Politics: Officially Sanctioned Systematized Violence

 

Politics: Officially Sanctioned Systematized Violence

Peter Schultz

 

            An interesting definition of politics is “the officially sanctioned systematized violence,” a definition I have copied from Caroline Elkins book, Legacy of Violence, her history of the British empire.

 

            And modern politics are filtered through government, through bureaucracy or administration. To quote Alexander Pope: “For forms of government let fools contest. That which is best administered is best.” A quote, by the way, that Hamilton uses in the Federalist.

 

            So, government is a filtering process for politics but not one that changes the “systematized violence” at the root of politics. Rather, the filter “officially sanctions” that violence, by trying to guarantee, e.g., what’s called “due process.” But its essential to understand that that due process disguises but doesn’t change the violence at the root of government. However, “due” the process might be, depriving people of “life, liberty, or property” is still violence. It’s merely disguised violence. As the 13^th amendment admits, incarceration, no matter how “due,” is still “involuntary servitude” and involuntary servitude cannot exist without violence, which is then disguised as “rehabilitation.”

 

            Every so often (at least), the disguises fail and the violence becomes visible. As Elkins writes of “Operation Progress,” used by the British in Kenya to deal violently with Kenyans who were rebelling against Britain’s rule, its “coercion [was] impossible not to see.” It couldn’t be hidden, not even after the British destroyed millions of documents after the Kenyans had achieved their independence.

 

            This is why secrecy and government go together so well because secrecy is essential for disguising the systematized violence that is the core of government. In other words, government privileges the violent over the non-violent, privileges “dispatch” over deliberation, privileges war over peace, privileges a “commander in chief” over a “caretaker in chief.”

I Am Wiser Than Ever Before

 

I Am Wiser Than Ever Before

Peter Schultz

 

This is an email I sent to my friend, Matthew, today, on my 76^th birthday. Happy birthday!

 

I know I sent this to you already, but it just dawned on me that Hedges’ argument doesn’t illuminate monarchy as a political phenomenon, that is, as a fundamental political alternative or as a fundamental, not just a historical human phenomenon. What does its appeal teach us about politics, about we humans? Question: which illuminates or reveals the world, viewing it politically or viewing it historically? 

 

E.g.:Is slavery a permanent or fundamental feature of the human condition or was/is it a historical feature? If it's the former, doesn’t that have consequences for how we need to live? Plato: Only the dead have seen the end of war. Meaning: there will never be a war to end all wars and those who think there will or can be are delusional. 

 

Meaning: Isn't progressivism a kind of delusion? Or as Fowler put it in The Quiet American, isn’t “innocence” a kind of madness and shouldn’t the “innocent” be forced to wear bells like lepers? Or maybe they should be encouraged to read Machiavelli, e.g., as an ironist who was illuminating real reality, thereby offsetting the “reality” created by the Catholics, who, e.g., were innocent/delusional enough to believe there are “saints,” ala’ Joan of Arc!  

 

Aren’t those we call “liberals” and “conservatives” all progressives? Wasn’t even Edmund Burke a progressive, an innocent? [Just remembered: Twain wrote a book Innocents Abroad, which I haven’t read. He also wrote Life on the Mississippi, which is another critique of progressivism, innocence.] Even our “realists” are progressives, are innocents or delusional, possessing a kind of madness that comes to light in such acts as the bombing of Dresden or Vietnam or Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Truman could authorize the latter only because he was a progressive. Otherwise, he was just a mass murderer of immense proportions, of inhuman proportions. And he thought I am sure, like the rest of us, that the indigenous were “the savages.” Wow! Talk about being delusional.  

 

Thinking politically illuminates the madness of the world or, if you will, “the divine comedy,” ala’ Dante’. And yet doesn’t this possibility, viz., that we can see if we wish to the madness, point to something in the human condition that is, while not socially redeeming, beautiful? As WEB DuBois, put it: dwelling above the color line is beautiful and it’s a beauty that is redemptive. Or as Machiavelli put it: He could retire in the evening to his study and converse with the ancients - and he had been tortured. 

