, nor can it be because of market failures.44 Conservative Republicans can’t stop repeating the same tired storylines. You have not tried hard enough, or, tax-cuts haven’t been effective long enough, and it is always due—in whole or part—to the treacheries of Democratic elites, such as “Crooked Hilary.” In bringing this section to an end, it is important to emphasize that most human thought is dominated by unconscious processes. This is true for Democrats as well as Republicans. It takes a concerted mental effort—reflective thinking—to avoid reflexive, pre-programmed conscious thought and behavior. Understanding why most thought occurs in the unconscious also requires an appreciation of how and why metaphors, myths, frames, and narratives are conscious representations of circuitry within the brain, as well as why these brain pathways are so hard to change. As I highlight the plight of the poor, the less-advantaged, and the marginalized in this paper, I focus on conservative Republican frames and narratives precisely because these are most resistant to changes that would improve the plight of this demographic. 4

Charting a More Rational Way Forward

As a result of the foregoing discussion, one might well ask, what are likely to be the consequences of greater conscious and reflective knowledge about the myths and narratives of the unconscious political mind? Obviously, Democrats won’t get very far by confronting Republicans with biologically or psychologically reductionist charges about their worldviews having origins in a hyperwired amygdala, fear of strict fathers, overly strict toilet training, neurological deficits for empathy, or similar claims. First, differences in cognitive processing represent general tendencies within populations of Republicans in contrast to populations of progressives and liberals. Second, and more important, such charges would be ad hominem fallacies based on an inappropriate reductionism. Such jibes would prompt equally rude and pointless counter-charges about 43 Haidt, Righteous Mind, pp. 150–179. 44 Lakoff, Political Mind, p. 52.

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Democrats’ overly permissive parents, tolerance for “disgusting” behavior, over-wrought or bleeding-heart sympathies and lily-livered “cowardice.” Even at a more refined and theoretical level of discourse, it would be extremely difficult to share the narrative about Republicans presented here with any but those especially able to be open, self-reflective and tolerant of uncertainty. We must expect that both Democrats and Republicans, conscious of their responsibilities to defend the Constitution and represent their constituencies, will be exceptionally defensive about the possibility implicit biases and unconscious thought directs much of their political behavior. We have to expect that, because of the powers of unconscious thought, asking a person to engage in reflective thinking about her frames, myths or narratives will result in “dumbfounding,” or blank looks and exclamations that one’s unexamined beliefs are “obvious” or just “common sense.” Just as the eye cannot see itself in its visual field, frames elicited to make experience meaningful are not present as part of that experience. So, what is one to do? At the worst, temptations to exploit the results of cognitive psychology and neurobiology for personal, corporate, and partisan political gain will prevail. Such partisan and self-aggrandizing uses of this research would generate a horrendously fallacious reductionism purporting to show that political positions and views one opposes are anchored in the errant or warped and unregenerate character of one’s opponents. Once such political partisanship is propped up by ignorant and cynical beliefs that it has received some sort of scientific imprimatur, it is likely that people will come to regard such virulent tribalism as inevitable. Perhaps the most promising way to avoid such a disastrous outcome is to adopt as an objective what Lakoff calls the “democratization of knowledge.”45 Lakoff writes, “My goal as a scientist and a citizen is to make the cognitive unconscious as conscious as possible, to make reflexive decisions reflective.”46 Of course, democratizing such scientific knowledge must be undertaken, at least at first, not by Republican politicians or acolytes who presently deny climate change or attempt to gut the Environmental Protection Agency. Rather, the first steps must be taken by those who have become most accustomed to hard thinking, and such folks think most like progressives and liberal. For this reason, efforts to democratize knowledge are likely to be resisted by Republicans who will see such efforts as another liberal “conspiracy,” or guise under which

45 46

Lakoff, p. 19. Lakoff, p. 34.

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liberals will advance a Democratic agenda. Hence, it will be necessary—at least in the short run—for liberals and progressives to prevail at the ballot box. Thus, in the interim, liberals and progressives seeking to counter Republican agendas might adapt another strategy. Lakoff rues the fact that, so far, conservative Republicans have had greater success in activating the images, ideas, symbols, and narratives that have generated robust neural bindings among conservative voters. This is a concern that rests, in part, on research.47 Indeed, President Trump’s program to “Make America Great Again,” like much demagoguery, has been quite successful in appealing to unconscious scenarios as well as legitimizing unfounded biases and delusional hopes. Hence, in response liberal Democrats must develop an agenda that endows justifiable policies with effective links to the cognitive unconscious, and to do so in a way that is honest, truthful, and respects autonomy. Lakoff has taken helpful steps in showing how this can be done through his founding of the Rockridge Institute and his publication of a number of action guides such as the Little Blue Book.48 Some political issues can even be reframed in ways likely to enlist the robust circuitry of conservatives as well as liberals. For instance, in an ingenious experiment at New York University, social psychology doctoral student, Irina Feygina, found a way to bring conservatives and liberals together on global warming. Psychologists framed global warming not as a challenge for government and industry, but as “a threat to the American way of life.” After reading passages that couched environmental action as patriotic, and increasing security and freedom, subjects who displayed traits typical of conservatives were much more likely to sign petitions about preventing oil spills, and protecting the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.49 Likewise, the democratization of knowledge through the teaching of critical reasoning, logic, and the scientific method in K-12 educational programs, as well as universities, should be framed as promoting America’s competiveness in the global economy and increasing national security. If reframing by Democrats is to be undertaken, as I believe it should, then it must meet certain ethical requirements. First, such reframing and re-orienting must be honest, and thereby, respect the autonomy of voters. This means both that liberals and progressives must be forthright about both their ends, or ­objectives, and the means they use, but just as truthful in exposing the framing 47 Haidt, Righteous Mind, pp. 180–216. 48 George Lakoff and Elisabeth Wehling, The Little Blue Book: The Essential Guide to Thinking and Talking Democratic (New York: Free Press, 2012). 49 Emily Laber-Warren, “Unconscious Reactions Separate Liberals and Conservatives,” Scientific American, September 1, 2012. Online at https://www.scientificamerican.com/ article/calling-truce-political-wars. Accessed July 28, 2018.

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and unconscious appeals their Republican contestants are making. Second, reframing must be consistent with the objectives of democratizing knowledge, and this requires that the Democratic position on an issue be justified by the better argument, logically and ethically, and never undertaken merely to win. This is, of course, the same standard that liberals and progressives must expect of conservative Republicans, and as the results of research on the unconscious become more widely available, Republicans who fail to do this in turn, can be shown to be exploiting voters to advance their own, narrow interests. Bibliography Anderson, Carol, “Why Do Republicans Hate America?” Huffington Post, 2017. https:// www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/opinion-anderson-republicans-america_us_ 5a58defe4b04df054f8b0a/. Accessed Mar. 22, 2018. Conway, Mike, Maria Elizabeth Grabe, and Kevin Grieves, “Villains, Victims and the Virtuous in Bill O’Reilly’s ‘No Spin Zone.’ Revisiting World War Propaganda Techniques.” Journalism Studies 8, Issue 4 (2007), 197–223. Online at https:/doi .om/1080/14616700601148820. Accessed Mar. 24, 2018. Devega, Chauncey, “Why Are Republicans So Cruel to the Poor? Paul Ryan’s Profound Hypocrisy Stands for a Deeper Problem.” Salon. March 23, 2017. https://www.salon .com/2017/03/23/why-are-republicans-so-cruel-to-the-poor-paul-ryans-profound -hypocrisy-stands-for-a-deeper-problem/. Accessed Mar. 24, 2018. Fillmore, Charles, “An Alternative to Checklist Theories of Meaning,” Proceedings of the First Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistic Society (Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Linguistic Society, 1975). Frank, Thomas, What’s Wrong with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2004). Goffman, Erving, Frame Analysis: An Essay on the Organization of Experience (New York: Harper and Row, 1974). Haidt, Jonathan, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion (New York: Random House, 2012). Khan, Anna, “Conservative and Liberal Brains May Be Wired Differently,” The Washington Post, November 3, 2014. https://www/washingtonpost.com/national/health -science/conservative-and-liberal-brains-may-be-wired-differently. Accessed July 8, 2018. Keltner, Dacher, Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2009). Keltner, Dacher, The Compassionate Instinct: The Science of Goodness (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2010).

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Krugman, Paul, “Republicans Despise the Working Class,” The New York Times, December 14, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/20/17/12/14/opinion/republicans-working -class-taxes.html. Accessed January 12, 2018. Laber-Warren, Emily, “Unconscious Reactions Separate Liberals and Conservatives,” Scientific American, September 1, 2012. Online at https://www.scientificamerican .com/Article/calling-truce-political-wars/. Accessed June 23, 2018. Lakoff, George, The Political Mind: Why You Can’t Understand 21st-Century American Politics with an 18th-Century Brain (New York: Viking Press, 2008). Lakoff, George and Elisabeth Wehling, The Little Blue Book: The Essential Guide to Thinking and Talking Democratic (New York: Free Press, 2012). McAdams, Dan P., The Redemptive Self: Stories Americans Live By (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006). Rock, Andrea, The Mind at Night: The New Science of How and Why We Dream (New York: Basic Books, 2005). Sapolsky, Robert M., Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst (New York: Penguin Books, 2017). Salvi, Carola, Irene Cristofori, Jordan Grafman, and Mark Beeman. “The Politics of Insight,” The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 69, Issue 6, 2016. Online at http://www.tandfonline.com/do/full/10.1088/17470218.1136338. Accessed July 8, 2018.

Chapter 10

How Mind Viruses and Rhinoceroses Promote Tyranny Paula Smithka 1 Introduction Building on the introduction of memes by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene ([1976]/1989) and the notion of mind viruses, Jeffrey Gold and Niall Shanks provide a biological model for understanding the importance of cultural heterogeneity for a well-balanced society.1 They argue that “dogmatism-inducing” memes promote cultural and ideological homogeneity. Hosts infected with such mind viruses promote intolerance for diverse views, free speech, and other values held by democratic societies. As Dawkins and Gold and Shanks emphasize, memes and mind viruses are genuine biological phenomena. Contemporary neuroscience has shown that neurological changes take place in the brain when exposed to memes.2 In this essay, I argue that the virulent mind viruses present in American society and their “rhinoceros” hosts are threatening civil democracy and promoting tyranny.3 In order to counteract the effects of the cultural and ideological mind viruses trending toward tyranny, a vaccine must be found to boost society’s immunity against such mind viruses in order to preserve a more civil and peaceful democratic society. Gold and Shanks suggest a multi-cultural education can boost society’s immunity. While I agree that a liberal education is primarily the key to fostering cultural and ideological heterogeneity for a well-balanced, civil democratic society, this potential immunological booster is itself being weakened by dogmatism-inducing mind 1 Jeffrey Gold and Niall Shanks, “Mind Viruses and the Importance of Cultural Diversity,” in Alison Bailey and Paula J. Smithka, Community, Diversity, and Difference: Implications for Peace (Amsterdam-New York: Rodopi, 2002), 187–199. 2 See for example, Juan D. Delius, “The Nature of Culture,” first published in The Tinbergen Legacy, ed. by M.S. Dawkins, T.R. Halliday and R. Dawkins (London: Chapman & Hall, 1991; uploaded by the author to https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233820866), accessed July 11, 2017, and David Eagleman, Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain (New York: Vintage Books, 2011); but also Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, 192. 3 I am borrowing from Eugène Ionesco’s play Rhinoceros (1959), in Rhinoceros and Other Plays, trans. Derek Prouse (New York: Grove Press, 1960).

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viruses. A more concerted effort on the part of educators, legislators, and the media is required produce a vaccine of resistance in the form of positive democratic memes, like civility, non-violence, and tolerance, among others, that will boost immunity against the “rhinoceroses” that are eroding the values of democratic society. 2

Memes and Mind Viruses

In The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins introduced the notion of memes as cultural information-bearing units. As the analogue to genes, which are bearers of genetic information, transmitted via replication within populations of organisms, memes are, likewise, information-bearing units that are transmitted from one brain to another. Dawkins characterizes memes in the following way: Examples of memes are tunes, ideas, catch phrases, clothes fashions, ways of making pots or building arches. Just as genes propagate themselves in the gene pool by leaping from body to body via sperms or eggs, so memes propagate themselves in the meme pool by leaping from brain to brain via a process, which, in the broad sense, can be called imitation.4 Memes move from brain to brain through various means of communication: in discourse, letters, books, radio, television, emails, social media, etc. When memes are transmitted, those who receive memes have their neurological patterns altered. This has been shown by studies in neuroscience.5 Dawkins quotes his colleague and neuropsychologist, N.K. Humphrey, on this point: …memes should be regarded as living structures, not just metaphorically but technically. When you plant a fertile meme in my mind you literally parasitize my brain, turning it into a vehicle for the meme’s propagation in just the way that a virus may parasitize the genetic mechanism of a host cell. And this isn’t just a way of talking—the meme, for, say ‘belief in life after death’ is actually realized physically, millions of times over, as a structure in the nervous systems of individual men the world over.6 4 Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 192. 5 See for example, Delius, “The Nature of Culture,” and Eagleman, Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain. 6 Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, 192.

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And neuroscientist Juan Delius characterizes the transfer of cultural traits (memes) as patterns of “activated/inactivated synapses.” He says, “… a given cultural trait borne by an individual is encoded informationally as a particular configuration of modified synapses in his or her brain.”7 Thus, even though memes are not coded in our dna, they produce biological alterations in brains and are not merely metaphorical concepts. Building on Dawkins’ concept of memes as cultural informational units transmitted from mind to mind, Jeffrey Gold and Niall Shanks, in “Mind Viruses and the Importance of Cultural Diversity,” contend mind viruses or informational parasites8 are deleterious to their hosts and manifest themselves in a variety of ways culturally.9 They argue that conformity memes can generate “dogmatism-inducing viruses” which undermine cultural heterogeneity in favor of an ideological homogeneity. Just as organisms are weakened immunologically by genetic homogeneity, so also culture can be weakened in the form of censorship of ideas, according to Gold and Shanks.10 Gold and Shanks further show that, just as genes are successful in transmitting their genetic information when they replicate, so also the success of memes depends upon the spread of their information-content. And, like genes that produce phenotypic effects in organisms, memes manifest themselves “phenotypically” in behavior which then can be imitated by others. According to Gold and Shanks: For example, as a result of acquiring a particular political meme, a person marches in a demonstration, writes a letter to the editor, or organizes a fundraiser. …The outward manifestation of an acquired meme is reflected in changed patterns of behavior; in this case, the desire to take up a particular political cause and all the activities that accompany it.11 So, the success of memetic transmission is the extent to which it manifests itself in the behaviors of others. Dawkins states: [T]he catchier [a tune is] the more likely it is to be copied. If it is a scientific idea, its chances of spreading through the world’s scientific brains 7 8 9 10 11

Delius, “The Nature of Culture,” 82. “Informational parasites” is a phrase Gold and Shanks borrow from Michael Szpir, “Mind Viruses,” American Scientist 83, no. 1 (January-February 1995), 26–27. In Bailey and Smithka, Community, Diversity, and Difference: Implications for Peace (Amsterdam-New York: Rodopi, 2002), 187–199. Gold & Shanks, 193. Gold & Shanks, 189.

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will be influenced by its compatibility with the already established corpus of ideas. If it is a political or religious idea, it may assist its own survival if one of its phenotypic effects is to make its bodies violently intolerant of new and unfamiliar ideas.12 Based on Dawkins’ point regarding intolerance of other ideas, Gold and Shanks develop their notion of a “conformity meme.” Conformity memes undermine cultural diversity and foster hostility to alternative or competing ways of viewing the world; and like genes, typically work within “complexes.” Examples of genecomplexes include those groups of genes working together to produce teeth, claws, digestive systems, etc. in organisms.13 Some examples of meme-complexes are religious and political ideologies.14 Of conformity meme-complexes, Gold and Shanks contend: A clear instance of a particularly powerful conformity meme-complex is the anti-Semitic-memes, which swept through Germany during the 1920s and 1930s. More contemporary U.S. cultural examples of a memecomplexes [sic] are racist meme-complexes, sexist meme-complexes, homophobic meme-complexes and various fundamentalist strains of meme-complexes. What each of these conformity meme-complexes have in common is their intolerance for difference. In each case, a cluster of memes work together in ways that are inhospitable to cultural heterogeneity.15 Not all memes are deleterious. We might argue that memes that promote individual liberty, free speech, and tolerance are just the sort of memes that democratic society should espouse and propagate because they provide the foundation for a peaceful, civil society. However, harmful conformity meme-complexes, or memeplexes,16 like those cited above, have the propensity to become “mind viruses.” Mind viruses are parasitic conformity memeplexes that shut down the host’s ability to rationally consider other points of view, including additional evidence or counter-evidence to one’s position. Mind viruses tend to foster dogmatism and intolerance. Gold and Shanks argue: 12 13 14 15 16

Richard Dawkins, The Extended Phenotype (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1992), 109. Gold & Shanks, 190. Gold & Shanks, 190. Gold & Shanks, 190. Hokky Situngkir, “On Selfish Memes: Culture as Complex Adaptive System,” Journal of Social Complexity 2, no. 1 (October 2004): 20–32.

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Consider any species of conformity memes—mind viruses that generate in their hosts a tendency to cling to particular memes with unshakeable conviction. States of conviction induced by these conformity memes are repeatedly and chronically connected with the dogmatic refusal to hear and to consider evidence for opposing positions.17 Mind viruses are detrimental to their hosts because they “arrest aspects of cognitive development” leading to a kind of “cognitive paralysis” where the host assumes “infallibility” and fails to “utilize their own powers of judgment and discrimination.”18 Like muscles, cognitive abilities become stronger with use. Such “intellectual muscles” are strengthened by “considering and weighing alternatives.”19 Instead, dogmatism-inducing mind viruses curtail free thinking, free speech, and tolerance, generating homogenized thinking. When this happens, civility and peaceful co-existence between people who hold differing views is threatened. On a larger scale, homogenized thinking in society produces factions, or tribes, in which allegiance is more important than facts or truth, and divergent views, are censored or even silenced sometimes by violent means. Such cultural and ideological homogeneity can lead to tyranny. I contend that American democratic society under the Trump administration is trending toward tyranny. 3 Rhinoceroses In Eugène Ionesco’s absurdist play, Rhinoceros (1959), people who have succumbed to propaganda turn into rhinoceroses. These people’s cognitive abilities have been arrested; they have become infected with a mind virus. Ionesco’s play draws on his experiences in Romania during WWII, where friends and colleagues yielded to Nazi propaganda, becoming sympathizers or Nazis themselves. Timothy Snyder quotes Ionesco as saying: University professors, students, intellectuals were turning Nazi, becoming Iron Guards, one after the other. At the beginning, certainly they were not Nazis. About fifteen of us would get together to talk and to try to find arguments opposing theirs. It was not easy. … From time to time, one of our friends said: ‘I don’t agree with them, to be sure, but on certain points, 17 18 19

Gold & Shanks, 192. Gold & Shanks, 192–193. Gold & Shanks, 193.

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nevertheless, I must admit, for example, the Jews…,’ etc. And this was a symptom. Three weeks later, this person would become a Nazi. He was caught in the mechanism, he accepted everything, he became a rhinoceros. Towards the end, only three or four of us were still resisting.20 As a mind virus continues to spread, the increasing pressure of the conformity memeplex becomes difficult for many to resist. It is easier to be a part of the “herd”—think Nietzsche—than to be an individual. In the herd, one is not alone; one has shared values with others and can simply accept the mores of the group, without having to think too much on one’s own. Peer pressure can be psychologically overwhelming. Propaganda, with its effective means of spreading mind viruses, alters the neuro-pathways in the brains of those exposed to conformity memes and changes their ways of thinking; their thought becomes homogenized and intolerant of different viewpoints. These people have become rhinoceroses and part of the herd. In the play, Ionesco’s characters, one by one, turn into rhinoceroses. Daisy and Dudard, co-workers of the main character, Berenger, show up at Berenger’s apartment after other coworkers and their boss have turned into rhinoceroses. The conversation shows their weakening resistance to the conformity memeplexes. DAISY [to Berenger]: You get used to it, you know. Nobody seems surprised any more to see herds of rhinoceroses galloping through the streets. They just stand aside, and then carry on as if nothing had happened. DUDARD: It’s the wisest course to take. BERENGER: Well I can’t get used to it. DUDARD [reflectively] I wonder if one oughtn’t to give it a try?21 After seeing a herd of rhinoceroses running through the street and the firemen, now also rhinoceroses, Dudard says, “There aren’t enough of us left anymore.”22 He succumbs: DUDARD: …I feel it’s my duty to stick by my employers and my friends, through thick and thin. 20 21 22

Eugène Ionesco, quoted in Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (New York: Tim Duggan Books, 2017), 69–70. Eugène Ionesco, Rhinoceros (1959) in Rhinoceros and Other Plays, trans. Derek Prouse (New York: Grove Press, 1960), 91. Ionesco, 92.

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BERENGER: It’s not as if you were married to them. DUDARD: I’ve renounced marriage. I prefer the great universal family to the little domestic one. DAISY [softly]: We shall miss you a lot, Dudard, but we can’t do anything about it. DUDARD: It’s my duty to stick to them; I have to do my duty. BERENGER: No you’re wrong, your duty is to … you don’t see where your real duty lies … your duty is to oppose them, with a firm, clear mind.23 Dudard’s thought process has been altered by the conformity memeplex. He has a mind virus and becomes part of a “great universal family,” the herd. Subsequently, we see Daisy beginning to surrender to the mind virus, characterizing herself and Berenger as “the ones who need saving” and the “abnormal ones,” while Berenger encourages resistance.24 But the call of the herd is strong: DAISY: Those are the real people. They look happy. They’re content to be what they are. They don’t look insane. They look very natural. They were right to do what they did. BERENGER: [clasping his hands and looking despairingly at Daisy] We’re the ones who are doing right, Daisy, I assure you.25 While resistance to conformity memeplexes is not futile, it is difficult.26 Even Berenger, in a momentary lapse, laments not being part of the herd. He states: BERENGER: …I’ve only myself to blame; I should have gone with them while there was still time. Now it’s too late! Now I’m a monster, just a monster. Now I’ll never become a rhinoceros, never, never! [He turns his back on the mirror.] I’m so ugly! People who try to hang on to their individuality always come to a bad end.27 But then the hero’s resistance is restored: 23 24 25 26

27

Ionesco, 93. Ionesco, 103. Ionesco, 103. “Resistance is futile” is a phrase used by the Borg when they encounter other alien species who will be “assimilated.” See for example, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Season 5, episode 23, “i, Borg,” Robert Lederman, director, René Echevarria, writer, aired May 11, 1992, syndicated, dvd. Ionesco, 107.

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BERENGER: Oh well, too bad! I’ll take on the whole of them! I’ll put up a fight against the lot of them, the whole lot of them! I’m the last man left, and I’m staying that way until the end. I’m not capitulating!28 People who have become rhinoceroses through the infection of a mind virus, tend to behave in ways that support and reinforce the homogenized thinking of the herd. The behavior of the host is the means of transmission of that mind virus via imitation by others. Such rhinoceros behavior is reflected in the hyper-polarization of the political parties in America. In the op-ed piece, “The Party of Lincoln is Now the Party of Trump,” Thomas B. Edsall shows that loyalty to party, despite dissatisfaction with the then-candidate Trump, reflects a kind of tribalism, or herd mentality. Edsall cites political scientist Alex Theodoridis who claims, “Republicans identify, at a deep psychological level, more strongly with their party than do Democrats.”29 According to Theodoridis: The evidence is rather clear that the modern hyper-polarization is far more characterized by tribal division than by ideological distance. The real story seems to be the growing us-versus-them, in-group/out-group dynamic.30 Edsall further quotes Theodoridis: Partisanship for many Americans today takes the form of a visceral, even subconscious, attachment to a party group. Our party becomes a part of our self-concept in deep and meaningful ways.31 Thus, it is more important to dislike the other party and to be part of the tribe than to maintain ideological purity. As Ionesco’s character, Dudard, pointed out: “It’s my duty to stick to them; I have to do my duty.” These people have 28 29

30 31

Ionesco, 107. Alex Theodoridis, political scientist at University of California-Merced, quoted by Thomas B. Edsall, “The Party of Lincoln is Now the Party of Trump,” New York Times (October 26, 2017), accessed October 26, 2017, (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/26/opinion/republicans -trump.html). Alex Theodoridis quoted by Thomas B. Edsall, “The Party of Lincoln is Now the Party of Trump,” New York Times (October 26, 2017), accessed October 26, 2017, (https://www .nytimes.com/2017/10/26/opinion/republicans-trump.html). Edsall takes this Theodoridis quote from a blog post in Scientific American in November 2016 cited in his “The Party of Lincoln is Now the Party of Trump,” New York Times (October 26, 2017), accessed October 26, 2017, (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/26/opinion/ republicans-trump.html).

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become rhinoceroses whose behavior spreads the herd’s (or tribe’s) homogenized ways of thinking. 4

Dangerous Memes and Mind Viruses

Timothy Snyder, in his poignant and relevant little book written for popular culture, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (2017) gives us an important lens through which to view what is currently happening in the United States both socially and politically. He states: You submit to tyranny when you renounce the difference between what you want to hear and what is actually the case. This renunciation of reality can feel natural and pleasant, but the result is your demise as an individual—and thus the collapse of any political system that depends upon individualism.32 Like Ionesco’s rhinoceroses, many people in American society today are accepting what they want to hear and not what is actually the case. They are being infected by conformity memeplexes forming mind viruses that sometimes manifest in intolerant and violent behavior of their hosts. Crucially, these mind viruses become more virulent as “truth dies,” moving us toward tyranny.33 Citing Victor Klemperer, a literary scholar who criticized Nazi propaganda, Snyder claims “truth dies in four modes.”34 Here, I focus on two of those four modes: lies and shamanistic incantation.35 4.1 Lies The first mode is “the open hostility to verifiable reality, which takes the form of presenting inventions and lies as if they were facts.”36 Snyder reports that 78% of then-candidate Trump’s purported “factual claims” during the 2016 campaign were false.37 And apparently, Trump has an admiration for the “big 32 33 34 35 36 37

Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (New York: Tim Duggan Books, 2017), 66. Snyder, 66. Snyder, 66. The other two modes are “magical thinking or the open embrace of contradiction” and “misplaced faith” in which people put faith in the leader’s ability to fix or solve problems, Snyder, pp. 67–68. Snyder, 66. Snyder, 66.

