Fragmenta Philosophica

Rethinking Iraq, Pt. I

It seems to me that confusion has abounded in articles and dialog about the recent U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Hence I'll be devoting several “installments” to revisiting many of the issues which have been debated over the past months.

With reservations, I supported the invasion, even though by inclination I am an “isolationist.” Some “cynical” isolationists frame their position by stating in effect, “We have no right to poke our nose into other people's business.” By contrast, my concern is whether many conflicts to which we have been a party have really been worth the costs to our nation in terms of lives, money, morale, and so on.

Our engagements have often provided fodder for the countless ill-wishers this country has, and - of late - our efforts don't seem to have been particularly welcomed or appreciated even by their intended beneficiaries. Granted that even the most necessary and well-intentioned actions abroad unavoidably entail unforeseeable and harmful epiphenomena, surely here we ought to tread most gingerly.

The volatile Middle East – the “Un-Holy Land,” in Christopher Hitchens' biting phrase – seems to be an outstanding case-in-point. If there was some way for us to extricate ourselves from that accursed region, a large part of me would welcome it. I especially would have welcomed it in the mid-90s, when it seemed more practicable than it is now.

However, no one ought to entertain such a thought lightly: without our precariously “stabilizing” influence, I fear a nuclear show-down between Israel and its enemies would almost assuredly be in the offing, probably preceded or accompanied by a mass expulsion of the inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza. Any thought of “democratic reform” in the Middle East would be a much greater pipe-dream than it is now, and yes – pace Leftists – the Gulf's disproportionate share of the world's known oil reserves (upon which Mother Europe is much more dependent than are we) would be even more vulnerable to the machinations of the despot du jour.

In briefest essentials, I supported the invasion because in my view the conflict with Iraq should have been definitively resolved long ago. After 9/11, our options narrowed and a firm resolution took on much greater urgency. Perhaps ironically, I did not look favorably on the '91 Gulf War. But there's nothing inconsistent in opposing an undertaking while recognizing that, once begun, a grave endeavor ought to be brought to an effective conclusion.

Ultimately, the United States and Britain have been at-war with Iraq since 1991; not a full-scale war, to be sure, but an oscillating or intermittent conflict involving state-to-state combat and warfare. That this is true de facto is hardly disputable; that it's true de jure is evinced by the fact that Iraq repeatedly and flagrantly violated the armistice agreements it signed in 1991 – the cessation of hostilities being predicated upon the agreements' fulfillment. If any doubts remain, the claim may be proved indirectly by considering the question, “is partitioning a country into three zones and constantly patrolling their intersection by air (involving non-exceptional bombardment of targets in their proximity) compatible with any state of affairs other than a kind of war?”

(Note that many opponents of U.S. policy towards Iraq viewed the no-fly-zones as unwarranted acts of aggression by the United States and Britain [and, recall, France], “illegal” because not explicitly approved by the United Nations Security Council. On the contrary, I believe our initial and central involvement in the Gulf War and Saddam Hussein's subsequent threatening actions, wiles and tergiversations had a “logic” of their own. Events thus "organically" begat on-the-fly makeshifts such as the [humane] partitioning of the country to protect the Shi'ites in Southern Iraq and the Kurds in the North).

Hence, It's grossly mistaken to represent recent events as if the U.S. simply decided, more or less arbitrarily (that is, casting about for a target), to “go to war against Iraq.” The United States and Britain, with a view to their own interests, (and certainly not inimical to the interests of anyone in the Middle East who opposes tyranny), elected finally to finish, drastically, a conflict to which they were the primary parties. Therefore, the recent conclusion of the original conflict, it seems to me, is best understood as low-level, “subdued” warfare shifting to an explicit state of full-fledged war.

But, one might object:

“The conflict with Iraq has really been between it and the United Nations; the U.S. and Britain must in this particular adhere to the collective will of the United Nations, as embodied in the security council”

Could anyone really say, with a straight face, that Saddam Hussein believed he was primarily assailed not by the United States and Britain but by the United Nations? Since he understood who the real powers were which had boxed him in, it would be sheer folly to pretend that he was/is not our enemy.

