SPIRITUAL AND POLITICAL DIMENSIONS OF NONVIOLENCE AND PEACE
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SPIRITUAL AND POLITICAL DIMENSIONS OF NONVIOLENCE AND PEACE
VIBS Volume 182 Robert Ginsberg Founding Editor Peter A. Redpath Executive Editor Associate Editors G. John M. Abbarno Mary-Rose Barral Gerhold K. Becker Raymond Angelo Belliotti Kenneth A. Bryson C. Stephen Byrum Harvey Cormier Robert A. Delfino Rem B. Edwards Andrew Fitz-Gibbon Francesc Forn i Argimon William Gay Dane R. Gordon J. Everet Green Heta Aleksandra Gylling
Matti Häyry Steven V. Hicks Richard T. Hull Mark Letteri Vincent L. Luizzi Adrianne McEvoy Alan Milchman Alan Rosenberg Arleen L. F. Salles John R. Shook Eddy Souffrant Tuija Takala Anne Waters John R. Welch Thomas Woods
a volume in Philosophy of Peace POP William Gay, Editor
SPIRITUAL AND POLITICAL DIMENSIONS OF NONVIOLENCE AND PEACE Edited by
David Boersema and
Katy Gray Brown
Amsterdam - New York, NY 2006
Cover Design: Studio Pollmann The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of “ISO 9706:1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents Requirements for permanence”. ISBN-10: 90-420-2061-X ISBN-13: 978-90-420-2061-0 ©Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY 2006 Printed in the Netherlands
CONTENTS Acknowledgments
vii
Introduction: Beyond Safe Ground KATY GRAY BROWN Part One: Spiritual Dimensions
1
9
ONE
Spirituality, Religion, Violence, and Nonviolence JERALD RICHARDS
11
TWO
The Spiritual Side of Peacemaking JOSEPH KUNKEL
31
THREE
Apocalyptic Thinking versus Nonviolent Action WILLIAM C. GAY
43
Part Two: Political Dimensions FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
Understanding “Operation Enduring Freedom” through the Persistence of Sacrifice, Revenge, and the Gift of Cruel Economies ANAS KARZAI, MARIANNE VARDALOS Strategic Nonviolence in Africa: Reasons for its Embrace and Later Abandonment by Nkrumah, Nyerere, and Kaunda GAIL M. PRESBEY The Treasure of Japan’s Article 9: The World’s Foremost Law for Peace, Justice, and Nonviolent Conflict Resolution CHARLES MARTIN OVERBY “Faceless Coward”: Bush’s Anti-Terrorism Rhetoric JOHN KULTGEN
55
57
75
103
111
Contents
vi
Part Three: Justice and Values EIGHT
No Justice, No Peace MARIA H. MORALES
NINE
Sharing a Sense of Justice: The Role of Conscience in Political Protest MICHAEL PATTERSON BROWN
129 131
145
TEN
Taking Compromise Seriously DAVID BOERSEMA
161
ELEVEN
Kant on Freedom, Happiness, and Peace ANDREW KELLEY
169
TWELVE
Part Four: Action and Change
179
A Normative Framework for Addressing Peace and Related Global Issues WILLIAM C. GAY
181
THIRTEEN
On Language and Social Change BETH J. SINGER
195
FOURTEEN
Making a Man of Her: Women in the Military JOHN KULTGEN
203
FIFTEEN
Assumptions behind Different Types of Peace Education IAN M. HARRIS
217
About the Authors
241
Index
245
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The essays contained in this volume are selected from papers presented at two annual conferences of the Concerned Philosophers for Peace: the tenth annual conference, which was held in 1997 at California State University, Chico, and the fourteenth annual conference, which was held in 2001 at St. Bonaventure University. The editors would like to thank the following people, who reviewed the papers submitted for this volume: Patricia Burdette, Michael Patterson Brown, Robert Churchill, Patrick Dooley, Howard Friedman, Barry Gan, Robert Gould, Trudy Govier, Ron Hirschbein, Rod Hughes, Laura Duhan Kaplan, Mary Lenzi, Glen Martin, Steve Naragon, Judith Presler, Eddy Souffrant, and James Sterba.
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INTRODUCTION: BEYOND SAFE GROUND Katy Gray Brown 1. An Introduction If I apply contemporary political nomenclature to my family tree, the limbs run all shades of red and blue. With some relatives, conversations stick to the safe issues of children, work, how the trip down went, and then back to children— it is so much easier now that I actually have a child myself and have contributed to the common discourse. Inevitably, because families are what they are, the conversation will lurch into contentious ground. The subject might be military work (we differ on notions of “service”); injustices based on race, class, gender, sexual orientation, ability; the role of our government, domestic and global; or the causes of terrorism and war—be it an operation cleverly named to capture the popular imagination or the broader war which has laid siege to the minds and the resources of the United States since September 2001. With such material, we have plenty to argue about should talk about children turn stale. But because we recognize that most of our arguments will be futile—we are family, after all—we have developed language to come back to amicable terms. We reassure ourselves of our similarities by returning to solid ground upon which we (mostly) agree. When the prayer is offered before the family reunion meal, the language of peace brings everything together. There: we all want peace. Pass me those potatoes and I will not badger you about your car’s bumper stickers. Who does not want peace? Donald Rumsfeld and Desmond Tutu want peace. Kathy Kelly and Condoleeza Rice both want peace. If we ask the CEOs of any weapons-related industry, they will say they want peace, too. Peace is supremely, ironically, not contentious in this respect. If we put aside the technicalities of our different definitions about the content and character of peace (admittedly, the stuff of serious dispute), most of us claim to be motivated by a desire for peace. Generally, even disparate visions of peace may include elements of both negative peace (absence of physical violence) and positive peace (freedom from injustices and insecurities). Somehow, nonviolence does not occupy the same sort of safe ground. Perhaps the concept of nonviolence is controversial because it cannot be understood simply as an end-state, a place at which we arrive (by whatever means we manage) and from which we can dissociate ourselves from our methods of travel. By embracing nonviolence, we not only align ourselves
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with a certain vision of peace, but also we commit ourselves necessarily to particular means to this end. A refusal to separate means from ends is central to discussions of nonviolence. This draws the line between adherents of nonviolence and, say, the CEO of Alliant Techsystems, largest manufacturer of depleted weapons in the world and a neighbor of mine here in Minnesota. Many people—be they theorists, politicians, or my relatives—hold the view that the end of peace is so significant, violent means are justified to obtain it. Indeed, many who hold this position might add that, unfortunately, violent means are, at times, the only way to achieve peace. Even people who believe violence is a justifiable response generally accept that premise only with provisions: as a last resort, when applied discriminately and with a sense of proportion. While we all want peace, few people would call for peace by any means, without some moral consideration of how we achieve such ends. Why, then, if we all want peace and if most people recognize a general prohibition on violence, is nonviolence so controversial? I believe that it is because people who advocate nonviolence not only commit ourselves to different means; more importantly, by embracing nonviolence, we reject certain means. And the means that we reject are not isolated, free-floating actions. There are industries and communities, careers and family livelihoods, built around the very means that we reject. This is why people drop the conversation at holiday gatherings. Some of the people I care about have a very personal stake in the moral necessity of violence, whether we are talking about an uncle who worked at Boeing or a brother-in-law disabled from active duty with the United States Marines. We drop the conversation because, as a family, we can leave this hanging. We have sufficient common interest and affection to bring us together next year. As a society, we have nothing on which to fall back. Since we live in a culture that devotes vast resources to mechanisms of violence, we must address questions of these means publicly, as a society. Even among adherents of nonviolence, who emphasize the importance of the nature of means, there are points of substantial difference. Theorists and practitioners have recognized two fundamental approaches to nonviolence: principled nonviolence and strategic or tactical nonviolence. Principled nonviolence refers to the belief that violence is never a justified means to any end. Such a position typically rests upon a moral, ethical, or spiritual framework. Tactical nonviolence, on the other hand, does not rule out violence as a legitimate mechanism for action. However, proponents of practical nonviolence believe that nonviolent approaches are often more successful than violent action. In a given context, the resources, risks, and potential accomplishments of nonviolent action outweigh the advantages of violence. These two approaches
Introduction: Beyond Safe Ground
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to nonviolence and positions that incorporate both views have cultivated the development of practical tools for analysis and action with which we may engage social and political structures. In this book, we have collected philosophical papers that explore aspects and implications of nonviolence in the work of establishing a peaceful world. We have divided this work into four sections. The first section, “Spiritual Dimensions,” considers spiritual foundations for nonviolence and peacemaking, and offers three perspectives on the connections between religion, spirituality, and action. The second section, “Political Dimensions,” examines challenges facing proponents of nonviolence in different historical and cultural contexts. In the third section, titled “Justice and Values,” authors explore a variety of ways that theoretical understandings of nonviolence and peace can connect to issues of societal justice. Finally, in the fourth section, “Action and Change,” we present works that consider some specific implications for systems of governance; for the way we communicate and use language; for understanding the assumptions and effects of military training; and for shaping a model of education, which promotes justice and peace. This section demonstrates some of the ways that we can embody the values of nonviolence in concrete changes in behaviors and institutions. Throughout these chapters, authors thoughtfully consider different theoretical and practical aspects of nonviolence. We hope that this collection promotes further work in the field of philosophical perspectives of nonviolence, and contributes to the understanding of nonviolence as a fundamental tool for the creation of a just and peaceful world. 2. Section One: Spiritual Dimensions A fundamental understanding of, and response to, conflict involves seeing its relation to us individually and collectively. At both levels, but especially at the individual level, this connects to a basic recognition of whom and what we are. Conflict and violence, and, for that matter, peace, are not merely or even primarily somatic. They are powerfully spiritual. The papers in this section wrestle with spiritual dimensions of violence and nonviolence. Jerald Richards argues that the greatest challenge to the claim that there are or may be spiritual dimensions of nonviolence is the connection between spirituality and religion along with their connection with violence, both historically and in the contemporary world. In his essay, “Spirituality, Religion, Violence, and Nonviolence,” he examines these connections in terms of the ambivalence of the sacred, as discussed in recent books by Mark Juergensmeyer and Robert Scott Appleby. Richards offers an interpretation of this ambivalence that provides grounds for hope in the growth of nonviolent subtraditions of spiritual and religious traditions. He concludes with an identifica-
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tion of some of the spiritual resources of nonviolence and with recommendations for those concerned with the application of these resources in peaceful conflict resolution. Continuing a historical framing of issues, Joseph Kunkel, in “The Spiritual Side of Peacemaking,” examines the spiritual dimension of peace theory as found in Leo Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. His paper interweaves Eastern and Western views of the spiritual, beginning with a Christian student protest at the School of the Americas. Kunkel intersperses the Sermon on the Mount, loving one’s enemies, Tolstoy’s doctrine of faith underpinning reason, and Gandhi’s renunciation of the fruits of our actions. Kunkel uses meditation practices as a means for showing how consciousness can choose one part of its object over another and thereby prefer nonviolent over violent action. In his description of consciousness and free will, Kunkel follows William James and compares James with Hindu and Buddhist thinking on the nature of desire. In the final essay in this section, “Apocalyptic Thinking versus Nonviolent Action: From Instilling Fear to Inspiring Hope,” William C. Gay claims that apocalyptic thinking was often used throughout the Cold War to motivate public protest against the prospect of nuclear war. This strategy relied on the presumed motivating power of fear. Such thinking, he argues, has factual, psychological, political, and moral pitfalls. Furthermore, the attempt to instill fear among the public was not what brought about an end to the Cold War. In contradistinction, nonviolent action relies on hope to achieve political change. Throughout the Twentieth Century, nonviolent struggles were widespread and often successful, though until recently they were generally neglected in historical accounts. These nonviolent movements offer a positive vision and provide a force more powerful than even the instruments of war. For the current century (and beyond) this approach has much to offer and could be the means to counter the reliance of nation states on standing military organizations. 3. Section Two: Political Dimensions The spiritual dimensions of violence and nonviolence are not only individual. As social beings, they relate, too, to us collectively. Nevertheless, we often— perhaps usually—frame the emphasis on spirituality along the lines of us as individuals. While the political dimensions of violence and nonviolence also relate to us as individuals, we usually frame these, more generally, along organizational and structural lines. The four papers in this section reflect that collective framing. Anas Karzai and Marianne Vardalos, in “Understanding ‘Operation Enduring Freedom,’” examine the events surrounding the attacks of 11 September 2001 in the context of theories of gift exchange. Drawing on the thought of
Introduction: Beyond Safe Ground
5
Marcel Mauss, Jacques Derrida, and Friedrich Nietzsche, Karzai and Vardalos analyze the instrumentality of giving and receiving in economies of reciprocity, commodity, and sacrifice, by evoking notions of obedience and obligation, both religious and political. They argue that despite differences in conception of the gift economy, both the Bush Administration in the United States and the Taliban Regime in Afghanistan shared an idea of justice rooted in the Abrahamic religious tradition, an idea of justice as a cruel economy of commerce involving sacrifice and revenge like numerals in an accounting ledger. Such a conception of justice led to, and in the future will lead to further conflict and violence. The essay by Gail Presbey, “Strategic Nonviolence in Africa: Reasons for its Embrace and Later Abandonment by Nkrumah, Nyerere, and Kaunda,” analyzes three case studies of political struggles in Africa. In Ghana, Tanzania, and Zambia, nonviolent strategies propelled independence movements against colonial rule. Yet after assuming political power, each of these three leaders utilized state violence to suppress political opposition. In this chapter, Presbey considers both why nonviolent action was successful in pursuit of independence and why nonviolence was abandoned so quickly once the power of state had changed hands. Moving our study from Africa to Asia, Charles Martin Overby offers an impassioned piece on “The Treasure of Japan’s War-Renouncing Article 9.” Article 9 is part of Japan’s post-World War II constitution and implies that Japan must deal with its international conflicts nonviolently, by means other than war. Unfortunately, Overby claims, the United States’ and Japanese governments have been trying for decades to “kill this wisdom.” He details two current major threats to Article 9: the United States’ initiated 1997 “Guidelines for U.S.-Japan defense cooperation” and the United States’ current policy toward so-called “rogue” states, particularly North Korea. Going beyond describing such challenges to Article 9, Overby proposes a Nobel Peace Prize for Article 9. He calls for leaders in the United States’ and Japanese governments to perhaps be charged with crimes against peace and humanity in the International Criminal Court. No less impassioned, in the final paper of this section, “‘Faceless Cowards’: Bush’s Anti-Terrorist Rhetoric,” John Kultgen scrutinizes and critiques what President George W. Bush was trying to accomplish in his initial characterizations of the 11 September 2001 attacks in New York and Washington, DC. Kultgen examines the language used to describe the attacks (for example, “attacks on freedom” and “acts of war”) and label the attackers (“cowards”). By diverting attention from the root causes of terrorism, says Kultgen, President Bush made it more likely that the nation would sanction excessive force in trying to repress terrorism and make it less likely to succeed in reducing such acts in the future.
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KATY GRAY BROWN 4. Section Three: Justice and Values
The papers in this section are more openly theoretical that those of the previous two sections. They especially address concerns of the relation of peace theory and conceptions of justice. While overtly theoretical, they also explicitly speak to matters of practice that flow from theoretical perspectives and positions. In the first paper, “No Justice, No Peace,” Maria H. Morales explores the view that complete justice grounded in equality is a necessary condition of peace. What Morales means by “complete justice” includes considerations of social and economic equality. She especially incorporates the thought of John Stuart Mill because he conceived of equality as an indispensable condition of social harmony. Mill emphasized the need to remove inequality in the areas of life where he saw conflict as still rampant, particularly in the family and the workplace. Personal subjection, lack of economic independence, and lack of control over our lives are socially significant sources of discord and misery, so until we cure these ills, no truly peaceful sociopolitical order is possible. Here, Morales focuses on the need for equality in the workplace. Michael Patterson Brown, in his essay, “Matters of Conscience: Justice and Protest in Society,” examines the role and limits of John Rawls’ definition of civil disobedience, as distinguished from other acts of what he terms “conscientious refusal.” Like civilly disobedient acts, these are contrary to law and motivated by conscience, but they cannot be similarly justified, because they hinge upon religious or moral beliefs that fall outside the scope of the common conception of justice to which political protest must appeal. Brown argues that this distinction serves to marginalize a set of acts intended to engage society and it creates a static conception of justice, closed to reform. This limits the utility of the theory to idealized, almost-just societies and eliminates the motive to restrict the means of protest. An alternative model of civil conscientious refusal (and resistance) might address these problems, allowing for the possibility of radical reform in diverse societies. At a time when differences between people, individually and collectively, seem more hardened and when being resolute (“staying the course”) is taken as a primary, perhaps even the primary, virtue, David Boersema suggests, in his essay, “Taking Compromise Seriously,” that compromise is an important value. In addition, he claims compromise is particularly consistent with a pragmatist approach to moral theory and practice. After enunciating various features of compromise, he spells out a specific pragmatist approach to the nature of rights, drawing on the work of Beth J. Singer. Boersema rejects the view that compromise is antithetical to moral integrity, justice, or rights as being integral to the enhancement of moral agents. Rather, he argues that a pragmatist approach to the nature of rights as well as the taking seriously of compromise as a
Introduction: Beyond Safe Ground
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moral value are mutually supportive and fostering, and they help promote values consistent with nonviolent conflict resolution. In the final paper in this section, “Kant on Freedom, Happiness, and Peace,” Andrew Kelley considers tensions and potential contradictions that arise in Kant’s discussions about peace in order to address three interrelated questions upon which philosophers of peace today still to focus. These questions are: (1) whether we should ultimately ground our thinking about peace in moral philosophy or legal theory, (2) whether or not coercion of any type is consistent with peace, and (3) whether happiness or freedom is more important in our conception of peace. Kelley does not take sides on answering these questions, but instead argues for their significance to contemporary conflicts and to peace theory. 5. Section Four: Action and Change The final section of this book contains four essays that focus on practical ways to effectuate peace. As noted earlier in this introduction, these ways include implications for systems of governance, ways we communicate and use language, ways of understanding the assumptions and effects of military training, and ways of shaping a model of education that best promotes justice and peace. The first essay, William Gay’s, “A Normative Framework for Addressing Peace and Related Global Issues,” is a call to bring together wisdom and power in international relations. Claiming that the persistence of war is humanity’s most pressing problem, Gay argues that other concerns such as protecting people’s rights, securing their economic well-being, and preserving ecological diversity are not truly possible until war ends. Gay reviews what he sees as parochial and warist implications of the focus on national sovereignty found within Enlightenment political philosophy, beginning with Thomas Hobbes. Noting that Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Karl Marx gestured toward, but failed to fully work out, global applications of normative principles, Gay draws on the work of John Dewey, Daniel Robinson, and Robert Johansen to propose global humanist values with concrete consequences for governance. Also drawing on the work of Dewey, as well as more directly on the work of George Herbert Mead, Beth Singer argues that social action is a form of communication in her essay, “On Language and Social Change.” Focusing on addressing whether (and in what ways) escape is possible from power relations embedded in language, Singer emphasizes connections among communication, reflective inquiry, social action, and democracy. Attitudinal change and practical change both involve critical inquiry and public discussion, that is, democratic values and institutions. Where Singer critiqued sexist language within a pragmatist conception of communication and democracy, John Kultgen analyzes sexism, in terms of
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language and values, in the context of the United States’ military. In his essay, “Making a Man of Her: Women in the Military,” he argues that damage is done to the moral character of recruits, both men and women, by the sexism inherent in military training and combat. Distinguishing values such as true courage from machismo, Kultgen critiques the work of Madeline Morris, who argues that we can change military sexist values by having more women in the military. Instead, echoing Gay’s claim above about war as humanity’s most pressing problem, Kultgen claims that only with the elimination of war and the need for military values will such moral damage cease. Finally, in his essay, “Assumptions behind Different Types of Peace Education,” Ian M. Harris examines the theoretical roots of educational reform that seeks to address different forms of violence that appear within and outside of schools. Harris begins with several postulates of peace education: (1) it explains the roots of violence, (2) it teaches alternatives to violence, (3) it adjusts to cover different forms of violence, (4) peace itself is a process that varies according to context, and (5) conflict is omnipresent. He then traces the history of peace education and details various types of peace education: Human Rights Education, Environmental Education, International Education, Conflict Resolution Education, and Development Education, concluding that by promoting these types of peace education in formal schooling will help to eliminate violence in schools as well as in society.
Part One SPIRITUAL DIMENSIONS
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One SPIRITUALITY, RELIGION, VIOLENCE, AND NONVIOLENCE Jerald Richards 1. Introduction A consideration of the question of the spiritual dimensions of or contributions to nonviolence raises in the minds of many persons the connection of spirituality with religion and the specter of the violence (as well as the injustice) perpetrated over the past centuries and in the contemporary world in the name of the sacred and religion. Leo D. Lefebure puts this point succinctly and bluntly: Religious traditions promise to heal the wounds of human existence by uniting human beings to ultimate reality; yet the history of religions is steeped in blood, war, sacrifice, and scapegoating. While many interpreters of religion have focused on the constructive role of religion in human life, the brutal facts of the history of religions impose the stark realization of the intertwining of religion and violence: violence, clothed in religious garb, has repeatedly cast a spell over religion and culture, luring countless “decent” people—from unlettered peasants to learned priests, preachers, and professors—into its destructive dance . . . . Moreover, texts that have been accepted as revelatory in different traditions, from the Jewish and Christian Bibles to the Qur’an to the Bhagavad Gita, directly enjoin violent struggle as the will of God.1 In the contemporary world, consider the following examples of religious violence, individual and collective: (1) Reverend Michael Bray and the abortion clinic bombings in 1984; (2) Reverend Paul Hill’s murder of Dr. John Britton and a volunteer escort near an abortion clinic in Pensacola Florida in 1994; (3) Timothy McVeigh’s bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995;
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JERALD RICHARDS (4) Catholic and Protestant violence and killing in Northern Ireland over the past several decades; (5) Yoel Lerner’s assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995; (6) Baruch Goldstein’s attack on the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, Israel in 1995; (7) Mahmud Abouhalima and the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993; (8) the Hamas suicide missions against the Israelis in recent years under the guidance of Abdul Aziz Rantisi; (9) assassinations (including that of Indira Gandhi) in India directed by Simranzit Singh Mann in the 1980s and 1990s; (10) Takeshi Nakamura and the Aum Shinrikyo release of sarin gas in the Tokyo subway in Japan in 1995;2 (11) genocide in Bosnia over the past several decades;3 (12) Buddhist violence in Sri Lanka in support of Sinhala nationalism and the exclusion of the Tamils from employment and other economic opportunities over the past couple of decades;4 and (13) 11 September 2001 destruction of the World Trade Center and attack on the United States Pentagon by representatives of Osama bin Laden;
These are representative examples. I could expand the list. Religions represented by or involved in one way or another in these contemporary examples are the three major branches of Christianity—Catholicism, Protestantism, and Eastern Orthodoxy; Judaism; Islam; Hinduism; Buddhism; and Sikhism. Given the history of religious fascination with violence, and its perpetration in the name of the sacred, the holy, the divine, and the connection of religion and religious experience with spirituality, we are, to put it mildly, in a quandary if we are concerned about the spiritual dimensions of, or contributions to, nonviolence. Several options are available to us: One, we can sever the connection between religion and spirituality and sketch out the elements of spirituality apart from any necessary connection with religion (or the sacred or divine). With the albatross of religious violence
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removed from our necks, we can go on to consider the spiritual dimensions of or contributions to, nonviolence. But unless we arbitrarily rule out from the beginning any possible connection between spirituality and violence, there is no guarantee that the varieties of non-religious spirituality will exclude varieties that advocate the resort to violence in some pursuits (including the pursuit of justice) that are believed to be consistent with the metaphysical or ideological underpinnings (the worldviews) of those spiritualities. Ultimate commitments or foundational underpinnings of meaning and purpose (whether religious or non-religious) are vulnerable to the temptation of ideological intolerance and the use of violence in their defense or advancement. Two, we can deny that there are any necessary or even significant spiritual dimensions to a commitment to and a practice of nonviolence and the pursuit of justice. But the empirical data seem to yield a different conclusion. The list of prominent and/or influential nonviolentists and social activists, who see their commitment and practice as having significant, and even necessary, spiritual and religious dimensions, is lengthy and impressive. Some of these individuals are Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Dorothy Day, Daniel and Philip Francis Berrigan, the Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh, Thomas Merton, Henri Nouwen, Mairead Corrigan Maguire, Abraham Johannes (A.J.) Muste, Jim Forest, John Dear, Barbara Deming, and André Trocmé. Some groups in this category are the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the Jewish Peace Fellowship, Pax Christi, the American Friends Service Committee, the Mennonite Central Committee, and the Lutheran Peace Fellowship. In sum, for many individuals and groups, there are significant and even necessary spiritual and religious dimensions to a commitment to and a practice of nonviolence. These facts cannot and should not be ignored. A third possible option would be to acknowledge the possible connections between religious commitment and violence but argue that these connections are due either (1) to aberrations in our understanding of the sacred, the religious tradition involved, or the divine will, or (2) to extra-religious economic, ethnic, racial, national, political, social, ideological, or philosophical factors. According to this view, if we have a correct understanding of the nature of the divine and the divine will, and are not unduly influenced by extraneous factors of either a personal or structural (institutional and/or environmental) nature, we can only conclude that nonviolence is one of the distinguishing characteristics of a spiritual approach to reality. From here, we could then go on to an explication of the spiritual dimensions of and contributions to nonviolence. A fourth option, which I find most helpful and fruitful, would be to hold that religious and spiritual traditions have been ambivalent about the sacred or ultimate reality and its relation to violence, to acknowledge this ambivalence, to attempt to identify the sources of this ambivalence, and to go on from there to
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reject, revise, or ignore the life-denying sources and interpretations of these traditions and to cultivate their positive life-affirming, peace-producing dimensions. 2. Ambiguity of the Sacred The authors of two recently published books do just this—adopt some form of this fourth option. In this section of my essay, I’ll look at both their struggles to understand this puzzling phenomenon of the connection of religion and spirituality with violence, as well as their thoughts on religion’s nonviolent peace-generating possibilities. A. Mark Juergensmeyer Mark Juergensmeyer’s Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence is a study of religious terrorism in the contemporary world. By religious terrorism, Juergensmeyer has in mind what he calls “public acts of violence . . . for which religion has provided the motivation, the justification, the organization, and the worldview.” Juergensmeyer is intrigued by what he calls the “odd attraction of religion and violence.” He continues: Although some observers try to explain away religions recent ties to violence as an aberration, a result of political ideology, or the characteristic of a mutant form of religion—fundamentalism—these are not my views. Rather, I look for explanations in the current forces of geopolitics and in a strain of violence that may be found at the deepest levels of religious imagination.5 Although Juergensmeyer considers geopolitical factors that are crucial for understanding contemporary religious terrorism, he attempts “to understand the role that violence has always played in the religious imagination and how terror could be conceived in the mind of God.” About religious violence, he concludes: that it has much to do with the nature of the religious imagination, which always has had the propensity to absolutize and to project images of cosmic war. It also has much to do with the social tensions of this moment of history that cry out for absolute solutions and the sense of personal humiliation experienced by men who long to restore an integrity they perceive as lost in the wake of virtually global social and political shifts.6 Juergensmeyer identifies aspects of some religious worldviews that lead persons attached to them to conceive of violence in the mind of God. A crucial aspect is this sense that they are involved in a cosmic war between good and evil in a world that has departed from divine purposes for humanity. Many of
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them have undergone “real experiences of economic destitution, social oppression, political corruption, and a desperate need for the hope of rising above the limitations of modern life.”7 In this kind of context, supporters of the divine will are fighting to defend their basic identity and dignity and trying to stem the tides of what they consider to be immorality and secularization. This ultimate commitment to divine purposes gives meaning and purpose to their lives. Caught up in this kind of a cosmic war, supporters often become intolerant, morally presumptuous, and certain of their standing in the universe. Given this concatenation of beliefs, often coupled with fears and anxieties of possible impending personal loss, cultural disintegration, and marginalization, ordinary ways of resolving conflicts are foreclosed, and a resort to violence and terror becomes relatively easy.8 We might say that what happens in these kinds of contexts is that violence is spiritualized, or incorporated into what is believed to be a more authentic, vibrant and faithful expression of religious belief and commitment. The spirituality of individuals caught up in one of the cultures of religious violence in the contemporary world may not be essentially different from the spirituality of individuals who are part of alternate expressions of these religions. In Juergensmeyer’s understanding: [I]t is not their spirituality that is unusual, but their religious ideas, cultural contexts, and worldviews—perspectives shaped by the sociopolitical forces of their times. These movements are not simply aberrations but religious responses to social situations and expressions of deeply held convictions. In talking with many of the supporters of these cultures of violence, I was struck with the intensity of their quests for a deeper level of spirituality than that offered by the superficial values of the modern world.9 Although Juergensmeyer does a thorough job of spelling out the geopolitical factors and discussing the various sets of circumstances that create atmospheres in which religious violence can and does occur, he is not very helpful in explicating what he considers to be the essential place of violence in the religious imagination. In fact, he seems at times to pull back from this latter claim. For example, in one place he writes that religion: does not ordinarily lead to violence. That happens only with the coalescence of a peculiar set of circumstances—political, social, and ideological—when religion becomes fused with violent expressions of social aspirations, personal pride, and movements for political change.10 That a set of circumstances—personal, political, social, economic, and ideological—are the main contributing factors in the outbreak of religious violence, and
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not elements essential to religion itself, leads Juergensmeyer to express his “conviction that the same religion that motivates such potent acts of destruction also carries an enormous capacity for healing, restoration and hope.”11 For Juergensmeyer, there are a number of scenarios of the possible outcomes of religious violence and terror in the contemporary world. These scenarios are the destruction of terrorists and terrorism, terrifying terrorists into not acting violently, the takeover of governments by religious extremism, the separation of religion from politics, and the incorporation of religious values into politics. The one he hopes will occur is healing in terms of the acceptance of moral values, including those moral values associated with religion, by secular and government authorities. Were this to occur, Juergensmeyer appears to be thinking that there would no longer be reason for religious violence. Juergensmeyer ends his book with the words, “the cure for religious violence may ultimately lie in a renewed appreciation for religion itself.”12 Given the propensity of some religious adherents for absolutizing and thinking in terms of cosmic war, Juergensmeyer’s hoped-for outcome will not occur unless, in his view, religious enthusiasts can moderate their passions and accept the Enlightenment values of rationality and fair play. They need not give up completely the images of a conflict of values and of cosmic war, but this conflict or war must become a war of ideas which substitutes moral persuasion for the exercise of political power. For Juergensmeyer, for such a change to come about: [T]wo conditions must be met: members of the activist’s religious community have to embrace this moderate form of social struggle as a legitimate representation of cosmic war, and the opponents have to accept it without being threatened by it. Secular authorities can do little about the first criterion, since it requires a transformation of thinking and leadership within the religion itself. But they can effect the second criterion by resisting the temptation to act like an enemy in a cosmic war and being open to a social role for religion on a less violently confrontational level.13 Moderation is a necessity and requires for its success, “a minimal level of mutual trust and respect.”14 R. Scott Appleby R. Scott Appleby’s The Ambivalence of the Sacred: Religion, Violence, and Reconciliation is a study of religious militancy, both violent and nonviolent. Although he devotes a considerable amount of time and energy to the study of religious violence, his primary concern in this book is to explicate what he calls the logic of religious peace building, which is committed to nonviolence.
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For Appleby, the basic problem, when it comes to violence, is not religion or even religious militancy, but the “problem of extremism.” The religious extremist, for Appleby, “is committed primarily to victory over the enemy, whether by gradual means or by the direct and frequent use of violence.” Extremists are fundamentalists who tend to be exclusivists who hold “that there is only one way of understanding reality and interpreting the sacred.” Extremists are in a minority in the major religious traditions because their views go against the basic beliefs and principles of these traditions. Also, they tend to be highly selective in choosing which subtraditions of their religions to commit themselves to. For Appleby, although violence is a temptation for all religious militants, those who yield to the temptation to act violently do so because they succumb to ethnic, nationalist, or cultural pressures and ploys.15 At the same time, Appleby recognizes that the process that results in a resort to violence is not clear-cut given what he calls the “paradoxical legacy of religion” which results in the creation of dual subcultures, one a culture of nonviolence and the other a culture of violence. But the ambivalence, for Appleby, is not in the “mind of God” but in different ideas and experiences of the sacred, “in the ambivalent character of human responses” to the sacred. Religions originate in an ambiguous experience of the sacred, and this ambivalent experience results in different interpretations, including different interpretations about the use of violence. At the same time, this internal pluralism provides a basis for continual dialog, change and adaptation.16 This process of change, development, and adaptation that goes on over time in living religious traditions is extremely complex. Borrowing notions from Alasdair C. MacIntyre and John Henry Newman, Appleby describes this process and its complexity in the following paragraphs: The philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre defines a “living tradition” as “an historically extended, socially embodied argument, and an argument precisely in part about the goods which constitute that tradition.” MacIntyre’s formulation, coupled with Newman’s notion of religious “ideas” awaiting development in each historical period, suggest a working definition of a “religious tradition” as a sustained argument, conducted anew by each generation, about the contemporary significance and meaning of the sources of sacred wisdom and revealed truth (i.e., sacred scriptures, oral and written commentaries, authoritative teachings, and so on). The argument alternatively recapitulates, ignores, and moves beyond previous debates but draws on the same sacred sources as did previous generations of believers . . . . [T]hose that engage the great argument that is tradition are doing what the religious have always done: they are seeking the good in the nexus between inherited wisdom and the possibilities of the present moment.17
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JERALD RICHARDS The argument that is tradition occurs at every level of religious life: in the moral and spiritual life of the individual; in the local community of worship; in seminaries, monasteries, convents, and judicial structures; in diocesan, denominational, religious order, and regional bureaucracies; and, among the religions that have them, in hierarchies or centralized governing bodies. Today the argument also takes place among believers in diaspora, unconnected to any religious institution; among people working in nongovernment organizations (NGOs); and among people who are uncertain about their religious identity. The argument takes unpredictable turns as believers, drawing on and selectively retrieving the hallowed religious past, interact with one another, with outsiders, and with developments in the structural environment—in the composition and teachings of the host religion itself; in the local, regional, or national political and religious cultures; in the state and its form of government; in the religious and secular educational systems; in social and economic conditions; and in diplomatic and geopolitical relations among nations. Invariably, believers produce multiple interpretations of the signs of the times. Even were one “religious past” agreed on by all, the plurality of perceptions of the present moment would invite a lively argument. Yet the “hallowed religious past” is a vast repository of religiolegal, moral, theological, religiopolitical, and philosophical precedents, developed at different times and under different circumstances, giving different expressions to what believers in every religious community assume to be a core set of beliefs and practices (for example, the Four Noble Truths and Eightfold Path of Buddhism, the Decalogue, and the 613 Mitzvot of Judaism). To act intentionally in a religious sense, the believer, or the religious authority, must discern the meaning of the present circumstances, select the past that speaks most authoritatively to that meaning, and choose an appropriate course of action in response.18
This process of change, development, and adaptation has been both accelerated and diversified in this age of globalization. Appleby continues: The extension and improvement of cross-cultural communications and transportation; the continual migration of peoples, no longer impeded by vast spaces to traverse, across regions and continents; and the resulting acceleration of the process by which religious actors absorb and integrate exogenous cultural and ideological elements—all this has led to a religious
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polycentrism unmatched in previous eras. Particularly within the great traditions unregulated by a centralized government or lacking a hierarchy with comprehensive executive, juridical, or legislative powers—but not only in these religions—one sees a proliferation of paraecclesial movements, groups, and spokespersons claiming the authority of the great traditions for their special form of advocacy and activism.19 Those worried about religion’s propensity for violence but primarily concerned about its positive contributions to nonviolence are of two minds about this accelerated process. Says Appleby: To some observers the intensity of this disengaging and reengaging process means that religions are fragmenting and squandering the power that comes with purity and uniformity. To others, however, the proliferation of subtraditions, intentional religious communities, and religious NGOs represent an enormous opportunity to mobilize the resources of the religious traditions for peace-building.20 Those of this second mind who are within or part of a religious tradition are committed to inculcating nonviolence as both a religious and moral norm, as well as to cultivating tolerance and openness toward both religionists and secularists. In spite of the significant differences among the major religious traditions of the world, Appleby thinks “one can trace a moral trajectory challenging adherents to greater acts of compassion, forgiveness, and reconciliation.”21 Both Juergensmeyer and Appleby acknowledge the ambivalence of religious traditions on the acceptance, advocacy, and use of violence in furthering and defending both religious and secular goals. Both tend to identify the cause of this ambivalence in different experiences and interpretations of the sacred and of the will of the divine, rather than in the nature and will of the sacred. Terror, then, is not “in the mind of God,” but in the minds of human beings who have selected certain violence-prone subtraditions of the larger traditions they identify with as expressive of the divine mind and will. Both believe, although somewhat ambivalently, that acts of religious violence can be explained as expressions of extremism, the influence of geopolitical forces, and/or the influence of a particular set of circumstances—personal, political, social, economic, and ideological—in a world that seems to be out of control. Finally, both tend to hold that religions do not ordinarily lead to violence, and that all religions contain significant peacemaking and nonviolentist dimensions.
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JERALD RICHARDS 3. Spiritual Dimensions of Nonviolence
That terror is not “in the mind of God” does not imply for either Juergensmeyer or Appleby that any major religious tradition, as a whole, is a nonviolentist tradition. They hope that the peace-building and nonviolentist subtraditions of religions will become stronger and, ideally, will overcome and supplant subtraditions that are prone to violence. In their understanding, peace-building subtraditions may allow for justified violence in some types of revolutionary action (for example, in South Africa during the days of apartheid) or in national defense. Only nonviolentist subtraditions would rule out possible justified violence in these kinds of cases, except, perhaps for qualified nonviolentism, but then only under very strictly circumscribed conditions. A good—perhaps the best—way to gain an understanding of the main spiritual dimensions of nonviolence is to conduct an empirical study of nonviolentists who bring spiritual resources to their commitments and action. Short of this careful, detailed study, some things can be said in general about the spiritual resources of nonviolentists. In writing about interreligious peacemaking, Marc Gopin identifies some of these resources. These resources, or many of them, are applicable to all types of peacemaking, not just interreligious peacemaking. Gopin writes: The most hopeful and heroic stories of interreligious peacemaking emerge from those rare individuals who possess a combination of deeply authentic expressions of their own religiosity together with an unconditional respect for or love of nonbelievers as fellow human beings. This is a relatively rare combination inside the religious personality . . . . The kind of moral development that leads a Gandhi to gladly respect other people’s faiths is crucial to our long-term strategies of conflict prevention . . . . [I]t may very well be that the key to the future is . . . emotional training, so that we feel safe enough in our own faith positions that we are not threatened by Others.22 Gopin includes as examples of those who hold faith positions: [T]hose who have faith in the Enlightenment conception of the world or faith in the marketplace or faith in the scientific method and the importance of the university. They too can either lead the way in conflict prevention or be part of the problem if they are easily threatened by and therefore intolerant of other paradigms of living and believing.23
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Gopin continues: Furthermore, there seems to be some basic cognitive ability of special individuals to see themselves as, say, Palestinians, but also Arabs, but also Muslims, but also human beings, but also God’s children, but also living creatures on a planet of billions of creatures, and so on. And this knowledge at some deep emotional level precludes them from dehumanizing anyone or devaluing any living thing. This capacity to see ourselves in multiple identities seems to require a degree of emotional strength and maturity that . . . may be the basis for the future inculcation of belief structures that do not create a world of conflict . . . . It seems that these individuals have developed the capacity to live comfortably within their own unique boundaries but also to reach out far beyond their own boundaries. They do not just reach to the closest position to their own but rather, solidly rooted in their own spiritual identities, they can travel anywhere with an open, benign, even loving disposition, because they know exactly where they ultimately belong. They no longer need to consume the universe in order to find the joy of religious fulfillment.24 These individuals might not be as rare and difficult to find as Gopin fears. There does seem to be evidence, as Jurgensmeyer and Appleby think, that the major religious traditions are becoming more concerned with focusing upon and inculcating the moral values, attitudes, and behavior that are embodied by these individuals. Supporting this view is the relatively recent effort in 1993 of the Parliament of the World’s Religions to develop a global ethic. The Parliament of the World’s Religions that met in Chicago in the summer of 1993 published a statement or declaration on the values, standards, and attitudes that represent a consensus of what the world’s religions hold in common about morality and also believe to be fundamental for a viable global ethic.25 In the introduction or summary statement of the Declaration, the signatories affirm, among other things, “a common set of core values is found in the teachings of the religions, and that these form the basis of a global ethic,” and “there is an irrevocable unconditional norm for all areas of life, for families and communities, for races, nations and religions.” The signatories also declare: We must treat others as we wish others to treat us. We make a commitment to respect life and dignity, individuality and diversity, so that every person is treated humanely, without exception. We commit ourselves to a culture of non-violence, respect, justice, and peace. We shall not oppress, injure, torture, or kill other human beings, forsaking violence as a means of settling differences.
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JERALD RICHARDS We must strive for a just social and economic order, in which everyone has an equal chance to reach full potential as a human being.26
By a global ethic, the parliament means a “fundamental consensus on binding values, irrevocable standards, and personal attitudes.” At the heart or core of this ethic is “[a] fundamental demand: [E]very human being must be treated humanely.” Human beings must be treated humanely because each one “possesses an inalienable and untouchable dignity.” This fundamental demand is articulated in terms of the principle of reciprocity, expressed both negatively, “What you do not wish done to yourself, do not do to others,” and positively, “What you wish done to yourself, do to others.”27 The Declaration then draws out from the principle of reciprocity four implied standards or general guidelines of long historical standing. These four “irrevocable directives” are commitment to cultures of non-violence and respect for life, solidarity and a just economic order, tolerance and a life of truthfulness, and equal rights and partnership between men and women.28 Under each of these directives, the Declaration spells out further guidelines for human behavior. All four commitments are significant to peacemakers. Of crucial importance, and necessary for the cultivation of the other three, is the commitment to a culture of nonviolence and respect for life. The Declaration explicates this directive in terms of the negative principle “you shall not kill,” and the positive principle, “Have respect for life.” Consequences of this directive are the right of all human beings “to life, safety, and the free development of personality in so far as they do not injure the rights of others,” and, no human being: has the right physically or psychically to torture, injure, much less kill any other human being. And no people, no state, no race, no religion has the right to hate, to discriminate against, to “cleanse,” to exile, much less to liquidate a “foreign” minority which is different in behavior or holds different beliefs.29 Key to the unconditional protection of human beings is an understanding of them as “infinitely precious.”30 This protection, preservation, and care should also extend to animals, plants, the earth, and the cosmos. Human conflicts, whether between individuals or nations, should be resolved justly in nonviolent ways. Although coming close to doing so, the Declaration does not take a thoroughgoing nonviolentist or pacifist stance. It allows for the possible need of protection and defense against violence that calls for a commitment to at least “the most non-violent, peaceful solutions possible.” But it condemns what it calls the way of armament and declares, “disarmament is
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the commandment of the times. Let no one be deceived: There is no survival for humanity without global peace!”31 In commenting on the concern of some of the Parliament participants that the right of self-defense was not emphasized enough, Hans Kung refers to the qualifications mentioned in the above paragraph and states: [T]he Declaration deliberately took a middle course which could secure a consensus: between a “Realpolitik” of force in resolving conflicts and an unrealistic unconditional pacifism which, confronted with violence, expulsion, rape, death and mass murder, unconditionally repudiates the use of force.32 Although the right of self-defense is affirmed (for individuals and collectives), it is affirmed “in the context of a culture of non-violence.” As such, it applies “only in extremis, in extreme circumstances, namely, when non-violent resistance is senseless.” Kung writes: “In the face of brutality, barbarism, and genocide, self-defense if said to be permissible. No further holocaust of any people whatever can simply be accepted in a pacifist way.” He hastens to add: On the other hand, no simple formula of legitimation for military intervention of any kind is to be offered: no ‘just wars’ in the service of interests which are all too clearly economic, political, and military are to be justified in this way.33 Another point the framers of the Declaration highlight is the important task of the various world religions: to carry on dialogue not only among themselves but also with nonreligious individuals, institutions, and communities in the effort to resolve differences and to achieve a more inclusive consensus.34 In several places in the Declaration, the framers invite all persons, whether religious or not, to commit themselves to and to continue further dialogue on the fundamental demand of the four directives of the Declaration.35 The spiritual values, virtues, and principles identified by Gopin and affirmed by the Parliament of the World’s Religions are reiterated along with additional points in a list of recommendations Gopin makes to religious communities concerned about peaceful conflict resolution. Although Gopin’s focus is on interreligious peacemaking, many of his recommendations can be expanded and rephrased in ways that might well fit into a spirituality understood and explicated in inclusive terms that might well apply to the secularist as well as to the religious adherent. At the heart of Gopin’s recommendations is the belief that a “firm spiritual foundation” is necessary for sustained engagement in peacemaking. This spiritual foundation fulfills the identity needs of indi-
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viduals and provides them with a sense of meaning and purpose. Gopin recommends that we: (1) have a firm spiritual foundation for engaging in peacemaking with all human beings, regardless of race, religion, or culture; (2) have a method of engaging in conflict resolution that does not impose its own theological assumptions on others; (3) develop an articulated set of ethical foundations and institutional support structures for peacemaking that make the work sustainable over long periods of time and through trying circumstances and instill in the peacemaker a series of values that will have her treat those in conflict as ends in themselves, as fellow human beings to be engaged in authentic relationship; (4) generate a community capable of and prepared to support peacemakers institutionally and interpersonally; (5) develop a reasonable way to deal with the inevitable and ongoing tension of peacemaking, pursuit of justice, and other competing ethical values that are critical to the construction of a civil society; (6) develop the skills necessary to truly listen to another religious reality and culture, to not be threatened by it, and to discover the spiritual resources to make peace with those who are in a different theological universe; (7) learn how to integrate the development of a peacemaking method and philosophy with the most authentic elements of their own spiritual tradition [which will help to satisfy the human needs for identity and meaning] and to combine this in a creative way with the best secular methods of understanding and dealing with human conflict . . . . [T]he discovery of a way to fulfill deep identity needs and simultaneously generate and support a peacemaking orientation are the fundamental challenges of non-militant religion; (8) develop myths and stories, or recover them from tradition, that can replace darker myths of identity that are dependent on a demonic enemy who defines the contours of the religious world and whose elimination is an ultimate goal;
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(9) train clerics at all levels in the methods of mediation and conflict resolution, encouraging them to develop their own religious hermeneutical versions of these skills; and (10) discover a path to deep spiritual fulfillment not dependent on the religious choices of other human beings. In other words, develop ways of fulfillment that do not require the coercion of all Others to accept one’s religion or particular interpretations . . . . [Arguments with those who hold other views] will include a range of other religious values that govern the way in which one relates to Others who disagree, such as honor, compassion, love and forgiveness.36 4. Unfinished Business A. Responding to Fundamentalist Critics The values, virtues, principles, and worldview of those individuals I have identified as nonviolentists, grounded in a spiritual understanding of reality, are suspect in the eyes of many religiously oriented persons who tend at times to resort to violence in carrying out their agendas and in doing what they believe to be divine will for human beings and the world. For these critics, nonviolentists have given up the fundamentals of their faith, and have become relativists, modernists, liberals, or compromisers. They are part of the problems of the modern world, and not part of their solutions. If spiritually oriented nonviolentists are going to be successful in bringing about nonviolent change, they must develop positive and constructive ways of responding to these critics, whom I will call, for the sake of and until I can find a better term, fundamentalists. I am not using the term in a pejorative sense. At this point, I offer some thoughts from Martin Marty as to what a response should be like. He calls his suggestions “beginning traces.” He addresses his suggestions to the pluralists, believers or nonbelievers who are not fundamentalists and who are relatively at ease in a liberal culture. Here are his suggestions: (1) Listen carefully to the fundamentalists in order to gain a correct understanding of their thinking and orientation. (2) Formulate an accurate portrayal of fundamentalists and avoid putting them into a single category. (3) Extend to them a genuine minimal respect.
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JERALD RICHARDS (4) Attempt to address those conditions that may occasion fundamentalist responses—poverty, discontent, disgust with secular and repressive regimes. (5) Be committed to one’s grounding beliefs while at the same time being counter-intolerant rather than being noncommittal, semi-committed, or merely tolerant. (6) Demonstrate that belief for oneself and one’s community does not need to result in misunderstanding, distancing oneself from, and persecuting “the other.” (7) Gain a clearer understanding of: the commitment by the faithfully generous, including some of the recent popes, any number of post-Holocaust Jewish leaders, the Gandhis, Martin Luther Kings, and Dietrich Bonhoeffers, all of them flawed—but all of them capable of retaining commitment and community while rejecting the impulse to demonize the other. They are precursors, running ahead of those who would work in ways to transcend the violence of a violent century with approaches to peace, not in utopia, but in the uncharted temporal territory of a new century.37
Only by responding to fundamentalist critics in these and related ways can nonviolentists hope to gain fundamentalists’ trust and get them involved in constructive dialogue and discussion. Whether fundamentalists can arrive at a point of view that eschews all use of violence may be problematic. We must hope they will adopt a point of view that eschews the resort to violence in carrying out their agendas and in doing what they believe to be the will of the divine for human beings and the world. A necessary ingredient of this process is the identification of a shared understanding of human worth and value, along with other related shared values, virtues, and principles. B. Establishing Criteria for Selective Editing Given the ambivalence of religious traditions on the resort to violence in advancing the concerns of religion and in doing what is believed to be the will of the divine in this advancement, it is important to develop criteria whereby one can distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate selective editing of the classical sacred texts and authoritative interpretations of these texts in advancing nonviolence. How can selective editing (selective retrieval) be defended
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both in ways that are not arbitrary, self-serving, dishonest, subjective, or question-begging, and in ways that could be potentially helpful in changing the attitudes and beliefs of those who resort to violence? As a preliminary suggestion, for the individual, the bottom line is some sense that what is authentic and appropriate in terms of one’s understanding of the nature and will of the divine is necessarily connected with what is authentic and appropriate in the treatment of other human beings. At some point, the light flashes and the penny drops in one’s grasping or apprehending what it is to be a human being and what behavior toward human beings is appropriate or inappropriate. This grasping, this apprehending of what is authentic in the treatment of other human beings and in an understanding of the divine will for human relationships can serve as a guide to the selective editing of sacred texts and authoritative interpretations. Two interesting representatives of this approach are Martin Buber, a Jew, and Gandhi, a Hindu. Buber reflected on the violence God demands in the Hebrew Bible, in terms of holy war against various tribes and peoples, calling for the slaughter of men, women, and children. As reported by Leo Lefebure: On the prophet Samuel’s demand, in the name of God, that Saul kill not only the captured leader of the Amalekites, but all the Amalekites, including infants and children (I Sam 15:3), Buber insisted: “Samuel has misunderstood God.” In reflecting upon the religious basis for the criticism, Buber concluded: “an observant Jew of this nature, when he has to choose between God and the Bible, chooses God . . . . [In] the work of the throats and pens out of which the text of the Old Testament has arisen, misunderstanding has again and again attached itself to understanding, the manufactured has been mixed with the received . . . Nothing can make me believe in a God who punishes Saul because he has not murdered his enemy.”38 Gandhi voices similar comments in his response to questions about the purported violence advocated in the name of the divine in the Bhagavad Gita. (The Bhagavad Gita was Gandhi’s most cherished sacred writing.) In answer to a question put by a Mr. Matthews, “Where do you find the seat of authority?” Gandhi answered: It lies here (pointing to his breast). I exercise my judgment about every scripture, including the Gita. I cannot let a scriptural text supersede my reason. Whilst I believe that the principal books are inspired, they suffer from a process of double distillation. Firstly they came through a human prophet, and then through the commentaries of interpreters. Nothing in
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JERALD RICHARDS them comes from God directly . . . . I cannot surrender my reason whilst I subscribe to divine revelation.39
Buber and Gandhi’s responses seem to be honest and conscientious, but the fundamentalist, as well as others, may be bothered by what they would consider to be their seemingly arbitrary and subjective nature. Yet, their responses mark a beginning of possible dialogue that could involve at least a modicum of mutual respect and the cessation of the polarization of the other. But preliminary to dialogue on this level would be dialogue on proposals similar to those of the 1993 Parliament of World’s Religions. If agreement can be achieved on fundamental ideas of the value of human beings and ethical principles that reflect this value and implement it in human relations, then movement to the level of sharing dialogue on worldviews might well be possible. One of the key elements of both the former and the latter areas of dialogue would be a grasping of the fundamental value of nonviolence—nonviolence in thought, word, and deed—in relating to other human beings and in resolving human conflicts.
NOTES 1. Leo D. Lefebure, Revelation, the Religions, and Violence (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 2000), p.13. 2. Mark Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2000). Items one through ten are from pp. 20, 29, 30–36, 36–45, 45–48, 49–51, 61–68, 69–78, 86– 91, and 105–111 respectively. 3. See Michael A. Sells, The Bridge Betrayed: Religion and Genocide in Bosnia (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1996). 4. See Stanley Tambiah, Buddhism Betrayed? (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992). 5. Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God, pp. 6–7. 6. Ibid., pp. 15, 242. 7. Ibid., p. 242. 8. Ibid., pp. 184–186, 218. 9. Ibid., p. 222. 10. Ibid., p. 10. 11. Ibid., p. xv. 12. Ibid., pp. 238–243. 13. Ibid., p. 236. 14. Ibid., p. 238. 15. R. Scott Appleby, The Ambivalence of the Sacred: Religion, Violence, and Reconciliation (New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2000), pp. 13–19. 16. Ibid., p. 27.
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17. Ibid., p. 33. 18. Ibid., p. 40. 19. Ibid., p. 41. 20. Ibid. 21. Ibid., pp. 31, 297, 307. 22. Marc Gopin, Between Eden and Armageddon: The Future of World Religions, Violence, and Peacemaking (New York: Oxford, 2000), p. 281. 23. Ibid. 24. Ibid., pp. 202–203. 25. Hans Kung and Karl-Joseph Kuschel, eds., A Global Ethic: The Declaration of the Parliament of the World’s Religions (New York: Continuum, 1993). 26. Ibid., pp. 14–15. 27. Ibid., pp. 21–24. 28. Ibid., pp. 24–32. 29. Ibid., p. 25. 30. Ibid., p. 20. 31. Ibid., p. 25. 32. Ibid., p. 68. 33. Ibid., pp. 68–69. 34. See William P, George, “The Promise of a Global Ethics,” Christian Century, 111:17 (May 18-25, 1994), p. 531. 35. Kung and Kuschel, A Global Ethic, pp. 16, 36. 36. Gopin, Between Eden and Armageddon, pp. 203–206. 37. See Martin E. Marty, “Fundamentalism as a Precursor to Violence,” Joseph H. Ehrenskranz, ed., Religion and Violence, Religion and Peace (Fairfield, Conn.: Sacred Heart University Press, 2000), pp. 73–75. 38. Lefebure, Revelation, p. 61. See Martin Buber, “Autobiographical Fragments,” The Philosophy of Martin Buber, ed. Paul Arthur Schilp (Lasalle, Ill.: Open Court, 1967), pp. 32–33. 39. Quoted from Harijan, 5 December 1936, Mohandas K. Gandhi, Gita the Mother, 3rd ed., ed., Jag Parvesh Chander (Lahore: Indian Printing Works, 1945), pp. 48–49.
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Two THE SPIRITUAL SIDE OF PEACEMAKING Joseph Kunkel On 19 November 2000, I crossed the line at Fort Benning, in Columbus, Georgia. I was with a group of University of Dayton students and staff. We were directly behind a similar group from St. Bonaventure University, my alma mater. A white line was painted on the asphalt. There were no army guards. We simply walked onto the base as into a public park. Crossing that line is a federal offense when done for political purposes. We were there to protest against the continuation of the notorious School of Americas (SOA), more recently renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute of Security Cooperation (WHINSEC).1 Over 3,000 protesters crossed with us. Police arrested more than 1,700 of us. At a critical juncture two hours into our demonstration, the fourteen in our group huddled together on the side of the road to decide whether we would turn back to exit the base or go forward to be placed on buses with others being arrested. Some felt by walking onto the base we had already made our statement; so turning around only meant saving our arrest for another day. Others indicated we had worked through the issues; we had come this far; turning around was giving in. There was an expression of faith in both views; what ought a follower of Jesus do in this situation? I felt overwhelmed by the spiritual underpinning of the social justice commitment, and said I would go forward if any student decided to get on the buses. I would not leave anyone alone. We got back on the road and to my surprise, all fourteen of us walked to the buses. I have been in numerous peaceful demonstrations but this was the first time I was arrested while demonstrating to express my political views. What I want to share in this writing is my view that there is a spiritual dimension for nonviolent protest. I find this element in Mohandas K. Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Leo Tolstoy, and other sources. I understand that peaceful demonstrations can be undertaken without this foundation, but I also believe that the spiritual enhances the physical; the two are intertwined with the physical being handmaiden to the spiritual. I will develop this view from meditation practices and readings that lead me to view spiritual intentions as more significant than the sensory experimental principles in which we normally ground our actions.
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JOSEPH KUNKEL 1. Heightened Awareness through Meditation
Gandhi’s views best take hold in an atmosphere of inner silence. Gandhi fasted and was silent for one day each week, a highly spiritual endeavor. Gandhi did not hold his views because they were academically proven; he led from inner conviction. He was a deeply spiritual person. I can teach Gandhi’s views on nonviolence, soul force, human equality, full democracy, and communal sharing; but talking about an issue is not the same as walking the talk. The last couple of times I have taught a philosophy of peace course, I began each class with a ten-minute meditation. We did the meditation each class day for three months. The meditation exercises resulted in students learning to examine and interact with the workings of their conscious life. The emphasis is pre-linguistic, consciousness at the core. In the beginning exercises, students report noises from inside and outside the room. They also notice personal breathing patterns, heart beatings, pains of discomfort, concerns about homework, memories of all sorts, and the presence of various feelings. Some elaborate on imaginary scenes from a seashore, or a walk in the woods. Generally, a smattering of verbal and nonverbal experiences surface in their reports. Such observations inchoately reflect upon what William James calls the stream of consciousness or the stream of thought. As a psychologist, James posited a correlation between mental states and brain activities. James says, “[I]t will be safe to lay down the general law that no mental modification ever occurs which is not accompanied or followed a bodily change.”2 My goal is less grandiose. I wish to examine one trait of James’ stream, namely, the character pertaining to an interest in one part of consciousness over another.3 Can our mental processes, through meditation, affect other operations of consciousness? I believe there are times when sensational stimulation affects human consciousness. At other times, we as conscious beings, act independently of our sensations and language. When I look inside my consciousness, I observe the stream of thoughts. Objects are present but so is a subject, a seer. Shankara, an eighth-century Indian mystic and philosopher, calls the primordial seer a witness.4 That conception is deep. I have my students work with simpler concepts by interacting with the working of their conscious processes. I have them examine their interior life, discover what dominates their conscious experience, and what, if anything, they can learn to control. Mantras are an excellent means for indirectly controlling our consciousness. I say “indirectly” because, by focusing on a mantra, other aspects of consciousness drop out of focus. To use a mantra, adopt any repeatable mental expression, such as “peace is flowing like a river,” “life is good,” or “I am truth.” Or, you might count breaths up to four with numerous repeats. Say “one” upon
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inhalation, “and” upon exhalation, “two” with the next inhalation, “and” on the exhalation, and so forth. Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, suggests that as we inhale, we should say, “I calm my body.” Upon exhaling, we should say, “I smile.” Breathing in, “Dwelling in the present moment,” and breathing out, “I know this is a wonderful moment.”5 The point is to focus consciousness on a repetitive expression or series of brief expressions. Choose a mantra, close your eyes, relax into the experience, and observe what happens. I tell students if they find their consciousness wandering, then gently return to the intentional exercise. Some students become agitated. Others become calm. There is no right or wrong with any of these experiences. Students experience a variety of conscious states after practicing the mantra over a few months. For a fuller insight into the power of the meditation experience, I have them record their experiences in a journal. I usually tell students to focus on their chosen mantras, and to see whether one kind is more helpful than others. When the mantra is working well, concentration is easier and there are fewer distracting thoughts. The conscious process stays tuned into the mantra and other thoughts in the stream go unnoticed. Students “hear” fewer room noises. Indeed, some students describe coming into the classroom very agitated, say, about an earlier encounter in the day, and finding that the meditation experience calms their feelings. Anger and fears can dissipate. Some students carry the practice home to their everyday campus experiences. When their work stresses them or when companions agitate them, they mediate for a time and the negative feelings dissipate. I recall being at demonstrations that were supposedly nonviolent, and yet individuals with picket signs were returning catcalls for catcalls: “Same to you buddy!” I once asked the person next to me why he had to reply to every negative taunt by an opposing passerby. He said that the exchange gave him a high, and helped him get the negative feelings out of his system. Perhaps, but I think the problem runs deeper. I believe he lacked self-control, and nonviolence is about self-control. What goes on with mediation? Consciousness thinks of one thing at a time. By concentrating on a mantra, any mantra, the normal flow of our conscious stream is affected. Beginning meditators observe consciousness flittering from one object of experience to another, while more mature meditators let go of this normal flow of our consciousness. With repeated practice, the pattern of consciousness begins to shift, if only now and then. Students are surprised that they can remove troublesome conscious states by redirecting the focus of their consciousness. They find that the occurrences of the day do not force them to react this way or that. Some find that they enter deep into the meditation and come out of the experience only when I as the teacher call their attention back to the classroom. Some, of course, find the opposite: that the stress of the
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day makes meditation impossible, and they stop repeating a mantra and discontinue the experience. I explain to the class that although some experiences are better than others practitioners ought to keep trying. As a person learns to repeat a mantra— and some types of mantras work better than others for each person—an individual gains confidence in the process. As your confidence grows, you learn that various conscious functions are altered. My experience has been that I cannot succeed in directly attacking my negative emotions and fears, but I can affect their domination by focusing on something else. When I try to attack unwanted conscious experiences directly, what usually happens is that I get drawn into a verbal argument and lose control of the situation. Using a mantra allows me to focus my attention elsewhere, and that allows me to let go of the attachments I have to particular feelings, memories, and arguments. In this manner, I find that I eventually gain an element of control over my negative mental experiences. 2. Loving Your Enemies and Nonviolence Tolstoy had a mid-life crisis of faith after he had written War and Peace and Anna Karenina. In Confession, he questions the meaning of life and finds he cannot uncover a satisfactory answer through rational knowledge. Ultimately, he maintained that reason doubts the meaning of life, while faith affirms the meaning for life. “The essence of any faith,” says Tolstoy, “lies in giving life meaning that cannot be destroyed by death.”6 This faith experience is an internal phenomenon. Jesus’ “Sermon on the Mount” gives some guidance on how Christians ought to direct their lives and beliefs.7 The Sermon begins with the Beatitudes. There reference is to our internal state. Blessed are the poor in spirit, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for justice, the merciful, the pure in heart, and the peacemakers. Jesus tells us that human beings in these blessed states will possess the kingdom of heaven, which is generally associated with a feeling of bliss. We are the light of the world, Jesus tells us. Let us put our lights on lamp-stands so they can shine for everyone in our houses and neighborhoods. The light is a metaphor for our inner illumination. Jesus says we have heard we must not kill, but he says do not be angry with your brothers and sisters. Again, Jesus says we have heard an eye for an eye, but he says to offer no resistance to injury. “[I]f anyone hits you on the right cheek, offer…the other as well.”8 Love your enemies. “[F]orgive us our debts, as we have forgiven those who are in debt to us.”9 And follow the golden rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
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Early Christians, following Jesus’ admonitions, refused to be conscripted into the military. Gandhi, with his principle of nonviolence, asks us to do what Jesus prescribed for us. King spoke of three kinds of love: The Greek language uses three words for love. It talks about eros. Eros is a sort of aesthetic love. It has come to us to be a sort of romantic love and it stands with all of its beauty. But when we speak of loving those who oppose us we’re not talking about eros. The Greek language talks about philia and this is a sort of reciprocal love between personal friends. This is a vital, valuable love. But when we talk of loving those who oppose you and those who seek to defeat you we are not talking about eros or philia. The Greek language comes out with another word and it is agape. Agape is understanding, creative, redemptive good will for all . . . .10 “The nonviolent resister,” says King, “does not seek to humiliate or defeat the opponent . . . but to win the friendship of all of the persons who had perpetrated this system [of racial inequality.]”11 Nonviolence is not a power play ending in bitterness for the loser, but an approach to conflict based upon love of our enemies, and seeking reconciliation of differences. King sees love as encompassing a beloved community. Indeed, he had an ecstatic vision of this community before he died. This is the theme of his last book, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?12 For King, the vision seems to be directed toward the future of earth. The kingdom of heaven is an ideal toward which human beings are moving. For Tolstoy, the kingdom of God is within us.13 In either case, we are talking about a future to be experienced. For both King and Tolstoy, we bring that kingdom to fruition by faithfully anticipating it in our actions. Loving our enemies and acting nonviolently are two aspects of this faithful response. Critics have disparaged Tolstoy, Gandhi, King, and others for being unrealistic by offering nonviolence as a means for combating violence in the world. I side with the proponents of nonviolence and believe the practice of meditation is one way to acquire the mental tools needed for directing our consciousness away from violence, toward nonviolence. Violence begins in the heart and mind. Some scholars argue that conscious functions follow brain activities, which automatically follow upon the sensations entering the brain. If the forces in the world are violent, then we, who experience these forces, would naturally counter violence with violence. Force becomes a matter of power or coercion. Based upon our natural condition, we must overpower our enemies. Thomas Hobbes’ philosophy of power and domination, or Realpolitik is in accord with these views.
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James argues that the brain-thought process is not automatic. Consciousness, for James, “is always interested more in one part of its object than in another, and welcomes and rejects, or chooses, all the while it thinks.”14 This is a natural choosing. James goes on to study the effort of willing. Actions, according to him, follow upon the presence of ideas. Willing is not an added fiat or independent function of a mind, but a focusing of attention upon certain ideas. We control our actions by controlling our conscious focus or attention. In this manner, we halt the habitual repercussions of negative feelings by focusing upon positive feelings. Or, with the non-Jamesian example of a mantra, we can control our violent tendencies by intentionally repeating a phrase at variance with our negative feelings. By practicing a mantra, we can learn to give peace a chance. The Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso approaches similar ideas in a recent dialogue with Patricia Smith Churchland, Antonio Domasio, and other philosophers and scientists of consciousness and brain.15 These experts on the functioning of the brain argue that every idea in consciousness has a basis in the brain. In this conception, the study of meditation practices would be a study of a part of the brain that directs such mental phenomena. For his part, the Dalai Lama argues that consciousness fills a spectrum from gross forms that are fully dependent upon the brain to subtle forms that are least dependent. The scientists demand proof of the existence of such subtle forms of consciousness. But decisive proof is not available. Meditation surely affects our conscious states but is meditation, in turn, the product of the activity of the brain? What cognitive scientists have shown, I believe, is a correlation between conscious and brain activities. They have not shown that conscious activities are reduced to brain functions. If conscious functions are capable of influencing the brain, then even though there is a correlation between conscious functions and brain activities, the acts of consciousness may be more momentous for human growth than what the brain passes on to consciousness. I believe the practice of meditation shows how conscious activities affect the functions of the brain. When students come into class angry about what occurred earlier in the day, do a ten-minute meditation, and feel the anger dissipated after the meditation, then we postulate that the focused attention of these students seems to have affected their prior conscious states. This practice is not some magical potion. The results are not reproducible all the time for all individuals, but such results do occur on a regular basis for those who practice meditation. Similarly, I believe demonstrators on a picket line who return catcalls for catcalls are not tuned into the spirit of nonviolence. Returning catcalls is neither turning the other cheek nor making a friend of one’s vocal opponents. Gandhi, on several occasions, halted his peaceful demonstrations because his followers lost control, returning violence for violence. Gandhi’s response was to undergo a spiritual fast until the violence terminated.