 

Hedonism, when defined as the pursuit of the beautiful, is the quest. Politics is an arena where “the best” are nothing more than “stentorian baboons” seeking to turn us into citizens - or disguised savages. Note: Lincoln’s greatness led to the savagery of the Civil War. 

 

And I am wiser at 76 than ever before. 

 

Genuine Radicals

 

Genuine Radicals

Peter Schultz

 

            I have been reading a fine history of the British empire, Legacy of Violence, by Caroline Elkins, and have been impressed by the depth of the inhumanity that underlay, that was the foundation of the British empire. The levels of bloodshed, torture, and tyranny that was required by that empire were astounding.

 

            As a result of that, I began to doubt my admiration for Jane Austen, who clearly understood that the British empire was inhuman and reflected a British society characterized by narcissism, racism, patriarchy, and oligarchy. How could she write the novels she did in light of the barbarity she knew existed? Did she cop out?

 

            But then it struck me: Austen’s novels are a reflection of just how genuinely radical she was. Despite the barbarity that characterized Britain, society and empire, Austen saw through it, while seeing it for what it was. And by seeing through it, she also saw that barbarity isn’t the only thing that characterizes human beings and human life. In fact, amidst the barbarity, human beings are capable of love, genuine, deep love. Amidst the barbarity, human beings – genuine human beings, that is – seek beauty, seek the beautiful and even create or expose it via the arts, romantic love, or the artistic presentation of romantic love.

 

            As a genuine radical, Austen didn’t expect her art, no matter how beautiful, to defeat or end the barbarity found, for example, in the political arena, just as Plato and Aristotle, e.g., didn’t expect their art, their creations to defeat barbarism. Genuine radicals realize that there are alternatives to the barbarism that characterizes the human situation. Genuine radicals also know how to actualize those alternatives via their arts, which arts may be characterized as inspired. But genuine radicals also know these alternatives will not, cannot change or transform the barbaric character of the human condition, except of course for those who see through that barbarity to the beauty that is also part of the human condition. Genuine radicals, like Austen, are and remain outsiders, outliers as it were, who seek to guide humans toward the beautiful and even to allow them to participate in it.

 

            Genuine radicals seek to teach via their arts, whether that art consists of writing dialogues, writing plays, writing treatises, creating poetry, music, comedy, paintings, or buildings. They avoid the political arena because it isn’t an arena where beauty flourishes or even survives. At bottom, the political arena need not be barbaric or savage, but most often it is, even to the point that its barbarity can be made to seem glorious, e.g., in the case of the British empire headed by allegedly “glorious monarchs” from what claim to be “royal families.” Being political animals, humans are easily deceived into thinking that some people, because they are “royalty,” deserve to rule others. Genuine radicals see through these myths to see the genuinely beautiful, which is real, permanent, and fundamental even though rather impotent politically. Power, especially political power, has its uses but it is impotent regarding access to the beautiful.

 

Regarding Fletcher Prouty, JFK, et. al.

 

Regarding Fletcher Prouty, JFK, et. al.

Peter Schultz

 

            This is regarding a conversation I had with my friend, Matthew [09-08-22], during which we were discussing Prouty’s book The Secret Team, about the CIA and its invasive penetration and even control of American politics.

 

            In discussing JFK and his attempts to keep the United States from committing massive military forces to Vietnam, which put Kennedy at odds with most of his advisers, who were working tirelessly to manipulate events that would make it impossible for Kennedy to succeed, Prouty has this to say about clandestine operations: “Clandestine operations are the desperate efforts of a closed society….”