In my view, the United Nations practically is at best a forum within which nations may meet and discuss matters of pressing, mutual concern. Its internal contradiction from the start – at least for those who really believed its founding rhetoric – has been that, without any genuine corporate agency and any true executive power(s) (viz., without being a world government), its pronouncements are almost guaranteed to be ineffectual. Another way of saying this is that “might makes right” -- not, vulgarly, in the sense that naked power is its own justification, but rather that, without the capacity for protection and enforcement, “right” is in a perpetually precarious state.

Because it lacks any substantive corporate agency, it really makes no sense to speak of “The United Nations being at war” with such-and-such. This was amply illustrated in the '91 Gulf War when, in the run-up to it, the U.N. of necessity “delegated” enforcement of resolution 678 -- “and all subsequent, relevant resolutions” -- to the assembled “coalition,” under the command of the United States. From that moment on – when the U.S. assumed the central role of putting the nation's blood and treasure on the line – practically and morally the fight it had assumed/accepted was its own to see through in accordance with its own prudential judgments and interests.

Note that there was no U.N. “high command” with which U.S. commanders interfaced, in the way that U.S. field commanders communicate with and receive orders from CENTCOM. Hence, while the U.S. was undeniably operating with a U.N. “blessing,” there was no implication that it was under or beholden to continued U.N. control; although certainly its actions had to be “in the spirit of” the broad aims which set its engaging of Iraq in motion in the first place (stopping a dangerous aggressor, repelling an invader, etc.).

For those who believe that the U.S. was wrong to act “unilaterally” against Iraq this past spring, an important question to address is: “would a unilateral withdrawal of U.S. forces from the region, in, say, 1998 (perhaps in the wake of Operation Desert Fox), have been a legitimate choice in principle for the U.S.?”

If the answer is yes, then what distinguishes such unilateralism from the allegedly blameworthy variety which the U.S. has practiced lately? After all, in both cases, a nation which had become party to a conflict would be choosing to resolve its entanglements in accordance with an assessment of its own inherited options and interests. It's easy to imagine a situation – if “the U.N.” was really serious about its policy towards Iraq – in which a withdrawal of U.S. forces could be considered a betrayal of its assumed obligations to “the international community.”

If the answer is no, then, while consistent with opposition to the U.S.'s “unilateral” invasion, (the exact character of which is debatable and should be parsed with care), the plain suggestion is that the United States had spearheaded “collective defense” vis a vis Iraq at the cost of its own sovereignty. But no nation does, or would, volunteer for such risky U.N. service under that condition.

...

Piracy

It's been painfully ironic to learn that many software developers have few scruples about pirating software. You'd think that here, in one's own field, what Walter Kaufmann has called the “negative Golden Rule” would find easy application -- do not do unto others what you would not want them to do to you. If only.

A host of rationalizations are adduced to “justify” the practice: software is said to be – in a way which insinuates some kind of intentional fleecing -- “too expensive;” the injured parties are “only corporations” (as if, granted the moral pitfalls of absentee ownership, it isn't the case that corporations are staffed by regular men and women whose continued employment depends on the company's business); or – a favorite tactic – the pirated software is manufactured by the benighted Microsoft, with branding by the latter taken as a kind of mark of Cain that permits the visiting of almost any injury .

Perhaps it's not surprising that many of the same individuals who copy software are untroubled to “share” mp3s. Here it's difficult not to concede some truth to the “conservative” analysis which maintains that when people become inured to one kind of injustice, they are disposed to be insensitive to other, related wrongdoings.

The primary “argument” I pose to those who pirate music or software is to ask the rhetorical question, “You expect to be compensated for your labors, don't you?”

A second, related question is, “How does your self-respect fare, in the knowledge that you're obtaining the fruits of another's productive efforts, with neither consent nor compensation?”

It seems to me that one of the craziest things about this practice is that it's so shortsighted. Even if one is unwilling or unable to extend a basic respect to others engaged in productive endeavors, the narrowest self-interest ought to calculate that without compensation, no one can produce indefinitely. The well from which the bootleggers enjoy to drink, therefore, might well run dry – so it would be wise to help ensure that it's replenished. Here, if anywhere, is a good place to see Kant's point about “universalizability”: if piracy is to be viable, of necessity not everyone can practice it.

Hence we might pose a third question, “How does your self-respect fare, in the knowledge that in copying music or software, you are directly parasitic on the efforts of others – not just the creator(s) of the work, but also those consumers willing to engage in an above-board exchange, paying a price which surely includes a piracy 'surcharge?'”