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Fasting is another instance of consciousness controlling brain activities. Gandhi’s fasting is widely interpreted as a kind of manipulation of his followers, done to force them to stop violence. We forget that he fasted weekly. Fasting as a form of meditation is a form of spiritual exercise. Gandhi used fasting to clear his consciousness of personal arrogance. He was deeply concerned that he might be leading the Indian people in a direction they could not go. Fasting settled the issue for him. Whether fasting or meditation is used to control our violent urges or our conscious state, I believe nonviolence is enhanced by spiritual practice. Gandhi saw violence as injurious. Evil is present in the world. We sometimes attribute it to animalistic tendencies within human nature, but evil begins within consciousness. Spiritual writers ascribe the root cause to the human ego. An ego caught up in personal conscious habits is not free. The remedy is to turn our lives around, as captured in the Christian parable of the prodigal child, and return to our life-giving, free moorings. To fight violence with violence is to continue on the materialistic path, to become more deeply habituated to bad habits, and to remain separated from love. Nonviolence, by contrast, treats everyone as equal and opens the door for human dialogue. As tending toward selflessness, nonviolence stifles the cravings of the individualistic ego, and models a healing, loving, curative, community approach to conflict. Nonviolence tunes into our spiritualistic aspirations. 3. Thinking as a Desire In “The Four Noble Truths,” Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, begins by acknowledging the presence of suffering—birth, aging, sicknesses, injustices, pain, death, and violence of all kinds—in the world and in our lives. The Buddha says cravings or desires cause suffering. As inhabitants of earth, we have many finite desires, and we suffer on account of our cravings for these finite desires. The way to end suffering is to cease the craving for the world’s pseudo-goods. The Buddha offers an Eightfold Path for ceasing these desires; meditation or conscious mindfulness enhances walking this path. Shankara iterates the importance of discriminating between the eternal and the noneternal. Violence is a type of suffering. Like other sufferings, violence comes and goes; it is finite. When we try to stop violence with violence, we use coercion or suffering to end suffering, and end up prolonging the suffering and its effects. Immanuel Kant’s retributive theory of punishment, an eye for an eye, does not stop crime. Indeed, as we see with capital punishment in the United States, killing to punish killing does not deter killing. If capital punishment did deter violent crime, then the State of Texas, with its exorbitant number of executions, would today be a nonviolent state!
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The same is true for war. Robert L. Holmes asks whether war succeeds in attaining its goals. It does not work for the losers, he says, and whether wars are successful for the winners is questionable.16 Consider, for example, the Middle East. We have witnessed major wars between the Israelis and the Palestinians since World War II. In what sense can anyone say that the winners of the various battles have been victorious? Has there been a winner between Ariel Sharon’s 2002 military incursions into the West Bank and the Palestinian suicide bombers in Israel? War has not deterred further attacks. Consider World War I. Did the victorious armies of World War I, to paraphrase Woodrow Wilson, make the world safe for democracy, or did they seed the conditions that brought on World War II? Admittedly, a few wars, like World War II, might seem more victorious for the victors, but wars to end or punish wars are depicted as cravings in Buddhist philosophy. As the Buddha says, to stop suffering, we have to stop the craving. On a recent eight-day Hindu retreat, as I struggled to grasp the role of philosophy in coming to realize the Eastern contribution to a world torn by suffering, injustice, and violence, I heard the guru say that knowledge is a desire. Immediately, I understood that conceptualizing is part of the problem. I am reminded of Plato’s allegory of the cave. We, as human beings, suffer from being shackled by the world’s changing forms, and project in-cave responses to the violence that surrounds us. Plato’s theory of forms presents an intellectual response to finite living, and it is questionable whether Plato ever got out of the cave. Easterners start from where Plato began, but without his path toward an intellectual type of enlightenment. To the extent that philosophy is a finite response to a finite problem, philosophy only extends human suffering. For instance, the philosophic just war doctrine, which purports to justify wars that meet specified conditions, has not curtailed human suffering. Instead, by being open to a wide variety of interpretations, just war doctrine has justified most excuses for nations going to war. For Easterners, the problem lies in the human ego, which is the seat of the human mind. Like James, they ask, “Does consciousness [the human mind] exist?” James maintains that consciousness exists as function for knowing, not as an entity. Similarly, Eastern thinkers claim that the human mind is not eternal, and hence is not real. Our egos, in captivating us about various finite desires, spin mind-webs that ensnare us and shackle us. False goods attract us. We fall prey to suffering, violence, and death of the spirit. Trying to distinguish between good and bad finite desires, we postulate meanings for each type. We set up categories and make choices, and get ensnared in our distinctions. We make choices in accord with our distinctions. We think that as long as we desire only so-called good things, then we are walking on a good path. Or, we set forth some discriminating criteria for sifting out the good from the bad, justice from injustice.17 Democracy becomes
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better than one-person rule, capitalism better than communism or socialism, riches better than poverty, people with heterosexual orientation better than those with homosexual orientation, the United States better than China or Cuba, the holy city better than the secular city. After the horrendous attack on the World Trade Center in New York on 11 September 2001, George W. Bush distinguished between freedom and terrorism, and between nations that defend freedom and those that harbor terrorists. Either you are with the United States or you are with the terrorists, he intoned. Then he proceeded for several months to bomb Afghanistan, whose citizens did not directly participate in the events of 11 September. The bombing killed many innocent people. The coalition of countries that sided with the United States assisted a loose collection of warlords to overthrow the Taliban regime that harbored leaders of the Al Qaeda network, masterminds of the 11 September attack. In that offensive, none of the major leaders of Al Qaeda or the Taliban were captured. The United States subsequently left Afghanistan with little aid for rebuilding its war-torn cities, and with little security in most places outside the capital of Kabul. Peacemaking was left for another day. Afterwards, in March 2003, the United States invaded Iraq. As the good guys, we erroneously claimed that Iraq, an evil nation, had nuclear weapons, that Saddam Hussein had close ties with Al Qaeda, and that Saddam would give these weapons of mass destruction to the terrorist groups for use against the United States. Over two years later, after all these contentions have proved false, an insurgency that has grown to defend Iraq from its United States’ invaders continues to kill our forces. Tens of thousands of innocent civilians have died. This is another war without any winners. Violence, as Gandhi says, begets violence. With good desires on our side, we as individuals and nations, begin to condemn actions and persons whom we perceive as evil. We wage a form of holy war upon those whose desires are different from our own. Either we strive to foster family or community values that are in keeping with our purified norms, or we isolate ourselves to some internal island wherein we can dream without being affected by strangers or foreign governments. In both cases the suffering, injustice, and violence that we abhor follows us to our new abodes. Violence, as Gandhi says, begets violence. The spiritual answer is not to divide finite desires, but to reflect upon the difference between eternal and noneternal desires. In learning the distinction, we can be drawn to desire the eternal. That means surrendering the ego to the Spirit within, and thereby discovering true peace. Out of this peace we turn the other cheek, and no longer fear violence and death. By letting go the egomind, we stop wanting to do things our way. We become true philosophers in Socrates’ sense of dying to ourselves. Socrates grasped this truth before his trial and while he awaited his death.
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In 1929, Gandhi wrote an introduction to the Bhagavad Gita. He indicated he had been practicing the teachings of the Gita for over forty years. Gandhi claims the path to self-realization is to “become like unto God.” Here is found perfect peace. The way to self-realization, says Gandhi, “is renunciation of fruits of action.” Renunciation is not attainable by intellectual assent. What is needed is action. To find peace we must act and in that action renounce the results. Gandhi quotes the Gita, “Do your allotted work but renounce its fruit. Be detached and work. Have no desire for reward and work.”18 Gandhi’s message is similar to the Christian Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Mount. Philosophy is a desire. Writers have proposed many types of philosophy over the centuries. Assumptions vary with the proponents. Philosophers may desire truth, but more frequently, they get entangled in systems of conceptualizing tailored to their own ways of thinking. They follow their desires in the pursuit of their own understandings. Philosophy becomes divorced from the love of wisdom and becomes like any finite desire, such as money, power, stature, or sex. Philosophers can contend their finite philosophy is logical, but that logic is the logic of the cave. We become erratic talk-show hosts or editorial columnists in the classroom. If we are going to be genuinely concerned about peace, and truth as wisdom, then we must renounce the acceptance or rejection of our actions and writings, and seek after the eternal, the spiritual peace that lies within us.
NOTES 1. Lesley Gill, The School of the Americas: Military Training and Political Violence in the Americas (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2004). 2. William James, The Principles of Psychology (New York: Henry Holt, 1890), vol. 1, p. 5. 3. Ibid., pp. 284–289. 4. Shankara, Crest-Jewel of Discrimination, trans. Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood (Hollywood, Calif.: Vedanta, 1947), pp. 76, 80–81. 5. Thich Nhat Hanh, Living Buddha, Living Christ (New York: Riverhead Books, 1995), pp. 16–17. 6. Leo Tolstoy, Confession, trans. David Patterson (New York: W. W. Norton, 1983), p. 78. 7. Matt. 5–7, The Jerusalem Bible, ed. Alexander Jones (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966). 8. Ibid., Matt. 5:39. 9. Ibid., Matt. 6:12. 10. Martin Luther King, Jr., “The Power of Nonviolence,” I Have a Dream: Writings and Speeches that Changed the World, ed. James Melvin Washington (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1992), p.31.
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11. Ibid., p. 30. 12. Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (New York: Harper & Row, 1967). 13. Leo Tolstoy, The Kingdom of God Is within You, trans. Leo Wiener (New York: Noonday, 1961). 14. James, The Principles of Psychology, vol.1, p. 284. 15. Zara Houshmand, Robert B. Livingston, and B. Alan Wallace, eds., Consciousness at the Crossroads: Conversations with the Dalai Lama on Brain Science and Buddhism (Ithaca, N.Y.: Snow Lion, 1999). 16. Robert L. Holmes, “General Introduction,” Nonviolence in Theory and Practice (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1990), pp. 1–6. 17. William James, “The Moral Philosopher and the Mora Life,” The Writings of William James: A Comprehensive Edition, ed. John J. McDermott (New York: Modern Library, 1968), pp. 614–619; and Jean-Paul Sartre, “Existentialism as a Humanism,” in Existentialism, trans. Bernard Frecthman (New York: Philosophical Library, 1947), pp. 14–38. 18. Mahatma Gandhi, “Introduction,” The Bhagavad Gita according to Gandhi, ed. John Strohmeier (Berkeley Calif: Berkeley Hills, 2000), p. 17–20.
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Three APOCALYPTIC THINKING VERSUS NONVIOLENT ACTION William C. Gay 1. Introduction Throughout the Cold War, we heard public cries that nuclear war would destroy us. Many citizens rejected the governmentally crafted myth of protection. They did not believe in the 1960s that a fallout shelter boom or in the 1980s that a star wars boom would protect them from the big boom. Instead, they thought the Big Boom would bring on global doom. Currently, we are hearing our initial post-Cold War version of the myth of protection. This time the star wars fallacy is being repackaged as a missile defense system. Then, following the events of 11 September 2001, a further shift occurred. Now, we hear that the Office of Homeland Security will protect us from terrorists and from weapons of mass destruction, whether nuclear, chemical, or biological. Some existentialists stress that since each of us will die, we need to grapple with the meaning of our individual death. Reflection on the prospect that weapons of mass destruction might be used is even more foreboding because their large-scale use raises the scepter of collective death and feeds on a long tradition of apocalyptic thinking. Several religious traditions prophesy that the human world will come to a painful end. Past wars have done much to support Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s view that history is “the slaughter-bench at which the happiness of peoples, the wisdom of states, and the virtue of individuals have been sacrificed.”1 Weapons of mass destruction suggest a different meaning than Francis Fukuyama gave to the phrase “the end of history.”2 Instead of global democracy, we may face global annihilation. Even during the Cold War, many people feared that nuclear war could seal the coffin on us all, consuming our world with burning light and eternal night. As we begin the twenty-first century, public fears are even greater that an attack of one sort or another likely will befall us. In the first part of this essay, I will argue against the utility of fear and apocalyptic thinking. Apocalyptic prognosticators have a zero “accudoom” forecast record. By nature, only once could such a forecast be correct. In religious apocalyptic traditions, the rising of the sun on the proclaimed doomsday typically sends the sheet-enshrouded devotees back from the appointed hilltop
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to their everyday tasks. Instead of being taken up into the clouds, they find their feet firmly planted on the ground. The prophet may re-calculate and issue yet another warning of the beginning of the end on a still later date, but the ranks of the faithful tend to thin. In the nuclear doom tradition, the theoretical and experimental data of careful scientific research has often dispelled similar forecasts. A temporarily frightened public returns to business as usual. Will governmental assurances lull us into believing that, despite its great cost, a missile defense system will protect us for ballistic missiles launched at us by diabolical (and hardly comparably powerful) rogue states such as Iran, and North Korea or the “axis of evil,” as they are now termed? Now, will the Office of Homeland Security protect us from the various forms of attack that terrorists may employ? Or, could the Office of Homeland Security be propagating yet another myth of protection? Instead of bringing us security, the Office of Homeland Security may be a threat to democracy by undercutting civil liberties and intensifying militaristic and warist attitudes at home, not just abroad. 2. Apocalyptic Thinking and the Limits of Fear in Motivating Public Protest What is the reason for presenting nuclear war or the use of other weapons of mass destruction as apocalyptic? Many within mainstream religious institutions, as well as respected scientific communities, have voiced fears of the apocalyptic nature of nuclear war and large-scale use of other weapons of mass destruction. They did not preach conversion to an otherworldly belief as a means to escape the inevitable destruction of the world. Rather, they sought to motivate people to take action to prevent annihilation by means of weapons of mass destruction and to preserve the fragile ecosystems needed to sustain life on this remarkable planet. If motivating people to save our planet is the end, what is the means? Throughout the Cold War we were told that we face an imminent threat of total destruction, and understandably, many of us were full of fear. Many existentialists stress how thought of our individual death makes us anxious. Many of us will go to great lengths and make enormous sacrifices to try to prolong our individual lives. Should we feel the same about our planet? In the 1980s, Jonathan Schell presented the risk of collective death as the most grave moral problem humanity has ever faced: No end can justify risking the destruction of humanity, for the demise of persons will bring about the demise of all value and meaning.3 So, many of us believed that we had to work hard to prevent global doom. We connected self-love and planetary love with fear: We would do virtually anything if we feared losing that which we most love. I call this belief the myth of the motivating power of fear. During the height of anti-nuclear protest, this myth used fear to motivate the public to
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engage in mass action. Many of the citizens swept into the anti-nuclear movement joined because they feared collective nuclear death would be the result of the turn to counterforce strategies (first-strike capabilities) in the pursuit of national security. Since 11 September 2001, many people, especially in the United States, have come to regard terrorism as if it represents a comparably grave moral problem. In fact, some people are so afraid that they are willing to let government go to virtually any limits to reduce this threat. This time, governments are the ones using fear; they are using fear to motivate the public to accept as necessary and justified the military responses employed to counter terrorism. Apocalyptic thinking and exaggerated fears face factual, psychological, political, and moral pitfalls. First, because the claims are so extreme, they are often not credible. For example, when scientists raised solid factual objections, scientists and government officials dismissed the prophets of nuclear apocalypse as misinformed extremists. The scientists and government officials belittled the fear that the nuclear prophets sought to exploit when they exaggerated their portrayals. But some people do not want to let facts get in the way of a good argument. For some, persuasion is a more important goal than truth. If you believe that exaggeration, especially when it generates fear, can bring about a good result, you may throw prudence to the wind. You may justify your lapse into distortion as benevolent deception, but the fact remains that it is like Plato’s royal lie and may be exposed. Are we now seeing a similar phenomenon with respect to how government is using public fear of terrorism? Critics of the current policy are doing little to counter governmental exaggerations about the international terrorist threat. Are their exaggerations benevolent deceptions or something much less noble? Beyond the prospect for factual rebuttal, apocalyptic thinking and exaggerated fears run a psychological risk. Compare the responses to the nuclear threat and the terrorist threat. Regardless of whether the big boom will bring on global doom, does belief in nuclear war as apocalyptic motivate people to eliminate this threat? Much of the public protest against governmental plans relied on the myth of the motivating power of fear to spur otherwise apathetic citizens to rally around the anti-nuclear cause. But as we well know, the antinuclear bandwagon is not exactly overflowing these days. Initially after the events of 11 September 2001, many people were motivated to act. Unfortunately, already many people are beginning to suppress their fear. Suppressing negative emotions or entering a state of denial represents the psychological risk that faces apocalyptic thinking and exaggerated fears. The saying that the main responses to fear are fight or flight is instructive. We have no way to guarantee that people frightened by accounts of the horrors of nuclear war or terrorist attacks will fight back. Many people take flight, especially when they feel disempowered in the political arena and see how limited the success of
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past efforts has been. These persons may suffer from psychic numbing. When fear is suppressed, the call to action is avoided. Even when fear is not suppressed, it can be misdirected. The political risk resulting from apocalyptic thinking and exaggerated fears is that these concerns can get co-opted. How are we to fight off apocalyptic or global terrorism? Nuclear prophets like Jonathan Schell say we must rid the world of nuclear weapons. Current anti-terrorist politicians say we must rid the world of terrorists; we must wage a war against terrorism. Ironically, political leaders argue that the possession of nuclear weapons is the means for preventing the apocalyptic horrors of nuclear war. Just in case deterrence fails, government officials now tell us a missile defense system should be in place. Six months after the attacks of 11 September 2001, the George W. Bush administration announced plans to use modified nuclear weapons to destroy terrorist stronghold stashes of weapons of mass destruction, or to respond to terrorist attacks that make use of biological, chemical, or nuclear weapons. Officials have told us for quite some time that governmental possession of chemical and biological weapons is one of the means of preventing evil governments or terrorist organizations from using weapons of mass destruction. Now, the claim is also made that the modified nuclear weapons being urged by the Bush administration for possible use in the “war on terrorism” will also function to deter terrorism. In the past, and again currently, governmental leaders, by preying on public fears, achieve acquiesce to an ideology that portrays international adversaries as totally diabolical and completely untrustworthy. Under these conditions, and supposedly in order to “save” their citizens from the “absolute evils,” military and political leaders present military preparedness and military actions as the only, or best, insurance against nuclear apocalypse and terrorist attacks. The final risk facing apocalyptic thinking and exaggerated fears is moral. Apocalyptic thinking and exaggerated fears are too farsighted. Farsightedness or hyperopia is the pathological condition in which vision is better for distant than near objects. For example, nuclear prophets do bring into sharp focus a hopefully distant object—the prospect that somewhere down the road we will reach an omega point where the destructiveness of war will in fact be apocalyptic. The judgment is surely correct that the precipitation of global doom would be a profoundly immoral act. But people who are farsighted fail to bring nearby objects into sharp focus. Even if nuclear apocalypse or further terrorist attacks of the magnitude of 11 September might not be very far down the road, numerous other war-like objects are much closer to us. In fact, they surround us. Since World War II, no year has passed in which fewer than four wars were being waged somewhere on this planet. When we devote too much of our attention to imagining the worst that could happen, we risk inflicting moral hyperopia on ourselves. Just as we are being myopic when we focus primarily on crime in the streets when confronting the problem of human violence, even
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so we are being hyperopic to focus predominantly on the threats of nuclear apocalypse and global terrorism when confronting the problems of large-scale violence. Apocalyptic thinking and exaggerated fears risk leaving us morally shortchanged when they lead us to fail to fight against the horrors of violence that are not distant or possible threats but everyday realities. We need to respond to on-going atrocities in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa that are on a scale quite adequate for moral outrage, and we need to seek feasible protection from devastating harms such as AIDS, hunger, and environmental degradation that actually are currently afflicting us. 3. Nonviolent Action and the Value of Hope in Achieving Political Change Even without prophecies of nuclear apocalypse and global terrorist networks bent on destroying Western civilization, political systems can and sometimes do give way to public protest. Over the last several decades remarkable political change has occurred and often nonviolently. Many of these changes did not require war or the threat of war. In their recent and groundbreaking book and PBS series, Peter Ackerman and Jack Duvall assess the nonviolent movements of the twentieth century. In their overall consideration, they state the following: (1) The use of nonviolent sanctions has been far more frequent and widespread than usually supposed. They were crucial elements of historymaking struggles in every part of the world and in every decade of the century. (2) Nonviolent action has worked against all types of oppressive opponents—and there is no correlation between the degree of violence used against nonviolent resisters and the likelihood of their eventual success. Some who faced the greatest brutality prevailed decisively.4 In this regard, Ackerman and Duvall are correct. They also contend: The greatest misconception about conflict is that violence is always the ultimate form of power, that no other method of advancing a just cause or defeating injustice can surpass it. But Russians, Indians, Poles, Danes, Salvadorans, African Americans, Chileans, South Africans, and many others have proven that one side’s choices in a conflict are not foreclosed by the other side’s use of violence, that other, nonviolent measures can be a force more powerful. If the great sacrifices of lives and honor ex-
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WILLIAM C. GAY acted by the last century is requited in the next one hundred years, it will be because that truth becomes more fully understood.5
Like Fukuyama, Ackerman and Duvall appear to connect such dramatic political change with democracy. Nevertheless, as I have discussed in The Nuclear Arms Race, we need to be mindful that democratic governments are leaders in the research on nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction and in the use of conventional weapons.6 For example, in the case of new discoveries about the effects of nuclear weapons, democratic governments are concerned with how to lessen these effects in the advent of nuclear war, not with altogether forsaking the possible use of their nuclear arsenals. In their pursuit of national security and other international objectives, the effects of nuclear weapons have so far merely posed “technical constraints” for nuclear states, including democratic ones. In fact, almost all the leading nuclear powers claim to have democratic governments. Andre Gorz coined the term “technical constraints” to describe how political systems respond to the ecological movement.7 I am applying his concept to the military organization of the most powerful nation-states. Nations with nuclear weapons are, at best, limited democracies. To the extent that nuclear powers are militarized and have weapons of mass destruction, they are not so much functioning democratically as they are operating as servants of special interests such as oil and weapons industries—to say nothing about their aims of global capitalism or even economic imperial dominance. How can powerful nations apply the lessons found in the successful nonviolent struggles that Ackerman and Duvall so poignantly describe? What would rush in to fill the void in the heads of governmental leaders were the myth of protection in the nuclear age to be dissolved? Can the myth of military national security and the myth of homeland security also be dissolved for political leaders or will they merely be modified by them? Will they continue to look for ways to couple maintenance of national sovereignty with the capacity to wage war?8 Ackerman and Duvall considered how nonviolent movements toppled oppressive governments. Yet, are not governments that rely on military force likewise oppressive? They threaten large-scale violence and frequently inflict it as well, even though nonviolent approaches to national security are available.9 They rely on massive, privately owned media conglomerates that increasingly serve as vehicles for conveying the administration’s views (even governmental propaganda). Under these conditions, the public can be led to believe that they live in a “democracy” and that “homeland security” will protect them. They do not see the prospect that such democratic, nuclear states may be drifting toward a type of totalitarian information system, toward “one voice” that drowns out opposing or dissenting discourse.
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One of the messages of the nonviolent movements of the twentieth century that we should appropriate is that hope serves us better than fear. A telling inadequacy of fear, whether proportionate or excessive, is that fear is only negative. Nuclear prophets frightened many people with the negative images that they presented repeatedly. Anti-terrorist politicians do the same. Their negative images give many people nightmares when they are asleep and anxiety when they are awake. This negativity can get out of hand, unless we couple it with a positive vision. In order to attain hope, we need to know about the feasibility of nonviolent struggle. In this regard, Ackerman and Duvall note: We also believe that nonviolent resistance deserves more attention than it has generally received. In our time violence generates more news because, for many, history is perceived as a spectacle. But if it were understood more commonly as a process, then the dynamic effect of nonviolent sanctions would be more easily appreciated. This form of power is not arcane; it operates on the same level of reality that most people live their lives, and it is comprehensible for that reason. Contrary to cynical belief, the history of nonviolent action is not a succession of desperate idealists, occasional martyrs, and a few charismatic emancipators. The real story is about common citizens who are drawn into great causes, which are built from the ground up.10 Such stories deserve telling. They are stories, true stories, of hope. They often work! Ackerman and Duvall note: A mass nonviolent movement can force a favorable outcome in one of three ways: by coercing a ruler to surrender power or leave; by inducing a regime to compromise and make concessions; or by converting the regime’s view of the conflict, so that it believes it should no longer dictate the result.11 Within democratic societies that rely on militarism in general and nuclearism in particular, a nonviolent movement also needs to provide a vision of “true democracy” and “true freedom.” A democratic nation can still be a militaristic nation. If a “true democracy” needs to take seriously Immanuel Kant’s contention that any military action should require the consent of the people, then what may be required for “true democracy” and as a precondition for “true freedom” (including freedom from the threat of war and annihilation) is a nonviolent model of national security. 12 For the rational dialogue needed, apocalyptic thinking and exaggerated fear are bankrupt. We need the moral capital of a positive vision. As Joel
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Kovel said of the anti-nuclear movement, “Anti-nuclear politics must do more than scare people. It must also offer an affirmative vision.”13 Some people in these groups did offer such a vision, and the leadership in the movements Ackerman and Duvall document also conveyed a positive vision to their followers. Still, we have a long way to go to convince governments that a more appropriate path is open and that a more appropriate goal and way of living is possible. Leaders of these nonviolent movements want populations to get out of control—out of the control over their thinking that their nation-states exercise. Ackerman and Duvall observe: Nonviolent resistance becomes a force more powerful than the hand of an oppressor to the extent that it takes away his capacity for control. Embracing nonviolence for its own sake does not produce this force…To shift the momentum of conflict in its favor, the nonviolent movement has to expand the scope and variety of its offensive action, defend its popular base against repression, pierce the legitimacy of its adversary, and exploit his weaknesses and concessions. When all this happens, an oppressor inevitably loses support inside and outside his country, and his means of repression or terror can be unfastened. When the regime realizes that it can no longer dictate the outcome, the premise and means of its power implode. Then the end is only a matter of time.14 In this regard, within current democratic nations, we still live in what Kovel equivocally, but intentionally terms “nuclear states.” The nuclear state refers to a portion of the military machinery of several nations and to a style of everyday thinking among many people. Kovel stresses the equivocal nature of the term in order to make the point that before the nuclear state apparatus can be defeated, the nuclear state of being must be defeated.15 The same is true for the use of all other types of military security. Nuclear states, like terrorist states and terrorist organizations, rely on a violent political apparatus and a violent way of thinking. The violent state of being is the post-war equivalent of what in Being and Time Martin Heidegger termed average everydayness—the They-Self.16 Our everyday way of being is inauthentic. The early Heidegger thought that by facing our anxiety about our individual mortality, we could slip out of submergence into the they-self and achieve personal authenticity. The leaders of the early anti-nuclear movement wanted us to face our fear that nuclear war could bring on our collective death and hoped that thereby we could move from our nuclear state of being to a new and more authentic way of being. Neither strategy proved sufficient. The later Heidegger did not turn to ever more grim descriptions of human finitude in order to encourage individuals to break with their inauthenticity.
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Instead, he tried to describe a new way of thinking and to develop positive metaphors and images. Likewise, the leaders of a more mature anti-war and anti-violence movement will not turn to ever more grim forecasts in order to encourage us to break with out inauthentic warist, terrorist, and violentist states. The leaders of a more mature anti-nuclear and anti-violent movement will describe in much more detail their new way of thinking and will more frequently employ and more widely circulate its positive vision. In so doing, individuals will have to recognize and abandon the system of “false needs” into which consumer society has socialized us. As Herbert Marcuse noted decades ago, we need to move beyond the one dimensionalism of contemporary consumer society.17 We need to recognize that cultural diversity is now necessary for the biological diversity on which the continuation of our eco-system depends.18 Some of the later Heidegger work serves as model for a more mature anti-nuclear and anti-violent movement. One of his positive alternatives is especially illuminating. He provides the image of the House-Friend: “The House-Friend is a friend to the house which the world is.”19 The House-Friend watches for threats to our planet and takes action. We can be the careful shepherds of all beings—not prisoners of the warist, terrorist, and violentist state of being. To do so we will still need to be on guard. Not all guards carry big sticks that can wreak human and environmental destruction even while held, let alone after swung. 4. Conclusion Whether we can develop and circulate adequately detailed and persuasive positive vision to move beyond violence, terrorism, and war remains to be seen. We can see right now, how nonviolent movements inspire us with a hope that takes us further than fear. Ackerman and Duvall note: In a world in which vital human interests are in constant competition, conflicts will occur, and violence will be used in conflicts as long as people believe it will help win. If another, more effective way to succeed, without the costs of violence, were more widely appreciated, violence would begin to seem less sensible as the way to fight for a cause. Most policymakers have been enamored of either arms reduction or conflict resolution as the primary methods of reducing deadly violence, assuming that all conflicts are prone to be violent. But in each of more than a dozen major conflicts in the twentieth century between two sides vying for control of a nation’s destiny, strategic nonviolent action rather than violence was the decisive mode of engagement.20
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Instead of raising apocalyptic and exaggerated fears, we need to expand nonviolent actions. As Trudy Govier notes in her chapter on hope in her book which is a philosophical response to terrorism, “We can’t assume generalized folly and inevitable catastrophe and make moral sense of our lives at the same time. Living as political beings requires the hope that better things may come.”21 Will a hope that relies on nonviolent strategies provide us with the motivating power that fear has not been able to achieve? Ackerman and Duvall contend: People power in the twentieth century did not grow out of the barrel of a gun. It removed rulers who believed that violence was power, by acting to dissolve their real source of power: the consent or acquiescence of the people they had tried to subordinate. When unjust laws were no longer obeyed, when commerce stopped because people no longer worked, when public services could no longer function, and when armies were no longer feared, the violence that governments could use no longer mattered—their power to make people comply had disappeared.21 Maybe someday governments will lose the power to make people comply with violence, terrorism, and war. We can refuse to fight by means of violence, terrorism, and war. Likewise, we can refuse to acquiesce to reliance by individuals, subnational groups, and nation-states on violence, terrorism, and war. In place of the negative effects of fear, we can have the hope and other positive effects associated with nonviolence. We have a force more powerful.
NOTES 1. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Reason in History, trans. Robert S. Hartman (Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Co., Inc., 1953), p. 27. 2. Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (New York: Free Press, 1992). 3. Jonathan Schell, The Fate of the Earth (New York: Knopf, 1982). 4. Peter Ackerman and Jack Duvall, A Force More Powerful: A Century of Nonviolent Conflict (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000), p.2. 5. Ibid., p. 9. 6. William Gay and Michael Pearson, The Nuclear Arms Race (Chicago: The American Library Association, 1987). 7. Andre Gorz, Ecology as Politics, trans. Patsy Vigderman and Jonathan Cloud (Boston: South End Press, 1980), p. 3. 8. Cf. William Gay, “Militarism in the Modern State and World Government: The Limits of Peace through Strength in the Nuclear Age,” From the Eye of the Storm: Philosophy of Peace and Regional Conflicts, eds. Laurence F. Bove and Laura Duhan Kaplan (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1995), pp. 5–16.
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9. Cf. William Gay, “The Prospects for a Nonviolent Model of National Security,” On the Eve of the 21st Century: Perspectives of Russian and American Philosophers, eds. William Gay and T. A. Alekseeva (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1994), pp. 119–134. 10. Ackerman and Duvall, A Force More Powerful, pp. 8–9. 11. Ibid., p. 501. 12. Immanuel Kant, Zum ewigen Frieden, Kant’s Werke, Band 8, Abhandlungen nach 1781 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1923), p. 344. For English translation, see Perpetual Peace and Other Essays, trans. Ted Humphrey (Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett, 1983), p. 112. 13. Joel Kovel, Against the State of Nuclear Terror (Boston, Mass.: South End Press, 1983), p. xii. 14. Ackerman and Duvall, A Force More Powerful, p. 502. 15. Kovel, Against the State of Nuclear Terror, p. xi. 16. Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (New York: Harper & Row, 1962), pp. 210–212. 17. Herbert Marcuse, One Dimensional Man (Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press, 1964), pp. 123–124. 18. Cf. William Gay, “Diversity and Peace: Negative and Positive Forms,” Community, Diversity, and Difference: Implications for Peace, eds. Alison Bailey and Paula J. Smithka (Amsterdam, Netherlands: Rodopi, 2002), pp. 175–185. 19. Martin Heidegger, “Hebel—Friend of the House,” trans. Bruce V. Foltz and Michael Heim, Contemporary German Philosophy, vol 3, eds. Darrel E. Christensen and Manfred Riedel (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1983), p. 93. 20. Ackerman and Duvall, A Force More Powerful, pp. 7–8. 21. Trudy Govier, A Delicate Balance: What Philosophy Can Tell Us about Terrorism (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2002), p. 169. 22. Ackerman and Duvall, A Force More Powerful, p. 505.
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Part Two POLITICAL DIMENSIONS
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Four UNDERSTANDING “OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM” THROUGH THE PERSISTENCE OF SACRIFICE, REVENGE, AND THE GIFT OF CRUEL ECONOMIES Anas Karzai and Marianne Vardalos Americans have so reduced their imagination that they can conceive of no other way of life than their own. Moreover, their way of life in fact renders them incapable of living, thinking, or feeling otherwise than they do. All peoples have begun in this primitive state. Only Americans have managed to remain in it. They owe this achievement at once to the brevity of their history and to the inanity of their politics. American history has been short, nasty and brutish . . . thus, strictly speaking, Americans have no foreign policy other than a psychotic fear of not being loved as Americans. This fear populates their world with aliens, communists, terrorists, and savages.1 1. Introduction Many theorists might attempt an understanding of “Operation Enduring Freedom,” or what the United States’ colonial administration more commonly refers to as “the war on terrorism,” through theories of violence and the purpose of violence in modern and archaic societies. We can best analyze the events surrounding 11 September 2001 and the predictable escalation of violence that has ensued through theories of gift exchange economies of reciprocity, commodity and sacrifice. Preceding the horrors of bombed cities, whether in New York or Kabul, and beyond the devastated masses, hordes of homeless, and irrevocable damage to individual and national security and safety, are desperate agreements among differing parties; broken promises between nation-states and their people; covenants made between human beings and their gods. The arena in which these questionable values are produced is that of culture, with its membership requirements of guilt, duty, and allegiance to god, country, or community. Culture entails the dehumanizing process through which modern human beings acquire religious and patriotic identity in the face of otherness.
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While military analysts and the corporate media saddle up for the sensational ride ahead, speculating about who, where, when, and how the attacks and counter-attacks will continue, political philosophers and social theorists continue to grapple with the singular question of why? Why does the formation of a certain consciousness allow for the destruction of ourselves and others? Why is there a need for domination, political and economic, which makes parties turn on one another or on themselves in a climax of violence? Why is it that our allies can so effortlessly be recast as our enemies? Why do people feel compelled to follow the demands of others even if it means the loss of life? How can suicide and other sacrificial gestures of immolation be considered gifts? Perhaps most importantly, can modernity, with its promises of enlightenment, usher in an era of emancipation from such a destructive consciousness? However, this paper will not find answers to these questions. Instead, we will engage, keeping these questions in mind, with some of the social and political issues that dominate contemporary debates regarding war, violence, and imperial domination. Long before Branislaw Malinowski interpreted the reciprocal significance of the potlatch among the Trobriands, economies of gift exchange between and within societies had been serving many functions, not all of them utilitarian.2 Perhaps the most comprehensive theories of the gift in interpreting the relationships between the United States administration, the Taliban of Afghanistan, and their combined acts of defense and offence, are those of Marcel Mauss, Jacques Derrida and Friedrich Nietzsche. Elements of each of their theories within a culture illustrate the instrumentality of giving and receiving in economies of reciprocity, commodity, and sacrifice by evoking notions of obedience and obligation, religious and patriotic. In this paper, we examine through these theories the transactions within and between the parties involved in the rise, maintenance, and finally the expulsion of the Taliban in relation to United States’ global imperial interests. We revisit the tumultuous months and years leading up to the September attack to examine signs of three irreconcilable economies of exchange, those of commodity, reciprocity and sacrifice, all three of which guarantee continued misunderstanding, mistrust, and the loss of life. We will argue that despite differences in conceptions of the gift economy, both the rulers of Washington and the Taliban share an idea of “justice” rooted in the Abrahamic religious tradition which, denies the so called justice and human liberty. It is this Nietzschian idea of “justice” as a cruel economy of commerce involving sacrifice and revenge like numerals in an accounting ledger that underlies our argument that both the theocratic Taliban and the allegedly “secular” Western powers are both unable to transcend the ancient rituals of their civilizational forefathers and are both destined to reproduce their cruelties of human sacrifice and flesh.3
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2. The Function of the Gift in Economies of Reciprocity and Commodity The metaphor of gift giving has been used to describe social phenomena as diverse as internet use, vendetta, and antique collection. As we will be analyzing the political relations between the United States’ administration and Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers in terms of the “gift,” we begin with a brief overview of the concept. Marcel Mauss’ classic concern with archaic forms of contract involves his desire to discover a universal element that would explain the function of gift giving as a “social fact” existing across time and space. Having uncovered forms of exchange with purposes ranging from acute rivalry to emulation and the desire to “out-give” the other, Mauss concludes that the morality of “the exchange-through-gifts . . . constitutes the most ancient system of economy.”4 He argues that the acts of giving and receiving among peoples endure in modern society through law and international legal conduct. Yet, he diagnoses the lack of social cohesion in modern society to be the direct result of the breakdown of obligation within and among groups since the inception of the commodity exchange. His call then, is to re-obligate ourselves to one another through gift giving, in the hope of keeping peace within and among societies. Central elements of Mauss’ theory are worth considering the context of events preceding 11 September 2001. In his theory, he extends the functional value of gift giving in society to include not just reciprocity but also indebtedness and obligation. The “first war of the twenty-first century,” as George W. Bush called the 11 September attack on Washington and New York City, has likely ushered in an era of violence and violations of civil liberties on a scale yet to be seen by the world. Any hopes of dialogue or resolution were immediately dashed when the American people were galvanized into a more insular entity than ever before. Voices of dissent were silenced as unpatriotic and even treasonous. Opponents of American intervention treaded softly, understanding that any criticism at such a sensitive time would imply support for the attacks. Those who unabashedly celebrated the event unwittingly contributed to America’s desire for and justification of revenge. Washington and the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan have been engaged in a diplomatic and military dance for almost a decade. These two players are by no means the only, or even the most central forces, involved in the conflict. An international mixture of drug barons, oil conglomerates, resistance fighters, religious extremists and nation-states also obfuscate the picture beyond most observers’ comprehension. Motivations of all the players vary from economic and political to territorial and religious, and sometimes, a combination of one or of these. Within this complex labyrinth of alliances and promises, the United States and the Taliban have been strange bedfellows in a tortuous and sometimes reluctant relationship of mutual dependence and obligation. This
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relationship has been fraught with interactions of exchange that can be interpreted through gift-economy theory. For the purpose of this paper, we would like to identify the creation of obligation as the primary motivation behind an economy of reciprocity. For Mauss, any exchange in an economy of gifts is not only a means by which cohesion and solidarity are derived, but also a strengthener of existing ties by means of creating new commitments among groups via obligation. Solidarity for Mauss involves not just the gesture of giving, as others before him have theorized, but a complex system of recompensation and giving back. The act of giving, itself, is secondary to the primary goal of obliging another to return that gift in a continuing cycle of “gifting”: giving, receiving, and returning the gesture. The question is: Do the United States’ administration and the Taliban have the same understanding of the gift-exchange? To claim to know the motivations and strategies of the parties involved would not be prudent. We can speculate about misunderstandings in expectations among the givers and receivers. Mauss makes the point that gift exchanges usually do not involve explicit bargaining or demands that the gift be reciprocated in a certain manner, or at all, for that matter, as transactions are usually diffuse and vague by their very nature. Mauss assumes that even without explicit expressions of what is expected of the receiver by the giver, exchanges continue successfully until the giving becomes one-sided in a relationship, at which point the alliance is unlikely to last. Mauss’ conclusion about modern society, its lack of social cohesion resulting from the breakdown of obligation because of the replacement of the gift-exchange with commodity exchange could be applied to Taliban/United States administrative relations. In the case of the relationship between the Taliban and the United States’ administration, the mutual suspicion and increasing animosity results from a fundamentally different interpretation of the nature of exchange. From the perspective of the Taliban, the United States’ administration is not engaging in the potlatch ritual with allies in the continuous chain of giving-receiving and re-giving. The United States’ administration is, in the eyes of many observers, shirking its obligations of continued alliances into the future, by buying and selling support in an impersonal commodity exchange manifested in actions such as debt-forgiveness, trade negotiations, economic aid and the lifting of sanctions. The contrast to a gift exchange is the commodity transaction that differs from gift giving in two essential ways.5 First, in commodity transactions, no obligation exists after the exchange is consummated. No indebtedness remains after a commodity is received in exchange for its stated price. Second, unlike a gift, no association exists between the giver and the commodity. We might associate a gift with the giver, but we seldom associates a purchased commodity with the merchant from whom it is bought. Hence, the commodity ex-
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change is not only impersonal but also temporary, without loyalty and without indication of future involvement for either party. Other distinctions between gift giving and commodity transactions are made by Duran Bell, who notes that gift-economies are driven by social relations while commodity-economies are driven by price.6 For the former, benefits come from improving the “technology of social relations” through the creation of diverse networks. In commodity economies, benefits are derived from improving the “technology of production.” As well, a commodity exchange is likely to be concrete and immediate as a purchaser is given what he or she has paid for immediately whereas a gift-giver is never likely to know if or when he or she can expect a gift in return. While both economies entitle a giver to receive, eventually, only the gift exchange is risky in that it remains uncertain of how and when there will be reciprocation. This faith that reciprocity will eventually come is, according to Mauss, the source of social cohesion and solidarity. The core of Mauss’ understanding of the gift exchange is specifically Durkheimian, a conservative analysis of the functional relationship between systems of contractual gifts and those elements of society conferred by the exchange. Whether the functional outcome be prestige, honor, or cohesion, Mauss posits that modern morality and livelihood “are still permeated with this same atmosphere of the gift, where obligation and liberty intermingle” as those of ancient societies engaged in the potlatch.7 Universalizing the “fundamental motive for human activity,” as the need to save face in any given situation, he concludes that over time and space, not only in modern, liberal society, the constant imperative of humankind is that “we must give back more than we have received.”8 A central conclusion for Mauss is that, in gift economies, no such thing as a “free gift” exists, since parties always understand ties to a gift. Hence, the recipient party is always intrinsically aware of the necessity to eventually, in one way or another, “give back.” The notion of giving back in kind is what Mauss refers to as the “invisible gesture” and, because he considers the implications of reciprocity and obligation universal, his observations lend themselves well to a cross-cultural comparison as required by this analysis. What were the meanings of the gifts given and received between the United States’ administration and the Taliban? Has there been a shift in economies? Most importantly—were both parties participating in a gift exchange? Immediately after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, Washington’s first “gift” to the so called Afghan “freedom fighters” came in the form of $3 billion in support for humanitarian and military equipment to fight and to completely destroy the atheist communists in Afghanistan. In return, the United States expected the undermining of the USSR’s geopolitical position and the loyalty of Pakistan. By 1992, the threat of the Soviet Union had passed and perhaps predictably for those who understand the utilitarian nature of aid,
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both Moscow and Washington officially cut off financial support to their sponsored parties fighting in Afghanistan. The United States’ ends were achieved in the region and the Soviet empire was no longer a serious threat. The Red Army left Afghanistan in 1989, leaving the country with over two million mines, one million Afghans dead and three million seeking refuge in neighboring Pakistan, Iran, and in the west. Afghanistan’s future was now left in the hands of the different fighting groups, equipped with Soviet and American machines of mass destruction, which initiated a power struggle and territorial war that rages on today. Just as Mauss points out that no such thing as a free gift exists, and that such a proposal would be “nonsense,” the Afghans had fulfilled their obligations as recipients of the United States’ financial support. The mujahedeen, or freedom fighters, had successfully ousted the Russian occupiers and even taken over the capital, Kabul, as expected by the United States. As well, Pakistan had remained a loyal ally. Even so, the United States abandoned the freedom fighters, both in words and deeds. One researcher of Afghanistan’s recent history, Richard Mackenzie, concedes, Afghans “had every reason to feel perplexed, even bewildered by the turn in the United States’ policy.”9 Why, after adequate reciprocity, had the gift of the Americans been retracted? Or had it? At this time, the Taliban, one of many post-war factions vying for political power and territory, was evolving in southern Afghanistan. A puritanical group that professed to study and spread the authentic teachings of Islam, the Taliban differed from the mujahedeen; they had less desire for looting and gaining property than uniting Afghanistan under the rubric of religious law. Although the United States professed ignorance of the identity, origin and motives of this particular group, “some fairly obvious clues,” according to researcher Richard Mackenzie, reveal that the Taliban were in fact financed and backed by the United States via Pakistan at the outset. Although no real evidence exists to support the contention that the Clinton administration established the Taliban through a particular policy, there were commercial interests driving United States’ toleration of their activities. First, there was the reality that Unocal would be pumping out a million barrels of oil a day or more. Second, Unocal’s pipeline project would isolate Iran from the newly found wealth of the Caucasus: Long before the Taliban began to thrust toward Kabul, United States’ officials had high aspirations for the “students.” United States’ federal narcotics agents based in Pakistan privately expressed strong hope that the Taliban would bring an end to the booming opium trade out of Afghanistan. That was just one of several reasons that Washington thought the Taliban would serve its purposes.10
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For Mauss, in the act of “giving,” a point comes in which the giver has already established a relationship based on exchange. The giver commits not only to the future prospect of receiving something in return but also to an ongoing cycle of such exchanges. The memory of receiving a gift commits the recipient to give not only until it is reciprocated, but beyond this initial transaction. For both there is a bond of future giving and receiving. Both parties are committed to the future, hence eliminating the possibility of conflict between the two parties. “To refuse to give, to fail to invite, just as to refuse to accept, is tantamount to declaring war; it is to reject the bond of alliance and commonality.”11 In providing weaponry to the original resistance forces of Afghanistan, the United States had not only indebted the freedom fighters, compelling them to accomplish the unspoken goals or motives of the United States, but had also formed an alliance with them. Once the goals had been accomplished, the onus of obligation fell back, once again, onto the shoulders of the original giver, the United States. But, instead of continuing the cycle of giving, receiving and returning the gift, as Mauss purports to be the universal behavior among groups, the United States broke the chain of transactions and backed another ally instead. Both the giver and the receiver, in Mauss’ theory, are obligated to continue this transaction put forward in a silent language of respect and honor. Provided there are no other hidden reasons for giving a gift beyond those implied in the first place, there is no reason to break the cycle of gifting. For the United States, there were many hidden reasons for dropping the freedom fighters in favor of the Taliban: Along with the wish that the Taliban would clean up drugs, Americans then also thought they would (1) serve as a bulwark against Russian and Iranian interests in Afghanistan; (2) restore order to all of Afghanistan as they had done in Kandahar and other corners of the South; (3) get rid of terrorist training camps; (4) pave the way for the return of the former King, Zahir Shah; and (5) provide a United States’ ally, Pakistan, an overland link to the immense profits to be made from trade with the new Central Asian republics. Most importantly, and unrecognized at the time, the Taliban promised to open doors for the construction of giant gas and old pipelines from Central Asia down through Afghanistan to Pakistan.12 Many renditions outlining the resource wars in Central Asia and Afghanistan exist. Although perspectives differ, certain details remain the same regardless of the interpretation. For instance, during Afghanistan’s civil wars post-Soviet departure, Pakistan convinced Saudi Arabia and the United States that a stable Afghanistan, under the Taliban rule would open up a valuable transit route to the Caucasus, the Central Asian Muslim republics recently discovered to be oil rich. Having formed an oil-consortium, Unocal of the United
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States and Delta Oil of Saudi Arabia, were set to construct pipelines through Afghanistan and Pakistan for the import of gas from Turkmenistan. The Taliban then, rather than the freedom fighters, were now critical to United States’ operations and commercial interests in the region. Suddenly, more gifts from the United States were pledged to Afghanistan—but this time, the recipients were the Taliban rulers, not the mujahedeen. Motivated by the enormous potential for profit. (Turkemenistan alone has 21,000 billion cubic meters of gas; neighboring Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan are expected to have much more.) The United States began to pledge “goodwill projects” in the country by establishing educational training programs. Although the projects appeared to be separate from United States’ interests in the country, people challenged their benevolence when reporters discovered that all the vocational programs proposed were directly related to American commercial interests. “Of fourteen skills to be taught by the University of Nebraska in Afghanistan, at least nine are peculiar to the building of a pipeline.”13 Although United States’ administration and American commercial interests are considered separate issues by most, Unocal did most of its deal drafting and hosted several functions at the United States embassy in Islamabad. Once the Taliban failed to fulfill their obligations to the United States, the system of reciprocity broke down. Despite United States’ desires and Pakistan’s assurances, the Taliban were not able to bring stability to the whole country. After taking over Kabul, they began a raid of ethnic cleansing and totalitarian rule that alienated all citizens. As well, the United States’ hope that the Taliban would end the cultivation of poppies proved to be fruitless as crops actually increased and provided a source of income for the new rulers.14 The straw that broke the United States’ back in relations with the Taliban was its hospitality toward Osama bin Laden, the Saudi billionaire suspected, at that time, of attacks on several United States’ interests. Disenchanted, Washington began to rethink the relationship to the rulers of Kabul, and soon afterward, Madelaine Albright was directed to bring to the surface all the human rights infringements hitherto ignored. The Taliban were now the enemy. Even so, Unocal continued to reach out to them, hosting trips to the United States for delegations of Taliban officials as recently as December 1997. The inattention of the United States and the whole world during the late 1990s baffled the country that had received so much attention, so many gifts of weaponry, and aid during the 1980s. After the events of 11 September 2001, the United States’ administration turned its attention and gift giving efforts to the building of a coalition determined to fight back the “evil doers” and once again, “gift giving” by the United States was everywhere. Pakistan had its sanctions lifted and $50 million erased (initially with more to follow) from its debt. The UN also lifted sanctions on Sudan. The United States agreed to this lifting of sanctions because, it said, Sudan was being cooperative. Jordan’s
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king signed on as a partner, but only after signing a free-trade agreement with the United States. The minority Tajiks and Uzbeks of Afghanistan, known as the Northern Alliance, or anti-Taliban forces, are, at the time of writing, perhaps the most notorious recipients of both American and Soviet gifts in the “war on terrorism.” Once the sworn enemies of both empires, the Northern Alliance now receives military supplies, equipment and training befitting the combat forces of the wealthiest nations in the global economy. All of these transactions, whether in the form of debt-forgiveness, trade-agreements or military might, are considered “gifts” by the receivers. Indeed, by the criteria of Mauss, they are in fact, gifts and by universal standards would imply solidarity among parties and prolonged alliance. They are therefore obligatory transfers of inalienable objects or services between mutually obligated transactors. Yet, by all accounts, the United States’ administration has acted more like a purchaser engaged in a commodity exchange, negotiating the price of alliance, not participating in on-going interdependent relationships, never associating gifts with givers. As James Carrier points out, gifts are exchanged between groups of ongoing interdependence, commodity transactions are made between self-interested, independent actors with no further expectations.15 3. The Gift of Death: The Economy of Sacrifice Like Mauss, both Derrida and Nietzsche recognize the role of obligation and indebtedness in gift economies. We can find the central distinction between Mauss’ functionalist understanding of the gift and those of Derrida and Nietzsche in the notion of the duty of death. For Derrida and Nietzsche, the problem of sacrifice as an intergenerational gift economy, one which indebts one generation to the next, lay in its logic and justification. The logic of sacrificial gesture is that, in taking away our life, or the life of another, in the very destruction of life, exists the possibility of creating and affirming life. We must see the pursuit of life and the freedom to live as ultimately, the most desirable ends, requiring any means necessary, including killing of self and other. The justification of sacrificial gesture is located in Judeo-Christian morality, in the collective acceptance that a life is worth living even if at the expense of the living and the dead at the same time; even if it requires total annihilation. The logic and justification of sacrifice, both invoked in the names of God and Country, serve to conceal the inherent contradiction of “life through death,” a residue of Judeo-Christian morality and its close relative, the ideals of the enlightenment project. Such a morality ensures that sacrificial acts, committed by successive generations are inscribed into the historical memories responsible for the encouragement of the reproduction of these values. Modern humanity then, continues to pay a debt to Abraham, who raised his sword to
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sacrifice his son Isaac, in pious obedience to his God (who therefore, via intergenerational debt, remains our God). Historical memory, for the most part, is central to both Derrida’s and Nietzsche’s sustained argument of the gift of death. For Derrida, an economy of ethical conduct is subordinate to one of divine reward—a residue of the Abrahamic faith that has withstood the endless transformations of JudeoChristianity over three thousand years. For Derrida, the central question lay with the gift of death. How did the act of suicide differ from the act of sacrifice? What was the difference “between putting oneself to death” or dying for another? His examinations are integral to understanding the Taliban call to jihad, or the struggle for purity and the American call to the “defense of American values and interests” as both parties have surrendered to dying in giving the gift of sacrifice. The negation of life and the complete destruction of the self and the other is the simultaneous disappearance of that which both parties seem to struggle for: life. The Derridian understanding of the gift exchange is not a structural one whose function is social cohesion and solidarity in a particular society. On the contrary, Derrida recognizes that popular historians’ histories are an economy of exchange, indebting one generation to its predecessor in an endless spiral of indebtedness and sacrifice through the theological themes of salvation and redemption. This spiral is deeply intertwined with the themes of empire and the contemporary variants of these themes, order, and development. For both the Taliban and the United States’ administration, both salvation/order and progress/development are integral to “the people,” the nation of America, and the continuity of an authentic and pure Islamic struggle. The theme of salvation is an ideology that predates Christianity, although it was pivotal in converting pagan populations during the first millennium to make several different kingdoms of monotheism from the Roman Empire to Byzantium to the Ottomans to the Reformation. In the sixteenth century, the imperative to save souls and baptize heathens greatly aided royal familysponsored, colonial explorations. In the twentieth century, the same ideology served to justify Euro-America’s claim to be saving the God-fearing peasants of non-aligned countries from the atheistic empire of Soviet communism to the so called traditional societies. This all too well-known culturally produced fear and anxieties lingering in the social-psychic realm of American society ever since McCarthyism. In the era of advanced capitalism, the discourse of saving souls has been altered somewhat to that of saving the global economic order. The EuroAmerican economic world order is threatened by many contemporary resistance movements in the forms of revivalisms of faith, political organizations, ethnic identities, and some a combination of these. As threats to the global order, the Francophone separatists of Canada, the Irish nationalists, the Arme-
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nians, Kurds, and Zapatistas, the Evangelical right in the United States among countless others have, combined, not earned nearly the notoriety of the movements referred to under the monolithic title of “Islamic Fundamentalism.” Since the end of the Cold War, if not before, “Islamic fundamentalism” has been increasingly identified as a threat to Euro-American global domination. The diversity and the many faces of contemporary Islamic revivalism initially tended to be equated with theocracies or small, radical guerilla groups. But, when many Islamic movements began to call for political liberalization and democracy, analysts were faced with a dilemma: The justification for the condemnation and suppression of Islamic movements was that they were violent extremists, small non-representative groups on the margins of society who refused to work with in the system and as such were a threat to both society and regional stability. The vision of Islamic organizations working today within the system has ironically made them an even more formidable threat to regimes in the Muslim world and some in the West. Those who once dismissed their claims as unrepresentative and who denounced their radicalism as a threat to the system now accuse them of an attempt to “hijack democracy.”16 In the economy of ethical conduct, as Derrida calls it, another residue of Abrahamic faith, intertwined with empire, is the idea of progress/development. The spiral of indebtedness from one generation to the next assumes progress. In the western cultural and philosophical traditions, progress is assumed to tie the past to the future with a seamless transition from the industrial era to the technological age so progress is measured both politically and economically with indicators of “democracy” and “capital” accumulation. This logic of progress seems to have sacrificed and neglected the social, political, and economic ills of the present day while being preoccupied with a utopian moment in the future. This logic, as we will later discuss, is located in the age of enlightenment—a project of individual reason and freedom. The destiny of man himself was left to his deeds and responsibility. Man was for the first time made responsible and calculable. Gifts in this economy are required to bring order and development that, although deeply rooted in the Judeo-Christian notions of salvation and progress, are exported as universal liberalism. These gifts entail debt service, democratic elections, the drafting of constitutions, and the discourse of protecting “human rights,” namely the rights of women. Leo Strauss develops further the extent to which liberalism speaks to the teachings of the “good life” on earth as they are rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Love of humankind is not a universal instinct but a resilient commandment, a residue of an imperative required for salvation.
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“We are waging a war to save civilization itself,” says the United States’ president. “We have our marching orders. Let’s roll.”17 Contemporary examples of the logic and justification of sacrifice, revenge, and death abound in corporate media. These categories are all connected, and have a logical order. But the vocabulary of the gift of death is never explained in its historical specificity. The relationship between the vengeful words of leaders and the events of 11 September 2001 is lost in the fragmented and disconnected ahistorical rhetoric of the savable and the damned. Did we live outside history before 11 September? If civilization is to mean global peace and harmony, did the world live in it before 11 September 2001? Or did only those countries participating in the liberal global economy live in peace and harmony? We cannot blame liberalism alone for the legacy of Judeo-Christian morality. Karl Marx and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel also drew on messianic promises of salvation and the progressive legacy of humankind to propel actors into the future. For them both, although the process of bringing history to fulfillment would likely involve pain and sacrifice, the actions of human beings were guaranteed from the ultimate anguish. As George Grant sees it, all previous thoughts, be they Plato’s or Marx’s, sought revenge on time (history). Even Marxism and liberalism were tainted by revenge in all its corrosiveness, as progressive theories they looked to future progress to redeem the suffering and injustices of the past. The intergenerational debt cycle continues into a revolutionary future. A secondary indication of participating in the economy of sacrifice is the engagement in the act of war. War is the penultimate means to the penultimate end, the uncompromising method of achieving the redemption of the soul. We regard the very act of giving ourselves in the name of a defense of our nation or faith in modern society as an act of sacrifice justified with the reward of guaranteeing the future through the memory of death. In the Toronto Star on 3 October 2001, the British prime minister was also talking revenge and war. “This, he said, is a battle with only one outcome—our victory, not theirs.” Like all the words of these two solid partners, Tony Blair’s were words of war, destruction and combat, not words of peace or harmony. For these heads of state, their ends have become their means. The language of a just war? To speak of a just war is to witness the suspension and contradiction of reason. A day before Blair’s announcement, a slightly different voice was heard in the Canadian House of Commons. The New Democratic Party leader Alexa McDonough insisted that the Canadian Government provide evidence either to the House or to the United Nations proving beyond a doubt the guilt of the suspected parties before justifying war. Without such evidence, she asked, “how can the prime minister even consider asking Canadian families to sacrifice their sons or daughters?” With evidence of guilt, the expectation of such a sacrifice from Canadian families is undoubtedly justified in her eyes. In a different continent and land, a Pakistani army captain
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shares similar sentiments towards war, violence and obligation. “It is the will of God, he says . . . I sent my son to fight one week ago. We have no word of him. I do not worry if he does not come again. He went to make God happy.”18 Derrida points out that the concept of responsibility and the desire to make promises are themselves occasioned by contradictions, or what Derrida calls, an “aporia” or “antimony”: This applies all the more to political or legal matters…what is thus found at work in everyday discourse, in the exercise of justice, and first and foremost in the axiomatics of private, public, or international law, in the conduct of international politics, diplomacy, and war, is a lexicon concerning responsibility that can be said to hover vaguely about a concept that is nowhere to be found, even if we cannot go so far as to say that it doesn’t correspond to any concept at all.19 For Derrida, the covenant between Abraham and God, a contract based on responsibility and promises, in this case the murder of his beloved son, Isaac, must first be seen as a sacrificial gesture, if sacrifice is to be understood as an act for furthering one’s own life either in this life or thereafter. Abraham knew, Derrida argues, and was prepared to carry out his command of God, his duty and responsibility—the sacrifice of his son: if the son is to be seen as the extension of his own self, then Abraham was certainly prepared to witness the sacrifice of his son without himself being sacrificed. This is the tale of a long chain from which modern humanity has not been able to break, ever since he uttered the name of “God.” Is it not the case, in the words of Nietzsche, “to breed an animal with the right to make promises, is not this the paradoxical task that nature has set itself in the case of man? Is it not the real problem regarding man?”20 The word “promise” is Nietzsche’s way not only of locating modern man but also making him responsible for surrendering to the historical “instinct” of a divine rule. Man was first made responsible for his actions, memories, and the absolute enduring of that which made him belong to a long story of events, the events of torture of flesh, and punishment for disobedience as sins, and the rewards for the commands and cruelty of life as a sacrifice, such as in the case of Abraham. 4. History and Cruel Economies: Lest We Remember Those Who Fought for Us What the events of the United States’ invasion of Afghanistan reveal, beyond its own imperial justifications, is the modern malaise in Nietzsche’s critique of the values of modernity and its membership requirements of guilt, duty and allegiance to either God, country or community. The altruistic sentiments of all
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parties involved in the Taliban-Anglo/American war contribute in succumbing to the contradictory logic and ancient justification of sacrifice in evoking duty to God and Country. All entail the dehumanizing process through which modern human beings acquire identity in the face of otherness. Most important, all reveal, as Nietzsche has written, that modern man has not broken the chain of commands and obedience, despite the promises of the enlightenment project and its categories of freedom and individual reason as the bridge between the past and a higher and a transcendental moment of human achievement in human faculty. We have not freed ourselves from the moral table of Judeo-Christian mores—or, from what Immanuel Kant refers to as the “self incurred tutelage.”21 For Nietzsche, finding satisfaction and pleasure in the suffering and pain of our moral memory is a dangerous faculty—this faculty must counteract the agony of memory if it wishes to remain undisturbed by the echoes of the past. For modern man to transcend such reactive practices requires, according to Nietzsche, a sense of forgetfulness; not a repression of the mind or of the Freudian unconscious, but “to close the doors and windows of consciousness for a time . . . to make room for new things . . . . is the purpose of active forgetfulness, which is like a doorkeeper, a preserver of psychic order, repose, and etiquette . . . . Man could never do without blood, torture, and sacrifices when he felt a need to create a memory for himself.”22 Nietzsche’s comments on the origin of instinct through which we realize pain and agony in a moment of remembering are programmatic statements on how to disrupt the intergenerational economy whose outstanding debts compel humanity to violence and destruction. Historical violence and the medieval cruelties of all three Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, were supposed to yield divine rewards in the eras to follow. The continuity of meaning in suffering, its ideological tendency and its divine rewards, have been recast in the modern era, Its vocabulary of sacrificial death as a heroic deed has been improved upon in a sense. In the contemporary global era of conflicts and human sufferings, these meanings in violence and sacrifice are now to be found and realized through various mechanisms of remembered narratives, one such narrative is located in the idea of “nationness,” and authenticated by the story of its genealogy. The origin of sacrifice is echoed here as both an idea and an action in the form of owing something to someone, to a generation, or to some past ancestors. In short, the logic, according to Nietzsche, is:
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[T]he conviction (which) reigns that it is only through the sacrifices and accomplishments of the ancestors that the tribe exists—and that one has to pay them back with sacrifices and accomplishments: one thus recognizes a debt that constantly grows greater, since these forebears never cease, in their continued existence as powerful spirits, to accord the tribe new advantages and new strength . . . what can one give them in return.23 This long invisible relationship with God, characteristic of Judeo-Christian morality, offers, in the language of Derrida: a contract that has a secret clause, namely, that, seeing in secret, God will pay back infinitely more; a secret that we accept all the more easily since God remains the witness of every secret. He shares and he knows; we have to believe that he knows. This knowledge at the same time founds and destroys the Judeo-Christian concepts of responsibility and justice and their “object.”24 These economies of meanings and values have contributed to, and helped shape the beginning of, yet another age of civilizational discontents and cruelties inscribed upon the human body. We must understand these systems of values in relation to the age of enlightenment; that age which claimed to have put man’s reason and rationality at the center of all affaires. The value of these values is deeply inscribed and incorporated into the fabric of the social, legal, economic, and the political. We could not do without them. These values that guide and connect us to the “prehistoric labor,” stand on guard, to make sure that other ideas and ideals do not enter and disturb the linear course of human actions and deeds. Despite the emphasis on rationality and reason and Western secular movement, human sacrifice has, in pseudo democracies, become more pronounced and normalized. Young men and women are educated and trained to kill others, if necessary, to give up their own life for what has been called the noblest of all causes. All this is in the name of the preservation of civilizational values that the average individual is incapable articulating. Military commanders and statesmen as the organizers and managers of violence have become cultural icons. War has become the exclusive property of statesmen and media. They have turned themselves into the sole authority on what constitute violence and war. They have become the Newspeak for contemporary issues. We cannot escape their religious dualism. Everything becomes justified in the name of fighting evil and preserving the good. The entire world is now reduced to a gladiatorial arena of combat described by apocalyptic thinkers such as Thomas Hobbes, Charles Darwin and Sigmund Freud. These, and others, are some of the values that are reproduced through various cultural mechanisms. Today, we are witnessing the intensification in the
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nobility of these nihilistic values more pronounced in recent events when the Euro-American empire is called to complete its project of domination of both man and nature. All imperial actions are the mimesis of the previous ones—the imitation of domination and sacrifice never seems to disappear. Responsibility for a gift as a covenant—the historical continuation of the moral notion of reason—contains both religious and secular notions of power. The notion of the sacrificial gift as an act of responsibility is an ancient religious value that continues to function and to have meaning for us in the present.
NOTES 1. J. O’Neill, Plato’s Cave (Norwood New Jersey: Ablex Publishing Corporation, 1991). 2. Branislaw Malinowski, Argonauts of the Western Pacific: An Account of Native Enterprise and Adventure in the Archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea (New York: Dutton, 1961). 3. Friedrich Nietzsche, On The Genealogy of Morals, vol. 13, The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche, ed. Dr. Oscar Levy (New York: Gordon Press, 1974), p. 70. 4. Marcel Mauss, The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies (NY: W.W. Norton & Co., 1990), p. 70. 5. James Carrier, “Gifts, Commodities, and Social Relations: A Maussian View of Exchange” in Sociological Forum Issue Online, 6:1 (Springer Science+Business Media B.V., Formerly Kluwer Academic Publishers B.V, 1991). 6. Duran Bell, “Modes of Exchange: Gift and Commodity,” The Journal of Socio-Economics, 20:2 (1991), pp. 155–167. 7. Mauss, The Gift, p. 65. 8. Ibid., p. 68. 9. Richard Mackenzie, “The United States and the Taliban,” Fundamentalism Reborn? Afghanistan and the Taliban, ed. William Maley (New York: New York University Press, 1998), p. 92. 10. Ibid., p. 96 (emphasis added). 11. Mauss, The Gift, p. 64. 12. Mackenzie, “The United States and the Taliban,” p. 96. 13. Ibid., p. 99. 14. Mackenzie, “The United States and the Taliban.” 15. Carrier, “Gifts, Commodities, and Social Relations.” 16. John Esposito, The Islanmic Threat: Myth or Reality? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 248–249). 17. Toronto Star (9 November 2001). 18. Toronto Star (22 October 2001). 19. Jacques Derrida, The Gift of Death (Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press, 1992), p. 85.
