Thoughts on Elkins "Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire"

 

Thoughts on Elkins’ Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire

Peter Schultz

 

Here are some thoughts that arose as I was reading Caroline Elkins very fine history of the British Empire, mainly pertaining to understanding the political.

 

#1

Which more accurately describes the political: Elkins’ “systematized violence” or “pathological violence?” The former carries with it justifications: it’s ordered violence created by rational persons and bureaucratized. The latter calls it what it actually is, “sickness.” 

Elkins tends to rationalize the Mau Mau: “It was a rational response of rural people seeking to understand the enormous socioeconomic and political changes taking place…while attempting to respond collectively to new and unjust realities.” (547) 
Sounds like the Kikuyu would be open to and would profit from seminars on their situation! 

Politics, given its injustices, produces rage; and did so both in the Brits in Kenya and in the Kikuyu. Both sides responded pathologically, which is to say they responded politically. The result: pathological violence. 

“Going postal:” pathological violence creating more pathological violence. Is telling people that they have a constitutionally guaranteed right to weapons a good idea? Kirk’s fate might be taken to indicate it isn’t. Oh, there’s that irony again!  

 

#2

What Elkins labels “legalized lawlessness” is more accurately called “pathological lawlessness.” This is similar to her “systematized violence,” which I think should be labeled “pathological violence.” Elkins has trouble getting to the point of recognizing that the political is the arena of the pathological. But I believe it is this recognition that is the gateway, so to speak, to political philosophy. The absence of this recognition is what characterizes “believers,” those who affirm the political like Carl Schmidt or Alexander Hamilton, et. al. The absence of this recognition is what distinguishes political thought from political philosophy. 

Insofar as the political is the arena of the pathological, is it wise to guarantee that people have a constitutional right to weaponize? Is it wise, generally, to militarize such an arena? And Aristotle’s description of the best location for a polis as one that requires only a minimal amount of militarization is a reflection that he too understood the political as pathologically violent and lawless, intrinsically so. ( Austen’s Wickham is a reflection that she understood this as well., as well as her joke about anal sex among the navy’s “rear admirals!”) 

Just sayin’. 

Politics: Normalizing the Abnormal

 

Politics: Normalizing the Abnormal

Peter Schultz

 

 

Oh, but it is normal; it's the normal continuation of normal politics by normal means. 

 

Remember 1963? 1968? Remember the Bay of Pigs, JFK/Dallas, RFK, MLK, Malcolm X, Chicago 1968, Kent State, Jackson State, George Wallace, Fred Hampton, My Lai, the Phoenix program, Watergate, Reagan shot, Ford shot at, 9/11, the War on Terror, ”MIssion Accomplished,” 20+ years in Afghanistan, 1/6? 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/07/opinion/trump-senate-democrats-shutdown.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Daydream Believers

 

Daydream Believers

Peter Schultz

 

                  A question occurred to me as I was reading Fred Kaplan’s very good book, Daydream Believers, where he was critiquing George W. Bush’s understanding of the world. Bush was not concerned about creating vacuums in other nations because “the natural forces of freedom would fill” the vacuum. “Gaza would become a democracy almost of its own accord.” [p. 164]

 

                  My question was: Are there vacuums politically speaking? Well, no, because we humans are, as Aristotle argued, “political animals.” Hence, not only is it necessary to cultivate democracies, or any other political order, it is a cultivation that requires some sophistication, to say the least. Not only can existence be arranged; it must be arranged and in that task politics is architectonic.  

 

                  Moreover, because we humans are not only political animals but while history might bend toward justice, politics, the political, bends toward extremism. Extremism is intrinsic to politics, to all regimes, and therefore constitutes the abiding issue for human societies, even for those labeled “civilized.” Hence, T.E. Lawrence’s take on daydream believers:

 

“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity. But the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible.” [Seven Pillars of Wisdom]

Politics and Political Language

 

Politics and Political Language

Peter Schultz

 

 

• "'Political language - and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists - is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.  One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one's own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase...into the dustbin where it belongs'" (Elkins 431).

