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The following is a paper on the nature of power and its consequences that I think all Americans should read to help them better understand what is going on in America today. It is entitled “de Jouvenal on Power” by Dr. Jude P. Dougherty, Dean Emeritus, School of Philosophy, The Catholic University Of America, Washington D.C. He discusses the ideas of one of the premier political and economic thinkers of the twentieth century, French philosopher and historian Bertrand de Jouvenal on the nature and abuse of power. Dr. Dougherty’s analysis provides insight and context to many of the sweeping changes we are seeing in America today. He has graciously consented to allow me to post his paper on my blog for Bakersfield readers. -- Richard Poirier 7/02/09 de Jouvenal on Power
by
Jude P. Dougherty
The Catholic University of America
Some cultural historian of the future, some future Gibbon will record the decline and fall of a once great nation, how it lost contact with its founding documents and with the spiritual traditions which animated its growth and how it succumbed to the siren song of a charismatic leader who led it to its dissolution in a visionary multi-cultural, universal democracy.
As our nation faces a questionable future, we may turn to the past to determine in its light what the future portents. Yet as some wag once put it, “The only thing we learn from the past is that nobody learns from the past.” An often neglected cultural historian is Bertrand de Jouvenal. His work, On Power: Its Nature and the History of Its Growth,(1) remains timely although it was written more than 60 years ago. Penned during the dark days of the Nazi occupation of France, the book was published at first opportunity in 1945 and appeared in English translation five years later. Up against the raw power of the German occupation, de Jouvenal, the philosopher and historian, was led to reflect on the nature of power in the abstract. He set out to examine the reasons why and the way in which Power grows in society. As he uses the word, “Power” is always capitalized; it may stand for authority, the ruler, or simply the drive for dominance. On Power can be read at different levels: as history, as prophecy, as political theory. Pierre Manent speaks of de Jouvenal’s “melancholy liberalism.” Given de Jouvenal’s sweeping command of history, he can make a case for every judgment or argument he advances in the book by citing numerous historical examples in support, yet his experience of Hitler’s rise to power in the 1930s cannot be discounted as a coloring factor. The book is a call for repeated stock taking, for an extended scrutiny of every new proposal that would extend the power of the state. Do not leap into the dark, he cautions his countrymen at war’s end; beware of letting “necessity,” the tyrant’s plea, have its way. Politics are about Power, he tells us. “It is in the pursuit of Utopia that the aggrandizers of state power find their most effective ally. Only an immensely powerful apparatus can do all that the preachers of panacea government promise.”(2) De Jouvenal believes that history shows that the acceptance of all-embracing state authority is largely due to the fatigue and despair brought about by war or economic disorder. The European may say that liberty is the most precious of all things, yet as the experience of France attests, it is not valued as such by people who lack bread and water. The will to be free in time of danger is easily extinguished. Liberty becomes a secondary need; the primary need is security. One of the pitfalls of democracy is its lack of accountability. The popular will is easily manipulated. It recognizes no authority outside itself that possesses the strength to limit it excesses. The dethronement of the old faith to which the state was accountable left an aching void in the domain of beliefs and principles, allowing the state to impose its own. Without accountability, democracy because of its centralizing, pattern-making, absolutist drive, can easily become an incubator of tyranny. The kings of old, the personification of power, were possessed of personality, possessed of passions good and bad. More often than not, their sense of responsibility led them to will “the good” for their people. Power within a democracy, by contrast, resides in a faceless and impersonal bureaucracy that claims to have no existence of its own and becomes the anonymous, impersonal, passionless instrument of what is presumed to be the general will. Writing in France when the Roosevelt administration was barely 10 year old, de Jouvenal feared the long range danger posed by the many regulatory commissions created by that administration. He saw that agencies possessing at once legislative, executive, and judicial control could operate largely outside of public control and become tyrannical. The extension of Power, which means its ability to control ever more completely a nation’s economy, is responsible for its ability to wage war. De Jouvenal asks, “Had Hitler succeeded Maria Theresa on the throne, does anyone suppose that it would have been possible to forge so many up to date weapons of tyranny?”(3) It is alas no longer possible for us to believe that by smashing Hitler and his regime we are eradicating the root of statist evil. “Can anyone doubt that a state which binds man to itself by every tie of need will be better placed to conscript them all, and one day consign them to the dooms of war? The more departments of life that Power takes over, the greater will be its material resources for making war.”(4) Even within a democracy the vast resources of the state are ripe for a dictator to seize. The bold, by discounting all risk, are positioned to seize all initiatives and become the rulers, while the timid run for cover and security. “The more complete the hold which the state gets on the resources of a nation, the higher, the more sudden, the more irresistible, will be the wave in which an armed community can break on a pacific one . . . . It follows that, in the very act of handing more of ourselves to the state, we may be fostering tomorrow’s war.”(5) Aristotle in the Politics reduced the variety of governmental structures that he had studied to three: monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy, recognizing that whatever shape a government takes, the essence of governing is Power. Force may establish Power, but once established, habit alone can keep it in being. A standing center of power which is obeyed by habit has, in the case of the state, the means of physical compulsion and is kept in being partly by its perceived strength, partly by the faith that it rules by right, and partly by the hope of its beneficence. The natural tendency of Power is to grow. Power is authority, and authority enables the expansion of authority.(6) Power, when dedicated to egalitarian pursuits must always be at war with capitalist authorities and despoil the capitalists of their accumulated wealth.(7) Its political objective consists in the demolition of a class that enjoys “independent means,” by seizing the assets of that class to bestow benefits on others. The result is a transfer of power from productive individuals to an unproductive bureaucracy that becomes the new ruling class, displacing that which was economically productive. The top state authorities, in alliance with the bottom (that is, the oppressed), squeeze out the middle (the Establishment) and in doing so progressively penetrate ever deeper into the personal lives of citizens. The point of course has been made by others, notably by F.A. Hayek, who called attention to the fact that an assault on property rights is not always apparent because it is carried out in the name of the common good, an appealing but elastic concept defined by those whose interest it serves. Given that all political activity is concerned with the acquisition of Power, both to seize and to maintain the organs of power, one must first gain control of public education at its early stages. A state monopoly in education has the ability to condition minds in childhood for its later years, thereby preparing popular opinion for the seizure by the state of even greater power.(8) De Jouvenal reminds his reader that in times past Western Europe has acknowledged that there is a superior will to the collective will of man and that there is an immutable law to which even civil authority must bow. Absent that acknowledgment, Power has free reign. “Even the police regime, the most insupportable attribute of tyranny, has grown in the shadow of democracy.”(9) France, disliking the minority rule of one person, deposed the crown and subsequently organized itself in the light of mass interests only to discover that when the majority holds power over a minority, justice within a democracy can be as elusive as it is in a despotic regime. De Jouvenal’s translator couldn’t resist a postscript , “One of the first casualties in times of discord is, as Thucydides noted, the meaning of words, and to the Thucydidean list of inexactitudes, it is time to add the current equation of liberty with security, the possession of a vote with liberty, and justice with equality …… of democratic with whatever the user of the word happens to approve. Humpty Dumpty has succeeded to the chair of more precise thinkers.”(10) Yves R. Simon, a French contemporary of de Jouvenal, born in 1903, the same year as de Jouvenal, (Simon in Cherbourg, de Jouvenal in the Champagne region), were both in their early thirties when they witnessed Hitler’s rise to power. At the outbreak of the war, Simon was a visiting professor in the United States. Remaining in America, he eventually became a member of the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. From this vantage point, Simon, like de Jouvenal, surveyed the ruins of Europe and in his own way addressed the conditions that brought it about.(11) Influenced by Pierre Joseph Proudhon, no friend of democracy, Simon was fearful that democracy, far from excluding a totalitarian regime, would in time actually give way to one. Absent appropriate checks and balances, the legal processes of the democratic state may work in such away as to allow the elimination of democracy. Of equal importance to whatever checks and balances may be prescribed by law or inscribed in a constitution, are those that are in a sense external to the political structure, namely, private property and independent management of resources. “When people acquiesce to the removal of all checks on the conquering expansion of the state, the totalitarian regime is firmly established.” Simon was convinced that an impersonal authority could not win such an irrational surrender but that a leader with charismatic talents could win approval.(12) We know from experience, he says, that where totalitarianism prevails, democracy has no chance, yet few men dare to voice the paradoxical consideration that democracy may become totalitarian. Totalitarian democracy, of course, would not be true democracy.(13) Proudhon maintains that the state, whether democratic or not, remains the state and of its very nature threatens all liberties and the very life of society. De Jouvenal has yet another concern. In a democratic regime, we are told, the general interest is represented by Power. From this postulate flows the corollary that no interest is legitimate that opposes the general interest. For this reason even local or particular interest must yield to the general interest, in de Jouvenal’s words, “bend its knee to Power.” Power, which is conceived as the incarnation of the general wish, cannot tolerate any group which embodies less general wishes and interests.(14) The distinguished American historian, Richard Pipes, a former director of Harvard’s Russian Research Center and a specialist in Russian history, reinforces de Jouvenal’s judgment that democratic procedures in electing government officials do not guarantee respect for individual rights. The right to property, he holds in his book entitled, Property and Freedom,(15) may be more important than the right to vote. Property of itself does not guarantee civil rights and liberties, but, historically speaking, it has been the most effective device for ensuring both. Property has the effect of creating an autonomous sphere on which, by mutual consent, neither the state nor society can encroach. In drawing a line between the public and the private sphere, it makes its owner, as it were, co-sovereign with the state. Even so, once “the elimination of poverty” becomes a state objective, the state is bound to treat property not as a fundamental right that it has an obligation to protect but as an obstacle to “social justice.”(16) Even in the most advanced democracies, the main threat to liberty may come not from tyranny but from the pursuit of socialist objectives. Liberty by its very nature, Pipes reminds us, is inegalitarian. Men differ in strength, intelligence, ambition, courage, perseverance, and all else that makes for success. There is no method to make men both free and equal. In the pursuit of equality, property rights may be subtlety undermined through taxation and government interference with business contracts as the state pursues its egalitarian objectives. Insofar as poor voters always and everywhere outnumber rich ones, in theory there are no limits to the democratic state’s drive to promote equality and to run roughshod over the rights of private property. “The rights to ownership,”(17) Pipes argues, “need to be restored to their proper place instead of being sacrificed to the unattainable ideal of social equality and all embracing economic security. . . . The balance between ‘civil’ and ‘property’ rights has to be readdressed if we care about freedom.” He continues, “The Civil Rights Act of 1964 gave the government no license to set quotas for hiring personnel by private enterprise or admitting students to institutions of higher learning, and yet the federal bureaucracy acts as if it had.”(18) Some fear, Pipes acknowledges, that some believe that the drive for social justice will inevitably lead to the destruction of democracy, yet he is not drawn to that pessimistic conclusion. He reasons that encroachments on property cannot advance relentlessly to their logical conclusion, the abolition of private property, because the most affluent are twice as likely to vote as the weakest. If he were addressing the subject today, some 10 years later, I am not sure he would be so sanguine. The prospect of government control of all aspects of the electoral process looms as the present administration is now positioned to mobilize the vote through federally funded organizations and through redistricting by taking direct control of the census. Not to be discounted is the distorting effect of a monolithic media able to advance its own political agenda in concert with officials who share its objectives. De Jouvenal addressed this issue when speaking of the ability of popular newspapers to awaken emotion, building or destroying concepts of right conduct. “From the day the first ha’penny paper was launched until now, the big circulation newspapers have never built up an ethic.”(19) In concluding paragraphs of his study, de Jouvenal writes, “It is impossible to condemn totalitarian regimes without also condemning the destructive metaphysics which made their happening a certainty.”(20) He asks, “What would the individualists and free thinkers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries say could they but see what idols a man must now worship, to what jackboot he must now pay homage; would not the superstition they fought seem to be the very acme of enlightenment, compared to the superstitions which have taken its place?”(21) No wonder Pierre Manent called him a “melancholy liberal.” End Notes:
1 Bertrand de Jouvenal, On Power: Its Nature and the History of Its Growth, with a Preface by D. W. Brogan; trans.
2 Paraphrased by D. W. Brogan in his Preface, pp. xvi-xvii.
3 Ibid., pp. 11-12.
4 Ibid., p. 12.
5 Ibid.
6 Ibid., p. 157.
7 Ibid., p. 171
8 Ibid., p. 11.
9 Ibid.
10 Ibid., p. 380.
11 Yves R. Simon, The Community of the Free, trans. From the original French by Willard R. Trask (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984).
12 Simon, op. cit., p. 149.
13 “The real question is whether democracy can lead to totalitarianism, whether a democratic regime can develop into a totalitarian regime, whether the democratic state may happen to work in such a way as to bring about the elimination of democracy and the establishment of totalitarianism,” (Simon, p. 150).
14 de Jouvenal, op. cit., p. 261.
15 Richard Pipes, Property and Freedom (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999).
16 Pipes, op. cit., p. 229.
17 Ibid., p. 287.
18 Ibid., p. 288..
19 de Jouvenal, op. cit., p.373. Ibid.,
20 Ibid., p. 377.
21 Ibid.
Unlike many presidential debate moderators, philosophers actually seek the truth wherever it may lead. The Second Annual International Society for MacIntyrean Philosophy conference was held this year in the United States, July 30 through August 3, 2008, at Saint Meinrad School of Theology in Indiana. It attracted philosophy, law and political science professors and graduate students from Europe and North America. This year's conference focus was Alasdair MacIntyre's published works on "Theory, Practice, and Tradition: Human Rationality in Pursuit of the Good Life." As a local Californian music industry financial executive, writer and philosopher invited to present a paper at the conference, I felt that all of the conference theme elements were necessarily included in any serious discussion of the impending presidential election. So I presented a rather bold paper entitled "The Presidential Candidates: Agents of Change or 'Partners' in maintaining the Status Quo?"
My presentation examined the societal significance of the presidential election within the context of political power in the modern liberal state. I approached this rather large topic by assessing whether philosopher MacIntyre's observation that a primary feature of the modern liberal state is to not align itself with any specific notion of what constitutes 'the human good' is in fact actually representative of its practices. I did this by contrasting MacIntyre's notion with the public statements of presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain. I began the presentation by stating, "Alasdair MacIntyre famously ends After Virtue by drawing qualified parallels between the conditions shortly before the Roman Empire's decline into the Dark Ages and conditions facing our own age in Europe and North America. One parallel is that people of good-will reach a turning point when they no longer believe that those in government possess civility and moral integrity -- virtues that communities value. "One difference MacIntyre points out is that Rome's adversarial barbarians were 'waiting beyond the frontiers,' whereas the barbarians of today 'have been governing us for quite some time.' This notion that we are governed by barbarians provides a new frame of reference we may use in evaluating the two major party candidates currently running for president of the United States. This paper examines five questions that may provide insight into today's political barbarians. "First, are those in political power maintaining a great public illusion that we have a representative government that protects and promotes the people's interests, while their only agenda is to instead protect and promote the interests of the ruling elite? Second, are opposing political candidates actually 'partners' - each needing the other as a target - in framing the ideological debate to limit public discussion of vital issues, thus maintaining the status quo as MacIntyre maintains? "Third, are elections for real? Do we have real choices in elections such as voting for 'none of the above' or whether we agree to be bound by laws passed in our name? Fourth, do candidates really support a neutral state, a pluralistic society and the necessary environment in which individuals can pursue the good life? Fifth, has either candidate articulated what constitutes 'the good'? Is there any chance that, if promoted properly, such a view could reach a public consensus?" Regardless of one's point of view of the candidates, this paper will provide the reader with new reference points in which to judge the candidates and the nature of politics in our time. The full presentation is available on Richard Poirier's Political and Philosophical Commentary blog on the Bakersfield link below. http://people.bakersfield.c... Postscript note: This article and the blogged paper that follows was posted before the election. A choice having now been made in the election makes this paper no less relevant in judging Obama's future actions and what becomes of our country as a result of his election. The issues remain the same notwithstanding who won the election. We now have four years to think about the choice that was made in this election and why it was made. Did we get fooled again? We can also start thinking about what can be done to change the election process itself and our available choices in the next election. That would be a real change. Read the full blog paper to fully understand what I mean by this.