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20. Friedrich Nietzsche, On The Genealogy of Morals, ed. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Vintage Books, 1989), p. 57 (emphasis in original). 21. Immanuel Kant, “What Is Enlightenment?” The Portable Age of Reason Reader, ed. Crane Brinton (New York: Viking Press, 1956), p. 298. 22. Nietzsche, On The Genealogy of Morals (1989 ed), pp. 57–58 (emphasis added). 23. Ibid., p. 89. 24. Derrida, The Gift of Death, p. 112 (emphasis in original).
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Five STRATEGIC NONVIOLENCE IN AFRICA: REASONS FOR ITS EMBRACE AND LATER ABANDONMENT BY NKRUMAH, NYERERE, AND KAUNDA Gail M. Presbey 1. Introduction The three famous heads of State who led their respective countries from colonial rule to independence—Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Julius Kambarage Nyerere of Tanzania, and Kenneth David Kaunda of Zambia—all advocated nonviolent resistance against the colonial powers. Each came to power without having to organize armed resistance against the colonizers. They praised mass nonviolent action for its ability to encourage otherwise superior armed powers to capitulate to their demands and looked forward to leading their countries in a humane and democratic fashion. After taking office, each faced internal dissent or stiff opposition. In such circumstances, and to different degrees, they called upon the coercive power of the Western-style States that they inherited. Each concluded that to rule a country in non-violent fashion was impossible. In this paper, I will explore several questions. First, what characteristics of nonviolence make it at first an able tool for those protesting their oppression? Why does maintaining nonviolence become difficult, causing the protestors to resort to coercion and force after gaining the reins of State power? Is this difficulty a sign that nonviolence has limited usefulness, or does it indicate a need to change the structure and behavior of States? Have any authors addressed the issue of what nonviolence from a position of state power would look like? I will also discuss Nkrumah, Nyerere, and Kaunda’s positions on nonviolence and violence. Many whole books already discuss these three figures and their uses of violence and nonviolence. This paper, limited in scope, could never do justice if I attempted to pass judgment on the efficacy or morality of their statesmanship. For manageability, I will focus on the time just prior to, and just after they won independence. I will focus on the apparent contradiction that the same men who experienced the efficacy of nonviolence against the British colonial powers in their countries abandoned nonviolence as soon as fellow
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Africans challenged them in their countries. I will include discussion of interviews with Nyerere and Kaunda found in Guns and Gandhi in Africa: PanAfrican Insights on Nonviolence, Armed Struggle, and Liberation in Africa.1 Co-author Bill Sutherland draws upon his first-hand experience as an AfricanAmerican who came to Ghana to work with Nkrumah in the 1950s. He gives us some insights into the troubles and transformations that Nkrumah experienced. As a background for these three cases, I will briefly compare aspects of colonial rule to pre-colonial governance in Africa, and current Western-based models of democracy. While the European governments that ruled African countries had some amount of representative democracy at home, they ruled their colonies in an authoritarian fashion. The goal of colonial government was efficient administration. They instilled a repressive order to facilitate an economy based on extraction of resources from Africa and marketing of massproduced European goods to Africans.2 As historian of Africa Basil Davidson notes, Europeans never had preparing Africans for self-rule as one of the goals of their administration of the colonies. This deficit was a factor in the shaky transition from colonial rule to self-rule. Instead, colonial government provided examples of the use of coercive power—dictatorship—instead of democracy.3 Mahmood Mamdani, in his studies of colonial rule in Africa, notes that British colonial powers ruled through “decentralized despotism.” Colonists would conquer an area militarily, but strike an agreement with reigning chiefs and kings to let them continue in their positions of local power if they would accept the ultimate authority of the British. They gave local chiefs broad powers to rule in any way they saw fit as long as they turned over the required amount of taxes to the colonial government. Where the British did not find people organized by ethnicity and ruled by a chief, for example in a community self-governed by age sets or in a series of very small communities, they gladly amalgamated people into “tribes” and gave them a “chief”—doing some creative tradition-making.4 Striking a deal with local leaders from whom they might otherwise strip of all power appeared to be culturally sensitive but was actually quite manipulative. Peasants more readily accepted the continued rule of their traditional leaders and so did not fight the British directly. If disputes arose, the people usually directed their anger at their local leadership which had to absorb the shocks that came with changes under colonialism. There was a crucial difference between pre-colonial and colonial rule. In pre-colonial times, the relationship between the ruler and their people had a series of checks and balances. A chief would consult key parties before making any ruling. An emphasis on maintaining community consensus ensured that the leaders would hear legitimate concerns of the community and the people would not be marginalized. People had official channels to dissent from rulings of their leaders. Most communities understood that the chief, while having authority to make decisions, got that authority from the consent of the
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people.5 Were the people to disapprove of the chief and withdraw their consent, the chief could be removed. Once chiefs accepted British authority, their dependence on the consent of those ruled disappeared. A chief could make unpopular rulings and the people would be surprised to find out that the British curtailed their ability to oust the unresponsive chief. For example, if peasants refused to pay their taxes, the chief could call upon the military power of the British to ensure that the tax was collected. Therefore, while the situation might appear similar to the pre-colonial set-up, at the heart of things, there had been a radical change in power relations. Now, according to theorist on nonviolence Gene Sharp, the people always have the power to topple their government, which draws its power from the consent and cooperation of the governed. Sometimes the people (due to government repression) forget their power and presume that the government is a monolith which monopolizes all power, leaving them powerless. According to Sharp, nonviolent action can succeed when the people realize that they are the source of the dictator’s power. By withholding their cooperation, the dictator is rendered helpless. For example, if the people hold the purse strings to their rulers, they could threaten to cut off the ruler’s funds by refusing to pay taxes (as Henry David Thoreau suggested). In other situations, civil servants or soldiers could refuse to carry out their orders.6 The situation gets more complicated when a foreign government props up a local government, as is the case in colonialism. Local peoples could withdraw support from the local ruler and refuse to cooperate or pay taxes. But if that ruler can call upon reinforcements from the colonizers, the people will still be oppressed. The only way to solve a problem like that is to reach the people of the country doing the repressing—which is what the movement for independence of African countries did. It tried to influence British citizens to pressure their government to be humane and offer colonies independence. Hannah Arendt has a theory of political action, which explains that power is the product of consent freely given between peers. When people decide to act together in concert, their actions are effective and they are powerful. Echoing Sharp’s description of the role of the people in propping up their leaders, Arendt explains that a leader can only be effective when the people support that leader. Arendt insists that the use of violence or coercion is the opposite of power. Rulers resort to violence and coercion when they feel their power slipping. When people no longer cooperate, rulers escalate to using violence. Violence is not a manifestation of power but a sign that power is diminishing.7 Arendt’s analysis of power-violence dynamics is interesting. Using violence shows some amount of power: loyal troops, ability to gain supplies and hardware needed to engage in acts of violence. A truly powerless leader would have no loyal followers to carry out his commands. But a government in trouble could draw upon a stockpile of weapons gained from earlier cooperation even if
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current subjects refuse to manufacture arms or send new supplies. Arendt’s point was that if the ruler were able to convince the people to cooperate, violence would be unnecessary. In this sense, the turn to violence represents a failure. Violence or coercion can succeed in its aims or not, depending on the reaction of those who bear its brunt. Sometimes victims of violence internalize its message and decide to submit, even changing their minds and deciding to cooperate with the system. At other times, people submit to coercion but internally remain set against the source of violence, vowing to act differently as soon as the coercive power remits. Arendt focuses on the second dynamic. She suggests that such violence will be self-defeating since it does not change the minds of those for whom violence controls their outer actions. Those who have not been convinced wait for their opportunity to resist and will eventually do so. She notes warily that violence coupled with speech, often in the form of propaganda, can have the effect of convincing people to change their minds— and if so, changing minds and winning over wills helps a ruler who uses violence to regain power.8 Taking the foregoing into account, the thesis we will explore is whether Nkrumah, Nyerere, and Kaunda turned to coercion or violence when they felt their power slipping. Having inherited states shaped by colonial powers, they were able to draw upon the means of coercive violence stockpiled there. This resort to violence was part of the colonial model of governing. Bill Sutherland argues that this quandary will lead us to question the structure of the state instead of questioning nonviolence. At closing, we will explore this suggestion of Sutherland’s. We can see another dynamic in Nkrumah, Nyerere, and Kaunda’s use of violence. Each begins to use violence and repression as soon he was in the seat of power, a perspective from which it may appear that each was immune to retaliation. The British, with their army, could seem capable of harmful retaliation. Strategically, violence would not easily succeed against them. But those who bore the brunt of repression in the newly independent states were not well armed or organized. “Preventive detention” or outright killing could swiftly crush them. This idea of immunity to the repercussions of violence is, according to the above account of Arendt and Sharp, an illusion. But it is almost an optical illusion to the person in power, for whom the benefits of violence and oppression appear so concrete, with future reprisal a more distant and speculative result. The irony is, as nonviolent activists, each of the three had been hoping to induce some clear vision in the British, who had been in their position not long ago.
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2. Kwame Nkrumah During the 1940s, Nkrumah had lived in the United States and England, where he obtained education on a wide range of political theories. He also attended the Fifth Pan-African Congress in 1945, from which came a common platform for independence movements based largely on Mahatma Gandhi’s recently successful fight for independence in India. The platform held that independence would have to be a broad-based people’s movement and that freedom from colonialism, in the form of African socialism, would be won by the means of “positive action” which would refrain from violence.9 Gandhi’s influence in Ghana also came through Ghanaian soldiers who had fought for Britain during World War II. Housed at a big camp for Commonwealth soldiers in Durban, Geoffrey Adumah explained that Indians in South Africa challenged them, saying, why are you fighting for the freedom of the British if you are not free in Ghana? Why should 5,000 Britons rule over two million Africans? It was there that they heard of Gandhi’s nonviolent struggle in India. When the 65,000 ex-Servicemen returned to Ghana, many of them gathered in 1948 to write up and deliver a petition to the Governor, but police fired upon them as they marched to the Governor’s residence, and three were killed. In response, people following the marchers returned to Accra and rioted, burning stalls and stores, houses, and European cars. Komla Gbedema explained that the looting was fueled not only by frustration with the police over the shooting, but also by frustration with West African merchants who had been charging high prices in their stores. A nonviolent boycott had already been underway to put pressure on the merchants, but with emotions running high, the stores were attacked. Within a month twenty nine died and 237 were injured.10 In such a situation, emphasizing nonviolent discipline was a challenge. Nkrumah was not alone in trying to combine the insights derived from Karl Marx’s critique of capitalism—exposing colonial exploitation—with the non-Marxist idea that the struggle against capitalists could be won without violence. He led a successful positive action campaign during 1950–1951 to pressure Great Britain to grant internal self-rule to Ghana. He described positive action, in speeches and a widely-distributed pamphlet, as comprising strikes, boycotts, and non-cooperation. As Nkrumah later explained, “We had no guns, but even if we had, the circumstances were such that non-violent alternatives were open to us, and it was necessary to try them before resorting to other means.”11 In this quote Nkrumah shows himself as committed to the tactics of nonviolence, but not spiritually and morally committed to creedal nonviolence in the Gandhian sense. In Nkrumah’s autobiography, we see his uncertainty during his first use of positive action. He had met with Reginald Harry Saloway, the Colonial Secretary, to warn him of the impending action. Saloway argued that positive ac-
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tion would bring chaos and disorder. He charged that Africans could not be as successful as Indians could in using the method because Indians had practice in suffering pain and deprivation (alluding presumably to a tradition of Hindu asceticism) while Africans did not. For example, Gandhi’s use of general strike drew heavily on the concept and tradition of “hartal,” a day of mourning, familiar to Hindus.12 Regardless, Nkrumah still called for positive action on 8 January 1950. He called a general strike, suggesting everyone should stay home from work. By 10 January that year, he noticed that enthusiasm was waning and some stores reopened on 11 January. He wondered whether Saloway was right— whether Africans could not muster the discipline for nonviolent action. Fortunately, happy circumstances re-galvanized the movement that day. Walking through town, wondering what he would next do, a crowd began to gather and follow him. Before long, a large crowd gathered in front of the Evening News office. Addressing the people there, he asked everyone to fill Accra arena that evening. His speech at the arena, followed by favorable news coverage, got the movement back on its feet.13 Gandhi often emphasized the role of the press in a successful nonviolent action. That instance of positive action met with challenges. Editors who wrote sympathetic reports were arrested on charges of sedition. During violent outbreaks, provoked by the police, protestors killed two police. The British arrested Nkrumah and charged him with organizing an illegal strike. They reasoned that the purpose of the strike was not to solve a labor dispute but to pressure the government. They tried, unsuccessfully, to hold him accountable for the deaths of the two police officers. Still, not long after the general strike, the British agreed to internal governance. Nkrumah was elected as Leader of Government Business within the internal self-government.14 Sutherland and Meyer describe the use of positive action by Ghanaians as “a phenomenal success for Gandhian strategy.”15 By 1957, Great Britain granted Ghana independence. Nkrumah became Ghana’s first president. Sutherland’s first-hand experience with nonviolence goes far back into the 1940s and 1950s when he served a four-year prison sentence for being a conscientious objector after refusing the drafted during the Second World War. He was a co-founder of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). During the 1950s, nonviolent activists from abroad, including African Americans like Sutherland and Bayard Rustin, came to Ghana to show support for Nkrumah. They built on the beginnings of the nonviolent movement that had catapulted the president to power in an independent African state. Sutherland was also fleeing McCarthyism in the United States and looking for a place where he could express his political ideas freely.16
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Sutherland’s commitment to nonviolence contrasted with Nkrumah’s. Sutherland’s actions mirrored developments in nonviolence used in the Civil Rights Movement in the United States. On one occasion, he and Bayard Rustin, among Ghanaians and other Africans, joined the Sahara Protest Team. They went up through northern Ghana to what was then Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso) to protest French nuclear testing in the desert. They intended to blockade the entrance to the facility to draw attention to the ways in which the arms race was continuing in Africa. The Convention People’s Party supported their action. Abraham Johannes (“A.J.”) Muste was uncomfortable with the official government support of the nonviolent action since he had difficulty believing that any state, including Nkrumah’s, was truly devoted to nonviolence. Sutherland explains that Nkrumah supported their efforts because he wanted Ghana to be critical of the arms race. At the same time, Nkrumah was moving away from nonviolence as a method.17 Encouraged by the success of positive action in the early 1950s, many nonviolent activists had come to Ghana. When Muste, Ralph Abernathy, and others suggested, at a Positive Action Conference in Ghana in 1960, that a Pan-African nonviolence training camp be set up, Africans in attendance thought that these international advisors were dangerously romantic. Sutherland remembers Frantz Fanon giving a very sober and soft-spoken argument about the unfortunate necessity of violence in the cause of liberation. Afterward, Sutherland received a letter from Nkrumah saying they were going to set up an ideological school in Winneba, Ghana, and that a wing of the school would be devoted to nonviolence training where Sutherland could have a role in teaching. They did build the center at Winneba, but the nonviolence wing never materialized. Sutherland and Meyer bemoan, “The nonviolence advocacy so prominent in the 1958 All-African Peoples Conference, in the 1959 Sahara Protest Teams, and in the planning for the 1960 Positive Action Conference were all but eliminated from the mainstream of political discourse.”18 From its beginning, many problems beset the Ghanaian government headed by Nkrumah. Some authors speculate that from the start, the British governor, Arden Clark, negotiated the steps of independence in a way that a neo-colonial pattern was inevitable. In this “battle of wits” Nkrumah failed to beat his experienced opponent. Marika Sherwood wrote, “Nkrumah was a multilayered man and the world in which he operated was fractious and highly exploitative.”19 Under such circumstances, success would be difficult. Nkrumah’s exposure to a wide range of political and economic philosophies was a strength, but he could not meld these differing views and influences into a coherent and practical political philosophy and plan of action.20 Commentators have often suggested that United States’ businesses manipulated Nkrumah into taking out a huge loan to fund the Upper Volta River Dam project, plunging Ghana country into indebtedness.21 Nkrumah, who often saw
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destructive meddling of the United States in every coup attempt across Africa (including the eventual coup against him), never complained about the United States’ role in the dam project. To the end, he defended his decision to build the dam as necessary for the economic independence of Ghana and West Africa.22 An oft-repeated history of Nkrumah’s fall from power cites his increasing repression in the face of threats to his rule. While initially popular due to his funding of education and health care, indebtedness resulted from the projects. A “loyal opposition,” comprised of traditional chiefs led by Joseph Kwame Kyeretwi Boakye (J. B.) Danquah, who intended to rule Ghana upon its independence, had always existed in the country. These chiefs felt betrayed by the British when the reins of power were handed over to the young Nationalists—Nkrumah and his Congress People’s Party. Nkrumah, for his part, did not want the country run by “illiterates” whom he viewed as compromised by their years of cooperation with the colonial forces.23 When cocoa prices dropped on the market, compounded by Nkrumah taxing cocoa to fund national development, disgruntlement began in earnest. Nkrumah insists that the farmers, at first, supported the use of cocoa funds for development, but then politicians manipulated them to oppose it. He described the forces that eventually rallied against him as tripartite: local “reactionaries,” the chiefs and the foreign-educated middle class; foreign-trained army officers; and the foreign imperialists and neo-colonialists, Britain and the United States.24 In response to challenges to his policies, Nkrumah set up a series of increasingly repressive laws. Government could jail people without trial if they were deemed security risks. Beginning in 1961, anyone guilty of insulting Nkrumah could get a three-year prison sentence. In 1961, when a general strike was organized to protest against him (now on the receiving end of positive action), he took command of the armed forces. In 1964, he declared Ghana a one-party state. In his last two years in office, he withdrew into isolation, in great part out of fear of attempts on his life.25 He explained that he was in favor of one-party states only when the one party was committed to socialism, since a socialist party would be committed to “the will of the masses working for the ultimate good and welfare of the people as a whole” instead of to one class or another as in the two-party British system. He would be against one-party states run by neo-colonialists or tyrants. From his perspective, controlling multiple parties, which might break up along religious or ethnic lines, was a necessary measure in a time of national emergency when the security of the State was at stake. At first forcing all opposition groups to merge into one, he later tired of the “disunity” and “confusion” stirred up by the opposition party and banned it in 1964.26 Arguably, this pattern of increasing coercive measures was a sign, not of increased power, but of his losing power as Arendt describes. To be sure, Nkrumah was up against formidable opponents and his opponents were able to
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use the media to win people’s minds and cooperation away from his policies. Ghana gained its independence during the Cold War when superpowers fought over spheres of influence in ways that could turn smaller African countries into political footballs. Regardless, while the coup-plotters did use some violence to attain their goal, to an extent, as Gene Sharp’s theory would predict, their job was easier because people no longer wanted to stand in solidarity with Nkrumah. He recounts with bitterness how his most trusted aides quickly abandoned him upon news of the coup. In such a context, retaining power was exceedingly difficult. Nkrumah does not admit that the coup against him had popular support. He argues instead that his officers did not fight but capitulated because they were surprised with a fait accompli. He also argues that many officers of the armed forces were British-trained and unduly susceptible to British propaganda claiming that he was a dictator.27 Nonviolent activists counter that the ability of one person to disrupt an assembly is a sign of tacit acceptance by all those who remain silent and do not stop the disruptive one. No one rising up to stop the coup was a sign that Nkrumah’s rule was largely unpopular. Nkrumah’s “personal ruling style” was autocratic. Would his policies have succeeded if he had adopted a different ruling style? His underlying political philosophies were also conflicted. While he adopted the Gandhian techniques of positive action advocated by the Fifth Pan-African Congress, Marxism also greatly influenced his thinking. Marx held that rule by force is necessary because those in power will not willingly give up their power in deference to moral arguments, for example. Likewise, a need exists for a “vanguard”—those politically educated intellectuals who can better understand the true interests of the masses, since the proletarians (in this case, the peasants) might have an erroneous idea of what is in their best interest. Seeing himself as an enlightened “vanguard,” deciding to use force on his people, for their own good, was an easy step to take.28 Earlier gains that resulted from working with the people nonviolently for change could appear cumbersome, especially when reaching agreement on a wide range of issues no longer looks easy. Getting the people to do things by force and coercion, as did the colonial government before, could appear to be a productive shortcut. Nkrumah comes across as someone in a hurry to bring the gains of socialism and independence to his people. He later suggested that gaining independence nonviolently may have been a drawback. He conjectured that had they won independence by armed struggle, they could have established socialism immediately.29 But to imagine that violence would have been a better foundation for socialism may be unrealistic. In some cases (Ethiopia, for example), socialist
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governments founded in violence have not always worked well. The issues are complicated; many books have been written on the topic. We cannot easily resolve the issues here. For our purposes, we see that Nkrumah, looking over the years of his rule and his eventual ousting and exile, was quicker to doubt his use of nonviolence than his use of coercion and violence. In his later book, Handbook for Revolutionary Warfare, he called war logical and inevitable. He claimed that in Africa there was no alternative.30 Sutherland recounted his objection to Nkrumah’s Preventive Detention Law instituted in 1960. He wrote Nkrumah a confidential letter outlining why he thought the policy was wrong. Soon afterward, Nkrumah’s Secretary of Home Affairs, Krobo Edusi, told Sutherland he was lucky that Nkrumah did not have him deported immediately. Edusi warned Sutherland not to bother the president with such matters in the future. He was not deported, but the incident encouraged him to think of leaving. He packed his bags and set off for Tanganyika (later Tanzania). As he explained, with his desire to spread the knowledge of techniques of nonviolent action to other parts of Africa, he was drawn to both Nyerere and Kaunda.31 3. Julius Nyerere Present-day Tanzania was earlier called German East Africa on the mainland, later to be called Tanganyika when it became a British League of Nations mandate in 1920. In 1946 it became a United Nations Trust Territory under British administration. Zanzibar, the island off the coast of the mainland, became a British protectorate in 1890. Each got its independence separately from Britain, the former in 1961 and the latter in 1963. In 1964 they joined together to create Tanzania. Originally colonized by Germany, Africans rose up against their colonizers in the Maji Maji Rebellion in 1905–1906, in which 120,000 people were killed through fighting or starvation. In 1914–1916, the British fought and captured the mainland territory from the Germans. Julius Nyerere, a schoolteacher educated at Makerere University in Uganda, was involved in the creation of Tanganyika African National Union (TANU) and the movement for self-government in Tanganyika since the early 1950s. During this struggle, he had traveled to Britain to forge working relations with the British Labour Party. He also went to the United States to speak before the United Nations and to meet with the Maryknoll Fathers, with whom he shared many ideals. Nyerere believed Tanganyika received independence without fighting because there were few white settlers in the country and it was economically underdeveloped.32 Luckily he received cooperation from the last British governor of Tanganyika, Sir Richard Turnbull. Mark K. Smith argues that “Nyerere’s integrity, ability as a political orator and organizer, and readiness to work with different groupings was a significant factor in inde-
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pendence being achieved without bloodshed.”33 He became prime minister of independent Tanganyika in 1961, a position from which he quickly resigned, and then was elected president in 1962. While Nyerere has been widely respected throughout his long career, he has upheld certain restrictive legal aspects of the Tanzanian government similar to those in Nkrumah’s Ghana, such as the use of preventive detention, creation of a one-party state, and the broadening of the powers of the president. John Hatch noted that some journalists speculated the reason Nyerere so soon stepped down from the position of prime minister was to avoid direct responsibility for the soon-passed Preventive Detention Act and the banning of unions. Nyerere always defended the new government’s actions, even when he was not the one in charge.34 In his speeches and writings, Nyerere emphasized the values of peace, freedom, and unity. While violence might be able to destroy the old colonial system, it could not build up the new free society. While Nyerere did not hold a strict nonviolent position, he did claim that violence should only be used as a last resort.35 In an interview with Sutherland and Meyer just prior to his death, Nyerere explained that although he is a Christian, he could never agree with “Do not kill, full stop.”36 People sometimes have no choice but to use violence against an oppressive state. He explained that his own stand on nonviolence was not “philosophical” but merely practical. He reflected that his reputation as an advocate of nonviolence might have been built during the time of the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya. He tried to encourage Tanganyikans to renounce violence in their independence movement. But he could not insist that all hold the same position regardless of circumstances. He described the context of Africa in the 1950s and 1960s as a continent manipulated by superpowers in a Cold War. Success of the independence movement was the most important goal. Any violence happening in South Africa, for example, was the fault of the apartheid regime, not the liberation movement. The extent of depending on violence as a tactic differed from country to country. The African National Congress (ANC) had an extensive political network; their violent actions were more like propaganda—meant to send a serious message but not capable of military victory. But in Mozambique and Angola, armed movements such as the Liberation Front of Mozambique (FRELIMO) and the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) had little or no political structure or communications capability. They were only an army; so only military means were available to them. To give up the option of violence would be to completely dismantle the only existing movement for liberation. But the Tanzanian opportunity for liberation was different, and he explained: “I didn’t want bloodshed for nothing, because it was possible for us without it.” 37 Nyerere impressed nonviolent activists with his statements upon Tanganyika’s independence, which came in the context of a growing arms race be-
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tween the superpowers. He said disarmament would be a good thing. He also stated that his country and many countries in Africa were not armed. To set an example for the superpowers, he suggested that newly independent African countries should not arm themselves. After all, why would they need an army? Their immediate neighbors were not planning on attacking them. In 1964, when Tanzania had only about 2000 armed soldiers, some of the soldiers in the Calito barracks on the outskirts of Dar es Saalam decided to mutiny. They were protesting serving under British officers, and wanted better pay. More labor dispute than an attempted coup or protest against the government, the soldiers still were armed and dangerous. They marched on Nyerere’s residence. He wanted to reason with them, but his wife and aides insisted he flee. After all, at this time, many coup attempts on African leaders were occurring. Nyerere finally called the British to request help. As Hatch describes the scenario, “This contravened every belief he had fought for, affronted every instinct, and gave him a deep sense of shame he could not assuage for many months.”38 Tanzanians saw their government as quite weak if a handful of soldiers could challenge it so easily. After the British forces handled the situation, Nyerere asked if the British troops in Tanzania could be replaced with African soldiers. Nigerian soldiers (who were still part of the British army) took over the duties of the white British soldiers. Subsequently, Nyerere decided he must train a new defense force. He ensured that a significant part of their training was political education so that they would understand and uphold the ethics and objectives of their government. This experience convinced him of the necessity of armed forces for any State. He sent his own sons to China to do military training.39 Nyerere supported guerrilla fighting against Portugese colonizers in Angola and Mozambique, practically bankrupting Tanzania in the process. He also supported the toppling of the regime in Comoros in 1975, and in Seychelles in 1977. Idi Amin’s Ugandan forces attacked Tanzania in 1978, in retaliation for Tanzania supporting groups hostile to his regime. It took the Tanzanians months to mobilize their troops, but when they finally did, they drove the Ugandan forces out of Tanzania, and then 12,000 of their troops occupied part of Uganda. The Organization of African Unity condemned Tanzania for the foray into a foreign country.40 Needless to say, while these military adventures were far from his earlier nonviolent approach, he was loved across Africa for his devotion to the cause of liberation. Nyerere disagreed with Sutherland’s criticism of Nkrumah’s use of preventive detention. He claimed that Tanzania needed the same kind of laws. He reasoned that while they should prevent torture and abusive situations in detention, defending the security of the nation is necessary. Preventive detention is justified because community comes before individual rights. He argued that African countries are no different from many other states: courts are significant,
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but “when the security of the nation is threatened, the court system is not enough.” 41 This recent expression in Nyerere’s interview with Sutherland is the same as his 1964 speech at the University College of Dar es Saalam. Then he argued that the Preventive Detention Law was “an inevitable part of my responsibilities of President of the Republic.”While he retained defending the rights and freedoms of each individual as a worthy ideal, he argued, “our ideals must guide us, not blind us.”42 Let us look at the details of Tanzania’s situation that appear to have led Nyerere to conclude he had no choice other than preventive detention. Reginald Herbold Green explains that under Nyerere’s rule and even up to the 1990s, the effectiveness of the rule of law in Tanzania was limited. Lower courts were often incompetent. Participation in the courts was expensive. Local people often could not understand what went on in the court. Revisions to law were slowly and sporadically recorded and implemented. The police and prosecutors were under-funded, understaffed, and often lack expertise. Under such circumstances, investigations and prosecutions were of poor quality. Because of this, “the government has not infrequently lost cases with significant political overtones.”43 A 1978 Amnesty International report said that “Indefinite detention without trial continues to be the means favored by the [Tanzanian] Government to deal with any alleged offence (including corruption) when it fears that it has insufficient evidence for a trial.”44 Nyerere thought of preventive detention as unfortunate, but better than alternatives like rigging trials, or suffering a coup perpetrated by unstoppable opponents.45 How did Tanganyika and Zanzibar legislate and practice preventive detention? James S. Read outlines several laws that allowed the Executive to detain persons without judicial intervention. One was part of the colonial legacy, called the Deportation Ordinance of 1921. To combat growing nationalism in its colony, the government could restrict the movement of a subject to a small area—in effect, detaining them. It provided an early model for the later Preventive Detention Act, instituted one year after independence. With this new act, the government gained the ability to detain anyone without charges secretly and for any length of time. The act gave the president very broad powers. Based on mere subjective factors, he can decide to detain anyone he suspects will breach peace and good order, or who might jeopardize the defense and security of the State.46 Under the Refugees Control Act of 1966, refugees had even fewer rights than Tanzanians under the Preventive Detention Act. A government minister had the power to detain refugees that were believed to be harming Tanzania’s relationship with another government. The act also allowed detention of any refugee whom the government thought had probably committed a crime in another country. The refugee had no chance for legal defense, did not have to be
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guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and the government had no duty to state the reason for the detention. The Political Officers’ Power of Arrest allowed regional and area commissioners to detain suspects for up to forty-eight hours while they awaited appearance before a magistrate. Zanzibar, which had internal self-rule, drafted its own Preventive Detention Decree the year after Tanginyika, in 1964.47 To what use were preventive detention laws put during Nyerere’s presidency? According to Read, Tanzania drafted the Preventive Detention Law to deal with a developing confrontation with trade unions. The government worried that strikes by workers would hurt the national economy. During Nyerere’s presidency, estimates of the number of people detained were in the thousands. In 1977, Amnesty International knew the names of 141 known political detainees.48 Under the Refugee Act—which amounted to legal abuse—leaders of liberation movements in other countries were encouraged to bring their prisoners to Tanzania to be held in custody. In 1978, Nyerere finally ordered the release “of twenty members of South African liberation movements, including eleven [South West African People’s Organization] SWAPO members who had been arrested in Zambia (where detainees are protected by justifiable constitutional guarantees) and transferred to Tanzania. Some of these had been detained for up to seven years.” Read suggests that the most unfortunate aspect of the act was the impression it created that “personal liberty was at the disposal of the authorities, to be granted or withheld at will, rather than a basic right enjoyed by every individual.” 49 People were at the mercy of those who might be acting out of jealousy or revenge. Not all cases of detention appear justifiable. Read does credit Nyerere with keeping the ideal of rights and freedom alive in people’s minds, even during all the years that he claimed the practical necessity of overriding those rights. Tanzania amended the Preventive Detention Act in 1985 to strengthen the rights of detainees, although it still fell short on several key issues. In Nyerere’s last term of office, the Tanzanian people finally passed a Bill of Rights that provided them legal defense.50 Nyerere also advocated one-party rule for Tanzania, run by his party, TANU. As he explained, his party was based on equality, respect, freedom, and unity, all of which would be of great service to Tanzanians—so how could he allow opposition to those principles?51 In the beginning, Tanganyika was de facto one-party, since voters cast 1,127,978 votes for Nyerere compared to Zuberi Mtemvu’s 21,276 votes. By the 1965 elections, the constitution supported a one-party system. Nyerere espoused his rationale that one party could reach out to the people and widen citizen participation so that a narrow group of professional politicians would not win the elected seats. Subsequently, voter participation rose from less than twenty-five percent in 1961 to over seventy-five percent in 1965.52
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Still, not all Tanzanians were happy with a one-party government. Aikael N. Kweka explained that in this context offering criticism of the way things were done was difficult, since criticism was considered disloyalty to TANU. Nyerere emphasized that although there would be only one party, people should feel free to express their opinions, even criticizing the government. But in 1965, two Ministers of Parliament were expelled from the party for criticizing it and they lost their seats in Parliament. This harsh treatment sent a message to other politicians. The problem, Kweka explains, is, “Although the people were told that they were free to criticize, they did not know when this would be taken for opposition or even considered harmful to the State.”53 Because of these practices, some people experienced the Party as oppressive and undemocratic. Nyerere repeatedly emphasized the importance of democracy, but he thought that socialism had to alleviate dire poverty and bring about a certain level of economic equality before democracy could have any genuine meaning. As Green explained, hunger and never-ending work schedules robbed many people of experiencing other freedoms enshrined in the concepts of human rights.54 While apparently putting rights on the back burner, Nyerere appeared to want to include grassroots participation in decision making regarding economic development. He often (although not consistently) emphasized decentralization of decision making to local communities. In his political leadership, Nyerere did not insist on self-importance. He wanted to be treated as an ordinary person and not a master over others. He insisted that leaders should not be arrogant or oppressive.55 His position on one-party states, he explained, was flexible. By 1986, he realized that the oneparty style of government in Tanzania was doing more harm than good, and that TANU needed to be shaken up and jolted into taking responsibility and doing a good job or risk being voted out by a rival party.56 In 1990, he stated that suggesting multi-party democracy in Tanzania would not treasonous. The one-party system had been a historical necessity, but that could change. He set up a presidential commission and drew up a list of shortcomings of one-party democracy. Based on this, Parliament passed the Eighth Constitutional Amendment in 1992, allowing multiple parties.57 Nyerere believed that coercion, as part of the responsibility of running a state, is unavoidable. Green summarized Nyerere’s position, “A legitimate State having reached a decision by legitimate methods has the duty as well as the right to enforce that decision.”58 A famous example was his compulsory relocation of people into villages so that all would have access to education and health facilities. Nyerere also defended his earlier idea that Africa should take the socialist road to development, through ujamaa (familyhood, emphasizing community and cooperative crop growing) villages. Under capitalism, he explained, Africa would always be a junior partner, dependent on foreign investment. He be-
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lieved socialism to be more consistent with African values, although to choose it in the contemporary global context would not be easy. While Nyerere did force people to move, he did not coerce them to produce communally. There were incentives to do so but no legal penalties for not doing so.59 Sutherland offers his analysis, that bureaucrats working in the Tanzanian government stifled the ujamaa villages. We can imagine the frustration that Sutherland and others felt when they saw functionaries crush a good idea that enjoyed popular support.60 Tanzania appeared to represent a chance for a socialist alternative to capitalist development voted in freely and led by a wise statesman. Unfortunately, those who either did not agree with the ideals of the new movement or could not set aside self-interest to give the ideals a chance bogged down the project on intermediate levels. It seems to this writer that Nyerere wanted to uphold the ideal of rights while allowing the flexibility to ignore rights when he deemed necessary. Immanuel Kant warned against this self-serving position on morality. He cautioned us about people who wanted others to uphold moral laws while exempting themselves.61 It is interesting that, despite Nyerere’s practices of preventive detention, he is popularly thought of as a great supporter of human rights, perhaps because of the role he played in the mid-1990s in trying to stop ethnic persecution in Burundi. Upon Nyerere’s death in 1999, an obituary noted, “Although he was harsh with his critics and detained some indefinitely without trial, Nyerere never acquired notoriety for human rights abuses.” 62 There are, however, a few critics: Smith notes that “There does appear to have been a disjucture between his commitment to human rights on the world stage, and his actions at home.” 63 Nyerere’s bold and confident statements regarding justifying his practice of preventive detention seem to point to little or no self-recrimination on his part. Nyerere’s turn from nonviolence to violence was perhaps not that difficult for him because he hadn’t embraced nonviolence in a creedal, Gandhian way in the first place. His Christian background could just as well support a “just war” approach, and in fact liberation theology was influencing Catholicism at that time. Nyerere’s support of noble causes, the “underdogs” against racist colonial government as well as home-grown dictators like Amin, were easy candidates for just wars. However, Kaunda’s version of Christian thought brought him closer to Gandhian nonviolence, and so for Kaunda, the move from nonviolence to violence was more filled with self-questioning. 4. Kenneth Kaunda Kenneth Kaunda of Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) was one of the most outspoken supporters of nonviolent action. He was first introduced to Mahatma Gandhi’s writings by Rambhai Patel, a storekeeper in Lusaka. He de-
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scribed Gandhi’s method of satyagraha as “a lifebelt thrust into the hand of a drowning man.” 64 In 1954, police searched his house and arrested him for having banned publications authored by Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. He spent two months in prison. In 1958, he visited India. When, in 1963, he received an honorary degree from Fordham University in the midst of the struggle for his country’s independence, he gave a great tribute to Gandhi and predicted that, like Gandhi, they would wear the British down until they finally got what they wanted. Throughout the struggle, Kaunda endorsed nonviolence and spoke against racialism. He told people not to attack white settlers. He hoped to win over white voters so that they would support him in a nonracial movement. He based his philosophy on Christianity, which he argued showed that Africans were human beings like anyone else. Despite these seeming assurances, the British increased security, suspecting that people could interpret his remarks as condoning attacks against material possessions such as railways, roads, and bridges.65 The context in Northern Rhodesia was quite different from Tanzania. Many white settlers in Rhodesia were fighting against colonial rule. Fearing that white settler rule would be harsher than the British rule, Kaunda and his group opposed federation with Southern Rhodesia and insisted on remaining as a colony until the British would give the African majority self-rule. Kaunda was first involved with the Zambia Congress (ZANC) and worked with Harry Nkumbula. Later, while Kaunda and others were in jail, ZANC was banned. Other opposition groups joined together and founded the United National Independence Party (UNIP), which Kaunda headed upon his release from jail. They finally won independence in 1964.66 Insisting on nonviolent discipline was not easy. Colin Legum comments that Kaunda’s staunch nonviolent stand is particularly amazing, considering that Algerians had already won their independence using violence, and South Africa, Zambia’s near neighbor, had rejected strict nonviolence in their own struggle in 1962. Legum was also concerned that the mood of angry frustration among Zambians made the nonviolent Kaunda an unlikely leader.67 Kaunda himself clarified that he thought some countries, like those African colonies ruled by Portugal, may have no option but to turn to violence, but that in his own country, it was still possible to reach the rulers with a conscience. He also iterated that the capabilities of nonviolence were still largely undiscovered and that he estimated it was a method of great potential. On the level of propaganda, he admitted calculatedly, it is important not to lose the moral advantage which one receives by being the injured party. In the meantime he admitted that his own and others’ attempts to be nonviolent would be necessarily imperfect. He often admitted that officers of UNIP had been convicted of rioting, murder, assaults on the police and incitement to violence, but he never condoned this violence. Kaunda often cautioned that inability to get political progress constitutionally would put more pressure on his own people to turn to
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violence. Reflecting later on this early stage of the struggle, he noted that nonviolence works especially well if it is contrasted to immanent or existing violence, and he admits that he played the role of the rational alternative to the more violent movements in Zambia. 68 In May 1959 a white woman, Mrs. Lilian Burton, was brutally killed in Zambia, and in response, the colonial government banned UNIP. The British blamed UNIP for an inability to control the people. But Kaunda, who was then in London, told the press that he regretted the attack and wanted to continue to persuade his people to stick to nonviolent discipline. He wrote a letter to family member Robert Burton in which he reiterated that love is a superior force and hate should be eschewed. A few weeks later he met with Robert Burton and other family members in London. Roy Welensky argued that Colonial Secretary Iain Macleod realized he needed to work with the nonviolent Kaunda, as an alternative to those who wanted to “shoot” their way to independence, and met with him in London that month. When Kaunda returned to Zambia he found that European settlers were engaged in a counter-terror response, with “hooligans” meting out punishment to random Africans. Kaunda denounced this reciprocal violence as well. 69 Kaunda went on a 3,000 mile pilgrimage across Zambia, preaching nonviolence. Historian Fergus MacPherson explains that many Zambians “were explicit in the view that they ‘liked’ Kaunda’s leadership ‘because there was no bloodshed in his way of fighting for our freedom.’” 70 Zambians called their campaign for freedom “Cha Cha Cha” meaning, in rough translation, “face the music.” 71 They had huge bonfires of African Identification Certificates, reminiscent of Gandhi’s earlier burning of passes in South Africa. Not all Zambians could maintain nonviolence in the face of fierce provocation by government troops and police excesses. Up to Kaunda’s arrival in London to negotiate independence, he continued to appeal to those in his country to stop “stonings, assaults, unlawful assembly, riot, arson, murder, unlawful wounding and obstruction of the police.” 72 North Rhodesia had its first African party government in the January 1964 elections. During the campaigning, Kaunda had repeatedly preached against violent retaliation against whites. Just after the elections, he found his party and African rule attacked by a small group that rejected African nationalism and supported continuation of colonial rule. The Lumpa sect, which followed the prophetess, Alice Lenshina, was a local offshoot of Christianity based in Kaunda’s home district, Chinsali. Followers refused to obey the government and were hostile toward UNIP. They built stockades around their villages and terrorized their neighbors. In the battles that ensued from July– October 1964, 700–1,500 people lost their lives.73 What caused the Lumpa to rise up and fight UNIP? In the 1950s, the Lumpa were favorable to nationalism, but that changed by 1957. Nationalism
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focused on peasants, unlike the proletarians who flocked to UNIP. Andrew Roberts said UNIP had become a way of life, central to members’ identity. The members generally followed mainstream Christianity, so the increasing membership threatened the Lumpa religion. Wim van Binsbergen speculated that the Lumpa leadership benefited from colonial relations. They did not want Africans to rule them. Robert Kaunda, a deacon in the Lumpa church, went further and charged that agents of Welensky’s United Federal Party offered Alice Lenshina 8,000 pounds to break with UNIP, which she reluctantly accepted. This was interpreted as an attempt by Kaunda’s enemies to use the Lumpa to derail the new government. Lenshina warned her followers not to register to vote or hold a party card. They were advised not to honor the Zambian flag or national anthem. By 1964, they had forbidden their children to attend school and they barricaded themselves in their villages. Because the Lumpa opposed UNIP they were seen not only as political opponents of Kaunda but even as “enemies of the nation.” 74 Although Kaunda agonized over the use of force against Lumpa intransigence and uprising, he continued the state of emergency started by the governor of Rhodesia up to 1972. MacPherson notes that “the baleful irony of the situation was that Governor Hone had to invoke, against the Lumpa sect, Emergency powers first enacted in the Preservation of Public Security Ordinance by a virtually white Legislature to counter Kaunda’s movement for national sovereignty.” 75 Kaunda spoke on a radio broadcast and made a statement to the National Assembly explaining that “we are dealing with a completely fanatical sect whose members are not only prepared to die for their faith and consider it a passport to Heaven to do so, but who are also prepared to kill as many other people as they can before they die themselves.”76 He justified his use of force afterward, in many speeches suggesting that the Lumpa sect was engaged in sorcery and that his government was moral and Christian. In contrast to Kaunda’s militaristic approach, van Binsbergen thought that the country needed reconciliation between UNIP and the Lumpa. That happened slowly, culminating when their prophetess, who had been imprisoned, was finally released in 1975.77 The Lumpa sect, and another called the “Watchtower,” which also rejected the new African-run state, comprised only five percent of the population. Could the new government allow them to question its authority? In addition, their small number made them an easy military target and the nature of their beliefs may have led Kaunda to believe that he could not reason with them. Were those two factors part of the true cause of his switch to violent methods? Kaunda seems quite reflective about the way in which he was forced, while in office, to change from the believer in nonviolence who challenges a government in power, to that of a head of state in charge of a military. He wrote The Riddle of Violence on the subject, published in 1980. In it he de-
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scribes the dilemma of a ruler. He described the strange feeling when one enters government for the first time, which seems like a new world. One walks the corridors where one’s opponents once resided and worked. When one earlier encouraged people to not pay taxes, one is now in the position of encouraging people to pay taxes. Where one once told people to boycott schools, one is now telling students to attend school. One also sees the “levers of power” under the surface, and one must banish the fond hope that one need not touch them. To stand by and do nothing while a small group arms itself and denies the legitimacy of the new government is not an act of innocence.78 He was pained by his decision to use force, perhaps because, as Arendt would say, conscience is the part of self that realizes through inner reflection the inconsistencies of ideals with each other or between ideals and actions.79 As he stated, “If we must even contemplate offering violence to our fellow human beings it is always better to do so against the pressure of an uneasy conscience.” 80 Many of Kaunda’s statements in The Riddle of Violence show his frustration with his critics (whether external critics or his own conscience) which explains how he had no choice but to use the coercive machinery of the state to defend it against the Lumpa and other internal enemies. He challenges, people can’t seriously expect him as Head of State to dismantle the army and police, and empty the prisons. After all, one has to fight evil, it will not just go away of its own accord. Since dialogue alone can’t solve all problems, all states must use compulsion and violence. He explains that when they took over the Zambian state from the British, “we climbed on to an escalator already on the move, by which I mean that Zambia like every other state was already caught up in the vicious circle of violence.” 81 Sutherland and Meyer had an opportunity to interview Kaunda for Guns and Gandhi. After many years in power in a one-party state, he had been defeated in a multi-party election, where 81 percent of the popular vote went to his opponent, Frederick Chiluba. Kaunda and Sutherland engaged in a lively debate about the continued practicality of nonviolence. Kaunda conceded that Gandhi was a saint, but he, by contrast, had chosen the path of a politician. Sutherland countered that such ideas distort Gandhi’s ideas, since Gandhi stated that an individual did not have to be a saint to participate in a nonviolent struggle. Sutherland insisted that nonviolence advocates eschew violence not because they are rigid, but because they are trying to break a cycle of violence.82 Kaunda related his ideas on nonviolence to the nature of the state and to human nature. Human beings need the state because they imperfectly love God and their neighbor. Because of their imperfection, they need an authority, which provides the framework of order and justice. Once human beings reach moral and spiritual perfection, they will no longer need police, prisons, and oppressive State machinery.83
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While Kaunda certainly shows himself to be a reflective and sensitive person, who more than most grappled with the dilemmas of being nonviolent in our current world, his comments in the interview as well as in his book veer from the profound moral quandary, to the seeming excuses for abuses of power. While it may be the case that contemporary states cannot realistically give up all means of coercion, there are matters of degree. Not all of Kaunda’s decisions seem to be as cautious regarding wielding coercive power as one might hope, given his sensitive conscience. 5. Conclusion Nkrumah, Nyerere, and Kaunda each used nonviolent methods against the armies of the British. Each turned to preventive detention and other repressive measures once in power. Each refashioned their state into a one-party system. Each defended the use of force by the state as a necessity in our current world of nation-states. Nyerere explained, “Once you’ve accepted the nation-state, you accept the consequences—including armies, including security service bureaucracy, police and the lot.”84 Before colonial rule, African chiefs would have counselors and listen to their people. Even people who threatened the safety of the chief were merely fined as a consequence.85 After independence, many African governments incarcerated or even killed people for criticizing the president. Is taking “state security” to such extremes part of the inheritance of the European-style nation-state? Basil Davidson’s The Black Man’s Burden calls the nation-state a curse put upon Africa. Perhaps the worst part of the curse is inheriting armies that could do the bidding of a president, including trampling on the human rights of the citizens.86 But not all nation-states are equal in this trampling. Some nation-states can seriously apply themselves to becoming participatory democracies, decreasing the occasions on which force is used. A system of checks and balances—like an independent and functioning judiciary—can stop the excesses of executive power. The timing of each leader’s turn to coercion and violence warrants further exploration. Each turned to violence in the early months or years of the newly independent state. Possibly each turned to coercion due to a crisis in authority. They each attempted to assert their authority in a context where it questioned or challenged by incorrigibility. Are all states violent by nature? African heads of state inherited armies, police, courts and jails based on the Western model, but that does not necessarily entail that they would have to accept the use of violence. For Arendt, action, but not violence, is central to all politics. Violence is a sign that political action, based on dialog and consensual agreement, is breaking down. A state, where the public realm thrives and where people can express their diverse
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views and act politically in concert with each other—is always a good thing.87 This model of responsiveness is found in some of the examples cited by Mamdani of chiefs responsible to their communities and listening with open ears to their counselors. While certainly our three Heads of State would easily agree that working out problems through dialogue and mutual agreement is preferable to violence and coercion, they may state that nevertheless in certain circumstances, nonviolence is a luxury that cannot be afforded. Kaunda insisted that one cannot rely on dialogue always solving problems. He knew that Gandhi and nonviolent activists would say that the gains of violence are not long lasting; problems not addressed at their root causes but “solved” quickly through violence will crop up again. But Kaunda built on this metaphor: “War is just like bushclearing—the moment you stop, the jungle comes back even thicker, but for a little while you can plant and grow a crop in the ground you have won at such terrible cost.”88 Such statements suggest that repeated wars and repression are inevitable, but that one should not overlook the small gains in the midst of the wars. Kaunda also argued that while his critics might say that colonial tyranny was merely replaced by African tyranny, he must point out that even that is still a gain—”most people would rather be dragooned by their own kind than by aliens.”89 He cautioned that he did not want his remark to give the impression that he was not opposed to tyranny. Certainly any time we critique new African states we must keep in comparative context the suffering Africans endured under colonial rule. Our three heads of State also had the challenges of being pioneers of a new situation, in “uncharted waters” so to speak. Even Gandhi had slim experience in ruling a nation nonviolently. When India got its independence, Gandhi bowed out of holding public office. His Indian National Congress took over the military and police. Gandhi wrote about how the police could be redeployed in development projects, and how armies could become superfluous if Indian citizens would organize themselves to repel external aggressors nonviolently.90 But these ideas were not implemented, so no one yet knew if they would work. Without an alternative precedent, it is not surprising that the African Statesmen followed the paths that they took. But this points to a need to develop nonviolent strategy to include the neglected later stage of nonviolent statecraft. Glenn D. Paige is one contemporary political scientist who is exploring what he calls “nonkilling” political science. Paige suggests that states should renounce their usually accepted role as those who both threaten and carry out lethal force to “those who do not conform to public order.”91 It may be difficult for a state to imagine renouncing lethal power since it considers itself to have a duty of providing security. But this transformation of the state can come in stages, and can work progressively in several states at once. He describes an “unfolding fan of nonkilling alternatives” that can begin with high
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technology interventions in killing zones that reduce fatalities, and go further to include socialization and cultural conditioning for nonviolence, and to restructuring economies and social stratification so that systems do not “require lethality for maintenance.”92 A society which begins by being pro-violent (considering state violence to be beneficial for society) can become ambivalent, and then violence-avoiding (“predisposed not to kill… but prepared to do so” to finally nonviolent (once societal conditions have been changed enough to support a nonviolent structure). 93 In order to make these changes, there need to be revolutions in education, institutions, methods and norms. Certainly it is understandable that news Heads of State who inherited state systems that were far from this nonviolent model could not make drastic changes overnight. In the short run, their hands may have been tied by lack of concrete alternatives. But such appeals to realism should not preclude seeking the longer-term goal of a nonkilling, nonviolent state. Gandhi drew a distinction between what he called nonviolence of the strong, and nonviolence of the weak. He feared that India was resisting the British nonviolently because they considered themselves to be weak, having no choice but to be nonviolent since they would fail in use of violence. Gandhi instead wished that the Indian people could realize that they came from a great position of strength, due to their greatly outnumbering the British as well as their coming from a long spiritual heritage. He wanted Indians to have the experience of (psychologically) realizing their strength, and then renouncing this ability to do violence. That would be the nonviolence of the strong. He began to doubt that his comrades in the movement could do so. But one who comes from a position of strength, and then renounces violence, has an experience of self-discipline that eludes the weak person.94 It is similar to what Sara Ruddick describes as a mother’s renunciation of using violence against her own recalcitrant child; she will not use her own size and psychological strength advantage against the child but rather restrains her superior power, modeling what Ruddick thinks is a helpful model for nonviolence in the political sphere.95 We could speculate that, if during their fights for independence, our three Heads of State had more experiences of practicing “nonviolence of the strong,” they could have more easily resisted the temptations to use their strength advantage of their new position to the detriment of their opponents.
NOTES 1. Bill Sutherland and Matt Meyer, Guns and Gandhi in Africa: Pan-African Insights on Nonviolence, Armed Struggle, and Liberation in Africa, Foreword by Archbishop Desmond Tutu (Trenton, N.J.: Africa World Press, 2000).
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2. Henry L. Bretton, The Rise and Fall of Kwame Nkrumah: A Study of Personal Rule in Africa (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1966), pp. 13, 15. 3. Basil Davidson, The Black Man’s Burden: Africa and the Curse of the Nation-State (London: James Currey, 1992), pp. 173–181, 208. 4. Mahmood Mamdani, Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism (London: James Currey, 1996), pp. 41, 53–63. 5. Ibid., pp. 44–45. 6. Gene Sharp, The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Volume 1: Power and Struggle (Boston: Porter Sargent, 1973), pp. 7–62. 7. Hannah Arendt, Crises of the Republic (New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1972), pp. 140–143, 152–155; and “Hannah Arendt on Power,” Philosophical Perspectives on Power and Domination: Theory and Practice, eds. Laura Duhan Kaplan and Laurence F. Bove (Amsterdam: Rodopi Press, 1998), 29–40. 8. Hannah Arendt, Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises in Political Thought (New York: Penguin, 1985), p. 229. 9. Ibid., p. 25; and Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana: The Autobiography of Kwame Nkrumah (New York: International Publishers, 1957/1971), pp. 52–53. 10. Interviews with Geoffrey Adumah and Komla Gbedema, Freedom Now: 1947-1990, PBS “People’s Century” series and . 11. Nkrumah, Ghana, pp. 103, 111, 114; and quote from Sutherland and Meyer, Guns and Gandhi, p. 30. 12. Nkrumah, Ghana, p. 116; and Joan Bondurant, Conquest of Violence: The Gandhian Philosophy of Conflict (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967). 13. Nkrumah, Ghana, pp. 117–119; and Sutherland and Meyer, Guns and Gandhi, p. 31. 14. Ibid., pp. 121, 124, 164. 15. Sutherland and Meyer, Guns and Gandhi, p. 31. 16. Sutherland and Meyer, Guns and Gandhi, pp. 4–6. 17. Ibid., pp. 36–41. 18. Ibid., p. 42. 19. Marika Sherwood, “Kwame Nkrumah: The Father of African Nationalism, by David Birmingham,” (book review), International Journal of African Historical Studies, 32:1 (1999), pp. 151–152. 20. Ibid. 21. Ibid. 22. Kwame Nkrumah, Dark Days in Ghana (New York: International Publishers, 1969), pp. 49–50, 83, 91, 95–96. 23. Davidson, The Black Man’s Burden, pp. 103–105. 24. Nkrumah, Dark Days in Ghana, pp. 48, 57. 25. David P. Johnson, “Nkrumah, Kwame,” Africana: Encyclopedia of African and African American Experience, eds. K. Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates (Basic Books, 1999), p. 1441. 26. Nkrumah, Dark Days in Ghana, pp. 63–64, 67. 27. Ibid., pp. 29–30, 44–45.
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28. Bretton, The Rise and Fall of Kwame Nkrumah, pp. 61, 84. 29. Nkrumah, Dark Days in Ghana, p. 71. 30. Sutherland and Meyer, Guns and Gandhi, p. 48. 31. Ibid., p. 63. 32. John Hatch, Two African Statesmen: Kaunda of Zambia and Nyerere of Tanzania (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1976), pp.111, 143. 33. Mark K. Smith, “Julius Nyerere, Lifelong Learning, and Informal Education.” Infed Encyclopedia, (2005) http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-nye.htm. 34. Hatch, Two African Statesmen, pp. 179-80. 35. Aikael N. Kweka, “One-Party Democracy and the Multi-Party State,” Mwalimu: The Influence of Nyerere, eds. Colin Legum and Geoffrey R. V. Mmari (London: Britain-Tanzania Society/James Currey, 1995), p. 61–79, esp. p. 73. 36. Sutherland and Meyer, Guns and Gandhi, p. 83. 37. Ibid., pp. 82-83. 38. Hatch, Two African Statesmen, pp. 145, 200. 39. Ibid., pp. 201, 253–254, 259. 40. “Tanzania,” Africanet Online Encyclopedia . 41. Sutherland and Meyer, Guns and Gandhi, pp. 86–88, citation p. 87. 42. James S. Read, “Human Rights in Tanzania,” Mwalimu, pp. 138–139. 43. Reginald Herbold Green, “Vision of Human-Centred Development: A Study in Moral Economy,” Mwalimu, pp. 80–107, citation, p. 95. 44. Read, “Human Rights in Tanzania,” p. 140. 45. Green, “Vision of Human-Centred Development,” p. 95. 46. Read, “Human Rights in Tanzania,” pp. 137–138. 47. Ibid., pp. 141, 143. 48. Ibid., p. 137, 149. 49. Ibid., p. 143 and 139 respectively. 50. Ibid., pp. 141, 144. 51. Kweka, “One-Party Democracy and the Multi-Party State,” p. 69. 52. Hatch, Two African Statesmen, p. 186. 53. Kweka, “One-Party Democracy and the Multi-Party State,” pp. 68, 71. 54. Ibid., p. 72; and Green, “Vision of Human-Centred Development,” p. 80. 55. Kweka, “One-Party Democracy and the Multi-Party State,” pp. 72, 74; Green, “Vision of Human-Centred Development,” pp. 86–91; and Hatch, Two African Statesmen, p. 198. 56. Green, “Vision of Human-Centred Development,” pp. 84–85, 94–95. 57. Kweka, “One-Party Democracy and the Multi-Party State,” pp. 75–77. 58. Green, “Vision of Human-Centred Development,” p. 91. 59. Ibid., p. 92. 60. Sutherland and Meyer, Guns and Gandhi, pp. 89, 91–92. 61. Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1956), p. 91. 62. Rodrique Ngowi, “Father of Tanzania Dies at Age 77,” Associated Press, Oct. 14, 1999 . 63. Smith, “Julius Nyerere.”
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64. Kenneth Kaunda, The Riddle of Violence, ed. Colin Morris, (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1980), pp. 15, 18, citation 18. 65. Hatch, Two African Statesmen, pp. 63, 78, 152, 167, 170, 173, 238. 66. Ibid., pp. 61, 161. 67. Colin Legum, ed., “Introduction,” Zambai, Independence, and Beyond: The Speeches of Kenneth Kaunda (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1966), p. xii. 68. Fergus MacPherson, Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia: The Times and the Man (Lusaka: Oxford University Press, 1974), pp. 309-11; and The Riddle of Violence, pp. 35, 51-52. 69. MacPherson, Kenneth Kaunda, pp. 312-315. 70. Ibid., pp. 350-51. 71. Ibid., p. 145. 72. Ibid., p. 351; citation p. 411. 73. Hatch, Two African Statesmen, p. 176; and Wim van Binsbergen, “Religious Innovation and Political Conflict in Zambia: A Contribution to the Interpretation of the Lumpa Rising,” Religious Innovation in Modern Africa Society, eds. van Binsbergen and Robert Buijtenhuijs (Leiden: Afrika-Studiecentrum, 1976); revised reprint in van Binsbregen, Religious Change in Zambia: Exploratory Studies (London/Boston: Kegan Paul International, 1981). 74. MacPherson, Kenneth Kaunda, pp. 410-411. 75. Ibid., p. 443. 76. Ibid. 77. van Binsbergen, “Religious Innovation and Political Conflict in Zambia.” 78. Kaunda, The Riddle of Violence, pp. 36-38. 79. Hannah Arendt, The Life of the Mind, Vol. 2: Willing (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, pp. 185–186). 80. Kaunda, The Riddle of Violence, p. 179. 81. Ibid., pp. 24, 41-42, 62, 137, citation p. 42. 82. Sutherland and Meyer, Guns and Gandhi, p. 101. 83. Hatch, Two African Statesmen, p 246. 84. Sutherland and Meyer, Guns and Gandhi, p. 87. 85. Mamdani, Citizen and Subject, pp. 44–45, 86. Davidson, The Black Man’s Burden, p. 208. 87. Hannah Arendt, Collected Papers, vol. 64 (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1968), pp. 014368–014369; Arendt, Crises of the Republic, pp. 140–43, 152–55. 88. Kaunda, The Riddle of Violence, p. 78. 89. Ibid., p. 79. 90. Mohandas K. Gandhi, The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (New Delhi: Government of India Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, 1988), 48:417–420 (10 December 1931); Mohandas K. Gandhi, The Essential Writings of Mahatma Gandhi, ed. Ragavan Iyer (New Delhi: Onford India Paperback, 1993), pp. 264–265. 91. Glenn D. Paige, Nonkilling Global Political Science (New Delhi: Gandhi Media Center, 2002), p. xix. 92. Ibid., p. 78 93. Ibid.
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94. Gandhi, The Collected Works, 88:336 (8 July 1947); 88:356 (17 July 17 1947); Gandhi, The Essential Writings, pp. 238–39, 247. 95. Sara Ruddick, Maternal Thinking: Toward a Politics of Peace (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995), pp. 66-68, 166-67.
