Less Virtue, Less Cruelty

 

Less Virtue, Less Cruelty

Peter Schultz

 

                  These thoughts came to me when reading Charles Royster’s book The Destructive War: William Tecumseh Sherman, Stonewall Jackson, and the Americans. First, a quote on Sherman’s view of the secessionists and unionists:

 

“People who abandoned the nation were not creating a different form of order, but were abandoning reason. Not to resist them betrayed weakness.” [119]

 

                  For Sherman, the unionists resisting the secessionists were moral human beings, while the secessionists were immoral. So, loyalty to the United States was “a sign and a source of virtue.” Sherman “found his coherence and identity in the security of the nation.” In other words, defending “national security” is a matter of acting virtuously, as much or more than it is a reaction to threats thought to endanger the nation. It may and often is even seen as a “moral imperative.”

 

                  So, Sherman’s actions should be seen as him demonstrating his virtue, as they were about saving the union. And the cruelty he practiced – and he himself called his actions “cruel” – also demonstrated his virtue. Not only did virtue not deter cruelty; it even facilitated cruelty. A less virtuous person than Sherman would have been less cruel.

 

                  Ironically then the less virtuous are less cruel, less inhuman. The less virtuous are more likely to see cruelty for what it is and forego it.

 

                  Not only calculation, or being “realistic” but also virtue, moral and political virtue leads to, facilitates cruelty. Cruelty – or “going to the dark side” as Dick Cheney put it – is not just a necessary evil. Insofar as it demonstrates moral and political virtue, it may be embraced as good, not just as a necessary evil. One may be proud of and even praise cruelty, and, certainly, cruelty may be forgiven, e.g., as it has been regarding Korea, Vietnam, Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Iraq, Waco, and Gaza

Elkins's Legacy of Violence

 

Elkins’s Legacy of Violence”

Peter Schultz

 

                  In her marvelous book Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire, Caroline Elkins, like many others, argues that the phenomenon that led to repression, violence, and even sadism was “the racialization of civilization,” by which nations were considered civilized or uncivilized based on racial characteristics.

 

                  Without disagreeing with Elkins that nations were judged civilized or uncivilized based on racial variables, there was and is another problematic phenomenon at work, viz., the glorification, the affirmation of civilization itself. This underlay the claims of British superiority, of British exceptionalism, just as it underlies claims of US exceptionalism so popular these days. There is no acceptable, legitimate critique of what is labeled “civilization,” as may be found in those who deserve the label “political philosopher.” And the wholehearted embrace of civilization, like the racialization of civilization, leads to repression, violence, sadism, i.e., to inhuman cruelty.

 

                  “Experts” accept unquestioningly and operate within civilization. That’s the way they become experts, acquiring society’s seal of approval and respectability. To be respectable, one cannot question civilization and its worth. It was and is this acceptance, this affirmation that accounts for Britain’s legacy of violence being seen as a legacy of righteous violence and cruelty.  The Brits stood at Armageddon and battled for the Lord! Their “eyes [had] seen the coming of the Lord, trampling out the vineyards where the grapes of wrath are stored.”

 

                  And the problem goes beyond Britain. Just as the underlying problem in the US today is not Trump, but a savage governing elite, so too the problem was not simply the British empire, but was, and is, the political. It is the affirmation of the political, of civilization, that explains British blindness. “Britain’s self-proclaimed experts failed to acknowledge the Arabs’ rich history in Palestine of elaborate legal, cultural, political, and economic systems.” [179, added] They did not acknowledge this rich history because they did not and could not see it. They were blinded by their embrace of civilization as an unblemished and undiluted good. As a result, those deemed “the best and the brightest” helped lead Britain into inhuman cruelty, just as “the best and the brightest” led the United States into inhuman cruelty in Vietnam and elsewhere.

 

Thoughts on US Politics and the Political

 

Thoughts on US Politics and the Political

Peter Schultz

 

                  The following is a quote from a Catholic commentator, assessing American politics as he sees it. Following this assessment are my observations.

