Fragmenta Philosophica

Party Discipline

In light of the Republican and Democratic National Conventions, one could do worse than recall the words of George Washington in his farewell address of 17 September, 1796:

"Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.

"This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but in those of the popular form it is seen in its greatest rankness and is truly their worst enemy.

"It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another; foments occasionally riot and insurrection ...

"There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of government, and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in governments of a monarchial cast patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose; and there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be by force of public opinion to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume."

I've never been able to understand how anyone could be a votary of a party; where what is at best a means becomes an end in itself - and usually a dead-end.

Thread

I'm a bit late in flagging this - Chris at Explananda has responded to my post, which was a reaction to his piece on Abu Ghraib, accountability, etc. There's some interesting discussion in the comments section, and I've weighed in again with a few thoughts.

Reading Matter

I recently noted that I was given a subscription to The Economist. Around the same time a friend signed me up for a year's worth of National Review, and I rounded out the collection by giving myself a subscription to The New Republic.

I still look at Reason sometimes, but I miss the pre-libertine-libertarianism days of old - and I know those kinds of arguments quite well anyhow, as they were once my bread and butter (e.g., the initiation of force is a no-no, middle-of-the-road policy leads to socialism, etc). There must be something a bit sado-masochistic about me nowadays - I "like" to be told things that I don't want to hear, and test myself against worthy opponents.

As an exercise in self-flagellation, I used to read The Nation, but I can hardly stand to any longer - it feels too much like being beaten to death with balloons (NB: a recent article insists that "Johnny Cash was NOT a Republican"). So I'd rather get my "far" Leftism from some of the gentlemen featured on the blogroll to the ... right.

I must say - prescinding from any ideological matters - that so far The New Republic strikes me as being better written (with each issue being more of an "organic whole") than National Review - the prose of Franklin Foer, Leon Wieseltier, and Lawrence Kaplan in particular is consistently strong. Not to say that NR is bad by any stretch (Ramesh Ponnuru and Rich Lowry are quite good writers), but there's an elusive "X-factor" that, for me, gives the nod to TNR so far. If one of those old, crazy polymathic Catholics like the late Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn were still around and contributing to NR, the balance might shift.

But it's nice to put all that exhorting and contending aside, too, and thumb through the latest Scientific American ...

Hitchens shows his hand?

Writing in the New York Times last week about John Kerry, Hitchens concludes with:

"He still gives, to me at any rate, the impression of someone who sincerely wishes that this were not a time of war. When critical votes on the question come up, Kerry always looks like a dog being washed. John McCain was not like this, when a president he despised felt it necessary to go into Kosovo. We are looking at a man who would make, or would have made, a perfectly decent peacetime president. "

Walking the Fine Line

Chris Young, the proprietor (so to speak) of Explananda, is a very sharp
guy. He and I often differ, but I consider him a member of the
intelligent and honorable opposition.

He has a recent post up which he "dedicates" to Republicans, though I think the piece is actually a challenge to anyone who
believes that, in light of Abu Ghraib, it's still defensible to "support" GW Bush. I'm no
Republican, and would qualify my support for President Bush in many ways, but I view the matter very differently than Chris does.

Read Chris' post to check my interpretation - my take is that the animating question at issue is: If the culpability of Bush vis-a-vis Abu Ghraib isn't a "firing offense," then what is? What does Chris understand Bush's culpability to be? Ignoring the laws of war (notably, the Geneva Conventions), which "led inexorably" (Chris' exact phrase) to the tortures of Abu Ghraib, and even murder.

I am aware of no evidence that shows that Bush and Co. authorized or welcomed wanton sadism - naked pyramids of prisoners, female soldiers gallivanting with nude male prisoners, impromptu electro-shocking of inmates, opportunistic sexual exploitation, etc. - or murder; i.e., elective cruelty for its own sake.

One could argue that rejection of the Geneva Conventions might create a climate in which abuses are more likely to occur; to a point I would credit such an argument, and the extent to which that
possibility wasn't an object of concern is blameworthy. (Though here one needs to be on guard
against circular formulations - in effect arguing that if any abuse occurred, then the possibility of it occurring simply wasn't taken seriously "enough" beforehand).