The Presidential Candidates: Agents of Change or 'Partners' in maintaining the Status Quo? By July 31, 2008
Philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre famously ends After Virtue by drawing qualified parallels between the conditions shortly before the Roman Empire's decline into the Dark Ages and conditions facing our own age in Europe and North America. One parallel is that people of good-will reach a turning point when they no longer believe that those in government possess civility and moral integrity - virtues that communities value. One difference he points out is that Rome's adversarial barbarians were "waiting beyond the frontiers," whereas the barbarians of today "have been governing us for quite some time." (AV p. 263) This notion that we are governed by barbarians provides a new frame of reference we may use in evaluating the two major party candidates currently running for president of the United States. This paper will examine five questions that may provide insight into today's political barbarians. First, are those in political power maintaining a great public illusion that we have a representative government that protects and promotes the people's interests, while their only agenda is to instead protect and promote the interests of the ruling elite? Second, are opposing political candidates actually 'partners' - each needing the other as a target - in framing the ideological debate to limit public discussion of vital issues, thus maintaining the status quo as MacIntyre maintains? Third, are elections for real? Do we have real choices in elections such as voting for 'none of the above' or whether we agree to be bound by laws passed in our name? Fourth, do candidates really support a neutral state, a pluralistic society and the necessary environment in which individuals can pursue the good life? Fifth, has either candidate articulated what constitutes 'the good'? Is there any chance that, if promoted properly, such a view could reach a public consensus? Paper Every four years a number of highly ambitious Americans go through a ritual prior to the next presidential election. Most are members of the political elite who float trial balloons to friends and colleagues that they are considering a run for the presidency. Some are taken seriously, most are met with those knowing glances that translate into "go take a cold shower and then come to your senses." There are good reasons for their skepticism. Statistically it's a long shot at best. The amount of money, organization and political party support necessary for a viable campaign is prodigious. There are necessary personal qualities such as media and public relations skills, mastering political trade secrets, physical attractiveness, showmanship, personality and the proverbial 'fire in the belly' to physically and mentally go the distance. But the biggest obstacle is that one must first be a member in good standing of the most elite club in the world. The private club that actually runs the world. This club comprises the bosses of both major political parties, many heads of fortune 500 corporations, organized labor, evangelicals, the American intellectual elite 1, members of the Council on Foreign Relations, and what Mark Halperin political director of ABC News and John F. Harris national political editor of The Washington Post, call the "Gang of 500" that include "columnists, consultants, reporters, and staff hands" 2 who write the candidates' biographical profile which introduces the candidate to the general public through media outlets. Others include wealthy private donators, bundlers, the heads of special interest group PACS, and high profile entertainment celebrities who fund the campaigns. Regardless of one's high standing in this club, there are many members who think they have been waiting their turn longer and thus are more entitled to the club's vital nod of support. There are those who occasionally jump ahead of other members and go on to secure their party's presidential nomination. After the club's kingmakers conclude who has the best shot, within each party at winning the presidency, they commit their support to those two persons. Why do they do this? Because everyone prefers that a member of their own gang, Democrat or Republican, hold the reins of power for the foreseeable future. But regardless of which party's candidate wins the presidency, there is too much at stake in maintaining the established two party system for anyone to not go along with this 'universal understanding' accepted as a central tenet of their membership. This brings me to my first question. The Great Public Illusion Are those in political power maintaining a great public illusion that we have a representative government that protects and promotes the people's interests, while their real agenda is to protect and promote the interests of the ruling elite? As much as we would prefer to believe that we have a political system comprising a president and citizen legislators that represent the people's interest, empirically in spite of Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison's fondest hopes that our country would function as a democracy, that dream never materialized. From the beginning of time there have been ruling classes that function as oligarchies. Some ruling class families' influence may be short-lived, others run for generations. What all politicians know is to be a real player they must maintain their good standing with the ruling class. For in the end, no matter which party's candidate wins the White House, the only real 'change' that will happen is government will get bigger and spending will increase. It is simply a matter that its spending will switch from certain special interest groups to others. There will be no net gain in vital areas such as national poverty, illiteracy, public misconceptions, K1 through 12 education, health, crime or employment. These are not areas where government endeavors to make significant change. They are merely used as distraction topics in discussions. They are window-dressing for campaign speeches designed to maintain their base and attract uncommitted voters. In the current presidential campaign we hear the call for 'change'. Change is a concept in which one must ask: Relative to what? How do we measure its desirability and efficacy? Naturally, there will be small changes. Corporations will have more or less regulation and, if more, will pass their regulatory cost on to the public in higher prices. Our national defense will be stronger or weaker, but we will survive the next inevitable terrorist attack. The variable will be how many innocent Americans die and how extensive the impact on our nation's infrastructure? Finally, there will be a smaller or larger increase in the proportion of our population the government incarcerates in prisons. As Alasdair MacIntyre pointed out in his book review in The Review Of Politics, March 2007 of Marie Gottschalk's: The Prison and the Gallows: The Politics of Mass Incarceration in America, 2006, "The United States imprisons both a larger proportion of its residents-citizens and others-and a larger number of such residents than any other society, present or past, in human history. And this is a recent phenomenon. In 1974, about 100 residents per 100,000 of the population were in state or federal prison. By 2001, the number was over 450." 3 These statistics do not include those incarcerated in county jails. In California the rate of incarceration has reached epidemic proportion. Its state prison system has a design capacity to house 100,000 inmates. It is currently housing 172,727 inmates. Three federal judges are calling it an unconstitutional overcrowding condition and are considering imposing a cap on California's inmate population. But we'll survive these 'cruel and unusual punishment' trends too, because most Americans are either in denial of the crisis or support harsh mandatory sentencing laws as a means of assuaging their own angry emotions generated from their life disappointments or a great personal loss. So from the perspective of those running for president, the country will be fine regardless of their unfulfilled promises and the effects of new crises inevitably on the way. Capitalism will continue to fund the expanding welfare state and the voters will rebound from pie-in-the-sky campaign expectations. A presidential candidate's primary focus is to get elected, and once elected to maintain the political and economic interest of the ruling class. Failing to do so is the real definition of 'high crimes and misdemeanors'. This is the job-performance issue, in which the ruling class will not tolerate incompetence or pardon. Mere low public ratings are disregarded by everyone in the know as just part of the job description. Now on to question two. Political Partners Are opposing political candidates actually 'partners' - each needing the other as a target - in framing the ideological debate to limit public discussion of vital issues, thus maintaining the status quo as MacIntyre maintains? This is a theme that MacIntyre has maintained since 1976, when I had him as a professor at Boston University, in a course entitled "Morals, Politics and the Emergence of Modernity." He revisited this concept in his 2004 Notre Dame online paper "The Only Vote Worth Casting in November." 4 To flush this concept out, let's consider the contrasting positions of Senators John McCain and Barack Obama. Their positions fairly represent the standing positions of the Republican and Democrat Parties for the last century. McCain claims he wants to reduce the size of government and lower taxes so that individuals can spend their hard earned money as they see fit. Obama wants to increase the size of government and taxes to provide government solutions for problems encountered by poorer members of society through a redistribution of the nation's wealth. McCain views the war in Iraq as justified to minimize the growth of world terrorisms. Obama views the war as a drain on the government's resources. He sees tax revenues consumed on the war that could be better spent on new, liberal, domestic programs. Most of their speeches are less about what they will do as president than how terrible it will be if their opponent is elected. Most voters are more concerned about what will happen if their candidate is not elected than about how wonderful it will be if their candidate is elected. Some young, first-time, Obama supporters are an exception to this because they actually believe his speeches. Each candidate needs the other candidate as a target to justify their own ideas about how to save or change the country. MacIntyre once said that the Democrats' greatest fear is that the Republican Party will die out. Then the Democrat Party would have to split in two in order to have something to run against. 5 Now notice that when you listen to the rival arguments and debates of the two presidential candidates that they contain the same topics that both parties have been debating for the last century. What may appear to be new such as domestic oil drilling, environmental concerns and financial bailouts for the irresponsible are not new issues. They are just today's application of the same core party principles. The underlining core issues never change. They endear the party's base and anger the party's opposition. Thus, they give the illusion that a real debate is taking place. Obligatory promises are made. Lofty principles are alluded too. The candidates tell their audiences what polling says they want to hear. Polling and focus groups drive the message. The message is crafted into speeches by professional speechwriters. Important speeches are rehearsed and read from Teleprompters. Routine speeches are memorized as talking points. The golden political rule is to always stay on message. Everything, including televised debates, are orchestrated according to political trade secrete rules, agreed to by both candidates. MacIntyre, in his 2004 election paper, tells us that we should "resist the imposition of this false choice by those who have arrogated to themselves the power of framing the alternatives." 6 There are thus alternative arguments and solutions not discussed and issues not raised. Why? Because candidates know what is safe to discuss and what topics can lead to unwanted insight into the illusions created by government and the ruling class. This issue leads me to my next question. Are Elections for real? Are elections for real? Do we have real choice in elections such as voting for 'none of the above' or whether we agree to be bound by laws passed in our name? If a form of intelligent life from outer space was to visit earth and observe the voting ritual, they would find it very difficult to understand exactly what voters were doing. If they asked: What are you doing? The majority of voters would say from an ideological perspective and an individual choice perspective, we are choosing what we consider the lesser of two evils to be our leader. If asked: Why are you doing that? They would tell the space visitor that they have been conditioned to accept the fact that no candidate represents all of their views on important issue. So they have to select whichever one comes closest to many of their positions, and accept the fact that the person they vote for has vowed to engage in positions or actions they totally reject. When asked why there are not candidates available who represent all of their view? The voter will say: I don't know. We always get the same incongruous choices. They only differ in their style of rhetorical exaggeration used to disguise their obscure ideological assumptions. Well maybe they wouldn't use those exact words, but that's what they would mean. The reality is that almost everything that both candidates say is superficial in content or half-truths. Complex issues are reduced to meaningless sound bites or slogans. Their speech is theater designed to induce fear, greed, security, patriotic fervor or hope in achieving what we call the American Dream. Thus, the moral integrity of political discourse has been transmuted into deceptive marketing. When asked: Why do you vote? The voter will say: I really don't know. MacIntyre explains, "It has become an ingrained piece of received wisdom that voting is one mark of a good citizen, not voting a sign of irresponsibility." 7 But if we engage in voting to avoid experiencing induced guilt or if we vote merely out of habit like robots, are we acting wisely? In MacIntyre's 2004 paper he asks the question, what do we owe our children? His detailed answer concludes with the assessment that in 2004, neither a choice between Bush's conservatism and Kerry's liberalism were acceptable political alternatives for the needs he articulates for of our children. So he suggested we reject both candidates because "a vote cast is not only a vote for a particular candidate, it is also a vote cast for a system that presents us only with unacceptable alternatives." Thus MacIntyre states, "The way to vote against the system is not to vote." Based on his reasoning, I think he would make the same recommendation between McCain and Obama. So, again I argue that nothing has really changed, but the new actors occupying the role of this season's presidential candidates. I suggest that a more effective way to demonstrate the public's disenchantment with unacceptable candidates is to deny them the appearance of majority support or a mandate for their proclaimed causes. A responsible, effective way to do this is to adopt a system that permits voters to vote for 'none of the above' on the ballot. Both major parties would naturally oppose this option because the majority of voters may very well vote for 'none of the above'. This would mean that the presidential candidate who wins would win with under 25% of the popular vote. This would seriously undercut the current illusion of majority or near majority support. Given that we have so few choices in candidates or whether we agree with the views of the few who actually have any chance of winning office, the next issue, given these conditions, is whether the public should be bound by any of the laws passed in our name by those elected. Now there are those who will argue that we are all bound by a social contract that we mutually agree to in exchange for the protection afforded by societal-created civil rights. But when did anyone agree to this contract that entails subjecting themselves to any law that the federal or state government enacts. Any social contractualist theory, whether by Hobbs, Locke, Rousseau or Rawls, must address the question of individual consent or it is not a contract but coercion by those in power. Now MacIntyre acknowledges that there are some people who do agree to abide by the laws of the United States such as legally naturalized immigrants. I would add to that list those who are now judged guilty of violating current driving-under-the-influence, DUI, statutes, which determine guilt based on a politically motivated blood alcohol content criteria, rather than actual, impaired driving behavior. They are routinely forced to agree, as a condition of their probation, that they obey all laws of the United States. But barring these type of exceptions, Americans do not go through a process where they agree to assent to laws, as part of a social contract. Thus, for whatever reason that men have to obey the law, it doesn't derive from the promises they have made, which throws the whole presupposition of law and social order into question. Locke tries to address this objection by using the notion of 'passive consent'. Now MacIntyre acknowledges that passive consent is not a meaningless notion. He illustrates that an example of it would be if during a committee meeting the chairman asks the participants if holding future meetings at 5 PM on Mondays would be acceptable to everyone. Nobody in the room says anything. So he says, well, okay, we'll have our committee meetings on Mondays at 5 PM. Still nobody says anything. Then later someone protests. And the chairman says, but you were there and you didn't say anything. The chairman is right. Under certain narrowly defined circumstances, if nobody says anything, their silence is passive consent. But nothing like that happens for almost everyone, in relation to the law. Some try to rewrite Locke by supposing that in a democracy, because most have the opportunity to vote every two years, that everyone has passively consented to the law by their act of voting. That somehow they had the opportunity of consenting to or dissenting from the laws. But I would bet that no one has ever witnessed an election, in any country, in which one had the opportunity to vote on dissenting from all laws. In other words, you can't conjure out of the notion of consent any grounds for obedience to the law or accenting to moral rules, any more than out of contract. 8 Nor does the act of voting for a presidential candidate presuppose assenting to their future legislature initiatives. The act is simply choosing between what was offered on the ballot. Now let's turn to question four and five to consider whether MacIntyre's criticism of the modern liberal state's 'neutral view' on moral issues is supported by formal campaign statements by Obama and McCain. Neutral State, Pluralistic Society, Necessary Environment and The Good Do candidates really support a neutral state, a pluralistic society and the necessary environment for individuals to pursue the good life? Has either candidate articulated what constitutes 'the good' and is there any chance that, if promoted properly, such a view could reach a consensus? MacIntyre argues that for there to be rationally, defensible moral and legal rules in a modern society, there needs to be a shared understanding of what constitutes 'the human good'. For the only way to defend moral and legal rules is to be able to define what they are to achieve; and that is 'the human good'. It follows that to use 'the human good' as the justification for society's rules and obtain public allegiance, there must be some publicly recognized rationally, justifiable conception of 'the human good'. MacIntyre describes an Aristotelian and Thomistic view of 'the human good' as, "The good for the members of each species is that end to which, qua members of that species, those members move in achieving their specific perfection. The rules for right action for rational animals are those rules intentional conformity to which is required if their specific perfection is to be achieved." 9 And what constitutes one's perfection? MacIntyre says that a "peculiar function of human beings as rational animals," ... is "the living out" of these rules. "Rules that the living out of which, the completion of which, lies in that activity which is itself supreme happiness and which makes of the life of which it is, the completion, a happy life." 10 Therefore, to not follow such rules would be to "separate oneself from one's good." 11 Now happiness is not a trivial human good. The American Founding Fathers took it seriously enough to classify it as one of the three unalienable rights in which government is instituted to secure. And if government becomes destructive to the ends of "life liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ... it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." 