Politics, Polarity, and Peace (Value Inquiry Book Series / Philosophy of Peace, 386) 9004541322, 9789004541320

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Politics, Polarity, and Peace

Value Inquiry Book Series Founding Editor Robert Ginsberg Managing Editor J.D. Mininger

volume 386

Philosophy of Peace Editor Danielle Poe, University of Dayton

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/​vibs and brill.com/​pop

Politics, Polarity, and Peace Edited by

Will Barnes

LEIDEN | BOSTON

Cover illustration: Dove on blue sky. Photograph in the public domain. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Barnes, Will, editor. Title: Politics, polarity, and peace / Edited by Will Barnes. Description: Leiden ; Boston : BRILL, [2023] | Series: Value inquiry book series, 0929-8436 ; Volume 386 | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “The authors in this volume attempt to answer questions relating to polarity and politics in the pursuit of peace and justice, the guiding ideals of the Concerned Philosophers for Peace and Brill’s Philosophy of Peace series”– Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2023002150 (print) | LCCN 2023002151 (ebook) | isbn 9789004541320 (hardback) | ISBN 9789004541573 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Political science–Philosophy. | Polarization (Social sciences) | Peace (Philosophy) | Social conflict--Philosophy. Classification: LCC JA71 .P6433 2023 (print) | LCC JA71 (ebook) | DDC 320.01–dc23/eng/20230307 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023002150 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023002151

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/​brill-​typeface. issn 0929-​8 436 isbn 978-​9 0-​0 4-​5 4132-​0 (hardback) isbn 978-​9 0-​0 4-​5 4157-​3 (e-​book) Copyright 2023 by Will Barnes. Published by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Hotei, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink, Brill mentis, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau, V&R unipress and Wageningen Academic. Koninklijke Brill nv reserves the right to protect this publication against unauthorized use. Requests for re-​use and/​or translations must be addressed to Koninklijke Brill nv via brill.com or copyright.com. This book is printed on acid-​free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Contents  Notes on Contributors vii Introduction 1

Part 1 Deconstructing Polarity 1  Uncivil Obedience: a Method for (Potentially) Decreasing Political Polarization 25 Jennifer Kling 2  At Peace, with Polarity: Left Cynicism, Cheekiness, and Satire 42 Will Barnes 3  Democracy and Partisanship 62 Fuat Gürsözlü 4  De-​polarization, Nonviolent Agonism, and the Anarchy of Difference 83 Andrew Fiala

Part 2 Issues in Contemporary Liberal and Moral Theory 5  Democracy, the Carceral State, and the Carceral Ethos: toward a Discourse Democratic Critique of the American Criminal Justice System 105 Seth Mayer 6  Security, Education, Public Opinion, and Truth Invoking Mill’s Utilitarianism as a Guide to Sustainable Peacemaking in a Fragmented and Frightened World 127 Philip A. Stauffer Todd

vi Contents 7  Our Hazardous Polarized World: Exploring the Viciousness of Non-​ responsive Wrongdoing 148 Court Lewis

Part 3 Language 8  Hate Speech as Antithetical to Free Speech: the Real Polarity 175 Tiffany Montoya 9  Accounting for Moral and Epistemic Culpability in the Contemporary Discourse of Racism 199 Leland Harper 10  How Pejorative Language Encourages Physical Violence 217 William Gay 11  The Healing Power of Awareness: Nonviolence in Thought, Word, and Deed 246 Tony White 12  The Deadliness of Doing: Agamben, Oakeshott, and Withdrawing from Activity 268 David Liakos  Index 292

Notes on Contributors Will Barnes is the author of multiple articles and book chapters in 20th Century Conti­ nental Ethical, Social, and Political Philosophy and Indo-​Tibetan Buddhist Epistemology, Metaphysics, and Ethics. He is the author of A Critique of Liberal Cynicism: Peter Sloterdijk, Judith Butler, and Critical Liberalism (Lexington 2022). He is on the editorial board of The Acorn Journal: Philosophical Studies in Pacifism and Nonviolence. He is an academic expert on the Ethics Now podcast, and currently teaches philosophy at New Mexico Highlands University. Andrew Fiala Ph.D., is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Ethics Center at California State University, Fresno. Recent published work includes: Tyranny from Plato to Trump (Rowman and Littlefield, 2022); Seeking Common Ground: A Theist/​ Atheist Dialogue, with co-​author Peter Admirand (Cascade, 2021); Nonviolence, A Quick Immersion (Tibidabo, 2020); Transformative Pacifism (Bloomsbury, 2018); The Routledge Handbook of Pacifism and Nonviolence (Routledge, 2017); and the 9th edition of Ethics: Theory and Contemporary Issues with co-​author Barbara MacKinnon (Cengage, 2017). He is a past President of Concerned Philosophers for Peace. He writes a weekly column on religion, politics, and ethics for the Fresno Bee. William Gay is Professor Emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Within Concerned Philosophers for Peace, he has served as President, Executive Director, Newsletter Editor, and “Philosophy of Peace” Book Series Editor. He has published seven books and over 100 journal articles and book chapters on issues of violence, war, peace, and justice. He also serves on the editorial boards of the journals The Acorn: Philosophical Studies in Pacifism and Nonviolence, Philosophy and Social Criticism, and the Journal of Globalization Studies. Fuat Gürsözlü is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Loyola University Maryland in Baltimore. He is the author of Agonistic Democracy and Practical Politics: Ways of Being Adversarial, editor of Peace, Culture, and Violence, and has published several journal articles and book chapters on issues of democracy, agonism,

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Notes on Contributors

inclusion, and violence. He has served as President of Concerned Philosophers for Peace (2018–​2000), and executive board member (2015–​2022). Leland Harper is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Siena Heights University. His research focuses on philosophy of religion and philosophy of race, particularly issues in miracles and religious experience, deism, racial solidarity, and racism. He is the author of Multiverse Deism: Shifting Perspectives of God and the World (Lexington 2020) as well as articles in Res Philosophica, Global Discourse: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Current Affairs, Humanities Bulletin, Forum Philosophicum, the International Journal of Philosophy and Theology, and several edited volumes, co-​author of Racist, Not Racist, Antiracist: Language and the Dynamic Disaster of American Racism (Lexington 2022), editor of The Crisis of American Democracy: Essays on a Failing Institution (Vernon Press 2022), and editor of the Philosophy of Race series at Vernon Press. He is also the organizer of the Great Lakes Philosophy Conference, an annual international philosophy conference hosted by Siena Heights University. He grew up in Vancouver, British Columbia, and received a b.a. in General Studies from Kwantlen Polytechnic University, an m.a. in Philosophy from Toronto Metropolitan University, and a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Birmingham. In addition to his academic pursuits, he operates Leland Harper Consulting, a diversity, equity, and inclusion consulting firm based in Toronto. Jennifer Kling is Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Center for Legal Studies at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. Her research focuses on social and political philosophy, particularly issues in war and peace, self-​and other-​ defense, international relations, protest, feminism, and philosophy of race. She is the author of The Philosophy of Protest: Fighting for Justice without Going to War (with Megan Mitchell, Rowman & Littlefield 2021), War Refugees: Risk, Justice, and Moral Responsibility (Lexington 2019), and numerous articles in journals and edited collections. Court Lewis is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Pellissippi State Community College, in Knoxville, TN. His most recent edited collection is Forgiveness Confronts Race, Relationships, and the Social (Vernon Press), and he is the author of The Real Meaning of Doctor Who, Who Cares?: My Life with Tom Baker, and Repentance and the Right to Forgiveness. He is the Series Editor of Vernon Press’s The Philosophy of Forgiveness and co-​editor (with Gregory L. Bock) of The Ethics of

Notes on Contributors

ix

Anger (Lexington) and Righteous Indignation: Christianity and Anger (Fortress Press). He is a member of the Concerned Philosophers for Peace. David Liakos is a full-​time faculty member in philosophy and humanities at Houston Community College. He is the author of several journal articles and book chapters on hermeneutics and phenomenology. His current research interests include the normativity of interpretation and understanding and the relationship between the “fusion of horizons,” historical alienation, and theology. Seth Mayer is currently studying law at the University of Michigan Law School. He was formerly an assistant professor of philosophy at Manchester University, Indiana. His published work addresses issues in democratic theory, law and philosophy, and human rights. Tiffany Montoya Ph.D., is a visiting assistant professor of philosophy at Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania. She has earned a b.a. from the University of New Mexico and an m.a. and Ph.D. from Purdue University, specializing in social and political philosophy. Her current research involves disclosing a foundational human ontology, and the corresponding needs for flourishing, out of which we can effectively judge the morality of a political economy. Her other lines of research include exploring the way marginal identities complicate the concept of racial essentialism, such as the Roma, “mixed” races, and historically evolving races. She also writes about the moral and political perspectives (and aesthetic expression) of the outcasts and countercultures of society, believing that liberation from hegemonic structures starts within the ideas from the periphery. She has taught a variety of courses in applied ethics as well as “Political Theory,” “Philosophy of Race,” and “Caribbean Philosophy.” Phillip Todd a longtime media practitioner and scholar, serves as co-​coordinator for the student journalism program at Epic Charter Schools as well as faculty adviser for student publications and adjunct professor of mass communication at Oklahoma City University. He received the 2020 Penn State Davis Ethics Award winner for his dissertation on Mill’s “Utilitarianism” and the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and he continues to seek useful connections among media ethics, conflict resolution, and music.

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Anthony White has an m.a. in Philosophy from West Chester University and is a Ph.D. candidate in the Social, Political, Ethical, and Legal Philosophy program at Binghamton University, writing his dissertation on nonviolent resistance. He is also a facilitator for the Alternatives to Violence Project.

Introduction It is a consensus that political polarization is getting worse. Concerning policy preferences, polarization has increased according to Armstrong 2018,1 Courser, Helland, and Miller 2018,2 Hetherington 2002,3 and Fleisher and Bond 2001.4 Concerning congressional voting and affiliations, polarization has increased according to Wood and Jordan 2017,5 Theriault 2008,6 McCarty, Nolan, Poole, and Rosenthal 2001,7 Stonecash, Brewer, and Mariani 2003,8 and Layman 1999.9 In terms of activism, polarization has increased according to Alridch 1995,10 and Layman, Carsey, and Horowitz 2006.11 While Soren Jordan and Cynthia J. Bowling argue that “the two major political parties are more separated ideologically than at any point in the last fifty years,”12 Christopher Hare and Keith T. Poole argue that “polarization of the Democratic and Republican Parties is 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

8 9 10 11 12

Think again: how to reason and argue, Walter Sinnott-​Armstrong, New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2018. Parchment barriers: political polarization and the limits of constitutional order, eds. Zachary Courser, Eric Helland, and Kenneth P Miller. Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2018. Hetherington, Marc. 2002. “Resurgent Mass Partisanship: The Role of Elite Polarization.” The American Political Science Review 95(3):619–​31. Fleisher, Richard, and Jon R. Bond. 2001. “Evidence of Increasing Polarization Among Ordinary Citizens.” In American Political Parties: Decline or Resurgence, edited by Jeffrey E. Cohen, Richard Fleisher, and Paul Kantor, 55–​77. Washington, DC: cq Press. Party Polarization in America: The War Over Two Social Contracts. By B. Dan Wood and Soren Jordan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017. Theriault, Sean M. 2008. Party polarization in Congress. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. McCarty, Nolan, Keith Poole, and Howard Rosenthal. 2001. “The Hunt for Party Discipline in Congress.” American Political Science Review 95:673–​88. Also see: Poole, Keith T., Howard Rosenthal, and Kenneth Koford. 1991. “On Dimensionalizing Roll Call Votes in the U.S. Congress.” American Political Science Review 85:955–​75. Stonecash, Jeffrey M., Mark D. Brewer, and Mack D. Mariani. 2003. Diverging Parties: Social Change, Realignment, and Party Polarization . Boulder, CO: Westview. Layman, Geoffrey C. 1999. “‘Culture Wars’ in the American Party System.” American Politics Research 27:89–​121. Aldrich, John H. 1995. Why Parties? Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Layman, Geoffrey C., Thomas M. Carsey, and J. M. Horowitz. 2006. “Party Polarization in American Politics: Characteristics, Causes, and Consequences.” Annual Review of Political Science 9:83–​110. “Introduction: The State of Polarization in the States,” Soren Jordan and Cynthia J. Bowling. State & Local Government Review, Vol. 48, No. 4, Special Issue: Political and Ideological Polarization and Its Impact of Subnational Governments in the United States (December 2016), pp. 220–​226, Sage Publications, Inc.

© Will Barnes, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004541573_002

2 Introduction higher than at any time since the end of the Civil War.”13 Gary Jacobson goes as far as to conclude that the “electorate is divided” in their “beliefs about reality.”14 Geoffrey C. Layman and Thomas M. Carsey’s study from 2002 measured increased polarization with relation to social welfare, racial, and cultural issues, and concluded that polarization is taking on increasingly volatile and violent forms.15 The arguments within the contemporary literature paint a clear picture: popular discourse is marked with extreme partisanship and polarization,16 threatening democracy, tolerance, diversity, pluralism, and cooperation.17 Polarization simplifies and deforms language, ideas, and people. Polarization reduces the complexities of social life into an oppositional binary based on crude distinctions revolving around partial and harmful reified conceptions of self and other. Since the egocentric “us vs. them” narratives catalyze conflicts which tend to violence, polarization is itself a cause of violence.18

13

14

15 16

17 18

“The Polarization of Contemporary American Politics” Christopher Hare and Keith T. Poole. Polity, July 2014, Vol. 46, No. 3, Unity and Division (July 2014), pp. 411–​429 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Northeastern Political Science Association. Polarization, Gridlock, and Presidential Campaign Politics in 2016 Author(s): Gary C. Jacobson. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, September 2016, Vol. 667, Elections in America (September 2016), pp. 226–​246. Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. in association with the American Academy of Political and Social Science. “Party Polarization and “Conflict Extension” in the American Electorate” Geoffrey C. Layman and Thomas M. Carsey, American Journal of Political Science, Oct., 2002, Vol. 46, No. 4 (Oct., 2002), pp. 786–​802 Published by: Midwest Political Science Association. See the following reports on partisanship in the U.S. “Political Polarization in the American Public” Pew Research Center, June 12, 2014, accessed April 21, 2020 https://​www​ .peo​ple​-press​.org​/2014​/06​/12​/politi​cal​-polar​izat​ion​-in​-the ​-ameri​can​-pub​lic​/; Carroll Doherty and Jocelyn Kiley, “Key facts about partisanship and political animosity in America,” Pew Research Center, June 22, 2016, accessed April 21, 2020,https://​www​.pewr​ esea​rch​.org​/fact​-tank​/2016​/06​/22​/key​-facts​-parti​sans​hip​/​. A more recent Gallup research states that polarization in the U.S. is at record levels, see Jeffrey M. Jones, “Trump Third Year Sets New Standard for Party Polarization” Gallup, January 21, 2020, accessed April 21, 2020, https://​news​.gal​lup​.com​/poll​/283​910​/trump​-third​-year​-sets​-new​-stand​ard​-party​ -polar​izat​ion​.aspx​. See John Barry Ryan, “Is America Hopelessly Polarized, or Just Allergic to Politics?” The ny Times, April 20, 2019, or Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld, “The Threat of Tribalism,” The Atlantic, October 2018/​. Johan Galtung goes so far as to suggest that polarization is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the escalation of conflict into violence. Johan Galtung, Peace by Peaceful Means (London: Sage Publishing, 1996), Chapter 3. Also see the practical application of this in: Stanford University’s Conflict and Polarization Project

Introduction

3

The project of peace then, is aided by the project of depolarization. But what can we do to bring about a transformation away from polarity to peace? What are the real polarities obscuring the path to peace? Is it a question of freedom vs. control? Is it one of absolutism vs. open-​mindedness? Is it good vs. evil? In a time of increasingly poisonous national politics, widening tribal polarity, and fragmented and fragmenting communities, what sense does it even make to appeal to reason, discourse, and compromise? The authors in this volume attempt to answer these and other questions relating to polarity and politics in the pursuit of peace and justice, the guiding ideals of the Concerned Philosophers for Peace and Brill Rodopi’s Philosophy of Peace series, of which this volume is a part. Part 1, “Deconstructing Polarity,” proposes re-​thinking our understanding of polarity and theorizes novel responses based on this rethinking. Chapter 1 begins with “Uncivil Obedience,” wherein Jennifer Kling argues that polarized oppositions can be called upon to challenge problematic absolutist presuppositions. Kling cites a form of public protest, uncivil obedience, as capable of performatively revealing the insufficiencies and inapplicability of commitments undergirding absolutism, thus inviting an immanent critique which may destabilize the foundations of obstinate and hostile opposition often attributed to polarization. Inverting popular discourse on the relationship between civility polarity, Kling argues that one kind of incivility, uncivil obedience, can thwart polarization by drawing attention to inconsistent social and political views across the spectrum of political identity. Through hyper compliance to inconsistent ideological demands, uncivil obedience draws attention to socio-​political dissonance by accentuating the discrepancies within a political ideology. The goal, Kling argues, is to provide reasons to challenge our allegiances and diffuse ideological absolutism. Allaying any concerns about endorsing incivility, Kling distinguishes uncivil obedience from malicious compliance in virtue of its aims of its critical reform-​ minded agenda, Kling establishes a unique theory of the normative power of law, arguing that the fact that we can get around “the spirit” of law by obeying it letter in very particular ways, demonstrates that, contrary to portions of liberal political theory, to have an orderly, stable society, more is necessary than well-​ functioning systems of law and policy. Indeed, Kling argues that a successful society requires virtue, specifically the virtue of adjudicating when, how, and

https://​kin​gcen​ter​.stanf​ord​.edu​/resea​rch​/init​iati​ves​/confl​ict​-and​-polar​izat​ion; and the related Depolarization Project: https://​www​.depola​riza​tion​proj​ect​.com​/​.

4 Introduction under what conditions well-​organized coercive laws, policies, and regulations, should be adhered to and when they should not. Uncivil disobedience exposes this virtue, and flaunts it, and thus carries with it powerful transformative potential through interjecting and exposing an unthought obedience to questionable, or at least potentially unjustifiably normative, social practices. After detailing the specifics of this model, Kling suggests mobilizing uncivil obedience’s humor and its accentuating of discrepancies within political sides through the production of dissonance to combat political polarization. By drawing out and making salient the discrepancies inherent in political views, uncivil obedience can lead people to question their justifications for holding such an extreme set of beliefs. For example, when motorists cause mayhem by going the exact speed limit, it may cause those on the political right, who claim both that people should just follow the law and that they should just use common sense, to realize that sometimes, these two positions are incompatible. It may also cause them to question the common conservative political view that following the law is always good. These realizations, in turn, may help them to see that those on the political left perhaps have a point when they argue that sometimes, justice and common sense require breaking the law. Coming face-​to-​face with such inconsistencies, Kling argues, may lead them to reassess their views, beliefs, and attitudes and, in so doing, may enable and inspire them to step away from the polarized position that they currently inhabit. In Chapter 2, “At Peace, with Polarity,” I argue that humor can carry out a similar function, compelling deconstruction of absolutist views by entertaining opposing positions by revealing their interconnectedness and fallibility in a minimally antagonizing manner, again inviting an immanent critique capable of destabilizing the conditions triggering intractable hostility. I couch this discussion of polarization within an analysis of bracd of cynicism dominant in liberal academia, crudely but helpfully labelled as “Left Cynicism.” Despite its protestations to extra-​naiveté, Left Cynicism is nevertheless morally absolutist, eschewing ambiguity for an ameliorative reification of hopelessness. Left cynicism is a product of guilt and powerlessness stemming from the trauma of holding left ideals in a world in which they rarely flourish, and in which they are vulnerable to critique. Afflicted too, by a panicked egoism and a pessimistic materialism, this complex can compel the cynic to give up on or repress the efficacy of its constitutive ideals by replacing the painfulness of vulnerability and moral and intellectual ambiguity through either fantasy or a reification of hopelessness that enables the conditions that compel it. For similar reasons developed by Jennifer Kling in Chapter 1, Left Cynicism’s is an obstacle to resolving the fraught polarities of socio-​political discourse inhibiting peaceful

Introduction

5

politics and the politics of peace because of its, in this case dishonest as well as rationally unjustifiable, absolutism. In response, I theorize mobilizing an experience wherein our deepest held ideas and ideals are simultaneously validated and contested challenges the moral absolutism undergirding the polarized oppositions plaguing political discourse and the violence they compel. A tradition of normative insubordination, or cheekiness, exemplified within a lineage of African American comedy is uniquely equipped to play this role. Subverting Left Cynicism’s tendency to prefer comfort to polarity by simultaneously validating and contesting a diverse range of ideals, affiliations, and identifications, satirical insubordination can disarm the mechanisms through which the cynic sustains the illusions of moral and intellectual superiority driving polarized opposition. The arrow aimed at this target is the all-​inclusive, disarming mockery of satire which refuses the stability of moral and intellectual superiority at the heart of the polarized positions undermining solidarity across the theoretical humanities, the left more generally, and the polemic oppositional rhetoric dominating political discourse; rhetoric that is compelling lethal rage. In Chapter 3, “Democracy and Partisanship,” Fuat Gürsözlü also calls for rethinking the value of polarity. He defends the view that while polarity poses a threat, it is nevertheless required for liberal democracy. Gürsözlü argues that partisans structure and organize the political field, a process that makes politics meaningful and accessible, produces political projects, generates collective identities, and energizes the polis. Moreover, Gürsözlü argues that a blanket preference for bipartisanship misunderstands the reciprocal co-​constitution of political subjectivity and representational political parties. It is not, as a popular line of thinking goes, that political parties merely express existing political identities. Rather, political parties and partisans generate, maintain, shape, and transform collective political identities by ordering, reinterpreting, reframing, connecting, and bundling issues and positions which provide the basis for coherent political narratives. In this way, Gürsözlü argues, a healthy form of partisanship is required for a healthy democracy. The issue for those committed to peace and justice, Gürsözlü argues, is not to reject partisanship and polarity, but to thwart the means through which partisanship compels divisions, political inertia, and violence. This calls for “Agonistic Solidarity”: a shared commitment to the values of equality and liberty. Agonistic solidarity involves transforming potential antagonism into adversarial interrelations bonded by shared commitments. The goal is to pluralize partisan identity by encouraging partisans to identify with the liberal democratic horizon and its fundamental values of liberty and equality, thereby forging a common bond across divides.

6 Introduction Rounding up Part 1, in Chapter 4 Andrew Fiala’s “De-​Polarization, Nonviolent Agonism, and the Anarchy of Difference” explores theories of positive peace, agonistic politics, and anarchist social theory for addressing the problem of polarization, and theorizes a depolarization based on promoting diversity, liberty, and nonviolent conflict. Rather than seeking the removal of conflict, Fiala suggests transforming conditions of polemic into agonism. Fiala thus also calls for rethinking the kinds of opposition that are problematic versus the kinds that are beneficial. Resisting utopian visions of a united polis, Fiala turns to pacifist anarchist socio-​political theory for its ability to value difference and openness, and from there to a unifying vision of liberty and positive peace inspired both by Martin Luther King’s conception of the beloved community and the anarchistic appreciation that such a community is impossible because it pursues some combination of seemingly divergent values: unity and difference, harmony and liberty, individuality and community. The goal, per Fiala, of resolving the polarities eating at the heart of contemporary communal living and producing the “ideal community of positive peace,” involves nonviolent agonistic conflict as an alternative to the polarization that tends toward the polemical without eradicating the passionate diversity required for genuine liberty. Fiala uses the Greek concept of agon alongside the Hegelian and Marxist concept of Kampf purged of its utopianism via anarchist critique. In Hegel, Kampf denotes forces driving the social and political dialectic as closely connected, if not reducible, to the struggle for conscious recognition. In Marx, Kampf denotes this driving force in the struggles between socio political classes. Per Marx, when a hegemonic class develops out of diversity, a polarized opposition between “us” and “them” violence is inevitable. From a more contemporary anarchist critique of the Hegelian and Marxist dialectic which targets hierarchy and polarization in general, Fiala gleans an antidote to inevitable violence that emphasizes the proliferation of difference. The solution is a more diffuse and conflictual (agonistic) form of solidarity, membership, and identity. In developing this solution to the prevalence of violent polarity, Fiala draws on resources in recent work in agonistic political theory as a counterpoint to deliberative democracy seeking reasonable, pluralistic consensus. Because liberal ideals do not fit the reality of diverse and polarized societies, Fiala argues, we must develop an account of democracy that allows for conflict and while attempting to prevent them from becoming violent. Fiala proposes combining anarchistic agonism with democratic theory, because agonistic theory tacitly presumes that nonviolence is a primary norm of democratic politics. Per Fiala, conflict is woven into fundamental democratic ideas such as the separation

Introduction

7

of powers, the Court system, the federal system, freedom of speech, petition, assembly, and so on. While this agonism compels polarization, Fiala claims, as the struggle for hegemony depends upon slim majorities who have no need to compromise or collaborate, a nonviolent embrace of plurality and the anarchy of difference combined with the agonistic system of the American Constitution is the solution. Part 2 of this volume, “Issues in Contemporary Liberal and Moral Theory,” deals with liberal political theory in relation to distinct polarizing issues in contemporary discourse including the carceral system in the contemporary United States, the relationship between security, peace, and justice, and the duty to act on a one’s conception of justice versus failing to act. In Chapter 5, “Democracy, the Carceral State, and the Carceral Ethos: toward a Discourse Democratic Critique of the American Criminal Justice System” Seth Mayer diagnoses a failure of democracy in the polarizing class structures of economic and racial injustice mobilizing the prejudicial cruelty, violence, and excessive financial costs of the criminal justice system in contemporary America. Critics of the Carceral system, Mayer argues, often fail to adequately theorize the normative aspirations which their criticisms presuppose, basing their criticism entirely on economic and instrumental reasoning, or, where there is a normative appeal, rely on ill-​developed conceptions of the corrosion of democratic political values. By contrast, Mayer argues, Habermasian critical social theory can account for the moral failures inherent in mass incarceration while retaining the nuanced social criticism that resists moralizing. Mayer argues that we can rely on the charitable pursuit of understanding implicit in everyday communication to ask if the promulgation and enforcement of U.S. criminal law occur in a context that supports legitimate democracy. Specifically, Habermas’ suggestion that a polarized and unequal society entails the kinds of social tensions that result in protests which escalate if those voices are not given a constructive place in the informal sphere of public opinion to the extent that they can only be controlled by violent social control administered by the state or otherwise. Mayer argues that the contemporary American criminal justice system “embodies this worrisome dynamic,” explaining that the carceral state has exacerbated inequalities of political power through the growth of powerful interest groups like prison guard unions and private prison corporations which resist reform and through denying/​controlling felons voting rights and prison gerrymandering. As well as violating democratic participation, these features also keep social problems from public deliberation, furthering political inequality and undermining the charitable communication required to address important social issues, particularly affecting those caught up in the criminal justice system. In this way, the status

8 Introduction quo of the prison industrial complex both results in part from anti-​democratic features within society and pushes us further away from achieving a legitimate democratic society. Mayer’s thesis is as simple as it is true; if prejudicial blaming and harsh punishment is ineffectual, wasteful, and cruel then we shouldn’t do it to anyone. If prejudicial blaming and harsh punishment worsen the broader status relations that undermine democratic equality and promote anti-​democratic hierarchies, then we should eliminate them. The alternative, “A Genuine Discourse Democratic Ethos” would involve trust, inclusivity, forgiveness, more openness to risks, and a conception of citizenship focused on political inclusion and collective efficacy rather than defense against threats to potential victims. This means making oneself vulnerable to others and being ready to hold them accountable if they let one down. This shift in ethos requires, Mayer writes, rejecting blame and learning from restorative justice practices aiming for reintegration into the political community in the aftermath of harm and wrongdoing in the criminal justice system’s decision-​making processes. The process of trust-​building requires more than just a matter of people deciding to trust, it needs the establishment of institutions that make it less of an issue if there are untrustworthy people around. Mayer suggests such innovations as redesigned streetscapes and stores as well as reinvigorated community organizations and social welfare institutions that promise to reduce wrongdoing; institutions that seek to remove and constrain the effects of prejudice and encourage interactions that recognize people’s equal status. This requires reducing America’s population of incarcerated people and eliminating punishment’s exclusionary effects so the public sphere can operate within the deliberative system effectively. Mayer’s piece also speaks to the possibilities of overcoming the politics of polarity for a politics of peace within the act of philosophical discourse. In this way, as well as an eloquent philosophical defense of the urgent need for radically reforming the criminal justice system in contemporary America, Mayer’s balancing act represents an attempt to overcome a set of polarities within academic philosophy between normative ethics and politics on the one hand and critical theory one other, which while often implicating one another, negotiate the tension around norm critique and invocation. Indeed, Mayer’s utilization of the Habermasian discourse principle invoked as a means to bring together the normative reticence of Foucault and Angela Davis could also function to bridge the gaps between the emancipatory aspirations of critical theory, structuralism, and post-​structuralist with more analytic morality or justice-​centered theories of criminal law and punishment, and the more committed normative ethical theory and practice. As Mayer writes; “There may be common ground

Introduction

9

between discourse theory and these other approaches, as well as disagreements,” on Mayer’s Habermassian model, rather than a problem, such discussions can only serve to further our egalitarian and democratic aspirations. In this regard, Mayer’s chapter expresses perfectly the spirit of this organization, this series, and this volume. In Chapter 6, “Security, education, public opinion, and truth: Invoking Mill’s Utilitarianism as a guide to sustainable peacemaking in a fragmented and frightened world” Phillip Todd interjects in the freedom of speech discussion by invoking a model of communication aimed towards mutual beneficence and peaceful co-​existence drawn from J.S. Mill. Todd justifies this appeal to Mill by suggesting firstly that Mill’s legacy as a whipping boy within academic philosophy stands as a testament to the persistence of his ethical theory in the collective imaginary and its status as operative at the heart of social and political intuitions in the contemporary United States. Moreover, Todd argues, given Mill’s active role in times where the specter of fascism and irrationalism haunted Europe, Mill’s work, which responded to these nefarious forces, is well suited to our polarized times. Most crucial, Todd argues, is Mill’s insistence on the necessity of encouraging and safeguarding diversity, specifically the minority voice, to realize collective freedom, flourishing, peace, and truth. In this sense, the ideal is to allow for personal and corporate polarity in so far as it is compatible with peace. In this vein, Todd develops a Millian security approach to politics, polarity, and peace. Public discourse over politics, polarity, and peace, Todd argues, echo Mill’s insistence on vital security and the fears which should be provoked upon mention of a politics of heightened security. But while this right to security is a chief cause of forces destructive to the prospect of freedom, flourishing, and peace, when manipulated, as it is, for political or polarizing ends obstructive of peacemaking, a Millian approach, Todd argues, offers an opportunity to consider perceived threats to security and propose responses in ways that can maximize utility for all concerned. More specifically, Mill’s definition of security and its rights-​based elements of justice anchored in the greater good for the larger community opens options to preserve the peace and reduce polarization. The major thrust of Todd’s piece is identifying the features of threats to security that are legitimate peacemaking policy. Firstly, Todd argues that peacemaking discourse should focus on protection against a definite threat to communal existence justifiable only if the specific nature of the perceived security threat, the identification of whose specific security may be threatened, is sufficiently substantiated. Given its emphasis on evidence and legitimacy, Todd argues, this approach will avert political hyperbole and social-​media disinformation

10 Introduction driving irrational polarization and ultimately violence. Secondly, Todd argues that a legitimate understanding of security must preserve immediate safety and long-​term stability, as well as interrogate the nature and duration of that perceived threat, as well as the long-​term outcome(s) of any proposed defensive response. Thirdly, Todd argues that security must promote a three-​part utilitarian construction of justice which identifies the violation of rights, the identification of the wronged, and punish those who have done so. Fourthly, peacemaking discourse should focus on communal justice, i.e., it should seek both the present safety and stability for all parties—​including the threatening party. Fifthly, Millian peacemaking discourse should focus on rational, practical, evidence-​based utility in considering questions of security and response. Todd concludes that Mill’s pursuit of truth, individual freedom, and communal responsibility, is uniquely well poised to respond to our polarized discourse of self-​referential and self-​reinforcing echo chambers. The security-​seeking peace-​minded citizens engage their fellows at the core of their differences, minimize fear and maximize unity, and harness the power of education to open and foster dialogue among various disparate groups. In Chapter 7, “Our Hazardous Polarized World: Exploring the Viciousness of Non-​Responsive Wrongdoing,” Court Lewis claims that those who refuse to act on correctly reasoned beliefs within socially oppressive communities can be fairly viewed as morally worse than those who act on incorrectly reasoned false beliefs. To support his conclusion, Lewis repurposes Davson-​Galle’s response to James Rachels’s famous argument for why voluntary active euthanasia is morally no worse than voluntary passive euthanasia, for social and political application. Rachels asks readers to imagine two criminals, Smith and Jones, Smith performs a successful intentional drowning and in Jones case, although seeking an intentional drowning, the victim suffers an accident, such that merely not helping them enables Jones to achieve his goals. Rachels maintains that causal differences are morally equivalent. This conclusion, Lewis suggests, only follows if we focus only on specific actions and exclude other factors. Moving the discussion into areas of character, Lewis asks how the case affects our understanding of interpersonal actions within the context of a hazardous society. Per Lewis, the differences between Smith and Jones afford insights into conceiving how different characters are willing to kill a victim who is suffering and fighting for their life versus those who are willing and capable of setting back and watching others harm and kill those suffering and fighting for their lives. Giving the tragic example of George Floyd’s death, three officer’s let Floyd die, while one killed him. Per Lewis, because Officer Tou Thao’s non-​ interference supported Derek Chauvin and prevent bystanders from interfering, Thao was the one in power who watched others suffer and die when saving

Introduction

11

a life was possible. Lewis argues for unique culpability in the viciousness of ignoring truth and letting someone die when saving a life would cost little. Lewis goes as far as to say that this form of viscousness may pose worse threats than a willingness to kill. This is because, in cases where the threat is not easily avoided nor neutralized, like socially oppressive communities, the greatest hope for survival is from the protection of others. Lewis applies his theoretical claim that non-​ responsive wrongdoing demonstrates a moral callousness not seen in some active wrongdoers to the social oppression whereby a government persecutes citizens believed to be “undesirable” members of the homeland. The agent who believes the government’s actions are unjust but does not act is more morally culpable than agents who believe the war and the government’s actions are just and help the government carry out its oppressive policies. Such an agent, per Lewis, is non-​responsive to both his own beliefs and the wrongs being committed, and therefore becomes complicit in the wrongdoing—​passively allowing it to happen while choosing to do nothing to prevent the wrongdoing or working to shape the ideas that ground it. Distinguishing the responsive but ill-​informed agent from someone unwilling to critique their own beliefs, from a citizen who knows the arguments and counterarguments of his position and yet arrives at the conclusion that his government is doing the right thing, Lewis argues that this agent’s attempt to arrive at true beliefs should be counted in his favor. Indeed, since this agent’s actions and beliefs are united and open to revision, they are morally superior to the non-​responsive agent. One of the reasons for this is that non-​responsiveness removes opportunities for the open-​minded opponent to be provoked into reflection, and possibly arrive at different conclusions. It is because of this perpetuation of a morally ill-​informed status quo that makes non-​responsive wrongdoing so pernicious. Returning to the case of Smith of Jones, with this reflection on character rather than act, Lewis argues that in terms of character there is no moral difference between the two—​they would both kill and let die depending on the situation. In terms of an act-​ evaluation, Davson-​Galle’s thought experiment provides a theoretical basis for claiming that the well-​informed, accurately morally informed agent is at least as dangerous as the ill-​informed, truth-​seeking contributor to social oppression, polarization, environmental degradation, and war. By providing an agent evaluation that includes an inconsistency between belief and action, and that lack of resistance indirectly supports wrongdoing, we gain a moral grounding for claiming that the passive agent is morally worse than the active. An agent-​evaluation of both Jones and Smith implies that a willingness to let die demonstrates a moral callousness that our conscientious and consistent actor does not necessarily have or demonstrate. If Davson-​Galle is correct, then the

12 Introduction moral callousness of the passive agent, and how it supports continued wrongdoing and suffering, implies that in such cases, letting die as a result of social oppression, polarization, environmental degradation, and war in similar social situations is morally worse than killing through mechanisms of social oppression, polarization, environmental degradation, and war, all things considered. In Part 3 of this volume “Politics, Polarity, and Peace in Language,” while still calling for rethinking which penalties should be the focus of those invested in peace and social justice, we turn to the issue of resolving polarities in and through language. In Chapter 8, “Hate Speech as Antithetical to Free Speech: the Real Polarity,” inverting a familiar line of argument whereby a space in which misleading, false, harmful speech acts are protected under the auspices of freedom, Tiffany Montoya argues that restricting hate speech better guarantees the rights of free expression. Per Montoya, the political polarity we must resolve is not between hate speech (as protected free speech) versus censorship, but rather hate speech versus free speech. Montoya’s compelling thesis is that given hate speech censors entire populations’ rights to be heard, or even exist, restricting it is necessary for equalizing the distribution of political freedoms. Per Montoya, the factors uniting cases of all hate speech are the discrimination of “corporeal” (unchosen identities such sex, disability, race) and “personal expression” identities (self-​identification such as gender, spiritual practice, ethnicity, or nationality) and a division of superiority and inferiority in relation to them. What differentiates legitimate from illegitimate personal expression identification is its self-​relationality. Legitimate identities relate only to themselves, while illegitimate self-​expression identities such as a particular race or nationality are related to an other. Montoya’s criteria enable her to define hate speech as any form of communication that attacks or uses hostile or discriminatory language with reference to a person’s corporeal identity or personal expression. Targeting the familiar objection that the responsibility lies with the individual not to take offense, Montoya argues that this response fails to see the long historical and ancestral trauma, the existing inequities of social power, and the fundamentally different phenomenological experience of marginalized communities. To this end, Montoya utilizes Jeremy Waldron’s distinction between an affront to someone’s “dignity” versus someone taking “offense.” Whereas offense is merely a subjective reaction of a person to a message or action, in Montoya’s definition, outlawing hate speech protects a human’s dignity such that it is not the offensiveness that should matter legally, rather, it is the stripping away of the victims’ inherent right to dignity. It is on this understanding of dignity that Montoya affects the central inversion in her piece. If

Introduction

13

Montoya contends, we see hate speech as an affront to human dignity, then it can be seen less as an expression of an opinion and more as an action violating human rights. Moreover, since hate speech undermines the free speech of the degraded group and limits public access to the ideas of entire groups of the population, and because it stands in the way of ensuring access views, inciting dialog, and promoting and protecting equality, it stands in the way of a functioning democracy. Indeed, the point of the freedom of expression, as J.S. Mill saw it, was to continually hold a check on those in power in order to uphold equality. “Hate speech,” Montoya writes, “is in complete opposition to this principal intention.” A powerful feature of Montoya’s argument is that the context in which hate speech is defended as free speech does not just paradoxically function to inhibit freedom, but that it does so in the maintenance of a specifically racialized inequality. Montoya argues that defending hate speech as free speech is, more often than not, to defend the anti-​democratic, anti-​libertarian ideology of white supremacy. We are at a point Montoya urges us to consider where, since 2014, hate group activity and racially motivated violence have increased by 30% and White Nationalist groups have increased by nearly 50%, an increase paralleling the number of hate crimes reported to the f.b.i. Mass killings at synagogues, churches, colleges, high schools, and shopping centers are enabled by the rhetoric and language used by government leaders and institutions disseminating rapidly through online mass communication. The tension in the United States, Montoya argues, is not between free speech and anti-​free speech but those who express hate versus those who profess freedom, democracy, and equality; “the true polarity” which must be resolved Montoya writes “lies between supremacy and equality.” In Chapter 9, “Accounting for Moral and Epistemic Culpability in the Contemporary Discourse of Racism” Leland Harper argues that a lack of adequate terms to properly characterize race-​based situations precludes meaningful and fruitful dialogues, and instead compel discourse on race to devolve into ideological polarity, confusion, and conflict. Harper repurposes the term racial insensitivity to distinguish between epistemic and moral culpability to avert these harmful preclusions by shifting focus from the perpetrator to the recipient of racially insensitive language. Harper’s goal is to promote a free dialogue of race-​based situations required for achieving racial justice. Per Harper, there is a tension within a popular form of thinking of racism as systemic as entailing the right to call out individuals for acting in accordance with systemic phenomena that evade or undercut personal agency. This view, Harper explains, connects to assuming a connection between a racist action

14 Introduction and a racist agent. This perceived connection, Harper argues, is one of the contributing factors to white fragility. Harper’s expanded vocabulary of racial insensitivity is designed to avert this mistake, thus minimizing instances of white fragility, leading to increased and improved dialogue and, hopefully, progress. This project is further aided by emphasizing that the ascription of racial insensitivity is far from clear cut, and usually occurs in what should be seen as a gray area, and lastly, that we must employ the distinction between moral culpability and epistemic culpability. Per Harper, to be morally culpable for something is to be personally culpable, while epistemic culpability relates to one’s understanding, experience, and education and can be rectified by communication which refuses to label the perpetrator as morally culpable. The idea is that if we are dealing with systemic problems, the systemic nature of the causes problematizes the attribution of moral culpability which are, in turn, unhelpful in overcoming the systematic nature of the problems., Citing the familiar example of a child’s unknowing but ill-​chosen Halloween costume as an area where accusation and defensiveness are likely, Harper argues that these kinds of instances do not meet the minimum threshold required to deem a situation as racist and neither the child nor the parents deserve to be thought of as morally blameworthy. This does not mean that the parents should not be judged as misguided or that they should have known better, but this, Harper argues, puts them in the category of being epistemically blameworthy rather than being morally blameworthy. Harper compares the above examples with the following ones: paying a lower wage to a particular race, failing to rent a property to somebody because he is black, or shunning a family member because they enter into an interracial relationship. The reason we should see these cases as examples of morally culpability is if the agents in question possess relevant information and choose to proceed in a manner that wrongs others based on their race. Therefore, Harper concludes that although the parents should have known better, because they didn’t, and because they harbor no ill feelings toward anyone based on their race, ethnicity, or religion, they are merely epistemically culpable. The difference, Harper argues, is that if this family had that information, then they would have acted differently; the morally capable either has that relevant information and still chooses to maintain his course of action or lacks that information but would still maintain his course of action even if they had it. Per Harper, classifying somebody as racially insensitive instead of racist moves the accusation away from character to conditions; a distinction that would reduce the chance of a counterproductive response and use the situation as an opportunity for epistemic growth. Harper argues that using racial insensitivity in such cases is both accurate and

Introduction

15

more effective in the project of achieving racial justice than moralizing condemnations of “racists.” In Chapter 10, “How Pejorative Language Encourages Physical Violence,” William Gay analyzes how the heightened climate of polarized pejorative language within the Unites States encourages corporeal violence. Summarizing the historical changes with regards to polarity and polarization since the cold war, Gay charts the emergence of a uni-​polar system that gives the United States largely unchecked power and dominance in geopolitics. For this reason, Gay argues, that pejorative language emanating from the United States has consequences far beyond its borders. Because the polarization of the U.S. electorate has reached such extremes, and because that extreme polarization manifests in pejorative language compelling violence, the crisis in contemporary American political discourse is a global violent threat to public health and social wellbeing. In meeting this threat, Gay connects Jason Stanley and David Beaver’s analytic philosophy of language to Lynne Tirrell’s research into the Rwandan genocide and later Wittgenstein. With reference to Charles Mills and Franz Fanon, Gay summarizes Stanley and Beaver’s criticism analytic philosophy of language as unable to address the role of hegemonic ideologies and group-​specific experience in distorting our perceptions and conceptions of the social order. The critique is that any philosophy of language which begins with or aims for an ideal model of language continues the failed tradition of trying to make logic, rather than ideology, the key to understanding how language operates. Following Tirrell, Gay proposes using later Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language games as the alternative capable of grappling with the ideological complexities and power differentials at play within everyday communication. Tirrell coins the expression “genocidal language games” to characterize what transpired in the use and legitimation of derogatory terms operative during the genocide in Rwanda, arguing that the power of the social embeddedness and the essentialism of derogatory terms predominate in a way that precludes questioning and licenses extreme violence. Tirrell concludes that the only path for overcoming implicit bias encoded in language is to challenge the unjust social, economic, and legal practices that underlie derogatory terms. Due to this entrenched foundation, Tirrell offers inoculations and antidotes as the “epidemiological” alternative to reclamation, which amounts to understanding and thwarting hate speech as it occurs, shielding ourselves and others as we would from a chemical poison, or deadly virus. Per Gay, to respond to the rising polarity and the escalating violence within our society, a philosophy of peace, nonviolence, and social justice needs a broadly based critical discourse analysis, informed by intersectionality, that

16 Introduction exposes and reverses uses of pejorative language. The solution requires recognition of the underlying structural and institutional violence and success in at least significantly reducing them. Given the reciprocal relationship between pejorative language and oppressive superstructure, transformation must include language, in part because it can be altered before and while attitudes and behaviors are being transformed along with underlying structural and institutional violence. To this end, Gay proposes a six-​fold response to the proliferation of pejorative language compelling identitarian hatred and violence. First, Gay charges us with recognizing a distinction between offensive and oppressive language. The means to do primarily understand intersectionality, and the complex networks that combine to manifest in the unique way innovations suffer oppression due to various forces, recognizing how language reinforces oppressive mechanisms will enable us to make this distinction. Second, gay prescribes forgoing violent language altogether and recognizing the incremental and socially activist nature of such a project, learning to commit to “re-​training” and “re-​socializing” ourselves as a form of “language work” crucial to social activism. Thirdly, Gay suggests cultivating a willingness to engage those who use linguistically violent terms without succumbing to violent speech. In this way, Gay writes, “through careful and sensitive engagement, we may fairly readily obtain acceptance of the “enlightenment” we provide and for the requests for change that we make.” The minimum requirement is that we do not remain silent. Fourthly we must not tolerate linguistic violence in public forums, skillfully occupying the space between silence and violence by being outspoken in our disapproval of violent speech without succumbing to its seductive power. Fifthly, Gay would have us recognize and accept that the work of linguistic de-​escalation is itself a necessarily communal project. Sixthly, the intellectual and academic community must carry the torch for exposing linguistic violence and advancing linguistic nonviolence. In Chapter 11, “The Healing Power of Awareness: Nonviolence in Thought, Word, and Deed” Anthony White compares Gandhi and King’s nonviolent political resistance, the Socratic method of philosophical dialogue, Rosenberg’s nonviolent communication, and Nhat Hanh’s mindful transformation of feelings. White argues that investigating diverse attitudes, the non-​suppression of opposition, recognition of human fallibilism, and an emphasis on open-​ mindedness inviting others into a collaborative process is necessary for overcoming conflict at the sociopolitical, interpersonal, and intrapersonal levels. At the core of these successful approaches to nonviolence, White argues, is a commitment to bringing the polarized and polarizing attitudes at the root of a conflict into conscious awareness and transcending habitual patterns of

Introduction

17

thought perpetuating violence. White’s thesis is simple: understanding more deeply these crucial features of nonviolent resistance will help us employ it. A crucial feature of White’s consolidation of nonviolent resistance theory is to reanimate the role of speech and thought. The aim is to theorize conceptualizations that promote justice, peace, and nonviolence. White focuses on the holistic approaches to liberation and justice in Gandhi and King, whose approaches spoke to a principled form of life rather than a goal-​oriented political strategy. Connecting these pictures of nonviolent life or, better, loving life, White brings in the perhaps less obvious example of Socrates. White defines the Socratic approach to philosophy as an inherently nonviolent lifeform. For Gandhi, satyagraha involves standing up for a self-​consciously imperfect conception of the good by living in harmony with it, while remaining open to being convinced by others. Per White, Gandhi shares, in a qualified form, Socrates’ view that absolute knowledge is unattainable and that we should remain open to well-​argued philosophies. While there may seem to be significant differences between the Gandhian and Socratic pursuit of moral objectivity and Rosenberg and Nhat Hanh’s pursuit of compassion, White argues that these are two directions, one introspective and one interpersonal, of the same call to bring one’s attitudes into awareness. Moreover, White argues, Gandhi and Rosenberg stress an awareness of one’s own attitudes, both maintain that the purity of one’s love or compassion, and both hold that suffering or vulnerability are key to converting others or resolving conflicts. Moreover, Nhat Hanh’s aim of eliminating mistaken beliefs and perceptions is shared with Gandhi and Socrates. All of whom, White argues, require taking this awareness into mindful and compassionate social action to reduce suffering in the world. Furthermore, White suggests that awareness of attitude plays a fundamental role in conflict resolution. This is because awareness of “opposing attitudes” remains open due to the connecting themes of human fallibility and open-​mindedness. Satyagraha and the Elenchus/​dialectic involve remaining open to potentially learning from others and changing one’s position, Rosenberg eschews moralistic judgments, and Nhat Hanh’s mindfulness is an open and nonjudgmental state, and feelings along with the perceptions that they are based on are fallible. In addition to non-​suppression of opponents’ attitudes, these methods do not primarily aim to oppose, suppress, or defeat opponents themselves. In this regard, non-​ violent political movements are not power struggles but collaborative processes in which others are encouraged to participate. In White’s picture, drawing out the attitudes at the root of the conflict is not just a first step but is also fundamental in achieving nonviolent conflict resolution: “holding the attitudes relevant to a conflict in sustained conscious

18 Introduction awareness organically tends toward resolution of the conflict.” Per King and Gandhi, White summarizes, nonviolent direct action draws attention to the conflict and exposes the attitudes of the parties involved. Sustained public attention provoked by sustained non-​violent action results in more sympathetic and rational support for social change. Per Socrates, raising conscious awareness of fundamental but often unseen or ignored perspectives leads to truth. Per Rosenberg, the consciousness of emotions and needs is more likely to lead to compassionate relations. Per Nhat Hanh, consciousness has healing power. But why, White asks, might conscious awareness of the attitudes at the root of a conflict lead to resolution? White’s bold thesis is that there may be less to conflict resolution beyond addressing the attitudes than we tend to believe, and that, crucially, conscious awareness allows us to go beyond the force of habit compelled defensive heel-​digging responses to the views of, and our response to the views of, the other. A heightened degree of curiosity, open-​ mindedness, sensitivity, critical thinking, and/​or intentionality makes it possible for us to address the issue at an intellectual, emotionally intelligent, moral, or even spiritual rather than biologically or culturally conditioned levels. We can trust this method, White argues, because it presupposes the normative aspirations required for and which manifest most fully within nonviolent justice movements outlined here. In a sense, the model of nonviolent communication aimed at conflict resolution performatively sediments the reality it seeks, and therefore, has world-​making potential. Gandhi claims that satyagraha requires faith in the inherent goodness of human nature and manifests the view that our enduring coexistence shows the supremacy of the law of love. King asserts the conviction that the universe is on the side of justice. Socrates advances the view that people’s souls are pre-​acquainted with moral truth. Rosenberg claims natural compassion, and Nhat Hanh claims Buddha Nature. Either as ideals constitutive of peace or when reclassified as White does, as capacities, the call to draw attention to the attitudes relevant to a conflict, eliciting critical engagement, and overcoming habits combine to embody the values these movements promote. Moreover, per White, these capacities are more effective vehicles of social change than violence or obstinate absolutism. The common thread intertwining Gandhi and King’s nonviolent political resistance, the Socratic method of philosophical dialogue, Rosenberg’s nonviolent communication, and Nhat Hanh’s transformation of emotion, is holding attitudes at play within conflict in sustained conscious awareness. Consciousness of thought, deed, and action contributes to conflict resolution by obliging people to consider conflicting attitudes in a way that transcends habitual patterns. Other commonalities are the non-​suppression of opposition,

Introduction

19

recognition of human fallibilism, open-​mindedness and inviting others into a collaborative process aiming to address the root of a conflict and resolve it as well as presenting people with an opportunity to develop their moral capacity. Committing to the modes of nonviolence in thought, word, and deed encoded in the internal logic of the most successful nonviolent methods in the most violent of centuries, White concludes, supports the principled approach to nonviolent resistance, and equip us to both assess their value and apply them more effectively. In the final chapter of this volume, “The Deadliness of Doing: Agamben, Oakeshott, and Withdrawing from Activity,” David Liakos diagnoses an emphasis on activity and instrumental reason driving the existential condition conducive to our polarized politics and communities. Liakos prescribes the adoption of transformational conversations to implement inoperativity or play so as to contribute to a meaningful spiritual shift in our culture that would make it more politically and ontologically possible for us to imagine a more peaceful form of life. Liakos’ criticism of activity traces its historical and conceptual beginnings within a questionable ontology in which entities exist to enact a preordained function. Liakos traces this tendency to an authoritarian teleological model from Christian ontotheology which remains predominant. An enduring tension inherent in this inheritance is that two domains—​God’s plan and reality—​stand in contrast to the harmony of a form-​of-​life.19 Put simply, reality often fails to correspond to the ordering structure dominating the collective imaginary. Per Agamben, the Marxist picture of the human as essentially a laboring and productive creature secularized this theological frame such that human life finds imposed upon itself the essential purpose of production, utility, and action. Oakeshott conceives of human civilization as a conversation among an irreducible plurality of distinct voices. The interchange between these competing but never dominant voices takes place without goal, objective, or endpoint. Because no neutral framework exists there is no way to objectively compare one voice to another. A consequence of this climate is that we are all too often engaged in conversations preoccupied with goal-​oriented considerations. Within this echo chamber of absolutist impositions presupposing the functionalist vision of the human, the loudest voices promote a preoccupation with use, end product, or merely instrumental value.

19

For a succinct summary of the theological background to Agamben’s argument, see Zartaloudis 2011.

20 Introduction Per Liakos, both writers locate a reductionistic economic-​managerial onto-​ theology producing our contemporary obsession with productivity and, in doing so, have left out some other core component of the human essence. For Agamben, economic-​managerial theology forecloses “inoperativity,” a space where forms of life exist outside the demand for usefulness deliberately oriented away from productive labor or purposive ends that nevertheless belong to the human essence. Indeed, Per Agamben, operative life only emerges out of and on the basis of our essential inoperativity. The economic-​managerial ontology demands a critique because it illegitimately imposes a truncated range of active or productive goals on human life when, in fact, our inoperativity opens up multiple other possibilities besides work. A key measure of this dominance is the misanthropic calculations pitting human lives at risk from Covid over ensuring economic productivity. Liakos argues that Agamben’s abstract concoction of inoperativity can be made more real by Oakeshott’s conceptualization of play; the imaginative or poetic arts and the non-​instrumental orientation toward life they express. Oakeshott suggests we open up space in our lives for forms of being that have no other end than to contemplate and enjoy. The playful poetic activity of delightful contemplation, Oakeshott argues, means dwelling with things as they appear and, instead of analyzing or fitting them into an intelligible goal, exemplified by conversations, marked by an ephemeral playfulness rather than a recognizable telos. What Liakos proposes then, is fundamentally at odds with the self-​validation or conversion aspirations at play in polemic polarized discourse. Drawing from Gadamer and Oakeshott, this “elevated definition of conversation” incorporates an onto-​theologically transformational register necessarily operative outside instrumentalism; they are improvisational and require an openness to the unknown, the unprepared for, and the non-​goal oriented. A form of free exchange wherein a new truth or way of seeing things can emerge. This concept of “transformational conversation” is an image of or metaphor for an aspirational ideal of human civilization. Modeled on Oakeshott’s political vision of an ongoing exchange between different voices, Liakos inserts his theory of transformational conversation as the underpinning of an ideal, peaceful, and flourishing communal life; a conversation between voices who can never win or defeat each other, but who only continue an ongoing dialogue of different ways of thinking that challenge and alter each other. Per Liakos, resolving the polarization of points of view so obviously endemic to our society requires addressing the distortion of the very field of discussion in which those opinions are expressed and propagated. The resolution is not to be achieved through adopting the correct political ideology, opinion,

Introduction

21

or affiliation, the more radical approach would be choosing to cease having and expressing opinions and exit the frenetic, constant, and divisive debate and contentious discussions that incline us toward the economic model of conversation employing a peaceful, open-​minded, discriminative judgment to decide when to adopt the free-​flowing and purposeless model of elevated conversation. Contrary to the aspirations of deliberative democracy, inoperativity need not result in any form of achieved consensus, persuasion, or indeed any solution whatsoever capable of having a transformational by gradually exerting a spiritual influence throughout our culture without those conversations addressing political and technical topics head-​on or having any sort of direct instrumental result or benefit. Conversation understood and practiced in this way restores the human being, at least for the duration of that dialogue, to what Agamben called our essential inoperativity, that is, our potential to not always follow the economic model. One chief power we have in resisting the economic model driving our incessant demands for taking stands and fighting for causes and closing off imaginative and open forms of life is comporting ourselves in preparation for transformational conversations. This small-​scale attempt to implement inoperativity or play could contribute to a meaningful spiritual shift in our culture that would make it more politically and ontologically possible for us to imagine a form of life that is not governed by goals and purposes. It is my hope as editor of this book that you will find resources for, if not examples of, free-​flowing conversations inclined towards more just and peaceful forms of life. Indeed, within the rich conversations of this volume, there are no recipes for putting to bed the debate about whether polarity is the enemy of peace, or precisely what political project or theory is required to achieve peace and justice. It is more an example of what discourse can be in the pursuit of, and as an embodiment of, such aims. Herein, different opinions sit side by side in honest critical conversation, operating under the shared commitment of mutual respect, mutual critique, and the importance of clear critical thought in the project of better appreciating what Hannah Arendt called plurality: the fact that we inhabit the earth and co-​constitute humanity with unknown and unknowable others, and that we all have a right to exist and be recognized. Per Arendt, the recognition of plurality requires that we explore opinions with which we disagree and refuse absolute fidelity to any credo. We do so by adopting what Arendt calls a “two-​in-​one dialogue,”20 where we entertain

20

“Truth and Politics i,” in Baehr, Peter The Portable Hannah Arendt, Penguin classics, 2000, 550.

22 Introduction distinct conceptualizations and converse about how to judge our experiences from multiple perspectives. This volume offers a diverse range of deeply held, deeply conceived, and genuine perspectives invested in, as well as representative of plurality, and the collection they form, resist one of the many problems associated with polarity which this book addresses: holding onto insufficiently interrogated evaluative absolutes. This volume is not designed to settle debate, but to exemplify debate in a non-​violent form, as an alternative to the polarizations which mobilize ignorance, hatred, and violence. I hope it helps you do what our climate of extreme partisanship and polarization with its crude simplifications deforming language, ideas, and people cannot abide; to think critically, to think for yourself as among a shared diverse and pluralistic human community equally deserving of the right to co-​constitute the whole.

Pa rt 1 Deconstructing Polarity

∵

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Uncivil Obedience: a Method for (Potentially) Decreasing Political Polarization Jennifer Kling A common lamentation about political polarization is that it decreases social and political civility. Family members disown each other over political affiliations, protestors flood the streets, and social disavowals become part of everyday life. Polarization increases incivility, which increases polarization, in what appears to be a vicious cycle. However, I argue that there is one kind of political incivility, namely, uncivil obedience, that has the ability to decrease polarization. Uncivil obedience has the capacity to decrease polarization by cleverly drawing attention to both the ironies inherent in our legal, regulatory, and policy schemes and the ways in which neither the political left nor the political right have consistent sets of social and political views. By encouraging people to see the inconsistencies within the polarized left and the polarized right, uncivil obedience can draw people away from polarization as a social and political practice. Uncivil obedience—​also sometimes called malicious compliance—​is when a person or an organization undermines the law (broadly speaking) by obeying the law *precisely*. For example, the U.S. Department of Defense successfully stalled President Trump’s 2017 decision to bar transgender persons from serving in the U.S. military for over 2 years, simply by requiring that all bureaucratic laws, regulations, policies, procedures, and addendums surrounding such a policy change be followed to the letter. By enforcing the labyrinthine web of laws surrounding broad military policy changes, the Dept. of Defense seriously undermined Trump’s ban. They conspicuously followed the law, and in so doing, registered their disagreement with, and protest of, the proposed policy. Much like its close cousin civil disobedience, uncivil obedience draws attention to socio-​political dissonance. But whereas civil disobedience accentuates the discrepancies between a whole society’s socio-​political ideals and its practices, uncivil obedience has the potential to accentuate the discrepancies between particular views within a political group or side. For instance, the case above draws out the dissonance between two common views within the political right: “just follow the law” and “just use common sense.” By underscoring such inconsistencies in clever, ironic ways, uncivil obedience can help

© Jennifer Kling, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004541573_003

26 Kling people to see that perhaps they ought not be so wedded to any particular political group or side, and so can operate to decrease political polarization within society. 1

A More Precise Conceptualization

Uncivil obedience, considered as a particular mode or kind of protest, has received relatively little attention in the philosophical literature.1 This is perhaps surprising when we consider that no less a historical personage than Jesus Christ both engaged in, and encouraged his followers to engage in, uncivil obedience as well as civil disobedience. His injunction to “turn the other (left) cheek” has been widely cited as a call to remain nonviolent in the face of provocation; perhaps less well-​known is that it is also a way of making use of Roman law to force one’s provocateur to either hit you on the other cheek, thus acknowledging you as an equal, or withdraw the insult, thus acknowledging you as a superior. Both have the desired effect of protesting Roman treatment of Christians and non-​citizens, and, essentially for our purposes, turning your other cheek is precisely what you ought to do, according to the law in question, if you determine that you have been incorrectly/​inappropriately slapped. Christ, and his followers, thus undermined and protested Roman law in some cases by obeying the law with exactitude (Wink 2003). This example nicely draws out part of the essential nature of uncivil obedience as a distinctive phenomenon. For a person to engage in uncivil obedience or malicious compliance, it is more than that they are free to do the act in question; it is that they are explicitly supposed to do it, according to the legal or policy scheme in place. This sets uncivil obedience apart from both other forms of legal protest, which you may or may not engage in as you see fit and as the state or regulatory body allows, and from civil disobedience and other illegal forms of protest. We are supposed to follow regulations and obey authoritative commands; it just turns out that sometimes, doing this with precision can be a way of publicly communicating or expressing your sincere disagreement with particular legal, regulatory, or policy schemes, and your desire for them to change. This is in line with U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant’s famous dictum in 1 It is more commonly discussed in activists’ memoirs or handbooks, usually as one protest tactic among many. Although it is mentioned in a smattering of journal articles, the only sustained academic treatment I have found is Bulman-​Pozen and Pozen’s excellent 2015 article, “Uncivil Obedience.” This suggests, if nothing else, that there is a need for more philosophical investigation into the topic.

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his first inaugural address: “I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution” (Grant 1869). In other words, uncivil obedience or malicious compliance can be—​although it is not always—​a particular form or kind of protest, that is often quite effective. I here want to distinguish uncivil obedience from the issue of legal or policy loopholes. Famously, the law, and authoritative policies in general, are always somewhat indeterminate; as Jeremy Waldron points out, laws and policies are, at a fundamental level, always open to further and different interpretations. This means that argumentation is an essential feature of law and policy in practice; it is, as Waldron says, “business as usual” for persons to try to find actual or potential legal loopholes to exploit (Waldron 2011, 22). Importantly, this is not obviously a bad-​making feature of law and policy. By being open in this way, they respect persons as “active centers of intelligence” who are able to interpret, reason about, and argue law and policy in their own defense and support (Waldron 2011, 22). However, uncivil obedience does not depend on this indeterminacy within law and policy; rather, it depends on the distinction (which some people are quite good at spotting) between literal meaning and what we might call contextual or actual meaning. At a basic level, formal laws, rules, and policies specify how people ought, socially and politically, to regulate their conduct. It is this very specificity, though, that creates the opening for uncivil obedience—​it operates in the space between doing what I literally say and doing what I actually want you to do. (Anyone who has engaged in parenting will know this space well.) In addition, it is important to distinguish uncivil obedience from actions taken to create a legal test case. This was a common tactic during the U.S. Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s; protestors would deliberately violate local law, statute, regulation, or policy X on the grounds that X was incompatible with federal law, statute, regulation, or policy Y, and so invalid. The goal of such an action is to force the issue to court, in order to get the legal system to hand down a decision on which provision of positive law (broadly speaking) trumps, or is valid, and which is null and void. In the U.S., there are long-​standing issues surrounding which positive law is “higher,” state law or federal law; such actions take advantage of this perennial area of contention. The creation of legal test cases publicly communicates the presence of contradictions within the law, and so can be an important avenue for engendering reform. It is definitely a form of protest. But, while it may be civil disobedience, it is not uncivil obedience; for something to be uncivil obedience, it must be reasonably clear, to both themself and observers, that the obedient is “violating no positive law or regulation of an applicable jurisdiction” (Bulman-​Pozen and Pozen 2015, 824). It is the scrupulous following of all legal norms and authoritative directives

28 Kling that apply to one’s conduct, in a hyperbolic manner, that sets uncivil obedience apart. So, it differs from facilitating legal test cases in that there is no evident law-​breaking of any sort.2 There are many remaining definitional and conceptual questions with regard to uncivil obedience which I will not delve into here, for the most part, in order to keep focus on my main discussion about the communicative and potentially depolarizing power of uncivil obedience. However, to get a firmer grip on the basic idea, it is helpful to consider two paradigm cases from opposite ends of the political spectrum. The first case is work-​to-​rule protests organized by employees. Work-​to-​rule is a job action wherein employees follow the rules and policies of their contracts to the letter, adhere to all safety and other regulations, and arrive to and depart from their company’s premises precisely on time.3 By following every rule, no matter how inefficient or nonsensical, workers effectively bring the company to a standstill. As William H. Simon describes it, work-​to-​rule is the practice of “bring[ing] an enterprise to a halt by refusing to cut the corners necessary for things to function smoothly … it is so burdensome and even disruptive that it occurs only as a form of protest” (Simon 1998, 90–​1). For example, after American Airlines failed to reach a collective bargaining agreement with its pilots in 2012, the pilots began filing incessant, technically mandatory maintenance requests. Rather than engaging in the usual shortcuts necessary to keep their flights moving on time, the pilots logged all maintenance and technical issues—​as required—​and took the flight delay. By complying rigidly with company policies and industry regulations, rather than striking or otherwise disobeying, the pilots made a point about their worth to the airline and fought for change (Bulman-​Pozen and Pozen 2015, 818–​9). On the opposite end of the spectrum from progressive labor movements, political authorities often use uncivil obedience to punish or otherwise engage in vendettas against particular populations with whom they are displeased (justifiably or not). In this second case, police, security forces, and other legislative and executive authorities adhere to all local, regional, and federal regulations, work only their contracted hours, and do for their constituents precisely what

2 Of course, the judge in a legal test case may side with the defendant, in which case their action is retroactively permitted. However, this is still different from uncivil obedience, because at the time the action was taken, it clearly and deliberately violated at least one or more of the applicable legal norms. (To see this, consider that without doing so, the action wouldn’t be able to facilitate a legal test case.). 3 Thanks to Jerry Kendall for drawing this kind of uncivil obedience, which is a classic tactic of labor movements, to my attention.

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they are required to do; no more, no less. This has the effect of, if not bringing public society to a standstill, certainly seriously disrupting normal political and legal procedures. For example, after calls to regulate and defund the police gained traction in the United States and throughout the world in the summer of 2020, nypd Police Union (formally, the Police Benevolent Association, or P.B.A.) Chief Patrick Lynch responded by urging police officers to follow every regulation that guides their conduct and behavior to the letter. He argued that if liberal protestors wanted regulation, then police would show them regulation (Finnegan 2020). While rank-​and-​file officers did not actually implement Lynch’s proposal, it is true that if it had been implemented, it would have had the effect of making policing almost impossible and would have sent a direct message to liberal protestors and politicians. In both cases, the actors involved scrupulously conform to the relevant legal, regulatory, or policy scheme; the issue is the manner in which they do so. Their actions are subversive, jarring, and message-​sending, at least in part “because of [their] very attentiveness to law” (Bulman-​Pozen and Pozen 2015, 825, emphasis in original). Moreover, their attentiveness to the rules as written is not mistaken, as when a traveler in a new land accidentally obeys traffic signals that everyone else ignores as a matter of standard practice. No, their excessive conformity is intentionally done in order to communicate a political message that something needs to change. Uncivil obedience is not disruption for disruption’s sake; it is disruption for a particular purpose, with a particular goal or set of goals in mind. It becomes clear then that uncivil obedience shares many elements with civil disobedience: actions must be conscientious, public, communicative, reformist, and provocative to count as one or the other (Bulman-​Pozen and Pozen 2015, 820–​1). But whereas civil disobedience is provocative in its illegality, uncivil obedience is provocative in its legality; that is what is unique, and powerful, about it as a phenomenon. 2

Incivility: Malice?

An immediate puzzle about uncivil obedience that must command our attention is what, precisely, is uncivil about it, given its legality. In the civil disobedience literature, much ink has been spilled about the nature of civility, and its importance to the maintenance of the liberal project of living together in a society with others who we both recognize as people (as rights-​holders, as bearers of dignity, as having long-​term interests that ought to be respected, etc.) and with whom we seriously disagree about ethical and political values

30 Kling and the nature of the good life.4 According to N.P. Adams, when protestors have respect for, and fidelity to, this liberal project, which he describes broadly as a “commitment to the political,” then they are civil, and so can properly be described as civil disobedients (Adams 2018, 475). On this understanding of civility—​which does not confuse manners, or politeness, with a political commitment to the civitas—​it is not clear that uncivil obedients are actually always uncivil; in at least some cases, their actions do seem to demonstrate a commitment to the political, if not to the spirit of the particular laws, regulations, or policies that are at issue. But perhaps they are uncivil in another way. Perhaps such actions are uncivil because they are malicious. This calls back to the other, somewhat more common term for uncivil obedience, malicious compliance. On this reading, such actions are uncivil because they are always done out of ill-​will, or always arise from an intention to do evil, cause harm, or bring about a negative result. On the face of it though, this is surely false. Although some cases of malicious compliance are no doubt done out of spite, especially in the business and corporate worlds, there are cases of uncivil obedience which appear to reflect sincere beliefs about the importance of justice and a commitment to improving society, and so genuinely function as instances of political protest. To see this, consider the following two cases. Firefighters: One of the key pieces of safety equipment for firefighters developed in the 20th century is the self-​contained breathing apparatus (scba). However, for purported traditional and cultural reasons, firefighters often refuse to wear or use their scba, even in the 21st century, when the dangers of smoke inhalation, and the ways in which it limits firefighters’ abilities during a fire, are well-​known. To curtail the consistent lack of use of scba by firefighters, fire departments and municipal managers imposed regulations requiring firefighters to wear their scba. In response, firefighters dutifully wore their scba, but did not use it. They deliberately made themselves more inefficient than they would otherwise be by adding an extra piece of gear to their backs and explicitly not utilizing it. By strictly following the orders of management, the firefighters brought about a negative, and indeed harmful, result, rather than the intended outcome of the regulation (Gagliano et al. 2008). Slow Drivers: In 1974, the U.S. Congress enacted a federal speed limit law restricting all freeway speeds to fifty-​five miles per hour in response to the Arab oil embargo. In 1993, American motorists staged a protest of this law by hitting

4 For some recent discussions of civility in the context of protest, see, among others, Brownlee (2012), Delmas (2018), Raz (1979), and Rawls (1999).

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the road. Following the directives of the National Motorists Association, they drove precisely fifty-​five miles per hour on at least twenty-​five different freeways around the country, while obeying all other traffic laws and regulations (such as the directive that there must be 1 car-​length of space between vehicles for every 10 mph increase in speed). As Josh Meyer put it, the drivers, who organized their vehicles into slow-​moving phalanxes, “did just about the worst thing you can do to your fellow freeway drivers: They stayed within the speed limit” (Meyer 1993). All of the motorists participating in the protests had ample signage calling for repeal of the speed limit law on their cars, which led to those affected by the protests, in some cases, being surprisingly understanding rather than angry. Still, the resulting traffic jams and delays led to public outcry, and Congress repealed the speed limit law two years later (Bulman-​Pozen and Pozen 2015, 823, n. 47). Firefighters looks like a clear case of malicious compliance: the firefighters in question are trying to, and succeeding in, spiting their management, for no real reason beyond, as one firefighter put it, “sticking it to the man” (Gagliano et al. 2008, 234). Following Cheshire Calhoun’s moral understanding of the virtue of civility, we might say that the firefighters’ actions are uncivil because they are not only ill-​intended, but also a display of ill-​will. They express the firefighters’ contemptuous attitude toward management and reflect an unwillingness to tolerate or consider points of view other than their own (Calhoun 2000). Moreover, the point of their behavior is malicious; it is intended to display a nasty kind of hostility, as well as increase inefficiency in a way that is harmful to themselves, to other individuals, to their departments, and to municipal managers, solely for that inefficiency and harm’s sake. By contrast, although a foreseen consequence of Slow Drivers was the frustration of other motorists on the road that day, the intent of the protesting motorists’ mass adherence to the law was not to “stick it” to other drivers; the intent was to demonstrate the ridiculousness of the 55-​mph speed limit law and the need for it to change (Meyer 1993). Here, there is not ill-​will or maliciousness, but rather a concern for encouraging the development and implementation of reasonable traffic laws that are sensitive to contemporary contexts (including, but not limited to, the abilities of modern vehicles and improved freeway design). What is communicated is not solely a nasty hostility, but rather a call for reform—​in this case, via a demonstration of why the current law needs changing. In line with Calhoun’s moral conception of incivility, which as we saw is tied to ill-​will and hostility and subsequent displays of contempt, intolerance, and disrespect, these uncivil obedients do not appear to be actually uncivil; their actions do not express contempt or willful intolerance, and are not intended to create harm solely for harm’s sake.

