The Blindness of American Elites

 

The Blindness of American Elites

Peter Schultz

 

            For all their reputed intelligence, American elites seem to be blinded by rather simplistic, moralistic views of those I will call “ordinary people.” Allegedly, according to American elites, ordinary people are “good,” are “decent,” even though they are often beset by ambitious manipulators, and they distrust government because they misunderstand it. This makes for a rather interesting view of politics, viz., that the basic political conflict is between tradition-bound ordinary people and modernizing elites, leading to what are called our “culture wars.” By this view, while they are moral, decent, of good, ordinary people aren’t political.

 

            But, in fact, ordinary people don’t distrust government and its elites because they misunderstand it. Rather, they distrust government and its elites because of the inequities they perceive the government and its elites have created, e.g., the inequitable distribution of wealth throughout society or that some people, for one reason or another, are said to deserve “favored status” ala’ “affirmative action” of one kind or another.

 

            By depriving ordinary people of any political concerns, such as concerns for dignity, self-government, or justice, American elites fail to understand why, so often, their plans, their programs are deemed unacceptable by ordinary people. Because ordinary people are concerned with justice, e.g., or consent of the governed, elitist policies that don’t address these concerns are irrelevant, and are often rejected. Whereas elites like to say that the basic conflict is between tradition-bound populations and modernizers, it isn’t. The basic conflict is between politically sensitive populations, those, e.g., seeking justice and self-government, and those elites seeking to maintain and fortify their power, their prominence, and their privileged status.

 

            That these elites want and act on behalf of “progress” doesn’t address the political concerns, the desires of ordinary people for dignity, self-government, and justice. For example, providing more schools, however beneficial, doesn’t address or even recognize the issues of who will control those schools and their curricula. And claiming that particular curricula are to be determined by experts who are “woke” also ignores the issue of control, of who will govern these institutions and what ends they will serve. Providing more prisons doesn’t address or even recognize the issues of who should be incarcerated in them or who will profit from them. Nor does building more prisons address or even recognize the question of what mass incarceration does to our communities and our families. More Is not always better even when it comes to wealth, security, or individual liberties. And whether it is better or not are political questions.  

 

            Elites and their commitment to “progress” leads them to consider such political concerns and questions to be irrelevant. They just want ordinary people to get “on board,” so to speak, to endorse their policies. Of course, ordinary people are right to resist such efforts insofar as the elites’ commitment to progress merely disguises what is in fact a political agenda, an agenda that inevitably benefits the few at the expense of the many. As even Aristotle knew so long ago, the most common, the most basic political and human conflict is between what he called “democrats” and “oligarchs.” The ordinary people know this because they feel it and its consequences.

More on Moral Virtue and Politics

 

More on Moral Virtue and Politics

Peter Schultz

 

            In his book, Deadly Paradigms, D. Michael Shafer points out in his assessment of US policies in Vietnam that US elites were “focused on Diem.” [254] By implication, Diem [and his brother, Ngo] was the problem; i.e., “Diem’s personal idiosyncrasies” were the problem. In brief, Diem lacked the necessary moral virtue, as he was attached to “paternalism and … to premodern forms of government.” So, it was because of his personal failings, his lack of moral virtue, that Diem could not offer the kind of leadership needed. If Diem, or someone, had possessed the necessary moral virtue – like the kind possessed by the Americans – then US elites “saw no fundamental limits to leadership capacity.”

 

            This is, essentially, a moralistic mindset. That is, US elites decided that Diem didn’t possess or couldn’t demonstrate the necessary moral virtue; Diem could not, “did not reform his government.” [254] US elites dismissed the thought that it was the oligarchic character of the Vietnamese political order, an order created by and for French colonial elites, that made it impossible for Diem to reform the government, regardless of his lack of moral virtue. As one villager put it: If Diem were to “protect the villagers’ interests,” he would have had to “hurt the interests of some very influential men.” If he had pleased “these men,” he would have had to “harm the villagers’ interests.” The problem wasn’t a moral problem; it was a political problem, viz., the existence of oligarchic political order, one created to serve the interests of very influential men.