12 I am of course quoting the American Declaration of Independence that articulates the purpose of government and its penalty if it fails to secure the people's unalienable rights. Now, it is precisely MacIntyre's claim that a primary feature of the modern liberal state is to not align itself with any specific notion of what constitutes 'the human good'. Under the concept of a neutral state existing within a pluralistic society, liberalism proclaims that there are numerousand fundamental disagreements over the nature of the human good and whether there is actually any such thing as 'the human good.' Therefore, MacIntyre explains that it is a central tenet of modern liberalism that "institutions of government should be systematically neutral as between rival conceptions of what 'the human good' is. Allegiance to any particular conception of human good ought ... to be a matter of private individual preference and choice and it is contrary to rationality to require of anyone that he or she should agree with anyone else in giving his or her allegiance to some particular view." 13 To assess whether MacIntyre's description of the modern liberal state's view is representative of its practices, we will examine public statements of two of its primary representatives; the current presidential candidates. There are two events in which Barack Obama has provided some specifics on his view of pluralism and public policy. In both instances he used the incompatible views on abortion as a way of explaining the larger topic of modern state policy in dealing with fundamental disagreements. The first occasion was a keynote address he delivered on June 28, 2006 at a Washington DC forum hosted by Sojourners and Call For Renewal, two Washington-based networks of evangelical social justice advocates. Obama talked at some length how Democrats can benefit by openly discussing the mutual suspicions that exist between religious America and secular America. He urged them not to rely upon the typical liberal response that we live in a pluralistic society. He said that progressives should not suddenly just "latch on to religious terminology - that can be dangerous. Nothing is more transparent than inauthentic expressions of faith." 14 But he goes on to say that "secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square. ... So to say that men and women should not inject their 'personal morality' into public debates is a practical absurdity. Our law is by definition a codification of morality, much of it grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition." He then says "if we progressives shed some of these biases, we might recognize some overlapping values that both religious and secular people share when it comes to the moral and material direction of our county. We might recognize that the call to sacrifice on behalf of the next generation, the need to think in terms of 'thou' and not just 'I,' resonates in religious congregations all across the country. And we might realize that we have the ability to reach out to the evangelical community and engage millions of religious Americans in the larger project of American renewal." 15 He then describes the details of his political agenda which could lead one to consider that the purpose of being polite to religious America and encouraging them to speak out in the public square is not to be influenced by their ideas but to consider in what way that progressives can elicit their support under the veil of common interest to move Obama's agenda forward. To help religious America be more welcomed participants in public debate, he seems to contradict himself by warning them that "Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons," Obama proclaims, "but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God's will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all. ... In a pluralistic democracy, we have no choice. Politics depends on our ability to persuade each other of common aims based on a common realty." 16 Obama's second event was at the Compassion Forum at Messiah College, in Pennsylvania on April 13, 2008. It was broadcast live on CNN. Obama's responses to questions mirrored his comments in his Keynote Address two years earlier. He began his response to the abortion question with the same typically structured Democrat pro-choice response. First, all views are important to consider. Second, we all agree we must do what we can to avoid unwanted pregnancies. A list of programs are enumerated. Third, if we do all these things, we can "take some of the edge off the debate." Next, he said, "We're not going to completely resolve it. I mean ... at some point, there may just be an irreconcilable difference. And those who are opposed to abortion, I think, should continue to be able to lawfully object and try to change the laws. Those of us, like myself, who believe that in this difficult situation, it is a woman's responsibility and choice to make in consultation with her doctor and her pastor and her family. I think we will continue to suggest that that's the right legal framework to deal with the issue." 17 During John McCain's 2000 presidential run he delighted secularists as the straight-talking maverick who said "Neither party should be defined by pandering to the outer reaches of American politics and the agents of intolerance, whether they be Louis Farrakhan or Al Sharpton on the left or Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson on the right." He offended the GOP base and lost the Republican nomination to George W. Bush. An effective politician does not make the same strategic mistake twice. John McCain's chances of winning the presidency will depend upon including the evangelicals among his supporters. This reality likely influenced his decision to give the 2006 commencement address at Liberty University, the Lynchburg, Virginia institution of fundamentalism founded by Jerry Falwell. But what is interesting is his address didn't really appeal to religious values as Obama has done. Instead McCain appealed to the importance of American values to defend his decision for his support of victory in Iraq and doing whatever is necessary to stop the evil and hatred of Osama bin Laden and his followers. After defending everyone's right to express dissenting opinions on Iraq he said, "I supported the decision to go to war in Iraq. Many Americans did not. My patriotism and my conscience required me to support it and to engage in the debate over whether and how to fight it. I stand that ground not to chase vainglorious dreams of empire; not for a noxious sense of racial superiority over a subject people; not for cheap oil; -- we could have purchased oil from the former dictator at a price far less expensive than the blood and treasure we've paid to secure those resources for the people of that nation; not for the allure of chauvinism, to wreak destruction in the world in order to feel superior to it; not for a foolishly romantic conception of war. I stand that ground because I believed, rightly or wrongly, that my country's interests and values required it." 18 With regard to abortion, McCain states on his website that he has consistently and strongly been pro-life. "I fully believe that Roe v. Wade is a flawed decision that should be overturned. Roe v. Wade is the most egregious example of judges who impose their own views by legislating from the bench rather than strictly rule what the Constitution says." 19 In conclusion, we see that whether the moral issue is abortion, just-war theory or any of the multitudes of contemporary moral and social issues, it appears that representatives of the modern state all publicly endorse public debate, but will pursue and enforce their own party's vision of the good. This calls into question whether we have a neutral state or just a dialectical conception of the human good that vacillates within the elite's ruling club. Its expression within government depends upon which political party happens to be in power at any given time. Based on this dynamic there will never be an enduring consensus of the good, nor a consistent necessary environment for individuals to pursue the good life. Given this conclusion, one might ask, why do people tolerate these conditions without any hope of change regardless of who is elected president? The answer is that people resist changing their views and objectively observing reality because they fear experiencing the drama of a personal epistemological crisis that they believe they may not be able to handle. The elite understand this fear and may perpetuate the status quo to protect the people from their fear of facing reality or to perpetuate their own privileged standing within this complex interrelated arrangement. Either way, the rulers and the ruled need each other as participants to sustain the illusion that perpetuates the status quo. Unless people of good-will come to terms with their fear of real transformational change, and reach a turning point that translates into a critical-mass movement demand to dismantle the major two party system and replace it with new parties that represent the best of each -- namely strong fiscal conservatism and maximum liberal social freedom, consistent with a moral notion of the good, with minimal government involvement in people's daily lives -- unless this happens, then the new pragmatic Machiavellian barbarians who currently govern us, will be with us for generations to come. End Notes
This post is a paper presented at: This post is a paper presented at:
Incommensurable Beliefs Facilitate Cultural Dialogue Conflict By Richard Poirier This paper considers the underlining causes of conflict in cultural dialogue and whether there are ways to negotiate, reconcile or transcend these impediments to meaningful conflict resolution. I will be using the word “culture,” in the traditional broad sense as defined by Kluckhohn and Kelby in “The Concepts of Culture” The Science of Man in World Crisis, Columbia University Press, 1945 as “the aggregation of historically created designs for living, explicit and implicit, rational, irrational and non-rational, which exist at any given time as potential guides for the behavior of men.”1 Or to state it more simply as it is in “Human” by the Smithsonian Institution, 2004, “Culture includes what people believe, how they behave, how they shape their environment, and what they understand about the world.”2 Now you will notice that neither of these definitions limits the notion of culture to specific geographic areas. In this paper, we will consider culture to mean any group of people who share a common unifying experience in which they interpret the world from a shared perspective that guides their actions and serves to reinforce their self-identity and relationships with others. Conflict generally arises between cultures and within a culture when there is something at stake and there are different points of view about what is at stake, what constitutes a valid claim or position and the general reasonability of the participants involved. Although there are many levels of conflict, I will limit my discussion to the most serious levels. I’ll begin with four examples of different kinds of cultural conflict. Then I’ll explore the nature of beliefs, their manifestation into action and how experience, reason, faith and tradition inform positions taken in cultural dialogue. I’ll argue that we can evaluate beliefs by viewing their relationship to human motivation. My ultimate goal is to argue that vigorous public debate is the best means to unmask illogical presuppositions, examine first principles, expose disingenuous claims, and provide a pathway away from violent conflict and towards valid conclusions that facilitate human understanding and foster respect for cultural differences through enlightened dialogue that draws from faith and reason. We all have a vested interest in minimizing conflict and violence, because its prevalence at a macro institutional level filters down into every level of society. Let’s consider four examples:
In May 2006, an Iraqi Sunni tennis coach and two of his Shiite players were stopped in Baghdad, asked to get out of their car and then shot to death because they were wearing shorts. A leaflet distributed in the neighborhood said, “Wearing shorts by youth are prohibited because it violates the principals of Islamic religion when showing forbidden parts of the body. Women should wear the veil.”
The following month, in Arleta, California, Alvaro Williamson, an Africa American, who lived in a housing development didn’t like children playing basketball in the street or adults parking their cars along the curb. He had argued over parking with Filimon Ramos, a Latino who lived across the street in a neatly kept home. On a Sunday night while Ramos was about to enjoy a barbecue with his family, Williamson, annoyed by an earlier parking dispute with Ramos, asked his 17 year old son to get him a loaded handgun so he could shoot Ramos. His son obliged. Williamson shot Ramos to death in Ramos’ driveway. Neighbors said Williamson abused alcohol and didn’t like Latinos. Williamson and his son were charged with murder.
Five weeks ago, Timothy McGhee, 34, a leader of the Toonerville gang in Atwater Village in Los Angeles County was convicted of three murders and four attempts in four different shootings over a four-year period. Among those murdered was a 16 year-old rival gang member vying for control of a lucrative drug trade and a 26 year-old girlfriend of another rival gang member who was also a mother of three. Among those attempted to be murdered were two LAPD officers. McGhee, however, was no ordinary gang member killing to protect his market share, he “is believed to have killed another person in 2000, simply because he thought Atwater Village wasn’t big enough for two people with the same nickname,‘Guerro’–‘Light- skinned in Spanish’."3 He also no doubt felt good about and justified his acts to himself, as he would write rap lyrics bragging about his murders and intimidation of others in his personal notebook. It was used against him as evidence at his trial. The Deputy District Attorney is asking for the death sentence.
Four weeks ago, in Sacramento, California 24-year-old Matthew Q. Rosatelli entered a Rite Aid drugstore to get his medication prescription filled. Apparently there was some administrative reason why his prescription could not be filled, such as his doctor not having yet called in the prescription. The details are not clear, nor how many days this may have happened to him. On this particular night, Rosatelli became outraged, went behind the counter and put a knife to the neck of a 25-year old female pharmacy assistant who had been helping him. A 63-year-old pharmacist attempted to intervene and sustained a minor head injury. Customers panicked, some screamed, others ran out of the store.
According to Sacramento Police Chief Albert Najera, four police officers arrived at the scene 3 minuets after receiving the 911 call that a robbery was in progress with an armed man. Najera said, “They went charging in, went right to the back and took this guy in.” What actually happened was one of the four officers, a 28-year-old with just four years on the force, was training a younger officer. Within 50 seconds of entering the store, the 28-year-old officer drew his .40-caliber handgun and fired one shot at Rosatelli’s face. Rosatelli fell to the ground, was administered first aid, taken to UC Davis Medical Center and is expected to survive.
Rosatelli’s father said his son’s actions were “hard to comprehend” and completely out of character. He had never hurt anybody and had never been arrested. His son has battled depression and is taking medication, but “loves life in general and had recently expressed interest in enrolling in college to study applied physics.” The officer has been praised as a hero by many and criticized for not trying to negotiate with Rosatelli before shooting him by some. What is insightful is the tenor of comments on the original news story by local police and their supporters which were later published in the Sacramento Bee newspaper. The following ten comments express the kind of beliefs which prominent sociologists and civil rights attorney Connie Rice (second cousin to Condoleezza Rice) and Ramona Ripston, Executive director of the ACLU of Southern California, says are associated with “a police culture.”
These four examples demonstrate cultural conflict based on a religious cultural view, a racial cultural view, a gang member cultural view and a police cultural view. All involved end-of-life issues and appealed to violence to resolve conflicting beliefs. But what exactly are beliefs, as distinguished from opinion or knowledge? In modern philosophy since the Renaissance, knowledge has been a primary field of investigation. Descartes, Locke, Hume and Kant were all first and foremost epistemologists. Earlier still in the 4th century BC, Plato’s dialogue Theaetetus was a serious attempt to develop a definition of the concept of knowledge, in which Socrates asks, ”Is not learning growing wiser about that which you learn? And by wisdom the wise are wise? And is that different in any way from knowledge?” to which Socrates then says, “Herein lies the difficulty which I can never solve to my satisfaction – What is knowledge?”4 In the twenty-first century, public opinion polls have become so pervasive that nearly everyone has an idea of what constitutes opinion even though their opinion may change daily based upon what the mass media selects as the top story of the day.
That brings us back to beliefs which philosophers have given less attention to. It is thought of as “a more or less unproblematic inner state, accessible to introspection. Charles S. Peirce, [1839-1914,] took the view that it is an unobstructed habit of action which, like health, comes to our notice only when we have lost it”.5 However, when we compare beliefs to knowledge and opinion, we could say that we are generally certain about our knowledge, although science demonstrates that we need to allow for revisions based on newly discovered facts, and the very nature of opinion seem to acknowledge that we allow for the fact that our opinion is only one of many. We also have no difficulty changing our opinion when the basis for which we formed an opinion changes. Examples abound such as our current opinion of a former romantic interest or of politicians who fail to keep their promises. But beliefs, although we know they may contain elements of error and uncertainty, we take very seriously. We seldom change them and use them as a basis for our most important decisions in life. Beliefs underlie our actions. Or put another way, our actions are a manifestation of our beliefs.
To understand cultural-conflict-dialogue, we must consider the nature of beliefs. Beliefs are generally born out of our experiences in life. We listen to the beliefs of others from an early age and adopt those from others who we respect or believe have greater wisdom than ourselves. Over time we test beliefs against reality and modify those that clearly fail the test of experience. But our perspective often colors our view of empirical feedback, so we often retain beliefs we should discard based on reason. Family influences, peer-pressure, propaganda, brainwashing or intense cultural indoctrination can present obstacles in knowing what to believe or who to believe. People are exposed to so much advertising hype, false political claims and disingenuous people with ulterior motives that it can become very difficult to assess what constitutes valid beliefs and uncover their underlying presuppositions back to first principles. Many people just find the whole process too daunting. They find it easier to accept the path of least resistance by retaining the beliefs of their immediate culture, until they experience their next epistemological crisis in which their knowledge or beliefs do not conform to reality.
When we attempt to gain an understanding of what people of different cultures believe, it may at first appear that they are simply using incommensurable standards to justify their conclusions. However, when we evaluate the human motives that support or justify allegiance to different beliefs we see many similarities. Therefore, we can evaluate beliefs from the point of view of their relationship to human motivation. The first and foremost motivation is human survival, followed by human flourishing. What is necessary and proper for a human to survive and flourish is of course open to physiological, psychological, philosophical and theological debate. But surely misunderstanding, fear, panic, ignorance, domination and evil intentions can influence the soundness of the rationale that one may use to pursue their survival and what flourishing means to them in their culture. To attempt to resolve conflict one must understand the rationale embraced by the other party. Going back to my four examples of cultural conflict, we can surmise the survival and flourishing rationale of the participants.