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Six THE TREASURE OF JAPAN’S ARTICLE 9: THE WORLD’S FOREMOST LAW FOR PEACE, JUSTICE, AND NONVIOLENT CONFLICT RESOLUTION Charles Martin Overby 1. Introduction I wrote this paper before 11 September 2001. Since that day, I have been climbing out of a deep well of anger and depression at the tragic loss of innocent lives. We must find the persons responsible and bring them to justice. Instead of a military rampage as outlined by President George W. Bush, presently being carried out by his administration, I would have preferred cooperative international police work to bring the perpetrators to justice before the World Court or the International Criminal Court (ICC). Unfortunately, the United States frequently thumbs its nose at the World Court and has yet to support the ICC, perhaps for fear of having its own leaders, one day, charged for their crimes. War is an atrocity that devastates innocent human beings everywhere. My experience as a pilot in the Korean War helps me understand that Asian anguish over innocents killed, is as painful and real as that in New York City and Washington. This is why I am so deeply interested in Japan’s law, its constitution’s Article 9, renunciation of war. Article 9 implies that Japan must use non-violent means to resolve inevitable conflicts. We, as a species, urgently need to adopt this kind of law in all our tribes (nations). There is no military solution to the 11 September 2001 atrocity any more than a military solution could remedy the huge demand for illicit drugs in America. Unfortunately, history demonstrates that our leaders appear addicted to the military-violence drug. We profoundly need to ask why such hostility to our government exists. Notice, I said “government” not “people.” We then need to begin to work cooperatively with other nations and people with whom we share this beautiful planet—instead of swamping them with our arrogant super-power unilateralism. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, in his 4 April 1967 speech, “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today—[is] my own government.”1 I think
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that King’s assessment is perhaps even more appropriate today. Michael S. Sherry, a historian with whom I agree, describes the United States as a nationalsecurity-state engaged in “the contradictory and tense social process in which civil society organizes itself for the production of violence.”2 This paper discusses a sad and mostly unknown tale that substantiates some of Sherry’s ideas. On 3 May 1947, Japan adopted a new constitution. Article 9 of that constitution reads: Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.3 I see Japan’s words of wisdom in Article 9, metaphorically rising like a phoenix out of the flames and holocausts of World War II, as humanity’s cry for an end to the bestiality and brutality of the dominantly masculine institution called war. Unfortunately, almost as soon as the Japanese constitution was adopted, United States–USSR cold-war paranoia blossomed in its full-fledged illness such that the United States soon became the chief external architect for Article 9’s destruction. The Korean War was a significant early milepost on Article 9’s death-march. The Vietnam War further accelerated the marching pace, and as we discussed in A Call for Peace, the 1991 Gulf War—an “oil-resourcewar”—increased United States passion for Article 9’s destruction.4 The United States’ and Japanese governments (and governments in general) feel mightily threatened by Article 9’s rejection of war as a sovereign right of the nation-state. How frightening that the age-old myths of militarily oriented testisocracies (my term for “rule by men” in contrast to gynecocracy, “rule by women”) all over the face of planet Earth might be undermined by its wisdom. What massive damage a thriving Article 9 “law” in national constitutions could do to our hallowed delusion that military means provide solutions to problems on our beautiful planet Earth and in outer space. If we allowed Article 9 principles to flourish, we, as a species, might even come to embrace that feminine-like heresy which suggests that cooperative nonmilitary, non-violent means (under rules of law) are worth a magnificent try. Do not misunderstand me. I am male, and I am not male-bashing with my comments. In my view, we, as a species (both sexes), will be much better off—have less violence—when we achieve more balance on the femininemasculine continuum in our perceptions, actions, and institutions. Most of our institutions (including war) presently carry a strong masculine flavor.5
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I am also a veteran of two United States’ wars, World War II (noncombat) and the Korean War (combat pilot). In The Origins of the Korean War, Bruce Cumings analyzed the factors that led to that conflict.6 As I have come to know more about the origins of the Korean War and about war in general, I have come to feel downright disgust with the idea and practice of mass slaughter and destruction called war. Most people have never heard of this treasure, Article 9. They are completely ignorant of the half-century of United States’ and Japanese governmental efforts to kill it. The United States has obfuscated most facets of their role in these murky dealings. Covering a broad range, these include early Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) subversion of Japanese elections,7 re-arming Japan,8 propagandizing and frightening Japanese citizens about their impending destruction from the impoverished so-called rogue-state, North Korea, and the most recent Orwellian “doublespeak” initiated on 23 September 1997, “Guidelines for U.S.-Japan Defense Cooperation.”9 One intent of this propagandizing and frightening appears to be to get the Japanese government to join the United States in wasting their human and material resources on missile defense folly. I discussed these attempts to kill Article 9 at greater length in a paper I presented at Hofstra University in 2001.10 The United States has identified North Korea and several other small, developing nations around the world as so-called rogue states. Noam Chomsky suggests that the real contemporary rogue state is the United States.11 In late August 2000 my wife, Ruth, and I traveled with Peaceboat from Vancouver, Canada, to Tokyo, Japan, and then on for a week in North Korea, the place I had helped to flatten during the Korean War. We concluded that North Korea is a very economically poor nation. The idea that this small country is any kind of a threat to the United States or Japan appears quite ludicrous. Peaceboat, organized by Japanese youth, dedicates itself to educating its paying passengers on the obscenities of war, and other forms of violence going on around the world, including violence against Mother Earth herself. This cruise ship takes its passengers to places around the world where these obscenities take place. Peaceboat youth encourage passengers to ask what they might do about these terrible things. Like Article 9, and most other matters relating to East Asia, Peaceboat is virtually unknown in America.12 When I am invited to travel with Peaceboat, I give lectures on Article 9 and my ideas on Green Technology by Design, a philosophy of product and system design whereby we adopt two new design criteria at the very beginning of the engineering design process: (1) to minimize the consumption of earth’s resources, and (2) to minimize pollution of our ecosphere. This approach would help to prevent “resource wars.” 13 Recent events in the United States are not healthy for Article 9. A United States’ military think-tank, the Rand Corporation, wrote a report in late 2000,
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addressed to the United States’ President-elect George W. Bush. With respect to United States policy in Asia, it recommends: [T]he United States should support efforts in Japan to revise its constitution, in order to allow it to expand its security horizon beyond territorial defense and to acquire appropriate capabilities for supporting coalition operations.14 Kim R. Holmes, vice president and director of The Heritage Foundation, a rightwing voice that has the ear of President Bush, opined that Article 9 should be reevaluated.15 The Bush administration quickly sent strong signals that it likes the ideas in the Rand report and feels threatened by Article 9’s existence. How will we, in America, keep our weapons industries thriving with high-paying jobs if Article 9 should be allowed to live with dignity and if other nations become infected by this idea that “the right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized?” In the remainder of this paper, I will first briefly touch current threats to Article 9: the United States’ initiated 1997 “guidelines for United States’– Japan defense cooperation,” and United States’ current phobic policy toward North Korea as a means to help fund United States domination and militarization of space. Then, I will propose a Nobel Peace Prize for Article 9 and for the Japanese people who struggle to keep the United States and Japanese governments from completely killing it. Finally, I will argue that leaders in United States’ and Japanese governments perhaps should be charged, before the recently created ICC, with crimes against peace and crimes against humanity for their past halfcentury of effort to kill Article 9 and for their failure to actively and forcefully promote it as a most desirable “law” for all nations. 2. Guidelines for United States–Japan Defense Cooperation: 27 September 1997 These guidelines for United States–Japan defense cooperation consist of arrangements for luring the Japanese government to enlist its “Self-DefenseForces” for use by the United States in future Asian wars or other situations.16 The guidelines have Orwellian words on “situations in areas surrounding Japan” and explicate that these situations are “not geographical but situational.” What deliberately ambiguous and evasive language! The 11 September 2001 tragedy led to new legislation in Japan and apparently a 25 September 2001 agreement between Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and President Bush to head Japanese warships to the Indian Ocean for purposes of carrying out surveillance and intelligence missions for United States’ war on terrorism. This is a new
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violation of the already massively violated Article 9 made possible by the 1997 guidelines and lackey-like tendency for Japan to follow unquestioningly. The United States seeks surrogate armies around the world to fight United States’ battles.17 In a future conflict with China, instead of American forces directly doing the killing, would not it be healthier to have Japanese and Chinese youth slaughtering each other? Along the way, what would be the harm of indiscriminately annihilating innocent civilians, perceived by the United States’ policy makers as not so very important Asian “collateral damage?” Obviously, the 1997 guidelines do not specifically say that United States’ intent is to get Japanese soldiers to do United States’ fighting. But when we contemplate the last half-century of United States’ dominated United States’–Japan relations, the pattern is easy to discern. In order for Japan to participate in these 1997 guidelines, the Diet had to enact legislation that again deceitfully “reinterpreted” its responsibilities under the already massively fractured “war and military prohibitions” of Article 9. Let us now move to a different domain that illustrates the continuing United States remilitarization of Japan in violation of Article 9, namely using North Korea to help fund United States militarization of space. 3. Sabotage of Korean Reconciliation Talks In June 2000, South Korean President Kim Dae Jung and North Korean President Kim Jong II held non-violent conflict-resolution talks in Pyongyang, North Korea. This is a result of Kim Dae Jung’s long time interest in reaching out in friendship for reconciliation with North Korea after a half century of United States’ paranoia. For a while, their dialogue seemed to be progressing with only minimal United States’ and Japanese governmental contamination. Then came the November 2000 United States’ presidential elections giving America a new president, George W. Bush. Since then, it has been downhill all the way for these “non-violent rapprochement” talks between North and South Korea. If the United States lost impoverished North Korea as a threat, with which to frighten United States’ and Japanese citizens, continuing to feed America and Japan’s rapacious weapons industries would be difficult. By pumping out a continuous barrage of frightening propaganda about “rogue state missile-threats,” the United States’ and Japanese governments deceive their citizens into not objecting to the spending of multiple billions of dollars and yen on worthlessly ineffective and dangerous national and theater missile defense systems. If I were a leader of one of these so-called rogue states, wishing to harm another nation, I surely would not be so stupid as to try to use a grossly primitive missile. I would probably bring the device to its proposed site in a suitcase
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or, as terrorist Timothy McVeigh, trained in the United States Army, did in his 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, use a rental truck. In my opinion, the present United States’ government cynically knows that missile defense is worthless—but missile-defense is their vehicle to keep the dollars flowing for their real objective, which is United States’ militarization and domination of space.18 Professor Theodore Postal, an MIT missile expert and critic of United States’ star wars ideas, has written extensively on these matters. He was especially critical of the United States’ Patriot missile used in the 1991 Gulf War, as being worthless. 4. A Proposal for a Special Nobel Peace Prize for Article 9 No person has been killed by a Japanese solider in military action since the end of World War II, says my friend and colleague in Japan, Douglas Lummis. Without question, Article 9 is chiefly responsible for this remarkable fact. What a fantastic record of which to be proud! Contrast Japan’s record with the killing score since the end of World War II for the United States, the USSR, and Russia, to name but a few of the prominent ones. Japan has practiced abstinence. It is true that Japan has reinterpreted, violated, and sought to kill Article 9. It is also true that Japan presently has one of the largest military establishments in the world—all with significant United States’ encouragement. Yet, this beautiful wisdom, Article 9, damaged as it may be, has maintained Japan as an “abstinence” nation relative to the military killing game. I therefore recommend a proposal to the Nobel Peace Prize committee to award a special kind of “two-pronged” Nobel Peace Prize to Japan’s “sovereign citizens” and to Article 9. The people deserve the award for their over half-century struggle to keep Article 9 alive. Article 9 deserves the award for being the unquestionable “leash” on Japan in military killing. The United States’ and Japanese governments have been almost silent about the merits of Article 9. If we could creatively achieve the proposed Nobel Prize, its prestige would immensely help to let the world know of the existence of this wonderful Article 9 wisdom, and of Japanese people’s long-standing struggle to keep her alive for the benefit of us all. Such a prize would give a magnificently stimulating shot of adrenaline to our Japanese friends who are losing hope because of the overwhelming magnitude of United States and Japanese governments’ Article 9 assassination practices and plans. For us to encourage Japanese people is crucial, for only they can insist that their government stop killing Article 9. This Nobel award would enable Japanese supporters of Article 9 to:
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(1) restore Article 9’s integrity in Japan; and (2) persuade the world’s nations to permit and actively encourage this one major economic power, Japan, to become an experimental nation (a) to demonstrate ways and means to prevent wars and violence; and (b) to demonstrate how to use non-violent, non-military, holistic-cooperative means for resolving conflict. What is wrong with one major nation demonstrating non-violent alternatives to the folly of seeing a military solution for problems? 5. Crimes against Peace and Humanity Article 9 arose like a phoenix out of the holocausts of World War II, as humanity’s cry for an end to this evil, obscene, and absurd institution called war. Any leader of any nation who has deliberately sought to destroy this Article 9 treasure, and by so doing has failed to nurture and promote its wisdom, should be charged with crimes against peace and crimes against humanity. We need the help of legal scholars and activists to draft a set of appropriate charges to be brought against living United States’ and Japanese leaders who have played a role in the destruction of Article 9, and who have failed to properly promote Article 9 as a profoundly hopeful model for all nations on planet Earth. In doing so, we will need to draw on precedents set by the World War II Nuremberg and Tokyo war-crimes trials, the Yamashita Precedent, and recently established ICC procedures.19 Japanese General Yamashita was hanged shortly after the end of World War II on the count of “having omitted to do what he ought to have done.” Obviously, my recommendations will not happen tomorrow. To bring them to fruition, we need creative legal construction especially because the United States prefers unilateralism. It ignores world institutions such as the United Nations, World Court, and most recently, the newly formed International Criminal Court. These difficulties should not deter us from seeking peace and justice by this route.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am indebted to many people and sources that have influenced my assessments. I am grateful that these people have reached me. I feel it my professional responsibility to list a few of the more significant ones, and the book by each that has influenced me: John Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan In The Wake Of World War II; William J. Fulbright, The Arrogance Of Power; Shoichi Koseki, The Birth of Japan’s Postwar Constitution; Walter LaFeber, The Clash: U.S.–Japan Relations Throughout History; and Richard H. Minear, Victor’s Justice: The Tokyo War Crimes Trial.”
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1. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Beyond Vietnam,” A Call to Conscience: The Landmark Speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., eds. Clayborne Carson and Kris Shepard (New York: IPM in assoc. with Warner Books, 2001). 2. Michael S. Sherry, In the Shadow of War: The United States since the 1930s (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1995). 3. Lummis, Douglas, The Constitution of Japan (Tokyo: Kashiwashobo Publishing Co., 1993). 4. Charles M. Overby, Masao Kunihiro, and Kazuma Momio, A Call for Peace: The Implications Of Japan’s War-Renouncing Constitution (Tokyo and New York: Kodansha International, 1997), p. 65. 5. Ingeborg Breines, Robert Connell, and Ingrid Eide, eds., Male Roles, Masculinities, and Violence (Paris: UNESCO Publishing, 2000); and Michael S. Kimmel, The Gendered Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000). 6. Bruce Cumings, The Origins of the Korean War, vols. 1, 2 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981, 1990). 7. Michael Schaller, Altered Stats: The United States and Japan since the Occupation (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). 8. Michael Green, Arming Japan (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995). 9. The New Guidelines for Japan-U.S. Defense Cooperation (Japan Defense Agency, 1998). 10. Charles M. Overby, “US-Japan Foreign Policy: The Birth and Death of Article 9,” given at the Conference, “2001: A Peace Odyssey” at Hofstra University and the Peace History Society, 8–10 November 2001. 11. Noam Chomsky, Rogue States: The Rule of Force in World Affairs (Cambridge, Mass.: South End Press, 2000). 12. 13. Overby, Kunihiro, and Momio, A Call for Peace, pp. 173–203. 14. Frank Charles Carlucci and Robert Edwards Hunter, Taking Charge: A Bipartisan Report to the President-elect on Foreign Policy and National Security (Santa Monica, Calif.: Rand, 2001). 15. Kim R. Holmes, “Japan Needs to Re-Evaluate View of Article 9,” Asahi Shimbun (English ed.), 27 August 2001. 16. “Text of Guidelines for U.S.–Japan Defense Cooperation,” Japan Times, (English ed.), 25 September 1997. 17. Chalmers Johnson, “In Search of a New Cold War,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (September/October 1999): pp. 44–51; Cf., Bruce Cumings, “China through the Looking Glass,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (September/October 1999), pp. 30–37. 18. Jack Hitt, “Battlefield Space,” New York Times Magazine, 5 August 2001. 19. Richard I. Lael, The Yamashita Precedent: War Crimes and Command Responsibility (Wilmington Delaware: SR Scholarly Resources Inc., 1982); and Martin J. Knottenbelt, “Seminar on Governmental Criminality,” Hesbjerg 5491 DK 29.X.1995; and James Leasor, Singapore: The Battle That Changed the World (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1968).
Seven “FACELESS COWARD”: BUSH’S ANTI-TERRORISM RHETORIC John Kultgen 1. Introduction Immediately after the Tuesday, 11 September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., President George W. Bush declared: Freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless coward, and freedom will be defended . . . . Make no mistake, the United States will hunt down and punish those responsible for these cowardly acts. Today our nation saw evil, the very worst of human nature. The search is under way for those who are behind these evil acts . . . . [In retaliating, the United States will] make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.1 In this paper, I will examine four key phrases in the public rhetoric of President Bush from statements made from 11 September 2001 through his speech to the United States Congress on 20 September 2001. The phrases are “faceless coward,” “attack on freedom,” “doers of evil,” and “war on terrorism.” I will reflect on the thoughts and attitudes I believe lay behind these words and how the president and his advisors hoped this language would affect his audience. I will speculate on the impact of these phrases on the public’s perceptions and the policies that ensued, and on what those policies mean for the future course of the nation. 2. Caveat My purpose is not to attack President Bush or his policies, though my analysis does suggest that his performance did not measure up to what we should expect from a national leader. He did measure up to what most people expected, as evidenced by the surge in the president’s popularity.
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This issue aside, we should acknowledge that it is not possible to be sure what policies were implicit in the rhetoric. Policies depend on ideas. We can never be positive what the president has in mind when he reads remarks prepared for him by his able speechwriters, not to mention when he expresses what is in his heart. The lack of clarity of his remarks on this occasion may not have been deliberate. He may not have had anything definite in mind until his advisors had a chance to hash out the issues. According to journalists with access to the White House, the president chose his words primarily with a view to their effect on public sentiment. His intention in that regard increased as time went by. Elisabeth Bumiller and Frank Bruni reported that Bush began to meet each morning with senior advisors, including Vice President Richard B. (Dick) Cheney, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, and Senior Presidential Advisor Karen Hughes, to discuss how he should phrase his remarks. They gathered “to strategize about the words, emotional cues and information Mr. Bush should be conveying.” After the initial apprehension of some party leaders that colloquialisms such as “evil folks,” “smoke them out of their holes,” and “Wanted: Dead or Alive” were not presidential enough, the president’s handlers decided that his talk was selling. They “resisted reining him in” because they found that his “regular-guy language” when he “speaks from the gut” appealed to the public.2 Doyle McManus suggested that at a time such as this, the president’s primary role is communicator-in-chief. Though Bush “makes every major decision, [he] appears to have delegated the details of foreign policy planning to his advisers” (apparently McManus meant Cheney, Rice, Colin Powell, and Donald Rumsfeld).3 Apparently the president’s goal was to appear as often as possible in public and say the right things. Thus the search for meanings behind the president’s words may be vain. It is possible that on 11 September he had no precise ideas or definite intentions about what was going on. To expect deep or subtle thought from anyone in such circumstances may be unfair. To examine the consequences of the language of such a spokesman at such a time is eminently fair. Once uttered, words, especially those of a president, take on a life of their own. Some people would maintain that the purpose of presidential pronouncements in times of crisis is to communicate an attitude, not intellectual content. They would treat the president’s words as extensions of his body language, not vehicles of cognitive meaning. Thus Elisabeth Bumiller, in reporting on the president’s Tuesday evening speech, commented: The nation and the world closely watched the president’s demeanor as they listened to his words tonight. This national moment was for him as much about tone and bearing and emotional projection as it was about
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the substance of his remarks. The coming days will require him to master the images of sturdy authority and presidential strength.4 Bumiller reported that “Republicans, who have worried for months whether Mr. Bush has been appearing sufficiently presidential, described the speech as the most important of his presidency.” She surmised that when Bush landed at Offutt Air Force Base en route back from Florida, his political aides “had to face a central question: How could Mr. Bush appear in control, and calm the nation, from a bunker in Nebraska?” It was imperative that he get to Washington and make a show that he was in command of the situation.5 According to this line of thought, it was Bush’s job to convey outrage at the terrorist acts, grief for the victims, sympathy for the survivors, and firm resolve to take prompt and effective action. For him to raise issues or propose theses for debate or suggest that there was more than one way to view the events would have sounded confusing. Bush’s language, muddy though it was, did convey several significant messages. One was that the terrorist attacks represented a sharp opposition between absolute good and absolute evil. The second was that the United States is absolutely good and the perpetrators are absolutely evil. The third was that there was a consensus among Americans about what response was needed: war rather than police action. The fourth was that the course that the Administration had chosen or would choose would express the popular will without further debate. The president’s image as a common man with fundamental, perhaps fundamentalist, values reinforced the last idea. He thinks as “the people” think; hence, he need not consult them to see whether they agree with him. Indeed, the image appeared to reinforce the idea that Americans should think too much lest they become confused and unable to stay the course. 3. “Attack on Freedom” Bush proclaimed, and continues to proclaim, that the terrorist acts were an “attack on freedom.” These words are ambiguous and convey no ascertainable meaning. What could it mean in this context? It boggles the mind to think that nineteen men would commit suicide and murder almost 3,000 people from repugnance at freedom in the abstract. Surely, they must have had in mind the ways that Americans use their freedom. But while many Muslims are offended by our style of life, it is not likely that they would martyr themselves to protest our shopping malls or the way American women dress. If the terrorists were attacking freedom, they must have been outraged by what they perceived to be the way the United States uses its freedom to inflict harm on their world. For instance, they might have been protesting American troops on Muslim holy
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land or the continuing blockade causing unmeasured suffering for the Iraqi people or the continuation of colonialism infecting Islam with alien ways. In Edward Said’s words, “Anti-Americanism in this context is not based on a hatred of modernity or technology-envy: it is based on a narrative of concrete interventions, specific depredations . . . .”6 Mentioning the history of Muslim grievances with the United States would have been difficult—unleaderly, some would argue—for the president. In any event, he did not try to be more precise about what he meant by an “attack on freedom,” nor has he since. Perhaps the terrorist attacks baffled him and his advisors. Perhaps they had no idea about what motivated the attacks. More likely, they were groping for a way to condemn the acts without raising questions about the United States’ contribution to the conditions that spawned them. Perhaps we should take his remarks as we take outbursts such as those of the Miami columnist, Leonard Pitts, Jr., when he wrote: In this moment of airless shock when hot tears sting disbelieving eyes, the only thing I can find to say, the only words that seem to fit, must be addressed to the unknown author of this suffering. You monster. You beast. You unspeakable bastard.7 If Bush had gone beyond name calling to mention the standard litany of Muslim complaints against America—self-indulgent consumption of the world’s resources, intervention in the affairs of other nations, collusion with repressive regimes in exploitation of the poor, cavalier resort to military force, hostility toward Islam—he might have triggered the suspicion that the terrorists had a just cause, however barbarous and indefensible their means. Perhaps he and his advisors thought that the public is not equipped to handle this sort of issue or perhaps they feared that an open discussion would bring their leadership into question. Consider one point, the United States’ contribution to the burgeoning Islamic jihad. George F. Will remarked: A grim illustration of the law of unintended consequences: Vast U.S. support helped create a large cadre of Islamic fighters to defeat the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. The cadre is now worldwide.8 Will did not linger over the fact that one of the causes of this consequence was the covert support afforded the mujahideen by the CIA in their conflict with the Soviets through the Pakistani military intelligence group, the Interservice Intelligence (ISI). The CIA was aware that the mujahideen were financing their military campaign by heroin traffic under the protection of ISI. The CIA was aware, or it should have been aware, that the mujahideen were committed to a fanatical
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anti-Western ideology as hostile to the United States as to the Soviet Union (after all, mujahideen means people of the jihad). The CIA’s mission was to harm the Soviets in any way possible. As a result, the CIA did not see the predictable long term consequences—terrorism against the United States as well as Soviet republics and destabilization of Muslim countries friendly to the United States—as its business. Since it concealed operations from the enemy and from the American public and elected officials who might have debated the issues, no one reined in the CIA on the basis of a larger view of world affairs. So much for the “law of unintended consequences.” By unintended consequences, Will means that agents should realize that any policy they adopt might have consequences they do not anticipate, they do not intend, and may not be welcome. This does not excuse the CIA for a policy that went badly because of consequences that it should have anticipated but willfully disregarded. My intention is not to linger over mistakes of the past. My point is that the events of 11 September could have awakened the public to the United States’ counterproductive use of force, terror, and subversion. This awakening might still happen, but no thanks to our president or his predecessors. The way they typically frame issues from their bully pulpit inhibits rather than stimulates rational debate. The practice of studied obfuscation about the terrorism bodes to continue indefinitely. The reason is easy to see. By exploring the grievances of those who hate the United States, the president might have emboldened critics to suggest that the United States change the way it deals with other nations. Emboldening critics would not have been leadership according to the prevailing norm. Most people, especially those who speak through the mass media to and for the public at large, do not expect the president to review all sides of issues in times of crisis. They look to him to make instant decisions, decisively implement them, and put the best face he can upon the result. President Bush appears to have done what was expected. According to polls in the latter part of September, his approval rating for handling the crisis soared into the 90 percent range and it remained at very high levels over the months afterward. In addition to their expectations for the president, many people are also not receptive to dissenting views from kibitzers. There is a strong tradition of rallying around the flag and bi-partisan support of the leadership in times of crisis and disaster. The few voices that attempted to explain the mind-set of the terrorists during the early period of intense coverage on television encountered suspicion and even hostility. Some voices in the splinter media (“radical” or “left-wing” voices, hence heard by few) suggested a sort of equivalence between the terrorist attacks and some United States’ acts. Thus, Noam Chomsky commented: Today’s attacks were major atrocities. In terms of number of victims they do not reach the level of many others, for example, [William Jefferson
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His point was not that the terrorist acts were defensible, but that United States’ acts also were indefensible. This claim calls for public exposure and thorough debate as the nation careens toward new violence. Bush’s categorical condemnation of the ends as well as the means of the terrorists erected a formidable barrier to this happening. 4. “War” against “Evil” In the first week after the attacks, Howard Zinn provided a reasoned dissent from the mainline reaction to the terrorist acts. He reported, “The images on television horrified and sickened me.” He added immediately, “Then our political leaders came on television, and I was horrified and sickened again. They spoke of retaliation, of vengeance, of punishment.” He then drew a moral: We need to imagine that the awful scenes of death and suffering we are witnessing have been going on in other parts of the world for a long time, and only now we begin to know what people have gone through, often as result of our policies. We need to decide that we will not go to war, whatever reason is conjured up by the politicians or the media, because war in our time is always indiscriminate, a war against innocents, a war against children. War is terrorism, magnified a hundred times.10 Zinn’s fear that violence was going to escalate was well grounded. Immediately after the 11 September attacks, President Bush avowed that he “would make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.” The Congress speedily adopted a resolution that authorized unrestricted military action and appropriated massive funds to implement it. These measures provide for an open-ended use of force. Early on Bush said that the attacks “were more than acts of terror; they were acts of war.” By 15 September 2001, he was referring to the prospective United States’ response as “the first war of the twenty-first century,” implying that this action represented a new kind of war for the new millennium. By this time, there had been an escalation of rhetoric from the vocabulary of crime and punishment to that of war and victory. On a visit to the Pentagon on 17 September 2001, Bush reiterated, “There are people who hate freedom. This is a fight for freedom.” He continued, “We will win the war, and there will be costs [but we will] defend freedom at any cost.”
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In the analysis of Bumiller and Katharine Seelye, they viewed the semantic escalation from “crime” to “war,” as was intended to lay the military, political, and psychological groundwork for military action.11 I would add, the choice of words was intended to posit a moral rationale for the intended action. For the president, such a rationale apparently means a theological one. He plainly stated that in his mind the war would be a holy one. At a meeting with his security advisers early on the 12 September 2001, Bush declared, “This will be a monumental struggle of good versus evil, but good will prevail.”12 He reiterated the notion of evil on his return to the White House from a critical session with his advisers at Camp David on Sunday, 16 September 2001. Stepping from his helicopter, he referred times to “evil doers,” “evil people,” and “evil folks” as the enemy in “this first war of the twenty-first century.” Seeking to build an international coalition, the president said, on 19 September 2001, the time had come for all nations to stand and be counted. “If you love freedom, you must join with us.” This sentiment reinforced the notions emphasized in his speech to Congress that those who are not with us are against us, and, the world is divided into those who love freedom (the absolutely good guys, us and our friends) and those who do not (the absolutely bad guys, the enemies of the good guys, everyone else). On 16 September 2001, Bush used the term “crusade.” He said, “the American people are beginning to understand, this crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take a while . . . .”13 This wording suggests that he did not mean literally a jihad of one religion against another. When Muslims pointed out the implication, Colin Powell hastened to explain that it was a campaign, not a crusade. Soon after, the president went out of his way to reprimand Jerry Falwell for suggesting that God had removed His protection from the United States because of its sinful ways.14 The Pentagon’s label for the deployment of forces in the Middle East, “Operation Infinite Justice,” had ominous cosmic overtones, but was quickly dropped when a Muslim cleric protested that only Allah can exact infinite justice. The Pentagon replaced it with the clunker, “Operation Permanent Freedom,” but some damage may have been done. Osama bin Laden, in a statement broadcast 23 September 2001 over Qatar’s Al-Jazeera channel, said in reference to sympathizers of the Taliban who died while rioting in Karachi that they were: killed while expressing their opposition to the aggression of the American crusade forces and their allies on Muslim lands in Pakistan and Afghanistan . . . . We hope that they are the first martyrs in Islam’s battle in this era against the new crusade and Jewish campaign led by the big crusader Bush under the flag of the cross.15
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The Bush Administration became skittish about the use of religious language, however banal and stereotyped, but Bush continued to use the theological term “evil.” This suggests that he thought and continues to think that he is doing God’s will. Frank Bruni reported: One of the president’s close acquaintances outside the White House said Mr. Bush clearly feels he has encountered his reason for being, a conviction informed and shaped by the president’s own strain of Christianity. “I think, in his frame, this is what God has asked him to do,” the acquaintance said. “It offers him enormous clarity.”16 Unfortunately, for someone who thinks that God has put him in a position and assigned him a job, not much of a leap is required to imagine that his hunches about how to carry out the job are divinely inspired. Even if Bush’s plan of action is Yahweh’s will, it does not mean that it is not Allah’s will or that Yahweh has gone to war with Allah; but leaders should realize that connections will form in some minds. From early times, people have relieved the cognitive dissonance aroused by destroying God’s creatures in God’s name by convincing them that the victims are sinners who deserve to die. Bush believes that what he is doing is right and that his actions have God’s approval. By loose usage of language, he encourages others, especially Muslims, to envision a progression from blaming Osama bin Laden for the acts of terrorism, to holding the Taliban responsible for harboring him, to wreaking destruction on the Afghan people for tolerating such a gang is an easy progression. His implied message is that the terrorists were Muslims, Islam is responsible for what they did, therefore, all Muslims deserve to die—at least those who stand in the way of vengeance against the terrorists. The president is not responsible for irrational interpretations of his words, but he should do his best to discourage incorrect interpretations by choosing his words carefully. The rhetorical escalation from “crime” to “war” will have crucial practical consequences. In times of war, we cannot observe the niceties of civil liberties. The intelligence community is clamoring for the removal of restraints on surveillance and intrusion into private lives. The Government has granted some of their requests. In times of war, innocent people inevitably experience harm. Governments rationalize this harm as “collateral damage.” We would not so characterize harm to innocent bystanders if done in the pursuit of felons. We have killed more noncombatants in Afghanistan than the United States lost on 11 September 2001 in terrorist attacks. The prospect of further and massive collateral damage can be high in any attempt to destroy all of those who harbor terrorists. In the fight on crime, we win a few and lose a few and the system still works; in war we must win or the system collapses. In war anything goes. The amount of wealth that can be rationally devoted to po-
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lice and the judicial system is limited; the maw of war is insatiable. Prosecution of crime strengthens the fabric of society; war rends it asunder. For the administration to match its rhetoric with military action would be a serious matter. We must hope that the need for the cooperation of other nations will impose restraints. The reluctance of foreign leaders to follow Bush’s lead was evident early on when French President Jacques Chirac refused to refer to the projected actions as “war” and Russian President Vladimir Putin insisted that any response be based on solid evidence linking the targets to what he pointedly called “the crime.”17 The bloodthirsty bombast of some columnists suggests where the combination of holy war and Realpolitik can lead. After stating categorically, “This is not crime. This is war,” Charles Krauthammer called for the United States’ Congress to declare war on Afghanistan to get Al Qaeda and to take after the countries that house Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Islamic jihad. To follow this advice, the United States will have to declare war on Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Libya. Showing that militancy is not reserved for males, Mona Charen wrote that the sponsors of terrorism “cannot be negotiated with or deterred, “We must find and destroy them using every means at our disposal and we must be merciless.” She identified the states that give terrorists succor as Iraq, Libya, Syria, Lebanon, Afghanistan and Iran, among others.18 To her litany of possible enemies we could add Sudan, Yemen, and, with changes in their domestic balance of power, Pakistan, Algeria, and Egypt. Going to war first and looking for enemies afterwards, making finding enemies easy. There is no reason to think that the Bush administration plans to pummel all of the nations that the columnists list, but Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld asserted that America must go well beyond bin Laden to hunt down associated networks of terrorists in some sixty countries. He told Cable News Network (CNN), “We have a lot of evidence about a number of countries harboring terrorists that are working across the globe.”19 Newsweek reported that an advisory group to the Pentagon chaired by Richard Perle, that included Henry Alfred Kissinger, James Rodney Schlesinger, James Danforth (Dan) Quayle, and Newton Leroy (Newt) Gingrich, in mid-September advised an assault on Iraq after that which they assumed another attack would take place against Afghanistan.20 Regardless whether the Bush administration will follow this recommendation, it launched the attack on Afghanistan on 8 October 2001. Doyle McManus reported that it was only the beginning: Bush made several early decisions that would shape events over the ensuing weeks. Rice and other aides said. He decided that he wanted a sustained campaign against terrorism, not jus a one-shot retaliation. A bigger campaign meant Bush needed worldwide support, and that nudged him toward a second choice: focusing the war against Osama bin Laden’s Al-
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Qaeda organization and its protectors in Afghanistan, and to defer major action against other unfriendly countries, including Iraq.21 On that same day, the New York Times reported that United States ambassador to the United Nations had written to the Security Council president, “We may find that our self-defense requires further actions with respect to other organizations and other states.”22 A lot more than a punitive strike against Al Qaeda and the Taliban is in prospect. With the endorsement of Congress and promise of a bottomless war chest, the door is open for war without limits if the leadership should choose to pass through. 4. “Faceless Coward” My perplexity about what President Bush was talking about was aroused by his reference to “a faceless coward” in his first statement about the attack. In a short time, otherwise commentators who supported Bush and his actions criticized this choice of words. Krauthammer observed, “People willing to kill thousands of innocents while they kill themselves are not cowards. They are deadly vicious warriors and need to be treated as such.”23 Will also opined that the term was inappropriate but did not mention that it was the president who had used it. Using the old premise that what is heroism on our side is fanaticism or insanity in our enemies, he argued, “although Americans are denouncing the terrorists’ ‘cowardice,’ what is most telling and frightening is their lunatic fearlessness.”24 Mona Charen was unusual among conservative writers in blaming Bush for the notion: At first [Bush] called the terrorists “cowards.” They are not. Marinated in hatred so intense that it can revel in mass murder, they are willing to give their own lives for their cause. Cowards wouldn’t be nearly so frightening.25 William Safire summed things up in a definitive column: President Bush and many others called these acts of murder-suicide cowardly. That is not a modifier I would use, nor would I employ its synonym, dastardly (though F[ranklin] D[elano] R[oosevelt] did [in castigating the attack on Pearl Harbor]), which also means, “shrinking from danger.” If anything, the suicide bomber or suicide hijacker is maniacally fearless, the normal human survival instinct overwhelmed by hatred or brainwashed fervor.26 “Cowards” was a singularly inaccurate adjective. The “facelessness” of the terrorists was a glaring irrelevance. What sense can we make of Bush’s garbled remarks? Here is the best I can do. Courage in the classic Greek sense is the strength to do what reason counsels in the face of danger and clear-eyed
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fear. Fanatics are motivated by fantasies and unreasoning hatred and so they do not display that strength. They are not truly courageous. The president may have reasoned that hence they are cowardly. The conclusion does not follow, so we should consider further possibilities. “Courage” covers a range of psychic states, some of which are deficient compared to the prime form of the virtue, but they are far from its opposite. One deficient form is the strength to brave danger for a worthy cause in which an individual has been indoctrinated rather than having worked out the purpose independently. Many Christian martyrs displayed courage in dying for their faith though few were theologians who had thought through the issues. Another deficient form of courage is the strength to brave danger in service of an unworthy cause in a spirit of misguided piety or patriotism. The last form appears to have been the quality exhibited by the terrorists. It is as contrary to cowardice as courage is. The terrorists were not cowards even though they were fanatics. Another possibility is that Bush was castigating those who planned and managed the attacks instead of those who implemented the plan. Perhaps some were cowardly for sending others to do their dirty work. This opinion is hardly an indictment of the acts of the terrorists or even decisive against their planners and managers. Commanders in modern wars, such as General Eisenhower on D-Day, direct operations from afar; they do not lead the charge in showy armor like Alexander the Great. We would expect the same for the masterminds of terror in a long-term campaign. Moreover, accounts of the shadowy bin Laden suggest that he is a brave man by military standards. Years ago he left the comfort of inherited wealth to fight in the field with the mujahedeen. On this interpretation, too, the president had no grounds for his characterization of the enemy. What appears to have outraged the president most was the secrecy with which the terrorist attacks were mounted. On 11 September 2001, he complained that the attackers were “faceless.” In his statement on the morning of 12 September 2001 he said, “This is an enemy that tries to hide. But it won’t be able to hide forever.” On 13 September 2001 he added, “Unlike previous wars, this enemy likes to hide.” At a prayer service at the Washington National Cathedral on 15 September 2001, “War has been waged against us by stealth and deceit and murder.” In a radio broadcast on 15 September 2001, “We will find those who did it, we’ll smoke them out of their holes.” Finally, in a statement during a visit to the Pentagon on 17 September 2001, “I want him [bin Laden]—I want justice. And there’s an old poster out West, as I recall, that said, ‘Wanted: Dead or Alive.’” I am uncertain what stealth has to do with cowardice. A rowdy in a bar might complain that some chicken shit hit him from behind with a stool, but here we are talking about studied crimes and acts of war. Secrecy is the modus
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operandi of successful criminals. In war, ambushes, covert raids, and surprise offensives are feats of daring in most people’s eyes. If the terrorist attacks were indeed acts of war by a poorly armed enemy and if our leaders were to apply the same standards to them as to our own troops, they would be grudgingly praising them for their bravery. However, one nation’s surprise attack is its enemy’s sneak attack, as opined by many who rushed to compare the World Trade Tower attacks to Pearl Harbor. If stealth and attacking from a position of safety are not cowardly, we cannot agree with Susan Sontag in stigmatizing United States’ bombing of Iraq: If the word “cowardly” is to be used, it might be more aptly applied to those who kill from beyond the range of retaliation, high in the sky, than to those willing to die themselves in order to kill others. In the matter of courage (a morally neutral virtue): whatever may be said of the perpetrators of Tuesday’s slaughter, they were not cowards.27 In war, to announce in advance where you are going to attack is foolish and our enemies are not foolish. To recognize this is wise because we need to appreciate how difficult it will be to bring them to justice. 5. The Speech to Congress By 20 September 2001, the president and his advisors had won the battle for the hearts and minds of the country. When he entered the House of Representatives to report to the nation, warm applause greeted him from both sides of the floor and the gallery. He delivered a speech, burnished in consultation with his speechwriters, effectively and with an appropriate set of the jaw and steely eyes. The speech included a few faintly memorable phrases such as “Whether we bring our enemies to justice or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done,” “Those who commit evil in the name of Allah blaspheme the name of Allah,” and “This is the world’s fight. This is civilization’s fight. This is the fight of all who believe in progress and pluralism, tolerance and freedom.” Thunderous applause interrupted Bush’s remarks twenty-eight times, most in ritual standing ovations. The folksiness was gone. Mr. Bush’s demeanor was presidential. His language was more constrained, though he masked the thinking behind it instead of exposing it to view. There was no mention of cowardice and only one of evil. He no longer baldly declared that God is on our side. Instead, he implied this by a false dichotomy: Either you are with us or against us; you cannot be neutral. Since God is not against us, he must be with us. In addition, if you are not with us, you are against God. He expanded the concept to a global level: “Every nation in every region now has a decision to make: Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.” He re-
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frained from distracting talk about cowardice, stealth, and evil deeds. He bore down on the notion of open-ended war against an indefinite number of enemies he had not yet named: On September the 11th, enemies of freedom committed an act of war against our country. Our war on terror begins with Al-Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated. We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place until there is no refuge or rest. And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime. The president did not spell out the military actions he had in mind, nor did he have to, because the Congress had authorized him to take any measure he deemed necessary. Secrecy, stealth, surprise, and covert operations were now the order of the day. They are not cowardly when they are the modus operandi of our campaign. Perhaps the most disquieting bang on the war drum came when he vowed: We will direct every resource at our command—every means of diplomacy, every tool of intelligence, every instrument of law enforcement, every financial influence, and every necessary weapon of war—to the destruction and to the defeat of the global terror network. We can only hope that “destruction of the global terror network” does not include destruction of all countries that harbor terrorist cells and that “every necessary weapon of war” does not include weapons of mass destruction. In his speech, Bush at last made a gesture at explaining why the enemy hates us. He repeated the claim that the enemy hates our freedom, but more substantively that the enemy wants to extend Islam over the entire world and rule it despotically himself. The United States, Israel, and the Muslim states friendly to the United States, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan stand in the way. He continued: These terrorists kill not merely to end lives, but to disrupt and end a way of life. With every atrocity, they hope that America grows fearful, re-
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This nicely turned formulation is a gross oversimplification and carefully avoids any suggestion that the United States and its friends have misused their power in the Middle East. But it does make a minor contribution to the public dialogue about why we are hated and what can be done about it. Whether the politicians, the media, or the public will respond and pursue the discussion remains to be seen. 6. Final Thoughts Despite the effusive praise for President Bush’s strength and leadership during the first two weeks after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, he failed to initiate a meaningful dialogue about the causes of the horror or stimulate a fruitful debate about alternative ways of responding to it. Those who praise his performance apparently do not think that it was his responsibility to do so. In my judgment, his fuzzy talk, whether by design or ineptitude, smoothed over hard questions and squandered a golden opportunity to push the public to a deeper level of understanding of a grave problem. Where does this leave us? The optimist would say that we have placed our fate in the hands of a small group of experts long experienced in the arts of diplomacy and war. Their leader is an amiable man with modest abilities, religious beliefs as deep as his depth allows, and values shared by most of his fellow citizens. We need not fear his inevitable mistakes. National defense is a paternalistic enterprise managed by a security establishment that endures through changes in political leadership. We should trust President Bush and the hard-headed apparatchiks who hold his reins to take effective action and report back to us when they succeed. We must hope that the process will not intensify the hatred of America across the world by excessive and indiscriminate use of military power, political assassination, and covert dirty works. The pessimist would fear that the amiable man who leads the nation has taken command and really believes that he is an instrument of a righteous God who has given him the mission to destroy absolute evil at any cost. Whether this fear is justified, the president and his advisers are wedded to measures that have contributed in important ways to present conditions we cannot consider successful. They are equipped with a bottomless coffer and lethal hardware with no effective controls of how they will use them. It is possible that they will take the nation into a series of Vietnam quagmires and there is an outside possibility that they will resort to weapons of mass destruction to do their duty as they see it when all else fails.
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Complaining about the mindless rush of public figures and the media to line up behind the president, Susan Sontag lamented: A lot of thinking needs to be done, and perhaps is being done in Washington and elsewhere, about the ineptitude of American intelligence and counter-intelligence, about options available to American foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East, and about what constitutes a smart program of military defense. But the public is not being asked to bear much of the burden of reality. The unanimously applauded, self-congratulatory bromides of a Soviet Party Congress seemed contemptible. The unanimity of the sanctimonious, reality-concealing rhetoric spouted by American officials and media commentators in recent days seems, well, unworthy of a mature democracy. Sontag claimed, “the voices licensed to follow the event seem to have joined together to infantilize the public.” I should instead say that they have assumed that the public is infantile, that we need to assuage its fears assuaged more than open its mind to hard realities. The president’s voice is only the loudest in the cacophony of our free society. We are now hearing dissenting voices and concerned people are exploring the causes of the 11 September 2001 terrorism on all sides. Protests against the old way of doing things are likely to grow if the administration’s antiterrorist measures are not successful. The public remembers the Vietnam War and we hope that members of the intellectual community will talk sense to the public. Further, we hope that the public will engage in rational dialogue before barbarity and disaster turn it bitterly against politicians and the political process. In conclusion, let me quote the eloquent assessment of the Bush rhetoric by Edward Said four days after the 11 September attacks: Inevitably, then, collective passions are being funneled into a drive for war that uncannily resembles Captain Ahab in pursuit of Moby Dick, rather than what is going on, an imperial power injured at home for the first time, pursuing its interests systematically in what has become a suddenly reconfigured geography of conflict, without clear borders, or visible actors. Manichaean symbols and apocalyptic scenarios are bandied about with future consequences and rhetorical restraint thrown to the winds.28 I realize that Said is in no position to know whether the American people will man the ship for Captain Ahab. It is a hopeful sign that a few weeks after the terrorist attack and rally ‘round the flag passions had ebbed, the question began to be seriously addressed, “Why do they hate us so?”
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1. Elizabeth Bumiller and David E. Sanger, “A Somber Bush Says Terrorism Cannot Prevail,” New York Times, 12 September 2001. 2. Elisabeth Bumiller and Frank Bruni, “In This Crisis Bush Is Writing His Own Script,” New York Times, September 19, 2001. 3. Doyle McManus, “Bush Meets Challenge,” Los Angeles Times, September 19, 2001. 4. Bumiller and Sanger, “A Somber Bush Says Terrorism Cannot Prevail.” 5. Ibid. 6. Edward Said, “Islam and the West Are Inadequate Banners,” The Observer, 16 September 2001. 7. Leonard Pitts, Jr., Miami Herald, 12 September 2001. 8. George F. Will, “U.S. Must Close Window of Opportunity, Washington Post, 13 September 2001. 9. Personal communication from Noam Chomsky to Michael Albert, ed. Z Magazine, 12 September 2001. 10. Howard Zinn’s statement was contained in a news release of the Institute for Public Accuracy, 14 September 2001, among a number of comments about President Bush’s address on that date at the National Cathedral in Washington. 11. Katharine Q. Seelye and Elisabeth Bumiller, ““Bush Labels Aerial Terrorist Attacks ‘Acts of War,’” New York Times, 12 September 2001. 12. Bumiller and Sanger, “A Somber Bush Says Terrorism Cannot Prevail.” 13. Todd S. Purum, “Bush Warns of a Wrathful, Shadowy, and Inventive War,” TheWashington Post, 16 September 2001. 14. Gustave Niebuhr, “U.S. ‘Secular Groups’ Set Tone for Terror Attacks, Falwell Says,” New York Times, 14 September 2001. 15. Statement was broadcast on Qatar’s Al-Jazeera satellite and reported in The Guardian, 24 November 2002. 16. Frank Bruni, “For Bush, a Mission and a Defining Moment,” New York Times, 22 September 2001. 17. Don Balz and Alan Sipress, “The Diplomatic Offensive Intensifies,” The Washington Post, 19 September 2001; and “To War, not to Court,” The Washington Post, 12 September 2001. 18. Mona Charen, “U.S. Must Take Quick, Merciless Action,” Creators Syndicate, published in The Columbia [Missouri] Daily Tribune, 9 October 2001. 19. David Espo, “Pursuing ‘Infinite Justice’,” Associated Press, September 20, 2001. 20. Newsweek, 1 October 2001. 21. Doyle McManus, “Air Strikes Latest Link of a Chain,” Los Angeles Times, reprinted in The Columbia Daily Tribune, 9 October 2001. 22. “U.S. Advises U.N. Council More Strikes Could Come,” New York Times, 8 October 2001. 23. “To War, not to Court,” 12 September 2001. 24. Will, “U.S. Must Close Window of Opportunity.” 25. Charen, “U.S. Must Take Quick, Merciless Action.”
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26. William Safire, “Words of the War on Terror,” New York Times, 23 September 2001. 27. Susan Sontag, “Talk of the Town,” New Yorker Magazine, 20 September 2001. 28. Said, “Special Report.”
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Part Three JUSTICE AND VALUES
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Eight NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE Maria H. Morales What ideas individuals may attach to the term Millennium I know not; but I know that society may be formed so as to exist without crime, without poverty, with health greatly improved, with little, if any, misery, and with intelligence and happiness increased a hundred-fold; and no obstacle whatsoever intervenes at this moment, except ignorance, to prevent such a state of society from becoming universal.1 Robert Owen’s address, steeped with optimism about the possibility of a new society, dates back to 1816. Although at the threshold of a different millennium, the maladies he believed human beings could overcome are familiar to us. Unlike a good number of 1997 Americans, however, Owen viewed these maladies as raising fundamental questions of justice in society. The Owenites focused on the broadest malady, namely human emancipation via a transformed education, which would promote the creation of a new moral world. They believed that to bring such world into existence at least three dramatic changes would be necessary: a definitive solution to the problem of poverty, a thoroughgoing reform of working practices, and the establishment of communities organized socially and economically on a cooperative model. Many other British socialist and progressive liberal reformers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries shared a commitment to the main thrust of the Owenite worldview: no socioeconomic justice, no “uninterrupted peace.”2 For example, following the Saint-Simonians, John Stuart Mill took gender equality and cooperative production to be the chief pressing issues of social and economic justice respectively. Like most of his socialist contemporaries, Mill believed that overcoming inequality was essentially the ultimate goal of social harmony or peace. In this paper, I will explore the view that complete justice, grounded in equality, is a necessary condition of peace. The notion of complete justice includes considerations of social and economic equality that did not occupy center stage until the middle of the nineteenth century. I will use Mill’s analysis because he conceived of equality as an indispensable condition of social harmony. He bemoaned the failure of early liberalism to understand that inequality is a chief source of social antagonism and unrest. As did his socialist contemporaries, Mill focused on the need to remove inequality in the areas of life where
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he saw conflict still rampant: the family and the workplace. Personal subjection, lack of economic independence, and lack of control over one’s life generally (including one’s work) are socially significant sources of discord and ultimately of human misery. Until we cure these ills, a peaceful sociopolitical order will belong to the same realm as golden mountains. As we will see, Mill’s views on the conditions necessary for social peace are far from dated. In this paper I will focus on his arguments for the need for equality in the workplace and the economy generally. Mill’s insights are valuable to anyone whose ultimate concern is to eradicate the sources of violence in society. The general purpose of the state, for Mill, is to promote actively the flourishing of its citizens. In Considerations on Representative Government, he named order and progress as the two chief constituents of social well-being. Order requires obedience, but means “the preservation of peace, by the cessation of private violence.”3 Mill gave the state more specific mandates also. Like the Owenites, Mill believed that one of the most important functions of the state is to educate its citizens in the virtues of justice and in such individual qualities as prudence, integrity, industry, mental activity, enterprise, and courage.4 The “first element” of good government, in Mill’s view, is “the virtue and intelligence of the human beings composing the community.”5 The fundamental aim of government is indeed to promote excellence in all members of the community, and governments are judged good or bad on the basis of their tendencies “to improve or deteriorate the people themselves.” Even more strongly, Mill claimed that “the one indispensable merit of government” is that it helps people reach “the next step which it is necessary for them to take, in order to raise themselves to a higher level.”6 According to Mill, a “hands off” government is far from a good thing. Government oversees the largest community within which human beings may pursue their life goals and should be a positive engine of their improvement. A government that lets entire groups of people fall behind, instead of ensuring that they continue to develop their many faculties and capacities, is a failure and ought to be reconstituted. Human beings have various special claims whose protection also falls on society. In the essay on justice in Utilitarianism, Mill called this sort of claim a moral right “[t]o have a right . . . is, I conceive, to have something which society ought to defend me in the possession of.”7 For Mill, moral rights “make safe the very groundwork of our existence,” which is why they assume the character of absoluteness. Moral rights are involved conceptually in the notion of justice: Justice is a name for certain classes of moral rules which concern the essentials of human well-being more nearly, and are therefore of more absolute obligation, than any other rule for the guidance of life; and the no-
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tion which we have found to be of the essence of the idea of justice-that of a right residing in an individual-implies and testifies to this more binding obligation.8 Indeed, for Mill, the two principal branches of justice enjoin the protection of human beings’ peaceful integrity and the protection of their moral rights. In his view, the most marked cases of injustice are first, “acts of wrongful aggression or wrongful exercise of power over someone,” and second, “those which consist in wrongfully withholding [from someone] something which is his due,” a moral right. Both of these kinds of injustice inflict on their recipients “a positive hurt,” either by causing suffering directly or indirectly via the privation of some good they had reasonable ground to expect society to provide.9 The obligations of justice “moralities” protecting each of us from direct harm (for example, to our person) and indirect harm are made up of (for example, to our ability to pursue our conception of the good). In “On Liberty,” Mill claimed that society is justified in “enforcing at all costs” prescriptions protecting human beings’ fundamental interests (moral rights).10 Society always has jurisdiction over conduct that affects prejudicially people’s fundamental interests. If not by the states, offenders may be punished by opinion for inflicting this kind of harm: we “owe to each other help to distinguishing better from the worse and encouragement to Choose the former and avoid the latter.”11 In short, we have definite moral obligations toward one another, which form the basis of our common life. Honoring these obligations is a precondition of social well-being. Mill recognized that excessive concern for one’s “miserable individuality” was rampant in his society.12 He viewed his “enlarged” conception of utility as providing the foundation for a new ethic of justice capable of dramatically changing sociopolitical life. The old ethic of egoistic individualism served as the basis for a kind of society that did not raise great numbers of people to a “higher” level of existence, whether social or economic. Throughout his life and in many of his works, Mill denounced the ethic of egoistic individualism for hindering “nineteenth-twentieths” of humankind from flourishing.13 Like Jeremy Bentham, Mill criticized much of the machinery of the state as then constituted as a tool of the upper classes (whether aristocrats, powerful clergy, or the new capitalists) for its own maintenance and regeneration. The ethic on which this structure rests reflects the lack of civic spirit, and a fortiori social cohesiveness, characteristic of modern society. A narcissistic ethic places the claims of certain selves above the demands of justice, which ought to be for all. Most importantly, this ethic engineers social conditions within which opposition and strife gain the upper hand. Only replacing this hostile ethic with the rule of justice will render possible the construction of well-constituted, and hence peaceful, communities.
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What exactly did Mill think stood in the way of social integration and unity? His analysis of this issue in the posthumously published Chapters on Socialism is most revealing.14 Although we would like to think better of modern society, Mill maintained, it is still largely premised on the old, unjust, and anti-democratic principle that birth determines people’s ability to live well. In part, the class into which human beings are born determines their lot in life. For better or worse, Mill was not an absolutist concerning economic equality. Yet he was much more progressive in his views and proposals than most people suppose. He defended the institution of private property on efficiency grounds, not as a requirement of justice. His conception of the institution and its workings is far from traditional. In Principles of Political Economy, he wrote that private property is supposed to guarantee people the fruits of their own labor and abstinence, not of the labor and abstinence of others “transmitted to them without any merit or exertion of their own.” In addition, Mill insisted that to determine whether the institution of private property is itself evil, we must suppose “everything rectified that causes [it] to work in a manner opposed to that equitable principle, of proportion between remuneration and exertion,” which is its only legitimate ground.15 For the institution to be legitimate, we must assume also that “universal education” is in place and that population growth is not out of control. Mill believed that when these conditions were met poverty (and related ills) would disappear, even if private property did not. What is illegitimate is not private property itself, but the context within which the institution works: systematic inequality. When discussing whether a system of private property or a socialist one would better serve the ends of a new society, Mill said: If private property were adopted, we must presume that it would be accompanied by none of the initial inequalities and injustices which obstruct the beneficial operation of the principle in old societies. Every full grown man or woman, we must suppose, would be secured in the unfettered use and disposal of his or her bodily and mental faculties; and the instruments of production, the land and tools, would be divided fairly among them, so that all might start, in respect to outward appliances, on equal terms.16 In short, Mill conceived of the workings of private property as having necessary conditions that would require major changes in society. Among those conditions are changing traditional inheritance rules, restricting the power of the landed aristocracy, providing checks to laissez-faire policies, and altering anti-democratic workplace practices. I will discuss Mill’s views on the last of these issues momentarily.
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Although Mill wavered in his attitude toward full-scale socialism, he was ideologically closer to the socialists of his day and to late twentieth-century social democrats than he was to the classical liberal tradition with which he is almost invariably identified. The nature of his mature socioeconomic views can perhaps be captured by the term “welfarist.” Mill was concerned above all with human welfare, personal and social. Less trivially, the term fits because Mill conceived of certain substantive socioeconomic principles and policies as conditions for the possibility of welfare. Chief among these principles is independence, or the ability significantly tied to our ability to control aspects of our life well-being, including our sense of self-worth. For Mill, to have bodily and mental faculties, as well as their fruits, entirely at our disposal is to be independent. Mill condemned his society for habitually failing to render most people independent in this sense. In his view, social and economic arrangements in modern society continue to render entire groups of people dependent on others, a condition which he saw as analogous to “the primitive state of slavery.”17 The principal manifestations of dependency, poverty and crime, are the by-product of unhampered competition, itself the natural offspring of the ethic of egotistic individualism. 18 Mill tied the ubiquitous presence of poverty and crime in society to the entrenched character of this ethic in modern life. Alas, Mill’s analysis applies quite well to our society. No longer chained by law, great numbers of people are chained by poverty “to a place, to an occupation, and to conformity to the will of an employer” with little or no hope of breaking free during their lifetime.19 This condition is a great evil, but not, as the rich argue, a necessary one. The argument is supposed to be that certain social imperfections and personal sacrifices (even by considerable numbers of people) are necessary for the stability of a society arranged on principles that are valuable to the life of the community as a whole (for example, liberty). Although we see the imperfections and sacrifices as evil, we say the evil is necessary. There are two senses of “necessary” that are relevant here. One sense is the most straightforward one of indispensable, in this case to maintaining the stability of society as it is. Yet there is a stronger sense that lurks behind the claim that something is a necessary evil: inescapable. In this sense, necessary is what cannot be otherwise, the opposite of contingent. In the claim that poverty is a necessary evil we should understand “necessary” in the first sense only, from which it does not follow that nothing can be done about it. In other words, to say that poverty is a necessary evil does not settle the matter in the way that those making the claim want. What remains an open question is whether the society to which this condition is a necessary evil is worth maintaining and, if so, from whose perspective it is worth maintaining. It could well be that the evil is necessary only for the good of a selected few who have vested interests in the kind of society that the distinction between rich and poor maintains, but not for the many ones whose interests are not served by it. The most
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notable consequence of the distinction between rich and poor is the continued dependence of the many on the few, and a fortiori, a class system. In short, the “necessity” of poverty is contingent on the value placed in maintaining society as it is or has been. In Chapters on Socialism Mill replied to the claim that poverty is a necessary evil along these lines. He noted that people had attempted to argue the same about despotism, slavery, and other practices or privileges modern society no longer deems “necessary.” The argument for tolerating poverty should fare no better. There is no reason why those whom “the system of society makes subordinate . . . [should] put faith in any of the maxims which the same system of society may have established as principles.”20 The distinction between rich and poor is grounded on no more imperative a necessity than was the distinction between slave owners and slaves. In fact, the poor are among the few “slaves” left in modern society.21 Given the imbalance of power and interest in the widespread relationship between rich and poor, we cannot take the claim that poverty is a necessary evil as final when coming the rich. The poor are entitled to a voice, and their voice should demand scrutinizing the system of society that renders the poverty of so many people “necessary.” The claim that it is in society’s interest should strike them as a sham. If anything, it is in the interest of a society that does not count them as full members or their interests as weighty enough to be considered part of the whole. Understanding whose interests are served by maintaining the status quo regarding poverty reveals exactly to what the supposed evil is necessary: the interests of the rich, who are also the ones with political power in society. The issue has nothing to do with necessity and everything to do with “abstract justice and the general good of the community,” which would never justify the distinction between rich and poor. For Mill, justice and the general good of every member of a sociopolitical community require that there be “a government who sincerely [desires] the freedom and dignity of the many, and who [does] not look upon it as their natural and legitimate state to be instruments of production, worked for the benefit of the possessors of capital.”22 Under these conditions, the socialists’ compelling vision “of an emancipation of labor to be effected by means of association” would thrive. What kind of association? The form of association . . . which, if mankind continue to improve, must be expected in the end to predominate, is not that which can exist between a capitalist as chief, and work people without a voice in the management, but the association of the laborers themselves interns of equality, collectively owning the capital with which they carry on their operations, and working under managers elected and removable by themselves.23
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Association, not isolation, is the school where “public spirit, generous sentiments, [and] true justice and equality” are nurtured. The improvement of societies is the goal of progressive reformers, and “[t]he aim of improvement should be not solely to place human beings in a condition in which they will be able to do without one another, but to enable them to work with and for one another in relations not involving dependence.”24 In most cases, economic dependence is at the root of other forms of dependence. To Mill, even “the idea” of a society held together exclusively by the relations and feelings arising out of pecuniary interests was “essentially repulsive.” The Saint-Simonians worried that they lived in a society where to awaken someone from social slumber we must show him “that his fortune is in danger.”25 So, alas, should we. Both the traditional rich/poor and the more technical capitalist/wageearner dichotomy point to the same social relation characterized by power on one side and dependence on the other. Although Mill used the term “working classes” to designate a larger group than either “poor” or “wage-earners” might, he disapproved of it in principle: “I do not recognize either just or salutary, a state of society in which there is any ‘class’ which is not laboring; any human beings, exempt from bearing their share of the necessary labors of human life, except those unable to labor, or who fairly earned rest by previous toi1.”26 What would be just and socially salutary is a system have a where people worked together in various relations that preserved every party’s independence. This new system must be founded on cooperation. The capacity to cooperate, which must be nurtured, is “the peculiar characteristic . . . of civilized beings.” Further, the fact of social cooperation is a conclusive sign of improvement: “there is no more certain incident of the progressive change taking place in society, than the continual growth of the principle and practice of cooperation.”27 All sorts of associations that enrich human life in many of its dimensions are possible on this basis: fund-raising organizations for public or philanthropic objects, cooperatives (for example, of consumers), joint-stock companies, various industry or labor-related groups, and different civic bodies brought together by social, political, or even moral reasons. Mill’s vision of revamped working practices includes both sexes participating equally in the rights and government of small-scale producer cooperatives eventually constituting communes and villages. This social order he viewed as “the nearest approach to social justice, and the most beneficial ordering of industrial affairs for the universal good.”28 As improvement (moral and intellectual) and cooperation spread, the hierarchical organization of labor around wage relations between distinct classes of capitalists and laborers will gradually disappear in favor of egalitarian relationships and complete workplace democracy. Mill wrote, “[t]he relation of masters and workpeople will be gradually superseded by partnership, in one of two forms: in some cases, [and at first] association of the laborers with the capitalist; in others, and perhaps
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finally in all, association of laborers among themselves.”29 In this classless society there would be no room for the vices engendered by the ethic of egoistic individualism, notably selfishness, callousness, and moral indifference, or the complementary vices of selflessness, meekness, and apathy. Nor would we find pervasive poverty and violence, which are indigenous to societies founded on that ethic. Mill’s analysis of class underscores that these phenomena are a matter of human institution, and hence they need not be accepted as either “natural” or “necessary” to society. On the contrary, they are entirely removable by human effort. Change in that direction might be slow and gradual, but it is certain if we actively help the forces of progress, which herald equality, replace those of custom, which enthrone privilege. The advantages to be gained by this shift in perspective are many and not all of them industry-related. According to Mill, there would be a great increase in productivity within industry.30 But productivity itself is nowhere near the Millean summum bonum (greatest good). Mill praised the boost in incentive this shift would bring to workers. Among the far-reaching consequences of the shift is a new relationship between laborers and their product, which is, as Karl Marx would put it, “alienated” in a class society. Mill emphasized the positive impact on the productivity of labor that placing laborers in such a relational their work as to make it theirs, and so “their principle and their interest” to do the utmost in exchange for their remuneration. Yet this material benefit: is as nothing compared with the moral revolution in society that would accompany it: the healing of the standing feud between capital and labor; the transformation of human life, from a conflict of classes struggling for opposite interests, to a friendly rivalry in the pursuit of a good common to all; the elevation of the dignity of labor; a new sense of security and independence in the laboring class; and the conversion of each human being’s daily occupation into a school of the social sympathies and the practical intelligence.31 This moral revolution would result from substituting cooperative and egalitarian ethic of justice for that of egoistic individualism as the rule of life. Mill appreciated that general self-centeredness and unfettered competition among equals are not elements of a certain morality, but symptoms of the lack of morality. Egoistic individualism is the creed of a fractured society, where the only bond between human beings is self-interest and where what holds the whole together is the love of money. We have seen that Mill deemed this kind of society “essentially repugnant.” Its underlying ethic is morally repugnant because it allows some people’s gain to be premised on others’ sacrifices. Mill maintained that in well-constituted communities “every one would be a gainer by every other person’s successful exertions,” while now we gain only if oth-
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ers lose.32 Inequality breeds the kind of competition that sets a person against others and forces her to view them as enemies or potential predators on their catch, which they need merely to subsist. This individual competition among possible predators Mill believed gave rise to a “system of private war.” This system engenders envy, resentment, hatred, hostility, suspicion, and other harmful sentiments that are barriers to cooperation. Mill repudiated the argument that these war engines are necessary for the preservation of society. If anything, they are necessary for the preservation of a fragmented and hostile conglomerate of selfish individuals who pursue their own advantage at whatever cost or, at the other end, their sheer self-preservation at the cost of their independence. From Mill’s perspective, socialists are right to criticize this creed as “essentially vicious and anti-social.”33 In short, for Mill, inequality and unhampered competition are the chief obstacles to uninterrupted peace. The Saint-Simonians had used the strong language of war to describe the chief maladies of modern society: Society today, considered as a whole, presents the aspect of two armed camps. In one of them are entrenched the few defenders of the two-sided religious and political organization of the Middle Ages; in the other, under the rather inappropriate heading of “partisans of new ideas,” are arrayed all those who applauded or cooperated in the overthrow of the old edifice. It is into the middle of these two armies that we have stepped forth, bringing peace, proclaiming a doctrine that preaches not only horror of bloodshed, but the horror of battle as well, in whatever form it may disguise itself. Antagonism, between a spiritual and a temporal power, opposition, in honor of liberty, competition, for the general good of all--we do not believe in the eternal necessity of any of these machines of war; we do not acknowledge to “civilized humanity” any “natural right” that obliges and condemns it to tear its guts out.34 Owen also looked forward to a state of society where people would be educated “to act in union” for reasons other than to defend themselves or to destroy others. Perhaps too optimistically, Owen believed that “the system of individual opposing interests has now reached the extreme point of error and inconsistency--in the midst of the most ample means to create wealth, all are in poverty, or in imminent danger from the effects of poverty upon others.”35 The system that Owen was referring to is none other than the system of private and public war, which in his view places human beings in a permanent state of individual and collective irrationality. “The first indication of the approach of mankind to a rational state or mode of existence.” Owen claimed, “will be a general cessation from war.”36 The old society, whose walls Owen thought
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would begin to crumble as soon as a progressive education reached the masses, was war-like in its ethic, which fostered “hypocrisy, hatred, envy, revenge, wars, poverty, injustice, oppression, and all their consequent misery.”37 Owen hoped that a new system founded on cooperation, equality, kindness, and peace would “enable mankind to prevent, in the rising generation, almost all, if not all the evils and miseries which we and our forefathers have experienced.”38 Contemporary assessments of our social ills, academic and popular, eerily echo the analysis of modern society that many early socialists and progressive liberals provided. To them we owe at least one insight definitely applicable to our “postmodern” and technologically sophisticated societies: inequality is a copious source of conflict. On their view, it is not just any kind of inequality under any circumstances that undermines the quest for peace. The sort of inequality that worried these thinkers and should worry us is socioeconomic inequality in a context where things (including money) are in fact valued more than people, despite what we might hold in theory. Our social ethic continues to foster self-absorption and its corollaries, which the nineteenth century diagnosed so well. Sadly, part of our ethic is a continued inability to relate to other people at a human level. What I have in mind here is similar to Immanuel Kant’s requirement that we should never treat human beings as means merely, but always also as ends. Treating people merely as means goes hand in hand with a frightening indifference to their lots. A perfect example of this attitude in contemporary American society is the obsession with paying less tax, which are seen to benefit the undeserving (because they are lazy). In this debate, there is not even a hint of a sense that the public funds thus collected can go a long way to help the disadvantaged in society, who suffer most directly the evil consequences of a large class chasm that has only been getting progressively larger in the second half of this century. As a society, we do not view “those people’s” fates as something that we should take an active interest in, but rather as of their own making and as their problem. Of course, we lament the conditions surrounding them and the outgrowths from those conditions, crime and violence, particularly because they are dilapidating “our” cities. Yet rather than doing our share to reconstruct them so that they become livable for everyone, we flee from them so that we do not have to pay their high taxes. Social problems then become sound bites we receive via the evening news and remain other people’s problems. It must be that they want to live that way, we say; otherwise, they would stay in school, find work, and stay out of trouble’s way. This attitude reveals what is so formidable and self-perpetuating about the grip of class: it feeds on the better off having internalized an altogether too high self-conception, so that we lose sight of what the cost of our well-being really is and delude ourselves into thinking that our fortunate lot is purely the result of our own efforts. This false sense of individual power is behind the
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meritocracy, which leads us to dismiss misery as a preposterous view that as a society we are stemming from appallingly inegalitarian conditions as the fault of their casualties. In fact, we lament these high losses less than we do the loss of even a few military service members in a freedom-preserving mission overseas. And we certainly put less effort, social and economic, into the so-called war on real poverty than we ever have into armed conflicts, whether real or imagined. Adding to the hypocrisy, we pontificate about values and quote the Bible as though God stood anywhere but at the side of the needy, the oppressed, and the forgotten. The self-perpetuating character of this outlook shines through in our conception of “them,” whom class as a category must positively keep separate from “us.” This separation, which is nothing other than what Marx called alienation from other human beings, prevents us from viewing others as anything but “other.” Our social ethic reinforces the distance between self and other, thereby eroding our capacity to relate in human terms to those whom we view as other. Any society that pits some group’s interest against some other’s—where the groups are in an inegalitarian relation of power and dependence-will be characterized by widespread insensitivity in fact to the equally widespread misery it generates. Unfortunately, we have not learned as much as we should have from the repeated failures of the relevant political, social, and economic arrangements to bring about the social harmony we claim we want. Or, perhaps we are simply not willing to give up our privileges and share them with others for the sake of social harmony, which means we only pretend to value peace highly. Mill not only realized the damage that the ethic of egoistic individualism inflicts, but made it the focus of his critical work. Like Owen, Mill was convinced that the ethic of justice grounded in equality would eventually replace this destructive one, making room for a new social order. Mill also was convinced that most human suffering has human solutions at the disposal of actual human beings. Everyone can do something to alleviate social maladies, and concerted efforts by different sorts of complexities, including the state, can bring an end to them in the longer run. Knowing that this process is “grievously slow” should not be discouraging. Knowing that even a small contribution to the process can become a source of “noble enjoyment” should help to awaken us from our apathetic slumber. This task has proven particularly elusive to us Americans, who continue to be fed with our mothers’ milk the myth that we live in a classless society. Yet only undertaking it straightforwardly will being us closer to the substantive peace we ought, as a society, to want for us and for future generations.
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1. Robert Owen, “An Address to the Inhabitants of New Lanark,” Socialist Thought: A Documentary History, eds. Albert Fried and Ronald Sanders (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), p. 169. 2. Ibid., p. 169. 3. John Stuart Mill, “Considerations on Representative Government,” Three Essays (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), page 159. 4. Ibid., pp.160–161. 5. Ibid., pp.167. 6. Ibid., pp.173. 7. John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., Inc., 1979), p. 52. 8. Ibid., p. 58. 9. Ibid., p. 59. 10. John Stuart Mill, “On Liberty.” Three Essays, p. 92. 11. Ibid., p. 93 (emphasis added). 12. John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, chap. 2, p. 14. 13. Ibid., chap. 2, p. 15. 14. John Stuart Mill, Chapters on Socialism (New York: American Book Exchange, 1879). 15. John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy (Oxford: Oxford World’s Classics, 1994), Book 2, chap. 1, p. 16. 16. Ibid., page 8 (emphasis added). 17. John Stuart Mill, “The Subjugation of Women,” Three Essays, chap. 1. 18. Mill, Principles of Political Economy, bk. 4, chap. 7, sec. 7, pp. 156–158. 19. Mill, Chapters on Socialism, p. 710. 20. Ibid., pp, 710–711. 21. John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy, bk. 5, chap. 7, p. 264. 22. Ibid., bk. 4, chap. 7, p. 148. 23. Ibid., p. 147. 24. Ibid., p.142 (emphasis added). 25. “Exposition of the Doctrine of Saint-Simone, First Session: On the Necessity of a New Social Doctrine,” Socialist Thought, p. 104. 26. Mill, Principles of Political Economy, bk. 4, chap. 7, p. 131. 27. Ibid., bk. 4, chap. 1, p. 69. 28. Ibid. 29. Ibid., bk. 4, chap. 7, p. 142. 30. Ibid., p. 152. 31. Ibid., p. 153 (emphasis added). 32. John Stuart Mill, Chapters on Socialism, p. 713. 33. Ibid. 34. “Exposition of the Doctrine of Saint-Simone,” p. 104. 35. Robert Owen, “Report to the County Lanark,” A New View of Society and Other Essays (London: Penguin Books, 1991), p. 277. 36. Ibid., p. 341.