32 Kling What we can see here is that although the two terms ‘malicious compliance’ and ‘uncivil obedience’ are often used interchangeably, we would do better to separate them out: malicious compliance is when the intention behind the action is solely malicious or spiteful (it seeks to engender harm for harm’s sake), and the action itself displays a hostile, contemptuous attitude. Uncivil obedience is when the intention behind the action is political—​it aims at communicating publicly about and drawing attention to genuine or perceived injustices, with the goal of bringing about needed change(s) or reform—​and the action itself expresses concern for achieving this goal. In other words, uncivil obedients must have a “critical agenda” that is “reform-​minded” (Bulman-​Pozen and Pozen 2015, 822, 826). For the remainder of this chapter, I will be concerned with uncivil obedience, rather than malicious compliance.5 Having determined that uncivil obedience need not be malicious nor arise out of a worrying disregard for the liberal project, we are still left with the question: what makes uncivil obedience particularly uncivil? Perhaps it is uncivil because it is a demonstration of the fact that obedience to the law is not sufficient for an orderly, stable society. In some ways, it is proof against Kant’s venerable claim that even a race of devils, if they designed and implemented a set of well-​organized coercive laws in order to both check their selfish impulses and make those impulses operate for the good of all, could have a successful society (Kant 1983). Now, perhaps the possibility of uncivil obedience just shows that we do not have well-​organized laws; but I am more inclined to think that what uncivil obedience shows is that, if you are devilish enough, or clever enough, you can get around the spirit of just about any law, regulation, or policy by obeying its letter in very particular ways. If all of Kant’s intelligent devils were to engage in uncivil obedience, their state would very quickly stop being successful, that is, orderly and stable over time. This demonstrates that, to have an orderly, stable society, more is necessary than well-​functioning systems of law and policy. To have a successful society, there needs to be not only sets of well-​organized coercive laws, policies, and regulations, but also an unwritten, but generally recognized and adhered to, social sense about how, and when, and under what conditions one should

5 Although, this distinction does draw out the need for an ethics of malicious compliance, as well as uncivil obedience. Given how multiple intentions can come together in action, it is worth investigating whether, and to what extent, malicious intentions are compatible with other, more justice-​oriented intentions and a general commitment to the political. There are also of course more general ethical questions here, such as whether malicious intent always makes some action wrong, when the use of uncivil obedience is permitted or justified, and so forth. Thanks to Keith Abney for encouraging me to consider this point.

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bring those coercive systems to bear. We might helpfully describe this social sense as a kind of virtue; too idiosyncratic and sensitive to circumstance to be a set of unwritten rules or norms, it relies instead on what Slavoj Zizek refers to as socialization, a kind of “organic” social substance that grounds “the standards of what George Orwell approvingly referred to as “common decency”” (Zizek 2011). Insofar as uncivil obedience requires going against this virtue, or social sense, it might be appropriate to regard it as being in this way uncivil. Such actions, after all, work precisely by going against their society’s more-​or-​ less common existing sense of when to, and when not to, adhere precisely to the positive laws, regulations, and policies that are in place; they are thus a kind of deliberately unsociable, albeit recognizably political, manipulation.6 Uncivil obedients, in a sense, hack and then hijack the system, not by exploiting loopholes in the code, but by exploiting the fact that humans expect and trust each other to understand that we don’t mean for every line of code to be strictly or literally obeyed, despite the fact that we wrote it down that way. This clever hack of expectation and social trust is, in a word, uncivil. 3

Two Communicative Characteristics of Uncivil Obedience

Uncivil obedience, despite its distinctive brand of incivility, need not be revolutionary or riotous. Going the exact speed limit on a freeway is not going to bring a society down, although it may well bring it to a standstill for a day; similarly, while employees working to rule is disruptive, it is practically the opposite of riotous. Rather, these actions are recognizable as protest, as attempts to communicate publicly about unjust legal, regulatory, or policy schemes with an eye to reform or change. In this way, as we have seen, uncivil obedience is “the legalistic doppelganger” of civil disobedience (Bulman-​Pozen and Pozen 2015, 872). Although each has different typical characteristics, civil disobedience and uncivil obedience have in common their communicative power. In this section, I focus on two communicative characteristics of uncivil obedience, the one constitutive, and the other typical. I then go on in Section iv to

6 Does such a hyperbolic and rigid conformity to the relevant legal, regulatory, or policy scheme for the purposes of protest nevertheless demonstrate respect for, or fidelity to, the legal system as a whole? This is Rawls’ test for the civility of civil disobedience (Rawls 1999). This may well depend on how we understand the notions of respect and fidelity; however, if we take them (as I am inclined to do) in line with Adams’ understanding of them as a “commitment to the political,” then uncivil obedience is in fact civil in Rawls’ sense, although it is deliberately unsociable in the way that I have described.

34 Kling argue that these communicative characteristics could be operationalized to decrease social and political polarization. The first communicative characteristic of uncivil obedience is its cleverness and deeply ironic and provocative nature (Bulman-​Pozen and Pozen 2015, esp. 827–​31). Uncivil obedience is socially jarring in its irony and so, in a way, is fundamentally funny or amusing. This humorous element, because it arises out of its distinctive brand of incivility, is partially constitutive of uncivil obedience. Even when we disagree with some particular instance of uncivil obedience, we often find ourselves smirking in response to it, in acknowledgement that the actor(s) have done something unexpected, subversive, and yet impressively clever and worthy of recognition in that sense. Anecdotally, the most common response to descriptions of cases of uncivil obedience, from across the political spectrum, is an almost involuntary bark of laughter, followed by a rueful or impressed nod and/​or smile. To borrow from Audre Lorde, uncivil obedients manage to use the master’s tools to point out deep flaws in the master’s house (Lorde 1984, 110–​14). They go against what is normal and expected in a subversive and ironic way—​rather than break authoritative laws, rules, or commands that they find unjust or otherwise problematic, they follow them as closely as possible. This rigid adherence draws out the essential absurdities that are necessarily inherent in many of our formal legal, regulatory, and policy schemes, and so is just funny. The very particular, deliberate unsociability of uncivil obedience, then, grounds one of its essential communicative characteristics, that it is peculiarly humorous. Of course, just because something is funny, does not mean that everyone will find it so. Some people have no sense of humor, and so will not find uncivil obedience humorous or amusing in the way that I have described. There is a deep philosophical literature on humor, and in particular, on the distinction between something’s being amusing and seeming amusing, which I will not review at length here.7 However, I will say that even those who do not find uncivil obedience to be funny are likely to find it to be both clever and ironic, or at the least one or the other. At the very least, those who find uncivil obedience exasperating rather than amusing, frustrating rather than ironic, must recognize that it is an ingenious form of sabotage that only creative intelligences could come up with, ones who keenly understand their society’s common and expected social, political, and legal practices and how, where, and when those practices deviate from formal legal, regulatory, or policy schemes.

7 For a good introduction to the major theories of humor, and some of the main debates in the field, see Shaw (2010).

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This recognition, even in the absence of finding uncivil obedience to be amusing, may be enough to challenge and decrease polarization in the way that I describe below. The second communicative characteristic of uncivil obedience that I want to draw out is not necessarily constitutive of uncivil obedience, though it is typical. As I have discussed throughout, uncivil obedience highlights or flaunts discrepancies between literal and actual meaning; it deliberately strikes a dissonant note within legal, regulatory, or policy schemes, and so operates as a legalistic provocation.8 In addition to this more general dissonance, uncivil obedience has the potential to draw out discrepancies within political groups or sides, by emphasizing the inconsistencies that inevitably exist between various of the commonly accepted attitudes, beliefs, or views of a political group or side. For example, when motorists go the exact speed on highways, it draws out a dissonance between two views common within the political right: “just follow the law” and “just use common sense.” As Slow Drivers illustrates, sometimes it is more common sensical to break the law. Similarly, when police precisely, woodenly, and seriously unhelpfully follow every regulation guiding their conduct, this draws out the inconsistency of two views common on the political left: “police would do better if only they followed their own regulations” and “police would do better if only they paid attention to individuals’ circumstances and context.” Much like civil disobedience works to accentuate the discrepancies between a whole society’s socio-​political ideals and its actual socio-​political-​legal practices, uncivil obedience can work to accentuate the discrepancies between particular views, beliefs, or attitudes within a political group or side. However, it is not clear that every case of uncivil obedience has this particular internal-​discrepancy-​oriented dissonant communicative characteristic. As I mentioned, this is a typical, but not necessarily an essential or constitutive, aspect of the phenomenon. Work-​to-​rule cases do seem to force those on the political right to take a stance about what is more important: following the relevant laws/​regulations/​policies, or following common sense. As work-​to-​rule uncivil obedience brings home to the political right, sometimes it is not possible to do both. But contrastingly, it is not obvious exactly what discrepancies within a political side are accentuated when the Dept. of Defense protests, and successfully substantially delays, a proposed exclusionary military policy by scrupulously obeying all laws, regulations, procedures, and addendums that

8 For an excellent discussion of the legal provocation element of uncivil obedience, see Bulman-​Pozen and Pozen (2015).

36 Kling guide the adoption and enactment of such a policy. While this is undoubtedly a case of uncivil obedience, it is not obvious that it also functions to draw out one or more of the conceptual inconsistencies and contradictions that are part and parcel of any given political group or side within a society. Still, it sounds a dissonant note; and that has the potential to create a moment of mental pause, for both those on the political right and those on the political left. This mental pause, or “huh” moment, that is a result of the dissonance created by uncivil obedience, can function to challenge and potentially de-​escalate polarization, even in the absence of a salient internal discrepancy. 4

The Potential for Decreasing Polarization

Of course, uncivil obedience has more than two communicative characteristics. I focus on its humor and its accentuating of discrepancies within political sides through the production of dissonance because those are, in my view, the two characteristics that make uncivil obedience well-​placed to combat political polarization. To be clear, I am not here arguing that uncivil obedience necessarily functions to decrease political polarization, or that it has always or often done so historically. Rather, I am suggesting it as a potential tool; when we think about how to engender retreat from political polarization as a society, we should not ignore the possible assistance that uncivil obedience could provide. Uncivil obedience has the ability to hit polarized political environments and de-​radicalize them through encouraging various realizations and recognitions.9 Let me explain. To begin with, uncivil obedience can often encourage polarized members within a political group or side to see the discrepancies inherent in their views. By drawing out and making salient these inconsistencies, uncivil obedience can lead people to question their justifications for holding such an extreme set of beliefs. For example, when motorists cause mayhem by going the exact speed limit, it may cause those on the political right, who claim both that

9 I do not here provide an analysis of political polarization; I leave that for the other chapters in this book. I am here using the term in its more-​or-​less ordinary sense, to capture the idea that people are polarized when they become both more extreme in their political views and hold more rigidly to those views, such that they are disinclined to accept reasonable disagreement and to allow exceptions in any particular case. Insofar as political polarization is extreme and rigid in these ways, its presence is problematic for liberal societies, which depend for their continued existence on their members’ willingness to both live and let live and to compromise on social, political, and legal agendas.

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people should just follow the law and that they should just use common sense, to realize that sometimes, these two positions are incompatible. It may also cause them to question the common conservative political view that following the law is always good. These realizations, in turn, may help them to see that those on the political left perhaps have a point when they argue that sometimes, justice and common sense require breaking the law. These two realizations, both that your own political views are sometimes inconsistent and that the other side is not wholly irrational, may lead people to become a bit less extreme and rigid in their political views. Importantly, uncivil obedience draws out dissonance in multiple political directions; in this way, it is again similar to civil disobedience, which can be used to promote both progressive and conservative social and political causes. As I noted in the previous section, when police officers and security forces disrupt ordinary life by robotically adhering to all regulations guiding their behavior, they draw out the dissonance among a variety of views on the political left about how police ought to behave. What is made clear by such uncivilly obedient actions is that those on the political left cannot have it both ways: they cannot have both strong regulatory and policy schemes that severely constrain security forces’ behavior, and the kind of context-​sensitive, individualized policing that is often called for as a way to repair trust between police forces and the communities that they serve. This realization may lead those on the polarized left to question, and perhaps step back from, their most radical views. In addition, it may also cause those on the left to question the common progressive political view that the police are lawless en masse, which in turn could help them to see that those on the political right perhaps have a point when they resist lumping all police together as one giant bad apple. Broadly, uncivil obedience can encourage politically polarized members of a society to confront the inconsistencies that are part and parcel of their extreme, and rigid, political views. Coming face-​to-​face with such inconsistencies may lead them to reassess their views, beliefs, and attitudes and, in so doing, may enable and inspire them to step away from the polarized position that they currently inhabit. Also, the realization that the ‘other side’ is not completely irrational is often an essential first step in political de-​polarization (Ross 2012); uncivil obedience, in its production of dissonance, usually makes this point quite strongly. So, the combination of realizations and recognitions that uncivil obedience has the potential to bring about, just as a result of its typical characteristics, are such that they can contribute to decreasing polarization as a social and political practice. Uncivil obedience will not always do this, of course. It is annoying, and can often be infuriating (much like its doppelganger civil disobedience). But if

38 Kling civil disobedience has the communicative power that is often attributed to it (Brownlee 2004), then we should conclude that uncivil obedience has communicative power, as well. It can communicate that legal, regulatory, and policy schemes, and the attitudes, beliefs, and views that surround those schemes, are complicated, and often inconsistent. These realizations have the potential, in turn, to lead people to back away from die-​hard adherence to their political side and consider political issues and disagreements a bit more charitably, in the recognition that the law—​broadly speaking—​cannot solve all of our problems, and that it is only by working together to not be a race of devils that we will figure out how to all live together in peace. In addition, uncivil obedience is clever, if not downright amusing; recall that it derives much of its power from its ironic, subversive use of the master’s tools to point out deep flaws in the master’s house. This creative, humorous ingenuity is disarming, and so can encourage polarized individuals to re-​think their views, beliefs, and attitudes. As Robert B. Talisse argues, it is difficult to see someone through the polarizing lens of being solely an irrational or insane member of the ‘other side’ once you come to realize and recognize that they too are an individual person just like you (Talisse 2019). And to recognize someone as clever, creative, and humorous is to see them as a person. So even instances of uncivil obedience that do not involve drawing out internal inconsistencies within political groups or sides as a part of the dissonant note that they sound can decrease political polarization, because they all necessarily involve a kind of political, and yet politically disarming, humor. As one of my more conservative students said, in a tone of awe, in response to the American Airlines work-​ to-​rule case, “They out-​lawed the law. I disagree, but that’s so cool!”10 There is some evidence that people are in general much more likely to consider accepting or taking up the agendas of protests that make them laugh; this is the impetus behind laughtivism as an important contemporary form of political action (Popovic and McClennen 2020, esp. Chapter 3). Uncivil obedience, in addition to being a distinctive form of protest, is also a kind of laughtivism. By making people laugh, or smirk, or quietly acknowledge its cleverness and irony, it jars people out of their usual mental routines, and so creates the mental space for an important moment of realization, that perhaps the faceless ‘other side’ is not so faceless, and not so bad, after all. Of course, there is no guarantee that this realization will occur; but uncivil obedience creates room for it, and that is an important first step in the slow, difficult process of political depolarization. To be clear, uncivil obedience is not a cure-​all. But it 10

Student’s comment cited with permission.

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does have the potential (if it is used in the right ways, at the right times, and in the right manners, of course) to be a catalyst for the depolarization of our political spheres. 5

Conclusion: a Possible Program of Research and Action

In large part, I have couched my argument in terms of potentials, possibilities, and first moves in a debate. This is because I am not drawing firm conclusions so much as attempting to bring attention to uncivil obedience as a unique form of protest, one that has not been sufficiently contemplated or theorized. There is a possible research program here: many conceptual and definitional issues still surround uncivil obedience, and these will need to be worked out carefully to gain a rich understanding and appreciation of it as a particular mode of political action. To take just two examples, I have ignored almost entirely the questions of justification and publicity. Is uncivil obedience always, sometimes, or never justified? To what extent, and in what ways, must uncivil obedience be public in order to count as an entry in the space of public reasons? These are key questions and discussions to be had, and their answers will no doubt impact the arguments that I have made here. In addition, I have suggested that uncivil obedience, unlike many other kinds of incivility, could be operationalized to decrease political polarization. Given its distinctive communicative characteristics, it has the potential to be a potent tool for those who are concerned about the consequences of the ever-​ increasing political polarization that is occurring in many societies today. So, protestors, and activists more broadly, might do well to consider how to make best use of uncivil obedience, both to boost the efficacy of their movements and to aid in long-​term societal stabilization. But at the same time, they should also be wary of the dangers of uncivil obedience in practice. It can be an impediment, as well as a boon, to social and political movements. Ultimately, uncivil obedience is an important, distinctive, and complicated form of protest; gaining a better understanding of it will aid both theorists and activists in their fight for a more just, and more peaceful, world.

References

Adams, N. P. 2018. Uncivil disobedience: Political commitment and violence. Res Publica 24: 475–​91, https://​doi​.org​/10​.1007​/s11​158​-017​-9367​-0​.

40 Kling Brownlee, Kimberley. 2012. Conscience and Conviction: The case for civil disobedience. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Brownlee, Kimberley. 2004. Features of a paradigm case of civil disobedience. Res Publica: A Journal of Legal and Social Philosophy 10 (4): 337–​51. Bulman-​ Pozen, Jessica, and David E. Pozen. 2015. Uncivil obedience. Columbia Law Review 115 (4): 809–​72, https://​columb​iala​wrev​iew​.org​/cont​ent​/unci​vil​-obedie​ nce​-2​/​. Calhoun, Cheshire. 2000. The virtue of civility. Philosophy & Public Affairs 29 (3): 251–​ 75, http://​www​.jstor​.org​/sta​ble​/2672​847​. Delmas, Candice. 2018. A duty to resist: When disobedience should be uncivil. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Finnegan, William. 2020. How police unions fight reform. The New Yorker. July 27, 2020. https://​www​.newyor​ker​.com​/magaz​ine​/2020​/08​/03​/how​-pol​ice​-uni​ons​-fight​ -ref​orm​. Gagliano, Mike, Steve, Bernocco, Casey R. Phillips, and Phillip, Jose. 2008. Air management for the fire service. Tulsa, OK: Fire Engineering Books, PennWell. Grant, Ulysses S. 1869. First inaugural address of Ulysses S. Grant. Washington, D.C.: U.S. G.P.O.: for sale by the Supt. of Docs., 1989 [database online]. Available from https: //​ava​lon​.law​.yale​.edu​/19th​_​cent​ury​/gra​nt1​.asp​. Kant, Immanuel. 1983. Perpetual peace, and other essays on politics, history, and morals. Edited by Ted Humphrey. Indianapolis: Hackett Pub. Co. Lorde, Audre. 1984. The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. In Sister outsider: Essays and speeches, 110–​114. Berkeley, CA: Crossing Press. Meyer, Josh. 1993. Slowpokes make point at 55 M.P.H. Los Angeles Times, April 26, 1993. https://​www​.lati​mes​.com​/archi​ves​/la​-xpm​-1993​-04​-26​-me​-27445​-story​.html​. Popovic, Srdja, and Sophia A. McClennen. 2020. Pranksters vs. autocrats: Why dilemma actions advance nonviolent activism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Rawls, John. 1999. A Theory of Justice, Revised Edition. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press. Raz, Joseph. 1979. The authority of law: Essays on law and morality. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ross, Lee. 2012. Reflections on biased assimilation and belief polarization. Critical Review: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Politics and Society 24 (2): 233–​45. Shaw, Joshua. 2010. Philosophy of humor. Philosophy Compass 5 (2): 112–​126. Simon, William H. 1998. The practice of justice: A theory of lawyers’ ethics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Talisse, Robert B. 2019. Overdoing democracy: Why we must put politics in its place. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Waldron, Jeremy. 2011. The rule of law and the importance of procedure. Nomos 50: 3–​ 31, https://​www​.jstor​.org​/sta​ble​/24220​105​. Wink, Walter. 2003. Jesus and nonviolence: A third way. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press.

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Zizek, Slavoj. 2011. Liberalism as politics for a race of devils. abc Religion & Ethics, November 22, 2011. https://​www​.abc​.net​.au​/relig​ion​/lib​eral​ism​-as​-polit​ics​-for​-a​ -race​-of​-dev​ils​/10100​998​.

­c hapter 2

At Peace, with Polarity: Left Cynicism, Cheekiness, and Satire Will Barnes 1

Introduction

Polarization simplifies and deforms conflict by reducing the complexities of social life into an oppositional binary based on crude distinctions between self and other. Since “us vs. them” conflicts tend to become violent and polemical, polarization is a cause of violence.1 The project of peace then, is aided by the project of depolarization. An experience where ideals, ideas, values, traditions, and identifications are simultaneously validated and contested can challenge the absolutisms undergirding polarization. This paper investigates one such challenge against a perhaps surprising example of moral absolutism, a form of cynicism within America’s ‘left’ academic and popular culture. Theorizing this challenge appeals to a lineage of comedians from Sammy Davis Junior through to Richard Pryor and, more recently, Dave Chappelle. Concerning “Smokey,” a popular Rat Pack act from 1962 had Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin telling Davis to leave, and Davis pleading with them to let him stay. The ‘comedy’ was about the novelty of there being a black man on a stage which white people occupy: the absurdity of the marginalized occupying the mainstream. This interchange is part of a routine which builds up to the song me and my shadow performed as Davis follows Sinatra around the stage.2

sammy davis jr.: You asked me out here. Can I sing with you guys? A couple of—​

1 Johan Galtung goes so far as to suggest that polarization is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the escalation of conflict into violence. Johan Galtung, Peace by Peaceful Means (London: Sage Publishing, 1996), Chapter 3. Also see the practical application of this in: Stanford University’s Conflict and Polarization Project https://​kin​gcen​ter​.stanf​ ord​.edu​/resea​rch​/init​iati​ves​/confl​ict​-and​-polar​izat​ion; and the related Depolarization Project: https://​www​.depola​riza​tion​proj​ect​.com​/​. 2 The song itself is relevant to the fraught lineage of satire and the marginalized written, as it was, by Al Jolson for The Jazz Singer with its complex use of blackface, as a means for a Jewish artist to hide his ethnicity and appeal to a white protestant American audience.

© Will Barnes, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004541573_004

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dean martin:

Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. I’ll dance with you. I’ll sing with you. I’ll swim with you. I’ll cut the lawn with you. I’ll go to Bar Mitzvahs with you. But don’t touch me. Well, now that you’re out here, you might as well do something. frank sinatra: Might as well leave. dean martin: Hey, how come he got a white stool? [laughter] sammy davis jr.: I tell you what. Ladies and gentlemen, may I offer some impersonations for you nice folks? dean martin: Sam, that’s a good idea. Why don’t you do Paul Revere, get on your horse and get the hell out of here. I’ll tell you what. Do James Meredith of Mississippi. [laughter] sammy davis jr.: Help! Ladies and gentlemen, my first impression is that of Mr. Frank Sinatra. [singing] When somebody loves you, it’s no good unless she loves you all the way. frank sinatra: Man, if you like him, you’re going to be cuckoo about me. He’s just—​you’ll excuse the expression—​a carbon copy.

Now, it reads as dated and offensive, but at the time it was radical and progressive. The irony, both then and now, is hard to pin-​down. Is the absurdity of marginalization being reinforced or ironicized? Does it represent a consolidation of, or a break from racism, or both? That there are no satisfying simple answers to these questions is a testament to comedy’s power. For the contemporary viewer, the routine reminds us how far we have come and how far we should go, as well as the power of, and need for, representation and the messy path to its achievement, but it does not spell out the path nor does it conform to any obvious absolute moral or political position. I want here to focus on this ambiguity and coming-​together of opposites, specifically the special capacity for double entendre in a lineage within African American racial satire: the ability to simultaneously engage various evaluative stances and ideological paradigms under a mutually welcoming and challenging critical gaze. But before laying out and developing an account of the benefits of this form of irony, we must turn to a popular comportment which refuses ambiguity and may benefit from such satire: a popular ‘left’ form of cynicism. In order to articulate this theory of cynicism, I turn to two contemporary theorists, Peter Sloterdijk and Jess Row with whom my thesis both shares a great deal and differs in several crucial respects.

44 Barnes 2

Cynicism When consciousness feels violence, its anxiety may well make it retreat from the truth and strive to hold on to what it is in danger of losing. […] Its fear may lead consciousness to hide, from itself and others, behind the pretension that it’s cleverer than any thoughts that one gets by oneself or from others. […] this is a satisfaction which we must leave to itself, for it seeks only itself. Hegel 3

In his Critique of Cynical Reason, which remains the pre-​eminent philosophical treatise on the subject, Peter Sloterdijk diagnoses cynicism in ideology critique once invested in exposing injustice and pursuing truth, now content to find “extra rational mechanisms of opinion: interests, passions, fixations, [and] illusions”4 in the views it considers other, reducing opponents’ subjectivity to “necessarily deluded epiphenomena”5 and assuming superiority over them.6 By reducing debate to the avoidance of folly and attacking the opponent in this way, Sloterdijk argues that critique fails its guiding aspiration of contesting normative violence, injustice, and untruth. Sloterdijk explains how this modern and highly intellectual cynicism developed out of the European enlightenment movement intent, as it was, on exposing the nature and limits of ideology and the possibility of a more peaceful, just, and reasonable world.7 Per Sloterdijk, critique emerged to expose the deception, irrationality, 3 G. W. F. Hegel, The Phenomenology of Spirit. Trans. A. V. Miller and J. N. Findlay. Oxford: Oxford U, 2013. §80, pp. 51–​52. 4 Ibid. 5 Sloterdijk, 15. 6 Peter Sloterdijk, Eldred, Michael. and Adelson, Leslie A. “Cynicism: The Twilight of False Consciousness” New German Critique, No. 33, Modernity and Postmodernity (Autumn, 1984), pp. 190–​206, p. 206. 7 Ibid., 5. For Sloterdijk, ideology is an internalized normativity which justifies an oppressive superstructure and agents’ position within that superstructure. To refer to this ideological self-​deception Sloterdijk develops Engel’s notion of ‘false consciousness.’ “Ideology is a process accomplished by the so-​called thinker. Consciously, it is true, but with a false consciousness. The real motive forces impelling him remain unknown; otherwise, it simply would not be an ideological process. Hence, he imagines false or apparent motives.” Friedrich Engels in: Marx, Karl, Friedrich Engels, and Fritz J. Raddatz. “Engels’ Letter to Mehring.” The Marx-​ Engels Correspondence: The Personal Letters, 1844–​1877: A Selection. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1981. For an explanation of how cynicism originates in the enlightenment prior to the opposing forces, see Stanley, Sharon A. The French Enlightenment and the Emergence of Modern Cynicism. New York: Cambridge UP, 2012. Stanley argues that Enlightenment criticism of religion, “system building,” nature, and morality, coupled with its preference for materialism and empiricism paved the way for cynicism at its inception, by reducing human motivations to self-​interest, morality to utilitarianism, and sociability to pretense. For Stanley, complicity is a logical next step.

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and injustice traceable to a dominant ideology, so as to destabilize the grip of oppressive norms, but has since degenerated into cynicism. This degeneration began with the response that enlighteners mounted against the violent opposition to rational dialogue adopted by their conservative opponents.8 In this context of dissensus, ideology critique developed extra-​rational strategies degenerating into “the polemic continuation of miscarried dialogue;”9 the refusal to engage in genuine discourse which dominates the modern public and political spheres. Per Sloterdijk, this devolution was catalyzed by ill-​supported, absolutist, and hypocritical features within the philosophical systems of the Enlightenment which, as well as exposing religious ideology, remained unaware of its own dogmas, normative violence, and material and institutional processes which both misled and mistreated, and remained vulnerable to critique. Sloterdijk argues that the Marxists, the French moralists, Rousseau, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Freud, and Heidegger extended the lineage of enlightening ideology critique (albeit targeting elements of Enlightenment thought) in revealing motivational mechanisms at or below the foundations of conscious life for the sake of certain emancipatory goals. This group and their intellectual progeny, Sloterdijk argues, were also oblivious to critical weaknesses in their alternative models, a pattern repeated with each generation of ‘disrobers.’ A result of this trajectory was that while the criticisms of naiveté have remained persuasive, the therapeutic, revolutionary, and ameliorative responses have not. Consequently, while the ideological superstructures critique revealed were deemed universal and inescapable, the alternatives were pre-​emptively dismissed as naïve. This final stage is what Sloterdijk calls cynicism: ‘Enlightened False Consciousness.’10 It is a state which presupposes the necessity of false consciousness and saves itself from naiveté by reducing to an open-​eyed pragmatism and universal critique, reducing all subjectivity to “necessarily deluded epiphenomena”11 and assuming superiority over others in virtue of adopting “the correct false consciousness”’12 enlightened to the necessity of false consciousness. For Sloterdijk, cynicism is a highly intellectual

“Enlightenment wants to talk about things hegemonic powers and traditions prefer to keep quiet about: reason, justice, equality, freedom, truth.” Sloterdijk, 14. 8 Sloterdijk, 14. 9 Ibid. 10 Sloterdijk, 3. 11 Sloterdijk, 15. 12 Peter Sloterdijk, Eldred, Michael. and Adelson, Leslie A. “Cynicism: The Twilight of False Consciousness” New German Critique, No. 33, Modernity and Postmodernity (Autumn, 1984), pp. 190—​206, p. 206.

46 Barnes consciousness, a consequence of the Enlightenment,13 ideologically exhausted, and crushed under the weight of a crude view of contemporary life. 3

Left Cynicism

The picture of cynicism I outline here shares much with Sloterdijk, concerning aspects of its genesis in the European enlightenment and its evolution, but differs in several important ways. Both for the sake of polemics and simplicity, I call this ‘Left Cynicism.’ While Sloterdijk’s cynic is anti-​idealistic despite claiming to be beyond ideals, Left Cynicism presupposes ideals associated with the left. Thus, it merely claims to be ‘post-​naive’ while presupposing persistent commitments. Which is to say, Left Cynicism is inauthentically anti-​ idealistic and, in its condemnation of naivety and idealism, is inauthentically moralizing. Indeed, cynicism and moralism are two sides of the same coin. Both offer armor against despair in a fallen world, but while moralists seek to impose absolute ideals to correct that failed world, cynicism compels, if not counsels, complicity. To condemn the world as corrupt, cynicism must remain within the moralist’s conventions of purity and corruption. When the cynic calls out purity as sham, she remains invested in the values she professes to dismiss. Even if the cynic resigns from the world, it is a resignation compelled by persistent engagements: ideals and values which relate to a belief in how the world should be but is not. But the left cynic is not just moralistic. At its extremes it is morally and intellectually absolutist, reifying both a highly specific brand of uncompromising idealism as well as the inevitable failure of these absolutized ideals. To further explore this cynical absolutism, we can develop novelist and English professor Jess Row’s argument in “American Cynicism and its Cure.” Unlike Sloterdijk’s exhausted intellectual, Row’s cynicism is more fraught, anxious, and widespread. Arguing that contemporary American cynicism “is a product of intense yet diffuse guilt,”14 Row agrees with Sloterdijk that cynicism germinates in the uptake of exhaustive and exhausted ideology critique within the tradition of the left enlightenment and results in a neurotic negativity 13

14

‘Enlightenment does not penetrate social consciousness simply as an unproblematic bringer of light. Where it has its effect, a twilight arises, a deep ambivalence. We will characterize this ambivalence as the atmosphere in which, in the middle of a snarl of factual self-​preservation with moral self-​denial, cynicism crystallizes.’ Sloterdijk, Peter. Critique of Cynical Reason. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota, 1987, p. 22. Jess Row, “American Cynicism and its Cure” Boston Review, 18 May 2015. Web. 10 Dec. 2015.

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which precludes solutions to the problems it laments by presupposing their failure. The picture of cynicism I outline here shares much with Row, concerning aspects of its contemporary expression and its constitutive guilt, but differs in several important ways. Row draws all his examples from what he calls “‘authentic’ left art”—​independent cinema, indie-​rock, and ‘leftist’ literature. Indeed, while Row places cynicism within “normative whiteness,”15 his analyses represent a portion of the predominantly white left-​educated progressive-​leaning American middle-​classes, combining a higher-​education-​born disavowal of naiveté and a sense of failed responsibility with the imagined economic and existential precarity of being nearer the very poor than the very rich.16 The last significant difference between Row’s and the left cynic is that the left cynic intuits the potential falseness of consciousness, as per Sloterdijk, but is also disappointed and guilty about the perceived failure of its constitutive ideals. This painfulness indicates the persistent idealism at odds with cynicism’s critique of naiveté. That is, cynical disappointment eclipses the ideals out of which it emerged. We can better elucidate this theory of left cynicism by following Row’s analysis of Lorrie Moore’s Anagrams17 and The Gate at the Stairs.18 The protagonists in both are relatively poor and well-​educated and claim to reject both the conservatism of their working-​class backgrounds for its ignorance and complicity in injustice, and the hyper-​privilege, superficiality, and hypocrisy of progressive alternatives. Both drift ghost-​like through the world, quietly enduring trauma and responding with escapism and irony. Moore’s characters are very modern and very cynical. The following quotes capture their crudest extremes: “There was this to be said for sedatives: They help you adjust to death better.”19 “Love is the cultural exchange program of futility and eroticism. Meaning, if it existed at all, was unstable and could not survive.”20 “Life is unendurable, and yet everywhere it is endured.”21 In each quote, we see remnants of prior convictions 15 Ibid. 16 While Row is right that cynicism in America occupies a predominantly white demographic, he overlooks that cynicism flourishes in the middle class, and is absent in the earnest portions of Trump’s base, the Evangelical Christian right, and the Tea Party, such that identifying cynicism with whiteness is problematic. This is important for more than just clarifying Row’s nuanced position, because the disavowal of guilt in white American conservatism is a disaster, the danger enabled by the ‘white middle class’ cynicism. 17 Lorrie Moore, Anagrams: A Novel. (New York: Knopf, 1986). 18 Lorrie Moore, A Gate at the Stairs (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 2009). 19 Ibid., 12. 20 Lorrie Moore, Anagrams: A Novel. 130. 21 Ibid., 303.

48 Barnes and desires that, while mentioned, are brushed aside, and marked as no longer worthy of hope. The protagonist from Anagrams, Benna Carpenter, is a white ‘starving artist’ who claims to reject both the conservatism of her privileged background and the progressivism of her bohemian community.22 Manic, ungrateful, aggressive, and plagued by an isolating intellectual faux-​depression, Benna is desperate for a reason to live.23 Out of this desperation Benna seeks a lover capable of providing a salvation compatible with her ideology critique. Thus, she rejects her white opera singing boyfriend and pursues Darrel, a black Vietnam veteran upon whom she superimposes qualities that suit her fantasy, ending up thoroughly disappointed that he wants to be a dentist. The fantasy frays and Benna leaves the relationship even more dispirited.24 As Row explains: For her, Darrel is not just an emblem of psychological health and sexual healing; he represents an entirely different order of redemption as well. Darrel, on the other hand, can take a joke, but he can’t ironize away his desire for a solid income, a professional career, the terminally uncool, unexceptional, bourgeois life Benna has mocked so relentlessly […] Darrel is this fiction’s fiction, or, more precisely, this fiction’s fantasy.25 Benna’s attraction is compelled by an inauthentic disavowal of idealism which tragically keeps her and Darrel apart; a delusion which conceals that she unwittingly embodies what she claims to abhor. Benna believes her ideology-​critique is post-​naïve, post-​ideological, and that therefore, upon the enlightenment she provides, Darrel should escape his false consciousness. Darrel, unsurprisingly, disagrees. But Benna’s critique is invested in specific values, an ill-​developed perfection of her left inheritance, and is the result of specific education, experience, and cultural constitution. In this way, and unlike Sloterdijk’s cynic, Benna only considers herself enlightened to false consciousness, in fact she is not. The consequence of this inauthentic absolutism is that while hoping to escape ideology through love of the Other, Benna fails to recognize the Other

22 23

24 25

“Despite our various ways of resembling yuppies […] we hated yuppies.” Ibid., 29. “I run downstairs and out into the street with my pajamas on, gasping, waiting for something—​a car? An Angel?—​to come rescue or kill me, but there was nothing, only streetlights and a cat.” […] “‘There must be things that can save us!’ I wanted to shout. But they are just not here.” Ibid., 23 and 38 respectively. Ibid., 191–​194. Row, Jess. “American Cynicism and its Cure.” Home. Boston Review, 18 May 2015. Web. 10 Dec. 2015.

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at all. Her fantasized ideal of purity is an unconscious, uninterrogated absolute trapping her within the cynical worldview and preventing her from engaging meaningfully with those who do not share the same disposition. This uninterrogated fidelity to ideals and their falseness enables Benna to assume intellectual superiority. However, this inauthentic absolutism is antithetical to the malleability, selflessness, and critical openness required for love, particularly love than grapples with cultural, racial, and socio-​economic divides. Row also cites Moore’s A Gate at The Stairs, wherein matriarch Mrs. Keltjin organizes a weekly support group for multiracial families in a Midwestern college town. Therein denunciations, guilt, and rage are thrown around with no solutions offered in response. Row reveals that this ‘colorful’ range of characters comes from the same bubble of economic privilege, ideological commitments, and crucially, disappointments. They are all warmhearted and heartbroken. On Row’s diagnosis, both Benna and Keltjin’s group unconsciously see themselves as undeserving of their status and are insecure about their complicity in injustice. This insecurity driven by an internalized and ossified moral and political belief set, coupled with the cumulative trauma of dashed hopes manifests as a preemptive distaste for ideals, idealism, and hope as bourgeois delusions. Tragically, the psychic peace this cynical hopelessness provides is antithetical to the malleability, selflessness, and critical openness required for addressing the problems that compel it. According to the view we have sketched, left cynicism incorporates a moral and intellectual absolutism with a guilt and despair born of a yearning for peace, non-​violence, justice, and equality, in a world where they rarely flourish. The inadmissible pain of perceiving the multiple failures to realize these investments compels a self-​sustaining cynicism about realizing justice and peace, or even entertaining genuine dialogue thereon. At these extremes, the painfulness of guilt and dashed hope can compel its denial or an escape into an unrealizable fantasy maintaining uninterrogated and absolute ideals and eclipse the painful challenge to the ego that comes from opening them to critique. The absolutized pessimism concerning their realizability are fantasies projected for the sake of allowing for an albeit negative physic homeostasis. As such, left cynicism is a defense mechanism. However, because cynics are immunized against the painfulness of hope by the universalization of despair, they remain trapped in a negative spiral, experiencing temporary alleviation through indignant rage, ironic pseudo-​levity, and a neurotic hostility towards the world, leaving the cynic cynical, and the world unchanged. Therefore, left cynicism is a failed defense mechanism, and is as (ph)fantastic, dogmatic, and obstinate as the naïve idealism it mocks.

50 Barnes In wider regions of popular discourse and portions of academic culture we find close analogs of left cynicism’s uninterrogated intellectual and moral absolutism, purporting to be free from ideology while harboring persistent and insufficiently interrogated investments. The tendency to define opponents’ subjectivity as ‘necessarily deluded’ and reducing debate to the avoidance of folly which Sloterdijk locates in critique also extends to left cynicism. The ease with which we dehumanize those with whom we disagree is a measure of cynicism’s ubiquity, and although an exaggeration, Sloterdijk’s claim that portions of society have effectively given up on debate, or even cooperation across ideological divides, also has some credence, insert any popular polarized opposition in place of the following from Sloterdijk: The religious criticize the religious and vice versa, whereby each side has in its repertoire a metacritique of the ideology critique used by the opposing side: the moves in the dialogue between the Marxists and lefts are to a large extent fixed, likewise those between Marxists and anarchists, as well as those between anarchists and lefts [and] one knows pretty well what natural scientists and representatives of the humanities will accuse each other of. Any sociological system theory that treats ‘truth’ functionalistically […] carries an immense potential for cynicism. And since every contemporary intellect is caught up in the process of such sociological theories, it inevitably is implicated in […] latent or overt cynicism.26 While Sloterdijk was writing in response to the wave of disillusionment that followed the ‘68 student revolts, we can apply his worry to a left cynicism evidenced in the lack of solidarity across the theoretical humanities, the ‘left’ more generally, and to the status of polemic oppositional rhetoric currently dominating our highly polarized political discourse, which, supported by social media isolationism, virtue signaling, shaming, and the disregard of the other, draws harsh lines in the sand and stands as an obstacle to achieving inclusive justice and peace. 4

Cheekiness The trickster lacks a stable identity but is able to reproduce any identity as an artistically imitated role: s/​he slips betwixt and between the

26

Sloterdijk, 20.

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antinomies of the social, political, and cultural order, and is constantly ambivalent and elusive, destructive and constructive, malevolent and benevolent […] they are necessary to a fundamental opposition in the human mind.27 For both Sloterdijk and Row, countering polarization, cynical inertia, the argumentative stalemate of ideology critique, and establishing the solidarity needed for addressing injustice, inequality, and the host of interconnected socio-​political problems thwarting a livable peace requires us to become more comfortable with difference. Row and Sloterdijk argue that the lineage of the Bacchanalian, the Trickster, and Greco-​Roman Kynicism28 is a vital resource for overcoming cynicism’s painful absolutism through what Kierkegaard called ‘volatilization’: the power of irony to free us from the bondage of prejudice. Row follows Sloterdijk’s genealogy which reveals that contemporary cynicism shares with its ancestor the critique of naiveté through satire and irony, while lacking its emancipatory aspirations. When Kynicism criticized the tartuffery of conventional values, it presupposed that happiness could be achieved through natural virtues typically obscured by civilized life. By contrast, cynicism merely criticizes. Gone is the call for self-​discipline, critical self-​reflection, moral self-​regulation, and harmonizing speech and act. Gone too, is the hope. Sloterdijk argues that Kynicism’s joyfully disruptive power of satirical insubordination, or ‘cheekiness,’ a philosophy utilizing a “satirical resistance, an uncivil enlightenment.”29 Again taking elements from Sloterdijk and Row, I argue that a qualified reinvigoration of its waning Kynical virtues could mobilize an immanent critique of left cynicism’s obstinate hopelessness and fragile egoism, to do so we need to mobilize more of Sloterdijk’s theory.30 According to Sloterdijk, contemporary cynicism suffers from a uniquely fragile ego due to having absorbed ideology critique’s deconstruction of a true, ‘authentic,’ or transparent self. A consequence was that coupled with the proliferation of anti-​enlightenment criticisms, by the mid-​20th century implementing political change based on the moral dignity, autonomy, and integrity of the individual became a decreasingly plausible unifying aspiration. In this context, Sloterdijk argues, a fraught 27 28 29 30

Mark Naumovič Lipoveckij. “Conclusion” in Charms of the Cynical Reason: the Trickster’s Transformations in Soviet and Post-​Soviet Culture, Academic Studies, 2011, pp. 267–​275. Henceforth spelt with a K to distinguish it from any more contemporary form. Ibid., 99. Kynicism represents “a source of enlightenment in which [cynicism’s] secret vitality is hidden.” Ibid., 99.

52 Barnes Nietzschean reduction of subjectivity to a chaotic warzone of competing interests and arbitrary material forces mirroring a cynical vision of social life became dominant. This vision was fraught because those tempted by such a view often wrestled with an unwillingness to reject the possibility of a unified self yet felt compelled to do so by the implausibility of any redeeming alternative. These anxious effects of critique, Sloterdijk argues, were repressed and manifest in crude forms of material and psychic self-​preservation: “What is called a cynical subject in modern times is, in fact, a self-​preserving ego.”31 This helps us explain cynicism’s brittle, stubborn, but unchecked assumption of moral absolutism and intellectual superiority as compelled by an inchoate disavowal and recognition of the vulnerability of its fraught identity. Without alternative, the critique of naiveté becomes the chief identifying norm constructive of the cynical super-​ego,32 and since such identification is challenged by its vulnerability, the cynic maintains its albeit painful homeostasis by preemptively eclipsing hope. The first analog from our literary examples would be Benna’s trauma-​born rejection of inclusive progressive leftism, rendering her unable to see beyond her own neurotic absolutism, and fantasizing forms of redemption. The second is Keltjin’s group, overwhelmed by injustice and assuming an identity of hopelessness to foreclose the unbearable feeling of powerlessness. This reified hopelessness enables this community to remain inert and/​or detached from the wider community while at the same time assuming moral and intellectual superiority. The moral superiority comes from assuming an association with the ‘correct ideals,’ and intellectual superiority from ‘knowing’ their inefficacy. In both examples, the left cynic unconsciously maintains self-​identity and avoids inadmissible trauma without addressing the problems over which they obsess. It is in response to this panicked, reinforced sense of self-​worth that Sloterdijk proposes employed satirical critique for targeting the ‘“hardened” cynical ego,’33 using humor, irony, and insubordination to encourage cynicism’s will to truth and its universal and inclusive mockery while exposing its egoism. The thesis is that satirical insubordination may reanimate cynicism’s latent 31 32 33

Ibid., 355. “The ego without metaphysics to be sure, presents itself as cognitively modest [but] slides into an explosive self-​expansion, because from this denial onwards, it stands absolutely alone vis-​à-​vis the universe.” Ibid., 355. This is as extreme as it sounds, for Sloterdijk’s dramatic Nietzschean pursuit of ‘overhumanism’ (Ibid.) calls for a dissolution of the human as we know it: “Humanity cannot be enlightened because it itself was the false premise of enlightenment. Humanity does not come up to scratch […] where its ego appears there cannot shine what was promised by all enlightenments” Ibid., 355.

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idealism by exposing the illusion of intellectual and moral superiority and its fraught sense of self-​worth in the relative comfort of a relatable universal critique. This could have the effect both of revealing the value and championing the revisability of cynicism’s constitutive idealism. Since the cynic identifies with satire’s ironicization of knowledge it could thwart cynicism’s reification, both of its ideals and their inevitable failure, because it would not seem like an attack from the outside. Assuming with William Chaloupka that “telling a cynic to stop being cynical is like telling rain to stop falling,”34 this familiarity could bypass the cynic’s defenses while targeting its egoism and absolutism. Because egoism and absolutism are contra to cynicism’s critical commitments, the disarmed cynic would embrace rather than deny this challenge to the cynical ego. Abated by humor and relatability, this challenge could trigger a reckoning with internalized trauma, bringing to the surface the guilt and grief compelling it’s inauthentic absolutism, making possible auto-​critique and a reanimation of cynicism’s constitutive idealism. 5

African American Racial Satire It’s great to think that we can all sit in the same club together, white and black, and not understand each other. It’s amazing—​it could only happen in America. ​R ichard Pryor 35

According to Row, the “taboo-​breaking, cringe-​inducing, uneasy laughter of […] radical racial satire” is uniquely equipped to disarm cynicism. As Row explains, this ability relates to satire’s special capacity for double-​entendre: the ability to simultaneously engage various evaluative stances and ideological paradigms under a mutually welcoming and challenging critical gaze. Specifically, it is equipped to incorporate differences, doubts, and insecurities, as well as justified anger, despair, and hopes to simultaneously validate, challenge, and integrate a disparate complex of intellectual and emotional insecurities, fears, and hope while remaining indeterminate. Through this complex capacity for entendre, truth, and catharsis, tragicomic racial satire engages trauma, realism, anger, guilt, and pessimism as well as hope and both the ideals motivating and problematizing hope both across communities and, crucially, within 34 35

Chaloupka, William Everybody Knows: Cynicism in America University of Minnesota Press, 1999, p. xv. Richard Pryor, from “Cops/​the Line-​up” from Craps (After Hours) recorded at the Redd Foxx Club, Hollywood, California, for Laff Records, 1971.

54 Barnes individuals. This coalescence is not intended to harmonize its constitutive differences but rather to awkwardly contain colliding opposites in a disorienting, self-​implicating, and equal-​opportunity mockery, thus denying the audience lazy identifications and easy interpretation through a singular ideological/​ego-​ centric lens. The theory defended here is that this form of satire enables the subject to internalize the opposed polarities which have been phantasmagorically externalized to eclipse trauma and enable homeostasis. By exposing these fantasies in a welcoming and inclusive context, satire would problematize their reified status and bypass the cynical defenses. The goal is that because cynicism’s obstinate political inertia enables injustice and other obstacles to peace, this re-​internalization could contribute to achieving justice and peace. Per Row, A lineage of comedians of color from Sammy Davis Junior through to Richard Pryor and (more recently and most obviously) Dave Chappelle exemplify this form of satire. Chappelle invokes the value and guilt of ‘white’ leftism, the persistence and absurdity of ‘white’ conservatism, as well as the appropriations of prejudice, both coarsely mocking entrenched white supremacy and the predilection for materialism, conservatism, exploitation, and addiction amongst minority communities, as well as straightforwardly celebrating difference and integration. In short, Chappelle’s humor is well-​tuned to validate and challenge intersecting and opposed ideologies, ideals, and cultural histories achieving, according to Row, an “intimacy and plasticity” and a “refusal to remain within one tradition or sensibility, or to stay within the bunkers of this or that particular perspective.”36 It also has the ability to acknowledge and engage the white fragility which laughs awkwardly at racial comedy and the ‘minority entitlement’ to re-​appropriate the symbols, language, and legacy of prejudice, and to push them towards recognizing each other as a foundation for a unity of opposites. Chappelle has been achieving this discomfort since combining such sketches as “Tyrone Biggums” and “The Blacks,” both re-​appropriating and indulging racist stereotypes and ideals with succinct parodies of white supremacy as well as warm-​hearted integrationism (the John Mayer and Questlove sketch showing the universality of musical appreciation). But this provocation was perhaps most effectively and controversially realized in the recent 2019 Netflix specials.37 Therein, Chappelle mocks Anthony Bourdain’s suicide and the audience, he blames Michael Jackson’s victims, and attacks the lgbtqiaa 36 37

Row, Jess. “American Cynicism and its Cure.” Home. Boston Review, 18 May 2015. Web. 10 Dec. 2015. The Age of Spin: Live at the Hollywood Palladium, Deep in the Heart of Texas: Live at Austin City Limits, Equanimity, The Bird Revelation, Sticks & Stones.

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community, especially the transsexual community, or as he calls them, “the alphabet people.” Consider the following material on abortion: I don’t care what your religious beliefs are or anything. If you have a dick, you need to shut the fuck up on this one. Seriously. This is theirs. The right to choose is their unequivocal right. Not only do I believe they have the right to choose, I believe that they shouldn’t have to consult anybody except for a physician about how they exercise that right. Gentleman, that is fair … … And ladies, if you can kill this motherfucker, I can at least abandon ’em. It’s my money, my choice. … And if I’m wrong, then perhaps we’re wrong. Think that shit out for yourselves.38 Many of the jokes in this special follow a similarly unpredictable formula; Chappelle takes his audience down one line of thought that clearly supports a set of ideals, and then quickly shows how it is possible to use that same logic to argue in a manner at odds with those likely to signal affiliations therewith. Regardless of intent this is an example of performative insubordination. Perhaps in the ticket-​paying audience but certainly in the viewing public Chappelle is clearly speaking to, the laughs are awkward and stilted. They slip from knowing identification to sudden outrage, confusion, or put-​ on meta-​appreciation, feigning both knowing and unknowing, confused, and uncomfortable, caught between loyalties, tribes, values, and identities. This insubordinate rhetoric simultaneously engages various evaluative stances and ideological paradigms under a mutually welcoming and challenging critical gaze, disarming affiliations and refusing to assume the cynic and the moralists’ false consolation of seeing things ‘as they are,’ to seeing that perhaps we’re wrong. Consider the following bit on the hypocrisy of television censorship: Why is it that I can say the word n****r with impunity, but I can’t say the word f****t? Because David, you are not Gay Well Renee, I’m not a n****r either.39

38

Chappelle, David Sticks & Stones Netflix comedy special 2019 transcribed by Scraps from the Loft https://​scraps​from​thel​oft​.com​/2019​/08​/26​/dave​-chappe​lle​-sti​cks​-sto​nes​-tra​ nscr​ipt​. 39 Ibid.

56 Barnes Chappelle’s material refuses the rigged game of critical discourse and refuses to cooperate with the forces of compelling identification: recognition, approval and disapproval, social sanctioning, and virtue signaling. Instead, it favors a joyful, challenging, thought-​provoking, relentless, and cathartic critique. As comfortable laughing at itself as others, Chappelle’s humor does not hide his, or our, vulnerability. By countering epistemic arrogance and exposing ideological insecurity, it runs counter to the stalemate of absolutes required for polarized opposition and incites an immanent critique of cynicism’s fragile ego, intransigent absolutism, and the trauma it represses. Chappell’s satire is equipped to provoke an examination of the fantasies sustaining left cynicism and the violent extremes of hateful polarity.40 This coming together of opposites creates a space of remembrance, catharsis, and acknowledgement which allow for realism, imagination, insecurity, humility, conviction, hope, pessimism, an acceptance of the persistence of injustice, and optimistic foresight to uncomfortably co-​exist. In so doing, satire speaks truth to cynicism in a language it understands, softening the blow of realism which compels the disavowal of hope through its full-​bellied ridicule and radical inclusivity. It disarms the reification of hopelessness while providing a non-​delusional catharsis of pent-​up idealistic disappointments. The hope, captured by Row, is that occupying this polarity of views and perspectives is the only condition out of which the outlines of a dynamic, fractious, and inclusive grasp at a better future for all without denying the traumatic reality of the past or the polarized divisions within the American imaginary: Here, now, in this time and place, we are haunted […] by the absence of a “we.” It is much easier to […] see Chappelle’s work, or Pryor’s, or Kara Walker’s, as existing purely within a black comic tradition that has its own hard-​won privacy and exclusivity, than it is to ask: Is laughter itself doing some work we don’t yet recognize? Or, to put it another way, does comedy affirm what we already think we know, and who we already think we are, or can it enlarge what we know, and who we think we are? […] The joke, and the violence it describes, are inseparable, but somehow still worth laughing about because we are all implicated in it.41 40

41

It is worth noting that Chappelle’s satire is particularly equipped to power in this application precisely because custodians of left cynicism in white “left” America, tend to have internalized an obedience to the normative demand of celebrating Chappelle’s comedy, while finding it difficult to enjoy, while those communities more primed to his coarse brand of comedy are also targeted in his critique. Jess Row, “American Cynicism and its Cure,” Boston Review, 18 May 2015. Web. 10 Dec. 2015.

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57

A Critique of Cheekiness

There are problems with Sloterdijk, Row, and Chappelle’s projects, most critically, a failure to articulate a clear normative aspiration and to police against harmfulness. Sloterdijk’s satire is both violent—​embodying “the profound idea of world extermination on which a gay science is based”—​and ill-​equipped to deal with the violence it may provoke. Sloterdijk warns that cheekiness is likely to be “answered from the side of the attacked” by “outrage” that could “go as far as extermination.”42 Row gives as examples of satirical insubordination: “a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed published in the face of death threats that are […] likely to be carried out” and “a movie about the assassination of a North Korean dictator that names the actual dictator in question.”43 He goes as far as describing his proposed satire as a “thoroughly serious artistic rage” a “weaponized comedy … intended to provoke violence.”44 The difficulty derives from a misplaced faith in the power of laughter to abstain from violence while disrupting the social order and breaking prohibitions. This concern about the appropriate relationship to harm relates to the issue of Dave Chappelle and his recent remarks on transsexuality. Suffice it to say, there is a strong case to be made that Chappelle does not police against harmfulness successfully enough in his recent obsession with the trans community. I would argue that where Chappelle digs his heels, as well as being his least funny moments, are also the least “cheeky” in the relevant sense laid out here, as he seems invested more in defending a particular interpretation of gender essentialism than implicating all perspectives. More productive employments of cheekiness in this context would be a critique of the absolute essentialisms plaguing the discourse around the status of women on either “side” of the elite media-​drawn polarity between Netflix employees and Chappelle. Putting aside this important issue, because it fails to adhere to the openness and malleability we are associating with cheekiness, Chapelle’s ill-​conceived battle with the “Trans community” does not by itself form a case against it, any more than it is a crucial reminder to avoid satire’s overindulgence in hostility. Nevertheless, neither Chappelle, Row, nor Sloterdijk, though aware of the risks, develop a defense strategy, or even ask how the likely backlash would limit the success of cheeky satire, and while there may be justifications and measures for safely employing such hostility, I am inclined to think that we must extract only certain elements from Chappelle, Sloterdijk, and Row to avoid these risks. 42 Sloterdijk, 103. 43 Jess Row, “American Cynicism and its Cure,” Boston Review, 18 May 2015. Web. 10 Dec. 2015. 44 Ibid.

58 Barnes All we have time to do here is highlight a few conditions such a model must meet. But first, what it must avoid. Row and Sloterdijk’s reckless employment lacks satire’s multi-​voiced ambiguity. Their recommendations about the employment of satire see it as a means to a predetermined ideological end. With this return to dogmatism, and silencing the critical ambiguity that satire engenders, Row and Sloterdijk abandon the essence of the cheekiness they animate as well as the ideals that drove their work. The application of cheekiness must be an end as well as means. It would encourage and exploit a space where different values, affiliations, and identifications overlap. It would disavow the necessity of agreement and refuse the reduction of subjectivity to false consciousness. It would employ a self-​implicating critique designed to disarm our identifications with absolutized ideals by targeting all as potentially fallible and even complicit in the problems it seeks to overcome. Invoking a dialectic of double entendre it would involve distinct conceptions of justice, equality, and difference, to free the inertia caused by argumentative stalemate. These moves could counter anti-​solidarity both in the ‘left’ and between the ‘left’ and both its opponents and those it is supposed to serve and once incorporated: the working class. This dispossessive critique calls for a volatilization rather than a disavowal of ideals not by denying polarity but by putting it to a different use. Invoking diverse perspectives around a relatively singular topic—​justice, peace, and non-​violence—​with moral and intellectual humility may increase the possibility of glimpsing truths shared within distinct ideological frames and perhaps even the hallmarks of a united vision. As Row writes: “The alternative—​which we all practice, every day, sometimes passively, sometimes as principle—​is to go on pretending […] that we speak private languages that never overlap. It is to pretend that there is no way of describing—​as Chappelle’s Show describes—​how we suffer together, if not as one.”45 If we are to overcome injustice and minimize violent conflict, there are poles we must cross together, if not as one. Chappell’s brand of comedy may help us work towards that goal. 7

Conclusion

Despite its protestations to extra-​naiveté, a popular left cynicism is nevertheless morally absolutist, eschewing ambiguity for an ameliorative reification of hopelessness. Left cynicism is a product of guilt and powerlessness stemming 45

Jess Row, “American Cynicism and its Cure.”

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from the trauma of holding left ideals in a world in which they rarely flourish, and in which they are vulnerable to critique. Afflicted too, by a panicked egoism and a pessimistic materialism, this complex can compel the cynic to give up on or repress the efficacy of its constitutive ideals by replacing the painfulness of vulnerability and moral and intellectual ambiguity through either fantasy or a reification of hopelessness that enables the conditions that compel it. Put simply, left cynicism’s moral absolutism is an obstacle to resolving the fraught polarities of socio-​political discourse inhibiting peaceful politics and the politics of peace. An experience wherein our deepest held ideas and ideals are simultaneously validated and contested challenges the moral absolutism undergirding the polarized oppositions plaguing political discourse and the violence they compel. A tradition of Kynical insubordination signposted by Peter Sloterdijk’s notion of cheekiness and exemplified within a lineage of African American comedy is uniquely equipped to play this role, specifically in relation to left cynicism. Subverting left cynicism’s tendency to prefer comfort to polarity by simultaneously validating and contesting a diverse range of ideals, affiliations, and identifications, satirical insubordination can disarm the mechanisms through which the cynic sustains the illusions of moral and intellectual superiority. As comfortable laughing at itself as others, satire has no need to repress its vulnerability and, by countering epistemic arrogance and exposing ideological insecurity could challenge the absolutisms driving polarized opposition. By owning up to a repressed ambiguity, cheekiness may help the cynic replace the ameliorative reification of hopelessness with a critical embrace of its constitutive and revisable ideals and reanimate its sedated politicism. The call to own up to a left absolutism is not to prescribe an uncritical attitude towards their (or any) ideals, but rather to critique that absolutism, so as to loosen the panicked associations compelling the paradoxical combination of absolutism and disavowal. Nor is this to prescribe the rejection of cynicism. As a comportment purportedly mistrustful of absolutism, cynicism is extremely useful in contesting the dogmatisms belying unyielding polarizations, including its own. What is being targeted here is the repressed or unacknowledged absolutism within cynicism that finds sure footing in portions of the educated left progressive middle classes, a community with a rich lineage and potential concerning the projects of justice, equity, and peace. The arrow aimed at this target is the all-​inclusive, disarming mockery of satire which refuses the stability of moral and intellectual superiority at the heart of the polarized positions undermining solidarity across the theoretical humanities, the left more generally, and the polemic oppositional rhetoric dominating political discourse; rhetoric that is compelling lethal rage. Cynicism’s ambivalence

60 Barnes explains both its affinity with satire and why it is well equipped to resist its tendency to inauthenticity. The hope is that cheekiness may drive a transition to preferring peace over peace of mind; that is, to take on and internalize what becomes polarized in discourse, the Other, through allowing ambiguity, open-​ mindedness, and auto-​critique as a means to overcome absolutisms standing in the way of perceiving inclusive visions of justice and peace. For if we are to be at peace at all, we must be at peace with polarity.

References

Chaloupka, William. Everybody Knows: Cynicism in America University of Minnesota Press, 1999. Chappelle, David. Sticks & Stones. Netflix comedy special, 2019 transcribed by Scraps from the Loft https://​scraps​from​thel​oft​.com​/2019​/08​/26​/dave​-chappe​lle​-sti​cks​-sto​ nes​-tra​nscr​ipt​. Chappelle, David. The Chappelle Show. Created by Dave Chappelle and Neal Brennan Comedy Central, mgm. January 22, 2003–​July 23, 2006. Cohn, Alfred A. The Jazz Singer. Warner Bros, 1927. Hegel, G. W. F. The Phenomenology of Spirit. Trans. A. V. Miller and J. N. Findlay. Oxford: Oxford U, 2013. Keenan, Alan. “The Twilight of the Political? A Contribution to the Democratic Critique of Cynicism.” Theory & Event. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. Lipoveckij Mark Naumovič. Charms of the Cynical Reason: the Trickster’s Transformations in Soviet and Post-​Soviet Culture. by Lipoveckij Mark Naumovič, Academic Studies, 2011. Marx, Karl, Engels, Friedrich and Raddatz, Fritz J. “Engels’ Letter to Mehring.” The Marx-​ Engels Correspondence: The Personal Letters, 1844–​ 1877: A Selection. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1981. Moore, Lorrie. Anagrams: A Novel. New York: Knopf, 1986. Moore, Lorrie. A Gate at the Stairs: A Novel. London: Faber and Faber, 2009. Pryor, Richard “Cops/​the Line-​up” from Craps (After Hours) recorded at the Redd Foxx Club, Hollywood, California, for Laff Records, 1971. Row, Jess. “American Cynicism And Its Cure,” Boston Review, 18 May 2015. Web. 10 Dec. 2015. Sloterdijk, Peter. Critique of Cynical Reason. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota, 1987.

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Sloterdijk, Peter, Eldred, Michael, and Adelson, Leslie A. “Cynicism: The Twilight of False Consciousness” New German Critique, No. 33, Modernity and Postmodernity (Autumn, 1984), pp. 190–​206. Stanley, Sharon A. The French Enlightenment and the Emergence of Modern Cynicism. New York: Cambridge up, 2012.

­c hapter 3

Democracy and Partisanship Fuat Gürsözlü In this chapter, I propose a positive account of partisanship and argue that partisans and political parties have an essential function in democracy. In advancing a positive account of partisanship, I aim to shift our attention from the question of how it would be possible to transcend partisan politics to the question of what better partisanship means. One reason why I reflect on the subject of partisanship and democracy is the way partisans and political parties have been treated in the current political context. Today we talk about how America sinks into a partisan swamp, how partisanship is polarizing the country and threatening democracy.1 We hold partisan politics responsible for democracy’s inability to respond to some of the most trenchant social, economic, and political problems. The American public’s negative reaction to partisanship is to a degree understandable given the current state of political affairs marked with extreme partisanship and polarization.2 It is precisely at this point that we should recall that there is no liberal democracy without political parties or partisanship. Despite its bad reputation, partisanship and political parties are here to stay. This introduces an interesting tension: we

1 See “America sinking in partisan swamp,” cnn, February 2, 2017, accessed April 20, 2020, https://​www​.cnn​.com​/vid​eos​/tv​/2017 ​/02​/11​/amer​ica​- sink​ing​-in​-parti​san​- swamp​.cnn; Samara Klar, Yanna Krupnikov and John Barry Ryan, “Is America Hopelessly Polarized, or Just Allergic to Politics?” The ny Times, April 20, 2019, accessed April 2, 2020, https://​www​ .nyti​mes​.com​/2019​/04​/12​/opin​ion​/polar​izat​ion​-polit​ics​-democr​ats​-repu​blic​ans​.html; Amy Chua and Jed Rubenfeld, “The Threat of Tribalism,” The Atlantic, October 2018, accessed April 20, 2020, https://​www​.thea​tlan​tic​.com​/magaz​ine​/arch​ive​/2018​/10​/the​-thr​eat​-of​-tribal​ ism​/568​342​/​. 2 See the following reports on partisanship in the U.S. “Political Polarization in the American Public” Pew Research Center, June 12, 2014, accessed April 21, 2020, https://​www​.peo​ple​-press​ .org​/2014​/06​/12​/politi​cal​-polar​izat​ion​-in​-the​-ameri​can​-pub​lic​/; Carroll Doherty and Jocelyn Kiley, “Key facts about partisanship and political animosity in America,” Pew Research Center, June 22, 2016, accessed April 21, 2020,https://​www​.pewr​esea​rch​.org​/fact​-tank​/2016​ /06​/22​/key​-facts​-parti​sans​hip​/​. A more recent Gallup research states that polarization in the U.S. is at record levels, see Jeffrey M. Jones, “Trump Third Year Sets New Standard for Party Polarization” Gallup, January 21, 2020, accessed April 21, 2020, https://​news​.gal​lup​.com​/poll​ /283​910​/trump​-third​-year​-sets​-new​-stand​ard​-party​-polar​izat​ion​.aspx​.

© Fuat Gürsözlü, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004541573_005

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can’t have democracy without partisanship, but not even partisans have a positive view of partisanship.3 The other reason why I explore partisanship and political parties is the way they have been typically represented in political theory. From early on partisanship has been depicted as a potential threat to stability of democracy and characterized as an aberration from democratic values. George Washington, for instance, warns us against the dangers of the destructive effects of party spirit in his 1796 Farewell Address.4 Partisanship, he notes, not only weakens the government, but it also “agitates the community with ill-​founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles animosity, and promotes riot and insurrection.”5 Wise people have a duty to discourage and mitigate the spirit of the party given “the common and continual mischief of the spirit of the party.”6 Most contemporary democratic theorists share Washington’s worries about partisan politics and argue that the best form of democracy is one where citizens act as independent thinkers motivated by the force of the better argument.7 Defining partisanship as an impediment to democratic engagement this approach views it as aberration from the ideal. Despite a recently growing partisan strand in democratic theory, appreciation of the partisan spirit is the exception.8 The current political and intellectual climate makes it hard to appreciate partisanship and partisan politics. Agreeing with Nancy Rosenblum, I argue that this hostility against partisanship and political parties doesn’t let us

3 The term has gained such pejorative meaning that even partisans accuse the other side of behaving in a partisan manner. 4 George Washington, “Washington’s Farewell Address to the People of United States,” September 1796, accessed November 30, 2018, https://​www​.govi​nfo​.gov​/cont​ent​/pkg​/GPO​ -CDOC​-106sdo​c21​/pdf​/GPO​-CDOC​-106sdo​c21​.pdf​. 5 Washington, Farewell Address, 18. 6 Washington, Farewell Address, 17. 7 This is typical of deliberative models of democracy of the Habermasian and Rawlsian sorts. For discussion of the differences between deliberative democratic models and the agonistic model of democracy that I defend here, see. 8 Although the literature on the positive dimension of partisanship is still relatively thin, several political theorists have recently offered a positive account of partisanship. See for instance Nancy Rosenblum, On the Side of Angels: An Appreciation of Party Spirit and Partisanship (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008); Russell Muirhead, In Defense of Party Spirit (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014); Chantal Mouffe, Agonistics (London: Verso, 2013); Inigo Errejon and Chantal Mouffe, Podemos. In the Name of the People (London: Lawrence and Wishart: 2016); Jonathan White and Lea Ypi, “On Partisan Political Justification,” American Political Science Review 105:2 (2011): 381–​96; Jonathan White, and Lea Ypi, The Meaning of Partisanship (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016); Nadia Urbinati, Democracy Disfigured: Opinion, Truth and the People (MA: Harvard University Press, 2014).

64 Gürsözlü recognize the very important political work they do.9 The dominant attitude towards partisanship is too simplistic and does not let us recognize the complex relationship between partisanship and democracy. As the political climate becomes more polarized, our dislike of partisan politics and, consequently, our yearning for bipartisan politics increases. Thus, the anti-​partisan climate increases our willingness to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I acknowledge the risks of partisanship and how it might undermine peace.10 But, the simple fact that there is no partisan-​free democracy gives us a compelling reason to reconsider and re-​evaluate the democratic role of partisans and parties more seriously. I admit that I don’t know how to conceive of a democracy without political parties and partisanship which may be due to my lack of imagination. However, it may also be the case that there is something essentially valuable about partisanship and political parties which is why all actually existing democracies are partisan. That’s why I approach the complex relationship between partisanship and democracy from a sympathetic perspective and aim to formulate what partisans and parties could do for democracy. My main concern is that depicting partisanship as an aberration from democratic ideals and as a source of our current political problems distract us from what we really should be pondering in order to achieve a healthy democracy. The anti-​partisan political and intellectual climate not only promotes an impossible ideal of democracy, one without partisanship, but also diverts our attention from the crucial democratic function of partisanship and political parties. My point is that democratic politics is essentially partisan and the quality of democracy we live in largely depends on how well partisans and political parties perform their democratic function. As such, it would be a mistake to look for ways to transcend partisanship if the goal is to have a healthy democracy. The first step here is to clarify what we can expect of partisans and political parties. Identifying the democratic role of partisans and political parties gives us an account of partisanship. Once we formulate what role partisans and political partisans have in democracy, it becomes possible to think about what it means to perform this democratic function well. What follows is an account of ‘better partisanship.’11 An account of better partisanship provides

9 Rosenblum, On the Side of Angels. 10 For a discussion of the risks of partisanship and its potential to undermine democracy see my “Democracy and Peace: Is Democracy Good for Peace,” in Peaceful Approaches for a More Peaceful World, ed. Sanjay Lal (Brill, 2022). 11 I borrow this term from Russell Muirhead and Nancy Rosenblum. See Russell Muirhead and Nancy Rosenblum, “The Partisan Connection,” California Law Review Circuit 3: March (2012): 99–​112; Nancy Rosenblum, “The Moral Distinctiveness of ‘Party ID’,” Cato Unbound,

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us with the tools to critically evaluate partisan behavior from the perspective of democracy and thus hold partisans and political parties responsible when they fail to perform their democratic function well. My aim in this chapter is to first clarify the essential democratic function parties and partisans perform in democracy, and second, propose the idea of ‘agonistic solidarity’ as the ethico-​ political core of an account of better partisanship.

1

Why do partisans and political parties matter? What are the unique political roles partisans and political parties play in democratic politics? Broadly construed partisans and political parties have two essential democratic functions: i. they structure and organize the political field and thus make politics meaningful and accessible for ordinary citizens, and ii. they produce political projects and generate collective identities and thus energize the people democratically. i. The first point is about the constitutive political work partisans and political parties do. The best way to understand this is to imagine a democracy without political parties and partisans. In a democracy without political parties and partisanship a bunch of urgent political questions would immediately emerge. How would the citizens decide which political path to take? Out of the endless number of possible political issues how would they pick which ones to problematize, politicize, and prioritize as urgent problems? From which perspective would they approach these political problems? How would they decide which possible responses to act on? Simply, how would they make political decisions? Transcending partisan politics might seem like a good idea especially in a highly polarized political climate or if one defends a consensual approach to democratic politics. The idea that if we could transcend partisanship, we can transform conflict into peace and harmony is always tempting. But even if it would be possible to transcend partisan politics, it wouldn’t be desirable simply because in the absence of partisanship democracy would be in chaos.12 There is no non-​partisan way to identify and define issues as political

12

February 2, 2009, accessed February 14, 2020, https://​www​.cato​-unbo​und​.org​/2009​/02​/02​ /nancy​-rosenb​lum​/moral​-dist​inct​iven​ess​-party​-id​. Lee Drutman, “We need political parties. But their rabid partisanship could destroy American democracy,” vox, September 5, 2017, accessed March 13, 2020, https://​www​ .vox​.com​/the​-big​-idea​/2017​/9​/5​/16227​700​/hyperp​arti​sans​hip​-ident​ity​-ameri​can​-democr​ acy​-probl​ems​-soluti​ons​-doom​-loop​.