The Iraqi fundamentalist terrorist who murdered the Sunni tennis coach and two of his Shiite players for wearing shorts was either acting in the belief that his religion condoned and encouraged such acts to punish offenders of his religious beliefs and to serve as a warning that those who oppose the spread of his version of the true religion would be similarly treated __ this is a warfare tactic that dates back to the early Chinese dynasties __ or it is equally possible that the terrorist was merely using the cover of religion to advance his political cause for territorial gain and personal power. In either case an uncivilized means was used for an irrational or delusional end. The counter argument to his rationale is that no religion can justify its validity as self-evident if it requires force to make people pretend that they believe in its version of truth or god. If his goals were purely political, history has taught us that theocracies or dictatorships ultimately crumble if their existence is based on unreasonable oppression and lack of respect for human life. The value of engaging in debate on dysfunctional cultural beliefs is the opportunity to provide counter arguments to their means or ends. Aside from the moral issues that I’ll address later, these are a few examples:
The counter argument to Alvaro Williamson’s beliefs in justifying the murder of his Latino neighbor is he failed to accomplish his original goal of preventing children from playing basketball on the street or adults from parking along the curb. The only thing he accomplished was the release of temporary anger directed at a person of a different race and the prospects of him and his son being locked up in different maximum-security prison cells for the rest of their lives. Was the price he paid worth the spoils he received? I doubt he will think so upon sober reflection over time.
The counter argument to the Toonerville gang leader Timothy McGhee’s beliefs is that his business and leadership skills could have been put to better use than running an illegal drug operation that necessitated, from his point of view, murdering business rivals. Once he got the taste of power acquired from brutality and intimidation it was only a matter of time in which his empire would come crashing down due to his risk-taking or excess. Perhaps he understood that and wrote the rap lyrics that contributed to his downfall as a memorial to his self-perceived legacy. How quickly everyone will forget him when more pressing issues demand their attention.
Although Matthew Rosatelli exercised perhaps the worst judgment in his life when he put a knife to the neck of a Rite Aid pharmacy assistant, the 28-year-old police officer who shot him in the head within 50 seconds of entering the drug store, as well as the supportive comments from fellow police officers demonstrate an institutional cultural belief that it’s their right and prerogative to shoot first and make inquires later. The counter arguments to this and other claims would point out:
Now in judging whether one can successfully negotiate, reconcile or transcend what are or appear to be incommensurable beliefs to meaningful conflict resolution, one must assess the sincerity and reasonableness of individuals they encounter. If a people are merely mistaken in what constitutes their general interest or if they sees the beliefs, values, success or freedom of others as a threat to their own beliefs or self-esteem, which are the kind of people who often appeal to force to resolve conflicts, or if they are victims of propaganda and rely upon faulty reason to justify their beliefs, then there is hope for reconciliation and resolution through debate. The objective is to help them lower their defense mechanisms by offering them something to consider in which you will respect their right to continue to maintain their current beliefs if what you say doesn’t make sense to them. Your appeal is to help people see what they may not have seen because they may not be aware of what has happened to them. People can’t see what is hidden from their view if it is blocked as a result of their experiences. You appeal to their desire for a view that is commensurate with their best interest and incorporate a sense of reasonableness. Perhaps in this process you may even give them a new identity. Vigorous, intellectual, respectful debate, whether on an individual level or in a public forum is the best means to unmask illogical presuppositions, examine first principles, expose disingenuous claims and provide a pathway away from violent conflict and towards valid conclusions that facilitate human understanding and respect for cultural differences through enlightened dialogue that draws from faith and reason.
If on the other hand you are dealing with Islamic extremists who justify violence and murder as legitimate means to their ends, appeasement or negotiation is generally not effective with those oblivious to reason or respect for human life. As University Professor Emeritus Peter Berger, who launched the Between Relativism and Fundamentalism Project, under the auspices of the Boston University Institute on Culture, Religion, and World Affairs, said, “Cannibals and noncannibals cannot live together by agreeing to disagree.”6 It may be possible to publicly ridicule such people into personal reflection if they feel that their beliefs are under attack from the world-at-large and the tradition that informed their position was or is now becoming unsustainable in light of aggressive intellectual challenges. But, if they are unwilling to be reasonable in the face of reason, then the virtue of self-defense demands restraining the actions of murderous fanatics by all reasonable means necessary.
The arguments against what I propose essentially falls into two categories. First, it is claimed that Westerners cannot understand the thinking, mind-set or beliefs of Islamists, or more broadly, terrorists. The claim is that indoctrination from early childhood, reinforced by peer-pressure while living in communities governed by strict religious law makes their way of thinking beyond understanding and influence by Westerners. All such efforts by Westerners will deepen their view that those who misconstrue or challenge their beliefs are Satan and will fuel a violent reaction from 5% to 10% of the 1.2 billion followers of Islam. Thus, the argument goes that such efforts will play into the hands of fundamentalists and terrorists to defend Allah by killing His detractors. (This view was expressed to me by a Jewish female Moroccan political author, a Jewish male American former military intelligence officer who is an expert on terrorists, a Jewish male Californian political operative and a popular Christian female conservative political author and media personality. All of whom wish to remain anonymous, as many people are reluctant to speak out publicly on this issue.)
The next argument is that the Koran, like many holy books of antiquity, has many obscure passages that cannot be sufficiently understood and therefore require supplemental material in the form of Hadith (al-h ad th) which provides details on the oral traditions of the words and deeds of the Prophet Muhammad to guide Muslims in understanding and imitating the ways of life (or sunnah) based on the practices of Muhammad and his companions, c., AD 530. But even the Hadith requires interpretation, which is the role of Shi’a and Sunni Imams and contemporary clerics. So it is argued that if terrorists and their supporters have misunderstood the Islamic faith that only recognized Islamic cleric authorities can explain the errors of their thinking and bring them back into the mainstream fold. Conversely, the argument for why one cannot reason with those who harbor racial hatred, gang member mentality or police warrior behavior is that their culture has made them incorrigible to reason. Emotions prevail that override logical thinking. Their behavior is condoned and reinforced by their peers, so they don’t see any reason to change their beliefs or behavior.
The reason that my proposal to engage in vigorous debate overcomes these two major objections is that all human minds operate on the same fundamental process of comparing differences and similarities, evaluating concepts and relationships that lead to an individual’s personal version of logical conclusions. Although it is true that some people adopt ideas without filtering them through a test of reasonability, they do so because of common motives that we can all understand. Thus, any concept or belief that one person can conceive and believe, another person can also conceive and understand it, although not necessarily believe that the concept is valid. Thus, through our common personhood, those with a sincere desire to understand the thoughts of another can do so. With respect to the retaliatory reaction of terrorists, to live in fear of speaking the truth or seeking to understand the truth, is to not live at all. Diplomacy certainly has its place, but when politeness fails, bold action is needed. This includes the willingness to pay the price for asserting what the whole history of the development of our intellect has obliged us to assert. No form of intimidation can match the strength of applied human wisdom and the common desire for peaceful human evolution.
We have witnessed that Islamic clerics have failed in their responsibility to denounce the violence of Al-Qaeda. Even intellectual Islamic moderates such as Sheikh Gamal Al-Bana, who notwithstanding being the younger brother of Sheikh Hassan Al-Bana, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, and notwithstanding that he has spoken out in support of liberal stances on issues such as separation of religion and state, the status of women, democracy and not killing Muslims who have left the fold of Islam, nevertheless he wrote an article praising 9/11 and blaming its cause on recent U.S. foreign policy decisions.7 We know of course that recent U.S. policy decisions had nothing to do with the motives of those who participated in the 9/11 terrorist attack. Many of its participants, including Al-Qaeda military commander Mohammed Atta studied and were sympatric to Nazis philosophy. Also, the founders of the Muslim Brotherhood collaborated with Adolf Hitler in the systematic killing of Jews living in the Middle East during WWII. Therefore, reliance on even moderate Imams and clerics appear not to be a viable alternative to vigorous public debate.
Pope Benedict XVI suggested in his 2006 Regensburg address that a reconciliation between faith and reason – with reason’s emphasis on the empirically verifiable – would provide the conditions necessary for a genuine dialogue of cultures. Is such a reconciliation possible? What beliefs would each side have to be willing to amend to accommodate what appears to be incommensurable standards? Pope Benedict XVI’s approach to reconciliation is he juxtaposes a Biblical understanding of God with a Greek philosophical understanding of reason by illustrating that John’s Book of Genesis began with the sentence “In the beginning was the logos" which "means both reason and word – a reason which is creative and capable of self-communication, precisely as reason."8 The focus on reason underscores Pope Benedict XVI's reference to the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus's dialogue during the siege of Constantinople (between 1394 and 1402) with an educated Persian on the subject of Christianity and Islam in which - aside from the topic of Mohammed's command to spread by the sword the faith he preached, which the emperor characterizes as 'unreasonable' - the emperor said "God is not pleased by blood – and not acting reasonably is contrary to God's nature."9 Thus, it seems by Pope Benedict XVI's definition of God's word logos that faith and reason are already reconciled conceptually. But the problem at hand with the incommensurable views of Islamic radicals is that their views are based on an unreasonable, contradictory definition of what could possibly constitute a God or faith and the rationale they employ to spread and compel belief in their religion is contrary to a rational understanding of a legitimate God's will or a real congregation of actual believers. So, Pope Benedict XVI's admirable quest to reconcile faith with reason appears not to solve the problem of dealing with people who believe they are already embracing faith and reason. It appears vigorous debate will succeed with some, but others will remain obstinate, thus requiring different tactics.
In conclusion, I have been discussing different kinds of cultural thoughts, expressed through words in dialogue, that are intended to affect behavior by presenting either a distorted view or an accurate view of reality. In Josef Pieper’s essay on ”the abuse of language in its relation to the abuse of power,” he points out that “The reality of the word in eminent ways makes existential interaction happen. And so, if the word becomes corrupted, human existence itself will not remain unaffected and untainted.”10 . . . “In the very attempt to know reality, there already is present the aim of communication.” Pieper poses the question to us, “Can a lie be taken as communication? I tend to deny it” he says. “A lie is the opposite of communication. It means specifically to withhold the other’s share and portion of reality, to prevent his participation in reality. And so: corruption of the relationship to reality, and corruption of communication __ these evidently are the two possible forms in which the corruption of the word manifests itself.”11 Where do we turn for guidance on truth and moral soundness?
If we could rely upon all men and women having a so-called ‘impartial spectator within the breast’ to guide them in moral considerations as Adam Smith conceived, then we could refer all to look within to answer questions on how we should treat one another. But where Adam Smith failed in his moral concept of ‘sympathy’ and where Immanuel Kant failed in his moral concept of ‘categorical imperatives’ to guide man in making moral decisions is that each failed to answer the question of why should someone be impartial and not yield to deviant selfish motives when they are directly harmful to others?
On the other hand, when we consider the dilemma brought to light in an exchange between Alasdair MacIntyre and David Solomon on the difficulty of a rational consensus on grounding moral rules and agreement on what constitutes the good, __ and when we consider MacIntyre’s argument that “in the absence of some shared conception of the human good, any apparent agreement on the content or the social setting of moral rules will be illusory.” __ we can see the multitude of challenges before us, in engaging in persuasive cultural dialogue to obtain rational consensus on end-of-life issues. These are the questions that philosophy and theology need to address to have any chance of reforming the thinking of the masterminds and their adherents behind the ugly face of terror. To simply argue using trite expressions such as, ”just say no to violence” or to assert that violence is unacceptable from a moral perspective will not be effective with those who have adopted a rationale that accepts violence as a legitimate means to their ends.
Stronger, coherent, compelling arguments are necessary to change the beliefs of those who are committed to appeal to violence to resolve conflict or attain their ends. Thus, much work is needed to achieve a rational consensus on acceptable means when engaging in conflicting cultural beliefs. But the difficulty of the task does not mean we should avoid engagement until we have the most perfect arguments. We need to engage this problem now with the intellectual resources we currently have available to us. Over time we can develop better arguments that answer some of the more complex issues. But, this process all begins with utilizing persuasive, assertive dialogue to meet the dangerous challenges of our time. The most effective results will be achieved if everyone throughout the world participates in this project to understand one another and argues against the unnecessary use of violence. The time is now; assert your best argument. Thank you for your thoughtful attention. #
END NOTES
1 Kluckhohn, Clyde, and Kelby, William. “The Concept of Culture.” Ed. Ralph Linton. The Science of Man in World Crisis. New York: Columbia University Press, 1945. p. 97. Quoted from “In Defense of Individuality,” an unpublished manuscript by Richard Poirier, Los Angeles: 2007.
2 Winston, Robert, and Wilson, Don E., Ed.“Human.”Smithsonian Institution. New York: DK Publishing, Inc., 2004. p. 284.
3 Los Angeles Daily News, 10/26/07. p.3.
4 Plato. “Theaetetus.” The Dialogues of Plato. Trans. Jowett, Benjamin. Great Books of the Western World. Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. 1952. p. 514.
5 Quinton, Anthony. “Knowledge and Belief.” Ed. Paul Edwards. The Encyclopedia of Philosophy. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co & The Free Press, 1967. p. 345.
6 Berger, Peter. “How Can Fundamentalists and Relativists Live Together in Peace?” Advancement: Boston University’s Philanthropy Magazine, Boston: Boston University, Summer 2007. p. 12.
7 Dankowitz, A., and Feldner, Y. “Sheikh Gamal Al-Bana: Social and Religious Moderation Vs. Political Extremism.” Inquiry & Analysis Series – No 334. The Middle East Media Research Institute. MEMRI.org.