 

Politics and its language make lies seem truthful and murder respectable. So, politicians who are killing children and other civilians speak of “collateral damage,” as if that justifies the death, the incineration of the innocent for reasons, allegedly, of national security. It is interesting and not often enough commented upon that politics turns decent, law-abiding humans into killers, as in one case that I know of, turning a Boy Scout into a Vietnamese-killing Marine. It turns out that the “distance” that separates a Boy Scout from a killer is no further than a challenge to “ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.” Quite a few answered that question by signing up to kill Vietnamese.

 

I am reading a book entitled A Nation Diagnosed: Trump Derangement Syndrome and the Politics of Losing Our Minds, by Wade T. Reason. Reason’s analysis of TDS leads him to conclude that “It [has] become a feature of political life – not a bug.” But what Reason fails to emphasize enough is that TDS is merely a feature of political life; it is not an anomaly, and it is not unique the era of Trump. TDS is just a way of disguising the character of normal politics, that the political arena is composed of allies and enemies, and that enemies are always seen as “deranged.”

 

As a reflection of this, the left, the resisters also engage in TDS, making Trump into an existential enemy. As a comedian said: “We didn’t want to beat Trump. We needed him.” Exactly. Both the Trumpers and the resisters need enemies, especially existential enemies, just as the US and the USSR needed existential enemies after WW II. So, the Trump Derangement Syndrome was not derangement at all. It was just a label given to what is normal politics. Or, perhaps, TDS was and is derangement, meaning that politicians are, normally, deranged, sick, or narcissistic. So, when Reason says that TDS “normalizes the abnormal,” the implication is that politics, normal politics, “normalizes the abnormal.” For example, the bombings of Nagasaki and Dresden, the Holocaust, the Vietnam war, the British repression in Kenya, 9/11, Bush’s worldwide War on Terror, 1/6.

 

As Reason points out, “Trump didn’t divide America – he reflected it.” “The culture wars didn’t begin with Trump. Neither did political polarization, racial tension, class resentment, or distrust of the media.” As Ta-Nehist Coates put it: “Donald Trump is a symptom, not the cause, A mirror, not a mastermind.” In other words, Trump is merely a reflection of politics as it exists in the United States these days. “We weren’t one country waiting for unity. We were two countries sharing a flag. [Trump] stopped pretending otherwise.”

 

Politicians and Poets

 

Politicians and Poets

Peter Schultz

 

 

Politicians seek to conquer, while poets seek to cultivate. Politicians militarize, while poets humanize. Politicians moralize, while poets philosophize. 

Politicians and poets live in different worlds or live in the world differently. The choice is yours. 

Another Crazy Thought

 

Another Crazy Thought

Peter Schultz

 

 

I recently contrasted the madhouse paradigm with the slaughterhouse paradigm. But what if they are actually joined together? Those who fail to recognize the madhouse that is politics end up creating slaughterhouses in their attempts to bring order into the madhouse. This is something the Realists, the Power Brokers, the Masters of the Universe, don’t understand. 

(And this was why Kesey disowned the movie version of his book “One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest:” the movie humanized the Big Nurse. The book did not.) 

Trump’s moves in DC will become increasingly oppressive as he attempts to bring order to the madhouse of DC life. 

A significant delusion: that life is intrinsically orderly or that order is “the default” setting for humans and so it’s possible, even somewhat easy, to “restore” order. Not so much. All order is imposed, so all order(s) is/are precarious, intrinsically so.  Beware the slaughterhouses.

The Love of Fame

The Love of Fame

Peter Schultz

 

Hamilton wrote in the Federalist about “The love of fame, the ruling passion of the noblest minds….” What if Hamilton was wrong and the love of fame is not always an indication, a characteristic of a noble mind? What if the love of fame is characteristic of narcissistic minds, of those who think of themselves as great, as visionaries, ala’ Napoleon, Churchill, T. Roosevelt, W. Wilson, George W. Bush? 