66 Gürsözlü problems, prioritize some issues as urgent and relevant, develop solutions to the prioritized political problems, and decide which response would be the best in addressing it. The assumption of non-​partisan politics is only possible due to confusing the nature of politics with math or logic. As Muirhead and Rosenblum write, ‘Politics is not like engineering or car repair: ‘it was a dead battery—​problem solved!’ Both the national debt and unemployment are current problems, and there is no scientific, common sense, or non-​partisan way to decide whether to privilege debt reduction or job creation; one is likely to exacerbate the other, and reasonable people will have different notions about which problem and which solution should take precedence.’13 Even when we all agree that a definite issue should be urgently addressed, we would disagree on the best way to address it and how fast to implement an agreed upon solution.14 A good example is global climate change. Having a societal agreement on the urgency of global climate change would already be a significant political achievement given the position of climate deniers. However, even if all or nearly all acknowledge the significant contribution of human beings to global warming and agree on the urgent need to respond to it and curb its adverse effects on nature and human societies, we would still disagree on what desirable carbon emission levels are, how fast we should reach to that level, how to reach to that level, how to deal with the current adverse effects of global warming, and so on. It is tempting to turn to experts to settle these political disagreements since problems such as global warming are very complex and require scientific knowledge. Thus, it makes sense when the public seeks advice from the scientific community and expects the experts to make decisions. However, the public’s reliance on the experts misses the obvious point that climate scientists can only provide us with future scenarios. Such scenarios include what we could reasonably expect to happen if we don’t cut carbon emissions, cut carbon emissions aggressively, or cut carbon emissions moderately by a particular year.15 Based on such projections, other experts could develop further models. For instance, economists could then generate projections about the expected effects of aggressive or moderate cuts on the economy such as how the economy would be affected by various changes in various sectors such as transportation, livestock farming, agriculture, industrial production, and so on. The experts could give us data-​based projections about the future trajectory of the issue and how different responses could change this trajectory 13 14 15

Muirhead and Rosenblum, The Partisan Connection, 103. Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (New York: Harper, 1942), 251–​2. For instance, see the U.S. Risk Map at ​.

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and at what cost. The ultimate decision is a political one that includes making a decision about what citizens want to prioritize, how radical they want the solution to be, how fast they want to cut carbon emissions, and what sacrifices they are willing to make. To be able to make a political decision we should be able to evaluate different scenarios. That’s why we need different political perspectives about what we as a people should prioritize and which model would be best for us. And it is the democratic function of partisans and political parties to offer these political perspectives. In the absence of comprehensive political perspectives that rank various responses to global warming and assess which alternative would be the best for the country, we would be left with many scientific projections, but no political reason to endorse any of them. Even if we wanted to tackle this urgent crisis, we wouldn’t be able to make a decision. There is no neutral perspective that could be used to take a position on political issues. In the absence of diverse political narratives that structure and organize the political landscape such complex issues would not make sense to us. In a non-​partisan world, we would be politically lost. Partisan politics is a natural outcome of human plurality which finds its proper manifestation under conditions of freedom and democracy. In any democracy there will be disagreement about the meaning of fundamental values and principles and how they should be ordered. Such conflict cannot be resolved by rational argumentation as differences among fundamental values are irreducible. Partisans and political parties generate political discourse that brings these values in particular ways. In doing so, they shape the political field and render democratic politics meaningful and accessible. In the absence of partisan competition, as Jonathan White and Leah Ypi suggest, ‘individuals and groups would act in an uncoordinated fashion and lacking a collective mechanism for articulating and expressing the claims of their actions in the public sphere.’16 They rightly note that ‘partisans and political parties define issues as problems, they put them on the political agenda, signal alternatives, scrutinize the presuppositions, and critically engage with the opponent.’17 As such, partisans and parties are among the primary democratic agents that have the capability to create politically relevant lines of division and shape political conflict.18 This is the distinctive constitutive work of partisans and political parties. To be sure, partisans and political parties are not the only democratic agents with the capability to organize the political field. Social movements are often very influential in putting issues on the political agenda and shaping the 16 17 18

White and Ypi, “On Partisan Political Justification,” 392. White and Ypi, “On Partisan Political Justification,” 392. Rosenblum, “The Moral Distinctiveness of ‘Party id.’”

68 Gürsözlü political discourse. However, unlike a social movement that tends to focus on one issue and have a short life span, political parties provide a comprehensive political account of how things are and should be like.19 It is these comprehensive, stable, and coherent political accounts that help citizens make sense of politics. It is these political narratives that render the political field manageable and formulation of public opinion possible. ii. The second significant democratic function of partisans and political parties is to democratically mobilize the people. At this point it is important to note that in the U.S. only 56% of the eligible voters cast ballots in the 2016 presidential elections. The voter turn-​out was even below 50% in 1996 and 50.3% in 2000. And the last time it was 60% the year was 1968.20 Such low turn-​out creates significant problems from the perspective of democratic legitimacy, equality, and inclusivity. In responding to the problem of political apathy, partisans and political parties play a distinctive role as they are capable of motivating people to express themselves democratically and be active participants by way of generating distinct political projects and collective political identities. Such collective political identities offer citizens meaningful points of identifications and a sense of common political purpose.21 To recognize the creative role of political parties and partisans in democratic politics, it is essential to go beyond the dominant paradigm that depicts political parties primarily as representative political mechanisms.22 According to this view, political parties have a ‘unidirectional relationship between the forms of subjecthood existing in society and those in the political arena.’23 The core idea is that political parties passively express already existing societal conflicts and represent existing political identities in society. This approach fails to recognize how political parties and partisans generate collective political identities and the active role they play in maintaining, shaping, and transforming these identities. When political parties and partisans give expression to existing lines of political conflict and political identities, they do more than 19

As White and Ypi point out, social movements have the capacity to articulate political identities and act as carriers of political memory; they cannot substitute political parties. See Jonathan White and Lea Ypi, “Rethinking the Modern Prince: Partisanship and the Democratic Ethos,” Political Studies 58 (4): 809–​28. 20 Drew Desilver, “U.S. trails most developed countries in voter turnout,” Pew Research Center, May 21, 2018, accessed January 12, 2020, https://​www​.pewr​esea​rch​.org​/fact​-tank​ /2018​/05​/21​/u​-s​-voter​-turn​out​-tra​ils​-most​-develo​ped​-countr​ies​/​. 21 Chantal Mouffe, On the Political, (London: Verso, 2005), 22–​23. 22 Mouffe, On the Political, 23; White and Ypi, ‘Rethinking the Modern Prince.’ 816. 23 White and Ypi, ‘Rethinking the Modern Prince,’ 816.

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merely reflect these political divisions and clashes of interest already existing in society, rather they actively shape them by ordering, reinterpreting, reframing, connecting, and bundling issues and positions which provide the basis for comprehensive political narratives. By developing and defending genuine comprehensive political narratives and political projects partisans and political parties create and maintain political identifications. What is at stake is a constitutive relationship between political parties and the people. This is a relationship forged and sustained by the creation of collective forms of identifications. Drawing on Freud, Chantal Mouffe explains the affective dimension of the relationship between parties and the people in terms of a libidinal investment. Mouffe notes that creation of a collective identity generates a power of some kind that holds a group together.24 Democratic politics can have a real purchase on people’s desires only if people identify with a political project. Mouffe’s point is that ‘in order to act politically people need to be able to identify with a collective identity which provides an idea of themselves they can valorize.’25 And for people to identify with a political project, there needs to be genuinely distinct political projects competing for their allegiance. This is one of the reasons why even if a partisan-​free democracy would be possible, it would not be desirable. A partisan-​free democracy would negate the adversarial dimension of democracy and impede the creation of genuinely distinct political identities. In a democracy, it is primarily political parties and partisans that generate and maintain different conceptions of democratic political identities each expressing a distinct notion about how to organize the society. When political parties and partisans perform their democratic function well by generating distinct political project and democratic identifications, people identify with these democratic projects and begin to view themselves in terms of these political identifications. They are more motivated to express their will and be active political participants as they view themselves as part of a group whose comprehensive political narrative overlaps with theirs. As such, far from being a problem for democracy, partisan politics is what a healthy democracy requires.26

24 Mouffe, On the Political, 26. 25 Mouffe, On the Political, 26. 26 Mouffe, On the Political, 26.

70 Gürsözlü

2

If what I have defended so far has merit, we should change the way we characterize and view partisanship. The positive account of partisanship I propose reveals a significant shortcoming of the standard accounts of partisanship that designate partisanship as a problem and argue that it should be severely mitigated or transcended.27 Once we recognize the significant political role partisans and political parties play in democracy, it becomes clear that partisanship is essential for democratic politics.28 The issue then is not how to transcend partisan politics, which implies an impossible and undesirable ideal, rather it is that given the democratic function of partisanship, how we should understand partisanship better. To improve the quality of democracy, we should grasp the democratic role of partisanship and also consider what better partisanship looks like. Thus, we need to clarify what core ideas should inform the way partisans and political parties perform their democratic function. The issue is not only what partisans and political parties do as democratic actors, but how they perform their democratic function. In posing the latter question I emphasize the distinction between simple performance of function and performing that function well.29 When partisans and political parties offer distinct comprehensive political narratives and develop genuine political projects that give rise to collective identifications, they have a wide range of freedom and flexibility. The question is what perspective partisans and parties should take when performing their democratic functions? The obvious response prioritizes winning, beating the opponent, gaining power, and so on. 27

There are exceptions to the standard deliberative democratic response to partisanship. For instance, Muirhead argues that deliberative democracy cannot work without partisanship. Russell Muirhead, “Can Deliberative Democracy be Partisan,” Critical Review 22:2–​3 (2010): 129–​157. 28 Rosenblum, On the Side of Angels, 306. 29 This is a distinction introduced by Aristotle in relation to human function. Aristotle argues that eudaimonia, described as human happiness, flourishing, and living well, can be understood in terms of excellent performance of human function. Aristotle recognizes that it is possible for one to perform the human function poorly. Consider for instance a flute player who is not good at playing the flute. A good flute player, Aristotle argues, is one who plays the flute in an excellent way. See Aristotle, The Nicomachean Ethics, trans. David Ross (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 12–​14. Aristotle’s distinction is relevant when we consider the democratic function of political parties. Political parties and partisans could perform their democratic function in many different ways that could weaken the democratic dynamics of society. However, good performance of their democratic function would enhance democracy. As such, partisans and parties have a responsibility to perform their function well.

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The idea is that since democracy is a competitive struggle for power and office, any partisan action that conforms to the legal norms of society is acceptable. Disagreeing with this common perspective, I suggest that in addition to this inevitably pragmatic dimension, partisanship has a normative dimension that should be understood in relation to the good performance of democratic function. The key to formulating healthy partisanship resides in understanding the core normative ideas that inform the way partisans and parties organize the political landscape and generate political identifications, and more specifically, the way partisans and political parties portray outgroups and engage with their political opponents. Two clarifications before I turn to the normative core of partisanship. First, my intention is not to propose a perfectionist ideal based on what partisans and parties can achieve when they are at their best. This is a valuable pursuit that could reveal the full democratic capability of partisanship.30 What I am interested in is what partisans and parties should not sacrifice even in the context of strained political relationships and in a polarized political climate. The question is what that partisans and parties should avoid regardless of the context if they are to manage and process conflict democratically and without undermining peaceful coexistence? That is the perspective that guides my inquiry. Second, what follows from the normative account of partisanship I propose is how we should understand partisan identity. To be sure there is no right way of determining how the partisan identity should relate to one’s other identifications. Partisan identification could be strong and intense for some and weak and mild for others. The way one experiences partisan identification changes over time and the intensity often depends on many factors such as one’s subjective experiences, other aspects of identity, and the particular political context and the issues politicized at a certain time. Here I’d like to avoid characterizing partisan identity in terms of a concept of reasonableness which tames partisanship too well.31 This, for instance, is how Muirhead describes partisanship so as to bring together deliberative democracy and partisanship. Muirhead argues that ‘the only kind of citizen-​partisanship that is consistent with deliberative democracy is one where citizens wear their partisanship lightly.’32 As such, he continues, the partisan identity should not cut 30 31

32

White and Ypi defend this perspective in ‘On Partisan Political Justification.’ That’s not the only problem. Since what is “reasonable” is context dependent, understanding partisanship in terms of reasonableness would exclude some while privileging others. In doing so, such norms often legitimize the exclusions and violence of the dominant social and political order. See Johan Galtung, “Cultural Violence,” Journal of Peace Research 27 (1990): 291–​305. Muirhead, ‘Can Deliberative Democracy be Partisan,’ 150.

72 Gürsözlü ‘as deep as ethnic or religious identities.’33 The problem with this approach is that Muirhead’s deliberative partisans look awfully nonpartisan given that for deliberative democracy the ideal deliberative citizen is an independent and open-​minded thinker only moved by the force of the better argument. Thus viewed, no political identification shouldn’t cut deep since they might undermine the ideal of deliberation. This means that the only form of partisanship compatible with democracy is a non-​partisan partisanship. Put differently, tempered this much, partisan identity ceases to be partisan. Such an approach does not take seriously the nature of partisanship and the role partisan discourse plays in politics. “Independent thinkers” are those who are not strongly committed to a particular project. When they identify with a political side, they begin to see political issues from a particular partisan perspective and develop affective attachment. This is what it means to be a partisan. One cannot have a completely independent perspective and be a partisan at the same time.34 That’s why for partisans it is hard to understand the position of an undecided or independent citizen. From the perspective of a partisan the choice is clear and those who are independent simply don’t get it. Muirhead seeks a middle way between engaged combination and reflective distance. While standing with others and being part of a political team, Muirhead’s partisans should be ‘capable of standing back from this very commitment, viewing it from a distance, and understanding it as something partial.’35 For Muirhead, this presupposes a commitment to ‘respecting citizens as free and equal.’36 He rightly argues that partisanship need not deny freedom and equality and the political institutions that express these commitments. This is what prevents adversaries from perceiving each other as enemies and from resorting to violence.37 For Muirhead, light partisanship is what makes partisan conflict possible without undermining the basic institutions of society. I have no disagreement with Muirhead on the compatibility of partisanship and democratic values and institutions. However, Muirhead fails to recognize that when he proposes independent thinking and reflective distance as the qualities of a good partisan, what he describes is a clash between two

33 34 35 36 37

Muirhead, ‘Can Deliberative Democracy be Partisan,’ 150. For instance, from the perspective of a Democrat or a Republican the choice between Trump and Biden cannot be clearer. Muirhead, ‘Can Deliberative Democracy be Partisan,’ 150. Muirhead, ‘Can Deliberative Democracy be Partisan,’ 151. Muirhead refers to Mouffe to make his claim, but I think his interpretation of Mouffe is problematic as Mouffe wouldn’t defend the idea of “reflective distance.” However, Mouffe shares Muirhead’s main concern.

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partisan positions. It is not that I distance myself from my political commitment and view it from a neutral and independent standpoint, which is expected to temper my partisan identity, rather what happens is that my commitment to another partisan political perspective—​the fundamental values of liberal democracy expressed in terms of ‘respecting citizens as free and equal’—​tempers my other partisan attachment. My point is that there is no need to weaken partisanship to protect democratic institutions and peace. It is possible to reconcile democracy and its values with strong partisanship where partisans need not wear their partisanship lightly. Although I share Muirhead’s worry for democratic institutions as partisan struggle has the potential to intensify to polarization and undermine peace, a sufficiently strong commitment to the values of liberal democracy and the kind of solidarity generated by such commitment can contain the strong pull of partisan identity and keep partisan conflict democratic and peaceful. We need not expect people to be committed to a political issue—​i.e. racial justice, global climate change, affordable healthcare, wealth redistribution, and so on—​but not be too committed, have an opinion but not a very strong one, or be motivated to act, but not too motivated.38 Democratic citizens can both be strong partisans and defend democratic institutions at the same time. This brings me to the core political idea that, I suggest, should inform the way partisans and political parties perform their democratic function: the idea of agonistic solidarity. Agonistic solidarity refers to the common bond among democratic citizens. This is a bond generated by citizens’ allegiance to the constitutive values of the democratic association. A deep and shared commitment to the values of equality and liberty generates a sense of common purpose among citizens which fosters a political collectivity that they can identify with. What is at stake here is containing potential polarization and transforming potential antagonism by fostering partisan identities committed to the liberal democratic horizon. In other words, through the creation of a sense of unity and belonging among diverse citizens of the democratic association, partisan politics prevents the escalation of partisan conflict into extreme polarization and antagonism. As Mouffe argues, a vibrant clash of opinions and partisan perspectives mobilize

38

It is not clear how democratic change would be possible in the absence of partisan commitment and motivation. Societal change is a slow and painful process. And it requires committed partisans who tirelessly work to define political issues and put them on the political agenda, draw the attention of the public, and shape public opinion. Only real partisans are willing to make that sacrifice. If everyone wears their partisanship lightly, that would only mean that the status quo will not be sufficiently challenged from the perspective of justice, equality, liberty, and inclusion.

74 Gürsözlü people towards democratic designs. A conflictual political world created by partisan politics together with the existence of genuinely distinct political perspectives encourage people to identify with these political projects. This ensures that citizens do not stray away from democratic ways of expression as the availability of distinct political projects offer them hope and a peaceful way to channel their concerns, fear, and dissatisfaction. Thus, Mouffe notes, identifying with a democratic project and position citizens would have little incentive to seek anti-​democratic solutions.39 This is a process of transforming potential antagonism to adversarial relations. What keeps this adversarial struggle peaceful and prevents extreme polarization is the bond created by citizens’ commitment to fundamental values of liberal democracy -​equality and liberty. Political parties and partisans by performing their democratic task well, that is, in ways that does not weaken agonistic solidarity, create political subjects who are committed to the values of liberal democracy and thus perceive political opponents as adversaries. It is important to emphasize that agonistic solidarity is not merely about citizens’ commitment to the values of the democratic regime. Such an abstract commitment even when it becomes part of one’s identity still carries the possibility of making an exception depending on the ever-​changing dynamics of politics. One may perceive oneself as a committed liberal democrat embracing liberty and equality while making an exception to this general commitment in their judgment of a particular group. The issue here is not challenging the fundamental values of democracy, but making exceptions to these values and rationalizing these exceptions too easily.40 Although partisanship and commitment to the values of freedom and equality are compatible, a commitment to abstract principles of liberty and equality are often not strong enough to prevent partisans from making exceptions to them. This is precisely why agonistic solidarity among citizens of a divided and diverse society matters. One’s commitment to liberal democracy together with a sense of belonging to the same association of free and equal citizens provide the crosscutting pressures on one’s identity.41 The goal is not to make partisan identity lighter, but to introduce another identification that has the sufficient power to counter

39 40 41

Mouffe argues that this is the most effective way to prevent people from looking for anti-​ democratic solutions and of taming the potential antagonism in democratic politics. See Mouffe, Agonistics, and On the Political. I discuss the problem of exceptions in “Cultural Violence, Hegemony, and Agonistic Intervention,” in Peace, Culture, and Violence, ed. Fuat Gürsözlü (Brill, 2018), 84–​105. On the significance of cross-​cutting identities and the dangers of oversimplification, see Iredell Jenkins, “The Conditions of Peace,” The Monist 57:4(October 1973): 523.

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strong partisan identification. The solidarity among democratic citizens is what keeps partisan identity in check and prevents partisan differences from escalating into extreme polarization and antagonism. I call this form of solidarity agonistic since despite their shared sense of belonging and commitment to the liberal democratic horizon, there is an unending political struggle among citizens over the identity, rules, and character of the political association and over what solidarity among the members of the political association entails. In that sense, agonistic solidarity does not refer to a kind of unity that precludes political struggle and conflict, rather it makes possible nonviolent negotiation of differences by fostering adversarial respect and preventing polarization.42

3

I propose the concept of agonistic solidarity as a core normative idea that should inform the way partisans and parties perform their democratic tasks. To clarify, the point is not to erode partisan loyalties to make partisans more cooperative or reasonable. Let partisans be partisans and remain strongly committed to their political causes, but also encourage them to develop an attachment to the liberal democratic institutions and values so as to forge a bond between political opponents. This means that partisans should not only be partisans of a particular political cause, but they should also be partisans of liberal democracy. The goal is to pluralize partisan identity by encouraging partisans to identify with the liberal democratic horizon and its fundamental values of liberty and equality. This is how it becomes possible to counter the affective investment of partisan identity with another identification: one’s partisan commitment to a particular political project and perspective countered by one’s commitment to democracy as a democratic citizen. A democratic politics that stifles partisan struggle by overemphasizing consensus thereby failing to offer meaningful political identifications paves the way for the emergence of extremist positions and identifications as viable alternatives for the dissatisfied who don’t feel represented by any political party.43 The cure is partisan politics. However, partisan politics that fail to forge a common bond among citizens invite polarization and antagonism. That’s why agonistic solidarity matters. 42

43

William Connolly defines agonistic respect as a “social relation of respect for the opponent against whom you define yourself even while you resist its imperatives and strive to delimit its spaces of hegemony.” William E. Connolly, Pluralism (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 2005), 123. See Mouffe, On the Political, and Agonistics.

76 Gürsözlü When political parties and partisans perform their democratic function well, this strengthens citizens’ loyalty to each other. As such, even when they are divided on many issues, they perceive each other as legitimate adversaries. Defining and positioning agonistic solidarity in terms of the common bond between citizens generated by their commitment to liberal democracy gives us a clear idea about how political parties and partisans should perform their democratic function. In performing their democratic function political parties and partisans have the democratic task of fostering agonistic solidarity by exemplifying democratic engagement and adversarial respect. This is not to say that partisans and political parties should avoid adversarial confrontation and seek cooperation. Their aim is to beat the adversary and win the elections by successfully presenting their political narratives and mobilizing the public. The ultimate goal is to shape the political discourse in a way that their version of good society is perceived as the most reasonable one. However, none of this should include depicting political adversaries as enemies. At times resorting to the political strategy of depicting the political opponent as an enemy might be politically effective to energize one’s base. It is precisely at this point that partisans and political parties should resist the temptation to characterize the political opponent as enemy. It is important to remember that one reason why there exists competing political projects is the existence of irreconcilable values. Not only do we disagree on how we rank political values of justice, equality, liberty, justice, and so on, but we also disagree on how we understand these values. This fundamental disagreement is what opens up a space for democratic struggle and gives rise to a plurality of competing political narratives and projects vying for democratic hegemony. Defining some of these political narratives and their proponents as enemies not only shrinks the space of democratic politics, but also deeply undermines the very fabric of agonistic solidarity. This is why partisans and political parties should avoid to too easily draw the line between legitimate and illegitimate comprehensive political narratives and projects. It doesn’t follow from this that democratic politics should accommodate all political positions. A political position that is deeply at odds with the fundamental values of the democratic association should be characterized as illegitimate. However, the political line between legitimate and illegitimate has often been exploited by competing political forces since the way they depict their adversaries is motivated by short term political gain. Characterizing the political adversary as an enemy of the regime or of the people, as a traitor, moral disease, or an evil force do not foster adversarial engagement. The aim of partisan politics is not to inflame polarizing passions and mutual animosity. Partisan politics mobilizes people and encourages them to identify with democratic political identities by offering them distinct and meaningful political

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projects and not by whipping up destructive emotions which only leads to polarization and undermines adversarial relationships. Emotions and passions are an essential part of partisan discourse. It is important to recognize that political mobilization of emotions and passions is possible without dehumanizing and demonizing the political opponent.44 There is a significant difference between agonistic mobilization of passions that encourages citizens to identify with a democratic project and the anti-​ democratic mobilization of passions that arouses emotions of fear, hatred, disgust, anger and contempt. The former mobilizes emotions positively that nourishes and strengthens agonistic solidarity while the other politicizes emotions in the wrong way by infecting the democratic discourse with animosity in an attempt to form a malignant representation of the adversary. Indeed, partisan positions could be built on an opponent’s weaknesses and deficits. The point is how we characterize those deficits. These deficits could be represented in terms of antagonistic rhetoric by characterizing the adversary as an evil force hellbent to destroy the country. It could also be represented without undermining the political opponent’s legitimacy in terms of failure to grasp the correct meaning of political values and their right ordering, the most significant problems in the country, the urgent concerns of citizens, the most efficient responses to existing issues, and so on. Simply put, people should follow “us” not because our opponents are evil, but because what we offer is better for the country. This way of representing “us” and “them” does not undermine adversarial relations and agonistic solidarity. In fact, when it is skillfully done it unites citizens under the banner of democracy. Skeptics may argue that the account of partisan politics I propose is too idealistic. Their point is that malignant rhetoric has always been part of the political discourse and partisan politics will inevitably degenerate into polarization and antagonism. The account I offer does not downplay the risks of partisanship, rather I argue that partisan politics has an essential role to play in democracy and we often misrecognize this positive dimension of partisan politics. Not only democratic politics is not possible without partisan discourse, but also putting too much emphasis on consensus and unity risks democracy. Moreover, what the skeptic fails to recognize is that there have already been many examples of the ideal I propose. Consider the 2008 U.S. Presidential 44

To give an example from sports, a typical Baltimore Ravens fan supports the Ravens not because she dislikes the Pittsburg Steelers, but because she identifies as a Baltimorean and to many of “us” the Ravens mean a lot. That doesn’t mean that the Ravens fan doesn’t enjoy when “they” lose. The rivalry between the two teams is intense, but, like many other Ravens fans, she respects the Steelers as worthy opponents.

78 Gürsözlü Election between Barack Obama and John McCain. Think about McCain’s response to one of his supporter’s racist remarks about Obama.45 Grabbing the microphone from his supporter and cutting her off, McCain said, “He’s a decent family man [and] citizen that just I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues, and that’s what the campaign’s all about.” And when the audience booed his defense of Obama, McCain responded: “I will fight … But I will be respectful. I admire Sen. Obama and his accomplishments, and I will respect him.”46 That is a good example of the kind of partisanship that I defend here. This is the kind of partisan struggle that strengthens agonistic solidarity.47 When partisans sacrifice agonistic solidarity by mobilizing passions in the wrong way, what follows is extreme polarization. In an extremely divided and polarized political climate people are stuck in their political camps not exposed to the views of the adversary. Even when people are exposed to the other side’s narrative, it is usually told by someone from within their political camp and thus they get a distorted view of the opponent’s view which only strokes more anger, fear, and hatred of the other. As partisans and political parties grow isolated from each other, polarization in society increases and brings about a climate of deep distrust, prejudice, and intolerance.48 The opponent becomes the abstract other who could be held responsible for all the problems one perceives in society. This creates a simplified binary that paints a picture of the society divided into two camps between ‘us’, the good citizens, vs. ‘them’, the enemy. This way of viewing the political landscape leads to a clear reaction: since they are responsible for our collective problems, what needs to be done is to beat them at all costs. When political parties and partisans see politics as a matter of life and death, winning becomes more important than the survival of democratic dynamics of society. In this context partisans too easily make an exception to their democratic commitments when they perceive their 45

McCain’s concession speech is also another good example of how partisan struggle can strengthen agonistic solidarity. 46 Emily Stewart, “Watch John McCain defend Barack Obama against a racist voter in 2008,” vox, Sep 1, 2018, accessed November 7, 2020, https://​www​.vox​.com​/pol​icy​-and​-polit​ ics​/2018​/8​/25​/17782​572​/john​-mcc​ain​-bar​ack​-obama​-statem​ent​-2008​-video​. 47 The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election represents the kind of partisan politics that undermines agonistic solidarity. That’s why unifying the country and healing extreme polarization has become a central message of the Biden campaign. 48 See Lilliana Mason, Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our identity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018) and “A Cross-​Cutting Calm: How Social Sorting Drives Affective Polarization,” Public Opinion Quarterly 80: Supplement 1 (2016): 351–​377.

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adversaries as a threat to the survival of the democratic association. The political climate fostered by such extreme polarization and excessive partisanship leaves little room for democratic engagement, negotiation, and compromise. Once adversarial respect and agonistic solidarity weaken, political relations become even more polarized which itself makes democratic possibilities less likely. What is at stake is not just the possibility of democratic negotiation and compromise, but also the very fabric of democratic society.49 The short-​term goal of partisans and political parties is to win popular support, beat the opponent, and remain in power. However, we should demand more from partisans and political parties. Their democratic capabilities introduce a political responsibility of enhancing the democratic dynamics of society and democratic culture. This is the long-​term goal of partisans and political parties. This means that in their pursuit of political power, political parties and partisans should not sacrifice agonistic solidarity. Their commitment to a particular version of the political association should not overwhelm their commitment to the democracy regime itself. If their ambition leads to an attitude of win by any means possible, this is an indication that they are failing to perform their function well. Agonistic solidarity should always inform, constrain, and correct the way political parties and partisans pursue their short-​ term goal. This is how they perform their function well: avoid what weakens and depreciates agonistic solidarity and seek what enhances it when pursuing political power.

4

The quality of democracy we live in to a large extent depends on how well partisans and political parties perform their democratic function. When partisans and political parties don’t perform their democratic function well, what follows is an undemocratic political climate marked by simmering tensions ready to erupt and take an undemocratic shape. In this context, partisanship escalates into excessive partisanship which fosters hyperpolarization in society. Extreme partisanship and the ensuing hyper polarization introduce authoritarian tendencies to the space of democratic politics. The increasing dogmatic confidence of political parties and the blind devotion of the partisans coupled with strained relationships among political groups not only diminish the chances of democratic negotiation and compromise, but also threatens 49

See Gürsözlü, “Democracy and Peace: Is Democracy Good for Peace.”

80 Gürsözlü peaceful coexistence. It becomes harder to tolerate the existence of ‘them’ since we believe that they threaten ‘our’ very existence. This is a diminished form of democracy that can hardly negotiate societal conflict peacefully. We should protect democracy by holding political parties and partisans to a higher democratic standard. The ethico-​political ideal of agonistic solidarity is meant to highlight what we should be focusing on when developing an idea of better partisanship. The important point is to recognize that political constituents do not have the luxury to be too permissive and tolerate political parties’ behavior just because they want to win. Similarly, partisans and political parties should realize that the “win at all costs” mentality leads to actions that weaken agonistic solidarity and hence undermine democracy and peace. Democracy is a fragile achievement that should be protected and renewed. Political parties and partisans have a political responsibility of performing their democratic function well by shaping the political discourse in ways that foster a democratic climate and strengthen citizens allegiance to democratic norms. That’s why political parties and partisans are crucial. And that’s why if we want to keep living in a democratic society, we cannot be too complacent when political parties become factions and partisans become political militants. We need to take seriously the idea of better partisanship and think about ways to improve partisan behavior.

References

Aristotle. The Nicomachean Ethics, trans. David Ross. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Chua, Amy and Rubenfeld, Jed. “The Threat of Tribalism.” The Atlantic, October 2018. https://​www​.thea​tlan​tic​.com​/magaz​ine​/arch​ive​/2018​/10​/the​-thr​eat​-of​-tribal​ ism​/568​342​/​. cnn. “America sinking in partisan swamp,” cnn, February 2, 2017. https://​www​.cnn​ .com​/vid​eos​/tv​/2017​/02​/11​/amer​ica​-sink​ing​-in​-parti​san​-swamp​.cnn​. Doherty, Carroll and Kiley, Jocelyn. “Key facts about partisanship and political animosity in America.” Pew Research Center, June 22, 2016. https://​www​.pewr​esea​rch​.org​ /fact​-tank​/2016​/06​/22​/key​-facts​-parti​sans​hip​/​. Desilver, Drew. “U.S. trails most developed countries in voter turnout.” Pew Research Center, May 21, 2018. https://​www​.pewr​esea​rch​.org​/fact​-tank​/2018​/05​/21​/u​-s​-voter​ -turn​out​-tra​ils​-most​-develo​ped​-countr​ies​/​. Drutman, Lee. “We need political parties. But their rabid partisanship could destroy American democracy.” vox, September 5, 2017. https://​www​.vox​.com​/the​-big​ -idea​/2017​/9​/5​/16227​700​/hyperp​arti​sans​hip​-ident​ity​-ameri​can​-democr​acy​-probl​ ems​-soluti​ons​-doom​-loop​.

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Errejon, Inigo and Mouffe, Chantal. Podemos. In the Name of the People. London: Lawrence and Wishart: 2016. Galtung, Johan. “Cultural Violence.” Journal of Peace Research 27 (1990): 291–​305. Gürsözlü, Fuat. “Cultural Violence, Hegemony, and Agonistic Intervention,” In Peace, Culture, and Violence, edited by Fuat Gürsözlü, Leiden: Brill, 2018, 84–​105. Gürsözlü, Fuat. “Democracy and Peace: Is Democracy Good for Peace,” In Peaceful Approaches for a More Peaceful World, edited by Sanjay Lal, Leiden: Brill, 2022, 8–​29. Jones, Jeffrey. “Trump Third Year Sets New Standard for Party Polarization.” Gallup, January 21, 2020. https://​news​.gal​lup​.com​/poll​/283​910​/trump​-third​-year​-sets​-new​ -stand​ard​-party​-polar​izat​ion​.aspx​. Jenkins, Iredell. “The Conditions of Peace.” The Monist 57:4(October 1973): 507–​526. Klar, Samara, and Krupnikov, Yanna, and Ryan, John Barry. “Is America Hopelessly Polarized, or Just Allergic to Politics?.” The ny Times, April 20, 2019. https://​www​.nyti​ mes​.com​/2019​/04​/12​/opin​ion​/polar​izat​ion​-polit​ics​-democr​ats​-repu​blic​ans​.html​. Mason, Lilliana. “A Cross-​ Cutting Calm: How Social Sorting Drives Affective Polarization.” Public Opinion Quarterly 80: Supplement 1 (2016): 351–​377. Mason, Lilliana. Uncivil Agreement: How Politics Became Our Identity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018. Mouffe, Chantal. On the Political. London: Verso, 2005. Mouffe, Chantal. Agonistics. London: Verso, 2013. Muirhead, Russell. “Can Deliberative Democracy be Partisan.” Critical Review 22:2–​3 (2010): 129–​157. Muirhead, Russell. In Defense of Party Spirit. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014. Muirhead, Russell and Rosenblum, Nancy. “The Partisan Connection.” California Law Review Circuit 3: March (2012): 99–​112. pew. “Political Polarization in the American Public.” Pew Research Center, June 12, 2014. https://​www​.peo​ple​-press​.org​/2014​/06​/12​/politi​cal​-polar​izat​ion​-in​-the​-ameri​ can​-pub​lic​/​. Rosenblum, Nancy. On the Side of Angels: An Appreciation of Party Spirit and Partisanship. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008. Rosenblum, Nancy. “The Moral Distinctiveness of ‘Party ID’.” Cato Unbound. February 2, 2009. https://​www​.cato​-unbo​und​.org​/2009​/02​/02​/nancy​-rosenb​lum​/moral​-dist​ inct​iven​ess​-party​-id​. Schumpeter, Joseph. Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. New York: Harper, 1942. Stewart, Emily “Watch John McCain defend Barack Obama against a racist voter in 2008.” vox, September 1, 2018. https://​www​.vox​.com​/pol​icy​-and​-polit​ics​/2018​/8​/25​ /17782​572​/john​-mcc​ain​-bar​ack​-obama​-statem​ent​-2008​-video​. Urbinati, Nadia. Democracy Disfigured: Opinion, Truth and the People. MA: Harvard University Press, 2014.

82 Gürsözlü Washington, George. “Farewell Address to the People of the United States.” September 1796. https://​www​.govi​nfo​.gov​/cont​ent​/pkg​/GPO ​- CDOC ​-106sdo​c21​/pdf​/GPO​ -CDOC​-106sdo​c21​.pdf​. White, Jonathan and Ypi, Lea. “On Partisan Political Justification.” American Political Science Review 105(2011): 381–​396. White, Jonathan and Ypi, Lea. “Rethinking the Modern Prince: Partisanship and the Democratic Ethos.” Political Studies 58:4 (2010): 809–​28. White, Jonathan and Ypi, Lea. The Meaning of Partisanship. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.

­c hapter 4

De-​polarization, Nonviolent Agonism, and the Anarchy of Difference Andrew Fiala Polarization contributes to violence. This is a problem for positive peace, and for agonistic and anarchist visions of social and political life. This paper seeks to explore connection among theories of positive peace, agonistic politics, and anarchist social theory. The overlapping problem is polarization. The solution is depolarization by emphasizing the importance of diversity, liberty, and nonviolent conflict. Nonviolent conflict is an essential component of positive peace. There will always be (and there should always be) deep and difficult conflicts in peaceful democratic societies. This works best when the conflicts are agonistic but not polemical, that is when they involve nonviolent struggle that is not warlike. Robust nonviolent agonism is essential in a society that values diversity. Polarization thus presents a significant problem, since the simplified “us vs. them” conflicts of polarization tend to become violent and polemical. In making this point, I also argue that the ideal of positive peace should be informed by insights gleaned from agonistic political theory and anarchist social theory. The condition of positive peace is one in which diversity and plurality produce creative nonviolent conflict that is not subject to a dominant set of polarized archetypes. A significant problem of polarization is that its reductive tendencies constrain conflict and thus fail to account for human liberty, creativity, and growth. So in pursuit of positive peace, we ought to encourage nonviolent conflict of the sort that resists polarization. As strange as it sounds, positive peace requires a multiplicity of conflict, what I describe here as agonistic conflict within the anarchy of difference.1

1 I adapted the phrase “the anarchy of difference” from Michel Foucault, “Theatrum Philosophicum” in Language, Counter-​Memory, and Practice (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1977), 186. Also see Charles E. Scott, “Ethics at the Boundary: Beginning with Foucault” The Journal of Speculative Philosophy 25:2 (2011), 203–​12.

© Andrew Fiala, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004541573_006

84 Fiala This paper builds upon an insight found in the work of Johan Galtung, which is by now well-​established in the theory and practice of mediation and conflict resolution.2 Galtung argued that polarization simplifies and deforms conflict—​ by reducing the complexity of social conflict into a dispute between two (or very few) possibilities for thought and action, which sorts us into “camps,” “parties,” and a simplistic distinction between self and other. Galtung goes so far as to suggest that polarization is a “necessary condition” for escalation of conflict towards violence. This means that violence only occurs when there is polarization. Galtung notes, however, that polarization is not a sufficient condition for violence. Polarization does not always lead to violence. Polarization is thus like the oxygen that is a necessary condition for combustion. Oxygen does not start the fire—​it is the spark that does that. But when we remove the oxygen, we extinguish the fire. An obvious implication of this analogy is that violence can be extinguished and prevented by depolarization. Miall has built upon Galtung’s insight, arguing that polarization should be “removed as a source of violence by depolarization, linking positions, and flattening the gradient between Self and Other.”3 Jenkins and Gottlieb also argue that depolarization is essential to building peace in response to what they call “identity conflicts” (which are conflicts between “us” and “them”). They write, “the key peace-​building measure is the depolarization of identities and social relations by creating mutual understanding and positive social ties.”4 The present paper builds upon these insights while arguing that an important aspect of the project of depolarization is to recognize the importance of liberty and diversity. This argument is also informed by a political theory that takes democratic agonism and nonviolent anarchism seriously. Depolarization requires us to understand that social conflict involves intersectional complexity, that diversity is not eliminable, and that liberty is fundamental. Depolarization occurs when we understand that struggles for recognition are more complex than the reductive channels of polarized conflict allow.

2 Johan Galtung, Peace by Peaceful Means (London: Sage Publishing, 1996), Chapter 3. Also see the practical application of this in: Stanford University’s Conflict and Polarization Project https://​kin​gcen​ter​.stanf​ord​.edu​/resea​rch​/init​iati​ves​/confl​ict​-and​-polar​izat​ion; and the related Depolarization Project: https://​www​.depola​riza​tion​proj​ect​.com​/​. 3 Hugh Miall, Emergent Conflict and Peaceful Change (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007), 31. 4 J. Craig Jenkins and Esther Gottlieb, Identity Conflicts: Can Violence be Regulated? (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2007), 14.

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85

The Beloved Community and the Impossible Community

Americans value the dream of e pluribus unum. But there is no stable and permanent way to create unity out of plurality in a world that values liberty and diversity. We ought, then, to embrace nonviolent agonism and the anarchy of difference. The nemesis of peace is polarization, which reduces the anarchy of difference to an oppressive choice between two (or a few) options that are then put into opposition or contradiction with each other. Some may think that such a reduction should be undertaken as a way to reduce conflict (say, by defenders of the American two-​party system), as if conflict is eliminated when channeled in this way. But as I argue here, polarization is oppressive and serves to exacerbate conflict in the way that Galtung suggests. Liberty and diversity are often overlooked by those who offer an overly simplified account of pacifism, nonviolence, and the theory of positive peace. The pacifist ideal is often mis-​understood as one that seeks to create unity out of diversity. This would be a bland utopia, lacking in difference and individuality. This complaint is similar to Hegel’s complaint about Fichte’s vision of the absolute as “the night in which all cows are black.” And while Hegel attempted to flesh out the details of a dialectically rich social and political theory, Hegel has also been accused of a kind of reductive dialectic that reduces diversity to the polarized opposition between thesis and antithesis, which is then resolved or reconciled at a higher level.5 Post-​Hegelian social and political theory has resisted this reductive and overly simplified dialectical scheme. Anarchists of various sorts have been at the forefront of this attempt to embrace diversity, liberty, individuality, and difference. Bakunin put it this way: It is impossible to determine a concrete, universal, and obligatory norm for the internal development and political organization of every nation. The life of each nation is subordinated to a plethora of different historical, geographical, and economic conditions, making it impossible to establish a model of organization equally valid for all. Any such attempt would be absolutely impractical. It would smother the richness and spontaneity of life which flourishes only in infinite diversity and, what is more,

5 The scholarship on Hegel involves a number of efforts to show that Hegel’s own social and political theory was not so simplistic. I have contributed to this interpretation of Hegel in Andrew Fiala, The Philosopher’s Voice: Philosophy, Politics, and Language in the 19th Century (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2002).

86 Fiala contradict the most fundamental principles of freedom (italics added for emphasis).6 One effort of the present paper is to extend this anarchist reinterpretation of the social and political dialectic toward a consideration of positive peace. Positive peace cannot be a static monolith understood as a caricature of the Hegelian state. Instead it includes the richness, spontaneity, and infinite diversity of life that Bakunin celebrates. Some may object to bringing anarchist theory into a discussion of positive peace and nonviolence—​since anarchists are often themselves caricatured as nihilistic advocates of violence. I have addressed this misunderstanding of anarchism elsewhere.7 But suffice it to say that pacifists have often been anarchists—​and vice versa, a point that is brought home very clearly, for example, in the work of Tolstoy. I do not insist here that advocates of nonviolence, pacifism, and positive peace must be anarchists. Nor do I mean to imply that sophisticated pacifists, nonviolentists, and peace theorists themselves advocate unity without difference. But a simplistic understanding of what King called “the beloved community” can result in such an interpretation.8 There is a worry (unjustified in my interpretation) that the beloved community is one without difference and that peace involves the elimination of conflict and difference. Gandhi says, for example, “I believe in absolute oneness of God and therefore also of humanity.”9 This can sound like the night in which all cows are black. But we must not forget that Gandhi also celebrated the diversity of various “experiments with truth.” Gandhi himself said that the motto, “One community, one religion, one God” sets up an impossible ideal that denies the reality of difference.10 6 7

8 9 10

Mikhail Bakunin, “Revolutionary Catechism of 1866” in Bakunin on Anarchy (New York: Vintage, 1971), p. 77. See Andrew Fiala, “Anarchism” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (http://plato.stan ford.edu/entries/anarchism/) (originally published Fall 2017; 1st revision Fall 2021) and Andrew Fiala, Against Religions, Wars, and States: Enlightenment Atheism, Just War Pacif­ ism, and Liberal-Democratic Anarchism (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2013). I do not want to suggest that King ignored the challenge of difference. But the aspirational rhetoric of the Gandhi-​King tradition can cause us to lose sight of the importance of diversity and difference in the beloved community. Mohandas K. Gandhi, Collected Works (New Delhi: Publications Division Government of India, 1999; electronic collection at http://​www​.gandh​iash​rams​evag​ram​.org), vol. 29, pp. 209–​10. Gandhi addressed a proponent of undifferentiated unity as follows (Collected Works, vol. 30, p. 434): “Your motto is, “One community, one religion, one God.” I had discussions with Shri Narayan Guru Swami on this subject and since you have given the subject the first place in your welcome address, I am also obliged to mention it in my reply. I feel that the attainment of what is implied by this motto is also beyond our powers. I can understand the principle of one God. In spite of our worshiping Him in a million different ways, our adoration finds its way to Him. However, I feel that so long as the human race continues,

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Thus we must be careful when we interpret terms such as “integration,” “harmony,” “unity,” or “love” that show up in discussions of positive peace. Galtung famously stated in the first issue of the Journal of Peace Research that positive peace is “the integration of human society.”11 He described the ideal of positive peace as follows: Imagine now that we extrapolate these two tendencies of integration and control of violence. Many people have a vision of extending the sphere of cooperation, integration, harmony, to encompass the whole world, until a state is reached where Man experiences no differential in his identification with other men. Others have visions of reducing the use of violence to zero. Combine the two, and another extreme is reached, gcp or ‘general and complete peace’ where there is pax omnium cum omnibus. Each human being loves his neighbor like himself, and everybody is his neighbor. This Utopia knows no borderlines. One need not deprive it of conflict and change, only ensure that dynamics without recourse to violence is built into the system; there are other ways of accommodating conflicts.12 Galtung acknowledges that this is utopian. He does not believe, I think, that it is possible to bring about complete positive peace. The reason for this is connected to what he says about the problem of overly simplified polarization. I submit that this has to do with the nature of liberty and the importance of diversity and agonistic struggle. When Galtung says above that in the utopia of positive peace, “man experiences no differential in his identification with other men” this demands too much. He notes that conflict and change will remain. Indeed, to aspire to eliminate differentiation will result in further polarization—​as human liberty and individuality will arise in opposition to any final vision of harmonious integration. The vision of positive peace can be mis-​interpreted as implying we could (or should) somehow transcend or overcome diversity and difference. Galtung and others are not so naïve as to claim that liberty or individuality should

11 12

differences of creeds and religions will indeed exist, since there are many minds and not one. If we look at Nature, we shall find that it is full of diversities and it is through them that the one God becomes many. To expect that at any stage in the history of the human race the world will have a single religion and a single creed is, I think, as good as wishing that the laws of Nature should become topsy turvy. Galtung, “An Editorial: What is Peace Research?” Journal of Peace Research 1: 1 (1964), p. 2. Also see David Boersema, “Peace: Negative and Positive” in Andrew Fiala, Routledge Handbook of Pacifism and Nonviolence (New York: Routledge, 2017). Galtung, “Editorial” (1964), pp. 1–​2.

88 Fiala be sacrificed in the name of peaceful, harmonious integration. Nor are most theories of positive peace interested in eliminating diversity. Such an ideal demands too much. Robust positive peace is supposed to allow for both liberty and diversity. But there remains a sense that a genuine community would somehow lead us beyond difference. Consider Duane Cady’s description of the ideal of a peaceful world. Cady writes: The challenge is to foster a sense of community, a sense of participation, sufficiently strong enough to overcome the divisiveness and estrangement of competing interests, cultural differences, and misunderstanding … The highest ideal is to see every human being as a kindred being, to see nature itself as a home to live in, not as conditions to conquer … the widening of one’s sense of community, beyond the immediate and familiar, is a guide toward the harmonious and cooperative internal order characteristic of a peaceful world.13 This ideal of a harmonious community without divisiveness and the estrangement of competing interests and cultural differences is inspiring. But again, it seems impossible to realize in a world of liberty and difference. Thus, I suggest that a plausible theory of positive peace ought to be informed by the anarchist critique of the Hegelian synthesis. As mentioned, the anarchists of the 19th Century (Bakunin, Kropotkin, etc.), were critical of the way that Hegel (and then Marx) sought to accomplish the task of completing the dialectic. The worry was that in seeking resolution or reconciliation in either the Hegelian state or the Marxist revolution, there would be a tendency to deny liberty, individuality, and difference. Rather than seeking a final solution to the problem of social conflict, the anarchists embraced conflict and change. Kropotkin said, for example, with regard to the aspiration for harmony, “harmony thus appears as a temporary adjustment established among all the forces acting upon a given spot—​a provisory adaptation. And that adjustment will only last under one condition: that of being continually modified; of representing every moment the resultant of all confliction actions.”14 This critique of final harmony has been taken up, for example, by the contemporary anarchist John Clark who has described his ideal as “the impossible community,” which is a

13 14

Duane Cady, From Warism to Pacifism, 2nd edition (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2010), 84. Peter Kropotkin, “Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Ideal” in Kropotkin: Anarchism, a Collection of Revolutionary Writings (Mineoloa, NY: Dover, 2002), 121.

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kind of “communitarian anarchism.”15 This anarchist community is “impossible” because it contains a paradox and a problem: community implies commonality, unity, harmony, and identity; but a community of individuals implies liberty and difference. What we are searching for in terms of positive peace is some combination of seemingly divergent values: unity and difference, harmony and liberty, individuality and community. The ideal community of positive peace thus involves substantial conflict, so long as such conflict remains nonviolent and merely agonistic. We might say that the beloved community is also an impossible community. It would be a community in the making, a peaceful process that is the ongoing creation of agonistic conflict. But there is a difference between agonistic conflict and polemical or violent conflict. It is polarization that tends toward the polemical, while the anarchic play of difference is important for the project of positive peace. 2

Polarization vs. Diversity

It is a commonplace to say that the United States is becoming more polarized. When political scientists discuss this, they often refer primarily to polarization within the bastions of power. The Congress and other institutions have become more partisan in recent years, as members of political parties have defined themselves against one another. This way of putting the matter reminds us that polarization is generally linked to a kind of bi-​valent scheme of value and identity, although tri-​valent and other multiple valences are possible.16 A key conceptual point to clarify here is the difference between diversity and polarization. Diversity indicates the presence of a wide range of differences. These differences are connected to what some are now calling “intersectionality”: a web of complex, overlapping, and competing values and identities.17 Polarization reduces these differences to two possibilities (or some other small

15 16

17

John P. Clark, The Impossible Community: Realizing Communitarian Anarchism (London: Bloomsbury, 2013) and John P. Clark, Between Earth and Empire: From the Necrocene to the Beloved Community (Oakland, CA: pm Press, 2018). See: McCoy, Tahmina Rahman, & Murat Sommer, “Polarization and the Global Crisis of Democracy: Common Patterns, Dynamics, and Pernicious Consequences for Democratic Politics” American Behavioral Scientist 2018, Vol. 62(1) 16–​42; doi: 10.1177/​ 0002764218759576. See: Anna Carastathis, Intersectionality : Origins, Contestations, Horizons (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2016).

90 Fiala number of focal points of dialectically related differences in value and identity). Normative diversity—​the claim that there ought to be a range of possible values and identities or the claim that value pluralism is good—​is connected to the value of liberty. Polarization undermines diversity and pluralism, while diminishing liberty. Diversity or value pluralism is a key feature of positive peace, while polarization tends toward deficient democracy and leads toward violence. There is no denying that human beings are diverse and that identity is dialectical. When we are free, we form ourselves into groups based upon common values, identities, and affinities. Often these groupings are at odds with other groupings. We define ourselves in opposition to one another, typically understanding “us” as not “them.” Social and political life is a process of push and pull: individuals are pulled together into groups; they push against other groups. But there is a tendency in social and political life for this process to be reduced from pluralistic diversity to polarization. Polarization results when diversity coalesces around two (or a few) divergent poles, when the anarchy of difference is reduced to a simple distinction between “us” and “them.” Polarization represents a kind of “arche-​ism,” which sets up arche-​types of conflict. This sounds abstract, so let’s make it concrete by considering two concrete forms of polarization: vertical polarization and horizontal polarization. Racism, sexism, and other oppressive ideologies are vertical kinds of polarization. Oppressive ideologies carve the world up into “us vs. them” dichotomies, categorizing things within certain archetypes, while placing one archetype on top of the other (an “us” who is inferior or superior to “them”). The term, arche-​ type, gives us a clue about why a kind of an-​archism creates a solution: anarchism rejects the idea of the archetype. Oppressive polarization organizes reality under an arche (ἀρχή) or fundamental grounding principle that structures power hierarchically; anarchism rejects such a hierarchical structure. Notice that the term “hier-​archy” includes the idea of the arche modified by the Greek hieros (ἱερός), which means holy, supernatural, or sacred—​indicating a kind of vertical polarization. Such a structure creates the potential for violence that pits the top against the bottom (and vice versa in the case of revolutionary violence). This structural polarity also does violence to individuals who do not identify with or fully conform to the norm established by the arche. The solution is a kind of an-​archic resistance to the ideal of categorization and the verticality of power, which breaks down hierarchy and allows for multiplicity, liberty, and difference. Again, intersectionality can help explain what this anarchic resistance might look like: an awareness of the multiplicities of identities

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that we each inhabit.18 For example, a typically polarized archetypical vertical pair (for example, in a racial conflict between black v. white) gives way to a more complicated picture (that acknowledges, for example, other racial paradigms and the presence of mixed-​race persons). Another form of polarization is horizontal. While there are likely residual vertical elements in most forms of horizontal polarization, horizontal polarization is not hierarchical. Rather, horizontal polarization occurs when there are equal powers at odds with each other. This was what occurred, for example, during the Cold War (as Galtung notes).19 We also see something like this In the United States, where the political system consists of two major parties, Democrat and Republican. These two choices oppose each other horizontally, with each at odds with the other in a struggle for power and recognition. This situation of horizontal polarization in the American political case is created by a number of factors including a winner-​takes all electoral system, the electoral college system for selecting a president, widespread gerrymandering constraining political choice and identity between these two options, and the flow of big money into the two-​party system. Now there was at one point some stability under the two-​party system—​especially when there was more diversity within the parties (and thus more potential for intersections and overlaps).20 But in recent years we have seen how this kind of polarization tends to exacerbate social conflict by causing a move away from the center and toward extremism in both parties. An obvious solution to political polarization would be to find a way to move beyond the two-​party system. Such a development would be anarchic in the sense that I am using the term here, such that it would disrupt the prevailing structure and allow difference and liberty to flourish. 3

The Violence of Polarization and the Complexity of Conflict

An ideal social world of nonviolence and plurality would not aim to eliminate conflict. Pluralistic democracies that encourage individual liberty will contain substantial conflict and diversity. Rather than despairing over this as a tragedy to be lamented, we should view diversity and the intensity of nonviolent struggle as an indication of human freedom. However, there is a tendency in 18

On the link between anarchism and intersectionality see Hillary Lazar, “Intersectionality” in Benjamin Franks, Nathan Jun, Leonard Williams, eds. Anarchism: A Conceptual Approach (New York: Routledge, 2018). 19 Galtung, Peace by Peaceful Means, Chapter 3. 20 See Ezra Klein, Why We Are Polarized (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2020), Chapter 1.

92 Fiala conflict situations for struggles to be reduced to bi-​valent polarity, as Galtung has explained. This is inevitable but it is dangerous since it tends to intensify conflict and lead in the direction of violence. It is only in unfree societies that polarity and divisive struggles can possibly be eliminated. Efforts to eliminate struggle entirely come at great cost and with substantial violence. But in the name of peace and democracy, we should work to eliminate the polarization of these struggles. The reason for this is that polarization and violence are mutually supporting. As the complex struggle for recognition is simplified, there are two problems related to violence: a problem of outwardly directed violence and a problem of inwardly directed violence. The first is that the other (“them”) is viewed as a threat to “our” identity—​as an enemy, who deserves violence (or who threatens violence due to the logic of polarization—​and thus who must be responded to with violence). The second problem is that in order to maintain “our” identity and prevent deviance, liberty is curtailed and there are threats of violence directed inward (toward traitors, apostates, and other deviant members of the in-​group). As polarization intensifies, the risk of violence in both senses also increases. The solution is depolarization as well as sustained commitment to nonviolence. But depolarization does not mean that there is no conflict. As mentioned, a naïve vision of peace might simply postulate that what is needed to overcome the potential for violence under conditions of polarization is a kind of harmonious homogeneity. But, as I have been arguing, if there is to be harmony it ought to be dialectically complex in a non-​reductive sense, while avoiding the need for an authoritarian Leviathan to keep the peace. This means that harmonious integration, if there is such, must not be understood as simplified homogeneity enforced by authoritarian power, which would create further polarization and the threat of violence. If we want to speak of harmony in the context of positive peace, we ought to understand this as the kind of complex harmony that emerges in the context of symphonic music or—​better yet—​jazz.21 Complexity, polyphony, and dissonance are not to be avoided: dissonance, unresolved tension, and counterpoint indicate a kind of liberty, spontaneity, and creativity. In the social and political world, the point is that human life includes a variety of conflictual psychological, spiritual, and emotional 21

This is inspired by Jay McDaniel, Gandhi’s Hope (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2005). McDaniel writes: “Without delight in manyness, we cannot live as one with each other. There can be no peace” (8). He goes on to explain how peace in plurality is like an improvisational jazz concert: an evolving harmony that emerges from the voices of diverse instruments and players.

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dispositions (or drives or needs). These conflictual drives or dispositions have been variously described as: appetite (for example, in Plato), pride/​hubris (as in Sophocles), desire (as in Buddhism), sin (as in Christianity), inquiétude (as in Leibniz), contradiction (as in Hegel), dis-​ease (as in Freud), and angst (as in existentialism). The social and political whole must contain the conflicts and tensions that arise from the psycho-​spiritual-​existential phenomenology of human life. Human life is fractured by pride, desire, fear, hope, dreams, and the uncanny. And social life is fractured by the conflicting identities that have been constructed through a long and complex history. A “peaceful” social and political whole also must contain the concrete struggles for recognition and power that are part of multiculturalism, identity politics, and intersectionality. In addition to psycho-​spiritual drives, there are social struggles that emerge out of previous hegemonies and forms of oppression. Thus the social and political whole must account for the struggles of feminists, the proletariat, formerly enslaved people, racially and ethnically oppressed and excluded people, lgbtq people, disabled people, youth, religious minorities, atheists, and so on. At issue here is the need to find room in positive peace for a range of issues: the critique of exclusionary practices, revolutionary identity formation, liberatory struggle, and demands for equal treatment and access to power. All of this tension and conflict is woven together in the complex web of social life fraught with the tensions of intersectional diversity. The social web can be held together by inertia or by authoritarian political structures. But in a democratic social and political system, what holds this together is a commitment to nonviolence, to liberty, and to diversity. This means that any resolution or reconciliation ought to aim to prevent violence and oppression (which is often called “structural violence”). Of course, as might be obvious given the litany of struggles mentioned above, any resolution will only be temporary and provisional. There will be more struggles to come and very few moments of simple harmonious reconciliation. This is true because new structures are formed, new hierarchies are constructed, and so on. 4

Agon vs. Polemos

If this brief analysis of the complex conflicts of human life is correct, then struggle is inevitable and our ideal of positive peace must reflect this fact. The idea of positive peace must be conceived in terms of a nonviolent and liberty-​respecting agon—​a contest or struggle. The word “agon” is chosen here because it has been taken up in recent democratic political theory (as we will

94 Fiala discuss in a moment). Furthermore, agon seems to indicate a diverse set of participants (as in the diverse number of competitors in the Olympic games). It is war that is polarizing and which is the result of polarization—​since war tends to reduce the partisan identification of the participants from many to two or some other small number. This concept and related ideas, in their Greek origin and subsequent interpretation, provides us with a useful set of distinctions. I mean this: agon is not polemos—​the contests/​struggles/​fights of democratic political life are not war. When Heraclitus—​at the origin of the Western tradition—​says “war is the father of all” the word he uses is polemos. But agon is less violent than war: it is connected to the activity of contenting for prizes in games, in music/​ theater, or in court. Agonistic struggles, on occasion, take us close to violence; but democratic politics ends when violence occurs. When these struggles fall short of violence, they are best understood in terms of stasis. Stasis in the Greek is rich in significance: it means both standpoint/​position and conflict/​ faction.22 It also means both what holds things in place and what also keeps them moving. The idea of stasis indicates that any given standpoint consists of, or is the result of, conflicts. One important source here is Plato’s Republic. Plato reminds us (545d-​e) that Homer noted that faction (stasis) is part of political life. He indicates (560a) that we are torn by faction and counter-​faction (stasis and antistasis)—​both in the political state and within our own souls. Plato also contrasts (at 470b) polemos (war) with stasis (faction), saying the polemos is hostility toward or of the foreign, while stasis is hostility among friends or within the household (oikos). In some usages, there is even a field known as stasiology, which is the study of the nature and conflicts of political parties and factions.23 In general, the idea of stasis reminds us to look out for factional struggles. There are always conflicts within social and political arrangements—​and within our souls—​which involve competition and strife (agonism) but which fall short of war/​violence. As Stuart Hampshire explains, following Plato, we have “faction-​ridden souls torn between contrary impulses, and we are people who are normally in

22

23

This discussion is influenced by a variety of authors writing about stasis: Carl Schmitt, Political Theology ii: The Myth of The Closure of Any Political Theology (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2008); Jacques Derrida, The Politics of Friendship (London: Verso, 2005); Giorgio Agamben, Stasis: Civil War as a Political Paradigm (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2015); Dimitris Vardoulakis, Stasis Before the State: Nine Theses on Agonistic Democracy (New York: Fordham University Press, 2018). See Frederick C. Engelmann, “A Critique of Recent Writings on Political Parties,” The Journal of Politics 19, no. 3 (Aug., 1957): 423–​440.

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dispute with ourselves.”24 Hampshire argues that diversity, divisiveness, conflict, and competition are normal and inevitable. He says, “there normally is in any modern society a chaos of opinions and moral attitudes. A reasonable person knows that there is this chaos, and those with strong opinions, or with fanatical hearts, deplore the chaos and hope for a consensus: usually a consensus in which their own opinions and attitudes are dominant.”25 This implies that the dream of ending conflict and harmonizing the chaos represents a kind of fanaticism that wants one dominant idea to prevail over others. Hampshire reminds us that for every proclamation of “the end of history” or some other utopian scheme, there are people who resist, revolt, and who are murdered in the name of “the final solution.” Indeed, it is easy to see that the tendency toward polarization is found in the effort to force consensus about a dominant idea. This polarization happens when advocates of the domineering idea form a camp of “us” and the rest of society who resists this idea becomes a camp of “them.” Anarchy provides an alternative: when the effort to enforce a dominant idea or arche is given up, diversity (the anarchy of difference) proliferates. It is the effort to postulate a common value that causes diversity to reduce to polarity. This brings us to the idea of Kampf in the tradition of Hegel and Marx. In Hegel and those who follow him (such as Axel Honneth) a central idea is the struggle for recognition, the Kampf um Annerkennung.26 Hegel indicates that this struggle is one of life and death—​as the lord and bondsman struggle for recognition. While Hegel is known for proclaiming the end of history, he did not think that war would thereby fade away: indeed, Hegel argued that external war was connected to the health of the state.27 But Hegel suggested that in domestic arrangements, the modern state eliminated much of the overt struggle for power: the dialectical relations among the parts of society were “reconciled” in the modern state. Marx, of course, saw this as an ideological defense of the supremacy of the bourgeoisie. Marx takes up the idea of struggle or Kampf in his Communist Manifesto, whose opening line is “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle” (Klassenkämpfen). What one class proclaims as the end of history is for the other class the source of the need for new struggles. With Marx and Marxism, the struggle pushes toward violence since the polarization between bourgeoisie and proletariat 24 Stuart Hampshire, Justice is Conflict (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000), 72. 25 Hampshire, Justice is Conflict, 36. 26 Axel Honneth, The Struggle for Recognition (original German title, Kampf um Annerkennung—​Suhrkamp Verlag, 1992) (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995). 27 I discuss this in Andrew Fiala, Public War, Private Conscience (London: Continuum, 2010).

96 Fiala becomes an all-​encompassing archetypical struggle, whose only imagined resolution is class warfare that revolutionizes the capitalist system. Marx’s utopian aspiration aims to affirm a kind of diversity (where we could hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, and criticize after dinner). But in order to get to this anarchic utopia, we must go through the warfare of the polarized class conflict. At any rate, in the Hegelian and Marxist schemas, it is the tendency of struggle to become hegemonic that causes resistance and polarization. If the original struggle for recognition remained open to diversity, the class conflict would not form. It is only when a hegemonic class develops out of diversity that a polarized opposition between “us” and “them” (capitalist vs. proletariat) arises and agonistic struggles evolve into polemical violence. Again, an anarchist critique of the Hegelian and Marxist dialectic provides an antidote that emphasizes the proliferation of difference. While the 19th Century anarchists formed their ideas out of this background, more contemporary forms of anarchism see the problem as not merely old-​fashioned class conflict but as hierarchy and polarization in general: young vs. old, male vs. female, etc. The imagined solution is a more diffuse and conflictual (agonistic) form of solidarity, membership, and identity.28 5

Agonistic Political Theory

Recent work in agonistic political theory is also of use here.29 The shift toward agonism has been articulated as a critique of deliberative democracy and the idea of reasonable consensus as found in the work of Rawls, Habermas, Guttman, and others. While Rawls and Rawlsians such as Joshua Cohen understand the difficulty of achieving reasonable consensus, they hold out the hope for what Rawls calls “overlapping consensus” or “reasonable consensus” or 28

29

See: Uri Gordon explains (Anarchism and Political Theory: Contemporary Problems at https://​thea​narc​hist​libr​ary​.org​/libr​ary​/uri​-gor​don​-anarch​ism​-and​-politi​cal​-the​ory​-conte​ mpor​ary​-probl​ems, Chapter 5) and Howard J. Ehrlich, Reinventing Anarchism Again (San Francisco: ak Press, 1996). See, for example: Robert Metcalf, Philosophy as Agon (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2018); Essays collected in Andrew Shaap, ed., Law and Agonistic Politics (New York: Routledge, 2016); Chantal Mouffe, “Deliberative Democracy or Agonistic Pluralism” Reihe Politikwissenschaft (Political Science Series) 72 (December 2000); Jacquelyn Ann K. Kegley, “Democratic Theory” in Andrew Fiala, ed., The Bloomsbury Companion to Political Philosophy (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015); Eva Erman, (2009) “What is Wrong with Agonistic Pluralism? Reflections on Conflict in Democratic Theory” Philosophy & Social Criticism (2009), volume 35. 1039–​1062.

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what Cohen calls “pluralistic consensus.”30 This idea has been criticized by a number of people as being “beyond the reach of real political societies” as Christiano has put it.31 If reasonable, pluralistic consensus remains an ideal that does not fit the reality of diverse and polarized societies, then we are left with an account of democracy that aspires to something less than consensus, a theory that allows for conflict while attempting to prevent conflicts from becoming violent. The developing theory of agonistic democracy provides a counterpoint to the theory of deliberative democracy. This paper contributes to that theory by suggesting that agonism must be qualified by nonviolence. The difference between agon/​stasis and polemos has to do with the nature of violence: when there is domestic stasis (strife/​conflict) that falls short of civil war we are in an agonistic situation but which remains nonviolent. Agonism does not eliminate conflict. While we might hope for the kind of consensus that is the goal of deliberative democracy, this hope for consensus is not realistic. And in the space between reality and hope we find struggle. For this struggle to remain democratic it must be governed by the norm of nonviolence. As a descriptive theory, agonism acknowledges the disruptive tendencies of liberty and struggles for recognition. As a normative theory (if we want to think of it as such), agonism encourages liberty and the struggle for recognition, while discouraging oppression. However, agonistic theory is not easily conceived as a normative theory—​since agonism strikes deep into the heart of the idea of norms, laws, and ethical principles. Like anarchism, agonism opens the question of the status of normativity itself, including the question of whether norms are merely conventional, the result of consensus, deliberative agreement, a social contract, authoritarian imposition, and so on. From the vantage point of agonism, the descriptive fact is that consensus is difficult, if not impossible, to achieve. Given this descriptive fact and its psychological/​ existential background, there is always a risk of violence. But there is one norm that undergirds agonism or that ought to be viewed as “foundational” for agonistic social relations: the norm of nonviolence. But as I have just indicated we must admit that the normativity of nonviolence remains problematic. This same problem exists for anarchism, although anarchists have not always been focused on nonviolence, while agonists have tended to understand themselves 30 31

John Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005); Joshua Cohen, Philosophy, Politics, Democracy: Selected Essays (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009). Thomas Christiano, “Must Democracy Be Reasonable?” Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 39, No. 1 (March 2009), pp. 1–​34.

98 Fiala as more closely related to democratic theory and the basic commitment to nonviolence that is found within democracy. Agonism, as Mouffe describes, includes the presence of adversaries and enemies who struggle for hegemonic power. But this struggle remains “agonistic” so long as it is nonviolent. Mouffe does not put it this way exactly.32 She seems to want to keep agonism within the realm of democratic politics in a commitment to living together with one’s adversaries in an ongoing struggle for the hegemonic power that allows a party to determine norms and shape identities. That struggle remains ongoing and democratic so long as it does not devolve into violence, oppression, expulsion, and genocide. Violence creates the limit to democratic agonism. An agonistic system teeters on the edge of violence. And what holds it in this precarious position is a normative commitment to nonviolence—​and to liberty. Nonviolence is the key to preventing agonistic relations from becoming polemical (violent), even though this has not been thematized in the literature on agonistic politics. There are discussions of violence in this literature—​but they are not informed by the philosophy of peace or the theory of nonviolence. For example, Alex Thomson writes: “agonists are neither terrorists nor nihilists. They are not interested in violence for its own sake nor in the purging fire which dominates the revolutionary tradition.”33 But Thomson does not explain how or why nonviolence has normative power for the theory of agonist democracy. One need not dig into the depths of agonistic theory, however, to understand that nonviolence is a primary norm of democratic politics that is tacitly presumed without being explicitly thematized. Democratic institutions channel conflict in nonviolent ways—​but they do not eliminate conflict. In the U.S. system, conflict is woven into the system through the separation of powers, the federal system, and in light of fundamental protections of freedom of speech, petition, assembly, and so on. The Court system is adversarial, the political process is “winner takes all,” and the two dominant parties vie for the power to pack the courts and stack the bureaucracy in a way that has been described as “the spoils system,” which is a term of war (to the victor go the spoils). Polarization is inevitable under such conditions, as the struggle for hegemony depends upon slim majorities who have no need to compromise or 32 33

See Chantal Mouffe, Agonistics: Thinking the World Politically (London: Verso, 2013). Alex Thomson, “Polemos and Agon” in Andrew Shaap, ed., Law and Agonistic Politics (New York: Routledge, 2016), p. 105. See also Keith Breen, “Agonism, Antagonism, and the Necessity of Care” in Andrew Shaap, ed., Law and Agonistic Politics (New York: Routledge, 2016).

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collaborate. As mentioned, this can result in dysfunctional polarization and intractable conflict that risks escalation toward violence. The antidote is to embrace plurality, nonviolent agonism, and the anarchy of difference. The background conditions of freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and the like—​when combined with the agonistic system of the American Constitution—​make this possible. A significant remaining problem is that this system is itself kept in place by a government—​a regime of power and authority with a monopoly of violence. Full-​fledged anarchists will thus continue to offer criticism here. Agonism as a theory of political structure is not easily synthesized with anarchism. There is more to be said here about the differences and connections between anarchism and agonism.34 But my goal here is not to iron out these differences. Rather, the point is that the theory of positive peace has much to learn from both anarchist and agonistic theory: about the importance of agonistic conflict. At the same time, anarchists and agonists need to more carefully think about the normative importance of nonviolence. 6

Conclusion

So what have we learned? I have explained that social life is a process involving conflict. There is a tendency for these conflicts to be channeled in reductive ways that increase polarization and lead to escalation toward violence. Peace theorists, anarchists, and agonistic theorists agree that we ought to avoid polarization and allow conflict to proliferate, so long as conflict remains nonviolent. This process should be informed by contemporary social theory, which emphasizes the intersectional nature of identity and the anarchy of difference. It should also be informed by agonistic political theory that emphasizes the ubiquity of ongoing nonviolent and democratic struggle. In all of this there is an emphasis on liberty, diversity, change, and conflict. Far from being a bland and static utopia, positive peace would involve the anarchy of difference and complex struggles for recognition. When these struggles move from diversity toward polarization, they risk becoming polemical—​warlike and violent. The solution is depolarization, which occurs when we recognize that there is more than one side in a social conflict and that everyone is involved in complex struggles for recognition.

34

Saul Newman discusses this in Post-​Anarchism (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2016).