8 Schall, James V. “The Regensburg Lecture.” South Bend: St. Augustine’s Press, 2007. #17 p. 135.
9 Ibid. “The Regensburg Lecture.”#14 p. 134.
10 Pieper, Josef, “Abuse of Language __ Abuse of Power,” Munich / San Francisco: 1974 / 1992. p. 15.
11 Ibid. “Abuse of Language __ Abuse of Power.” p. 16.
Ushering in MacIntyre's Notions of Political Transformation in Modernity
By Richard Poirier Part 1 Abstract MacIntyre asserted in 1976 that entry into the modern world was made with individualism and with the creation of specific types of economic and political institutions which belong to individualism. To be modern is in fact to participate in institutions of this kind and share these concepts. The modern economy, itself a kind of theory initially supplied by Smith and Ricardo, developed in England and became a model for all other economies. The modern state developed in Germany, initiated by Fichte and Hegel, came to become to some degree a model for all other states. Originating in relative independence of each other, the modern economy and the modern state are a mismatch and are necessarily at cross-purposes. This situation is exacerbated by the facts that advanced Western societies are oligarchies disguised as liberal democracies and the major political parties have eliminated philosophy, e.g., first principles, as a component of debate in addressing the modern liberal state's debilitation in executing its limited theoretical role. Drawing upon my personal notes taken in a course by MacIntyre entitled "Morals, Politics and the Emergence of Modernity" at Boston University in 1976, his subsequent works, and a conversation I had with MacIntyre at the University of Notre Dame in November, 2006, I will present an assessment of the current dysfunctional paralysis in politics and why the timing may be right for MacIntyre's "ethics of human flourishing, politics of resistance and practical utopianism" to resonate with frustrated individuals constantly thwarted in their engagement in practices and attempts to achieve their telos. Throughout human history there have been periods of apparent stability followed by periods of mass change sometimes brought about by a process of peaceful political, social or economic change; sometimes by mass hysteria or political revolution. During periods of apparent stability, what are the indicators that mass upheaval looms in the distance? The way the public reacts to various events can provide useful insight. For example, observe how the public reacts to unexpected natural catastrophes such as floods, fires and earthquakes, which remind them of the unpredictable destructive power of nature. Or consider how they react to news of a virus epidemic such as HIV, bird flu or chemical and biological agents that have the capacity to wipe out large segments of the population in a relatively brief period of time. Or observe public reaction to the indiscriminate evil acts of the modern terrorist or a rogue nation-state that seeks to steal the productive resources of a neighbor or desires to impose their religious or ideological beliefs upon the people of other nations through force. Reactions to these types of events can be indicative of the mind-set of a nation and people's proclivity to be moved in a particular direction when confronted with events we generally consider catalysts to major social or political change. Sophisticated research that monitors and predicts public behavior to contingent circumstances exists but is restricted from public view. Reaction to personal daily annoyances such as getting stopped for a minor driving violation or getting an excessive penalty fee from your bank for exceeding your checking account balance are other indications of what is really going on deep within one's general disposition not typically apparent in one's public persona. Sometimes a general malaise sets in when collectively people begin to realize that their lives are not improving, or are getting worse, and they become overwhelmed with the realization that if things don't change soon their lives will in fact get much worse. Sometimes when conditions improve after long periods of hardship, people become more discontented because they suddenly realize how much they were repressing just to deal with daily survival. Suddenly, their actual conditions are clear to them and indignant anger or existential angst follows. The lack of any charismatic leader with even a ghost of an idea to lead us out of an indefinable abyss that is progressively spiraling out of control augments public fear. In times of great uncertainty and moral and political decay, people turn to those who can articulate philosophical ideas that appear to define or explain the problem and provide answers in the form of concrete actions that will bring relief. We are living in such a time for reasons that I will detail below. The question before us today is whether Alasdair MacIntyre's conception of a Thomistic Aristotelian tradition possesses the necessary resources to address the political and moral decline and incommensurabilities of the modern liberal state, and whether people would be receptive to such a radical departure from what they have come to perceive as the inevitable chaos of our times. Alvin Lee, lead singer of the British blues-rock group "Ten Years After," wrote a song in 1971 entitled "I'd Love to Change the World" in which the chorus line continued, "but I don't know what to do. So, I'm leaving it up to you." Well, the question at hand now is: can MacIntyre's ideas change the world? Will the people leave it up to him or like-minded MacIntyreian people who appreciate Aristotelianism to implement a new vision to obtain human flourishing? To answer these questions we need to remind ourselves about the nature of people and define exactly what the problem is that necessitates such a radical shift in perspective to begin to understand the solution. This I will explain first and then turn to how MacIntyre's notions of political transformation could actually be realized in America and possibly elsewhere. If it is successful in the United States and Europe then perhaps these ideas could change the world. Survival, efficacy and the rewarding states of pride and happiness while engaged in activities we believe will achieve our ends are the motivating factors that impel one to contemplate, investigate and draw conclusions about theoretical and practical knowledge. The distinction between Aristotle's theoretical ( theoria) and practical ( phronesis / praxis) philosophy is of course useful in conceptualizing fundamental concepts that involve theoretical universal laws or principles that contribute to our understanding of our metaphysical, existential and epistemological relationship to universal reality in contrast to our understanding and application of practical principles and techniques we employ in our daily activities to achieve desired results. The question regarding the interrelationship, dependency or independence of Aristotle's, or contemporary, practical philosophy to theoretical philosophy is analogous to the question of whether one can separate particulars from context or human beings and their actions from the environment in which they exist within the universe. Clearly the realms of theoretical and practical knowledge are interdependent correlatives of authentic wisdom ( sophian) and truth ( aletheia). I, therefore, agree with Alasdair MacIntyre's position (notwithstanding his original argument in After Virtue according to Kelvin Knight) that Aristotle's practical philosophy, which comprises his ethics and politics, needs to be understood in the context of his theoretical philosophy comprising his metaphysics and biology (Knight 2007: 2). I believe the solution to errors that have come to light in Aristotle's theoretical philosophy by the scientific contribution of Galileo, Newton, Darwin and others simply illustrates that it is a human's understanding about so-called 'unchanging forms' or universal principles that requires periodic modifications, not the universals, as such. Revisions can be made to Aristotle's theoretical philosophy without diminishing the underpinning of essential elements of Aristotle's concepts of human excellence, which provide the pathway to one's actuality, completeness or telos. There are, however, a number of presuppositions that Aristotle took for granted that no longer exist in modernity. The first of course is the small city-state, which was administrated by a polis comprising free citizens whom, according to Aristotle, desired to represent the best interest of their community. Today, we live in various versions of the modern state controlled by professional politicians who comprise an elite stratum of society. Aristotle believed that politicians possess moral and intellectual qualities that provide them with the desire, insight and skill that legitimize their qualifications to effectively rule citizens. By presupposing noble and magnanimous qualities attributed to the aristocracy he envisages that they will unselfishly seek the common good for free members of the city-state. History has abundantly illustrated that it is the rare politician that possesses these admirable qualities. When one reflects upon the political leaders of today's modern state it is sometimes difficult to identify any who possess these qualities, although I know a few. The problem of a lack of intellectual acuity and ethical standards extends to the broader population in modern society as well. Alasdair MacIntyre believes that valid traditional elements of Aristotelianism conflated with Thomistic ideas and fine-tuned by MacIntyre provide the revolutionary resources that can address many of the foundational errors, conflicts and incommensurabilities evident in modernity. To be able to appreciate the nature of a solution and its chance of implementation, let alone its effectiveness, we must first have an understanding of the vast nature of the problem. I will break it up into three general, but related, areas.
1. Capitalism and Management 2. Politics, Economics and The Modern State 3. Ethics and Moral Relativism
I will offer my understanding of MacIntyre's perspective and my own perspective in areas in which we may agree or disagree. Since philosophers generally find disagreement more stimulating than agreement, I'll begin with certain distinctions between MacIntyre's view, or the view that is most commonly attributed to him by critics of capitalism, and my view of the implications that bear upon human flourishing within capitalism's framework in modernity. I should state that I have worked the better part of my life in a financial management capacity for the three largest multi-national corporations in the entertainment industry as well as owned three small entrepreneurial businesses dedicated to the development and management of talent in the entertainment industry. I acknowledge that my experiences within these practices have informed my perspective, but I am also able to stand outside of the influences of such activity to view these modes of institutional structures within the context of an ongoing historical, social and political development that just happens to occupy its current state at this particular point in time and will undoubtedly yield to the interplay of constituent groups as they continue to participate in the dance of progress that evolves into what we call the future.
Capitalism and Management
MacIntyre asserts that there are systematic and structural deficiencies in capitalism and capitalist management that thwart people's abilities to reach their potential. I concede that there are a number of aspects of capitalism that result in major difficulties for a portion of society. Economic recessions, depressions, inflation, unemployment and obsolescence, which I'll discuss in more detail in the next section on politics, economics and the modern state, are certainly among the difficulties of a capitalist society. There are further problematic trends observable in 21st century America that beg for a solution. In a large number of professional businesses such as major top-tier law firms and certified public accounting firms there is a growing trend to require employees to work inhuman hours per week under incredible stress. For example it is typical at top New York law firms for first-year associates to start with "a pay package that seems impressive: $125,000 a year and a signing bonus as high as $40,000. This pay becomes less impressive when one considers that associates can spend up to eighty hours a week in the office, the average one-bedroom apartment in New York City cost about $2,200 a month, and the typical law school grad is carrying over $80,000 in student loans" (Callahan 2004: 34). David Callahan in The Cheating Culture points out that "entry-level pay is not why people join the corporate law world - they join with the hope that someday they will be able to make partner" (Callahan 2004: 34). He cites one law firm in which the average partner took home nearly $2 million in bonus pay in 2002 and another firm in which partners took home even bigger bonuses. ( American Lawyer July 2003). The problem Callahan explains is that it is next to nil that any of these new law associates will ever ascend to partner no matter how extraordinary they are or to what extent that they have worked long and hard in their pursuit. Similar problems exist at many public accounting firms where not only young associates, but also the partners feel the heat to "constantly try to prove themselves and justify large bonuses. 'There are few partners at the top and the [competition for] promotion to become partner is very stiff' . . . partners are 'under pressure to keep their revenue up and to keep their clients happy,' says Erick Hille, former manager at KPMG" (Callahan 2004: 145). In Fortune 500 corporations throughout America excessive hours, emphasis on maximizing productivity with fewer employees and the precariousness of job security stemming from globalization, outsourcing, technology and industry consolidation continues to be the norm. These types of issues may be placed under the general category of business survival or profitability and competition by the many for the limited number of top desirable positions offering top rewards for those who aspire to be among the elite. The second problem in American capitalism is the effect that the cost of doing business has on the small business owner. 'Mom and pop' retail stores and small businesses are increasingly squeezed out of business by big corporation chains that successfully function on smaller profits per item due to the aggregate revenues acquired from large scale volume, which is not available to most small businesses. Thus, it is increasingly difficult for small businesses to compete unless they offer consumers a scarce product or individualized personal service not operationally feasible for large corporations. These types of problems having been acknowledged, I maintain that capitalism is still the best economic system the world has ever known and has brought more prosperity to a greater percent of the population as well as more hope for those seeking human flourishing through self-actualization than any other economic system, including pre-capitalistic, communistic and socialistic societies. MacIntyre claims that this argument that capitalism maximizes workers economic prosperity, although true, is "irrelevant as a rebuttal" to his charges of the injustices of capitalism (MacIntyre 2006: 151). The Marxist view he articulates is the issue of evaluating the value of labor's contribution to productivity and the justifications for asserting what a worker is entitled to claim as his or her entitlement for their contribution. He cites for example pre-modern societies in which production is carried on to meet primarily local needs and all excess is shared as a benefit by all of those who participate (MacIntyre 2006: 148). This however is analogous to the modern corporation sharing in the form of annual bonuses with non-union employees, profits derived by the hard work and contributions of employees. Just last week, the corporation that I work for announced that due to overcoming losses of the past and restoring to a position of profitability last year that the corporation is giving all employees 15 shares of stock as a gift. The corporation was not under any obligation to do this. It did so in recognition of the employee's contribution to improved profitability and simply exercising a good business practice. Union employees also share in profits that are allocated to fund the benefits derived from future union contract negotiations. All disbursements of funds to labor and management are by necessity derived from income and profits not distributed to stockholders. So the arguments of injustice to those who contribute to production or profit fails as structurally systemic of corporations as such, and can only be argued against specific individual corporations that fail to value the contribution of their workforce. Likewise, that argument can be reversed to apply to unions that cripple the long term survivability of corporations by demanding excessive pay or benefits disproportional to the value of their labor under threat of disrupting operations of a corporation by means of a strike that entails a temporary reduction of revenues while sustaining fixed overhead expense. This is exactly the position that American automobile manufactures are in due to the burden of excessive health care cost associated with union benefits. Again I would argue that it is whether labor or management negotiates from a position of reasonableness that constitutes justice or injustice, not the inherent structural nature of capitalism. What gives capitalism its particular ethical and economic characteristic is the same double-edge sword that contributes to its shortcomings: competition and cooperative sharing of economic resources for individual and corporate benefit. The first element is that all relationships within capitalism are totally voluntary. Employees and employers mutually accept the terms of employment, which include payment of wages for services rendered and the employee's use of the employer's assets to render his services. Using the employer's tools of production is one element that distinguishes an employee from an independent contractor. The relationship of businesses to their suppliers and their consumers is also mutually voluntary. Both price and sales of products or services are established through principles of supply and demand. Those unwilling to accept the terms of available employment may chose to invest their personal resources in entrepreneurship. Those unwilling to pay the price of goods and services may elect to do without or make their own products for themselves if possible. The profits derived from investing personal or borrowed resources is ethically justified by virtue of voluntary exchange of values in an economically sound way that is capable of retaining a portion of revenues above cost. Those who do not possess the resources, skill or risk-temperament to be an entrepreneur can maximize the return on the utilization of the skills they have for sale by offering them to the highest bidding employer. Freedom to direct one's own life as one sees fit is one aspect that the free market accommodates. The question of whether one makes wise choices is an entirely different issue connected to an individual's expression of their rational autonomy. Good judgments and actions bring desired goods. Bad judgments and actions bring undesired ramifications. Thus, the necessity to acquire the wisdom to choose and act wisely. As a final comment in this section on capitalism and management I wish to comment on the distinction that is made within Aristotelianism of actions for non-productive purposes such as action for internal contemplation of universal concepts (energeia) and actions that are specifically related to the production of goods and services (poiesis). I find that the distinction is not relevant to considerations of what constitutes excellence, unless the operational definition of productive activity was limited to rote, repetitious activity that can easily be replaced by mechanistic technology. There are internal goods that may be judged by standards of excellence relative to the performance of a person engaged in philosophical contemplation to solve or acquire insight into the nature of a conceptual dilemma, just as there are standards of excellence that may be considered in judging the creation of a product or service. Take for example the creation of a photograph of an attractive female model. The creativity involved in conceptualizing an appropriate mood to be expressed by the female model, both in terms of facial expression and pose, communicating that mood and eliciting that exact mood from the model, as well as recognizing when it is achieved and photographing it at the exact instance in which it manifests its optimum state is equivalent to the example of the portrait painter MacIntyre cites in After Virtue (MacIntyre 1981/1984: 189) in which the painter incorporates a certain form of naturalism to an iconic portrait practice that was formerly constructed to display an image that may not have borne any resemblance to the actual person, say of Jesus or St. Peter. The photographer in my example takes what is and molds it into an artistic version of itself through interaction. The product produced also possesses characteristics that were a result of technical artistic decisions by the photographer such as the optimum depth of field employed that determines what elements in the photograph will be in focus and which deliberately placed out of focus, selective compositional cropping and various lighting considerations. His performance in executing his skills, which produced a product, contain internal goods relative to his participation in the creative practice and external goods of possible appreciation, payment for his services, public recognition, etc. Similarly, a business manager who creates an Excel spreadsheet to evaluate 'what if' scenarios of possible negotiation strategies or to create 'test case' scenarios to evaluate whether a new computer program will execute its function in a way that provides the anticipated results that was assigned to a developer to produce is another example of producing a product, in this case an Excel spreadsheet, in which its design, selected formulas and analytical properties contain internal goods and external goods based on the excellence of its producer. The ultimate justification of management is not the recognition of expertise for the sake of expertise. The practice of management constitutes expertise in areas such as execution theory and application so that it may specifically utilize those expertises to accomplish the objectives of a corporation, department or assigned task. It is a rare manager who excels at what he does and only performs for external goods such as money and status. To perform at a level of excellence by definition entails total immersion in the nature of internal goods. Mercenary artists, managers or warriors devoid of the requisite commitment, of course would not qualify for my definition of excellence. Thus, I would agree with much of Max Weber's theory of bureaucracy as outlined by MacIntyre in After Virtue and MacIntyre's "skeletal outline [of] a process first from the Enlightenment's ideal for a social science to the aspirations of social reformers . . . to the theoretically informed managerial practice of the contemporary technocratic expert" (MacIntyre 1981/1984: 86). The result of managerial products whether physical or goals accomplished may certainly be evaluated as practices comprising internal and external goods which constitute the nature of excellence. Naturally, not all managers or corporations achieve this level of performance, and Weber's term bureaucracy can be misleading to infer only implementation of rule-based activity without involvement of independent judgment. This is less likely in corporate life than in the modern state's bureaucracy, which functions on an entirely difference basis from which I have been describing. It is to these differences in politics and economics that promote or restrain human flourishing that I now turn.