 

            Time and again, US elites made the same mistake, thinking that they were confronting moral issues when they were confronting political issues. Even in 1961, US elites thought in moralistic terms, e.g., thinking that “a generous infusion of American personnel” – that is, an infusion of the virtuous Americans – “to all levels of the Vietnamese government and Army [would] instill them with the right kind of winning spirit….” [250] And, hence, the “optimism” that characterized US elites in their assessments of the situation in Vietnam. They were convinced that because they were virtuous, “a vigorous American effort [could] provide the South Vietnamese government and Army with the elan and style needed to win.” [251, added]

 

            Such moralizing leads to the idea that leadership is the all-important political variable and that those leaders are distinguished by their moral virtues, which bring real political reforms in their wake. Interestingly, the embrace of a politics of leadership is the result of moralizing politics. So, for example, after the attacks of 9/11, President Bush presented himself as a man of moral, Christian virtues, whom, he claimed once, God had chosen to lead the United States because of the 9/11 attacks. And his war on terror was not directed at bin Laden, but at evil. And the American people rallied wholeheartedly to his cause – at least for a little while – just as they had rallied to Ronald Reagan’s claim that the Vietnam War was “a noble undertaking” fought by morally virtuous Americans against an “evil empire.”

Thoughts on Valentine's CIA

 

Thoughts on Valentine’s CIA

Peter Schultz

 

            In his book, The CIA as Organized Crime, Douglas Valentine writes of the United States’ “predatory impulse to dominate” as the root of the Phoenix program, as well as the CIA/DEA connection in Latin America, as well as elsewhere. “Phoenix is both the methodological and programmatic way these repressed impulses to dominate gradually emerge.”

 

            But, contrary to Valentine’s characterization of them, these impulses are not repressed, and they did not “gradually emerge.” Rather, they were embraced by the like of William Colby and other CIA agents and embraced openly without guilt. Why? Because “the impulse to dominate” is the crux of moral virtue and the psychology of the morally virtuous. Hence, what Valentine is actually describing is the pursuit of moral virtue playing itself out, both with regard to individuals like Colby and with regard to US policies like Phoenix.

 

            Earlier in his book, Valentine quoted someone, a CIA officer, who characterized CIA types as being persons who sought “socially acceptable ways to express their criminal tendencies.” But this is not so. CIA types, like Colby, use their positions and power to express their moralistic tendencies, to express or demonstrate their moral virtue by imposing it on others.

 

            Moral virtue is about domination, satisfying or gratifying one’s impulses to dominate oneself and others. This is what politics is also about and what makes it dangerous: gratifying the impulses to dominate. [Modernity: these impulses were to be disguised, even perhaps transformed, into government; that is, into offices with defined and therefore limited powers, thereby creating bureaucratic institutions which would be safe because the impulse to dominate would be controlled. One may wonder to what extent this project has proved to be successful.]

 

            This means, among other things, that savagery isn’t the problem. Rather, morality is the problem because it leads to savagery and justifies it. Where is savagery more at home, in primitive, tribal societies or in civilized societies? Are tribal societies as moralistic as civilized societies? Aren’t civilized societies proud of the fact that they are moralism, whereas tribal societies are proud of their spiritualization? And doesn’t moralism lie at the heart of civilization, while spiritualism lies at the heart of tribalism?

 

            Morality or moralism has almost nothing to do with spiritualism, as may be illustrated by the history of Catholicism, which when it became moralistic and sought to dominate others in the Holy Roman Empire lost its spirituality. Morality is about dominating, yourself and others. Spirituality is about “growth,” not dominating or “ordering” oneself or one’s soul, which is what Socrates meant when he told the Athenians at his trial that they should be about “making your soul the best possible.”

 

            Moreover, Valentine keeps saying that the United States’ foreign policies, their wars especially, seek to destabilize governments. “Corruption is the best way of destabilizing a country.” But the United States’ goal isn’t destabilization, it’s stabilization via co-optation via hegemony. Think Karp, who was well aware that corruption underlay and bottomed the US oligarchy. Hence, the oligarchs practice a corrupt politics and act as if there is no alternative because “the system is broken” and can’t be fixed! At one point, Valentine seems to see as much too when he writes of “social engineering based on institutional racism.” Exactly! Racism stabilizes, keeps the oligarchs in power, just as corruption stabilizes, keeps the oligarchs in power. What Hillary Clinton sought in her coup in Honduras in 2009, what Nixon and Kissinger sought in their Chilean coup, what the US sought in Iran in the 1950s coup there, and what the US seeks in Ukraine today is not destabilization but stabilization. US policies are best described as social engineering based on corruption, including savagery.

 

            What if Plato, Aristotle, Thucydides, and Machiavelli were aware of the problematic character of morality and of “civilization?” What if their use of irony was a reflection of their exposing the inhumanity that underlay what were considered – and are still considered – the pinnacles of human civilizations, Athens, Sparta, and Rome? Socrates despised Pericles, as did Thucydides. Some have argued that in the Republic, Socrates and Thrasymachus became “friends” – at least Socrates silences Thrasymachus – perhaps because both see what was taken to be “the glory of Athens” for what it actually was.