100 Fiala

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Galtung, Johan, Peace by Peaceful Means (London: Sage Publishing, 1996). Gandhi, Mohandas K., Collected Works (New Delhi: Publications Division Government of India, 1999; electronic collection at http://​www​.gandh​iash​rams​evag​ram​.org)​. Gordon, Uri, Anarchism and Political Theory: Contemporary Problems (2007; https: //​thea​narc​hist​libr​ary​.org​/libr​ary​/uri​-gor​don​-anarch​ism​-and​-politi​cal​-the​ory​-conte​ mpor​ary​-probl​ems)​. Hampshire, Stuart, Justice is Conflict (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000). Honneth, Axel, The Struggle for Recognition (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995). Jenkins, J. Craig and Esther Gottlieb, Identity Conflicts: Can Violence be Regulated? (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2007). Kegley, Jacquelyn Ann K., “Democratic Theory” in Andrew Fiala, ed., The Bloomsbury Companion to Political Philosophy (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015). Klein, Ezra, Why We Are Polarized (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2020). Kropotkin, Peter, “Anarchism: Its Philosophy and Ideal” in Kropotkin: Anarchism, a Collection of Revolutionary Writings (Mineoloa, NY: Dover, 2002). Lazar, Hillary, “Intersectionality” in Benjamin Franks, Nathan Jun, Leonard Williams, eds. Anarchism: A Conceptual Approach (New York: Routledge, 2018). McCoy, Tahmina Rahman, and Murat Sommer, “Polarization and the Global Crisis of Democracy: Common Patterns, Dynamics, and Pernicious Consequences for Democratic Politics” American Behavioral Scientist 62: 1 (2018): 16–​42; DOI: 10.1177/​ 0002764218759576. McDaniel, Jay, Gandhi’s Hope (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2005). Metcalf, Robert, Philosophy as Agon (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2018). Miall, Hugh, Emergent Conflict and Peaceful Change (New York: Palgrave Mac­ Millan, 2007). Mouffe, Chantal, “Deliberative Democracy or Agonistic Pluralism” Reihe Politikwissen­ schaft (Political Science Series) 72 (December 2000). Mouffe, Chantal, Agonistics: Thinking the World Politically (London: Verso, 2013). Newman, Saul, Post-​Anarchism (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2016). Rawls, John, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005). Schmitt, Carl, Political Theology ii: The Myth of The Closure of Any Political Theology (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2008). Scott, Charles E., “Ethics at the Boundary: Beginning with Foucault” The Journal of Speculative Philosophy 25:2 (2011): 203–​12. Shaap, Andrew, ed., Law and Agonistic Politics (New York: Routledge, 2016). Thomson, Alex, “Polemos and Agon” in Andrew Shaap, ed., Law and Agonistic Politics (New York: Routledge, 2016). Vardoulakis, Dimitris, Stasis Before the State: Nine Theses on Agonistic Democracy (New York: Fordham University Press, 2018).

Pa rt 2 Issues in Contemporary Liberal and Moral Theory

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Democracy, the Carceral State, and the Carceral Ethos: toward a Discourse Democratic Critique of the American Criminal Justice System Seth Mayer 1 Introduction* The American criminal justice system has myriad problems. America locks up a staggering number of people.1 The rate of wrongful convictions is disturbing.2 The system is tremendously costly.3 It regularly fails to achieve its intended outcomes and leads to many undesirable and unjust consequences.4 Prison is needlessly cruel and violent, and overuses psychologically tortuous and damaging solitary confinement.5 The system metes out punishments unequally, often punishing the most marginalized members of society far more severely than the privileged.6 The list goes on, including many serious

* I am very grateful to Tyler Zimmer for his insightful comments on this paper. I am also thankful for the comments and questions I received at the Northwestern University Practical Philosophy Workshop, the North American Society for Social Philosophy, the Indiana Philosophical Association, and the Concerned Philosophers for Peace Conference, as well as for the generous support of the Secrist Faculty Development Grant in Peace Studies. Thanks also, as always, to Italia Patti. 1 Wendy Sawyer and Peter Wagner, “Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2020,” Prison Policy Initiative, Accessed March 29, 2020, https://​www​.priso​npol​icy​.org​/repo​rts​/pie2​020​.html​. 2 Samuel Gross, “How Many False Convictions Are There? How Many Exonerations Are There?” in Wrongful Convictions and Miscarriages of Justice, ed. C. Ronald Huff and Martin Killias (New York: Routledge, 2013), 45–​59; and Samuel Gross, et al., “Rate of False Conviction of Criminal Defendants Who are Sentenced to Death,” pnas 111 (2014): 7230–​35. 3 Christian Henrichson and Ruth Delaney, The Price of Prisons: What Incarceration Costs Taxpayers (New York: Vera Institute of Justice, 2012). 4 Oliver Roeder, Lauren-​Brooke Eisen, and Julia Bowling, What Caused the Crime Decline? (New York: Brennan Center for Justice, 2015); and Bruce Western, Punishment and Inequality in America (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2006), 85–​167. 5 John J. Gibbons and Nicholas de B. Katzenbach, et al., Confronting Confinement (New York: Vera Institute of Justice, 2006); and Lisa Guenther, Solitary Death (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013). 6 Bruce Western, Punishment and Inequality in America, 15–​18.

© Seth Mayer, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004541573_007

106 Mayer issues with policing, bail, legal procedures, and more. In this paper, I will suggest that these problems are strongly interrelated with problems of democracy. The background of this crisis is what sociologist Loïc Wacquant refers to as America’s “polarizing class structure.”7 Mass incarceration has emerged during a time of growing economic inequality and entrenched racial hierarchy. Groups that have been subordinated by these social divisions have experienced the brunt of the carceral system. Given the political polarization that has also developed during this period, it is remarkable that criminal justice reform is something about which there is at least superficial bipartisan agreement.8 What specific shape reform should take is more contested, though.9 It remains to be seen whether American society will be able to overcome its divisions and correct the injustices of its carceral system. In a time of polarization, philosophers can contribute to conversations about reform by offering diverse conceptual and normative frameworks for considering how to understand and improve the system. Some—​like retributivists, deterrence theorists, and others—​offer theories of morality or justice for evaluating criminal justice institutions. Critical theorists analyze the way criminal justice practices and institutions fit into a broader society, connecting them to broader social structures of race, class, gender, and more. Without rejecting existent approaches, this paper proposes a direction that has been insufficiently explored under these divided social conditions: using Habermasian discourse democratic theory to critique the criminal justice system. While many philosophical approaches may be useful for rethinking the criminal justice system, a discourse democratic approach offers particular insights into criminal justice issues related to democratically legitimate governance.10

7 8

9 10

Loïc Wacquant, Punishing the Poor (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009), 107. See, e.g., Carl Hulse, “Unlikely Cause Unites the Left and the Right: Justice Reform,” The New York Times, February 18, 2015, http://​www​.nyti​mes​.com​/2015​/02​/19​/us​/polit​ics​/unlik​ ely​-cause​-uni​tes​-the​-left​-and​-the​-right​-just​ice​-ref​orm​.html?​_r=​o; Alex Altman, “Criminal Justice Reform is Becoming Washington’s Bipartisan Cause,” Time, February 19, 2015, http://​ time​.com​/3714​876​/crimi​nal​-just​ice​-ref​orm​-is​-becom​ing​-Wash​ingt​ons​-bip​arti​san​-cause​/​. Benjamin Levin, “The Consensus Myth in Criminal Justice Reform,” Michigan Law Review 117 (2018): 259–​318; Seth Mayer and F. Italia Patti, “Beyond the Numbers: Toward a Moral Vision for Criminal Justice Reform,” Drake Law Review Discourse (2015): 101–​110. I do not have the space to discuss all competing democratic theories here. Instead, I focus on making a positive demonstration of the utility of a discourse theoretic framework. For a critical discussion of some competing democratic theories, see Seth Mayer and F. Italia Patti, “Confronting Political Disagreement About Sentencing: A Deliberative Democratic Framework,” New Criminal Law Review 20 (2017): 616–​663; Seth Mayer, “Mass Deliberative

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Although discourse theory has influenced some criminal justice theorists, its full potential has not yet been realized. Previous critics of the criminal justice system influenced by discourse theory have focused on its abstract normative commitments or have proposed insufficiently ambitious reforms.11 I offer a broader systemic analysis here, which examines the social context of mass incarceration. When properly utilized, discourse theory can ground and flesh out sociological, political, and legal analyses. Such empirical analyses describe the ways the criminal justice system undermines democracy, but rarely connect their discussions to philosophers’ normative theories. For example, critics of the American criminal justice system regularly point out political dysfunctions without offering adequate, corresponding normative analyses. They assess political decision-​making in purely instrumental terms, attending to policy decisions’ costs and benefits but ignoring whether decision-​making procedures respect citizens’ freedom and equality.12 Others lament the corrosion of democratic political values and note its causes, but do not outline their underlying understanding of democracy.13 Discourse theory can be particularly useful in filling this gap; its normative understanding of democratic political accountability is informed by social theory, making it easier to apply to specific social problems. Habermasian critical social theory can explain the wrongness of these empirical trends, situate its critique in an understanding of society, and suggest corresponding reforms. This approach incorporates moral philosophy’s normative claims into an understanding of contemporary social institutions, all with the aim of overcoming polarization and achieving a democratic society. In this paper, I largely assume a critical theoretic methodology, the usefulness of which I hope will emerge over the course of this discussion. I begin by laying out the core elements of discourse theory before explaining how it can ground a critique of the criminal justice system. This framework exposes how mass incarceration results in part from democratic deficits in that system, at the same time as it pushes us further away from a democratic society.

11

12 13

Democracy and Criminal Justice Reform: Beyond Democratic Communitarian Localism,” Philosophy in the Contemporary World 27 (2021): 68–​102. See Willem de Haan, The Politics of Redress: Crime, Punishment, and Penal Abolition (London: Unwin Hyman, 1990); Albert W. Dzur and Rekha Mirchandani, “Punishment and Democracy: The Role of Public Deliberation,” Punishment and Society 9 (2007): 151–​ 75; and Albert Dzur, Punishment, Participatory Democracy, and the Jury (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). See, e.g., John Pfaff, Locked In: The True Causes of Mass Incarceration and How to Achieve Real Reform (New York: Basic Books, 2017), 182. See, e.g., Loïc Wacquant, Punishing the Poor, 313.

108 Mayer 2

Critical Theories of Punishment and Discourse Democratic Theory

Max Horkheimer explains critical theory in the following terms: “The intervention of reason in the processes whereby knowledge and its object are constituted […] coincides with the struggle for certain real ways of life.”14 On this picture, theory should engage with actual social facts, rationally interrogating the way that social life is set up and reflexively considering how that set-​up affects our understanding of the world. Such approaches begin with an immanent critique of actual social practices, meant to align with ongoing political struggles against concrete forms of domination in everyday life. Rather than relying upon abstract, ideal theories of punishment (retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation, etc.) that are presented as universal, critical theorists view criminal justice as functioning in a particular social system. This approach examines how existent forms of punishment in the U.S. are problematic, including insofar as they fail to enact normative aims already implicit in social life, like democracy. Unsurprisingly, critical theorists have taken aim at systems of punishment, offering objections to them and alternative ways to handle social conflict. I will suggest that Habermasian discourse theory has not yet been put to its best use in this conversation. One of Jürgen Habermas’s great contributions is developing an approach that reintroduces serious engagement with normative theorizing into critical theory. Rather than solely analyzing political power relations or reducing social life to a play of economic forces, his critical theory views communicative discourse as a crucial part of the fabric of social life. Our practices of justifying our actions and judgments to one another are not merely window dressing, but are essential to the formation of social order, he avers. In his work, Habermas reconstructs the normative content of the rationality embodied in everyday communication and then utilizes that normativity to critique social reality. Habermas’s picture of communicative rationality can be used to identify social pathologies that undermine political discourse, pointing out when rights are violated and when power distorts communication and undermines equal citizenship. In this section, I will outline the framework of Habermas’s critical theory, offering a truncated sketch of his discourse theory of law and democracy that will ground the rest of my critique of mass incarceration. I will begin with his

14

Max Horkheimer, “Postscript” in Critical Theory: Selected Essays (New York: Continuum, 2002), 245.

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understanding of communication and proceed to explain how that underpins his broader conception of democracy, which I will rely upon in later sections. Habermas’s theory begins with our practices of rational communication. He reconstructs these practices by interpreting communicative acts as aimed at reaching mutual understanding. He argues that, in discourse, we can attempt to reach a shared understanding about the norms governing our common practical life, in addition to justifying empirical judgments or other validity claims. For instance, we might justify an action as instrumentally rational or morally obligatory. Justification involves offering reasons and making claims about decisions’ validity. Habermas finds an implicit “discourse principle” (D) governing practical justification: “Just those action norms are valid to which all possibly affected persons could agree as participants in rational discourses.”15 Our practices implicitly commit us to the discourse principle and aiming at impartial, rational consensus about norms of action. If agents violate this principle, they contradict the pragmatic presuppositions of their own communicative practice. Just as we rely on discourse to settle matters related to the efficiency or morality of different norms, law and politics also depend upon on discourse. That is, law can be made in a valid, legitimate way when subject to the control of public sphere discourse, both inside and outside formal state institutions. When produced legitimately, Habermas contends that law can support social integration in complex, modern contexts. It can use state power to stabilize social norms, even where shared values are absent and social subsystems like markets threaten to produce social pathologies. Law is not merely the expression of power, but has a linguistic, normative, communicative character emerging from citizens’ ongoing discourses. As a result, law must respond to a version of the aforementioned discourse principle, which Habermas calls the principle of democracy: “… the democratic principle states that only those statutes may claim legitimacy that can meet with the assent (Zustimmung) of all citizens in a discursive process of legislation that in turn has been legally constituted.”16 Like other practical norms, legal norms’ validity depends on gaining acceptance through discourse. The justification of legal norms specifically needs to take place within a political community’s properly constituted institutions and public spheres; norms must emerge from an inclusive process of democratic deliberation. Laws that violate this principle—​by being enacted through domination, oppression, or

15 16

Jürgen Habermas, Between Facts and Norms (Cambridge, MA: The mit Press, 1996), 107. Jürgen Habermas, Between Facts and Norms, 110.

110 Mayer manipulation, for instance—​are an illegitimate basis for developing normative order. Ken Baynes summarizes the view well: “in highly differentiated and pluralist societies the task of social coordination and integration falls to institutionalized procedures of legitimate law-​making that transform into binding decisions the more diffuse public opinions initially produced via the anonymous communication network of a loosely organized and largely autonomous public sphere.”17 Laws can integrate society, but only in response to ongoing democratic discourse that includes the public as a whole. Specifically, discourse must occur under conditions that allow citizens to truly participate as equals—​as both subject and author of the law. If such conditions are absent—​including conditions that protect certain basic individual rights and enable open discourse—​law lacks full legitimacy. Beyond rights protections, individuals and groups in civil society must be able to “perceive, interpret, and present” problems, which formal political institutions must then handle in response.18 A robust, independent media within a liberal political culture is crucial to achieving such social capacities. While Habermas never fully spells out what such a culture would entail—​in part because its form will vary greatly in different contexts—​he generally indicates its shape. Crucially, for him, it will involve mutual recognition as equals under a shared constitutional order: many differing subcultures coming together around a society’s interpretation of “popular sovereignty and human rights” that are embedded in a legal system.19 This political culture, which involves what Habermas refers to as constitutional patriotic solidarity, emerges over time and rejects exclusionary nationalism and overly particularistic communitarianism as ideals for the social bonds underlying democracy. This “weak” informal public sphere of civil society reciprocally interacts with the “strong,” formal public sphere of the legislature, the executive branch and administrative state, and the judiciary. These two-​tracks—​the informal and formal public sphere—​have different responsibilities in enabling the exchange of reasons across social spheres. This process of inclusive deliberation depends on formal institutions, institutional rights protections, and informal activities and interactions in everyday life. When these complex systems and overlapping discourses work together, social integration through legitimate lawmaking is possible.

17 18 19

Kenneth Baynes, Habermas (New York: Routledge, 2016), 133. Jürgen Habermas, Between Facts and Norms, 358. Jürgen Habermas, “The European Nation-​State,” in The Inclusion of the Other (Cambridge, MA: The mit Press, 1998), 118.

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Habermas’s discourse theory outlines an understanding of how social spheres should interact to realize deliberative legitimacy. The informal public sphere, outside society’s formal institutions, must formulate public opinion, which then exerts control over the formal public sphere. The public opinion that emerges must shape how formal institutions make, apply, and enforce law. This approach assesses whether the overall system yields legitimate law, developed in response to inclusive, public discursive processes. Not every moment or institution involved in the process must involve calm, face-​to-​face discussion. Still, the overall process can inclusively shape public opinion between equals, work through the relevant considerations, and influence formal institutional decision-​making. For instance, raucous protest may not appear deliberative, but can influence the state to respond to important matters it would otherwise ignore. This idea is exemplified in Habermas’s emphasis on social movements and their role in raising issues for the formal public sphere’s consideration.20 On his view, deliberation is systemic, not isolated in privileged institutional nodes of society. In light of this theory, discourse theorists can rely upon the normativity implicit in everyday life to ask if the promulgation and enforcement of U.S. criminal law occurs in a context that supports democratic legitimacy.21 Drawing on this perspective, I develop a critique of the criminal justice system, spelling out some ways this system—​both its formal institutions and informal social ethos—​conflicts with democratic ideals. 3

The Carceral State and the Carceral Ethos

Discourse theory focuses on repairing the public sphere. While improving democracy may seem unrelated to resisting the oppressive features of the 20 21

Jürgen Habermas, Between Facts and Norms, 382–​83. I follow Habermas in viewing these matters of law and legitimacy as related to, but non-​ identical with, ethical considerations. While Habermas also offers a moral theory of discourse ethics that calls for developing moral judgments about one’s context in dialogue with others, he sees law as having a distinct logic. Unlike ethics, law must be made effective as what Habermas calls a system of action, positing effective norms that citizens are meant to observe. A discourse theory of law is not just about which norms are right and justifiable to all affected, but about whether an actual political community structures itself legitimately. As a result, his theory works to specify the conditions of possibility for a democratic public sphere. This aspect of Habermas’s view enables a distinctively political critique of the criminal law system, which asks whether a context for producing criminal law is adequate or not. See Jürgen Habermas, Between Facts and Norms, 79–​80, 107.

112 Mayer American criminal justice system, such democratization is, in fact, central. This approach provides a way to reckon with the social polarization and political dysfunction that form the background of mass incarceration. Habermas himself briefly hints at this critical potential, noting the punitive consequences of a polarized, unequal system: [The existence of] an underclass produces social tensions that discharge in aimless, self-​destructive revolts and can only be controlled by repressive means, with the result that the construction of prisons and the organization of internal security […] becomes a growth industry. […] This leads finally to a moral erosion of the society, which inevitably undermines the universalistic core of any republican polity.22 America, I will argue, embodies this worrisome dynamic—​and Habermas provides useful tools for considering how to reverse it. Discourse theoretic critique can explore the ways democracy’s universalistic ideals are stunted by mass incarceration. Such an approach can examine the systems of deliberation behind U.S. criminal justice practices and, in turn, how criminal justice practices impact inclusive public deliberation. In this section, I will examine various democratic deficits related to the criminal justice system. I will frame my analysis using the concept of the carceral state, meaning the formal institutions comprising the criminal justice system, and the carceral ethos, meaning the elements of informal, everyday life that support mass incarceration. Philosophers often focus critical attention on formal state institutions, eager to develop principles that will guide their improvement. However, we also need principles meant for evaluating the informal politics that provides the context for formal state institutions. By informal politics, I mean the informal norms, practices, and collective understandings that constitute everyday life.23 While such an ethos is never an uncontested or self-​contained unity, theorists and social scientists can identify characteristic social tendencies and scrutinize them. They can examine the ways in which a political culture falls short of what a flourishing democracy requires. The carceral ethos is embodied in everyday people’s responses to and understandings of crime, as well as the practices and understandings of criminal justice professionals. In addition to reinforcing an unacceptable system

22 23

Jürgen Habermas, “The European Nation-​State,”123. For further discussion of informal politics, see Seth Mayer, “Resolving the Dilemma of Democratic Informal Politics,” Social Theory and Practice 43 (2017): 691–​716.

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of punishment, the carceral ethos impedes the realization of discourse democratic ideals, I will argue. As the carceral state and carceral ethos have emerged, they have fostered a new form of American politics. They have transformed the extent and intensity of punishment, the exercise of state power, the meaning of political legitimacy, the public understanding of citizenship, and the norms shaping citizens’ interactions with the state and each other. They are not just a marginal aspect of American politics but are central elements of it—​and they act as a considerable counterweight to democracy. Examining the carceral state and the carceral ethos will enable me to propose discourse theoretic reforms and alternatives in section iv. 3.1 Formal Institutions: Political Inequality and the Carceral State The carceral state has exacerbated inequalities of political power. For one, the growth of prisons has created powerful interest groups like prison guard unions and private prison corporations, which resist reform.24 And while felon disenfranchisement has declined slightly recently, such laws still exclude significant numbers of Americans from one of the most important citizenship rights.25 Prison gerrymandering affects the political power structure, too. Currently, the census counts prisoners in the communities where they are imprisoned. This policy allows rural, often conservative districts with prisons to increase their political representation by including prisoners in their population, despite the vast majority of states denying prisoners voting rights. The political power of prisoners’ home districts is diluted accordingly. Communities’ census counts and number of political representatives decrease based on their number of incarcerated residents. As many argue, this policy directly conflicts with the “one person, one vote” principle. These formal exclusions, as well as informal barriers to participation, affect the electoral competition for political power. They shift control over criminal justice policy away from already marginalized populations, favoring other groups.26 For discourse democratic theory, these political inequalities raise two central concerns. First, protecting participation rights is necessary for the public opinion formation process that legitimates law.27 If policies remove basic 24 25 26 27

Marie Gottschalk, Caught (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015), 14–​15; see also Angela Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete? (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2003), 84–​104. Marie Gottschalk, Caught, 244–​247. Christina R. Rivers, “Mass Incarceration and the Execution of Black Political Power,” in Minority Voting in the United States, ed. Kyle Kreider and Thomas Baldino (Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2016), 35–​55. Jürgen Habermas, Between Facts and Norms, 123.

114 Mayer rights, as with felon disenfranchisement, or privilege some citizens’ participation over others, as with interest group influence and prison gerrymandering, equal participation is undermined. Second, the deliberative system is supposed to thematize social problems, bringing them to light for formal political institutions to address. If political inequality undermines or weakens communication channels, the system will struggle to address important social issues, particularly affecting those caught up in the criminal justice system. Both concerns, caused by the carceral state, harm democracy. 3.2 Informal Politics: the Carceral Ethos The carceral ethos describes the elements of informal social life that support mass incarceration. Although it is embodied in our social practices and understandings, there are always various informal normative orders of justification in society; various forms of ethos are always competing with one another.28 They are embodied in social practices to differing extents. That means that not everyone must believe in “the carceral ethos” for it to have power, just as racism and sexism can operate in social life, even as many—​even most—​disavow them. What I refer to when describing ethos or informal politics is the content that is significantly embodied in a system of thought and action. The context in which the informal politics of mass incarceration have arisen involve various hierarchies of race, gender, and class, among other things. These forms of subordination and domination are embodied in formal institutions and informal, everyday life; they fundamentally shape the carceral ethos. As I will suggest, drawing on Jonathan Simon, those with higher social status get counted as more genuine citizens; they are viewed as potential victims of crime who must be protected. Those with lower social status are more likely to be categorized as threatening victimizers who should be excluded from citizenship. This classification is often applied to low status individuals after a conviction, but simply being a member of a marginalized group can be enough. Those counted as victimizers or potential victimizers are treated as deserving especially strong forms of blame and are subject to greater risks and harms once designated as victimizers. They experience what some have called a kind of “civil death” and are treated as though they were irredeemable. These social pathologies are all deviations from the ideals of liberal political culture, mutual recognition, and constitutional patriotic solidarity that Habermas defends as necessary for a successful democracy. After outlining the 28 Rainer Forst and Klaus Günther, “Die Herausbildung normativer Ordnungen: Zur Idee eines interdisziplinären Forschungsprogramms,” Die Herausbildung Normativer Ordnungen: Interdisziplinäre Perspektiven (Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 2011), 11–​30.

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carceral ethos that has emerged in American informal politics, I will present a Habermasian alternative. 3.2.1 Security versus Democratic Legitimacy An important element of the carceral ethos involves how public understandings of the exercise of power have changed. Jonathan Simon paints a picture of what he calls “governing through crime.” He suggests the American political ethos has shifted; many view institutions as centrally meant to provide security for potential crime victims. This paradigm contrasts with earlier forms of governance, like those geared toward promoting freed slaves’ rights or protecting industrial workers’ collective power.29 When “governing through crime,” Simon explains, “institutions are using crime to promote governance by legitimizing and/​or providing content for the exercise of power.”30 American political institutions do not just protect people when necessary, but use crime-​related concepts in developing policies throughout government, justifying various measures in security terms. As a result, he suggests that there has been a growth in authoritarianism. Executive power has become closely tied to crime fighting, prosecutors have gained greater discretion (as judges have lost it), and crime-​oriented policies have proliferated. This form of governance concentrates on individual behavior correction, rather than structural transformation aimed at the root of social problems. As Marie Gottschalk points out, when reforms are promoted, they often are “micro-​interventions,” rather than broad systemic reforms.31 Focusing on control and security has enabled exercises of power that, in many instances, conflict with political equality, solidarity, and shared responsibility.32 These crime-​centered governance frameworks diverge from the liberal political culture Habermas defends as the social foundation of democracy. The creeping authoritarianism Simon describes emerges from an ethos that values security over the individual rights and freedoms that form the democratic process’s backbone. The collective demand for justification and accountability from the state is less likely to emerge from this milieu. Unless a solid commitment to popular sovereignty and human rights is embedded in the everyday

29 30 31 32

Jonathan Simon, Governing Through Crime (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 75–​111. Jonathan Simon, Governing Through Crime, 5. Marie Gottschalk, Caught, 18. See Jonathan Simon, Governing Through Crime, 7; and Loïc Wacquant, “Crafting the Neoliberal State: Workfare, Prisonfare, and Social Insecurity,” Sociological Forum 25 (2010): 218.

116 Mayer lifeworld, Habermasian discursive democracy will go unrealized. Those committed to discourse democracy must resist the social ethos that mass incarceration encourages and thrives upon. 3.2.2 Undermining Citizenship Scholars also emphasize that the carceral ethos encourages a transformation of the American understanding of citizenship. Jonathan Simon’s discussion of a shift towards thinking of citizens in terms of victimization through crime marks one of these transformations. Closely connected to it is the corresponding treatment of those deemed perpetrators or potential perpetrators of crime. Amy Lerman and Vesla Weaver detail how the criminal justice system creates a “custodial class,” separated off in what they call, following Habermas, a “custodial lifeworld.”33 Lerman and Weaver explain that the class of people denied full social belonging and citizenship status is not merely those who are or were found guilty of felonies and punished. In addition, the custodial class encompasses suspected criminals, arrestees, and misdemeanants. The category of “suspect” includes those stopped by police, searched by police, or harassed during police sweeps.34 Those who encounter the criminal justice system in these ways often lose rights, have difficulty finding or keeping employment, and more.35 These interactions communicate that they are disempowered with respect to government—​that the state is a hostile force geared toward controlling and dominating those in the custodial class.36 Predictably, this sense of having a lower social status fosters a feeling of political inefficacy and a decline in political participation.37 In sum, the carceral state constitutes a set of Americans as an underclass, cultivating a disempowered civic consciousness in members of that class. It does so through systematic control, domination, and surveillance of this population, which, to emphasize, is often a population defined by race and economic class. The construction of citizenship under the carceral state conflicts with discourse democracy’s aims. As with security-​centered understandings of legitimacy, viewing citizenship through the lens of crime conceives of some as passive victims and others as victimizers. Moreover, this rendering of citizenship

33 34 35 36 37

Amy E. Lerman and Vesla W. Weaver, Arresting Citizenship (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014), 15, 32. Amy E. Lerman and Vesla W. Weaver, Arresting Citizenship, 36–​45. Marie Gottschalk, Caught, 242–​50. Amy E. Lerman and Vesla W. Weaver, Arresting Citizenship, 111. See Amy E. Lerman and Vesla W. Weaver, Arresting Citizenship, 125–​37, and Marie Gottschalk, Caught, 247–​48.

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is filtered through the lenses of race, ethnicity, and class, among other things. This carceral ethos undermines a liberal political culture, insofar as it discourages the sense that individuals’ role is to shape the law to enable democratic autonomy. Instead, this cultural framework divides the social world between those law protects and those law keeps in check. 3.2.3 Blame and “Civil Death” In this polarized, divided context, the conceptions of blame applied to disfavored groups—​including the everyday, informal understandings of it—​feed into mass incarceration. Those on the wrong side of the victim/​victimizer distinction experience a kind of severe downgrading of their social status through their encounters with the criminal justice system. The carceral ethos incorporates a form of personal responsibility that emphasizes blame and resentment. T. M. Scanlon offers a useful gloss of the concept of blame: To blame a person for an action, in my view, is to take that action to indicate something about the person that impairs one’s relationship with him or her; and to understand that relationship in a way that reflects this impairment.38 When relationships are reshaped through blame in our system of punishment, they take the form of what scholars have called a kind of “civil death,” downgrading low-​status individuals even further. What Scanlon terms a kind of “moral retributivism” is implicit in many of these cases, a sense that “when people’s moral deficiencies are great, the proper response on our part is to see even their most basic moral claims on the rest of us as limited and qualified.”39 By stressing extreme forms of condemnation, almost any justification for punishment is afforded extremely heavy weight in the American carceral ethos. Even when deterrence could be best accomplished through leniency, for instance, people reject effective approaches that forgo punishment but involve even slight risks. As Rachel Barkow argues, referencing criminal justice reforms that give prisoners conditional releases, “our political climate does not tolerate risk, no matter what the countervailing benefits.”40 Heather Schoenfeld characterizes this stance as suggesting that “it is better to sacrifice the liberty of a 38 39 40

T. M. Scanlon, Moral Dimensions (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), 122–​23. T. M. Scanlon, Moral Dimensions, 142. Rachel Barkow, Prisoners of Politics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2019), 66.

118 Mayer criminal offender than risk the victimization of just one person.”41 The individual liberty and rights of offenders are devalued to an extreme extent.42 This reaction is enabled by the forms of blame and denial of civic status applied to members of marginalized groups that commit crimes; it is as though anything done to them is permissible. There is a kind of authoritarian impulse here, which clashes with democratic egalitarian ideals.43 4

Towards the Discourse Theoretic Critique of the Carceral State and Carceral Ethos

I have not provided a comprehensive account of all the counter-​democratic elements of the carceral state and its ethos, but instead aim to have outlined their general shape. With this general discussion in mind, discourse theory can point a way forward. It demands we establish the conditions necessary to form deliberative public opinion. The view suggests the carceral state’s failures in this regard undercut fundamental principles of democracy and individual rights. 4.1 Formal Legal Changes There are numerous changes discourse theory would demand, amounting to a call to dismantle the carceral state and enact a new politics of criminal justice. It need not demand the complete abolition of punishment but can call for more than just procedural reforms. Capturing every possible democratizing institutional reform goes beyond the scope of this paper, but I can briefly outline some paradigmatic proposals a discourse theory of democracy would endorse, given that many simply involve reversals of current anti-​democratic policies. Political reforms meant to bring those caught up in the carceral system back into democratic life are necessary.44 Felon disenfranchisement and prison 41

Heather Schoenfeld, Building the Prison State (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018), 20. 42 See also David Garland, Culture of Control (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), 192 (“the liberty interests of the prisoner are set at zero”). 43 Jason Stanley connects fascism and conceptions of crime in How Fascism Works (New York: Random House, 2018), c­ hapter 7. 44 For specific proposals for how to reform the U.S. Sentencing Commission that are consistent with this paper’s approach, see Seth Mayer and F. Italia Patti, “Confronting Political Disagreement About Sentencing: A Deliberative Democratic Framework,” New Criminal Law Review 20 (2017): 616–​663.

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gerrymandering harm a healthy deliberative system and must be eliminated. Both formally deny citizens their rights and systematically distort public opinion. The social and political exclusion caused by mistreatment of members of the custodial class, particularly obstacles for ex-​offenders, are also unacceptable on a Habermasian view, which demands ex-​offenders’ democratic autonomy be preserved.45 For instance, this view supports proposals to ban employers and landlords from discriminating based on individuals’ criminal histories, insofar as that enacts problematic social exclusion. Discriminatory policing that dominates targeted populations must also be eliminated. In addition, tolerating psychologically damaging forms of incarceration and violence in prisons is impermissible on this view, especially given the effects on citizens’ current and future social and political participation. There are further elements of mass incarceration and other forms of control and surveillance—​especially when unequally imposed on particular populations—​which systematically undermine participation. This exclusion pushes issues affecting the custodial class off the agenda, particularly given the carceral state’s previously discussed formal legal exclusions. Working out a discourse democratic critique of mass incarceration would require a broader examination of institutional specifics aimed at transforming systems that create obstacles to democratic autonomy. 4.2 Discourse Democratic Ethos Although the aforementioned legal-​institutional critique is crucial, I am going to spend more time looking at matters of informal politics and ethos, which are less frequently discussed with respect to mass incarceration. The discourse theory approach also calls for broader shifts away from the current, punitive culture, including eliminating the so-​called custodial lifeworld. This theory does not justify such changes via a moral theory of punishment or substantive theory of justice. Rather, Habermas calls for an informal political culture capable of acting as a sensor for social problems and thematizing these issues for the formal political system.46 It is supposed to embody mutual recognition as equals, grounded in solidarity centered on shared constitutional principles. This view does not rule out punishment; it critiques a punishment system that leads to certain social problems (and those most affected by them) being systematically excluded from public discourse. Insofar as the criminal justice

45 46

Jürgen Habermas, Between Facts and Norms, 414–​16. Jürgen Habermas, Between Facts and Norms, 358–​59.

120 Mayer system constitutes a class of people as lower status citizens, it must change to enable a cultural understanding of offenders as fellow citizens, not pariahs. This shift does not require an ethos to broadly adopt any particular understanding of punishment, but it rules out using punishment to manage and isolate marginalized populations. Punishment should promote public discourse, autonomy, and rights—​or at least should not damage their realization. Crucially, this conception of punishment requires correctional institutions to understand their purpose as enabling offenders to reenter society as equal participants in democratic life. The violence, repression, and psychic harms endemic in most prisons are unacceptable if criminal justice is to fit within a democratic system. 4.2.1 Against the Inverted Carceral Ethos Taking this discourse democratic approach to ethos means resisting a common temptation some have in response to mass incarceration: what I will call the “inverted carceral ethos.” This approach takes the harsh, blame-​driven practices that are currently applied to the poor, people of color, immigrants, and other marginalized groups and applies them to high-​status offenders instead. The tools of oppression should be turned against those who benefit from the current state of affairs, the thought goes. There is a long tradition of this sort of move in the United States, arising from a misguided form of egalitarianism in American culture.47 In an egalitarian system, no one should get special treatment based on arbitrary factors. In the inverted carceral ethos, this egalitarian tendency becomes the claim that everyone should receive harsh treatment. It is a troubling impulse, even if it involves a kind of logic, perverse though it might be. If these practices are ineffectual, wasteful, and cruel when applied to disfavored groups, we should expect the same results, in general, when applying them to the privileged. In addition, this kind of inversion often ends up harming the marginalized. Creating harsher punishments for white-​collar criminals can too easily serve as cover for preserving harsh penalties for so-​called “street crime.” And even if these harsh penalties are—​against all odds—​only applied to the privileged, doing so will not necessarily upset the broader status relations that undermine democratic equality. It is easy to visit harsh retributive punishment against lawbreakers amongst the well-​to-​do without undermining forms of anti-​ democratic hierarchy outside the carceral system.

47

James Q. Whitman, Harsh Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).

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4.2.2 A Genuine Discourse Democratic Ethos A transformed, discourse democratic ethos would involve trust, inclusivity, forgiveness, more openness to risks, and a conception of citizenship focused on political inclusion and collective efficacy rather than security. This reconstructed version of informal politics could function as the liberal political culture that Habermas’s view suggests democratic societies must develop—​and which I have argued America lacks. Such a transformation would not simply be about rethinking who counts as a threat but building an ethos that wasn’t fundamentally grounded on defense against threats to potential victims. To replace the focus on victimhood and threat, I propose several shifts that would be required to form a new democratic ethos. First, there needs to be stronger forms of trust, rather than fear, in the background of the criminal justice system’s decision-​making processes. Second, a form of life that was more consistent with democracy could reject harsh blame and learn from restorative justice practices, aiming for reintegration into the political community in the aftermath of harm and wrongdoing. To avoid forms of blame that discount some as irredeemable, condemning them to civil death, a background infrastructure of renewed trust will be crucial. To trust means making oneself vulnerable to others and being ready to hold them accountable if they let one down.48 Our system, I have argued, is less about mutual accountability aimed at restoring egalitarian social relationships of mutual recognition than it is about enacting a harsh, fear-​driven separation between potential victims and their victimizers. It is as though, for some, their actions condemn them to a permanent loss of social trust—​we refuse to accept any risk that they might make a misstep or reoffend. They are a blamed in a way that excludes them from social life. The question is what an ethos of trust that lacked such harshness would look like. We should not, I believe, understand trust-​building as purely a matter of people deciding to trust one another, as merely an attitudinal shift. Although some level of voluntarist trusting may be necessary, there are circumstances where it is not reasonable to expect interpersonal trust. It is, in fact, unreasonable to trust in many situations. One route to greater trust is for a sufficient number of people in a society to be or become trustworthy.49 A more likely route to an ethos that involves trust is the establishment of institutions that 48 49

Trust involves reference to personhood; it entails Strawsonian reactive attitudes when the person we depend upon meets (or fails to meet) our expectations. See Richard Holton, “Deciding to Trust, Coming to Believe,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 72 (1994): 63–​76. For an interesting discussion of the interpersonal dynamics of trust, see Philip Pettit, “The Cunning of Trust,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 24 (1995): 202–​225.

122 Mayer make it less of an issue if there are untrustworthy people around.50 Redesigned streetscapes and stores offer hope in this regard, as do reinvigorated community organizations and social welfare institutions that promise to reduce wrongdoing. Willingness to blame others and treat them as persona non grata is sometimes the result of committed prejudice, which may demand personal transformation or social institutions that constrain the effects of such prejudice. Insofar as distrust results from a sense of insecurity—​justified or not—​ institutions that encourage interactions that recognize people’s equal status can help overcome the tendency to harshly blame or fear others. Institutional change must reciprocally drive change in ethos. The affirmation of equal status should be aimed at fostering a democratic form of life where citizenship is reconceived as involving equal participation, rather than protection from victimization. The democratic focus of my inquiry here means I am not concerned with whether individuals in society are connected by friendship or the bonds of culture—​the issue is whether they relate as free and equal citizens. Habermas’s ideal of constitutional patriotism is precisely about people mutually recognizing one another as such—​and forming solidarity around a shared legal project.51 The relationships between people cannot be so affected by blame that they no longer afford one another the civic status necessary for democracy to function. While there is room for some distrust in a democratic ethos, it must not be so pervasive and extreme that people are considered unworthy or incapable of participation in public life on an equal basis with others. As things stand, the forms of blame and distrust the carceral ethos involves are incompatible with the equal democratic status and constitutional patriotic solidarity that discourse democracy calls for. Not only are incarcerated people cut off from social participation to an intense extent, but those released from prison are frequently blocked from taking part in core elements of social, economic, and political life. Instead of segregating offenders or treating them as enemies, shared institutions must foster respect and trust between individuals. Through political participation and other social interactions such institutions support, constitutional patriotism can potentially emerge. Such solidarity contrasts with the carceral ethos’s status quo; its realization would mean that social expectations about punishment would shift toward milder responses and forms of blame. Reintegration through institutionalized and non-​institutionalized discourse rather than unforgiving punishment fits 50 Allegra McLeod, “Prison Abolition and Grounded Justice,” ucla Law Review 62 (2015): 1156–​1239. 51 Jürgen Habermas, “The European Nation-​State.”

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much better with such constitutional patriotism. The predominant ethos in American society must eschew the establishment of firm, quasi-​permanent divisions between citizens, which treat some as though they are permanently denied social trust and participation rights. There must be a common understanding that all must be included in social and political life. In this context, constitutional patriotism means not giving up on other citizens because they have done wrong. Instead, it means committing to using communicative discourse and shared institutions to reduce wrongdoing and reintegrate offenders and victims into the political community. 5

Conclusion

The evidence suggests that incarceration and social control on the scale of the carceral state are incompatible with equal citizenship and democratic legitimacy. As such, America must reduce its massive population of incarcerated people and eliminate punishment’s exclusionary effects so the public sphere can operate within the deliberative system effectively. I have outlined the shape a discourse theoretic critique would take without spelling it out completely or bringing it into conversation with other relevant approaches. And there are many other ways to analyze American criminal law from a philosophical perspective. For one, there are competing democratic critiques of the criminal justice system I have not responded to here.52 There are also morality or justice-​centered theories of criminal law and punishment that have dominated analytic philosophical discussions of these issues.53 Additionally, this project can be brought into further conversation with less normatively grounded critical theories like Michel Foucault’s and Angela Davis’s. There may be common ground between discourse theory and these other approaches, as well as disagreements. Explaining my view’s relationship to these other approaches remains to be done, but my discussion here aims to enable further discussion. 52

53

See, for example, R.A. Duff, Punishment, Communication, Community (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001) and Joshua Kleinfeld, “Reconstructivism: The Place of Criminal Law in Ethical Life,” Harvard Law Review 129 (2016): 1485–​1565. For a response to some of these views, see Seth Mayer, “Mass Deliberative Democracy and Criminal Justice Reform: Beyond Democratic Communitarian Localism,” Philosophy in the Contemporary World 27 (2021): 68–​102. For discussion of such moral approaches, see Seth Mayer and F. Italia Patti, “Confronting Political Disagreement About Sentencing: A Deliberative Democratic Framework,” New Criminal Law Review 20 (2017): 616–​663.

124 Mayer This discourse theoretic approach offers a democratic lens for examining the manifold problems brought on by the American criminal justice system in a time of polarization—​both political and economic. This approach suggests we must consider what a deliberatively structured and legitimate police force might look like, how criminal law procedures could improve, how parole policy should work, and more. There is much to be done in critically examining how criminal justice might fit into a deliberative democratic public sphere and how our current practices must change.

References

Altman, Alex. “Criminal Justice Reform is Becoming Washington’s Bipartisan Cause.” Time, February 19, 2015. http://​time​.com​/3714​876​/crimi​nal​-just​ice​-ref​orm​-is​-becom​ ing​-Wash​ingt​ons​-bip​arti​san​-cause​/​. Barkow, Rachel. Prisoners of Politics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2019. Baynes, Kenneth. Habermas. New York: Routledge, 2016. Davis, Angela. Are Prisons Obsolete?. New York: Seven Stories Press, 2003. de Haan, Willem. The Politics of Redress: Crime, Punishment, and Penal Abolition. London: Unwin Hyman, 1990. Duff, R. A. Punishment, Communication, Community. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Dzur, Albert W. Punishment, Participatory Democracy, and the Jury. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Dzur, Albert W., and Rekha Mirchandani. “Punishment and Democracy: The Role of Public Deliberation.” Punishment and Society 9 (2007): 151–​75. Forst, Rainer and Klaus Günther. “Die Herausbildung normativer Ordnungen: Zur Idee eines interdisziplinären Forschungsprogramms.” In Die Herausbildung Normativer Ordnungen: Interdisziplinäre Perspektiven, 11–​30. Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, 2011. Garland, David. The Culture of Control. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001. Gibbons, John J., and Nicholas de B. Katzenbach, et al. Confronting Confinement. New York: Vera Institute of Justice, 2006. Gottschalk, Marie. Caught. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015. Gross, Samuel. “How Many False Convictions Are There? How Many Exonerations Are There?” In Wrongful Convictions and Miscarriages of Justice, eds. C. Ronald Huff and Martin Killias, 45–​59. New York: Routledge, 2013. Gross, Samuel, et al. “Rate of False Conviction of Criminal Defendants Who are Sentenced to Death.” pnas 111 (2014): 7230–​35. Guenther, Lisa. Solitary Death. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013. Habermas, Jürgen. Between Facts and Norms. Cambridge, MA: The mit Press, 1996.

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Habermas, Jürgen. “The European Nation-​State.” In The Inclusion of the Other, 105–​127. Cambridge, MA: The mit Press, 1998. Henrichson, Christian, and Ruth Delaney. The Price of Prisons: What Incarceration Costs Taxpayers. New York: Vera Institute of Justice, 2012. Holton, Richard. “Deciding to Trust, Coming to Believe.” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 72 (1994): 63–​76. Horkheimer, Max. “Postscript.” In Critical Theory: Selected Essays, 244–​ 52. New York: Continuum, 2002. Hulse, Carl. “Unlikely Cause Unites the Left and the Right: Justice Reform.” The New York Times, February 18, 2015. http://​www​.nyti​mes​.com​/2015​/02​/19​/us​/polit​ ics​/unlik​ely​-cause​-uni​tes​-the​-left​-and​-the​-right​-just​ice​-ref​orm​.html?​_r=​o​. Kleinfeld, Joshua. “Reconstructivism: The Place of Criminal Law in Ethical Life.” Harvard Law Review 129 (2016): 1485–​1565. Lerman, Amy E., and Vesla W. Weaver. Arresting Citizenship. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014. Levin, Benjamin. “The Consensus Myth in Criminal Justice Reform.” Michigan Law Review 117 (2018): 259–​318. Mayer, Seth. “Resolving the Dilemma of Democratic Informal Politics.” Social Theory and Practice 43 (2017): 691–​716. Mayer, Seth. “Mass Deliberative Democracy and Criminal Justice Reform: Beyond Democratic Communitarian Localism.” Philosophy in the Contemporary World 27 (2021): 68–​102. Mayer, Seth, and F. Italia Patti. “Beyond the Numbers: Toward a Moral Vision for Criminal Justice Reform.” Drake Law Review Discourse (2015): 101–​110. Mayer, Seth, and F. Italia Patti. “Confronting Political Disagreement About Sentencing: A Deliberative Democratic Framework.” New Criminal Law Review 20 (2017): 616–​663. McLeod, Allegra. “Prison Abolition and Grounded Justice.” ucla Law Review 62 (2015): 1156–​1239. Pettit, Philip. “The Cunning of Trust.” Philosophy and Public Affairs 24 (1995): 202–​225. Pfaff, John. Locked In: The True Causes of Mass Incarceration and How to Achieve Real Reform. New York: Basic Books, 2017. Rivers, Christina R. “Mass Incarceration and the Execution of Black Political Power.” In Minority Voting in the United States, eds. Kyle Kreider and Thomas Baldino, 35–​55. Santa Barbara: Praeger, 2016. Roeder, Oliver, et al. What Caused the Crime Decline? New York: Brennan Center for Justice, 2015. Sawyer, Wendy and Peter Wagner. “Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2020.” Prison Policy Initiative, Accessed March 29, 2020, https://​www​.priso​npol​icy​.org​/repo​ rts​/pie2​020​.html​. Scanlon, T. M. Moral Dimensions. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008.

126 Mayer Schoenfeld, Heather. Building the Prison State. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018. Simon, Jonathan. Governing Through Crime. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Stanley, Jason. How Fascism Works. New York: Random House, 2018. Wacquant, Loïc. Punishing the Poor. Durham: Duke University Press, 2009. Wacquant, Loïc. “Crafting the Neoliberal State: Workfare, Prisonfare, and Social Insecurity.” Sociological Forum 25 (2010): 197–​220. Western, Bruce Punishment and Inequality in America. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2006. Whitman, James Q. Harsh Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.

­c hapter 6

Security, Education, Public Opinion, and Truth

Invoking Mill’s Utilitarianism as a Guide to Sustainable Peacemaking in a Fragmented and Frightened World Philip A. Stauffer Todd 1

Introduction

In a time of divisive rhetoric, tribal echo chambers, propaganda, and extremism, how does an ethical citizen reconcile Enlightenment ideals of free speech and thought with the realities of daily life in a diverse and fragmented community? However increasingly difficult, comprehensive public conversation, focused on crucial issues of safety and sustainability, remains vital to the security and survival of an informed democracy. A close reading of John Stuart Mill’s classic Utilitarianism reveals that, as he responded to the critics of his day, he outlined a communitarian, justice-​based utilitarian security that can answer some of today’s challenges to open communication, mutual beneficence, and peaceful co-​existence. Though long an easy target for critics, Mill scholars argue that the bumper-​ sticker reduction of his philosophy into a cold formula of the “greatest good for the greatest number” is both inaccurate and misleading. Beginning with the 2006 bicentennial of his birth, and continuing past the 2013 sesquicentennial of Utilitarianism, new invocations of Mill’s thought reveal complex, deep, and nuanced approaches to reasoned conflict resolution. A new close reading of Utilitarianism outlines a Millian security-​based guide to more productive engagement of fellow citizens in the public sphere in pursuit of peaceful, mutual security –​what Mill called “the claim we have on our fellow-​creatures to join in making safe for us the very groundwork of our existence” (1863, 67). Ultimately, five Millian Security Principles, and 12 associated Security Guiding Questions, emerge as suggestions for opening a fruitful, utilitarian dialogue on fraught issues of politics, polarity, and peace.

© Philip A. Stauffer Todd, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004541573_008

128 Todd 2

Mill Still Speaks to Freedom, Justice, and Community

In a time of increasingly poisonous national politics, widening tribal polarity, and fragmenting community peace, what sense does it make to appeal to reason, discourse, and compromise? Instead, anger is the dominant response, while “American history is punctuated by episodes in which aggrieved parties have settled their differences not through conversation, but with guns” (Duhigg 2019, para. 19). Perennially, yes: “Gentlemen may cry, peace, peace –​ but there is no peace” cried Patrick Henry in 1775 (Wirt 1817, 123), invoking the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah (8:15; 14:19); today’s news media outlets bombard us with images of protesters chanting “No justice, no peace!” (Wordsworth 2014), challenging institutional injustices (Baradaran 2020) while countervailing groups are “really taking advantage of the unrest in American society right now” (Nessel, in Cornish 2020), driving “record-​breaking firearm sales over the summer” (Miller-​Idriss, in Cornish 2020) to such an extent that retailers pull weapons from the shelves in fear of “civil unrest” (Nassauer 2020) and polarization scholars predict episodes of open violence (Miller-​Idriss 2020). As during the disintegration of the Weimar Republic, people are tired of reason, tired of thought and reflection. They ask, “what has reason done in the last few years, what good have insights and knowledge done us?” (Toller 1991). Meanwhile, the Fourth Estate continues its profitable emotional appeal by combining societal “values and journalistic presentations to constitute a discourse of fear” (Altheide et al. 2001, 306). The end result: “Fear is one of the few perspectives that citizens share today” (Altheide 2002, 3). Ultimately, the “essence of the U.S. Constitution is to require compromise as a condition of governing. In rejecting compromise, Americans are rejecting governance” (Rauch 2019). With even “truth” open to debate (Anderson 2017), why appeal to reason? Worse, why appeal to such a perennially polarizing philosophy as utilitarianism, and to such a debated thinker as Mill? Critics of both the tradition and Mill’s 1863 defense of it continue to argue that it is both “on the one hand, overly demanding, and, on the other hand, that it is not demanding enough” (Alexander and Moore 2017; Williams 1963). In the end, Mill fails to build the unified social theory he had promised to articulate (Clark and Elliott 2001, 468). Many philosophers agree: “Although hugely influential, this solution is now usually considered inadequate” (Goldstone 2010, 79). Still, “[u]‌tilitarian ethics is enormously influential in North American society,” (Christians 2007, 113). As “one of the most commonly accepted ethical theories in the Anglo-​Saxon world” (Crane and Matten 2007, 98), it has, “in historical context … exerted considerable … influence on the scope of moral concern, the design of public institutions, the responsibilities of government, and the

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interests and rights of the governed” (Brink 2018); today, it remains “as alive as ever” (Shaw 2006, 201). “Utilitarian theories still define one of our principal options in moral philosophy and Mill remains a major figure in the utilitarian tradition” (Sumner 1979, 99). Recent “Mill scholarship is voluminous” (Brink 2018). “The fact that an ethical criterion is sometimes, or even often, difficult to apply does not show that it is incorrect” (Shaw 2014, 310–​311); “the past thirty years” witnessed an emerging “revisionist interpretation of Mill” (Clark and Elliott, 467). Subsequent scholars have used this new understanding to re-​ examine Mill’s conception of justice regarding peacemaking on issues “such as welfare, education, voting rights, property rights, taxation, government intervention, and the future of capitalism” (468). Finally, “we should not fail to give him due credit for his work on the issues of women’s rights and the rights of the poor and minorities” (Ahn 2011, 86) –​especially as these rising voices are accused of polarization. 2.1 Mill, Truth, and the Common Good One reason to reconsider Mill’s contributions to the debate over the greater good is that he himself was no stranger to controversy: He worked in highly contentious times yet waded right into numerous contemporary debates over public policy and the good. His essays addressed such turbulent arguments as wartime spending (1824), taxation (1832), diplomacy and sovereignty (1837, 1859b), conscientious objection (1847) and military conscription (1849), personal and corporate self-​defense (1834, 1837, 1862b), minority rights and free speech (1850, 1859a), opposition to slavery (1859b, 1862a, 1862c), the U.S. Civil War (1862a), protection against violence (1862b), women’s rights (1869), international treaties and their obligations (1870), and religious freedom and tolerance (1874). Sound familiar? Mill sounds right at home in today’s increasingly polarized political climate, where such strife means the center shrinks (Nivola & Brady 2006; Teixeira 2008) and may not hold (Abramowitz 2010, 2019), smothering citizens under a deepening “cultural despair” (Hedges 2020) and driving them into warring tribes of “poisoned solidarity” (Lancaster 2011) where community is defined as being against someone else. Mill’s engagement with difficult discourse is a second reason to reconsider his work; a third is his stubborn optimistic faith in eventual truth to be discovered and defined, a greater good to all that such truth would provide, and a widening community to rally around it. Despite “the little progress which has been made in the decision of the controversy respecting the criterion of right and wrong,” he observed, utilitarian “happiness is a most … predominant consideration in many of the details of morals” –​and, he believed, “the very imperfect notion ordinarily formed of its

130 Todd meaning, is the chief obstacle which impedes its reception” (1863, 1–​6). Several “imperfect notions” of Mill’s utilitarianism persist today. 2.2 Mill, Politics, and Freedom Mill’s first important contribution to ethics was his defense in 1859 of personal freedom, which he ended with a discussion of the potential for harm that freedom, by necessity, entailed (Reese 1991; Shaw 1999). Yet this harm is tolerable in the larger marketplace of ideas he sees as a means to ensure freedom, flourishing, and peace: “A plurality of beliefs and opinions, Mill famously argues in On Liberty, is essential to both social and individual moral progress” (Smits 2004, 298). Here, Mill champions the minority voice –​not as a source of division, but as necessary to the mutual flourishing of the whole community: “If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind,” he famously asserted (1859a). Yet this is not a libertarian liberty: for Mill, the point of utilitarian free expression is to speak truth. A lie, he insists, will “deprive mankind of the good, and inflict upon them the evil, involved in the greater or lesser reliance which they can place in each other’s word, [and] acts the part of one of their worst enemies” (1863, 27–​28). In fact, “any, even unintentional, deviation from truth, does that much towards weakening the trustworthiness of human assertion, which is not only the principal support of all present social well-​being, but the insufficiency of which does more than any one thing that can be named to keep back civilisation, virtue, everything on which human happiness on the largest scale depends.” Mill would soundly reject the unjust consequentialism that drives today’s cynical political hyperbole and hypocrisy: Instead, “if the principle of utility is good for anything, it must be good for weighing these conflicting utilities against one another” (1863, 28). Here, the ideal utilitarian role of politics is to allow for personal and corporate polarity, but to also keep the peace: “In defending and circumscribing the right to liberty, Mill implicitly develops a view of the function of the state; in brief, that the end of the state is to maximize the goods of true knowledge, rational belief, self-​direction, self-​perfection, moral character and responsibility, happiness and progress” (McCloskey 1963, 144). Today, “On Liberty … is justly esteemed not only for the cogency of its arguments for social freedom but also for the profundity and eloquence of its expression of the faith in humanity upon which a large part of the case for social freedom ultimately rests” (Ladenson 1977, 180). In Utilitarianism, Mill worked to further unify his ideals of utility and liberty (Gray 2000; Monro 1979; Stegenga 1973). “Mill consistently points out that both

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the romantics and the ancients advocate the cultivation of qualities that foster human agency, and he persistently develops arguments from both schools in the process of reforming English liberalism” (Devigne 2006, 103); certainly, “he is the critical transitional figure between the ideas of the liberalism of limited government and the values of the liberalism of the active public-​welfare state” (Kors 2011, 1). For Mill, this means that preserving the peace may be one of the few permissible limits to individual liberty, because it represents the larger happiness: “The only self-​renunciation which [liberty] applauds, is devotion to the happiness, or to some of the means of happiness, of others; either of mankind collectively, or of individuals within the limits imposed by the collective interests of mankind” (1863, 20–​21). At the same time, a Millian “Liberal Utilitarianism” may be seen as a series of vectors (Riley 1988, 1996b), in which both freedom of thought (Skorupski) as well as the “Harm Principle” work to limit an overreaching state paternalism (Skorupski; Villa 2017) –​and to preserve the peace from the tyranny of state-​actor harms, no matter how peace-​ oriented they may seem. 2.3 Mill, Polarity, and Justice Mill’s “original work on the ‘greatest happiness principle’ emphasizes something much more nuanced than contemporary interpretations of his theory” (Lindebaum and Raftopoulou 2017, 814; Crane and Matten 2007), and recent scholarship points to a more robust articulation of his consideration of utilitarian justice, based on truth, in community. Key to maintaining peace is to ensure justice for all, lest injustice breed polarity –​and “Mill was the one great utilitarian theorist to confront the seeming conflict between justice and utility and to sketch a utilitarian approach to justice” (Lyons 1994, 13; Berger 1979; Elliott 2007). Departing from his forebears, “Mill rejected the traditional utilitarian formula of ‘the greatest happiness of the greatest number’ … concerned that ‘harm to others’ could be taken too broadly” (Kors 2011, 2). To address one perennial criticism of a purely hedonistic ethic, “unjust pleasures do not count in the social welfare function” (Nussbaum 2008, S97); indeed: “nine sadists cannot torture one victim for maximum pleasure!” (Foreman 2016, 81). Therefore, after Mill, utilitarians assume a “duty to be just” (Harrison 1952), and “utilitarians were more sensitive to distributive justice issues” (Treviño, Weaver and Reynolds 2006, 957). Ultimately, Utilitarianism’s “goal is to justify the utilitarian principle as the foundation of morals” (Schefczyk n.d., 1). And in his lengthy explication of his philosophy, Mill outlined five areas of potential injustice to be addressed in utilitarian fashion: legal rights, moral rights, just deserts, fidelity, and impartiality (Elliott 2007).

132 Todd Ethics scholars continue to apply Millian justice concepts to a wide range of issues: “This revisionist interpretation of Mill is advanced by an understanding of his theory of justice and its role in shaping his policy positions on issues such as welfare, education, voting rights, property rights, taxation, government intervention, and the future of capitalism” (Clark & Elliott 2001, 467; Rawls 1971; Skorupski 2006). These refinements informed various applications of utilitarian thought to areas such as education (Kitcher 2010; Verburg 2006), criminal justice (Brandt 1959); criminal law (Bykvist 2014; Martinelli 2014), leadership (Lindebaum & Raftopoulou 2107); economic justice (Schefczyk 2014), sustainable development (O’Connor 1997), resolving capitalism and socialism (Riley 1996a); business ethics (Gustafson, 2103; Meinster 2008; Crane and Matten 2007), mass media ethics (Peck 2006; Elliott 2007; Foreman 2016), financial services confidentiality (Nixon 1994), economic and political policy (Bykvist 2014), health care policy (Gandjour and Lauterbach 2003), bioethics (Callahan 2003; Singer 1981), institutional justice (Bailey 1997), and climate change (Mulgan 2015). As with his conception of balancing free speech with peace, Mill balanced the right to protest with the right of citizens to be free from violence by appeals to justice. “As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever-​ renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need be, to do battle for the one against the other” (1862, 33). And, while it was Mill’s “belief that the use of reason can settle fundamental social conflicts,” (Gray 1988, 149), “there are numerous examples of his support for the use of violence” by the state –​and even by non-​state actors in protest –​but only when justified by utility (Williams 1989, 102). For Mill, political violence may only be justified when employed for a just cause, and with a reasonable chance of success (Shaw 2014, 306). In Utilitarianism, justice balances “a mixture of … an instinct for self-​protection and revenge and a concern for the general utility” (Anderson 1991, 23) and its peace. 2.4 Mill, Peace, and Community For Mill, then, a truth-​seeking justice undergirds community peace. “I must again repeat, what the assailants of utilitarianism seldom have the justice to acknowledge, that the happiness which forms the utilitarian standard of what is right in conduct, is not the agent’s own happiness, but that of all concerned,” wrote Mill in defining and defending his community-​based conception of utilitarian justice (1863, p. 21). “As between his own happiness and that of others, utilitarianism requires him to be as strictly impartial as a disinterested and benevolent spectator.” At least one such critic, John Rawls, did note that utilitarianism could be seen as implying elements of both justice and communitarian

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values (Rawls 1971). “For example, one obvious [utilitarian] reason for building a strong welfare state was that it actively promotes the well-​being of the citizens” (Bykvist 2014, 103). Recent Millian scholarship insists, in fact, that “utility is not an excuse for unethical behavior … Ultimately, using Mill’s theory correctly means responsibly serving the public” (Peck, 211–​212) in a way that maximizes good in community, because “Mill requires calculating what is truly good for the whole community” (Elliott, 100) –​in the service of greater utility. To this end, Mill’s early utilitarianism, as outlined in On Liberty, sought a wider and better greater good: “I regard utility as the ultimate appeal on all ethical questions; but it must be utility in the largest sense, grounded on the permanent interests of man as a progressive being” (1859a, 224). Presciently, this also meant a greater tolerance for those outside the-​traditional definitions of community: “Mill was also concerned with … the political representation of minorities –​whose interests could not adequately be represented by others, no matter how sympathetic” (Smits, 323; Ahn 2011). To further protect the peace while preserving individual flourishing, Utilitarianism enlarged the scope of the ideal good by “maximizing the aggregate” (Shaver 2004, 250; Fehige and Frank 2010) so that these benefits could be “secured to all mankind” (Mill 1863, 14). In his attempt to extol “especially those who have also cultivated a fellow-​feeling with the collective interests of mankind” (17), Mill’s revised definition of happiness makes appeals to benevolence (Harsanyi 1982; Smart and Williams 1973) –​and even virtue (Jamieson 2007; Slote 1988). This represents Mill’s extension of happiness as not only self-​ realization (Skorupski 2006) through self-​improvement (Horner 2015), but also an inclusion of others as more than just means to ends (Cohen-​Almagor 2009). As reconsidered in terms of truth, justice, and community, utilitarianism continues to find applications in the public sphere (Thomson 1993, 145). Acknowledged or not, it often appears in everyday ethical calculations in business, politics, and civics. “Its claim that our fundamental obligation is to promote a balance of good over evil is plausible, the theory admits of relatively clear formulations, and it continues to have its adherents” (Wierenga 1984, 311). As it has evolved, “the doctrine has the advantage of proximity to real human interests … real preferences of real persons” (Bailey, 9–​10). Whenever “questions of this sort … are not settled by reason: they are settled by prejudices and sentiments or by emotion” (Clarence Darrow 1922, in Coyne and Entzeroth 2006, 3); instead, utilitarianism offers the fearful and angry an impartial, sympathetic, and rational approach (Hare 1981; Harsanyi 1953, 1955; Bykvist 2014), finding new applications in social considerations of rationality (Bailey 1998) and political education (Villa 2017).

134 Todd 2.5 A Millian Security Approach to Politics, Polarity, and Peace While the literature reflects ongoing adaptations of Mill’s utilitarianism and its descendants to myriad ethical issues, and scholars have especially focused on elements of justice and community in his writings, his identification of security as the ultimate good to be promoted has apparently gone unnoticed. However, as Mill concludes his discussion of justice, he insists: The interest involved is that of security, the most vital of all interests. All other earthly benefits are needed by one person, not needed by another; and many of them can, if necessary, be cheerfully foregone, or replaced by something else; but security no human being can possibly do without; on it we depend for all our immunity from evil, and for the whole value of all and every good, beyond the passing moment. 1863, 66–​67

Upon reflection, a great deal of public discourse over politics, polarity, and peace echoes Mill’s observation that no one “can possibly do without” vital security: This “most vital of interests” dominates our political history, from the Constitution’s call “for the common defense” (The Constitution 2016) to fdr’s right of freedom from fear (Donovan 1966). Writing 80 years after Mill, Maslow (1942, 1943; Maslow, Hirsch, Stein and Honigmann 1945) affirmed the primacy of safety by placing it second only to immediate physiological needs in his hierarchy of motivators. “Security is at the base of the hierarchy of needs; it must be funded sufficiently regardless of the size of the economy” (Blume 2019, 1). Unfortunately, the instinctual response to perceived threats to security is too often manipulated for political or polarizing ends, instead of peacemaking: Fearmongering abounds, as “everything is described as a maximum existential threat” (Brooks 2016, A27) –​and a deadly threat “warms the mind” (Boswell 1921, 229). These false fears further polarize society along certain lines: Sociologists describe “the mutually reinforcing and interactive set of race, class, and gender forces … creating … and institutionalizing discrimination” (Feagin and Feagin 2007, 42; Abramowitz 2019) and “the dangerous divisions of race and class that rend our society … At stake is … the very soul of the nation” (Steinberg 2001, 302). A Millian approach to security, however, instead offers the disinterested, ethical citizen an opportunity to consider perceived threats to security and proposed responses in ways that can maximize utility for all concerned. By focusing on Mill’s definition of security, and its rights-​based elements of justice anchored in the greater good for the larger community, options to preserve the peace and reduce polarization may be explored.

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Applying Mill’s security lens, my constant-​ comparison reading of Utilitarianism informs five new Millian Security Principles: First, Millian security protects against a vital, existential threat, whose existence is truthfully established. This guides the citizen to candidly address prospective, tangible threats and realistic outcomes while filtering out fear-​based appeals. Second, Millian security preserves both immediate safety and future stability for all concerned by addressing specific threats to immediate as well as to ongoing security. Third, Millian security promotes mutual justice –​the “justice of self-​ defense” (Mill 1863, 68) through his rights-​based approach. Fourth, Millian security produces a mutual, secure community, which includes “our fellow-​ creatures” (67) and a sustainable “general good” (64) for everyone involved. Fifth, and finally, Millian security practices deliberately, carefully considered utility in its decisions, with specific utilitarian calculi on good, harm, and utility. Ultimately, these five principles in turn suggest 12 Security Guiding Questions. 3

Millian Security Principle 1: Threat: Security Protects against a Vital, Existential Threat

Based on this literature review, and my re-​reading of Mill’s Utilitarianism, I propose that, first, Millian peacemaking discourse should focus on security as protection against a vital, existential threat. For Mill, a true security, “the most vital of all interests,” protects against “a violation of a right,” a definite threat to “the very groundwork of our existence” (1863, 66–​67). Citizen inquiry focused through this principle should include questions about the specific nature of the perceived security threat in this particular situation, the identification of whose specific security may be threatened by this particular action, and the identification of who, specifically, may be threatening anyone’s security in this particular situation. This principle addresses the situation at hand, or nearly at hand, and seeks specific identities of perceived harms, harmed, and harmful actors. Such an approach is invaluable in evaluating the legitimacy of today’s political hyperbole –​or social-​media disinformation. Further, such inquiry could be profitably focused on any or all of Elliott’s five Millian principles of justice: legal rights, moral rights, just deserts, promise keeping, and impartial treatment (2007), to help separate substance from slander. Finally, it could easily include consideration of any or all of Peck’s three considerations of balancing competing values, differentiating quality of actions, and the goals of public service through utility (2006). Finally, grounded in Mill’s definition of security, I derive from this first principle at least these three Security Guiding Questions, which can focus peaceful public deliberation:

136 Todd 1.

What is the specific nature of the perceived security threat in this particular action? 2. Whose specific security is actually being threatened by this particular action? 3. Who, specifically, is threatening anyone’s security in this particular instance? These three questions provide a starting point for issue identification and clarification. 4

Millian Security Principle 2: Safety & Stability: Security Preserves Safety and Stability

Second, Millian peacemaking discourse should focus on the idea that security preserves both immediate safety and long-​term future stability. For Mill, a true and lasting security is one that preserves both the present safety, “all our immunity from evil,” as well as an ongoing and enduring future stability, “the whole value of every good … beyond the passing moment” (67). A Millian-​focused citizen’s response to a perceived threat to security, then, would interrogate both the nature and duration of that perceived threat, as well as the long-​term outcome(s) of any proposed defensive response. This principle addresses the proposed response to the threat, not the threat itself, and seeks specific mitigations of potential harms, on behalf of the potentially harmed, through immunity from potentially harmful actors. This investigative stance should generate specific questions about the propriety and utility of proposed responses to the identified threat on behalf of the identified at-​risk parties and the identified risk creators in this situation. Included among such questions should be inquiries about how a proposed response would specifically preserve the community’s present safety, as well as how it would preserve its enduring stability. Further, it could invoke any of Elliott’s principles of Millian justice (2007), as well as Peck’s considerations of balancing competing values, and public service (2006). Finally, grounded in Mill’s definition of security as a preservation of both present safety and future stability, and further informed by recent scholarship, I operationalize this second principle as suggesting at least these two Security Guiding Questions to focus peaceful public deliberation that seeks mutually beneficial outcomes: 4. How would this proposed response specifically preserve anyone’s present safety? 5. How would this proposed response specifically preserve anyone’s enduring stability?

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Millian Security Principle 3: Justice: Security Promotes Justice

Third, Millian peacemaking discourse should focus on the foundational rights-​ based argument that security promotes justice, not only during and after any personal or political action, but, most importantly, before. For Mill, a truly moral security promotes justice: both in pursuit of present safety to deter or “repel” unjust harm, as well as in service of future stability to “retaliate /​punish” for “a violation” (62–​63; 66). Mill’s conception of security emerges from his three-​part utilitarian construction of justice: first, the identification of “a violation of a right” (66); second, the identification of some “person who is wronged” (61); and third, a “desire to punish a person who has done harm” (62). Therefore, a Millian test of any security claim would seek to clearly identify its injustice(s), victim(s), and perpetrator(s). This principle addresses the various legal, moral, and ethical rights invoked in a proposed political response to the threat, and seeks equitable justice for all involved. This begins with questions related to claims of injustices that threaten security, as well as questions about the nature of the eventual goal of justice to be pursued by a proposed response –​rather than a fear-​driven, short-​term solution. Finally, grounded in Mill’s definition of security as promoting justice, I operationalize this third principle as suggesting at least these two Security Guiding Questions for discourse: 6. How would this response specifically promote justice for anyone’s present safety? 7. How would this proposed response specifically promote justice for anyone’s enduring stability? 6

Millian Security Principle 4: Community: Security Produces Community

Fourth, Millian peacemaking discourse should focus on his call to community –​ a visceral “collective idea of his tribe, his country, or mankind, in such a manner that any act hurtful to them, raises his instinct of sympathy, and urges him to resist” (63). Indeed, for Mill, a truly useful security produces community: in seeking both the present safety of “our fellow-​creatures” (61, 67) and in seeking a future stability of “the general good” (63–​64) for all involved parties –​including the threatening party, as implied by Millian justice. This principle should inspire questions about the present and future well-​being of all involved, especially asking how any proposed political response would specifically promote

138 Todd the present safety of all involved parties, as well as how any proposed response would specifically promote an enduring future stability of all involved parties. As justice is “the claim we have on our fellow-​creatures to join in making safe for us the very groundwork of our existence” (67), Mill observes a threat-​ response “unity with our fellow” (33) that “urges [us] to resist … It is natural to resent, and to repel or retaliate, any harm done … against ourselves, or against those with whom we sympathize” (63). With Mill’s definition of security as producing community, I operationalize this fourth principle as suggesting at least these two Security Guiding Questions for peacemaking: 8. How would this proposed response specifically promote the present safety of all involved parties –​and their larger communities? 9. How would this proposed response specifically promote the enduring stability of all involved parties –​and their larger communities? 7

Millian Security Principle 5: Utility: Security Practices Utility

Fifth, and finally, Millian peacemaking discourse should focus on the tradition’s core value of rational, practical, evidence-​based utility in considering questions of security and response –​especially before such action, but also during and after such action, insisting on tangible and compelling benefits to come only from uniquely significant harms. For Mill, a true and enduring security finally must satisfy strict utility: seeking an ideal, just, and effective deterrence; promoting the greatest quality, and not just quantity, of general good and least harm for all involved parties; and representing the single best-​ available option in the present situation, given historical experience and contexts as well as all foreseeable present and future consequences. Grounded in Mill’s definition of security as practicing utility, this fifth principle suggests at least these three Security Guiding Questions for discourse: 10. Action: How would this proposed response specifically address, deter or “repel” this perceived threat with maximal gain and minimal harm for all involved parties –​including historical contexts and foreseeable consequences? 11. Inaction: How would all involved parties be harmed if the proposed response were not undertaken –​including historical experience as well as foreseeable present and future consequences? 12. Millian Security Calculus: How would this proposed response represent the only action available that would foreseeably promote the greatest expected well-​being and least expected harm for all involved parties –​ including historical contexts and all possible alternatives?