Politics, Economics and The Modern State
In the fall of 1976, as a senior at Boston University, I enrolled in my second of two courses presented by Alasdair MacIntyre. Even at this point in his academic career he was considered the most brilliant philosophical intellectual at the university. This course was entitled "Morals, Politics and the Emergence of Modernity." It provided uncanny insight into the nature of the conflict between the modern state and the economy, which provides us with an understanding of the foundational reasons why the modern state is doomed to failure. I shall later argue that politicians engage in practices that make a bad situation worse due to their ignorance or wanton disregard for reality and the interest of citizens, which stems from their belief that they will not be personally held accountable for their actions or they rationalize that by the time that the public realizes their complicity in detrimental acts, they will be out of office and will not have to deal with the public fall out. What follows is the main thread of MacIntyre's response to a question I posed at the beginning of a class and his insightful description of the transition from pre-capitalist society to the modern state and the oscillation between the economy and the modern state, as well as the oscillation of movement towards and away from individualism. I believe his insight is as applicable to understanding today's political paralysis as it was 31 years ago. It will provide conference participants with a detailed explanation of where we currently stand and why there is a need for a wholesale change in our understanding of political institutions in the modern state and whether they can provide a means to promote individual freedoms or provide an environment in which it is at least possible for humans to flourish without being impeded by the hand of government. Although I have endeavored to meticulously provide as accurate of a representation of MacIntyre's views as possible based on my class notes, and my general understanding of his views from three decades ago, I nonetheless take full responsibility for any errors stemming from my condensation, paraphrasing or inadvertent failure to articulate the depth and nuances of his extraordinary views (MacIntyre 1976). It is equally possible that he may have changed his views on some of the concepts that I attribute to him, but only he can speak to this point.
MacIntyre - April 1976
My question went something like this. I kind of got the impression that you feel that the transition from relying upon nature for an economic base to capitalism as an artificial economy is a big step backwards that has tremendous ill consequences. I wonder if you might elaborate on why you think we are in such a poor state of affairs now for relying upon a capitalist economy. In other words, in what way is dependence on capitalism vs. nature a step backward?
He responded that what he had been trying to do is to talk about what it was to enter the modern world. His view was that entry into the modern world was made with individualism and with the creation of certain institutions which belong to individualism. These are certain very specific types of economic and political institutions. To be modern, MacIntyre asserted, is in fact participating in institutions of these kinds and sharing these concepts. Shared concepts and participation are not two separate things. They are the same phenomenon described from different points of view. The development of the modern economy and the development of the modern state occurred in relative independence of each other. In England the modern economy developed and became a model for all other economies. In Germany the modern state developed and came to become to some degree a model for all other states. The consequence of their independent development is that the modern state and the modern economy are a mismatch. Far from the modern state being a reflection or production of the modern economy, in many ways the modern economy and the modern state are necessarily at cross-purposes. He then proceeded to vindicate his thesis by first bringing out certain characteristics of the modern economy, which is itself a kind of theory. It is not merely economic activity, but economic activity understood normatively in a certain way. The understanding of economic activity was first supplied partly by Adam Smith and even more by David Ricardo, then later by marginalists and other economic theorists. The most important aspect about the modern economy is that it has to expand or perish. Which is to say that for a modern economy to remain relatively stable, for there not to be large dislocating amounts of unemployment or loss of productive power, the economy has to be in relatively continuous expansion. This is a central Marxist thesis about capitalism that claims that in order for it to survive it must expand and that there are certain inherent limits to this expansion. When these limits are reached capitalism must break down. MacIntyre did not argue for or against this thesis. He said he did not actually believe it. He believed that there are no inherent limits or points in which capitalism must break down. He believed that Lenin came to the same conclusion citing that a necessary break down is not arguably entailed by Volume three of Capital. But whatever the truth of these matters, all that's essential for MacIntyre's thesis is that so long as capitalism lasts there has to be an expanding economy. Secondly, in order to expand it requires an ever increasing amount of capital. And here he acknowledged that he was again skirting a Marxist thesis. The Marxist theses that it must inevitably come to a worldly end because there is necessarily a failing rate of profit within the capitalist system. But whether this is true or not, MacIntyre said, it is true that at each stage of the development capitalism has to produce greater and greater resources for the purpose of reinvestment. For to produce the same rate of expansion you need to produce larger resources at each stage. This brings out one crucial contrast between a capitalist economy and a pre-capitalist economy. It's one that has various effects in which a man loses his dependence on nature. In an agricultural society it is generally the case that so long as the soil can be kept fertile and so long as you have the minimum tools, the cost of setting an extra pair of hands to work is minimal. Therefore, the more people working the better. The notion of a surplus population is only one in which there is a surplus based upon what nature provides. There are plenty of surplus populations in the world. There are plenty of cases where nature in fact, given the technology of a society, is productive up to a point and then that population can no longer be supported. But, in a capitalist economy, MacIntyre explained, a corollary to the fact that it takes an ever increasing amount of capital to maintain the rate of expansion is it takes an ever increasing amount of capital to set one person to work. The amount of capital that was required in 1976 to set a person to work was between $20,000 to $30,000. Thus, it is clear that given these facts, it becomes more and more expensive to maintain the economy. More and more of the economy goes into maintaining the economy so that economic activity becomes more and more absorbent. If you look at the questions that preoccupy individuals in government from 1700 to the 1800's to now you will find that more and more, everybody is preoccupied with economic questions. This is not the same as the simple preoccupation that each individual has with maintaining himself. That's constant, he reminds us. But, what is clear for the community is that it has to spend more and more of its energy in order to maintain the economic system. The economic system, therefore, becomes more and more absorbing as an end and less and less as a means. One of the great differences between technology in an economy in which men are dependent upon nature from technology in a modern economy is the technology and the economy become less and less of means and more and more of ends beyond which men cannot see. That is, the relationship of economic to non-economic changes significantly. It is also the case that because the economy must expand continuously that it must increase demand and the expansion of the modern economy parallels with ever expanding horizons of consumption. Which means that it has to be maintained. At the same time the modern economy continuously generates the following phenomenon. It continuously generates obsolescence. He doesn't mean obsolescence in the way that it is sometimes uses. He means the following. Capital has to move to where it can get a very simple high rate of profit. It is not true, in fact it's untrue that capital has to move to where it can get the highest rate of profit. It doesn't have to get the highest rate of profit at any instance in time. But, it has to get a high rate of profit in order for it to enable it to continuously expand in the economy. This means that very large sectors of the economy fall into decay as they cease to be profitable. That capital has to move out of them. It is no accident that you see decaying industries in decaying neighborhoods in capitalism. From this there is a kind of movement from that which once yielded a return relative to the market to that which will now yield a return relative to the market. He points out that if you look at transportation you will see there is a movement away from railways to certain kinds of road transportation to certain kinds of air transportation and so on. With every mode of transportation becoming menaced when it becomes unprofitable or looks like it may or will be unprofitable. This means continually generating unemployment of various kinds. In one of the changes in the development of capitalism, two things happened early on. One is that more and more people become incapable of using the skills or the intelligence they have. They are no longer wanted at one particular moment. There is no reason why capitalism shouldn't coexist with large sectors of unemployment permanently, by people who can't be absorbed or aren't needed in the economy. This is the real unfortunate crux for unemployed minorities or immigrants. The real crux is that there is no good reason economically to train those who are outside of the economic system. If you do train them, give them special education, recognize special needs, you can actually only bring them into the economy generally by giving them real jobs, and not just subsidies. By giving them real jobs you can only bring them into the economy by those jobs not being done by someone who is already trained for them. The notion that you can continuously absorb more and more sectors of labor is just false. Now, all this MacIntyre explains produces a situation in which every individual is pushed into the protection of local and particular interest, such as unions or special interest groups. It is the maximization of self-interest of both individuals and groups that are produced by and exercises a powerful causal effect upon the economy. Next, is an absolutely crucial point. Industrial revolutions are generally extremely unpleasant. The first English Industrial Revolution was in many ways extremely unpleasant. The Soviet Russian Industrial Revolution was extremely unpleasant. India and China he suspects were extremely unpleasant in various ways. It isn't that people's standard of living may not in some way rise continuously in industrial revolutions, but the essences of an industrial revolution is that you gain the momentum to acquire a modern industrial economy by extracting from people a surplus that you invest and that you prevent them from consuming. Every industrial revolution can only occur if there are systematic devices for keeping down the consumption of those who are actually doing the work of society. Therefore, every industrial revolution is inegalitarian. Every industrial revolution is carried through by a group who are systematically exploiting the workers in order to carry through the revolution. There is no way in which you can have an egalitarian revolution. The notion of an egalitarian industrial revolution is pure fantasy. This is not to say that there aren't nastier and nicer revolutions. You don't have to be like Stalin he emphasizes. But, you probably do have to be like Mrs. Gandhi. What is quite clear is that the sequel to an industrial revolution in a modern economy is generally a period in which pressures from the working class assures concessions both in consumption and in expression of need. It may not be direct political democracy or anything like that, but you acquire a working class that has had much hardship to a certain point and at a given point then demands a much larger consumer share. The problem with the modern economies, therefore, is always reconciling this with the need for the economy to expand. And the problem with all modern economics is how do you prevent the population from consuming now in the interest of future consumption. The second central problem for a modern economy, he continues, is that all modern economies are inherently destabilizing and when they are destabilizing it is because there are too many factors going on. That is the difficulty of keeping the whole thing going, because something is always going wrong somewhere. Chronologically that is what happens. There are beautiful theoretical models of modern economies in which nothing ever goes wrong. In practice, something is going wrong all the time. There are all sorts of tensions between different sectors. This is something that doesn't have to be made very precise, he explains. It is compatible with a great many precise theories. There has been many quarrels about how you would precisely specify many of these tendencies, but he believes it is compatible with almost any theory that has any plausibility. Next, we consider the modern state. But, first he draws a very quick but important contrast between the modern state and the most important forms of government that are found before the modern state. The most important forms of government found before the modern state are twofold. There is the kind of central administration which maintains public order and military defense, which collects taxes and creates a central bureaucracy in order to provide the administrative substructure for these functions, and which may undertake certain other tasks such as the building of roads or irrigation and other tasks of these kinds, but which otherwise leaves the vast mass of the population alone. So, the population's transactions with government will be limited to possibly military service, the payment of taxes and resorts to the courts. This sort of government need never go bankrupt. If it does go bankrupt, it goes bankrupt for the same reason that a student might go bankrupt; simply by allowing expenditures to exceed income. The remedy is very simple, either increase income, tax people more if they will bear it or decrease expenditures. There are no insoluble economic problems for a government of this kind. They may in fact become insoluble and a government may get into an incredible mess by getting into all sorts of projects, create bureaucracies and may involve itself needlessly in all sorts of things, but there is nothing in the nature of this kind of government, as such. One of the major factors in the decline of the Roman Empire he points out is the fact that small farming became for independent reasons increasingly unprofitable in a period in which taxation had to be raised to maintain a large standing army to defeat the Barbarian invasion, and therefore there was a gradual breakdown since taxation destroyed the economic base, i.e., small farmers from whom the taxes were collected. In the end, there was nobody left to tax. This was due to the accident of the Barbarian invasions and the nature of agriculture. It didn't spring from the nature of the Roman government, as such. There was no reason why, as such, the Roman government had to go bankrupt. Given certain agriculture phenomenon and certain military phenomenon, yes, MacIntyre explains, it did have to go bankrupt. But, nothing, as such. The second kind of traditional government is one in which the state allows the administration of a city by a city - either as in ancient Greece or Renaissance Italy, elsewhere too, but particularly there - where a city governs itself and does something much more than public order, justice and military defense. It is normally also engaged in the joint provision of public services. The city functions sort of as a communal household and its interest may extend as widely as do the interest of the free citizen. Both in ancient Greece and Renaissance Italy the free citizens were of course only half of the population. The appearance of government is communal. The government is the community organizing itself in a particularly way. Now such communities are much more likely to be dependent on external trade than the Roman Empire or medieval kingdom. The city is likely to specialize. It is likely to have commitments from part of its population in the country side from which it receives agricultural produce and to which it sells goods. The appearance of the city is much more like an individual household or an individual firm in its economics. The claims to loyalty of the state and of citizens in these two cases are also different, but quite intelligible MacIntyre explains. In the case of the medieval kingdom or the Roman Empire there was a notion of imperium or some kind of divinely given authority he points out. In the case of the city-state, the force of authority is we ourselves in the city; not just persons of the present, but also those of the past. There are other elements to this that are complex, but what he wants to emphasize is the crucial difference between either of these types of governments and the modern state. The modern state differs drastically in its relationship to the economy, and in the kind of authority it claims. He then turns to the relationship of the modern state with the economy. The modern state has two main tasks in relation to the economy. It has to correct the imbalances of the economy and it has to do what the economy cannot do. That is there are all sorts of services that will never be productive in private hands. Therefore, the state has to provide them if they are to be provided at all, and since these services are essential to the working of the modern economy, although they are not productive for the modern economy, they are not profit making, therefore, the state has to provide them. There are certain forms of transportation and education that typically are provided by the state, postal services, etc,. are services that the state has to provide. At the same time, the state has to continuously cope with all those people who the economy cannot cope with. The modern economy is continuously producing unemployment, populations of the ill, the mentally ill, the old, and there is no way of providing for them in the conventional economic system. How does the state provide for them? It does it in two ways. First, it creates state agencies. And these agencies are of course economically unproductive. That is you pull out of the labor force each time you create a state agency, skilled manpower, and you thereby impoverish the economy. You make the economy worse; sometime hopelessly. And, secondly, in order to provide the agency with resources you use taxation. Therefore, the law of being a modern state is to continuously increase the non-productive sector of the economy and continually penalize the productive sector of the economy. Which means this process continually aggravates the very conditions that the modern state is trying to solve. Therefore, he introduces you to 'MacIntyre's Law of the Modern State,' which asserts that all states are going bankrupt, some faster than others. All states are going bankrupt because the ability of the modern state to finance itself out of taxation is self-defeating, because every time the state increases its taxation it worsens the economy which it depends upon to tax. Now, how quickly bankruptcy comes in the modern state of course depends on contingent factors. Why is this important apart from when it does go bankrupt that we will all feel it rather hard? The answer is that the problem is not just that the modern state has an economic function, but that it's holding together its economic and political function not by the nature of its physical character, but by the fact that it demands an allegiance from us. And, the reason for its demand is essentially paternal or maternal. The state essentially claims our loyalty on the grounds that it will in various ways protect us. The problem is that the state's inability to control the economy necessarily erodes this claim. The result is that there are more and more people who are dependent upon the state and at the same time have less and less reason for loyalty to the state. Bertrand de Jouvenel pointed out a long time ago that every time that resources are distributed from one sector of the population to another, as for example by redistributive taxation, what happens is not that those who receive the redistributive income become more independent, but rather become clients of the state. That is the state acquires more and more dependents. There are more and more people who directly depend on the state. Now, those who manage the state are therefore, if this argument is correct, always in an intolerant dilemma. One of these is that they are continuously pushed on one hand to produce programs and agencies that will enable them to cope with the instabilities created by the economy, and there are always new ones, and on the other hand each time they do this they depress the economy and they cause the very conditions that they are trying to alleviate. Therefore, characteristically in the modern world, politics is a matter of two parties, one of whom advocates programs to alleviate economic hardships and the other of whom continuously talks about freeing the economy from state control. Therefore, politics in the modern state becomes an oscillation between these two positions. The important thing to understand is of course what these two positions share is much more important than what they disagree about. And that the two positions require each other. That is why MacIntyre explains that the Democratic Party has to constantly reinvent the Republican Party. The great danger for the Democratic Party is that the Republican Party will die out and then the Democratic Party would just have to split to create an opposing party to which it could engage in a continuing oscillating relationship, thereby retaining its relevance. He says this in the context that there is no way of conducting politics within the framework essentially but in terms of this particular kind of oscillation between the two parties. In addition to the problem of the oscillation between the modern state's attempt to control the economy there is a second type of oscillation which involves a movement toward and away from individualism. By leaving everything politically and economically up to the individual, MacIntyre says, leads to intolerable situations that then lead to movement away from individualism. There is a great deal of rhetoric about reconciling freedom and order, but its whole function is to disguise the incoherence of culture's dominant notions of freedom and order. Thus, we have what appears to be insolvable problems. Given these restraints if follow that there is something very wrong with most theories of power. The first is the pluralist theory, according to which power is widely distributed among different groups and agencies and the important thing according to it is the disbursal of power. Politics is then the coming together of different groups and agencies and working out in the bargaining process how their different interest can be reconciled. Second, there is the theory advanced by C. Wright Mills in his book The Power Elite, according to which power is exercised by a relatively small group that manages to dominate the rest of society through various economic and political means. MacIntyre argues that both of these theories of power are false, because they each assume that there is a lot of power around. Whereas, in MacIntyre's view, there is almost none. What we are impressed by is fundamentally powerlessness and not power. That is because the interplay between the modern economy and the modern state is such that the range of choices open to any particular individual is usually enormously restricted. He cites Dwight Eisenhower's complaints of how what appeared to him outside the presidency to be very simple things did not turn out that way once president. 'How to books' written for presidents such as Presidential Power by Richard Neustadt written for John Kennedy is premised on organizing the executive branch administratively so they will get power. But MacIntyre says that what you can hope for by organizational change is severely limited precisely because the shape of politics is dictated by the relations between the state and the economy. Thus, presidents find out in office that there is almost nothing that they can do. The only exception in which the modern state really has complete control of the economy is in time of war in which people believe that their national identity is threatened. World War II is the best example in which both England and the United States converted their whole economic industrial capability to war-time production, which is to say that individuals voluntarily subordinated their private interest to the needs of the state in time of war. I would say that for America, since the debate during the Vietnam War of whether that war in any way actually threatened American national interest, let alone its identity, that since then the state's ability to control the economy even in time of war is seriously diminished as evidenced by the current debate over the Iraq war.