 

                  “As the nation’s power increased in the world, so too have its imperial tendencies, and those who govern the United States increasingly find unacceptable any competing visions of political and economic life that threaten the country’s dominance of world affairs.”

 

                  According to this assessment, America’s quest for dominance was and is reactionary. The US is responding to challenges, “threats” properly understood. So, dominance is the result of calculation and not the result of human desires. Dominance is not seen as moral imperative. It’s as if people were saying: “We wish we didn’t have to pursue dominance, but these threats make that absolutely essential.”

 

                  In fact, however, the underlying and motivating wish is to be dominant, and it is that wish that explains what governing elites label “threats.” Those other visions are “competing” only because America’s governing elites wish to be dominant. That wish, and not the other visions themselves, is the bottom line.

 

                  This helps understand what is called “realism.” Realists justify their politics because the world is a dangerous place, a war of all against all. But the actual justification of their politics is their desire, endemic the political animals everywhere, for dominance. Consider by way of illumination an imagined conversation between General Giap of Vietnam and Robert McNamara of the US, a conversation that actually took place once. Giap accused McNamara and the United States of being imperialistic, a charge McNamara denied. Why? Because McNamara saw his actions, not due to a desire to dominate, but as reactionary to threats. McNamara thought of himself as essentially peaceful, forced into war. To which we can imagine Giap saying: “No, you are not essentially peaceful. You’re essentially war-like because war proves you dominate, you deserve to dominate because you are the best. Absent the desire to dominate, to be the best, Vietnam would not be a threat. In fact, communist nations as communists would not be threats.

 

                  Why are humans war-like? Because being war-like is deemed being moral, good, virtuous. And so, the warriors, the war makers are celebrated. War demonstrates one’s power and, of course, the powerful are the best. The powerful are the best because they can do what they need to do and, most especially, they commit injustices successfully. [Cf. Pericles’ Funeral Oration]

 

                  And this is, I think, the root of hierarchy, the desire to achieve and then demonstrate one’s power, most especially the power to commit injustice when it serves your interests or desires. And what better description is there of the Vietnam War than as the United States’s governing elites demonstrating they could, because they were “the best and the brightest,” successfully be unjust?  That war could demonstrate its ability to wage an unjust and unwinnable war successfully. Now, that’s powerful, that’s being a great nation. That that’s political greatness is illustrated by empires throughout human history. And this is why those arguing against the Vietnam war as unjust were bound to lose the argument. The quest for dominance overrides concerns with justice because being dominant and being just are two very different phenomena.

Trump, the Ambitious, and the Virtuous

 

Trump, the Ambitious, and the Virtuous

Peter Schultz

 

                  Which kind of human types are likely to be politically successful? Vaclav Havel claimed it was the “cunning shits.”

 

                  Aren’t the ambitious most likely to be successful politically, at least personally successful? Isn’t it often – or maybe always – the case that this personal success is then understood as political success? And then because of this alleged political success, those who are successful are thought of as virtuous. And, so, as a result, ambition is thought of as virtue and ambitious types – “the best and the brightest” – are thought of as virtuous humans. Politics transforms ambition into virtue and the most ambitious human beings are the most celebrated, even taken to represent one of the pinnacles of human achievement.

 

                  Whereas Machiavelli argued in The Prince that Hannibal’s greatness, universally recognized, was due to his “inhuman cruelty.” Are the ambitious willing to embrace inhuman cruelty to achieve personal and political success, personal and political fame, that is, a kind of political “immortality”?

 

                  If Trump succeeds in making America great again, then he will have proven himself to be great, magnanimous, or virtuous. His self-righteousness would then be justified, just as was Churchill’s, de Gaulle’s, or Lincoln’s. He could, justifiably, strut and smirk to his heart’s content. His political project is nothing less than making America virtuous again, as it was in “the good, old days.” Interestingly, even some of Trump’s opponents, e.g., Bruce Springsteen, agree with Trump that there were, once, “good old days.” Trump and Springsteen, and of course others, agree: The ambitious once made America virtuous and this despite slavery and the destruction of the indigenous. Like Hannibal, America’s great ones embraced inhuman cruelty. And such, apparently, are the requirements of political success, of political greatness, as Machiavelli realized.