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7.1 Towards a Millian Peacemaking Discourse Today, “America’s angry and divisive modern-​day politics” (Jaffe 2018) exacerbate polarity and drive discourse into self-​referential and self-​reinforcing echo chambers. New media capitalize on niche narrowcasting, where existential-​ threat fear sells commercial media content (Abramson, 2019; Blume 2019; Brooks 2016; Wang 2016) and empowers politicians interested in deceitfully motivating the public (Bamford 2005; Bush 2001; Saunders, 2004). Instead, Mill’s pursuit of truth embodies his expanded utilitarianism, for both individual freedom and communal responsibility. For “it is not abstract truth for its own sake that Mill defends but, rather, the discovery of truth for the sake of individuality” (O’Rourke 2001, 6). These represent the “two sides of Mill –​ the side … that values free speech for the development of the individual, and the side … that values free speech for more social purposes such as its role in the discovery of truth” (Passavant 2002, 157). In response to controversy, Mill encouraged peace-​minded citizens to engage their fearful fellows at the core of their differences, to minimize fear and maximize unity –​and, once consensus is reached, to then harness the “vast power” of “education and opinion … to establish in the mind of every individual an indissoluble association between his own happiness and the good of the whole” (1863, 21). Finally, the perennial challenges addressed in Utilitarianism itself continue to speak to each new generation in meaningful ways: Indeed, “many of the topics … such as the nature of happiness, the role of rules in morality, and the compatibility of justice with promoting overall good –​are ones that especially interest today’s readers” (Eggleston 2017, 3). These Principles and Guiding Questions offer a starting place to open and foster dialogue among various disparate groups in our presently fragmented, fearful, and fight-​flight-​freeze society, as we wrestle with today’s versions of these perennial issues in politics, polarity, and peace.

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­c hapter 7

Our Hazardous Polarized World: Exploring the Viciousness of Non-​responsive Wrongdoing Court Lewis I can’t breathe.

george floyd

…

First they came for the socialists, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me. martin niemӧller

…

Asking yourself a question, that’s how resistance begins. And then ask that very question to someone else. remco campert

…

In the face of “native resistance”… their ‘toughness’ had melted like butter in the sun. hannah arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem

∵ Polarity occurs on a multitude of levels. On one level, all human interaction involves polarity between competing motives and desired outcomes. Such

© Court Lewis, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004541573_009

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polarity is enhanced by divergent values and competing narratives that relate to the consumption of goods and resources, ethics and religion, and organized political parties vying for power and profit. As Michael Heaney suggests, competition can have the positive effect of enhancing polarity in that it “can boost short-​term mobilization” of social movements and political parties (2017, 1003). In agreement, Jennifer McCoy and Murat Somer maintain that polarization can serve positive roles in creating parties and enhancing democracies (2019, 257). Chantal Mouffe goes so far as to suggest that the goal of democracy is not harmony between individuals, but instead, “agonistic pluralism,” which frames political opponents as antagonistic adversaries worthy of respect (2000, 15). The implication being that polarization is a natural part of democracy that should be embraced, as long as it does not turn adversarial opponents, worthy of engagement, into enemies, worthy of demonization and/​or elimination. Yet, as evidenced by the refusal of some to accept “Black Lives Matter” as a legitimate claim of justice to ensure the equal rights of people of color, the fabrication of evidence and refusal to accept the results of the 2020 American Presidential election, voter suppression laws, anti-​l gbtq +​and anti-​ Transgender rights legislation, anti-​Asian attacks, and the deadly insurrection at America’s Capitol on January 6, 2021, polarity is often pernicious to freedom, political processes, and peace. According to McCoy and Somer, “… pernicious polarization arises when political entrepreneurs pursue their political objectives by using polarizing strategies, such as mobilizing voters with divisive, demonizing discourse and exploiting existing grievances, and opposing political elites then reciprocate with similarly polarizing tactics or fail to develop effective non polarizing responses” (Ibid., 234). Colleen Murphy echoes the sentiment, suggesting pernicious political polarization erodes legitimate systems of laws, undermines respect and trust of opposing groups, and diminishes opportunities for compromise and participation in society and politics (2010, 188–​189). To resist these outcomes, we must identify actors complicit in creating and allowing pernicious polarization, and we must develop ways of de-​polarizing and promoting reconciliation. This chapter will achieve the former by examining three categories of social agents: 1) those resistant to polarizing social conditions and laws that promote and allow wrongdoing; 2) supporters of polarizing social conditions and laws that promote and allow wrongdoing; and 3) those who know how polarizing social conditions and laws are wrong yet fail to respond (i.e., non-​responsive wrongdoers). The latter will be achieved by applying current research on polarization to the conclusions developed during the examination of non-​responsive wrongdoing.

150 Lewis To better understand the thesis, consider the above quotations. Each engages a set of moral intuitions that illuminate both the value of resisting and the dangers of doing nothing in the face of wrongdoing. In a time of isolation, fear, polarization, social oppression, and environmental degradation, whether during wartime or “peace,” proponents of peace and justice must be capable of discussing the meaning behind these statements and showing why morally responsible individuals are required to resist. Just as Ibram X. Kendi argues, it is not enough to simply say one is against racism (and injustice), one must be anti racist, taking active steps to end racism/​injustice (2019). How are we to resist, when opposed by large numbers of fellow citizens, massive economic elites, and powerful governmental entrepreneurs? Jason Brennan, in When All Else Fails: The Ethics of Resistance to State Injustice, argues for “defensive violence,” where bystanders “… may, in self-​defense or the defense of others, deceive, lie to, sabotage, attack, or kill a fellow civilian, or destroy private property, are also conditions under which a civilian may do the same to a government agent (acting ex officio) or government property” (2018, 11). Similarly, in A Duty to Resist: When Disobedience Should Be Uncivil (2018), Candice Delmas argues that “we should stop associating incivility with wrongfulness” (22) and that in some instances our duty is to be uncivil in our resistance to injustice (5). Though I will consider both authors’ approaches, my goal is to dig deeper into the character of wrongdoers, both those who are motivated by incorrectly reasoned false beliefs and those who refuse to act on correctly reasoned beliefs. I want to understand how we ought to categorize bystanders and governmental actors, rooting out the societal features that allow a society to become so dangerous, while also promoting personal self-​ reflection on how to peacefully resist polarized hazardous societies, both ours and others throughout the world. To this end, I use the following pages to examine what I call “non-​responsive wrongdoing,” in order to show the dangers and viciousness of character involved in failing to respond to wrongdoing. I maintain that in some cases it is morally worse to be non-​responsive to wrongdoing than it is to be an active wrongdoer, for non-​responsive wrongdoing illustrates a dangerous flaw in character that both allows and indirectly promotes active wrongdoing. If such a conclusion is tenable, then it not only should motivate ethical responses to wrongdoing, but it should provide avenues towards how to “combat” oppressive regimes that promote policies of polarization, degradation, and death. Non-​responsive wrongdoing occurs when individuals fail to act consistently in regard to a true belief about wrongdoing, by speaking out against or actively working towards stopping wrongdoing, when doing so might reasonably limit or prevent its occurrence. In certain cases, especially during periods of

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polarization, social oppression, environmental degradation, and war (i.e., our everyday lives), non-​responsive individuals are morally worse than persons who, based on well-​informed false beliefs, actively cause suffering and death, because failing to act substantiates and promotes said false beliefs. To stress, my argument applies only to cases where individuals within certain socially oppressive communities, who know something to be wrong and do nothing to prevent or stop said wrong. The person who fails to respond, passively contributes to wrongdoing in such a way that exhibits a moral callousness (or viciousness) not exhibited by others. To support the conclusion, I make use of a popular thought experiment within the euthanasia literature, James Rachels’s Smith and Jones Case. To make it perfectly clear, I do not argue against Rachels, nor do I think my argument holds implications for his conclusions. I use Rachels’s argument simply because it is well-​known, and because applying an agent-​evaluation to both Smith and Jones creates conclusions that help us see the dangers of non-​responsive wrongdoing. More specifically, an agent-​evaluation of Jones’s character exhibits a moral callousness (or viciousness) that Smith appears to lack. Non-​responsive wrongdoers exhibit a similar moral callousness, and when such a callousness occurs in social settings of polarization, oppression, environmental degradation, and war, it allows and passively supports these oppressive social practices and wrongs, while at the same time allows innocent people to suffer and die. I also want to make clear that even though my chapter offers many theoretical arguments my goal is essentially practical. On the one hand, my arguments offer practical guidance for peace activists, helping them explain to others why it is important to resist polarity, oppression, and wrongdoing of all kinds, in some important way. On the other hand, it is also my hope that the arguments will help motivate proponents of peace to continue their resistance, while also reassuring them of the value of their work. 1

Polarity’s Hazardous Society

As a bit of backstory, I came to the topic of this chapter by pondering Peter Davson-​Galle’s thought experiment that asks readers to imagine a particularly “hazardous society in which people [are] constantly in danger of dying and thus ‘having’ to save one another” (1998, 200). At first, it was easy to imagine a fanciful world where such conditions occur, but as the years passed, I began to notice direct parallels between the condition of the thought experiment and people living under authoritarian-​totalitarian regimes, those suffering from the effects of pollution and environmental degradation, and finally, after the

152 Lewis many racist-​, political-​, ideological-​, and ignorance-​filled killings that occur daily, I realized we live in such a world. From overt totalitarian-​authoritarian regimes that detain, torture, and execute citizens who resist, to democratic republics on the brink of becoming totalitarian-​authoritarian regimes because of the pernicious polarizing efforts of political entrepreneurs, bystanders continually choose whether to support the status-​quo, resist, or simply ignore the suffering and death of others. Polarity has created the hazardous society of Davson-​Galle’s thought experiment. From trained military squads to militarized local police forces, citizens (especially those of color) risk unjust detainment, torture, and even execution, fueled by racial and ethnic biases, while again, bystanders and fellow “peace officers” are more likely to watch and do nothing. Of course, as seen with the January 6 insurrection, even police officers can exist in this hazardous society when polarizing rhetoric paints them as the enemy. So, what started as an abstract thought-​experiment about societies suffering from oppressive regimes and wartime pressures, quickly morphed into an examination of contemporary life (specifically America, where I live), where a large portion of society is in danger of dying, and so, must rely on the help of others. In “Active and Passive Euthanasia,” which continues to be a source of debate,1 James Rachels examines the moral landscape of euthanasia, focusing specifically on the relationship between killing and letting die (1975). He concludes that voluntary active euthanasia (vae)2 is morally no worse than voluntary passive euthanasia (vpe).3 To aid the reader, I will briefly present Rachels’s fictional case of Smith and Jones, but I wish to make clear that my engagement with Rachels’s argument is in no way meant to challenge his conclusions. The core of this chapter was inspired by Davson-​Galle’s thought experiment, which first appeared as a response to critics of Rachels. I implore readers to

1 Many pieces could be cited, but here are a few. In support: Franklin G. Miller, Robert D. Truog and Dan W. Brock (2010), in ‘Moral Fictions and Medical Ethics’, Bioethics 24:9, pp. 453–​460, build upon Rachels’ conclusions by framing the discussion of euthanasia in terms of “moral fictions,” which influence public perception/​understanding of the issue. Against: Bonnie Steinbock (1979), in ‘The Intentional Termination of Life’, Social Science & Medicine 6:1, pp. 59–​64, criticizes Rachels’s interpretation of the American Medical Association’s policy on euthanasia, and Winston Nesbitt, in ‘Is Killing No Worse Than Letting Die?’ Journal of Applied Philosophy 12:1 (1995), pp. 101–​106, argues that Rachels’ position actually supports the conclusion that killing is worse than letting die. 2 vae, referred to as “killing,” is the use of medical treatments/​technologies—​at the request of the patient—​to hasten the patient’s death. 3 vpe, referred to as “letting die,” is the removal of life-​sustaining treatment at the request of the patient.

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refrain from the temptation to chase a rabbit down the path of the euthanasian debate. I have nothing to say of euthanasia in the chapter, nor do I think my argument has any implications for euthanasia, yet because the arguments crafted by Rachels and Davson-​Galle are helpful to understanding the plight of the world in which we live, I present them as a means to making sense of social oppression and our response to it. Rachels asks readers to imagine two individuals, Smith and Jones, who are alike in every relevant way: they both have six-​year-​old cousins, both stand to gain a substantial amount of money if their cousins should die, and both plan on killing their cousin. One evening Smith sneaks into his cousin’s bathroom, drowns him, and makes it look like an accident. Similarly, Jones sneaks into his cousin’s bathroom to drown him; but before he has the chance, the cousin slips, hits his head, and falls into the tub full of water. Jones stands over his cousin watching to ensure he drowns. Rachels maintains that readers should agree that Smith is morally no worse than Jones; they are, in fact, morally equivalent. In the case of Smith, he has the motive to kill and he acts on it by drowning his cousin. Jones, too, has the same motive to kill and acts on it, but at the last moment he is “relieved” from carrying out his plan. The only difference is a causal difference: Smith kills, whereas Jones lets die. This difference, however, has no moral significance, since the “bare difference” between killing and letting die is the same. In other words, Smith chose the action of drowning the child, while Jones chose the action of letting the child drown, and is ready to drown his cousin if he were to awake and try to rise out of the water. Both Smith and Jones share the same motive, both take actions that lead to the child’s death, and in both cases the child dies. Therefore, based on an act-​ evaluation, both cases are morally equivalent. I find Rachels’s conclusion sound, especially within the realm of medical ethics. However, the conclusion is true, only if we: a) limit our evaluation to an act-​evaluation of Smith and Jones, which is how I presented it; and b) formulate the case where other moral features are irrelevant. Attempts to offer a counter argument to Rachels, such as Winston Nesbitt’s reformulation of Jones, introduce moral features of character that violate the basic parameters of the thought experiment, such as Jones’s unwillingness to drown his cousin if he were to awake and rise out of the water (1995). Nevertheless, examining other relevant moral features of the Smith and Jones case introduce valuable social-​ political implications. Therefore, I will bracket considerations of how changing the Smith and Jones case influences our understanding of euthanasia, in order to provide an analysis of the case where the respective experiences of the child and Smith’s and Jones’s respective character are translated in regard to their

154 Lewis actions, then draw conclusions about how the case affects our understanding of interpersonal actions within the context of a hazardous society. 2

The Character-​Based Difference4

So far, Smith and Jones have been evaluated from the perspective of their respective actions, which in terms of vae and vpe, as Roy Perrett maintains (and I agree), is the proper way to evaluate Smith and Jones (1996, 131–​9). Let us, however, remove Smith and Jones from the confines of the euthanasia debate and expanded our analysis to include both practical contextual considerations and their character. To do so requires an agent-​evaluation, and without access to their mental states, the best way to determine character is by observing actions. In terms of an agent-​evaluation, the appropriate question is: between Smith and Jones, recognizing they are both morally repugnant, whose character is worse? A correct answer rests on providing an adequate explanation of whether Smith’s character (who actively drowns his cousin) is better/​worse than Jones’s character (who passively watches his cousin drown). In both instances, we have to make certain assumptions, since it is still a hypothetical case. Nevertheless, these assumptions will help clarify how we should understand those who are willing to watch others suffer and die. Let me first explain my own assumptions related to actions and character traits. Character traits are aspects of an individual’s character that comprise her or his persona. A liar might tell the truth from time to time, but if lying is part of an individual’s character, then one can reasonably expect to be told a lie from the individual. The same is true for a person who claims to not be racist, yet has a habit of saying racist things and acting in racist ways. We act based on the beliefs we hold, and the beliefs we hold, especially our values, determine our character and how we respond to situations. The most reliable way to determine character is to examine actions, since (a la William James) action implies belief. The character of Smith and Jones is not relevant for Rachels’s act-​evaluation, but because we cannot see into the minds of Smith and Jones, in order to perform an agent-​evaluation, we must hypothesize about their character traits based on those who perform similar actions. 4 In an earlier version of this essay, I discussed the utilitarian difference. Briefly stated, according to utilitarianism, in the Smith and Jones case, letting die is preferable to killing—​neither Jones or his cousin suffer the pain that occurs with Smith and his cousin. However, as Rachels shows, the Principle of Utility uses the argument from mercy to ground euthanasia, which could justify involuntarily killing a patient (Rachels 2010, 194 and 309).

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Smith’s case assumes he is both motivated and willing to kill his cousin. With that in mind, we can imagine Smith actually carrying out his plan in one of two ways. First, Smith calmly and collectively grabs his cousin and submerges him underwater, not giving a second thought to the wrongness or rightness of his action. He is a sadistic killer with no remorse, has no negative feelings about what he is doing, and even with his cousin fighting for his life, Smith coolly carries out his plan. Few humans are capable of such psychopathy, so even though it is hypothetically possible, I do not find this interpretation helpful to the current project. The second interpretation, and I believe the more accurate one, has Smith struggling with his decision, as would most humans who contemplate similarly unethical and illegal actions. When Smith sees the opportunity, he nervously grabs his cousin, and fearfully carries out his plan. Smith’s heart is pounding, he is sweating, he constantly debates whether it is too late to turn back, and among other things, he wonders if he can get away with it. In other words, his mind is flooded with the doubts, fears, and anxieties that commonly accompany wrongdoing (e.g., “I can’t believe I’m doing this.” “I’m not a murderer.” “Can I get away with this?”), but his desire to have money and commitment to killing his cousin (i.e., the greed and cowardice of his character) inspire him to continue. Smith’s decision to carry out his plan sets in motion a chain of events from which he cannot turn back, though there is no indication he would want to, without resigning himself to a series of unacceptable consequences (e.g., prosecution, jail, etc.). As a result, Smith is “caught” in the heat of the moment. This doesn’t excuse him in any way, but it is a morally relevant feature of his character, especially when compared to Jones. In this second interpretation, Smith’s actions illustrate a character based on the belief that it is good to kill his cousin and one that is willing and capable of drowning a human being who is fighting for his life. He believes what he is doing is best/​right, and he follows through with his plan. We can imagine Jones as the cold-​blooded killer, which again offers little insight for this project, and we can interpret Jones in the same way as the second Smith; but I would like to suggest doing so is a mistake.5 The case of Jones is 5 One blind reviewer maintained that Smith and Jones could have the same character, which would then undermine my argument, since we would no longer have the conceptual basis on which to ground my claim that Jones-​as-​a-​non-​responsive-​wrongdoer is morally worse. I agree and have attempted to address in the body of the chapter that it is possible to imagine Smith and Jones having the same character, and that all persons who share the same character should be treated the same. Smith and Jones, however, are fictional characters, which means we can attribute any beliefs we want to them. As a conceptual exercise, doing so creates interesting outcomes. My goal, on the other hand, is to move from the conceptual

156 Lewis fundamentally different because he is not “caught” in the heat of the moment. His lack of action, whether he is calm and collective or scared and nervous, implies (whether actual or not) a different sort of character. We could assume that their respective characters are such that they would act in the same way, but that simply implies they are the same moral person with different names. If we are simply concerned with conceptual arguments, we can imagine them in numerous ways, but to foster a more robust philosophical conversation, making them the same is not conceptually interesting for an agent-​evaluation. For Rachels, the fact that their motives are the same is important, because their characters are not relevant. However, since I am interested in different character types, assuming Smith and Jones have the same character offers nothing to be examined. I agree that individuals can share the same character type and that contextual features of life will allow and/​or prevent such character traits from materializing in actions. So, a real-​life Smith and Jones might share the same character traits, yet external factors prevent them from performing the same actions. For my purposes, assuming they share the same character and only acted differently due to external factors, does not offer anything philosophically interesting. What I wish to explore is the differing types of character that are implied by those who are willing to actively kill victims who are suffering and fighting for their life vs. those who are willing and capable of doing nothing while watching others harm and kill those suffering and fighting for their lives. Let me briefly illustrate my point by looking at a recent real-​life example. On May 25, 2020, George Floyd was arrested for supposedly attempting to use counterfeit money. Police officer Derek Chauvin handcuffed and restrained Floyd on the ground by placing his knee on Floyds neck and upper back. Two other officers assisted Chauvin (J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane), while officer Tou Thao observed and prevented bystanders from interfering. If we replace Smith and Jones with Chauvin and Thao, we would say that Chauvin actively killed Floyd, while Thao let him die. Would Thao have suffocated Floyd, if the roles were reversed? We will never know, but what we see is that Chauvin has sphere to the practical sphere. Smith and Jones are only valuable as an intuition pump to gauge the reader’s intuitions and to help make sense of Davson-​Galle’s thought experiment. My assumption is that real-​life Smiths and Jones will rarely, if ever, share the same (though they will surely share some similar) character traits; and as a result, they are valuable starting points to making sense of the variety of character traits, which suggest different belief-​ states, that occur each day via the actions we take as individuals. So yes, a Smith and Jones that share the same character will lead to a conclusion that differs from mine, but since real individuals’ characters vary on multiple levels, I believe my assumptions about Smith’s and Jones’s respective characters being different is proper for my project.

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a character that allows him to purposely utilize an air chokehold—​recognized as dangerous and to be used only in rare instances by police training standards (Schlosser 2019)—​beyond a reasonable amount of time (eight minutes and fifteen seconds) in order to suffocate a morally valuable human. Thao, on the other hand, illustrates a person willing to watch as another is killed. His non-​ interference provided Chauvin with support and prevented bystanders from interfering. Chauvin viciously killed Floyd, but Thao was the one with the greatest power to stop the killer.6 Though bystanders could have rushed the officers, to do so would risk their own lives. Thao, on the other hand, risked only disapproval from a colleague. He had the power and ability to stop Chauvin, just as Jones could have easily removed the water stopper, but he chose to stand back and watch. Whether he agreed with Chauvin’s actions or saw them as wrong is important, but it is something we do not know. What we know is that he has a character that allows him to watch others suffer and die, when it is easy and reasonable to act in ways that would have saved their lives. The character illustrated by moral agents like Thao are what I want to explore and understand. Jones’s actions demonstrate an ability (i.e., a character trait) to watch a helpless, innocent, and unconscious person slowly drown, which can be imaged but is not actually seen in the case of Smith. Jones also does not have the same pressures of holding the child underwater, and as a result, the case illustrates the character type of someone who is in a position of power to help save a life, yet chooses to do nothing. Consider the fact that Jones is in complete control of the situation. If Smith stops, he must face the consequences of attempting to kill his cousin. Jones faces no such consequences. In fact, Jones faces no negative consequences, if he were to decide to save his cousin. He is in complete control.7 Unlike real-​life examples, where we do not know how our attempts to save a life might risk our own safety, Jones has no risks. Surely, he remains nervous that he will be caught or that his cousin will awaken, but those aspects 6 Such power does not absolve Chauvin of any guilt. 7 The difference between Smith and Jones is similar to the difference between vpe, where one lets another person suffer until they die, and vae, where the suffering ends when one is killed. However, there remains disagreement about what the most compassionate act in such a case is. For instance, Mahatma Gandhi euthanized a suffering animal because he believed it was the most compassionate thing to do. Jainist monks responded by claiming that Gandhi’s act was selfish; that it was his perception of the pain that made him want to euthanize the animal, and that the suffering was an important and necessary part of the animal’s existence. The Jainist explanation is based on their understanding of reincarnation, which is open to debate, but my original point holds: it takes a certain hardness of moral character to watch any living creature suffer and die and not do anything, when you are capable of preventing/​ ending such suffering.

158 Lewis of his character are not challenged in this thought experiment. If we stick with what we know about the case, Jones’s ability to save the child is greater than Smith’s, and as a result, Jones has a greater moral responsibility. Based on this responsibility, it is my contention that Jones exhibits a more vicious moral character by choosing to do nothing to save his cousin than Smith does by actively killing his cousin. Both are despicable, but my intuition is that Jones’s character is worse. Jones’s callousness rests in the fact that he knows what he is doing is wrong, and he knows he can easily prevent it. He fails as an epistemic agent and a moral agent. Smith lacks the “luxury” of self-​reflection and being able to reverse the course of his actions. The thought experiment of Smith and Jones, then, allows for the examination of at least two possible types of character: 1) a viciousness to kill; and 2) a viciousness of ignoring truth and of letting die, when saving a life costs little. When considering both types, the latter seems more sinister, and in the hazardous world envisioned by Davson-​Galle, similar to the one in which we live, the latter is more dangerous. If you know someone is out to kill you, you can often avoid or neutralize the threat; but in cases where the threat is not easily avoided nor neutralized (as is true for people of color in contemporary America), your greatest hope for survival is from the protection of others. When the threat is unavoidable and cannot be neutralized, then your only hope is that those capable of helping will rise up to defend your life; and when they refuse to help by letting you suffer and die, when helping would be so easy, then that “inaction” seems to be the greater of two evils. 3

Polarization and Letting Die

Pernicious polarization is often the result of political entrepreneurs manipulating populations to gain or retain power. To again borrow from McCoy and Somer (2019), political entrepreneurs use divisive language to demonize certain groups so as to mobilize their “tribe” around fictional narratives about threats to their way of life. The political entrepreneurs then have the political power to legislate oppressive laws, and because such actions generate outrage from opposing groups, the false narrative of threat becomes even more “real,” often parroted by television, radio, and Internet personalities. The result is what Charles Mills describes as “white ignorance.” As noted by Matt Whitt, Mills’s white ignorance implies “… whites do not simply fail to understand their complicity in injustice; nor do they merely fail to understand how injustice shapes the world. Rather, they fail to understand ‘the world’ itself” (2015, 432). This section will examine several types of individuals who exist in a polarized

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and oppressive society and will illustrate the viciousness of non-​responsive wrongdoing and how it promotes polarization and oppression. Social oppression can occur on many different levels. For instance, political, social, and religious leaders create polarization by demonizing individuals and groups. Corporations pollute and degrade the environment such that, on a local level, minorities, immigrants, and refugees are forced to live in toxic environments while also being demonized as “privileged,” and on a global level, ecosystems are devastated through unsustainable processes and carbon emissions that contribute to global warming. There are also laws that unfairly burden groups, allow police officers to kill innocent persons with impunity, laws that prevent equal access to social goods, and laws that allow harassment, punishment, incarceration, and execution. What is more, the pressures of social oppression can manifest in different ways, according to the particular pressures of a society, and individuals have their own unique worries and fears. When all is said and done, for my conclusions concerning non-​responsive wrongdoing to be acceptable, they must be capable of providing moral guidance in a variety of social situations. For now, however, I will focus on grounding the theoretical claim that non-​responsive wrongdoing demonstrates a moral callousness not seen in some active wrongdoers. To this end, imagine the following:8 An unjust government is aggressively persecuting (e.g., arresting, torturing, and even killing) citizens who they believe to be “undesirable” members of the homeland. Sian is a resident who believes the government’s actions are unjust and begins an underground resistance movement that aims to educate her fellow citizens and provide protections for “undesirables.”

8 Though I am focusing on the case of social oppression, many such actual cases can be substituted. For instance, The Stockholder Case: After years of being actively engaged in buying the stocks of several random, yet highly-​profitable companies, you decide to investigate what sorts of companies and activities you’re supporting. You’re amazed to find out that some of the companies in which you own large amounts of stock support terrorism, others support the exploitation of young children, and some of them are merely fronts for human trafficking. Also, we might formulate a case that includes non-​human moral entities. The Veal Case: After enjoying a nice piece of milk-​fed veal at your favorite high-​end restaurant, you ask yourself, “Why does veal taste so good”? So, you go home and do some research. You discover the horrible treatment that calves endure in order for veal to “taste so good”: individually caged, suspended in the air to prevent muscle growth, etc. It is my suggestion that if you ignore the wrongdoing to which you contribute, then you exhibit the type of moral callousness seen in Jones, to some degree or another.

160 Lewis Steve, on the other hand, is a resident who believes the government’s actions are unjust, but he carries on with business as usual, ignoring the plight of his “undesirable” neighbors. Finally, Sandor believes the war and the government’s actions are just, and he helps the government carry out its oppressive policies. First, out of these three, only Sian both recognizes the unjust government and actively resists its oppressive policies. Even though Sian’s actions have known and unknown personal costs, she acts to help ensure the just treatment of all individuals. Steve has the correct belief about his government, but fails to act consistently in regard to it. He knows that what is happening in his society is wrong, yet chooses to do nothing to stop it. Sandor, on the other hand, has a false belief, but his actions are consistent with his belief. If we assume that all three agents have the ability to understand similar moral values and arguments, what I take Cheshire Calhoun to mean by “minimally well-​informed moral agents,” then we can assume that they share a moral language and the basic competencies to practice morality with each other (2016, 121–​22). As a result, even though they hold different moral beliefs, we can safely posit the following. Steve believes in the wrongness of his government’s actions, and even though this realization should motivate an appropriate moral response, he refuses to act. It would be easy to self-​righteously claim Steve is immoral, but since my goal is to provide an account that has practical application, I will move forward cautiously. First, let us assume that the social practice of wronging “undesirables” is socially acceptable in his community, or at a minimum, tolerated. As Calhoun notes, society has a sanctifying effect when it comes to morality, and if society has sanctified violence, then we should not be surprised to find some agents engaged in violence (Ibid.). We see the sanctification of violence particularly well when communities are polarized to such an extent that oppression and violence towards women, members of the lgbtq +​community, immigrants, refugees, and other “undesirables” is considered socially acceptable (required?) behavior. We see the sanctification of violence when people of color are killed and labeled rioters, while armed militia and white supremacists are ignored as “peaceful” protesters, even if they try to overthrow the government. To quote Murphy, such sanctification occurs as a result of the erosion of law: “The erosion of the rule of law undermines the environment of stable and consistent expectations that law creates, and generates an environment conducive to the pursuit of structural and systemic injustice” (2010, 197). From the Clinton 12 to voter suppression efforts in 2021, political entrepreneurs use polarization to undermine the rule of law by suggesting that their

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“mission” and “values” transcend the law, which then creates an atmosphere where oppressors feel justified in terrorizing, attacking, and killing those seen as a threat. To reiterate, we see the sanctification of violence when innocent people are shot in their beds, shot in the back, or suffocated while being restrained by police officers, while large portions of the populace support and defend individuals and policies that allow for these injustices. At first glance, we might be tempted to say that people who support such activities are so opposed to those who decry such activities that surely they do not share a similar moral language. Yet, the difference appears to not be in comprehending the same moral language, but in assigning value to the contextual features of such instances of violence and injustice. Their shared moral outlook has been tainted by pernicious polarization. One side focuses on innocence, while the other side looks for culpability—​two sides of the same coin. When a society, as ours, becomes so polarized that the death of innocent individuals and the direct inference that “all” implies “some”9 is politicized, members of the society seek refuge on their side of the “coin.” As a result, both sides often become so entrenched in their own narratives, they are incapable of recognizing the facts that might be associated with their opponent’s side and the truth that occurs when we consider the “coin” as a whole. If Heaney (2017) is correct, we must find a way to resist pernicious polarization without contributing to more polarization, for “If activists want to change policy, then they must convince people who are outside their social cliques to join them. They must reach out to activists who are independents, third-​party supporters, and wayward dissidents from the opposing major party. A strong partisan line by activists makes this type of outreach difficult to achieve” (1001–​1002). (More on this shortly.) For now, consider Steve who provides a framework for why and how activists should resist polarization. First, let us consider what might prevent Steve from acting. Steve might have overriding obligations that prevent him from acting (e.g., caring for his family, creating the cure for cancer, etc.), or maybe his character is such that fear, prudence, and feelings of futility override his motive to act. In regard to the former, we should carefully examine each competing obligation to determine the status of his character. Each person has competing obligations, and the safety and welfare of oneself and her or his loved ones should be calculated when deciding how and when to act. Steve’s 9 According to the Aristotelian Traditional Square of Opposition, if “All lives matter” is true, then by implication, “Black lives matter” is true. What is more, to deny the truth of “Black lives matter” is to deny the truth of “All lives matter.” Further proof of the logical contradiction of racism.

162 Lewis responsibility will surely differ from that of a 90-​year-​old grandparent who struggles to walk, just as a millionaire will have greater responsibility to use her money to help others than a person living off a minimum wage. The extent of each person’s responsibility will be directly proportionate to their abilities and resources. The greater the ability and resources, the greater the responsibility. At this point, instead of trying to parse out contextual particulates that will differ for each person in different cases, if we focus on Steve, imagine him having some set of overriding obligations different from those shared by his fellow citizens (e.g., Sian). Sian resists her oppressive society, and so, serves as an example of the risks suffered as a “dissident.” Steve will have his own considerations, so his protests might look different, but his knowledge of wrongdoing requires him to protest in some way. Since Sian, Steve, and Sandor are morally comparable agents within the same community, the claim that Steve might have greater overriding obligations fails to gain traction. He might claim to be “more scared,” or maybe he does not like attention, or does not want a possible love interest to view him unfavorably. Whatever the reason, Steve’s unwillingness to act (at least in generalized terms) seems based on some moral failing., which brings us to our second set of excuses (fear, prudence, futility). Granted, such excuses are sometimes legitimate, but they should not absolve Steve of his responsibility to act. Courage is the overcoming of such excuses when a situation requires action, and instead of simply excusing Steve’s inaction, we should call on Steve to work towards overcoming his trepidation, either by finding covert ways to resist or by seeking out like minded individuals (e.g., Sian) to gain confidence in his ability to be an effective agent of change. Several of these will be discussed later in the chapter. For now, I want to focus on how Steve is non-​responsive to both his own beliefs and the wrongs being committed. As a result, he becomes complicit in the wrongdoing—​passively allowing it to happen while choosing to do nothing to prevent the wrongdoing, or working to shape the ideas that ground it. As a non-​responsive wrongdoer, he helps maintain and support the status-​ quo, actively ignoring wrongdoing and his role in perpetuating it. In other words, Steve exhibits the ability to accept certain moral principles as true and purposely to refuse to act on them, even when no overriding moral considerations obtain. Such a moral state of affairs is not uncommon. Though excuses abound for why people do not resist wrongdoing during occurrences of police violence, social oppression, and war (e.g., imprisonment, torture, rape, and death), the truth is more chilling and complex. Accounts of oppression, war, and genocide are full of all sorts of accounts. The first are instances where people went about their daily business as though nothing was out of the ordinary, like during the Holocaust, when neighboring communities to concentration

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camps went about their daily business and ignored the smells, cries of pain, and human ash as though they were the norm. The second are instances where people successfully resisted. The third are instances where people resisted and suffered greatly. Context matters when performing an agent evaluation, and when examining actual cases, we should take into account all relevant moral features. However, we must also avoid a blanket statement that all resistance is too dangerous—​that it is better to be safe and alive than to resist and risk harm. I return to these issues later in the chapter. For now, to understand Steve better, contrast his position with Sandor, who believes his government is right. There are at least three ways to explain Sandor’s belief that his government’s actions are correct: Ignorantly Patriotic Sandor: He loves his country and does not care that what they are doing might be wrong. Avoidance Sandor: He is ignorantly patriotic, but instead of being unaware of evidence that shows his government is wrong, he actively avoids and ignores any counterevidence to his position. Well-​informed Sandor: He is a well-​informed citizen, in the sense that he knows the arguments and counterarguments of his position, and yet, arrives at the conclusion that his government is doing the right thing. In all three cases, Sandor has a false belief, but Ignorantly Patriotic Sandor and Avoidance Sandor are clearly morally reprehensible—​both are negligent, if not actively self-​deceptive. Well-​informed Sandor is different. His attempt to arrive at the correct belief, regardless of the fact it justifies violence against others, suggests a character that is less-​reprehensible than the other two; for the other two know what they do is wrong. Similar to Mills’s description of white ignorance, Well-​informed Sandor’s commits what José Medina (2013) calls “active ignorance,” which “occurs with the active participation of the subject” (39) and is “supported by psychological structures and social arrangements that prevent subjects from correcting misconceptions and acquiring new knowledge” (57). As Whitt explains, “… [F]‌or Medina, active ignorance functions less like a gap in knowledge or a conscious refusal to think, and more like a socially sanctioned and habituated way of being—​a mode of actively, if unintentionally, maintaining areas of lucidity and imperception by resisting new knowledge, counter-​testimony, and recalcitrant experience” (2015, 432). So instead of actively ignoring his true belief of the wrongness of his actions, Well-​informed Sandor unconsciously resists considering the impact of injustice on his society, interpersonal relationships, ways of knowing, and sense of self, which is a form of culpable ignorance (Ibid., 434).

164 Lewis We would not want to go so far as to say Well-​informed Sandor gains a certain level of virtuousness, due to his attempt to arrive at correct epistemic states; for according to virtue epistemology, the action that results from the belief must be virtuous for the agent to be virtuous. Nevertheless, Well-​ informed Sandor’s attempt to arrive at true beliefs should be counted in his favor, even if he is reprehensible. As Whitt explains, “Epistemic humility, intellectual curiosity, and open-​mindedness can ameliorate active ignorance only if they are practiced in ways that disrupt the settled epistemic habits—​and especially the presumptions of certainty …” (Ibid., 436), but Well-​informed Sandor appears to lack these virtues. On one level, Well-​informed Sandor is simply ignorant, which according to Aristotle makes him at least pardonable (1999, Book v, Chapter 8). On another level, assuming Well-​informed Sandor’s moral education was not atypical (Calhoun 2016, 194–​5), the consistency between belief and action should count in his favor—​while Ignorantly Patriotic Sandor and Avoidance Sandor’s willful ignorance should count against their character.10 Besides the inconsistency between belief and action, what makes non-​ responsive wrongdoing so pernicious is its effect on everyone else in society. Steve’s lack of resistance actually supports the status quo. For instance, as members of a shared moral community, Steve’s inaction bolsters Sandor’s false belief and actions (and by extension all people’s similar beliefs and actions in the community). Because Steve does not speak out or act against Sandor, when Sandor wrongs “undesirables,” Sandor does not experience the social awkwardness (or de-​sanctification) that would result if he were openly opposed; and as a result, he is never challenged to change his belief. As McCoy and Somer note, when we “abstain from counter-​polarization, for instance by not vilifying an incumbent, [it] may be seen as accepting and thus legitimizing the incumbent’s unscrupulous tactics and violation of accepted democratic norms” (2019, 257). Sandor’s propensity for consistent moral reason and action suggests that he would act in a way similar to Sian, if he (rightly) believed his government were unjust. Instead, Sandor experiences support, whether passive or active, for his wrongdoing. Steve could speak up for what he believes/​ knows is right, by condemning, asking questions or some other means, which

10

A case can be made that ignorantly patriotic Sandor is pardonable, assuming he has been indoctrinated to such an extent that questioning his government’s beliefs would be comparable to treason (or blasphemy). I’m willing to grant this argument on a practical level, but for the current thought experiment, I am assuming all of the Sandors are on par with the other moral agents.

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might change Sandor’s mind. The quote from Hannah Arendt at the beginning of this essay is her description of what happened when the people of Denmark resisted the murderous policies of Nazism. As Arendt describes, where citizens used “native resistance” to openly oppose Nazi rule, German officials changed their behavior. They sabotaged orders from their superiors, rejected certain ideologies, and as quoted above, “Their ‘toughness’ had melted like butter in the sun” (1977, 171–​175). The Niemӧller and Campert quotes also beg for Steve to do something, but Steve’s inaction does nothing to challenge Sandor’s (or anyone else’s) belief, and so actively allows and passively supports continued wrongdoing. In other words, in the face of the plea, “I can’t breathe,” Steve idly ignores the call for help. Something similar happens if we compare Steve to Ignorantly Patriotic Sandor. If Steve were to speak up or act against the government’s policies against “undesirables” in front of Ignorantly Patriotic Sandor, it is possible that Sandor might recognize that his government is wrong and change his belief, which then might result in Ignorantly Patriotic Sandor speaking out against his government’s policies. Of course, it is just as possible that Ignorantly Patriotic Sandor might see Steve’s actions and ignore them. Either way, Steve’s actions will make Ignorantly Patriotic Sandor’s moral position clearer. Instead of being simply ignorant, he will become: a) like Sian, whose belief and actions are consistent with the good; b) like the non-​responsive Steve; or c) he will become like Avoidance Sandor who willfully ignores counterevidence. In all three cases, moral progress occurs, because we gain a deeper understanding of Ignorantly Patriotic Sandor’s moral character. A comparison of Steve with Avoidance Sandor suggests that they are morally on par with each other. As just illustrated, if Steve were to act/​speak out, Avoidance Sandor would ignore him. Sandor has already committed himself to ignoring counterevidence, and even though there is a slim chance Steve’s actions might make a difference, it is doubtful. What is interesting about Avoidance Sandor is that his commitment to ignoring counterevidence is a subtle admission that he is uncertain of the strength of his belief—​it is almost as though he recognizes the weakness/​falsity of his own belief. So, it is unclear how Avoidance Sandor might be affected by Steve’s resistance, or if any amount of resistance would be effective. Sometimes, however, dogmatic fundamentalists such as Avoidance Sandor create their own type of resistance against their own position by illustrating the radical nature of their beliefs and actions. Increased resistance against people such as Avoidance Sandor, then, might help people like Well-​informed Sandor recognize the error of their own belief system.

166 Lewis 4

Some Further Theoretical Grounding

To gain a deeper theoretical grounding, let us return to the original case of Smith of Jones. According to Peter Davson-​Galle, the strength of Rachels’s thought experiment is that it requires Smith and Jones to have a comparable difference in action, which in the end becomes irrelevant. When making a character-​based evaluation, the difference must be in character, or at least the motive of action, not the action itself. As suggested by Davson-​Galle, the appropriate difference is between Smith’s ability to actively kill vs. Jones willingness to let die, because in terms of character, if we assume both would carry out the action of the other, then there is no moral difference between the two—​they would both kill and let die depending on the situation. For a character-​based account, even if they share the same motive to kill, how they react in the actual situation is important, and it is wrong to simply assume they would act as the other if roles were reversed. To illustrate, Davson-​Galle asks readers to imagine a particularly “hazardous society in which people were constantly in danger of dying and thus ‘having’ to save one another” (1998, 200). The Joneses in such a society simply refuse to save you; whereas, the Smiths actively try to kill you. If the Smiths were merely willing to let die, then they would not be Smiths, they would be Joneses. For a character-​based account, how a person reacts in situations matters, since it is through the test of moral challenges that our character is tested. So, in such a hazardous society, a set of Joneses are at least as dangerous as a set of Smiths, whether the Joneses are police officers or the dangers associated with global warming. How does this apply to the argument that Steve is morally inferior to Sandor? In terms of an act-​evaluation, it provides a theoretical basis for claiming that Steve is at least as dangerous as Sandor in situations of social oppression, polarization, environmental degradation, and war. By providing an agent-​evaluation that includes an inconsistency between belief and action, and that Steve’s lack of resistance indirectly supports wrongdoing, we gain a moral grounding for claiming that the passive, non-​responsive Steve is morally worse than the well-​ informed, active Sandor. An agent-​evaluation of both Jones and Steve implies that a willingness to let die demonstrates a moral callousness that our conscientious and consistent Sandor does not necessarily have or demonstrate. Though Davson-​Galle’s thought experiment is fictional, it bears striking resemblance to the hazardous society created by the pernicious polarization of contemporary America. In the case of pernicious polarization, social oppression, and war, “undesirables” are in a constant state of suffering and/​or dying at the hands of fellow citizens and authorities, which is only intensified through environmental racism and degradation. If Davson-​Galle is correct, then they

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are in a comparable amount of danger from both those who actively kill/​ harm (Well-​informed Sandor) and those who passively let die/​suffer (Steve). Furthermore, if the comparison of Steve and Sandor is correct, then the moral callousness of Steve, and how it supports continued wrongdoing and suffering, implies that in such cases, letting die in similar social situations is morally worse than killing, all things considered. 5

Practical Concerns and Suggestions

One critique of my project, so far, is that it is too abstract. If, as I mention at the outset of the chapter, I wish to ground the intuitions underlying the opening quotations, then my argument must be capable of addressing key practical concerns. To such an end, I will briefly discuss the criticisms of moral demandingness and moral disagreement. Moral demandingness is a criticism that some moral theories demand too much from moral agents, thereby undercutting their adequacy. William Sim describes the criticism as such: “… a reasonable moral theory will not impose excessive demands on an agent; otherwise, there is something wrong with the design of the theory itself” (164, 2012). To use the words of Robert Goodin, an adequate moral theory will be “appropriately demanding” of its agents (2009). So, is non-​responsive wrongdoing and its related implications too demanding? Let me offer three responses that suggest the answer is “no.” First, not all demandingness is bad. Sim uses moral egoism to illustrate a theory that makes no demands of agents, other than “do whatever one desires.” Though not argued by Sim, the complete lack of demandingness is simply moral egoism, which is no moral theory at all. A hallmark of generally accepted moral theories is that they call on agents to perform certain actions based on a consistent set of reasons inferred from a basic assumption of value. As a result, moral theories often demand we do (sometimes difficult) things that run counter to our desires. In the situations of polarization, oppression, and war, I have argued that a character-​based ethic requires agents to offer some sort of meaningful resistance. Of course, ‘meaningful resistance’ will be determined by the specifics of particular cases, and much will depend on the abilities of each individual, but whether meaningful resistance is a disapproving glare, a quiet conversation with other individuals, a social media post under a pseudonym, or any other of the myriad forms of possible protest, the implications of non-​responsive wrongdoing is that it makes demands on agents to act consistently with regard to their true beliefs about wrongdoing.

168 Lewis As outsiders, however, we might look at the case of Steve and say I am overgeneralizing an external demand on a particular case. My second response, then, is that it is possible to contextualize the demandingness of morality to particular instances of social oppression and war without overgeneralizing with broad sweeping claims of what is required from agents. In “Internalization and Moral Demands,” Sim develops a “whole-​life” approach to moral demandingness that utilizes the fact that moral agents develop in communities. Each community develops and internalizes their own set of moral standards. As a result, outsiders might perceive certain moral demands as too great, while members of the particular moral community view the same demands as no greater than any other basic moral demand. The key for such a whole-​life approach is to carefully examine the moral demands of each community in question to accurately determine what is (in terms of a character-​based approach) virtuous or vicious. One need look no further than the French village of Le Chambon for an example of a set of individuals who lived according to what they perceived as an “easy” moral demand (love one another), which meant they refused to turn neighbors over to the Nazis and other collaborators. Though “easy,” such a demand is often perceived by outsiders to be too great. Arendt’s reference to the Danes, in the opening quote, serves as another example. I could list a multitude of examples, but the point I am trying to make is that moral demands do not develop in a vacuum, and if carefully examined, I dare say most communities develop moralities that support in one way or another the moral demand to not inflict unnecessary suffering and pain on innocents. Whether individuals actually respond to such a moral demand, or in what way the demand manifests itself in different societies, is another question altogether. For my argument to be effective, the community under question need only provide an example of moral agents who have internalized similar moral lessons, even if they disagree on the specifics of certain cases. The case of Sian, Steve, and Sandor suggests a scenario where the community has internalized a set of moral demands, and as illustrated by Sian, the demands are not overly demanding. By similar moral demands, all three would recognize such things as recreational torture as wrong, even if they disagreed over the definition of ‘recreational’. Such a disagreement, however, is more often a factual disagreement and not a conceptual/​normative one. For instance, claims like “Those immigrants will take my job,” “Those people are dangerous,” or “There’s no room for those people here” can be shown to be descriptively false. A quick review of the news, from attacks on Asian Americans to defending racists and bigots because they are members of “your party,” illustrate our society has not internalized moral principles that are too demanding. Selfish egoism seems

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to be the standard of the day, which is no standard at all. Yet, the language used by oppressors shows they share a similar moral language. What I hope my analysis shows is that if some members exhibit a willingness and capacity to resist in constructive ways, then all members (excluding those who have had an atypical moral education, or some other relevant difference) should be judged according to the standard set by those who do resist in appropriate ways. How do we resist appropriately? Answering this question is difficult, but let me close by suggesting an answer, which is tied to my third response. Building off the previous explanation, the moral demands of my argument to resist are ameliorated by the social nature of individuals within communities. Since my goal is to motivate individual responses to polarization and wrongdoing, I have mostly focused on the role of individuals within communities. However, the examples of polarization, oppression, and war are examples of structural injustices—​they are the result of individuals working in tandem within systems of policies, codes, and laws. Instead of an atomistic approach to personal responsibility, which only feeds the moral demandingness criticism, I suggest the more appropriate model is what Iris Marion Young calls a “social connection model” (2006). Within such a model, individuals must work collectively to resolve systemic injustices, which includes protests but also simple acts of ensuring one does not commit injustice with their words and economic actions. Moral agents must act in morally appropriate ways, but they must also work together to build what Václav Havel called “parallel structures” of resistance that influence the actions of other members of the community, which then in turn places greater pressure on those in power to change (1992). To do this they must find ways of de-​polarizing social and political discussions, while also working toward de-​sanctifying violence and oppression. As Young says, “It is asking too much to expect most of us to work actively to restructure each and every one of the structural injustices for which we arguably share responsibility” (2006, 125). Nevertheless, morality calls us to respond to wrongdoing. Young sketches out several responses, including being accountable for how one contributes to such injustices, relative to one’s power, privilege, interest, and collective ability, which show that no matter one’s position within a community, one has certain moral responsibilities to discharge (Ibid., 125–​30). Just because oppression and violence are sanctified through polarization, does not mean that moral agents are allowed to sit back and do nothing. Calhoun maintains that in such cases, we should develop methods of drawing attention to the wrongness of such actions and work towards the careful education of wrongdoers (2016, 204–​5). So even in cases where wrongdoing is socially sanctified, moral agents lack an excuse to do nothing. As part of a moral community with a shared moral language, agents minimally have an obligation to

170 Lewis speak consistently of right and wrong, even when doing so is un-​sanctified and unpopular. In countries like the United States, it is easy to speak out against political entrepreneurs who polarize factions of society by spewing ignorance, lies, and stupidity. Citing facts and providing counter-​narratives often has little personal cost, and when there are costs, other means of engagement are possible. You can protest in the street, put a sign in your yard, or wear a safety pin on your clothing, but McCoy and Somer suggest that not all protests achieve their goal—​in fact, they can be counterproductive. From the cases of pernicious polarization they examine, McCoy and Somer conclude, “None of our cases suggests that reactionary popular mobilization in the streets against polarizing actors with illiberal or authoritarian tendencies proved successful in achieving de-​polarizing and democratizing results, at least by themselves” (2019, 267). Their conclusion is consistent with Murphy’s explanation of how pernicious polarization undermines trust and respect for opposing groups (2010). How, then, can the Sians and Steves of the world appropriately respond and undermine pernicious polarization? McCoy and Somer suggest “three potential depolarization mechanisms: democratizing internal reforms of the hegemonic party; democratizing reforms and electoral mobilization by the opposition; and pluralist political representation options for various cleavages to participate within the party system” (2019, 269). Similarly, Murphy maintains that political reconciliation requires “promoting political relationships premised on equal respect for individuals and their agency …,” which bolsters trust and respect for social cooperation and the and the rule of law (2010, 190). Therefore, appropriate resistance to pernicious polarization will focus on democratic and representational reforms in politics, which create a social atmosphere capable of de-​polarization. On an interpersonal level, to combat pernicious polarization, we must find productive ways to engage our adversaries, especially those like Steve and Well Informed Sandor—​both of which I take to be the most likely to act virtuously given the right conditions. First, however, a middle-​ground of common agreement must be found. To quote Heaney, “If activists want to change policy, then they must convince people who are outside their social cliques to join them. They must reach out to activists who are independents, third-​party supporters, and wayward dissidents from the opposing major party” (2017, 1001–​1002). Polarization makes these actions difficult, but it is where we must start, if we wish to de-​polarize society. Whitt offers another approach, suggesting that we promote epistemic humility, intellectual curiosity, and open-​ mindedness (2015, 436). While discussing pedagogical strategies to combat racism and other biases, Whitt maintains that one of the most effective means

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to promoting these virtues is to teach the virtue of being intellectually vulnerable (Ibid., 440–​441). Whitt demonstrates how education often promotes an idea that knowledge should be guarded and secured, which leads to what Jeanine Weekes Schroer calls “ideological imperviousness”—​an entrenched resistance to having one’s commitments questioned (Ibid.). To undermine ideological imperviousness, Whitt echoes Schroer in calling on teachers (and I would say all activists) to model their own intellectual vulnerability by genuinely listening and considering our adversaries’ reasoning, perspectives, and expertise (Ibid.). Such modeling is difficult and often time consuming, but by modeling our own vulnerability, we invite others to participate in the exercise, which then opens new possibilities of de-​polarization. Inaction is usually the result of apathy, laziness, or ignorance, and though we must allow room for the Steves of the world to find their own way to protest and to contribute to de-​polarization, we should also hold non-​responsive wrongdoers accountable for not acting. What I hope to have provided is some theoretical and practical guidance for how we engage and motivate non-​ responsive wrongdoers to act. We should not simply shame them by showing how they are morally vicious, though it might be effective in some cases, but we should promote virtuous behaviors by modeling effective means of de-​ polarizing activism. By doing this, we not only enhance the moral lives of non-​ responsive wrongdoers, but we also increase our effectiveness of enhancing the moral lives of our adversaries (the Sandors of the world), which then promotes de-​polarization within the societies we live and want to flourish.

References

Arendt, Hannah. 1977. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. New York: Penguin Books. Aristotle. 1999. Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by Terrence Irwin. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing. Brennan, Jason. When All Else Fails: The Ethics of Resistance to State Injustice. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018. Calhoun, Cheshire. 2016. Moral Aims: Essays on the Importance of Getting it Right and Practicing Morality with Others. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Davson-​Galle, Peter. 1998. “Killing and Relevantly Similarly Letting Die.” Journal of Applied Philosophy 15, no. 2: 199–​201. Delmas, Candice. 2018. A Duty to Resist: When Disobedience Should Be Uncivil. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Goodin, Robert E. 2009. “Demandingness as a Virtue.” The Journal of Ethics 12, no. 1: 1–​13.

172 Lewis Havel, Václav. 1992. “The Power of the Powerless.” Open Letters: Selected Writings, 1965–​ 1990. Translated and Edited by Paul Wilson. New York: Vintage Books. Heaney, Michael T. 2017. “Activism in an Era of Partisan Polarization.” Political Science & Politics 50, no. 4: 1000–​1003. Kendi, Ibram X. 2019. How to Be an Antiracist. New York: One World. McCoy, Jennifer and Murat Somer. 2019. “Toward a Theory of Pernicious Polarization and How It Harms Democracies: Comparative Evidence and Possible Remedies.” The annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 681, no. 1: 234–​271. Medina, José. 2013. The Epistemology of Resistance: Gender and Racial Oppression, Epistemic Injustice, and the Social Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Miller, Franklin G., Robert D. Truog, and Dan W. Brock. 2010. “Moral Fictions and Medical Ethics.” Bioethics 24, no. 9: 453–​460. Mouffe, Chantal. 2000. “Deliberative Democracy or Agonistic Pluralism.” Political Science Series 72: 1–​17. Murphy, Colleen. 2010. A Moral Theory of Political Reconciliation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nesbitt, Winston. 1995. “Is Killing No Worse Than Letting Die?” Journal of Applied Philosophy 12, no. 1: 101–​106. Perrett, Roy W. 1996. “Killing, Letting Die and the Bare Difference Argument.” Bioethics 10, no. 2: 131–​139. Rachels, James. 1975. “Active and Passive Euthanasia.” The New England Journal of Medicine 292: 78–​80. Rachels, James. 2010. “The Morality of Euthanasia.” The Right Thing to Do: Basic Readings in Moral Philosophy, 5th edition. Edited by James Rachels and Stuart Rachels. New York: McGraw-​Hill. Schlosser, Michael. 2019. “Unlocking the Confusion Around Chokeholds.” Police Law Enforcement Solutions, March 5, 2019. https://​www​.police​mag​.com​/506​561​/unlock​ ing​-the​-confus​ion​-aro​und​-cho​keho​lds​. Sim, William. 2012. “Internalization and Moral Demands.” Philosophical Studies 157: 163–​175. Steinbock, Bonnie. 1979. “The Intentional Termination of Life.” Social Science & Medicine 6, no. 1: 59–​64. Whitt, Matt S. 2015. “Other People’s Problems: Student Distancing, Epistemic Responsibility, and Injustice.” Studies in Philosophy and Education 35, no. 5: 427–​444. Young, Iris Marion. 2006. “Responsibility and Global Justice: A Social Connection Model.” Social Philosophy & Policy 23, no. 1: 102–​130.

Pa rt 3 Language

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­c hapter 8

Hate Speech as Antithetical to Free Speech: the Real Polarity Tiffany Montoya Words are powerful. Ideas manifest themselves into reality through words because soon after spoken or written, a material transformation occurs. Words form policies and laws. They build constitutions and solidify (or dismantle) institutions. They create trends and fabricate cultures. They even penetrate into the most intimate of our material reality –​our minds, and our beliefs about ourselves and others. So, we must be diligent with how we are literally shaping, carving, fusing, and dividing the world through words. This paper is about divisive words that create polarizing realities of us vs. them. It is about words that not only incite hatred, fear, and distrust, but also spark civil unrest, violence, and even genocide. But we, in the United States (the context that this paper will focus on) are also familiar with the value of “free expression” –​a value so highly regarded that any limitations placed upon it become controversial.1 This scenario creates a twofold problem of polarization. First, there is the polarization that harmful words create. I focus on hate speech and the polarizing effect it has by separating marginalized identities from social acceptance. Secondly, there is the polarization that occurs when the issue of hate speech gets taken up politically. It gets couched as being a controversial topic that polar sides of the political spectrum cannot agree upon. The debate is framed in such a way as to create a false polarization between two sides that both desire free speech for all. What I hope to show in this paper is that the acceptance or prohibition of hate speech doesn’t need to be a polarizing issue because we ought to all agree that hate speech in fact interferes with free speech and is itself a major culprit of polarization today. To ignore this issue, and to continue as we have been (believing that permitting hate speech is an act of democratic tolerance) will not lead us to peace, but will only entrench deeper divisions, not along lines of a ‘diversity of ideas’, but along lines of permanent unchangeable

1 David van Mill, “Freedom of Speech,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta (Stanford: Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 2018), https://​plato​.stanf​ ord​.edu​/archi​ves​/sum2​018​/entr​ies​/free​dom​-spe​ech​/​.

© Tiffany Montoya, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004541573_010

176 Montoya identities.23 This paper is a solution-​oriented look at one of the biggest culprits of polarization today. Placing a limit on our “free speech” appears to be a controversial issue, but on the contrary, by restricting hate speech in particular, we actually expand the rights of free speech for all. I claim that hate speech is actually antithetical to free speech, and it is precisely because of the material reality that it inevitably creates. Nevertheless, the illusion that I am jeopardizing free speech remains potent because of false polarization –​a “tendency for disputants to overestimate the extent to which they disagree about whatever contested question is at hand.”4 The contested question is whether free speech ought to be maintained, and one will see that there need not be disagreement. The real polarity does not lie between hate speech (as equivalent to free speech) vs. censorship. Rather, hate speech (as a particularly defined, type of speech) is censorship through a delegitimation of the humanity of some people, which in effect, creates a society with polarized identities. Hate speech effectively censors entire sectors of the population, violates their right to be heard, and at worse, is an incitement to their extinction. The liberal attempt to try to fit the metaphorical ‘round peg’ of hate speech into the ‘square hole’ of free speech is impossible without revealing one’s reluctance to endow people of color, the lgbtq community, women, and other socially oppressed groups as equal and deserving of full human dignity. I begin by summarizing the existing rights and restrictions on speech in the United States. To combat hate speech in the U.S. people commonly appeal to the few existing restrictions on speech to show how hate speech violates those specified limits. While I am sympathetic to this line of reasoning and do in fact think that hate speech exceeds the limits of acceptable speech according to our own already existing standards (such as the harm principle), I think the criticism of hate speech can go further. I additionally think that it is fair to say that hate speech is not even speech in the relevant sense of being protectable. Part of my explanation requires that I present a clearly delineated definition of hate speech and my reasoning for its breadth and boundaries. I show how

2 James A. Piazza, “Politician Hate Speech and Domestic Terrorism,” International Interactions 46, no. 3 (May 3, 2020): 431–​53, https://​doi​.org​/10​.1080​/03050​629​.2020​.1739​033​. 3 Tal Orian Harel, Jessica Katz Jameson, and Ifat Maoz, “The Normalization of Hatred: Identity, Affective Polarization, and Dehumanization on Facebook in the Context of Intractable Political Conflict,” Social Media +​Society 6, no. 2 (April 1, 2020): 2056305120913983, https://​ doi​.org​/10​.1177​/20563​0512​0913​983​. 4 Tim Kenyon, “False Polarization: Debiasing as Applied Social Epistemology,” Synthese 191, no. 11 (2014): 2529–​47.

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hate speech violates the harm principle (much of the paper and its examples focus on racial slurs, but as one of many instances of hate speech, the lessons learned from these examples can be applied to all). Then, after investigating the original intent of the right to free expression, we see how hate speech does nothing to serve those original (and essential) values of free expression, and in fact, disrupts the democratic process itself. Finally, I show how leaving the problem of hate speech unresolved, that is by allowing it to continue, we will only see further polarization of the country as ideologies of hate proliferate. The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States says that “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” The Founders of the constitution recognized that the freedom of citizens to express their personal opinions, in all forms of communication, was necessary for a democracy. They also felt that they were protecting the dignity of individuals. Some of the virtues that this right preserves and promotes are: allowing the individual to grow by working through their own conclusions and those of others, which leads to the progress of knowledge; it also gives people access to a wide array of information and points of view that they would need for making informed decisions and to instruct their representatives. The only exceptions are direct harassment, threats (aka “fighting words”), or instances where the speech somehow directly affects the rights of other citizens. So, yelling in a public library would affect the patrons’ ability to consume information, playing music loudly at 3am could intrude on a neighbor’s personal space of quiet, and spreading libelous information about someone could impede on their ability to get a job. The first two involve particular (and thus varying) restrictions of time, place, and manner, while the last is actually only considered a tort that is subject to variation in different states. So, unless someone could prove that an expression of speech contradicted and violated another right protected by the constitution, it would be firmly protected by the First Amendment. Speech that is merely offensive, obscene, unorthodox, outrageous or bigoted, and lacks any direct threat, or doesn’t cross the line of harassment is currently protected by the constitution. There are many court cases that show the extent of these protections, even after attempts to show that the speech in question caused threat or harm in some way. For example, in some of the more notorious cases, the Supreme Court has protected anti-​Semitic views (despite the charge that they were considered riotous speech) in, Terminiello v. Chicago (1949); it has protected a Nazi march and speech in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood in National Socialist Party v. Skokie (1977) and in a similar case in Collin v. Smith, (1978); it has protected the burning of a cross on an African

178 Montoya American couple’s lawn in, r.a.v. v. City of St. Paul (1992); and more recently in Snyder v. Phelps (2011) it protected homophobic and anti-​Catholic views expressed in a public protest at the funeral of a gay Catholic soldier. There needed to be overwhelming evidence that these instances of expression either directly or imminently caused harm in order for them to not be constitutionally protected. All of these instances, however, would qualify as “hate speech.” Therefore, the current precedent in these matters is unsatisfactory and I contend that the courts (state and/​or scotus) ought to take “hate speech” as a legitimate offense to free speech. Currently, in the United States, there is no legal sanction against “hate speech” because it is seen as merely a difference in “content” from other acts of expression and the Supreme Court has often concluded that “the First Amendment [means] that government [has] no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content.”5 With the general exception of time, place, and manner restrictions, the First Amendment of the constitution protects nearly all speech unless it provokes imminent criminal activity, violence, or threatens national security. There is also no legal definition of “hate speech.” It is difficult to proceed with legislation without clearly defined terms, especially of the very act in question. There is also technically no international legal definition of hate speech. But in June of 2019 the United Nations Secretary-​General released the “Strategy and Plan of Action on Hate Speech” in order to give the United Nations the ability and resources to address hate speech worldwide. The definition in the context of that document is as follows: “hate speech is understood as any kind of communication in speech, writing or behavior, that attacks or uses pejorative or discriminatory language with reference to a person or a group on the basis of who they are, in other words, based on their religion, ethnicity, nationality, race, colour, descent, gender or other identity factor.”6 The lack of precision in laws can lead to many conflicts, internal contradictions, and complications arising from the gray area that is left open. I think the UN definition above is useful, as it seems to align with the colloquial understanding of hate speech. But, as is common with many attempts at defining hate speech, listing the identity groups runs the risk of excluding one (or more), and the generalized phrase, “or other identity factor” runs the risk of including 5 Collin v. Smith, 578 F.2d 1197 (7th Cir. 1978). 6 United Nations, “United Nations Strategy and Plan of Action on Hate Speech” (United Nations, May 2019), https://​www​.un​.org​/en​/gen​ocid​epre​vent​ion​/docume​nts​/UN%20S​trat​ egy%20and%20P​lan%20of%20Act​ion%20on%20H​ate%20Spe​ech%2018%20J​une%20S​ YNOP​SIS​.pdf​.

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an invalid category. So instead, we should pinpoint what all hate speech has in common without having to worry about making a list exhaustive enough to cover all instances, or generic enough to be open to interpretation. I propose that there are two unifying factors or criteria of all hate speech –​1) discrimination of, what I call “corporeal” and “personal expression” identities (where personal expression is self-​relating), and 2) a division of superiority and inferiority based on the identities mentioned in 1. To further explain the first criterion, it is not just discrimination of identity generally, but more specifically, identities that fall within either of the two categories of: corporeal and/​or personal expression. Corporeal refers to traits that are physically a part of the body such as sex, disability or phenotypical expressions of “race.” Meanwhile, identities of “personal expression” refer to facets of an individual’s sense of self that are culturally or personally constructed such as, gender, spiritual practice, ethnicity, or nationality.7 These two particular sets of identities are relevant and necessary to protect from discrimination because they are traits that either cannot be chosen (example: in the case of race or an inborn or developed disability, i.e. “corporeal”) or traits that are deeply ingrained in one’s sense of self (in the case of gender or ethnicity, i.e. “personal expression” identities). Importantly, “personal expression” must be self-​relating –​it is an expression of the self, relating to the self. This means that one cannot claim that their animosity to another identity such as a particular race or nationality is part of their personal expression because that would be an expression of self, relating to an other. This is also one of the reasons why I choose to use the term “spiritual practice” as opposed to “religion” because my definition of “personal expression” (as an expression of the self, relating to the self) cannot include those aspects of religion that command animosity toward other spiritual practices or protected identities. The definition can only include those aspects that involve personal practice. Hence one’s personal spiritual practice ought to be protected as a fundamental facet of their identity, but a practice (institutionalized in the religion or from personal choice) that attacks an other’s personal expression or corporeal identity cannot count as “personal expression” because it is other-​directed.8 7 8

These lists of corporeal or personal expression identities are not exhaustive but serve as examples for the criteria that I’ve laid out. Nonetheless, ideally, one would be able to make an exhaustive list out of the criteria presented. Unlike corporeal, personal expression identities can be changeable, abandoned, or adopted. As such, there are some spiritual practices that involve proselytizing where the practitioner tries to convert another away from their previous personal expression identity(ies). This is obviously an ‘other-​directed’ practice. So, could my definition accuse a practitioner of an evangelical religion of hate speech? –​Not necessarily. It seems that there are

180 Montoya Similarly, a white supremacist cannot claim the status of one of the protected identities within the definition above because their identity is other-​ directed rather than an ‘expression of self, relating to the self’. Their identity is tied to their relation of superiority to non-​white groups. However, their cultural expression as Celtic or Germanic could fall within the category of “personal expression.” This brings me to the second criterion of all hate speech: it must also include a division of superiority and inferiority based on the corporeal and personal expression identities. All hate speech implies that the attacked group is inferior in some way and through the speech, it creates the conditions for the gradual dehumanization of said group. This is the root of the polarizing effects of hate speech. So hate speech is: any form of communication (including spoken and written, language and symbols, physical and digital) that attacks or uses hostile or discriminatory language that polarizes corporeal identities or personal expressions (with “corporeal identity” and “personal expression” defined above) into divisions of superiority and inferiority. This definition should be exhaustive enough without fear of leaving out a group from a fabricated list, and specific enough to begin considering possible legislation.9 It seems morally obvious why we would want to regulate such speech, but it is also politically important for maintaining peace. The social science research is clear: the polarization that hate speech generates, bleeds into further political polarization and societal disharmony, correlating with higher rates of violence.10 11 Policy decisions surrounding hate speech are especially, but not exclusively, contested in the U.S. But international governing bodies have attempted to influence a global consensus.

9

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certainly ways to proselytize or share the joys of one’s spiritual practices without committing an act of hate speech. For a religion’s other-​directed-​ness to be a problem, it needs to meet the second criterion: that it portrays a division of innate superiority and inferiority in the speech act. For the uses of legislation, we would also have to specify how we would want to categorize satire, or messages produced reasonably and in good faith for academic, artistic or scientific purpose (as mentioned in 2.19 of the Freedom of speech and Part iia of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth) in Australia’s laws.) I leave this open for future analysis. Matthew L Williams et al., “Hate in the Machine: Anti-​Black and Anti-​Muslim Social Media Posts as Predictors of Offline Racially and Religiously Aggravated Crime,” The British Journal of Criminology 60, no. 1 (January 1, 2020): 93–​117, https://​doi​.org​/10​.1093​ /bjc​/azz​049​. Pete Burnap and Matthew L. Williams, “Us and Them: Identifying Cyber Hate on Twitter Across Multiple Protected Characteristics,” epj Data Science 5, no. 1 (December 2016): 1–​ 15, https://​doi​.org​/10​.1140​/epjds​/s13​688​-016​-0072​-6​.

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Hate speech is in conflict with the foundational principles of international law. The UN Strategy and Plan of Action on Hate Speech lists some of the ways that permitting hate speech “poses a threat to United Nations principles, values and programmes.” It says, The impact of hate speech cuts across numerous existing United Nations areas of operations, including: human rights protection; prevention of atrocity crime; preventing and countering terrorism and the underlying spread of violent extremism and counterterrorism; preventing and addressing gender-​based violence; enhancing protection of civilians; refugee protection; the fight against all forms of racism and discrimination; protection of minorities; sustaining peace; and engaging women, children and youth.12 The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that, Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice, and peace in the world … Article 1. All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood … Article 12. No one shall be subjected to … attacks upon his honor and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.13 The U.S. also ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (iccpr) in 1992. The iccpr obligates countries that have ratified the treaty to take administrative, judicial, and legislative measures to protect and preserve basic human rights, some of which include: the right to life and human dignity, equality before the law, religious freedom, gender equality, the right to a fair trial, and minority rights.14 Then in 1994 the U.S. ratified the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (icerd) which compels its members to protect individuals and groups from racial 12 13 14

United Nations, “United Nations Strategy and Plan of Action on Hate Speech.” United Nations, “Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” un.org, accessed May 30, 2020, https://​www​.un​.org​/en​/univer​sal​-decl​arat​ion​-human​-rig​hts​/index​.html​. However, the U.S. also wrote the U.S. reservations, declarations, and understandings, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 138 Cong. Rec. S4781-​01 (daily ed., April 2, 1992) or the rud s to set limitations to U.S. compliance to the iccpr.

182 Montoya discrimination by any persons, organization, or governmental policy. What this shows is that, through the act of ratification, the U.S. agreed to the values laid out in these documents –​at least in principle. Rights don’t exist merely for the sake of existing –​they are not arbitrarily declared. In contemplating the origins of “rights” Simon Blackburn says that they exist “in virtue of more central considerations of the duties we owe to each other … The basic lists that have been drawn up of human rights to be respected by any legitimate constitution are surprisingly similar, suggesting a common conception of the conditions necessary for societies that accord human beings their full dignity.”15 Rights usually reflect a deeper value that we hold to be true collectively and want to foster or preserve for the sake of this shared value. In the case of freedom of expression, the universal values that are being protected by this particular right are the dignity and equality of all humans, and the accessibility of information for the advancement of truth. Meanwhile, the pragmatic function of this right within the U.S. is to facilitate democracy. The Supreme Court does admit that when speech falls within the category of “fighting words” or words that “by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace” are not protected by the constitution.16 Charles R. Lawrence iii argues that racist speech is an infliction of injury and can incite an immediate breach of the peace, even though it is often the case, because of power differences, that the targeted group remains silent. He says, Women and minorities often report that they find themselves speechless in the face of discriminatory verbal attacks. This inability to respond is not the result of oversensitivity among these groups, as some individuals who oppose protective regulation have argued. Rather it is the product of several factors, all of which evidence the nonspeech character of the initial preemptive verbal assault. The first factor is that the visceral emotional response to personal attack precludes speech. Attack produces an instinctive, defensive psychological reaction. Fear, rage, shock, and flight all interfere with any reasoned response. Words like “nigger,” “kike” and “faggot” produce physical symptoms that temporarily disable the victim, 15 Simon Blackburn, “Rights,” in Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy (New York: Oxford University Press, n.d.). 16 Charles R. Lawrence iii, “If He Hollers Let Him Go: Regulating Racist Speech on Campus,” in Legal Philosophy: Multiple Perspectives (Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing Company, 2000), 508–​19.