It is therefore apparent that given the framework that MacIntyre has described above of the modern state that the declared objectives of most politicians amount to mere rhetoric and not real options given the adverse effects upon the economy of most of their objectives. Granted, there may be some who sincerely want to use state bureaucracies to provide services to those in need, but most of them eventually see the futility of their intentions. Quite typically, action is taken for the sake of actions to provide the illusion that progress is taking place. Most political action is tantamount to rearranging deck chairs on the sinking Titanic. Some experienced politicians know the dynamic just discussed but refuse to publicly acknowledge it because it would threaten the perpetuation of those who benefit from the status quo. The primary objective of politicians today is simply to gain power and maintain power for power's sake. That is why nothing substantial ever happens when governments change parties. Sure there are some minor shifts in economic activity, increases or decreases in taxes, widening or contraction of the social 'safety net' and expansion or contraction of civil rights and freedom, but by and large there is primarily only an increase in obstacles for individuals to overcome in trying to flourish due to increased government regulation and pervasive taxation and an increase in the number of laws that one may potentially violate, which in turn diminishes individual freedom to act and erodes personal liberty. As the population's confidence in government diminishes and as frustration increases with the number of obstacles imposed by the modern state that impedes or outright prevents individuals from flourishing, in spite of their individual efforts, it becomes evident that it is time for a revolutionary change in the relationship between those who govern and those who are subjected to the rule of the modern state. We no longer live in a world where only the poor or the working class requires relief. All people, from the poor to the middle class to the rich and the very rich require relief from the overreach and authoritative control of the modern state. I believe given the frustration of those who articulate their pain as well as those of the great 'silent majority' who don't verbalize their anxiety, but suffer with it nonetheless, that the timing may be right to consider MacIntyre's revolutionary Aristotelianism as a path from the treadmill of our current circumstances to a new possible beginning. Before looking at a few steps that could bring Aristotelian ideas first into public consideration and then into reality, let's turn briefly to the issue of incommensurate values in the modern liberal state.
Ethics and Moral Relativism
It has become such a common occurrence today for individuals engaged in pleasant conversation to suddenly realize that the person to whom they are speaking has just said something that represents a moral value totally contrary to one's own moral values. Some people immediately sidestep the issue choosing not to reveal their own set of values. Others encourage discussion of the issue to assure themselves that they accurately understood what the other person just said or to get a better understanding of the other person's point of view on the issue. The more confident one feels about their own moral grounding and their capacity to discuss possibly controversial topics with another in an intellectually, respectful conversational style, the more likely one will engage the other on such topics as a matter of interesting conversation. To have such polite, informative, interesting and enjoyable conversations require the capacity to respectfully engage in concepts that stem from other traditions of thought that rival one's own tradition. Sometimes the participants learn to appreciate a different point of view and become open to even changing or modifying their own point of view. Other times the conversation is simply a form of entertainment for no reason other than the sheer pleasure of exchanging concepts with an enjoyable person while passing time in one another's company. Sometimes of course the conversation has the potential to turn embarrassing, too self-revealing, frustrating or may even turn hostile as participants struggle to make their point defensible or become insulted that the other person cannot appreciate the wisdom of their perspective or logic. If a party to such a conversation has seriously misjudged the other person they may even find they have just made an enemy or worse, as the conversation may turn deadly. Now how do we explain the multitude of experiences and possible human conclusions posed above, which are all based on the same conversational activity of discussing competing moral perspectives? There are two elements at play here. First, most people do not have a deep theoretical understanding of why they believe what they believe. That is to say that they have not invested the time and personal analytical effort necessary to arrive at intelligible first principles that support their premises that entail their conclusions. Second, there is no general consensus of what constitutes valid moral concepts and practices, by what basis one moral tradition is any more justified than another and how to deal with the 'gray areas' that inevitably seem to occur when making judgments involving competing notions of interest or of the good. There are two reasons why most people do not have a clear understanding of what they think they believe. The first reason is frequently people adopt their belief systems from their social environment, e.g., from their parents, their friends, their religion, their education or indoctrination or their aimless self-talk that takes root through repetition. Many people simply want to fit-in and that is much more important to them than principles. The second reason that people maintain very shaky beliefs is what I alluded to earlier. People are so filled with fear, frustration and insecurities that the idea of examining their beliefs or looking for rational grounds to support their ethical code might so shatter their shaky foundation that any possible benefit promised is insufficient to counteract the fear of being permanently adrift in an already incomprehensible world. Most people are barely hanging on, which is why they fight so emotionally to support whatever perspective they employ to justify their past, but also to maintain their capacity to face yet another day of choices in which the outcomes of their choices seem not only unpredictable, but also not necessarily causally connected to what they perceive as components of their choice or executed actions. I have acquired this perspective of the general public from not only my conversations with many casual acquaintances over the years, but particularly from my involvement with people in the political process and my observations of comments made by people who today are able to have their one paragraph comments posted on newspaper websites that permit the public to comment on news stories or editorial commentary. I am also amazed and alarmed at the effectiveness of political television ads and literature mailed to voters. The public can be manipulated and swayed so easily by rhetoric that it is very understandable why they can appropriately be characterized as "Dazed and Confused," a song composed by guitar legend Jimmy Page on Led Zeppelin's 1969 debut album. Now, I mention all this because I want to comment on an important issue that MacIntyre has often raised with respect to a commensurable public standard in articulating moral beliefs, whether they be drawn from a view of Hume, Kant or Mill on the one hand, or drawn from Aristotle and Aquinas on the other hand, and the liberal states' desire to render moral judgment in a way that "is independent of the human good" (MacIntyre 1990: 360). It is a complex issue in which time and space does not allow me to fully explore all of the ethical and political considerations in this conference paper. However, I have devoted considerable space to these issues in my forthcoming book In Defense of Individuality (Poirier 2007), which examines in depth the nature of contemporary American political processes and the current state of ethics in modernity, as well as Hegel's influence on the development of the modern state. However, here I can say that in spite of a concerted effort on the part of political parties to sway the public's view on morality, America, by and large, continues to remain predominately attached to individualistic precepts and norms, which I believe are beneficial to human flourishing. At the same time, a lack of rational, ethical, justificatory standards to appeal to in public debate of moral issues is most counterproductive. Christopher Lutz in his excellent book Tradition In The Ethics of Alasdair MacIntrye highlights his understanding of MacIntyre's distinction between relativism and rationality in the example of an Athenian sophist claiming that there is no such thing as justice as such, only justice as understood in different cities. Lutz explains with respect to the nature of virtue that "While the rationality of judgments concerning human excellence remains relative to culture, the truth about human excellence does not" (Lutz 2004: 67). As to whether the state should directly link moral judgments to a specific view of the human good, I wish to point out the benefit and the danger. Continued in Part 2 . . . . Part 2 Continued below Ushering in MacIntyre's Notions of Political Transformation in Modernity
By Richard Poirier
The benefit is instructing or reminding individuals that their duty to themselves is to make choices that are in their best interest. To promote a public discussion of what constitutes one's best interest would indeed be beneficial to both individuals and the public good. A discussion of one's best interest entail a discussion of what constitutes the good and any public discussion of the good is good. An issue which is often misunderstood by some traditions is the nature of the justification of any moral code from an individualist premise. The argument might run that Adam Smith's appeal to 'sympathy' or the counsel of 'the man within the breast' to be morally just or Kant's 'categorical imperatives' provides no reason for why one should subordinate one's apparent self-interest to the dictates of impartial moral rules. The presupposition of this dilemma is the assumption that individualism only constitutes a view of self-interested immediacy. All actions need to be considered in light of a sufficient context and the fact that life is a continuum. What may appear to be a benefit today or at the moment may have long term detriments. Therefore, self-interest needs to always be considered in the light that others exist in our world and our actions often have an effect on others. Which is not to say that we should put the interest of others before ourselves as a primary objective, rather that one should be aware of the interest of others and that their interest should be taken into account when one makes decisions about their own interest. I, therefore, introduce perhaps a new way of understanding individualism in what I call 'Cooperative Individualism' to bridge the gap between those who think individualism is incompatible with the public good. The danger of the state defining what constitutes the public good is of course it misusing its definition to justify a road to totalitarian rule, as in George Orwell's examples of "newspeak, doublethink" in 1984 (Orwell 1949: 25) or in Josef Pieper's warning of manipulation and "indifference regarding the truth" in his excellent book Abuse of Language -- Abuse of Power (Pieper 1974 /1992: 17). I mention these ideas as examples of the type of fruitful debate that can occur as one possibility of MacIntyre's Revolutionary Aristotelianism taking root in public debate. Through engagement in serious public debate of the notions of liberalism in the modern state contrasted with Aristotle's reasonable approach to ethics of moderation and his doctrine of the 'Golden Mean' in the Nicomachean Ethics, (Aristotle 384-322 BCE), society will have a much greater chance of coming to more of a general consensus of what constitutes the good than if people are unwilling to discuss issues because they believe achieving consensus is hopeless or that there is no value in considering opposing points of view. I have every reason to believe that individuals and the society they comprise would benefit from the insight of Aristotle, Aquinas and MacIntyre. Now on to how to promote their ideas into the mainstream of society.
Ushering in MacIntyre's Notions of Political Transformation
There are several ways to introduce new ideas into society in such a way as to have a real transformational effect. Due to the many different classifications of people that make up society, one approach or method will not be sufficient. It is necessary to use the appropriate method for each different social group. Sophisticated technical philosophy books are excellent in communicating to academic audiences and public intellectuals. But, it is also necessary to influence those in society who influence others, namely those who influence the content of major newspapers, television and radio newsrooms and television programming departments as well as internet sites and the new communication transmitters of our time, the bloggers. Ideas can be posted on newspapers' websites and social networks sites such as MySpace.com and other similar sites that attract millions of teenagers. One of the most powerful communication modes today is the song and accompanying music video. Just as drummer/composer Neil Peart in 1976 incorporated ideas of Ayn Rand (Rand 1961) into the lyrics of Canadian rock band Rush, and Christian orientated bands have done the same with their songs, artists could be encouraged to incorporate Aristotelian concepts into their lyrics. Television and film writers could be encouraged to incorporate Aristotelian themes into their screenplays. An effective device in politics today is creating non-profit 501(c)(3) businesses and producing videos that articulate the concept of the non-profit for public consumption in various outlets. Cable television offer low-cost production and on-air exposure to small and large markets. Conferences of this kind are excellent to communicate awareness of Aristotle's philosophy and MacIntyre tremendous contribution to this tradition. However, conferences also provide a topic or theme that constitutes a separate element that can be the subject matter of a publicity campaign which can be promoted in numerous ways to reach different audiences. Books about Aristotle and MacIntrye could be donated to schools for the purpose of students reading them and writing papers about what they read for the purpose of winning a contest or scholarship. A speaker's bureau could be established in which speakers make themselves available to speak at numerous kinds of events from small club luncheons to major talk shows. Merchandizing items such as tee-shirts, posters, coffee mugs, etc., could be sold to raise money for other promotional ideas. Political speechwriters could be persuaded to incorporate ideas into political speeches, and even though this could be risky because a politician's subsequence acts may be contrary to the ideas promoted in their speech creating confusion in the minds of the public. Nonetheless, even controversy itself can generate benefits in exposing good ideas to the masses. Ultimately, candidates associated with these ideas may be elected to office and implement some of these ideas into public practice. There is no limit to the possibility of how a worthy idea can take hold on society once a little momentum has got underway. I have argued that the public is extremely unhappy and looking for relief from their fears and anger. Although they are rightfully skeptical of new ideas from anyone, they are also hungry for leadership and a new direction. The time is now. Now, one may ask how MacIntyre feels about the prospects of his ideas taking hold in society? Based on my conversation with him on November 30, 2006 at a conference on Modernity at Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture, I would say he is not very optimistic that his ideas will take hold on a large scale level due to the very nature of the modern liberal state. It is my impression that he feels that more good can be accomplished on a small scale community basis where the complexities of the bureaucracy of the state are not as pervasive. So, one might ask why I see possibilities that he does not. My answer is first that I am an optimist, and second that I am reminded of something that MacIntyre said about Adam Smith 31 years ago. He said that there is a passage, seldom noted, in The Wealth of Nations (Smith 1776/1952) in which Smith says that it is more impossible for the system of economy that he is describing to ever actually be instituted in England than the laws of utopia should be enacted. He thought he was describing an imaginary, but possible world, which would not actually materialize. The reason that it would not materialize is that it would conflict with the interest of too many rich and powerful people. Well, notwithstanding Smith's lack of optimism on the prospects of his economic theory of capitalism flourishing, it has indeed flourished and not conflicted with the interest of rich and powerful people. And, so I conclude by theorizing that the same may be true for Alasdair MacIntyre's Aristotelian notions of political and ethical transformations in modernity. Today's conference may indeed be an indicator of a mass transformation looming in the near distance.
Bibliography American Lawyer (July 2003) , The AM 100 Aristotle (384 - 322 BC/1952) , Nicomachean Ethics, Chicago Callahan, David (2004) , The Cheating Culture, Hardcourt, Orlando, FL Knight, Kelvin (2007) , Aristotelian Philosophy, Cambridge, UK Lutz, Christopher (2004) , Tradition In The Ethics of Alasdair MacIntyre, Lanham, MacIntyre, Alasdair (April 1976) , Morals, Politics and the Emergence of Modernity. Richard Poirier's notes from course lectures by Alasdair MacIntyre, Boston University MacIntyre, Alasdair (1990) , The Privatization of Good, An Inaugural Lecture in: The Review of Politics, University of Notre Dame, Summer 1990, p 360 MacIntyre, Alasdair (1981 / 1984) , After Virtue, London, UK MacIntyre, Alasdair (2006) , Three perspectives on Marxism: 1953, 1968, 1995 in: Ethics and Politics: Selected Essays, Volume 2, Cambridge, UK Mills, Wright, C. (1956) , The Power Elite, Oxford, UK Neustadt, Richard (1960) , Presidential Power, New York Orwell, George (1949) , 1984, New York Pieper, Josef (1974 / 1992) , Abuse of Language -- Abuse of Power, Munich / San Francisco Poirier, Richard (2007) , In Defense of Individuality, unpublished manuscript, Los Angeles Rand, Ayn (1961) , For The New Intellectual, New York Smith, Adam (1776/1952) , The Wealth of Nations, Chicago
Richard Poirier, a Los Angeles resident, music industry financial executive, writer and philosopher, has been selected by the University of Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture to chair a colloquium session on "20th Century Ethics" at this year's annual conference titled "Modernity: Yearning for the Infinite," Nov. 30 through Dec. 2 in South Bend, Ind.