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lies.” In “Trump Isn’t Hitler. But the Lying…”, Charles M. Blow characterizes Trump’s strategy as, “Tell a lie bigger than people think a lie can be, thereby forcing their brains to seek truth in it, or vest some faith in it, even after no proof can be found.”38 This is something that Hitler understood well. Blow provides the following in his article: According to James Murphy’s translation of Hitler’s “Mein Kampf”: In the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; … in the primitive simplicity of their minds [of the masses] they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods.39 Blow points out that Trump couches his lies in phrases like “That’s what I was told,” when asked about his claim that President Obama and other Presidents did not call the families of soldiers who had been killed. This makes Trump a “projector” and not a “producer” of lies according to Blow. However, one of the most disturbing points made in Blow’s article was his citation of a 1990 Vanity Fair interview with Ivana, Trump’s first wife, which reported that she: “told her lawyer Michael Kennedy that from time to time her husband reads a book of Hitler’s collected speeches, ‘My New Order,’ which he keeps in a cabinet by his bed.”40 This suggests that Trump’s lies are a deliberate strategy for political and social ends. Blow characterizes it as the “weaponizing of untruth.”41 And, social media facilitates the propagation of untruths. Advancements in technology make it difficult for the average news consumer to verify reliable news sources in part because such “news” is spread at an exponential rate.42 4.2 Shamanistic Incantation: Spreading Memes The second way in which truth dies is through “shamanistic incantation.” ­Snyder states, “As Klemperer noted, the fascist style depends upon “endless 38

Charles M. Blow, “Trump Isn’t Hitler. But the Lying…” New York Times (October 19, 2017), accessed October 24, 2017, (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/19/opinion/trump-isnthitler-but-the-lying.html). 39 Quoted in Blow. 40 Blow. 41 Blow. 42 See for e.g. Natalia Osipova and Aaron Byrd, “How Russian Bots and Trolls Invade our Lives—and Elections,” New York Times (November 10, 2017), accessed December 9, 2017, (https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000005414346/how-russian-bots-andtrolls-invade-our-lives-and-elections.html).

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r­epetition,” designed to make the fictional plausible and the criminal desirable.”43 Repetition of catchy phrases in the media, in conversations, etc. is an effective means of meme-transmission. Consider the often-repeated campaign slogan, “Build the wall!”. Each use generates new pathways in the brains of new-listeners and reinforces the pathways already forged in the brains of previous hearers, potentially forming a “habitual” use of that pathway. This meme does not come alone; it is part of a memeplex concerning illegal immigration, loss of American jobs and rampant abuse of the educational or healthcare system by illegals, etc. This mind virus parasitizes susceptible brains, manifesting itself in intolerance and prejudice toward immigrants. Further consider Trump’s endless repetition of name-calling memes: “Lyin’ Ted” and “Crooked Hillary.” These memes are part of memeplexes concerning the reputations and character of Cruz and Clinton. And, in Clinton’s case, the suggested criminal behavior associated with her emails led to the often employed, “Lock her up!” meme. It does not matter whether the claims are true; the endless repetition of the meme turns out to undermine any need for investigation because of the “illusion of truth.” Neuroscientist David Eagleman characterizes the illusion-oftruth effect this way: [Y]ou are more likely to believe that a statement is true if you have heard it before—whether or not it is actually true. … [Experimenters] found a clear result: if subjects had heard a sentence in previous weeks, they were more likely to now rate it as true, even if they swore they had never heard it before. This is the case even when the experimenter tells the subjects that the sentences they are about to hear are false: despite this, mere exposure to an idea is enough to boost its believability upon later contact. The illusion-of-truth effect highlights the potential danger for people who are repeatedly exposed to the same religious edicts or political slogans.44 The repetition of same words or phrases makes them seem to be true—to our brains. This is how a mind virus is contracted. Host organisms do not bother to seek a larger conceptual framework within which these memeplexes reside, which might prove the seemingly true claims false.45 They have become rhinoceroses. 43 44 45

Snyder, 66–67. David Eagleman, Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain (New York: Vintage Books, 2011), 65. See Snyder, 62.

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Manifesting Mind Viruses: American Rhinoceroses and the Threat to Civil Society

A stable and civil liberal democracy is maintained by the ability to overcome the polarizing and intolerant forces that foster homogenized thinking in the form of conformity memeplexes that become mind viruses. Resistance to such mind viruses is bolstered through dialogue, education, and compromise, which engender divergent thinking and fosters cultural heterogeneity. As Gold and Shanks have argued, it is just such cultural heterogeneity that promotes a healthy society—one where tolerance, civility, and non-violence may prevail. We are experiencing the spread of mind viruses in the United States that threaten social stability. Hyper-polarization, to use Theodoridis’ term, permeates social, political, and educational aspects of our democracy fueling intolerance, which is being manifested in both linguistic and physical violence. 5.1 Intolerance Intolerance for others’ views is just the sort of mind virus that creates rhinoceroses whose behavior is threatening the right of free speech. When President Trump disagrees with what the news media says, he calls the claims “lies” or “fake news.”46 A hallmark of a tyrannical society is one that controls the news media and Trump threatened to open up libel laws against the news media at a February 2016 rally in Texas.47 Hitler certainly controlled news outlets; and current examples of such state control of media exist in China and Russia. Nevertheless, in the United States, the First Amendment to the Constitution provides for a free press. Intolerance for divergent views has threatened the free speech of controversial political figures who have been booed or disinvited from, of all places, college campuses. It is on college campuses that one would expect open and respectful dialogue, despite disagreeing with the views presented, because they are paradigm microcosms of cultural heterogeneity both in terms of population and ideas. However, anti-intellectualism seems to be on the rise at universities. Fareed Zakaria stated:

46 47

See e.g., Charles M. Blow, “Trump Isn’t Hitler. But the Lying…” New York Times (October 19, 2017). Jeff Horwitz, Associated Press, pbs Newshour (February 27, 2016), accessed October 24, 2017, (https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-threatens-to-weaken-first-amendment -protections-for-reporters).

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American universities these days seem committed to every kind of diversity except intellectual diversity. … The campus talk police have gone after serious conservative thinkers like Heather McDonald and Charles Murray, as well as firebrands like Milo Yiannopoulos and Anne Coulter. Some were disinvited, others booed, interrupted and intimidated. It’s strange that this is happening on college campuses that promise to give their undergraduates a liberal education.48 Free speech is about protecting the right of those to speak their views, even if you find their views offensive. Being “offended” is not the same thing as being “harmed.” Joel Feinberg characterizes “offense” as “the whole miscellany of universally disliked mental states” that include “disgust, shame, hurt, anxiety, etc.”49 I might disagree with, and even hate, the views of someone like Anne Coulter, and listening to them might put me in a “disliked mental state,” but I have not been harmed by those words in the sense of having my interests set back.50 Free speech and free thought is at the heart of Western liberal society and must be protected even if we do not like what is said or the ideas presented. Zakaria states: Freedom of speech and thought is not just for warm, fuzzy ideas that we find comfortable. It’s for ideas that we find offensive.51 Intolerance of ideas exists on both sides of the political spectrum. While Democrats tend to see themselves as more tolerant and Republicans close-minded, according to a 2016 Pew study, “each side scores about the same in terms of close mindedness and hostility to hearing contrarian views. And large segments on both sides consider the other to be immoral, lazy, dishonest and

48 49 50 51

Fareed Zakaria, “What in the World” segment of gps, aired May 28, 2017 on cnn. http:// transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1705/28/fzgps.01.html. https://archive.org/details/ CNNW_20170528_170000_Fareed_Zakaria_GPS. Joel Feinberg, Offense to Others (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 1. Feinberg outlines a host of very offensive behaviors in the “bus ride” scenarios. See pp. 10–24 for the cases and analyses of them. Feinberg allows that some offensive acts may be wrongful but they are right-violating actions and he claims that when there are offensive crimes, they “should always be misdemeanors, never felonies,” 4. “What in the World” segment of gps, aired May 28, 2017 on cnn. http://transcripts.cnn. com/TRANSCRIPTS/1705/28/fzgps.01.html. https://archive.org/details/CNNW_20170528 _170000_Fareed_Zakaria_GPS.

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unintelligent.”52 If there is no dialogue, there can be no learning and no understanding. Zakaria claimed: Listening to other contradictory views will teach us all something and sharpen our own views. One of the greatest dangers in life whether it be in business or government, is to get trapped in a bubble of group-think and never ask, what if I’m wrong? What is the best argument on the other side?53 He is right. Getting trapped in a “bubble of group-think” is to become a rhinoceros. And some rhinoceroses have committed acts of linguistic or physical violence. 5.2 Linguistic Violence The frequently used ad hominem memes by Trump, like “Lyin’ Ted,” “Crooked Hillary,” and more recently, “Little Rocket Man” to describe North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-Un, have gone “viral,” infecting the brains of listeners. They are also instances of linguistic violence. William C. Gay characterizes linguistic violence as language that causes hurt or harm. And, relying on Newton Garver’s distinctions between overt and covert, as well as personal and institutional violence, Gay contends linguistic violence is covert institutional violence, assuming that language is an institution, and the harm produced is more psychological than physical.54 Linguistic violence is aggressive and oppressive, as well as disrespectful. Gay appeals to James Scott who refers to prestige as “the public face of domination.”55 As president of the United States, Trump wields both personal and institutional power, embodying the “public face of domination.” His words are aggressive, oppressive, frequently disrespectful, and even threatening. The name-calling maligns the character of Cruz and Clinton, is disrespectful to a leader of another country, despite what we may think of Kim Jong-Un, and threatening: “North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States… They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.”56 As a result of the effective propagation of these linguistically violent 52 Zakaria, gps, May 28, 2017. 53 Zakaria, gps, May 28, 2017. 54 William C. Gay, “Linguistic Violence.” Institutional Violence, eds. Robert Litke and Deane Curtin (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1999), 14. 55 Gay, 21. 56 Glenn Thrush and Peter Baker, “Trump’s Threat to North Korea Was Improvised,” New York Times (August 9, 2017), accessed October 28, 2017, (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/09/ us/politics/trump-north-korea.html).

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memes, Trump has amassed a great deal of linguistic capital,57 which has reinforced his brand of politics, facilitated the spread of conformity memeplexes, and helped to create rhinoceroses whose behavior frequently imitates such linguistic violence.58 5.3 Physical Violence Mind viruses can affect persons on both sides of the political spectrum and turn their hosts into rhinoceroses, some of whom exhibit physical violence. Two such cases that effectively illustrate this point are “Pizzagate” and the James Hodgkinson shooting incident. In the first case, Edgar Welch fired a weapon in the Comet Ping Pong pizza restaurant in Washington, DC, on December 4, 2016, in response to Internet rumors about Democrats harboring child sex slaves at the restaurant. The owner, James Alefantis, and his employees had received threatening texts and messages alleging that the restaurant was the home base of a child-abuse ring led by Hillary Clinton and her campaign manager, John D. Podesta. Cecilia Kang reported in her New York Times article that when Alefantis investigated the rumors online: He found dozens of made-up articles about Mrs. Clinton kidnapping, molesting and trafficking children in the restaurant’s back rooms. The articles appeared on Facebook and on websites such as The New Nationalist and The Vigilant Citizen, with one headline blaring: ‘Pizzagate: How 4Chan Uncovered the Sick World of Washington’s Occult Elite.’59 Kang also reported that the conjecture that there was a Democratic child-trafficking ring “was a theory long held by some conservative blogs” and that the connection between the Democratic party and the child-abuse ring “jumped to other social media services such as Twitter and Reddit, where it gained 57 58

59

See Gay, 18. One might ask whether Trump himself is a rhinoceros. I think that is unclear. A rhinoceros is one who accepts conformity memplexes; one who is infected by the homogenous thinking of the herd. Just as Trump was a “projector” rather than “producer” of some lies, according to Blow, he seems to be a “projector” of linguistic violence. He has “weaponized” untruth, so also, he seems to have “weaponized” the ad hominem. Even with other lies, according to Blow, Trump uses them strategically, so I am not confident he genuinely accepts, or cognitively espouses, the some of the views he presents as related here, but they serve as effective tools to create rhinoceroses. Cecilia Kang, “Fake News Onslaught Targets Pizzeria as Nest of Child-Trafficking,” New York Times, (November 21, 2016), accessed July 12, 2017, (https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/ technology/fact-check-this-pizzeria-is-not-a-child-trafficking-site.html?_r=0).

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momentum on the page “The Donald.” A new Reddit discussion thread called “Pizzagate” quickly attracted 20,000 subscribers.”60 This case demonstrates just how dangerous (genuine) fake news can be. These Internet rumors are clear instances of the “weaponizing of untruth.” Welch believed these lies; they seemed true to his brain, due in part, to the illusion-of-truth effect and as a result of “shamanistic incantation.” In this climate of hyper-polarization and increased tribalism, the endless repetition of lies parasitizes people’s brains; they contract mind viruses and some, like Welch, become rhinoceroses who act violently. Another violent rhinoceros was James Hodgkinson of Belleville, Illinois. He shot Steve Scalise, House Majority Whip, on June 14, 2017 while Scalise and others were practicing for a Congressional baseball game, which is an annual charity event at Eugene Simpson Stadium Park in Alexandria, VA. Hodgkinson was a Bernie Sanders supporter who vehemently opposed Trump. In their New York Times article, Michael D. Shear, Adam Goldman, and Emily Cochrane report that Hodgkinson “signed an online petition calling for the president to be impeached, posting it on Facebook with a chilling comment: “It’s time to destroy Trump & co.” and posted a picture of Bernie Sanders on a LinkedIn page with the words, “The Dawn of a New Democracy.””61 Gold and Shanks have pointed out that mind viruses are detrimental to their hosts. Welch is serving four years in prison and Hodgkinson is dead. But the spread of such mind viruses with their manifestation in intolerant and linguistically and physically violent behavior by their rhinoceros hosts is undermining the civility, stability, and security of American democratic society. The continued proliferation of lies by the President and by (genuine) fake news, together with the shamanistic incantation of deleterious memes, and the illusion of truth effect, undermines people’s ability to discern what is true, fostering intolerance for diverse views. Couple this with increased nationalistic tendencies (“America, first!”) and isolationism, and we have a recipe for tyranny. To counteract this trend toward tyranny, we need to find a vaccine against the mind viruses infecting so many. Gold and Shanks recommend a multicultural education as the vaccine to boost “memetic immunity.”62 But what is the potency of this vaccine? 60 Kang. 61 Michael D. Shear, Adam Goldman and Emily Cochrane, “Congressman Steve Scalise Gravely Wounded in Alexandria Baseball Field Ambush,” New York Times (June 14, 2017), accessed July 12, 2017, (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/14/us/steve-scalise-congressshot-alexandria-virginia.html). 62 Gold & Shanks, 197–198.

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The Hope of a Vaccine against Tyranny and the Threat to It

Gold and Shanks remind us that vaccines do not stop infection, but they boost immunity by enhancing the immune system’s response to infection. They state: The type of memetic homogeneity renders a given individual susceptible to invasion by a mind virus frequently arises from ignorance of cultural diversity. We believe appropriate memetic immune responses generated through the internalization of multicultural information, emphasize tolerance with respect to difference.63 Thus, a multicultural education can help to “dispel myths about people who are different from oneself” and eliminate “the fear that turns into hatred.”64 Since fear is one of the primary means by which the mind viruses of racism, sexism, and ethnic hatred are propagated, a multicultural education committed to tolerance and respect can help to inoculate against them.65 So, populations whose members have a solid multicultural education will be less likely to have brains parasitized by mind viruses. But such a liberal education, particularly in the form of public higher education is under attack. There is a “battle to disrupt and reform America’s public universities.”66 6.1 The Attack on Public Higher Education: Anti-intellectualism While the attack on university education, particularly by the right wing is not new, the recent threats are much more systemically advanced. Richard Hofstadter, in Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (1963), identified and characterized various attacks on an intellectual life. Hofstadter characterizes “anti-intellectualism” this way: The common strain that binds together the attitudes and ideas which I call anti-intellectual is a resentment and suspicion of the life of the mind and of those who are considered to represent it; and a disposition constantly to minimize the value of that life.67 63 64 65 66 67

Gold & Shanks, 197. Gold & Shanks, 198. Gold & Shanks, 198. Starving the Beast: The Battle to Disrupt and Reform America’s Public Universities, written and directed by Steve Mims (Violet Crown Films/Railyard Films Production, 2016). Richard Hofstadter, Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1963), 3.

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He distinguishes between being “intelligent” and being “intellectual.” Intelligence is respected for the more practical sorts of achievements in business or technology. Being an “intellectual” entailed the ability to think critically, analyze, and perhaps most importantly, question and criticize. While McCarthyism was primarily responsible for attacks on intellectualism,68 the political right harbored the most hatred for an intellectual life. Hofstadter states: Far more acute and sweeping was the hostility to intellectuals expressed on the far right-wing, a categorical folkish dislike of educated classes and of anything respectable, established, pedigreed, or cultural… The rightwing crusade of the 1950’s was full of heated rhetoric about ‘Harvard professors, twisted thinking intellectuals…’69 Recently, that disdain has become a systematic assault on public higher education. The long-standing democratic value that higher education is a public good, held by Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Abraham Lincoln, among others, is being over-taken by a mind virus that considers public universities and the liberal education they offer a drain on public monies. Public higher education is “the problem.” Andrew Ferguson of The Weekly Standard is quoted as saying, “… no one in Texas knew [that education reform] was an issue until [Governor Rick] Perry decided to make it one.”70 6.2 The Attack on Public Higher Education: Disruptive Innovation In 2008 there was a general call for a complete overhaul of public education. The “game plan” was to place public universities on the fast track for disruption. Disruptive Innovation is a way in which new technologies do a job that is well-established in a cheaper, more cost-effective way, but at the same time not maintaining the overall quality of the product.71 Disruptive innovation is being applied to public universities. One of the major advocates for disruption and reform in public higher education is Jeff Sandefer, founder of the Acton School of Business. He approached the government of Texas advocating reform in the way universities operate, suggesting they adopt a free market economy model. Teaching, tenure, state and federal funding should be tied to student feedback 68 69 70 71

Hofstadter, 3. Hofstadter, 12. Starving the Beast. A classic example in business was the development of Japanese steel. The quality was not up to that of American steel, but consumers opted for cost-savings over quality. The result was that the long-established and successful American steel industry was undermined. (Starving the Beast.)

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and measurement outcomes. Sandefer proposed the “Seven Solutions” which separated out the teaching mission from the budget and research.72 Revenue mattered, not intellectual value. During the interview for Starving the Beast, in the context of discussing what he considers priceless and “really valuable” with regard to education, Sandefer says this concerning the Humanities: I don’t think the professors of humanities anywhere have proven without a doubt that their work is so priceless that it should be preserved. Shakespeare—I agree. Faulkner—maybe; not a big fan, but we can argue. To self-anoint yourself as being so valuable you can’t be measured by readers and scholars and people through the ages, I think that’s presumptuous. And, as a taxpayer, I think I have the right, or a parent, or a student paying tuition, I should get a right to say whether I want my money going to you or not.73 So, since higher education is not considered a public good but a commodity to be purchased, taxpayers should not be held responsible for supporting public institutions of higher learning. Instead, a mind virus reinforcing a systematic de-investment of higher education and a devaluation of the humanities is spreading. 6.3 De-investment and Devaluation in Public Higher Education De-investment comes in the form of repeated cuts to state appropriations that support public higher education. These cuts are in part due to tax cuts for corporations that allegedly stimulate growth, but typically have not facilitated increased state revenues, so states do not have monies to fund higher education. For example, in the case of Louisiana State University, in 2008, 75% of lsu’s support came from state appropriations but was reduced to 13.5% nine years later.74 These cuts force public universities to look for other ways to generate money, mainly by shifting the cost to students in the form of tuition hikes, but also changing the way they offer learning with increased pressure to move to online programs.75

72 73 74 75

Starving the Beast. Jeff Sandefer, in Starving the Beast. Starving the Beast. And, if a university president is disinclined to embrace such “innovation,” she may be fired by the governing board, as in the case of Teresa Sullivan, President of the University of Virginia, because she “didn’t have a vision,” and was not acting “boldly enough.” She was, however, reinstated. (Starving the Beast).

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Devaluation of the humanities typically comes in the form program cuts, as in the recent case of University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point proposing to cut thirteen majors and emphasize more “job-oriented” majors.76 However, it is typically from the humanities that students learn critical thinking skills, gain exposure to diverse ways of thinking, analyze points of view, and participate in an intellectual life. And, it is in the humanities where positive democratic memes such as tolerance, respect for free speech, and diversity can be fostered, which help promote civility and non-violence, thereby providing some immunity against the mind viruses pushing us toward tyranny. 7

Conclusion: How to Rescue the Vaccine from a Mind Virus?

Gold and Shanks prescribed a multicultural education as a way to inoculate against the spread of mind viruses. But a virulent mind virus called disruptive innovation is attacking public higher education, once valued as a public good for enhancing the quality of society, turning it into a commodity that should be privatized. Merabow Lamar claimed, “A cultivated mind is the guardian genius of democracy.”77 If that is the case, democracy is, indeed, threatened. These “cultivated minds,” as well as other concerned citizens, must resist, despite the social, political, and sometimes economic pressures, the mind viruses which produce rhinoceroses who sometimes engage in violent behavior and facilitate tyranny. Such resistance must come in the form non-violent, civil campaigns against intolerance, linguistic and physical violence, by propagating positive memeplexes that foster respect, tolerance for diversity, and a willingness to work together for the sake of “a more perfect union.” How should this vaccine be delivered? Educators have a responsibility to facilitate the transmission of these positive memeplexes in their classrooms by stressing the value of being able to think critically and to evaluate sources and evidence. They must work to counteract the forces of disruptive innovation by supporting the foundational values on which universities, and public education more generally, have been built. The media, both in the form of classical news outlets as well as social media platforms, have a responsibility to avoid propagating “fake news” and to 76

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Colleen Flaherty, “A Different Kind of University,” Inside Higher Ed. (March 13, 2018), accessed March 13, 2018, (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/03/13/faculty -members-wisconsin-stevens-point-react-plan-cut-13-majors#.WqfYu2O0dBk.email).  Wisconsin had already done away with tenure in 2015. Starving the Beast.

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help provide the public with that larger conceptual framework within which they can evaluate claims as a means to diminish the “illusion of truth” effect. Finally, elected officials need to protect the “soft guardrails” which deter partisan fighting, namely the taken-for-granted democratic norms of “mutual toleration” and “forbearance” that hold America’s checks and balances in place, which are weakening as a result of extreme partisan polarization, according to Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt.78 These nonviolent strategies I have suggested can contribute to boosting immunity against the mind viruses which produce rhinoceroses whose behavior threatens civil society and to counteract the trend toward tyranny. Bibliography Blow, Charles M. “Trump Isn’t Hitler. But the Lying…” New York Times, October 19, 2017. Accessed October 24, 2017..https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/19/opinion/trump-isnt -hitler-but-the-lying.html. Ciurczak, Ellen. “USM Grapples With Hard Financial Times.” Hattiesburg American, November 8–9, 2017. Print. Dawkins, Richard. The Extended Phenotype. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1992. Dawkins, Richard. The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989. Delius, Juan D. “The Nature of Culture.” In The Tinbergen Legacy, edited by M.S. Dawkins, T.R. Halliday and R. Dawkins. London: Chapman & Hall, 1991. Uploaded by the author to researchgate.net. Accessed July 11, 2017. https://www.researchgate.net/ publication/233820866. Eagleman, David. Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain. New York: Vintage Books, 2011. Edsall, Thomas B. “The Party of Lincoln is Now the Party of Trump.” New York Times, October 26, 2017. Accessed October 26, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/26/ opinion/republicans-trump.html. Feinberg, Joel. Offense to Others. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. Flaherty, Colleen. “A Different Kind of University.” Inside Higher Ed., March 13, 2018. Accessed March 13, 2018. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/03/13/faculty -members-wisconsin-stevens-point-react-plan-cut-13-majors#.WqfYu2O0dBk. email. Gay, William C. “Linguistic Violence.” In Institutional Violence, edited by Robert Litke and Deane Curtin, 13–35. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1999.

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Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt. How Democracies Die (New York: Crown Publishing, 2018), 8–9, 97–117.

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Gold, Jeffrey and Niall Shanks. “Mind Viruses and the Importance of Cultural Diversity.” In Community, Diversity, and Difference: Implications for Peace, edited by Alison Bailey and Paula J. Smithka, 187–199. Amsterdam-New York: Rodopi, 2002. Hofstadter, Richard. Anti-Intellectualism in American Life. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1963. Horwitz, Jeff, Associated Press. PBS Newshour, February 27, 2016. Accessed October 24, 2017 . https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-threatens-to-weaken-first -amendment-protections-for-reporters. Ionesco, Eugène. Rhinoceros (1959). In Rhinoceros and Other Plays. Translated by Derek Prouse. New York: Grove Press, 1960. Kang, Cecilia. “Fake News Onslaught Targets Pizzeria as Nest of Child-Trafficking.” New York Times, November 21, 2016. Accessed July 12, 2017. https://www.nytimes .com/2016/11/21/technology/fact-check-this-pizzeria-is-not-a-child-trafficking-site .html?_r=0. Lederman, Robert, director. René Echevarria, writer. Star Trek: The Next Generation, Season 5, episode 23, “i, Borg.” Aired May 11, 1992, syndicated. DVD. Levitsky, Steven and Daniel Ziblatt. How Democracies Die. New York: Crown Publishing, 2018. Mims, Steve, director. Starving the Beast: The Battle to Disrupt and Reform America’s Public Universities. Violet Crown Films/Railyard Films Production, 2016. DVD. Osipova, Natalia, and Aaron Byrd. “How Russian Bots and Trolls Invade our Lives—and Elections,” New York Times, November 10, 2017. Video. Accessed December 9, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000005414346/how-russian-bots -and-trolls-invade-our-lives-and-elections.html. Shear, Michael D., Adam Goldman, and Emily Cochrane. “Congressman Steve Scalise Gravely Wounded in Alexandria Baseball Field Ambush.” New York Times, June 14, 2017. Accessed July 12, 2017 . https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/14/us/steve-scalise -congress-shot-alexandria-virginia.html. Situngkir, Hokky. “On Selfish Memes: Culture as Complex Adaptive System.” Journal of Social Complexity 2, no. 1 (October 2004): 20–32. Snyder, Timothy. On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century. New York: Tim Duggan Books, 2017. Szpir, Michael. “Mind Viruses.” American Scientist 83, no. 1 (January–February 1995): 26–27. Thrush, Glenn, and Peter Baker, “Trump’s Threat to North Korea Was Improvised.” New York Times, August 9, 2017. Accessed October 28, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/ 08/09/us/politics/trump-north-korea.html. Zakaria, Fareed. “What in the World.” GPS. Aired May 28, 2017 on CNN. http:// transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1705/28/fzgps.01.html. https://archive.org/ details/CNNW_20170528_170000_Fareed_Zakaria_GPS.