Anyhow, to acknowledge as much is a far, far cry from claiming that an "inexorable" logic connects policy to
prisoner abuse. In other words, in confronting the exigencies of the war against Islamism, policymakers have far more options than religious observance of Geneva or a saturnalia of cruelty. To suppose otherwise entails a failure of imagination, and reifies historical constructs - creatures of determinate conditions, intended to meet determinate ends - into principles/ideals of timeless validity; a tendency exemplified most uncritically by NGOs such as Human Rights Watch, which Chris quotes approvingly. (NB: the traditional "laws of war" - as generally recognized norms of/for belligerence - precede, and are independent of, agreements,
treaties, etc., which formalize and codify them).

To address Chris' question: in connection with Abu Ghraib, if there was evidence that the administration was glad to transform military prisons into little shops of horrors - an attitude which would evince striking
disrespect for prisoners AND soldiers - then that would certainly be a candidate "firing offense." There are other imaginable scenarios that aren't so far-fetched - but that the administration concluded that "the laws
of war" don't apply to certain kinds of "irregulars" is no firing offense in my book; on the contrary I consider the position to be plausible and defensible.

As I suggested above, where I will sympathize with the critics is in view of the fact that it's a dangerous, unpredictable business to sanction aggressive and violent interrogations - in effect an unshackling of the passions that can all too easily led to excess; again, a danger both to prisoners and soldiers.

Update: For another view that's closer to Chris' than it is to mine, but refracted through a different ideological prism, cp. Gregory Djerejian

On The Road

Heading out to explore the forests of Northern California for the next few days - I aim to resume posting on Tuesday.

Obsolete Epithet?

When was the last time you heard someone condemned as a mountebank?

Blogger Beware

"The Ancients recorded that Diodorus the Dialectician 'fell in the field', overcome by an extreme sense of shame at being unable to refute arguments put to him in public in the presence of his followers."

(Montaigne, Essays, 2, On Sadness)

The necessity of Norm: Norm on necessity

Norm shows his characteristic perspicacity when, in connection with an article by George Monbiot, he notes that an action is ajudged "necessary" insofar as a valued end cannot be attained without undertaking the action.

Thus to say that, e.g., a war is unnecessary means that it in fact is not a precondition to attaining the goal to which it is related as a means. Alternatively, it might mean that the end itself is not really a desideratum - or at least one not proportionate to the grave and dangerous character of war; here the means-end relationship is not disputed, but the importance or legitimacy of the end, in setting the means in motion, is denied.

A more prosaic meaning of "necessary" is something like "what one 'has to' do." This is opposed, so it's thought, to what one simply "chooses" to do.

But since every deliberate undertaking entails a kind of choice, to fight any war is a "choice" - one which conceivably could have been refused. A state could simply capitulate to an invader, say, or not respond to an attack, whether at home or abroad.

The plausibility of the prosaic notion of a necessary war is greatest when the immediate existence of the state hangs in the balance - the desirability of preserving the social order is assumed to be granted beyond any (reasonable) doubt, so that war is the only option. The note of desperation seems to be decisive - whereas in putatively non-necessary cases, the officers of state have a kind of breathing room to contemplate a greater range of possibilities. (It's interesting to note that even the necessity of the apparently desperate case becomes problematic when the state to be preserved is a bane to its subjects and its neighbors.) However, though it approaches the question of necessity from a different angle, this way of looking at the matter can ultimately be absorbed into the analysis of means and ends given above - here the meaning of "necessary" is that the end is overwhelmingly motivating and there's no doubt at all about the means thereto.

Even though it can feel a bit artificial to parse meanings in this fashion, conversations about the invasion of Iraq would be much more fruitful if the sense of such key terms could be kept clear. It's beneficial to read someone like Norm, because he's very good at illuminating the fundamental categories that come into play, helping to steer one on a steadier course.

Environmentalism in one country?

It might be a bit unseemly to link to a post which begins with some words of praise for me, but read further to get the beginnings of a critique from Lenin of my recent piece on The Environment. Lenin credits Chris from Explananda with making a good rejoinder to me in the comments section of my post, which in a way provides the frame for Lenin's assessment.

(Rhetorical) Question: why does the first - and currently only - commenter on Lenin's post feel the need to question the character of Professor Stott, whom I cite approvingly in my piece?