Essaying again...

... you knew it was bound to happen

Old friend of mine & I, the other day, discussing some political thing – war in the Ukraine, I think. My friend took the view that “no matter what”, initiating military conflict is wrong, wrong, wrong. Now this has always seemed to me like saying that it’s always wrong to throw the first punch, regardless of what has led up to it, and I offered a rather contrived and foolish just-so analogy – involving a nasty drunk, an ill-treated girlfriend, and an ensuing barroom brawl, as I recall.

My friend, let’s call her Sharon, brought me up short. She observed, correctly, that you can’t make good analogies between interpersonal interactions and the interactions of states. Of course I had to admit she was completely right about this, in just the same way that national finance is not household finance writ large.

But it did get me thinking, because I think she was wrong too, and guilty of much the same error I made with my fatuous analogy. In her case, I think, the error was applying the notion of morality to the actions of states.

I’m a great believer in morality, though I’m not very good at it, but I do think it’s a concept that applies to human actors, and states are not human actors – not persons writ large, any more than they’re households writ large on the financial plane. Human actors have to ask themselves moral questions – shall I cheat on my wife, that sort of thing -- and among those questions might be what state actions I want to promote or not. Based, of course, on the human actor’s assessment of the consequences and the moral intuitions he brings to bear on those consequences.

So in the Ukraine, for example, I want Russia to win, and I think this is a moral stance on my part, because I have concluded, after some reflection and study, that anything that diminishes the US empire is on balance a good thing. It doesn’t imply that I think Russia is “good” or “right” or that the Ukraine is “bad” or “wrong” – though admittedly I have some affection for the former and quite the reverse for the latter; the personal equation should never be neglected.

And of course in Gaza I support Hamas and wish that Israel, as the Persian gentleman once said, would disappear from the page of history. (Which is not to say that Israelis should, any more than white South Africans; clean different things, to quote a now-dead king.) Here the situation for me gets a bit more complex, since I’m strongly tempted to apply moral categories – to say, for example, that resistance to the Zionist regime is morally justified and even praiseworthy.

But then, it’s not a case of state vs. state, in Palestine. It’s a case of state vs. people. I think it’s coherent for a human actor to say that there are things states just shouldn’t do, or be able to do, or at any rate things he simply won’t countenance, and will oppose to the extent of his powers. Like, oh, say, apartheid.

For an absolute pacifist, of course, the things states shouldn’t do include waging war – under any circumstances. It’s a respectable and consistent position, but few people really hold it. I don’t, though I think war is a terrible thing. But I don’t think I know anybody who’s an absolute pacifist, either on the personal or political plane.

Then there are non-absolute pacifists who will argue that no matter what, no state should start a war. That is, whoever sets the first tank rolling is ipso facto the bad guy; the history doesn’t matter. Even without barroom analogies, this strikes me as a shallow position. Because it imports personal morality back into the picture, in a very narrow, pettifogging, legalistic way.

Hamas, if your history doesn’t extend past last week, threw the first punch last week. Russia, under the same assumption, that history doesn’t matter, threw the first punch last year. But I’m rooting for Russia and rooting for Hamas, even so.

Neither is a human person, or even a plausible personification, and so, right and wrong don’t come into it. What matters is the outcome you want to see, which may sound instrumentalist and immoral, but we’re talking here about non-human actors, who don’t have conscience or consciousness, freedom or desire or volition; it’s all just physics, action and reaction.

Oh, you might say, I agree that resistance, even in arms, is justified, but I can’t condone such-and-such a tactic. Well, okay, and if you had been invited to the meeting – or deserved to be -- you could have made your case. I wasn’t, and didn’t deserve to be.

As bystanders, which I suppose most people reading these words are, we don’t get to do a thumbs up or down based on tactics. We may have our opinions: X is a good idea, Y is not. We’re certainly free to air our opinions, for what our opinions are worth (not much, usually). But the crucial thing we have to decide is whom do we want to win – and why, of course. We can’t make that decision on the basis of who has nicer tactics. That’s a category error. (And, of course, as a factual matter, neither side, generally, has immaculate hands.)

So what we confront, as moral beings, is a world where we try to act morally, but the most important actors we confront are non-moral beings, like tornadoes or hurricanes or states. In the world of their weather we moral beings can try to behave as morally as our powers allow. But meteorology is an immoral science.