 

And then what is to ensure that those “great projects” that Hamilton tells us the lovers of fame undertake will be as concerned with the common good as with satisfying their passion, the lust for fame? Recall Lincoln: the really great ones would enslave freemen or free slaves in order to satisfy their love of fame, their desire for “immortality.” And after all, the founders reconciled themselves to slavery in order to gain their fame. And as Walter Karp reminds us, Woodrow Wilson took the US into WW I, thereby helping to destroy the republic, in order to claim the fame of waging the war to end all wars. Even President McKinley succumbed to the temptation to wage war in order to make America and himself great. 

 

Isn’t this what Franklin was warning the constitutional convention about in his remarks on not paying presidents? Ambition and avarice combined are political nitro glycerin, with the result that the presidency will not attract men of peace. And certainly, the lovers of fame seem to be attracted to war and war-like politics. Absent war can presidents achieve greatness, fame? Hence, the allure of war. 

 

In the end, we end up with Trump, who confirms that the love of fame is not only consistent with narcissism but even fortifies it. Trump’s narcissism has flourished in the presidency. And of course Trump lives amidst other narcissists, who are also seeking fame. is this what Madison meant when he wrote in the Federalist that ambition should be used to check ambition because relying on virtue is never sufficient? Narcissists checking narcissists. What could go wrong? 

 

People and Politics

 

People and Politics

Peter Schultz

 

People want answers and that’s what politicians and politics promise to provide. Regarding abortion, e.g., pro-life and pro-choice provide answers, clear, concise, easily defensible answers. 

Try an alternative: pro-love. Doesn’t provide answers but rather raises questions. And the answers to these questions aren’t clear, concise, or easily defensible. Hence, this alternative will never be viable politically.  

Questions make almost all people discontent. Almost all people want answers, clear, concise, easily defensible answers, answers they would die and even kill for. Ambivalence, however appropriate it is, is not a political or a moral virtue. Ambivalence implies that asking the right questions is more important than clear, concise, and easily defensible answers. 

[Academic postscript: This has helped me understand Aristotle’s Politics, which has the appearance of a mishmash, of parts obscure in themselves and that don’t seem to fit together. Maybe that is part of Aristotle’s teaching about politics: clear, concise, and easily defensible political answers are available, but those answers don’t reflect the character of the political, an arena where ambivalence is not only appropriate but beneficial. You may know the truth, but it won’t set you free. That’s the deal.] 

Operation Trump

 

Operation Trump

Peter Schultz

 

                  Trump is an almost perfect cover for a deeply corrupt political order, an order that exists and is arranged to benefit the few at the expense of the many. With Trump as president and as a leading political figure, that the real problem is a deeply corrupt political order disappears behind calls for Trump’s impeachment and his hyper conspiratorial view of politics and his rhetoric. In terms of hiding the thoroughly corrupted political order, the louder, the shriller the charges against Trump, the better.

 

                  For example, focusing on Trump, the fact that twice in the last few presidential elections, candidates who lost the popular vote won the presidency seems unimportant. That the people’s will was denied, in 2000 and again in 2016, is not deemed a defect in the reigning political order that needs fixing. Why should it be when Trump can be blamed for our failings and when, overall, that the few are favored over the many seems of marginal importance given the dangers created by Trump? That presidential elections favor the few, e.g., the wealthy few, over the many is obvious to pretty much everyone. But so long as Trump is center stage, such favoritism seems relatively unimportant.

 

                  As a result, the corruption, the rule of the few at the expense of the many, goes on unabated, serving and rewarding those who are profiting from this corruption. And those protesting Trump most loudly are, ironically, “co-conspirators” in helping to maintain our deeply corrupt political order.

The Problem of Civilization

 

The Problem of Civilization

Peter Schultz

 

                  In accounting for the savagery of the British Empire, Arnold Toynbee said that “There has been a ‘racialization’ of the division of those inside and those outside the civilized pale.” [Elkins, 180] While Toynbee’s assessment is not wrong, it obfuscates another, deeper problem, viz., the civilized pale itself. That problem reveals itself as hierarchy, in this case a hierarchy based on the British conviction of Britain’s superiority.