 

            And what if it is in the works of American dissenters that the same clear-sightedness occurs? If so, it would make sense to study seriously the Anti-Federalists as well as the Federalists, black political thought, feminist political thought, and political radicals generally.

The CIA and the Morally Virtuous

 

The CIA and the Morally Virtuous

Peter Schultz

 

            William Colby thought of himself as a morally virtuous man. And he was in many ways. But why was he attracted to the CIA and willing to devote his life thereto? Beyond patriotism, what might have been his motivations?

 

            How do the morally virtuous see the world? They see it as a series of battles that they must wage to become morally virtuous, to become courageous, to become sexually disciplined, to become temperate, etc. And, of course, how does the world appear to organizations like the CIA? As involving a series of battles, both overt and covert, that must be fought to make the world civilized, to make it peaceful, make it profitable, to ameliorate the human condition. To the morally virtuous, the way the CIA understands the world makes perfect sense. The personal and the political align.

 

            There is a further attraction the CIA holds for the morally virtuous, viz., that they get to display their moral virtue, to demonstrate that they are in fact morally virtuous, and to demonstrate it in ways that will be praised, be honored by their fellow countrymen. And displaying one’s moral virtue plays a significant role in the psychology of the morally virtuous because it is through displaying their virtues that they are rewarded for the battles they have waged to become morally virtuous. Keeping one’s moral virtue hidden makes about as much sense as keeping a candle hidden under a basket. And, of course, it isn’t at all psychologically satisfying. “I am good” is so much more satisfying when someone says, “Yes, you are good.”

 

            In this regard, it is a rather interesting, although not often remarked upon phenomenon that many of our CIA officials, especially those who are the top officials, are prominent, well-known, and appear to be not much opposed to such notoriety. In fact, they often seem to seek such notoriety, which might be thought strange for officers who are reputed to be “keeper of secrets.” Apparently, their prominence and their power are not to be kept secret. How many people don’t recognize the names Howard Hunt, George W.B. Bush, Allen Dulles, Richard Helms, William Colby, William J. Casey, George Tenet, John Brennan, Michael Hayden, or even James McCord or G. Gordon Liddy? But then this makes sense insofar as such notoriety, which usually involves considerable praise and honoring, may be seen as rewards for all those battles these people waged, allegedly on our behalf, which required repeated sacrifices.

 

            Which leaves me with a question: In the final analysis, where does moral virtue lead?  

Comments on the Euthyphro

 

Comments on the Euthyphro

Peter Schultz

 

            “Socrates encounters Euthyphro outside the court of Athens. Socrates has been called to court on charges of impiety by Meletus, and Euthyphro has come to prosecute his own father for having unintentionally killed a murderous hired hand. Socrates flatters Euthyphro, suggesting that Euthyphro must be a great expert in religious matters if he is willing to prosecute his own father on so questionable a charge. Euthyphro concurs that he does indeed know all there is to be known about what is holy.”

 

            One way to understand the Euthyphro is to say it raises the question: What is piety? That is, is piety imitating the gods or obeying the gods?

 

            But there is another way as well, as raising the question whether virtue leads human beings into doing impious things? Euthyphro obviously considers himself a virtuous man and, hence, he has decided that he needs to prosecute his father for having killed a homicidal slave, at least inadvertently. Euthyphro’s conviction that he is a virtuous man is what makes it possible for him to prosecute his father for the killing of the slave. Socrates challenges Euthyphro’s actions, calling into question Euthyphro’s justifications for his actions, and at the end of the dialogue Euthyphro is less than happy with Socrates, given Socrates’s questioning and criticisms.

 

            By challenging Euthyphro’s actions, Socrates is also challenging his virtue. Is Euthyphro behaving virtuously, as he believes he is doing? But by challenging Euthyphro’s virtue, Socrates may also be said to be challenging virtue generally. That is, Socrates confrontation with Euthyphro gives rise to the question: Does virtue as conventionally understood lead human beings into committing impious deeds?

 

            It is not uncommon for those who are thought of as virtuous and who think of themselves as virtuous to be led into committing impious or inhuman deeds. History provides many illustrations of this phenomenon, where otherwise decent people commit indecent, even inhuman deeds. This was true in Kenya, for example, where otherwise decent British people committed some of the most beastly deeds imaginable. It was true in the Belgian Congo as well, and it was true in Vietnam where Americans, decent Americans like William Colby, committed and justified acts that can only be described as inhuman.