Chapter 11

Josef Pieper’s Defense of the Geisteswissenschaften Rashad Rehman This chapter asks the following question: What are the conditions, within and fostered by contemporary educational institutions, for social justice to be grounded philosophically and put into concrete action? In answering this question, I argue that a defense of the liberal arts is a plausible candidate for grounding the possibility of “social justice,” understood as fulfilling an obligation to another in virtue of their intrinsically being owed that obligation. The liberal arts are not merely mechanical, specialized disciplines; instead, they embody a philosophical anthropology in which human beings are responsible, reflective and contemplative individuals capable of intrinsically meaningful actions. It is to this end that I argue that Josef Pieper’s defense of the Geisteswissenschaften (liberal arts), and the philosophical anthropology which underlies it, is a plausible way to ground social justice. I begin this chapter by outlining what the liberal arts are and how they have been challenged implicitly and explicitly. I then outline a specific consequence of this explicated in Bryan Metcalfe’s dissertation Pedagogy of Mythos (2013). Having done this, I outline Pieper’s defense of the liberal arts, offer objections to his defense and respond to them. In the end, I conclude that while Pieper’s defense grounds a requisite philosophical anthropology for social justice, a contemporary defense of the liberal arts will always be needed, especially given contemporary “sophistry.” I finish this chapter in the hope that this alwayscontemporary defense can be done with an aim to change, while maintaining peaceful, civil discourse. 1 Introduction Understanding the relationship between educational institutions and the notion of social justice requires asking and answering the following question: What are the conditions, within and fostered by contemporary educational institutions, for social justice to be grounded philosophically and put into

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���� | doi:10.1163/9789004417588_013

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concrete action?1 My intention in this chapter is not to survey the contemporary literature between educational institutions and social justice; rather, my intent is to outline specific insights pertinent to thinking about how educational institutions and social justice operate with one another, and leave these insights to those working on this relationship philosophically and practically. This chapter specifically exegetes and defends German philosopher Josef Pieper’s defense of the Geisteswissenschaften (the liberal arts) and the underlying ­philosophical anthropology which both grounds his defense and serves— I ­argue—the role of a necessary ground for the possibility of social justice.2 My understanding of social justice, in this paper, will be minimalist.3 For Pieper, the liberal arts are not mere academic subjects within educational institutions; instead, a proper, nuanced understanding of the liberal arts amounts to arts which are integral to an authentic education. This understanding of the liberal arts requires that human beings cannot be reduced to “functionaries,” “workers” or, worse, less than human altogether. My argument is that it is only on these types of reductionist philosophical anthropologies—which are often at work in a rejection of the liberal arts—that the ground for social justice becomes obsolete. To defend this thesis, this work will be divided into three principle stages. First, I will outline what the liberal arts are, in contrast to the servile arts, the challenges they face, as well as the consequences these challenges have had, and currently do have. Second, I exegete Pieper’s defense of the liberal arts as well as the philosophical anthropology which underlies it. I then answer objections to Pieper’s defense and connect how the question of, and the ground for, social justice is intimately related to his defense. Third, I lay out Pieper’s understanding of the “sophist,” and show how in virtue of the 1 A special thank you to Ben Laskey for his critical editing of, and feedback on, this chapter. Thank you to Berthold Wald for graciously sending me the Gesammelte Werke of Josef Pieper from Germany after our email correspondence. I would also like to thank Bryan Metcalfe, Patrick Sullivan, Paul Coates, Lucca Pocci, Krishna Santhakumar and Cindy Solangie for all their pedagogical insights over contemporary educational institutions and the philosophical notions which underlie them. I would finally also like to thank Amin Asfari for his kindly inviting me to speak in North Carolina for the Concerned Philosophers for Peace conference, and for inviting me to contribute to the book in which this chapter appears. I dedicate this chapter to Paul Coates. 2 I am not suggesting in this chapter that Pieper’s philosophical anthropology is the only one, though I am convinced its central tenants are plausibly required and defensible. 3 Various reviewers of this chapter have suggested that this chapter would be strengthened by a formal definition of social justice. In reply, the purpose of this paper is not to formulate a theory of social justice nor—strictly speaking—to defend an implicit theory of social justice. The specific points of this paper cumulatively and collectively build a specific image, and specify (partially) the content of, what I regard social justice as necessarily involving.

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contemporaneity of the sophist, an always contemporary defense of the liberal arts is necessary. The “sophist,” and hence sophistry, is antithetical to authentic social justice, and in conclusion I describe possible avenues for further work which, I hope, civilly and peacefully forestall the work of the sophist in contemporary educational institutions and secure coherent grounds for the possibility of social justice. 2

What Are the Geisteswissenschaften? The Artes Liberales and Artes Serviles Distinction

On reflection, the notion of a “liberal art” seems to denote either a science which did not make it into the category “hard” or “soft,” or a subjective, imprecise and “open-ended” (negative connotation implied) form of inquiry. It is easy to see how these misunderstandings arose, for we have moved away from the original meaning of the “liberal arts.” In the Sophist, Plato uses the term μουσικήν not to merely specify “music,” but the liberal arts in general.4 One need only consult the lexical meaning of μουσικύς to find that “a scholar,” “a man of letters” show up.5 C.S Lewis, in his The Discarded Image, points out further that the “Arts” encompassed grammar, dialectic, rhetoric, arithmetic, music, geometry and astronomy (the first three being the Trivium and the final four the Quadrivium).6 In this classification, the arts are rigorous fields of inquiry, far from open-ended and relativistic areas of study. This also explains why Cardinal Newman called liberal arts knowledge “the knowledge of a gentleman.”7 This is not to argue that the ancient meaning of “music” has to be re-gained; rather, it is to point out that the original meaning of “liberal arts” had nothing to do with practicality nor with relativistic interpretations of the world. To explicate how the liberal arts are demarcated from other inquiries, it is worth going back to Aristotle’s Metaphysics. Aristotle, in Book I of his Metaphysics, presents the distinction between pursuing an inquiry purely for the 4 Plato. Sophist. Trans. Harold North Fowler. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, The Loeb Classical Library, 1921), i, 224. This point was pointed out by Fowler. 5 Liddell, Henry George and Robert Scott. Liddell and Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon Abridged. (usa: Simon Wallenberg Press, 2007), 453. 6 C.S Lewis. The Discarded Image. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1964), 186. Consider that Lewis, too, writes in The Discarded Image, without translation (ibid., 186), “almost everyone has met the mnemonic couplet[:] Gram loquitur, Dia verba docet, Rhet verba colorat, Mus canit, Ar numerat, Geo ponderat, Ast colit astra.” 7 Quoted in Josef Pieper’s Leisure: The Basis of Culture. Trans. Alexander Dru. Introduction by T.S. Elliot. (New York and Scarborough: A Mentor Book, 1963), 36.

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sake of knowledge and pursuing a science for the sake of practical utility.2 It is the former’s freedom which constitutes their being liberal. Concretely, philosophy, the love of wisdom, contains within itself a goal, namely, wisdom. However, this goal is not a practical, utilizable goal. Philosophy—or the philosophical act—is not done for the sake of anything else. For instance, if one says philosophy is performed for the sake of learning about theories and thinkers of the past, one is no longer doing philosophy, but history. In this chapter, I will take philosophy to be the paradigmatic liberal art (though the liberal arts include literature, poetry, art, rhetoric, grammar, et cetera).8 The ground for it being paradigmatic—at least in this chapter—is not in virtue of its superiority; instead, its being paradigmatic is in virtue of its being the most free. The “freedom” consists in being disconnected from practical utility, and hence philosophy as a contemplative, theoretical enterprise is most free relative to other disciplines. It is also worth noting that on this understanding of “free,” much of what is called “philosophy” is simply not philosophy in the most rigorous sense of the term. For example, a reviewer of this chapter asks whether feminist philosophy, philosophy of race/gender and applied philosophy can be considered “philosophy” since it often involves external, ulterior goals. My reply is not to reject these fields as legitimate in themselves; however, if the philosophizing is done with an exterior, non-truth functionally relevant motive, then these fields fall outside the scope of philosophy. The logical priority between truth and external motives cannot be confused; if truth comes secondary to non-truth oriented goals, there is no genuine philosophy taking place. While this may seem to conflate a person with an argument (which is inadmissible, philosophically),9 my point is not that

8 Aristotle. The Metaphysics. Vol 1. Trans. Tredennick. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, The Loeb Classical Library, 1933), i, ii: 982b 20–28. It should be noted that there has been, historically, varying demarcations of what constitutes a “liberal art”; however, the specific demarcations are not relevant here, for I specified that the method by which demarcation occurs resides in its respective utility-function. Pierre-Luc Boudreaux has suggested that much of cutting-edge theoretical sciences are often “theoretical” in the sense that they are performed for the purpose of knowledge, not utility. Whether this could count as a liberal art in the sense of not being connected to ends, and to this I am simply not sure; but science generally does preserve its integrity only in light of its yielding practical results (unlike philosophy). 9 “You cannot have a position on whether smoking is bad for you because you do not smoke” is a good example. A person is able to know that smoking is bad without having actually smoked. That is, the truth of the conclusion (and premises) of an argument is distinct from who gives that argument. While this is a rather elementary point (and I am rather embarrassed to go into it), it is a point worth reflecting on inasmuch as it re-appears in much contemporary discourse.

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specific theses are false on the basis of one’s non-truth functional motive; rather, the point is that no genuine philosophy is taking place. However, elsewhere I have pointed out that insofar as truth is the primary goal of philosophizing, there is no inconsistency with resultant goals being indirectly achieved.10 Closely related to this notion of philosophy as most free is the Latin speaking world’s adoption of Aristotle’s distinction and categorization of the artes liberales and artes serviles. The servile arts are “servile” in virtue of their having external aims, ends, goals, et cetera. The legitimacy and justification of a servile art therefore resides precisely in having, and hopefully attaining, these goals. This external aiming is precisely the demarcation of a servile art from a liberal art. Such is the division between liberal and servile arts. 3 Challenges The liberal arts have been challenged on three main fronts: placing practicality and utility as the highest value, rejection of leisure, and scientism. First, in a state in which the only forms of meaningful activity are practicality and utility, it is not possible to have a liberal art: “There can be no such thing in the world of “total labour” as space which is not used on principle; no such thing as a plot of ground, or a period of time withdrawn from use.”11 Hence, the educational institutions cannot a priori devote its time and resources into a faculty which has no practicable results, no utilitarian end beyond itself. This challenge is in the form of a tendency; there are tendencies in this direction, and non-practical activities are constantly being rejected on the basis of their being non-practical (and I will argue later that the liberal arts—especially philosophical studies— is a good example). Secondly, the rejection of leisure is a rejection of the liberal arts (though the former need not be only identified with the latter).12 The Greek and German for “leisure” is worth consulting here. In Greek, σχολή is to “have leisure” and “be at leisure.”13 There is the sense of a “letting be” which 10

I develop this notion more clearly in my upcoming book chapter “Ethics, Homelessness and the Artes Liberales/Serviles Distinction” in The Ethics of Homelessness: Philosophical Perspectives. Atlanta: Rodopi. (2nd edition forthcoming 2019–20). 11 Pieper, Leisure: The Basis of Culture, 58. This includes non-liberal art based acts which are not directed at any practical end e.g., taking a walk: “…walking is sacramental. It attunes us with the earth and the air. It is a symbol of life—the road to eternity, the quest.” Kreeft, Peter. Making Choices. (Michigan: Servant Books, 1990), 159. 12 Although leisure encompasses more than just the liberal arts. 13 Liddell, Henry George and Robert Scott, Liddell and Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon Abridged, 687. While it also lists “spare time” as one of the meanings, it is misleading because of the contemporary notion of “spare time” as a pause or break from one’s work.

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occurs in the time and space of leisure. As Aristotle puts it in the Nicomachean Ethics, “we can contemplate truth more continuously than we can do anything.” (1177a7, 22–23).14 While it is not sheer activity which characterizes leisure, neither is mere passivity, idleness, a break from one’s work nor spare time; instead, leisure refers to “a receptive attitude of mind, a contemplative attitude, and it is not only the occasion but also the capacity for steeping oneself in the whole of creation.”15 In leisure, there is no need for the calculation of utilitarian ends, no effort made to dominate nature for the service of our common material needs—though these certainly are important. Rather, in leisure a space and time open in which contemplation occurs.16 The German for leisure is Feierabend, composed of Feier (celebration) and Abend (evening)— together, an “evening for celebration” (a long way from a mere pause from one’s work!).17 From the aforementioned, a rejection of leisure, inasmuch as the liberal arts are “free,” implies a rejection of the liberal arts themselves—for there is no space or time in which they can occur. For the evidence for the claim that “leisure” is significantly impoverished, consider the various ways in which “leisure” is deflated from its full meaning in scholarship and daily linguistic usage. Beginning with the former, a recent paper in developmental psychology studying the relationship between “leisure boredom” and “adolescence” attempts to understand leisure in terms of its socio-psychological benefits, not

14

Unless specified, all quotes from Aristotle will be from The Basic Works of Aristotle. Trans. Richard McKeon. New York: Random House, 1941. 15 Pieper, Leisure, 41. 16 A reviewer of this paper has suggested that contemplation can occur in various nonleisurely activities e.g., rock-climbing, reading novels, et cetera. I do not disagree; contemplation can certainly occur in these events (and Pieper argues for this position as well elsewhere giving examples such as prayer, immersion of one’s perception into a rose, a child at play, et cetera). However, when the reviewer presses this objection and says receptivity can occur without contemplation, the term “receptivity” is being used too loosely. The example of a flash of insight and persuasion by an argument overlooks that a receptive attitude is logically prior to these events, and hence is a pre-condition. Again, the reviewer insists that contemplation can occur in language and discussion. The problem here is that the reviewer interprets “silent” in too literal a sense. Consider how in the Medieval Disputatio one is required to be silent during their interlocutor’s speaking, and is in that sense genuinely receptive. It is also worth noting that it is individuals who are contemplative, and that language is an expressive (and incomplete) medium of making one’s contemplation concrete—contemplata aliis tradere, as a Latin motto has it. 17 Pieper, Josef. Only the Lover Sings. Trans. Lothar Krauth. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1990), 17.

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its nature as a contemplative, receptive attitude.18 I am not suggesting there are no socio-psychological benefits; instead, I am pointing out the deflated notion of leisure at work. Again, in a recent paper published in Leisure Studies, there is no formal definition of “leisure” presented, such that when the paper proceeds to speak of the received view of leisure as involving “passivity,” it does not do so from a contemplative standpoint. Further, the lack of a formal definition leads the authors to suggest that “production” and “consumption” are related to the activity which occurs in leisure.19 Moving on to examples from daily life, in his 1952 Leisure, Pieper provides three examples of how the overvaluation of work has caused a loss of leisure in the contemporary world. First, philosophy has been challenged as being closer to work than to contemplation. He cites Immanuel Kant who argued that philosophy was essentially “Herculean labour.”20 Second, virtue-based action has become understood in the context of difficulty, and not effortlessness (the latter more characteristic, as St. Thomas Aquinas argued, of “the sublime achievements of moral goodness”21). Finally, Pieper cites the modern tendency to place the Christian doctrine of loving one’s enemy over the love of God, since the former is understood to be more “laborious.”22 As a further example, in their “Young People’s Favorite Leisure Activities”, Vladmir Zvonovskii and Svetlana Lutseva point out that the cultural shift towards “massivization” in the 20th century has caused a consumerist sense of leisure: “The everyday tastes, guidelines, and leisure activities became closer to the ordinary level of the average consumer.”23 Third is the challenge of scientism. Scientism is an epistemological standpoint which suggests that it is only through science that we have knowledge. While scientism is contemporarily held, easily overlooked are its ramifications it carries with it. In rejecting forms of knowledge outside the domain of science, liberal arts become either obsolete extensions of human emotion with no real basis or foundation in the real world, or meaningless endeavors altogether. For instance, in the former half of the 20th century logical positivism 18

Spaeth, M., K. Weichold, and RK Silbereisen. “The Development of Leisure Boredom in Early Adolescence: Predictors and Longitudinal Associations with Delinquency and Depression.” Developmental Psychology 51, no. 10 (2015): 1380. 19 Whiting, James and Kevin Hannam. “Creativity, Self-Expression and Leisure.” Leisure Studies 34, no. 3 (2015): 375. 20 Pieper, Leisure, 29. 21 Ibid., 31. 22 Ibid., 31. 23 Zvonovskii, Vladimir and Svetlana Lutseva. “Young People’s Favorite Leisure Activities.” Russian Education and Society 46, no. 1 (2004): 77–78.

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was the dominant philosophical school in the Anglo-American world. Its basic tenant was the thesis that if a claim was without the possibility of its being verified empirically, it was said to be “meaningless.” While this school of thought was quickly found to be self-referentially incoherent,24 it carried with it implications which are still felt in the modern world. For instance, truths of beauty and goodness, for instance, have been understood as expressions of human subjectivity, rather than philosophically deep truths about the way the world is.25 Further, value-laden language is deflated too, as G.K Chesterton pointed out in his 1905 Heretics: Every one of the popular modern phrases and ideals is a dodge in order to shirk the problem of what is good. We are fond of talking about “liberty”; that, as we talk of it, is a dodge to avoid discussing what is good. We are fond of talking about “progress”; that is a dodge to avoid discussing what is good. We are fond of talking about “education”; that is a dodge to avoid discussing what is good… This, clearly expressed, means, “We cannot decide what is good, but let us give it to our children.”26 Put otherwise, when the standard to which all knowledge is held is scientific, what occurs is a rejection of the liberal arts and their non-scientific access to the real world. Just as in the advent of logical positivism philosophy became significantly smaller, so the world becomes smaller when the only respectable, 24

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Logical positivism is most often critiqued on three fronts (I have already identified the first). The next critique is based on a re-valuation of our terms. In Latin, “science” is scientia which means knowledge—beyond, and including more than—the results of the hardsciences. In German, the Geisteswissenschaften (liberal arts) are a Wissenchaft (science). This is not to say that logical positivism was somehow diminished by looking more carefully at language; rather, it points out that cutting off non-scientific forms of inquiry is fundamentally arbitrary. Third, there are plausible counter-examples (non-scientific truths about the world) which are assumed, and not proven by, science e.g., mathematical truths, inductive truths, scientifically-relevant ethical truths e.g., honesty in displaying one’s results, et cetera. See C.S. Lewis’ “The Abolition of Man” in The Complete C.S. Lewis Signature Classics. (New York: HarperOne, 1944), 689–738. See also Charles de Koninck’s 1961 “Is the Word “Life” Meaningful?” wherein he quotes both Heisenberg and Schroedinger who both reject scientism, and agree with a form of science akin to how C.S Lewis describes in “The Abolition of Man”: “When it explained it would not explain away. When it spoke of the parts it would remember the whole. While studying the It, it would not lose what Martin Buber calls the Thou-situation. The analogy between the [natural law] of Man and the instincts of an animal species would mean for it new light cast on the unknown thing, Instinct, by the [o]nly known reality of conscience and not a reduction of conscience to the category of Instinct. Its followers would not be free with the words only and merely. In a word, it would conquer Nature without being at the same time conquered by her and buy knowledge at a cost lower than that of life.” 729. Chesterton, G.K. “Heretics” in The Collected Works of G.K Chesterton. Vol. 1: Heretics, Orthodoxy, The Blatchford Controversies. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986), 51.

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legitimate way of knowing is scientific. It could be objected though: “Scientism” is not really held, for it is too-strong an epistemology and it is more likely that—granting the distinction between weak and strong scientism—the former version is more often held, and that only with an aim to put our experience within the domain of a shared, public language towards progressing in human knowledge.27 For the sake of argument, I will grant the objection that weak scientism is more commonly held than strong scientism. However, if the central tenant of weak scientism is to put into “shared, public language” all meaningful, non-subjective facets of experience (best done by scientific analysis), then the liberal arts, properly formulated as involving silent, contemplative receptivity, are significantly undermined.28 It is also worth noting that scientism has permeated itself into contemporary culture.29 Consider two anecdotes from the 2008 Scientism and Education: Empirical Research as NeoLiberal Ideology, a recent text exploring how scientism has infiltrated itself into contemporary educational institutions: I have too often witnessed parents overtly or subtly discouraging their children from following artistic or humanistic aspirations and pushing them for training and careers in Science, Math, Business, and Technology. In this society we say in a thousand and one ways that money, security, power, and ultimately fulfillment reside in these disciplines and not in the Arts, Humanities, and Philosophy. We valorize scientists, and even when they speak on subjects outside their domain of expertise, we take their opinions and pronouncements as definitively authoritative. When Science speaks, people listen.30

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Thanks to a professor of mine for raising this objection. I would like to make two notes. First, I have defended the thesis that there exist truths which are not expressible in natural language elsewhere. See my “On the Boarder of Concrete Experience: Mythic and Literary Experience in C.S Lewis” Sophia xiv (2018): 44–62. Second, Krishna Santhakumar points out that in addition to weak scientism, postmodern skepticism is another epistemic ground for rejecting the legitimacy of the liberal arts. Though I agree with Krishna, for spatial considerations I have chosen not to expand on this point in this chapter. In my undergraduate thesis under Professor Antonio Calcagno, I explore how devaluation (individually and culturally) occurs when scientism underlies philosophical anthropologies, and the consequences this has for how we understand love. See my “Love as Divine Gift in Kierkegaard and Pieper: A Phenomenological Analysis” Midwest Journal of Undergraduate Research ix (2018): 105–132. Hyslop-Margison, Emery J. and M. Ayaz Naseem. Scientism and Education: Empirical Research as Neo-Liberal Ideology. (Dordrecht: Springer. 2008), vii.

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Consider a second anecdote: I recently taught a graduate-level educational research course in which students were introduced to the distinction between quantitative and qualitative research with the view that these students have to decide what kind of research they would do for their theses and dissertations. What was so very fascinating to me was just how much of the discussion in class had to do with students’ worries and fears over the vulnerable image of qualitative (especially the conceptual) research and researchers. They were all nervous about the image of ‘fluffy stuff’ and ‘flaky people’ attached to research and researchers that do not deal with quantifiable and measurable data. Indeed, they had great concerns about the ‘image’ of conceptual, phenomenological, hermeneutical, or arts-based research. Indeed, in retrospect (with 20/20 hindsight), I would say that the major (unintended) curriculum for this course turned out to be critical epistemology that helped students understand where this devaluation of quality came from, and why we privilege empirical research modeled after the ‘hard’ sciences over and above other kinds.31 These are not knock-down arguments (granted); however, these anecdotes show that scientism—even if not held in the strong sense—is pervasively and commonly held as a sort of “reflex epistemology.” Before moving on to specific consequences these challenges have had, it is also worth briefly noting other rejections of the liberal arts. Consider what Oxford philosopher Simon Blackburn says is the focus of the philosophy of education: “The central questions [in the philosophy of education] are what it is worth-while or necessary to teach, and what are the best ways of doing it. Different views about human nature will influence answers to both questions.”32 What about philosophies of education in which the assumption is that there is no human nature—il n’y a pas de nature humaine?33 What results is arguably a groundlessness of the philosophy of education—a philosophical anthropology which states that nothing is really owed, by nature, to another human being—and hence the ground of social justice is diminished with it.34 If an educational institution decides to 31 32 33 34

Ibid, vii–viii. Blackburn, Simon. The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 109. A quote from Jean-Paul Sartre quoted in Pieper’s “Justice” in The Four Cardinal Virtues. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1966), 49. Ibid., 49. A reviewer of this chapter has asked: Are there moral theories which make prescriptions about action which are skeptical/neutral about human nature? My response is

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rid the liberal arts faculty from the scope of the educational curriculum in virtue of its not contributing to specific educational—perhaps socio-political— demands, nothing can be contrary—if there is no human nature—to what ought to be the case.35 While one might imagine that the ramifications of this do not have implications philosophically anthropologically, it seems that the empirical evidence shows otherwise.36 Intuitively, if students are conceptualized as functionaries who are not capable of exercising “liberal” capacities e.g., as found in the philosophical, poetic and artistic act, then there is no real problem to subjecting them to utility-conducive, material-consumptive-based educational policies. It might be responded that the responsibilities specific to educational institutions are policy-dependent, and therefore the question of a “human nature” is irrelevant e.g., it could be justified to have liberal arts within the educational institution based on a policy in which they are necessary for a well-rounded education.37 While it is certainly correct that policy-making is what ultimately determines what is taught and that the inclusion of liberal arts is important, there are two problems. First, teaching liberal arts only in virtue

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that even if there were such a theory, it would be worrisome for the reasons I have already laid out. For in ascribing any form of action towards others, one assumes that the other is a rightful/wrongful recipient of that action. Another reviewer asks: When teaching a child to read, I am not assuming that they are owed anything; rather, I am providing them with a basic human capacity. In reply, I would argue that the capacity to read, to use the reviewers’ example, is oriented towards that child’s betterment. Thus, implicit is assumed that the child’s nature is of a kind whereby the betterment of that child is a great good, integral to which is the capacity to read. Granted, as a matter of real experience we do not proceed way of sorting out mentally “since this child is of a kind x, I will perform y”; however, that does not imply that philosophical anthropological notions underlie much of our intuitive judgements regarding how and why we educate children (again using the reviewer’s example). I have defended at length this thesis elsewhere. See my “The Ontic Foundation of Hope: Josef Pieper’s Critique of Atheistic Existentialism,” The Oracle. Issue x (2017): 23–31. To see this point more clearly, consider what Pieper says of the consequences of such a view that “worldly goals” could be constitutive of anything close to “meaning”: “All purely worldly goals, whether their name be “the classless society” or “prosperity” or “the solitary soul of sylvan glades, who in his integrity in sufficient unto himself,” or on the other hand less pretentious programs, such as “muddling through life” or, still more vulgarly, “having a good time because tomorrow we’ll all be dead”—all these secularized formulas represent, if they are conceived or sought as ultimate goals, varieties of loss and despair.” Happiness and Contemplation. Trans. Richard and Clara Winston. (New York: Pantheon Books, 1958), 40. The existence of the “neoliberal myth,” argued against by Metcalfe (who I will be discussing below), is part of this evidence. This certainly is the case in Canada in which classes like “English” (including literature, poetry, creative writing, grammar, et cetera) is a necessary component to the successful completion of high school.