 

            Except for the word “desperate,” Prouty is correct. But clandestine operations aren’t the desperate efforts of closed societies or political orders; rather, they are the normal efforts of such orders. And that this is the case is illustrated by the fact that Kennedy was running a clandestine operation to keep the US out of Vietnam, just as LBJ ran a clandestine operation, after Kennedy’s assassination, to get the US into Vietnam with massive military forces. Moreover, we know that Kennedy was not at all opposed to clandestine operations, as he was a big fan of Ian Fleming’s novels and he helped reanimate the Army’s Special Forces.

 

            So, while Prouty argues that Kennedy was seeking to put “the genie of clandestine operations…back into the bottle,” he was doing no such thing. Kennedy was running clandestine operations in Vietnam and he was running such an operation to get the US out of Vietnam, just as he was willing to run such operations in Laos in order to try to stabilize or neutralize that nation.

 

            This means that Kennedy had no principled objections to such operations. He just thought they shouldn’t be used to make war – massively – in Vietnam or Laos. And a question arises, viz., how likely is it that, once embraced, clandestine operations will be limited? That is, while it is often claimed that JFK was going to withdraw from Vietnam once he had won the 1964 presidential election, what were the odds that he would be able to accomplish that, having already embraced such operations in order “to save” Vietnam?

 

            Practicing a politics of duplicity – as it might be called – Kennedy sought to keep us out of Vietnam, while LBJ, also practicing duplicity, sought to take the US into Nam. But neither JFK or LBJ was appealing to principle(s) of any kind, although JFK seems to have been because for many of us his goal, allegedly peace, is more attractive than LBJ’s goal, a triumphant nationalism. But Kennedy had no principled basis for preferring peace to war, which is where people like Oliver Stone go wrong, thinking that Kennedy was committed to peace as a matter of principle. He wasn’t, unlike Gandhi or MLK, Jr., for example. And because he wasn’t committed to peace for principled reasons, he was willing to practice a duplicitous politics to try to keep the US out of Vietnam, which made him no different that LBJ who acted duplicitously to make war in Vietnam. It is difficult not to think that, as Prouty put it, “events marched relentlessly on toward Vietnam [and] the only ones who stood in the way were the President and his closest intimates – and they had been neatly outmaneuvered.”

 

They had been outmaneuvered in large part because they were willing to practice deception when their only real chance required that they confront, on the basis of principle(s), the war itself and its implications for an American republic. Kennedy would have been better off, even before he was assassinated in 1963, to make the war and his opposition to it, the issue of the 1964 presidential election. If he had done that, then his death couldn’t have been easily used to promote a massive US war in Vietnam. Besides, there are some political battles worth fighting even if you will lose them or even if you die fighting them.

The British Empire and Political Life

 

The British Empire and Political Life

Peter Schultz

 

             I have been reading a book entitled Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire, by Caroline Elkins, and it confirms my understanding that politics is biased toward, bends in the direction of violence, imperialism, war, injustice, and tyranny. The reasoning is quite simple.

 

            Great Britain was at its best when it had an empire that spanned the world. As one saying had it: “The sun never set on the British empire.” As reflected by its empire, Britain had achieved its greatest political, social, economic, and military accomplishments. And yet, undeniably, Britain’s empire was built on violence, injustice, imperialism, war, and tyranny. That is, “the glory” of the British empire was achieved only by means of violence, injustice, imperialism, war, and tyranny. Which is to say that the peak of the political life rests on violence, injustice, imperialism, war, and tyranny.

 

            So, if you wish to make America great, if you wish that the United States would achieve greatness, become the greatest empire that has ever existed, then you are embracing violence, injustice, imperialism, war, and tyranny, whether you recognize this or not. It’s just the way of the world, or, as Kurt Vonnegut would put it, “so it goes.”

A Question and an Observation

 

A Question and an Observation

Peter Schultz

 

            What was it about being an American and an upstanding American at that, that led my brother, Charlie, to think he had the right to go to Vietnam and kill Vietnamese?  Did he learn this at Metuchen High School? Did he learn in the Indian Guides or the Boy Scouts? Did he learn it at Muhlenberg College? Did he learn it from the Star Spangled Banner? Just wondering where that idea came from.