(So there's no misunderstanding, I note that there's nothing particularly clever in these questions; they could be posed to any thief, and in that case would probably be just as ineffectual as I have found them to be).

One of the most maddening things about contemporary piracy, for me, is not that it's practiced by hardened felons (who almost by definition are “beyond reach”); nor that it's practiced by college students (who, famous “idealism” notwithstanding, are usually louche, and too immature to be moved by an appeal to high standards); but rather that many professional, reasonably well-compensated, and nominally “educated” people duplicate copy-written material, wholesale.

In reply, some would protest that they do indeed buy “a lot” of music and software, in addition to whatever they obtain via copying. It's not clear what this defense is supposed to amount to. If it's a kind of counter-balancing, meaning that one isn't “all bad,” then fair enough (I wouldn't have alleged that piracy, as practiced by the “average” person, is an especially great injustice, anyhow). However it's not an accepted principle in courts of law to excuse (far greater) injustices like bank robbery by noting that one most often does legitimate business with banks; or that a rape is mitigated by the fact that in a majority of cases one has consensual partners; and so on. (Those qualifications would perhaps affect the sentencing, but not exculpate the perpetrator completely).

The point at issue here isn't primarily about the character of those who pirate music or software, but rather the character of the practice itself. Of course the two are related: bad practices corrupt character. Hence a person who only occasionally commits piracy is surely better than another who is similar in all other respects except that he pirates things all the time – but someone who is similar in all other respects but doesn't pirate at all (especially if from a “will to considerateness”) is much better than either.

Bad Guys

Libertine Libertarians

Country-Club Conservatives

Limousine Liberals

Salon Socialists

Athens and Jerusalem

"The man of reason doubts what he can and believes what he must. The man of faith believes what he can and doubts what he must. The gap between them is as deep as it is narrow."

Werner J. Dannhauser

Acid Test

If we regularly judge that the great minds of the past were mistaken, often egregiously so, what are the prospects for lesser mortals?

Anyhow, every man is fallible and finite. Hence in all likelihood some of the opinions of which I’m strongly convinced are wrong. This is a strange reality to face, and especially to face constructively.

I believe these and other considerations point to a way in which a philosophical/reflective life could benefit from imitating the “hard sciences.” In considering the logic of scientific method, Karl Popper and others have emphasized that modern scientific theories persist, in part, owing to their resilience in the face of aggressive attempts to “falsify” them. (Another factor, not necessarily relevant here, is a theory’s ability to explain phenomena, parsimoniously [with few assumptions]). What about our own opinions?

I don’t at all mean to suggest any return to the reveries of the Vienna Circle, nor any simple isomorphism between scientific knowledge and properly philosophical knowledge. Rather, in the “spirit” of science, one would do well to determine what considerations, if true, would call one’s strongest convictions into question. One can then become something of an advocatus diabolus for those considerations, and (literally) put one’s views to the test. An as yet "un-falsified" view isn't by any stretch equivalent to a true one, but perhaps it's a credible one. A person with such views is ... creditable.

Of course such an approach (often) animates conversation and discussion, considered as “shared inquiry,” and goes to the heart of the truly philosophical life. But, perhaps there’s something a bit “new” in the emphasis on relentlessly "testing" one’s own views.

It’s difficult not to think of Nietzsche in this connection, with his powerful attack on “prejudices” – by which he meant something like “cherished views” or “heartfelt beliefs.” He was alive to the almost endless possibilities for deception to which we are exposed, and to which we expose ourselves, and by contrast saw the science of his day as in many ways the embodiment of the strict “intellectual conscience.” And since we cannot help but be very “un-disinterested” in questions which are at all interesting, relentless self-challenging unavoidably involves a great deal of nerve. (A somewhat recent treatment of these issues which deserves to be wrestled with is Walter Kaufmann’s “Without Guilt or Justice: From Decidiphobia to Autonomy” ).

It’s a real achievement to “follow the argument wherever it may lead,” and more difficult still when one is simultaneously leader and led – especially when one leads oneself where one would rather not go. “Living dangerously,” "experimenting," "attempting," indeed ...

Unintentional irony

A greybeard told a youth that he, the youth, ought not do such-and-such.

The youth replied to the greybeard thus: “there are no ‘oughts’”

The hermit countered, “Therefore …?”

First Question

Would you rather do a lot with a little, or a little with a lot?