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of the fact that it conforms to the dictates of a policy not only misses the point of a liberal arts education, but renders possible the destruction of the liberal arts themselves (they cannot be mere “disciplines” and “requirements”). It is precisely this “means-ends” relation that the liberal arts become servile arts, and the philosophical anthropology which undergirds this rejection becomes relevant again. Second, to even get this policy-based response off the ground, it assumes a philosophical anthropology in which specific educational demands are made. The objector can here weaken their position and suggest instead that deciding on a philosophical anthropology is not how social justice proceeds (or ought to proceed) in the real world; for we live in a world fraught with problems we need to solve immediately, and have—to put it clearly—no time for the philosophical debate over what is required to get social justice off the ground. I have three worries with this objection.38 First, my claim is not that an exhaustive philosophical anthropology has to be settled on prior to all concrete action. The claim I am defending is that in order to be philosophically and ethically consistent we have to base our educational policies, at least partially, on the ground that individuals (personally or collectively) are owed or not owed certain actions in virtue of their nature as human beings (recall that justice involves what is owed to another).39 Second, social justice does proceed 38 39



This was an objection raised in a personal conversation. A reviewer has replied to this by suggesting the following: “Justice certainly does involve this, but it does not follow that all things are owed to others in virtue of their nature as human beings. I can owe things to people in virtue of their relationships to me, in virtue of my relationship to my society, in virtue of history, etc. Justice starts with what is owed to another, but does not solely involve that; it also involves why certain things are owed to another, and the answer to that ‘why’ can take many forms, not only ‘human nature.’” I take it that the reviewer is making two fundamental points. First, the reviewer is interpreting my use of Simon Blackburn’s statement that “the central questions [in the philosophy of education] are what it is worth-while or necessary to teach, and what are the best ways of doing it. Different views about human nature will influence answers to both questions” to mean that obligation can only come from human nature. However, I reject this notion for two reasons. First, this is not Blackburn’s position. His position is that differing philosophical anthropologies have respective ramifications for one’s philosophy of education. Second, this is not my position as I do not regard human nature to be the ultimate standard of obligation (that is, moral ontology lies deeper than philosophical anthropology). This moral ontological position, though, has no practical bearing on my thesis. Second, the reviewer is pressing the notion that there may be a deeper moral ontological legitimacy needed to justify the philosophical anthropological claims I am making (which would also explain how there are other grounds for being “owed” something). To this I am in agreement; however, for practical purposes I have not delved into that discussion but instead attempted to make my argument(s) minimalist in nature. To the reason why I do not make historical, social and relational arguments, I have two reasons. First, this would

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by way of assuming a human nature of some sort. For example, if one is pro-life and contributes towards saving the lives of the preborn, they are making a claim about those preborn children, namely, that they are human beings worthy of the right to life. It may be that there are other motives underneath these efforts, but if coherence is preserved, the view falls back on an assertion about what human beings are—a philosophical anthropology. Again, consider the person who advocates for the rights of disabled persons. While economic, sociopolitical or ethical reasons might be stipulated as the motivation, these motivations themselves are predicated on premises regarding who disabled human beings fundamentally are and our individual and collective responsibility towards them e.g., individuals worthy of respect and care. Third, there exists counter-evidence to this claim, and the evidence—the neoliberal myth—is presented in the next section of this chapter. 4 Consequences The question is the following: Are there concrete, empirical consequences to rejecting the liberal arts? In his 2013 doctoral dissertation Pedagogy of Mythos, Bryan Metcalfe argues that forms of morally vacuous “myths” have lingered into contemporary educational institutions, resulting in morally eroding effects. For Metcalfe, “myths” are not pre-scientific beliefs of the past to explain what occurs in a mysterious, hostile world; rather, following the German philosopher Hans Blumenberg, myth (μῦθος) is, along with reason (λόγος), a mode of symbolic orientation in the world.40 While we, living in a heavily scientific age, might reject living by myths, we have merely—through the received myth (falsehood)/fact (truth) dichotomy—put alternative myths in their place. These myths Metcalfe has in mind perform specific functions within particular times and places in history. These functions involve inducing a sense of “significance” within a particular socio-historical context. Consequently, these myths do much more than provide weak explanatory power, they orient us in the world. Again, these myths have intrinsic to them the capacity to bring about morally praiseworthy or eroding effects. As Metcalfe himself puts it,

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make my arguments involve—and hence make the reader accept—a host of unnecessary and unhelpful commitments. Second, it is not always clear when there is a moral or nonmoral obligation being offered in these arguments (and I am interested only in the moral obligations). See my “On the Boarder of Concrete Experience: Mythic and Literary Experience in C.S Lewis” Sophia: The University of Victoria’s Undergraduate Journal of Philosophy xiv (2018): 44–62.

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“many myths perpetuate injustice.”41 Having defended Blumenberg’s theory of myth, Metcalfe argues that a specific type of myth, namely, socio-political myths, are able to embed themselves within educational institutions to the end of providing a sense of significance. However, these socio-political myths within educational institutions are not exempt from moral evaluation, and therefore Metcalfe speaks at length of the “neoliberal myth.” How Metcalfe uses this neoliberal myth’s moral vacuity and emptiness in his argument for a democratic myth is irrelevant here; what is significant is understanding what the neoliberal myth is, display the philosophical anthropology which underlies it, and outline the consequent moral erosion that follows. The “neoliberal myth,” embedded within contemporary educational institutions, does not purport to be an account of the moral order; instead, it sees itself as morally neutral. In other words, the neoliberal myth is a narrative which “aims to provide a scientifically grounded account of humans as individual, self-interested maximizers acting within a capitalist free market.”42 As Metcalfe says, neoliberal theorists “intentionally avoid drifting into moral discourse”43 asking simple normative, ethical questions. While it keeps itself distinct from the moral sphere, it does not keep itself from constructing a philosophical anthropology: “…it [the neoliberal myth] radically reconstructs the narrative ideal of the self as well as the significance of school by reframing the institution as an instrument of infinite economic expansionism.”44 It is a narrative ideal of the self which has as its goal the maximization of economic profit, and consequently the means—outside and within contemporary educational institutions—to achieve this ideal. Put formally, “we are all understood as potential homo economicuses who are able to direct our self-interest towards economic ends by rationally maximizing our choices both as consumers and as entrepreneurial producers,” resulting in the notion that one ought to “act in accordance with this political and economic archetype.”45 It should be noticed too that “neoliberalism offers the promise of individual prosperity and happiness in and through this material world.”46 For Metcalfe, educational institutions have assumed this myth:

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Metcalfe, Bryan. Pedagogy of Mythos. (Toronto: University of Toronto PhD Archive, 2013), 75. Ibid., 193. Ibid., 194. Ibid., 179–180. Ibid., 186. Ibid., 186.

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…in the neoliberal myth, it is assumed that all students are striving as self-interested economic agents, and that the role of our education system should be to ensure their development as homo economicuses in our economy … politicians, educational policy-makers, administrators, and even teachers collectively embraced, and continue to embrace, the view that schools should be reformed to ensure that economic growth in the country was secured along with the promise of our individual and collective material prosperity.47 The statement “the role of our education system should be to ensure their development as homo economises in our economy” is evidence that philosophical anthropologies have the capacity to underlie educational principles.48 While one might suggest that perhaps the homo economicus is characteristic of what it means to be human, the moral vacuity of the homo economicus ought to be evidence that it cannot adequately characterize what it means to be human.49 47 48

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Ibid., 190. A reviewer has asked: Are all educational principles undergirded by an assumed philosophical anthropology? My reply is that where morally relevant educational principles are concerned, there is bound to be an underlying philosophical anthropology, whether implicit or explicit. I suspect that if we take “educational principles” to be teleologically oriented towards specific goals e.g., betterment of students’ minds, values and orientation in the world, then I am inclined to answer the reviewer with a simple yes. However, I am open to counter-examples as well as a methodology of evaluating educational principles case-by-case (instead of unlimiting the domain over which “assumed philosophical anthropology” extends). A reviewer has made two points here. First, the reviewer writes “I [the reviewer] worry that the author fetishizes contemplation and serious, deep thought and dismisses fun and consumerism as frivolity and vacuity, and as inadequate. The author may be right to do so, but it strikes me that such a move needs an argument, not simply a sentiment, especially given the thesis of the article.” Despite the humorous ad hominem (whether I fetishize contemplation/serious and deep thought is not truth-functionally relevant to whether one ought to fetishize it!), the reviewer makes more claims than my thesis permits. I have not argued against “fun” nor “consumerism,” I have only pointed out that the philosophical anthropology of the homo economicus cannot account for our moral intuitions about human beings and hence is an inadequate understanding of what it means to be human. However, the detractor has two moves they can make regarding this philosophical anthropology. One can simply accept it with its conclusions (and I provide reasons why one ought to reject this), or one can reject those moral intuitions themselves. While I address mainly the former objection in this chapter, I regard it unnecessary to argue against the position of the latter within the confines of this paper. I say this for two reasons. First, whether, how and on what grounds we justify moral intuitions leads into a debate which is unnecessary for this paper. Second, it is far more likely that my audience will agree that there are other values besides economic values, and this is the assumption required for my argument to work. The second point the reviewer makes is that it is not clear why the

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Metcalfe writes that the alleged “moral neutrality” of the neoliberal myth is nothing more than a façade which has its goal to cover what it is—a Weltanschauung whose core tenant is a morally eroding philosophical anthropology. Consider how Metcalfe understands the domain over which the neoliberal myth extends: i. What should we make of ourselves? Answer: A materially affluent group of individuals. ii. How should we live? Answer: As self-interested, utility-maximizing consumers and producers. iii. What should we do? Answer: Rationally maximize our individual utility. iv. What kind of person should we become? Answer: Homo economicus.50 If we focus on iii specifically, we recognize that the notion of “utility” is invoked. While Metcalfe identifies a host of examples of how the neoliberal myth is at work in educational institutions,51 I would argue that the rejection of the liberal arts is an extension of the neoliberal myth thus construed, and that inasmuch as the liberal arts purport to be “useless” in being free and disconnected from servile ends, it is highly likely—and hence unsurprising—that the slow, continual decline of the liberal arts and the rise of a utility-centered philosophical anthropology should be closely connected. The neoliberal myth fosters and perpetrates a morally eroding philosophical anthropology in which the liberal arts are obsolete extensions of non-practical, unprofitable activity; again, rejecting the liberal arts makes space for a philosophical anthropology in which utility-maximization is the highest value.52 If one is skeptical of the concrete traction the neoliberal myth has taken, one ought to consider Metcalfe’s own testimony of his working in the Canadian elementary school system.53

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moral vacuity (and alleged “neutrality”) of the homo economicus is wrong. While I have already addressed this, the section of this paper on the “Sophist” attempts to answer this question. Ibid., 196. Ibid., 200. It is important to clarify—pace a reviewer of this paper—that my argument does not require utility-maximization as always wrong. However, utility-maximization (i) as the highest value and (ii) devoid of a moral component is, minimally speaking, not morally adequate. The reviewer also suggests that my chapter involves a commitment to rejecting all material consumption; however, this analysis of my thesis is a generalization of my thesis into a position I do not hold. “While I can identify numerous anecdotal examples that reveal the dominance of the neoliberal myth from my own experience as a teacher, the most startling one occurred during the period of my teacher training. Placed in a grade 7/8 split class in London, Ontario, I had the privilege of teaching the students both math and science. It was during this placement that my students were forced to partake in a school program entitled Building Futures Network… The program, created by the Canadian Foundation for Eco-

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He also says similarly of the contemporary Canadian high school system.54 These stories, along with the homo economicus model Metcalfe has laid emphasizes Blackburn’s comment that one’s view of human nature informs what one thinks necessary and worthwhile to teach. What is it worthwhile to teach if the paradigmatic model of what it means to be human is the homo economicus, especially given that, as Metcalfe put it, “the role of our education system should be to ensure their [students’] development as homo economicuses in our economy”? Insofar as the liberal arts are “free” arts, justified without their invocation of practical utility, they cannot be placed within the domain of what it is worthwhile to teach.55 In his 2013 The Usefulness of the Useless, Nuccio Ordine reports the following:

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nomic Education, was presented by a former bank manager. During the one-day program, the students were systematically led through a series of interrelated booklets. The students began by checking off all the material things that they desired in the future, ranging from a house to a car, etc. Having chosen their material needs and wants, the students, in turn, had to calculate the total cost per year of these items based on a price list provided at the start of the booklet. Once the students calculated this total, they then had to choose the profession that earned an average income that sustained this lifestyle. Finally, the students had to find the corresponding educational program that would lead to their chosen profession. The program was unquestionably trying to promote education. However, it was also trying to promote and reinforce the neoliberal myth’s narrative view of education in which learning is explicitly connected to educational accreditation, economic production, and economic consumption. In other words, these 12- and 13-year-old students were encouraged to receive and work on the myth’s narrative that they should be young homo economicuses, whose self-interested desires to acquire numerous material goods would spur their competitive drive to be productive students and economic agents. Of course, implicit in this exercise is that indefinite self-interested consumption is the locus of human progress and individual and collective fulfillment. Unsurprisingly, the program was unanimously embraced by the school, the administration, my associate teacher, and the students involved; it was embraced by everyone except for a young girl who was laughed at for announcing that she did not want anything when she grew up.” Ibid., 201. Ibid., 203–204. If I may be anecdotal, I was myself taught by Metcalfe within one of the educational institutions he is describing and my experience was not inconsistent with what he describes. While one could point out that within educational institutions a homo economicus philosophical anthropology exists along with the liberal arts, this would be inconsistent. It is also worth noting, that where these two notions are put together, the concrete results result in a degradation of the liberal arts. For instance, Steven Lofts has pointed out that liberal arts’ syllabi have been fraught with the promotion of “transferable skills,” “practical abilities” and, at the doctoral level, “business communication skills.” These are collectively and systematically irrelevant to liberal arts.

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In Italy the great classics libraries have already been reduced to silence: Laterza’s Scrittori d’Italia series (founded by Benedetto Croce), the Classici Mondadori, Letteratura Italiana Ricciardi (which Treccani has announced it will relaunch) and, for some years now, even the series published by Utet. In France the glorious publishing house Les Belles Lettres is making strenuous efforts to resist but is finding it harder and harder to find contributors able to produce critical editions of Latin and Greek texts. Two other great classics libraries—the Loeb Classical Library and the Oxford Classical Texts—suffer from the same problems.56 Ordine also cites the possibilities of closing the Warburg Institute and historic bookstores as worrisome.57 If Greek and Latin—the two foundational languages of the Western world—are “useless” (“free,” not connected to any end), dead languages inferior to practical results from science and its technological fruit, is what Ordine describes at all unlikely to occur? The homo economicus model— according to which “free” disciplines are not possible under the rubric of utility-maximization—drives much of the decisions to not fund the aforesaid publishing houses—be they in the form of, in the name of making the liberal arts mechanical tasks, accessing texts in translation, buying secondary summaries, digests and anthologies instead of primary works. These aspects cannot be overlooked.58 Ordine’s example of publishing houses and bookstores is relatively remote from, though not unconnected to, educational institutions; what he describes is indicative of a large-scale rejection of the liberal arts in general. Even if it were proven that there is no causal connection between what Ordine describes and the homo ecnomicus model, we should not be surprised that they have both arisen together. Before concluding this section, I would like to reiterate the ramifications of these analyses in regard to questions of social justice within and through contemporary educational institutions. The principles and policies which undergird contemporary educational institutions are not devoid of an assumed philosophical anthropology. Although it might be assumed that “morally neutral” theories and policies are preferable in a pluralistic society in which people of various political standings, races, genders and religions reside, this is, as has been shown in Metcalfe’s dissertation, mistaken. The affirmation of the liberal arts assumes that a human being is a creature who is not a mere calculating 56 57 58

Ordine, Nuccio. The Usefulness of the Useless. Trans. Alastair McEwen. (Philadelphia: Paul Dry Books, 2017), 96–97. Ordine, 99–102. Ordine talks about this at length, 96–97.

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machine, operative within a socio-political framework to the collective end of material and economic consumption. If the grounds for social justice are to be fostered within contemporary educational institutions it is necessary that students, eventual members working in, and contributing to, society at large, are taught that utility-maximization, along with its counterpart consequences— consumerism, materialism and individualism—are not the τέλος (purpose, end) of human existence. There are other, higher values, including the moral value of social justice. Social justice is not a product of utility-calculating; instead, it is a result from the obligation or duty to other human beings.59 A socialjustice-oriented philosophical anthropology is fostered through a defense of the liberal arts and its philosophical anthropology. Again, it is not the liberal arts themselves which necessarily grounds social justice, but its underlying philosophical anthropology—although this ground is a necessary but not sufficient condition for social justice.60 I will now turn to the positive defense of the liberal arts I have claimed to be necessary. 5

Josef Pieper’s Defense of the Geisteswissenschaften

Pieper’s defense of the Geisteswissenschaften (liberal arts) begins with basic definitions of what the liberal arts are, the requisite philosophical anthropology underlying the liberal arts, and the consequences which follow. Pieper’s most popular English text Leisure: The Basis of Culture (1952) begins with an analysis of how the artes liberales and artes serviles distinction emerged. He writes that it is derivative from how we understand leisure both as the Greeks understood it, as σχολή, as well as the Medievals, as scola, from which we get “school.”61 Aristotle’s dictum in the Nicomachean Ethics that “we are busy that we may have leisure” (1177b5–6) is literally, in the Greek, “we are unleisurely in order to have leisure,” implying that leisure is the center from which all else revolves.62 As such, the liberal arts are natural extensions of leisure since, like leisure, the liberal arts are not aimed at any finite, practicable result. 59

As is clear from this statement, I am rejecting utility-based ethics in favour of a dutybased ethics. While this ought to be developed in full, I believe I have explained throughout the paper why I regard the primacy of utility-calculating as (i) insufficient to explain our moral intuitions about human obligations and (ii) inadequate in grounding social justice or a philosophical anthropology which would successfully ground a social justice of the sort I have described. 60 I will have more to say about this at the end of this chapter. 61 Pieper, Leisure, 21. 62 Pieper, Leisure, 21.

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Pieper makes the distinction between acts that are meaningful-in-itself, and acts which are not. In the former category he lists contemplation, philosophical reflection, and prayer as examples. In the latter category specialized academic disciplines would not be meaningful-in-itself in virtue of its not being an end unto itself.63 But, what does “meaningful-in-itself” mean? Pieper provides a definition: Whenever in reflective and receptive contemplation we touch, even remotely, the core of all things, the hidden, ultimate reason for the living universe, the divine foundation of all that is, the purest form of all archetypes (and the act of perception, immersed in contemplation, is the most intensive form of grasping and owning), whenever and wherever we thus behold the very essence of reality—there is an activity that is meaningful in itself taking place.64 It is precisely this form of contemplation which is meaningful-in-itself, and this occurs in specific instances of human activity, including the “arts”: Wherever the arts are nourished through the festive contemplation of universal realities and their sustaining reasons, there in truth something like a liberation occurs: the stepping-out into the open under an endless sky, not only for the creative artist himself but for the beholder as well, even the most humble. Such liberation, such foreshadowing of the ultimate and perfect fulfillment, is necessary for man, almost more necessary than his daily bread, which is indeed indispensable and yet insufficient.65 For Pieper the “arts”—and by this he means liberal arts—are meaningful-inthemselves because they are not directed toward an ulterior end. In Leisure, he writes that “education concerns the whole man; an educated man is a man with a point of view from which he takes in the whole world. Education concerns the whole man, man capax universi, capable of grasping the totality of existing things.”66 Here Pieper is explicitly affirming that intimately related to his defense of the possibility of there being a liberal art is the philosophical

63 Although in principle they have the capacity to be. 64 Pieper, Only the Lover Sings, 23. 65 Pieper, Only the Lover Sings, 27. 66 Pieper, Leisure, 36.

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anthropology which underlies it. The notion of capax universi requires delineation. Pieper uses essentially three characterizations of the human person (Geist, capax universi and geschehendes Sein) and displays their epistemological significance. The nature of the human spirit [Geist], says Pieper, “is fundamentally nothing but the capacity for relating to the totality of what is real,” that is, “it is capable of and oriented to coming in contact and remaining in contact with absolutely everything that is.”67 This is what it means to be capax universi (and hence Geist and capax universi are roughly synonymous).68 Pieper reports that this notion of Geist appears in various contexts, ranging from Aristotle and St. Aquinas to Max Scheler.69 The contrast is now between Geist as Pieper outlines it and the philosophical anthropology of the homo economicus. That the human person has a Geist is indicative of the non-practical capacities of our spiritual constitution, and allows for activities which do not bring about mechanical, utility-producing effects. It is not that actions of the mechanical kind are insignificant; however, actions which are meaningful-in-themselves do not occur within the mere activity of functionary work. A reviewer of this paper has suggested that functionary work can be the gateway for an act which is meaningful-in-itself. For example, one enters into a rhythmic pace of mechanical work and within this begins to contemplate. I do not reject that this happens, I only claim that an act meaningful-in-itself would be derivative and not primitive to functionary work (and this is precisely Pieper’s position too). Pieper then describes human beings as geschehendes Sein: …man’s being is always dynamic (geschehendes Sein); man is never just ‘there.’ Man ‘is’ insofar as be ‘becomes’ … this unquenchable inner dynamism, this persistent restlessness at the core of the unfolding [statis viatoris] human existence, this yearning has only one objective: perfect happiness, the state of bliss (GlÜckseligkeit).70

67

Pieper, Josef. What Does “Academic” Mean? Trans. Dan Farrelly. (South Bend: St. Augustine’s Press, 2015), 59. 68 I use “roughly” because theologically Geist refers more specifically to the ability to know and relate to God (Genesis 2:7; Romans 8:16; Ephesians 4:23). 69 Pieper, What Does “Academic” Mean? 59–60. 70 Pieper, Only the Lover Sings, 43. Another extension of these capacities is in knowing “sublime truths,” The Human Wisdom of St. Thomas: A Breviary of Philosophy from the Works of St. Thomas Aquinas. Arranged by Josef Pieper. Trans. Drostan Maclaren, O.P. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2002), 14.

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Pieper is specifying how this understanding of human beings has implications for the spiritual capacities required for an authentic experience of the liberal arts. For instance, he uses the notion of the geschehendes Sein to specify how music is profounder than a “happy sound” or a “feel-good tune.”71 According to Pieper, the “world” for a human being is much larger than the immediate surroundings (or environment) and ever-present physical necessities. In being capax universi, we “transcend the frontiers of all and any ‘environment.’”72 As capax universi we are capable of transcending a mere environment, and ask the question which characterizes philosophy—“what is it all about?”73 There are significant epistemological consequences to Pieper’s philosophical anthropology. For Pieper, knowledge is essentially how antiquity and medieval philosophers (especially St. Thomas Aquinas) understood it, namely, as “simultaneously ratio and intellectus.”74 Ratio (reason), what is “distinctively human” is defined as “the power of discursive logical thought, of searching and of examination and drawing conclusions.”75 Intellectus (intellect), in a sense “superhuman,” is defined as the capacity of simplex intuitus, of that simple vision to which truth offers itself like a landscape to the eye … accompany[ing] and impregnat[ing] [ratio] by an effortless awareness, the contemplative vision of the intellectus, which is not active but passive, or rather receptive, the activity of the soul in which it conceives that which it sees.76 As Pieper articulates it “the highest form of knowledge comes to man like a gift—a sudden illumination, a stroke of genius, true contemplation,” making sense of why St. Thomas “speaks of contemplation and play in the same breath.”77 It is in this

71 Pieper, Only the Lover Sings, 47. He writes in Only the Lover Sings that “since music articulates the immediacy of man’s basic existential dynamism in an immediate way, the listener as well is addressed and challenged on that profound level where man’s self-realization takes place. In this existential depth of the listener, far below the level of expressible judgements, there echoes—in identical immediacy—the same vibration articulated in the audible manner.” 47. 72 Pieper, Leisure, 87. For Pieper, this difference of “environment” from “world” just is, philosophically, the difference between the human and the animal. See Leisure, Part ii, Chapter ii. There are resonances of this in Plato’s Cratylus, 399C. 73 Pieper’s defense of this understanding of philosophy is defended in In Defense of Philosophy: Classical Wisdom Stands up to Modern Challenges. Trans. Lothar Krauth. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1992. 74 Pieper, Leisure, 27. 75 Pieper, Leisure, 26. 76 Pieper, Leisure, 27. 77 Pieper, Leisure, 31–32.