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Nine SHARING A SENSE OF JUSTICE: THE ROLE OF CONSCIENCE IN POLITICAL PROTEST Michael Patterson Brown Human history began with an act of disobedience—it is likely to end with an act of obedience.1 [W]e see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and race to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.2 1. Introduction Since the death of Socrates, questions regarding civil disobedience have occupied a prominent place in Western philosophy. It is a rich area of investigation, because it often situates us squarely on the intersection of ethical and political theory. Here, questions of individual morality are intimately bound to our responsibilities to others within societies, and to the societies themselves. The imperatives of morality and of justice occupy crucial roles, illuminating one another, and both involve matters of conscience. In A Theory of Justice, John Rawls pays special attention to the issue of civil disobedience.3 He devotes a section to carefully defining, justifying, and describing its role in an idealized society. He provides an eloquent defense of its usefulness and a way to help us recognize its place within a larger political culture. I was initially attracted to this part of his work because his definition of civil disobedience is far more flexible than many others, and his discussion of the topic is extremely considerate. His treatment, designed within the context of ideal theory, leaves open many questions of application, which have yet to be fully explored. To begin to do so, I believe it useful to focus on a distinction he draws between civil disobedience as a form of protest and what he terms “conscientious refusal.” Both are violations of the law which are motivated by conscience, but the former makes an appeal to a “shared conception of justice” (a phrase that will be significant in the discussion to follow) to bring about a change of policy or law, while the second need not make such an appeal, or wholly accept this conception of justice.
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Rawls draws a contrast between civil disobedience and conscientious refusal in order to establish the value of civil disobedience as a stabilizing device in a nearly just society. It acts as a mechanism to correct injustices that may still arise, without threatening the underlying conception of justice that makes such a society possible. Without further discussion, I believe an opportunity will be missed, as this distinction diminishes the potential theoretical and practical importance of conscientious refusal and other sincere acts of conscience, given a world that falls short of his ideal. This paper will focus on two consequences of Rawls’ definition. Both revolve around his contrast between civil disobedience and conscientious refusal. The first is a theoretical difficulty that arises from the assumption of the existence of a shared, or public, conception of justice in a nearly just society. If such a conception does exist and is shared by everyone, instances of conscientious refusal that make no appeal to the public conception of justice would appear to be ruled out from the beginning because, by definition, they question the legitimacy of the conception of justice accepted by the majority. Those driven to spark instances of conscientious refusal, then, cannot be said to share the public conception of justice. Further, if the role of conscientious refusal in a society is marginalized, there is a reduced likelihood of a truly shared conception of justice coming to exist. The standing public conception of justice becomes static and necessarily exclusive. The second difficulty with Rawls’ definitions of civil disobedience and conscientious refusal is procedural. The fact that people feel driven to commit acts of conscientious refusal in non-ideal societies raises questions of means. In his definition of civil disobedience, Rawls outlines several necessary conditions for an act of disobedience to be justified. These conditions derive from the political nature of civil disobedience, which we can view as a special form of address, or speech, by which a minority invokes the conception of justice it shares with the majority to protest, or point out, an injustice. Because conscientious refusal does not always invoke a shared conception, and often questions the accepted one, it is not necessarily political on Rawls’ view. Instead, it might be a moral stance that falls outside the scope of the political. The same conditions for justification do not apply, leaving little to distinguish conscientious refusal from other forms of opposition to the established order, such as armed rebellion. I think there is a valuable difference between these types of opposition and the means that they adopt, a difference that calls for greater acknowledgment of the role that some types of conscientious refusal may play within political culture. These two difficulties call for an expansion of Rawls’ theory of civil disobedience to include acts that do not merely invoke a public conception of justice in order to point out how a particular law or policy diverges from it. The theory should also include acts that call the commonly accepted concep-
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tion of justice itself into question, in the interest of reforming it. I will begin this discussion with an example of illegal protest that will help to illustrate concepts throughout. After expositions of Rawls’ theory of civil disobedience and his description of conscientious refusal, I offer some models to further an understanding of how the two are distinguished in A Theory of Justice. Finally, I will discuss the difficulties with Rawls’ characterization of conscientious refusal and its role in political culture, along with my suggested revision of his definition. 2. A Letter The following is a letter from Johannes Koenraad Van der Veer to M. Herman Sneiders, commandant of the National Guard of the Midelburg district of Holland in response to a summons to enter the National Guard in 1896: 4
“THOU SHALT DO NO MURDER.” Dear Sir—Last week I received a document ordering me to appear at the municipal office, to be, according to law, enlisted in the National Guards. As you probably noticed, I did not appear, and this letter is to inform you, plainly and without equivocation, that I do not intend to appear before the commission. I know well that I am taking a heavy responsibility, that you have the right to punish me, and that you will not fail to use this right. But that does not frighten me. The reasons which lead me to this passive resistance seem to me strong enough to outweigh the responsibility I take. I, who, if you please, am not a Christian, understand better than most Christians the commandment which is put at the head of this letter, the commandment which is rooted in human nature, in the mind of man. When but a boy, I allowed myself to be taught the trade of the soldier, the art of killing; but now I renounce it. I would not kill at the command of others, and thus have murder on my conscience without any personal cause or reason whatever. Can you mention anything more degrading to a human being than carrying out such murder, such massacre? I am unable to kill, even to see an animal killed; therefore I became a vegetarian. And now I am to be ordered to shoot men who have done me no harm; for I take it that it is not to shoot at leaves and branches of trees that soldiers are taught to use guns. But you will reply, perhaps, that the National Guard is besides, and especially, to keep civic order. M. Commandant, if order really reigned in our society, if the social organism were really healthy—in other words, if there were in our social re-
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MICHAEL PATTERSON BROWN lations no crying abuses, if it were not established that one man shall die of hunger while another gratifies his every whim of luxury, then you would see me in the front ranks of the defenders of this orderly state. But I flatly decline to help in preserving the present so-called “social order.” Why, M. Commandant, should we throw dust in each other’s eyes? We both know quite well what the “preservation of order” means: upholding the rich against the poor toilers, who begin to perceive their rights. Do we not know the role which the National Guard played in the last strike at Rotterdam? For no reason, the Guard had to be on duty hours and hours to watch over the property of the commercial houses which were affected. Can you for a moment suppose that I should shoot down working-people who are acting quite within their rights? You cannot be so blind. Why then complicate the question? Certainly, it is impossible for me to allow myself to be molded into an obedient National Guardsman such as you want and must have. For these reasons, but especially because I hate murder by order, I refuse to serve as a National Guardsman, and ask you not to send me either uniform or arms, because I have a fixed resolve not to use them.—I greet you, M. Commandant, J. K. Van der Veer
This is a very direct refusal, citing several considered reasons and fully accepting the consequences of his (illegal) action. While some of Van der Veer’s reasons stem from personal morality, others take on a more political tone, making his case a good example to illustrate Rawls’ discussion of civil disobedience and conscientious refusal. From the standpoint of A Theory of Justice, how might we think of this case? What role does such an act of refusal have in a larger political culture? What are we to do with protesters like Van der Veer? A theory of civil disobedience cannot answer all such questions for every case. With the theory, Rawls intends to illustrate certain problems of partial compliance in democratic society. He hopes to present a practical application of his more idealized theory to real and immediate problems. I will be returning to Van der Veer in the following sections. 3. Civil Disobedience Rawls’ account of civil disobedience stands out in the work as a whole, as it represents his only detailed examination of non-ideal theory. Even so, he still frames his discussion under the special circumstance of a “nearly just society.” Most immediately, this implies a well-ordered society with a democratic regime and constitutional government. Rawls’ notion of standards by which we evaluate the just constitution of such societies deserves closer attention here.
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Rawls posits a version of social contract theory in which “Social arrangements are just or unjust according to whether they accord with the principles for assigning and securing fundamental rights and liberties which would be chosen in the original position.” 5 The force of the contract, then, is derived from the hypothetical consent of the citizens to the choices made by rational agents under conditions of equal liberty. Further, the agents in the original position would configure the principles and institutions of their society under a “veil of ignorance,” blind to certain facts about their position and status in society. These include, for example, their natural abilities, their individual conception of the good, and some facts about the societal context (political and economic) in which these factors will come to play.6 These restrictions are meant to ensure just decisions without the assumption of altruistic motives, as each agent in the original position will tend to ensure his or her own (abstracted) self-interest in the society to be formed. Rawls believes that such a procedure in a modern context would favor the creation of a constitutional democracy founded on two main principles of justice: equal liberty and equal opportunity. Even if a society were to approach this ideal, the possibility still exists that unjust laws would be passed and enforced due to the imperfect procedural justice of majority rule. While the cohesiveness of society depends upon a shared conception of justice and acceptance of its principles, there still must be a recognition that the (common) sense of justice in others may be defective or lacking. Under the social contract doctrine outlined, the individual retains the right to judge such matters, but not perfect liberty to accept or reject particular laws: The justice of the constitution does not insure the justice of laws enacted under it; and while we often have both an obligation and a duty to comply with what the majority legislates (as long as it does not exceed certain limits), there is, of course, no corresponding obligation or duty to regard what the majority enacts as itself just.7 Though we must shoulder some unjust laws for the greater interest of a functioning order, when these laws exceed certain limits, civil disobedience becomes a justifiable option as individuals or groups struggle to meet grave injustice with a moral response. From the standpoint of a theory of justice, Rawls maintains that the primary natural duty is to uphold just institutions where they exist. This may require us to accept some unjust laws, but when those laws pass a limit decided, ultimately, by the individual, allowing the transgression to continue no longer serves these institutions. The natural duty not to be the agent of a grave injustice increases in importance, and may require us to protest.
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Laws that harshly discriminate against a segment of the population, restricting their equal liberty, are examples of injustices that we should not tolerate for the sake of the institutions enacting them. While it appears less likely that severely discriminatory laws would come about in a society that could be called “nearly just,” the need for a “corrective measure” like civil disobedience if legislation of this type is passed is easier to see. In Van der Veer’s letter, he refers to the killing of workers who were acting within their rights as an example of a substantial injustice undertaken by the National Guard that he could not tolerate, let alone support. Again, Rawls’ aim in developing a theory of civil disobedience is not, he cautions, to afford precise principles by which we may answer actual questions of disobedience, but instead to construct a framework through which we may understand and coherently judge such actions. The overall purpose and effect of such a theory, once defined, would be “to narrow the disparity between the conscientious convictions of those [people] who accept the basic principles of a democratic society.” After thus situating the discussion, Rawls proceeds to outline the status of civil disobedience in a reasonably just society. He defines civil disobedience as a “public, nonviolent, conscientious, yet political act contrary to law usually done with the aim of bringing about a change in the law or policies of the government.” This echoes earlier formulations, including that of Martin Luther King Jr. who wrote, while imprisoned for an act of civil disobedience: One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.8 Rawls maintains that a number of consequences follow directly from this definition. First, civil disobedience is a political act, prompted and justified by political principles that rest on a shared conception of justice. These political principles are also moral principles because they define the concepts of civil society and the public good. Further, our moral principles, less restricted than political principles, may support our decision to disobey a law. But the act of disobedience is only “civil” to the extent that it may be framed politically by claiming that a law enacted by the majority is not in keeping with the conception of justice shared by both the disobedient individuals and the majority. If we cite our personal moral or religious principles as primary justification, we may call an act conscientious but not political, because there is no reasonable basis on which to assume that others are bound by the same principles.
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Van der Veer’s refusal to “murder by order” those who have done him no perceivable harm and have not threatened him in any way might be argued from political principles (for example, as crimes of war). Rawls would deem Van der Veer’s absolute refusal to kill a dictate of personal morality, unless perhaps he is unable to kill for a reason not involving any principle at all, instead of unwilling to kill in any circumstance (as in a just war, where Rawls believes political and natural duty might require killing). The weight placed upon the commandment at the head of the letter as one “rooted in human nature” leads us to see the refusal as absolute, while Van der Veer’s readiness to join the “front ranks of the defenders” of a truly just society might contradict this interpretation. For our purposes here, we may leave this question open to various interpretations. A second consequence is that civil disobedience remains within the limits of fidelity to the law, “although it is at the outer edge thereof.” If protesters give notice of their intentions, and do not conceal their actions, their acts may be considered “public.” That protesters willingly accept the (legal) consequences of their acts provides a bond of sincerity to the rest of society, reinforcing the public nature of the acts and demonstrating their respect for law (generally). When we add the condition of nonviolence to these stipulations, we may view the act of disobedience as a form of speech, an appeal to public principles in a public forum. If any part of this definition is excluded it obscures the appeal being made, by hindering the ability of others to view the act of civil disobedience as a form of address. Civil disobedience lies at the “outer edge” of fidelity to law, Rawls claims, because it is often a final expression of the protesters’ case before they consider more extreme measures (for example, violence) to rectify the injustice. Third, unjust laws enacted and sustained by majority rule invite either the submission or the resistance of a wronged minority, those who suffer the brunt of the injustice. Submission by the minority may fuel contempt from the majority, or even self-contempt, both resulting in the feeling that the injustice is somehow deserved. Resistance, on the other hand, destroys the bonds of the larger community assumed to exist in the idealized setting. As an alternative to both submission and divisive resistance, civil disobedience falls between the two, by forcing the majority to recognize the injustice and to decide if it wishes to be the agent of such an infringement. Finally, Rawls points out that his definition allows direct and indirect protests. It is not always possible or reasonable to require that the act of civil disobedience break the specific law being protested. For instance, committing treason should not be necessary to protest a law regarding treason. This consequence sharply distinguishes Rawls from some of his contemporaries, including Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Abraham (Abe) Fortas, who held that civil disobedience “is never justified in our nation, where the law being
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violated is not itself the focus or target of the protest . . . the violation of law merely as a technique of demonstration . . . constitutes an act of rebellion, not merely of dissent.”9 Rawls’ theory of civil disobedience represents a model more flexible than Fortas’s, applicable to a broader range of cases and circumstances, and closer to the commonly held and practiced definition. To establish that civil disobedience is an appropriate response in a given case, Rawls believes that ideally, several criteria should be met. We should try all normal, presumably legal, political means in good faith before embarking on a campaign of civil disobedience. Civil disobedience should be a last resort, within reason, before more extreme measures are considered. Further, the protested law should represent a substantial violation of the first principle of justice, equal liberty, or a barrier to the realization of the second, equal opportunity. As cases derived from the second principle, or interpretations of the difference principle, are often subject to debate, they remain too contentious to form a justification for civil disobedience. Keeping this last criterion in mind, part of Van der Veer’s justification is questionable. In refusing service, he rejects the call to maintain the social order. Leo Tolstoy comments about Van der Veer’s reaction to this oft-cited social imperative: [H]e does not wish to preserve the present social order, because it is bad, because in it the rich dominate the poor, which ought not to be. So that, even if he had any other doubts as to the propriety of serving or not serving, the one consideration that in serving as a soldier he must, by carrying arms and threatening to kill, support the oppressing rich against the oppressed poor, would compel him to refuse military service.10 This argument invokes political principles and addresses significant inequalities in the society. Rawls argues that interpretations of the difference principle—to decide which inequalities are beneficial to society—are notoriously difficult and hotly contested even in the best circumstance, and as such cannot provide a firm justification for the violation of law. In this case, however, where there is such a gross disparity of wealth that many die of hunger while others live in excess, and this order is violently maintained, Van der Veer’s appeal does point out an institutionalized barrier to the realization of equal opportunity, and arguably a violation of equal liberty, thereby satisfying the criterion of justification. Beyond these conditions, two tactical considerations are significant. As the right to civil disobedience as a form of protest must be extended to all minority groups in a similar circumstance, or an equally justified position, restraint may be required to preserve order. Many groups launching simultaneous campaigns might very well undermine the constitution and overwhelm the public
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forum in which the appeal is to be made. In such a circumstance, we would need to devise a fair method to regulate the appeals (for example, taking turns) so as not to diminish their individual effectiveness or endanger the society’s basic institutions. In addition, once we have sufficiently established the right to use civil disobedience, we should take care to stage the protest so that it constructively furthers the ends sought. If we cannot find such a method, proceeding would be counter-productive. Our action could further damage the position of a minority in society by inviting harsh retaliation or by further alienating it from the majority. To close the discussion of civil disobedience, Rawls adds a note on the locus of decision regarding the above criteria for the justification of such acts. We cannot leave the decision as to whether dissenting members should break a law they believe is unjust to the majority that passed the law. Each individual must make this decision after due consideration of the criteria, weighed against the larger principles of justice which favor compliance. If the individual breaks the law after giving due consideration to these factors and after accepting responsibility for his or her actions, then we can say that individual has acted conscientiously and not simply by whim or pleasure. Rawls believes that we can publicly acknowledge this right without danger of degenerating into anarchy if such autonomous individuals (presumably few) remain responsible to the community at large. 4. Conscientious Refusal The above outline of Rawls’ definition of civil disobedience is intended to show the complexity and care of his treatment, but it remains only partial without including his discussion of conscientious refusal. His justification of civil disobedience and description of its stabilizing role under the special conditions of a nearly just society require a further distinction regarding violations of the law motivated by conscience. Not all such violations traditionally classed as acts of civil disobedience fit into Rawls’ paradigmatic characterization of civil disobedience as public, nonviolent, and political appeals to change unjust laws or policies. In light of Rawls’ definition, some initial questions have already arisen about the status of Van der Veer’s case, normally defined as an act of civil disobedience. In a vital sense, his is a refusal to act, and the reasons given are mixed, some invoking political principles and others referring to arguably personal, moral principles. Other cases of what commentators have called civil disobedience are similarly difficult to fit into Rawls’ scheme as it stands. To deal with such cases and to further support his justification and clarify the role of civil disobedience, Rawls distinguishes civil disobedience from conscientious refusal. He defines conscientious refusal as “non-compliance with a more or less direct legal injunction or administrative order.” We can
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consider the refusal of absolute pacifists to participate in any armed conflict for religious or moral reasons as a paradigmatic case. Normally conscientious refusal is undertaken openly, as there is often little possibility of concealment, even if desired. Where there is an effort to avoid penalties, or to make such actions covert, Rawls calls it conscientious evasion, rather than refusal. As opposed to civil disobedience, conscientious refusal does not necessarily make an appeal to a shared sense of justice in society. The aim might not be to change an unjust law, as there may be no recognized common ground of understanding on which to base such an appeal. People engaged in conscientious refusal are less optimistic than those undertaking civil disobedience, Rawls states, because they have little hope that the public forum will receive their views or that their actions will effect any sort of change in policy: “Rather, they bide their time hoping that the necessity to disobey will not arise.” For instance, a pacifist may not actively protest laws allowing for conscription in a national emergency, merely hoping that it never comes to pass. Similarly, tax resisters may quietly survive on a modest income, just below the taxable level, hoping that they are never called upon to financially support government programs or policies that they abhor. As these cases illustrate, acts of conscientious refusal may be founded upon religious or moral principles held by some members or groups within a society. In the absence of an appeal to the common conception of justice, such acts cannot be called political, according to Rawls, further distinguishing them from civil disobedience. On Rawls’ view, an absolute pacifist may refuse to participate in a war of self-defense while acknowledging that the principles of justice, viewed by the common conception, may require all citizens to aid in the preservation of the state during times of emergency, fighting if necessary. In such a case, the moral precepts accepted by an individual preclude his or her participation in the shared conception of justice of the larger society. The requirements of the common (though obviously not universal) conception of justice are thus acknowledged, only to be deemed as flawed by the dissenter. At this point, an act is no longer political as it serves only to contrast with, not to engage, the popular view. After carefully describing the ways in which conscientious refusal and civil disobedience differ, Rawls notes that particular acts of protest may incorporate aspects of both. In many cases, including Van der Veer’s, the justification given for acts of conscientious refusal may include an appeal to political principles, resembling the justification for an act of civil disobedience. This appeal may stand alone, or be accompanied by a reference to what Rawls considers personal convictions. For instance, both political and personal reasons are often involved in the refusal to obey grossly unjust laws, such as those that would result in the enslavement of oneself or another. Abolitionists in the preCivil War United States who aided escaped slaves on the Underground Rail-
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road could offer both political and personal justifications, for instance, though their actions often could be called conscientious evasion rather than refusal. To help explain how such mixed examples fit into his schema, Rawls concedes that there exists: in actual situations no sharp distinction between civil disobedience and conscientious refusal . . . . While there are clear cases of each, the contrast between them is intended as a way of elucidating the interpretation of civil disobedience and its role in a democratic society. 5. Models This section will further explain the distinction between civil disobedience and conscientious refusal, offering two models to map out where those whose conceptions of justice differ from the commonly shared conception stand in relation to their compatriots. We can view the definitions and relations established so far on a continuum ranging from legal protest, which accepts the conditions of association and the conception of justice of a society, to resistance to these norms or a rejection of the belief that the society is just. Civil disobedience falls in the middle of this continuum, while Rawls groups conscientious refusal with other, possibly more radical, forms of opposition. In Rawls’ words, “Civil disobedience has been defined so that it falls between legal protest and the raising of test cases on the one side, and conscientious refusal and the various forms of resistance on the other.” Rawls uses this representation to distinguish civil disobedience from militant resistance that intentionally poses a threat to the society in which it occurs, and to underscore the constructive nature of civil disobedience. “The militant,” he writes: is much more deeply opposed to the existing political system. He does not accept it as one which is nearly just or reasonably so; he believes either that it departs widely from its professed principles or that it pursues a mistaken conception of justice altogether. By grouping conscientious refusal with such resistance, Rawls implies that conscientious acts founded upon conceptions of justice significantly different from the shared conception are opposed to the social order. This serves to severely restrict any justification we could give for conscientious refusal. Rawls struggles with this consequence, stating:
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Where conscientious refusal does not appeal to recognized political principles, it represents the pursuit of such particular interests, and must yield to the legal order when conflicts arise, on Rawls’ view. The only justification for refusing to do so is purely personal, at best resting on one’s natural duty not to be the agent of grave injustice. As spelled out above, Rawls has carefully outlined the relationship of civil disobedience to conscientious refusal and given an account of the intersecting spheres of moral and political considerations in this section of his work. The remainder of my discussion will focus on the function and implications of some of these distinctions in our own not-so-nearly just society. It is my hope that this discussion will facilitate the constructive application of some aspects of his ideal theory, and will work to fill in the gap left above between the realms of conscience and justice by revising his framing to recognize an expanded role for some instances of conscientious refusal within political culture. 6. Conscientious Civil Refusal Every recognition of a truth by man, or rather, every deliverance from error, as in the case of slavery before our eyes, is always attained through a conflict between the awakening conscience and the inertia of the old condition.11 While Rawls’ definition of civil disobedience has certain advantages over past definitions, I will take up two points of engagement with it, both revolving around his distinction between civil disobedience and conscientious refusal. Rawls does say that a justification of conscientious refusal is possible, where the appeal being made is political rather than just religious or moral, and it would look much like the justification of civil disobedience in the special case of a nearly just society. So it may be said that Rawls allows for the justification of an act of conscientious refusal only to the extent that it resembles an act of civil disobedience, using the same general arguments for both. Rawls also comes close to assigning a sanctioned role to conscientious refusal, as a stabilizing device within a democratic regime, though there is no separate section devoted to this topic, and little mention is made of conscientious refusal in the section on the role of civil disobedience in a constitutional system. Given his earlier grouping of moral or religious conscientious refusal with militant resistance that may fragment society, I think he must attach the
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same restriction to this discussion of the role of conscientious refusal as to that of the justification of conscientious refusal above. Conscientious refusal may only occupy a stabilizing role to the extent that it relies on purely political principles, the extent to which it resembles civil disobedience. My purpose here is to fill in these omissions, expanding Rawls’ discussion of conscientious, civil acts to include some instances of conscientious refusal that are not strictly “political” in Rawls’ sense. I believe we need to expand the justification and role of dissent to include acts that do not merely invoke a public conception of justice in order to point out how a particular law diverges from it. We should also include acts that call the public conception of justice per se into question, in the interest of reforming it. This will not include all acts of conscientious refusal as Rawls defines the term, but may include a significant number if certain allowances are made after considering two points about the theory as it stands. Without this addition, many sincere expressions of conscience are marginalized, severely limiting the possibility of a truly shared conception of justice from obtaining, or even representing a functional ideal. The first point regards problems with the theoretical assumptions inherent in Rawls’ definition of conscientious refusal. Seeing how instances of conscientious refusal fit into a nearly just society regulated by a public conception of justice is difficult, as they signal gaps in the universality of this shared conception. Rawls appears comfortable making exceptions for these and assigning them to the margins of political and social life, where they seem harmless enough. Though mistaken, they might even serve as a reminder that other (opposing) unjust tendencies (for example, wars of aggression) are all too common. This move reminds us that we are foraying into non-ideal theory, and shows how quickly discussion of civil disobedience and conscientious refusal complicates any assumptions of background justice. Rawls’ claim that he is addressing these notions only within the special case of a nearly just society becomes questionable. As his discussion progresses, the gaps in the public conception of justice become wider and the injustices evident in the society become even graver. Marginalizing these acts of conscience not only throws into question the existence of a public conception of justice, but also severely and unnecessarily limits the possibility of forming such a conception—a dangerous exclusion. The aim, remember, is for there to be publicly acknowledged principles, which we can all accept and which we can rely on others to accept, regulating questions of justice within a society. Rawls claims that the extent to which any act of civil disobedience or conscientious refusal can be justified depends directly on the extent to which it invokes this public conception of justice (or is political in nature, rather than merely religious or moral). As this justification does not extend to acts that question the conception per se, we are left with a static system, one that can be
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fine-tuned, but not overhauled or reformed. Peter Singer writes that this consequence “elevates the conception of justice at present held by some society or societies into a standard valid for all time.”12 Given a just or nearly just society, this may be sufficient, but it proves unhelpful in less-than-ideal circumstances, including some of the examples cited by Rawls, and certainly in our own societies. The fact that some omissions or defects in the public conception of justice have been at least partially corrected in our past (ending slavery, for instance) recommends humility more than complacency regarding our (and any) current conception. If there is any possibility of forming a public conception of justice, on which so much depends for Rawls, and having any confidence in it, we must remain open to revision. Singer continues, saying: Maybe we cannot ourselves see improvements in a particular society’s conception of justice, but we surely cannot rule out the possibility that in time it may appear defective, not only in its application, but in the fundamentals of the conception itself. In this case, disobedience designed to induce the majority to rethink its conception of justice might be justified.13 Examples of areas around which a public conception may change include the scope of its intended application. In current society, animal rights activists are among those calling for the expansion of who is to be included under the public conception of justice. They would be hard-pressed to argue from principles that Rawls deems political, leaving them with no publicly recognized course of action. In light of the fact that slaves were not generally considered to be fully human for quite some time in the United States, even under a supposedly democratic, constitutional rule, we are forced to reflect on the difficulty of judging such issues from within the context of unjust societies, or even knowing when we are doing so. The second point I wish to take up centers on a procedural question regarding the means chosen, or conditions of protest adopted, by those moved to undertake acts of conscientious refusal that are not justified in political terms. If the first criticism speaks to the possibility of forming the public conception of justice upon which a just society depends, the second speaks to the stability and cohesion of societies engaged in this process, by addressing the means chosen along the way. In the way that Rawls has framed his distinction between civil disobedience and conscientious refusal, those committing acts of conscientious refusal that call into question the shared conception of justice are lumped with militants who are fundamentally opposed to the existing regime. While the ends of conscientious refusal may well be deemed revolutionary at times, I think there still is room here for a finer distinction to be made.
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Individuals often undertake conscientious refusal, as in the case of Van der Veer, under many of the same constraints that govern civil disobedience, including nonviolence, publicity, and acceptance of the legal consequences. It is dismissive to assume that this is only because to resist or evade state authority is impossible. At times, these acts are clearly intended as a form of public address similar to the one Rawls describes for civil disobedience, and the individuals are striving to make their action recognizable as such to the majority. Their address points out an injustice not simply by invoking accepted political principles, but by claiming that the scope or nature of the accepted principles is unjust. We might ask, at this point, why Van de Veer wrote his letter at all, if not to make a public appeal. The fact that an act of conscientious refusal may be intended as a form of address, a final statement of one’s case, does not depend upon existing and accepted political principles, then, but on the possibility of reforming them to be more just. This means the possibility of a truly shared conception of justice, which is necessary for a just, or nearly just society to exist, according to Rawls. Recall that Rawls believes the political nature of acts of civil disobedience provides the rational basis for the conditions of nonviolence, publicity, and acceptance of penalties. He places civil disobedience on the (outer) limits of fidelity to the law. Conscientious refusal of the type I am defending is not political by Rawls’ definition, and so is clearly outside these limits according to Rawls. There is no rational basis, then, for those moved to undertake conscientious refusal to uphold the conditions of nonviolence or publicity. Making the requirement that acts of conscientious refusal must be political in order to be justified or to have a recognized role could serve to push those that differ from the public conception of justice toward more militant resistance, distorting the reception of what they intended to be a form of public address. The majority might be provoked to defend rather than question their accepted values or principles. Rawls goes as far as to say that when there is no adequate shared conception of justice evident in the majority, civil disobedience is unwise as it cannot be a form of address, and might therefore invite a harsh response from what is already an unjust regime. From the perspective of many individuals who consider acts of conscientious refusal, the sense of justice of the majority necessarily appears deficient in some respect, and they cannot share that sense. Without a recognized outlet of expression to seek reforms, there seem to be few options apart from submission or divisive resistance. As discussed earlier, these are both poor choices if one seeks to maintain a political community while insuring one’s standing within it. The individual’s right to make decisions to engage in civil disobedience, if done responsibly, need not lead us to anarchy, and there is room for it within a political culture. I wonder what keeps us from formulating a similar state-
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ment about acts of conscientious refusal that are not political or that differ from the shared conception of justice, yet adhere to all other conditions in the definition of civil disobedience. In my view, such acts may be equally justifiable and have a role of equal, or greater, importance in the long run. They are, in a sense, civil acts of refusal, motivated by individual conscience to correct what is judged to be a grave injustice. We cannot give all acts of refusal or resistance a welcome space within the political culture of a society. Still, to the extent that we can distinguish instances of conscientious refusal as conscientious and civil, they warrant consideration and an acknowledged role within the political culture of the majority, even if they do not satisfy Rawls’ definition of a political act.
NOTES 1. Erich Fromm, On Disobedience and Other Essays (New York: Seabury Press, 1981), p. 16. 2. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter from Birmingham City Jail,” 1963, in Robert A. Goldwin, ed., On Civil Disobedience: Essays Old and New (Chicago, Rand McNally, 1968), p. 64. 3. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1971). Unless otherwise specified, all Rawls’ quotes are taken from this work. 4. Leo Tolstoy, Tolstoy’s Writings on Civil Disobedience and Non-Violence (New York: Bergman Publishers, 1967), pp. 9–10. 5. John Rawls, “The Justification of Civil Disobedience,” in Hugo Bedau, ed., Civil Disobedience: Theory and Practice (New York: Pegasus, 1969), p. 242. 6. Ibid., p. 137. 7. Ibid., pp. 245–246. 8. King in Goldwin, On Civil Disobedience, p. 67. 9. Abe Fortas, Concerning Dissent and Civil Disobedience (New York: Signet Books, 1968), p. 124. 10. Tolstoy, Tolstoy’s Writings on Civil Disobedience and Non-Violence, pp. 11–12. 11. Ibid., p. 16. 12. Peter Singer, “Disobedience as a Plea for Reconsideration,” in Hugo Bedau, ed., Civil Disobedience in Focus (London: Routledge, 1991), p. 126. 13. Ibid.
Ten TAKING COMPROMISE SERIOUSLY David Boersema 1. Introduction Following the successes of the Republican Party in the 1994 congressional elections, The New York Times quoted Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Newton Leroy (Newt) Gingrich: I want to draw a distinction between two words. I am very prepared to cooperate with the Clinton Administration. I am not prepared to compromise. On everything on which we can find agreement, I will cooperate. On those things that are at the core of our contract, on those things which are at the core of our philosophy and on those things where we believe we represent the vast majority of Americans, there will be no compromise.1 What about compromise makes Gingrich assign it such a negative connotation? Perhaps he saw it as a form of betrayal of principles or as a betrayal of integrity. But is it? There has been (shamefully) very little focus on compromise in the writings of philosophers. With a few notable exceptions, we find formal treatment of compromise nearly absent in works on ethical theory, introductory textbooks of moral and ethical issues, books about virtue-based or principle-based ethics, and works on applied ethics.2 In this paper, I suggest that compromise is a value especially consistent with a pragmatist approach to moral theory and practice, and with a concern for promoting peace. I will begin with a few remarks on compromise. Because a special concern to some philosophers has been the relation of compromise with the principle of the protection and enhancement of rights, I will follow my initial remarks by fleshing out my sense of a pragmatist approach to the nature of rights. Finally, I will indicate how a pragmatist approach to the nature of rights and taking compromise seriously are mutually supportive and mutually fostering, and then suggest how this helps to promote values consistent with non-violent conflict resolution.
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What is compromise? The Oxford English Dictionary gives more than a dozen definitions of the term. As Gingrich indicated, the concept is related to, though distinct from, cooperation. In addition, compromise is related to a number of other notions: concession, collaboration, and accommodation, as well as negotiation, mediation, and arbitration. Negotiation is two or more parties trying to find a satisfactory solution to a mutual conflict. Mediation, another mode of conflict resolution, is the involvement of a third, neutral party who attempts to help the negotiators find a satisfactory solution. Arbitration involves a third, neutral party who has the power to choose a solution for the negotiating parties. Starting with a schema such as “(Parties) A and B compromise (or reach a compromise) about (content) C,” we see there are various features of compromise that distinguish it from these other notions. First, compromise can be both a process and the outcome of a process. We speak of both engaging in compromise and of reaching a compromise. Second, in (a) compromise, all relevant parties both gain and lose. This distinguishes compromise from, say, concession, in which a conceding party might not gain at all with respect to another party. I need to state some caveats before proceeding. The gains and losses can be perceived gains and losses instead of actual gains and losses. In addition, the gains and losses can be potential instead of actual gains and losses. Besides compromise being either a process or outcome in which all relevant parties both gain and lose, compromise also is something that cannot be imposed from without, as opposed to, say, binding arbitration or external regulation. Only the parties who gain and lose are the compromising parties. A fourth feature of compromise is that it is always a means to some end and never an end per se. Finally, compromise is social, involving two or more parties. Only metaphorically can we speak of people compromising with themselves. There are several issues, some of them controversial, about the features of compromise. One such feature is an underlying, often unstated, assumption about the power relationships of the agents in compromise. The meaningfulness and possibility of compromise presupposes some level of equality of power between the agents of compromise. If true, the meaningfulness, possibility, and desirability of compromise is diminished to the extent that actual power relations are not equal. Another issue, as Gingrich’s statement above evinces, is the relation between compromise and both personal integrity and moral principles. Some authors, such as Tziporah Kasachkoff, claim that no necessary conflict exists between maintaining integrity and engaging in compromise; others disagree. Joseph Carens, for example, speaks of the “problem of dirty hands,” in which agents believe they must make concessions that they find undesirable or mor-
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ally wrong, but are necessary in order to improve the status quo. To engage in compromise is to dirty one’s hands, to abandon, or at least bracket aside, one’s principles. Likewise, Ayn Rand argues that there can be no compromise on moral principles and that any such compromise is always the surrender of what is true and good to what is false and evil3 3. A Pragmatist View Of Rights Given the varying views of philosophers called, or have called themselves, “pragmatist,” I will briefly state what I take to be a cluster of doctrines that characterize pragmatism generally. These include: beliefs are instruments by which we cope with the world; the acceptability of a belief is ultimately a function of the extent to which it allows for successful adaptation to the world; all beliefs are fallible; and, truth and rationality depend on utility in coping with future experience. These doctrines, while directly epistemological, apply to ethical and political matters, for example, the value and structure of formal education. “Apply” might be a misnomer here, since, for pragmatists, belief, as the product of inquiry, is never disinterested or noninterpretive. Since inquiry is connected to dismissing or diminishing doubt or surprise, and since we are to understand belief as flowing from our engagement with the world and utility in coping with future experience, distinterested inquiry or inquiry that does not involve conceptualized interpretation never exists. It does not follow from this that no objective, or intersubjective, standards and criteria for inquiry or belief, truth exist. I mean only to say that all inquiry and belief are not interest-free or nonconceptualized. So, “apply” might be a misnomer in the sense that axiological elements (both ethical and political) enter into inquiry and are not simply tacked on at the end of inquiry as an application. Beth J. Singer, a pragmatist philosopher, has focused attention on rights. In Operative Rights and Pragmatism, Rights, and Democracy, she enunciates a pragmatist response to what she labels as the “received view” of the nature of rights. The received view of rights, says Singer, rests on four principles: individualism, apriorism, essentialism, and adversarialism. By individualism, she means that rights are taken as properties of individual human beings and only individual human beings can be rights-holders. Apriorism states the existence of rights is self-evident; they are antecedent to, and independent of, our membership in a community or society. Essentialism holds that rights comprise part of the essence personhood. Adversarialism holds that rights are fundamentally socially protective bubbles, claims that individuals hold against others and which demarcate what others may and must do vis-à-vis other individual rights-holders. Singer’s alternative view of rights challenges and rejects all of these principles. In their stead, she argues that rights are entitlements, institutionalized relations among members of communities. Rights, she says, are
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grounded in the nature of community and are “really fruits of the communities in which they are operative.”4 Rights, being social and being normative, presuppose normative communities as well as what Singer terms perspectival communities. Because of the normative nature of rights, they not only are entitlements, but also obligations. All rights-holders should respect those norms that are constitutive of those rights. While rejecting the concept of human rights (rights adhering to all human beings qua human beings), Singer insists there are fundamental generic rights, “fundamental in that they are necessary conditions for the continuing existence and stability of any normative community, and generic in the sense that they ought to be made universally operative.”5 While I agree with much of what Singer says, I suggest that we can better address the implicit emphasis here on how rights-claims function by attending more directly to the nature of rights-claims. I suggest we should emphasize the perlocution of rights-claims. First, some background. John Austin, in How To Do Things With Words, enunciated a distinction between constative uses of language and performative uses of language.6 Constative uses of language are those in which an utterance is made and a fact is described (though, perhaps falsely). Performative uses of language are those in which an utterance is made and, in addition to the linguistic act, some other action is performed. For example, if I suggest that you wake up and be attentive or you will miss the point of this paper, by saying, “I suggest . . . ,” I have made a suggestion, I have performed a non-linguistic act, an act beyond merely saying something. Or if I say that I promise not to drone on much longer, by saying “I promise . . . ,” I have done more than simply utter words, I have also performed the act of promising. Within performatives, there are three levels of meaning inherent in an utterance. First, there is the locution, or literal meaning of the utterance. Second, there is the illocution, or intended meaning of the speaker of the utterance. Third, there is the perlocution, or effected meaning for the audience of the utterance. Austin gives the following example to illustrate these various manifestations of meaning: (1) He said to me, “Shoot her!” Here the locution is the literal meaning of the words, “shoot her.” The illocution is that he urged (or advised, ordered, etc.) me to shoot her. The perlocution is that he persuaded me to shoot her. (2) He said to me, “You can’t do that!” Here the locution is again the literal meaning of the words. The illocution is that he protested against me doing that. The perlocution is that he prevented me from doing that (or drove me to do it in spite). I recommend that rights-claims would be more aptly construed as performatives than as constatives. Whatever their literal meaning, and whatever the intentions of those who make rights-claims, rights-claims first and foremost do a the job of recognizing and promoting the interests, security, and well-being of rights-bearers. Rights-bearers use rights-claims, albeit haphaz-
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ardly and inconsistently, to enhance their well-being, which is their function. To the extent that rights-claims carry out this function, and only to that extent, they are legitimated. By recognizing the fundamental performative nature of rights-claims, we can more easily focus on issues of their fruitfulness rather than of their veracity. This focus on what work rights-claims do for us, what difference does our acceptance of them make to us, can have many practical benefits that I will mention momentarily. Acknowledging rights-claims as performatives is consistent with a pragmatist perspective and flows from it. By insisting on attending to the practical consequences of accepting rights-claims, by understanding the meaning of rights-claims in terms of these consequences, and by viewing such claims within the context of efforts to adapt to changing conceptions and environments, I am placing rights (via rights-claims) under a pragmatist rubric. 4. A Pragmatist Approach to Rights and Compromise If we accept the pragmatist notion of the nature of rights and take as given that rights are a fundamental component of human dignity and integrity, a feature of moral agents that we should not compromise, then compromise and rights are inherently compatible. At an apparent moral impasse, just as we intend rights to preserve, maintain, and enhance our well-being, security, and interests, compromise aims to serve those same purposes in the most plausible manner feasible. Compatible by nature with principled morality, compromise is the prudent application of principles within a determinable context. Compromise is the realistic, prudent application of moral principles in a given context, not the abandonment of moral principles (though, of course, cases of compromise can in fact involve such an abandonment). The agents of compromise are the moral agents who are also the bearers of rights and responsibilities. Just as we speak of the morality of compromise, so we speak of the morality in compromise, the application of principles in a context. By the “morality of compromise,” I mean the legitimacy of approaching a moral situation with something other than a winner-take-all attitude. By the “morality in compromise,” I mean the recognition of principles and goals that are the criteria for determining that agents of compromise indeed both gain and lose in a given moral situation. We can compromise in a way that fails to secure well-being, but compromise (as opposed to, say, accommodation) involves a gain, or perceived gain, toward some goal for both parties. That goal is often the well-being, security, or interests of agents. Compromise, though involving principles, is related just as much to virtue-ethics or character-based ethics, so it relates as much to our perfectibility as moral agents as it does with the resolution of moral conflict. Morality with a commitment to compromise at its core is as
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compatible with the advocacy of rights as is a morality with a commitment to courage or temperance or respect for others or caring for others. This view takes rights not as the foundation for all moral action and judgment, but as one element among others, including compromise, within a consistently contextual morality. Rights do not function like trumps, but as one ingredient among others to promote the well-being of agents. Finally, some writers have said that compromise is incompatible with justice and the pursuit of justice. Is it? I think not. Compromise is a means to achieve justice in a realistic, feasible way. Even leaving open-ended the question of what justice, means, there is no inherent incompatibility between the means (compromise) and the end (justice). As with a commitment to rights, a commitment to justice can be part of the principled-based criteria for determining what constitutes gains and losses in a given moral situation. As with rights, where we see compromise as incompatible with justice, we see it so because we are viewing justice in an absolutist manner and compromise in a relativist manner. I suggest both of these views are mistaken or misleading. The reasons proffered for the incompatibility of compromise on the one hand, and rights and justice on the other, are not convincing. The principles of rights and justice can, and should, be involved in any serious compromise. I am suggesting that a commitment to compromise should lead us to reconceptualize our views about the nature of rights and the role they play in our moral theorizing and decision-making. Proponents and opponents of abortion have gotten no closer to resolving their moral dilemma and conflict by each holding an unwavering commitment to rights. Likewise, an unwavering commitment to justice from the perspective of Syrians and Israelis has brought their two nations no closer to peace. To suggest that moral compromise be valued as highly as rights and justice is not to suggest that we abandon rights or justice, but that we use compromise to secure our rights and ensure more peace. For example, Syria, wanting to end the injustice of Israeli occupation of the Golan Heights, and Israel, wanting to end the injustice of Syrian threats and assaults from the Golan Heights, could agree to third-party peacekeeping and trust-building efforts, for example, the presence of United Nations troops rather than Israeli troops in the Golan. In the face of a striking silence among moral theorists about the nature and role of compromise, my intent here has been to plea for us to look more seriously at compromise as a key component in our moral theorizing, actions, and judgments. I have said nothing about what constitutes a good or bad compromise or about the processes of compromise. Those are topics for further pursuit.
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NOTES 1. The New York Times, 12 November 1994. 2. See Compromise in Ethics, Law, and Politics, eds. J. Roland Pennock and John W. Chapman, (New York: New York University Press, 1979); John Morley, On Compromise (London: Macmillan and Co., 1874), Thomas Vernor Smith, The Ethics of Compromise (Boston: Starr King Press, 1956), Integrity and Compromise: Problems of Public and Private Conscience, ed. Robert M. MacIver (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1957); and Martin Benjamin, Splitting the Difference (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1990). 3. Tziporah Kasachkoff, “Toleration and Moral Compromise,” Synthesis Philosophica, 17 (1994): 53–81; Joseph Caren, “Compromise in Politics,” Compromise in Ethics, Law, and Politics, eds. J. Roland Pennock and John W. Chapman (New York: New York University Press, 1979), pp. 123–141; Ayn Rand, “Doesn’t Life Require Compromise?” The Objectivist Newsletter, 1 (July 1962), p. 29; and Rand, “The Anatomy of Compromise,” The Objectivist Newsletter, 1 (January 1964), pp. 1, 4. 4. Beth J. Singer, Operative Rights (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993); and Pragmatism, Rights, and Democracy (New York: Fordham University Press, 1999), p. 34. 5. Singer, Pragmatism, Rights, and Democracy, pp. 30–31. 6. John Austin, How To Do Things With Words (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962).
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Eleven KANT ON FREEDOM, HAPPINESS, AND PEACE Andrew Kelley 1. Introduction I do not intend this paper as a work of Kant scholarship. My interest in Immanuel Kant’s writings on politics and peace comes more from questions that arise from his treatment of several core topics than from the position that he ultimately takes on any of these topics. In short, I use tensions and potential contradictions that arise in Kant’s discussions about peace in order to address three interrelated questions on which people working on the philosophy of peace today still need to focus: Should we ultimately ground our thinking about peace in moral philosophy or legal theory? Is coercion of any type consistent with peace? In our conception of peace, is happiness or freedom more important? I will examine several of Kant’s writings related to political theory and peace, not just his famous essay, “Perpetual Peace.”1 I do not take sides on any of the issues. 2. Do Concerns about Peace Depend Upon Politics or Morality? Is peace solely a political or legal issue that falls outside of the domain of moral philosophy? On the surface, Kant appears to answer in the affirmative. For reasons that I will explain, Kant cannot easily maintain this position. Before I delve into those reasons, allow me to summarize several key positions that Kant takes. Kant separates human behavior into two categories, internal and external. Internal behavior concerns our wants, desires, and motives; this is the domain of ethics. External behavior concerns the actual movement of our bodies, the words that come from our lips, outward displays of emotion, and things that we write; this is the domain of politics, right, or legality.2 Hence, someone can behave immorally, yet still remain within the bounds of the law. Further, given a bad state, someone could behave morally while doing something illegal. Kant takes the Hobbesian position that rights, legality, and positive laws can only take place within an organized state.3 If no institution or body to guarantee rights with threat of the use of force exists, we can have no talk of
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rights or legality. We cannot guarantee rights unless the sovereign possesses the power to enforce those rights and laws. For Kant, right, or the system of justice, entails that we bind every member of society by the same threat of coercion. As he puts it, my freedom must harmonize with the freedom of everyone else in that state. His universal law of right states, “let you external actions be such that the free application of your will can coexist with the freedom of everyone else in accordance with a universal law.”4 I cannot have permission to take possession of another person’s property without his or her consent. At the same time, he or she is forbidden from taking possession of my property without my permission. If others may not take my property without permission, then the same rule must apply to me, too. So, my external freedom is limited, but limited by a law that a sovereign enforces and holds equally for all members of society. Kant advocates a system of government in which legislative and executive powers are separate. In his view, a sovereign who also makes the laws would be a despot.5 Instead, the sovereign follows the will of the people (or better yet, representatives of the people) and follows the dictates they set. In theory, a good law is one to which all people could agree. That they actually agree at that time or given that particular state of society is not imperative.6 Finally, Kant writes that a good society—one in a state of peace and with good laws—promotes the practice of morality. In order for the state to foster this condition, it must also undertake education. Even in the writings where Kant concedes that we cannot teach morality, he hints that in a good society, a moral person has an easier time articulating his or her moral behavior.7 In an early essay, Kant explains that the greatest task for humans is how to form the best civil society. Later in the essay, he writes that the problem of a civil society is subordinate to the problem of external relations with other countries.8 He reiterates the same idea when he writes that the preparation for war often inflicts greater problems on a nation than do the results of any overt conflict between two nations.9 For example, consider the Cold War between the United States and the former Soviet Union, which involved no overt military battles. But the toll, judged from an economic standpoint and from the standpoint of later international relations fiascos inflicted internally on the two nations, was enormous. Given what Kant articulated, we could think that the way to bring about peace would be to have a world state. Kant argues against this. His objections come from pragmatic—as opposed to theoretical—grounds. He holds that a world state or any large state would lapse into despotism from being too large to allow good government.10 Thus, Kant argues for a federation of states, akin to today’s United Nations. In addition, Kant thinks that any type of international “balance of power” based solely on military might cannot ensure peace because the balance is likely to change and lead to war.11 We must ask whether
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many of the world’s current states would be too large to govern effectively according to Kant’s standards. A problem arises: A state might have a good constitution and a wellfunctioning system of government. Still, poor relations with its neighbors are likely to cause great domestic unrest because a state’s internal peace is dependent on the relationships with its neighbors. While we can only guarantee individual rights within a nation when a sovereign is given the power to enforce laws and protect rights, in the international arena, there is no sovereign who could perform an analogous function on that level. Kant does not believe such an international sovereign is possible.12 There is no body or institution that can guarantee that one state behaves justly (legally) toward another state. So, even the most civil and just state can be in jeopardy of having civil unrest when a neighboring state engages in “saber rattling.” So, what can bring peace in a situation in which one state is threatening another state’s sovereignty? In some passages, Kant explicitly writes that citizens usually see that war will not be in the interest of their state due to the social, political, and economic hardships to which it often leads. Such an appeal to self-interest does not guarantee peace because there are times in which citizens believe that going to war is in their self interest. When one state possesses a significant advantage over another, citizens may view a war as being to the advantage of the state. For self interest to motivate peace there must be some level of equality in power between states. For this reason, Kant stresses that a federation of nations can be the only valid mechanism for international peace.13 The idea, in theory, is that with a federation of states, it will not be in the interest of any single state to attack another because the federation as a whole will come to the aid of the attacked state. Yet, no binding or coercive force exists to keep the federation together. If one state is so powerful that it can challenge or disregard the federation, then war may still occur. At this juncture ethical considerations come back into play; the power of the federation would rest solely on the ability of states to trust one another. Kant, in turn, provides a principle that he thinks will foster trust between peoples. This comes in the form of his famous “Transcendental Formula of Public and International Right,” also known as Kant’s criterion of publicness: “All actions affecting the rights of other human beings are wrong if their maxim is not compatible with their being made public.”14 It means that if anyone— especially a leader or sovereign—would behave any differently were this person’s motives made public, then the person or entity in question should not behave in that way. If secrecy is the condition under which a politician or government will behave in a certain manner, then the person or government ought to refrain from acting in the way they attempt to keep secret. Recall that Kant divides human behavior into the moral and the legal domains. The first category concerns internal actions, whereas the second con-
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cerns external behavior. With this focus on publicity or publicness, Kant collapses moral—internal—concerns or into the domain of right, which is supposed to deal solely with external behavior. As such, peace would then depend on the morality of other states or groups. Thus, we find Kant entangled in a vicious circle here. He wants to separate morality from legality, but for him, peace is supposed to be an issue that concerns legality and politics. Yet, for peace to be preserved, we must count on member states keeping their promises and upholding the duties to which they agreed when they joined the federation. Kant is relying on the morality of all the member states within the federation to insure that they do not infringe upon other states, because such infringement would affect the rights of people within those states. In short, Kant’s theory about right still is founded on the assumption that the other states will behave “morally,” with no sovereign to compel compliance with the terms of the federation. In short, member nations hope that other states, or the rulers of other states, will see keeping the terms of the federation as a moral duty. Thus, legality—and rights—ultimately depends on morality. If some states do not keep to the terms of the federation, the rights of the people in opposing states will suffer. The more important issue to which this tension in Kant’s political writings gives rise is the relationship between morality and politics (legality) as concerns issues of peace. With the exception of Kant’s occasional mention of “internal peace,”15 Kant almost always frames his discussion of peace in terms of political or legal theory. Hence, the question to which Kant’s discussion gives rise is whether peace ultimately is a moral issue or a legal issue. Will peace only come when people are, or come close to being, truly moral? Or is peace more a function of having a good political system and framework? The larger issue here is whether peace and discussions of peace are a subset of moral philosophy or of political and legal theory. I am not convinced that Kant’s solution—relegating issues of peace to the domain of political and legal theory—is the correct answer. Peace might legitimately belong to both domains. If so, we should force people interested in issues of peace to look at the relationship between morality and political or legal theory. 3. Is Coercion Consistent with Peace? The second question I will address is whether any type of coercion can be consistent with longstanding peace. At issue is Kant’s contention that true peace is not simply a halt to hostilities; true peace must put an end to conditions that will or could lead to war and hostilities in the future.16 In one of his last works, Kant defines coercion as “a hindrance or resistance to freedom.17 In an earlier work, and along similar lines, Kant defines coercion as the “restriction of freedom through the arbitrary will of another
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party.” A system of right or justice arises only when laws form the basis of this coercion. In a system of right, the restriction on any person’s freedom applies to every person and not just to a single individual or group. The goal for Kant of a good system of justice is to allow each person as much freedom as possible to the extent that the freedom is consistent with the freedom—albeit restricted—of every other member of society.18 In many of his writings, Kant explicitly notes that coercion must go hand in hand with any valid system of right. This threat of coercion is what keeps a person from infringing upon the rights of others. These ideas give rise to three problems. First, Kant remains ambiguous about the extent to which a person can have freedom restricted before the restriction becomes an infringement upon rights. Kant writes that a person is free to pursue happiness until it begins to “violate the lawful freedom and rights of his fellow subjects at large.”19 Two of the qualities Kant attributes to a good state with a good constitution are that citizens are free and equal before the law and in opportunities within the state.20 At one point, he even writes that equality of each person before the law is perfectly consistent with inequalities in the possessions of the people within the state.21 Yet Kant recognizes that inequalities in property often can lead to inequalities of the citizens before the law and in opportunities. He advocates for states to levy taxes to provide for the poor. He does not say why levying taxes does not somehow infringe upon the rights of those who pay the taxes, as contemporary thinkers, such as Robert Nozick, argue. Unfortunately, Kant does not provide a criterion that we can use in order to determine when inequalities in wealth are justified or actually beneficial to a society and when they are not. This thinking leads to a second and more important problem. Often, the freedom about which Kant writes is actually very restrictive. In many passages, Kant is happy to restrict a person’s actions so long as freedom of thought and expression is preserved. He opposes any right or freedom to rebel against a government or a civil constitution.22 He goes further: [N]ow in some affairs which affect the interests of the state of the commonwealth, we require a certain mechanism whereby some members of the commonwealth must behave purely passively, so that they may, by an artificial common agreement, be employed by the government for public ends. It is impermissible to argue in such cases, obedience is imperative.23 In this passage, Kant openly acknowledges that there are situations in which our freedom can be limited in a degree to which other people’s freedom is not limited. For example, he writes that soldiers, priests, and others must perform the roles assigned to them, even if they have misgiving about performing these roles. In their roles as private citizens, they can attempt to change the nature of
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the duties that these roles entail.24 He advocates preserving order and limiting freedom of behavior because this preserves order and peace. In turn, order and peace allow for the preservation of intellectual freedom and freedom of expression. In this regard, he writes: A high degree of civil freedom seems advantageous to a people’s intellectual freedom, yet it also sets up barriers to it [by encouraging people not to perform their roles and duties]. Conversely, a lesser degree of civil freedom gives intellectual freedom enough room to expand to its fullest extent.25 He writes that restricting freedom in the manner suggested encourages people to think freely. In turn, this eventually will result in the people being able to act freely, which will spur the society to have a better government.26 The aforementioned points lead into the third and final question about Kant’s notion of coercion. We can ask whether the situations described are truly peaceful and lead to peaceable societies. Again, Kant appears to want to limit some kinds of freedom to preserve freedom of thought. This, in turn, is supposed to allow people rationally to come to see how and by what means they can institute a better society or state. We could all rationally agree upon the change without resorting to violence or upheaval. We would concur about what type of society we need and would work together to realize that society. Recall Kant postulated that a nation of devils could have a civil society with a civil constitution. The devils would behave justly toward one another out of fear of the consequences for not doing so. The question whether any of these situations are truly peaceful or peaceable remains unanswered. If people behave the way that they do only because laws coerce them to do so out of a threat of punishment, does this state of affairs constitute true peace? If the state is restricting people’s freedom for supposed “public ends,” and people acquiesce simply out of fear of punishment, then can we say peace truly reigns? Kant writes of “internal peace” and “external peace.”2 If society is using coercive means in order to motivate people to behave in a certain way, there very well may be external peace. But can the people who are subject to such coercion possess internal peace? Kant appears to recognize that his position is open to this criticism because in several places he writes that people should see acting in accordance with right as their duty.28 These three questions pertaining to coercion are interrelated. If it is the case that in the perfect society we would and should act in accordance with right because we see it as our duty to do so and not because we are concerned with punishments for not acting in accordance with right, then legality and politics come to rest on ethics, again.
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4. Is Happiness or Freedom the Goal of Peace? The third question that arises out of Kant’s political writings is whether we should strive toward peace to bring about happiness in the world or to allow for the greatest degree of freedom. In several works, Kant is critical of a constitution or a government whose ultimate goal is the happiness of the state. He holds that the sole role of the government is to protect rights. In his view, governments should have nothing to do with people’s natural goal of happiness.29 If the government begins to focus on happiness, it may, in fact, violate the rights that it was set up to protect. Drawing on his moral philosophy, Kant sees happiness as a dubious concept at best. No means exist for determining, either a priori or a posteriori, how to bring about happiness. Using happiness as a principle for decisionmaking leads to ill effects for society according to Kant.30 Finally, he writes that no one can compel a person to be happy, for the same reason that a state would be overstepping its bounds if it compelled me, say, to have a healthful diet.31 In the end, a good society, with a good constitution, is one founded on the preservation of rights. Although it may appear that Kant would fall squarely into what we would call today the “libertarian” camp, characterization might be an oversimplification of his view. True, he advocates a society in which each person should be free to do whatever he or she wants unless doing so somehow infringes upon the rights of others. Likewise, he does not think it feasible for the state to construct society and its laws according to what it sees as the happiness of society as a whole. On the other hand, he advocates certain safeguards within society to ensure that inequalities of wealth do not lead to inequality in status before the law or inequalities in basic services such as education. For Kant, peace is not a condition that brings about or guarantees universal happiness or the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people. In his view, peace is the condition that allows civil states to flourish and in which, in civil states, citizens maintain respect for law. Remember Kant claims that the role of government is to create a state in which people are free to behave morally. Governments enact laws to coerce people to respect the freedom of others. Eventually, Kant believes, such laws and such a society would bring about a degree of order under which people could act according to reason and not simply out of fear of reprisal or punishment. Ideally, in a perfect society, people would not behave selfishly or immorally because society allows them the freedom to follow their moral convictions. Kant is not advocating a society in which people should follow their lusts, whims, and desires. Some contemporary libertarian views—even some liberal views—allow a person to pursue self-destructive behavior as long as the self-destruction is consistent with respect for other people’s freedom. In
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Kant’s perfect society, people would be free to pursue self-destructive behavior. However, on moral grounds, they would not choose such a course of action. Kant sets up, as a goal, a society in which people respect the rights and freedom of others and one in which reason and morality, not lust, whim, and prejudice, guide people’s choices. Unfortunately, by advocating the type of society that he does, Kant leaves the door open a nation of devils, one in which people respect the rights of others only out of fear of punishment. Some places in Kant’s writing appear to indicate that he thinks creating a good society will make people become more moral or allow them the opportunity to become more moral. In other passages, he appears skeptical whether we can achieve a society in which people behave on moral grounds. In “The Contest of the Faculties,” he holds that progress of humanity through history only amounts to greater legality and not to greater morality.32 This formulation is in line with his early moral theory in which he states the drive to become moral must come from within; there cannot be incentives from the outside to become moral: Such developments do not mean, however, that the basic moral capacity of mankind will increase in the slightest, for this would require a kind of new creation or supernatural influence.33 Here, obviously, Kant does not think that any situation or state can make people be more moral. Yet, if this is the case, then another problem arises: What benefit would come from having a society in which people are free to choose whether to behave morally? If nothing can be done to make people more moral, then would not a civil state be a place in which people are free to act on their whims, desires, and prejudices? If we cannot influence morality externally, then is not the state that Kant describes one in which people are free to be moral, yet just as free to be immoral, if they are so inclined? Now we have returned to our first issue, the relationship between morality and legality. If we place much weight on the passages in “Contest of the Faculties,” then legality and morality appear related because morality cannot be influenced by outside conditions. Then the issue of peace would fall squarely back into the domain of legality and politics. Kant appears to believe that true peace is a state in which a person’s freedom is promoted. If there is no strife either within a country or externally with other countries, a person’s rights will be protected. Peace, for Kant, is simply a means to guarantee freedom and rights. In other terms, peace is a means to freedom, because freedom and the preservation of freedom have more value than anything else does for Kant. The goal of human existence, then, would be freedom and its preservation. If external conditions cannot make a person behave morally—so that a person might behave immorally in the perfect society or morally in a wholly
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corrupt society—then why aim at either preservation of freedom or peace? Kant’s argument, be it a good one or not, makes us consider the question of whether peace is a means to freedom or whether peace should be a means to human happiness and well-being. Kant alludes to one other alternative, that peace may be an end in itself.34 He does not elaborate this point, which is unfortunate, because in the end, this may be the most coherent account of why we should pursue peace. 5. Conclusion I do not claim that Kant is correct on any of these issues. In fact, much of his treatment of these issues may strike contemporary sensibilities somewhat outdated. More important are the questions that arise from the tensions that one sees in Kant’s political writings. Kant is not always consistent about his views on whether peace issues fall within the domain of moral theory or ethical theory, on whether coercion is actually consistent with peace and a peaceful world, and whether we should see peace as a means toward preservation of freedom and rights or as a means toward happiness and well-being. The questions remain relevant and are ones on which people interested in peace studies still need to focus.
NOTES 1. Immanuel Kant, “Perpetual Peace,” 1795, Kant: Political Writings, ed. Hans Siegbert Reiss, trans. Hugh Barr Nisbet (Cambridge, England/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991). 2. Kant, “Metaphysics of Morals,” 1797, Kant: Political Writings, pp. 132–33. 3. Kant, “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose,” 1784, Kant: Political Writings, p. 47; and “On the Common Saying ‘This May Be True in Theory but Not in Practice’ (Theory and Practice),” 1793, ibid., p. 77. 4. Kant, “Metaphysics of Morals,” p. 133. 5. Kant, “Perpetual Peace,” p. 101. 6. Kant, “On the Common Saying ‘This May Be True in Theory but Not in Practice’ [Theory & Practice],” p. 79. 7. Kant, “Perpetual Peace,” p. 113. 8. Kant, “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose,” p. 45–47. 9. Kant, “On the Common Saying ‘This May Be True in Theory but Not in Practice’ [Theory & Practice],” p. 91. 10. Kant, “Perpetual Peace,” p. 102. 11. Kant, “On the Common Saying ‘This May Be True in Theory but Not in Practice’ [Theory & Practice],” p. 92. 12. Kant, “Perpetual Peace,” p. 102.
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13. Ibid., p. 104; and “On the Common Saying ‘This May Be True in Theory but Not in Practice’ [Theory & Practice],” pp. 90, 92. 14. Kant, “Perpetual Peace,” p. 126. 15. Ibid., p. 113. 16. Ibid., pp. 93, 104. 17. Kant, “Metaphysics of Morals,” p. 134. 18. Kant, “On the Common Saying ‘This May Be True in Theory but Not in Practice’ [Theory & Practice],” p. 73. 19. Ibid., p. 80. 20. Ibid., p. 174. 21. Ibid., p. 75. 22. Ibid., p. 81; and “Metaphysics of Morals,” pp. 143–144. 23. Kant, “What is Enlightenment,” Kant: Political Writings, p. 56. 24. Ibid., pp. 55–57 25. Ibid., p. 59. 26. Ibid., pp. 59–60. 27. Kant, “Perpetual Peace,” p. 113. 28. Kant, “Metaphysics of Morals,” p. 133; and “On the Common Saying ‘This May Be True in Theory but Not in Practice’ [Theory & Practice],” p. 85. 29. Kant, “On the Common Saying ‘This May Be True in Theory but Not in Practice’ [Theory & Practice],” p. 73. 30. Ibid., p. 83. 31. Ibid., p. 74. 32. Kant, “Contest of the Faculties,” in Kant: Political Writings, p. 187. 33. Ibid., p. 188. (emphasis added). 34. Kant, “Metaphysics of Morals,” p. 174.
Part Four ACTION AND CHANGE
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Twelve A NORMATIVE FRAMEWORK FOR ADDRESSING PEACE AND RELATED GLOBAL ISSUES William C. Gay 1. Introduction: Wisdom and Power in International Relations Plato said that as long as wisdom and power, or philosophy and politics, are separated, “there can be no rest from troubles.”1 In The Republic, he sought to forge such a union. For over two millennia, from Plato through John Rawls, philosophers have put forward models for the just state.2 Despite these ongoing efforts, W. B. Gallie contends, “No political philosopher has ever dreamed of looking for the criteria of a good state viz-à-viz [sic] other states.”3 I will argue that as long as wisdom and power are separated in international relations, we will continue to have problems. We need to forge a normative framework capable of addressing global issues. I further maintain that, in order to advance a global normative framework, achieving peace, or at least the “outlawry of war” championed by John Dewey, may well be the precondition for success in addressing the myriad global problems facing humanity.4 I agree with Ronald Glossop that among all the global issues we need to address, war is “humanity’s most pressing problem.”5 How can we adequately protect everyone’s human rights, secure economic well-being for all persons, preserve this planet’s rich biological diversity, and attend to other serious global concerns if we fail to end war? The structure of my argument is as follows: I will begin by reviewing the parochial and warist implications of the focus on national sovereignty within Enlightenment political philosophy from Thomas Hobbes through Immanuel Kant. Then, after indicating how Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Karl Marx point beyond the modern state in a way that would allow for the global application of normative principles, I will note that the Hegelian and Marxian traditions have not made this normative prospect focal. Finally, in order to develop a global normative framework, I will connect the efforts within twentieth-century philosophy to develop arenas of applied ethics to recent efforts in political science to develop a model of a humane world community. I will argue that we need to develop both nationally and internationally what
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Dewey and Daniel Robinson termed political ethics and we need to pursue a set of global humanist values such as the ones proposed by Robert Johansen.6 2. National Sovereignty and the State of War A. The Social Contract Theory of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau From the time of Hobbes, political philosophy has recognized that while the establishment of a nation may end an internal state of war, sovereign nations stand in a state of nature in relation to one another. In other words, sovereign nations are in a state of war with one another because no superior power dictates terms to them. The normative implications of the temporal and geographic limits of the social contract are especially stark in the absolutist political theory of Hobbes. Moral principles are inapplicable prior to the establishment of the commonwealth and outside the boundaries of the commonwealth, because in a state of war “nothing can be unjust.”7 Just as every one has a “right to every thing” in the prior state of nature, even so the commonwealth is not restricted in its international affairs since “covenants, without the sword, are but words.”8 From the very outset of social contract theory, a normative framework for addressing global issues has been absent. The lack of restraints on a government’s international affairs receives a novel and disturbing twist in the liberal political theory of John Locke. Liberalism, like absolutism, is directed almost exclusively to the conduct of the internal affairs of the state. Although John Locke says very little about the international relations among states, he draws an important distinction in the executive branch between a national and an international function which he terms, respectively, the “executive” and the “federative.” Locke connects the executive to domestic actions dealing with regulations passed by the legislative branch and the federative with international actions, including “the power of war and peace, leagues and alliances.” He suggests that the federative role will often be united with the executive. He ends by noting that, despite the implications of its far-reaching powers, the federative “is much less capable to be directed by antecedent, standing, positive laws, than the executive; and so must necessarily be left to the prudence and wisdom of those whose hands it is in, to be managed for the public good.”9 Within liberal political theory as well, principles of consent and morality do not bind governments in their international relations. Despite lip-service to accountability of the executive branch in international affairs found in such legislative provisions as the War Powers Act, the absence of genuine restraints continues largely unabated to this very day within liberal democracies. Consequently, liberal political theory likewise fails to provide a normative framework for addressing global issues.