Presentations by academic philosophers in Poirier's "20th Century Ethics" session include "On Keeping Things Complicated: Ethics after Modernity" by Darin Davis of Baylor University; "Objective Ethics and the Dynamics of Desire" by Benjamin Huff of Randolph-Macon College; and "'Is' and 'Ought' Revisited: Moral Realism and the Fact-Value Distinction" by Robert J. Matava of University of St. Andrews (Scotland). "In recent years," director David Solomon explains, "the meaning of the modern has come to be at the heart of many of the deepest and most divisive debates within ethics, politics, the arts and religion. While continuing to recognize the great achievements of modernity, especially the rise of the natural sciences and liberal political regimes with their rejection of oppressive social and political structures, many have come to believe that the modern has also brought with it human problems of new and frightening sorts: cultural and moral fragmentation, anomie in personal lives, crimes against humanity of unprecedented scale and ferocity, and the domination of human life by new technologies that seem impossible for us to control." Poirier cites the use of police surveillance cameras at parks and intersections as well as Prop 83's new requirement to use GPS monitors for life on certain categories of human beings as examples of society's inability to control today's available technologies. Based on these troubling trends we can speculate what the future may hold. The aim of the seventh annual fall conference is to bring together a large number of respected scholars representing all the main academic fields, from Catholic, non-Catholic, and secular institutions, to provide spirited discussions of the underlying causes and ramifications of the intellectual epoch we have come to call modernity; of the relationship between the main theses of modernity in the last century; and the impact of modernity upon work in philosophy, theology, law, literature, the arts, as well as other fields of intellectual inquiry and endeavor. There are thirty-eight sessions over the three day conference that address topics ranging from "The Crisis of Modern Law and Legal Theory" to "Theological Challenges of Modernity" to "Kantian Themes in Modernity" to "Literature and Modernity" and "Modernity and the Limits of Freedom." The conference key note speaker is world renowned philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre whose presentation is entitled "Modernity's Self-Subversion." Richard Poirier has a political and philosophical commentary blog on the Bakersfield.com website in which some of his commentaries may be viewed including a one page abstract he wrote for this conference entitled "Modernity and the Rise of Individualism." In 443 B.C., Sophocles presented an embryonic notion of individuality when Oedipus's daughter Antigone decided to defy King Creon's edict that prohibited the mourning or burying of her slain brother Polyneices for alleged disloyalty to the state. Under penalty of death by stoning, Antigone buried her brother to honor a more compelling family duty, thus preserving the identity of her family. Characterizing her actions as criminally sinless and recognizing death is inevitable for all mortals, she viewed premature death by state execution more honorable than living under a state sponsored evil proclamation that she viewed as contrary to notions of justice and the statues of heaven. Antigone, the King’s son Haemon and wife Eurydice each ultimately choose self-inflicted death rather than life under the King's terms.
This concept of living for the sake of the community because one lacks any individual identity apart from the duty entailed by community membership was examined and rejected by individualist philosophers during the Enlightenment and industrial revolution that gave birth to the modern state. Since the French and American Revolutions against royal establishment rule and since Adam Smith's vision of capitalism and Thomas Jefferson's vision of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in 1776, efforts to assert notions of individualism, __ although the term itself was first used in a negative context in 1820 by Joseph de Maistre __ have been a long solitary struggle until reaching critical mass during the mid-1960's counter-cultural revolution. Notwithstanding the public paradigmatic shift stemming from the temporary phenomenon of the 60's, those who seek to preserve traditional community values have continued to challenge those who assert a natural law right to live with minimal restraints and maximum freedom. Pressures to conform to the norms of society express themselves in virtually every aspect of one's life from childhood training, formal education, employment, encounters with law enforcement and political activism to everyday peer pressures to adhere to preconceived normative expectations. However, resistance to conform also expresses itself in sometimes predictable and sometimes bizarre behavior, as well as in pragmatic compromises that allow one to occupy conventional and individualistic life styles simultaneously. Predictable pursuits of individualism include alternative education, occupations and life styles. Bizarre expressions include engaging in extremes for the sake of extremes, such as flirting with near death experiences, involvement in extreme fringes of the adult entertainment industry, and extreme attention-seeking or self-sabotaging behavior. Pragmatic compromise includes working within the system and using goods obtained for individualistic ends, such as acquiring an outlet to express counter-culture point of views, building homes with walls and security to keep society away, accumulating resources to engage in legal battles when offended by societal restrictions, or perhaps earning enough to never have to work for the rest of one's life. As society exerts more pressure to conform utilizing the legislative process, required dress codes, age restrictions, licensing credentials, politically correct speech, credit scores, advertising, and the arts, we will continue to see individuals reevaluate what they value and why, which provides insight into who they really are. This need for self-reflection will bring a greater awareness of the role of our knowledge and beliefs in formulating our judgments about competing rival concepts and available alternatives. Individuality is not resisting societal norms for the sake of resisting. It is going deeply into the resources of one's mind to identify one's exact needs and tapping into one's creativity to formulate one's own personal way to achieve one's individual ends. If we find that institutions originally designed to facilitate the individual in obtaining his or her ends are no longer fulfilling that purpose, one might take it upon oneself to modify or recast those institutions to serve individual ends. Individual and societal needs do not necessarily have to be at cross-purposes. Do individuals have an identity prior to their membership in social groups? Yes, identity begins with perceptional development after birth. One is obviously different from that which is external. At various points the socialization process seeks to mold us into norm-adhering members of the community. It does not take much for many people to forget their own self-identity and accept group thinking or robot behavior. However, deep within our mind there is a voice that calls out for us to assert our individuality. Those who pursue their individualistic calling pay a price. But, when has there not been a price to pay for anything really worthwhile. The reason for the rise in individualism in modernity is the theoretical justification for the societal-control argument by authority figures has weakened due to a more educated general population and a more transparent view of those in power by the media. There will always be a valid argument for some organized community structure and order, but society has always pushed far beyond the point of what is reasonable. A society that respects individualism provides a justification for individuals to respect the society that they comprise.
To persuade voters to ratify the U.S. Constitution, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison in 1787 wrote in the Federalist Papers, "Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society." There are many values embodied in a legitimate government, but none is more foundational than justice. Justice does not end at the victim's door. It extends to all members of society, including those accused and convicted. The problem with obtaining justice in areas of conflicting interests is that politicians and interest groups deliberately obfuscate issues with emotional appeals and misleading language.
Proposition 83 on the Nov. 7 ballot is a Revenge Law that violates the constitutional protections of due process and against cruel and unusual punishment. It does this by requiring involuntary indeterminate civil commitments at state mental hospitals for sex offenders after they complete their prison term and eliminates their current right to a review of their civil incarceration every two years by jury trial. Prop. 83 denigrates human beings to the level of an animal by requiring electronic GPS monitoring for life for anyone convicted of a registerable sex offense. These new 1984 Big Brother-type repressive penalties are adorned with a cute, emotionally laden title - Jessica's Law.
Under the guise of protecting children, the Department of Corrections is sponsoring this proposition to acquire more customers for its overcrowded prisons. Its motive is to justify building more prisons and expanding its politically powerful bureaucracy. In addition to billions of dollars of construction costs for new prisons, which the Legislature has already wisely rejected, the measure will cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars annually, with no limit on escalating cost.
Consider backers' claims that sex-crime sentences are too short. Under current law: Penal Code, Sec. 261, consensual Statutory Rape, 3-8 Yrs; Sec. 269, Aggravated Sexual Assault of a child under fourteen, 15 Yrs. to Life; effective 9/20/06, 25 Yrs. to Life; Sec. 667.61, a 2 nd Lewd Act conviction, Life; Sec. 207, Kidnapping to commit sexual penetration, Life. Now, if you think sex-offender laws could never apply to you or your children, consider that a "Sexually Violent Offense" includes Spousal Rape, Sec. 262, defined as sexual intercourse against a person's will or if asleep, 3-8 Yrs. Think of the accusations for purposes of leverage that could arise during a divorce.
Existing law requires registration for life for any of these felony sex violations. Prop. 83 changes the definition of "Sexually Violent Predator" from acts against two or more victims to one victim, which creates "Predator" status from the claim of only one person in the classic "he said, she said" situation. This is not what the public considers to be the definition of the term "Predator" in common usage. Thus, it creates confusion in the mind of the voter as to many of those actually targeted by this proposition.
Prop. 83 could even affect your property value. It calls for the relocation of all registered sex offenders to areas that are not within 2,000 feet, about 40% of a mile, of any public or private school or park. Additionally, municipal jurisdictions may enact local ordinances that further restrict where registered sex offenders and their families may live. This means that thousands of registered sex offenders-- most of whom have never touched a child under 16-- and their families will be required to sell their homes in most major cities and move to suburban and rural areas that satisfy the 2,000 feet restriction law. If you live in a suburban or rural neighborhood without a school or park within 2,000 feet, Prop 83 may force them to move into your neighborhood. Since their addresses will be posted on the internet, a real estate agent can use this information in determining the value of your home. This proposition negatively affects everyone.
The Iowa County Attorneys Association that is currently dealing with the ramifications of their own versions of a 2,000 feet residency restriction law said, "there is no correlation between children's safety and an ex-felon-free zone (according to the U.S. Dept of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 94.7% of ex-sex offenders are never charged with a second offense, less than 10 % of sexual abuse is done by strangers and around 95% of sex abuse cases are "new offenders" not repeat offenders). The problem is more will go underground and fail to register, some have become homeless." The last thing we need in California is to force reformed, employed ex-sex offenders into bands of homeless, unemployed outcasts roaming public streets looking for a place to sleep.
Space limitations preclude covering all the reasons why Prop. 83, with definitional enhancements, is a dangerous step towards prosecutorial overreach, incarceration abuse and lifetime societal ostracism. The day we buy into arguments that people cannot learn their lesson in prison or control their impulses or that society should punish people for "likely" future acts is the day we relinquished our country's founding principle of justice. We cannot allow our disgust at sex offenders' behavior to cloud our judgment on sound public policies, any more than we can allow our revulsion to certain kinds of speech to weaken our defense of free speech.
We cannot allow politicians to compete for sponsoring "the toughest laws in the country" without sacrificing justice. As Jeanne S. Woodford, acting head of the state Corrections Department, who resigned in frustration, explained, "California criminal-justice policy has developed haphazardly, through laws passed by politicians whose chief goal was to appear to be tougher on crime than their opponents."
Will Prop. 83 benefit 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford, who was raped and murdered last year? No, death cannot be reversed, but her tragic death offers insight. Consider the causational relationship between excessive penalties and some sex offenders' rationale for avoiding excessive punishment by killing the only witness - the victim. We shouldn't provide a rationale for murder by failing to make penalties fit the seriousness of crimes. Perhaps Jessica Lunsford, JonBenet Ramsey and countless others would be alive today if society had the courage to demand reasonable prison terms based on justice instead of revenge.
The problem with revenge is that, no matter how much one gets, it's never enough. In China, 550 B.C., common punishments included castration, branding, slicing off the nose, chopping off the feet or toes, cutting leg tendons and breaking knee caps. Barbaric public policy begets barbaric public behavior. By voting No on Prop. 83 you will be preserving our civilized way of life and perhaps protecting yourself, the next time you get a traffic ticket, from being required to wear a GPS monitor to ensure your court appearance. Future applications are endless.
Finally, let's save hundreds of millions of dollars every year that would needlessly expand and reward the 31,000 member state prison guards' union.. Vote No on 83 and take the first step towards saving the life of the next Jessica. Prop 85 is not about a minor's right to an abortion, nor requiring parental consent. Abortion rights were settled by the U.S. Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade three decades ago and the California Supreme Court ruled there is no requirement for minors to obtain parental consent in American Academy of Pediatrics v. Lungren, in 1996. Prop 85's only issue is whether parents should be notified 48 hours before a minor has an abortion in California. How do we evaluate the merits of this proposition and its consequences? First, disregard rhetoric that it's anti-family or pro-family, left or right, as these characterizations bias objective evaluation. Similarly, disregard arguments that teens cannot get an aspirin from a school nurse, as they can legally buy aspirins at supermarkets. There are numerous regulations that shouldn't exist, so using one to justify another is not a valid argument. The real issue is teenage girls, past puberty, 13 to 17 do consensually have sex with their boyfriends and sometimes become pregnant. This may be due to a lack of sex education or deliberate choice. Naturally, reasonable, responsible parents desire to know if their teenager is dealing with this kind of life-changing emotional experience and want to provide their personal counsel and support. The problem is that not all parents are reasonable or responsible. The issue is whether parents are justified in turning to government to create new rights and regulations to deal with what should be a very private matter. Sure, everyone desires the opportunity to influence others. Many think their own opinion should apply universally to everyone else, like a moral Kantian categorical imperative. In practice this approach fails because it disregards circumstances or if it took all circumstances into consideration it would no longer be universal. Additionally, turning to government to solve all of our problems or grant all of our desires is not the way rational Americans choose to live. Contrary to some beliefs, children are not the property or possession of their biological parents or society. Hegel argued in The Philosophy of Right, 1821, that parents do not own their children, contrary to early Roman law. The only justification for parents' limited authority over children, Hegel asserted, "is to educate and benefit them." One educates a teenager by using reason and logical arguments supported by valid principles and facts; not by authoritative whim or force. A minor's right to privacy is not derived from the state, although the state may act to protect this right. Like many rights, privacy is derived intrinsically from being a free human being. Humans are responsible for their own lives and decisions. Responsibility entails freedom to act. Respect and confidence encourages responsible decisions. Parents do not have a "right" to be notified of a teenager's abortion decision. Parents, however, are afforded an opportunity to participate in that decision-making process by cultivating an on-going loving and supportive relationship with their teenager. When a challenging event occurs in a teenager's life, the nature of the relationship that parents have cultivated over time will determine whether a teenager decides to include them in that aspect of the teenager's private life. Loving, intelligent, supportive parents will be invited into this process. Hateful, ignorant, harmful parents will be excluded. The law is not the appropriate vehicle to initiate parental involvement. If teenagers have reasons to believe it is not in their physical or emotional best interest to share their abortion decision with their parents, a law requiring forceful involvement through parental notification or alternatively humiliation before a judge who may subject their lover to statutory rape penalties or their parents to child social service investigation for abuse, may force teenagers to runaway, get abortions underground or out of state, or commit suicide. Unintended consequences of shortsighted legislation are all too common. It's time we learn from past mistakes. Let special interest groups battle among themselves in the marketplace of ideas to persuade others voluntarily. They should start with dialogues with their teenagers, not propositions or legislators. Consider Sophocles' wisdom in King Creon's painful outcry of regret over the tragic double suicide stemming from his state imposed decree regarding the competing moral interests of the state and his son's intended bride Antigone. King Creon - "Woe is me, for the wretched blindness of my counsels." The messenger - "Of all curses which cleave to man, ill counsel is the sovereign curse." You can take a moral stand in safeguarding teenagers from this proposition's ill counsel and unintended consequences by voting No on Prop 85. 
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