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sense that one is epistemologically justified in claiming knowledge from artes liberales. The rejection of this is the epistemological thesis of scientism. The epistemological thesis of scientism, it will be re-called, is the thesis that the only respectable and philosophically legitimate way of knowing anything is scientific. Pieper notes that while philosophy has to legitimize itself by keeping “its connection to the empirical basis,” the philosopher “steps beyond the realm of empirical reality” in discussing “what is implied in the concept of being.”78 Pieper is saying if the philosophical act is not to slip into “unmoored speculation and fantasy,”79 it has to remain in line with empirical data; however, he rejects the notion that within the process of knowing we are only bound to the deliverances of science. A world in which there was scientific practice but no reflection on the meaning of it all would be an image “of extreme human privation, of misery, not of the material but rather of the existential kind.”80 It should also be remembered that the statement that governmentsanctioned, lower-class embryos who deserve “oxygen-shortage,” “who are no use at all,” who are mere possible “benefaction[s] to society” and nothing more, is to be found in no other place than in the most scientifically-dominated society— in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.81 There have been attempts to salvage a liberal arts education in the form of an affirmation of the intellectual history of Europe. Pieper notes that the “Great Books” movement is such an attempt.82 What the liberal arts education aims at 78 Pieper, In Defense of Philosophy, 102–103. 79 Pieper, In Defense of Philosophy, 103. 80 Pieper, Josef. In Search of the Sacred: Contributions to an Answer. Trans. Lothar Krauth. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1991), 44. 81 Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. (Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1932), 23. 82 Scholasticism. Trans. Dan Farrelly. (South Bend: St. Augustine’s Press, 2001), 153. Pieper says of the movement that it “is a curriculum based on certain books which represent the cultural “heritage”: their authors are Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Virgil, Plotinus, Augustine, St. Thomas, Dante, Shakespeare, Kant, Hegel, Goethe, Darwin, Dostoyevsky, and Sigmund Freud. It is possible to quarrel with this or that aspect of the project … [this attempt] carried out with the earnestness of great open-mindedness, sprang from a conviction that the young continent could come into possession of its rightful intellectual inheritance only if that inheritance were made teachable and learnable in this fashion.” 153. Within the confines of this chapter, the debate between so-called “traditionalists” and “progressivists” is irrelevant. However, one might caveat that the latter plausibly undermines the significance of former’s conviction of—as Pieper says—a “heritage” which ought to be passed on. In his “Aquinas and His Understanding of Teaching and Learning,” Jānis Tālivaldis Ozoliņš characterizes the progressivist’s critique of traditionalism as a system in which “teachers … employ teaching methods that stifle creativity and free expression in the classroom,” whose curriculum “was highly structured according to the interests of the teacher (or school) and methods varied little, taking small account of the interests or

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is what the philosophical anthropology of Pieper aims at—a distinction between what one ought “to do,” and what one ought “to become.”83 Just as ethics is not merely following a list of rules, so the liberal arts are not about following a set of instructions which have a foreseen, calculable result. It is here that we can appreciate the distinction that Pieper draws between material wealth and existential wealth.84 It is worth asking the question, once again, of how this fits in with the social justice of educational institutions. As I outlined earlier, Metcalfe and Ordine’s analyses reveal that the rejection of the liberal arts comes with a price; the price paid is a philosophical anthropology in which there is no ground for social justice since there is no moral obligation owed to other individuals. If liberal arts are to be maintained, it is only in virtue of a philosophical anthropology in which we are not calculating machines incapable of ethical action; it is only when we extend beyond the confines of servile calculation and into the realm of non-servile activities that ethical action becomes possible, indeed necessary. To put it explicitly: A morally responsible, social-justice oriented, calculating machine is an oxymoron. While, and I repeat, the liberal arts themselves do not necessitate social justice in and through educational institutions in either providing a sufficient—not just necessary—ground for ethical action or in specifying specific normative ethical demands, they open the possibility for it through fostering a coherent philosophical anthropology in which we are not mere utility-maximizing creatures. 6

Objections, Replies and the Sophist

I will lay out three arguments against Pieper in the form of questions and provide responses.

the background knowledge and understanding that their pupils brought to the classroom.” “Aquinas and His Understanding of Teaching and Learning” in Mooney, T. Brian, Mark Nowacki, and SpringerLink (Online service). Aquinas, education and the east. 1st ed., Vol. 4. (Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 2013 and 2014), 20. At least in the Medieval period, such “traditionalism” would have involved both the rigor needed of genuine academic study (in bringing to light the intellectual heritage), as well as freedom of expression in discussion and argumentation. A paradigmatic example would be the Medieval Disputatio in which public debates were held. 83 Pieper, Josef. The Christian Idea of Man. Trans. Dan Farrelly. (South Bend: St. Augustine’s Press, 2011), 3, 4. 84 Pieper, In Search of the Sacred, 44–45.

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(1) Pieper’s argument requires that there is a “superior philosophical standpoint” which dominates over all other forms of inquiry, and this is at best arbitrary and can lead to inaction (for “action” is bound to the practical). (2) Pieper’s position overlooks how much we need servile arts. The evidence of their necessity is grounded in the modern world it has built. (3) Pieper has admitted that there is no progress in the liberal arts, and that ought to count against their veracity as academic disciplines. (1) Mistaken for two reasons. First, the allegation of a “superior philosophical standpoint” is at best prima facie: “Nothing, in fact, is further from my intention than in any way whatsoever to denigrate this world as though from some supposedly superior “philosophical” standpoint.”85 It should be noted that the original meaning of “academic”—from Plato’s Ἀκάδημος—is theorietical, coming from θεωρία. Such philosophical θεωρία implies “a reality focused on in a receptive, knowing process.”86 The distinction here is not, and this answers the second part of the question, “seeing and doing,” but instead “knowing truth on the one hand and achieving utilitarian goals on the other”—although Pieper says “the latter has its place and is necessary.”87 It should also be noted that something along the lines of contemplata aliis tradere is at work here; it is not as though one contemplates for the sake of solving a problem, but that one contemplates, and the fruit of that contemplation is what is used as the basis of action.88 Regarding (2), it is important to remember that the aim of Pieper’s defense of the liberal arts affirms, many times, the need and requirement for the servile arts. I will give two examples. First, Pieper affirms that the material basis of the liberal arts are the servile arts: “…that world [of practical activities] is of course essentially part of man’s world, being the very ground of his physical existence—without which, obviously, no one could philosophize!”89 Second, Pieper affirms the role of the servile arts, though with the qualification that they have a specific role. Just as there cannot be “absolute and exclusive rights to theory” there cannot be “rigorous bracketing of the practicable.”90 The presumption underlying (3) is the following: If an academic discipline is worth doing, there needs to be concrete results which can be evaluated. While philosophy is not done for the sake of “practicable results,” it can have 85 Pieper, Leisure, 72. 86 Pieper, What does “Academic” Mean? 11. 87 Pieper, What does “Academic” Mean? 11, ff7. 88 I defend this in my “Ethics, Homelessness and the Artes Liberales/Serviles Distinction” in The Ethics of Homelessness: Philosophical Perspectives. Atlanta: Rodopi. (2nd edition forthcoming 2018). 89 Pieper, Leisure, 72. 90 Pieper, What does “Academic” Mean? ff7.

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results which can be evaluated by the insight it provides into getting at the nature of the world. For instance, in doing ethics one can use the fruit of philosophical analysis and contemplation in practical, real world problems. For example, it might take acquiring a series of specific insights for one to make a good decision in a given socio-historical circumstance fraught with complex variables to consider (what the virtue of prudentia refers to). There is no a priori problem in asserting that philosophy can make “progress”; however, it cannot be for the sake of progress that philosophy is done. However, a posteriori, has there been concrete results in philosophy which count as “progress”? In the philosophy of religion there has been indeed a resurgence of insights which count as progress. For example, in discussions of the age-old problem of evil, there has been tremendous progress.91 The three objections leveled against Pieper are thus implausible critiques of Pieper’s defense of the liberal arts and its consequent philosophical anthropology. In concluding this chapter, it would be worthwhile to exegete how Pieper understood the notion of the “sophist.” While the sophist originally meant a paid teacher in ancient Greece who sold their art of speaking well, for Plato—and Pieper—there were contemporary, worrisome aspects of the sophist which merit attention. It will be in virtue of this understanding of the sophist that the chapter ends on a practical, constructive note. The “sophist” is not a purely historical figure; however, I want to clarify my position prior to specifying how exactly it unfolds. My claim is not that neoliberal myth advocates are sophists, nor that they purposely and intentionally advocate sophistic policies. Rather, I am using the “sophist” as a conceptual framework in which we can interpret the language of the neoliberal myth, and derive conclusions from it. For while it was said that the neoliberal myth was without ethical discourse, the moral vacuity of the neoliberal myth shows that there is a misuse of language taking place. However, it is Plato who said that the sophist is the one who uses language for ulterior motives. What, then, is the sophist? In Plato’s Sophist, he says of the sophist that he is a producer of false appearances, of fictitious realities (236e-237a). The sophists would include Protagoras (the relativist), Hippias (who knew “everything”), Prodicos (the 91

For a brief survey of some of the more notable instances of genuine progress: William P. Alston’s “The inductive argument from evil and the human cognitive condition.” Philosophical perspectives 5 (1991): 29–67; Craig, William Lane and J.P Moreland’s Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview. (Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 2003), Chapter 27; Plantinga, Alvin. God, Freedom, and Evil. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974; Swinburne, Richard. Providence and The Problem of Evil. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998; Hick, John. Evil and the God of Love. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007; Rae, Michael C. The Hiddenness of God. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018).

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flattener of reality) and Gorgias (the nihilist).92 Of the conviction that “money and mind are incommensurable,”93 Pieper points out Plato’s real problem with the sophists lied in the sophist’s corruption of the “word” and language. However, there exists a distinction between “word and language” and “term and terminology.” The distinction lies in the natural, non-specialized nature of the former: “…word and language form the medium that sustains the common existence of the human spirit as such. The reality of the word in eminent ways makes existential interaction happen.”94 It is precisely words and language which have a two-fold purpose: The conveying of reality and inter-personal, existential interaction.95 It is “verbal artistry”—which in the sophist’s case is not oriented towards truth—which marks the sophist, the maker of fictitious realities; and, this cultivates in “flattery,” “having an ulterior motive” in which the interlocutor with whom one is speaking becomes “an object to be manipulated, possibly to be dominated, to be handled and controlled.”96 The sophist, in being the flatterer, always remains unknown (the primary condition under which deception operates). As Pieper puts it, “a flattery unmasked is all but a contradiction in terms.”97 Although for Pieper the sophist is contemporary, the extrapolation from a conceptual and historical understanding of sophistry into the present as “a timeless figure”98 needs explanation. As an explanation for the sophist’s contemporaneity, Pieper reminds his readers that the notion of “menace” is not contained in the translation of Plato, and hence it allows the corruption of the word to seem as though it does not take socio-political force.99 This, though, is far from the truth. Just as in Plato’s works “the art of persuasion” was not mere “cajoling” but a genuine act of “menace,” so the sophist in the contemporary world—the maker of fictitious realities—adopts a menace-like stance in pushing, for instance, philosophical

92 Pieper, What Does “Academic” Mean? 27. 93 Pieper, Josef. Abuse of Language, Abuse of Power. Trans. Lothar Krauth. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1992), 12. 94 Ibid., 15. 95 Ibid., 15. 96 Ibid., 18, 22. 97 Ibid., 25. 98 Pieper, What does “Academic” Mean? 27. 99 Ibid., 31. “Most translations have “the art of persuasion” in this context. Plato himself, however (in the Politeia, the great dialogue on the social and political order), characterizes the essence of injustice as the combination and collaboration of peithō and bia, rendered as “persuasive word” and “brute force.” Obviously, something is lost when the translations speak only of cajoling, wheedling and flattery. Left out is the element of menace.” 31.

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anthropologies into contemporary educational institutions which are inconsistent with what social justice demands. This extension of the sophist into the discussion allows specific points to be highlighted which I will summarize here. First, the root causes of morally vacuous philosophical anthropologies e.g., the neoliberal myth’s—and the accompanying rejection of liberal arts— are masked in morally-neutral language, and this is unsurprising given that sophistic rhetoric—aimed at ulterior purposes—is intentionally hidden. Second, it is instructive and incumbent that a sustainable philosophical anthropology, the condition under which there is the possibility of a liberal art, be maintained in spite of the sophist, and the challenge to do so will always be contemporary.100 7

Conclusion: Responsibilities and Further Work

It will be re-called that the question of this chapter was the following: What are the conditions, within and fostered by contemporary educational institutions, for social justice to be grounded philosophically and put into concrete action? I have defended the claim that it is likely that the conditions under which this is possible is by accepting a philosophical anthropology in which social justice is possible. I defended the further claim that one such philosophical anthropology is the one outlined by Josef Pieper. To show that Pieper’s thesis was needed and essentially correct, I began this chapter with an evaluation of what liberal arts are in contrast to servile arts. I then presented empirical data— from Metcalfe’s dissertation—which plausibly grounds the claim that a rejection of the liberal arts is concretely experienced today. After, I presented a positive defense of the liberal arts by Josef Pieper. I argued that insofar as his understanding of education involves the whole human being as Geist, capax universi and geschehendes Sein, his analysis is a response to morally vacuous philosophical anthropologies as well as a plausible model for defending the ground of social justice. In the end I responded to three objections to his thesis, arguing that all of them were not successful. I concluded from this that if social 100 Pieper also says that “purely humanistic education” does not solve the problem of sophistry inasmuch as the sophist is a result of a rejection of the original meaning of “academic”: “…the Academy … was an anti-sophist institution.” What Does “Academic” Mean? 27. Indeed, he names three ways—in What Does “Academic” Mean? 27—the sophist ruins academic freedom: First, by the mere “piling up of information.” Secondly, the making of “scientifically systematic knowledge of a closed individual discipline” into what it means to be “academic”; thirdly, in making “pure form” (in contradistinction to content) “education” one destroys what “academic” means.

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justice is to be maintained, it must be done by an always contemporary defense of the liberal arts, the evidence that human beings are not reducible to mere calculating “functionaries” or “workers.” I am aware that this chapter opens questions far beyond the confines of this chapter. For example: How would educational policies incorporate liberal arts without degenerating them into mere “humanistic education”? In what sense do “liberal arts” promote the flourishing and enriching of students, and what contemporary (or historical) data supports this? How should students and teachers within these systems concretely respond to harmful myths in educational institutions? If the “sophist” is always masked and hidden, what possibilities are there for preventatives? Are such “preventatives” even possible? Are educational institutions the best route given the aforementioned problems, and does (or could) homeschooling be a viable solution? For those working in the philosophy of education, as well as those who are making concrete changes in policy-making, it is the insights of this chapter that I offer for consideration, and hope that the ground of social justice can be maintained peacefully and with an aim to change through civil discussion. Bibliography Alston, William P. “The inductive argument from evil and the human cognitive condition.” Philosophical Perspectives 5 (1991): 29–67. Aristotle. The Basic Works of Aristotle. Trans. Richard McKeon. New York: Random House, 1941. Aristotle. The Metaphysics. Vol 1. Trans. Tredennick. Harvard University Press. The Loeb Classical Library, 1933. Blackburn, Simon. The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. Chesterton, G.K. “Heretics” in The Collected Works of G.K Chesterton. Vol. 1: Heretics, Orthodoxy, The Blatchford Controversies. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986. Craig, W.L. and J.P Moreland. Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview. Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 2003. Hick, John. Evil and the God of Love. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1932. Hyslop-Margison, Emery J. and M. Ayaz Naseem. Scientism and Education: Empirical Research as Neo-Liberal Ideology. Dordrecht: Springer, 2008. Kreeft, Peter. Making Choices. Michigan: Servant Books, 1990. Lewis, C.S. “The Abolition of Man” in The Complete C.S. Lewis Signature Classics. New York: HarperOne, 1944.

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Lewis, C.S. The Discarded Image. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1964. Liddell, Henry George and Robert Scott. Liddell and Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon Abridged. USA: Simon Wallenberg Press, 2007. Metcalfe, Bryan. Pedagogy of Mythos. Toronto: University of Toronto PhD Archive, 2013. Ordine, Nuccio. The Usefulness of the Useless. Trans. Alastair McEwen. Philadelphia: Paul Dry Books, 2017. Ozoliņš, Jānis Tālivaldis. “Aquinas and His Understanding of Teaching and Learning” in Mooney, T. Brian, Mark Nowacki, and SpringerLink (Online service). Aquinas, education and the east. 1st ed., Vol. 4. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 2013 and 2014. Pieper, Josef. Abuse of Language, Abuse of Power. Trans. Lothar Krauth. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1992. Pieper, Josef. Happiness and Contemplation. Trans. Richard and Clara Winston. New York: Pantheon Books, 1958. Pieper, Josef. In Defense of Philosophy: Classical Wisdom Stands up to Modern Challenges. Trans. Lothar Krauth. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1992. Pieper, Josef. In Search of the Sacred: Contributions to an Answer. Trans. Lothar Krauth. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1991. Pieper, Josef. “Justice” in The Four Cardinal Virtues. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1966. Pieper, Josef. Leisure: The Basis of Culture. Trans. Alexander Dru. Introduction by T.S. Elliot. New York and Scarborough: A Mentor Book, 1963. Pieper, Josef. Only the Lover Sings. Trans. Lothar Krauth. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1990. Pieper, Josef. Scholasticism. Trans. Dan Farrelly. South Bend: St. Augustine’s Press, 2001. Pieper, Josef. The Christian Idea of Man. Trans. Dan Farrelly. South Bend: St. Augustine’s Press, 2011. Pieper, Josef. The Human Wisdom of St. Thomas: A Breviary of Philosophy from the Works of St. Thomas Aquinas. Arranged by Josef Pieper. Trans. Drostan Maclaren, O.P. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2002. Pieper, Josef. What Does “Academic” Mean? Trans. Dan Farrelly. South Bend: St. Augustine’s Press, 2015. Plantinga, Alvin. God, Freedom, and Evil. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974. Plato. Sophist. Trans. Harold North Fowler. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, The Loeb Classical Library, 1921. Rae, Michael C. The Hiddenness of God. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Rehman, Rashad. “Ethics, Homelessness and the Artes Liberales/Serviles Distinction” in The Ethics of Homelessness: Philosophical Perspectives. Atlanta: Rodopi. (2nd edition forthcoming 2019–20). Rehman, Rashad. “Love as Divine Gift in Kierkegaard and Pieper: A Phenomenological Analysis” Midwest Journal of Undergraduate Research ix (2018): 105–132.

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Rehman, Rashad. “On the Boarder of Concrete Experience: Mythic and Literary Experience in C.S Lewis” Sophia xiv (2018): 44–62. Rehman, Rashad. “The Ontic Foundation of Hope: Josef Pieper’s Critique of Atheistic Existentialism,” The Oracle. Issue x (2017): 23–31. Spaeth, M., K. Weichold, and RK Silbereisen. “The Development of Leisure Boredom in Early Adolescence: Predictors and Longitudinal Associations with Delinquency and Depression.” Developmental Psychology 51, no. 10. 2015: 1380–1394. Swinburne, Richard. Providence and The Problem of Evil. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Whiting, James and Kevin Hannam. “Creativity, Self-Expression and Leisure.” Leisure Studies 34, no. 3 (2015): 372–384. Zvonovskii, Vladimir and Svetlana Lutseva. “Young People’s Favorite Leisure Activities.” Russian Education and Society 46, no. 1 (2004): 76–96.

Chapter 12

The Quest for Genuine Democracy: A Promise of Democracy to Come Edward Demenchonok In today’s polarized and conflicted world, invoking humanistic notions such as peace, justice, human rights, and democracy often raise suspicion, because of their misinterpretation. Should we refrain from discussing notions, which have been compromised by ideological abuse in hypocritical political rhetoric? No. Instead, philosophy should assume a critical role in clarifying these notions, unpacking their distortions, restoring their genuine meaning, and regaining their role in the people’s ongoing struggle for a better life, for peace, and for justice. Philosophers are well poised to compare and contrast the theoretical constructions with the realities of our world. They criticized John Rawls’s theory of justice and the so-called original position, which stands in striking contrast to the massive injustices rooted in dominance that pervade the real world. The term “justice” should not be reduced to particular legal systems and the prejudices of those who control them. The whole pretense that we can describe the nature of the perfectly just society and then consider the society in which we live as a “nearly just” one is ultimately an illusion. The era “of ideal, selfcongratulatory liberal democratic theory whose practitioners think of themselves as inhabitants of ‘nearly just societies’ comes to an end” and needs to be critically revised.1 A struggle against injustices needs a reorientation toward theories about injustices. Given the huge gap between the aspirational ideals and reality, analysis should combine both normative and empirical perspectives of studies of democracy. Social ideals must not be trivialized with claims that their fulfillment is imminent. We need to cherish ideals as goals, but hold them accountable to actual circumstances, see them in perspective and explore the conditions of their possible realization. In philosophy and political science there is what can be called a change of prevailing modalities, meaning a shift from the “indicative” 1 William McBride, “The Philosophical Quest for Perfect Justice,” in Intercultural Dialogue: In Search of Harmony in Diversity, ed. Edward Demenchonok, 255–270 (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016), 255, 266.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���� | doi:10.1163/9789004417588_014

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or “imperative” to the “subjunctive” modality, which endows a variety of possibilities. The category “possible” is applied to various aspects of reality, language, and thought. Accordingly, “now we strive to make possible that which was possible to make; to be a possibility for other people and perceive them as open possibilities. The subjunctive mode is a huge sphere of new spiritual experience, new tact, tolerance, and intellectual generosity, to which the philosophy of the possible can serve only as an introduction.”2 This reorientation to the subjunctive modality can be seen in expressions such as “democracy to come” and “cosmopolitanism to come.” For example, in the 1990s, cosmopolitanism was promoted as a real alternative envisioning a transition from a state-centered international system toward a world order of peace and justice. However, since the beginning of the twenty-first century, due to the neoconservative shift of US policy toward global hegemony, philosophers have begun to view cosmopolitanism as a possible, but quite tentative long-range goal. Seila Benhabib has admonished against premature declarations of an age of cosmopolitanism, arguing that currently we live not in an age of cosmopolitanism, but “in an age of cosmopolitization,” anticipating its realization: “The interlocking of democratic iteration struggles within a global civil society and the creation of solidarities beyond borders … anticipate another cosmopolitanism—a cosmopolitanism to come.”3 Jacques Derrida coined the expression “democracy to come” to distinguish current Western democracies from his reflections on genuine democracy as a future possibility. If democracy is unable to protect freedom and equality, this is not a genuine democracy. Moreover, as Raffaele Marchetti put it, “either democracy is global or it is not a democracy… Any political system that applies allegedly democratic principles within a limited scope is either hypocrisy or an illusion.”4 Progressive philosophers criticize the mainstream narrative of a triumphant West, as epitomized in Fukuyama’s “end of history,” and argue that a “democratic deficit” exists with manifold problems and conflicts, which cut across ethnic, racial, cultural, social, and national lines. The existing democratic systems have been criticized from the point of view of radical democracy, the distinctive characteristic of which is a new conception of democratic politics from below: First, instead of the views of politics as related to institutions, it is 2 Mikhail Epstein, “On Creativity in Philosophy: Toward Cultural Proteism and Philosophy of the Possible,” in Philosophy after Hiroshima, ed. Edward Demenchonok, 477–512 (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010), 510. 3 Seyla Benhabib, Jeremy Waldron, Bonnie Honig, Will Kymlicka, and Robert Post, eds., Another Cosmopolitanism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 177. 4 Raffaele Marchetti, Global Democracy: For and Against. Ethical Theory, Institutional Design, and Social Struggles (London and New York: Routledge, 2008), 1.

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conceived mainly as a domain and an activity.5 Political freedom is active and public.6 Such political action is understood to be a means for democratic transformation. Democratic politics is adversarial and carried out through contestation over democratic ideals.7 This type of politics can arise outside institutions and against them as a public demand that they become transformative and more democratic.8 Finally, the politics of radical democratic transformation emerges through struggles for freedom and equality, challenging particular obstacles to the expansion of the universal principle of equal freedom.9 This must be a “bottom up” struggle by those whose interests would benefit from a more democratic system. These insights help to bridge the normative ideas of democracy with praxis and the political activities of individuals and social movements striving for the implementation of the universal principles of freedom, equality, and justice. These theorists aim to provide the oppressed and the powerless with a strategy to overcome their exclusion and inequality. This chapter examines some of the theories of democracy. The first part analyzes Jacques Derrida’s conception of democracy to come. The second part is focused on Fred Dallmayr’s conception of democracy to come as relational practice guided by ethical principles and “love of equality.” 1

Jacques Derrida’s Democracy to Come

An original philosophical reflection on politics and democracy is offered by Jacques Derrida. In the early 1990’s, in contrast to the neocons’ triumphalism proclaiming the “end of history,” Derrida prophetically wrote: “The world is going very badly,” referring to Hamlet’s phrase “The time is out of joint.”10 He pointed 5 6 7 8

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James D. Ingram, Radical Cosmopolitics: The Ethics and Politics of Democratic Universalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013), 223. Cf. Hannah Arendt, On Revolution (New York: Penguin, 1977). Cf. Claude Lefort, Democracy and Political Theory, trans. David Macey (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988). Cf. Sheldon S. Wolin, Politics and Vision: Continuity and Innovation in Western Political Thought (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004); Miguel Abensour, Democracy against the State: Marx and the Machiavellian Moment, trans. Max Blechman and Martin Breaugh (Cambridge: Polity. 2011). Cf. Étienne Balibar, Equaliberty: Political Essays, trans. James D. Ingram (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2014); Jacques Rancière, Dissensus: On Politics and Aesthetics, trans. and ed. Steve Corcoran (London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015). Jacques Derrida, Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning, and the New International, trans. Peggy Kamuf (London and New York: Routledge, 1994), 96.

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out the numerous plagues of the capitalist global system and concluded: “Instead of singing the advent of the ideal of liberal democracy and of the capitalist market in the euphoria of the end of history …, let us never neglect this obvious macroscopic fact, made up of innumerable singular sites of suffering: no degree of progress allows one to ignore that never before, in absolute figures, have so many men, women and children been subjugated, starved or exterminated on the earth.”11 The world could be entirely different, and a profound transformation is needed. This transformation requires rethinking everything, from society and politics to culture, philosophy, religion, and subjectivity. Derrida undertakes a profound critical re-elaboration of concepts such as democracy, the State, national sovereignty, and citizenship. He opposes to traditional theories of democracy a conception of the “democracy to come” and the “new international.”12 Derrida saw problems of contemporary society, the possible solutions of which require a profound transformation of the existing political-economic system, as well as a new political philosophy and a new theory of society. Derrida criticizes the “Western political theorems” and elaborates on alternative views of the human being and society, using notions such as the Other, “event,” “beyond,” “khöra,” and “to come,” which he enriches with new meanings. His signature notion is “to come” [venir] (in its vocative form “Come”—Viens). Among its various and interrelated meanings, one expresses an openness. As he put it in an interview in 1983, “everything remains open, still to be thought.”13 This is an openness to the other and from the other: “This ‘Come,’ I do not know what it is, not because I yield to obscurantism, but because the question ‘what is’ belongs to the space (ontology, and from it the knowledge of grammar, linguistics, semantics, and so on) opened by a ‘come’ come from the other.”14 The coming of the other is an event. “Come” is the invocation of opening a space for the event: “‘Come’, opening the scene, could not become an object, a theme, a representation.”15 It precedes and preconditions any ontological possibility; it is that from which anything happens: “The event of this ‘Come’ precedes and calls the event. It would be that from which there is any event, the 11 Derrida, Specters of Marx, 106. 12 Derrida, Specters of Marx, 105. 13 Jacques Derrida, “Unsealing (‘the old new language’),” in Points … Interviews, 1974–94, ed. Elizabeth Weber (Stanford: Stanford UP, 1995), 115–139. 14 Jacques Derrida, “Of an Apocalyptic Tone Newly Adopted in Philosophy,” in Derrida and Negative Theology, ed. Harold Coward and Toby Foshay (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), 65. 15 Derrida, “Of an Apocalyptic Tone,” 64–65.