 

                  Hierarchy is civilization’s response to what is seen as chaos. In fact, politics may be described as navigating between chaos and hierarchy, with the civilized embracing hierarchy, a hierarchy that ultimately justifies imperialism, war, repression, despotism, and even inhumanity. In other words, whether racialized or not, civilization is problematic, at the very least. Hence, “the legacy of violence” of the British Empire, as Caroline Elkins calls her history of that empire. But it was not only a legacy of violence; it was also a legacy of savagery and inhumanity, both justified in the name of civilizing the Empire and the world.

 

                  However, civilization, hierarchy can be “beautified” via justice, friendship, caring, poetry, music, and love. That is, by embracing the erotic. This beautification does not, however, subvert hierarchy but it may be said to clothe it, to dress it up with grace. Because hierarchy is not subverted or overthrown, it remains strong, even predominant. Insofar as hierarchy remains unquestioned, imperialism, war, repression, despotism, and even inhumanity flourish, as happened in the British Empire. Triumphant nationalism is the soil in which imperialism, with its attendant features, takes root and thrives. Hierarchy bespeaks the onset and fortification of a military, despotic empire.

 

                  Regarding the other “extreme” of political life, the chaos can be beautified or seen as beautiful. There is beauty embedded in the chaos, the beauty of freedom, of adventure(s), of surprise, of mystery, of the magical, and of the inspirational. Again though, chaos, although containing beauty, is not subverted by the beautiful. Chaos persists, fortifying the appeal of hierarchy, of civilization, which seem necessary for survival. But “what if what you do to survive kills the things you love,” viz, the beautiful things, and you find your “God filled soul fill[ed] … with devils and dust?” [Springsteen, Devils and Dust]

 

                  Civilization is dangerous, however desirable or necessary it might seem. If you doubt that, just ask Socrates, Huck Finn, Billy Budd, Billy Pilgrim, Sheriff Bell, or the counselor.

The Duplicity of Leadership

 

The Duplicity of Leadership

Peter Schultz

 

                  The concept, heavily invested in, of “leadership” disguises the fact that leaders don’t share the aspirations of those they are leading. As a result, leadership leads to politics of duplicity, by which leaders seek to manipulate issues they, but not the people, embrace. LBJ, e.g., practiced duplicity when leading the nation into war in Vietnam, as did George W. Bush in leading the nation into invading and occupying Iraq after 9/11. Trump is doing the same thing as he leads the nation toward “greatness,” duplicitously inventing and fabricating crises that suit his ambitions and fortify “the swamp” he promised to drain.

 

                  But Trump is not an anomaly. He is just practicing the art of leadership as LBJ, George W. Bush, and others did. These practitioners are insecure, however, because they always have to fear the people will reject them and their aspirations and expose them as “cunning shits” or “empty suits.” Hence, the need to protest “state secrets,” the most important of which is our leaders’ duplicity.

 

                  Fabricating wars is an excellent, and hence a frequently chosen leadership option. William McKinley did it, Teddy Roosevelt recommended and did it, Woodrow Wilson did it in Mexico and US involvement in WW I, LBJ did it in Vietnam, Reagan did it in Nicaragua, Bush I did it in Panama and Iraq, Clinton did it in Iraq, Bush II did it in Afghanistan and Iraq, Obama did it in Afghanistan, and Trump did it in Ukraine and Iran. Wars are relatively easy to fabricate and then to use to distract the people from domestic issues the elites dare not resolve, all the while instigating a rabid, flag-waving patriotism that is actually a kind of pacification.

 

                  Wars win “hearts and minds,” but only the hearts and minds of those who are attacking, not of those being attacked. Even in defeat or failure, those hearts and minds are won, as JFK learned after the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Even an abysmal failure like the Vietnam War could be successfully described by Ronald Reagan as “a noble adventure.” Hence, wars are crucial to the art of leadership. In German, “leader” is “der Fuhrer,” who promises “Deutschland über alles!“ Hitler made Germany great, for a little while anyway. “Funny how falling feels like flying…. for a little while.” Leaders have discovered this and so have welcomed being honored, even immortalized in statuary and otherwise.