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and the perpetrators often use these words with the intention of producing this effect.17 Because of these variations in the responses to the verbal assault, and because “flight” or “freeze” are just as natural of reactions to a threat as the instinct to “fight,” the notion of “fighting words” as one of the only exceptions to free expression is problematic. This is because it assumes that all people, when confronted with a threat, would fight (additionally, a very gendered presumption). So simply looking at the psychological effects of speech and the effect produced in the victim as determining what counts as a legitimate assault is not enough. Lawrence explains that, “Many victims do not find words of response until well after the assault, when the cowardly assaulter has departed. …”18 He gives the example of one of his students, “a white, gay male,” who was taken aback by being called a “faggot” on the subway. Lawrence explains the incapacitation that such a word produces, Like the word “nigger” and unlike the word “liar,” it is not sufficient to deny the truth of the word’s application, to say, “I am not a faggot.” One must deny the truth of the word’s meaning, a meaning shouted from the rooftops by the rest of the world a million times a day. The complex response “yes, I am a member of the group you despise and the degraded meaning of the words you use is one that I reject” is not effective in a subway encounter. This also problematizes the assumption that words are harmless. This is not true when we consider the myriad of emotional and psychological harms that hate speech could produce.1920 There is more harm done here than simply being “offended” because there are complex and simultaneous, social and historical contexts at play. Harassment laws can give us some guidance on how to enforce the restriction of hate speech. Although usually confined to state laws, which vary in

17 Lawrence iii. 18 Lawrence iii. 19 NiCole T. Buchanan and Louise F. Fitzgerald, “Effects of Racial and Sexual Harassment on Work and the Psychological Well-​Being of African American Women,” Journal of Occupational Health Psychology 13, no. 2 (2008): 137–​51, https://​doi​.org​/10​.1037​/1076​-8998​ .13​.2​.137​. 20 Jesse Rappaport, “Communicating with Slurs,” The Philosophical Quarterly 69, no. 277 (October 1, 2019): 795–​816, https://​doi​.org​/10​.1093​/pq​/pqz​022​.

184 Montoya definition, harassment typically entails “intentionally targeting someone else with behavior that is meant to alarm, annoy, torment or terrorize them.”21 Hate speech has no other intent but to intimidate, annoy and/​or terrorize. Furthermore, as seen in the example of being called a “faggot” on the subway, it is not an attempt to share useful information nor to spark a dialogue. So, with this limited purpose and the visceral effect it has on many populations, it could potentially be regarded as harassment. Furthermore, in the same way that retribution become more severe in proportion to the number of people harmed, it only seems natural that there would be appropriate retribution for acts of hate speech that harass a larger audience (for instance if a vandal drawing a swastika in a public place were caught) than those that target one person. Courts have often held that offensive speech cannot be regulated in public spaces as harassment because bystanders can just walk or look away. But the messages are received by anyone who sees or hears it regardless, and the perpetrator knows this –​that’s why the message would be delivered in a public setting in the first place. Lawrence explains that “in such cases, the insulting words are aimed at an entire group with the effect of causing significant harm to individual group members.”22 Once the message is in public it can effectively belittle the target, while the message to the rest of the bystanders functions as propaganda to reinforce a culturally ingrained racism. The message to the rest of the bystanders is that we have a protected right to belittle and dehumanize the dignity of another human. This is what normalizes white supremacy.23 Lawrence points out that the victims’ civil liberties are more directly at stake than the right of a person to, for instance, post a flyer for a white supremacist hate group; their right to expression ends where another person’s right to exist without defamation begins. Furthermore, when hate speech occurs in public spaces it is not simply defamation of an entire group of people, it is also creating the conditions of societal polarization based on identity. It has been shown that “Exposure to derogatory language about immigrants and minority groups leads to political radicalization and deteriorates intergroup relations … Exposure to hate speech results in empathy being replaced by intergroup contempt as a dominant response to others –​it is both a motivator and a consequence of derogatory 21

Sean Sands and et al., “Harassment,” Findlaw, January 16, 2019, https://​crimi​nal​.find​ law​.com​/crimi​nal​-char​ges​/har​assm​ent​.html​. 22 Lawrence iii, “If He Hollers Let Him Go: Regulating Racist Speech on Campus.” 23 This is similar to McGowan’s thesis that hate speech creates societal norms of oppression, marginalization and subordination. See: Mary Kathryn McGowan, Just Words: On Speech and Hidden Harm, First edition (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2019).

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language”24 Public hate speech constructs new norms of relating that permit further outgroup derogation, which in turn erodes existing anti discriminatory norms.25 In essence, it creates further polarization between group identities by normalizing and then perpetuating said polarization. The rhetoric of “snowflakes,” “thought police,” and “overblown political correctness” misleads the conflict. These descriptors often arise within colloquial discussions of the liberal critic of hate speech regulation. They think, “If I was them, I wouldn’t be so easily offended,” or “I don’t understand what the big deal is –​they’re just words.” This feeble attempt to put themselves “in someone else’s shoes” is blinded by privilege. It fails to see the long historical and ancestral trauma, the existing inequities of social power, and as a result of these historical and material conditions, the fundamentally different phenomenological experience of marginalized communities. So the terms denoting weakness, such as “snowflakes,” gives the false impression that hate speech is merely unpopular, taboo, and “offensive” language. But regardless of the real psychological harms of hate speech, Jeremy Waldron also points to the social harm that hate speech can produce; it becomes an affront to the inherent dignity of a human. So in effect, these words become an existential threat as well (institutionally, socially, and even physically). Jeremy Waldron makes a clear distinction between an affront to someone’s “dignity” vs. someone taking “offense.” The traditional and common view is that people ought to be able to express their ideas regardless of how offensive they are, but “offensive” is not so much the issue as the dehumanization and social damage that comes with an attack on someone’s (or a group’s) inherent dignity. Dignity, Waldron says, is a “public good” that ought to be supported by the law, whereas offense is merely a subjective reaction of a person to a message or action.26 He claims that the law is not meant to protect an individual person’s subjective feelings, but a law that protects a human’s dignity will protect “a person’s basic entitlement to be regarded as a member of society in good standing, as someone whose membership of a minority group does not disqualify him or her from ordinary social interaction.”27 So in a hate speech assault, it is not the offensiveness of the content or message that matters legally, or as Waldron

24

Michał Bilewicz and Wiktor Soral, “Hate Speech Epidemic. The Dynamic Effects of Derogatory Language on Intergroup Relations and Political Radicalization,” Political Psychology 41, no. S1 (2020): 3–​33, https://​doi​.org​/10​.1111​/pops​.12670​. 25 Bilewicz and Soral. 26 Jeremy Waldron, The Harm in Hate Speech (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014). 27 Waldron. 105.

186 Montoya says, “whether or not it is also associated (as it ordinarily would be) with hurt and distress,” rather, it is the stripping away of the victim’s inherent right to dignity.28 Up to this point we’ve looked at attempts to use existing free speech restrictions against hate speech by examining the harms that it produces, and how through this lens it could be criminalized as harassment. But if we seriously consider this difference that Waldron presents, between “offense” and an affront to dignity, we begin to see why hate speech might not even fit under the typical understanding of speech as a mere expression of opinion—​innocuous in essence, but open to interpretation as aggregable or offensive. Rather, hate speech is more of an act with real, unavoidable social outcomes, and we are starting to see that these outcomes clash with the original values of free expression. Recall that we establish and agree upon rights because of some deeper value that they protect. In the case of “free expression,” it is instrumentally valuable because we believe that it is necessary for the functioning of democracy. Free speech maintains, for each individual human, the dignity to discern the truth for themselves via access to all sorts of opinions and points of view. More fundamentally, as a cornerstone of liberalism, the freedom of expression arose from, and is supported by, the universal truth that all humans are equal. The notion of equality of persons is paramount to the existence and continuation of free expression. So we will now examine whether hate speech reinforces the fundamental values and purposes of free expression: 1) to ensure access to all views and incite dialog for the procurement of truth, 2) to promote and protect equality, and 3) to facilitate the functioning of democracy. So, let’s investigate the first value of free expression: the dignity that it provides for us to discern the truth for ourselves. It is an unfortunate reality, that history and psychology have shown us, that we are not unsusceptible to manipulation. Germany during World War ii is a clear (and commonly used) example of the human susceptibility to propaganda. But Jason Stanley in, How Propaganda Works explains how even in liberal democratic societies, propaganda is still used to manipulate people, and undermine democracy.29 This observation is not pointed out for the purposes of dismissing free speech –​ as if I were claiming that, we should not bother with protecting free speech because we are not actually adept in discerning the truth for ourselves. Rather, I point to this impediment to our rational abilities to show that not all speech 28 29

Waldron. 109. Jason Stanley, How Propaganda Works (Princeton, NJ : Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2015).

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(propaganda in this particular case) serves to dignify humans with a rational discernment of truth. In other words, it impedes one of the core incentives to free speech itself. In the chapter titled, “Language as a Mechanism of Control,” Stanley draws upon Rae Langton’s argument that “the function of certain kinds of speech is to silence a targeted group.”30 So, certain kinds of racist speech function, in quoting Langton, “to rank blacks as inferior” and consequently, to silence them.31 In “othering,” degrading, and essentially dehumanizing another group, hate speech effectively serves to undermine the free speech of the degraded group because it has the effect of diminishing the salience, credibility, and even opportunities for a platform of the defiled group’s future acts of speech. So in effect, instead of producing or allowing the most amount of information to reach all people, hate speech limits public access to the ideas of entire groups of the population. Racial insults, specifically, also hinder the First Amendment goal to promote the greatest amount of speech because, as Lawrence iii explained, “Assaultive racist speech functions as a preemptive strike. The racial invective is experienced as a blow, not a proffered idea, and once the blow is struck, it is unlikely that dialogue will follow. Racial insults are undeserving of First Amendment protection because the perpetrator’s intention is not to discover truth or initiate dialogue, but to injure the victim.”32 The second fundamental value of free speech is to promote and protect equality. The purpose of the 18th century revolutions (including the American revolution) was, allegedly, to democratize power. But it wasn’t simply monarchs or government rulers who were considered “at risk” of seizing too much power; it was also considered a risk among populations of the people as well. As John Stuart Mill said, “… the people, consequently, may desire to oppress a part of their number; and precautions are as much needed against this, as against any other abuse of power …‘the tyranny of the majority’ is now generally included among the evils against which society requires to be on its guard.”33 What Mill did not foresee was the ubiquity of power, and how power could be wielded from many other angles than just a government and a numerical majority. We see now that power can arise from even a very small percentage of the

30 Stanley. 128. 31 Stanley. Ibid. 32 Lawrence iii, “If He Hollers Let Him Go: Regulating Racist Speech on Campus.” 33 John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, Dover Thrift Editions (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2002).

188 Montoya population, as is the case regarding wealth.34 Regardless of who holds power, the point of the freedom of expression, as Mill saw it, was to continually hold a check on those in power in order to uphold the noble intention of equality among all humans. Hate speech, on the other hand, is in complete opposition to this principal intention. To degrade other humans is to socially and psychologically lower them beneath the standard of dignity, which is also to dismiss their equality among other humans. To use racist hate speech as an example, the standard (American) liberal view, as demonstrated in the many court cases mentioned above, is that we must be tolerant of even the most offensive speech. But to do so is essentially to say that the values gained from the freedom of speech (dignity and equality) do not apply to people of color. Freedom of speech then becomes an empty platitude that results, in practice, to maintain (and even grow) the unequal power structures that the originators of this idea, allegedly, worked to fight against. Free speech was never about freedom for the sake of freedom (a morally and philosophically untenable position). Lawrence iii argues that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is one example where the underlying message of the promotion and protection of equality was the motivating factor for the legislation that prohibited certain speech acts. He claims that if the primary goal of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was to convey the message that segregation and discrimination is unconstitutional and to protect the rights of all non-​white people, then this amounts to a regulation of the message/​idea of white supremacy. He says, for instance, that in the case of Brown v. Board of Education, the real purpose of this ruling was to regulate the message that segregation produced –​namely the idea of white supremacy –​ the practice was just one way of producing such a message. Lawrence explains, Brown held that segregation is unconstitutional not simply because the physical separation of Black and white children is bad or because resources were distributed unequally among Black and white schools. Brown held that segregated schools are unconstitutional primarily because of the message segregation conveys –​the message that Black children are an untouchable caste, unfit to be educated with white children. Segregation serves its purpose by conveying an idea. It stamps a badge of inferiority upon Blacks, and this badge communicates a message to others in the community, as well as to Blacks wearing the badge, 34

Oxfam International, “World’s Billionaires Have More Wealth than 4.6 Billion People,” Oxfam.org, January 20, 2020, https://​www​.oxfam​.org​/en​/press​-relea​ses​/wor​lds​-billi​onai​ res​-have​-more​-wea​lth​-46​-bill​ion​-peo​ple​.

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that is injurious to Blacks. Therefore, Brown may be read as regulating the content of racist speech. As a regulation of racist speech, the decision is an exception to the usual rule that regulation of speech content is presumed unconstitutional.35 To further emphasize this point that the real target was the message produced, Title ii of the Civil Rights Act prohibits restaurant owners from conveying the message that their facilities are segregated in any way. So, “even if the same food and the same service are provided … if the signs indicating separate facilities remain in place then the statute is violated despite proof that restaurant patrons are free to disregard the signs.”36 This further proves Lawrence’s point that antidiscrimination laws targeted the content or message of racist speech acts. And finally, the third function of freedom of expression is to facilitate the functioning of democracy. But the first two virtues of free expression (providing access to all views and the incitement of dialog for the procurement of truth, and ensuring conditions of equality) must be in place in order for democracy to function properly. We have seen how hate speech does not generate the first two virtues of free expression, and in fact works against them. Waldron mentions that one of the harms of hate speech is that, “A democratic society cannot work, socially or politically, unless its members are respected in their character as equals, and accorded the authority associated with their vote and their basic rights.”37 Patricia S. Mann deepens our analysis of the right to speak, by saying that it also implies a right to be heard: it is not merely the right to speak, but the corresponding right to be listened to and recognized for one’s ideas, that constitutes the basis for democratic participation. Without the right to be heard and recognized as a political agent, one may speak and one’s words will be without any political significance. A meaningful standard of free speech today must include both a right to speak and a right to have one’s words respectfully received. Insofar as hate speech taps into racist and sexist cultural subtexts that radically devalue the personhood of women and minorities, it interferes with this broader notion of their speech rights. The right to

35 Lawrence iii, “If He Hollers Let Him Go: Regulating Racist Speech on Campus.” 36 Lawrence iii. 37 Waldron, The Harm in Hate Speech. 108–​109.

190 Montoya engage in hate speech is thus in direct conflict with the speech rights of women and minorities.38 Mann claims that justice ought no longer be satisfied with an abstract right to speak but with securing the conditions for all to access and exercise this right. So, if a state were to ban hate speech, it “does not restrict or impoverish public debate, but paradoxically enough, broadens it … The state acts not as a censor, but rather as a parliamentarian, requiring some to shut up so others can be heard.”39 We can see then, from the past several paragraphs, that hate speech works as the very antithesis of the freedom of expression and all that it serves to protect. It is the true enemy, the real polarity, and threat to our First Amendment rights. One legitimate worry that people have is that if we censor hate speech then that will give precedents for the censoring of speech that we really want to protect. Related to this is the worry that this regulation of speech gives the government too much power to decide what beliefs and opinions are acceptable. I admit that this would be my biggest concern. It is concerning because the U.S. has a long history of censoring, silencing, and punishing dissidents, even if they, upon thoughtful reflection, held the higher moral ground against unjust policies. We can think of notorious examples of the silencing or incriminating of anti-​war voices, civil rights movements, and trade unionists just to name a few. This is why we must be as specific as possible about what counts as hate speech. Luckily, I believe that my definition above passes this test. None of the speech acts by the groups or individuals who had been unjustly censored, silenced, or punished in the past would have fallen into this category of hate speech if all of their dissenting opinions were merely political in nature. This clarifies that my proposal is not one of censoring political opinions and differences. Those would still be protected by the First Amendment. But if those political opinions contain beliefs against the inherent dignity and equality of all human beings then there are no grounds, political or moral, to protect them. The U.S. history of censoring, silencing, and punishing dissidents, but tolerating and even protecting blatantly racist, sexist, or homophobic speech shows a blaring hypocrisy of values. As I mentioned earlier, one of the purposes of the First Amendment is to encourage dialogue; political differences make room 38

Patricia S. Mann, “Hate Speech, Freedom, and Discourse Ethics in the Academy,” in Radical Philosophy of Law: Contemporary Challenges to Mainstream Legal Theory and Practice, ed. David S. Caudill and Steven Jay Gold (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press International, Inc., 1995), 255–​71. 39 Mann.

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for dialogue. Bigoted epithets do not. For example, the censored McCarthy era communists in the U.S. were never advocating for the eradication of, or violence against, groups of people based on personal identity, but the kkk was and is. For advocates of small government, this proposal may sound too harsh or too paternalistic. To this concern, paternalistic laws involve protecting you from yourself. Examples of paternalistic laws include those requiring you to wear a seatbelt or wear a helmet on a motorcycle. This law, however, is preventing a person from injuring, not themselves, but another (and often a whole group of others). The harm principle is one of the core tenets of libertarianism (advocates for small government). Hate speech is an act that violates the harm principle on a variety of fronts and therefore ought to be opposed by liberals and libertarians. A typical response to this is that the harm principle only applies to an action that “directly and in the first instance, invades the rights of a person.”40 But this is an inaccurate and grossly oversimplified view of social reality. We have long outgrown this atomistic sociology, influenced by antiquated Newtonian mechanics. Now, with the interdisciplinary research and analysis done in the fields like “systems theory,” we recognize that society is a complex web of interrelations, causations, and systems of interdependent parts. Honestly, I think that this response, of legitimate harm only being “direct and in the first instance,” is a nonstarter and merely a veiled excuse to deflect responsibility. The cultural norms and social climate that hate speech produces is enough of a “harm” in need of inhibiting. Every genocide in human history has started with the language of dehumanization. To turn the other way or take a passive stance in this regard is no more than political bypassing. It is impossible to completely stop the language that cultivates hate and incites violence, but we can at least have the ability and justification to impede the organization and mass communication of ideologies of supremacy and hate groups. We know that legal prohibition doesn’t stop the prohibited act from happening. Instead, it usually just pushes it underground. But that situation puts us in a much better position than the one we are in now. We’ve seen how, within the span of less than a decade, the prevalence of hate speech and the normalization of bigotry have led to social unrest, polarization, and hate-​based violence. Legislation would serve to prevent the prevalence of hate speech and would serve as a deterrence for future offenses, escalations, and a toxic culture that is not only unwanted by a vast majority but is also dangerous. 40

van Mill, “Freedom of Speech.”

192 Montoya More so than a category of speech, hate speech is more accurately, an act of polarizing, silencing and exterminating through the ideologies of supremacy. The harm that these acts commit is the underlying message that they portray. Jeremy Waldron describes the message that they send to the particular group that is degraded: Don’t be fooled into thinking you are welcome here. The society around you may seem hospitable and nondiscriminatory, but the truth is that you are not wanted, and you and your families will be shunned, excluded, beaten, and driven out, whenever we can get away with it. We may have to keep a low profile right now. But don’t get too comfortable. Remember what has happened to you and your kind in the past. Be afraid.41 And the dangerous message that the same speech act sends to people who are not in the degraded group is: We know some of you agree that these people are not wanted here. We know that some of you feel that they are dirty (or dangerous or criminal or terrorist). Know now that you are not alone. Whatever the government says, there are enough of us around to make sure these people are not welcome. There are enough of us around to draw attention to what these people are really like.42 Now we are at a point where, since 2014, hate group activity and racially motivated violence has increased. The Southern Poverty Law Center reported that the number of hate groups rose by 30% from 2014 to 2018.43 White Nationalist groups alone have increased by nearly 50% between the years of 2017 and 2018.44 That 30% increase in hate groups was also paralleled by the number of hate crimes reported to the f.b.i. from 2015 to 2017.45 Mass killings at synagogues, churches, colleges, high-​schools, and shopping centers over the past 41 Waldron, The Harm in Hate Speech. 2. 42 Waldron. 2. 43 Liam Stack, “Over 1,000 Hate Groups Are Now Active in United States, Civil Rights Group Says,” The New York Times, February 20, 2019, sec. U.S., https://​www​.nyti​mes​.com​/2019​/02​ /20​/us​/hate​-gro​ups​-rise​.html​. 44 Heidi Beirich, “The Year in Hate: Rage Against Change,” Southern Poverty Law Center, February 20, 1019, https://​www​.splcen​ter​.org​/fight​ing​-hate​/intel​lige​nce​-rep​ort​/2019​/year​ -hate​-rage​-agai​nst​-cha​nge​. 45 Stack, “Over 1,000 Hate Groups Are Now Active in the United States, Civil Rights Group Says.”

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few years have been traced back to racially motivated endeavors of retribution for the “white genocide” purportedly claimed to be occurring.46 We have seen how the rhetoric and language used by government leaders and institutions fuel the ideologies of white supremacy and misogyny.47 The language is even more explicit and detailed in ideology within other sources of mass communication, such as internet forums, alternative news sites, social media, and even in classical forms of mass communication –​public speeches and print media. The membership base and activity have increased in hate groups because of their campaign efforts within all of these forms of communication. The acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s murderer in 2012 jump-​started a wave of protests against the violence that was so frequently inflicted upon Black people as a consequence of white supremacy (either structural or explicit). Since then, an unmistakable polarity, that has nonetheless existed throughout the entire history of the United States, became amplified. This polarity is not between black and white, as many in the media so simplistically put it (another instance of false polarity), but between a deeply entrenched system of white supremacy and a dreamed system of no-​supremacy, or simply put, equality. In other words, this has never been a polarity of races but rather of what “race” means. It was never a polarity of white vs. black, but rather, one side saw other races as inherently antagonistic and inferior, and the other was simply seeking equality. The false polarity of “snowflakes”48 on one side and defenders of the freedom of speech on the other side deflects from the real polarity that occurs in these acts of hate speech. The real polarity is hiding under the guise of a political polarity, which inoculates the real issue from criticism because people have a tendency to identify with their group affiliation (including political party affiliation) rather than in terms of their individual relationships or

46

47 48

Beirich, “The Year in Hate.”; Keegan Hankes and Alex Amend, “The Alt-​Right Is Killing People,” Southern Poverty Law Center, accessed May 25, 2020, https://​www​.splcen​ter​.org​ /20180​205​/alt​-right​-kill​ing​-peo​ple​.; Tim Arango, Nicholas Bogel-​Burroughs, and Katie Benner, “Minutes Before El Paso Killing, Hate-​Filled Manifesto Appears Online,” The New York Times, August 3, 2019, sec. U.S., https://​www​.nyti​mes​.com​/2019​/08​/03​/us​/patr​ ick​-crus​ius​-el​-paso​-shoo​ter​-manife​sto​.html​. bbc News, “Hate Crime ‘Surge’ after Trump Win,” bbc News, November 29, 2016, sec. U.S. & Canada, https://​www​.bbc​.com​/news​/world​-us​-can​ada​-38149​406​. A politicized and derogatory slang term used to describe someone as hypersensitive, easily offended, and often used to accuse to a person or group of being ‘anti-​free speech’ because of their attempts to silence or “deplatform” a bigoted speaker. This term has sometimes been extended to include all of the political “left.”

194 Montoya preferences.49 But the real conflict lies between those who believe in equality of all people vs. those who seek divisions through a hierarchy of persons, and one would hope that even the politically “moderate” or “classically liberal” would take the side that believes that “all men are created equal.” One common liberal reply is that people who oppose hate speech, then have a duty to counter it by exercising their own free speech. But they do. All the time. The result, however, is a disproportionate suppression by law enforcement, or a dismissal of the epistemic integrity of the counter protest and the people in it. Their view is often conflated with being anti-​free speech. On the contrary, they are not only exercising their free speech by means of their counter protest, but they are the true defenders of free speech, and all that free speech stands for. They are essentially saying to those who use and defend hate speech, “stop diminishing my right to free speech, by diminishing my dignity as a human, effectively silencing us before we even have the opportunity to speak.” While a small group of students may attempt to hush a bigoted speaker by drowning out their voice, hate speech is more effective at censoring because it silences entire communities. Historian Tithi Bhattacharia says, “I think a false polarization is being made between “free speech” and the protests against racism and gender violence that have risen on our campuses lately. I see the recent student protests as deepening and extending the right of free speech for everybody, rather than free speech being the preserve of a few.”50 False polarization is when one believes their views to be further apart from their opponent than they really are. This misconception worsens over time as communication continues to fail. Tim Kenyon says, “… fruitful communication can be hampered by highly polarized beliefs. As viewpoints become more radically opposed in a discursive context, the prospects worsen for finding common ground from which either disputant may be engaged in productive discussion.”51 In other words, polarized beliefs lead to hampered communication, which in turn only increases the prospects for further polarization, creating a vicious cycle. This means that hate speech generates two problems of polarization that feed into each other. First, the language itself is polarizing in its very essence –​it invokes an us vs. them ideology. Secondly, if we make no

49 50 51

Henri Tajfel and John Turner, “An Integrative Theory of Intergroup Conflict,” in The Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations, ed. William G. Austin and Stephen Worchel (Monterey, Calif. :, c1979.), 33–​47, http://​hdl​.han​dle​.net​/2027​/mdp​.390​1500​2555​202​. Tithi Bhattacharya, “The Freedom to Discuss Freedom of Speech,” Raising Cain Blog, December 9, 2015, http://​www​.tithib​hatt​acha​rya​.net​/blogs​/2015​/12​/09​/the​-free​dom​-to​ -disc​uss​-free​dom​-of​-spe​ech​. Kenyon, “False Polarization.”

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changes to our laissez faire attitude toward language, especially and specifically polarizing language, this will not create a situation of rich diverse viewpoints but rather it will simply widen the rift of polarization (another vicious cycle). We have already witnessed the widening polarization within the United States. But whereas previously, the locus of polarity was primarily seen in policy issues, now there is an increase in affective polarization, where the two parties not only disagree but hold mutual feelings of animosity and distrust toward one another.52 This further embeds party loyalty and the notion of an “in group” and an “out group.” Social psychology has shown us that, with the introduction of the concept of a “group,” this leads people to have more positive evaluations about their own group and negative evaluations about people outside of their group.53 This may explain the false polarization that leads hate speech to be portrayed as a partisan issue, when in reality it ought to be seen as a threat to democracy in both parties’ eyes. There is a polarity in the United States between free speech and anti-​free speech but those who profess hate were never on the side of free speech. The polarity is not between the alt-​right speakers, or “lone wolf” racists (and the liberal advocates of their “right to free speech”) vs. “the left” protesting against this right. The claim that hate speech could possibly be protected by the First Amendment in an effort to keep America “neutral” in the face of a “diversity of ideas” is an unequivocal act of racism, xenophobia, sexism, ableism, homophobia –​in essence, an injustice and act of oppression. There is no “neutral” position in regard to hate speech litigation. If we don’t enact legislation to curb the use of hate speech (i.e. polarizing speech), we will only see increased polarization on the grounds of identity politics. A separation of parties based on policy issues is typical of a democracy, but a separation based on identities is a dangerous path to follow (the consequences of which we have seen in history). The true polarity lies between the ideologies of domination/​supremacy and equality. The politics of domination run directly contrary to the alleged values of the U.S. and the constitution. Those rejecting hate speech are demonstrating and defending the right to free speech for all, while those supporting hate speech are actually undermining and eroding the right to free expression

52 53

Shanto Iyengar et al., “The Origins and Consequences of Affective Polarization in the United States,” Annual Review of Political Science 22, no. 1 (May 11, 2019): 129–​46, https://​ doi​.org​/10​.1146​/annu​rev​-poli​sci​-051​117​-073​034​. Michael Billig and Henri Tajfel, “Social Categorization and Similarity in Intergroup Behavior,” European Journal of Social Psychology 3, no. 1 (1973): 27–​52, https://​doi​.org​/10​ .1002​/ejsp​.242​0030​103​.

196 Montoya for many, consequently regressing into the oligarchies that our constitutional rights were supposed to prevent.

References

Arango, Tim, Nicholas Bogel-​Burroughs, and Katie Benner. “Minutes Before El Paso Killing, Hate-​Filled Manifesto Appears Online.” The New York Times, August 3, 2019, sec. U.S. https://​www​.nyti​mes​.com​/2019​/08​/03​/us​/patr​ick​-crus​ius​-el​-paso​-shoo​ ter​-manife​sto​.html​. Australia, Parliament, Senate, Joint Committee on Human Rights, and Ian Goodenough. Inquiry Report, Freedom of Speech in Australia: Inquiry into the Operation of Part iia of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth) and Related Procedures under the Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986 (Cth), 2017. bbc News. “‘Trump Effect’ Led to Hate Crime Surge, Report Finds.” bbc News, November 29, 2016, sec. U.S. & Canada. https://​www​.bbc​.com​/news​/world​-us​-can​ ada​-38149​406​. Beirich, Heidi. “The Year in Hate: Rage Against Change.” Southern Poverty Law Center, February 20, 1019. https://​www​.splcen​ter​.org​/fight​ing​-hate​/intel​lige​nce​-rep​ort​/2019​ /year​-hate​-rage​-agai​nst​-cha​nge​. Bhattacharya, Tithi. “The Freedom to Discuss Freedom of Speech.” Raising Cain Blog, December 9, 2015. http://​www​.tithib​hatt​acha​rya​.net​/blogs​/2015​/12​/09​/the​-free​ dom​-to​-disc​uss​-free​dom​-of​-spe​ech​. Bilewicz, Michał, and Wiktor Soral. “Hate Speech Epidemic. The Dynamic Effects of Derogatory Language on Intergroup Relations and Political Radicalization.” Political Psychology 41, no. S1 (2020): 3–​33. https://​doi​.org​/10​.1111​/pops​.12670​. Billig, Michael, and Henri Tajfel. “Social Categorization and Similarity in Intergroup Behavior.” European Journal of Social Psychology 3, no. 1 (1973): 27–​52. https://​doi​.org​ /10​.1002​/ejsp​.242​0030​103​. Billig, Michael, and Henri Tajfel. “Social Categorization and Similarity in Intergroup Behavior.” European Journal of Social Psychology 3, no. 1 (1973): 27–​52. https://​doi​.org​ /10​.1002​/ejsp​.242​0030​103​. Blackburn, Simon. “Rights.” In Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, 331. New York: Oxford University Press, n.d. Buchanan, NiCole T., and Louise F. Fitzgerald. “Effects of Racial and Sexual Harassment on Work and the Psychological Well-​Being of African American Women.” Journal of Occupational Health Psychology 13, no. 2 (2008): 137–​51. https://​doi​.org​/10​.1037​/1076​ -8998​.13​.2​.137​.

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Burnap, Pete, and Matthew L. Williams. “Us and Them: Identifying Cyber Hate on Twitter Across Multiple Protected Characteristics.” epj Data Science 5, no. 1 (December 2016): 1–​15. https://​doi​.org​/10​.1140​/epjds​/s13​688​-016​-0072​-6​. Collin v. Smith, 578 F.2d 1197 (7th Cir. 1978). Hankes, Keegan, and Alex Amend. “The Alt-​Right Is Killing People.” Southern Poverty Law Center. Accessed May 25, 2020. https://​www​.splcen​ter​.org​/20180​205​/alt​-right​ -kill​ing​-peo​ple​. Harel, Tal Orian, Jessica Katz Jameson, and Ifat Maoz. “The Normalization of Hatred: Identity, Affective Polarization, and Dehumanization on Facebook in the Context of Intractable Political Conflict.” Social Media +​Society 6, no. 2 (April 1, 2020): 2056305120913983. https://​doi​.org​/10​.1177​/20563​0512​0913​983​. Hill, Gerald, and Kathleen Hill. “Defamation.” Law.com Legal Dictionary, 2020. https: //​dic​tion​ary​.law​.com​/Defa​ult​.aspx?selec​ted=​458​. Iyengar, Shanto, Yphtach Lelkes, Matthew Levendusky, Neil Malhotra, and Sean J. Westwood. “The Origins and Consequences of Affective Polarization in the United States.” Annual Review of Political Science 22, no. 1 (May 11, 2019): 129–​46. https://​doi​ .org​/10​.1146​/annu​rev​-poli​sci​-051​117​-073​034​. Kendi, Ibram X. How to Be An Antiracist. First Edition. New York: One World, 2019. Kenyon, Tim. “False Polarization: Debiasing as Applied Social Epistemology.” Synthese 191, no. 11 (2014): 2529–​47. Lawrence III, Charles R. “If He Hollers Let Him Go: Regulating Racist Speech on Campus.” In Legal Philosophy: Multiple Perspectives, 508–​ 19. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing Company, 2000. Mann, Patricia S. “Hate Speech, Freedom, and Discourse Ethics in the Academy.” In Radical Philosophy of Law: Contemporary Challenges to Mainstream Legal Theory and Practice, edited by David S. Caudill and Steven Jay Gold, 255–​71. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press International, Inc., 1995. McGowan, Mary Kathryn. Just Words: On Speech and Hidden Harm. First edition. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2019. Mill, David van. “Freedom of Speech.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta. Stanford: Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 2018. https://​plato​.stanf​ord​.edu​/archi​ves​/sum2​018​/entr​ies​/free​dom​-spe​ech​/​. Mill, John Stuart. On Liberty. Dover Thrift Editions. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2002. Oxfam International. “The World’s Billionaires Have More Wealth than 4.6 Billion People.” Oxfam.org, January 20, 2020. https://​www​.oxfam​.org​/en​/press​-relea​ ses​/wor​lds​-billi​onai​res​-have​-more​-wea​lth​-46​-bill​ion​-peo​ple​. Piazza, James A. “Politician Hate Speech and Domestic Terrorism.” International Interactions 46, no. 3 (May 3, 2020): 431–​53. https://​doi​.org​/10​.1080​/03050​629​.2020​ .1739​033​.

198 Montoya Rappaport, Jesse. “Communicating with Slurs.” The Philosophical Quarterly 69, no. 277 (October 1, 2019): 795–​816. https://​doi​.org​/10​.1093​/pq​/pqz​022​. Sands, Sean, and et al. “Harassment.” Findlaw, January 16, 2019. https://​crimi​nal​.find​ law​.com​/crimi​nal​-char​ges​/har​assm​ent​.html​. Stack, Liam. “Over 1,000 Hate Groups Are Now Active in the United States, Civil Rights Group Says.” The New York Times, February 20, 2019, sec. U.S. https://​www​.nyti​ mes​.com​/2019​/02​/20​/us​/hate​-gro​ups​-rise​.html​. Stanley, Jason. How Propaganda Works. Princeton, NJ: Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2015. Tajfel, Henri, and John Turner. “An Integrative Theory of Intergroup Conflict.” In The Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations, edited by William G. Austin and Stephen Worchel, 33–​47. Monterey, Calif. :, c1979. http://​hdl​.han​dle​.net​/2027​/mdp​.390​1500​ 2555​202​. United Nations. “United Nations Strategy and Plan of Action on Hate Speech.” United Nations, May 2019. https://​www​.un​.org​/en​/gen​ocid​epre​vent​ion​/docume​ nts​/UN%20S​trat​egy%20and%20P​lan%20of%20Act​ion%20on%20H​ate%20Spe​ ech%2018%20J​une%20S​YNOP​SIS​.pdf​. United Nations. “Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” un.org. Accessed May 30, 2020. https://​www​.un​.org​/en​/univer​sal​-decl​arat​ion​-human​-rig​hts​/index​.html​. Waldron, Jeremy. The Harm in Hate Speech. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014. Williams, Matthew L, Pete Burnap, Amir Javed, Han Liu, and Sefa Ozalp. “Hate in the Machine: Anti-​Black and Anti-​Muslim Social Media Posts as Predictors of Offline Racially and Religiously Aggravated Crime.” The British Journal of Criminology 60, no. 1 (January 1, 2020): 93–​117. https://​doi​.org​/10​.1093​/bjc​/azz​049​.

­c hapter 9

Accounting for Moral and Epistemic Culpability in the Contemporary Discourse of Racism Leland Harper While the connection between semantics and racial (in)justice is not the most obvious one, it is a strong one that has significant, real-​world consequences. Frederick Douglass, in his well-​known 1890 speech The Race Problem,1 discusses the importance of semantics when it comes to framing public and individual perception. Douglass speaks of the terminology surrounding “the Negro problem,” and how it frames Negroes not only as a problem but also as the cause of racial disharmony rather than as the ones who are suffering from the problem. While being the cause of a problem and being the one suffering from that same problem are not mutually exclusive, the terminology addressed by Douglass, as he argues, serves only to position Blacks to shoulder the burdens of cause and solution. Using this particular language to frame Negroes as undesirable and problematic functioned to shape the narrative and to maintain (and likely exacerbate) the existing racial polarization by reinforcing the ideas about Blacks held by so many white Southerners and also by shifting the ideas about Blacks held by many white Northerners. So, for Douglass, the connection between semantics, perception, and action are all too real, as this kind of polarization can and has led to, among other things, hate, violence, rape and murder.2 Rae Langton, Luvell Anderson and Sally Haslanger expand on the relationships between race and language, noting that one of the primary

1 Frederick Douglass, “The Race Problem” (Great speech of Frederick Douglass, delivered before the Bethel Literary and Historical Association, in the Metropolitan A.M.E. Church, Washington, D.C., October 21, 1890). 2 It is also important to note that this kind of polarization may not necessarily show itself, on the surface, as racial. It is often also manifest in terms of political and economic polarization, as part of “red versus blue” or “rich versus poor” narratives where race is not explicitly stated but remains an undertone. This is, increasingly, the case in contemporary America. Randall Collins (2012) and Kent McClelland (2014) discuss the relation between solidarity, polarization and violence and their cyclical nature, where solidarity begets polarization, which begets violence, which begets further solidarity and polarization, and so forth.

© Leland Harper, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004541573_011

200 Harper functions of language in race is “to attack, spread hatred, create racial hierarchy.”3 After all, language is one of the primary vehicles by which race-​based hate is demonstrated and by which race-​based harm is caused, or at least initiated. More recently, Jennifer Kling and I wrote an essay titled “The Semantic Foundations of White Fragility and the Consequences for Justice”4 in response to Robin DiAngelo’s book White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard For White People to Talk About Racism.5 In our paper, Kling and I argue that the range of terminology that is currently available to us is insufficient to adequately describe or to properly characterize race-​based situations. We argue that the intricacies of the majority of race-​based situations that we are likely to encounter cannot be accurately described and, in turn, cannot be accurately reflected-​upon, given the set of terms that are currently at our disposal. We claim that more work needs to be done in creating a robust set of terms to adequately describe and characterize race-​based situations to facilitate better and more meaningful dialogue about these situations. The idea is that, through the development and implementation of these terms, we can begin to depolarize some of these crucial and unavoidable interracial interpersonal relationships and make strides toward greater understanding, peace and, ultimately, justice. While that essay points out substantial limitations with our current semantics of race, it is limited in its scope in that it only calls for such an expansion in semantic tools. It does little to expand on what exactly these tools would look like, nor does it venture any potential terms that may be part of this more robust set of semantic tools. As such, we were able to identify a problem but were only able to hint at a potential solution. The present essay aims to carry that discussion forward, picking up the discussion where the previous work of Kling and I concluded to venture the first step toward a solution. Here, after situating the context and motivation of this essay, I begin the work for which Kling and I called. I make a case for one term, racial insensitivity, arguing that it ought to be added, in a meaningful way, to the body of terminology that is currently used to describe race-​based situations. I argue that racial insensitivity is a term that, once defined and applied more broadly,

3 Rae Langton, Luvell Anderson & Sally Haslanger, “Language and Race,” Routledge Companion to the Philosophy of Language, eds. Gillian Russell & Delia Graff Fara, (New York: Routledge, 2012): 753. 4 Leland Harper and Jennifer Kling, “The Semantic Foundations of White Fragility and the Consequences for Justice,” Res Philosophica 97, no. 2 (2020): 325-​344. 5 Robin DiAngelo, White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard For White People to Talk About Racism (Boston: Beacon Press, 2018).

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can do significant work in the discourse of racism.6 The addition of this term to the race-​based terminology lexicon, I argue, helps us to break free from the false-​dichotomy, with which we are stuck due to the limitation of semantic resources currently available to us, of interpreting situations solely as racist or not racist. Ridding ourselves of this false dichotomy will allow us to more accurately describe at least some of the race-​based situations in which we find ourselves and, in turn, will enable us to more accurately perceive, reflect on, and act on these situations thus minimizing the frequency and severity of racially polarizing miscommunications and misrepresentations. While the topic addressed in this essay is one that can be taken in multiple directions, its scope will be limited, here, in consideration of time and space. As such, there are four distinct sections to help organize and present relevant ideas. In the first section, I situate this essay to the work of other thinkers and, in particular, to two other works that are of most immediate relevance. This section also outlines why and how the argument that I make is a worthwhile pursuit, and how it can help remedy some of the shortcomings of our current semantic framework. The second section details several key distinctions and assumptions that need to be made to move forward with a clear presentation of the overall argument. In the third section, I introduce a fictional example of a family on Halloween. This example serves to highlight my central thesis, to address the limitations of our current semantics, and to demonstrate why it is essential that particular semantic distinctions be made. And, finally, I close with a section in which I present some possible limitations to the introduction of racial insensitivity to the race-​based terminology lexicon, as well as some further considerations to which more time and thought will have to be invested if we hope to move this discussion forward. 1

Context and Motivation

The relation between language and perception is a relation that is relevant to and explored across multiple disciplines and subdisciplines. Work in psychology, linguistics, epistemology, philosophy of language, and hermeneutics, to name a few, are areas in which this line of thought has been, and is being, 6 I thank an anonymous reviewer for pointing out the fact that people already employ the term racial insensitivity to categorize certain situations. My argument, however, is that racial insensitivity ought to be defined more precisely in the literature, utilized more frequently in our everyday use as an alternative to other terminology that is already in place, and that it can be used to fill an important explanatory gap.

202 Harper explored in several capacities.7 The application to philosophy of race and critical race theory is no different, as approaches to language have been employed here, as well. As is mentioned above, exploring and addressing the connections between race and language have long been thought of as a topic worthy of pursuit by prominent historical and contemporary thinkers within the discourse of race. From Frederick Douglass’ words on how language regarding negros serves as a framing mechanism for negative perceptions of the negro to the ideas discussed by Langton, Anderson and Haslanger about how language is the primary method by which we communicate and demonstrate race-​based hatred. Similarly, Malcolm X describes his experience with language and how his mastery of words, both spoken and written, proved valuable for him before his civil rights pursuits and how a complete revision of the way that he used language was essential for him not only to be noticed by people of power and the masses but also to move forward in his own personal pursuits of civil rights.8 And, perhaps drawing the strongest connections between language and race is Franz Fanon who argues that language is an essential component of social conditioning and the vehicle through which racism is carried through and between societies.9 Fanon takes this idea even further, arguing that language can be and has been weaponized by colonizers and oppressors to maintain their positions of power.10 For all of these thinkers, at least in the realm of race-​relations, language, and the particular terminology with which we avail ourselves, serves as a powerful tool in shaping the injustices that we see, in helping us to recognize and process these injustices, and in crafting solutions to remedy these injustices. Of course, it is difficult to isolate a discussion of semantics when addressing it from a philosophy of race or a critical race theory perspective, as it is not solely an academic issue. There are a host of sociological, cultural, historical and political considerations that are inextricably linked to the discussion of language, resulting in many of these conversations having broad and far-​reaching implications. One example of a recent work that points to these ranging interconnections is Robin DiAngelo’s best-​selling book White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism.

7

8 9 10

For those interested in pursuing research which draws connections between language, perception and cognition recommend seeing Chomsky (1975); Jackendoff (1983); Casasanto et al. (2004); Boroditsky (2011); Deutscher (2011) and Caldwell-​Harris (2019), as I grant that there are strong and meaningful connections between these three things. Malcolm X and Alex Haley, The Autobiography of Malcolm x: As Told to Alex Haley (New York: Ballantine Books, 1992) 195–​219. Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (New York: Grove Press, 1967). Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (New York: Grove Press, 1963): 7.

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In White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism, Robin DiAngelo presents a concept called white fragility which she uses to describe the often-​defensive response that white people exhibit when confronted with the topic of racism. She argues that the cause of this fragility is the fact that whiteness is invisible, that is, that whiteness is our societal norm11 and, as such, it is not a topic that white people have had to address very often in their lives. Because of this invisibility, and because of their whiteness simply being accepted as the norm, whites have not had the requisite practice in speaking about race. DiAngelo contrasts this with the experience of Black people. Blackness, unlike whiteness, is not seen as the norm and, thus, does not maintain any kind of invisibility of the sorts that whiteness does. Because of this lack of invisibility, Blacks have been, and continue to be, forced to directly confront topics of race and racism in nearly every aspect of life. Since whites do not have the experience in talking about or reflecting on issues of race and racism, especially in comparison to Blacks, when confronted with these topics, whites display white fragility. This fragility means that, when having to face issues of race and racism, whites revert to defensiveness and try to protect their own personal identity rather than trying to understand the perspective of the person who may have been victimized or wronged as a result of racialization. The focus is shifted from understanding the speaker, or the one who has been wronged, to protecting or the sense of innocence of the hearer or the one who may have wronged. This shift in focus, argues DiAngelo, serves only to maintain and perpetuate polarizing systems of racial injustice. In our essay, Kling and I expand on DiAngelo’s argument, among other things, and venture another, complimentary cause of white fragility; an inadequate vocabulary that is used to describe race-​based situations. We argue that this inadequate vocabulary results in a false dichotomy of race-​based situations being categorized as either racist or as not racist. We argue that, for a variety of reasons, many race-​based situations are classified as not racist, despite being problematic, and, as such, discussions of many race-​based situations are halted before they even start. They are halted before they start because if the situation is deemed not racist, then there is simply nothing to talk about even though there may, in fact, be something that needs to be discussed. This is an example of testimonial smothering,12 where “a speaker recognizes that an audience –​perhaps due to the likelihood that an audience harbors an identity 11 12

Her discussion of race is limited mainly to the United States of America, as that is where most of her experience and evidence was attained. Kristie Dotson, “Tracking epistemic violence, tracking patterns of silencing,” Hypatia 26, no.2 (2011): 236–​257.

204 Harper prejudice against the speaker –​is unlikely to give her adequate upvotes, she’ll choose not to speak.”13 The speaker effectively silences herself, resulting in the preclusion of the communication of her lived experience. This is a serious issue14 when it happens even on an individual scale, but this is something that has been and is currently taking place on a much larger scale –​a massive segment of the population, defined by race, is currently suffering from testimonial smothering –​unable to share some of their stories and unable to seek remedies for the injustices that they have faced. Many, or perhaps even most, race-​based situations, we argue, do not fit so neatly into the racist/​not racist split with which we have been left. Many situations likely fall into a gray area where we do not necessarily want to call them racist. Still, we also do not feel completely comfortable with them –​they are not benign, and further discussion on them is needed. We claim that what is needed is a more robust vocabulary, a more extensive set of terms, to apply to these race-​based situations that occupy this gray area. If we can more accurately define the situations, then we are more likely to be able to prevent instances of testimonial smothering, where the victim feels that her testimony will be met with hostility and so chooses to silence herself and to prevent instances of white fragility in which the white person immediately feels personally attacked in discussions of race and racism and feels the need to shift the focus away from the victim and onto herself. To be fair, some readers may deny the existence of white fragility as a phenomenon and, as such, may see the aims of this particular project as largely unnecessary. While I will not try to make a case for the existence of white fragility here, as it is beyond the scope of this essay, I will direct the reader’s attention to one particular piece of work, in addition to DiAngelo’s (obviously) which demonstrates the presence of white fragility in our world –​something that I grant for this essay. Though he does not use the same terminology as DiAngelo, George Yancy recently authored Backlash: What Happens When We Talk Honestly About Race in America,15 a book-​length treatment of instances of white fragility (coupled with outright bigotry) directed at him in response to the publication of his 2015 New York Times Op-​Ed piece, “Dear White America.”16 Yancy presents a

13 14 15 16

Rachel McKinnon, “Epistemic Injustice,” Philosophy Compass 11, no. 8 (2016): 442. It could plausibly be argued that this is an injustice, as well. This is especially the case if we follow the ideas of Miranda Fricker, Rachel McKinnon and, historically-​speaking, Francis Ellen Watkins Harper. George Yancy, Backlash: What Happens When We Talk Honestly About Race in America (Lanham, Lexington Books, 2018). George Yancy, “Dear White America,” The New York Times (December 24, 2015).

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detailed account of the backlash that he and some of his colleagues faced in the months and years following the publication of “Dear White America.” Verbatim accounts of emails, phone calls and threats that came in response to, what Yancy calls, the offering of a gift. The reason for which I acknowledge this particular work of Yancy is that he provides us with a comprehensive inside look at dozens of shocking instances of white fragility17 of the type that many of us would never see, simply because we do not have the platform to which Yancy has the access. So, this serves as a prime example of “just because we don’t see it, doesn’t mean it is not happening.” It is a window into some of the hatred, violence, fear, and insecurity that is still very much alive in white America. It is a window that recounts very specific and undeniable cases of white fragility. I also reference Yancy’s work to acknowledge the fact that he is one of the most well-​regarded and highly accomplished thinkers in our field who has made a successful career of crafting his words to precisely and eloquently communicate his thoughts to academics, students, and laypeople alike. The point is that if Yancy, with his mastery of the relevant concepts and the language, cannot speak on these issues without triggering white fragility, then there is little hope for the rest of us to avoid the same fate, lest something changes. This essay is an attempt to work toward that change and to add racial insensitivity to the toolbox of terms that we can use to describe race-​based situations that do not seem to rise to the level of racist but that we do not want to dismiss as not racist. 2

Several Points of Clarification

Before moving any further, I think it is essential to make several vital points of clarification for some of the specific ideas that underlie the broader topic addressed in this essay. First, I acknowledge the view that one particular instance does not and cannot qualify as racist because racism is a systemic pattern that cannot be reduced to individual instances. But, with that in mind, that is not the everyday usage of the term or application of the concept. Many of us do, in fact, see one particular instance, one particular act or one particular person and are inclined to say “that is racist.” While we want to be able to identify racism as systemic, many of us also feel inclined to be able to call out

17

Though Yancy does not refer to these as instances of white fragility, rather as instances of deep-​seated racism and hatred.

206 Harper individual instances that we think are racist and condemn them for being so. Providing an argument for whether this is the right thing to do or not is beyond the scope of this essay. The simple fact of the matter is that this happens, and this is the phenomenon toward which I will be directing my focus. One possible way of framing this, for those who may be disinclined to accept that the individual instances and assessments of those instances is a worthwhile lens through which to view a more extensive problem may be to consider these individual instances as individual instances that contribute to the systemic pattern of racism –​reducing the whole to its parts. The second point of clarification is that there is no necessary connection between categorizing a situation as racist and categorizing the agent responsible for that situation as racist as well. While we often, subconsciously, draw that connection, it is a connection that does not necessarily hold. Just as I can say that you did something stupid but still not think that you are stupid, I can say that something that you did was racist and still not think that you are racist. This is something that my students have a tendency of forgetting if I happen to return their assignment with a low grade, or when we, as philosophers, receive less-​than-​favorable comments from an editor or from an anonymous referee on work that we have submitted for publication. The connection between a situation and an agent, or between a product and a creator, is not necessary (at least in this sense) but it is a connection that we make far too frequently and without much thought. This perceived connection is one of the contributing factors to white fragility; thinking that a judgment of a situation is also a judgment of the responsible agent. The aim of the expanded vocabulary that I have, and will go on to argue for, is to punctuate further that this connection is not necessary, thus minimizing instances of white fragility, leading to increased and improved dialogue and, hopefully, progress. Thirdly, as you have seen, and will continue to see, the term “gray area” will be used throughout this essay to refer to race-​based situations that are not benign yet that do not rise to the level of racist. This term and its application have been borrowed from Ann J. Cahill18 and Nicola Gavey.19 Kling and I outline this, in our essay, by saying that Ann J. Cahill, in her discussion of Nicola Gavey, discusses a distinction between good sexual interactions and bad sexual interactions, permissible sexual interactions and impermissible sexual interactions, just sexual

18 19

Ann J. Cahill, “Unjust Sex vs Rape,” Hypatia 31, no.4 (2016): 746–​761. Nicola Gavey, Just Sex?: The Cultural Scaffolding of Rape (New York: Routledge, 2005).

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interactions and unjust sexual interactions. She argues that none of these terms can suitably be applied to the bulk of our sexual interactions, and argues “for the existence of a ‘gray area’ of sexual interactions that are ethically questionable without rising to the category of sexual assault.” Not only do Cahill and Gavey argue that this “gray area” of sexual interaction exists, but also that this “gray area” is where the majority of our sexual interactions land, and that there is no proper term, or set of terms, with which to refer to them. There is no proper term to denote a sexual interaction that does not seem entirely right but that does not quite satisfy the criterion for sexual assault.20 Similarly, McKinnon describes this idea in relation to Miranda Fricker’s21 concept of hermeneutical injustice.22 Writing on this, McKinnon contextualizes the concept by presenting the example of the term sexual harassment, which is the central example utilized by Fricker in her discussion of hermeneutical injustice; Prior to the naming of a wide range of –​particularly workplace –​behaviors, women were unable to understand their own experiences and the discomfort they felt with the associated behaviors of men in terms of harassment. Groping, leering, following, lewd comments, and such in the workplace didn’t typically rise to meet the standard for criminal harassment, so referring to them as harassment was unavailable. Moreover, such behaviors were often dismissed as ‘harmless flirting’. However, with the consciousness-​raising movement of second-​wave feminism in the 1960s, these behaviors were finally understood, and named, as a form of harassment: sexual harassment. Indeed, ‘sexual harassment’ as a phrase and concept was wholly absent from the social imagination prior to this. However, once named, women were able to understand their own experiences, and they were able to communicate their experiences to others: hermeneutical injustice was overcome.23 We argue that the phenomenon described by Cahill, Gavey and Fricker possesses a structure very similar to the structure of the problem that we see 20 21 22 23

Harper and Kling, “Semantic Foundations,” 326–​327. Miranda Fricker, Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). McKinnon, “Epistemic Injustice,” 441. McKinnon, “Epistemic Injustice,” 441.

208 Harper with the semantics of race-​based situations. As such, it seems fitting to utilize the same terminology to refer to the semantic blind spot for each respective problem and to proceed down a similar path to solving a similarly-​structured problem. And, lastly, an underlying assumption in this essay is that moral culpability is worse than epistemic culpability. That is, to be morally culpable for something is to be personally culpable for something –​to have your character be judged as wrong, in a sense. In contrast, the same does not follow for epistemic culpability. To be epistemically culpable for something is not to be personally culpable in the same sense, as it would not be to have your character to be judged as fundamentally wrong in any sense. For one who has been deemed epistemically culpable, the road to redemption seems a relatively straightforward one –​learn more about the situation. The same cannot be said for one who is morally culpable, as learning more about the situation does not necessarily lead one to a path of living a more ethical life. As such, making positive progress from moral culpability, and being forgiven for moral culpability, is likely to be a much more complex and challenging process. For these reasons, I take being epistemically culpable to be a far more preferable position to be in than being morally culpable. 3

Getting to the Point

I think that the best way to start building my argument is by revisiting a fictional, though possibly familiar, example that was presented in Harper and Kling (2020).24 We can use this example as a reference point for the forthcoming discussion. Setting up such an example will help both to illuminate the limitations of the current terminology and to serve as a situation to which we can hope to apply the new term racial insensitivity. The example goes as follows Suppose a young, white family is preparing for a fun-​filled Halloween evening. In their preparations, the 6-​year old daughter puts on her costume that her parents purchased for her at a local big-​box store –​one which depicts (rather poorly) the ceremonial garb of a nondescript indigenous tribe. Upon putting on her costume, her parents promptly send her out with her group of friends and a neighborhood parent to go trick-​or-​treating.25 24 25

Harper and Kling, “Semantic Foundations.” Harper and Kling, “Semantic Foundations,” 327-​328.

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Let us also add the further specifications that this is a generally lovely and thoughtful family who harbors no ill-​will toward any particular race, religion or ethnicity and that this costume was the only one available that was in the correct size for the daughter and within an affordable price range for the family. What exactly are we to make of this situation? How are we to classify this and, perhaps by extension, the agents involved? This is a situation that, I would argue, our current vocabulary in terms of race-​based terminology, prevents us from fully or accurately considering, much less communicating, some of the possible competing viewpoints.26 I would venture that a significant number of people would have a problem with this situation; that is, not see it as a benign situation that ought to be dismissed. This crudely-​made Pocahontas costume is fundamentally different from a crudely-​made Finding Nemo costume, or a crudely-​made Jack Sparrow costume –​there is a racial undertone to this situation.27 So, we could likely understand that some people would think that it is not quite nothing, in terms of a race-​based situation, and that it should not be dismissed entirely. One needs only to look at the strained history between Indigenous peoples in North America and whites to understand why such strong feelings about situations like this exist. This history includes, but is not limited to, genocide, residential schools, misappropriation of land and resources, and cultural appropriation. Any one of these factors could lead to one interpreting the situation described above as racist. Discussion on why that strained history may lead one to interpret the above example as an example of a racist situation is beyond the scope of this essay. However, I think that it should be obvious how such feelings could be warranted. On the other hand, I think that there are still many who would be reluctant to describe this situation or the agents involved with it as racist. I think that many could say that this does not satisfy some kind of minimum threshold that is required to deem a situation as racist. There are several legitimate reasons that one could hold this position. The first is that neither the parents nor the child were intentionally trying to wrong anybody. The parents were just trying to help their daughter fit in with her peers, the best way that they could, given the means available to them. Similarly, the daughter was just being a kid who wanted to feel included by taking part in a typically harmless annual, childhood tradition with her friends. Many would not claim that the parents 26 27

This also appears to be the type of situation about which Tommie Shelby is worried in his assessment of volitional conceptions of racism in the conclusion of his 2002 essay “Is Racism in the ‘Heart’.” In addition to cultural and ethnic undertones, as well.

210 Harper were racist since they were simply doing what they thought was best for their child –​something that we all strive to do with our children –​and many would not claim that the daughter was racist since she is so young and does not know better. Because of that, she may not be someone to whom we ascribe moral blameworthiness. Given the two above considerations, that the situation in our example does not seem to clearly meet the requirements to be considered racist –​it is just a young girl wearing the Halloween costume that her parents could afford to purchase for her –​but it certainly is not not racist. This seems to be a race-​based situation that falls into a gray area and is thus a situation that we are unable to properly categorize, given the insufficiency of the semantic tools currently available. In cases like this, I am inclined to say that the parents were misguided, that they should have known better and that, if they had known better, they would have acted differently. This puts them in the category of being epistemically blameworthy rather than being morally blameworthy. Being epistemically culpable, as discussed above, while still not a desirable position to be in, is a far better position to be in than being morally culpable. As such, the parents would still be blameworthy for their actions, but in a different sense and to a lesser degree than would be parents who deliberately dressed their child in a costume that would offend or hurt others. When we look at clear-​cut instances of racism like paying somebody a lower wage because they are of a particular race, failing to rent a property to somebody because he is Black, or shunning a family member because they enter into an interracial romantic relationship, we see the prime agent in these situations as being morally culpable for their actions. The reason that we see them as morally culpable is that they possess all of the relevant information and still choose to proceed in a manner that wrongs others based on their race. In the case of the parents buying their daughter the Halloween costume, I am hesitant to say they are morally culpable. I favor the claim that they are epistemically culpable because they should have known better. Likewise, I am hesitant to say that the daughter is morally culpable for the same reasons that were noted above. I, similarly, want to say that the daughter is epistemically culpable, though to a far lesser degree than her mother, because she should have known better.28 Some may argue that I am simply giving the family or, minimally the parents, too much credit by giving them the benefit of the doubt. 28

This may be a bit of a stretch, but I think the idea still stands since the epistemic burden on the daughter is far less than it is on the mother. This difficulty serves to illustrate my larger point that accounting for the diversity of numerous considerations, accurately, is extremely difficult to do with limited terminology. Rather than having a particular term

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This may be the case, but recall that the specification that the family is generally a good-​natured family who harbors no ill-​feelings toward anyone based on their race, ethnicity or religion. This detail was deliberately put in place to address that worry. This is not to forget, however, that this is merely an example in which we are aware of the relevant details. In the real world, we are often not aware of all of the relevant details, at least not with any certainty and, as such, the objection may still hold in real-​world scenarios. If we are looking at some of these situations that are to be found in the gray area, as I think this Halloween costume situation is, a term that we may be able to apply to them appropriately is racially insensitive. Being racially insensitive, or being responsible for bringing about a racially insensitive situation, is different from being racist or from being responsible for bringing about a racist situation because the former denotes epistemic culpability whereas the latter denotes moral culpability. The difference between the person who is racially insensitive and, in turn, epistemically culpable and the person who is racist and, in turn, morally culpable is that the former fails to possess information that would have made them act differently. If they had that information, then they would have acted differently. The racist, on the other hand, either has that relevant information and still chooses to maintain his course of action or, alternatively, lacks that information but would still maintain his course of action even if he had the relevant information. 4

Why This Distinction Matters

In classifying somebody as racially insensitive instead of racist, we are not making a claim about their character. It is the perception that a character claim is being made that is one of the primary triggers of white fragility and what, in most cases, shuts down or shifts the conversation at the outset. Whether or not this perception turns out to reflect the actual state of affairs is irrelevant, at the moment, since it is the perception of the situation that guides the response, and it is that perception that ultimately leads to a response of white fragility. In making it clear, through the use of distinct terminology, that the agent is epistemically culpable rather than morally culpable the hope is that the individual will be more likely to take this as a learning opportunity than they otherwise would and be more likely to engage in dialogue about how to rectify the situation and to prevent similar situations from happening again. The hope is at my disposal, I am forced to apply modifiers and qualifications to the terms that are already in place, in the hopes of clearly conveying my thoughts.

212 Harper that the agent will recognize the difference in gravity between a moral claim and an epistemic claim, and understand that the level of defensiveness that is often employed in response to an epistemic claim is far lower than the level that is often employed to respond to a moral claim. Making it an epistemic claim rather than a moral claim serves the purpose of framing the situation as a learning opportunity rather than as a personal attack or condemnation. This is not an unfamiliar tone, as we often speak to children, when they have done something wrong, with an “I know you didn’t mean to do it but …” kind of approach. This is because it is less likely to trigger a defensive response from the child yet still conveys the idea that what the child has done was wrong, misguided, or otherwise unacceptable and that it should not be done again. If what DiAngelo says about white people, and their lack of experience in directly confronting and speaking about issues of race, is right then we may also be able to consider them, in some cases, to be childlike and have to address the situation as such. It needs to be made clear that this is an opportunity for epistemic growth instead of character attack. Being able to make this clear through the employment of a singular term, racial insensitivity, rather than through a term that is then followed by a series of qualifications seems far more accurate, concise, efficient and effective. The hope, in making this distinction and in utilizing racial insensitivity, is that it allows us to describe and, by extension, categorize race-​based situations more accurately. Not every race-​based situation needs to be, or is, racist or not racist. This is far too simplistic for such a diverse set of situations. Adding racial insensitivity to our semantic toolbox allows us to call out the situations that are not necessarily racist but that are still problematic and that need to be addressed. By lowering the bar on what kinds of situations we can call out, and by expanding the ways by which we can refer to them we can improve the accuracy of our perceptions, communication, and decrease the likelihood of testimonial smothering. Furthermore, referring to the race-​based situations and the agents responsible for bringing them about in epistemic terms reduces the likelihood of white fragility when these topics are addressed. Suppose white fragility is still the response to the charge of racial insensitivity. In that case, it will likely be of a far milder, and less defensive version than could be anticipated were the present terminology that denotes moral culpability to be used. Through the reduction of frequency and strength of white fragility, we can anticipate that conversations about race and racism, and those who have been wronged, will become more frequent and more fruitful. By utilizing a term that steps around the connotation of personal moral culpability, many will likely feel more open to discuss the issue instead of feeling the pressing need to defend their own character. It is only through this frequent and fruitful

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dialogue that we can begin to see action to remedy some of the racial injustices that we have seen, and that we continue to see. 5

Limitations and Further Considerations

While I have tried to provide an account of the problem that we are faced with in terms of the inadequate terminology that we have to describe such a broad range of race-​based situations and to provide a first step toward solving this problem, there are limitations to my proposal. This addition and utilization of racial insensitivity to the semantic toolbox may only apply to a small portion of the race-​based situations that fall within the gray area. This still leaves many race-​based situations lacking adequate terminology for proper categorization. That being the case, more work needs to be done to see how racial insensitivity may apply to these remaining race-​based situations or else additional terms also need to be developed to account for other race-​based situations that cannot be accurately described as such. Secondly, some will not be amenable to this “softening the blow” kind of approach to addressing race-​based situations, arguing that it puts the onus on the individual who has been wronged to make the one doing the wronging feel more comfortable.29 That is to say; some may argue that it is not the responsibility of Black people (or those fighting against racial injustice on their behalf) to try to figure out when and how to employ the terminology at our disposal, hoping to employ the correct term only in the hopes of preserving the would-​be racist’s feelings. These people may argue, similarly, that if somebody’s feelings are hurt because they got called out for bringing about a racially problematic situation, in which someone other than them was wronged, so be it. A racist being offended by being called racist, even if it may not be entirely warranted, is a small price to pay, especially when they are the one who wronged somebody, whether intentionally or not. Calling them out and hurting their feelings may, in fact, provide them with the shock necessary to cause them to think more deeply before acting again in a similar manner. I want to make clear that it is not my contention that the motivation for the introduction of a term that distinguishes between moral and epistemic culpability is to protect the feelings of any individual who has wronged another. The motivation is simply to have the necessary semantic tools at our disposal so that we may accurately label various phenomena as they arise. Additionally, as has been 29

George Yancy often refers to this as placating white folks.

214 Harper argued by Kling and I,30 The current semantic tools have caused the progress of racial equality to move at a pace far slower than many would have hoped –​ and this is because of the false dichotomy that prevents us from having open and informed discussion about these issues. Adding the new term of racially insensitive, while it may not be the silver bullet to end all racial injustice, is a term that can, in certain instances, promote meaningful dialogue and, hopefully, lead to further social progress. Third, as alluded to above, determining when to utilize terms that denote moral culpability versus when to utilize terms that denote epistemic culpability is not a straightforward task. In many instances, applying a term that denotes epistemic culpability will require granting someone the benefit of the doubt, knowing that you may not possess all of the relevant information. In the example of the family and the Halloween costume that was presented earlier, we had all of the relevant information. This is rarely, if ever, the case in the real world. This limitation, however, is simply something that we cannot get around. We will always, in any real-​world situation, have our epistemic limitations and will have to rely on our best judgment to accurately and adequately gauge the situation. We will simply need to continue to foster interpersonal relationships, have these difficult conversations, and learn more about one another as individuals if we are to improve ourselves when it comes to assessing race-​based situations, and whether the agents involved ought to be considered morally culpable or epistemically culpable. And, lastly, this account, as I have presented it here, seems to operate on an “ignorance is bliss” principle, possibly allowing the uneducated racist to slip through a loophole and dodge moral culpability for his actions, and to only be deemed as epistemically culpable. To move this conversation forward, a more comprehensive account may need to be developed, one that accounts for situations where the agent really should have known better, or where willful ignorance is at play. This relates to the need to potentially develop more terms to include in our semantic toolbox to adequately address the diversity and complexity of the situations that we may, and often do, encounter. 6

Conclusion

I have argued that, given the false dichotomy that is created by the lack of adequate terms to properly characterize race-​based situations and, by extension, 30

Harper and Kling, “Semantic Foundations.”.

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the agents who bring them about, we are left with a large gray area of situations that cannot be accurately described by the terms that appear at either end of the spectrum. This false dichotomy has resulted in testimonial smothering and a preclusion of much of the meaningful and fruitful dialogue that otherwise could have occurred. This preclusion of fruitful dialogue serves only to maintain and perpetuate existing racial polarization, often manifesting itself in the unjust treatment of racial minorities, violence, and a general lack of peace. Introducing racial insensitivity as a term that distinguishes between race-​based situations for which the agent is epistemically culpable and race-​based situations for which the agent is morally culpable helps us to gain some clarity on what is going on in some of these situations. This clarity will help to reduce instances of white fragility and shift the focus onto the race-​based situation and those who have been wronged instead of the agent(s) who brought about that race-​based situation. Seeing a reduction in white fragility would, in turn, promote a free dialogue of race-​based situations that is both more frequent and of more substance than what we currently see, ultimately leading to a more significant potential for racial depolarization and achieving racial justice and peace.31

References

Boroditsky, Lera. “How Language Shapes Thought: The Languages We Speak Affect Our Perceptions of the World.” Scientific American. February 2011. https://​www​.sci​enti​ fica​meri​can​.com​/arti​cle​/how​-langu​age​-sha​pes​-thou​ght​/​. Cahill, Ann J. “Unjust Sex vs Rape.” Hypatia 31, no. 4 (2016): 746–​761. Caldwell-​Harris, Catherine L. “Our Language Affects What We See: A New Look at the ‘Russian Blues’ Demonstrates the Power of Words to Shape Perception.” Scientific American. January 15 2019. https://​www​.sci​enti​fica​meri​can​.com​/arti​cle​/our​-langu​ age​-affe​cts​-what​-we​-see​/​. Casasanto, Daniel, Lera Boroditsky, Webb Phillips, Jesse Greene, Shima Goswami, Simon Bocanegra-​Thiel, Ilia Santiago-​Diaz, Olga Fotokopoulu, Ria Pita, David Gil. “How Deep Are Effects of Language on Thought?: Time Estimation in Speakers of

31

Whether or not this approach will have a positive impact on the nature of race relations in contemporary America, or elsewhere, may depend on the state in which society currently happens to find itself, as Klasnja and Novta (2016) point out that the same approach can have drastically different outcomes depending on the current state of the society as it relates to racial and ethnic segregation, increasing the likelihood of conflict in some cases while decreasing the likelihood of conflict in others.

216 Harper English, Indonesian, Greek, and Spanish.” Proceedings of the 26th Annual Cognitive Science Society, edited by Kenneth Forbus, Dedre Gentner and Terry Regier, 186–​191. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc., 2004. Chomsky, Noam. Reflections on Language. New York: Pantheon, 1975. Collins, Randall. “C-​Escalation and D-​Escalation: A Theory of the Time-​Dynamics of Conflict.” American Sociological Review 77, no. 1 (2012): 1–​20. Deutscher, Guy. Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages. New York: Arrow Books, 2011. DiAngelo, Robin. White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard For White People to Talk About Racism. Boston: Beacon Press, 2018. Dotson, Kristie. “Tracking epistemic violence, tracking patterns of silencing.” Hypatia 26, no. 2 (2011): 236–​257. Douglass, Frederick. “The Race Problem.” Great speech of Frederick Douglass, delivered beforethe Bethel Literary and Historical Association, in the Metropolitan A.M.E. Church, Washington, D.C. October 21, 1890. Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove Press, 1963. Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. New York: Grove Press, 1967. Fricker, Miranda. Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Gavey, Nicola. Just Sex?: The Cultural Scaffolding of Rape. New York: Routledge, 2005. Harper, Leland, Jennifer Kling. “The Semantic Foundations of White Fragility and the Consequences for Justice.” Res Philosophica 97, no. 2 (2020): 325–​344. Jackendoff, Ray. Semantics and Cognition. Cambridge: mit Press, 1983. Klasnja, Marko, Natalija Novta. “Segregation, Polarization, and Ethnic Conflict.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 60, no. 5 (2016): 927–​955. Langton, Rae, Luvell Anderson & Haslanger, Sally. “Language and Race” in Routledge Companion to the Philosophy of Language, eds. Gillian Russell & Delia Graff Fara. New York: Routledge, 2012: 753–​767. McClelland, Kent. “Cycles of Conflict: A Computational Modeling Alternative to Collins’s Theory of Conflict Escalation.” Sociological Theory 32, no. 2 (2014): 100–​127. McKinnon, Rachel. “Epistemic Injustice.” Philosophy Compass 11, no. 8 (2016): 437–​446. Shelby, Tommie. “Is Racism in the ‘Heart’?,” Journal of Social Philosophy 33, no. 3 (2002): 411–​420. X, Malcolm and Alex Haley. The Autobiography of Malcolm x: As Told to Alex Haley. New York: Ballantine Books, 1992. Yancy, George. “Dear White America.” The New York Times. December 24, 2015.

­c hapter 10

How Pejorative Language Encourages Physical Violence William Gay 1

From Pejorative Language to Physical Violence There is and will be rousing language to keep citizens armed and arming; slaughtered and slaughtering in the malls, courthouses, post offices, playgrounds, bedrooms and boulevards; stirring, memorializing language to mask the pity and waste of needless death. toni morrison1

In “Beware of ‘Snakes,’ ‘Invaders’ and Other Fighting Words” (2019), Jason Stanley and David Beaver lay out the dangers of using words that play on negative associations. For example, in the United States references to immigrants as “invaders” or to juvenile offenders as “superpredators” shift the perceived obligation of how we should respond. Public support increases for forceful expulsion of immigrants and for excessive sentences for offenders. The harsh “border defense” and unprecedented “mass incarceration” that resulted also involve the exclusion or confinement of individuals largely along racial lines and further exacerbate social injustice. Likewise, in “Genocidal Language Games” (2012), Lynne Tirrell addresses how Hutu references to Tutsi as “cockroaches” or “snakes” facilitated “cleansing” in Rwanda. These even more grievous uses of words that play on negative associations are similar to Nazi characterizations of Jews as “vermin” and “bacillus” that “spread diseases” and, hence, need to be eradicated. My concern is with how such pejorative language escalates polarity and encourages physical violence. Historically, current concerns about polarity and polarization, especially in U.S. politics, are different from the ones widely addressed near the end of the Cold War and immediately following it, especially

1 Toni Morrison, “Nobel Lecture” (The Nobel Prize in Literature 1993), December 7, 1993, https://​www​.nob​elpr​ize​.org​/pri​zes​/lit​erat​ure​/1993​/morri​son​/lect​ure​/​ . accessed August 7, 2019.