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coming, the to-come (l’à-venir) of the event that cannot be thought under the given category of event.”16 The “to come” is also an openness to the unpredictable future: In the voiceover in the documentary Derrida (2002), he talks about two kinds of future: the sort of future that is “predictable” or “foreseeable,” and the sort of future that is “totally unpredictable”: In general, I try and distinguish between what one calls the future and ‘l’avenir.’ The future is that which—tomorrow, later, next century—will be. There is a future which is predictable, programmed, scheduled, foreseeable. But there is a future, l’avenir (to come) which refers to someone who comes whose arrival is totally unexpected. For me, that is the real future. That which is totally unpredictable. The Other who comes without my being able to anticipate their arrival. So if there is a real future, beyond the other known future, it is l’avenir in that it is the coming of the Other when I am completely unable to foresee their arrival.17 The “to come” of the event also refers to democracy as “democracy to come.” In Rogues, Derrida attempts to revisit his earlier projects, bringing out their political relevance. He characterizes his initial revision of structuralist linguistics (différance) in terms of its relation to the empirical and ontological limitations of democracy. In his words, “the thinking of the political has always been a thinking of différance and the thinking of différance always a thinking of the political, of the contour and limits of the political, especially around the enigma or the autoimmune double bind of the democratic.”18 Derrida suggests that we should think “beyond” existing political systems, institutions, nation states, citizenship, the state-centric international system, and the traditional cosmopolitical ideal. He tries to broaden the horizon of philosophical thinking about society. He asserts that existing democracies “remain inadequate to the democratic demand” to secure human rights, and he 16

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Derrida, “Of an Apocalyptic Tone,” 64. In John Caputo’s interpretation, the event is that which breaks out in messianic time: “Viens calls for a break, for breaking out into the open, for something new or different, something that shatter the horizon of the same.” John D. Caputo, The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida: Religion Without Religion (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1997), 95. Cf. Maria-Daniella Dick and Julian Wolfrays, Derrida Wordbook (Edinburg: Edinburg University Press, 2013), 378–379n. Also in Derrida: Screenplay and Essays on the Film, eds. Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering Kofman (New York: Routledge; 2005), 53. Jacques Derrida, Rogues: Two Essays on Reason, trans. Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005), 39.

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laments that many millions are “grossly deprived not only of bread and water but of equality or freedom.”19 In his reflection on democracy, Derrida discusses paradoxical sets of dualities or aporias that are constitutive of democracy, such as between freedom and equality, heterogeneity and homogeneity, self-determination and sharing, sovereignty and democracy. For instance, on the one hand, democratic freedoms, such as freedom of speech and press, are indispensable for a democratic society. This ensures free interpretations of the concept of democracy itself and allows openness to self-improvement and transformation. On the other hand, because of their commitment to equality, democracies are characterized by an equal sharing of power among the people. For a democracy to remain true to itself, it must ensure that all people have equal opportunities to represent and to be represented, and to govern as well as to be governed. Freedom implies thinking the self as immeasurable, while equality implies the self to be understood in an equitable and measurable manner. Democracy respects the citizen or political subject as a singular individual to be counted. At the same time, there is the universality of rational calculation, the equality of citizens before the law. Derrida argues that democracy opens up the question of the citizen or the subject as a countable singularity. Democracies are consumed with counting votes and the calculation of majorities. Calculated majorities always prevail in democracy, which obliterates the singularity of the counted. By being larger than the minority, the majority can enforce its will upon the minority. Ironically, because democracy is inherently concerned with vote counting and calculation, it is possible for the enemies of democracy, by a rhetorical simulacrum, to present themselves as staunch democrats, to accumulate a numerical majority of votes to come into power through formally democratic electoral processes, and to engineer the dissolution of the very democracy. A democratic state may either allow the seizure of power through formally democratic elections or it may seek to prevent this by suspending democratic procedures. But either outcome is risky for the democracy. The aporia of freedom and equality has to do with the freedom at play in the concept of democracy. Derrida raises the question: “must a democracy leave free and in a position to exercise power those who risk mounting an assault on democratic freedoms and putting an end to democratic freedom in the name of democracy and of the majority that they might actually be able to rally around to their cause?”20 19 Derrida, Rogues, 86. 20 Derrida, Rogues, 34.

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This aporia shows the susceptibility of democracy to the logic of “autoimmunity,” which is “that strange behavior where a living being, in quasi-suicidal fashion ‘itself’ works to destroy its own protection.”21 Among the symptoms of autoimmunity are “the Cold War in the head,” the nuclear “balance of terror,” and the global “war on terrorism.” This posits a challenge to democracy and requires its constant self-improvement: “the inherited concept of democracy is the only one that welcomes the possibility of being contested, of contesting itself, of criticizing and indefinitely improving itself.”22 Derrida is challenging the established meanings of “democracy” and suggesting a new way of thinking about democracy in relation to the renewed views of individual “singularity,” alterity of the Other, responsibility, the ethical, and the political. For him, democracy does not mean a form of government or substantive regime, and “the concept of a democracy without concept” is free in “the free play of its indetermination.” He suggests that the “democracy to come” has to do neither with the constitutive (in a Platonic sense of paradigm, eidos or idea of democracy) nor with the regulative (in the Kantian sense of a regulative idea), but rather the phrase “to come” and khora convey its sense of a radical promise. He explains his view of democracy invoking the notion différance in two senses: as deferral, that is an “adjournment in the economy of the same”; and as reference or referral to the other, as the undeniable “experience of the alterity of the other, of heterogeneity, of the singular, the not-same, the different, the dissymmetric, the heteronomous.” In both senses of différance the democracy is differential: “Democracy is what it is only in the différance by which it defers itself and differs from itself.”23 Derrida stresses the transformative and trans-performative character of the conception of democracy to come and articulates its chief features. First, its critical character is a “call for a militant and interminable political critique.” Second, democracy to come “is inextricably linked to justice.” Third, it implies another thinking of the event as unforeseeable and un-masterable “to-come.” Fourth, it does not refer to an evolutionary process or a linear teleology unfolding in time, but rather it wavers between a descriptive a performative modalities. Fifth, in its international dimension, democracy to come presupposes “an extension of the democratic beyond nation-state sovereignty, beyond citizenship,” 21

Jacques Derrida, “Autoimmunity: Real and Symbolic Suicides. A Dialogue with Jacques Derrida,” in Philosophy in a Time of Terror: Dialogues with Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida, ed. G. Borradori, 85–136 (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 94. 22 Derrida, “Autoimmunity,” 94–100, 121. 23 Derrida, Rogues, 37–38.

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envisioning an “international juridico-political space,” exemplified in the notion of global human rights.24 In its critical role, democracy to come calls for unmasking of all naїveté of demagogy seeking to present as “democratic” an actually existing regime that is, in fact, oppressive, oligarchic, and “inadequate to the democratic demand.”25 It criticizes invocation of democracy for purposes of hegemonic intervention and domination. Its protest is directed against violation of human rights anywhere in the world, against conditions in which many millions of human beings are suffering from malnutrition, disease, and humiliation. It takes in account the intrinsic historicity and changeable character of the political systems, contrary to “all teleology, all onto-theo-teleology.”26 Derrida explores the concept of democracy to come in two modalities of discourse. On the one hand, he describes in a neutral fashion what the concept of democracy implies. This description includes: the semantic void of the concept, its promise, the event to come, messianicity and intrinsic historicity, an autoimmunitary self-critique, and its aporias. On the other hand, beyond the level of a neutral conceptual analysis, democracy to come can also “inscribe a performative and attempt to win conviction by suggesting support or adherence,” implying an imperative injunction to believe in it and to take action.27 The concept of democracy to come can oscillate endlessly between these two modalities. They can alternate from being addressed to the first person or to the other. This also means that it is political, for democracy opens the publicity of public space: “It thus already opens, for whomever, an experience of freedom, however ambiguous and disquieting, threatened and threatening, it might remain in its ‘perhaps,’ with a necessarily excessive responsibility of which no one may be absolved.”28 Hence, democracy to come is supposed to play an active role in the present. Democracy to come does not mean a linear teleology unfolding in time, does not predict what is going to happen, does not necessarily designate the future of a democracy: “Not the democracy of tomorrow, not a future democracy which will be present tomorrow but one whose concept is linked to the tocome [a-venir, cf. avenir, future], to the experience of a promise engaged, that is always an endless promise.”29 Democracy to come rather has a transformative 24 Derrida, Rogues, 87–88. 25 Derrida, Rogues, 86. 26 Derrida, Rogues, 87. 27 Derrida, Rogues, 91. 28 Derrida, Rogues, 92. 29 Jacques Derrida, Acts of Literature, ed. Derek Attridge (London and New York: Routledge, 1992), 38.

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and trans-performative connotation. It implies the coming of an event which is unforeseeable, “un-masterable by any ipseity [identity] or any conventional and thus consensual performativity” and cannot be fabricated by will power.30 Derrida says that the to come is “not something that is certain to happen tomorrow, not the democracy (national or international, state or trans-state) of the future, but a democracy that must have the structure of a promise—and thus the memory of that which carries the future, the to-come, here and now.”31 To further convey this idea or intuition, he also invokes the notion of “khöra” from Plato’s Timaeus, where it means (or can be interpreted to mean) a place before any place, a spacing from “before” the world or the cosmos. The khöra is invisible and without sensible form, yet “it ‘participates’ in the intelligible in a very troublesome and indeed aporetic way.”32 It opens and dislocates, displaces all the categories that govern the production of that world. The khöra is a spacing from “before” any anthropotheological dogmatism or historicity, which would give rise “to what is called the coming of the event.” In Derrida’s words, khöra is “the call for a thinking of the event to come, of the democracy to come, of the reason to come. This call bears every hope, to be sure, although it remains, in itself, without hope. Not hopeless, in despair, but foreign to the teleology, the hopefulness, and the salut of salvation. Not foreign … to justice, but nonetheless heterogeneous and rebellious, irreducible, to law, to power, and to the economy of redemption.”33 Derrida interprets the arrival of the other in terms of “horizontality” and “verticality.” Horizontality refers to the foreigners coming mainly by customs and immigration control. Verticality means to see in the foreigner not simply an immigrant worker, but the arrival of the “other,” to whom unconditional hospitality has to be open to the visitation of the other who may come at any time without any notification. For Derrida, “This is also the messianic: the messiah can arrive, he can come at any time, from on high, where I don’t see him coming.” This involves faith. It is impossible to talk about verticality, “about absolute arrivance, without the act of faith having already commenced—and the act of faith is not necessarily religion, a given religion—without a certain space of faith without knowledge, faith beyond knowledge.”34 Derrida explored the domain of religious faith (especially in the Abrahamic tradition). 30 Derrida, Rogues, 87. 31 Derrida, Rogues, 85–86. 32 Jacques Derrida, “Khôra,” in On the Name, ed. Thomas Dutoit, transl. Ian McLeod, 89–127. (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995), 90. 33 Derrida, Rogues, xv. 34 Jacques Derrida, “A Certain Impossible Possibility of Saying the Event,” Critical Inquiry Vol. 33 No. 2 (Winter 2007): 461. See his writings on questions of faith and their relation to

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He conveyed a non-dogmatic religiosity and a kind of messianic hope without messianism. The conception “democracy to come” includes international relationships, in which Derrida explores the connection between law, justice, and force. He opens his book Rogues with an epigraph from La Fontaine’s fable “The Wolf and the Lamb,” meaning that “the reason of the strongest is always the best” or “might makes right.” It is used as the leitmotif running throughout this work in critically examining the relationships between force and law. Derrida raises several interrelated questions: What political narrative might today illustrate the morality of this fable? Does this morality teach us that force “trumps” law? Or that juridical reason itself includes a priori a possible recourse to coercion and to a certain violence? He raises further questions with regard to “the couple force and law”: Who has the right to give him- or herself a right or a law, “to attribute or to make the law in a sovereign fashion”?35 He calls for rethinking such notions as reason, politics, war, law, democracy, and sovereignty. He challenges “the reason of the strongest” and points out that force is not unlimited (referring to Rousseau’s statement that “the strongest man is never strong enough to be always the master, unless he transforms strength into right, and obedience into duty”).36 He insists on this by also referring to Kant’s definition of right: “any action is right if it can coexist with everyone’s freedom in accordance with a universal law, or if on its maxim the freedom of choice of each can coexist with everyone’s freedom in accordance with a universal law.”37 Therefore, we must act only in ways that leave others freedom of action equal to our own, thus being subjects of legal rules. Kant’s definition of strict right implies the faculty or the possibility of reciprocal constraint or coercion, and thus “the possibility of force, of a reason of the strongest in accordance with universal laws and consistent with the freedom of all.” For Derrida this definition of right is at once democratic (the freedom of everyone), international, and cosmopolitan (universal laws), and “it prescribes or authorizes the legal and legitimate recourse to force … that is, some sovereignty, even if it is not that of the state.”38

philosophy and political culture in Jacques Derrida, Acts of Religion, ed. Gil Anidjar (New York: Routledge, 2002). 35 Derrida, Rogues, xi. 36 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, transl. Maurice Cranston (London: Penguin Books, 1968), 52. 37 Immanuel Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, in Immanuel Kant, Practical Philosophy, ed. Mary J. Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 6:230. 38 Derrida, Rogues, 93.

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In relation to democracy Derrida analyses the problem of sovereignty, “most notably nation-state sovereignty—whether it be called democratic or not.”39 He calls into question the view of nation-state and territorial sovereignty, which opposes so-called lawful states versus “rogue-states” (États voyous).40 He criticizes a “rationalization” of this conception orchestrated by hegemonic states in mounting a campaign against so-called rogue states. He refers to the states that claim to uphold international law and accuse some “rogue state” of violating the law and thus claim the right to take the initiative of war: “these states, namely, the United States and its allied states in these actions, are themselves, as sovereign, the first rogue states.”41 Derrida points out the difference between the meaning of the French word voyou and its use in the notion of an “État voyou” as “rogue state”—the translation of “what the American administration has been denouncing” under this name as a state that violates both national and international law. However, within the context of hegemonic globalization, the difference is blurred: “The experience of translation orients us here, and precisely through the English language, toward what might be called, in a few words, the ‘question of the United States,’ the question of their ‘right of the strongest,’ their ‘law of the jungle [droit du plus fort].’ Hegemony? Supremacy? A new figure of Empire or imperialism? Should we be satisfied with this vocabulary, or should we, with no compass to orient us, seek something else?”42 From his perspective, Derrida contributes to the critique of power politics and of what Noam Chomsky called “a rogue superpower.”43

39 Derrida, Rogues, xii. 40 The states labeled as “rogue” are stripped of their legitimacy and the right to be free from foreign intervention. For example, Jean Cohen criticizes the discourse of “rogue” states as an imperial deformation of international law: “the effort to recreate a hierarchical international society and legal system from which some ‘outlaw’ or ‘rogue’ or ‘criminal’ states are excluded” are examples of “an imperial project to undermine the integrity of international law and to subject multilateral institutions to hegemonic capture.” There should be no individuals or outlaw states denied a legal persona or membership in the international community. Cohen develops the political conception of human rights and a conception of sovereignty that has acquired a new dimension: “the status of being a member of the international community with the right to participate in global governance institutions that make coercive decisions affecting all states and their citizens.” Jean L. Cohen, “Rethinking Human Rights, Democracy, and Sovereignty in the Age of Globalization.” Political Theory 36 (4) (2008): 598, 596. 41 Derrida, Rogues, 102. 42 Derrida, Rogues, xiii. 43 Noam Chomsky, Rogue States: The Rule of Force in World Affairs, Second Printing Edition (Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2000), 6.

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Derrida shows the tension between democracy and sovereignty in international relations. In power politics, in which “the reason of the strongest is always best,” the relations of military and economic force end up determining the effectiveness (or rather limitations) of international law and institutions, such as the United Nations, with “Western political theorems” of sovereignty and democracy. However, he writes, “these two principles, democracy and sovereignty, are at the same time, but also by turns, inseparable and in contradiction with one another.”44 On the one hand, in order to be sovereign, one must take responsibility for exercising power by oneself, indivisibly, and not sharing it. On the other hand, democracy calls for the sovereign to share power, for universalization (giving reasons in an assembly). Derrida points out the paradox, that despite the pretensions of sovereignty to represent the concept of international and thus universal and democratic law, “sovereignty is incompatible with universality.” Because “There is no sovereignty without force, without the force of the strongest, whose reason—the reason of the strongest—is to win out over everything.”45 Therefore, “if the constitution of this force is, in principle, supposed to represent and protect this world democracy, it in fact betrays and threatens it from the very outset, in an autoimmune fashion.”46 Arguably, pretensions of any state to be a legislator of international law are ungrounded. As I mentioned elsewhere, a tension exists between the plurality of particular democratic states—with different interests and normative reservations—and the universal principles of international law, for example, human rights, which direct us toward a cosmopolitan legal order. Each state as a self-maintaining system has its own political and economic interests. There is also the limitation of the cognitive point of view of each state, so that even a “benevolent” hegemon as a self-appointed world trustee of human rights cannot be certain that it was really acting in the interests of those it paternalistically claimed to be protecting. Due to these differences of interests and political discourses, no one particular democratic state can claim an impartial and disinterested representation of the interests of the other sovereign states, nor could its legislation be only a pure expression of universal “principles of law” (such as human rights).47 Derrida is concerned that every sovereign state is able to abuse its power: “The use of state power is originally excessive and abusive,” and the recourse to 44 Derrida, Rogues, 100. 45 Derrida, Rogues, 101. 46 Derrida, Rogues, 100. 47 Edward Demenchonok, “Universal Human rights in a Culturally Diverse World,” in Intercultural Dialogue: In Search of Harmony in Diversity, ed. Edward Demenchonok (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016), 329.

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terror and fear has always been the ultimate recourse for the sovereign.48 This arbitrariness of unlimited abusive power was somehow uncritically expressed in Carl Schmitt’s definition of the sovereign as the one who has the right to suspend law. Derrida in his “deconstruction of sovereignty” sees the necessity “in the name of reason” to limit the logic of nation-state sovereignty and “its right to suspend rights and law” even in democratic states.49 The instances of such limiting include humanitarian initiatives, the work of certain nongovernmental organizations, the International Criminal Court, and other vehicles of international law. At the same time, he argues that it would be imprudent and unreasonable to oppose all sovereignty, without threatening “the classical principles of freedom and self-determination.” These principles must be preserved, because “like the classical tradition of law (and the force that it presupposes), these classical principles remain inseparable from a sovereignty at once indivisible and yet able to be shared.”50 He favors divisible or shared sovereignty. Sovereignty can be affected in autoimmunity by the self. Thus, “it needs heteronomy, the event, time and the other.”51 A “selective” approach to sovereignty, privileging some states and limiting or denying the sovereignty of others, was employed after 9/11 by the George W. Bush Administration, and its version can be seen during the Donald Trump Presidency.52 The hegemonic superpower often disregards international laws in the name of a supremacist nation-state sovereignty. Its global hegemonic ambitions threaten the sovereignty of other nation-states. Ironically, within this context, “humanitarian” interventions became frequently used as pretext for geopolitical interventionism, and the universalistic talk of the so called “liberal internationalism” about “disaggregation of sovereignty” played into the hands of hegemonic globalization. In this situation the role of nation-state sovereignty as a defense against foreign dominance came to the forefront. Derrida is supportive of this defensive role of sovereignty, as “an indispensable bulwark against certain international powers, certain ideological, religious, or capitalist, indeed linguistic, hegemonies that, under the cover of liberalism or universalism, would still represent, in a world that would be little more than a

48 Derrida, Rogues, 156. 49 Derrida, Rogues, 157. 50 Derrida, Rogues, 158. 51 Derrida, Rogues, 109. 52 Mark Landler, “Trump Offers a Selective View of Sovereignty in U.N. Speech,” New York Times, Sept. 19, 2017, page A1. Available at https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/19/world/ trump-speech-united-nations.html.

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marketplace, a rationalization in the service of particular interests.”53 Derrida’s endorsement of an international rule of law implies that, despite that however much the current world order allows the most powerful states to determine what is right, the other states should pursue a range of developments in international law and institutions, such as the United Nations, that seek to effectively protect their rights and to serve as a bulwark against the imperial predations of the superpowers. International law asserts the equality of sovereign states. He emphasizes that “the coming of the other” should not be limited by any conditional hospitality on the borders of a policed nation-state. Thus, democracy to come presupposes “an extension of the democratic beyond nationstate sovereignty, beyond citizenship” and this “would come about through the creation of an international juridico-political space that, without doing away with every reference to sovereignty, never stops innovating and inventing new distributions and forms of sharing, new divisions of sovereignty.” The Declaration of Human Rights asserts another sovereignty: “Human rights pose and presuppose the human being (who is equal, free, self-determined) as sovereign.”54 Derrida articulates the idea of unconditionality, seen as an exit from mastery and human control. “Democracy to come” is presented as an unconditional demand. The phrase “to come” and khora convey a sense of unconditional promise. Hospitality should be unconditional and exposed “without limit to the coming of the other, beyond rights and laws,” because “only an unconditional hospitality can give meaning and practical rationality to a concept of hospitality.” A gift or forgiveness should also be unconditional and beyond calculation: “The incalculable unconditionality of hospitality, of the gift or of forgiveness, exceeds the calculation of conditions, just as justice exceeds law, the juridical, and the political.”55 Derrida raised his voice in defense of human rights and he advanced the case for a right of immigration for those seeking asylum. He strongly criticized anti-immigration policies and practices as a “violation of hospitality.” In grounding his claim of the immigrants’ right to “hospitality,” Derrida finds support in Kant’s philosophical formulation of universal hospitality and cosmopolitan law.56 He highlights the image of cities of refuge as a model for the 53 Derrida, Rogues, 158. 54 Derrida, Rogues, 87–88. 55 Derrida, Rogues, 149. 56 Immanuel Kant, Toward Perpetual Peace, in Immanuel Kant, Practical Philosophy, transl. Mary J. Gregor (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 328.

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transformation of societies worldwide, in approximation of a cosmopolitan ideal. He writes, “I also imagine the experience of cities of refuge as giving rise to a place (lieu) for reflection—for reflection on the questions of asylum and hospitality—and for a new order of law and democracy to come to be put to the test (experimentation).” He also refers to the Levinasian figure of the door at the threshold of the home, hospitably opened as a manner of relating oneself to the Other: “Being on the threshold of these cities, of these new cities that would be something other than ‘new cities,’ a certain idea of cosmopolitanism, an other, has not yet arrived, perhaps.”57 Democracy to come would go beyond the limits of national citizenship to world citizenship. As Derrida explains, “it would be more in line with what lets singular beings (anyone) ‘live together,’ there where they are not yet defined by citizenship, that is, by their condition as lawful ‘subjects’ in a state or legitimate members of a nation state or even of a confederation or world state.”58 It would involve an alliance that goes beyond the “political,” but does not lead to depolitization. Derrida suggests that we broaden our views of cosmopolitan order: “Progress of cosmopolitanism, yes. We can celebrate it, as we do any access to citizenship, in this case, to world citizenship.” At the same time, he stresses that beyond the traditional cosmopolitical ideal we should see “the coming of a universal alliance or solidarity that extends beyond the internationality of nation states and thus beyond citizenship.”59 This resonates with ideas of a “new cosmopolitanism” as rooted, reflexive, critical, democratic, dialogic, and transformative. 2

Fred Dallmayr: Democracy to Come as Relational Praxis

In the same vein of Derrida’s radical political philosophy, an original approach to the analysis of theories and practices of democracy is developed by Fred Dallmayr. He elaborates his political theory in dialogue with the legacies of Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Raimon Panikkar, Maurice MerleauPonty, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Derrida. He is critical of the existing liberal democracies for their abuses and inequalities, with “slim procedural formalities serving as fig leaves to cover prevailing modes of domination.”60 Thus, 57 58 59 60

Jacques Derrida, On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness (London and New York: Routledge, 2001), 23. Derrida “Autoimmunity,” 130. Derrida “Autoimmunity,” 123–124. Fred Dallmayr. The Promise of Democracy: Political Agency and Transformation (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2010), 1.

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Dallmayr also approaches democracy from the perspective of democracy to come. He views it as a “promise,” meaning that it is not presently an actuality, but that it latently exists as a possibility or potentiality, the realization of which requires a process of striving, ethical cultivation, and self-transformation.61 Dallmayr argues that ideal democracy is not a stable hierarchical system centered in a manifest authority (like monarchy), but is decentered (ex-centric) with lateral relationships sustained by the potential rule of the “people.” However, he contends, Abraham Lincoln’s hope for the “government of the people, by the people, for the people”62 remains unrealized. Instead, it has been derailed by the power of money taking over political institutions. As Dallmayr writes, “in the wake of a major Supreme Court decision (Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 2010), it became possible and legitimate to quip, ‘Democracy is the rule of corporations, by corporations, for corporations.’”63 In his recently published book titled Post-Liberalism: Recovering a Shared World, Dallmayr argues that within liberal democracy there is a conflict between liberalism and democracy, between the self-centered pursuit of individual or corporate interests and the people’s quest for genuine democracy. He sees the possibilities for regaining democracy by moving beyond the neoliberal to a post-liberal society. Shared freedom and dialogue are necessary for a viable democracy. He elaborates on a public philosophy anchored in our relational nature, practices of reciprocity, and “learning to be human.”64 To the mainstream political theories Dallmayr opposes a view of politics as “relational praxis.” He traces the roots of these contrasting views back to Western modernity. The prevailing conception rested on a metaphysics of stable “substances” and the rationalism of Descartes’ ego cogito, which gave rise to divisions that persist to our time between mind and matter, subject and object, thought and practice, duty and sensibility. In contrast, in the Age of Enlightenment, there was an alternative line of thought promoting the shift from the metaphysics of essentialism to a metaphysics of decentered elements held together by lateral relationships, and the valorization of possibility or potentiality. 61 Dallmayr. The Promise of Democracy, 1. 62 President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address of November 19, 1863. 63 Fred Dallmayr, Democracy to Come: Politics as Relational Praxis (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 22–23. Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the case in which the U.S. Supreme Court on January 21, 2010, ruled regarding regulation of political campaign spending by organizations. Its ruling allows unlimited election spending by corporations, which dramatically increases their influence on elections to promote their financial interests, thus bringing a new era of corporate influence in politics. 64 Fred Dallmayr, Post-Liberalism: Recovering a Shared World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019) 185–188.