 

                  Alexander Hamilton wrote that the love of fame was the leading passion of the noblest minds. However, he failed to see that that passion was delusional and led, therefore, to duplicitous politics.

Politics and the Irrational

 

Politics and the Irrational

Peter Schultz

 

                  Banning care for the transgendered illustrates how politics privileges the irrational.

 

                  Opposition to “transgendering” is one thing, while opposition to providing or allowing care the transgendered is something else altogether. The former is not irrational, however small-minded or fearful it might be. The latter is irrational because denying care to the transgendered is an attack not on the phenomenon but on particular human beings. It is like a war on drugs, which is actually a war that targets drug users, not drugs. Denying the transgendered care targets particular human beings, even though targeting such people will not and cannot eliminate transgendering. Although politically popular, It is futile, irrational action.

 

                  But such irrationality is what politics fosters. Why? Because politics is all about power and the desire to overpower, dominate others. The others are deemed “enemies” who must be defeated, crushed, or dominated. Thus, the transgendered, politically speaking, have become enemies, irrationally identified as threats to the rest of us and needing to be crushed, defeated, even eliminated. These attacks are legislated and disguised as “law enforcement” or “law and order.”

 

                  Even though so disguised, however, they are still attacks in a war on the transgendered, illustrating that however irrational, war is intrinsic to politics. War is intrinsic to politics, even when irrational. Thus, politics has transformed the transgendered into enemies of the state, reaching an apex of irrationality. So it goes in the political arena where irrationality reigns supreme.   

The Trump Problem, War, and the Honorable

 

The “Trump Problem,” War, and the Honorable

Peter Schultz

 

 

From Caroline Elkins' book, Legacy of Violence: “the English temperament [embraced] sanctimonious self-righteousness which … indulged in injustice and selfish spoliation … under a cloak of virtue, benevolence, and unselfish altruism.” [212, Elkins]

What’s the Trump problem? How should he be understood? Is the most problematic thing his being anti-democratic or is it his being sanctimoniously self-righteous, embracing injustice and cruelty under the cloak of virtue and justice? The critique of Trump as being anti-democratic is a partisan critique. He doesn’t support democratic policies. The latter though is less superficial, less partisan than the former. It cuts deeper, revealing roots of American politics that are beyond partisanship and more problematic. For both party elites, a sanctimonious self-righteousness is a sign and a source of virtue, of patriotism, of being a good American. California’s governor Newsom is as self-righteously sanctimonious as Trump. And that sanctimonious self-righteousness is the most problematic characteristic of our political order, not partisanship. A partisan critique of Trump does not cut deeply enough to reveal the most problematic characteristic of the American political order. 

Hugo: War “is the second and more powerful of the two normal means employed the governments to achieve the ends [desired]. Diplomacy is the other means, but diplomacy by itself would be weak and ineffectual; war is its reinforcement, its sanction, and its alternative.” But diplomacy doesn’t have the same moral appeal that war has. War is taken as a sign and a source of virtue, of righteousness because when you’re willing to kill human beings, you know and have proof that you’re righteous. Killing is proof or your righteousness. Thus, such killing has “a moral effect” and is universally praised.

“Honor killings, often thought of by Americans as the practice of primitive societies, are engaged in by US elites as well. And so it is little wonder that persons seeking to be honorable are attracted to, seduced by war, especially patriotic wars. And, so, the distance between the Boy Scouts and war, for example, isn’t all that far.” 

Addendum: There are those who seek to be honorable and there are those who seek to be honored. For the latter being honorable is not enough. They need to be honored as well. Those seeking the honorable and those seeking to be honored are very different beings, and lead to very different ways of being in the world, e.g., the life of the good person and the life of the good citizen. For the ambitious, being honorable is not as important as being honored. And the most ambitious may be said to lust after fame because they see it as a kind of immortality. And on that quest, the honorable will often need to be and often will be sacrificed.