The United States and the Politics of Failure

 

The United States and the Politics of Failure

Peter Schultz

 

                  For the life of me I cannot figure out why Americans seem to think so highly of their political elites and their political system. Here’s a partial list of the failures that have occurred in my lifetime.

 

Eisenhower’s Crusade for Peace

JFK’s New Frontier

JFK’s Assassination

The Bay of Pigs Invasion

LBJ’s Great Society

LBJ’s Vietnam War

RFK’s Assassination

MLK’s Assassination

Fred Hampton’s Assassination

Kent State and Jackson State

Watergate

Chile

Carter’s Desert Fiasco

Iranian Revolution

Iranian Hostage Crisis

Reagan’s Near Assassination

Iran-Contra

Nicaragua

War on Drugs

Challenger Disaster

Mass Incarceration

Waco

Ruby Ridge

Oklahoma City

Bin Laden

The 2000 Presidential Election

9/11

Occupation of Iraq

Afghanistan

2008 Economic Meltdown

Universal Health Care

Afghanistan: Again

COVID

2016 Presidential Election

1/6 Insurrection

Immigration Policies

 

                  A fairly long and consistent record of failures. It would be useful to ask, Why? Obviously, the failures are not aberrational but are endemic of our political elites and to a political system that is damaged and is damaging. Exceptionally so? Probably not.

The Political and the Psychologically Damaged

 

The Political: The Psychologically Damaged Healing the Psychologically Damaged

Peter Schultz

 

                  The following passages are from a book entitled Deadly Paradigms, by D. Michael Shafer: In 1961, JFK initiated a “new Program of Action” in Vietnam, labeled the “Presidential Program for Vietnam.” That is, South Vietnam. It called for “initiating on an accelerated basis … actions of a political, military, economic, psychological and covert character, designed to create … a viable and increasingly democratic society and to keep Vietnam free.” [p. 249]

 

                  This is truly mind-boggling stuff, that goes well beyond naivete and turns into narcissism, that is, into a psychological disorder. Only a narcissist would think it possible to remake a society employing such programs and doing so “on an accelerated basis.” In other words, the psychologically disordered were to be managing, reforming, even healing the psychologically disordered.

 

                  But think about it: Isn’t this characteristic of the political generally? The psychologically sick undertake to manage, reform, render healthy the psychologically sick. Isn’t that, for example, the point of the book, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest? A “big nurse” and others, who are psychologically damaged themselves, are to undertake the project of healing the psychologically sick. The psychologically damaged like JFK, LBJ, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Donald Trump will manage and heal the psychologically damaged people who elected them. It seems like sheer madness to me. 

Deadly Paradigms

 

 

 

Deadly Paradigms

Peter Schultz

From Deadly Paradigms: “President Kennedy made counterinsurgency a priority….As General Lemnitzer…put it…Kennedy wanted ‘ nothing less that a dynamic national strategy - an action program designed to defeat the Communists without recourse to…nuclear war; one designed to defeat subversion where it had already erupted, and…to prevent it taking initial root…a strategy of both therapy and prophylaxis.’” 

The comical, mythical elements herein: “dynamic national strategy,” (oh how wonderful to be dynamic nationally!), an action program (because action is always preferable to inaction, be proactive always!), “defeat” “Communists,” (who are identifiable easily and are always defeatable), no nuclear war (of course no nukes!), defeat “subversion” (however defined and of course never justified), after it appeared or before it appeared, being both therapeutic and prophylaxis (hence, counterinsurgency as condom foreign policy!). 

General Lemnitzer asserted this with a straight face, believing it to be possible, and no one laughed! Oh, the madness! If Pascal’s take on Aristotle and Plato was correct - that they saw the political as a madhouse - then those guys got it right. And still very few laugh. The essence of the political: making madness socially acceptable! Ala’ WW I, Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Pearl Harbor, Vietnam, GWOT, war on drugs, etc.