 

            Insofar as this is the case, then it needs to be asked: What is virtue? That is, what is the status of virtue as it is conventionally understood? Is it anything more than a façade, a false front as it were, behind which lies a much darker reality? And insofar as this so, how is it possible to prevent human beings, decent and morally virtuous human beings, from committing obscene and inhuman acts? Because obviously, if this is so, then moral virtue alone is not enough to prevent such obscenities, such inhumanity. Or are we stuck with telling our children, as Kurt Vonnegut put it in Slaughterhouse Five, don’t participate in massacres or mass murder?

The Problem of Virtue

 

The Problem of Virtue

Peter Schultz

 

            I have been grappling with virtue, primarily as a problem. I was getting confused or so it seemed. Then I asked myself, regarding William Colby and his career with the CIA and especially with regard to Vietnam: What led William Colby to think that he could “save” or “civilize” Vietnam, improve it, ameliorate life there, bringing to it the good things that modernity promised? Well, he thought that because he thought of himself as virtuous; that is, he was educated in a way the Vietnamese weren’t, he was well brought up, he was intelligent in an enlightened way, he was compassionate, he was a family man, he was liberal, and he was religious. So, he was convinced that he could successfully intervene in Vietnam and elsewhere in the world via the CIA, thereby improving Vietnam and the world via his interventions. That was his conviction and remained his conviction despite the debacle of US involvement in Vietnam.

 

            But he was wrong because he didn’t understand what virtue is or what it isn’t, and that it’s not enough. He hadn’t thought through his conception of, his possession of virtue and, therefore, he was unaware of its “limitations,” of its character. As a result, he was led into savagery via, e.g., the Phoenix program, which he mistook for necessity. His virtue(s) blinded him to the fact that he had choices, choices that would have allowed him to reject the savagery he embraced as necessity in Vietnam and elsewhere.

 

            To recognize these choices, however, required that Colby leave “the cave” and ascend toward the light. That is, Colby would have had to “philosophize,” or question and transcend the world view he took for granted and in which his conception of virtue was embedded.

 

            Of course, his official position with the CIA and his commitment to the US agenda in Vietnam did not allow him to do that. His official position and his commitments required that he resist those choices that were available to him, had he been able to see them. And to see them, he would have had to see his virtues for what they were, conventions created by society because they seemed useful. Colby was, therefore, blinded by his virtue and his blindness proved deadly, tragically deadly, for the US but especially for the Vietnamese.

US Savagery Described as Virtue

 

US Savagery Described as Virtue

Peter Schultz

 

            Here are some passages from the book Shadow Warrior, by Randell P. Woods, a biography of William Colby, long time official of the CIA, describing the Phoenix program and Colby’s justification of it. It was, of course, as assassination program which killed thousands of Vietnamese, not all of whom were communists, which Woods makes clear. Nonetheless, Woods presents the program and Colby as virtuous.  

 

            “Bill Colby was out of the CIA (ostensibly) and back in Vietnam as second in command of the largest and most successful counterinsurgency/pacification program in American history.” [245]

 

            “Separately, the counterterror squads [which were of course terror squads] now named Provincial Reconnaissance Units (PRUs)…would roam the countryside gathering information of the Viet Cong cadres and either turning or killing them….In some regions, the PRUs acted as effective – if brutal – adversaries of the Viet Cong; in others, they operated as the enforcement arm of corrupt province chiefs.” [251]

 

            “In Vietnam, as elsewhere, the CIA operated in a legal and moral world of its own making. The only controls were internal….By its own definition, the CIA operated outside of boxes, whether political, bureaucratic, legal, or moral; the only operations and schemes Bill Colby ever rejected were the ones he considered counter-productive of long-range policy goals. Like the soldier priests who came to Southeast Asia in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and embraced the world with all its flaws to win it for Christianity, Colby was willing to employ virtually any means to achieve the end of containing and then defeating the forces of international communism. His pragmatism, coupled with his political liberalism, impelled him to advocate openings to the left to create a vital non-communist center.” [251, emphasis added]

 

            Savagery described as “pragmatism,” and identified with Christianity and, implicitly, with the will of God as understood by Christians. The question recurs: What is virtue? Is it in fact, as Machiavelli put it regarding Hannibal, “inhuman cruelty?” Did this question escape the notice of the likes of Plato, Aristotle, or Thucydides?