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. 
 

The Virtue of Simplicity

 

The Virtue of Simplicity

Peter Schultz

 

                  Adam Hochschild has written an excellent book, King Leopold’s Ghost, which has one flaw. He wants to blame what happened in the Congo under King Leopold of Belgium on a particular kind of politics. At one point, he says “The Congo offers a striking example of the politics of forgetting. Leopold … went to extraordinary lengths to try to erase potentially incriminating evidence for the historical record.” [p. 294] At another point, he wrote that “One reason I wrote this book was to show how profoundly European colonialism has shaped the world we live in.” [318]

 

                  Hochschild is aware he is simplifying history: “it is wrong to blame the problems of today’s Africa entirely on colonialism.” [318] Other phenomena have been important, for example, the status of women, “the deep-seated cultural tolerance and even hero-worship of strongmen like Mobutu,” as well as “the long history of indigenous slavery [that’s] still deeply and disastrously woven into the African social fabric.” [318]

 

                  But while Hochschild criticizes simplicity, it may be that more simplicity, not less, would be illuminating. It is not particular kinds of politics, either a politics of forgetting or the politics of colonialism, that are to blame. Rather, it is politics simply. Focusing on particular kinds of politics as root causes of inhuman consequences in Africa obscures or “disappears” the political itself as the root cause. And just as it is incorrect to think that any particular kind of politics has caused Africa’s problems, so too it is incorrect to think that there is a particular kind of politics that can solve those problems. The political is inseparable from imperialism, slavery, and war, which is reflected by the facts that “The rebel militias, the Congo’s African neighbors, and many of their corporate allies have little interest in ending the country’s Balkanization.” [317] Nor should we be surprised insofar as “For western Europe to move from the Holy Roman Empire … to its current patchwork of nations took centuries of bloodshed, including the Thirty Years War, whose anarchic multisidedness and array of plundering outsiders remind one of the Congo today.” [318] Centuries of bloodshed which, of course, continue today and not only in the Congo or in Africa but that occur among the “current patchwork of nations” world-wide.

 

                  That we readily speak of “political problems” does not mean that we should assume there are “political solutions” for those problems, any more than because we speak of “moral problems” we should assume there are “moral solutions.” Centuries of bloodshed should alert us to the naivete of such thinking.

The Road to War: Honor

 

The Road to War: Honor

Peter Schultz

 

                  The road to war, politically speaking, is paved with good, i.e., honorable intentions. Hence, making war is so much more popular than making peace or avoiding war. It is the nature of the political.

 

                  In his book, What’s the Matter with Kansas, Thomas Frank offered an assessment of conservative voters in Kansas that led to the conclusion that those voters had voted against their own self-interests. Hence, they had voted irrationally, implying that they and the conservative movement were beyond rational appeals and hopelessly askew politically.

 

                  But that these voters were not voting irrationally is evident when it is recognized that, politically speaking, “means” often become or are “ends.” Those voters perceived themselves as voting honorably, as voting for “the honorable” as opposed to and even at the expense of their self-interests. So, they had demonstrated their virtue(s), their patriotism, their good citizenship in that they preferred the common good to their self-interests. As such, voting is not simply a means to advance one’s self-interest; it is an end in itself, a demonstration of one’s virtue(s), political and otherwise.

 

                  This is a reminder that honor is a commodity that easily trumps self-interest politically. Self-interest may dictate abandoning losing causes, like wars, but honor does not. In fact, honor dictates persisting even in losing causes, including wars, because such persistence demonstrates one’s virtue(s). Appeasement based on calculation can always be made to seem dishonorable. Which is why making war is so much more popular than making peace via appeasement.

 

                  When trying to get the United States out of Vietnam, JFK used statistics, duplicitously as it turned out, to persuade people that it was in the interests of the United States to get out or stay out of Vietnam militarily. Apparently, JFK knew that his statistics gave an inaccurate picture of the military and political situations in Vietnam. And as it turned out to be the case, Kennedy’s prospects of keeping the US out of Vietnam dimmed considerably.