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The new metaphysics viewed the world not from the “top down” but from the “bottom up.” It viewed ordinary people as potentially capable of self-government and prepared citizens for that through a process of learning and ethical transformation. This alternative was pioneered by Leibniz, who viewed the universe not as hierarchical, but rather as a steadily expanding network of interactions and relationships, with each element mirroring and being mirrored in all others in a process of transformation. This “relationism” was congenial to democratic equality. This line of thought was also supported by Montesquieu, who, in his treaty The Spirit of Laws, wrote that political regimes are animated by the underlying “spirit” of the populous. The republican regime must be sustained by the spirit emanating from an educated populous. The spirit of democratic governments is a relational virtue of love of the democracy, which means love of equality: “A love of the republic in a democracy is a love of the democracy; as the latter is that of equality.”65 In a democracy, virtue is simultaneously “love of equality” and “love of frugality.” Equality in Montesquieu’s work also takes on a spiritual sense, emanating from the Christian tradition. Equality before God implies a principle of reciprocity; thus, Christians must treat those who profess another religion as equal. The natural equality of men founds the principle of reciprocity, which in turn justifies rights (freedom) recognized for all human beings. Democratic equality is not a priori essence, but rather a possibility requiring learning and ethical transformation. Dallmayr traces the development of this line of thought in the works of Martin Heidegger, Claude Lefort, and Jacques Derrida. From this vantage point, Dallmayr’s main criticism is against the prevalent form of democracy found in the Western countries, which is characterized as “liberal,” “laissez-faire,” or “minimalist,” because the primary emphasis is on the liberty of individuals or groups to pursue their particular self-interests, while the role of “the people” as a government is minimalized and solely characterized by competitive elections: the homo economicus extolled by liberal minimalism. Dallmayr draws attention to agonistic and deliberative conceptions of democracy. The agonistic approach is appealing in that it views democracy as something to be struggled for. However, he criticizes agonistics for privileging homo politicus as power seekers and for prioritizing the “positive value of conflict,” which implies power and violence. Regarding the deliberative democracy, which stresses rational argumentation (animal rationale), Dallmayr notices its benefits: it helps to promote the legitimacy of public decisions; it encourages 65

Charles Baron de Montesquieu, The Spirit of Laws. Trans. Thomas Nugent. 32, v, 3 (Pantianos Classics. Lonang Institute. 2011).

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citizens’ participation; it promoted mutual respect; it helps to learn from past mistakes and to improvement. At the same time, he points out as its main drawback “the strongly cognitive slant of the model; that is, the privileging of rational knowledge over praxis and experience.”66 According to Dallmayr, in these views of democracy, the conceptualization of human being has a common feature: they are all positive or “positivist” images, in that “they offer an epistemic definition of what it means to be human (a definition presumably open to empirical or rational validation).”67 Each of them conceptualizes the human person as having a fixed “center” and which asserts self-control or possession of themselves. At the same time, all are lacking something important: the nonpositive indeterminacy in the sense of an enabling potency and potentiality. Dallmayr asks: “But what about the element of dispossession, of decentering, of ‘letting be’?”68 Dallmayr invokes different images of human persons: as the “unfinished man,” “ex-centric,” and open to transgression and unfolding of its potentials. This image is grounded in a new philosophical anthropology. He also invokes the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, with its anti-metaphysical slant, definition of human being as Dasein, the notions of “ek-sistence” or “ekstasis,” eccentricity, and transgression of identity, as underscored in his “Letter on Humanism.” Heidegger’s philosophy was adopted and further developed by Derrida, who was close to Heidegger’s ideas and in his later years influenced by Emmanuel Lévinas. Derrida implemented the idea of an eccentric politics in his conception of a democracy to come. Dallmayr points out the close affinity between Derrida and Heidegger. Yet, Derrida’s endeavor from the beginning has been “to transgress Heidegger’s more ‘holistic’ perspective in the direction of a radical trans-empiricism and transcendentalism.” This transgression or “deconstruction” has tended to transform Heideggerian “being-in-the-world” as “being-with-others” into a “nonrelation” with incommensurable “otherness.” It also tended to replace (ontological) possibility or potentiality with the notion of an “impossible possibility” or “possible impossibility” in order to avoid any kind of teleology or continuity. This move opens up a gap between actual politics and the envisaged democracy to come as an absolute “heterogeneity” and an “interminable adjournment.”69 66 Dallmayr, Democracy to Come, 34. 67 Dallmayr, Democracy to Come, 35. 68 Dallmayr, Democracy to Come, 35. 69 Fred Dallmayr, The Promise of Democracy: Political Agency and Transformation (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2010), 19–20.

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Continuing this line of thought, Dallmayr adopts Derrida’s democracy to come and further develops his own version of it, which is characterized as relational, enabling potentiality, ethical, and apophatic. He is generally favorable to Derrida’s work with his critique of positivism, conformism, and the prevailing practices of democracy, as well as his innovative effort to go beyond the existing predominant conceptions of democracy and to broaden the horizon of philosophical-political thought. He takes into account Derrida’s views on global human rights and the cultivation of cross-cultural cosmopolitan “hospitality” as well his insights in theorizing a future for democracy to come. The connection to Derrida’s conception of democracy to come is highlighted in the title of Dallmayr’s book Democracy to Come: Politics as Relational Praxis (2017). At the same time, Dallmayr thinks that this conception needs further elaboration. He expresses two main reservations regarding Derrida’s conception of democracy to come. First, although Dallmayr concurs with Derrida’s rejection of equating the idea of genuine democracy with the existing states, rather viewing it as a possibility “to come,” he stresses that this idea of the future of democracy needs further elaboration to thematize the “who” and “what” of the “to-come.” He rightly states that we cannot just place our trust in a future event or advent, because instead of expected democracy there may come some tyranny or the next barbarianism. In trying to resolve this difficulty, Derrida is talking in Rogues about the idea of democracy not as the current determined concept, but “democracy as the inheritance of a promise,” and that “its path passes perhaps today in the world through (across) the aporias of negative theology.” Such inheritance should differentiate the “possible” from the “impossible.” However, Dallmayr questions Derrida’s appeal to history and to the faith tradition: “Yet, how legitimate is this appeal to the faith tradition—given that history has in large measure been deconstructed in an effort to ward off any notion of teleology or any derivation of the promise from the past?”70 Dallmayr’s second major reservation is related to what he calls Derrida’s stress on “nonperformativity,” which seemingly gives the impression of a fatalism and passivity regarding the expectation of a coming future event. In contrast, Dallmayr argues for an active role of human agents. On the one hand, Derrida’s Rogues speaks of the “urgency” of the “to come,” to which we are called to respond, and this involves an appeal to performative solicitation, described as “an act of messianic faith” (while “irreligious and without

70

Fred Dallmayr, “Jacques Derrida’s Legacy: Democracy to Come,” in Theory After Derrida: Essays in Critical Praxis, ed. Kailash C. Baral and R. Radhakrishnan, 26–46. (Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2009), 41.

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messianism”).71 On the other hand, it is difficult to square the performance required to achieve the goals in this solicitation with a counter-humanism delineated in Derrida’s “The Ends of Man” (1968). Thus, “In order to preserve the pure un-conditionality of the irruption, Derrida needs to detach—in quasiManichean fashion—the ‘to-come’ from any human contamination, any human action or practice (beyond verbal invocation).”72 As a positive alternative, Dallmayr views the possibility of a post-human praxis no longer tied to anthropocentrism, without pretending to master the coming event; however, we are called upon to ready ourselves through transformative praxis. Although Dallmayr agrees that the coming event of the envisaged democracy is “unmasterable” and cannot be humanly fabricated or socially engineered, at the same time, he stresses that it cannot just “come” without human activities. He argues for an active role of human agents in preparing the way and removing obstacles obstructing what is to come, and transformatively preparing themselves for the coming event. However, this should be a posthumanist democratic praxis, no longer tied to anthropocentrism or any regulative idea, and without pretending to master the coming event. A post-humanist praxis—including democratic praxis—makes room and prepares the ground for the democratic event beyond mastery and control. Democratic praxis and “democracy to come” are not separated, but rather they complement each other. This requires a rethinking of the notion of “action” as Heidegger’s “fulfillment” and “letting be.” As Dallmayr writes, “here the need for a transformative democratic agency emerges, an agency that is as far removed from anthropocentric activism as from pliant passivity.” This agency has to operate in “the active–passive or ‘middle voice’” and resemble the praxis of “‘letting-be’ that sustains without appropriation.”73 In this, he invokes Heidegger’s Letter on Humanism (1977). Human beings are still called upon to ready themselves through transformative praxis, which is a seemingly for the cultivation of “cardinal virtues.” Preparing themselves for the coming event means to be sincerely committed to the quest for justice and peace: “It means to be supportive of activities and movements which seek to reduce or eliminate violence, oppression, corruption, and exploitation. In Gandhian terms, it means to be committed to not harming others (ahimsa) and justice-seeking (satyagraha).”74

71 Derrida Rogues, xiv. 72 Dallmayr, “Jacques Derrida’s Legacy,” 42. 73 Dallmayr, The Promise of Democracy, 20. 74 Dallmayr, Democracy to come, 39.

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Dallmayr indicates some approaches and ideas for the developing of the conception of democracy to come. He suggests to narrow the gulf that is sometimes assumed in the relation to the “trans-human”: the gulf between the self and the “other”; between immanence and transcendence; between the human and the divine, or between reason and revelation. He suggests a certain compatibility between deliberative democracy and what is called an “apophatic” democracy or democracy to come. For this compatibility to be possible, deliberative democracy has to be open to what “comes,” to new possibilities, new paradigm and horizons of thought. It has to be open also to hermeneutics: to the fact that human thinking or deliberations always occurs in a linguistic framework which is historically and culturally sedimented, but has to be continually reinterpreted. Deliberation has to be attentive to different idioms and frameworks of understanding, and to mitigate differences through dialogue or practical interactions. Dallmayr stresses that politics as relational practice depends on the people, and thus democracy to come also must means “democrats to come,” that is, “people who, through their practices and deliberations, are willing steadily to be democratized, and thus ‘humanized’” in the sense of a non-coercive, domination-free, and apophatic humanism.75 For Dallmayr, the further elaboration of the conception of democracy to come means not merely an additional empirical data but opening up a whole new horizon, “something aspirational, where the future is adumbrated, like (say) the Sermon on the Mount, the ‘promised land’ or the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita of the Buddhist sutras.”76 Dallmayr himself contributes to the elaboration of this new horizon in his works on the need to mobilize the spiritual resources of different cultural traditions for the “humanization of humanity.”77 Based on principles of relationality and potentiality, Dallmayr lifts up the aspirational or “promissory” quality of democracy to come, which can also be called “apophatic.” Democracy is not a finished condition but an open-ended potentiality and creativity. Dallmayr appropriates conceptions from “process theology” and other nontraditional forms of theology, viewing the world as an ongoing creation. He explores the political theology in a new key and “the theological implications of democracy seen as creatio continua,” in this case with citizens as agents.78 75 Dallmayr, Democracy to come, 40. 76 Dallmayr, Democracy to come, 39. 77 Fred Dallmayr, Against Apocalypse: Recovering Humanitys Wholeness (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2016), 75–86. See also Fred Dallmayr, Spiritual Guides: Pathfinders in the Desert (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2017). 78 Dallmayr, Democracy to come, 131, 144.

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Democracy, according to Dallmayr, involves three basic elements whose relationship has to be continuously renegotiated: the people as a whole (potentia), the political rulers or agents (potestas), and the goal or basic orientation of the community (telos). When this balance is disrupted, each of these factors can lead to antidemocratic abuses, derailing into reactionary populism, Bonapartism, and messianism or imposition of democracy by force. Due to this need for balance, democratic politics is a “relational praxis.” He challenges the liberal laissez-faire democracy which gives priority to the pursuit of individual or collective self-interest. He insists that other, more ethical conceptions are preferable. He stresses that in our time, democratic rule has to be promoted not only domestically, but globally (without violence) to avoid the autocratic domination of some societies or people by others. Different societies should nurture democracy with their own cultural resources. Learning from their experiences can provide with insights for developing democratic societies as ethical communities that aim to equitably balance liberty and equality. Dallmayr explores not only the Western sources but also the traditions of Middle East, India, and China. He discusses efforts to build democracy in these regions, involving respectively Islamic, Hindu, and Confucian resources. With regard to Middle Eastern societies, Dallmayr explores the relation between democracy and the Islamic faith. He discusses the experiences of Gandhian and Confucian democracy as possible correctives to current versions of liberal, laissez-faire, and minimalist democracy. As he writes, Mahatma Gandhi’s notion of “self-rule” (swaraj) implies the ability to rule over oneself, thus making room for the practice of relational care and respect. This practice was also related to Gandhi’s notions of nonviolence (ahimsa) and striving for justice (satyagraha). This view of democracy is superior to the procedural minimalism of liberal self-interest, and it is akin to the potentiality of a democracy “to come.” Democracy should not be just counting votes on election day; it is an ethical project with much to learn from non-Western cultural traditions. Dallmayr offers a new, ethical vision of democracy based on self-rule, civic education, and ethical cultivation. Democracy is seen as “an ethical or properly humane form of political life.”79 Against the background of societies dominated by corporations and plutocratic elites, Dallmayr presents an inspiring vision of democracy as popular “self-rule” in which civic education, ethical cultivation, and selftransformation make possible a non-domineering political agency. 79 Dallmayr, The Promise of Democracy, 2.

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Dallmayr notes that democracy as promise can provide, for millions of people, the hope to be rescued from their miseries and the means for a decent living. As he points out: “If it is true, as many religions hold, that the ‘image’ of God is implanted in the human heart, then … that image is meant to become steadily more manifest in history and approximate society to a promised democracy (which is not at all the opposite of God’s kingdom).”80 Dallmayr’s philosophical and ethical-political ideas culminate in his vision of a cosmopolitan future. He agrees with theories of “cosmopolitan democracy,” but develops his own version called “cosmopolis”—an “emerging global city or community.”81 Dallmayr embraces the fresh dimensions of a “new cosmopolitanism.” At the same time, his conception of cosmopolis has some distinctive characteristics that are related to his interpretation of being-in-theworld, care, relationality, democratic politics as relational praxis, world maintenance, and spirituality. Dallmayr’s thought—beyond both a conflict-ridden state-centric system and hegemon-centric dystopia—strives for an ideal of a domination-free, intercultural, dialogical world order of peace and justice. He examines the conditions for progressing in the direction of cosmopolitan order. He points to gross material disparities, hegemonic domination, and violence as problems to be solved on the way to this goal. Equally important is to regain social ethics and to cultivate co-responsibility and shared well-being. He stresses the role of education. In contrast to the idea of a uniform global imperial super-state dominating the world, cosmopolis means a shared aspiration negotiated among local or national differences. His conception strengthens the hope for a “democracy to come” in a cosmopolis, governed by the spirit of equality and mutual respect. The analysis shows the concern of the philosophers about the situation of human beings in today’s world. They address manifold problems, such as crisis-ridden institutions; the erosion of democracy; the political, ethical, and spiritual dimensions of rising individualism; and autocracy and hegemonism that jeopardize public life and peace. Far from diminishing the gravity of these problems and the shortcomings of the currently dominant social and political theory, these philosophers are striving for possible solutions to the problems and for positive alternatives. 80 Dallmayr, The Promise of Democracy, 2. 81 Fred Dallmayr, “After Babel: Journey Toward Cosmopolis,” in Intercultural Dialogue: In Search of Harmony in Diversity, ed. Edward Demenchonok (Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016), 365.

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The democratization of societies and of international relations will not come automatically. The future of democracy depends to a large degree on the present and future actions of the social forces interested in and capable of struggling to pursue this goal. The ideas of radical democracy and of democracy to come can serve as a guiding and mobilizing force for social transformation, for a more peaceful, just and human word. This possibility gives us hope. Bibliography Abensour, Miguel. Democracy against the State: Marx and the Machiavellian Moment. Translated by Max Blechman and Martin Breaugh. Cambridge: Polity. 2011. Arendt, Hannah. On Revolution. New York: Penguin, 1977. Balibar, Étienne. Equaliberty: Political Essays. Translated by James D. Ingram. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2014. Benhabib, Seyla, Jeremy Waldron, Bonnie Honig, Will Kymlicka, and Robert Post, eds. Another Cosmopolitanism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Caputo, John D. The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida: Religion Without Religion. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1997. Cohen, Jean L. “Rethinking Human Rights, Democracy, and Sovereignty in the Age of Globalization.” Political Theory 36 (4) (2008): 578–606. Chomsky, Noam. Rogue States: The Rule of Force in World Affairs. Second Printing Edition. Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2000. Dallmayr, Fred. “After Babel: Journey Toward Cosmopolis.” In Intercultural Dialogue: In Search of Harmony in Diversity, edited by Edward Demenchonok, 365–378. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016. Dallmayr, Fred. Against Apocalypse: Recovering Humanitys Wholeness. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2016. Dallmayr, Fred. Democracy to Come: Politics as Relational Praxis. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. Dallmayr, Fred. “Jacques Derrida’s Legacy: Democracy to Come.” In Theory After Derrida: Essays in Critical Praxis, edited by Kailash C. Baral and R. Radhakrishnan, 26–46. London and New York: Routledge, 2009. Dallmayr, Fred. Post-Liberalism: Recovering a Shared World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. Dallmayr, Fred. Spiritual Guides: Pathfinders in the Desert. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2017. Dallmayr, Fred. The Promise of Democracy: Political Agency and Transformation. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2010.

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Lefort, Claude. Democracy and Political Theory. Translated by David Macey. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988. Marchetti, Raffaele. Global Democracy: For and Against. Ethical Theory, Institutional Design, and Social Struggles. New York, London: Routledge, 2008. McBride, William L. “The Philosophical Quest for Perfect Justice.” In Intercultural Dialogue: In Search of Harmony in Diversity, edited by Edward Demenchonok, 255–270. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016. Montesquieu, Charles Baron de. The Spirit of Laws. Translated by Thomas Nugent. 32, v, 3. Pantianos Classics. Lonang Institute. 2011. Rancière, Jacques. Dissensus: On Politics and Aesthetics. Translated and edited by Steve Corcoran. London, New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015. Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. The Social Contract. Translated by Maurice Cranston. London: Penguin Books, 1968. Wolin, Sheldon S. Politics and Vision: Continuity and Innovation in Western Political Thought. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004.

Index Abu Ghraib prison 155–57, 156n45, 156n47, 156n49, 157n50 active resistance 74–80, 133 activism 7, 62, 76, 84 Addams, Jane 32 Adorno, Theodor 15, 145, 148–49 African Americans anger of 75–76 churches of 73–74 in Civil Rights Movement 66, 69–74, 85 Indian colonialism and 72 philosophical pacifism, Thurman and 3, 65–70 in South 72–74 Aggression-Defense paradigm, in Just War Theory 115–16 agonistic democracy 29 ahimsa 66–69, 66n7, 71, 83, 102 Alien Tort Statute (ats) 156nn48–49, 157n51 Allport, Gordon 7 Althusser, Louis 19 Ambrose, Nancy 66 “American Civilization” (Emerson) 30–31 American Transcendentalists 28, 31 Améry, Jean 153 Angell, Stephen W. 65 anger 74–76 anti-intellectualism 192–93, 197–98 Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (Hofstadter) 197–98 antiviolence 19–20, 22–23 Archaeology of Knowledge (Foucault) 92 Arendt, Hannah 23 Aristotle 205–8, 206n8 artes liberales 207, 221, 224–25 artes serviles 207, 221 Arvanitis, Agni Vlavianos 95 ats. See Alien Tort Statute Auschwitz 133 authoritarianism 35 Autobiography (Gandhi) 31

Ballou, Adin 31 banality of evil 23 Banneker, Benjamin 65 Barnett, Victoria 134–35 Battell, Albert 138 Baum, Steven K. 132, 135, 139 Baxter, Kimberly 5–6 Beccaria, Cesare 146n14, 159 on capital punishment 146–49, 147n17 on expressivism, of punishment 151–52 on human dignity 150–51 Kant and 146–50 on pain, of punishment 149–50 on social contract theory 151–52 on torture 144, 147, 150 Becker, Lawrence 62–63 the beloved community 80–84 Benhabib, Seila 235 Bentham, Jeremy 91, 149 Bernstein, J.M. 150–51, 153nn37–38, 161 Bhagavad-Gita 52–53, 57–59, 84 Bhakti movement 4, 100–102, 108–9 Bharatiya Janta Party (bjp) 99 Bhitai 104–5 biopolitics 4, 91, 94–98 bjp. See Bharatiya Janta Party Blackburn, Simon 212 Black Fire (Weaver, Kriese and Angell) 65 “Black Power, A Basic Understanding” (Rodney) 78–79 Blow, Charles M. 190, 195n58 Blumenberg, Hans 215–16 Bosmajian, Haig 12 Boudreaux, Pierre-Luc 206n8 Buber, Martin 210n25 Bulleh Shah, Baba 105–6 Burrow, Rufus 80 Bush, George W. 158, 165, 246 Bystanders (Barnett) 134–35 bystanders, in genocide 134–40

Bailey, Sue 71, 83–84 Baldwin, James 75–76 Baldwin, Lewis 73–74, 85 Balibar, Étienne 9, 12, 19–23

caci International Inc. 155–57, 156n45, 156n49, 157n50 Camus, Albert 17–18 Canada 218–19, 218n53

262 Canguilhem, Georges 93 capax universi 222–23 capitalism 236–37 capital punishment 146–49, 147n17, 152n32 categorical imperative 145–46, 148 Center for Constitutional Rights 155–57, 156n45 Césaire, Aimé 114 Chesterton, G.K. 210 China 175 Chomsky, Noam 244 Christianity 66–67, 72–74, 76, 83–84, 250 Christian pacifism 31 Churchill, Robert Paul 6 Churchill, Ward 43–44 cia 154–55, 154n39, 160n59 citizenship 20, 240–41, 248 civil discourse 44, 46 civil disobedience 65, 69, 71 “Civil Disobedience” (Thoreau) 30 civility American democracy and 27 antiviolence and 20, 22–23 Balibar on 20–21 citizenship and 20 civilization and 30–31 in civil republic 2–3 in democracy 27–28, 32–33, 41–43, 46 Dewey on 32–33 in disputes 46 in ethical democracy 30 Gandhi on 31 against injustice 24 “law and order” and 11 listening in 41 nonviolence and 31, 41–42, 46 peace and 43–45 political correctness and 9 rationality and 41–42 repressive tolerance and 15–19 resistance and 13–14 in social contract theory 10–12 state and 20–21 as term 9 tolerance and 9–10, 18–19, 24 as trump card 27 against Trumpianism 46 truth and 41, 45

Index values of 28, 41 virtue of 41–43, 45 civilization, civility and 30–31 civil republic 2–3 civil resistance 10, 30 Civil Rights Movement 66, 69–74, 85 civil society 192–96 Civil War 30–31 Clapper, James 34–35 Clinton, Hillary 37n28 coercion 13, 155, 155n43 cognitive psychology 164, 177 cognitive unconscious 166, 169–79 Cohen, Jean 244n40 Cold War 12 colonialism biopolitics and 95–96 dehumanization in 111–12, 114, 120–21 Indian 72 leftist, of Memmi 121n23 matrix of power 111–15 power structures in 113–14 coloniality 4–5, 114–15, 117–23 A Common Faith (Dewey) 27–28, 42 communism 40 Concerning Violence (Fanon) 123–24 Cone, James 73 conflict, peace and 123–25 conformity memes 183–89, 194–95 conservatives 2, 7, 167–68, 172–76. See also Republican Party conspiracy theories 168 Constitution, US 144, 158 contract theory 146. See also social contract theory control biopolitical 96–97 social 98 Stoicism on 50–53, 56–62 convertibility of violence 9, 11, 19–24 cosmopolitanism 235, 247–48, 256 counterviolence 11, 17, 21–22 criminality 1–2, 2n criminology 1 Crito (Plato) 51 cruel punishments 152–53 cruelty 9, 19, 22–23 cry of genocide

Index as active resistance 133 by bystanders 137–40 choice to give 132–36 defining 127–29 as descriptive and prescriptive 128 false 136–37 the Final Solution document as 129–30 on mass and social media 130–31 as outcry 130–31 by perpetrators 132–34 retaliation against 137–38 risks of 136–40 U.N. hearing 138–39 by victims 132–34 when and why to give 129–32 cultural diversity 183–84 cultural homogeneity 6, 185 cultural nonviolence 74 cultural violence 4, 14, 74 cultural war 167–69 Dadu Dayal 102 Dallmayr, Fred 248–56 Dandi Salt March 57 Dasein 251 Davis, Angela 79–80 Dawkins, Richard 6, 181–84 Dean, Howard 167 death Epictetus on 54 Gandhi on 53–56, 68 of Socrates 51 death penalty 146–49, 147n17, 152n32 deconstruction 251 dehumanization 111–12, 114, 117, 120–21, 125 de-investment and devaluation, in public higher education 199–200 Deleuze, Gilles 93 deliberative democracy 29, 38–39 Delius, Juan 183 Demenchonok, Edward 7–8 Deming, Barbara 18 democracy 7 agonistic 29 American, civility and 27 civility and 27–28, 32–33, 41–43, 46 Dallmayr on 248–50, 254–56 deliberative 29, 38–39

263 Derrida on 235–40, 245 différance in 240 equality and 235–36, 239–40, 250 ethical 28–33 faith and 27–28, 33, 42, 45–46 freedom, equality and 235–36, 239–40 incivility against 33–35 liberal 248–50 memes and mind viruses threatening 181–82 propaganda and 39 radical 235–36, 257 rationality in 41–42 democracy to come Dallmayr on 248–56 Derrida on 235–48, 252 Democracy to Come (Dallmayr) 252 Democratic Party 164–65, 167–69, 172–73, 175–79, 193–94 Derrida (2002) 238 Derrida, Jacques 147n18, 235–48, 251–53 “Desegregation, Integration, and the Beloved Community” (Thurman) 81 Dewey, John 27–29, 32–33, 39, 42, 44, 75 différance 240 al-Din, Hasan Muin 102 The Discarded Image (Lewis) 205 discipline 91, 96–97 Discipline and Punish (Foucault) 92 Disciplines of the Spirit (Thurman) 79 Discourse on Colonialism (Césaire) 114 discourses 91–92, 99–100, 107–8 Discourses (Epictetus) 56–57 disruptive innovation 198–99 Dixie, Quinton 67–69 dogmatism-inducing memes 181, 183 domination 91–92, 97 Donnelly, Jack 143 Eagleman, David 191 Edsall, Thomas B. 188 education. See also liberal arts education Canadian system of 218–19, 218n53 government system of 16 multicultural 197, 200 neoliberal myth in 216–17 philosophical anthropology in principles of 217–18, 217n48, 220