 

            The observation: If you expecting a lot from living in America, remember that even Elvis Presley got screwed! As George Carlin use to say: “It’s called ‘the American dream’ because you have to be asleep to believe it." 

This and That: JFK and Vietnam

 

This and That: JFK and Vietnam

Peter Schultz

 

            To understand what was going on during the Kennedy presidency with regard to Vietnam, you have to forget about Vietnam. The war in Vietnam and America’s role in it was nothing more than a battle between imperialists, those who wanted to impose an American hegemony on the world, and those who were opposed to such a hegemony. JFK was in the latter group and, as a result, he was quoted as saying that were he to win the 1964 presidential election he would break up the CIA into a thousand pieces. His positions on the war in Vietnam and America’s role in it reflected his rejection of the imperialistic agenda of others, including even several of his advisers.

 

            Hence, if it were true that Kennedy was assassinated by a conspiracy operating within the US and even within the US government, this would make sense insofar as Kennedy was correctly perceived as a threat to the imperialistic project embraced by many in the government and other US elites. Insofar as this is true, then it is fair to say that JFK “died” when he made it official that he would be pulling out of Vietnam, that is, in October, 1963. His death was absolutely necessary in order to ensure that he would not be able to win the 1964 presidential election and carry out his plans to leave Vietnam and pursue policies that the imperialists were opposed to. The imperialists knew that Kennedy’s agenda was acceptable to the American people, who didn’t understand why the US was making war in Vietnam, a place many of them couldn’t locate on a map. His re-election had to be prevented at almost any cost.

 

            Kennedy facilitated his own death because, like the imperialists, he was practicing a politics of deception. While his deceptions were geared toward avoiding war in Vietnam, the imperialists’ deceptions were geared toward Americanizing the war in Vietnam. Because both were practicing a politics of deception, the most important issue – whether the US was justified in making war for the sake of US hegemony – was never addressed in the political arena. So even if Kennedy had been able to win in 1964 and had pulled American troops out of Vietnam, the imperialists and the imperialistic agenda would not have been defeated. It would only have been postponed.

The Eternal Recurrence of Intolerable Servitude

 

“The Eternal Recurrence of Intolerable Servitude”

Peter Schultz

 

            The following is from a book, The Counterrevolution,” by Bernard E. Harcourt, a book about the political order that currently exists in the United States. This passage is from the last chapter of that book, and in the context of Harcourt discussing the resistance of Franciscan friar William of Ockham to the then prevailing tyranny of the Avignon papacy. The title of the chapter is: “Ockham’s Razor, Or, Resisting the Counterrevolution.”

 

            “The eternal recurrence of new forms of intolerable servitude, and with them new forms of resistance, reveals that human history – rather than a progressive march toward absolute knowledge, the withering of the state, or the end of history – is a constant struggle over our own subjection, a recurring battle over the making of our own subjectivity, of ourselves as subjects. Once we recognize the perpetual recurrence of this struggle, then and only then will we know our task, for today and for the future: to resist the always encroaching forms of tyrannical power, those violent desires for subjection, the constant and recurring attempts to govern through fear, through terror, through absolute domination.

 

            “Today, it is not the inquisitorial theocratic tyranny of Ockham’s time that we face, even though the inquisitorial dimensions are not entirely absent. No, what we face today in the West – in the United States and some of its allies – is a new form of governing rooted in the military paradigm of counterrevolutionary war. The very methods and strategies that we developed to contain the colonized other have come back to inflect the way that our government now governs us. We in the West now live, at home, shoulder to shoulder with the insurgent other – ourselves – and have started to govern ourselves, at home and abroad, as we brutally and mistakenly learned to govern the colonized others.” [p. 215]