 

                  Additionally, though, in arguing as he did in favor of what he said was statistically validated “progress,” JFK had, implicitly, embraced the war’s legitimacy, that it was an honorable war. If opposing communism was honorable, as almost all Americans thought then, the war was honorable. So even if it were not going well and even if South Vietnam itself was not essential to the national security of the United States, the war itself, as opposed to its possible outcomes, was honorable. To oppose the war would be to act dishonorably. And were a president to act so dishonorably, unconscionable consequences might be forthcoming.

Thought Experiment: Killing JFK

 

Thought Experiment: Killing JFK

Peter Schultz

 

                  Why was it necessary to assassinate JFK? That is, “necessary” for national security reasons?

 

JFK was committed to abandoning South Vietnam, which would have compromised US national security – not because the existence of South Vietnam itself fortified US national security. But because US war-making fortified US national security and did so even though South Vietnam would not survive. This is what Nixon understood and why he felt justified in extending the war for the duration of his first term, to achieve “peace with honor.” Continuing the war was crucial to US national security because it was what US “honor” required. To cut and run would have been “dishonorable,” thereby compromising US national security.

 

                  “US national security” was/is a euphemism for “US honor.” It was honorable to continue the war, no matter how badly it was going and dishonorable not to do so. Doing the honorable thing, even though futilely destructive, was politically requisite. Honor is a political virtue even when it leads destruction and death in what seem to be futile causes.  And dishonor is a political vice even when it leads to peace because it is “appeasement.” In politics, means are just as important ends. This is one reason why politics is so violent and deadly.

 

                  Making war always appears honorable, while appeasement always appears dishonorable. And presidents are constitutionally inclined toward acting honorably because the office itself privileges the honorable just as much as monarchies privilege honor. Because JFK was prepared to act dishonorably, he was compromising the presidency itself. Such a compromise would undermine US national security, which depends upon, as everyone knows, there being strong presidents, i.e., powerfully acting presidents. The honorable act powerfully, not timidly. They do not appease; they make war. Insofar as JFK was unwilling to do that, he was compromising US national security. Hence, his removal was necessary.

A Few Reflections on Aristotle and the Political

 

A Few Reflections on Aristotle and the Political

Peter Schultz

 

                  Some views on Aristotle: “Moreover, he thought that such knowledge [of human actions] is the necessary prerequisite for politics because politics has as its end the making of virtuous citizens.”

 

                  “For Aristotle, the science of politics was the architectonic science, the master science, because its end, the good for man, is employed in directing political affairs and is ultimately directed at the education of citizens…. Nevertheless, it is not sufficient merely to live. Man must live well, that is, live as a human moral agent. As the science of human action, political science enables man to fulfill this aspiration.”

 

                  So: Humans aspire to live well; that is, to live as “human moral agents.” To fulfill this aspiration, humans turn to political science, to politics because “politics has as its end the making of virtuous citizens.”

 

                  And, of course, this assumes that “virtuous citizens” are “human moral agents.” But Aristotle explicitly denies this identification when he asserts that a good person is virtually always distinguishable from a good citizen or that it is almost never the case that a good citizen is also a good person. Being either a good person or a good citizen seems to be a choice humans have to make. Does political science as the architectonic science, the master science illuminate that choice? Or does political science so understood obscure the necessity of making that choice? It could be that understanding politics as architectonic, as commanding is in fact not illuminating, but blinding. And it is a blindness that often leads to fanaticism, the fanaticism of living well as “human moral agents.” Extremism in the defense of virtue is no vice.

 

                  So: What was Aristotle doing? Could it be that he was – as he did with regard to slavery or to the origin of the polis – laying out the conventional wisdom, the citizen’s or the political wisdom in order to expose its flaws? As some have argued, Aristotle does adopt the conventional or citizen’s view of politics, but he does so to expose it, and not to endorse, embrace, or affirm it.