Category: Realpolitik

Trump versus Prevost: Crudity versus Blather

Donald J. Trump issued a disgusting tweet on Easter Sunday morning. I commented on it in Political Polarization in the Age of Trump.  But I fail to see the value of Pope Leo’s pious performative Easter Sunday response.

The pope continued with words directed at the current conflict in the Middle East: “The peace that Jesus gives us is not merely the silence of weapons, but the peace that touches and transforms the heart of each one of us!… Let those who have weapons lay them down!

If you threw down your weapons before Hitler, he would not be moved to do likewise, but kill you on the spot on the ground that you had thereby demonstrated your physiological decadence and unfitness for life in the only world there is. Something very similar holds for the Muslim thugs of Iran. It is utter folly to project into others one’s own values and attitudes, as if we are all the same ‘deep down’ or all ‘really want the same things.’ Bellicosity is hard-wired into some. Thugs, whether born that way or socialized into it, have no regard for your tender-hearted love of humanity.

The Islamo-theocrats have vowed to destroy Judeo-Christian civilization, and have proven their intent through countless horrific acts over many years.  They cannot be reached by Prevostian pieties. And there is no small hypocrisy in Leo’s decidedly unleonine mouthings. Would he not call upon the armed might of the Italian state to crush any jihadis who descended on Vatican City to destroy its people and its treasures?  Would he allow their slaughter and its destruction?

I discuss the problem in detail in Morality Private and Public. The essay concludes with some penetrating observations of Hannah Arendt  from  “Truth and Politics” in Between Past and Future, Penguin 1968, p. 245:

The disastrous consequences for any community that began in all earnest to follow ethical precepts derived from man in the singular — be they Socratic or Platonic or Christian — have been frequently pointed out. Long before Machiavelli recommended protecting the political realm against the undiluted principles of the Christian faith (those who refuse to resist evil permit the wicked “to do as much evil as they please”), Aristotle warned against giving philosophers any say in political matters. (Men who for professional reasons must be so unconcerned with “what is good for themselves” cannot very well be trusted with what is good for others, and least of all with the “common good,” the down-to-earth interests of the community.) [Arendt cites Nicomachean Ethics, Book VI, and in particular 1140b9 and 1141b4.]

There is a tension between man qua philosopher or Christian and man qua citizen. As a philosopher and a Christian, I am concerned with my soul, with its integrity, purity, salvation. I take very seriously indeed the Socratic “Better to suffer wrong than to do it” and the Christian “Resist not the evildoer.” But as a citizen I must be concerned not only with my own well-being but also with the public welfare. This is true a fortiori of public officials and people in a position to influence public opinion. So, as Arendt points out, the Socratic and Christian admonitions are not applicable in the public sphere.

What is applicable to me in the singular, as this existing individual concerned with the welfare of his immortal soul over that of his perishable body, is not applicable to me as a citizen. As a citizen, I cannot unrestrictedly “welcome the stranger” as the New Testament enjoins, the stranger who violates the laws of my country, a stranger who may be a terrorist or a drug smuggler or a human trafficker or a carrier of a deadly disease or a person who has no respect for the traditions of the country he invades; I must not aid and abet his law-breaking. I must be concerned with public order and the very conditions that make the philosophical and Christian life possible in the first place. If I were to aid and abet the stranger’s lawbreaking, I would not be “rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.”

Indeed, the Caesar verse provides a scriptural basis for Church-State separation and indirectly exposes the fallacy of the Catholic bishops and others who seek to inject a particular personal morality into the public sphere.

Robert Kaplan on Henry Kissinger

Robert Kaplan:

Kissinger’s beliefs, which emerge through his writing, are certainly not for the faint-hearted. They are emotionally unsatisfying, yet analytically timeless. They include:

  • Disorder is worse than injustice, since injustice merely means the world is imperfect, while disorder tempts anarchy and the Hobbesian nightmare of war and conflict, of all against all.
  • It follows, then, that order is more important than freedom, since without order there is no freedom for anybody.
  • The fundamental issue in international and domestic affairs is not the control of wickedness, but the limitation of self-righteousness. For it is self-righteousness that often leads to war and the most extreme forms of repression, both at home and abroad.
  • The aim of policy is to reconcile what is just with what is possible. Journalists and freedom fighters have it easy in life since they can concern themselves only with what is just. Policymakers, burdened with bureaucratic responsibility in order to advance a nation’s self-interest, have no such luxury.
  • Pessimism can often be morally superior to misplaced optimism. Pessimism, therefore, is not necessarily to be disparaged.

It is true that much of the above is derivative of the great philosophers, especially Hobbes. But it is to Kissinger’s credit that he consciously activated it in the daily conduct of foreign policy.

[.  . .]

Kissinger was a “genuine statesman”, to use the German philosopher-historian Oswald Spengler’s definition: that is, he was not a reactionary who thought that history could be reversed, nor was he a militant-idealist, who thought that history marched in a certain direction. Kissinger’s conclusion was more grounded: he believed less in victory than in reconciliations.

Political Action

Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien

The French saying is attributed to Voltaire. "The best is the enemy of the good."  The idea is that one should not allow the pursuit of an unattainable perfection to impede progress toward an attainable goal which, while not perfect, is better than the outcome that is likely to result if one seeks the unattainable.

Here is another formulation, not as accurate, but pithier and replete with trademark alliteration:  Permit not the pursuit of the perfect to preempt the possible.

Read more at Substack.

Three Senses of ‘Peace’

There is the divine peace that "surpasseth all understanding." (Philippians 4:7) It is the most difficult to achieve.

There is peace among people who love, or at least tolerate, one another. It is moderately difficult to achieve.

There is finally the peace most easily achieved, that based on deterrence and mutual fear. (Our enemies do not respect us, but they can be made to fear us, and for most practical purposes fear suffices.) This is the peace guaranteed by the strength of a Reagan or a Trump but undermined by the weakness of a Carter, an Obama, or (worst of all) a Biden.  This is the peace about which it is wisely said, "If you want peace, prepare for war."  Si vis pacem, para bellum.

Credible deterrence assures peace between nations. Never forget: Nations are in the state of nature vis-à-vis one another, and nature is "red in tooth and claw."  This is not pessimism; it is realism.

A well-armed and well-trained populace assures peace  between it and the state apparatus which is ever lusting to increase its power. The will to power wills not merely its preservation but its continuous increase.

The peace purchased by credible deterrence is the foundation of the other, loftier, two. You will not be able to achieve the peace that "surpasseth all understanding,' or even peace with your brothers if your monastery is being bombed to smithereens.  This is why the Luftmensch must know how to fight, why the bookman must needs also be a rifleman. This is especially so at a time when those in control of the state apparatus have forgotten, or rather willfully ignore, the purposes that justify government in the first place, namely the tasks of securing the life, liberty and property of those governed. But the Orwellian wokesters now in charge invert these values in the Orwellian manner and aid and abet those who aim at the opposite. I trust my meaning is clear.

By the way, now you know why the 9mm pistol round is sometimes referred as the parabellum round. Also, and coincidentally, Pb is the designation on the Periodic Table for the element, lead, which I might add, nowadays counts as a 'precious metal.' A wise man in these trying times stocks up on such 'precious metals' as Au and Pb.