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The democratic political theory of Jean-Jacques Rousseau does move toward a normative framework with potentially global applicability, but the formulation of this framework is abstract and underdeveloped. In contradistinction to Locke’s liberalism, Rousseau begins by placing the welfare of the community before individual rights. Instead of basing political decisions on majority rule, which Rousseau characterizes as the adding of all the private wills of the people, he favors the general will, which is based on the common interest.10 He intended this principle of common interest for internal application by a government founded on an initial unanimous consent. With his concept of the general will, he unwittingly provided a framework for addressing the common interests of people beyond the confines of their particular nation-state. One common interest of humanity is to avoid senseless slaughter in the wars of states purportedly founded to avoid the high death toll from conflicts within nature. Rousseau observes about national wars, “More murders were committed in a single day of combat and more horrors in the capture of a single city than were committed in the state of nature during entire centuries over the entire face of the earth.”11 Rousseau was writing in the eighteenth century! Even in Rousseau, consent of the people as a necessary condition for waging wars is absent. Democratic political theory, as well, fails to develop an explicit transnational normative framework capable of addressing global issues. Still, Rousseau provided inspiration to those who eventually moved beyond the confines of social contract theory. B. Kant and the Noninterventionalism of a World Federation More explicitly than any of his predecessors, Immanuel Kant sought to respond to the state of war that exists among nation-states. Even if, from the viewpoint of his cosmopolitanism, he regards individual human beings and not states as the constituents of the world community, he nevertheless applies to the relation among states his moral principle that we should always treat persons as ends and never as means. On this basis, in “Perpetual Peace,” he rejects the acquisition of one nation by another nation because such action would turn a nation into a thing.12 Kant wants each nation to regard every other nation as an end in itself and never as a mere means to satisfy its own narrow national interest. He contends that whenever the consent of citizens is not necessary for waging war, genuine peace is not possible.13 In his essay “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Intent,” Kant draws on social contract theory and notes in his philosophy of history that just as the “unsociable sociability” of persons led to civil society, even so the “unsocial sociability” of nations may lead to international federation.14 For persons living since the formation of civil societies and before the formation of an international federation, Kant sees war as a central, if not primary, problem.
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Beyond the devastation of war and prolonged recovery after, the escalating costs of preparing for war will eventually compel people to find an alternative. Until then, he contends we cannot expect any moral progress.15 When he considers the transition by individuals into civil society and by nations into international federation, Kant returns to a point he made in his philosophy of history and asserts that any such transition is governed by law and requires giving up lawless freedom.16 Even if perpetual peace is unlikely, Kant stresses the importance of its possibility. Otherwise, if we knew that perpetual peace is unachievable, no duty to try to advance genuine peace would exist. For this reason, Kant contends that because politics can be guided by moral theory, it should be so guided by moral theory.17 Pulling these various points together, Kant concludes “Perpetual Peace” as follows: If it is a duty to make the state of public right actual, though only through an unending process of approximation to it, and if at the same time there is a well founded hope that we can do it, then perpetual peace, which will follow the hitherto falsely so-called treaties of peace (but which are really only suspension of war), is no empty idea, but a task that, gradually completed, steadily approaches its goal (since the times during which equal progress occurs will, we hope, become ever shorter).18 Despite Kant’s hope that perpetual peace is possible, the price he pays for accepting nation-states is noninterventionism.19 He explicitly states, “No nation shall forcibly interfere with the constitution and government of another,” and argues, “a foreign power’s interference would violate the rights of an independent people struggling with its internal ills.”20 According to Gallie, Kant did not expect that internal problems of politics would be solved domestically before the external relations among nations are solved internationally. He observes that Kant is simply an heir to the Western tradition of statism, namely, Kant develops his political thinking from the point of view of taking the state for granted.21 Gallie contends that from the time of Plato, political philosophy has focused on the good in relation to a particular city or state. Even though all states have also had neighbors who could be potential rivals, political philosophy has not addressed how to pursue the good in relation to these other states. Contrary to Gallie’s lament that political philosophers do not look for the criteria of a good state vis-à-vis others states, instead, they have done so in relation to issues of national security. Despite this tradition, Gallie stresses that Kant recognized that we need to confront questions about relations among nations. In particular, he says that Kant was more concerned than any other philosopher with questions of how nations should interact morally. Because of Kant’s noninter-
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ventionalist position on the response of one nation to a perceived injustice in another nation, Gallie contends that Kant’s position is “disappointingly negative and palpably incomplete.”22 3. Hegel’s Post-Modern State and Marx’s Non-Statist Community A. Hegel and the Limits of the Nation-state Despite his highly technical vocabulary and very abstract manner of writing, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel initiates a tradition of political philosophy that points beyond the nation-state. This claim may be surprising since, modern political philosophy often views Hegel as more of a statist than Kant. A close reading of Hegel reveals that he saw beyond the nation-state in a normative manner. While Kant succeeded in offering a means to end the state of war among nation-states, he did so in a manner that left unchallenged the concept of national sovereignty. Even though Hegel appears to be the champion of the nation-state, he sees its limitations. Then, thinking beyond these limitations, he speculates on a higher form of political organization. Hegel, with Thomas Hobbes, holds that while sovereign nations may end the sate of war domestically, they remain in relation to other nations in a state of nature which is a state of war. In developing this view in Philosophy of Right and Philosophy of History, Hegel relies on his famous discussion of the master-slave dialectic in the Phenomenology of Mind.23 Hegel maintains, “the state has individuality;”24 so, nations, like individuals, seek recognition.25 Hobbes, too, saw that the state is like an individual. He distinguished authors and actors and natural and artificial persons in such a way that the sovereign becomes an artificial person acting on the absolute authorization of the people who are the authors.26 One of Hegel’s additions to the discussion of relations among nations concerns the implications of groups of states, alliances, and federations. He notes, “even if a number of states make themselves into a family, this group as an individual must engender an opposite and create an enemy.”27 His reasoning again follows his analysis in the master-slave dialectic. For him, a nation’s self-understanding as sovereign and autonomous—its “certainty” of itself—is insufficient. The “truth”—the external, objective validation—of a nation’s “certainty” of its sovereignty and autonomy comes from other nations. The recognition that nation-states receive is “conditional on the neighboring state’s judgment and will.”28 Although rational thinking would suggest states should accept international law and follow treaties, they remain “in a state of nature in relation to each other” because such compliance depends on their “particular wills” and not a “universal will with constitutional powers over them.” Hence,
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Hegel contends that when disagreements cannot be resolved by these particular wills, they are settled by war.29 Since avoiding war, like obtaining recognition, depends upon the will of an “other,” “perpetual peace” is “infected with contingency.”30 While war is a permanent possibility for nations, it operates under the same limit as the struggle to death by individuals presented in the Phenomenology. In order to preserve the possibility for eventual recognition, some people accept slavery and some nations accept surrender. As a means for obtaining recognition, war should facilitate the return to a condition of peace among the nations involved, albeit one in which unequal recognition occurs.31 While on ethical grounds, Kant forbids wars of extermination, Hegel, on political grounds, opens up an intriguing possibility. If it is true that the slave is the one who eventually becomes free, it may be subjugated nations are the ones that will ultimately achieve freedom. In a war in which a nation faces extermination or surrender, surrender is the more rational alternative. The problem is: at exactly what lower levels of destruction is surrender more rational?32 Hegel’s dialectical method points beyond self-consciousness to absolute knowledge and beyond nation-states to world mind. The dialectic of the idea of state suggests our theory and practice need to move beyond the immediacy of a single nation and the mediation or negation of one nation by other nations. Out of the “dialectic of the finitude” of the particular wills of nation-states arises the “universal mind” which is “free from all restriction” and which, properly, has the “highest right of all,” and, Hegel believes, this highest right will be exercised over nations in world history.33 B. Marx’s Non-Statist Goal In his political philosophy, Karl Marx, more than Rousseau or Hegel, affirms transnational interest. Marx’s concept of species-being (Gattungswesen) provides an inclusive concept of the human race which, from the outset, is both descriptive and prescriptive. Marx uses the potentiality of any member of the species as a critical index against which to measure the actuality of any member or class of the species.34 This concern continues throughout Marx’s subsequent writings. In Das Capital, for example, he notes the human interest in the labortime (and its distribution) to attain subsistence.35 In this regard, Marx also states the obvious fundamental importance of “species preservation,” observing that persons “must be in a position to live in order to be able to ‘make’ history.”36 Marx stresses the centrality of satisfying human needs.37 He argues that socio-economic development should bring satisfaction to all people and not depravation to any specific class.38 Obviously, the satisfaction of this condition has global implications. To achieve this goal, Marx advocated moving beyond a capitalist economy and the nation-states associated with it. Marx was also
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aware, even by the mid-nineteenth century, of the global ecological effects of human productive activity. Criticizing the Romantic dichotomy between persons and nature, Marx observes pure nature no longer exists “except perhaps on a few Australian coral islands of recent origin.”39 Oil spills have eradicated even that possibility, as have other forms of industrial pollution of the environment. The positions of Hegel and Marx take us to the outer limits of the development of political philosophy’s consideration of the nation-state. The normative framework for addressing peace and related global issues that we can glean from Hegel and Marx seems to require a move beyond the modern state. Whether this move can be a post-modern state or whether it will require a withering of or alternative to the state remains open to question. The subsequent Hegelian and Marxian traditions did not focus on these global dimensions of their thought. Even by the close of the nineteenth century, continuing with modern nation-states had been shown to be problematic and awareness of their limitations grew ever more acute with the devastating wars of the twentieth century. Not only had we developed no adequate means to move beyond the nation-state system, but we had no prospects for even reforming the relations among nation-states. 4. Political Ethics and a Humane World Community A. The Development of Political Ethics by Dewey and Robinson Despite the persistence and even intensification of global problems, such as war, which elude management—let alone resolution—by nation-states, this system of national sovereignty likely will continue well into the twenty-first century if not even longer. During the continuation of the nation-state system, philosophy need not remain on the sidelines, offering only theoretically abstract and politically irrelevant reflections. By expanding the concept of applied philosophy, we can develop useful normative frameworks for responding to problems within and among nation-states. To do so requires moving applied philosophy beyond professional ethics to political ethics. Interestingly, the basis for political ethics developed prior to the recent surge of interest in professional ethics. Since the very beginning of the twentieth century, ethicists have attempted to apply ethics to national and international politics. In these efforts, Dewey provided what are probably the most prolific and influential contributions. Dewey’s pragmatism, which is so closely associated with an advocacy for democracy, increasingly addressed global issues and did so from a perspective that aimed to avoid or at least reduce reliance on violence. As Charles Howlett observes, the destruction of World War I, and especially the devastation wrought by nuclear weapons in World War II, led Dewey to aim for “a
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new democratic organization in which human beings, not citizens of different nations, would have a say in the execution of world peace.”40 In his “Ethics and International Relations,” which appeared in the first volume of Foreign Affairs in 1923, Dewey questions whether we can rely on utilitarianism in the international arena, since the motives to which it appeals—general happiness—”have little chance to operate in international affairs.” Instead, in seeking to make possible reliance on ethics in international relations, he proposes that the “one legal change” which could facilitate “enormous change” is the outlawry of war.41 For Dewey, as Robert Westbrook notes, “outlawing war was both an end of and means to the democratization of politics.” He adds, “Dewey’s writings on outlawry did for the first time envision a politics consistent with his ethics.” We have here, in relation to the “least change,” a shift from making philosophers kings to making wars illegal.42 In his 1928 essay “If War Were Outlawed,” Dewey makes clear the need for a transnational normative framework for dealing with war. He states: When war is a crime by the law of nations, conscience is on the side of the law of one’s community and law is on the side of conscience. The warlike people will then be the non-patriotic and the criminals. The pacifist then becomes the active patriot-loyal citizen, instead of an objector, a nuisance and a menace, or a passive obstructionist. The appeasement of the world can never be brought about as long as the public conscience and public law remain at odds with each other.43 Dewey was then writing in suspicion of United States’ involvement in the proposed League of Nations. As he wrote elsewhere in the same year, he opposed involvement because “entanglement in that system means entanglement in a war system,” while he would support United States’ participation in an international association if “international politics are cut loose from war and the threat of force.”44 Some would suggest that, in the context of current terminology, Dewey would prefer the term “social ethics” to “political ethics.” In writing, he more frequently used the term “social ethics.”45 Regardless, he is making transnational applications of normative principles, but not as an “externally imposed authority” who “knows” what should be done.46 On the contrary, he denied that any normative system provided a straightforward decision mechanism on which one could rely. Instead, as Abraham Edel and Elizabeth Flower contend regarding what could be called Dewey’s approach to applied ethics: The preliminary step is the diagnosis, the analysis of what kind of problem is involved, its locus in the situation, what resources are available to
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handle conflicts claims, goods, values, and what is required in a constructive effort to resolve the problem-situation.”47 Along with Ludwig Wittgenstein, Dewey facilitates a distinctive type of applied philosophy in which he seeks to tackle the seemingly most intractable global problems.48 For Dewey, war, particularly war in the nuclear age, poses such a challenge. In the 1948 edition of Reconstruction in Philosophy, he stresses that the destructive use made of atomic fission “occurred not only in a war but because of the existence of war.”49 Dewey was not alone in applying philosophy to the dangers introduced by nuclear weapons; others who did so include Albert Camus and Bertrand Russell.50 Despite Dewey’s major contribution, the explicit development of political ethics as a type of applied ethics that goes beyond professional ethics should be credited to Robinson. In The Principles of Conduct, he develops, as a complement to theoretical ethics, a concept of applied ethics. At progressively broader levels, personal ethics is the application of ethics to individual relations, professional ethics is the application of ethics to groups, and political ethics is the application of ethics to relations among peoples.51 This delineation of these three areas corresponds to, and is based on, the arenas designated by Hegel as the family, civil society, and the state.52 But the issue is not so much who initiated this type of applied ethics or what specific term is used for its international application. The point is that within the tradition of applied philosophy a normative framework exists for moving beyond professional ethics to the ethical assessment of global issues. B. The Normative World Order System of Johansen War poses the most serious challenge to international ethics, but not the only one. A comprehensive normative framework for addressing global issues needs to articulate the key values that it seeks to advance. A group of valueoriented political scientists associated with the World Policy Institute (formerly the Institute for World Policy) has taken the lead in this area. One of its founding works is Robert Johansen’s The National Interest and the Human Interest. His distinction between national interest and human interest is obvious. He sees pursuit of national interest as thwarting an adequate resolution of the global problems facing humanity. Beyond our differences are our similarities as members of the human race and its inhabitants, along with other species of the global ecosystem. The concept of human interest, like Rousseau’s general will and Marx’s species-being, gives priority to our broader interests and facilitates dealing with global issues in ways not subject to the limitations that occur with the particularist interests, the national interest, of sovereign states.
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At the outset, Johansen considers five alternative models for achieving world order. He compares the Westphalian nation-state system of the last two centuries, in which nation-states regard themselves as sovereign and the international community regards interference in their internal affairs to be warranted only if a nation invades the territorial sovereignty of another nation, to the concert of great powers, a concert of multinational corporations, and world government with the World Policy Institute’s humane world community. As he notes, the institute’s four key world order values are: (1) peace without national military arsenals, (2) economic well-being for all inhabitants on the earth, (3) universal human rights and social justice, and (4) ecological balance.54 The humane world community is the only one of the five alternatives considered that ranks high on all four global humanist values and on both levels of human solidarity also assessed by Johansen (see table 1). World government and a concert of multinational corporations receive a high rating on advancing peace but not on much else. By contrast, the concert of great powers is split between high and medium ratings, while at the very bottom of the scale is the current Westphalian nation-state system, which ranks low on all four of the global humanist values, as well as low on achieving horizontal or transnational human solidarity. From a normative perspective, the humane world community appears to articulate the vision of the norms and mechanism missing in political philosophy. In the first place, as Johansen notes, from a global perspective “the human race is the constituency to consider in policymaking.”55 An orientation to the human race should include not only horizontal (transnational) but also vertical (trans-class) considerations. In addition, at both the economic and political levels, the focus should be on service to “human needs.” Finally, we need to include consideration of the planetary eco-system as a whole. As Johansen puts it, “the entire planet, the atmosphere around it, and the high seas are of prime concern.” 55 By utilizing the global humanist values proposed by Johansen, political philosophers can have a normative framework adequate for addressing peace and many other global issues. 5. Conclusion: The Future of Political Ethics What will be the future of political ethics? So far, political ethics has hardly been more than a suggestion at the periphery of discussions in political philosophy and especially in politics. At the beginning of the twentieth century, we could have said the same for professional ethics. Now, most hospitals have ethics boards. Even some major corporations conduct training in business ethics. Could political ethics eventually gain a similar respectability? To date, the feasibility of this prospect remains largely untested.
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Table 1. A Summary Comparison of Alternative World Order Systems, 1980–200053 Leadership Westphalian nationstate system
World government
Humane world community
Unregulated economic growth, profit maximization, capital intensive technology, high consumption
Enforced disarmament, strengthened international institutions
Dependable peace, economic wellbeing for all, respect for human rights and social justice, ecological balance
Concert of Concert of great pow- multinational corporations ers
Basic Aspi- Sovereign Geopolitical rations independ- stability, political and ence, economic unregulated be- inequality havior
Performance in implementing global humanist values: Peace
Low
Medium
High
High
High
Economic well-being
Low
Low
Low
Medium
High
Social justice
Low
Low
Low
Low
High
Low
Medium
Low
Medium
High
Medium
Low
Medium
High
Low
High
Medium
High
Ecological balance Performance in achieving human solidarity:
Medium Vertical (transclass) identity Horizontal (transnational) identity
Low
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If a sufficient number of philosophers attended to these issues, a dramatic change could occur that might quickly overcome the amorality of the political realism that Hobbes and the other Enlightenment political philosophers bequeathed to the modern world. As a result, we could close the gap between wisdom and power noted by Plato not only domestically but also internationally. Political ethics offers a means to join wisdom and power in confronting the global issues facing humanity.
NOTES 1. Plato, The Republic of Plato, trans. Francis MacDonald Cornford (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1941), p. 179. 2. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1971). 3. W. B. Gallie, Philosophers of Peace and War: Kant, Clausewitz, Marx, Engels and Tolstoy (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1978), p. 140. 4. John Dewey, “If War Were Outlawed,” “What Outlawry of War Is Not,” and “War and a Code of Law,” The Middle Works, 1899–1924, Volume 15: 1923–1924, ed. Jo Ann Bydston (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1983), pp. 110–114, 115–121, 122–127. 5. Ronald J. Glossop, Confronting War: An Examination of Humanity’s Most Pressing Problem, 3rd ed. (Jefferson, N.C.: MaFarland & Co., Inc. 1994), pp. 2–3. 6. John Dewey, Principles of Instrumental Logic: John Dewey’s Lectures in Ethics and Political Ethics, 1895–1896, ed. Donald F. Koch (Carbondale, Southern Illinois University Press, 1998), esp. 123–175; and Daniel S. Robinson, The Principles of Conduct: An Introduction to Theoretical and Applied Ethics (New York: Appleton Century-Crofts, 1948), esp. pp. 194–203. 7. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Classics of Moral and Political Theory, 2nd ed., ed. Michael L. Morgan (Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett Publishing Company, 1996), p. 633. 8. Ibid., pp. 634, 649. 9. John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, in Classics of Moral and Political Theory, p. 785. 10. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, On the Social Contract, in Classics of Moral and Political Thoery, pp. 919–921. 11. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, in Classics of Moral and Political Theory, p. 882. 12. Immanuel Kant, Zum ewigen Frieden, Kant’s Werke, Band 8, Abhandlungen nach 1781 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1923), p. 344. For English translation, see Perpetual Peace and Other Essays, trans. Ted Humphrey (Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett, 1983), p. 108. 13. Kant, Zum ewigen Frieden, p. 349; Perpetual Peace, p. 112. 14. Immanuel Kant, “Idee zu einer Allgemeinen Geschichte in Eeltburgerlichter Absicht” in Zum ewigen Frieden, pp. 20, 24, props. 4, 7. For English translation, see “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Intent (1784)” Perpetual Peace, pp. 31–32, 34.
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15. Kant, Idee, p. 26, prop. 7; Idea, p. 36. 16. Kant, Zum ewigen Frieden, p. 357; Perpetual Peace, p. 136. 17. Ibid., p. 370; p. 135. 18. Ibid., p. 386; p. 139. 19. William C. Gay, “Kant’s Noninterventionalism and Recent Alternatives of Nonmilitary Intervention,” Peacemaking: Lessons from the Past, Visions for the Future, eds. Judith Presler and Sally Scholz (Amsterdam/Atlanta, Ga.: Rodopi, 2000): 149–158. 20. Kant, Zum ewigen Frieden, p. 346; Perpetual Peace, p. 109. 21. Gallie, Philosophers of Peace and War, p. 13. 22. Ibid., pp. 140–141. 23. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Werke in zwanzig Banden, Band 3, Phänomenologie des Geistes (Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1970), pp. 145– 155; for English translation see, Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A. V. Miller (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), pp. 104–119. 24. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Werke in zwanzig Banden, Band 7, Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts (Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1970): for English translation see, Hegel’s “Philosophy of Right,” trans. T. M. Knox (London: Oxford University Press, 1967), ¶ 321. For sake of simplicity in locating passages in the numerous editions, I cite only the paragraph number. 25. Ibid., ¶ 331. 26. Hobbes, Leviathan, pp. 646–648. 27. Hegel, Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, Hegel’s “Philosophy of Right,” Addition to ¶ 324. 28. Ibid., ¶ 321. 29. Ibid., ¶s 333–334. Cf. Herbert Marcuse, Reason and Revolution: Hegel and the Rise of Social Theory (Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press, 1960), esp. p. 221. 30. Hegel, Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, Hegel’s “Philosophy of Right,” ¶ 333. 31. Ibid., ¶ 338. 32. Paul Kecskemeti, Strategic Surrender: The Politics of Victory and Defeat (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1958). 33. Hegel, Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, Hegel’s “Philosophy of Right,” ¶s 33, 259, 340. 34. Karl Marx, “Okonomisch-Philosophische Manuskripte aus dem Jahre 1844” Marx and Friedrich Engels, Ergänzungsband, Schriften, Manuskripte, Briefe bis 1844 (Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1973), pp. 515–517; for English translation see, “Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844,” The Marx-Engels Reader, 2nd ed., ed. Robert C. Tucker (New York: W. W. Norton, 1978), pp. 75–77. 35. Karl Marx, Das Kapital: Kritik der Politischen Okonomie, Buch I in Marx Engels Werke, Band 23 (Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1972), p. 85–86; for English translation see, Capital, vol. 1, in Tucker, The Marx-Engels Reader, p. 320. 36. Marx, “Die Deutsche Ideologie,” Marx Engels Werke, Band 3, p. 28; for English translation see, “The German Ideology” The Marx-Engels Reader, p. 155–156. 37. Ibid., p. 28 (German), p. 156 (English).
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38. Marx, Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei, and Das Kapital: Kritik der politischen Okonomie, in Marx Engels Werke, Band 4, pp. 462–482, Band 23, Buch 1, p. 791. English translations, “Manifesto of the Communist Party” and Capital, vol. 1, in Tucker, The Marx-Engels Reader, pp. 473–491 and p. 438. 39. Marx, “Die Deutsche Ideologie,” p. 44; “The German Ideology,” p. 171. 40. Charles F. Howlett, Troubled Philosopher: John Dewey and the Struggle for World Peace (Port Washington, N. Y.: Kennikat Press, 1977), pp. 148–149. 41. John Dewey, “Ethics and International Relations,” The Middle Works, 1899– 1924, Volume 15: 1923–1924, pp. 59, 62. 42. Robert B. Westbrook, John Dewey and American Democracy (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991), pp. 269–270. 43. Dewey, “If War Were Outlawed,” p. 111. 44. Dewey, “What Outlawry of War Is Not,” p. 121. 45. John Dewey, Lectures on Ethics 1900–1901, ed. Donald F. Koch (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1991), pp. 267–445. 46. John Dewey, “Dualism and the Split Atom: Science and Morals in the Atomic Age,” The Later Works, 1925–1953, Volume 15: 1942–1948, ed. Jo Ann Bydston (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1989), p. 201. 47. Abraham Edel and Elizabeth Flower, “Introduction,” Dewey, The Later Works, 1925–1953, Volume 7: 1932, ed. Jo Ann Bydston (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1985), p. xxxiii. 48. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret Anscombe (New York: Macmillan, 1958. Cf. William Gay, “From Wittgenstein to Applied Philosophy,” The International Journal of Applied Philosophy, 9:1 (Summer/Fall 1994), pp. 15–20. 49. John Dewey, Reconstruction in Philosophy (Boston: Beacon Press, 1948), p. xxiv. 50. Albert Camus, “After Hiroshima: Between Hell and Reason,” trans. Ronald E. Santoni, Concerned Philosophers for Peace Newsletter, 7:2 (October 1987), pp. 4–5; and Bertrand Russell, Common Sense and Nuclear Warfare (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1959). Cf. William Gay, “From Hiroshima to Bikini: Philosophers on Nuclear Weapons, 1945–1952,” Concerned Philosophers for Peace Newsletter, 9:1 (April 1989), pp. 8–12. 51. Robinson, The Principles of Conduct, esp. pp. 194–203. 52. Hegel, Grundlinien der Philsophie des Rechts, Hegel’s “Philosophy of Right,” Third Part: Ethical Life, (i) The Family, (ii) Civil Society, (iii) The State, pp. 105-223 in the English translation. 53. Robert C. Johansen, The National Interest and the Human Interest: An Analysis of U.S. Foreign Policy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1980), p. 20. 54. Ibid. pp. 34–35. 55. Ibid., p. 21.
Thirteen ON LANGUAGE AND SOCIAL CHANGE Beth J. Singer 1. Introduction I wrote this paper in response to a question raised in a call for papers in the Concerned Philosophers for Peace Newsletter: “Is Escape Possible from Power Relations Embedded in Language?”1 I believe that escape is possible, but not, as some scholars seem to think, just through changing the words we use. Linguistic usage reflects socio-cultural existence, not the reverse. Merely changing terminology will not change society; terminological change or changes in the meanings of terms we habitually use are more likely to follow social change. If we want to bring this about, we must work for it. In a way, this scenario is paradoxical. Working for social change is a form of action, but social action is a form of communication. Conversely, in the broadest sense of action, communicating is a way of acting. A vast difference exists between communicating in such a way as to induce changes in social behavior and institutions and simply mandating changes in linguistic usage and construing this to be, in itself, a form, or cause of social change. 2. The Question of Sexist Language A case in point is the issue of so-called sexist language. Such language reflects a long-standing tradition of male dominance, the unequal distribution of power between the sexes that we find in both Western and non-Western societies and in religious as well as secular communities. Virtually all professional organizations and publishers today enjoin us to avoid sexist language, as if this would help to establish equality between the sexes. But which terms are sexist? Those who object to the word “man” as a generic term for the human species do not hesitate to use the word “woman,” which, in Old English meant “wife of man.” Consistently using “she” wherever we formerly would have used “he” may save us from the clumsiness of “she or he,” “he or she,” or from the strangeness and unfamiliarity of the term coined by the philosopher John Lachs, “s/he” (pronounced “sh-he”), but these alternatives are a form of reverse sexism. I am not saying that linguistic usage is unimportant, but that the words we use and the ways in which we use and understand them reflect long
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established social relations and entrenched practices and presuppositions. Just as the meaning and connotations of any word can change over time, a term substituted for another may very well acquire the meaning and connotations of the original; it may reflect the same social conditions and express the same attitudes. 3. Communication and Social Reconstruction: George Herbert Mead Language is a primary, if not the primary mode of human communication, what George Herbert Mead would call “significant” or symbolic communication. Mead distinguishes this from the sort of actions or gestures by which, like other animals, we may cause one another to react but that are simply spontaneous or instinctive and do not have socially evolved and shared meanings. According to Mead’s theory of communication, we can use the gestures or symbols by which we carry on meaningful communication for this purpose because they produce the same response (the same understanding) in us as in others. He says this commonality of response rests on “an organized attitude.” He terms this the attitude of a “generalized other” or “community.”2 These common responses are what Mead holds to make possible human society and the development of individual human selves within it. Vital forms of nonlinguistic communication exist—notably in the arts—that are also significant, that carry their own socially shared meanings. Mead stresses the role of language in the life of society, and what I am concerned with in this paper is the use of language in social interaction for the sake of bringing about change. Mead speaks directly to this issue. Speaking of morality, for instance, he says, “As a rule we assume that [the] general voice of the community (by which he means ‘organized custom’) represents what we call morality.” The things one cannot do are those which everybody would condemn.” He continues: If we take the attitude of the community over against our own responses, that is a true statement, but we must not forget this other capacity, that of replying to the community and insisting on the gesture of the community changing. We can reform the order of things; we can insist on making the community standards better. We are not simply bound by the community. We are engaged in conversation in which what we say is listened to by the community and its response is one which is affected by what we have to say.4 Even more strongly, Mead contends: The process of conversation is one in which the individual has not only the right but the duty of talking to the community of which he is a part, and
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bringing about those changes which take place through the interaction of individuals. That is the way, of course, in which society gets ahead . . . .5 When Mead talks about the individual here, he is referring to an ongoing process, not an entity. Conscious selfhood, as he conceives it, is a reflective process, or inner conversation, in which one alternately takes the position of one’s community or society (internalized as “me”) and that of a respondent (“I”). “The ‘I’ both calls out the ‘me’ and responds to it . . . . The self is essentially a social process going on with these two distinguishable phases.”6 As “I,” individuals may be responding either to society’s position or to a previous position of their own. The model for this inner conversation is social communication, of which communication with oneself is an instance. Society “gets ahead,” to use Mead’s phrase, “by just such interactions as those in which some person thinks a thing out. We are continually changing our social system in some respects, and we are able to do that intelligently because we can think.”7 More generally, Mead says “[t]here is always a mutual relationship of the individual and the community in which the individual lives,” a relationship of mutual influence.8 We can easily see this may seem that individuals learn to do what is required of them by society. Mead notes, “to be a molding of the individual by the forces about him, but the society likewise changes in this process and becomes to some degree a different society.”9 The individual and society, and individual and social morality as well, are thus mutually constitutive. As Mead puts it elsewhere, “On the one side stands the society which makes the self possible, and on the other side stands the self that makes a highly organized society possible. The two answer to each other in moral conduct.”10 Individuals come to share the attitude of the community or generalized other even as they shape it. We must not take this to mean that all members of a community come to be or act alike. To share the attitude of a community is to share an understanding or perspective, to be able to put ourselves in the place of any of its other members in a particular respect, and to and see things, and ourselves, as they do. But Mead is careful to say, “A member of the community is not necessarily like other individuals because he is able to identify himself with them. He may be different.”11 The possibility of difference is due, in part, to individuals having different functions, playing different roles in the community. These differences do not prevent community members from understanding all the roles and what is expected of those who perform them, but differentiation makes for individuation, making social change more likely. Mead restates his thesis concerning social and individual change in several ways. Defining “mind” as “constructive or reflective or problem-solving thinking,” he holds it to be “socially acquired” and to continue to develop in the course of social interaction. On the one hand, “as possessed by the individual members of human society,” mind is “the means or mechanism or appara-
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tus whereby social reconstruction is effected or accomplished by these individuals.” On the other hand, “The changes that we make in the social order in which we are implicated necessarily involve our also making changes in ourselves.”12 These two kinds of reconstruction are joint functions of an ongoing social conversation and its inner counterpart, reflection. He continues: In our reflective conduct we are always reconstructing the immediate society to which we belong. We are taking certain definite attitudes, which involve relationship with others. In so far as these relationships are changed, the society itself is changed. We are continually reconstructing.13 In so far as interpersonal relationships are changed, society is changed, and we change our relations to one another by changing ourselves. We accomplish this, Mead says, “[b]y asking what is right.” This is how the individual “becomes the instrument, the means, of changing the old into a new order . . . the instrument by which custom itself can be changed.”14 The way this instrument operates is through communication “in the significant sense,” the same sort of communication that Mead takes to be “the organizing process in the community” in the first place.15 4. Directing Social Action: John Dewey Integral to John Dewey’s concern with social change and political reconstruction is his insistence upon redefining such terms as “liberalism,” “democracy,” “freedom,” and “individualism.” He finds reinterpreting the concepts that these terms represent necessary because society has changed in significant ways; it will and must continue to change. Political reconstruction necessitates conceptual reconstruction. People must incorporate the principles embodied in the effected changes in their understanding of the new situation. But Dewey does not advocate abandoning the old terms in favor of new ones. There are scholars who believe him to be wrong, but as James Campbell points out, in political affairs we are speaking to people who still employ the customary terms in discourse. Some of these people presuppose and are ready to defend the accepted principles. Simply to abandon the conventional terminology instead of trying to introduce new interpretations of the key terms would fail to communicate with those habituated to the old terms, leaving them with only these terms with the outdated meanings and the assumptions that accompany them.16 In Campbell’s words: Our aim in political discourse, to sketch very broadly, is to develop a working body of sufficient communal spirit that social cooperation is possible and then to help direct that community toward perceived social
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goods. Much of this task of development and direction is a rhetorical task, and most of our tools in this endeavor are symbolic . . . . It is of supreme importance, then, that we do not simply abandon these political terms to their older conceptions and, therefore, to the defenders of these older conceptions.17 I think there is a parallel we can draw between the political terms Dewey tried to redefine and words such as “man,” “woman,” “he,” “she,” “Mr.,” “Miss,” and “Mrs.” In their established usage, these words reflect differences in status between men and women and between single and married women. Many of us might find them to have pejorative connotations. Curiously, substitution of “Ms” for both “Miss” and “Mrs.” appears to reinforce our awareness of the status differential between married and unmarried women that it is designed to hide, and thus far, we have no alternative for “Mr.” But these terms are so deeply entrenched that even people who reject their negative connotations habitually use them. The vast majority of English speakers will doubtless continue to employ them for the near future, regardless of innovations in academic usage, and even if the hierarchy of status and power in the society changes. Thus, many people are likely to continue to have the attitudes that these words reflect. Dewey would want to change this state of affairs. Persistence of what we might think is outdated usage and interpretation represents “cultural, lag.” The meanings of these terms, like those of any others, are not inherent in the terms, but are a product of history and a function of the contexts in which they are used. Campbell quotes Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.: A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged, it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content, according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used.18 As the present social context evolves, we can hope that the respective roles of men and women will also change and, with those changes, the status differential might change. If so, not only will people learn to behave differently, we would expect the accustomed terminology ultimately to take on different connotations; e.g., as “woman” ceased to mean wife of man and came to refer to any mature female of the human species. This process is likely to be slow. Even though language and thought function to preserve conventional usage and meaning, they must still play a part in the process. The question is: How can we give thought and language a directive function in bringing about change? Mead speaks of communication or conversation as a method of changing society and thinks of it along the model of reflection. Dewey is intent on using and recommending the method of inquiry, which he takes to be the method of
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intelligence analogous to that of science. In the passages discussed above, Mead is concerned with morality and everyday life, and with the role of the individual in bringing about change. Dewey is equally concerned with the role that inquiry, including philosophical inquiry, can play in political life. But, like Mead, Dewey takes social life at large to be the setting within which change is to be effected. When he speaks of intelligence, he does not mean an inborn power of atomic individuals. Science operates through collective intelligence, and intelligent, collective inquiry also characterizes the democratic process as he understands it.19 In Liberalism and Social Action, Dewey pointedly remarks, “the only alternatives to dependence upon intelligence are either drift and casual improvisation, or the use of coercive force stimulated by unintelligent emotion and fanatical dogmatism.”20 Despite what he holds to be its mistaken atomistic individualism, Dewey finds some value in traditional liberalism, particularly its emphasis “upon the role of freed intelligence as the method of directing social action.”21 Dewey sees one great—perhaps its greatest—contribution, of intelligence in directing social action to lie in the exercise of social and historical inquiry and the application of its results: Social and historical inquiry is in fact a part of the social process itself and not something outside of it. The consequence of not perceiving this fact was that the conclusions of the social sciences were not made (and still are not made in any large measure) integral members of a program of social action. When the conclusions of inquiries that deal with man are left outside the program of social action, social policies are necessarily left without the guidance that knowledge of man can provide, and that it must provide if social action is not to be directed either by mere precedent and custom or else by the happy intuitions of individual minds.22 In the third and final chapter of this same book, Dewey argues, “the first object of a renascent liberalism is education.” Learning the conclusions of the social sciences is presumably a part of this. But it must subserve what Dewey specifies to be the task of education, namely, “to aid in producing the habits of mind and character, the intellectual and moral patterns that are somewhat near even with the actual movements of events.” Accomplishing this task is part of an ongoing process of social and conceptual change, with reflection and action affecting one another. As Dewey says a few sentences later, “[R]esolute thought is the first step in that change of action that will itself carry further the needed change in patterns of mind and character.”23 Thought and action, education, character (intellectual as well as moral), collective inquiry, and social action based on the results of that inquiry—are
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all reciprocal and interdependent. All are required in any attempt to bring about improvement in society. 5. Conclusion If we are to transcend the inherited sexism of this society, we need to change the habits of mind and character with which most, if not all, of us are imbued. Mead and Dewey teach us that through communication and social interaction we can play a role in bringing about social and psychological change. They also teach us that we must first engage in reflective inquiry into our present situation, its causes, and consequences, and how we think it needs to—and can—be improved. Simply reflecting and telling others the results of our private inquiries are insufficient. As Dewey says, we need to employ the method of democracy, of organized, collective intelligence. The same principles apply to values as to practices. Sexism as a social institution embodies values that are in conflict with democratic practice and it serves the interests of only selected members of society. As such, sexism constitutes a denial of equal rights. To combat it requires not merely superficial verbal changes in reaction to the prevalence of sexist values, but broadening the scope of democracy: not formal political democracy, but what Dewey and Mead call “democracy as a way of life.” As Dewey says: The key-note of democracy as a way of life may be expressed . . . as the necessity for the participation of every mature human being in formation of the values that regulate the living of men together:—which is necessary from the standpoint of both the general social welfare and the full development of human beings as individuals.”24 We can use this lofty ideal only as a guide. If we are to change any of the prevailing values of our own society, we will have to involve as many of its members as possible in intelligent, critical inquiry and public discussion concerning those values. We will have to increase awareness of the ways in which we are all, individually and collectively, affected by them and the extent to which, whether we have ever realized it, we share them. If we do not so engage, we will be leaving the future of our social institutions and values to chance, or to the mercy of those who wield the greater power.
NOTES 1. “Is Escape Possible from Power Relations Embedded in Language?” Concerned Philosophers for Peace Newsletter, 16:2 (Fall 1996).
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2. George H. Mead, Mind, Self and Society: From the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist Charles W. Morris (Chicago, Ill.: The University of Chicago Press, 1934), p. 161. 3. Ibid., p. 168. 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid., p. 178. 6. Ibid. 7. Ibid. 8. Ibid., p. 215. 9. Ibid., p. 216. 10. Ibid., pp. 385–386. 11. Ibid., p. 325. 12. Ibid., pp. 308–309. 13. Ibid., pp. 386 14. Ibid., p.387. 15. Ibid., p. 327. 16. James Campbell, The Community Reconstructs: The Meaning of Pragmatic Social Thought (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1992), pp.68–69. 17. Ibid., pl 69. 18. Oliver Wendell Homes, Jr., Towne v. Eisner, 245 U.S. 425 (1917), quoted in Campbell, The Community Reconstructs, p. 61. 19. Cf. John Dewey, “The Problem of Method,” The Public and Its Problems, (1926), chap. 6, pp. 350–372, The Later Works, vol. 2, ed. Jo Ann Boydston (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1984). 20. John Dewey, Liberalism and Social Action (1935), The Later Works, vol. 11 (Carbondale and Edwardsville, Ill.: Southern Illinois University Press, 1991), p. 37. 21. Ibid. 22. Ibid., p. 34. 23. Ibid., pp. 44–45. 24. John Dewey, “Democracy and Educational Administration,” (1937), The Later Works, vol. 11, pp. 217–218.
Fourteen MAKING A MAN OF HER: WOMEN IN THE MILITARY John Kultgen 1. Introduction Must we tolerate injustices or deliberately inflict them on certain groups to insure peace and order for all? In this essay, I will discuss what I see as an unfair burden imposed on a portion of the population in the name of national security. Nation-states make use of armed forces to seize or protect land, natural resources, and markets, and to maintain peace on terms advantageous to them. To this end, they press or entice young men into military service. The hierarchical structure and rigid discipline of the military rob enlistees of much of their freedom and for some, of their life. The harm to members of the military in the form of loss of life, mutilation of body, psychological trauma, and curtailment of liberty is obvious. I will discuss less obvious harm—the damage done to the moral character of recruits by military training and combat. Many people, probably most, would challenge the claim that military training morally harms its recipients. Where is the harm? True, military training reshapes the character of the soldiers to prepare them for a vocation of homicide. But if, as apologists for the military maintain, this makes soldiers better persons, it compensates for taking away their liberty and jeopardizing their lives. If, as I think, training makes many recruits worse persons, it adds to the injustice of the other sacrifices imposed upon them. 2. Women as Test Cases To bring the issue into relief, I will examine the impact of integrating women into the armed forces. To some observers, excluding women appears unfair because it denies them opportunities afforded men and exempts them from burdens imposed on men. To other observers, including women in military service appears unfair since the burden is not distributed equitably among all members of society and imposing it on an additional group does not make it just. Unjust to exclude or unjust to include, which are we to conclude? First, we must confront two issues:
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JOHN KULTGEN (1) Will integration into the military make women more like men? If so, and if men are improved by training, women will also be improved, perhaps even more than men, and no new issue of justice is raised. If so, and if men are corrupted, women will also be corrupted, perhaps even more than men, and exposing them to training compounds the injustice. (2) Will integration of women into the military make male soldiers more like women? If so, and this reduces the harm to their character, it will mitigate the injustice that is inflicted on them. But if true, and it diminishes their military effectiveness, the gain in justice may not be worth the loss in security for the nation.
For leverage, in addressing the questions raised by integration of women into the military, I will examine some theses advanced by Madeline Morris concerning the incidence of rape by military personnel. Morris points out that one of the methods widely used by traditional military training to inculcate military virtues such as courage and aggressiveness is reinforcement of a masculinist self-image that carries an adversarial attitude toward women. She cites statistics that seem to show that this, among other things, reinforces the propensity of men to commit rape. She believes that the masculinist self-image will disappear if we admit enough women to the armed forces and combat roles. Morris also believes that military effectiveness can be maintained by the inculcation of a non-masculinist form of the military virtues, which she calls “principles of compassionate aggressiveness.”1 I endorse much of what Morris says, but I am not optimistic about the prospect of replacing the masculinist ideal of ruthless aggressiveness with her ideal of compassionate aggressiveness as the operational virtue of the typical military man or, since the integration of women into the services, of the typical military person. 3. Courage My argument turns about a distinction between true virtue and spurious forms. I maintain that military training is designed to produce spurious forms of courage and other virtues instead of genuine articles. To make the case, we will need to look briefly at courage and then consider whether the masculinist selfimage is essential to it. In Plato’s Laches, Laches, Nicias, and Socrates recognize that courage has to do with strength to persist in a good cause in the face of dangers and temptations. They agree that while the virtue is displayed most prominently in battle, courage is also crucial in civil life, for example, when a person is threatened by disease, poverty, or political attack. While not satisfied with the defi-
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nitions of courage that they are able to formulate, they agree that the virtue is fundamental and we cannot perfect other virtues without it. These themes will serve as our beginning point. Our subject is military courage, but we need to consider whether the “courage” acquired in the military carries over into the civilian context. Are soldiers more likely to be brave when faced with the dangers and difficulties to which we are all exposed in ordinary life? If so, military training helps to equip them for life and we may want to utilize its techniques in civilian institutions, for example, Junior ROTC in the high schools. If not, and especially if military training cultivates bad qualities that outweigh the courage or what passes for courage that it instills, we may want to change military training or we may want to take stern measures to counteract its effect on the larger society, perhaps by retraining or debriefing military personnel before they return to civilian life. To arrive at a judgment in the matter, we need a concept of courage. I will utilize the following rough formulation: courage is the entrenched disposition to persist in valid projects in the face of reasonable risks. Note that if this is a virtue, a form of excellence that contributes to the achievement of the good for human beings, and hence a quality worthy of admiration, the courageous person’s goals must be sound. They must be correctly judged by the individual (the ideal situation) or someone who sets goals for the individual (second best). The courageous person must be wise or be taught right opinions by someone who is wise. Similar remarks apply to the means by which persons pursue goals. Practical wisdom teaches us what risks given ends justify. The person who runs excessive risks through miscalculation is rash, foolhardy, or reckless. That person is yet further from true courage if his or her actions flow from irrational passions. Then that individual is like a wild beast, acting by instinct, not a rational being whose actions are controlled by character. Even though people’s goals are invalid or means are foolish, they may still display the strength of character, the entrenched disposition to persist in the face of risks that we admire in truly courageous persons. The “courage” may be the vice of the criminal, the fanatic, or dupe, but that sentiment is closer to the real article than the person under the control of blind passion. We usually conceive the difficulties which courage must overcome in negative terms. A hero performs duty in face of death, bodily injury, or damage to property or reputation. However, as Plato observes, the strength necessary to brave risks resembles that necessary to resist temptations. The courageous person does what is right despite the lure of pleasure, wealth or reputation. We may want to call this form of strength by a different name, “moderation” or “temperance,” but it abets the actions dictated by courage.
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We need to distinguish between passive courage as fortitude or tenacity in holding to a position, and active courage as bravery or boldness in forging ahead into new dangers. Bravery requires aggressiveness in the sense of energy and initiative. A basic question is whether we can inculcate this kind of aggressiveness in the military person without belligerency, viciousness, and the drive to dominate through violence. Putting these points together, we may say that courage in the full, ideal, or true sense is the ingrained strength of character that enables a person to follow the dictates of reason in the face of danger. The two sides of courage are fortitude and bravery. Its complement is moderation. Deficient forms of courage or forms of quasi-courage and pseudo-courage include the strength to do what is right under the direction of others, the strength to pursue even bad goals or act in bad ways in the face of danger, rashness springing from ignorance of dangers, and doing what a brave person would do under the spur of passion. These defective formations of character and the psyche are functional equivalents of courage in the sense that they can produce the same actions or achieve the same results as true courage in certain circumstances. The military puts this functional equivalence to good use. 4. Traditional Military Training and Machismo Courage or a functional equivalent is critical for military effectiveness. Let us look at Morris’s analysis of the way the military has traditionally instilled these traits. She is concerned with explaining what she labels the “military rape differential,” the difference between the ratio of rape to other violent crimes (non-negligent homicide and aggravated assault) committed by military personnel and the same ration among civilians. She cites statistics to show that while (1) military personnel commit violent crimes less frequently than demographically similar civilians, they (2) commit the crime of rape relatively more frequently than other violent crimes. In combat situations in World War II, in areas where soldiers were in contact with civilians, the military rape rate was much higher than the civilian rate, whereas the military non-rape violent crime rate was about the same as civilian rates.2 Morris advances this explanation for both the lower frequency of violent crimes among the military and the high frequency of rape than non-rape within the category of violent crimes: There are conditions of military life and lifestyle that inhibit and diminish rates of violent crime including rape, but there are other conditions in military life that tend to re-elevate rape rates. The factors minimizing military violent crime would include a structured and controlled lifestyle, often with greater surveillance of one’s activities than in civilian life; fewer opportunities for many kinds of crime (especially for personnel
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living on base); a population that excludes past felons; a reduced incidence of drug abuse; and a close knit social organization that generally imparts and enforces anti-crime norms. These factors would contribute to a diminution in violent crime by military personnel in peacetime and, to a lesser extent, even in the combat context. What may explain the lesser minimizing effect of these factors on military rape rates is that, even while those crime-inhibiting pressures are being exerted on all violent crime including rape, countervailing factors in military culture tend to push the rape rate—but not the rates of other violent crime—back up. In brief the cultural influences that may tend to reelevate military rates are as follows. When a closely bonded group (a “primary group”) shares group norms conduce to rape, the risk of rape by group members is increased. Norms conducive to rape include certain normative attitudes toward masculinity, toward sexuality, and toward women, and also include norms favoring deindividuation among group members. When primary group members with rape-conducive attitudes enter a deindividuated state, the risk of individual or group rape becomes significant, especially if external deterrents are minimal.3 Military units are primary groups. As such, they shape the attitudes of recruits by inducing them to submerge their individual identity in the group (in Morris’s terms, to “deindividuate” them). The recruits are isolated from the outside world. Military training, by design, expunges diverse civilian identities and provides enlistees with a new homogenous identity as part of the group. Ordeals and rites of initiation signal their acceptance into the group. They receive norms of conduct and their conformity is acknowledged by distinctive uniforms, honors, and awards. Some of the techniques that military organizations share with other primary groups exploit a particular image of manhood. According to Morris, this image includes: (1) a standard of masculinity that emphasizes dominance, assertiveness, independence, self-sufficiency, and willingness to take risks, and rejects compassion, understanding, and sensitivity; (2) an adversarial view of sexual relationships (both parties seek to exploit the other), promiscuous (prestige is tied to number of conquests), and violent (reflected in the myth that women enjoy rape); and
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These factors coalesce in a “macho personality constellation” of “calloused sex attitudes, a belief in violence as manly and a conception of danger as exciting.” Morris cites empirical data to show a correlation between the mach personality and aggressive sexual behavior.4 A primary group often promotes cohesion by contrasting with some group depicted as inferior or hostile. The contraposition of the masculinist group identity against females as “other” is a convenient tool because the masculinist ideal is already shared by recruits who are diverse in race, ethnicity, religion, region, education, and class. Because military organizations have been virtually all male until recent times, a focus on masculinity or “manhood” may well have served as a handy and powerful basis for group identity allowing for a stable definition of group and other. This “other” has the advantage of constancy over time. As Morris says, “Even while the ‘enemy’ changes, the sexual other does not change.”5 5. Elimination of Machismo Is machismo a crucial part of basic military training? Official reports and sociological studies of military training gloss over the techniques that attract, reflect, or reinforce it. Morris’s data are limited to interviews with a number of drill instructors and officers at training bases.6 These data can be supplemented with a large number of novels and stories, journalistic reports, published memoirs, and the testimony of military men and veterans we might know personally. Official sources, instead of contesting these accounts, are ignore them. They do not provide us a firm empirical base for determining how extensive machismic attitudes are or how much they might have diminished in the last few years. They do appear adequate to confirm that military training has set up women as the “other” to foster group identity in traditional military training. I think it is fair to say that they were typical until recently and evidence continues to come to light that a strong residue remains. I present the following episode as representative of sexual innuendo in training. It is described in The Short-Timers, a novel about the United States Marines in training and then in service in the Vietnam War. The first chapter of the book is devoted to boot camp training. Private Joker reports the episode: During our sixth week, Sergeant Gerheim orders us to double-time around the squad bay with our penises in our left hands and our weapons in our right hands, singing: This is my rifle, this is my gun; one if for
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fighting and one is for fun. And: I don’t want no teen-aged queen; all I want it my M-14. Sergeant Gerheim orders us to name our rifles [we give them female names]. “This is the only pussy you people are going to get. Your days of finger-banging Mary Jane Rottencrotch through her pretty pink panties are over. You’re married to this piece, this weapon of iron and wood, and you will be faithful.”7 Add to this grotesque scene, reports in many different descriptions of training of the use of feminine insults (“girls,” “ladies,” “bitch”), sexual obscenities (“you fucker,” “motherfucker,” “pussy,” “pigfucker,” “cocksucker,” “queer”), and other scabrous epithets (“herd,” “maggots,” “scumbags,” “shitbirds,” “shitheads,” “sackashits”) to tear down the individuality of recruits.8 Adding what we know of the macho culture of athletic teams, fraternities, and other all-male groups, the charge of misogyny and gynephobia seems fair enough. Whether by design or because the trainers live by the masculinist ideal, they exploit sexism to cultivate an aggressiveness that passes for courage. Morris believes that things will change if the number of women in the military passes a critical mass, especially if women enter combat units, the last bastions of machismo. She also thinks the problem of intra-group rape can be solved by a quasi-incest taboo against sexual relations among members of military units.9 She believes that rape of outsiders can be reduced by developing a non-masculinist basis for group solidarity. Morris believes that ideology can provide the “other” needed group identity: Ideological bases could include an identification of the group as just warriors, protecting democracy and the decent lives of ordinary people. The “other” (always important for group identity) could be defined as those who would be oppressors, the unjust. Such visions of just warriors on an honorable mission can be mightily motivating.10 Morris turns last to the question of whether de-masculinizing the military will diminish combat effectiveness. She recognizes that the idealization of dominance, aggressiveness, and toughness is “highly functional in an organization whose raison d’être is combat”; but maintains: there is no reason that the high valuation of those attributes cannot be retained while simultaneously dissociating them from masculine gender; they may be valued instead as important attributes in a good solider regardless of gender. Nor need the celebration of a certain steeliness exclude the approval also of compassion and understanding. 11
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Morris thus proposes an androgynous ideal for soldiers in which, males have stereotypical qualities of the female and females stereotypical qualities of the male in a blend of aggressiveness and compassion. 6. Homicide sans Machismo In battle, a soldier’s sense of courage is supremely important to themselves, their unit, and the cause they serve. Military groups throughout history have made do with quasi- and pseudo-forms of the virtue. These do as well as, or even better than, true courage for limited military purposes. To hold a position or attack an enemy redoubt, soldiers need not know the reasons for the action, the battle, or the war, nor do they need to make a rational assessment of the risks. They need only obey commands. Indeed, in doing so, they need not be impelled by reason at all. They may fight as effectively, or more effectively, if they are motivated by rage, hatred, blood lust, excitement of the hunt, fear of punishment by superiors, disgrace in the eyes of comrades, or any number of other passions. Since danger, not temptation, stands in the way of getting the job done, they have no need for temperance or moderation. What they need is aggressiveness. For victory, whether troops are philosophical warriors exercising the virtue of true courage or dogs of war loosed on whatever stands before them makes no difference. The foremost requirement is that they carry out orders in the face of danger. Military effectiveness does not require true courage. The functional equivalents of courage serve quite well. Morris might be right in condemning the military for exploiting machismo to produce equivalents. More debatably, she might be right in thinking we can produce equivalents of genuine courage without exploiting macho attitudes, though this remains to be seen. Even if she is right, the question remains whether we can transform the training of men, and now women, to cultivate true courage, that adornment of a person, male or female, military or civilian, which presupposes and promotes other virtues such as temperance and justice and which is central to the good life and good citizenship. There is no reason to be optimistic, as we see when we reflect on why military training is designed to instill pseudo-courage rather than true courage. We assume courage can be taught when we strive to encourage it in our children, our friends, and ourselves. But teaching courage is a gradual process. We cannot accomplish the task effectively with masses of people from diverse backgrounds in a short period. Hence, the military settles for functional equivalents. We see this sharply during wars such as Korea and Vietnam where a policy of short-term service for draftees required intense training of approximately six weeks to provide a steady flow of recruits to replace those in line. The professional army of the present provides an opportunity to strive for
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something more like true courage, but whether, or how much the military has changed its ways is questionable. How much can we alter military training while having it remain military, geared to instill the traits that are functional in battle in large masses of soldiers, many of them coming from deprived or venal backgrounds? The military mission is a narrow one. The use of violence under a rigid hierarchy of command furthers national interests. To discharge this mission, the military needs people who obey orders without question under conditions of great stress. Most military personnel obey orders because they are severely punished physically or psychologically if they do not. We would need to expose them to considerable philosophical dialectic to teach them how each legitimate command is justified by the rationality of the end—the righteousness of the war, the legality of the means used to pursue it, and the means—the tactical soundness of the action and its concordance with the rules of war. The rationality of ends and morality of means are issues over which historians and philosophers can debate in their seclusion from the pressures of war and military discipline. Imagining a group of soldiers in a combat situation coming to reasoned judgments through open debate is hard to imagine. The likelihood is nil that we would, in war time, provide thousands of recruits with less-than-ideal educational, and hit-and-miss family backgrounds the kind of education that would equip them to do so. Likewise, the likelihood is small, during the intervals between wars, that we will provide such education to lesser numbers of professional soldiers. Unquestioning obedience to orders might be morally acceptable if we could be sure that commands issued by officers and emanating from politicians are generally rational. Perhaps the solution to the conundrum is to cultivate practical wisdom in the officer corps. Most officers have had a taste of higher education in a military academy or a ROTC program, and some have even sat through an introductory course in philosophy. However, the inadequacy of this preparation for philosophical judgments in the face of the group-think pressures of military service is painfully obvious. Consider Philip Caputo’s memoirs of his training as a Marine officer and experience in Vietnam. Caputo had a liberal education, courses in religion, philosophy, and just war doctrines at a Catholic college. Yet he responded with enthusiasm to the rites of violence in Marine training. He reports: Attempts were made to instill in us those anti-social attributes without which a solider fighting in the jungle cannot long survive. He has to be stealthy, aggressive, and ruthless, a combination burglar, bank robber, and Maffia assassin.12
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He reports one incident in which a sergeant came into the classroom, let out a spine-chilling war cry, and buried a hatchet in one of the wooden walls. He wrote something on a small blackboard and asked a Marine: Sergeant: “You, what does that say?” Marine: “It says ‘ambushes are murder,’ sergeant.” Sergeant.: “Right.” He shouts “AMBUSHES ARE MURDER,” then returns to the blackboard, writes something else, and again asks, “What does that say?” Marine: “‘And murder is fun.’” Sergeant: “Right again.” Removes hatchet from wall and brandishes it at the class. “Now, everybody say it, AMBUSHES ARE MURDER AND MURDER IS FUN.” Class: Hesitantly, with some nervous laughter: “Ambushes are murder and murder is fun.” Sergeant: “I can’t hear you, marines.” Class: This time in unison: “AMBUSHES ARE MURDER AND MURDER IS FUN.”13 After weeks of such claptrap, Caputo reports that he was gung ho and praying for war. The popular media would have us believe that, whatever the effect of training, combat is ennobling. Caputo reports the contrary about Vietnam: Out there, lacking restraints, sanctioned to kill, confronted by a hostile country and a relentless enemy, we sank into a brutish state. The descent could be checked only by the net of a man’s inner moral values, the attribute that is called character.14 Caputo reports that most men sank very low. They did not acquire the moral values that prevented them from going all the way into savagery in the Marine Corps. The point is that training is devoted to overcoming inhibitions against killing and inculcation of the qualities that are functional in battle. It is not devoted to cultivation of the virtues of a moral person. Thus, Richard Stack reports his observations of Marine boot camp: The recruit is taught how to kill. He practices and perfects the art, whether with the M-14 at 500 yards aiming for the twelve-inch bull’s eye or on the bayonet course striking with cold steel at a wooden silhouette. He works out at the pugil stick course…, he perfects the naked strangle hold, which can kill a man silently in a few seconds. He learns to enjoy this practice and soon he wants real action.15
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The point of the training was not to teach techniques of killing; soldiers can master these quickly in the field. The point was to arouse a desire to use those techniques. To the extent this training works, it brutalizes. To recur to Plato, without the rule of reason informed by wisdom and enforced by the spirited part of the soul, training in violence produces the vice of brutality, not the virtue of courage. In The Republic, Socrates observes to Glaucon: Haven’t you noticed the effect that lifelong physical training, unaccompanied by any training in music and poetry, has on the mind . . . ? Savagery and toughness . . . the source of the savageness is the spirited part of one’s nature. Rightly nurtured, it becomes courageous, but it it’s overstrained, it’s likely to become hard and harsh.16 When the watchdog’s spirit becomes hard and harsh, the watchdog turns into a wolf and a threat to the very sheep he is supposed to guard. If women are no longer used as a convenient “other” in military training, we might not want to abandon the label “masculinity” for the governing ideal of the training. We would expect the training to continue to cultivate the traits that Morris identifies as stereotypically male: dominance, assertiveness, independence, self-sufficiency, and willingness to take risk, and continue to discourage the stereotypical characteristics of women: compassion, understanding, and sensitivity. The reason is simple: The mission of the military is victory through violence, not service to humanity through benevolent behavior. Since, as Morris recognizes, traditional male traits are functional in combat, we can assume that the military will continue to cultivate those traits in its recruits. The rational will be that they are necessary for the mission of the military, as narrowly conceived and contrary traits would get in the way of that mission. 7. Qualifications Lest I overstate my case, let me enter a few qualifications. Obviously military training does not turn all those subject to it into brutes. Moral character shaped in civilian life enables many recruits to resist the transformation which is the governing purpose of the training or to respond to it selectively. The training “takes” only to a degree with most recruits and not at all with many. Some traits that are effectively cultivated by training, such as discipline and loyalty, are good and very much needed by everyone whatever his or her walk of life. Many veterans express gratitude for the experience that developed these traits in them. They report that military life helped them find themselves and become adults (usually “become a man”). The civilian character and civilian habits which some recruits bring with them to military service are so bad that the
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training cannot but improve them. Other recruits are discriminating enough to profit from the good parts of training while resisting the bad. None of this gainsays that the defining aim of military training is to produce “smart weapons,” in the words of the candidly amoral recruiting poster of the US Marine Corps. To the extent that training is not compromised by the features that accidentally make its products more humane and compassionate, and to the extent that it succeeds in what it sets out to do, military training turns young men, and now young women, into weapons ready to commit homicide on command. It turns them into the beings that Thoreau decries: Now, what are they? Men at all? or small movable forts and magazines, at the service of some unscrupulous man in power? Visit the Navy-Yard and behold a marine, such a man as an American government can make, or such as it can make a man with its black arts—a mere shadow and reminiscence of humanity, a man laid out alive and standing, and already, as one may says, buried under arms with funeral accompaniments . . . .17 Exposing women to military training will not change the training. It only adds women to the array of “small movable forts and magazines.” My conclusion is that, on balance, military training and service make recruits worse people, not better. If the military does provide benefits to society in the form of security and prosperity, it distributes the burden of doing so unfairly. Replacing some of the men who carry the burden with women will not reduce the injustice. Given the qualities of soldiers that are necessary for victory, the corrective is to eliminate the practice that requires this form of injustice. Only when we eliminate war will we no longer need a military. Only then will we be able to stop the manufacture of men, and now women, with the narrowed vision and distorted virtues of the ideal solider.
NOTES 1. Madeline Morris, “By Force of Arms: Rape, War and Military Culture,” Duke Law Journal, 4 (February 1996), 651–782. 2. Ibid., pp. 654. 3. Ibid., p. 690. 4. Donald L. Mosher and Mark Sirkin, “Measuring a Macho Personality Constellation, Journal of Research in Personality, 18 (1984); and Mosher and Ronald D. Anderson, “Macho Personality, Sexual Aggression, and Reactions to Guided Imagery of Realistic Rape,” Journal of Research in Personality, 20 (1986), cited in ibid. 5. “By Force of Arms,” p. 752. 6. Ibid., nn. 193–222. 7. Gustav Hasford, The Short-Timers (New York: Bantam Books, 1971), pp. 12–13.
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8. See Hasford, The Short Timers; Richard Stack, Warriors (New York: Harper and Row, 1971); and Philip Caputo, A Rumor of War (New York: Ballantine Books, 1977). 9. Morris, “By Force of Arms,” p. 756. 10. Ibid., p. 753. 11. Ibid., pp. 751, 753. 12. Caputo, A Rumor of War, p. 34. 13. Ibid., pp. 34–35. 14. Ibid., p. xx. 15. Stack, Warriors, p. 32. 16. Plato, Republic, trans. G. M. A. Grube, rev. C. D. C. Reeve (Indianapolis Ind.: Hackett Publishing, 1992), 410c. 17. Henry David Thoreau, “Civil Disobedience,” Nonviolence in Theory and Practice, ed. Robert Holmes (Belmon, Calif.: Wadsworth Publishing, 1990), p. 30.