264 education (Cont.) philosophy of 212 public higher 197–200 Eisenstadt, Peter 67–69 Emerson, Ralph Waldo 30–32 “The Ends of Man” (Derrida) 253 engagement, dehumanizing manners of 111–12 English language 12–15 the Enlightenment 92–93, 249 Kant in 142–43, 145, 149 rationality in 142–43, 148–49, 169–70 reason in 145 on self-preservation 145, 154 universal human rights in 143–44 US Constitution and 144 Enough Said (Thompson) 12 Epictetus 3, 50–54, 56–60 epistemes 91–92 equaliberty 21 equality 235–36, 239–40, 250 ethical democracy 28–33 ethics 92–93, 142 “The Ethics of Democracy” (Dewey) 28, 32 Eurocentrism 114, 125 evil 23 expressivism 151–52, 157–58, 161 faith democracy and 27–28, 33, 42, 45–46 nonviolence and 28 pacific 28–29, 41–42 fake news 36, 38, 192, 196, 200–201 Fanon, Frantz 17–18, 17n26, 78–79, 114, 117, 123–24 Farmer, James 69–70 fascism 29–30, 40 Feinberg, Joel 151n30, 160, 193 Fellowship of Reconciliation (for) 66, 69 Ferguson, Andrew 198 Feygina, Irina 178 Fiala, Andrew 2–3 Fillmore, Charles 170 the Final Solution document, of Nazis 129–30 Finnström, Sverker 111n Fluker, Walter 70, 73, 80–81, 84 for. See Fellowship of Reconciliation

Index Foreign Claims Act of 1942 157 Foucault, Michel 123 Archaeology of Knowledge by 92 on biopolitics 4, 91, 94, 96–97 Discipline and Punish by 92 on epistemes 91–92 on ethics 92–93 genealogy as method of 92 on governmentality 97–100, 108 History of Sexuality by 92, 94 on human sciences 90 on the individual 90–91 influence of 93–94 on object and subject, in human sciences 90–91 The Order of Things by 90 on Panopticon 91 on power-knowledge 91–92, 97–98 on power structures 121n22 Society Must be Defended by 96 on sovereign expression of power 119 on subjectivation 91 Foy, David 153 frame analysis 6 frames 170–72, 174–75, 177–79 Frank, Thomas 6, 163–64, 166–69 freedom 79–80, 174–75, 206, 235–36, 239–40, 243 free market 174–75, 216 free press 35–36, 38 free speech 2, 193 Freire, Paulo 4, 17, 111, 113n3, 118, 121–22, 124 French Third Republic, in West Africa 96 Freud, Sigmund 166 Friedrich, Patricia 14–15 Fukuyama, Francis 235 Galtung, Johan 66 Gandhi, Mohandas 22 on ahimsa 66–69, 71, 83 Autobiography of 31 on Bhagavad-Gita 52–53, 57–59, 84 on civility 31 on death 53–56, 68 Epictetus and 51–53 on faith, in nonviolence 28 against injustice 83 on Jesus 83–84

265

Index King, M.L., and 3–4, 13, 65, 71–74, 76, 80, 84–86 on life 84–85, 85n56 on life's works 52 on love 71–72 on morality 55–58, 60–61 on nonviolence 28, 67, 69–73, 86 on resignation 53–54 Salt March of 57 on satyagraha 3, 31, 65, 67–68, 71–72 on self-rule 255 Socrates and 51, 61–62, 83 Stoicism and 51–53, 56, 58–61 Thurman and 3–4, 65–71, 73, 75–76, 80–81, 83–86 Tolstoy and 31 Garrison, William Lloyd 31 Gay, William 2, 194 Geist 223 Geisteswissenschaften 203–7, 210n24, 221–26 genealogy 92 genocide. See also cry of genocide bystanders in 134–40 as crime against humanity 128–29 culture and 128 against ethnic groups 128–29 Holocaust as 129–30, 132–35, 138 in international law 127–28 Lemkin on 5 mass murder versus 136–37 nonviolent diplomacy against 131 perpetrators of 132–36, 139 R2D against 130–31 in Rwanda 135 sterilization in 128–29 U.N. on 127–31, 138–39, 143 victims of 132–36 “The Genocide of the Palestinian People” (Papp’e) 136–37 Genocide Prevention Task Force 138–40 germ theory 96 geschehendes Sein 223–24 Glaude, Eddie 75–76 Global South 114–15 Goffman, Erving 6, 170 Gold, Jeffrey 181, 183–85, 192, 196–97, 200 Gonzales, Alberto 144n8

Gough, J.W. 146 government educational system of 16 political economy of 98–99 social contract theory and 146 torture by U.S., after 9/11 153–56, 160 governmentality 92, 97–100, 108 Grant, Sandy 54–55, 60–61 “Great Books” movement 225, 225n82 Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (Kant) 149 Guantánamo 153 Gursozlu, Fuat 21 Hakeem, Farrukh 4 Hampton, Jean 150–51 Haspel, Gina 160n59 hate 74–78, 77n36, 83, 165–66, 169 hate speech 13–14 Hegel, G.W.F. 22, 113n4 Heidegger, Martin 251, 253 Heidenrich, John G. 131 Hempel, Carl 90 Heretics (Chesterton) 210 Hinduism 100, 102, 106 Hinton, Alexander 5, 140 History of Sexuality (Foucault) 92, 94 Hitler, Adolf 190, 192 Hobbes, Thomas 10 Hodgkinson, James 195, 196 Hofstadter, Richard 197–98 Holocaust 129–30, 132–35, 138, 151 homo economicus 216–20, 217n49, 219n55, 223, 250 hooks, bell 14–15 hope 27–28, 41, 256–57 horizontality and verticality 242 Horkheimer, Max 15, 145, 148–49 How to Prevent Genocide (Heidenrich) 131 human beings 222–24 human dignity 142–43, 143n4, 148, 150–51, 161 humanistic notions 234 the humanities 199–200. See also liberal arts education human nature, social justice and 214–15, 214n39

266 human rights in democracy to come 240 human dignity in 143 in immigration 247 Rawls on 159–60 social contract theory and 142 universal 143–44, 150 U.N. on 143, 247 in wartime 160 human sciences 90–94, 97 Humphrey, N.K. 182 Hutus 135 hyper-polarization 188, 192, 196, 201 Hyslop-Margison, Emery J. 211–12 icrc. See International Committee of the Red Cross ideological homogeneity 181, 183, 185 illusion-of-truth effect 191 immigration 247–48 immoral acts 58–59 incivility against democracy 33–35 in international relations 40 of public discourse 34 of Trump 27, 33–40, 37n28 as trump card 33–40 truth and 35–38 India 72, 99–104 the individual 90–91, 98 injustice civility against 24 Gandhi against 83 social 23–24 theories about 234 Thurman on 68 violence against 16–18 instrumental reason 145 integration 81–83 International Committee of the Red Cross (icrc) 155, 155n44 international law 127–28, 159–60, 245–47 international relationships 40, 243, 257 interventionism 115–16, 115n13 intolerance 192–94 Ionesco, Eugène 185–89 Islam 102–7 Israelis 136–37

Index Jainism 66–67 Jensen, Kipton 3–4 Jessen, Bruce 154–55, 154n41 Jesus and the Disinherited (Thurman) 77 Jesus Christ 77–78, 83–84 Jews, in Holocaust 129–30, 133–35, 138 Johnson, Mordecai 65 Jones, Lawrence N. 80 justice 14–15, 234–36. See also social justice Just War Theory 4 Aggression-Defense paradigm in 115–16 colonialism and 111–12 liberal humanitarian 112, 113n5, 115–23 liberation of the oppressed in 111–13, 117–19, 121–23 nonviolence and 112 on wars of intervention 115, 115n13 Kabir 101 Kang, Cecilia 195 Kant, Immanuel 5–6, 22, 42, 92–93, 209 Beccaria and 146–50 on capital punishment 146–48, 152n32 on categorical imperative 145–46 contract theory of 146 Derrida on 147n18 in the Enlightenment 142–43, 145, 149 Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals by 149 on human dignity 142–43, 148, 150–51 on rationality 142–43 Rawls on 159 on reason 142–43, 145–47 on right 243 on torture 152 on will 146–47 Keltner, Dacher 171 khöra 240, 242 Kim Jong-Un 40, 40n33, 194 King, Martin Luther, Jr. on the beloved community 84 on Civil Rights Movement 72 on Fanon 78 Gandhi and 3–4, 13, 65, 71–74, 76, 80, 84–86 on hate 77–78 “Letter from Birmingham Jail” by 72 on love 78, 80

Index on nonviolence 71, 73–74, 80, 86 on nonviolent active resistance 74–80 Strength to Love by 76–77 Thurman and 70–80, 72n25, 84–87 Where Do We Go from Here by 80 King, Preston 65–66, 74 The Kingdom of God is Within You (Tolstoy) 31 Kingdom of Heaven 72, 80–84 Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. 2013 156, 156n48 Kiriakou, John 154n39 Kjellen, Rudolf 94 Klemperer, Victor 189–91 knowledge democratization of 177–78 governmentality 98 in liberal arts 205–6 natural sciences and 90 scientific 210–11 Koninck, Charles de 210n25 Kony, Joseph 119 Kovaleski, Serge F. 38 Kriese, Paul 65 L-3 Services 156n45 La Fontaine, Jean de 243 Lakoff, George 169, 171–73, 177–78 Lal, Sanjay 3 Lamar, Merabow 200 language 12–15, 229 Language, Negotiation and Peace (Friedrich) 14–15 Latif, Shah Abdul 104 law 127–28, 146–48, 158–60, 243, 245–47 law and order 11, 16 The Law of Peoples (Rawls) 159–60, 159n54 Lawson, James 46, 68, 70 “Lectures on Liberation” (Davis) 79 legitimacy, in social contract theory 10–12 Leibniz, Gottfried 250 Leisure (Pieper) 209, 221–22 Lemkin, Raphael 5, 127–29, 138 “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (King, M.L.) 72 Levi, Primo 133 Levin, Jack 7 Lewis, C.S. 205, 210n25

267 Lewy, Guenter 133–34 liberal arts education 7, 181–82, 197, 203–4 challenges to 207–15 consequences to rejecting 215–21 knowledge in 205–6 as leisure 207–9 as meaningful-in-itself 222 as non-practical 207 philosophical anthropology in 222–23, 225–26 philosophy in 206–7 Pieper on 221–29 policy 213–14 scientism against 209–12 social justice and 230–31 liberal democracy 248–50 liberal humanitarianism 112, 113n5, 115–23 liberalism 29 liberals 167–68, 172–73, 177–79 liberation 79–80 of the oppressed 111–13, 117–19, 121–23 lies 189–90, 195n58 life 84–85, 85n56, 148 Lincoln, Abraham 249 linguistic justice 14–15 linguistic nonviolence 14 linguistic violence 13–14, 24, 194–95 Lippman, Walter 39 Livingston, Alexander 21–22 Locke, John 10 logical positivism 209–11, 210n24 Long, A.A. 51 love 71–72, 76–78, 80, 83–84 Love or Perish (sermon) (Thurman) 77n36 Luminous Darkness (Thurman) 66 Lutseva, Svetlana 209 Maldonado-Torres, Nelson 115 man. See the individual Mandelssohn, Moses 92–93 Manicheanism 117 Marchetti, Raffaele 235 Marcuse, Herbert 2, 9, 12, 15–19, 22–23 Marx, Karl 19–20 Marxism 93 mass media 130–31 mass murder 136–37 Mauthausen concentration camp 134–35

268 May, Todd 13, 22 McAdams, Dan 170 memes complexes of 184 conformity 183–89, 194–95 dangerous 189–91 Dawkins on 6, 181–84 dogmatism-inducing 181, 183 in homogeneity 6, 181, 183, 185 lies as 189–90 as mind viruses 6–7, 181–85, 189–96 neuroscience on 181–83 shamanistic incantation for spreading 190–91 transmission of 183–84 tyranny and 6, 181 Memmi, Albert 121n23, 122 Metaphysics (Aristotle) 205–6, 206n8 Metcalfe, Bryan 203, 215–20, 226, 230 Mexico 40, 40n32 Middle Ages 97, 99 Mignolo, Walter 114 militarism 4–5, 33 Mills, C. Wright 1 mind viruses intolerance 192–94 linguistic violence 194–95 memes as 6–7, 181–85, 189–96 in physical violence 195–96 propaganda for spreading 185–86 resistance to 200 rhinoceroses hosting 185–89, 192–96 Minnich, Elizabeth 23 Mitchell, James 154–55, 154n41 Mitchell, Mozella 79 Montesquieu, Charles Baron de 250 moral frames 172, 178 morality Gandhi on 55–58, 60–61 Stoicism and 57–61 Moss, Otis 86 Mouffe, Chantal 29–30 multicultural education 197, 200 Murphy, James 190 myths 215–18 naacp. See National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

Index narratives of conservatives 173–74 frames and 170, 172 Naseem, M. Ayaz 211–12 Nash, Anne Steere 65 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (naacp) 85–86 National Emergencies Act of 1976 158, 158n53 National Institute for Civil Discourse (nicd) 37n28 National Urban League (nul) 85–86 natural sciences 90 Nazism 15, 32, 94–95, 129–30, 132–34, 151, 185–86 nccit. See North Carolina Commission of Inquiry on Torture Neither Victims Nor Executioners (Camus) 17–18 neoconservatism 235 neoliberal governmentality 98 neoliberal myth 216–18, 218n53 neuroscience 164, 170–73, 177, 181–83 nicd. See National Institute for Civil Discourse Nicomachean Ethics (Aristotle) 208, 221 Nietzsche, Friedrich 1, 39, 77, 80, 93, 122n25 nihilism 76–77 nonviolence as active resistance 74–80 ahimsa as 66–69, 66n7, 71, 83, 102 antiviolence and 22 in Bhakti movement 102 civility and 31, 41–42, 46 in Civil Rights Movement 85 coercive 13 cultural 74 cultural violence and 74 diplomacy, against genocide 131 in ethical democracy 30 faith and 28 Gandhi on 28, 67, 69–73, 86 Just War Theory and 112 King, M.L., on 71, 73–74, 80, 86 linguistic 14 pacifism and 18, 27, 31 passivity and 17–18, 17n26, 22, 49 political language and 13

Index power of 80, 84 in resistance 55–63, 65–66, 72 Sartre on 17–18, 17n26 satyagraha as 3, 31, 65, 67–68, 71–72 in social protest 10 Stoicism and 3, 49–53 of Sufis 103, 105 Thurman on 65–66, 74–80, 84, 86 violence and 2–4, 22, 74, 85 “Non-violence” (King, M.L.) 71 Nordstrom, Carolyn 118, 120–21 North Carolina Commission of Inquiry on Torture (nccit) 157n52 nul. See National Urban League Nussbaum, Martha 54–55 Obama, Barack 160n59 obedience 173–74 object, subject and 90–91 objectivity 44–45, 91 On Crimes and Punishments (Beccaria) 150 “On Revolution and Equilibrium” (Deming) 18 On Tyranny (Snyder) 189 the oppressed 69, 111–13, 113n3, 117–25 oppression 69, 119–20, 120n19, 124–25 The Order of Things (Foucault) 90 Ordine, Nuccio 219–20, 226 original position, of Rawls 159, 234 Orwell, George 12–14 the other 238, 240, 242, 247–48 pacific faith 28–29, 41–42 pacifism of African Americans 3, 65–70 Christian 31 Churchill, W., on 43–44 nonviolence and 18, 27, 31 on violence 66 pain, in punishment 149–50 Palestinians 136–37 Panopticon 91 Papp’e, Ilan 136–37 partisanship 177 passivity 17–18, 17n26, 22, 49, 55 paternalistic family structure 173–74 Paul (saint) 67, 72 peace 22, 43–46, 123–25

269 Pedagogy of Mythos (Metcalfe) 203, 214 Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Freire) 4, 17, 113n3 Pence, Mike 37n26 perpetual peace 22 Phillips, Joshua E.S. 153 philosophical anthropology 213–14 in educational principles 217–18, 217n48, 220 in liberal arts 222–23, 225–26 social justice and 203–4, 221, 229–30 philosophical pacifism 3, 65–70 philosophy 206–7, 227–28 Pieper, Josef 203, 209, 213n35, 221–30, 225n82 Pizzagate 195–96 Plato 51, 205, 228–30, 242 politeness 9–10, 15, 18, 24 political activism 76 political correctness 2, 9, 14 political economy 98–99 political frames 172, 178 The Political Mind (Lakoff) 169 political resistance. See resistance politics. See also Democratic Party; Republican Party cognitive neurosciences in 164 language of 12–14 money in 249 morality and 57–58 partisanship in 177 as relational praxis 249 Stoicism and 58, 61–63 tragic dimension of 23 truth and 39 violence and 19, 22–23, 99–100 voting and 61–62 “Politics and the English Language” (Orwell) 12–13 poor and working class whites, Republicans and 6, 163–76 positivism 90, 209–11, 251–52 post-9/11 era 5 Post-Liberalism (Dallmayr) 249 power biopolitics 96 colonial matrix of 111–15 governmentality and 98

270 power (Cont.) love and 80 of nonviolence 80, 84 science and 91 sovereign expression of 119 structures 113–14, 120–21, 121n22 violence, war and 118, 120–21 violence and 22, 80, 99–100 power-knowledge 4, 91–92, 97–98 pragmatism 42, 44 prejudice 7 problematization 92–93 Proclamation 7463—Declaration of National Emergency by Reason of Certain Terrorist Attacks 158 propaganda 39, 185–86 The Psychology of Genocide (Baum) 132 ptsd 153 The Public and Its Problems (Dewey) 39 public discourse 34, 37n28 public higher education 197–200 public language 12 Public Opinion (Lippman) 39 punishment capital 146–49, 147n17, 152n32 cruel 152–53 expressive 151–52, 151n30, 157–58 pain of 149–50 Punjabi literature 105–6 quietism 54 Quijano, Aníbal 114 R2D. See right to defend Raboteau, Albert 70, 86 racial oppression 69 racism 34 radical democracy 235–36, 257 Randolph, A. Philip 69 rape 152 rationality 41–43, 142–43, 148–49, 169–70 Rawls, John 159–60, 159n54, 234 reason 142–43, 145–47, 169 reflexive thinking 169 reformative discourse, Sufi 107–8 reformism 91 reframing 178–79

Index Rehman, Rashad 7 Reitter, Hans 94–95 relational praxis 249, 255 relationism 250 relativism 44 religion 99–100, 242–43 religious experience 73–74, 76 repressive tolerance 2, 9, 15–19, 22–23 Republican Party Democratic Party and 164–65, 167–69, 172–73, 175–79, 193–94 frames of 174–75 on free market 174–75 on liberals 167–68 nationalistic messaging by 6 poor and working class whites and 6, 163–76 tribalism of 188 resignation 49, 53–55 resistance active 74–80, 133 civility and 10, 13–14, 30 to conformity memes 186–88 to genocide, by bystanders 139–40 against injustice 24 to mind viruses 200 nonviolent 55–63, 65–66, 72 by Sindhi saints 104–5 Stoicism and 54–55, 57–59, 61 to uncivil speech 2 violence and 9–10, 17, 21, 23 Rhinoceros (Ionesco) 185–89 rhinoceroses 181, 185–89, 192–96 Rich, Adrienne 14 Ricoeur, Paul 23 right to defend (R2D) 130–31 Rodney, Walter 78–79, 85 Rogues (Derrida) 238, 243, 252–53 rogue states 244, 244n40 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 10–11, 146n14 Rustin, Bayard 70–71 Rwanda 135 Salt March 57 Sandefer, Jeff 198–99 Sands, Philippe 154n39 Sapolsky, Robert 171–73 Sartre, Jean-Paul 17–18, 17n26, 79

Index satyagraha 3, 31, 65, 67–68, 71–72. See also nonviolence Schmitt, Carl 246 science human 90–94, 97 knowledge and 210–11 natural 90 power and 91 social 94, 96 scientism 7, 209–12, 225 Scientism and Education (Hyslop-Margison and Naseem) 211–12 sclc. See Southern Christian Leadership Conference Scott, James 194 Search for Common Ground (Thurman) 68 segregation 81, 81n48 The Selfish Gene (Dawkins) 181–82 self-preservation 145, 154 self-respect 69 self-rule 255 sere training 155 sexism 34 sexuality 92 shamanistic incantation, of memes 190–91 Shanks, Niall 181, 183–85, 192, 196–97, 200 Sikhism 100, 102, 106 Sindhi resistance saints 104–5 slavery 79–80 Smith, Luther 66–67 Smith, Steven A. 53 Smithka, Paula 6–7 Snyder, Timothy 189–91 social contract theory 5–6 Beccaria on 151–52 civility and legitimacy in 10–12 expressivism in 161 government and 146 human rights and 142 laws and 158, 160 Rawls on 159–60 state in 152 torture and 155, 157–58, 157n52 social control 98 social injustice 23–24 social justice 9, 20, 205, 214–15, 214n39 liberal arts and 230–31

271 philosophical anthropology and 203–4, 221, 229–30 Thurman on 80–81 social media 7, 130–31 social sciences 94, 96 Society Must be Defended (Foucault) 96 Socrates 39, 51, 60–62, 83 solidarity 122 Sophist (Plato) 205, 228–29 sophistry 203–5, 228–29 Sorabji, Richard 57, 60 Southern Christian Leadership Conference (sclc) 70–71 sovereignty 119, 243–46 The Spirit of Laws (Montesquieu) 250 state biopolitics of 94–95 civility and 20–21 convertibility of violence by 21–22 counterviolence by 22 governmentality and 98–99 power-knowledge of 4 rogue 244, 244n40 in social contract theory 152 sovereignty and 243–46 violence by 2, 2n, 11–12, 19–20, 150 sterilization 128–29 Stoicism on control 50–53, 56–62 emotions in 62–63 Epictetus on 3, 50–54, 56–60 Gandhi and 51–53, 56, 58–61 on immoral acts 58–59 morality and 57–61 nonviolence and 3, 49–53 politics and 58, 61–63 resistance and 54–55, 57–59, 61 Trump and 56, 59, 61 Streep, Meryl 37n27 Strength to Love (King, M.L.) 76–77 structural oppression 120, 120n19, 124–25 structural violence 20, 122 subjectivation 91–92, 97–98 subjunctive modality 234–35 Sub-Saharan Africa 111 Sufi movement 4, 102–9 Survival, Evasion, Resistance, & Escape (sere) training 155

272 Teaching to Transgress (Rich) 14 Tesón, Fernando 116, 116n15 Theodoridis, Alex 188, 192 Third Reich 15 Thomas Aquinas (saint) 209, 223–24 Thompson, Mark 12 Thoreau, Henry David 30–32 Thurman, Howard as African American philosophical pacifist 3, 65–70 on the beloved community 81–83 on civil disobedience 69 Civil Rights Movement and 66, 69–74 “Desegregation, Integration, and the Beloved Community” by 81 Disciplines of the Spirit by 79 in for 66 Gandhi and 3–4, 65–71, 73, 75–76, 80–81, 83–86 on hate 76–78, 77n36 on integration 81–83 Jesus and the Disinherited by 77 King, M.L., and 70–80, 72n25, 84–87 on love 77–78, 83–84 Love or Perish sermon by 77n36 Luminous Darkness by 66 on nonviolence 65–66, 84, 86 on nonviolent active resistance 74–80 Search for Common Ground by 68 social justice approach of 80–81 on violence 75, 75n32, 78 Timaeus (Plato) 242 Titan Corporation 157 tolerance civility and 9–10, 18–19, 24 politeness and 9–10, 15, 24 repressive 2, 9, 15–19, 22–23 social justice and 9 of violence 16 Tolstoy, Leo 31–32 torture 144n8 at Abu Ghraib 155–56, 156n45, 156n47, 156n49, 157n50 Beccaria on 144, 147, 150 Bernstein on 150–51, 153nn37–38 coercion by 155, 155n43 Kant on 152 nccit on 157n52

Index ptsd from 153 social contract theory and 155, 157–58, 157n52 ticking time bomb scenario in justifying 154n39 by U.S. government, after 9/11 153–56, 160 totalitarianism 29–30 tragedy 23–24 tribalism 188–89, 196 Trudeau, Justin 40 Trump, Donald 2, 178 on China 175 civility against 46 Clinton and 37n28 on free press 35–36, 38 Haspel appointment by 160n59 incivility of 27, 33–40, 37n28 on Kim 40, 40n33, 194 on Kovaleski 38 lies of 189–90, 195n58 linguistic violence by 194–95 opponents of 33–34 poor whites for 6 Proclamation 7463 signed by 158 relativism of 44 on sovereignty 246 Stoicism and 56, 59, 61 Streep and 37n27 tyranny and 185, 192 truth 35–41, 45, 83, 191, 206 Tutsis 135 Twenty Years at Hull House (Addams) 32 tyranny 6, 181, 185, 189, 192, 196–201 Uganda 111n1, 119 ultraobjective and ultrasubjective violence 19, 22–23 U.N. See United Nations uncivil speech 2, 9 unconscious cognitive processes 166, 169–79 United Nations (U.N.) on genocide 127–31, 138–39, 143 Universal Declaration of Human Rights 143, 247 universal human rights 143–44, 150

273

Index The Usefulness of the Useless (Ordine) 219–20 utilitarianism 149, 154n39, 207–8, 218, 218n52, 220–21 verticality, horizontality and 242 violence antiviolence and 19–20, 22–23 convertibility of 9, 11, 19–24 counterviolence and 11, 17, 21–22 criminality and 1–2 cruelty and 9, 19, 22–23 cultural 4, 14, 74 Dewey on 33 Fanon on 17–18 hate and 74–78, 83 human behavior and 1 against injustice 16–18 law and 243 linguistic 13–14, 24, 194–95 nonviolence and 2–4, 22, 74, 85 oppression and 119–20, 125 pacifists on 66 physical, mind viruses in 195–96 politics and 19, 22–23, 99–100 power, war and 118, 120–21 power and 22, 80, 99–100 racial oppression, and fear of 69 against rationality 42–43 resistance and 9–10, 17, 21, 23 by state 2, 2n, 11–12, 19–20, 150 structural 20, 122 Thurman on 75, 75n32, 78 tolerance of 16 ultraobjective and ultrasubjective 19, 22–23

Wright on 76 Violence and Civility (Balibar) 19 virtue, of civility 41–43, 45 Vorobej, Mark 74 voting 61–62, 163–64, 166–69, 239 Walker, James 4–5 war. See also Just War Theory of intervention 115–16, 115n13 violence, power and 118, 120–21 well-ordered peoples in 159–60 Warburton, Nigel 54, 60–61 the wealthy 171–72 Weaver, Harold D. 65 Welch, Edgar 195–96 well-ordered peoples 159–60 West Africa 96 Western militarism 4–5 “What is Enlightenment?” (Kant) 142 What’s the Matter with Kansas? (Frank) 6, 163–64, 166–67 Where Do We Go from Here (King, M.L.) 80 Whipper, William 65 white nationalism 7 white supremacy 14 will 146–47 Wilson, Paul 5 words, language and 229 The Wretched of the Earth (Fanon) 17–18, 79, 114 Wright, Richard 75–76 Young, Iris Marion 120, 120n19 Zakaria, Fareed 192–94 Zvonovskii, Vladmir 209