Language has dangerous power to reframe a problem in terms that will lend legitimacy to absolutist (or "zero-tolerance") solutions. This is the climate, day, and age of The Moral Equivalent of War.
Now I haven't read the book of the same title (I started it...it's a little dry...), but the idea is clear, and has wide currency. Establishing a problem as a moral equivalent to war is a sort of holy grail for policymakers: to spin the struggle they're selling, to get us to buy it at a level where we accept that "all is fair" in that fight, because it is war - or the moral equivalent of war. And so it cries out for all means necessary.
Once we accept that a thing Not War can be equivalent to the horror, tragedy, degredation and depredations of war, we soon find how easy it is to declare as many as we want to. Any cause at all can be trumped up to this level, if only people are willing to buy the tradeoff that is being sold.
Much is at stake in that tradeoff. Declared wars on drugs, terror, and obesity are far more than rhetorical. The insidious attempt to get people to believe the scale of the problem is one that justifies all means pays off big, for the demagogues and policy jockeys. Once you accept the scale of the problem justifies all means, next you may find that unless you have better means handy, you will have to accept their means.
An atrocity on our side? Ahhh that's justified, because what we're fighting is worse, and we "have to." Liberty? Oh, we needed to curtail liberty, for now, because something more important came up. Nah, those protections against surveillance? You weren't really doing anything with those. We need the latitude - don't you WANT the illusion of safety? No, you can't get the effective over-the-counter cold remedy anymore, people were using it to make drugs. Don't you WANT the appearance of something being done? No, you can't enjoy your favorite meal out anymore - the chef has been legally prohibited from adding salt during the preparation of the meal. PEOPLE ARE DYING OF BAD HEALTH! YOUR YUM is MURDERING THEM! Tighten your belts, buy war bonds and keep the home fires burning. YOU MUST ACCEPT THE MEANS WE PROPOSE. Our means won't achieve the end we say, but they will achieve yours.
The end of your life, maybe. Liberty, definitely. Pursuit of happiness, mostly. Our means will achieve our most cherished ends: to increase our control. To increase the approved uses of power - publicly approved, nothing sneaky! To win acceptance of the idea that we, government, need to be able in a crisis to void any human being necessary, for the greater good. And then, to expand the idea of crisis until it covers...whatever is necessary. Once you've allowed one moral equivalent to war, you'll allow them all.
Or maybe you don't realize the magnitude of this crisis! 250,000 to 300,000 people die every day. Something must be done. Don't worry, we'll tell you what must be done. You signed away your veto power years ago, didn't you? "Greatest good for the greatest people"? As decided by...well, who did you think?
As decided by those in charge. In crisis, we'll decide the greatest good for you. We've all agreed on "whatever is necessary." Never mind your rights, or anyone else's. All tough calls will be made exactly as we please. This is WAR, people.
We know what to do. All you needed to do was consent that the people don't. Don't know what to do. Aren't competent to know what to do. An individual can't control itself. It needs to be controlled. Happy to help.
Oh, we know exactly what to do in every situation: whatever we want. Whatever we say: whatever is necessary. Fire up the Permanent Emergency Code, start prosecuting people for antisocial sex! Okay.
Reality break.
There is no moral equivalent to war.
None. Nothing on earth remotely approaches to that horror. The only way to get something to approach to it is if you can convince people to go along with....whatever is necessary. If you can do that, you will be able to make a very great many things quite as horrific as war itself. You will be able to make pretty much anything as horrific as war, with that kind of support from the public.
Where policymakers ratchet up stakes to the point the public at large abdicates personal responsibility (something all too many of them are all too willing to do), yielding up all the call to authority - you could characterize it as paternalism. To be more precise, call it a demagogracy. To be exact, there's no better term than tyranny.
4 comments:
Amen. Well put.
One quibble. I'm not sure the "war on terror" should be put in the same category as other bogus wars such as "wars" on drugs or obesity. "Terror," after all, does mean actual people out there actually intentionally attacking other people to kill them. The violence isn't metaphorical in these cases, it's real.
Now, it might still not be war if your def of war involves two nation-states who can declare it on each other. But ... it's a heck of a lot closer than those other two categories. And I'm not comfortable with the argument that because a nation-state has not declared war on us, we are not allowed to defend our ourselves from this kind of violence because it is exempt.
I think we hurt ourselves putting terror as a war, instead of what it is: organized crime. Or in some cases of course, disorganized crime. It is international crime, it's a law enforcement challenge to be sure but at it's heart it is not military. It's racketeering, with an aim of political power and public furor, rather than more mundane profits.
Hm. Never thought of it that way. But there is much in what you say. After all, our hope is that the perps will be dealt with by law enforcement in their own countries.
EXACTLY! The most disheartening, disgusting thing about war is, the highest civil authority you could appeal to is glad its citizens are trying to kill people. "Oh, no, we told them to do that." WHAT!?!?!?!!!
I mean yeah ok I get it that war has a very long and "proud" cultural tradition, but at this stage I feel like we can all admit that, like any other form of human sacrifice, it doesn't have the good further purpose to it, to justify us keeping DOING it.
I don't get war. It takes two to tango, I know, but I don't even get one of the parties deciding to push that onto the dance card, and I don't get their citizenry going along with it. Not any more. Maybe back in the glory days, when all it mostly was was some kind of pro sports team glory rah rah we're number one bull-shit for the whole family to cheer along to. "Our men beat up and killed a bunch of yours, and now we won your country! It's ours now, we won it. Fair and square, what a great year in sports!"
We've got better alternatives now for that. And terrorists are really to some extent, the worst warlike element that can no longer get a grown-up country to back them in a real campaign. So yes, they should be treated like criminals. It's what they are.
Hm. I put that whole thing in a very weird way, but it's too early on a Saturday for me to make a real coherent case. I guess it's better to get one's point out while it's sticking in the mind though. Later on I'll be stringing thoughts along beautifully, but I'd have forgotten by then exactly how I would have been intending to put that.
Good morning!
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