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Fifteen ASSUMPTIONS BEHIND DIFFERENT TYPES OF PEACE EDUCATION Ian M. Harris 1. Peace Education Theory Peace researchers understand that just to strive for negative peace, the cessation of violence, is insufficient. To create a peaceful world, humans have to strive for positive peace: where human needs are met and rights guaranteed by establishing standards of justice, human rights, and sustainable development in beloved communities. For educators, this implies not just stopping the violence to create a positive classroom-learning environment but also establishing within students’ minds a commitment to peace principles. One goal of peace education is to create the conditions for peace: a society where citizens can freely share concerns, be productive, have creative use of their time, enjoy human rights, and manage conflicts without direct violence. The whole concept of civilization rotates somewhat around a peace axis. In spite of the importance of educating future citizens in peacemaking skills, the main goal statements for schools that constitute the core of the education system in the United States neglect to mention the word “peace.” For example, the Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education, adopted by the Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education in 1918, have the following goals: “health, command of fundamental processes, worthy home membership, vocation, civic education, worthy use of leisure, and ethical character.”1 Instead, they promote goals like civic education and moral behavior that are supposed to promote civic virtue. The National Education Goals, adopted by the United States’ Congress in 1994, state in goal seven, “Safe, Disciplined, and Alcohol- and Drug-free Schools.” Here the emphasis is upon creating safe schools, not upon creating a peaceful society. Throughout educational endeavors in the United States, a conspicuous lack of teaching systematically how to achieve peace exists. Teaching peace, and the crucial consequent learning peace, is left to various elements in civil society, like the family or church, both of which ideally promote values of tolerance, love, and charity, but in reality are fraught with unresolved conflicts. In contemporary societies, approaches to peace are usurped
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by the national security state with its emphasis upon peacekeeping strategies that use force to settle conflicts or deter violence. Neoconservatives like William Bennett, the Secretary of Education under Ronald Reagan, horrified by rising levels of violence in a rapidly deteriorating civil society, promoted teaching children in schools values like responsibility, respect, honesty, caring, and fairness.2 Peace educators also promote values, such as a commitment to nonviolence. The notion is that if children adopt these values as adults, they will help create a civilized and peaceful society. Such an educational strategy to build peace, assuming that individuals, not broad social economic forces, cause conflicts, has some support in education circles as “character education.”3 Yet, with a strong emphasis upon high academic standards, there is little room in the school day for teaching such values. Teachers who feel pressured to account for their instruction, by having their students score well on standardized tests, may not wish to promote something as “frivolous” as teaching values or preparing students to confront the many sources of violence that exist in their lives. School systems are committed to a curriculum jammed so full with mathematics and science that young people have few opportunities during their schooling to dream about what kind of society in which they wish to live and what they should do to get there. Instead of being trained in sophisticated peace theory and practices that would enable them to build what Martin Luther King, Jr. called the “beloved community,” youth in Western schools are prepared to compete in a capitalist marketplace and to consume goods created in that marketplace: Despite what our political and corporate leaders want us to believe, the educational bridge to the 21st century will not ultimately be found in the ever-increasing technological cleverness of school graduates. The quality of life in the new millennium will depend much more on the capacity of human beings to find ways to resist the draw of victimizing and brutalizing others, and the seduction of joining those who build their sense of identity and value on the indignity of others.4 During this past century, we have seen a growth in social concern about horrific forms of violence, like ecocide, genocide, modern warfare, ethnic hatred, racism, sexual abuse, domestic violence, and a corresponding growth in the field of peace education. Educators of all stripes from day care to adult, hope to use their professional skills to warn their fellow citizens about imminent danger and advise them about paths to peace. In this paper, I will examine the theoretical roots of this new educational reform that seeks to address different forms of violence that appear both within and outside schools. This important reform movement, practiced by educators
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throughout the world, has the potential to improve school achievement. Research shows that children exposed to violence develop negative emotions, aggressive behaviors, and attachment disorders.5 Severely violent children have difficulties with problem solving and general self-worth.6 Children suffering from post-traumatic stress disorders have a hard time focusing upon their lessons.7 Thus, these studies show an inverse relationship between young people’s exposure to violence and their academic performance. Some students are at risk in schools because violence undermines their academic potential. Evaluations have shown that whole school peace education programs successfully reduce bullying and violence in schools and improve school climate.8 In school peace education efforts have demonstrated a positive impact on pupil performance.9 In spite of this, most school reform efforts ignore the potential of peace education to address causes of student failure in schools.10 2. Postulates of Modern Peace Education Most schools of education ignore “peace education” in their academic content. As used in this paper, the term refers to teachers teaching about peace: what it is, why it does not exist, and how to achieve it. This includes teaching about the challenges of achieving peace, developing nonviolent skills, and promoting peaceful attitudes. Peace education has five main postulates: (1) It explains the roots of violence. (2) It teaches alternatives to violence. (3) It adjusts to cover different forms of violence. (4) Peace itself is a process that varies according to context. (5) Conflict is omnipresent. The first postulate has the role of a clarion call to warn about the hazards of violence. Students in peace education classes learn about the other in order to deconstruct enemy images. The second postulate presents different peace strategies that we can use to address the problems of violence pointed out in postulate one. The third postulate explains the dynamic nature of peace education as it shifts its emphasis according to the type of violence it is addressing. The fourth postulate embeds peace education theory and practice within specific cultural norms. The last postulate states that peace educators cannot eliminate conflict but they can provide students valuable skills in managing conflict. Postulates (1) and (2) create a unifying mission for peace education, while postulates (3) and (4) diversify the core concepts of peace education; for example, peace educators in the United States, at the beginning of the twenti-
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eth century, presented the danger of modern warfare and argued for international institutions like the League of Nations to avert disaster. At the end of the twentieth century, peace educators were teaching lessons in violence prevention to help children avoid the risks of drug abuse, sexual harassment, and domestic and civil violence. Throughout these efforts, peace educators promote a vision of a peaceful world that motivates students to achieve such a world. The content of peace education classes varies according to the different forms of violence being addressed: Even though their objectives may be similar, each society will set up a different form of peace education that is dependent on the issues at large, conditions, and culture, as well as the views and creativity of the educators.11 Peace has different meanings within different cultures as well as different connotations for the spheres in which peaceful processes are applied. For example, inner peace differs from outer peace. Inner peace concerns a state of being and thinking about others, for example, holding them in reverence; while outer peace processes apply to the natural environment, the culture, international relations, civic communities, families, and individuals. Within each one of these spheres, peace can have different meanings. For instance, within the international sphere, the term often refers to the balance of power. Sociologists might study cultural peace concerning the norms that legitimize nonviolence and condemn violence. Intercultural peace could imply inter-religious and interfaith dialogue or multicultural communication and learning. Peace within civic society would promote full employment, affordable housing, ready access to health care, quality educational opportunities, and fair legal proceedings. Psychologists concerned with interpersonal conflict would teach about positive interpersonal communication skills used to resolve differences. Environmentalists would point to sustainable practices used by native cultures for thousands of years. Postulate (5) reminds us of the complex role that conflicts have in our lives. They exist at both personal and social levels. Sociologists have pointed out that conflicts are a necessary ingredient in social change.12 Some social theorists, like Ralf Dahrendorf, believe that conflict resolution is a myth because social conflicts are inherent in the very nature of social organization and structure.13 Peace educators can point out both the value and risks of conflict. Conflicts unattended can become conflagrations, as happened in Rwanda in 1994, when 700,000 people were slaughtered in a few months by their neighbors and fellow countrymen. Whereas conflicts managed nonviolently can be the source of growth and positive change, as in the case of the salt march in India in 1948, when Mahatma Gandhi publicized an oppressive salt
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tax and promoted the necessity for a civil disobedience campaign for independence from British rule. Violence plays an important role in society as a form of social control. Threats of violence force people to conform to social roles and civic laws. Armed police provide security. Peace education, thus, does not try to eliminate all forms of violence and conflict. Instead, it tries to impart an understanding of the role of conflict in human communities and to teach alternatives to socially and environmentally destructive forms of violence. Peace education raises important questions about the role of violence in social systems. 3. Historic Roots of Peace Education Throughout history, human beings have taught each other ways to manage conflicts so human communities do not erupt into violence. The world’s religions have scriptures that advance peace. These include the teaching of prophets such as Buddha, whose message was compassion. Baha’ u’llah, one of the founders of the Baha’i religion, preached that all human beings are brothers. Jesus Christ urged people to be charitable and to turn the other cheek toward enemies. Mohammed’s message for Muslims was that the major jihad involves overcoming forces of hatred and anger in the heart, which, when directed outwards, cause so much suffering and violence. Moses’ Ten Commandments include “Thou shalt not kill.” Lao Tse’s Taoism promotes the harmony of opposites, like yin and yang, which together create a greater whole. Such teachings promote peace through personal transformation. If individuals adopt pacifist values, based upon nonviolence and compassion, they will avoid the pitfalls of destructive conflict. One of the first Europeans who used the written word to espouse peace education was Comenius, the Czech educator, who in the seventeenth century saw that the road to peace was through universally shared knowledge.14 This approach to peace assumes that education is the key to peace. For example, an understanding of others and shared values will overcome hostilities that lead to conflict. Immanuel Kant, in “Perpetual Peace,” established the liberal notion that human beings could moderate civil violence by constructing legal systems with checks and balances based upon courts, trials, and jails. This approach to peace, termed peace through justice, rests on the notion that humans have rational minds capable of creating laws that treat people fairly.15 4. The Twentieth Century The last century has seen considerable growth in peace education efforts and theory. At the beginning of the century, peace educators warned about the scourge of modern warfare. Toward the end of the century, they started to
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branch out to address civil and domestic forms of violence. Europeans and Americans, at the beginning of the twentieth century, formed peace societies and lobbied their governments against the saber rattling that eventually led to World War I. In 1912, a School Peace League had chapters in nearly every state that were “promoting through the schools . . . the interests of international justice and fraternity.”16 In the Interbellum period, between the First and Second World Wars, social studies teachers started teaching international relations so that their students would not want to wage war against foreigners. Here the emphasis was on teaching certain content, an understanding of peoples in the world that would develop in the minds of citizens an outlook of tolerance that would contribute to peace. Educators used international studies to contribute to an appreciation of human diversity that would lead to a more cooperative peaceful world. Many were convinced that schools had encouraged and enabled war by indoctrinating youth into nationalism at the expense of truth. Peace educators contributed to a progressive education reform where they viewed schools as a means to promote social progress by educating students to solve problems. At this time, Maria Montessori was traveling throughout Europe urging teachers to abandon authoritarian pedagogies, replacing them with a dynamic curriculum from which pupils could choose what to study. She reasoned that children who did not automatically follow authoritarian teachers would not necessarily follow rulers urging them to war. She saw that the construction of peace depends upon an education that would free the child’s spirit, promote love of others, and remove the climate of compulsory restriction. She set up a school in a slum in Italy where teachers were encouraged to use their capacity for love to help students prosper in the midst of extreme poverty. In contrast to other peace educators, who emphasized what should be taught in peace education classes, Montessori stressed that a teacher’s method or pedagogy could contribute toward building a peaceful world. The whole school should reflect the nurturing characteristics of a healthy family.17 The horrors of World War II created a new interest in education for world citizenship.” Herbert Edward Read argued for the marriage of art and peace education to help provide images that would motivate people to promote peace. Somewhat like his contemporary, Montessori, he argued that humans could use their creative capacities to escape the pitfalls of destructive violence.18 Manchester College, in North Manchester, Indiana, established the first academic peace studies program at the college level, in 1948.The Vietnam War stimulated more university and college programs that had a unique international focus upon colonialization. In the 1980s, the threat of nuclear war stimulated educators all around the world to warn of impending devastation. Concern about nuclear annihilation led to the creation of more peace studies
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courses on college campuses and the proliferation of curricula devoted to teaching peaceful conflict resolution skills at the primary and secondary level of schooling throughout the industrialized North. At the same time, concern about underdevelopment in countries in the South led to a variety of peace education concerned with structural factors that inhibited the protection of human rights and equitable economic development. Peace research as a serious field of intellectual enquiry began in the 1960s under the leadership of Johan Galtung, one of the founders of the International Peace Research Association. Galtung made an important distinction between negative peace and positive peace. Negative peace, by averting war or stopping violence, implies the absence of direct, personal violence. Positive peace is a condition where nonviolence, ecological sustainability, and social justice remove the causes of violence. Positive peace requires both the adoption of a set of beliefs by individuals and the presence of social institutions that provide for an equitable distribution of resources and peaceful resolution of conflicts.19 In 1974, the Quaker Project on Community Conflict in New York published The Friendly Classroom for a Small Planet, a curriculum for teachers of young children who wanted to enable students to develop a sense of selfworth, build community, and acquire the skills of creative conflict resolution. Since that time, the curriculum has gone through twenty-five editions and been translated into seven different languages. Schools in El Salvador, as well as in many other countries, use it extensively. The preface from the first edition sums up its philosophy and states the goals of many modern peace education programs in primary schools: Our particular program has three main goals in the classroom: (1) to promote growth toward a community in which children are capable and desirous of open communication; (2) to help children gain insights into the nature of human feelings and share their own feelings; and (3) to explore with children the unique personal ways in which they can respond to problems and begin to prevent or solve conflicts.20 This curriculum attempts to deal with the roots of conflict, as they existed within the psyches of young children, by teaching them to be open, sharing, and cooperative. It resembles many other curricula designed by peace educators to help young children adopt tolerant attitudes. It neglects serious study of social forces that cause violence. In the 1980s, three books were produced that represent the highlight of an era acutely concerned about the threat of nuclear annihilation: Education for Peace by Birgit Brocke-Utne, Comprehensive Peace Education by Betty Reardon, and my Peace Education.21 Brocke-Utne pointed out the devastation
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that militarism, war, and male violence wreaks upon females. She argued that feminism is the starting point for effective disarmament. She pointed out that societies not at war were not necessarily peaceful because they still had considerable domestic violence. Reardon argued that the core values of schooling should be care, concern, and commitment, and the key concepts of peace education should be planetary stewardship, global citizenship, and humane relationships. She stated that the general purpose of peace education is: to provide the development of an authentic planetary consciousness that will enable us to function as global citizens and to transform the present human condition by changing the social structures and the patterns of thought that have created it.22 She was mostly concerned with human rights and the international dimensions of conflict. I am a teacher-educator concerned about the levels of violence teachers were facing, both in classrooms and in the broader community. In Peace Education, I stated ten goals of peace education should be: (1) to appreciate the richness of the concept “peace”; (2) to address fears; (3) to provide information about security systems; (4) to understand violent behavior; (5) to develop intercultural understanding; (6) to provide for a future orientation; (7) to teach peace as a process; (8) to promote a concept of peace accompanied by social justice; (9) to stimulate a respect for life; and (10) to end violence. I emphasized then, and still maintain, that peaceful pedagogy must belong to any attempt to teach about peace. The key ingredients of such a pedagogy are cooperative learning, democratic community, moral sensitivity, and critical thinking. At the beginning of the 1980s, the globalists lost some of their hold on the domain of peace education and the humanists took over. Peace educators became more concerned about civil, domestic, cultural, and ethnic forms of violence, trying to heal some of the wounds of pupils who reared in violent cultures. Based upon the work of Carl Rogers, a popular psychology movement known as “new age healing” has encouraged people to examine deep-seated psychic phenomena that contribute to violent behavior.23 This movement has influenced peace educators whose goal is to heal wounds that create pools of
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rage in the psyche. A variation of this approach to peace education is violence prevention education that attempts to develop resilience skills in young people so that they avoid drugs, sex, and violence in interpersonal relations.24 Another peace education thread that developed at the end of the twentieth century is environmental education.25 Environmentalists see that the greatest threat to modern life is destruction of the natural habitat, so that in the immortal words of J. Alfred Prufrock, “That is the way the world ends, not in a bang but it a whimper.”26 Up to that point, many peace educators throughout the world had feared a cataclysmic nuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union (that collapsed in 1989). Environmental educators help young people become aware of the ecological crisis, give them tools to create environmental sustainability, and teach them to use resources in a renewable way.27 They argue that the deepest foundations for peaceful existence are rooted in environmental health. At the beginning of the new millennium, conflict resolution education is one of the fastest growing school reforms in the West. Conflict resolution educators provide basic communications skills necessary for survival in a postmodern world. David W. Johnson and Roger T. Johnson taught the skills for peacemaking to teachers who in turn instruct their children into some of the more sophisticated aspects of civilized behavior.28 Linda Lantieri and Janet Patti built on the work of the resolving conflict creatively approach to school violence. They urged teachers to wage peace in the schools.29 Their program, Resolving Conflict Creatively Program (RCCP) is “one of the largest and most successful efforts to teach social and emotional skills in the classroom.”30 They added to the mix crucial components dealing with antibias and multicultural education. Peace educators are promoting the teaching of affective skills so that children will be more cooperative.31 Feminists have contributed to the expansion of peaceful approaches to schooling by urging schools to change their curriculum away from a competitive to a caring focus that emphasizes domestic skills.32 They also have pointed out the incredible cost of war to women and the ongoing aspects of gender violence that predominate in most societies. They see that the psychological damage caused by male domination in patriarchal societies creates animosity that reverberates through the social order in many destructive ways. The path to peace, according to this approach, is to create more equitable partnership relations between the genders. At the end of the twentieth century, under the leadership of the United Nations, there have been several strong appeals to make the teaching of alternatives to violence more explicit in schools. In November 1995, the 186 member states of the 28th General Conference of the UNESCO stated that the major challenge at the close of the twentieth century is the transition from a culture of war and violence to a culture of peace. In November 1998, the United
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Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution for the culture of peace and another declaring the year 2000 the “International Year for the Culture of Peace,” and the years 2001–2010 to be the “International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Nonviolence for the Children of the World.” From that mandate, UNESCO has developed eight areas of action necessary for the transition from a culture of war to a culture of peace.33 The first of these is “Culture of Peace through Education.” A manifesto written by the winners of the Nobel Peace Prize and published in Le Monde on 2 July 1997, states that the only one way to fight violence with nonviolence is education.34 5. A Rich Diversity Peace educators point out problems of violence and then instruct their pupils about strategies they can use to address those problems, empowering them to redress the circumstances that can lead to violent conflict. They teach peace processes, like negotiation, reconciliation, nonviolent struggle, the use of treaties, and, when necessary, the use of military force to stop a violent conflict, as in Kosovo in 1999, where NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) countries bombed Serbia in an attempt to stop it from forcefully ruling the province when it wanted to break away from the Serbian Republic. Peace education takes different shapes as peace educators attempt to address different forms of violence in different social contexts. In Japan in the 1950s, teachers led a campaign for peace education, known as “A-bomb education,” because of their concern about the devastating effects of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In countries in the southern hemisphere, where the problems of poverty and underdevelopment cause violence, this form of education is often called “development education” where students learn about different strategies to address problems of structural violence. In Ireland, peace education is called “Education for Mutual Understanding,” as Catholics and Protestants try to use educational strategies to undo centuries of enmity.35 Likewise in Korea, peace education is referred to as “Reunification Education.”36 Because the concept, “peace,” implies a withdrawal from the world into a space of peace and quiet, peace education is not attractive to social activists who want to use nonviolent strategies to confront structural inequalities. Others are critical of peace education because they think that human societies are somewhat like Thomas Hobbes described them in Leviathan with selfish creatures waging a war against all, and seeking a strong monarch or state authority to impose order upon human behavior that would otherwise be rapacious or aggressive.37 They see the need for peace through strength and equate peace education with capitulation. These detractors referred to peace education as
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“appeasement education.”38 Without a strong force to protect them, they fear harm might come to them. On another level, some supporters of peace education concepts prefer to refer to it as conflict resolution education. Elites like the idea of using alternative dispute resolution tactics to teach people how to resolve conflicts that might disrupt commerce in civil society, but fear strategies for peace that might threaten the privileges granted them by unjust social institutions. In this way, conflict resolution education is safer and more acceptable than peace education. Some people do not like the name “peace education” because they see it as related to ways of reducing the threat of war and does not refer to interpersonal and cultural conflicts. “Peace,” through its use in religious teaching, has many connotations that make it a controversial term for some educators who might be attracted to the content and teaching techniques included in peace education. These many reservations about peace education have helped contribute to a diversity of educational strategies to confront different problems of violence. 6. Human Rights Education Human rights education, an aspect of peace education, has a literal and broad interpretation. Peace educators falling within this tradition are guided by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations in 1948 that provides a statement of values to be pursued in order to achieve economic, social, and political justice.39 Different statements of human rights derive from concepts of natural law, a higher set of laws that are universally applicable and supersede governmental laws. Narrowly construed, the study of human rights is the study of treaties, United Nations institutions, and domestic and international courts. People persecuted by their governments for political beliefs often appeal to provisions of international law to gain support for their cause. Abuse of rights and the struggle to eliminate that abuse lie at the heart of many violent conflicts. Human rights institutions have begun to address rights against discrimination based upon gender, disability, and sexual orientation. Elise Boulding points out how nongovernmental organizations help protect the rights of people being oppressed by states and build communities of solidarity through various peace movements.40 Peace educators can teach about these struggles in remote parts of the world as well as getting students to focus or the rights of minority groups within their own school communities. Adam Curle discusses how international nongovernmental organizations can intercede in the midst of violent conflict to support the rights of oppressed peoples.41 The study of human rights abuses in places like China, Myanmar, and Rwanda helps students develop an international perspective on the problems of violence. On the local scene, we can broadly construe human rights education
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in ways that honor the basic dignity of all people. Hence, this aspect of peace education would include multicultural understanding aimed at reducing stereotypes and hostilities between groups. “Cross-cultural ignorance and the hostilities it helps maintain and exacerbate argue strongly for multicultural education as an essential element of education for peace.”42 In peace camps in the Middle East with Israeli and Palestinian children, and other places where people are attempting to transform ethnic, religious, and racial hatred, this kind of education hopes to eliminate adversarial mindsets by challenging stereotypes to break down enemy images and by changing perceptions of and ways of relating to the other group.43 These approaches to peace education are concerned with the tendency to label others as enemies and to oppose or exclude them. Here conflict is identity based, where people hate others who belong to groups different from theirs, perceived as the enemy. Peace educators in these contexts attempt to replace enemy images with understandings of common heritage, and break through a process of numbing and denial about atrocities committed in intractable conflicts.44 They hope to reduce ethnic religious hatred by bringing members of conflicting groups together in a dialogic communication process that searches for common understandings. The key is to accept the other and respect the inherent humanity that resides in all humans, and adopt a disposition to care for others who belong to different social groups. 7. Environmental Education Traditional peace educators, concerned about threats of war, have often ignored the environmental crisis. With the rise of global warming, rapid species extinction, and the adverse effects of pollution, they are starting to realize that just talking about military security, as in protecting the citizens of a country from a foreign threat, is insufficient. Promoting a concept of peace based upon ecological security, where humans are protected and nourished by natural processes is also necessary.45 Bowers has raised a devastating critique of Western notions of progress that assume that the natural environment is an infinite resource that humans can use to their enjoyment without regarding the consequences of environmental despoliation.46 Scientific growth based upon rational modes of problem solving has created a damaged earth losing many of its creatures to extinction. The development of nuclear power has introduced millions of people, flora, and fauna to radiation toxicity. The development of carbon-based fuels has reduced the ozone layer in the atmosphere and contributed to global warming. Instead of anthropocentric culture, with autonomous individuals at the center of the universe, teachers concerned with environmental issues, promote a survival culture that acknowledges the important values of traditional cultures
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that encourage humans to revere, not despoil the natural world. Environmental educators provide awareness that many technological advances are destructive to the natural world. Peace educators see that many different forms of knowledge (folk knowledge,) have value in addition to western scientific rational thought. Peace educators give more emphasis to ecologically-sound folk practices rather than unlimited consumer cultures based upon exploitation of natural resources and human capital.47 Peace educators concerned about environmental destruction teach about appropriate technology and sustainable development. They emphasize the role of treaties like the Law of the Sea Treaty or the Kyoto Accord that attempt to preserve environmental resources.48 David W. Orr has pointed out how schools need to teach environmental awareness and care so that a peace literate person is aware of the planet’s plight, its social and ecological problems, and has a commitment to do something about them.49 Environmental Literacy, more than the ability to read about the environment, also involves developing a sense of the spirit of place. This feeling of place distinguishes each site and makes a place special and memorable.50 Students in environmental education develop feelings of care and concern for the well being of the natural world. One goal of environmental education is to promote sustainable development that has been defined by Susan Ahearn as a process of social change in which policies and practices are established to meet human needs, both material (physical necessities) and nonmaterial (for example, access to a clean environment, political and spiritual freedom, meaningful work, and good health). Social change, within this context, must not occur at the expense of the resource base upon which societies are dependent.51 The study of the environment lends to holistic thinking about how natural and human systems interrelate. Such studies should contribute to an ecological world outlook that contains basic knowledge of the environment, develops strong personal convictions about protecting natural resources, and provides dynamic experiences conserving natural resources. Peace educators also emphasize preserving the habitat in which students are located, explaining the importance of bioregionalism, where people within a particular region learn how to draw upon the strengths of that region. 8. International Education Derek Benjamin Heater has pointed out that peace studies students understanding the international interstate system that so often leads to war over territory is crucial.52 Global peace educators provide an understanding of how nation-
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states construct security for their citizens. This type of peace education is also known as world order studies.53 It includes helping students understand the positive and negative aspects of globalization, which has led to the erosion of power of national governments. There are three types of globalization: economic—transnational corporations and the creation of a consumer-dominated global middle class, public order—governments working together on common problems such as health and environmental problems, and popular—campaigns by grass roots organizations such as Amnesty International, Greenpeace, and Medecins sans Frontieres. Irreversible globalization is taking place. The question peace educators should be asking is how we can bring all the parties together to ensure that globalization works better for more people. International education is a diverse field. Some researchers within this field look towards the creation of a federal world state with laws and courts that can adjudicate conflicts between nations, so that they do not go to war to settle their disagreements.54 Others look to alternative ways to structure the global economy, so that debt does not further impoverish developing nations struggling with difficult conditions of structural violence.55 Peace educators involved in global peace education efforts look toward the establishment of global institutions to provide collective security. The 1975 UNESCO Statement of Purposes for Worldwide Educational Policy states: [to include] an international dimension at all levels of education: understanding and respect for all peoples, their cultures, values, and ways of life; furthermore awareness of the interdependence between peoples and nations’ abilities to communicate across cultures; and last, but not least to enable the individual to acquire a critical understanding of problems at the national and international level.56 Teachers following these guidelines try to stimulate in their students’ minds a global identity and awareness of problems around the planet. They hope their students will think of themselves as compassionate global citizens who identify with people throughout the world struggling for peace. International conflicts involve military forces and reflect a widespread commitment to power politics and the use of war as a means of resolving international disputes. The costs of maintaining armies promote a militaristic culture that subtracts from resources available for education and development, alternative means to provide security. Often, in international affairs political leaders use peacekeeping forces, as in Cyprus, to quell disturbances and impose order upon unruly citizens. For decades, United Nations forces with blue helmets have separated hostile Greek and Turkish communities on this island, preventing them from slaughtering each other and maintaining a fragile peace.
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Leaders in many parts of the world, facing such turmoil, are looking for regional solutions that involve the intercession of stable regimes to help settle social instability. In peace education classes, teachers evaluate the value of peace-through-strength approaches to resolving conflicts where governments devote considerable resources to armed forces to protect national interests and provide security for citizens. This approach to peace relies upon force to stop violence or promote national interests. International peace educators teach how laws and institutions, like the United Nations, can and have helped avoid the horrors of war. At the end of the millennium, wars shifted from interstate to intrastate, with the vast majority of killing occurring between ethnic groups rivaling for control of contested areas.57 In these conflicts, issues of human rights become intertwined with governmental policies based upon peace through strength. Do political leaders who use military force to repress terrorists protect the rights of minorities? How can we reach multilateral peace agreements that would avoid the necessity of armed intervention, for example, the situation in Columbia, and resolve the claims of multiple parties in a conflict? 9. Conflict Resolution Education Recent concern about escalating levels of civil violence has stimulated a variety of peace education called conflict resolution education that helps individuals understand conflict dynamics and empowers them to use communication skills to build and manage peaceful relationships. Here the focus is on interpersonal relations and systems that help disputing parties resolve their differences with the help of a third party. Approximately ten percent of schools in the United States have some sort of peer mediator program.58 Conflict resolution educators teach children human relations skills such as anger management, impulse control, emotional awareness, empathy development, assertiveness, and problem solving. Research studies conducted on conflict resolution education in the United States show that it has a positive impact on school climate.59 Studies have reported a decrease in aggressiveness, violence, dropout rates, student suspensions, and victimized behavior.60 Conflict resolution education results include improved academic performance, increased cooperation, and positive attitudes toward school.61 Conflict resolution educators teach alternative dispute resolution techniques to help students develop skills that will enable them to manage their conflicts nonviolently. A recent variation of this approach to peace education is violence prevention education. Peace educators interested in violence prevention get their students to understand that anger is a normal emotion that we can handle in a positive way. To counter hostile behaviors learned in the broader culture, peace educators teach anger management techniques that help students
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avoid fights in school and resolve angry disputes in their immediate lives. Cultural images of violence in the mass media are both disturbing and intriguing to young people, many of whom live in violent homes. Research findings show a strong correlation between viewing violence on television and higher rates of aggressive and violent behavior.62 Families that practice corporal punishment and neglect children teach violent thought and behavior patterns that can be deconstructed in violence prevention programs that assume conflict is a normal part of human interaction. Peace educators using these programs teach their students how to manage their anger and how to be assertive to avoid becoming bullies or victims. The prime generator of these programs, Deborah Prothrow-Stith and Michaele Weissman, describes them in the following way: The point of the violence prevention course is to provide these young people with alternatives to fighting. The first three lessons of the tensession curriculum provide adolescents with information about violence and homicide.63 Teaching students to be peacemakers involves creating a cooperative context that encourages disputants to reach mutually acceptable compromises and not dominate each other. Children need formal training in anger management, social perspective taking, decision making, social problem solving, peer negotiation, conflict management, valuing diversity, social resistance skills, active listening, and effective communication in order to play these roles in school. Conflict resolution education provides students with peacemaking skills that they can use to manage their interpersonal conflicts. The emphasis in this type of peace education is upon creating a safe school. It concerns the aspects of violence over which school personnel feel they have some control, the behavior of their pupils. Conflict resolution educators do not address the various kinds of violence that takes place outside schools. This aspect of peace educations fits under the heading of development education. 10. Development Education Peace educators use development studies to provide their students with insights into the various aspects of structural violence, focusing on social institutions with their hierarchies and propensities for dominance and oppression. Students in peace education classes learn about the plight of the poor and construct developmental strategies to address problems of structural violence. The goal is to build peaceful communities by promoting an active democratic citizenry interested in equitably sharing the world’s resources. This form of peace
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education teaches peace building strategies that use nonviolence to improve human communities.64 Galtung pointed out how structural violence, the inequitable denial of resources, causes violence. He expanded the field of peace studies beyond the study of the interstate system to the study of disarmament, human rights, and development. At the same time, a Brazilian educator, Paulo Friere, developed an educational methodology to help people address the sources of their own oppression. He posited that human beings need to understand how to overcome oppressive conditions in order to be fully free. This process of understanding or “conscientization,” leads to analyzing the sources of violence in daily life, studying nonviolent strategies to address those forms of violence, and taking action to reduce the levels of violence. Although not known as a peace educator per se, Friere celebrated the human capacity for love that could help humans achieve freedom in a just and democratic society. He saw that the right kind of education could liberate people from structural violence.65 Peace educators question dominant patterns of development that have preoccupied the West for the past millennium.66 They decry the poverty and misery produced by an advanced capitalist economic order where an elite minority benefits from the suffering of a vast majority of people on this planet. They see that the path to peace comes from getting people mobilized into movements to protect human rights and the environment. Inspired by Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, and thousands of other activists who have used nonviolence to resolve major conflicts during the twentieth century, they seek a long term solution to social conditions that cause violence. Development educators are concerned about the rush to modernity and its impact upon human communities. Instead of promoting top-down strategies imposed by corporate elites who see ordinary people as ignorant, peace educators promote poor people’s involvement in planning, implementing, and controlling development schemes. They would like to see resources controlled equitably rather than monopolized by elites.67 Peace educators promote a vision of positive peace that motivates people to struggle against injustice. This approach to peace education is controversial because it rests upon concepts of social justice. 11. Conclusions The path to civilization requires more than the acquisition of material goods. Advanced industrial nations may provide riches to the privileged few, but that standard of living is based upon a history of conquest and a practice of destruction. We feel the effects of this destruction throughout the world where societies are grappling with deep-rooted conflicts, in poor countries like Sri Lanka, torn by ethnic strife, and in wealthy countries like Germany, dealing with racial hatreds. Perhaps citizens in these countries are so violent because they do not know how
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to promote peace. Schools are not providing students with sophisticated knowledge of peacekeeping, peacemaking, and peace building strategies.68 In response to the wholesale carnage of modern civilization with nuclear bombs, genocide, holocausts, and environmental damage, progressive educators have developed a large body of peace education theory that could help inform children during their school years about how to construct peace. But this understanding of peace theory and peace practice is being ignored by mainstream educators whose priorities are preparing students for high stake tests in a capitalist, competitive economic order. Throughout the twentieth century, peace educators have labored to develop academic content, practical skills, and peaceful pedagogies that would help the citizens of the world produce peace. Curricula are highly contested. Peace educators face forces of nationalism that support highly militarized societies. Even though teachers find it difficult to struggle against meritocratic forces to promote in their classes a view of a society where everybody’s needs are met, peace education has found a niche in some schools because of the practical approach peace educators offer to the problems of violence in schools.69 As schools become more violent and incidents of school shootings around the world focus attention on problems of school violence, educators are adopting various aspects of conflict resolution to deal with problems of violence in schools.70 In addition, school personnel dealing with aggressive children are using peace education techniques to help young people resolve some of the stresses caused by violence in their lives so that they can focus on academic content in schools.71 Different approaches to peace are not mutually exclusive. They can complement each other, so that someone concerned about the destruction of the Amazon rain forest could teach about the rights of the indigenous people living there, and the problems of structural poverty that require people to cut down trees in order to make a living. They could also point to the role of international nongovernmental organizations trying to bring awareness of these problems to the minds of political leaders and their constituents. This discussion has mostly focused on context. In addition to providing knowledge about different strategies to achieve peace, peace educators promote a pedagogy based upon modeling peaceful democratic classroom practices. They share a hope that through education people can develop certain thoughts and dispositions that will lead to peaceful behavior. Key aspects of this disposition include kindness, critical thinking, and cooperation. Developing such virtues is an important part of peace education, but not the complete picture. In contrast to conservatives who see that the origins of the problems of violence lie in the individual, peace educators see that the root problems of violence lie in broader social forces and institutions we must address in order to achieve peace:
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[V]iolence in schools mirrors the violence in society and is exacerbated by the availability of guns, urban and rural poverty, drug and alcohol abuse, suburban anomie, and the media’s celebration of violence. Each of these must be addressed if people want to end violence.72 Although peace education is mostly an individual strategy, many of the nonviolent strategies espoused in peace education classes are collective, for example, convincing people around the world to support institutions like the United Nations that promote alternatives to armed conflict. Aside from the addition of conflict resolution and peer mediation programs in some schools, most of these complex topics are not included in school curricula whose goal is to prepare the young to advance in a technological society. Ignorance of these peace processes is contributing to rampant violence in this world. I hope that people who study these different aspects of peace will start to realize the complexity of building a peaceful society and that they will start teaching peace education at all schooling levels, just like math is taught at every level. Knowledge of these processes is required for civilization to advance.
NOTES 1. Rowe Raubinger and West Piper, The Development of Secondary Education (New York: Macmillan, 1969). 2. William Bennet, The Book of Virtues: A Treasury of Great Moral Stories (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993). 3. Thomas J. Lasley, Teaching Peace: Toward Cultural Selflessness (Westport, Conn.: Bergin & Garvey, 1994). 4. H. Svi Shapiro, “Toward a Critical Pedagogy of Peace Education,” Gavriel Salomon and Baruch Nevo, eds., Peace Education: The Concepts, Principles, and Practices around the World (Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2002), p. 64. 5. J. Oshofsky, “The Effects of Exposure to Violence on Young Children,” American Psychologist, 50 (1995): pp. 782–803. 6. J. E. Lochman and K. A. Dodge, “Social-Cognition Processes of Severely Violent, Moderately Aggressive, and Non-aggressive Boys,” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 62 (1984): pp. 366–374. 7. M. I. Singer, T. M. Anglin, L. Y. Song, and L. Lunghofer, “Adolescents’ Exposure to Violence and Associated Symptoms of Psychological Trauma,” Journal of the American Medical Association, 273 (1995): pp. 477–482. 8. D. Olmeas, “Bullying at Schools: Basic Facts and Effects of a School-Based Intervention Program.” Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 35 (1994): pp. 1171–1190; S. Sandy and K. Cochran, “Conflict Resolution: From Early Childhood to Adolescence,” M. Deutsch and P. T. Coleman, eds., The Handbook of Constructive Conflict Resolution: Theory and Practice, (San Francisco, Calif.: Jossey-Bass, 2000)
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pp. 316–342); P. Coleman and M. Deutsch, “Introducing Cooperation and Conflict Resolution in Schools: A Systems Approach,” Daniel J. Christie, Richard V. Wagner, and Deborah Du Nann Winter, eds., Peace, Conflict, and Violence: Peace Psychology for the 21st Century (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 2001); and Svi Sandy, “Conflict Resolution in Schools: ‘Getting there,’” Conflict Resolution Quarterly, 19 (2001): pp. 237–250. 9. Richard J. Bodine, Donna K. Crawford, and Fred Schrumf, Creating the Peaceable School: A Comprehensive Program for Teaching Conflict Resolution (Champaign, Ill.: Research Press, 1994). 10. DiGiulio, Robert C., Educate, Medicate, or Litigate? What Teachers, Parents, and Administrators Must Do about Student Behavior (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Corwin Press, 2001). 11. D. Bar-Tal, “Elusive Nature of Peace Education,” Peace Education. 12. Georg Simmel, Conflict: The Web of Group Affiliation, trans. Kurt H. Wolff (Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1955). 13. Ralf Dahrendorf, Class and Class Conflict in Industrial Society (Palo Alto, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1959). 14. Johann Amos Comenius, A Reformation of Schools, 1642, trans. Samuel Hartlib (Menston (Yorks), England: Scholar Press, 1969/1649). 15. Immanuel Kant, “Perpetual Peace: A Philosophic Sketch,” 1795, Kant: Political Writings, ed. Hans Siegbert Reiss, trans. Hugh Barr Nisbet (Cambridge, England/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 93–143. 16. D. Scanlon, “The Pioneers of International Education: 1817–1914,” Teacher’s College Record, 60 (1959): pp. 209–219. 17. Maria Montessori, Education for a New World (Thiruvanmiyur, India: Kalakshetra Press, 1946/1974). 18. Sir Herbert Edward Read, Education for Peace (New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1949). 19. Johan Galtung, “Violence, Peace, and Peace Research,” Journal of Peace Research, 6 (1969): pp. 167–191. 20. Priscilla Prutzman, Lee Stern, M. Leonard Burger, and Gretchen Bodenhamer, The Friendly Classroom for a Small Planet: A Handbook on Creative Approaches to Living and Problem Solving for Children (Philadelphia, Penn.: New Society Publishers, 1988), p. vii. 21. Birgit Brocke-Utne, Education for Peace: A Feminist Perspective (New York: Pergamon Press, 1985); Betty Reardon, Comprehensive Peace Education: Educating for Global Responsibility (New York: Teacher’s College Press, 1988); and Ian Harris, Peace Education (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1988). 22. Reardon, Comprehensive Peace Education, p. x. 23. Carl R. Rogers, Counseling and Psychotherapy: Newer Concepts in Practice (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1942). 24. Joel H. Brown, Marianne D’Emidio-Caston, and Bonnie Benard, Resilience Education (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Corwin Press, 2001). 25. C. A. Bowers, Cultural Myths, and the Ecological Crisis: Toward Deep Changes (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993); and John Huckle and Stephen R. Sterling, Education for Sustainability (London: Earthscan Publications, 1996).
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26. T. S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” Collected Poems of T. S. Eliot (New York: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1936). 27. F. Verhagen, “The Earth Community School (ECS) Model of Secondary Education: Contributing to Sustainable Societies and Thriving Civilizations,” Peace Education for a New Century, eds. Ian M. Harris and John Synott, Alternatives, 21 (2002): pp. 1–17. 28. David W. Johnson and Roger T. Johnson, Teaching Students to be Peacemakers (Edina, Minn.: Interaction Press, 1991). 29. Linda Lantieri and Janet Patti, Waging Peace in Our Schools (Boston: Beacon Press, 1996). 30. Linda Lantieri, Schools with Spirit: Nurturing the Inner Lives of Children and Teachers (Boston: Beacon Press, 2001), p. xi. 31. Elizabeth G. Cohen, Designing Groupwork Strategies for the Heterogeneous Classroom, 2nd ed. (New York: Teachers College Press, 1994). 32. Nel Noddings, The Challenge to Care in Schools: An Alternative Approach to Education (New York: Teachers College Press, 1993). 33. D. Adams, “Toward a Global Movement for a Culture of Peace,” Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 6 (2000): pp. 259–266. 34. Le Monde, 2 July 1997, back cover notice. 35. John Whyte, Interpreting Northern Ireland (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991); and Alan Smith and Alan Robinson, Education for Mutual Understanding: Perceptions and policy (University of Ulster: Centre for the Study of Conflict, 1992). 36. John Synott, “The Teachers’ Movement Struggle for a Peace Model of Reunification Education in South Korea” Harris and Synott, Peace Education for a New Century, pp. 42–48. 37. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan: Or, the Matter, Forme, and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiasticall and Civil (New York: Collier Books, 1962/1651). 38. R. Boyston, “The Bomb in the Classroom,” The Times, 28 February 1983. 39. R. J. Rummel, “Human Rights,” in Roger Powers and William Vogele, eds., Protest, Power, and Change: An Encyclopedia of Nonviolent Action from ACT-UP to Women’s Suffrage (New York: Garland Publishing, 1997). 40. Elise Boulding, Cultures of Peace: The Hidden Side of History (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2000). 41. Adam Curle, Tools for Transformation: A Personal Study (Stroud, UK: Hawthorn Press, 1990). 42. Betty Reardon, “Human Rights as Education for Peace,” George J. Andreapoulos and Richard Pierre Claude, eds., Human Rights Education for the Twenty-First Century (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997). 43. Gavriel Salomon, “The Nature of Peace Education: Not All Programs Are Created Equal,” in Salomon and Nevo, Peace Education. 44. Grace Feuerverger, Oasis of Dreams: Teaching and Learning Peace in a Jewish Palestinian Village in Israel (New York: Routledge Falmer, 2001). 45. P. Mische, “Ecological Security and the Need to Reconceptualize Sovereignty,” Alternatives, 14 (1989): pp. 389–428. 46. C. A. Bowers, Education, Cultural Myths, and the Ecological Crisis (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993).
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47. Gregory A. Smith and Dilafruz R. Williams, Ecological Education in Action: On Weaving Education, Culture, and the Environment (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999); and C. A. Bowers, Educating for Eco-Justice and Community (Athens, Ga.: The University of Georgia Press, 2001). 48. Carrie E. Donavan, “The Law of the Sea Treaty,” Web Memo 270, Heritage Foundation, 2 April 2004 , accessed 26 October 2005; and Kathy Finberg, “Summary of Kyoto Accord, FACSNET, 29 January 2000. 49. David W. Orr, Ecological Literacy: Education and the Transition to a Postmodern World (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992). 50. Frank B. Golley, A Primer for Environmental Literacy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), p. ix. 51. Susan Aheam, “Educational Planning for an Ecological Future,” B. Reardon, Eva Nordland, and Robert William Zuber, eds., Learning Peace: The Promise of Ecological and Cooperative Education (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994), p. 121. 52. Derek Benjamin Heater, Peace through Education (London: Falmer Press, 1984). 53. Carlos F. Diaz and Byron G. Massialas, and John Xanthopoulos, Global Perspectives for Educators (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1999). 54. Keith Suter, “Towards a Federal World State,” M. Salla, W. Tonetto, and E. Martinez. eds., Essays on Peace: Paradigms for Global Order (Queensland, Australia: Central Queensland Press, 1995). 55. F. Moshirian, “The Emerging Economic and Financial Order,” Michael E. Salla, Walter Tonetto, and Enrique Martinez, eds., Essays on Peace (Queensland, Australia: Central Queensland Press, 1995). 56. Deutsch UNESCO Kommission, Recommendation Concerning Education for International Understanding, Cooperation, and Peace and Education Related to Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (Koln, Germany: Deutsche UNESCO Kommission. 1975), p. 8. 57. U. Niens and E. Cairns, “Intrastate Violence,” Peace Contact and Violence, pp. 39–48. 58. Sandy, “Conflict Resolution in Schools.” 59. David W. Johnson and Roger T. Johnson, “Conflict Resolution and Peer Mediation Programs in Elementary and Secondary Schools: A Review of the Research,” Review of Educational Research, 66 (1996): pp. 459–507. 60. Tricia S. Jones and Daniel Kmitta, Does It Work: The Case for Conflict Resolution Education in Our Nation’s Schools (Washington, D.C.: CREnet, 2000). 61. Richard J. Bodine and Donna K. Crawford, The Handbook of Conflict Resolution: A Guide to Building Quality Programs in Schools (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1999). 62. Sissela Bok, Mayhem: Violence as Public Entertainment (Reading, Mass.: Perseus Books, 1998). 63. Deborah Prothrow-Stith and Michaele Weissman, Deadly Consequences (New York: Harper Collins, 1991). 64. M. Pilisuk, “The Hidden Structure of Contemporary Violence,” Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 4 (1998): pp. 197-216.
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65. Paulo Friere, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York: Seabury, 1970). 66. Moshirian, “The Emerging Economic and Financial Order.” 67. Toh Swee-Hin S. H. Toh and Virginia Floresca-Cawagas, “Toward a Better World? A Paradigmatic Analysis of Development Education Resources from the World Bank,” Robin J. Burns and Robert Aspeslaugh, eds., Three Decades of Peace Education around the World: An Anthology (New York: Garland Publishing, 1996). 68. M. Berlowitz, “Urban Educational Reform: Focusing on Peace Education,” Education and Urban Society, 27 (1994): pp. 82–95. 69. Joan N. Burstyn, Geoff Bender, Ronnie Casella, Howard Gordon, Domingo Guerra, Kristen Luschen, Rebecca Stevens, and Kimberly Williams, Preventing Violence in Schools: A Challenge to American Democracy (Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2001). 70. Ronnie Casella, “Being Down”: Challenging Violence in Urban Schools (New York: Teachers College Press, 2001). 71. Festus E. Obiakor, Teresa A. Mehring, and John O. Schwenn, Disruption, Disaster, and Death: Helping Students Deal with Crises (Reston, Va.: Council for Exceptional Children, 1996). 72. Burstyn, Preventing Violence in Schools, p. 225.
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS DAVID BOERSEMA is the Douglas C. Strain Professor of Natural Philosophy at Pacific University, in Forest Grove, Oregon, where he is the chair of the Peace and Conflict Studies program. He has published in the areas of pragmatism, rights, philosophy of science, and philosophy of language. MICHAEL PATTERSON BROWN is currently Visiting Assistant Professor at Manchester College, in Indiana. He specializes in political philosophy, ethics, and peace studies. His work concerns the role nonviolence plays in struggles for justice within and across diverse societies. He is a member of the American Indian Philosophy Association, Concerned Philosophers for Peace, and the Fellowship of Reconciliation. WILLIAM C. GAY is professor of philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He is past editor of Concerned Philosophers for Peace Newsletter and current editor of Concerned Philosophers for Peace’s Special Series on “Philosophy of Peace” (within Rodopi’s Value Inquiry Book Series). He is also past president and past executive director of Concerned Philosophers for Peace. With T.A. Alekseeva, he is coauthor of Capitalism with a Human Face: The Quest for a Middle Road in Russian Politics and coeditor of On the Eve of the 21st Century: Perspectives of Russian and American Philosophers and Democracy and the Quest for Justice: Russian and American Perspectives. With Michael Pearson, he is coeditor of The Nuclear Arms Race, and with I. I. Mazour and A. N. Chumakov, he is coeditor of Global Studies Encyclopedia. He has also published numerous articles and book chapters on issues of peace, justice, and nonviolence. KATY GRAY BROWN is Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota, where she teaches philosophy and peace studies. She has published in the areas of American Indian philosophy, the study and practice of nonviolence, and access issues in higher education. She is a member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the American Indian Philosophy Association, and Concerned Philosophers for Peace. IAN M. HARRIS is chair of the Department of Educational Policy and Community Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He helped establish a peace studies certificate program on his campus and during 1998–2002, was convener of the Peace Education Commission of the International Peace Research Association. Currently, he is president of the International Peace Research Association Foundation. His research interests include alternative schools, community development, male gender identity development, peace
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About the Authors
education, and school desegregation. He is author of Peace Education and Messages Men Hear: Constructing Masculinities, and over fifty articles on topics that range from accountability in education to the roots of male violence. ANAS KARZAI is a sessional lecturer at York University, Toronto, Canada, where he teaches courses on social theory, critical criminology, and mass communications. He has also taught courses on globalization and mass media in the Liberal Arts programs at Seneca College and Humber College, Ontario, Canada. His research interests include social theory, critical theory, consumer culture, post-colonial theory, and theories of justice. His most recent research focuses on the sociological relevance of Friedrich Nietzsche’s writing. ANDREW KELLEY is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Bradley University, Peoria, Illinois. In addition to peace studies, his areas of interest include German Idealism, earlier twentieth-century French philosophy, and ethics. He has published articles on German idealism and ethics, and is translator of Josef Popper-Lynkeus’s The Individual and the Value of Human Life (Rowman & Littlefield, 1995), and Vladimir Jankélévitch’s Forgiveness (University of Chicago Press, 2005). He is also the coeditor, along with Deborah Peterson, of the forthcoming Justice and Justification: The Relation between Justice and Peace. JOHN KULTGEN is Byler Professor of Professor of Philosophy at the University of Missouri–Columbia. He has been at the university since 1967. Previously, he taught at Oregon State University and Southern Methodist University. His publications include Ethics and Professionalism (University of Pennsylvania, 1988); Intervention and Autonomy: Parentalism in the Caring Life (Oxford University, 1994); In the Valley of the Shadow: Reflections on the Morality of Nuclear Deterrence (Peter Lang Publishing, 1999); and, with Mary Lenzi, he is coeditor of Problems for Democracy (Philosophy of Peace Series, forthcoming Rodopi). JOSEPH KUNKEL is professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of Dayton where he still teaches a course in ethics and modern war. He has served as editor of the special series Philosophy of Peace (1994-2003) under the Value Inquiry Book Series (VIBS). He has co-edited two books and written a number of essays that examine various aspects of power, ethics, militarism, and peace. He has been a member of Concerned Philosophers for Peace since its inception in 1981, serving as executive secretary during 1989–1995, and president in 1997.
About the Authors
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MARIA H. MORALES is associate professor of philosophy at Florida State University. Her area of specialization is social/political thought and feminist theory. Recently she has developed an interest in race theory and Latin American philosophy. She is the author of Perfect Equality: John Stuart Mill on WellConstituted Communities (Rowman & Littlefield, 1996), and the editor of Mill’s The Subjection of Women: Critical Essays (Rowman & Littlefield, 2004). CHARLES MARTIN OVERBY is professor emeritus of engineering, having worked as a faculty member at the University of Wisconsin, Ohio State University, and Ohio University. His work as a visiting faculty member has taken him to Washington D.C., Japan, China, Montana, and the state of Washington. The son of Norwegian immigrants, he served in the United States Air Force during World War II and the Korean War. He attended the Universities of Minnesota and Wisconsin with the assistance of the GI Bill. His time in the Korean War inspired him to include political science, history, philosophy, economics, and international relations in the course of his engineering education. In 1991, he founded “The Article 9 Society” to preserve Article 9 of Japan’s constitution and promote its universal adoption. GAIL PRESBEY is Associate Professor of Philosophy at University of Detroit, Mercy. Her areas of expertise are social and political philosophy, philosophy of nonviolence, and cross-cultural philosophy. She did research in Kenya, South Africa, and Ghana while on sabbatical during 1995–1996, and as a J. William Fulbright Senior Scholar at University of Nairobi, Kenya during 1998–2000. In 2005, she traveled to India for six months for a research project sponsored by Fulbright on ahimsa from Gandhi’s perspective. She is also an Associate Researcher affiliated with Binghamton University’s program in Philosophy, Interpretation, and Culture. She has co-edited a textbook, The Philosophical Quest: A Cross-Cultural Reader, 2nd ed. (McGraw-Hill, 2000) and an anthology, Thought and Practice in African Philosophy (Konrad Adenauer Foundation, 2002). She has published over thirty articles and book chapters. Her articles appear in International Studies in Philosophy, International Philosophical Quarterly, Journal of Value Inquiry, Human Studies, International Journal of Applied Philosophy, and Philosophy and Social Criticism. She also has a longstanding involvement in Peace and Justice Studies, having founded peace and justice studies programs at Fordham University (co-founder) and Albertus Magnus College (founder and director). She is currently executive director of Concerned Philosophers for Peace. She is also on the editorial board of Acorn: Journal of the Gandhi-King Society.
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About the Authors
JERALD RICHARDS is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Northern Kentucky University. He served as Treasurer of Concerned Philosophers for Peace 1997–2003. He has published on nuclear deterrence, just war morality, nonviolence, Gulf War I, Gandhi, Gene Sharp, political forgiveness, institutional violence, and criminal punishment. BETH J. SINGER is Professor of Philosophy Emerita at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. She was president of Concerned Philosophers for Peace in 1998. Her publications include Operative Rights (SUNY Press, 1993), and Pragmatism, Rights, and Democracy (Fordham University Press, 1999). In 1994, she received the Herbert W. Schneider Award for Distinguished Contributions to the Understanding and Advancement of American Philosophy from the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy. MARIANNE VARDALOS is Assistant Professor of Sociology for Laurentian University at the Institute for University Partnerships and Advanced Studies (IUPAS) at Georgian College in Barrie, Ontario, Canada. Her areas of interest include critical theory and she is currently interested in the legitimation of domination indicated by liberal scholarship. She recently completed a postdoctoral position at York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, during which she researched the changing gender roles of four Muslim groups in the Diaspora. She has published articles on critical tourism, and presented papers on state violence and globalization as the expansion of the Euro-American empire.
