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.