© William Gay, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004541573_012

218 Gay in the literature on globalization.2 Throughout the Cold War, many political theorists found stability in the “balance of terror” that hopefully reduced the prospect for nuclear war between the superpowers, while their critics worried about the disastrous consequence if deterrence failed. Even during these times, many in the developing world regarded the bi-​polar system of the two superpowers of the “North” as neglecting the interests of the developing countries in the “South” who favored a multi-​polar system that they thought would provide them with greater voice as well as more stability and prosperity.3 (Some of these concerns among developing nations have similarities to ones raised when issues of intersectionality are neglected—​a point I will address at the end of this essay.) The post-​Cold War world, however, turned out to be neither bi-​polar nor multipolar. Instead, we have a largely mono-​polar or unipolar system that gives the United States largely unchecked power and dominance in geopolitics.4 The impact of the recent global coronavirus pandemic, while it may “reshuffle” a variety of long-​standing global political and economic systems, also exacerbates threats to marginalized groups globally. These negative impacts on marginalized groups also involve abuses of language that are escalating and that are providing scapegoats for some political leaders and their followers. Even before Covid-​19, references to and occurrences of polarization in the United States had shifted from a geopolitical focus on of bi-​, mono-​, and multi-​polarity to the way polarization of the electorate had reached an all-​ time extreme.5 This polarization, sometimes cast as the sharp differences in the values of “blue states” and “red states,” is often expressed in terms that are pejorative—​even offensive—​and that also can encourage physical violence. In this essay, I will focus mainly on such linguistic abuses in the United States and will address how to reduce the prospects that partisan divisions escalate into physical violence. From a linguistic point of view, George Lakoff is often cited

2 Alexander N. Chumakov, Ivan I. Mazour, and William C. Gay, eds., Global Studies Encyclopedic Dictionary (Amsterdam and New York, NY: Rodopi, 2014), especially Y. M. Pavlov, “Bipolar World,” 43–​44 and D. Korolev, “Monopolar World,” 339. 3 Cf. T. Kamusella, “North-​South (The Rich North and the Poor South),” Global Studies Encyclopedic Dictionary, 348–​249. 4 Charles Krauthammer, “The Unipolar Moment,” Foreign Affairs (Vol. 70, No. 1), America and the World 1990/​91 (1990/​1991), 23–​33, (Published by the Council on Foreign Relations) Stable url: http://​www​.jstor​.org​/sta​ble​/20044​692, accessed: January 18, 2009. 5 Pietro S. Nivola, “Thinking About Political Polarization,” Brookings Policy Brief Series (January 1, 2005), https://​www​.brooki​ngs​.edu​/resea​rch​/think​ing​-about​-politi​cal​-polar​izat​ion​/, accessed May 17, 2019.

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for his many helpful insights on these problems in our political discourse and ways to respond more constructively that foster less division and more consensus.6 Nevertheless, my focus will be on philosophical models and responses to such polarization, including my own work on linguistic violence and linguistic nonviolence. I will cite how early warnings are present in what may seem to be not overly offensive linguistic designations. Then, I will note how these cases can escalate into more exaggerated forms that can lead to significant increases in physical violence. The steps from marginally linguistic violent discourse, through increasingly toxic speech to outright genocidal language are on a continuum that should concern us. If we do not respond to the more simple abuses of language and associated unjust actions, we are going to be ill equipped to deal with their escalation to more abusive and even egregious forms of discourse and behavior. In this regard, a concern for intersectionality can help expose interrelations among various alarming trends in current discourse that undercut progress toward social justice. In order to provide useful philosophical models for the needed linguistic response to dangerous escalations in pejorative language and the ways it fosters physical violence, I examine the circuitous “non-​ideal” normative approach to an analytic philosophy of language that lies behind the work of Stanley and Beaver and the more direct applied normative approach to the later Wittgenstein that lies behind the work of Tirrell. Specifically, I treat the key chapter in Stanley’s How Propaganda Works (2015) and Beaver and Stanley’s “Towards a Non-​Ideal Philosophy of Language” (2019). In addition, I consider further essays by Tirrell, including “Derogatory Terms” (1999) and two articles on toxic speech (2017 and 2018). These texts share important commonalities regarding intersectionality that developed within critical race theory, recent feminism, and other multi-​faceted approaches to social justice. I conclude with further remarks on intersectionality and with six suggestions on how individuals can and should respond to uses of pejorative language that serve as verbal cues that can lead to and provide supposed justification for physical violence.

6 Cf. esp. George Lakoff, Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think, 2nd ed. (Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 2002).

220 Gay 2

Dangers of Words with Negative Associations: Stanley’s Non-​ideal Philosophy of Language

“Beware of ‘Snakes,’ ‘Invaders’ and Other Fighting Words”: Language and Polarity In a recent succinct, incisive, and accessible “Opinion” essay in the New York Times, Jason Stanley and David Beaver bring to a high circulation and well-​ respected public forum the ways in which negative terms contribute to polarity and physical violence.7 This essay is a good example of bringing to the public accessible political analysis that is informed by an applied philosophy that takes a normative position against harms to oppressed groups. I will survey this eye-​opening essay before turning to its deeper philosophical underpinnings. This essay begins by noting the rise globally in the use by “far-​right national leaders” of “harsh rhetoric against minority groups, particularly immigrants.” Stanley and Beaver note the historical associations of how such pejorative language exacerbate social and political polarities and facilitate “acts of genocide, ethnic cleansing and terrorism.” They give particular attention to such related developments in the United States over the last several decades. For example, during the 1990s some criminologists and politicians began using the term “superpredators”—​despite declining rates of violent crime—​and even applied it to what they termed “hardened, remorseless, juveniles.” Not surprisingly, what did rise were harsh sentencing laws and dramatic increases in incarceration, particularly among African Americans, to the point that the United States now has the world’s highest rate of incarceration. Stanley and Beaver also trace similar linguistic turns that have swelled opposition to immigrants. In brief, widespread use of highly charged words can result in changed behavior, even violent behavior. Moreover, the harsh treatment of the victims of such designations can be viewed as authorized and acceptable. To support their claims, Stanley and Beaver cite marketing research on how rhetoric significantly affects attitudes. Then, they turn to the philosophical research of Lynne Tirrell that I discuss later in this essay. Her groundbreaking research documents the linguistic changes that preceded and licensed the genocide in Rwanda. Stanley and Beaver also address recent U.S. discussion of immigration. They quote Trump’s post-​election remark, “People hate the word ‘invasion,’ but that’s what it is. It’s an invasion of drugs and criminals and people.” They stress 2.1

7 Jason Stanley and David Beaver, “Beware of ‘Snakes,’ ‘Invaders’ and Other Fighting Words,” New York Times, Opinion, May 16, 2019, https://​www​.nyti​mes​.com​/2019​/05​/16​/opin​ ion​/pro​paga​nda​-is​-power​.html, accessed May 20, 2019; all quotations in this section are from this essay.

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the social impact of such language by persons in positions of high authority. In addition, they note how such language is an instrument of manipulation—​ what Stanley discusses at length in his book How Propaganda Works. Such language occurs in the open and “reinforces” the supposed “normalcy” of the practices it encourages. I turn now to his analysis in that book in order to move to the philosophical foundations for this provocative essay. “Language as a Mechanism of Control”: Negative and Violent Impact of Propaganda Stanley, who teaches philosophy at Yale University, has published widely in analytic philosophy of language and on topics of propaganda and fascism. In his book How Propaganda Works, his chapter on “Language as a Mechanism of Control” hints at what will become his non-​ideal philosophy of language when he observes that “formal semantics and pragmatics” give little attention to “code words” because of their reliance on an “ideal picture of deliberation.”8 Basically, he is suggesting the limits of mainstream analytic philosophy of language for dealing with real world abuses of language. Stanley affirms reasonableness and connects it with empathy. By contrast, propaganda presents some groups as “not worthy of our respect” and, especially through demagoguery, erodes reasonableness.9 He notes how demagogues progress in their use of negative terms to the ones that are increasingly inflammatory. To support his position he appeals to the analytic distinction between “at-​issue content” versus “not-​at-​issue content” to show how this shift works. While the “at-​issue content” concerns the claim under debate, the “not-​at issue content” can simply be added to the common ground without debate. He notes how Trump frequently uses this technique (though very probably not knowing its name) when he employs expressions like “Some people say” to add a view to the common ground that really should be subject to debate. Put technically, Stanley says, “one can communicate a noneasily challenged meaning by attaching it to an expression as not-​at-​issue content.”10 By means of this technique, connecting African Americans with welfare can allow “welfare” to take on the not-​at-​issue content that African Americans are lazy. (He further illustrates this point by showing how the statement “There are Jews among us,” while expressing ordinary at-​issue content, can convey through use of “among us” that Jews are outsiders or invaders and not part of “the ‘us’ of the polity.”)11 2.2

8 9 10 11

Jason Stanley, How Propaganda Works (Princeton University Press: Princeton, NY, 2015), 125. Ibid., 127. Ibid., 136. Ibid., 140.

222 Gay While the at-​issue content seems reasonable, the not-​at-​issue content is not reasonable. The challenge involves not only pointing out the presence of this technique but also finding a way to render at-​issue the not-​at-​issue bias that has been injected into the discussion. (To back up his position, he cites, but does not discuss, the important but very technical work of Pierre Bourdieu, which I discuss elsewhere.)12 Since such challenges generally require equal social standing, the insights of Bourdieu would be very useful since he focuses on the unequal distribution of linguistic power, though he as well does not propose how to remedy this inequality.13 Stanley is noting how political and everyday discourse can introduce words that start off sounding innocent but can become slurs. Basically, the process can begin with demagogues intentionally, and many persons innocently, using less explicitly derogatory, yet still functionally demeaning, words. As he puts it in relation to debates on Civil Rights, “implicit messages are vastly more effective in achieving the results that philosophers attribute to slurs.”14 He goes so far as to say, “Most words carry with them, in all their occurrences, not-​at-​issue meanings that cannot be easily expunged, if at all.”15 Though he does not cite Volosinov, he is making a similar point about how most, if not all words, have an ideological charge.16 Members of subordinate groups often partially (to largely) accept the dominant group’s negative stereotype of them in order to enter into conversation with their supposed superiors.17 As a consequence, for subordinate groups to have voice, their “delegates” risk usurpation. They risk being co-​opted by using the official language. Despite this danger, bell hooks addresses why members of oppressed groups still need to use the language of the oppressor in order to be heard.18 I will address later how Tirrell treats this danger in relation to efforts by the oppressed to “reclaim” some of the derogatory terms that have been used to negatively characterize them.

12

William Gay, “Bourdieu and the Social Conditions of Wittgensteinian Language Games,” The International Journal of Applied Philosophy 11:1 (1996), 15–​21. 13 Pierre Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power, John B. Thompson, ed., Gino Raymond and Matthew Adamson, trans. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991). 14 Stanley, How Propaganda Works, 154. 15 Ibid., 155. 16 V. N. Volosinov, Marxism and the Philosophy of Language, Ladislav Matejka and I. R. Titnik, trans., (New York and London: Seminar Press, 1973). 17 Stanley, How Propaganda Works, 163. 18 bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York: Routledge, 1994, esp. 167–​175.

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To end this discussion, Stanley turns to Dewey on democracy as an ideal, but he questions the way Dewey presents this ideal. Stanley’s concern is that “faith in democratic ideals leads us to blindness about their violations.”19 Stanley suggests many other models of norm guidance remain, but he does not elaborate on or advocate among these options, except to suggest being open to one’s own possible bias and relying on the prospect that democratic ideals “are capable of mitigating the effects of inequality.”20 He does not specify how these democratic ideals can be used to reduce the consequences of inequality. From my perspective, the effort to articulate and practice the language of democratic ideals requires as a major component the effort to focus on exposing and replacing language that legitimates the interests of those with power and thereby the inequality of the power that such language legitimates and perpetuates. To do so involves exposing and overcoming linguistic violence and linguistic alienation.21 “Towards a Non-​ideal Philosophy of Language”: Making Analysis Critical In order to ground their criticisms of the terms with negative associations, Beaver and Stanley propose a revision in the philosophy of language. They do so because they find the ideal model of language to be inadequate for dealing with pejorative language and because of what they regard as the benefits of the non-​ideal model for exposing and challenging propaganda. They undertake this task in their very lengthy and often technical essay “Towards a Non-​Ideal Philosophy of Language.”22 I will note some of their main points, and I commend their argument to any who are still enamored with or simply continue in the ideal tradition in philosophy of language despite the widespread acknowledgement of how in the Philosophical Investigations Wittgenstein debunked this theory and proposed the alternative of language games.23 I turn to this alternative in my next section on Tirrell. At outset, they state that their essay “explores questions that arise when these idealizations do not obtain—​such as our actual political condition.”24 2.3

19 Stanley, How Propaganda Works, 176. 20 Ibid., 177. 21 William Gay, “Exposing and Overcoming Linguistic Alienation and Linguistic Violence,” Philosophy and Social Criticism 24:2/​3 (1998), 137–​156. 22 David Beaver and Jason Stanley, “Towards a Non-​Ideal Philosophy of Language,” Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal [New School for Social Research] 39:2 (2019), 501–​545. 23 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, G. E .M. Anscombe, trans., 3rd ed., New York: The Macmillan Company, 1958. 24 Beaver and Stanley, “Towards a Non-​Ideal Philosophy of Language,” 501.

224 Gay They next contend that in his essay “‘Ideal Theory’ as Ideology,” Charles Mills provides a critique of the type of idealization that shapes contemporary political philosophy and political science by exposing how it operates with, as Mills puts it, “little or no attention paid to the distinctive role of hegemonic ideologies and group-​specific experience in distorting our perceptions and conceptions of the social order.”25 In other words, philosophy of language that still begins with or aims for an ideal model of language continues the failed tradition of trying to make logic, rather than ideology, the key to understanding how language operates in the real world where language, as Bourdieu has made clear, is inseparable from power—​which is distributed unequally and to the systematic disadvantage of the majority of people.26 The article of Beaver and Stanley is actually adapted from the first chapter of Stanley and Beaver’s forthcoming book Hustle: The Politics of Language.27 Significantly, the second section of the article is titled “Violent language.” Rather quickly, they note that description is only one of many uses of language and note in relation to genocide the role of “harsh rhetoric and conspiracy theories aimed at targets of violence.”28 They also discuss, based on the work of Lynne Tirrell, the language used by Hutu to dehumanize Tutsi prior to and during the Rwandan genocide. Soon, they turn to one of the themes of their New York Times “Opinion” essay, namely, the shift during the 1990s in discourse in the United States within criminal justice and in politics that relied on terms like “superpredator” and that led to mass incarceration of African Americans. In this essay, they give even more attention to the discourse on immigration and terrorism employed by Donald Trump especially since he assumed the Presidency. In the rhetoric of Trump, immigrants are “infesting” the United States and the poem “Snakes” is invoked in a manner reminiscent of the use of “snakes” by Hutu to refer to Tutsi and of “vermin” used by Nazis to refer to Jews.29 We know the outcomes in Rwanda and Germany, but most U.S. politicians dare not mention that such derogatory language could be leading right-​wing groups in the United States down a similar path of violence toward similarly vulnerable groups—​even though some of their recent manifestos

25 26 27 28 29

Charles Mills, “‘Ideal Theory’ as Ideology,” Hypatia 20:3 (2005), 169; quoted by Beaver and Stanley, 502. Gay, “Bourdieu and the Social Conditions of Wittgensteinian Language Games.” Jason Stanley and David Beaver, Hustle: The Politics of Language. Princeton University Press: Princeton, nj: forthcoming. Beaver and Stanley, “Towards a Non-​Ideal Philosophy of Language,” 504. Ibid., 506.

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echo some of Trump’s terminology. This crucial point is one to which I will return later. Beaver and Stanley claim that we lack (and presumably need) “an account of the relation between rhetoric and dehumanizing ideologies.”30 To illustrate this need, they give a much more detailed treatment of the political use of the terms “welfare” and “inner city” and their negative racial associations and cite many sources in philosophy, such as Jennifer Saul’s “Dogwhistles, Political Manipulation, and Philosophy of Language.”31 In this publication she stresses the role of “covert intentional dog whistles” that are meant to appear as race neutral but which trigger negative responses among persons disposed to racial bias. She also includes “covert unintentional dog whistles” which have pretty much the same effect, such as occurred in Bill Clinton’s use of Republican rhetoric in his call to “end welfare as we know it.” Beaver and Stanley also discuss the first chapter of Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks where he focuses on how speech practices reinforce the racial hierarchies under colonial domination.32 Besides drawing on such critical race theory, they also incorporate insights from feminist scholars. For example, credit is given to gender theorist Sally McConnell-​Ginet for exposing how analytic philosophy of language is not equipped to deal with sexist and homophobic language and other forms of linguistic oppression.33 Interestingly, they also address the fact that propaganda generally also employs pictures along with texts, which philosophy of language misses. They bring together many of their insights in the section on “Plausible Deniability,” which allows those who use racial code words, especially in covert dog whistles, to “plausibly deny that they intended any racial messages.”34 At the other extreme is “implausible deniability” (coined by historian Timothy Snyder to describe Vladimir Putin) where a person is openly and obviously lying. This term can also plausibly be applied to Trump. Eventually, Beaver and Stanley note that linking theory of meaning to actual speech practices was one of Wittgenstein’s main points in his Philosophical Investigations that sought to orient philosophy of language to the study of real world language games. They 30 31

Ibid., 507. Jennifer Saul, “Dogwhistles, Political Manipulation, and Philosophy of Language,” New Work on Speech Acts, Daniel Fogal, Daniel W. Harris, and Matt Moss, eds. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 360–​83. 32 Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, Richard Philcox, trans. (New York: Grove Press, 2008). 33 Sally McConnell-​Ginet, Gender, Sexuality, and Meaning: Linguistic Practice and Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 165–​6. 34 Beaver and Stanley, “Towards a Non-​Ideal Philosophy of Language,” 521.

226 Gay see their work as aiming to expose the hidden meanings and hidden effects of the words we use, and they maintain that ordinary language philosophy provides “a treasure trove of tools” for advancing this effort.35 Where this article ends is where Lynne Tirrell begins, namely with giving the later Wittgenstein’s language games a central role in the non-​ideal philosophy of language that he was initiating—​a point that I also have made.36 So, I now turn to her work. 3

Dangers of Derogatory Terms and Toxic Speech: Tirrell’s Application of the Later Wittgenstein

3.1 “Derogatory Terms” and the Absolutist versus Reclaimer Debate For the problem I am addressing, Tirrell’s early essay “Derogatory Terms” (1999) is important and sobering in relation to realizing the difficulty in trying to escape from the connections between pejorative language and violence.37 She bases this view on her careful review of the arguments by both “Absolutists” and the “Reclaimers” who, despite their differences, agree that the negative associations of derogatory terms are undesirable and that the social practices in which these negative associations are embedded should be changed. In “Derogatory Terms,” Tirrell, who teaches philosophy at the University of Connecticut, reviews the view of Absolutists that the negative associations of derogatory terms are “nondetachable” from words and the view of Reclaimers that these words can be re-​appropriated and given positive connotations. (I note, as one example, such an attempt at reclamation in the feminist magazine Bitch.38) For the Absolutist, while the etymology of a term may not be known or matter to speakers, the current negative associations of a term remain and can come into play regardless of a speaker’s efforts to try to reclaim such a term. Reclaimers think such terms can be taken on as a “badge of pride” and can be given a new and positive future and that a group can “disaffiliate” itself from the “common derogation.”39 The problem is that many speakers are not

35 36 37 38 39

Ibid., 536. William Gay, “From Wittgenstein to Applied Philosophy.” The International Journal of Applied Philosophy 9, n1 (Summer/​Fall 1994): 15–​20. Lynne Tirrell, “Derogatory Terms: Racism, Sexism and the Inferential Role Theory of Meaning,” Kelly Oliver and Christina Hendricks, eds. (New York: suny Press: 2019), 41–​79. Bitch Magazine: Feminist Response to Pop Culture, https://​flips​ter​.ebsco​.com​/magaz​ ine​/bitch​-magaz​ine​-femin​ist​-respo​nse​-to​-pop​-cult​ure, accessed September 8, 2019. Tirrell, “Derogatory Terms,” 58 and 60.

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privy to such effort at change and continue to make negative inferences based on the past (and continuing) negative associations. Tirrell stresses that rehabilitation of a term takes protracted efforts by a large group. However, because both the previous and new associations are now present, the past negative associations are likely to serve as “the default” when there are no clear markers that the less common and more recent positive association is intended. Since these negative associations are supported by long-​standing unjust social, economic and legal practices, Tirrell doubts the reclamation project can fully succeed. Nevertheless, even though the absolutist position is too strong, the highly negative consequences of derogatory terms need careful analysis and effective response. The task for both groups is to challenge the unjust social, economic, and legal practices that underlie derogatory terms. As Marx says in his Eleventh Thesis on Feuerbach: “philosophers have only interpreted the world. The point is to change it.”40 After a decade of research, Tirrell provided the needed type of analysis and response in her superb and seminal article “Genocidal Language Games” in which she clearly shows how pejorative language can lead to physical violence and how we need to respond. “Genocidal Language Games” and the Facilitation of Massive Legal Violence Tirrell’s “Genocidal Language Games” is a carefully researched and clearly argued analysis of the changes in discourse that occurred prior to the Rwandan genocide and that contributed to it.41 Her analysis is distinctive because she undertakes language game analysis that examines how the emergence and use of pejorative terms by Hutu to negatively characterize Tutsi cultivated attitudes that were conducive to undertaking a massive killing of Tutsi. This article contributes to understanding how this genocide occurred and serves as a model that can be used elsewhere as a warning when the escalating use and normalization of highly pejorative terms can foster similar turns to actions of extreme physical violence. The warnings that this analysis provides underscores the importance of Tirrell’s subsequent publication of an epidemiological model of toxic speech that includes guides for how to develop antidotes for and inoculations against toxic speech, including types that prompt acts of large-​scale 3.2

40 41

Karl Marx, “Theses on Feuerbach,” The Marx-​Engels Reader, 2nd ed., ed. Robert C. Tucker, 3ed (New York: W.W. Norton Company, Inc., 1978), 143–​145. Lynne Tirrell, “Genocidal Language Games,”Speech and Harm: Controversies Over Free Speech, Ishani Maitra and Mary Kate McGowan, eds. (London: Oxford University Press: 2012), 174–​221.

228 Gay violence against victimized groups of persons within a society. She illustrates similarities between what happened prior to this genocide with the increasing escalation and normalization of pejorative discourse within the United States. For her, the similarities should serve as a call for intervention that also includes methods of treatment and prevention that can be undertaken prior to the outbreak of a quickly spreading outbreak that could result in massive physical violence against victimized groups in the United States. In the early 1990s the open and public use by Hutu of derogatory terms that targeted Tutsi increased dramatically. Tirrell examines the manner in which such speech contributed to the 100 days of genocide that followed. She terms this speech “linguistic violence” and describes it as “speech acts that generate permissions for physical damage, including assault and death.”42 (Later, she cites hate speech and propaganda as major forms of linguistic violence and regards them as “part of the broader dynamic of violence.”43) The derogatory terms used in Rwanda were “action-​engendering” and licensed “non-​linguistic behaviors,” including killing. In Rwanda, the most commonly used derogatory terms for Tutsi were “inyenzi” (“cockroach”) and “inzoka” (“snake”). In this culture, “boys are proud when they are trusted to cut the heads off snakes.”44 Tirrell provides extensive background to the genocide that emerged and cites key points when derogatory terms were publically sanctioned and justified, such as when in 1993 the newspaper Kangura included an article that denounced all Tutsi and even used the phrase “a cockroach cannot give birth to a butterfly.”45 Eventually, as Tirrell puts it, “Getting ordinary people to participate in practices of linguistic violence seasoned them to the structures of power that rendered collateral forms of nonlinguistic violence conceivable and doable within the context.”46 (Such may begin as, but goes far beyond, what Hannah Arendt originally termed “the banality of evil” and what, recently, Elizabeth Minnich extends to what she terms “the evil of banality.”47) Over time, the pejorative language being used shifts from being “just talk” and becomes more deeply embedded socially and is increasingly “intertwined with discriminatory and exclusionary practices.”48

42 43 44 45 46 47 48

Ibid., 176. Ibid., 185. Ibid., 175. Ibid., 183. Ibid., 186. Elizabeth Minnich, The Evil of Banality: On the Life and Death Importance of Thinking (Roman Littlefield: New York, 2017). Tirrell, “Genocidal Language Games,” 187.

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After giving detailed historical background information, Tirrell lays out her theoretical framework. First, she addresses inferential roles. One of her central points is that speakers frequently adopt unreflectively the linguistic terms and expressions that they regularly hear and thereby propagate as acceptable the behaviors conveyed by this language. Use of such terminology, then, re-​ enforces the underlying system of oppression and can eventually become “action-​generating” for them as well.49 Tirrell proceeds to show how the use of “inyenzi” in Rwanda satisfies the five conditions she stipulates for deeply derogatory terms. She then examines the “inferential role” of these terms in order to show the actions it licenses. She finds a correlation between how the use of derogatory terms not only undermined the humanity and power of the Tutsi, but also bolstered the confidence and power of the Hutu. The outcome of the use of these terms is frightening: “Calling someone ‘inyenzi’ was signaling that they were to be killed. Calling them ‘inzoka’ (snake) often brought about a dismemberment of the person’s limbs, and death by exsanguination.”50 Just as persons can come to kill almost unreflectively insects, snakes, and other creatures perceived as a threat, they can come to likewise “exterminate” members of oppressed social groups. Based on her analysis, Tirrell coins the expression “genocidal language games” to characterize what transpired in the use and legitimation of derogatory terms in Rwanda. She details how various types of language games are played and brings out distinctive features of genocidal ones—​from entry moves into this language game, through moves within it, to exit moves from it and the resulting permission one may feel for the subsequent actions they take. Tirrell observes that in cases where some individuals do not accept the essentialism conveyed by derogatory terms, the power of these terms is significantly weakened. Unfortunately, the power of the social embeddedness and the essentialism of derogatory terms predominate in a way that precludes questioning and licenses even extreme violence. As she puts it, “essentialism naturalizes and reifies the categories, while social embeddedness obscures the political context that these categories construct and maintain.”51 Her final admonition underscores one of the fundamental points I have been making for many years in my work on linguistic violence: An analysis of the derogatory terms and other forms of linguistic violence prevalent in a society is an important diagnostic of the level of material 49 50 51

Ibid., 189–​192. Ibid., 200. Ibid., p. 217.

230 Gay violence already present or potentially developing. We must understand linguistic violence, and find ways to fix the problems it reveals. Saying is a kind of doing, generalizing out to other kinds of action through the inferential content of what we say and through the permissions and licenses we thereby grant. Linguistic violence is the canary in the mine. We ignore it at our peril.52 I cannot think of a more apt comparison and warning. Linguistic violence is the canary in the mine, and we ignore it at our peril. 3.3 “Toxic Speech” and the Application of Linguistic Epidemiology Following her essay on genocidal language, Tirrell took an additional five years to work out a means to reduce or prevent the linguistic damage done by pejorative terms, especially ones that lead to acts of physical violence like the ones she addressed in her study of the Rwandan genocide. She does so in two articles that are each titled “Toxic Speech” but which have different subtitles. The first has the subtitle “Toward an Epidemiology of Discursive Harm” (2017).53 The second has the subtitle “Inoculations and Antidotes” (2018).54 I will comment on each of these very helpful articles. 3.3.1 Tirrell’s “Toward an Epidemiology of Discursive Harm” In her 2017 essay on “Toxic Speech” she defines “toxicity” as “the mechanisms by which speech acts and discursive practices can inflict harm.”55 This definition is close to the one used in medicine that refers to a substance that can harm humans and other animals. While she focuses on toxins, she notes that a viral disease model would have the benefit of bringing out the “power of a contagion.” In relation to the model of toxins, Tirrell presents the category of toxic speech as much broader than slurs and derogations and includes the entire continuum of harmful language. In this initial article on toxic speech, she also points toward what will be the focus of her next article on toxic speech, namely, an effort to develop inoculation and antidotes. Philosophically, the model she employs to assess speech is based on distinctions Wilfrid Sellars made among the linguistic moves in language games of entrances, internal 52 53 54 55

Ibid., 217–​219. Lynne Tirrell, “Toxic Speech: Toward an Epidemiology of Discursive Harm,” Philosophical Topics 45:2 (2017), 139–​161. Lynne Tirrell, “Toxic Speech: Inoculations and Antidotes,” Southern Journal of Philosophy 56:1 (August 2018), 116–​144. Tirrell, “Toxic Speech: Toward an Epidemiology of Discursive Harm,” 139.

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moves, and exits.56 In this model, persons are responsible for (and theoretically can be challenged on) their moves within a language game and for the “licenses” they provide to individuals and groups as they exit from a language game. This component of facilitating actions and justifying them is important for my effort to connect pejorative language and its relation to subsequent acts of physical violence, since “toxic speech acts threaten to license violent exit moves.”57 In other words, we need to hold accountable not only individuals and groups for their physical violence when they exit a language but also the individuals in such language games who speak in ways that provide license for such physical violence. Experts at the United Nations have made clear the responsibility of political leaders. They go so far as to say that their pejorative language makes these politicians “complicit” in the violence that others take as licensed by such remarks.58 In making her argument, Tirrell faces the problem of designating which types of discourse are “poison” and which are not, given the sharp differences in perspectives among social groups. One of the strengths of Tirrell’s argument is that she appeals to the definition of “health” used by the World Health Organization that includes not merely the absence of disease or infirmity but also the presence of “physical, mental and social well-​being.”59 While the meaning of these factors can also be taken differently, Tirrell has a more objective basis for classifying what speech is toxic by appealing to the standards of a widely recognized authority in the field of human health. Just as the toxic effects of polonium, arsenic, and lead can be placed on a continuum, so can the toxic effects of various forms of toxic discourse. “Chronic toxicity” occurs when toxins can be tolerated at low levels, but the effects can build up over “prolonged, continuous, or repeated exposure.”60 Examples include regularly hearing racist, sexist, or heterosexist comments. Significantly, “toxic speech has a stronger effect on the most vulnerable.”61 In illustrating her point, Tirrell discusses several examples of Trump’s pejorative language and stresses how the effects “grow in increasingly concentrated doses 56 57 58

59 60 61

Wilfrid Sellars, “Some Reflections on Language Games,” Philosophy of Science 21:3 (1954), 204–​228. Tirrell, “Toxic Speech: Toward an Epidemiology of Discursive Harm,” 144. Patrick Goodenough, “UN Rights Experts: Bigoted Statements Make Politicians ‘Complicit in the Violence that Follows,’” CNSnews.com (August 8, 2019), https://​www​.cnsn​ews​.com​ /news​/arti​cle​/patr​ick​-goo​deno​ugh​/un​-rig​hts​-expe​rts​-bigo​ted​-sta​teme​nts​-make​-poli​tici​ ans​-compli​cit, accessed September 11, 2019. Tirrell, “Toxic Speech: Toward an Epidemiology of Discursive Harm,” 145. Ibid., 148. Ibid., 149.

232 Gay as he sees his power as a source of impunity rather than responsibility.”62 Sadly, such performance defies the norm of speakers taking responsibility for their words and their effects.63 Nevertheless, effects of some of Trump’s toxic speech have been analyzed clinically in relation to post-​election medical “flare-​ups” and other measurable conditions among persons susceptible to the toxicity of his remarks. (Even more serious are the appeals made to his language in some of the “manifestos” of recent perpetrators of mass shootings.)64 In relation to current U.S. political discourse, Tirrell makes clear that the regularity of Trump’s toxic speech comes to be accepted as the new “norm.” The increased normalization of such toxic speech, when coupled with an understanding of the physically violent actions that are thereby licensed and even encouraged, should not merely give us pause but also should motivate us to find means of intervention before further and tragic escalation to physical violence occurs. Regarding the effort to address such changes in speech, Tirrell says that such work “might be some of the most important discursive and political work we do.”65 I agree and have been regularly arguing this point myself since the late 1990s.66 3.3.2 Tirrell’s “Inoculations and Antidotes” In her 2018 article that also draws from epidemiology, Tirrell adds important models for responding to the dangers of toxic speech. Specifically, she proposes inoculations to protect against toxic speech and antidotes for aiding victims of toxic speech. Her position is that “toxic speech, which impacts ‘physical, cognitive, affective, and social health,’ is a social problem in need of social responses.”67 A large part of her concern is based on the rise of white supremacists and neo-​Nazis who have been emboldened by Trump’s election and the resulting violence against and fear among “African Americans, Jews, 62 63

64

65 66 67

Ibid., 152. Domenico Montanaro, “Trump Left A Lot Unsaid About Mass Shootings, Domestic Terrorism—​And His Own Words,” National Public Radio, August 6, 2019, https://​www​.npr​ .org​/2019​/08​/06​/748396​590​/trump​-left​-a​-lot​-uns​aid​-about​-mass​-shooti​ngs​-domes​tic​-terr or​ism​-and​-his​-own​-word, accessed September 9, 2019. Peter Baker and Michael D. Shear, “El Paso Shooting Suspect’s Manifest Echos Trump’s Language,” New York Times (August 4, 2019), https://​www​.nyti​mes​.com​/2019​/08​/04​ /us​/polit​ics​/trump​-mass​-shooti​ngs​.html, accessed September 11, 2019; Mehdi Hasan, “After El Paso, We Can No Longer Ignore Trump’s Role in Inspiring Mass Shootings,” The Intercept, August 4, 2019, https://​thein​terc​ept​.com​/2019​/08​/04​/el​-paso​-day​ton​-mass​ -shooti​ngs​-don​ald​-trump​/, accessed September 11, 2019. Tirrell, “Toxic Speech: Toward an Epidemiology of Discursive Harm,” 157. William Gay, “Exposing and Overcoming Linguistic Alienation and Linguistic Violence.” Tirrell, “Toxic Speech: Inoculations and Antidotes,” 117.

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Muslims, Latinos, anyone with brown skin, anyone with an accent, anyone who feels vulnerable to being cast as ‘Other.’”68 From an epidemiological perspective, Tirrell regards the “rapid transmission” of negative health consequences since Trump’s election to be an “outbreak” that has spread hate, fear, anxiety, and violence. She enumerates several of the ways the rhetoric of the Trump campaign and presidency have been toxic: it licenses explicit discrimination, is dismantling institutional safeguards, and is damaging social trust. She soon notes as well the rise of gaslighting, bullying, and harassment. Following Victor Klemperer, she regards language as “something we ingest” and which may “nourish or poison.”69 In the current environment, the dramatic rise in the use of words that poison “compels research into remedies to mitigate harm.”70 Language games have a telos, but in hate speech this telos is the harm that follows from elevating the dominating speech and lowering other speech.71 Philosophically, Tirrell again draws from Wilfrid Sellars and also from Robert Brandom.72 Using their terminology, she notes that speech acts can bring about physical and material changes in the world and that such speech acts can be traced back to how they function as “exit moves” that are propelled by the form of discourse in which they are embedded.73 For example, whether in Rwanda or Charlottesville, the dehumanizing nature of “vermin-​talk” frames or models as viable for those who hear and accept it the physical violence they subsequently inflict on its victims.74 As can happen with chemical toxins, incremental increases in exposure and their normalization can come to be accepted as “normal” and can thereby become “entrenched” with very deleterious consequences.75 Many people adapt to the changing environment and do not see the risks of such adaptation. In the medical model of toxicity, medical workers evaluate the toxin itself, its dose and potency, its method of delivery, and the susceptibility of those likely to be harmed by it76 Persons working against toxic speech need to attend to these same factors for the sake of the victims and in order to seek means to reduce the spread of such harmful agents. 68 Ibid., 117–​118. 69 Ibid., 122. 70 Tirrell, “Toxic Speech: Inoculations and Antidotes,” 123. 71 Ibid., 124. 72 Robert Brandom, Making It Explicit (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998). 73 Tirrell, “Toxic Speech: Inoculations and Antidotes,” 126. 74 Ibid. 75 Ibid., 129. 76 Ibid., 131.

234 Gay Tirrell herself specifically addresses antidotes and inoculations. She notes in particular the danger of letting toxic remarks pass, because, when unchallenged, the actions licensed by toxic speech can be “delivered” with impunity.77 Prevention, of courses, precludes the need for antidotes. Regarding the difference, Tirrell notes that innoculations offer greater promise because they preclude the outbreak of the harm, rather than seeking to ameliorate harm already done.78 Such inoculations to toxic speech could include measures to augment the confidence and affirm the dignity of victims. Of course, such measures are insufficient and also require related social changes. Nevertheless, inoculations, like flu shots, weaken the power of a virus. As an example, Tirrell notes that efforts to reclaim the term “queer” can strengthen the immunity of persons subjected to the pejorative use of this term and, while noting these efforts were “not the catalyst for the legalization of same-​sex marriage,” they were among the factors that contributed to it.79 To conclude this article, Tirrell says that responses to toxic speech should follow her epidemiological model.80 This model can help us “learn how to block and challenge speech we recognize as toxic and how to create a better civic rhetoric to emphasize rationality and respect.”81 How to create the needed shift in discourse is a task Tirrell has yet to attempt, though she cites Stanley’s reference to such civic rhetoric, even though he too does not develop it. In this regard, I also have made some suggestions and will turn to some of them in my closing remarks. 4

Intersectionality and Countering Pejorative Language Turning to Physical Violence There will be more diplomatic language to countenance rape, torture, assassination. There is and will be more seductive, mutant language designed to throttle women … there will be more of the language of surveillance disguised as research; of politics and history calculated to render the suffering of millions mute … Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence;… Sexist language, racist language,

77 78 79 80 81

Ibid., 135. Ibid., 136. Ibid., 138–​139. Ibid., 139. Ibid., 141.

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theistic language–​all are typical of the policing languages of mastery, and cannot, do not permit new knowledge or encourage the mutual exchange of ideas82 In this essay, I have examined several publications by Stanley and by Tirrell. I have not tried to impose a single term on their treatments of language that negatively designates various individuals and groups. Instead, I have focused on their accounts of how the use of such language does harm to its victims and how such language can motivate and legitimate as well an escalation to physical violence against its victims. Both Stanley and Tirrell recognize how pejorative language relies on a polarizing essentialism that fosters negative attitudes toward and actions against the oppressed. These authors, especially Tirrell, also offer some suggestions regarding how such discourse and its harm can be reduced. In his treatment of propaganda, Stanley stresses how it demeans some groups of people as “not worthy of our respect.”83 Beaver and Stanley see their work as analyzing real world language games in order to uncover “hidden effects of communicative actions, such as enacting oppressive speech practices.”84 Tirrell also draws from ordinary language philosophy to expose linguistic violence. In addition, whether analyzing genocidal language, toxic speech, or derogatory terms, she seeks to “find ways to fix the problems” that result from the use of linguistic violence in all its forms.85 In addition, the texts by Stanley and Tirrell share (and often cite) important commonalities regarding intersectionality that developed within critical race theory, recent feminism, and other multi-​faceted approaches to social justice. Tirrell has drawn from feminism all along, and Stanley has done so increasingly. Both utilize critical race theory in order to incorporate into mainstream philosophical analysis the voices of the marginalized. Nevertheless, although each also occasionally makes reference to Gandhi or King, neither makes much use of the rich tradition in philosophy oriented to nonviolence. In order to respond appropriately and effectively to the rising polarity and the escalating violence within our society, a philosophy of peace, nonviolence, and social justice needs a broadly based critical discourse analysis, informed by intersectionality, that exposes and reverses uses of pejorative language.

82 Morrison, “Nobel Lecture.” 83 Stanley, How Propaganda Works, 127. 84 Beaver and Stanley, “Towards a Non-​Ideal Philosophy of Language,” 529. 85 Tirrell, “Genocidal Language Games,” 217.

236 Gay Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw introduced the term “intersectionality” in 1989.86 While similar concepts were previously in use, this term has become widely adopted to refer to systems of oppression as overlapping and intertwined in ways that make inadequate focus on any one of them in efforts to advance social justice. Frequently, such systems include patriarchalism, racism, heterosexism, classism, and ableism—​even though any attempt to list the plethora of such systems risks key omissions. Of particular importance is the recognition that any effort at social justice that focuses on just one system to the exclusion of the others thwarts attainment of comprehensive systemic transformation. Such omissions have occurred in efforts for suffrage, civil rights, and racial equality, as well as in ones on lgbtq +​, immigrant, and disability rights issues. Moreover, even intersectional movements have often been too focused on first-​ world countries. Despite the challenges, these various approaches to utilization of the insights of intersectionality need to involve a sensitivity to language and a recognition that its established designations rely on and give legitimacy to multiple, interrelated systems of oppression. So, even though aspects of the focus and methods of various liberation or rights movements vary, they almost always recognize the problems of established terminology (from supposedly neutral to intentionally pejorative examples) and they consequently seek to replace terms that legitimate or exacerbate oppression with self-​designations by members of oppressed groups. The aim of such efforts is to expose the linguistic violence of the establishment’s designations and the prospect that such language also provides license for transitions to physical violence against members of any of these oppressed groups. Over the last two decades, I have made various attempts to provide typologies of linguistic violence.87 Here, I focused on increasingly polarized language in contemporary U.S. politics that aggravates these problems. Current partisan polarization all too easily moves from disagreement that can be expressed within the bounds of civility to the

86 87

Kimberlé Crenshaw, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics,” University of Chicago Legal Forum (1989): 139–​167. William Gay, e.g., “Exposing and Overcoming Linguistic Alienation and Linguistic Violence,” “The Practice of Linguistic Nonviolence,” Peace Review 10:4 (1998): 545–​ 547, “Supplanting Linguistic Violence,” Gender Violence: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, 2nd ed. Laura L. O’Toole, Jessica R. Schiffman, and Margie L. Kiter, eds. Edwards (New York: New York University Press, 2007), 435–​442, “Linguistic Nonviolence and Human Equality,” Gender Violence: Interdisciplinary Perspective, eds. Laura O’Toole, Jessica Schiffman, and Rosemary Sullivan, eds. (New York University Press, 2020), 484–​494.

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use of unacceptably uncivil discourse that leads to physically violent actions perceived as licensed by such language. While the immediate psychological harm of pejorative language to its victims is often obvious, the pejorative language that provides motivation and license to initiate physical violence against marginalized victims also infects its users. Persons who use linguistic violence are also harmed and need treatment of the sort that Tirrell describes. However, I have not addressed here these effects and possible treatment for these abusers of language. Instead, I have noted how use of pejorative terms can escalate. Several studies have analyzed the extreme ways in which grievous forms of linguistic violence have functioned in totalitarian systems.88 Since progression from the widespread use of such pejorative language to large-​scale violence and even genocide can occur within democracies as well, we need to take seriously the dangers posed by the rise in the use and “normalization” of such language in our society today. Widespread use of such language is not normal, is not harmless, and is not tolerable. So, what is to be done? Language itself is not the culprit. The problem arises in relation to the way in which pejorative terms available in or added to language are used and the motivations for such uses. Significantly, an analysis of only pejorative terms can be superficial when, as Deborah Cameron observes, those with privilege do not have give up anything and society does not have to admit that its institutions “disadvantage the poor, the black and the female just because they are poor, or black, or female.”89 Elsewhere, I have compared simply making superficial changes in discourse to negative peace.90 Just as a truce or an absence of fighting does not mean a war or its hostilities have ended, even so the absence of public use of pejorative terms and other forms of linguistic violence does not mean that violence against victims of injustice has ended. The overall solution also requires recognition of the underlying structural and institutional violence and success in at least significantly reducing them.91 This task, even in relation to a single ’ism, can be daunting, as Robin 88

89 90 91

John Wesley Young, Totalitarian Language: Orwell’s Newspeak and Its Nazi and Communist Antecedents (Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1991); Thomas Pegelow Kaplan, The Language of the Nazi Genocide: Linguistic Violence and the Struggle of Germans of Jewish Ancestry (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009). Deborah Cameron, Feminism and Linguistic Theory (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1985), p. 171. William Gay, “Nonsexist Public Discourse and Negative Peace.” Cf. “The Language of War and Peace,” Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, and Conflict, 2nd ed. Lester Kurtz, ed. (Oxford: Elsevier, 2008), Vol. 2, 1115–​1127. William Gay, “The Role of Language in Justifying and Eliminating Cultural Violence” in Peace, Culture, and Violence, ed. Fuat Gursozlu (Leiden, Boston: Brill Rodopi, 2018), 31–​63.

238 Gay DiAngelo makes clear in White Fragility.92 Nevertheless, such transformation must include language, in part because it can be altered before and while attitudes and behaviors are being transformed along with underlying structural and institutional violence. Changing language is something that an individual or group can do right away and in a manner that aids in the other hard work for transformation that remains. In addition to my own work over the last quarter century on linguistic violence and how it needs to be replaced by linguistic nonviolence, others, especially Patricia Friedrich, have also addressed the needed changes in language.93 Many times the points I am making apply primarily to the language used by people in casual to pernicious ways and not to the people themselves. In such cases, criticism of the language people use can be distinct from an attack on the persons themselves who are using such language, especially when the use of linguistic violence is not intentional or is the result of naively appropriating (from hearing and/​or reading) forms of discourse that are part of what Haig Bosmajian terms “the language of oppression.”94 However, especially in cases of persons with power and authority, when persons use such language with the intention to inflict linguistic violence and even to motivate others to proceed to physical violence against the victims, such discourse and its consequences should not be tolerated and need to be challenged.95 Leaving aside unintentional uses of linguistic violence and the insufficiency of omission of discourse that expresses linguistic violence, the need still remains to reduce and ideally remove such discourse since the negative associations of terms remains and their use will continue to have negative effect. For this and other reasons, the task remains of advancing the shift to the practice of linguistic nonviolence with an aim of aiding the nonviolent quest for social justice. This question becomes crucial when we recognize that language is inseparable from power and that power is distributed unequally.96 In addition, as Bourdieu has shown, many rites of initiation function as a type of “social 92

Robin DiAngel, White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard For White People To Talk About Racism (Boston: Beacon Press, 2018). 93 Patricia Friedrich, Langue, Negotiation and Peace: The Use of English in Conflict Transformation (New York: Continuum, 2007) and Nonkilling Linguistics: Practical Applications, ed Patricia Friedrich (Honolulu: Center for Global Nonkilling, 2012). 94 Haig A. Bosmajian, The Language of Oppression (Lanham, University Press of America, 1983). 95 William Gay, “The Language of Civility and Resistance: A Critique of Tolerance and Violence.” Civility, Nonviolent Resistance, and the New Struggle for Social Justice. Amin Asfari, ed. Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2020, 9–​26. 96 Gay, “Bourdieu and the Social Conditions of Wittgensteinian Language Games.”

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magic” that presents arbitrary social roles as natural and to be accepted.97 Systems of classification—​of gender, politics, religion, and even science—​are not natural; they are conventions and can change. Nevertheless, though these overlapping systems are numerous, entrenched, and often unnoticed, alternative perceptions and descriptions continue to arise and can become more widely accepted. As a result, such changed perception and language can lead to changed behavior. Of course, the change can go in the direction of more social injustice and physical violence as well as in the direction of greater social justice and less physical violence. At the least, as individuals become aware of the problems with pejorative language and the availability of alternative terminology they can make choices that contribute to the reduction of linguistic violence and of physical violence licensed by it. Beyond my philosophical efforts to expose the reality and diversity of linguistic violence and its connections with physical violence, I have also proposed a variety of suggestions on how we can and should respond. I bring these recommendations together here in a listing of six progressive steps that can be taken by individuals and groups, along with some advice on how to handle the challenges of such an endeavor. The last step is the only one that requires the type of academic research and publishing that is more characteristic of professional philosophy. First, pay attention to how some language is offensive and some language is oppressive. Sometimes these forms of linguistic violence are obvious, but they also can be part of language that many speakers simply take for granted. So, a more active educational role is also needed. Listening to and talking with others can help, as can reading about these issues. In this regard, we need to listen to what victims of offensive and oppressive language say and write about how they are hurt and/​or harmed by our discourse and what they want alternatively in our discourse and actions individually and in public forums. In this regard, more than just words can be offensive and oppressive. The language of violence, beyond oral, written, and gestural forms, also includes pictorial and other semiological manifestations, including many statues, memorials, and names of buildings—​to name a few. The quest for social justice relies on re-​naming and re-​describing both ourselves and the world and also on making needed changes in relations to other types of symbols and structures that support injustice. Given the complexity and breadth of these tasks, we are especially fortunate when the persons we hear or sources we read allow us to grasp

97 Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power, 117–​126.

240 Gay issues of how systems of oppression are overlapping—​which is one of the central points of intersectionality. Second, stop using linguistically violent terms. In most cases, ceasing to use such terms takes practice and lapses are to be expected. We can experience frustration when we cannot remember the term or phrase we are trying use in place of the linguistically violent one that still remains “ready to hand” in the vocabulary we have taken for granted. In addition, even as we become more conscious of alternative terminology and have become more committed to trying to use it, we generally continue to make mistakes. We also can experience embarrassment when we make errors in the term or phrase we use. We need to remind ourselves that we are involved in “retraining” or “re-​socializing” ourselves and that such “language work” is a crucial component in social activism. We are no longer remaining unaware or silent. We are taking action and are transforming our speech. Just as increasing our level of physical exercise can bring us fatigue and soreness, the same is true for “language work.” We may feel we are not moving forward and are not engaging injustice. At such times we need to remind ourselves that our “language work” is part of our “training” and is a vital component of social activism. Recall that in civil rights efforts for desegregation James Lawson taught his students the importance of such training prior to public action. Likewise, we need to exercise and strengthen our speaking and writing skills in advance of our public advocacy work. We are working to change the words we use into a reflex of which we will become largely unconscious. With sufficient perseverance and practice, new ways of speaking more justly can come to flow as easily as our prior forms of linguistic injustice. Third, engage others who use linguistically violent terms. Try to do so politely and, when possible, do so privately. Most people assimilate unreflectively the language into which they have been socialized and take for granted the distinctions facilitated by its terms. They may never have realized that designations are artificial and often express unjust “conventions” in the frequently hierarchical differences or “discriminations” that they “create.” In these cases, through careful and sensitive engagement, we may fairly readily obtain acceptance of the “enlightenment” we provide and for the requests for change that we make. In other cases, we may face varying degrees of resistance and push back. In these cases, we will not always succeed. The issue is that we do not remain silent and try to conduct the needed conversations. Fourth, reject tolerance of continuing use of linguistic violence, especially in public forums. When private efforts to obtain cessation of the use of linguistic violence have not succeeded or cannot be made, continued flagrant and intentional public expression needs to be called out. Some may contend we

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need to be “tolerant” of how others use language and consider the transition to public intervention to be impolite. On the contrary, raising objections publically can be done in a civil manner. As I and many others say, too often “silence is violence.” We do not want to be complicit in how linguistic violence helps legitimate social injustice and even can provide license to others for proceeding to acts of physical violence. Our response, however, should not be to break the silence by turning to violence ourselves in our words and actions. Properly, efforts to advance peace and justice should occupy the space between silence and violence. This fourth point needs some further clarification of its relation to both covert and overt violence. Silence or tolerance can help perpetuate covert forms violence within a social system. The silence of persons in privileged positions tends to perpetuate their economic, social, and political interests and facilitates them consciously or unconsciously taking advantage of their status and aiding in the protection of their power and wealth. Such silence also tends to perpetuate overt violence within social and political institutions. These and other institutions allow or even legalize violence toward or suppression of the victimized and disadvantaged by means of the police, armed forces, prisons, and other mechanisms of forceful control. While these “forces” are presented as serving to maintain “law and order,” they also serve to protect and perpetuate the status quo and much of the direct, structural, and cultural violence on which systems of injustice rely. Fifth, recognize and accept that none of us can work fully on reducing all forms of injustice. The important measure is whether we work on reducing at least one of the critical and chronic forms of injustice and the linguistic violence that support it, though—​as we learn from intersectionality—​we should try to be mindful of and make some connections to other intertwining systems of injustice. For this reason, while trying to participate in at least one social justice group, we also need to learn about and provide support to other groups with similar goals. Nevertheless, we also need to concede injustice will continue in various forms; we risk myopia or even folly to think otherwise. Sixth, for those who are able, acquire and apply skills, especially philosophical and linguistic ones, for exposing linguistic violence and advancing linguistic nonviolence. In this essay, I have elaborated on helpful philosophical models that have been developed by Stanley and by Tirrell and I have cited several of my own publications on these topics. Other methods also already exist, such as critical discourse analysis and propaganda analysis, or are being developed, such as the epidemiology of toxic speech and nonkilling linguistics. The work to be done requires diverse academic and political efforts. The needed research and practical actions based on it are urgent.

242 Gay Hate crimes, mass shootings, and other forms of violence against marginalized and oppressed groups have generated a public health crisis. In addition to efforts to respond when such acts of physical violence erupt, we need to promote efforts that expose, delegitimate, and reduce language that promotes the structural and cultural violence that precedes and sustains acts of direct physical violence.98 The many forms of linguistic violence pose serious threats to social wellbeing. These forms of linguistic violence need to be classified and treated as inflammatory propaganda that needs to be exposed and countered and as toxins for which we need antidotes and inoculations. Cultivating a social practice of linguistic nonviolence is of fundamental importance. For the type of “civic rhetoric” toward which Stanley and Tirrell point, I have elsewhere argued that in responding to the various forms of “incivility,” a proper civility or “civic rhetoric” rejects both tolerance and violence.99 We should tolerate neither physical violence motivated by linguistic violence nor countenance such linguistic violence as “free speech.” Such responses also can and should avoid responding in kind by a misguided and self-​defeating turn to physical or linguistic violence. While I do not expect these efforts to be sufficient, they can reduce the scale and intensity of violence. The specter of physical and linguistic violence, like the recurrence of any pestilence, will remain, but our duty in relation to both our actions and our words, as Camus says, is to “side with the victims.”100

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William Gay, “The Role of Language in Justifying and Eliminating Cultural Violence,” Peace, Culture, and Violence, Fuat Gursozlu, ed. (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 31–​63. 99 William Gay, “The Language of Civility and Resistance.” 100 Albert Camus, The Plague, trans. Stuart Gilbert (New York: Vintage Books, 1991).

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Bourdieu, Pierre. Language and Symbolic Power. Ed. John B. Thompson. Trans. Gino Raymond and Matthew Adamson. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991. Brandom, Robert. Making It Explicit. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998. Cameron, Deborah. Feminism and Linguistic Theory. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1985. Camus, Albert. The Plague. Trans. Stuart Gilbert. New York: Vintage Books, 1991. Chumakov, Alexander N., Ivan I. Mazour, and William C. Gay, eds. Global Studies Encyclopedic Dictionary. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2014. Crenshaw, Kimberlé. “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics.” University of Chicago Legal Forum (1989): 139–​167. DiAngel, Robin. White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard For White People To Talk About Racism. Boston: Beacon Press, 2018. Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. Trans. Richard Philcox. New York: Grove Press, 2008. Friedrich, Patricia. Language, Negotiation and Peace: The Use of English in Conflict Transformation. New York: Continuum, 2007. Friedrich, Patricia, ed. Nonkilling Linguistics: Practical Applications. Honolulu: Center for Global Nonkilling, 2012. Gay, William. “Bourdieu and the Social Conditions of Wittgensteinian Language Games.” The International Journal of Applied Philosophy 11:1 (1996): 15–​21. Gay, William. “Exposing and Overcoming Linguistic Alienation and Linguistic Violence.” Philosophy and Social Criticism 24:2/​3 (1998): 137–​156. Gay, William. “From Wittgenstein to Applied Philosophy.” The International Journal of Applied Philosophy 9:1 (Summer/​Fall 1994): 15–​20. Gay, William. “The Language of Civility and Resistance: A Critique of Tolerance and Violence.” In Civility, Nonviolent Resistance, and the New Struggle for Social Justice. Ed. Amin Asfari. Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2020, 9–​26. Gay, William. “The Language of War and Peace.” In Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, and Conflict, 2nd ed. Ed. Lester Kurtz. Oxford: Elsevier, 2008. Volume 2, 1115–​1127. Gay, William. “Linguistic Nonviolence and Human Equality.” In Gender Violence: Interdisciplinary Perspective. Eds. Laura O’Toole, Jessica Schiffman, and Rosemary Sullivan. New York: New York University Press, 2020, 484–​494. Gay, William. “Nonsexist Public Discourse and Negative Peace: The Injustice of Merely Formal Transformation.” The Acorn: Journal of the Gandhi-​King Society 9:1 (Spring 1997): 45–​53. Gay, William. “The Role of Language in Justifying and Eliminating Cultural Violence.” In Peace, Culture, and Violence. Ed. Fuat Gursozlu. Leiden, Boston: Brill Rodopi, 2018, 31–​63.

244 Gay Gay, William. “Supplanting Linguistic Violence.” In Gender Violence: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, 2nd ed. Eds. Laura L. O’Toole, Jessica R. Schiffman, and Margie L. Kiter. Edwards. New York: New York University Press, 2007, 435–​442. Gay, William. “The Practice of Linguistic Nonviolence.” Peace Review 10:4 (1998): 545–​547. Gay, William. “The Reality of Linguistic Violence against Women.” In Gender Violence: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Eds. Laura O’Toole and Jessica Schiffman. New York: New York University Press, 1997, 467–​473. Gay, William. “The Role of Language in Justifying and Eliminating Cultural Violence.” In Peace, Culture, and Violence. Ed. Fuat Gursozlu. Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2018, 31–​63. Goodenough, Patrick. “UN Rights Experts: Bigoted Statements Make Politicians ‘Complicit in the Violence that Follows.’”CNSnews.com. August 8, 2019. https://​www​ .cnsn​ews​.com​/news​/arti​cle​/patr​ick​-goo​deno​ugh​/un​-rig​hts​-expe​rts​-bigo​ted​-sta​ teme​nts​-make​-poli​tici​ans​-compli​cit​. Accessed September 11, 2019. Hasan, Mehdi. “After El Paso, We Can No Longer Ignore Trump’s Role in Inspiring Mass Shootings.” The Intercept. August 4, 2019. https://​thein​terc​ept​.com​/2019​/08​/04​/el​ -paso​-day​ton​-mass​-shooti​ngs​-don​ald​-trump​/​. Accessed September 11, 2019. hooks, bell. Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York: Routledge, 1994. Kamusella, T. “North-​South (The Rich North and the Poor South).” Global Studies Encyclopedic Dictionary, 348–​249. Kaplan, Thomas Pegelow. The Language of the Nazi Genocide: Linguistic Violence and the Struggle of Germans of Jewish Ancestry. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Krauthammer, Charles. “The Unipolar Moment.” Foreign Affairs 70:1. America and the World 1990/​91 (1990/​1991), 23–​33. (Published by the Council on Foreign Relations). Stable url: http://​www​.jstor​.org​/sta​ble​/20044​692​. Accessed: January 18, 2009. Lakoff, George. Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002. Marx, Karl. “Theses on Feuerbach.” In The Marx-​Engels Reader, 2nd Ed. Robert C. Tucker. New York: W.W. Norton Company, Inc., 1978, 143–​145. McConnell-​Ginet, Sally. Gender, Sexuality, and Meaning: Linguistic Practice and Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Mills, Charles, “‘Ideal Theory’ as Ideology.” Hypatia 20:3 (2005): 165–​184. Minnich, Elizabeth. The Evil of Banality: On the Life and Death Importance of Thinking. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017. Montanaro, Domenico. “Trump Left A Lot Unsaid About Mass Shootings, Domestic Terrorism—​And His Own Words.” National Public Radio. August 6, 2019. https: //​www​.npr​.org​/2019​/08​/06​/748396​590​/trump​-left​-a​-lot​-uns​aid​-about​-mass​-shooti​ ngs​-domes​tic​-terror​ism​-and​-his​-own​-word​. Accessed September 9, 2019.

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Morrison, Toni. “Nobel Lecture.” (The Nobel Prize in Literature 1993.) December 7, 1993. https://​www​.nob​elpr​ize​.org​/pri​zes​/lit​erat​ure​/1993​/morri​son​/lect​ure​/​. Accessed August 7, 2019. Nivola, Pietro S. “Thinking About Political Polarization.” Brookings Policy Brief Series (January 1, 2005). https://​www​.brooki​ngs​.edu​/resea​rch​/think​ing​-about​-politi​ cal​-polar​izat​ion​/​. Accessed May 17, 2019. Saul, Jennifer. “Dogwhistles, Political Manipulation, and Philosophy of Language.” In New Work on Speech Acts. Eds. Daniel Fogal, Daniel W. Harris, and Matt Moss. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018, 360–​383. Sellars, Wilfrid. “Some Reflections on Language Games.” Philosophy of Science 21:3 (1954): 204–​228. Stanley, Jason and David Beaver. “Beware of ‘Snakes,’ ‘Invaders’ and Other Fighting Words.” New York Times. Opinion. May 16, 2019. https://​www​.nyti​mes​.com​/2019​/05​ /16​/opin​ion​/pro​paga​nda​-is​-power​.html​. Accessed May 20, 2019. Stanley, Jason. How Propaganda Works. Princeton, NY: Princeton University Press, 2015. Stanley, Jason and David Beaver. Hustle: The Politics of Language. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, forthcoming. Tirrell, Lynne. “Derogatory Terms: Racism, Sexism and the Inferential Role Theory of Meaning.” In Language and Liberation: Feminism, Philosophy and Language. Eds. Kelly Oliver and Christina Hendricks. New York: suny Press, 2019, 41–​79. Tirrell, Lynne. “Genocidal Language Games.” In Speech and Harm: Controversies Over Free Speech. Eds. Ishani Maitra and Mary Kate McGowan. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012, 174–​221. Tirrell, Lynne. “Toxic Speech: Inoculations and Antidotes.” Southern Journal of Philosophy 56: 1 (August 2018): 116–​144. Tirrell, Lynne. “Toxic Speech: Toward an Epidemiology of Discursive Harm.” Philosophical Topics 45: 2 (2017): 139–​161. Volosinov, V. N. [Valentin Voloshinov]. Marxism and the Philosophy of Language. Trans. Ladislav Matejka and I. R. Titnik. New York and London: Seminar Press, 1973. Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Philosophical Investigations. Trans. G. E. M. Anscombe. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1958. Young, John Wesley. Totalitarian Language: Orwell’s Newspeak and Its Nazi and Communist Antecedents. Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1991.

­c hapter 11

The Healing Power of Awareness: Nonviolence in Thought, Word, and Deed Tony White 1

Introduction

How does nonviolent conflict resolution work? This essay compares nonviolent methods pertaining to the sociopolitical, interpersonal, and intrapersonal levels. It uses as paradigms the methods of nonviolent social and political action of Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., nonviolent communication of Marshall Rosenberg, and inner peace of Thich Nhat Hanh. The Socratic method of philosophical dialogue, as characterized in the writings of Plato,1 is also included. The essay highlights a common thread central to all these methods—​the assumption that bringing out the attitudes at the root of a conflict into conscious awareness organically tends toward resolution of the conflict. This works, I propose, in large part by prompting people to transcend habitual patterns. Along the way, several other commonalities between the methods are also brought to light. A study by Maria Stephan and Erica Chenoweth of the 323 major resistance campaigns from 1900 to 2006 found that 53% of nonviolent campaigns were successful, compared to 26% of violent campaigns.2 My analysis of how nonviolent resistance works, I hope to show, is compatible with theirs, yet adds to our understanding of it. For instance, where they emphasize the ability of nonviolent campaigns to attract mass participation, I highlight the role that heightened awareness of underlying attitudes plays in this. A more thorough understanding of nonviolent resistance can only help us to employ it more effectively. Why examine nonviolent speech and thought as well? First, understanding how verbal and inner conflicts can be resolved peacefully holds practical 1 I make no attempt to distinguish the historical Socrates from Socrates as characterized in Plato’s dialogues, nor to limit which of these dialogues to draw from for interpreting the method. 2 Stephan and Chenoweth, “Why Civil Resistance Works,” 8; see also Chenoweth and Stephan, Why Civil Resistance Works.

© Tony White, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004541573_013

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value in itself. Further, integral to Gandhi and King’s understanding of nonviolent resistance is the practice of nonviolence as a way of life. The Indian principle of ahiṃsā, central to Gandhi’s philosophy, refers to non-​harm in thought, word, and deed, and also carries the meaning of “love.”3 King likewise says: “Nonviolent resistance … avoids not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. At the center of nonviolence stands the principle of love.”4 Thus, understanding nonviolent thought and speech is crucial to a full understanding of their nonviolent political action, even if that were our primary concern. Moreover, how closely tied nonviolent practice is in the three spheres is relevant to the debate over what are called the principled and strategic justifications for, and approaches to, nonviolent resistance. The principled approach, which Gandhi and King represent, grounds nonviolent resistance in nonviolence as an ethical principle, while the strategic approach is based purely on pragmatic grounds.5 This essay lends support to the principled approach, in arguing that the way in which nonviolent resistance works is, in part, common to methods of nonviolent thought and speech. Why include the Socratic method, which is not explicitly identified by Plato or Socrates as nonviolent? First, Gandhi regarded Socrates as a practitioner of his method.6 Second, Andrew Fiala argues that Socratic dialogue (along with philosophy itself) is a practice of peace.7 Third, this essay supports the same conclusion by showing striking similarities between the Socratic method and the other nonviolent methods, particularly Gandhi’s. An important objection, however, is that Rosenberg would not characterize Socratic dialogue as nonviolent communication. I reply to this at the end of Part 2, after explaining the methods. As this discussion is of interest for how to define nonviolent speech, the essay overall may bear on how to define nonviolence and violence in general, as well as distinguish active from passive nonviolence. Part 2 of this essay gives a brief overview of the four methods in question. Part 3 describes how each involves bringing the relevant attitudes into conscious awareness. Part 4 discusses why or how this leads to the resolution of conflict.

3 Gandhi, Non-​Violent Resistance, 40–​42, 78, 161. 4 King, “Nonviolence and Racial Justice,” 8. 5 Stephan and Chenoweth, “Why Civil Resistance Works,” 10. For the classic account of the strategic approach, see Sharp, Politics of Nonviolent Action. 6 Gandhi, Collected Works, 8:247, 9:360, 16:12, 17:391, 18:17, 20:40. 7 Fiala, “Philosophy and Practices of Peace.”

248 White 2

Overview of Nonviolent Methods

This part gives a brief overview of the following methods: (1) Gandhi and King’s nonviolent social and political resistance, (2) the Socratic method of philosophical dialogue, (3) Rosenberg’s nonviolent communication, and (4) Nhat Hanh’s transformation of feelings through mindfulness. A discrepancy between the methods of Rosenberg and Socrates is then addressed. 2.1 Nonviolent Resistance Gandhi calls his method of nonviolent resistance satyagraha, which essentially means “insistence on truth.”8 Satyagrahis (practitioners of satyagraha) stand up for their judgment of moral truth, aiming to convince others by their example of living in harmony with it.9 At the same time, they are seekers of truth who remain open to being convinced by others.10 Gandhi claims that satyagraha “excludes the use of violence because man is not capable of knowing the absolute truth and, therefore, not competent to punish.”11 Thus, satyagrahis must be willing to suffer before inflicting harm on others, and to endure persecution nonviolently. This suffering for the cause, Gandhi believes, is vital to converting others.12 King lists four steps to a campaign of nonviolent resistance: “(1) collection of the facts to determine whether injustices are alive, (2) negotiation, (3) self-​ purification, and (4) direct action.”13 Gene Sharp categorizes methods of nonviolent sociopolitical action into three types: protest and persuasion (e.g., marches, petitions), noncooperation (e.g., civil disobedience, economic strikes and boycotts), and intervention (e.g., nonviolent occupation, hunger strikes).14 Since the status quo depends on the cooperation of the populace, if refusal to cooperate with injustice is sufficiently widespread and strategic, the unjust system becomes unsustainable.

8 Gandhi, Non-​Violent Resistance, 78. Gandhi also refers to satyagraha as “holding on to Truth,” “Truth-​force,” “Love-​force,” and “Soul-​Force” (3, 6). 9 Gandhi, 59, 77. 10 Gandhi, introduction to Autobiography, vii–​x. 11 Gandhi, Non-​Violent Resistance, 3. 12 Gandhi, 6, and passim. 13 King, “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” 290. 14 Sharp, Politics of Nonviolent Action, vol. 2, Methods of Nonviolent Action. Or see https://​ www​.aeinst​ein​.org​/nonvi​olen​tact​ion​/198​-meth​ods​-of​-non​viol​ent​-act​ion​/ for Sharp’s full list.

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2.2 The Socratic Method Like satyagraha, the goal of the Socratic method is collective progress toward moral truth.15 Socrates shares Gandhi’s view that absolute knowledge is unattainable for humans, and so being fallible, we should maintain an open mind.16 The Socratic method, also known as elenchus, involves asking questions to draw out and critically examine people’s moral beliefs, often exposing inconsistencies and thereby refuting mistaken opinions. After engaging in this reciprocally with others over time, or in what may be called dialectic, the interlocutors are left only with the ideas that withstand examination, likely leaving them closer to the truth than where they started.17 2.3 Nonviolent Communication Rosenberg’s process of nonviolent communication (nvc) has four components: observation, feeling, need, and request. The speaker expresses (1) an observation without interpretation or judgment, (2) the emotion felt that was triggered by the observation, (3) the need, desire, or value on which the feeling is based, and (4) a request of an action that addresses the need.18 For example, a parent might say: “When I don’t see or hear from you after school, I feel worried, because I need assurance that you’re safe, so would you be willing to call if you’re not coming straight home?” Speaking this way encourages people to respond with empathy rather than defensiveness. It is important that the observation specify a concrete event. The parent saying, “You just disappeared like you have no respect,” for instance, would go beyond this to interpretation and judgment.19 It is important to identify an actual emotion. “I feel like you don’t care about me” instead expresses a thought (and again, interpretation and judgment).20 It is important to recognize that while the observed event is the stimulus for the feeling, the underlying cause is the need, want, or value. It is inaccurate to say that something “makes” one angry, for instance, because someone else in the same situation might not feel the same way. This encourages taking responsibility for one’s own feelings.21 It is important that the request articulate a concrete action, to communicate 15 Plato, Apology, 29d–​e. 16 Plato, 20d-​23b. Socrates is also renowned for presuming to know nothing (21d, 22d). 17 This is presumably the basis on which Socrates asks Crito if he still agrees with certain beliefs, like that one should never wrong or injure others, even in retaliation for being wronged or injured. Plato, Crito, 46–​49. 18 Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication, 6–​7, and passim. 19 Rosenberg, 25–​35. 20 Rosenberg, 41–​48. 21 Rosenberg, 19–​22, 49–​66.

250 White clearly what one would like to see happen. Further, it is not to be expressed as a demand or with a consequence for noncompliance, but as allowing the other person to freely choose whether to fulfill it.22 When others speak, Rosenberg says to listen for the same four components, even if they are not expressed explicitly. In response, it can be helpful to verbalize them to the speaker, in whole or part, especially in the form of questions. For example, if the parent says, “You’re so irresponsible,” the child might ask, “Are you feeling annoyed because you want to know where I went after school?” Even if one guesses incorrectly, this gives the other person an opportunity to make a correction. If one is eventually able to reflect back what the other person is feeling and needing, one has made an empathetic connection which will release tension.23 2.4 Mindful Transformation of Feelings Nhat Hanh gives five steps for transforming feelings with mindfulness: (1) recognize the feeling, (2) become one with it, (3) calm it, (4) let it go, and (5) look deeply into it.24 For example, suppose anger arises within yourself. First, recognize it—​become aware of it and identify it as anger. Second, face the feeling and “become one with” it.25 Do not suppress the feeling, but focus your full attention on it and allow yourself to fully experience it, ideally to the point that there is no sense of separation between the feeling and an experiencing subject.26 Third, calm the feeling, by keeping your awareness on it while breathing mindfully. Fourth, when the feeling is weakened, release it or let it go, in accordance with the Buddhist practice of nonattachment. Finally, look deeply into the feeling to understand its causes, which may prevent it from arising in the future or make it easier to cope with when it does. 2.5 Aside on Nonviolent Speech Socratic dialogue does not accord with Rosenberg’s characterization of nvc. While nvc involves expressing observations, feelings, needs, desires, values, and requests, Socratic dialogue involves expressing beliefs or opinions, thoughts, and arguments. Most crucially, Rosenberg distinguishes moralistic judgments, which he says contribute to violence, from value judgments, which 22 23 24 25 26

Rosenberg, 67–​89. Rosenberg, 91–​127. Nhat Hanh, Peace is Every Step, 53–​55. Nhat Hanh, 53. Thanks to Charles Goodman for clarifying this for me, and for other helpful comments on a draft of this paper.