INDEX Abernathy, Ralph, 81 Abraham, 65, 69 Abrahamic religious tradition, 5, 58 Abouhalima, Mahmud, 12 Absolutist political theory, 182 abstinence nation, 108 accudoom, 43 Ackerman, Peter, 47-52 act(ion)(s), 3, 6, 7, 18, 31, 35, 36, 39, 40, 44, 60, 68–71, 78, 94, 95, 104, 114, 115, 116, 118–120, 150, 151, 153–155, 157–160, 164, 166, 170, 171, 173, 175, 176, 182, 183, 195, 196, 205, 206, 210–212, 226, 233 call to a., 46 civil a., 157, 160 a. of compassion, 19 a. of conscience, 146 conscientious a., 150, 155, 157 consequences of, 151 covert a., 154 cowardly a., 111, 120 evil a., 111 free a., 174 free-floating a., 2 a. for furthering life, 69 a. of giving/receiving, 59 illegal a., 148, 169 imperial a., 72 a. of innocence, 94 intended a., 117 linguistic vs. non-linguistic a., 164 mass a., 45 military a., 46, 49, 108, 116, 117, 119, 123 moral/ immoral a., 46, 166 a. of offense/defense, 50, 58 political a., 77, 95, 150, 154, 160 police a., 113 positive a., 79–82 a. of promising, 164
a. of rebellion, 152 a. of responsibility, 72 revolutionary a., 20 sacrificial a., 64, 65, 67 social a., 7, 195, 198, 200 terrorist a., 113, 115, 116, 118, 121 violent/non-v. a., 2, 4, 5, 43–52, 75, 77, 80, 81, 83–85, 90, 96 Adumah, Geoffrey, 79 adversarialism, 163 Afghanistan, 5, 39, 58, 59, 61–65, 69, 114, 117, 118 Africa, 5, 47, 75–97 German East A., 84 South A., 20, 47, 79, 85, 88, 91, 92 West A., 82 W. A. merchants, 79 African Americans, 47, 80 African National Congress, 85 African Unity, Organization of, 86 agape, 35 aggressi(on)(veness), 117, 133, 204, 206, 209, 210, 231 compassionate vs. ruthless a., 204 wars of a., 157 Ahab, Captain, 125 Ahearn, Susan, 229 AIDS, 47 Albright, Madeline, 64 Algeria(ns), 91, 119 Al Qaeda, 39, 119, 120, 123 Alexander the Great, 121 alienation, 141, 208 Al-Jazeera, 117 Alliant Techsystems, 2 Amalekites, 27 Amazon rain forest, 234 ambivalence, 3, 13, 16, 17, 19, 26 The Ambivalence of the Sacred (Appleby), 16 ambush(es), 121, 212 American Friends Service Committee, 13
246 Amin, Idi, 90 Amnesty International, 87, 88, 230 Angola, 85, 86 Anna Karenina (Tolstoy), 34 antagonism, 131, 139 antimony, 69 apocalyptic thinking, 4, 43–47, 49, 51 aporia, 69 Appleby, R. Scott, 16–21 The Ambivalence of the Sacred, 16 apriorism, 163 Arabs, 21 arbitration, 162 Arendt, Hannah, 77, 78, 82, 94, 95 arm(ies)(y), 31, 38, 52, 85, 86, 94–96, 139, 210, 230 British A., 78, 86, 95 Pakistani A., 68 Red A., 11 surrogate a., 107 United States A., 108 Article 9 of Japan’s Constitution, 5, 103–109 Asia, East, 105 Asian Republics, Central, 63 Austin, John, 164 How to Do Things with Words, 164 authority, 18, 19, 27, 71, 76, 93–95, 113, 159, 188, 226 British a., 77 Azerbaijan, 64 Baha’i religion, 221 Baha’ u’llah, 221 Beatitudes, 34, 40 behavior(s), 3, 21, 22, 27, 169, 171, 172, 174, 226 aggressive b., 219 benevolent b., 213 civilized b., 225 destructive b., 175, 176 hostile b., 231 moral b., 170, 217 peaceful b., 234 sexual b., 208 social b., 195
Index b. of states, 75 student b., 232 universal b., 63 victimized b., 231 Being and Time (Heidegger), 50 Bell, Duran, 61 Bennett, William, 218 Bentham, Jeremy, 133 Berrigan, Daniel, 13 Berrigan, Philip Francis, 13 Bhagavad Gita, 11, 27, 40 Bible, 11, 27, 141 Bill of Rights, Tanzanian, 88 bin Laden, Osama, 12, 64, 117–119, 121 The Black Man’s Burden (Davidson), 95 Blair, Tony, 68 Boeing, 2 Boersema, David, 6, 161 Bonhoeffer, Dietrich, 26 Bosnia, 12 Boulding, Elise, 227 Bowers, Chet, 228 Bray, Michael, 11 British army, 86 British colonial powers, 75, 76 British Labour Party, 84 Britton, John, 11 Brocke-Utne, Birgit, 223 Education for Peace, 223 Brown, Michael Patterson, 6, 145 Bruni, Frank, 112, 118 Buber, Martin, 27, 28 Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama), 37, 38, 221 Buddhism, 12, 18 Bumiller, Elizabeth, 112, 113, 116 Burkina Faso. See Upper Volta Burton, Lillian, 92 Burton, Robert, 92 Burundi, 90 Bush, George W., 5, 39, 46, 59, 103, 106, 107, 111–125 B. administration, 5 Byzantium, 66
Index Cable News Network. See CNN Calito barracks, 86 A Call for Peace (Overby, et al.), 104 Campbell, James, 198, 199 Camp David, 117 Camus, Albert, 189 Canada, 66, 105 capital punishment, 37 capitalist(s), 79, 133, 136, 137 c. development, 90 c. economic order, 233, 234 c. economy, 186 c. marketplace, 218 technical c./wage-earner dichotomy, 137 Caputo, Philip, 211, 212 Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education, 217 Carens, Joseph, 162 Carrier, James, 65 Catholicism, 12, 90 Caucasus, 62, 63 cave, Plato’s allegory, 38, 40 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 105, 114, 115 Cha Cha Cha (face the music), 92 character, 8, 200, 201, 203–206, 212, 213, 217, 218 c.-based ethics, 165 Chapters on Socialism (Mill), 134, 136 Charen, Mona, 119, 120 Cheney, Richard B. (Dick), 112 children, 1, 27, 116, 210, 218, 220, 222, 223, 225, 226, 231, 232 aggressive c., 234 God’s c., 21 Lumpan c., 93 Palestinian c., 228 c. suffering post traumatic stress disorder, 219 violent c., 219 Chileans, 47 Chiluba, Frederick, 94 China, 39, 86, 107, 227 Chinsali, 92 Chirac, Jacques, 119
247
Chomsky, Noam, 105, 115 Christianity, 12, 66, 70, 91–93, 118 Churchland, Patricia Smith, 36 civic bodies, 137 civil disobedience, 6, 145–160, 221. See also conscientious refusal Civil Rights Movements, 81 Civil W., U.S., 154 claims, 45, 67, 132, 133, 163, 231 conflicts c., 189 rights-c., 164, 165 class, 1, 134, 137, 141, 186, 208, 230 c. chasm, 140 laboring c., 138 middle c., 82, 230 c. system, 136 trans-c. considerations, 190 Clinton, William Jefferson (Bill), 115 C. administration, 62 CNN (Cable News Network), 119 cocoa prices, 82 coercion, 7, 25, 35, 37, 75, 77, 78, 83, 84, 89, 95, 96, 169, 170, 172–174, 177 Cold War, 4, 43, 44, 66, 82, 84, 170 colloquialisms, 112 colonialism, 76, 77, 79, 114 neo-c., 82 Columbia, 231 Columbus, Georgia, 31 Comenius, 221 communes, 137 communication(s), 7, 195–199, 201, 223, 225, 231, 232 c. capability, 85 cultural c., 18 multi-c., 220 dialogic c., 228 linguistic vs. nonlinguistic c., 195, 196 communit(ies)(y), 2, 21, 24, 26, 35, 57, 69, 76, 86, 89, 96, 131, 132, 135, 136, 138, 151, 153, 163, 181, 183, 188, 196, 197, 198, 217, 218, 220, 221, 223, 224, 227, 233 c. conscience, 150 c. approach to conflict, 37
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communit(ies)(y) (continued) c. consensus, 76 democratic c., 224 international c., 190 intellectual c., 125 intelligence c., 118 non-statist c., 185 normative c., 164 peaceful c., 133, 232 political c., 159 religoius c., 16, 18, 19, 23 scientific c., 44 school c., 227 secular c., 195 c. standards, 196 Turkish c., 230 c. values, 39 world c., 187, 190, 191 Comoros, 86 compassion, 19, 25, 207, 209, 210, 213, 221 competition, 51, 135, 138, 139 Comprehensive Peace Education (Reardon), 223 compromise(r)(s), 6, 25, 49, 161–166, 214, 232 moral c., 166 communism, 39 Soviet c., 66 conditions, social, 16, 20, 26, 38, 46, 48, 114, 124, 140, 152, 153, 155, 176, 220, 233 c. for civil disobedience, 160 economic c., 18 c. of equal liberty, 149 inegalitarian c., 141 c. for military lifestyle, 206 necessary c., 146, 164 c. of nonviolence, 159 oppressive c., 233 c. for peace, 132, 217 c. of poverty, 134, 136 c. of protest, 158 social c., 133, 134, 196, 233 societal c., 97, 136 c. of stress, 211
c. leading to violence, 114, 124, 140, 230 c. leading to war, 172 c. for welfare, 135 c. leading to WWII, 38 Concerned Philosophers for Peace Newsletter, 195 Confession (Tolstoy), 34 conflagrations, 220 conflict(s), 3, 5–8, 21, 22, 28, 47, 50, 51, 59, 63, 70, 125, 132, 140, 156, 162, 166, 218, 221, 224, 226, 227, 233 armed c., 141, 154, 235 c. between CIA and Soviets, 114 c. claims, 189 class c., 138 international c., 5, 170, 230 moral c., 165 c. prevention, 20, 223 c. resolution, 4, 7, 8, 15, 23–25, 51, 162, 231, 232 community approact to c. resolution, 37 creative c. resolution, 223, 225 identity-based c., 228 intractable c., 228 c. management, 232 c. resolution education, 225, 227, 232, 232 forceful c. resolution, 218 myth of c. resolution, 220 nonviolent c. resolution, 35, 103, 107, 109, 161, 217, 220, 231 peaceful c. resolution, 223 c. of values, 16, 201 Congress, United States, 111, 116, 117, 119, 120, 122, 123, 217 Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), 80 conscience, 6, 91, 94, 95, 145–147, 150, 153, 156, 157, 160, 188 conscientious objector, 80 conscientization, 233 consciousness, 4, 32, 33, 35–38, 58, 70, 224 pre-linguistic c., 32 self-c., 186
Index Considerations on Representative Government (Mill), 132 constatives, 164 constitution(s), 67, 104, 149, 152, 171, 173–175, 184 c. democracy, 149, 158 c. government, 148 Japanese, post WWII, 5, 103, 104, 106 c. powers, 185 Tanzanian c., 88 Constitutional Amendment of Tanzania, Eighth, 89 “Contest of the Faculties” (Kant), 176 contract, 59, 69, 71, 161 social c. theory, 149, 182, 183 Convention People’s Party, 81 conviction(s), 15, 16, 32, 71, 118, 154, 229 conscientious c., 150 moral c., 175 cooperation, 77, 79, 82–84, 119, 137, 139, 140, 162, 198, 231, 234 U.S.-Japan defense c., 5, 105, 106 coral islands, Australian, 187 coup, 82, 83, 86, 87 courage, 8, 120–122, 132, 166, 204–206, 209, 210, 213 active vs. passive c., 206 true vs. quasi-c./pseudo-c., 205, 206, 210, 211 c. vs. machismo, 8 military c., 205 coward(ice)(s), 120–122 faceless c., 5, 111, 120 crime(s), 46, 87, 103, 116, 118, 119, 121, 131, 135, 140, 151 anti-c. norms, 207 c. against humanity, 5, 106, 109 c.-inhibiting pressures, 207 violent c., 37, 206, 207 c. among the military, 206, 207 c. of rape, 206 war as c., 119, 151, 188 crusade(r), 117 Cuba, 39 Cumings, Bruce, 105
249
The Origins of the Korean War, 105 Curle, Adam, 227 Cyprus, 230 Dae Jung, Kim, 107 Dahrendorf, Ralf, 220 Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyato), 13, 36 Danes, 47 Danquah, Joseph Kwame Kyeretwi Boakye (J. B.), 82 Dar es Saalam, 86 University College of D., 87 Darwin, Charles, 71 Davidson, Basil, 76, 95 The Black Man’s Burden, 95 Day, Dorothy, 13 D-Day, 121 Dear, John, 13 Decalogue, 18
Delta Oil, 64 Deming, Barbara, 13 democra(cy)(tization), 7, 32, 38, 44, 48, 67, 89, 137, 148, 156, 187, 188, 198, 201, 209 anti-d. principle, 134 anti-d. workplace practices, 134 constitutional d., 149 d. elections, 67 global d., 43 d. governments, 48 hijack d., attempt to, 67 liberal d., 182 limited d., 48 mature d., 125 multi-party vs.one-party d., 89 d. nation, 49, 50 participatory d., 95 political d., 201 pseudo d., 71 representative d., 76 d. societies, 49, 150, 155 true d., 49 western-based models of, 76 Deportation Ordinance of 1921, 87 Derrida, Jacques, 5, 58, 65–67, 69, 71
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despotism, 76, 136, 170 destruction, 16, 68, 70, 187, 233 d. of Afghan people, 118 d. of Amazon rain forest, 234 d. of Aricle 9, 9, 104 envioronmental/of natural habitat, 51, 225, 229 impending d., of Japan by N. Korea, 109 d. of life, 65 mass d., 39, 43, 44, 46, 48, 62, 123, 124 self-d./d. of self or others, 58, 66, 175 d. of terror network, 123 war as d., 105 of the World Trade Center, 12 devils, 174, 176 Dewey, John, 7, 181, 182, 187–189, 198–201 “Ethics and International Relations,” 188 Liberalism and Social Action, 200 The Principles of Conduct, 189 “If War Were Outlawed,” 188 Reconstruction in Philosophy, 189 dialogue, 23, 26, 28, 36, 37, 49, 59, 94, 96, 107, 124, 125, 220 diaspora, 18 discord, 6, 132 diversity, 21, 67, 221, 225, 227, 232 ecological d., 7 biological d., 50, 181 cultural d., 50 Domasio, Antonio, 36 Durban, 79 Duvall, Jack, 47–52 earth, 22, 35, 37, 67, 104, 105, 109, 183, 190, 228 Eastern Orthodoxy, 12 economic order, capitalist, 22, 233, 234 capitalist e. o., 233 competitive e. o., 234 global e. o., 66 economy, 59, 70, 76, 88, 132 capitalist e., 186 e. of ethical conduct vs. divine revenge, 66, 67
e. of exchange, 66 gift e., 5, 58, 60, 65 global e., 65, 68, 230 intergenerational e., 70 political e., 134 e. of reciprocity, 60 e. involving sacrifice and revenge, 58, 65, 68 Edel, Abraham, 188 education, 3, 7, 79, 82, 89, 97, 131, 134, 170, 175, 200, 208, 211 conflict resolution e., 8, 225, 227, 231, 232 development e., 232 environmental e., 225, 228, 229 formal e., 163 human rights e., 227 international e., 230 liberal e., 211 e. as object of renascent liberalism, 200 e. in a military academy, 211 multicultural e., 225, 228 peace e., 8, 217–235 political e., 86 progressive e., 140 reunification e., 226 secular e. systems, 18 e. training programs, 64 violence prevention e., 231 Education for Peace (Brocke-Utne), 223 Edusi, Krobo, 84 ego, 37–39 Egypt, 119, 123 Eightfold Path, 18, 37 Eisenhower, Dwight, 121 elections, 88, 92 democratic e., 67 Japanese e., 105 El Salvador, 223 emancipation, 58, 131, 136 empire, 65, 67 Euro-American e., 72 Roman E., 66 Soviet, 62
Index ends, 24, 65, 153, 205, 211 e. of conscientious refusal, 158 e. vs. means, 2, 68, 116, 140, 183 e. of a new society, 134 public e., 173, 174 United States’ e., 62 enem(ies)(y), 4, 16, 17, 24, 27, 34, 35, 58, 64, 65, 93, 94, 115, 117, 119–123, 139, 185, 208, 210, 212, 219, 221, 228 enlightenment, 11, 16, 20, 38, 58, 65, 67, 70, 71, 181, 192 equality/inequality, 32, 88, 132, 136, 137–141, 162, 171, 173, 191 economic e., 6, 89, 131, 134 gender e., 131, 195 racial e., 35 eros, 35 ethic(ist)(s), 86, 133, 135, 138, 169, 174, 181, 187–189 character-based e., 165 global e., 21, 22 international e., 189 political e., 182, 187, 188, 190 professional e., 187, 189 social e., 140, 141, 188 theoretical e., 145, 161, 177, 189 virtue-e., 165 war-like e., 140 “Ethics and International Relations” (Dewey), 188 Ethiopia, 83 ethnicity, 76, 208 Europe, 222 Eastern, 47 Evangelical right, 67 evasion, conscientious, 154, 155. See also refusal, conscientious evil, 14, 37, 39, 44, 71, 94–109, 111, 116–118, 122, 134, 140, 163 e. doers, 64 necessary e., 135, 136 existence, human, 11, 71, 132, 133, 139, 176 cultural e., 195 peaceful e., 225
251
fait accompli, 83 faith, 4, 20, 25, 34, 61, 66–68, 93, 121, 136 Abrahamic f., 66, 67 good f., 152 interf. dialogue, 220 Falwell, Jerry, 117 famil(ies)(y), 1, 2, 6, 21, 39, 132, 185, 189, 217, 220, 222, 232 f. background, 211 Canadian f., 68 royal f., 66 f. tree, 1 familyhood (ujamaa), 89 farsightedness (hyperopia), 46 fasting, 37 fates, 140 fear, 4, 15, 33, 34, 43–47, 49–52, 57, 66, 82, 120, 124, 174–176, 210, 224 fearlessness of terrorists, 120 federation(s), 91, 170–172 world f., 183–185 Fellowship of Reconciliation, 13 Florida, 113 Flower, Elizabeth, 188 force(s), 4, 5, 23, 35, 47, 50, 52, 59, 75, 83, 92–96, 104, 115, 116, 169, 197, 218, 227, 231 Afghanistanian f., 63 American f., 107, 117 armed f., 39, 82, 83, 86, 203, 204, 231 British f., 86 coercive f., 171, 200 colonial f., 82 f. of a contract, 149 crusade f., 117 defense f., 86 economic f., 218 excessive f., 5 f. of geopolitics, 14, 19 f. of hatred, 221 lethal f., 96 meritocratic f., 234 military (combat), 48, 114, 226, 230, 231 f. of nationalism, 234
252
Index
force(s) (continued) peacekeeping f., 230 f. of progress, 138 self-defense f., 106 sociopolitical f., 15, 223, 234 soul f., 32 Taliban f., 65 threat of f., 188 Ugandan f., 86 United Nations f., 230 Fordham University, 91 Foreign Affairs, 188 Forest, Jim, 13 Fortas, Abraham (Abe), 151, 152 Fort Benning, 31 Francophone separatists, 66 free will, 4 freedom, 1, 4, 5, 7, 39, 49, 57, 65, 67, 70, 79, 85, 87–89, 92, 111, 113, 114, 116, 117, 122, 123, 136, 141, 169– 177, 186, 198, 203, 233 civil f., 174 f. fighters, 61–64 intellectual f., 174 lawless f., 184 spiritual f., 229 Freud, Sigmund, 71 F. unconscious, 70 The Friendly Classroom for a Small Planet (Quaker Project on Community Conflict), 223 Friere, Paulo, 233 Fukuyama, Francis, 43, 48 fundamentalism, religious, 14 Islamic f., 67 Gallie, W. B., 181, 184, 185 Galtung, Johan, 223, 233 Gandhi, Indira, 12 Gandhi, Mohandas K. (Mahatma), 4, 13, 20, 26–28, 31, 32, 35–37, 39, 40, 79, 80, 90–92, 94, 96, 97, 220, 233 Gandhian strategies, 80, 83, 90 Gandhian nonviolence, 90 Gattungswesen (species-being), 186
Gay, William C., 4, 7, 8, 43, 181 The Nuclear Arms Race, 48 Gbedema, Komla, 79 genealogy, 70 Germany, 84, 233 Ghana, 5, 75, 76, 79, 82 G. government, 81 G. independence, 80, 83 one-party state in G., 82 G. people, 80, 81 preventive detention in G., 85 G. soldiers, 79 Gingrich, Newton Leroy (Newt), 119, 161, 162 Glaucon, 213 globalists, 224 global warming, 228 Glossop, Ronald, 181 Golan Heights, 166 golden rule, 34 Goldstein, Baruch, 12 good, 14, 17, 38, 71, 76, 117, 133, 135– 139, 149, 184, absolute/ultimate g., 82, 113 g. argument, 45 g. citizenship, 210 g. constitution, 171, 173, 175 g. desires, 39 false/pseudo-g., 37, 38 g. government, 132, 170 g. guys, 117 g. idea, 90 g. law, 170 g. life, 67, 210 g. order, 87 g. path, 38 g. political system, 172 public g., 150, 182 redemptive g. will, 35 g. result, 45 g. society, 170, 175, 176 g. soldier, 209 g. state, 173, 181, 184 g. system of justice, 173 g. things, 38, 86, 96, 132
Index goods, material, 17, 76, 189, 199, 218, 233 European g., 76 Gopin, Marc, 20, 21, 23, 24 Gorz, Andre, 48 government(s), 16, 18, 45, 48, 50, 52, 77, 80, 118, 132, 136, 137, 150, 170, 171, 173–175, 182–184, 222, 227, 230, 231 African g., 95 American g., 1, 103, 108, 118, 214 g. authorities/officials, 16, 45, 46 Canadian g., 68 centralized g., 19 colonial g., 76, 83, 92 constitutional g., 148 democratic g., 48 European g., 76 evil g., 46 foreign g., 39, 77 g. founded in violence, 84 Ghanian g., 81, 82 Japanese g., 5, 104–107 local g., 77 national g., 230 nong. organizations (NGOs), 18, 227 North Rhodesian g., 93, 94 oppressive g., 48 g. programs, 154 representative g., 132 g. repression, 77 self-g., 80, 84 g. support, 81 Tanzanian g., 85–90 world g., 190, 191 Zambian g., 92, 93 Govier, Trudy, 52 Grant, George, 68 Gray Brown, Katy, 1 Greek, 35 Green, Reginald Herbold, 87, 89 Greenpeace, 230 Green Technology by Design, 105 “Guidelines for U.S.–Japan Defense Cooperation,” 5, 105 Gulf War, 104, 108
253
Guns and Gandhi in Africa (Sutherland and Meyer), 76, 94 Gyato, Tenzin. See Dalai Lama gynecocracy, 104 Handbook for Revolutionary Warfare (Nkrumah), 84 Hamas, 119 H. suicide missions, 12 Hanh, Thich Nhat , 13, 33 happiness, 7, 43, 131, 169, 173, 175, 177, 188 harm, 89, 107, 113, 115, 118, 133, 147, 151, 203, 204, 227 harmony, 6, 68, 131, 141, 221 Harris, Ian M., 8, 217 Peace Education, 223 hartal, 80 Hatch, John, 85, 86 hatred, 120, 124, 139, 140, 210, 221 h. of America, 124 ethnic/racial h., 218, 228, 233 h. of modernity, 114 religious h., 228 Heater, Derek Benjamin, 229 Hegel, Georg Friedrich Wilhelm, 7, 43, 68, 181, 185–187, 189 Hegelian traditions, 181, 187 Phenomenology of Mind, 185 Philosophy of History, 185 Philosophy of Right, 185 Heidegger, Martin, 50, 51 Being and Time, 50 Hebron, Israel, 12 Heritage Foundation, 106 heroism, 120 Hezbollah, 119 Hill, Paul, 11 Hinduism, 12 Hiroshima, Japan, 226 Hobbes, Thomas, 7, 35, 71, 181, 182, 185, 192 Hobbsian position, 169 Leviathan, 226 Hofstra University, 105
254
Index
Holmes, Kim R., 106 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Jr., 199 Holmes, Robert L., 38 Homeland Security, Office of, 43, 44 homicide, 203, 206, 210, 214, 232 hope, 4, 15, 16, 47, 49, 51, 52, 59, 62, 94, 108, 135, 154, 156, 184, 234 House of Commons, Canadian, 68 House-Friend, 51 How to Do Things with Words (Austin), 164 Howlett, Charles, 187 Hughes, Karen, 112 humankind, 61, 67, 68, 133 human rights, 64, 67, 89, 90, 95, 164, 181, 190, 191, 217, 223, 224, 227, 231, 233 h. r. education, 8, 227 Human Rights, Universal Declaration, 227 Hussein, Saddam, 39 hyperopia (farsightedness), 46 “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Intent” (Kant), 183 Identification Certificates, African, 92 illiterates, 82 image(s), 116, 222 i. of cosmic war, 14, 16 enemy i., 219, 228 i. of manhood, 207 negative/positive i., 49, 51 president’s i., 113 self-i., 204 i. of study authority, 113 i. of violence, 232 imperative, 61, 66, 67 i. of morality and justice, 145 social i., 152 independence, 135, 139, 191, 207, 213 economic i., 6, 82, 132, 138 i. movements, 5 national i., 5, 75, 77, 79–85, 87, 91, 92, 95–97, 221 political party i., 137 India(ns), 12, 47, 79, 80, 91, 96, 97, 220
individualism, 163, 198 automistic i., 200 egoistic i., 133, 135, 138, 141 individuals, 4, 13, 15, 20–22, 25, 33, 36, 39, 43, 50–52, 131, 149, 159, 163, 184–186, 197, 198, 200, 201, 218, 220, 221, 223, 231 autonomous i., 153, 228 disobedient i., 150 nonreligious i., 23 selfish i., 139 individuation, 197, 207 inequality, 6, 131, 139, 140, 175, 191. See also equality racial i., 35 systematic i., 134 inertia, 156 inheritance, 95, 134 injustice(s), 1, 11, 37–39, 47, 68, 133, 134, 140, 146, 149–151, 156, 157, 159, 160, 166, 185, 203, 204, 214, 233. See also justice inquiry, 7, 163, 199–201 integration of women in military, 204 integrity, 6, 14, 132, 133, 161, 162, 165 i. of Japan’s Article 9, 109 Nyerere’s i., 84 intelligence missions, 12, 115. International Criminal Court (ICC), 5, 103, 106, 109 International Peace Research Assoc., 223 International Year for the Culture of Peace, 226 International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Nonviolence for the Children of the World, 226 Interservice Intelligence (ISI), 114 Iran, 44, 62, 63, 119 Iraq, 39, 119, 122 I. people, 114 Ireland, 226 Northern I., 12 I. nationalists, 66 Isaac, 66, 69
Index Islam, 12, 62, 70, 114, 117, 118, 123 I. fundamentalism, 67 I. jihad, 114, 119 I. struggle, 66 Islamabad, embassy, 64 isolation, 82, 137 Israel(is), 12, 38, 166, 228 James,William, 4, 32, 36, 38 Japan, 12, 103–109, 226 Article 9, 5, 103–109 Jesus Christ, 31, 34, 35, 221 Jewish Peace Fellowship, 13 jihad, 66, 114, 115, 117, 119, 221 Johansen, Robert, 7, 182, 189, 190 The National Interest and the Human Interest, 189 Johnson, David W., 225 Johnson, Roger T., 225 joint-stock companies, 137 Jong II, Kim, 107 Jordan, 64, 123 Judaism, 12, 18, 70 Juergensmeyer, Mark, 3, 14–16, 19, 20 Terror in the Mind of God, 14 justice, 3, 5–7, 13, 21, 24, 31, 34, 38, 58, 69, 71, 75, 94, 103, 104, 109, 117, 121, 122, 131–141, 145– 160, 166, 170, 173, 190, 191, 204, 210, 217, 221–224, 227, 233. See also injustice Justice, Operation Infinite, 117 Kabul, 39, 57, 62, 64 Kandahar, Afghanistan, 63 Kant, Immanuel, 7, 37, 49, 70, 90, 140, 169–177, 181, 183–186, 221 “The Contest of the Faculties,” 176 “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Intent,” 183 “Perpetual Peace,” 169, 183, 184, 221 K. scholarship, 169 “Transcendental Formula of Public and International Right,” 171 Karachi, Pakistan, 117
255
Karzai, Anas, 4, 5, 57 Kasachkoff, Tziporah, 162 Kaunda, Kenneth David, 59, 75, 76, 78, 84, 90–96 The Riddle of Violence, 93, 94 Kazakhstan, 64 Kelley, Andrew, 7, 169 Kelly, Kathy, 1 Kandahar, 63 Kenya, 85 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 4, 13, 31, 35, 63, 103, 150, 218, 233 Where Do We Go from Here, 35 Kissinger, Henry Alfred, 119 Koizumi, Junichiro, 106 Korea, North/South, 5, 44, 105–107, 210, 226 Korean Reconciliation Talks, 107 Korean War, 103–105 Kosovo, 226 Kovel, Joel, 50 Krauthammer, Charles, 119, 120 Kultgen, John, 5, 7, 8, 111, 203 Kunkel, Joseph 4, 31 Kurds, 67 Kweka, Aikael N., 89 Kyoto Accord, 229 labor(ers), 134, 136–138 l. dispute, 80, 86 prehistoric l., 71 Laches (Plato), 204 Lachs, John, 195 laissez-faire policies, 134 language(s), 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 32, 111, 118, 164, 195–201, 223 body l., 112 Bush’s l., 113, 122 Derrida’s l., 71 evasive l., 106 regular guy l., 112 religious l., 117 sexist l., 7, 195 silent l., 63 l. of war, 68, 139
256
Index
Lantieri, Linda, 225 law, 6, 32, 59, 135, 145–147, 150–153, 156, 157, 159, 169, 173, 175, 184 conscientious violations of l., 153 l. enforcement, 123 international l., 69, 185, 227 Japanese l., 103, 104, 106 l. of nations, 188 nautral l., 227 preventative detention L., 84, 87, 88 religious l., 62 l. of right states, 170 rule of l., 87 l. of unintended consequences, 114, 115 universal l., 170 unjust l., 52, 149–151, 153, 154 Law of the Sea Treaty, 229 League of Nations, 84, 188, 220 Lebanon, 119 Lefebure, Leo, 11, 27 legality, 169, 170, 172, 174, 176, 211 Legum, Colin, 91 Lenshina, Alice, 92, 93 Lerner, Yoel, 12 Leviathan (Hobbes), 226 liberalism, 67, 68, 131, 182, 198, 200 Locke’s l., 183 Liberalism and Social Action (Dewey), 200 liberation, 76, 81, 85, 86, 88 l. theology, 90 South African l. movements, 88 Liberation Front of Mozambique (FRELIMO), 85 liberty, 58, 61, 88, 135, 139, 149, 150, 152, 156, 203 “On Liberty” (Mill), 133 Libya, 119 Locke, John, 182, 183 London, England, 92 loss(es), 15, 162, 166 l. of life, 58, 103, 141, 203 l. of national security, 204 love, 20, 25, 37, 92, 94, 217 aesthetic vs. romantic l., 35 l. of freedom, 117, 233
l. of humankind, 67 l. of money, 138 l. of others, 222 planetary l., 44 self-l., 44 l. of wisdom, 40 Lummis, Douglas, 108 Lumpa religion (sect), 92-94 Lusaka, 90 Lutheran Peace Fellowship, 13 machismo, 8, 206, 208–210 MacIntyre, Alasdair C., 17 Mackenzie, Richard, 62 Macleod, Iain, 92 MacPherson, Fergus, 92, 93 Maguire, Mairead Corrigan, 13 Maji Maji Rebellion, 84 Makerere University, 84 male-bashing, 104 Mamdani, Mahmood, 76, 96 Manchester College, 222 manhood, 207, 208 mankind. See humankind Mann, Simranzit Singh, 12 mantra, 32––34, 36 Marcuse, Herbert, 51 Marines, United States, 2, 208 Marty, Martin, 25 martyr(s), 49, 113, 117, 121 Marx, Karl, 7, 68, 79, 83, 138, 141, 181, 185–189 Marxian traditions, 181, 187 Maryknoll Fathers, 84 masculinist group identity, 208 masculinist ideal, 208, 209 masculinist self-image, 204 masculinity, 207, 208, 213 masculinization, de-, 209 Mau Mau uprising, 85 Mauss, Marcel, 5, 58–63, 65 McCarthyism, 66, 80 McDonough, Alexa, 68 McManus, Doyle, 112, 119 McVeigh, Timothy, 11, 108
Index Mead, George Herbert, 7, 196–201 mediation, 25, 33, 162, 186 peer m., 235 Medecins sans Frontieres, 230 Mennonite Central Committee, 13 meritocracy, 141 Merton, Thomas, 13 Meyer, Matt, 80, 81, 85, 94 Guns and Gandhi in Africa, 76, 94 Middle Ages, 139 Middle East, 38, 47, 117, 124, 125, 228 militarization of space, 106, 107 military, the, 8, 35, 96, 116, 203–114 m. actions, 123 m. adventures, 86 m. analysts, 58 m. arsenals, 190 m. battles, 170 m. campaign, 114 m. commanders, 71 m. dance, 59 m. discipline, 211 m. effectiveness, 204, 206, 210 m. equipment/supplies, 61, 65 m. establishments/organizations, 4, 48, 207, 208 m. force(s), 48, 114, 226, 230, 231 m. killing game, 108 m. machinery, 50 m. might, 65, 170 m. mission, 211, 213 m. personnel, 141, 204–207, 211 m. power, 77, 124 m. preparedness, 46 m. prohibitions, 107 m. purposes, 210 m. rampage, 103 m. service, 141, 152, 203, 211, 213 m. solution, 103, 109 m. target, 93 m. think-tank, 105 m. training, 3, 7, 8, 65, 86, 203–214 m. victory, 85 m.-violence drug, 103 Mill, John Stuart, 6, 131–139, 141
257
Chapters on Socialism, 134, 136 Considerations on Representative Government, 132 “On Liberty,” 133 Principles of Political Economy, 134 Utilitarianism, 132 Minnesota, 2 misery, 6, 131, 132, 140, 141, 233 misogyny, 208, 209 missile(s), 44, 107 defense system, 43, 44, 46, 107 Patriot m., 108 missions, 124 freedom-preserving m., 141 honorable m., 209 intelligence m., 12, 115 Mitzvot of Judaism, 18 Moby Dick, 125 Mohammed, 221 Le Monde, 226 Montessori, Maria, 222 Morales, Maria, 6, 131 moralit(ies)(y), 21, 59, 61, 71, 75, 90, 133, 138, 145, 165, 166, 169, 170, 172, 176, 182, 196, 200 amorality, 192 Christian m., 65, 68 m. of compromise, 165 Judeo-Christian m., 65, 68, 70, 71 m. vs. legality, 172, 176 m. of means, 211 personal m., 148, 151 m. vs. politics, 172 m. and secularization, 15 social m., 197 Morris, Madeleine, 8, 204, 206–210, 213 Moses, 221 Mother Earth, 105 Mozambique, 85, 86 mujahedeen, 62, 64, 121 Mtemvu, Zuberi, 88 Muslims, 21, 113, 117, 118, 221 Muste, Abraham Johannes (A.J.), 13, 81 Myanmar, 227
258
Index
myths, 24, 104 m. of classless society, 141 m. of conflict resolution, 220 m. of motivating power, 44, 45 m. of protection, 43, 44, 48 m. of security, 48 m. of testisocracies, 104 m. that women enjoy rape, 207 Nagasaki, Japan, 226 Nakamura, Takeshi, 12 National Education Goals, 217 National Guard of Midelburg Holland, 147, 148, 150 The National Interest and the Human Interest (Johansen), 189 nationalism, 12, 87, 92, 222, 234 nationness, 70 nation-state system, 187, 190, 191 NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), 226 Nebraska, 113 University of N., 64 negotiation, 60, 162, 226, 232 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 91 New Democratic Party, 68 Newman, John Henry, 17 New York City, 5, 39, 57, 59, 103, 111, 120, 124, 161 The New York Times, 120, 161 NGOs (Nongovernmental Organizations), 18, 227 Nicias, 204 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 5, 58, 65, 66, 69, 70 Nkrumah, Kwame, 5, 75–86, 95 Handbook for Revolutionary Warfare, 84 Nkumbula, Harry, 91 Nobel Peace Prize, 5, 106, 108, 226 Noble Truths, Four, 18, 37 noninterventionalism, 183 nonviolen(ce)(tism)(tists), 1–5, 11–28, 32–37, 50, 52, 75–97, 151, 159, 218, 220, 221, 223, 226, 233. See also violence Pan-African nonv. training camps, 81
Northern Alliance, 65. See also Taliban North Rhodesia. See Zambia Nouwen, Henri, 13 Nozick, Robert, 173 The Nuclear Arms Race (Gay), 48 nuclearism, 49 Nuremburg War Crimes Trials, 109 Nyerere, Julius Kambarage, 5, 75, 76, 78, 84–90, 95 objection(s), 45, 84, 170 obligation, 5, 58–65, 69, 132, 133, 149, 164 moral o., 133 Offutt Air Force Base, 113 Oklahoma City, 11, 108 Old Testament, 27 one dimensionalism, 51 Operation Enduring Freedom, 4, 57–72 Operation Permanent Freedom, 117 operations, covert, 123 Operative Rights (Singer), 163 opposition, 5, 75, 82, 88, 89, 91, 113, 117, 133, 139, 146, 155 optimism, 131 organization, 8, 209 democratic o., 188 functional, 209 hierarchical o. of labor, 137 organizations, 14, 120 fund-raising o., 137 grass roots, 230 Islamic o., 67 military o., 4, 48, 207, 208 nongovernment(al) o. (NGOs), 18, 227, 234 political o., 66, 139, 185 professional o., 195 social o., 207, 220 terrorist o., 46, 48, 50 The Origins of the Korean War (Cumings), 105 Orr, David W., 229 Orwellian doublespeak/words, 105, 106 otherness, 57, 70 Ottomans, 66
Index Overby, Charles Martin, 5, 103 A Call for Peace, 104 Owen, Robert, 131, 132, 139–141 Owenites, 131, 132 O. worldview, 131 Oxford English Dictionary, 162 Paige, Glenn D., 96 Pakistan, 61–64, 117, 119 P. military troops, 114 Palestinians, 21, 38 Pan-African Congress, Fifth, 79, 83 Pan-African nonviolence training camps, 81 paranoia, 104, 107 Parliament of the World’s Religions, 21, 23 partnership(s), 22, 137, 225 Patel, Rambhai, 90 Patriarchs, Tomb of the, 12 Patti, Janet, 225 Pax Christi, 13 peace, 1–8, 21, 26, 32, 36, 39, 40, 59, 85, 87, 103, 131, 132, 139–141, 161, 166, 169–177, 181–191, 203, 218–235 p. building (mak[ers][ing]), 16, 19, 22, 23, 24, 31–40 p. making skills, 217 crimes against p., 106, 109 p. education/studies, 8, 177, 217–235 global p., 23, 68 intercultural p., 220 international p., 104 Jewish P. Fellowship, 13 p.keeping, 166 p. keeping strategies, 218 Lutheran P. Fellowship, 13 negative vs. positive p., 1, 217, 223 philosophy of p., 32 p. as process, 224 p. theory, 4, 6, 7, 218, 234 p.-keeping, 155, 218 p. forces, 230 p. through strength, 226, 231 p.time, 207
259
Peaceboat, 105 Peace Education (Harris), 223 Pearl Harbor, 120, 122 peasants, 11, 66, 76, 77, 83, 93 pedagogy, 222, 224, 234 peer mediation, 235 Pensacola, Florida, 11 Pentagon, United States, 12, 111, 116, 117, 119, 121 performatives, 164, 165 Perle, Richard, 119 perlocution, 164 “Perpetual Peace” (Kant), 169, 183, 184, 221 Phenomenology of Mind (Hegel), 185 philia, 35 philosophy, 24, 38, 40, 161, 211, 223 applied p., 187, 189 Buddhist p., 38 Hobbes’ p. of power, 35 Kant’s p. of history, 183, 184 Kaunda’s p., 91 moral p., 7, 169, 172, 175 p. of peace, 32, 169 political p., 7, 81, 181, 182, 184– 187, 190 p. of product, 105 twemtieth-century p., 181 Western p., 145 Philosophy of History (Hegel), 185 Philosophy of Right (Hegel), 185 Pitts, Leonard, Jr., 114 Plato, 38, 45, 68, 181, 184, 192, 204, 205, 213 Laches, 204 The Republic, 181, 213 Poles, 47 police action, 113 political theory, 145, 169 absolutist p. t., 182 democratic p. t., 183 liberal p. t., 182 politics, 16, 57, 95, 169, 172, 174, 176, 181, 184, 190 democratization p., 188 international p., 69, 187, 188
260
Index
politics (continued) geo-p., 14 nuclear p., 50 power p., 230 poor, the, 114, 135–137, 152, 173, 232, 233 p. in spirit, 34 Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), 85 Portugal, 91 Portugese colonizers, 86 Positive Action Conference, 81 Postal, Theodore, 108 poverty, 26, 39, 89, 131, 134–136, 138– 141, 204, 222, 226, 233 structural p., 234 urban vs. rural p., 235 Powell, Colin, 112, 117 power, 19, 35, 40, 47, 49, 50, 72, 75, 77, 78, 80, 82, 83, 87, 93–95, 124, 133, 137, 140, 141, 162, 170, 171, 181, 192, 199, 201, 214 p. of arrest, 88 p. of atomic individuals, 200 balance/imbalance of p., 119, 136, 220 coercive p., 75, 76, 78, 95 economic p., 109 executive p., 95 imperial p., 125 p. in international relations, 7, 181, 182 p. of landed aristocracy, 134 lethal p., 96 local p., 76 p. of meditation experience, 33 military p., 77, 124 motivating p. of fear, 4, 44, 45, 52 p. of national governments, 230 nuclear p., 228 people p., 52 p. play, 35 political p., 5, 16, 62, 136, 230 p. relations(hips), 7, 77, 162, 195 p. between sexes, 195 superior p., 97, 182 state p., 75 p. struggle, 62
temporal p., 139 p. of violence, 52 p. of war and peace, 182 pragmatism, 163, 187 Pragmatism, Rights, and Democracy (Singer), 163 Presbey, Gail, 5, 75 Preservation of Public Security Ordinance, 93 preventive detention, 78, 85–88, 90, 95 Preventive Detention Act (Law), 84–88 Preventive Detention Decree, 88 principles, 17, 23, 25, 26, 28,31, 88, 104, 136, 154, 155, 158, 161, 163, 165, 166, 198, 201, 204 p. of compassionate aggressiveness, 204 p. of consent, 182 moral p., 150, 153, 162, 163, 165, 182 normative p., 7, 181, 188 peace p., 217 political p., 150–153, 156, 157, 159 religious p., 150 socioeconomic p., 135 The Principles of Conduct (Dewey), 189 Principles of Political Economy (Mill), 134 privilege(s), 136, 138, 141, 227, 233 prodigal child, 37 productivity, 138 property, 16, 71, 148, 170, 173, 205 private p., 134 protection, 22, 43, 44, 47, 48, 114, 117, 132, 133, 161, 223 protest(ers), 4, 6, 31, 44, 45, 47, 75, 80, 86, 125, 145, 146, 148, 151–155, 158 illegal/legal p., 147, 155 nonviolent p., 31 nuclear p., 44, 81 Protestantism, 12 Prothrow-Stith, Deborah, 232 Prufrock, J. Alfred, 225 public, the, 4, 44, 45, 48, 112, 114, 124, 125 American p., 115 Public and International Right, Transcendental Formula of, 171 publicness, 171, 172
Index Putin, Vladimir, 119 Pyongyang, North Korea, 107 Qatar, 117 Qur’an, 11 Quaker Project on Community Conflict, 223 The Friendly Classroom for a Small Planet, 223 Quayle, James Danforth (Dan), 119 Rabin, Yizhak, 12 Rand, Ayn,163 Rand Corporation, 105, 106 Rantisi , Abdul Aziz, 12 rape, 23 group r., 207, 209 military r., 204, 206, 207 r. vs. non-r. violent crime, 206 Rawls, John, 6, 145–160, 181 A Theory of Justice, 145, 147–149 Read, Herbert Edward, 222 Read, James S., 87, 88 Reagan, Ronald, 218 Realpolitik, 23, 35, 119 Reardon, Betty, 223, 224 Comprehensive Peace Education, 223 reason, 4, 27, 28, 34, 67, 68, 70–72, 120, 175, 176, 206, 210, 213 raids, covert, 121 rebellion, 146, 152 reciprocity, 5, 22, 57–62, 64 reconciliation, 19, 35, 93, 107, 226 reconstruction, social/political 196, 198 Reconstruction in Philosophy (Dewey), 189 reform(ers), 6, 131, 159 educational r., 8, 218, 219, 222, 225 liberal r., 131 progressive r., 137 Reformation, the, 66 Refugees Control Act, 87 refusal, conscientious, 6, 145–148, 153–160 rhetoric, 111–125 ahistorical r.,68 terrorist r., 5, 111 religion(s), 3, 11–28, 117, 208, 211, 221
261
Abrahamic r., 5, 58, 66, 70 Baha’i r., 221 Buddhism, 12, 18 Catholicism, 12, 90 Christianity, 12, 66, 70, 91–93, 118 Eastern Orthodoxy, 12 Hinduism, 12 Judaism, 12, 18, 70 Islam, 12, 62, 70, 114, 117, 118, 123 Lumpa r. (sect), 92–94 Sikhism, 12 Taoism, 221 renunciation of war, 103 Representatives, U. S. House of, 122, 161 Republicans, 113 republics Central Asian r., 63 Muslim r., 63 Serbian r., 226 Soviet r., 115 The Republic (Plato), 181, 213 Resolving Conflict Creatively Program (RCCP), 225 resources, 1, 2, 114, 188, 203, 223, 225, 230–233 African r., 76 environmental r., 229 human and material r., 105, 229 spiritual r., 4, 19, 20, 24 responsibility, 67, 69, 71, 72, 85, 89, 124, 147, 153, 218 revenge, 5, 57–59, 68, 88, 140 revolution(s) r. in education, 97 moral r., 138 rhetoric, terrorism, 5, 68, 111–125 Rice, Condaleezza, 1, 112, 119 rich, the, 135–137, 148, 152 oil r., 63 Richards, Jerald, 3, 11 The Riddle of Violence (Kaunda), 93, 94 rights, 6–8, 86–90, 137, 148–150, 161, 163, 165, 166, 169–173, 175– 177, 183, 184, 191, 217, 227 animal r. activists, 158
262
Index
rights (continued) r.-bearers/holders, 163, 164 Bill of R., Tanzanian, 88 civil r., 81 r.-claims, 164, 165 r. of detainees, 88 equal r., 22, 201 human rights, 67, 89, 95, 164, 181, 190, 217, 223, 224, 227, 231, 233 h. r. abuses, 64, 90, 227 h. r. education, 227 r. of indigenous people, 234 minority r., 227, 231 moral r., 132, 133 r. of oppressed peoples, 227 women’s r., 67 Roberts, Andrews, 93 Robinson, Daniel, 7, 182, 183, 187, 189 Rogers, Carl, 224 Roman Empire, 66 Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, 120 ROTC programs, 205, 211 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 182, 183, 186, 189 Ruddick, Sara, 97 rulers, 52, 58, 77, 91, 172, 222 Taliban r., 59, 64 rules, 104, 132, 134, 211 Rumsfeld, Donald, 1, 112, 119 Russell, Bertrand, 189 Russians, 47 Rustin, Bayard, 80, 81 Rwanda, 220, 227 sacrifice(s), 5, 11, 44, 47, 57, 58, 65–72, 135, 138, 203 Safire, William, 120 Sahara Protest Teams, 81 Said, Edward, 125 Saint-Simonians, 131, 137, 139 Saloway, Reginald Harry, 79, 80 Salvadorans, 47 satyagraha, 91 Saudi Arabia, 63, 64, 123 Saul, 27 Schell, Jonathan, 44, 46
Schlesinger, James Rodney, 119 School of Americas (SOA) (later Western Hemisphere Institute of Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), 31 School Peace League, 222 Secondary Education, Commission on the Reorganization of, 217 secular goals, 19 secular movements, Western, 71 secular regimes, 26 seculari(sts)(zation), 15, 19, 23 security, 39, 44, 91, 96, 106, 138, 164, 165, 203, 124, 138, 165, 214, 221, 230, 231 s. advisers, 117 ecological s., 228 homeland s., 48 military s., 50, 228 national/state s., 45, 48–50, 57, 82, 86, 87, 95, 104, 184, 203, 204, 218 s. risks, 82 s. service bureacracy, 95 s. systems, 224 Security Council president, 120 Seelye, Katharine, 116 self-consciousness, 186. See also, consciousness self-image, masculinist, 204 self-interest, 90, 138, 149, 171 self-preservation, 139 Serbia, 226 Sermon on the Mount, 4, 34, 40 sexuality, 207 Seychelles, 86 Shah, Zahir, 63 Shankara, 32, 37 Sharon, Ariel, 38 Sharp, Gene, 77, 78, 83 Sherry, Michael S., 104 Sherwood, Marika, 81 Shinrikyo, Aum, 12 The Short-Timers (Hasford), 208 Siddhartha Gautama. See Buddha Sikhism, 12 silence, 32, 166
Index Singer, Beth J., 6, 7, 163, 164, 195 Operative Rights, 163 Pragmatism, Rights, and Democracy, 163 Singer, Peter, 158 Sinhala, 12 slavery, 135, 136, 156, 158, 186 Smith, Mark K., 84, 90 Sneiders, M. Herman, 147 social contract theory, 149, 182, 183 social ills, 140 socialis(m)(ts), 39, 82, 83, 89, 90, 135 African s., 79 socialist government, 83, 84 socialist party, 82 society, 2, 6, 8, 59–61, 66–68, 97, 118, 131–141, 145, 147, 149, 152– 156, 158, 160, 163, 173, 174, 195–199, 201, 203, 205, 214, 217, 220, 221, 234, 235 American s., 66, 140 class/classless s., 138, 141 civic s., 220 civil s., 24, 104, 170, 174, 183, 184, 189, 217, 218, 227 consumer s., 51 corrupt s., 177 democratic s., 148, 150, 155, 233 fractured s., 138 free s., 85, 125 good s., 170, 175, 176 idealized s., 145 just/nearly just s., 146, 148, 150, 151, 155–160 marginalized s., 146 peaceful s., 217, 218, 235 technological s., 235 socialism, 39, 82, 83, 89, 90, 135 Socrates, 39, 145, 204, 213 Sontag, Susan, 122, 125 South West African People’s Organization (SWAPO), 88 sovereign(ty), 7, 48, 93, 170–172, 181, 185, 187, 190 Soviet Party Congress, 125
263
Soviet Union (USSR), 61, 104, 108, 114, 115, 170, 225 species-being (Gattungswesen), 186 spirit, 34, 38, 39 child’s s., 222 civic s., 133 communal s., 198 s. of nonviolence, 36 s. of misguided piety, 121 s. of place, 229 public s., 137 watchdog’s s., 213 spirituality, 3, 4, 11–15, 23 Sri Lanka, 12, 233 Stack, Richard, 212 star wars, 43, 108 Strauss, Leo, 67 strength, 71, 81, 97, 120, 121, 204, 226, 231 Bush’s s., 124 s. of character, 205, 206 emotional s., 21 peace-through-s., 231 presidential s., 113 psychological s., 97 strike(s), 79, 82, 88 illegal s., 80 Sudan, 64, 116, 119 suffering, 37–39, 68, 70, 80, 87, 96, 114, 116, 133, 141, 219, 221, 233 Sutherland, Bill, 76, 78, 80, 81, 84–87, 90, 94 Guns and Gandhi in Africa, 76, 94 Syria(ns), 119, 166 Tajiks, 65 Taliban, 5, 39, 58–66, 70, 117, 118, 120 T.-Anglo/American w., 70 anti-T. forces (Northern Alliance), 65 Tamils, 12 Tanganyika. See Tanzania Tanganyika African National Union (TANU), 84, 88, 89 Tanzania (formerly Tanganyika), 5, 75, 84, 86–91
264
Index
Taoism, 221 tax(es), 76, 77, 82, 94, 140, 154, 173, 221 Ten Commandments, 221 Terror in the Mind of God (Juergensmeyer), 14 terroris(m)(ts), 1, 5, 16, 39, 43–47, 52, 57, 111, 115, 116, 118, 119, 121–123, 125, 231 anti-t. measures, 125 anti-t. politicians, 46, 49 anti-t. rhetoric, 5, 111 t. acts/attacks, 113, 114, 115, 116, 118, 121, 124, 125 cowardice of t., 120 global t., 46, 47 t. groups, 123 harboring t., 118, 119, 123 international t. threat, 45 Muslim t., 118 religoius t., 14 t. states/organizations, 50, 51 t. training camps, 63 war on t., 65, 106, 117 testisocracies, 104 Texas, 37 A Theory of Justice, 145, 147–149 thinking, 7, 16, 25, 40, 57, 122, 125, 173 t. about others, 220 apocalyptic t., 4, 43–51 Buddhist t., 4 critical t., 224, 234 t. as desire, 37 holistic t., 229 Marxist influence on t., 83 political t., 184, 185 problem-solving t., 197 rational t., 185 Thoreau, Henry David, 77, 214 Tokyo, Japan, 12, 105, 109 Tokyo War Crimes Trials, 109 Tolstoy, Leo, 4, 31, 34, 35, 152 Anna Karenina, 34 Confession, 34 War and Peace, 34 Toronto Star,
traits, male, 206, 211, 213 “Transcendental Formula of Public and International Right” (Kant), 171 Trobriands, 58 Trocmé, André, 13 Tse, Lao, 221 Turnbull, Sir Richard, 84 Turkemenistan, 64 Tutu, Desmond, 1 tyrants, 82 Uganda, 84, 86 ujamaa (familyhood), 89, 90 Underground Railroad, 154, 155 UNESCO, 225, 226 U. Statement of Purposes for Worldwide Educational Policy, 230 unilateralism, 103, 109 United Federal Party, 93 United National Independence Party (UNIP), 91–93 United Nations, 68, 84, 109, 120, 166, 170, 225, 227, 230, 231, 235 U.N. Trust Territory, 84. See also Tanzania United States, 1, 5, 37, 39, 45, 57–69, 79–82, 84, 103–109, 111, 113– 120, 122–124, 154, 158, 170, 188, 217, 219, 225, 231 unity/disunity, 82, 85, 88, 134 Unocal, 62–64 unrest, 131, 171 Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso), 81 USSR. See Soviet Union Utilitarianism (Mill), 132 Uzbekistan, 64 Uzbeks, 65 value(s), 3, 6, 22, 26, 28, 44, 57, 65, 71, 85, 136, 140, 141, 146, 159, 161, 163, 166, 176, 189, 190, 200, 201, 209, 217, 218, 220, 224, 227–231 African v., 90 American v., 66
Index value(s) (continued) community/shared v., 26, 39, 124, 221 v. vs. cosmic war, 16 enlightenment v., 16 ethical v., 24 fundamental(ist) v., 28, 113 humanist v., 7, 182, 190, 191 military v., 8 v. of modernity, 69 moral v., 7, 16, 21, 212 nihilistic v., 72 pacifist v., 221 religious/spiritual v., 16, 23, 25, 72 sexist v., 8, 201 superficial v., 15 world order v., 190 van Binsbergen, Wim, 93 Vancouver, Canada, 105 Van der Veer, Johannes Koenraad, 147 Vardalos, Marianne, 4, 5, 57 veil of ignorance, 149 victory, 17, 68, 85, 116, 210, 213, 214 virtue(s), 6, 23 25, 26, 43, 121, 132, 204, 205, 210, 212, 234 civic v., 217 courage as v., 213 v.-ethics, 165 military v., 204, 214 moral v., 212 morally neutral v., 122 operational v., 204 pseudo forms of e., 210 Vietnam War, 104, 125, 208, 222 villages, 89, 90, 92, 93, 137 violence, 1–5, 8, 35–39, 46–49, 51, 52, 57–59, 69–71, 75, 77–79, 81, 83– 85, 90–92, 94–97, 103–105, 109, 116, 132, 138, 140, 151, 174, 187, 206, 208, 211, 213, 217, 224–227, 231–235. See also nonviolence anti-v. movements, 51 civil v., 220, 221, 231 domestic v., 218, 224 male v., 224 military-v. drug, 103
265
religious v., 11–28 structural v., 230, 232, 233 voice, 48, 68, 106, 115, 125, 136, 196 v. of dissent, 59, 125 war(fare), 1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 11, 38, 39, 43, 46– 49, 51, 52, 58, 63, 68–71, 84, 96, 103, 104, 105, 108, 109, 113, 116–125, 139, 140, 151, 157, 170–172, 181–189, 210–212, 214, 218, 220, 222–231 w. against Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, 119 Afghanistan’s civil wars, 63 between Allah and Yahweh, 118 anti-w. movement, 51 Asian w., 106 w. chest, 120 civil w., 63,154 Cold W., 4, 43, 44, 66, 82, 84, 170 c. w. paranoia, 104 cosmic w., 14–16 first-war of twenty-first C., 59, 116 Gulf W., 104, 108 holy w., 27, 39, 119 w. of ideas, 16 just w., 23, 38, 68, 69, 90, 151 just w. doctrine, 58, 211 Korean W., 103–105 nuclear w., 4, 43–46, 48, 50, 222 Nuremburg and Tokyo W. Crimes Trials, 109 objects, war-like, 46 w. against Osama Bin Laden, 119= w. on poverty, 141 w. prohibition, 107 w.-renouncing Article 9, 5 resource w., 63, 104, 105 w. of self-defense, 154 Taliban-Anglo/American w., 70 territorial w., 62 w. on terror(ism), 46, 57, 65, 106, 111, 117, 123 w.-torn cities, 39 Vietnam W., 104, 125, 208, 222
266 war(fare) (continued) world w., 5, 38, 46, 79, 80, 104, 105, 108, 109, 187, 206, 222 warist, 51 warlords, 39 warriors, 120, 209 philosophical w., 210 War and Peace (Tolstoy), 34 War Powers Act, 182 “If War Were Outlawed” (Dewey), 188 Washington, D.C., 5, 58, 59, 61, 62, 64, 103, 111, 113, 124, 125 Washington National Cathedral, 121 Watchtower, 93 Welensky, Roy, 92, 93 welfare, 82, 135, 183, 201 welfarist, 135 Weissman, Michaele, 232 West Bank, 38 Westbrook, Robert, 188 Western Hemisphere Institute of Security Cooperation (WHINSEC). See School of Americas. Westphalian nation-state system, 190 Where Do We Go from Here (King), 35 White House, 112, 117, 118 Will, George F., 114, 115, 120 Wilson, Woodrow, 38 Winneba, Ghana, 81 wisdom, 5, 7, 17, 40, 43, 104, 108, 109, 181, 182, 192, 205, 211, 213 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 189
Index women, 22, 27 American w.’s dress, 113 in the military, 8, 203, 205, 207–225 rights of w., 67 rule by w., 104 single vs. married w., 199 stereotypical characteristics of w., 213 w. trained to kill, 71 World Court, 103, 109 World Policy Institute, 189, 190 working practices, 131, 137 workplace, 6, 132, 137 democratic w., 134 world state, 170, 230 World Trade Center, 12, 39, 111 world order, 190 comp. summary of w.-o. systems, 191 economic w.-o., 66 Johansen’s normative w.-o. system, 189 w.-o. studies, 230 World War(s), First/Second, 5, 38, 46, 79, 80, 104, 105, 108, 109, 187, 206, 222 Yahweh, 118 Yamashita Precedent, 109 Yemen, 119 Zambia (now North Rhodesia), 5, 75 88, 90–94 Zambia Congress (ZANC), 91 Zanzibar, 84, 87, 88 Zapatistas, 67 Zinn, Howard, 116
VIBS The Value Inquiry Book Series is co-sponsored by: Adler School of Professional Psychology American Indian Philosophy Association American Maritain Association American Society for Value Inquiry Association for Process Philosophy of Education Canadian Society for Philosophical Practice Center for Bioethics, University of Turku Center for Professional and Applied Ethics, University of North Carolina at Charlotte Central European Pragmatist Forum Centre for Applied Ethics, Hong Kong Baptist University Centre for Cultural Research, Aarhus University Centre for Professional Ethics, University of Central Lancashire Centre for the Study of Philosophy and Religion, University College of Cape Breton Centro de Estudos em Filosofia Americana, Brazil College of Education and Allied Professions, Bowling Green State University College of Liberal Arts, Rochester Institute of Technology Concerned Philosophers for Peace Conference of Philosophical Societies Department of Moral and Social Philosophy, University of Helsinki Gannon University Gilson Society Haitian Studies Association Ikeda University Institute of Philosophy of the High Council of Scientific Research, Spain International Academy of Philosophy of the Principality of Liechtenstein International Association of Bioethics International Center for the Arts, Humanities, and Value Inquiry International Society for Universal Dialogue Natural Law Society Philosophical Society of Finland Philosophy Born of Struggle Association Philosophy Seminar, University of Mainz Pragmatism Archive at The Oklahoma State University R.S. Hartman Institute for Formal and Applied Axiology Research Institute, Lakeridge Health Corporation Russian Philosophical Society Society for Existential Analysis Society for Iberian and Latin-American Thought Society for the Philosophic Study of Genocide and the Holocaust Unit for Research in Cognitive Neuroscience, Autonomous University of Barcelona Yves R. Simon Institute
Titles Published 1.
Noel Balzer, The Human Being as a Logical Thinker
2.
Archie J. Bahm, Axiology: The Science of Values
3.
H. P. P. (Hennie) Lötter, Justice for an Unjust Society
4. H. G. Callaway, Context for Meaning and Analysis: A Critical Study in the Philosophy of Language 5.
Benjamin S. Llamzon, A Humane Case for Moral Intuition
6. James R. Watson, Between Auschwitz and Tradition: Postmodern Reflections on the Task of Thinking. A volume in Holocaust and Genocide Studies 7. Robert S. Hartman, Freedom to Live: The Robert Hartman Story, Edited by Arthur R. Ellis. A volume in Hartman Institute Axiology Studies 8.
Archie J. Bahm, Ethics: The Science of Oughtness
9. George David Miller, An Idiosyncratic Ethics; Or, the Lauramachean Ethics 10.
Joseph P. DeMarco, A Coherence Theory in Ethics
11. Frank G. Forrest, Valuemetricsא: The Science of Personal and Professional Ethics. A volume in Hartman Institute Axiology Studies 12. William Gerber, The Meaning of Life: Insights of the World’s Great Thinkers 13. Richard T. Hull, Editor, A Quarter Century of Value Inquiry: Presidential Addresses of the American Society for Value Inquiry. A volume in Histories and Addresses of Philosophical Societies 14. William Gerber, Nuggets of Wisdom from Great Jewish Thinkers: From Biblical Times to the Present
15.
Sidney Axinn, The Logic of Hope: Extensions of Kant’s View of Religion
16.
Messay Kebede, Meaning and Development
17. Amihud Gilead, The Platonic Odyssey: A Philosophical-Literary Inquiry into the Phaedo 18. Necip Fikri Alican, Mill’s Principle of Utility: A Defense of John Stuart Mill’s Notorious Proof. A volume in Universal Justice 19.
Michael H. Mitias, Editor, Philosophy and Architecture.
20. Roger T. Simonds, Rational Individualism: The Perennial Philosophy of Legal Interpretation. A volume in Natural Law Studies 21.
William Pencak, The Conflict of Law and Justice in the Icelandic Sagas
22. Samuel M. Natale and Brian M. Rothschild, Editors, Values, Work, Education: The Meanings of Work 23. N. Georgopoulos and Michael Heim, Editors, Being Human in the Ultimate: Studies in the Thought of John M. Anderson 24. Robert Wesson and Patricia A. Williams, Editors, Evolution and Human Values 25. Wim J. van der Steen, Facts, Values, and Methodology: A New Approach to Ethics 26.
Avi Sagi and Daniel Statman, Religion and Morality
27. Albert William Levi, The High Road of Humanity: The Seven Ethical Ages of Western Man, Edited by Donald Phillip Verene and Molly Black Verene 28. Samuel M. Natale and Brian M. Rothschild, Editors, Work Values: Education, Organization, and Religious Concerns 29. Laurence F. Bove and Laura Duhan Kaplan, Editors, From the Eye of the Storm: Regional Conflicts and the Philosophy of Peace. A volume in Philosophy of Peace 30.
Robin Attfield, Value, Obligation, and Meta-Ethics
31. William Gerber, The Deepest Questions You Can Ask About God: As Answered by the World’s Great Thinkers 32.
Daniel Statman, Moral Dilemmas
33. Rem B. Edwards, Editor, Formal Axiology and Its Critics. A volume in Hartman Institute Axiology Studies 34. George David Miller and Conrad P. Pritscher, On Education and Values: In Praise of Pariahs and Nomads. A volume in Philosophy of Education 35.
Paul S. Penner, Altruistic Behavior: An Inquiry into Motivation
36.
Corbin Fowler, Morality for Moderns
37. Giambattista Vico, The Art of Rhetoric (Institutiones Oratoriae, 1711– 1741), from the definitive Latin text and notes, Italian commentary and introduction byGiuliano Crifò.Translated and Edited by Giorgio A. Pinton and Arthur W. Shippee. A volume in Values in Italian Philosophy 38. W. H. Werkmeister, Martin Heidegger on the Way. Edited by Richard T. Hull. A volume in Werkmeister Studies 39.
Phillip Stambovsky, Myth and the Limits of Reason
40. Samantha Brennan, Tracy Isaacs, and Michael Milde, Editors, A Question of Values: New Canadian Perspectives in Ethics and Political Philosophy 41. Peter A. Redpath, Cartesian Nightmare: An Introduction to Transcendental Sophistry. A volume in Studies in the History of Western Philosophy 42. Clark Butler, History as the Story of Freedom: Philosophy in InterculturalContext, with responses by sixteen scholars 43.
Dennis Rohatyn, Philosophy History Sophistry
44. Leon Shaskolsky Sheleff, Social Cohesion and Legal Coercion: A Critique of Weber, Durkheim, and Marx. Afterword by Virginia Black 45. Alan Soble, Editor, Sex, Love, and Friendship: Studies of the Society for the Philosophy of Sex and Love, 1977–1992. A volume in Histories and Addresses of Philosophical Societies
46. Peter A. Redpath, Wisdom’s Odyssey: From Philosophy to Transcendental Sophistry. A volume in Studies in the History of Western Philosophy 47. Albert A. Anderson, Universal Justice: A Dialectical Approach. A volume in Universal Justice 48. Pio Colonnello, The Philosophy of José Gaos. Translated from Italian by Peter Cocozzella. Edited by Myra Moss. Introduction by Giovanni Gullace. A volume in Values in Italian Philosophy 49. Laura Duhan Kaplan and Laurence F. Bove, Editors, Philosophical Perspectives on Power and Domination: Theories and Practices. A volume in Philosophy of Peace 50.
Gregory F. Mellema, Collective Responsibility
51. Josef Seifert, What Is Life? The Originality, Irreducibility, and Value of Life. A volume in Central-European Value Studies 52.
William Gerber, Anatomy of What We Value Most
53. Armando Molina, Our Ways: Values and Character, Edited by Rem B. Edwards. A volume in Hartman Institute Axiology Studies 54. Kathleen J. Wininger, Nietzsche’s Reclamation of Philosophy. A volume in Central-European Value Studies 55.
Thomas Magnell, Editor, Explorations of Value
56. HPP (Hennie) Lötter, Injustice, Violence, and Peace: The Case of South Africa. A volume in Philosophy of Peace 57. Lennart Nordenfelt, Talking About Health: A Philosophical Dialogue. A volume in Nordic Value Studies 58. Jon Mills and Janusz A. Polanowski, The Ontology of Prejudice. A volume in Philosophy and Psychology 59.
Leena Vilkka, The Intrinsic Value of Nature
60. Palmer Talbutt, Jr., Rough Dialectics: Sorokin’s Philosophy of Value, with contributions by Lawrence T. Nichols and Pitirim A. Sorokin 61.
C. L. Sheng, A Utilitarian General Theory of Value
62. George David Miller, Negotiating Toward Truth: The Extinction of Teachers and Students. Epilogue by Mark Roelof Eleveld. A volume in Philosophy of Education 63. William Gerber, Love, Poetry, and Immortality: Luminous Insights of the World’s Great Thinkers 64. Dane R. Gordon, Editor, Philosophy in Post-Communist Europe. A volume in Post-Communist European Thought 65. Dane R. Gordon and Józef Niznik, Editors, Criticism and Defense of Rationality in Contemporary Philosophy. A volume in Post-Communist European Thought 66. John R. Shook, Pragmatism: An Annotated Bibliography, 1898-1940. With contributions by E. Paul Colella, Lesley Friedman, Frank X. Ryan, and Ignas K. Skrupskelis 67.
Lansana Keita, The Human Project and the Temptations of Science
68. Michael M. Kazanjian, Phenomenology and Education: Cosmology, CoBeing, and Core Curriculum. A volume in Philosophy of Education 69. James W. Vice, The Reopening of the American Mind: On Skepticism and Constitutionalism 70. Sarah Bishop Merrill, Defining Personhood: Toward the Ethics of Quality in Clinical Care 71.
Dane R. Gordon, Philosophy and Vision
72. Alan Milchman and Alan Rosenberg, Editors, Postmodernism and the Holocaust. A volume in Holocaust and Genocide Studies 73. Peter A. Redpath, Masquerade of the Dream Walkers: Prophetic Theology from the Cartesians to Hegel. A volume in Studies in the History of Western Philosophy
74. Malcolm D. Evans, Whitehead and Philosophy of Education: The Seamless Coat of Learning. A volume in Philosophy of Education 75. Warren E. Steinkraus, Taking Religious Claims Seriously: A Philosophy of Religion, Edited by Michael H. Mitias. A volume in Universal Justice 76.
Thomas Magnell, Editor, Values and Education
77. Kenneth A. Bryson, Persons and Immortality. A volume in Natural Law Studies 78. Steven V. Hicks, International Law and the Possibility of a Just World Order: An Essay on Hegel’s Universalism. A volume in Universal Justice 79. E. F. Kaelin, Texts on Texts and Textuality: A Phenomenology of Literary Art, Edited by Ellen J. Burns 80. Amihud Gilead, Saving Possibilities: A Study in Philosophical Psychology. A volume in Philosophy and Psychology 81. André Mineau, The Making of the Holocaust: Ideology and Ethics in the Systems Perspective. A volume in Holocaust and Genocide Studies 82. Howard P. Kainz, Politically Incorrect Dialogues: Topics Not Discussed in Polite Circles 83. Veikko Launis, Juhani Pietarinen, and Juha Räikkä, Editors, Genes and Morality: New Essays. A volume in Nordic Value Studies 84. Steven Schroeder, The Metaphysics of Cooperation: A Study of F. D. Maurice 85. Caroline Joan (“Kay”) S. Picart, Thomas Mann and Friedrich Nietzsche: Eroticism, Death, Music, and Laughter. A volume in Central-European Value Studies 86. G. John M. Abbarno, Editor, The Ethics of Homelessness: Philosophical Perspectives 87. James Giles, Editor, French Existentialism: Consciousness, Ethics, and Relations with Others. A volume in Nordic Value Studies 88. Deane Curtin and Robert Litke, Editors, Institutional Violence. A volume in Philosophy of Peace
89.
Yuval Lurie, Cultural Beings: Reading the Philosophers of Genesis
90. Sandra A. Wawrytko, Editor, The Problem of Evil: An Intercultural Exploration. A volume in Philosophy and Psychology 91. Gary J. Acquaviva, Values, Violence, and Our Future. A volume in Hartman Institute Axiology Studies 92.
Michael R. Rhodes, Coercion: A Nonevaluative Approach
93. Jacques Kriel, Matter, Mind, and Medicine: Transforming the Clinical Method 94. Haim Gordon, Dwelling Poetically: Educational Challenges in Heidegger’s Thinking on Poetry. A volume in Philosophy of Education 95. Ludwig Grünberg, The Mystery of Values: Studies in Axiology, Edited by Cornelia Grünberg and Laura Grünberg 96. Gerhold K. Becker, Editor, The Moral Status of Persons: Perspectives on Bioethics. A volume in Studies in Applied Ethics 97. Roxanne Claire Farrar, Sartrean Dialectics: A Method for Critical Discourse on Aesthetic Experience 98. Ugo Spirito, Memoirs of the Twentieth Century. Translated from Italian and Edited by Anthony G. Costantini. A volume in Values in Italian Philosophy 99. Steven Schroeder, Between Freedom and Necessity: An Essay on the Place of Value 100. Foster N. Walker, Enjoyment and the Activity of Mind: Dialogues on Whitehead and Education. A volume in Philosophy of Education 101. Avi Sagi, Kierkegaard, Religion, and Existence: The Voyage of the Self. Translated from Hebrew by Batya Stein 102. Bennie R. Crockett, Jr., Editor, Addresses of the Mississippi Philosophical Association. A volume in Histories and Addresses of Philosophical Societies
103. Paul van Dijk, Anthropology in the Age of Technology: The Philosophical Contribution of Günther Anders 104. Giambattista Vico, Universal Right. Translated from Latin and edited by Giorgio Pinton and Margaret Diehl. A volume in Values in Italian Philosophy 105. Judith Presler and Sally J. Scholz, Editors, Peacemaking: Lessons from the Past, Visions for the Future. A volume in Philosophy of Peace 106. Dennis Bonnette, Origin of the Human Species. A volume in Studies in the History of Western Philosophy 107. Phyllis Chiasson, Peirce’s Pragmatism: The Design for Thinking. A volume in Studies in Pragmatism and Values 108. Dan Stone, Editor, Theoretical Interpretations of the Holocaust. A volume in Holocaust and Genocide Studies 109. Raymond Angelo Belliotti, What Is the Meaning of Human Life? 110. Lennart Nordenfelt, Health, Science, and Ordinary Language, with Contributions by George Khushf and K. W. M. Fulford 111. Daryl Koehn, Local Insights, Global Ethics for Business. A volume in Studies in Applied Ethics 112. Matti Häyry and Tuija Takala, Editors, The Future of Value Inquiry. A volume in Nordic Value Studies 113.
Conrad P. Pritscher, Quantum Learning: Beyond Duality
114. Thomas M. Dicken and Rem B. Edwards, Dialogues on Values and Centers of Value: Old Friends, New Thoughts. A volume in Hartman Institute Axiology Studies 115. Rem B. Edwards, What Caused the Big Bang? A volume in Philosophy and Religion 116. Jon Mills, Editor, A Pedagogy of Becoming. A volume in Philosophy of Education
117. Robert T. Radford, Cicero: A Study in the Origins of Republican Philosophy. A volume in Studies in the History of Western Philosophy 118. Arleen L. F. Salles and María Julia Bertomeu, Editors, Bioethics: Latin American Perspectives. A volume in Philosophy in Latin America 119. Nicola Abbagnano, The Human Project: The Year 2000, with an Interview by Guiseppe Grieco. Translated from Italian by Bruno Martini and Nino Langiulli. Edited with an introduction by Nino Langiulli. A volume in Studies in the History of Western Philosophy 120. Daniel M. Haybron, Editor, Earth’s Abominations: Philosophical Studies of Evil. A volume in Personalist Studies 121. Anna T. Challenger, Philosophy and Art in Gurdjieff’s Beelzebub: A Modern Sufi Odyssey 122. George David Miller, Peace, Value, and Wisdom: The Educational Philosophy of Daisaku Ikeda. A volume in Daisaku Ikeda Studies 123. Haim Gordon and Rivca Gordon, Sophistry and Twentieth-Century Art 124. Thomas O. Buford and Harold H. Oliver, Editors Personalism Revisited: Its Proponents and Critics. A volume in Histories and Addresses of Philosophical Societies 125. Avi Sagi, Albert Camus and the Philosophy of the Absurd. Translated from Hebrew by Batya Stein 126. Robert S. Hartman, The Knowledge of Good: Critique of Axiological Reason. Expanded translation from the Spanish by Robert S. Hartman. Edited by Arthur R. Ellis and Rem B. Edwards.A volume in Hartman Institute Axiology Studies 127. Alison Bailey and Paula J. Smithka, Editors. Community, Diversity, and Difference: Implications for Peace. A volume in Philosophy of Peace 128. Oscar Vilarroya, The Dissolution of Mind: A Fable of How Experience Gives Rise to Cognition. A volume in Cognitive Science 129. Paul Custodio Bube and Jeffery Geller, Editors, Conversations with Pragmatism: A Multi-Disciplinary Study. A volume in Studies in Pragmatism and Values
130. Richard Rumana, Richard Rorty: An Annotated Bibliography of Secondary Literature. A volume in Studies in Pragmatism and Values 131. Stephen Schneck, Editor, Max Scheler’s Acting Persons: New Perspectives A volume in Personalist Studies 132. Michael Kazanjian, Learning Values Lifelong: From Inert Ideas to Wholes. A volume in Philosophy of Education 133. Rudolph Alexander Kofi Cain, Alain Leroy Locke: Race, Culture, and the Education of African American Adults. A volume in African American Philosophy 134. Werner Krieglstein, Compassion: A New Philosophy of the Other 135. Robert N. Fisher, Daniel T. Primozic, Peter A. Day, and Joel A. Thompson, Editors, Suffering, Death, and Identity. A volume in Personalist Studies 136. Steven Schroeder, Touching Philosophy, Sounding Religion, Placing Education. A volume in Philosophy of Education 137. Guy DeBrock, Process Pragmatism: Essays on a Quiet Philosophical Revolution. A volume in Studies in Pragmatism and Values 138. Lennart Nordenfelt and Per-Erik Liss, Editors, Dimensions of Health and Health Promotion 139. Amihud Gilead, Singularity and Other Possibilities: Panenmentalist Novelties 140. Samantha Mei-che Pang, Nursing Ethics in Modern China: Conflicting Values and Competing Role Requirements. A volume in Studies in Applied Ethics 141. Christine M. Koggel, Allannah Furlong, and Charles Levin, Editors, Confidential Relationships: Psychoanalytic, Ethical, and Legal Contexts. A volume in Philosophy and Psychology 142. Peter A. Redpath, Editor, A Thomistic Tapestry: Essays in Memory of Étienne Gilson. A volume in Gilson Studies
143. Deane-Peter Baker and Patrick Maxwell, Editors, Explorations in Contemporary Continental Philosophy of Religion. A volume in Philosophy and Religion 144. Matti Häyry and Tuija Takala, Editors, Scratching the Surface of Bioethics. A volume in Values in Bioethics 145. Leonidas Donskis, Forms of Hatred: The Troubled Imagination in Modern Philosophy and Literature 146. Andreea Deciu Ritivoi, Editor, Interpretation and Its Objects: Studies in the Philosophy of Michael Krausz 147. Herman Stark, A Fierce Little Tragedy: Thought, Passion, and SelfFormation in the Philosophy Classroom. A volume in Philosophy of Education 148. William Gay and Tatiana Alekseeva, Editors, Democracy and the Quest for Justice: Russian and American Perspectives. A volume in Contemporary Russian Philosophy 149. Xunwu Chen, Being and Authenticity 150. Hugh P. McDonald, Radical Axiology: A First Philosophy of Values 151. Dane R. Gordon and David C. Durst, Editors, Civil Society in Southeast Europe. A volume in Post-Communist European Thought 152. John Ryder and Emil Višňovský, Editors, Pragmatism and Values: The Central European Pragmatist Forum, Volume One. A volume in Studies in Pragmatism and Values 153. Messay Kebede, Africa’s Quest for a Philosophy of Decolonization 154. Steven M. Rosen, Dimensions of Apeiron: A Topological Phenomenology of Space, Time, and Individuation. A volume in Philosophy and Psychology 155. Albert A. Anderson, Steven V. Hicks, and Lech Witkowski, Editors, Mythos and Logos: How to Regain the Love of Wisdom. A volume in Universal Justice 156. John Ryder and Krystyna Wilkoszewska, Editors, Deconstruction and Reconstruction: The Central European Pragmatist Forum, Volume Two. A volume in Studies in Pragmatism and Values
157. Javier Muguerza, Ethics and Perplexity: Toward a Critique of Dialogical Reason. Translated from the Spanish by Jody L. Doran. Edited by John R. Welch. A volume in Philosophy in Spain 158. Gregory F. Mellema, The Expectations of Morality 159. Robert Ginsberg, The Aesthetics of Ruins 160. Stan van Hooft, Life, Death, and Subjectivity: Moral Sources in Bioethics A volume in Values in Bioethics 161. André Mineau, Operation Barbarossa: Ideology and Ethics Against Human Dignity 162. Arthur Efron, Expriencing Tess of the D’Urbervilles: A Deweyan Account. A volume in Studies in Pragmatism and Values 163. Reyes Mate, Memory of the West: The Contemporaneity of Forgotten Jewish Thinkers. Translated from the Spanish by Anne Day Dewey. Edited by John R. Welch. A volume in Philosophy in Spain 164. Nancy Nyquist Potter, Editor, Putting Peace into Practice: Evaluating Policy on Local and Global Levels. A volume in Philosophy of Peace 165. Matti Häyry, Tuija Takala, and Peter Herissone-Kelly, Editors, Bioethics and Social Reality. A volume in Values in Bioethics 166. Maureen Sie, Justifying Blame: Why Free Will Matters and Why it Does Not. A volume in Studies in Applied Ethics 167. Leszek Koczanowicz and Beth J. Singer, Editors, Democracy and the Post-Totalitarian Experience. A volume in Studies in Pragmatism and Values 168. Michael W. Riley, Plato’s Cratylus: Argument, Form, and Structure. A volume in Studies in the History of Western Philosophy 169. Leon Pomeroy, The New Science of Axiological Psychology. Edited by Rem B. Edwards. A volume in Hartman Institute Axiology Studies 170. Eric Wolf Fried, Inwardness and Morality
171. Sami Pihlstrom, Pragmatic Moral Realism: A Transcendental Defense. A volume in Studies in Pragmatism and Values 172. Charles C. Hinkley II, Moral Conflicts of Organ Retrieval: A Case for Constructive Pluralism. A volume in Values in Bioethics 173. Gábor Forrai and George Kampis, Editors, Intentionality: Past and Future. A volume in Cognitive Science 174. Dixie Lee Harris, Encounters in My Travels: Thoughts Along the Way. A volume in Lived Values:Valued Lives 175. Lynda Burns, Editor, Feminist Alliances. A volume in Philosophy and Women 176. George Allan and Malcolm D. Evans, A Different Three Rs for Education. A volume in Philosophy of Education 177. Robert A. Delfino, Editor, What are We to Understand Gracia to Mean?: Realist Challenges to Metaphysical Neutralism. A volume in Gilson Studies 178. Constantin V. Ponomareff and Kenneth A. Bryson, The Curve of the Sacred: An Exploration of Human Spirituality. A volume in Philosophy and Religion 179. John Ryder, Gert Rüdiger Wegmarshaus, Editors, Education for a Democratic Society: Central European Pragmatist Forum, Volume Three. A volume in Studies in Pragmatism and Values 180. Florencia Luna, Bioethics and Vulnerability: A Latin American View. A volume in Values in Bioethics 181. John Kultgen and Mary Lenzi, Editors, Problems for Democracy. A volume in Philosophy of Peace 182. David Boersema and Katy Gray Brown, Editors, Spiritual and Political Dimensions of Nonviolence and Peace. A volume in Philosophy of Peace