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he considers part of nvc. The former “imply wrongness or badness on the part of people who don’t act in harmony with our values,”27 e.g., “Violence is bad,” while the latter “reflect our beliefs of how life can best be served,”28 e.g., “I value peace.” But Socrates is willing to make moralistic judgments,29 and more importantly, several of Plato’s dialogues are searches for the definition of what is taken to be an objective value.30 This would require ascribing a certain character to the value and identifying central cases of when it is and is not being lived up to, which would imply wrongness or badness on those falling short. But while Rosenberg claims to be “using the term nonviolence as Gandhi used it,”31 I argue that moralistic judgments are at least as integral to Gandhian nonviolent resistance. Since it involves noncooperation with evil or injustice, this requires being able to express when a law is evil or unjust, which implies that those implementing and following it are wrong to do so. Gandhi does not shy away from judging systems, institutions, laws, and actions as evil,32 and King emphasizes distinguishing just from unjust laws,33 although they do avoid directing moralistic judgments at people.34 But if all moralistic judgments are violent, then the method of Gandhi and King is violent. This would be an upheaval of our long-​established understanding of nonviolence, and make it very difficult to find a form of political resistance that is both nonviolent and effective. The moralistic judgment “You are evil and worthless” seems more violent than “I think murder is wrong.” Perhaps, taking a cue from Gandhi and King, only put downs of people should be considered violent. Or perhaps rather than categorizing speech (and possibly thought and action) as either violent or nonviolent, it makes more sense to situate it on a continuum of more or less violent. Then Rosenberg’s method would be less violent than Socrates’ and Gandhi’s, but these still less violent than tactics involving insults and physical attacks. Perhaps given that one enters into a conflict that necessarily involves a 27 Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication, 15. 28 Rosenberg, 17. 29 E.g., that some people are wise or foolish, that actions can be just or unjust, shameful or beautiful, good or bad, and that one should not wrong or injure others in retaliation for being wronged or injured. Plato, Crito, 47–​49. 30 Plato, Charmides, Euthyphro, Hippias Major, Laches, and Republic. Crito is also about what Socrates morally ought to do. 31 Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication, 2. 32 E.g., Gandhi, Non-​Violent Resistance, 238. 33 King, “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” 293–​95. 34 Gandhi, Non-​Violent Resistance, 77; King, “Nonviolence and Racial Justice,” quoted in section 4.1 below.

252 White contest of ideas, like debate or politics, the Socratic or Gandhian methods are relatively nonviolent alternatives. 3

Becoming Aware of Attitudes

Section 3.2 will describe how our four methods involve investigating and drawing out the attitudes relevant to a conflict into conscious awareness. But first, Section 3.1 clarifies what those attitudes consist in for each method. 3.1 Which Attitudes? The types of attitudes most relevant and the ways that they are expressed are not the same for each method. The Gandhian and Socratic methods seek consensus on objectively true moral views, making the most relevant attitudes moral judgments, expressed primarily through actions for the former and words for the latter. For Rosenberg and Nhat Hanh, whose respective primary goals are compassion and inner peace, the most relevant attitudes are feelings, plus any others that serve as their underlying causes. Since nvc pertains to interpersonal conflict, it especially emphasizes expressing attitudes verbally, while since Nhat Hanh’s method deals with inner conflict, it emphasizes bringing one’s attitudes into one’s own awareness. However, these are differences in emphasis rather than sharp distinctions, and the methods share much common ground. Both Gandhi and Rosenberg maintain that the purity of one’s love or compassion, and that suffering or vulnerability, are key to converting others or resolving conflicts.35 Also, while not emphasizing moral judgments in the same way as satyagraha and the Socratic method, nvc does involve expressing value judgments when they are underlying causes of feelings. Nhat Hanh’s aim of eliminating mistaken beliefs and perceptions,36 which are underlying causes of negative emotions, is shared with Gandhi and Socrates. Rosenberg also discusses awareness of one’s own attitudes and self-​compassion,37 and Nhat Hanh compassionately expressing feelings to others.38 Moreover, while Gandhi and King focus most directly on action to reform social and political systems, this is not absent from the other methods. Despite 35 Gandhi, Non-​Violent Resistance, 41–​42, 189–​190, 275; Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication, 5, 18, 40–​41, 115–​17. 36 Nhat Hanh, Heart of Buddha’s Teaching, 52–​56, 179–​80; see also Being Peace, 41–​42. 37 Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication, 7–​8, 129–​140. 38 Nhat Hanh, Creating True Peace, 20–​25, 74, 149–​154; Peace is Every Breath, 105–​9, 144–​45.

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the Socratic method’s more intellectual and individualistic focus on moral beliefs, since Socrates considers virtue a kind of knowledge39 and underscores that one should act on one’s best judgment,40 his method serves the purpose of exhortation to virtue, which Socrates views as key to reforming society.41 Rosenberg claims that nvc is intended to free us from “life-​alienating communication [which] both stems from and supports hierarchical or domination societies, where large populations are controlled by a small number of individuals to those individuals’ own benefit.”42 Nhat Hanh initiated the movement of “Engaged Buddhism,”43 which involves taking mindful and compassionate social action to reduce suffering in the world. 3.2 Investigating, Expressing, and Drawing Out Each method involves investigation, or looking deeply in an effort to see clearly, in order to form and/​or become aware of the relevant attitudes. King’s first step is fact-​finding. Satyagraha also involves soul-​searching to determine what one really believes to be true and whether one is willing to suffer for it.44 Gandhi considered his actions “experiments with truth,”45 and thus nonviolent resistance an investigatory learning process in itself. Self-​examination is also vital to Socrates, evident from his famous saying “The unexamined life is not worth living”46 and his reverence for the Delphic maxim “Know thyself.”47 Rosenberg introduces nvc as “a way to focus attention,”48 and states that, in fact, “the essence of nvc is in our consciousness of the four components, not in the actual words that are exchanged.”49 He describes how looking deeply and seeing clearly are central to each component: We are led to express ourselves with honesty and clarity, while simultaneously paying others a respectful and empathetic attention. In any exchange, we come to hear our own deeper needs and those of others. 39 Plato, Meno, 87e-​89a; Euthydemus, 278d–​282a. 40 Plato, Crito, 46b-​c, 48b-​d. 41 Plato, Apology, 29d-​31b, 36c-​d. 42 Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication, 23. 43 Nhat Hanh, Creating True Peace, 9, 94–​109; see also Peace is Every Step, 91, and Being Peace, 51. 44 Gandhi, Non-​Violent Resistance, 77, 237. 45 Gandhi, Autobiography, esp. the subtitle and introduction. 46 Plato, Apology, 38a. 47 Plato, Charmides, 164d-​165a; Phaedrus, 229e; Philebus, 48c; Alcibiades i, 124b, 129a, 132c. 48 Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication, 3. 49 Rosenberg, 8.

254 White nvc trains us to observe carefully, and to be able to specify behaviors and conditions that are affecting us. We learn to identify and clearly articulate what we are concretely wanting in any given situation.50 Rosenberg claims that however we may express ourselves, his four components form the core of what we are essentially trying to communicate, so that nvc reveals what we really mean more accurately and precisely. He also advocates deep listening to understand others’ attitudes, as do our other theorists.51 Nhat Hanh’s first step is looking within to identify one’s feeling. His last step is looking even more deeply to understand its causes, which may include habitual subconscious misperceptions.52 While experiencing the feeling presents a good opportunity for this investigation, this does not preclude doing it at other times, and it could even be considered a preliminary step for the next time the feeling may arise. In fact, all our theorists encourage continual reexamination of one’s attitudes. Further, satyagraha and nvc particularly emphasize expressing yourself to bring your attitudes into greater awareness. The satyagrahi takes a public stance on a position, or as King says, “We would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and national community.”53 nvc involves being very assertive about one’s feelings, needs, requests, etc. These two methods, plus the Socratic method, also aim to draw out others’ attitudes into greater awareness. Nonviolent resistance seeks to elicit the public reaction of opponents and endure it. This draws opponents’ attitudes into the public eye and exposes how far they are willing to go in acting to defend them. Socrates calls himself a “midwife”54 of ideas, drawing out others’ opinions through questioning. nvc likewise involves questioning to draw out others’ attitudes. Since Nhat Hanh’s method pertains to internal conflict, it does not involve outward expression or other people. But his drawing out negative emotions into mindful awareness and allowing them to be fully experienced and run

50 Rosenberg, 3. 51 Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication, 91–​127; Nhat Hanh, Creating True Peace, 20–​25, 74, 92–​94, 149–​54, 195–​96, and Peace is Every Breath, 101–​4, 144–​45; Gandhi, Non-​Violent Resistance, 193–​94. 52 Nhat Hanh, Peace is Every Breath, 62–​63; see also note 36 on mistaken perceptions, and 80-​82 on habit energies, internal formations, and trauma. 53 King, “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” 291. 54 Plato, Theaetetus, 149a-​151c.

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their course can be considered analogous to either self-​expression or drawing out others’ opposing attitudes, or both. 4

How Awareness Leads to Conflict Resolution

This part explores why our nonviolent methods emphasize drawing out the attitudes at the root of a conflict into conscious awareness, and how this leads to resolution of the conflict. In other words, it elucidates (in part) the common internal logic of the methods. Section 4.1 discusses common features of the four methods, which help distinguish them from violence on one hand and passivity on the other. Section 4.2 highlights our theorists’ assumption that awareness organically leads to conflict resolution. Section 4.3 speculates on why this may work. 4.1 Features of Nonviolent Conflict Resolution It was described above how our nonviolent methods involve drawing out attitudes into greater awareness, including opposing attitudes, even when this results in having to endure suffering. Thus we can say that characteristic of these methods, and likely central to what makes a means of conflict resolution nonviolent, is the non-​suppression of opposition. One reason why these methods do not suppress opposing attitudes is their recognition of human fallibilism, and consequent emphasis on open-​mindedness. They do not assume the rightfulness of their attitudes with absolute certainty. For Gandhi, this is the basis of nonviolence.55 Satyagraha and the Socratic method involve remaining open to potentially learning from others and changing one’s position. nvc eschews moralistic judgments in favor of the more nonauthoritative and provisional value judgments. Nhat Hanh’s Buddhist mindfulness is an open and nonjudgmental state,56 and his emphasis on transforming feelings implies that they are fallible, along with the perceptions that they are based on. In addition to non-​suppression of opponents’ attitudes, these methods do not primarily aim to oppose, suppress, or defeat opponents themselves. As King says, this applies even to the most confrontational of the methods, nonviolent resistance:

55 Gandhi, Non-​Violent Resistance, 3, 6, 17, 29, 40. 56 Nhat Hanh, Peace is Every Step, 57.

256 White Nonviolent resistance does not seek to defeat or humiliate the opponent, but to win his friendship and understanding.… The attack is directed against forces of evil rather than against persons who are caught in those forces.… The tension is at bottom between justice and injustice, between the forces of light and the forces of darkness.… We are out to defeat injustice and not white persons who may happen to be unjust.57 This illustrates that the methods are not mere power struggles, but more like collaborative processes in which others are encouraged to participate. Victory over opponents is not their primary goal, but as shown previously, they prioritize ideals like truth, love, justice, compassion, and/​or peace, under which they aim to unite with opponents. Even satyagrahis would be willing to sacrifice victory, either through limits on tactics or discontinuing altogether, if it was discovered to be incompatible with a fundamental ideal. It might be argued that the same could apply to violence. For example, adherents of just war theory fight for the ideal of justice. Tactics are limited by standards of jus in bello, and termination of a war may be morally required if its cause is discovered to be unjust. However, while our nonviolent methods include the built-​in checks of listening and reflection throughout the process, engaging in violence effectively discourages this. While Gandhi was able to suspend his campaign after an outbreak of violence on account of his “Himalayan miscalculation”58 of its participants’ preparedness, there are significant obstacles to stopping a war on the basis of justice, as discussed by David Rodin.59 A determination of just cause is made at the outset, but upon entering the war, the decision may become practically irreversible. This is all while the risks and costs of misapplying a violent method are far greater (or more “Himalayan”). Violence, far from inviting participation of opponents, aims to halt it, paradigmatically with the finality of killing. John Stuart Mill echoes Gandhi by claiming that silencing opinions involves assuming infallibility.60 Our nonviolent methods, on the other hand, may be considered collaborative in the sense that practitioners encourage others to join them in openly and fully airing their attitudes. A potential advantage of this approach is that it aims to address the root of the conflict and to actually resolve it, rather than merely suppress its effects. Physical conflicts are likely rooted in conflicts of beliefs, feelings, and desires. 57 King, “Nonviolence and Racial Justice,” 7–​8. 58 Gandhi, Autobiography, 424. 59 Rodin, “War Trap.” 60 Mill, “Liberty of Discussion.”

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Further, conflicts in beliefs are often rooted in conflicts of feelings and desires, and internal conflicts in subconscious beliefs, feelings, and desires. These methods involve digging beneath the surface to the attitudes at the root of the conflict. If one side attains victory over another by violence, the outward fighting stops, but if the underlying issue that the conflict was about is not resolved, it continues to simmer beneath the surface. The situation may only stabilize until the losing side regains enough power to compete, at which point the outward fighting may resume. Similarly, suppressed feelings, along with interpersonal conflicts that are not discussed, tend to come out later in destructive ways.61 Our methods, however, put attention on the attitudes that are causing the conflict in order to address them to establish a sustainable harmony. King describes drawing out hidden tension in order to “transition from an obnoxious negative peace, where the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substance-​filled positive peace, where all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality.”62 A suppressed conflict is easy to ignore. Thus we can add as a corollary that, by drawing out the relevant attitudes into conscious awareness, these methods oblige people to address the conflict rather than ignore it. King states, “Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community that has consistently refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored.”63 King goes on to compare this to Socrates’ metaphor of himself as a “gadfly,” stirring people out of their slumber to be concerned with virtue.64 Walter Wink characterizes nonviolent resistance as a “third way,” as opposed to the “fight or flight” instinct.65 People are instinctively inclined to deal with conflict by either violently fighting or passively submitting or avoiding. The alternative is to find a creative nonviolent way to stand up for oneself and seek a just solution. The methods in this essay distinguish themselves from violence by not suppressing opponents, and from submission and avoidance by self-​ expression and exposing the roots of the conflict so that it must be addressed. 4.2 The Healing Power of Awareness It makes sense that in order to resolve a conflict, the parties must first be aware of what the conflict is about. Thus, drawing out the attitudes at the root of the 61 On suppressed feelings, see Nhat Hanh, Creating True Peace, 16–​17. 62 King, “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” 295. 63 King, 291. 64 King, 291, referring to Plato, Apology, 30e. 65 Wink, Jesus and Nonviolence, 9–​36.

258 White conflict may be granted as a plausible first step to effective conflict resolution. But we are likely to then ask what the next step is, that actually resolves the conflict. What is interesting about our methods, however, is that awareness is not seen as merely the first step, but as the primary mechanism by which the conflict is resolved. The methods all involve the assumption that holding the attitudes relevant to a conflict in sustained conscious awareness organically tends toward resolution of the conflict. King describes public consciousness as naturally healing: We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured as long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its pus-​flowing ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must likewise be exposed, with all of the tension its exposing creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.66 The nonviolent direct action and the (often violent) response of opponents draw attention to the conflict and expose the attitudes of the parties involved. The assumption is that sustained public attention to this will result in more people, through both sympathy and rationality,67 correctly assessing the moral merits of the attitudes and adding pressure on the unjust side to change. Socrates sees rational thought as central to the human psyche.68 An underlying assumption of Socratic dialogue is that, as rational beings, if we get all participants’ ideas out on the table and critically analyze them, this will tend to lead us toward a closer approximation of truth. As famously articulated by Mill, this assumption underlies why many value free speech and rational discourse.69 Rosenberg characterizes nvc as essentially “an ongoing reminder to keep our attention focused on a place where we are more likely to get what we are seeking.”70 He claims that if we “shine the light of consciousness”71 on our feelings and needs, it is more likely to lead to the compassionate relations that we

66 King, “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” 295. 67 Gandhi, Non-​Violent Resistance, 64. King’s letter also clearly appeals to both. 68 Plato, Republic, 428a-​444e, esp. 441e. 69 Mill, “Liberty of Discussion.” 70 Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication, 4. 71 Rosenberg, 4.

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seek with others, and to our needs being met. “The form is simple, yet powerfully transformative.”72 Nhat Hanh says that, as our body has a natural ability to heal a cut, “our consciousness also has a healing power.”73 He claims that mindful awareness of a negative emotion inherently transforms it. “When our anger is placed under the lamp of mindfulness, it immediately begins to lose some of its destructive nature.”74 Further, “when we feel anger, distress, or despair, we only need to breathe in and out consciously and recognize the feeling … and then we can leave the work of healing to our consciousness.”75 In the same vein, “you calm your feelings just by being with it, like a mother tenderly caring for her crying baby.”76 Again using the metaphor of light: Our mindfulness will take care of everything, as the sunshine takes care of vegetation. The sunshine does not seem to do much, it just shines on the vegetation, but it transforms everything.… The sun penetrates into the flowers, and at some point, the flowers cannot resist, they just have to open up. In the same way, mindfulness, if practiced continuously, will provide a kind of transformation within the flower of our anger, and it will open and show us its own nature. When we understand the nature, the roots, of our anger, we will be freed from it.77 4.3 Why Awareness Works Why might conscious awareness of the attitudes at the root of a conflict organically lead to the conflict being resolved? One possibility is that there simply is not much to conflict resolution beyond addressing the issue at its source. Maybe it seems like there must be more only because avoidance and suppression are so common that it is relatively rare to take even this basic step; but once we do, then perhaps the bulk of the work is done. Note also that the methods involve, not just initially becoming aware, but sustained awareness on the root of the problem. It is not surprising that persistent focus is key to problem-​ solving. The longer one focuses one’s attention on the relevant aspects of a math problem, for example, the more likely one is to eventually figure out the solution. Another reason why more steps are not articulated might be that the 72 73 74 75 76 77

Rosenberg, 3. Nhat Hanh, Touching Peace, 25. Nhat Hanh, Peace is Every Step, 57. Nhat Hanh, Touching Peace, 26. Nhat Hanh, Peace is Every Step, 54. Nhat Hanh, 60.

260 White particulars of conflicts are so diverse that we can only outline very general guidelines that have universal application. But the main factor, I propose, is that conscious awareness of something allows us to consider it in a way that goes beyond the force of habit. As described above, King emphasizes creative tension shaking us out of our complacency with the unjust status quo, and compares this to Socrates doing the same to people with regard to moral virtue. Rosenberg claims that he developed nvc as a reaction against cultural conditioning,78 and that with it, “Instead of habitual, automatic reactions, our words become conscious responses based firmly on awareness of what we are perceiving, feeling, and wanting.”79 Nhat Hanh emphasizes transforming “habit energies”80 based on “internal formations,”81 including from past trauma.82 Wink characterizes nonviolent resistance as a third way, “instead of the two options ingrained in us by millions of years of unreflective, brute response to biological threats to the environment—​flight or fight.”83 Conscious awareness allows us to consider a situation with a heightened degree of curiosity, open-​mindedness, sensitivity, critical thinking, and/​ or intentionality. One might say that it enables us to address issues at a “higher level.” Instead of reacting from our biologically or culturally conditioned habits, we address the issue at an intellectual, emotionally intelligent, moral, or even spiritual level. This break with our unconscious patterns allows us to see the conflict in a new light or from a new angle, opening up the possibility of creative outside-​the-​box thinking. How can we trust that conscious awareness of the relevant attitudes really will lead to conflict resolution? Gandhi claims that satyagraha requires faith in the inherent goodness of human nature.84 He believes, since our enduring coexistence shows the supremacy of the “law of love,”85 that the suffering of true satyagrahis will eventually win over opponents, and truth must ultimately win out.86 King similarly asserts that “the method of nonviolence is based on the conviction that the universe is on the side of justice,”87 or more famously,

78 Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication, 4. 79 Rosenberg, 3. 80 Nhat Hanh, Peace is Every Breath, 23–​25; Heart of Buddha’s Teaching, 24–​25, 61–​62, 67, 191. 81 Nhat Hanh, Peace is Every Step, 64–​67. 82 Nhat Hanh, Peace is Every Breath, 27–​28, 59–​67. 83 Wink, Jesus and Nonviolence, 27. 84 Gandhi, Non-​Violent Resistance, 88; see also 77, 386. 85 Gandhi, 383–​384, 387; see also 15–​17. 86 Gandhi, 41–​42, 56, 176, 189–​190, 275. 87 King, “Nonviolence and Racial Justice,” 9.

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“even though the arc of the moral universe is long, it bends toward justice.”88 Socrates advances the doctrine of “recollection,” the view that people’s souls are acquainted with all truth from before birth, and they just need to rediscover it.89 Rosenberg claims that people are naturally compassionate,90 and that if we persist in nvc motivated purely by compassion, others will inevitably join in.91 Nhat Hanh claims that we all have “Buddha nature”92 within. While these claims may sound fantastically optimistic, perhaps a more plausible variation is that people at least have the capacity for goodness, or growth toward it.93 King actually professes the moderate view that people are neither innately good nor evil, but have the capacity for both. Nevertheless, this means that a person “is never totally depraved,” but “there is within human nature an amazing potential for goodness,” “something that can respond to goodness,” and “something … that can be changed.”94 Nhat Hanh conveys the similar idea that we have both wholesome and unwholesome “seeds” in our subconscious which may be cultivated.95 He describes Buddha nature as the capacity to wake up, understand, and live with mindfulness, love, and compassion. None of these theorists claim that our goodness manifests automatically, but rather, all hold that it must be evoked and cultivated. It makes sense that the extent to which a capacity is developed depends largely on the amount of attention directed toward that which is pertinent to it. To develop one’s capacity for knowledge of a certain subject, one studies the relevant information, and to develop a skill, one practices it. This essay describes how our nonviolent methods draw attention to the attitudes relevant to a conflict, including moral attitudes, eliciting critical engagement which enables the overcoming of habits. Further, practice of the methods sets an example and, as also described above, presents an opportunity for others to join in the activity of the practitioners. This coheres with the Aristotelian understanding of moral development as acquiring better habits through education and cultivation.96 So we can add to our observations that, unlike violence, methods of nonviolent conflict resolution aim to present opportunities 88 King, “Love, Law, Civil Disobedience,” 46. 89 Plato, Meno and Phaedo. 90 Rosenberg, Nonviolent Communication, 1-​2. 91 Rosenberg, 5–​6. 92 Nhat Hanh, Heart of Buddha’s Teaching, 187–​88; Being Peace, 23–​24; Creating True Peace, 28–​41; see also Heart of Buddha’s Teaching, 162–​63, 250–​54. 93 Thanks to Andrew Fiala for pointing this out to me. 94 King, “Love, Law, Civil Disobedience,” 47–​48. 95 Nhat Hanh, Heart of Buddha’s Teaching, 51–​52; Creating True Peace, 1–​2, and passim. 96 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics.

262 White for people (including practitioners, opponents, and bystanders) to develop in their capacity for morality. Socrates argued that if he acts wrongly, the way to improve this would be to educate rather than punish him.97 As attention involves active engagement, educators cannot control whether students actually learn up to their capacities, but they can present them with a greater opportunity by strategically and persistently trying to draw their attention to the relevant material, modeling the needed skills, and encouraging practice of them. This is analogous to what our nonviolent methods aim to do. As stated in the introduction, Stephan and Chenoweth found nonviolent resistance campaigns to have about twice the success rate of violent campaigns. They additionally found the former to be much more likely to lead to democracy (whether in success or failure).98 The primary factor the authors attribute this to is that lower barriers to entry enable nonviolent campaigns to more easily garner broad-​based mass participation. Among its other advantages, this increases the likelihood that regime repression will backfire, and that loyalty shifts from the regime to the resistance will occur. The regime is also more likely to see nonviolent opponents as credible negotiating partners and thus to make concessions to them.99 If I am correct in characterizing nonviolent resistance as not just a power struggle but an appeal to join a collaborative process, then it makes sense that it would elicit more participation, loyalty shifts, negotiation, and democratic results. Violence treats the conflict as an essentially physical power struggle, where the regime likely has the advantage. Nonviolent resistance instead focuses attention on the merits of the attitudes at the root of the conflict, thereby shifting the arena to where the resistance more often has the advantage. This also helps explain the paradox of why non-​suppression of opposition can work for the resistance, whereas suppression by the regime often backfires in response. In a purely physical conflict, the side that better suppresses its opposition wins. But if the focus is on the merits of each side’s attitudes, then suppression will likely serve to portray the suppressors in a negative light and the suppressed in a sympathetic light, to the advantage of the latter.100 Chenoweth and Stephan explain that repression can backfire by turning passive supporters of the resistance into active participants, and by causing 97 Plato, Apology, 25d-​26a. 98 Chenoweth and Stephan, Why Civil Resistance Works, 202. 99 Stephan and Chenoweth, “Why Civil Resistance Works,” 8–​14, 40–​43; Chenoweth and Stephan, Why Civil Resistance Works, 10–​11, 220. 100 Sharp calls this “political jiu-​jitsu.” Politics of Nonviolent Action, vol. 3, Dynamics of Nonviolent Action, 657–​97.

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loyalty shifts from the regime to the resistance.101 They point out that while violent resistance will more likely have a “‘rally around the flag’ effect”102 of increasing the loyalty of regime members and supporters, nonviolent resistance is more likely to elicit their introspection.103 This all reflects my main point that, in drawing attention to the attitudes at the root of a conflict, nonviolent methods prompt people to transcend previous conditioning. The nonviolent campaign continually appeals to bystanders and opponents to reevaluate the attitudes that the conflict is over, as well as their own, courting them as potential members of a dynamic resistance. This helps create mass participation, which serves as not only a cause of repression backfiring and loyalties shifting, but also an effect, potentially creating a cycle of increasing momentum for the resistance. It might be objected that heightened attention to conflicting attitudes, by reminding parties of the source of their conflict, may only cause them to intensify and more deeply entrench themselves in those attitudes, thus making the conflict even more intractable.104 I grant that the conflict will often intensify initially. When facing or expressing a negative emotion, entering into a debate, or engaging in direct action, the conflict is likely to get worse before it gets better. But this comes with actually addressing the conflict, and should be seen as the beginning of the process of raising awareness rather than the end. Prior to this, the attitudes may be held unexamined, or with a “one-​sided” view where alternative attitudes are either not considered, or considered in a distorted way. The nonviolent methods aim to “lay the conflict bare” so that the conflicting attitudes are seen in juxtaposition, creating a new and potentially transformative dynamic: anger alongside mindfulness, your feelings and needs alongside mine, your beliefs confronted with objections, your commitment to the existing order confronted with activists’ commitment to changing it. As the process of mindfulness, conversation, or resistance continues, the conflicting attitudes are continually pressed to the forefront, presenting continuing opportunities for transformation. The relationships between the parties also evolve during this process, so that awareness of their juxtaposed attitudes takes on an evolving significance. Nonviolent communication or engaging in debate in good faith and with genuine curiosity, even if initially practiced by only one party, can build trust so that the other party becomes more open to considering their attitudes 1 01 102 103 104

Chenoweth and Stephan, Why Civil Resistance Works, 50. Chenoweth and Stephan, 45. Chenoweth and Stephan, 47, 49. Thank you to an anonymous reviewer for this objection.

264 White fairly. The relationship between a nonviolent resistance group and a regime evolves as different people become members and supporters of the resistance. Thus, change in attitudes of bystanders generally precedes that of opponents. Chenoweth and Stephan emphasize the importance of mass participation in nonviolent resistance, especially from diverse sectors of society, in part because it increases the likelihood that regime supporters and members will know people in the resistance.105 Since people are more likely to give credence to attitudes of those they care about, trust, and rely on, this increases the likelihood that regime supporters and members will shift in loyalty and that the regime will negotiate with the resistance. If nonviolent resistance does bring about the intensification of conflicting attitudes, especially initially, this can in some cases still constitute transcending habitual patterns, and/​or contribute to the success of the campaign. If the attitudes of the resistors are intensified, this increases their commitment and thus likelihood of success. If the attitudes of regime members are intensified, this could provoke suppression, which again may backfire against nonviolent resistance. If some bystanders’ favorable attitudes toward the resistance are intensified, this could break their habit of complacency and get them actively involved in the resistance, leading toward mass participation which is key to success. This shows that polarization is not always bad for nonviolent resistance, but, at least initially, may even contribute to its success. This coheres with King’s ultimate embrace of being called an “extremist,”106 and his disappointment in the “white moderate” for their merely “lukewarm acceptance,” even suggesting that they may present a greater obstacle to his movement than the Ku Klux Klan.107 Keep in mind that it is far from necessary to win over every regime member and supporter for nonviolent resistance to succeed. Even if regime leaders never change their attitudes, if the cooperation of others that is necessary to prop them up becomes vulnerable or is removed, they may respond to pressure or lose their power. Chenoweth points out that every campaign in the study succeeded where at least 3.5% of the population was active in the resistance (and all of these were nonviolent).108 Finally, nonviolent methods do not work every time. Sometimes people may achieve heightened awareness of conflicting attitudes, only to double down and resume their habits undeterred. But

1 05 106 107 108

Chenoweth and Stephan, Why Civil Resistance Works, 46–​47. King, “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” 297–​98. King, 295. Chenoweth, “Success of Civil Resistance.”

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our nonviolent methods at least elicit more of an opportunity to reconsider attitudes and break habits than inaction or violence. If my analysis is correct, then part of how nonviolent resistance works, even according to Chenoweth and Stephan who advocate it purely on strategic grounds, is continuous with how methods of nonviolent speech and thought work. This favors Gandhi and King’s principled approach to nonviolent resistance, which emphasizes the connection between nonviolence in thought, word, and deed. Further, one factor that Chenoweth and Stephan say helps nonviolent campaigns achieve mass participation is that they have lower “moral barriers,”109 in that fewer people will have moral qualms about participating than would for violent campaigns. But given that morality is an important factor for participation, then the resistance being able to highlight its moral high ground compared to the regime, not only in its ends but also its means, more than merely lowering barriers, could even be a boon for participation. This may be yet another reason why it is advantageous to focus heavily on moral attitudes, as we’ve seen throughout this essay that the principled approach does. 5

Summary

This essay compared Gandhi and King’s nonviolent political resistance, the Socratic method of philosophical dialogue, Rosenberg’s nonviolent communication, and Nhat Hanh’s mindful transformation of feelings. The primary common thread identified was that they all rely on holding the attitudes at the root of a conflict in sustained conscious awareness. It was proposed that this works for conflict resolution by obliging people to consider the conflicting attitudes in a way that transcends habitual patterns. Other commonalities identified between the four methods were that they all involve investigation, expressing and/​or drawing out attitudes of self and/​ or others, non-​suppression of opposition, recognition of human fallibilism and a consequent emphasis on open-​mindedness, inviting others into a collaborative process rather than aiming to defeat them in a mere power struggle, aiming to address the root of a conflict and resolve it rather than ignoring it or merely suppressing its effects, and presenting people with an opportunity to develop their moral capacity.

109 Chenoweth and Stephan, Why Civil Resistance Works, 36.

266 White These commonalities between nonviolent methods of action, speech, and thought, and the essay’s discussion of nonviolent speech in particular, may be relevant to defining nonviolence and violence, and distinguishing active from passive nonviolence. The similarities in the internal logic of nonviolent methods in the three spheres also appear to support the principled approach to nonviolent resistance, which emphasizes their interdependence. The more integrated understanding sought by this essay of nonviolent methods pertaining to the sociopolitical, interpersonal, and intrapersonal levels can better equip us to both assess their value and apply them more effectively.110

References

Chenoweth, Erica. “The Success of Nonviolent Civil Resistance.” Speech, TEDxBoulder, University of Colorado Boulder, September 21, 2013. https://​www​.eri​cach​enow​eth​ .com​/speak​ing​. Chenoweth, Erica, and Maria J. Stephan. Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict. New York: Columbia University Press, 2011. Fiala, Andrew. “Philosophy and Practices of Peace.” Chap. 12 in Transformative Pacifism: Critical Theory and Practice. New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018. Gandhi, Mohandas K. Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth. 1948. Translated by Mahadev Desai. Reprint, Mineola, NY: Dover, 1983. Gandhi, Mohandas K. The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (Electronic Book). 98 vols. New Delhi: Publications Division Government of India, 1999. https://​www​ .gandh​iash​rams​evag​ram​.org​/gan​dhi​-lit​erat​ure​/collec​ted​-works​-of​-maha​tma​-gan​ dhi​-vol​ume​-1​-to​-98​.php​. Gandhi, Mohandas K. Non-​ Violent Resistance (Satyagraha). Edited by Bharatan Kumarappa. 1961. Reprint, Mineloa, NY: Dover, 2001. King Jr., Martin Luther. “Letter from a Birmingham City Jail.” April 16, 1963. Reprinted in A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr., edited by James M. Washington, 289–​312. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1991. King Jr., Martin Luther. “Love, Law, and Civil Disobedience.” Speech, November 16, 1961. Reprinted in A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr., edited by James M. Washington, 43–​53. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1991.

110 I would like to thank those involved in the Notre Dame Student Peace Conference and the Concerned Philosophers for Peace Conference in 2019 for their support in my development of this paper.

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King Jr., Martin Luther. “Nonviolence and Racial Justice.” 1957. Reprinted in A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr., edited by James M. Washington, 5–​9. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1991. Mill, John Stuart. “Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion.” Chap. 2 in On Liberty. London: 1859. Nhat Hanh, Thich. Being Peace. 1987. Reprint, Berkeley: Parallax, 2005. Nhat Hanh, Thich. Creating True Peace: Ending Violence in Yourself, Your Family, Your Community, and the World. New York: Atria Books, 2003. Nhat Hanh, Thich. The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation; The Four Noble Truths, the Noble Eightfold Path, and Other Basic Buddhist Teachings. 1998. Reprint, New York: Broadway Books, 1999. Nhat Hanh, Thich. Peace is Every Breath: A Practice for Our Busy Lives. New York: HarperOne, 2011. Nhat Hanh, Thich. Peace is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life. New York: Bantam Books, 1991. Nhat Hanh, Thich. Touching Peace: Practicing the Art of Mindful Living. Rev. ed. Berkeley: Parallax, 2009. Rodin, David. “The War Trap: Dilemmas of Jus Terminatio.” Ethics 125, no. 3 (April 2015): 674–​95. Rosenberg, Marshall B. Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life. 3rd ed. Encinitas, CA: PuddleDancer, 2015. Sharp, Gene. The Politics of Nonviolent Action. 3 vols. Boston: Porter Sargent, 1973. Stephan, Maria J., and Erica Chenoweth. “Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict.” International Security 33, no. 1 (Summer 2008): 7–​44. https://​www​.mitpr​essj​ourn​als​.org​/doi​/pdf​/10​.1162​/isec​.2008​.33​.1​.7​. Wink, Walter. Jesus and Nonviolence: A Third Way. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2003.

­c hapter 12

The Deadliness of Doing: Agamben, Oakeshott, and Withdrawing from Activity David Liakos 1

Modal Political Ontology as the Response to Activity

With the many ecological, economic, epidemiological, and social problems facing us today, why should contemporary political philosophy concern itself with a critique of the concept of activity, of all things? To address this question, I begin with the observation that we live in a frenetic culture in which our individual and collective activity occupies the forefront of our attention. The practical activities we engage in, and the manner in which we participate in those activities, are increasingly and coercively mastered and controlled. Social media apps, for example, quantitatively measure our “daily activity,” by which they mean how many minutes per day we use their product, which they subtly but pointedly encourage us to increase. Similarly, a whole slew of everyday practices—​such as eating and drinking, exercise, mental health, and sleep—​ can be technologically scrutinized, managed, and optimized so as to increase our productivity, contributing to and exacerbating our workaholic culture. In a different yet related register, we find an increasingly urgent amount of anxiety directed toward the extent of the contribution of “human activity” to global climate change. Finally, in an example to which we shall return later in this paper, many of us feel compelled to comment on, “like,” and reply to the opinions (or “takes”) of an ever-​growing online network of friends and strangers. Every “trending topic” and new piece of “content” requires our ongoing response. In a telling expression, this form of online activity, whose demands seem endless, is called “engagement.” I do not mean to suggest that all these phenomena are interchangeable, nor do I deny that there are genuine differences among these features of our lives. I have grouped them together only to call attention to the prominent focus upon activity in our collective life today. Against this backdrop, I develop in this paper a philosophical treatment of the way we understand activity. This philosophical approach criticizes the deleterious effects of our predominant concept of activity for its one-​sided focus on control, productivity, and usefulness, which my examples above were meant to illustrate. In response to this distorted concept of activity, the philosophical

© David Liakos, 2023 | DOI:10.1163/9789004541573_014

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framework I am working with in this essay validates a withdrawal from this sense of activity. We will be concerned here, then, not with abstaining from physical violence and war but rather with the flourishing “quality of life” that has been called “positive peace.”1 Put another way, I will focus on a mode of spiritual peace and freedom that aims to enable a form of life that is open and unstructured. The perspective developed here seeks to escape from external forces that place demands upon how we practically conduct ourselves and upon our collective and individual forms of intelligibility and modes of sense-​making. I shall argue that two ideologically heterogeneous political philosophers, Michael Oakeshott and Giorgio Agamben, articulate a compelling critique, and conceptualize the movement beyond, activity as we typically understand it. Their political thinking provides a bold option for political ontology that emphasizes the undecidability and raw possibility of human life. To anticipate the main terms I shall analyze and define in what follows, Agamben and Oakeshott distinguish between two phenomena of political life. On the one hand, they criticize all forms of strict and imposed ordering that limit how we act and think. Agamben calls this kind of compulsory structure “economy” and Oakeshott refers to this same idea as “work.” On the other hand, both thinkers point to a space of meaning that exists outside this structuring, which Agamben refers to as “inoperativity” and which Oakeshott calls “play.” The political writings of these two thinkers emphasize the possibility of withdrawing from economy or work into some realm that remains less subject to external constraints and structures. We need not remain at the mercy of an economic, work-​focused, and instrumental mode of intelligibility; other possibilities exist beyond our hegemonic modes of sense-​making. Oakeshott and Agamben develop a modal political ontology that imagines a form of political life that is less coercive and more open than it predominantly is today. The chief achievement of the exit from economy or work that Agamben and Oakeshott envision is to effect a transition outside of a form of discursive violence that limits and hinders what we think is possible. My objective is to draw on Agamben and Oakeshott in order to sketch the two main steps of this project, namely, criticizing our concept of activity and articulating some concrete means for moving beyond it. I am not concerned with emphasizing the distinctions between the Italian radical political theorist and the British conservative thinker. Such distinctions would emerge especially within the territory of ideological analysis (which would label Agamben as “left-​wing,” Oakeshott as “right-​wing,” and so on), which does not interest 1 David Boersema, “Peace: Negative and Positive,” 124.

270 Liakos me here.2 Rather, I will draw on the surprisingly consonant arguments these two admittedly very different writers make in their shared contestation of what Oakeshott calls “the deadliness of doing.”3 Although the paper is not only exegetical, I hope the genuine connections between Agamben and Oakeshott will emerge, particularly their common engagement in the project Agamben describes as follows: “For me it was not a question of criticizing or correcting this or that concept, this or that institution of Western politics. It was, rather, first and foremost a matter of shifting the very site of politics itself.”4 On that note, I will suggest that Agamben and Oakeshott show how the questionability and contingency of our understanding of activity ultimately accomplishes a shifting of the site of politics. I shall unfold that suggestion by developing Oakeshott’s hermeneutical understanding of conversation, which will enable a movement beyond what Agamben calls economy, that is, the management and ordering of our activity. With the help of these two thinkers, we will discover an unstructured and less polarized mode of conversing with one another. More generally, Oakeshott and Agamben point the way past our all too structured way of life today and toward a liberated alternative. 2

Critiquing our Concept of Activity: Economy and Work

What, exactly, is wrong with the way we typically understand activity in modern culture? For both Oakeshott and Agamben, our concept of activity traces its historical and conceptual beginnings to a questionable ontology. I will explain each of their origin stories, which are quite consonant, in turn. First, in his critical writings on the genealogy of modern politics, Agamben develops an historical account that explains what he provocatively calls the “planetary dominion of the paradigm of operativity.”5 What Agamben means by “operativity” refers to an ontological model in which any entity that exists enacts some ontologically preordained function. For operativity, to be means to have an essential purpose. Agamben maintains that this authoritarian and teleological

2 For examples of ideological analyses, helpful on their own terms, of the authors at issue here, see Lorenzo Chiesa and Frank Ruda, “The Event of Language as Form of Life: Agamben’s Linguistic Vitalism”; and Mark T. Mitchell, The Limits of Liberalism: Tradition, Individualism, and the Crisis of Freedom, 58–​94. 3 Michael Oakeshott, Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays, 538; Michael Oakeshott, What Is History? And Other Essays, 309. 4 Giorgio Agamben, “What Is a Destituent Power?,” 65. 5 Giorgio Agamben, The Highest Poverty: Monastic Rules and Form-​of-​Life, 145.

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ontological model, which as we shall see remains for him our predominant ontology today, finds its beginnings in Christian theology. On this score, Agamben traces the development of the concept of oikonomia (managing the household, economy) to show that Christian cosmology essentially involves a conception of reality in which God organizes His creation according to an ordained plan in which all entities fulfill a divinely ordered purpose: “Christian theology is, from its beginning, economic-​managerial.”6 God organizes reality according to His design; all things are intended to enact the model He set up. The meaning of existence is to enact the purposes or functions given to entities by God. Agamben does not merely describe this ontological scheme as a neutral account or an antiquarian historical phenomenon. Rather, he finds something urgently wrong in this so-​called “economic” ontology, which for him has structured our political life. Agamben’s critique can perhaps be best explained by considering a challenging example he provides in his subtle study of the history of Franciscan monasticism. There he claims that, while it is possible to imagine a priest who proves unworthy of his office, there is in principle no such thing as an unworthy monk, according to the logic of monasticism.7 In Agamben’s analysis, an unworthy priest is logically conceivable because the priest’s office and life remain distinct. The demands implied by the title of a priest exist apart from the actual life of the man who occupies the role. In his life, the priest might violate or fail to live up to the requirements of his holy occupation. Sometimes, the office and life of the priest may correspond, but there is no necessary reason why they must. A priest could hang up his vestments at the end of the day and fail, in his conduct or in his soul, to embody the ideals that the concept of a priest otherwise requires. When it comes to a monk, however, his life is the same as the functions of his office. The life of a monk essentially enacts what it means to be a monk. For a monk, life and liturgy are one, thus forming a harmonious whole that Agamben calls, as per the subtitle of his book on monasticism, a “form-​of-​life.” There are no rules or concepts that exist outside of or external to the life of a monk to which his life could fail to correspond; his life is the same as his office. Agamben’s seemingly esoteric historical study suggests that the contemporary political relevance of the monk lies in the total coherence of his office and life that come together to create a form-​of-​life. The figure of the monk intimates, even today, the political

6 Giorgio Agamben, The Kingdom and the Glory: For a Theological Genealogy of Economy and Government, 66. 7 Agamben, The Highest Poverty, 116–​19.

272 Liakos potential of living in light of a body of concepts, beliefs, and ideals with which one genuinely identifies. Agamben thinks that the economic ontology of Christian theology makes the universe as a whole like the unworthy priest, or at least at risk of becoming like him. That is, just as the priest must conform to principles that are external to his life, so too does creation in Christian ontology consist of God’s plan for reality on the one hand as well as the actual unfolding of nature and history on the other. For various historical and conceptual reasons that we do not have space to examine at present, Agamben suggests that one of the enduring tensions inherent in Christian theology is that these two domains, God’s design and reality, remain orthogonal to one another at the risk of an essential incoherence, which stands in contrast to the harmonious whole of a form-​of-​life.8 Reality is intended to fulfill the various ontological functions imputed to it by God and so is intelligible principally in terms of that divine management, but the world may fail in principle to correspond to God’s ordering. What is the significance of this seemingly arcane theological background for our conception of human activity today? For an answer, let us consider this passage: When Marx, starting with the 1844 Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, thinks the being of man as praxis, and praxis as the self-​ production of man, he is after all secularizing the theological idea of the being of creatures as divine operation. After having conceived of being as praxis, if we take God away and put man in his place, we will consequently obtain the result that the essence of man is nothing other than the praxis through which he incessantly produces himself.9 With this extraordinary (and controversial) claim, Agamben interprets the anthropology of Marxism, for which the human being is essentially a laboring and productive creature, as secularizing the Christian theology we have gestured at so far. Modern politics has inherited the economy of Christianity. For both Christianity and Marxism, Agamben argues, human life finds imposed upon itself an allegedly essential purpose, namely, to produce, to labor, to be useful, to be active. The function of the human being, as understood by Christianity as well as Marxism, remains external to human life. Those functions are imposed by some theoretical scheme that is outside human life, that 8 For a succinct summary of the theological background to Agamben’s argument, see Thanos Zartaloudis, “Government/​Oikonomia.” 9 Agamben, The Kingdom and the Glory, 91.

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is, prior to our identification with the norm or scheme at issue. We can either fail to or successfully correspond to these imposed functions in our own lives. To extend Agamben’s analogy a bit, just as Christian theology holds out hope for salvation in the form of the Last Judgment, Marxism means to create a non-​alienated economic arrangement that will resolve class injustice. In both these forms of redemption, reality or society will finally achieve its proper “economic” order. We can fulfill our destiny by living up to God’s demands or by non-​alienated laboring; in either case, we will live productively. Agamben, however, as we shall see in greater detail in the next section, finds eminently questionable any assumption that the human being possesses such a destined function. This distorted ontological scheme forms, in his view, the conceptual and historical background for the contemporary scenes I sketched earlier in which we find ourselves compelled to always remain active. In all these cases, some form or structure is externally imposed upon life. For Agamben, this ontology, in addition to and because of its problematic political implications, fails to capture another core component of the human essence to which his own thinking will do justice. Before turning to that positive component of Agamben’s view, let me present Oakeshott’s corresponding critique of activity. In an inventive and memorable image that shall provide a great deal of potential for us later, Oakeshott conceives of human civilization as a conversation among an irreducible plurality of distinct “voices” or modes of human being, experiencing, and thinking, which he calls “the conversation of mankind.”10 Each mode or voice, among which he counts science, poetry, and practical activities such as politics, possesses its own autonomous rational standards and engaged practices. The infinite interchange between these competing but never hegemonic voices takes place without goal, objective, or endpoint. As a consequence of this radical pluralism, which constitutes the core of his thinking, Oakeshott argues that no single form of thinking or behavior can ever gain complete domination over any other, because no neutral framework exists by means of which to objectively compare one voice to another in any absolute sense. Additionally, all these voices will endure because they answer various fundamental human needs. And yet, at different historical junctures, one voice may gain increased prominence over another, a fact which, on Oakeshott’s view, distinguishes modern 10 Oakeshott, Rationalism in Politics, 488–​541. Some readers may recognize Oakeshott’s phrase from Richard Rorty’s invocation of it in his critique of epistemological philosophy, against which Rorty counterposed “hermeneutics.” For Rorty, Oakeshott’s “conversation of mankind” stood as an avatar for hermeneutics (Rorty, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, 389–​94).

274 Liakos culture: “In recent centuries, the conversation, both in public and within ourselves, has become boring because it has been engrossed by two voices, the voice of practical activity and the voice of ‘science’: to know and to contrive are our pre-​eminent occupations.”11 We are engaged presently, Oakeshott thinks, in an essentially monotonous and even “tiresome” phase of the conversation. Discussion too often circles around pragmatic considerations of desiring and obtaining (which Oakeshott calls “practice”) or soberly inquiring into and understanding objective reality (which he labels “science”).12 To the extent that our conversation currently contains fewer prominent voices than it could, Oakeshott labels our culture’s conversation today as repetitive and tedious. For our goal of developing a rigorous critique of our dominant understanding of activity, Oakeshott’s image of the conversation of mankind provides a crucial diagnostic resource. The fact that our shared life is marked by a disproportionate emphasis on practice and science means that the loudest voices in our conversation want to talk about what Oakeshott calls “work,” namely, “an attitude to the world which is … concerned to use it, to get something out of it, or to make something of it.”13 Both science and practice, which have the most cultural cachet for us, embody the attitude of work. Science, for Oakeshott, aims at understanding in order to accomplish some instrumental aim or end, which is also the hallmark of practical activity, exemplified by enacting policies and projects.14 Our conversation now is boring because, in its distortion in favor of practice and science, it evinces a myopic focus on grim considerations of accomplishment and usefulness. Oakeshott’s view is best understood as standing in opposition to the monistic ontological reductionism of the conceptual focus on work in practical activity and science that distinguishes, for him as for Agamben, modern life. Here, Oakeshott’s similarity to Agamben on the issue of activity emerges into view. Both writers, by interrogating the origin of the contemporary emphasis on productivity and labor, locate a problematically one-​sided or reductionstic ontology as the source of our distorted way of life, namely, in the economic theology bequeathed to modernity for Agamben and in the conversation of mankind’s bias toward work for Oakeshott. In these ontological origin stories for our dominant concept of activity, we will find also the key to overcoming our warped obsession with activity in favor of a less restricted, more open way of life. 11 Oakeshott, Rationalism in Politics, 493. 12 Oakeshott, Rationalism in Politics, 494, 535. 13 Oakeshott, What Is History?, 310. 14 Oakeshott, Rationalism in Politics, 510.

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Finding a Way out of Activity: Inoperativity and Play

Agamben and Oakeshott characterize the ontological conceptions they investigate as one-​sided or imbalanced. Economic-​managerial theology and the voices of science and practice produced our contemporary obsession with productivity and, in so doing, have left out some other component of the human essence, which Agamben and Oakeshott mean to identify and recover. Both thinkers develop, in response to the schemes they criticize, their own richer, more pluralistic ontologies that provide resources for critically resisting activity as we understand it. Theirs both count as modal political ontologies that recognize activity oriented toward labor and productivity as, despite being overemphasized today, ultimately only one among several possible modes of human life.15 These political ontologies redress the one-​sidedness of economy and work by providing intellectual resources for resisting our hegemonic, instrumental conception of activity. This way of thinking proposes that human life possesses no intrinsic function or purpose, and that this fact contains enormous potential for political imagination and liberation. For Agamben, economic-​managerial theology forgets, or suppresses, what he allusively calls “inoperativity,” which “does not mean inertia, but names an operation that deactivates and renders works (of economy, of religion, of language, etc.) inoperative.”16 Inoperativity is not only idle or shiftless behavior that does not successfully reach active fulfillment and proper focus, like pure sloth. Rather, inoperativity names modes of human life deliberately oriented away from productive labor or purposive ends but that nonetheless remain content with this liberated open-​endedness. To be inoperative means, in an expression that importantly recalls Oakeshott, to be “without work.”17 What might such an inoperative living look like? To the extent that Agamben provides an adequate response to this question implied by his radical political thinking, the following evocative passage may point the way: If one eats, it is not done for the sake of being fed; if one gets dressed, it is not done for the sake of being covered up or taking shelter from the cold; if one wakes up, it is not done for the sake of working; if one walks, it is not done for the sake of going someplace; if one speaks, it is not done for 15 16 17

Both writers align their projects, more or less explicitly, with modal ontology. See Agamben, “What Is a Destituent Power?,” 73; and Oakeshott, Rationalism in Politics, 497, 534. Agamben, “What Is a Destituent Power?,” 69. Agamben, “What Is a Destituent Power?,” 69.

276 Liakos the sake of communicating information; if one exchanges objects, it is not done for the sake of selling or buying.18 Inoperative life orients itself toward fulfilling activities that do not take the form of any “for the sake of …” An inoperative life does not have a productive goal (which forms our dominant conception of activity now) but rather grounds and motivates human initiatives that take place outside this imperious demand for usefulness. Understanding inoperativity requires imagining a form of life without work; it means doing without a productive goal. Similar to some recent research in peace studies, Agamben does not recommend mere passivity or inactivity; instead, he recommends a form of doing not oriented toward any purpose.19 We shall return later in this paper, via the topic of conversation, to possible examples of this exotic possibility. Agamben’s argument should be heard in an ontological register. He boldly avows that inoperativity belongs to the human essence: “Human life is inoperative and without purpose, but precisely … this absence of aim [makes] the incomparable operativity of the human species possible. Man has dedicated himself to production and labor, because in his essence he is completely devoid of work, because he is the Sabbatical animal par excellence.”20 Operative life oriented toward labor and productivity in fact only emerges out of and on the basis of our essential inoperativity.21 Because human beings possess no intrinsic nature or given purpose, it lies precisely open to us to choose purposive goals like work. Agamben’s political ontology is modal, then, because our essential inoperativity opens up multiple other vital possibilities, including simply living inoperatively, that is, without work. The economic-​managerial ontology of operativity or economy demands a critique because it illegitimately imposes a truncated range of active or productive goals on human life when, in fact, our inoperativity opens up multiple other possibilities besides work. Agamben’s response to economy recurs in Oakeshott’s conceptualization of the conversation of mankind. Here, however, we find a mode of resistance to activity that, while consonant with Agamben’s analysis of inoperativity,

18 19

Agamben, “What Is a Destituent Power?,” 69. Agamben’s view of inoperativity bears comparison with Duane L. Cady’s distinction between “pacifism” (that is, peacemaking) and “passivism” (or inaction) (Cady, From Warism to Pacifism: A Moral Continuum, 24). 20 Agamben, The Kingdom and the Glory, 245–​46. 21 Jessica Whyte’s landmark reading also emphasizes the movement between the negative and the positive in Agamben’s political thinking (Whyte, Catastrophe and Redemption: The Political Thought of Giorgio Agamben).

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appears more practically intelligible because it lends itself more readily to actual implementation. Just as Agamben thinks our essential inoperativity enables other possible modes, so too Oakeshott’s conception of the conversation of mankind includes multiple voices or modes of being and thinking. His argument does not settle on a preference for one voice over another, but rather underscores the ineliminable multiplicity of voices within the conversation of humankind. For Oakeshott, the present phase of the conversation is distorted by science and practice, which always want to accomplish something. Another voice, however, persists and deserves a new hearing in addition to those overly loud voices, according to Oakeshott, namely, the voice he calls “poetry” or “play.” Like Agamben’s inoperativity, Oakeshott’s play, which refers broadly to the imaginative or poetic arts and the non-​instrumental orientation toward life they express, is “not directed to the satisfaction of wants.”22 Expressed in more positive terms, Oakeshott thinks poetry or play, in contrast to the practical focus of working activity, refers only to the disposition “to choose delight rather than pleasure or virtue or knowledge.”23 Oakeshott suggests we open up space in our lives for forms of being that have no other end than to contemplate and enjoy. Like attempting to gain a solid grasp on what exactly Agambenian inoperativity means, we may find ourselves frustrated at the elusiveness of Oakeshott’s notion of contemplative delight as a response to the hegemony of activity. The idea may sound naively utopian. To respond to that worry, let us take another look at Oakeshott’s image of conversation, which provides the general framework for his critique of work. Similar to Agamben’s inoperativity, Oakeshott’s metaphor of conversation contains spiritual and not only political resonances, attention to which will, both thinkers suggest, shift our ontological point of view and transform our politics. The poetic activity of delightful contemplation, Oakeshott argues with admirable phenomenological precision, means dwelling with things as they appear and, instead of analyzing or fitting them into an intelligible goal, merely permitting them to remain before us as they elicit joyful satisfaction while we perceive and experience them in the moment.24 What Oakeshott calls poetry or play means enjoying fleeting experiences without any further consideration or goal. For this reason, engaging in leisurely activities for the purpose of rest and relaxation in order to improve productivity at work or “let off steam,” such as by going to the gym or practicing “mindfulness,”

22 Oakeshott, What Is History?, 310. 23 Oakeshott, Rationalism in Politics, 540. 24 Oakeshott, Rationalism in Politics, 509–​10, 514.

278 Liakos does not qualify as delight in Oakeshott’s sense. Unlike mere pleasure, delight refers to engaging in activities for absolutely no external purpose. Oakeshott’s favorite example of this phenomenon is genuine conversations at their best, namely, when they have no goal and serve no practical purpose. Such conversations are, instead, marked by their ephemeral playfulness, by the surprising twists and turns they take. The ongoing continuance of conversation in this sense derives only from the joyful and mutual delight its participants feel in each passing moment as they talk to one another.25 Oakeshottian conversation exemplifies what he calls poetry or play. Further, Oakeshott’s definition of conversation makes concrete what Agamben means by inoperativity, that is, escaping the demands of activity. Both thinkers stake out a domain of human life that exceeds or resists demands for laboriousness, productivity, and usefulness. Agambenian inoperativity remains frustratingly difficult to envision, even when it inspires us to seek a way out of our frenetically active way of life. But what Oakeshott describes as dialogue oriented toward poetry or play suggests a concrete model of living inoperatively. Oakeshott’s definition of conversation is not as empty or nebulous as it may initially appear. This style of dialogue, which the next section will further explain, may provide a starting point for practicing a form of life not relentlessly focused on work. 4

An Elevated Definition of Conversation

Clarifying Oakeshott’s definition of conversation alluded to in the previous section will now help us develop a promising practical response to operativity and work. I will elucidate this special sense of conversation to clarify the limits of economy and provide an example of inoperativity or play. The “elevated” sense of conversation I have in mind as fulfilling this role finds its articulation in Oakeshott as well as in Hans-​Georg Gadamer.26 Their conception of conversation includes two connected resonances. This elevated conception of conversation refers not merely to a sense of cultured refinement but rather to a distinctive, albeit rare, way of speaking with one another that is essential to human life. This characterization suggests the 25 Oakeshott, What Is History?, 190. 26 My analysis of conversation follows from Oakeshott, Rationalism in Politics, 488–​541 and Oakeshott, What Is History?, 187–​99; and Hans-​Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, 370–​ 71, 385–​91. On similarities between Oakeshott and Gadamer, see Chris Lawn, “Adventures of Self-​Understanding: Gadamer, Oakeshott and the Question of Education”; for their differences, see David Liakos, “Hermeneutics and the Conservatism of Listening.”

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need for an accurate phenomenological account of how we converse. We may initially think of conversations we commonly have with our family, friends, colleagues, and peers about our thoughts, feelings, and experiences. We could call such ordinary discussions “everyday conversations,” that is, conversations we could have any day or time, also known as chitchat or idle talk. In their focus on the elevated manner of conversation, however, Oakeshott and Gadamer think conversation also possesses, in addition to these everyday resonances, what I shall call a “transformational” element, the first component of what I am defining as elevated conversation. This transformational register of conversation is exemplified by the deepest, most profound, almost life-​altering conversations we could ever have. Think of times when you have had conversations that go far beyond the idle talk of “How are you?” and other pleasantries to the level of genuine profundity. Such elevated, transformational conversations are not planned and possess no imposed structure. In other words, transformational conversations take place outside what Agamben calls operativity, namely, any rigidly imposed function or purpose. Sometimes we go into a conversation with a particular objective or goal, such as when we intend to discuss what has been on our minds with a therapist or when a conversation with a work colleague is conducted according to a list of priorities. Any discussion that unfolds according to such a thought-​out organization does not qualify, however, for this elevated sense of a transformational conversation. Perhaps an elevated conversation might unwittingly begin with a goal or set topic. But conversations in this special, transformational sense always eventually go in unexpected directions and never obey any fixed purpose. For this reason, transformational conversations cannot be planned in advance. These encounters are also improvisational because, in such a conversation, you find yourself challenged and encountering the unexpected. You make a particular claim as to what you think is true, and your conversation partner helps you to see things from a different perspective that shifts your point of view, as you do the same thing in turn for them. Both conversation partners find themselves forced into flexibility and everything becomes open to discussion. Essential to this spirit of collaborative improvisation is your willingness to allow yourself to follow the twists and turns of the discussion wherever they may take you. You give up the attempt to impose some structure on the conversation; instead, you allow things to happen as they will, no matter how surprising the direction or results. In the course of that open, improvisational, and free exchange, you and your partner find something genuinely new emerge, some truth or way of seeing things, that neither of you grasped before and discovering which was certainly not the initial intent of the discussion. But now, for

280 Liakos the first time, both conversation partners see this truth as genuinely real. Both points of view have met each other and found common ground through their discussion of a common topic or theme. In conversation, as the German term Gespräch (employed by Gadamer) nicely evokes, language gathers together, and something true and unexpected emerges. Transformational conversation means conversation in the best, most exemplary sense possible in human life. Transformational conversation, though it might be rare, may in principle really occur during a human life. The second sense of elevated conversation does not refer, however, to any conversation we could ever have with another individual person. This sense refers, instead, to an image of or metaphor for human civilization. Let us call this second component of elevated conversation “aspirational,” since it describes human culture at its best, as it should aspire to be. The aspirational account of conversation is best summed up by the expression “the conversation that we are.”27 What does this beautiful phrase, from the poet Friedrich Hölderlin, mean? Much like Oakeshott’s notion of the “conversation of mankind,” this image suggests that human culture at its best could live up to a transformational conversation that a person might conduct. As dynamic and interpretive creatures, we form and refine our personal and collective self-​understandings in dialogue with historical traditions of human accomplishments and events. To say “we are a conversation” means that our shared life takes place as an ongoing exchange between different voices (such as science, philosophy, art and poetry, and politics) that speak to each other and to every one of us, as Oakeshott argued. Modeled on transformational conversations between people, human culture understood in this aspirational register refers to how modes of acting, being, and thinking get shaped, sharpened, and refined in ongoing dialogue with one another. Our civilization should be understood on the model of a conversation between voices who can never win or defeat each other but who continue an ongoing dialogue of different ways of thinking that challenge and alter each other.

27

Gadamer adapts this line from Hölderlin in Truth and Method (Gadamer, Truth and Method, 370). See also Theodore George’s lucid exposition and defense of what I am calling the aspirational definition of conversation, which refers especially to Gadamer as well as to Heidegger and Hölderlin (George, “Are We a Conversation? Hermeneutics, Exteriority, and Transmittability”).

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The Distortion of Conversation by Economy or Work

In the previous section, I clarified the elevated understanding of conversation drawn from Oakeshott and Gadamer. Now I will suggest that this conception of conversation provides a space outside what Agamben called “economy” and what Oakeshott meant by “work.” In other words, this elevated form of conversation makes good on the promise of Agamben and Oakeshott’s modal political ontology by exemplifying inoperativity or play, that is, forms of acting and thinking that take place outside the terms of instrumental purposefulness. Elevated conversation is in deep, maybe even inevitable, tension with economy or work. I maintain, following Oakeshott’s critique of the focus in the conversation of mankind on practice and science, that practical activity exercises an outsized influence on our way of life.28 We will recall that economy, following Agamben, refers to governing and managing human life at every level. For example, economy aims to control and manipulate the social sphere in which conflict emerges between competing interests and factions. Economy attempts to resolve or at least reduce conflict by mastering and controlling human relations by forging consensus and managing and sometimes suppressing dissent. Understood in this way as purposive and technical management, economy stands uneasily alongside conversation in the elevated sense. Consider transformational conversation, the first element of elevated conversations. The distinctive and preeminent priorities of economy show themselves ill-​suited to the free and open exchange characteristic of a transformational dialogue. For economy, conflict typically counts as the primary paradigm for analysis. Who is included and who is excluded? Who receives privileges and benefits and who does not? How can such privileges be extended according to, for example, ideals of fairness and justice? In short, who is my friend and who is my enemy? A conversation centered on such inherently divisive questions cannot be one in which the mutual understanding and openness characteristic of the surprise and unexpectedness of a transformational conversation will be reached. Debate and division mark many real-​life conversations, to be sure. But the pursuit or resolution of conflict does not describe how, typically, we conduct our best and most meaningful conversations. More often, we enter into discussion to ask questions, to express surprise or confusion or despair 28

I agree with Suvi Soininen’s insightful suggestion that Oakeshott develops a “conversational paradigm of politics” which unites his political thinking with his account of conversation, but I find her emphasis on “the importance of manners and procedures in political activity” somewhat too narrow for my purposes (Soininen, “Michael Oakeshott and the Conversational Paradigm of Politics,” 136).

282 Liakos or elation, to seek communion and connection, to complain, to declare our interests and passions, to joke and be playful, to clarify, to seek or withhold recognition from another. Conflict and dissension characterize only one form or mode of conversation. The dominance of our cultural consciousness today by economy, with its attendant emphasis on conflict and the resolution of conflict, contributes to what Gadamer calls our “incapacity for conversation.”29 Economized discussions about partisan politics, ideological concepts, or the affairs of business proceed from, for example, the cautiously polite intent not to offend or alienate one’s interlocutor, the calculative desire to win a debate or to carefully and creatively resolve a dispute, to articulate a point at the expense of one’s interlocutor, to develop a technical solution, or to arrive at some compromise in which no side is satisfied but no one has lost. Beginning a discussion with the economic assumption of disagreement, even if the intention is to resolve the dispute, will not, ultimately, permit us to genuinely listen, but will rather allow us only to achieve some desired end or goal, which is the mark of what Oakeshott called work and what Agamben meant by economy. Our culture’s overwhelming focus on one topic, or one species or style of topic, namely, economy or work, prematurely cuts off the openness and surprise distinctive of transformational conversation, the twists and turns of which can typically not be predicted, much less controlled or regulated in the way economy pursues. Transformational conversations cannot be reduced to any purpose at all. There is, further, a tension between economy and aspirational conversation. Oakeshott characterized the present phase of the conversation of mankind as boring and monotonous. We can motivate his diagnosis with the suggestion that our conversations frequently attempt to resolve or perpetuate conflict. This style of dialogue overrides other interesting and fruitful ways of speaking and being. Its emergence as the dominant voice of our conversation should trouble us because economy or work drowns out other voices in the conversation that we are. The conversation of humankind includes such voices as, in addition to practical activity which is consonant with the modes of intelligibility of economy or work, the voices of science, art and poetry, sports and leisure, family and friendship, religion and spirituality, and many others. As Agamben and Oakeshott intimate, one of the distinctive features of economy or work is that it tends, in its desire for control and management, to swallow up 29

Hans-​Georg Gadamer, “The Incapacity for Conversation.” On the promise but also the limitations of dialogue for social cohesion and harmony, see Cynthia R. Nielsen and David Liakos, “Dialogical Breakdown and Covid-​19: Solidarity and Disagreement in a Shared World.”

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and drown out other voices. In the register of aspirational conversation, economy runs up against the elevated meaning of conversation as a description of human culture, which cannot be reduced to any one modality. 6

Withdrawing from Economy through Inoperative Conversations

In the previous section, I made the negative point that the transformational and aspirational senses of an elevated conversation cannot be captured by or reduced to economy or work, which is our dominant mode of thinking today. Now I turn to a more positive claim. The direction I encourage us to pursue practically in response to the tensions between economy and elevated conversation is to cease commenting, by which I mean to cease conducting conversations that have a determined purpose. The internet has played a large role in amplifying the ubiquitously economic and intensely polarized character of our culture. Too often, especially but not only online, we feel the urgent need to comment, to articulate an opinion, to formulate a “take” or stance on the relevant topics of the day. Every pressing issue, every “trending topic,” every controversial question, every new piece of “content,” demands our attention and participation. Many of us frequently feel social and psychological pressure to put forth our own opinion or to assent from or dispute the views of others that crop up throughout our public square online. An ongoing and pervasive (but, upon serious reflection, pointless) debate demands our attention but ends up only producing exhaustion and even anxiety. The modern dream of a public square characterized by cultivated, courteous, and rational discourse has turned into a nightmare of endless controversy and polarization. In such a climate of division, no wonder what Agamben calls economy has emerged as our hegemonic mode of intelligibility, since it offers at least a vocabulary and method for settling such controversial discussions and disputes. Economy, which thrives on and propagates conflict, compels our participation in order to perpetuate itself. The bleak and damaging landscape of social media and internet culture exemplifies economy or work as we have analyzed it with the help of Agamben and Oakeshott. Our contemporary mode of intelligibility does not live up to the ideal of an elevated conversation. Hence, conversation may provide an arena in which to formulate and enact a contestation of economy or work. In response to this situation of ongoing debate and dissension, I am not advocating for silence, which would be a politically problematic stance. One point that has been raised in recent political discussions, and which has deep roots in peace research, is that silence in response to injustice counts as a form

284 Liakos of violence.30 These critics have argued that refraining from political commentary and activism suggests a form of tacit approval of the status quo. Such silence bespeaks (at best) naivete and (at worst) an active impediment to political change by privileged members of society who refuse to take part in the struggle for justice. To some extent, the force of this ideological critique must be conceded. The position that I am advocating does require, at least partially, withdrawing from the political arena as it is predominantly understood. But recall Agamben’s example of the Franciscan monk. The monk enacts a “form-​of-​life” in harmony with a body of beliefs that he endorses and to which his being belongs. In that regard, the monk lives more or less outside the mainstream culture, where political and ethical norms remain external to and alienated from the conduct of an individual person’s life. That situation, far from an esoteric episode in medieval history, should sound disturbingly reminiscent of life in a technological age where nearly every conceivable political position will get one caught in a mess of tensions if not contradictions. The main objective of what Agamben calls inoperativity and what Oakeshott calls play or poetry is to shift the site of politics entirely, not to remain content with the terms of ongoing political debates and social discussions as they are currently constituted. The goal, rather, is to reach the point where a form-​of-​life such as the monk is able to peacefully live becomes possible on a larger, social scale. In other words, people should be able to live in harmony with the form or shape they want their lives to follow. In some small way, transformational conversations can push in this direction, that is, in the direction of inoperativity or play. Instead of a pure negation of political dialogue, I suggest that we pursue inoperative conversations. In the face of the imperious demands of activity from economy or work, many of our real-​life discussions, especially online, are conducted according to the purpose of articulating an opinion or critically responding to the views of others. As scholars on contemporary polarization have pointed out, we find ourselves in an endless cycle of debate and persuasive exchange.31 Transformational conversations, meanwhile, are inoperative to the extent that they follow no such external or imposed purpose. In advocating for inoperative discussions, I am suggesting, at least occasionally, moving on from controversies and topics whose conceptualization is economic, that is, focused on division and domination by 30 31

For an influential early formulation of this view, see Johan Galtung: “Structural violence is silent, it does not show—​it is essentially static, it is the tranquil waters” (Galtung, “Violence, Peace, and Peace Research,” 173). See Kevin Vallier, Must Politics Be War? Restoring Our Trust in the Open Society. Vallier responds to this same general problem with a theory of social trust.

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critiquing the opinions of others or attempting to win debates. By conducting elevated conversations in which we open ourselves to the flow of discussion, we should refuse either to assent or dissent from topics to which we would otherwise feel the need to have a formulated response. This option does not mean opposing any economic-​political-​ideological engagement whatsoever. Rather, in my view, we should, at least some of the time, be shifting our conversational focus away from such purposive discussions toward other forms of dialogue that would, in the long run, shift the focus of politics onto new terrain. The most socially and politically radical option today will be found not in any of the particular opinions at which one could arrive, no matter how well reasoned or motivated, no matter how apparently moral or just. Resolving the polarization of points of view so endemic to our society requires addressing the distortion of the field of discussion in which those alienating opinions are expressed and propagated in the first place.32 More radical than any particular position within this landscape would be the possibility of willingly choosing to cease having and expressing opinions about every topic in the first place. I encourage us all to remember that we do not need to always have an opinion, to choose a stance, to formulate a judgment. We should, instead, exit from the illusory requirement to actively participate in our culture’s frenetic, constant, and divisive debates and contentious discussions that ultimately incline us toward the economic model of conversation that makes discussion into a form of work, into a structured and purposive activity that accomplishes some goal. I suggest that we sometimes simply refuse to comment, to actively be engaged, or to participate. In short, when the conversation moves toward bitter controversies, we should simply move on to something else. This mode of conversing does not mean cutting off discussion entirely and being merely silent. Rather, we will aim to steer the dialogue away from the divisive direction of economic concerns, as Oakeshott emphasizes: “The object is not to persuade or to convince, not to overpower an opponent by reasoning or eloquence, not to inform or to improve, but merely to speak in such a manner that what is said leads on to something else.”33 Just as this proposal does not amount merely to silence, it also does not amount to passivity or quietism, since transformational conversation requires our active decision and commitment to disengage from, to not participate in, and simply to refuse certain 32

Lauren Swayne Barthold has made a similar case in her important study of dialogical solutions to political polarization, which also makes use of insights from hermeneutics (Barthold, Overcoming Polarization in the Public Square: Civic Dialogue). Barthold may not subscribe to my model of inoperative conversations, however. 33 Oakeshott, What Is History?,190.

286 Liakos forms of discussion in favor of the open and free exchange that is at issue here. In fact, this conversational option only becomes necessary when it comes to those modes of conversing that appear to, but ultimately do not, demand our attention and participation, namely, the divisive and economized modes of speaking to which I have been referring. Hence, my suggestion requires our use of discriminative judgment in order to decide when, exactly, to disengage or withdraw from particular forms of discussion and to adopt instead the free-​ flowing and purposeless model of elevated conversation. The best way to accomplish that goal requires letting conversations go where they may, to follow and sensitively respond to the surprising twists and turns of genuinely and mutually challenging dialogue and find momentary pleasure in an ongoing and ultimately pointless exchange with another person. Instead of violently imposing a direction on discussion toward topics that allegedly require our response, we should take our lead from the purposeless and genuine flow of free, open, improvisational, and genuinely elevated conversation. To adopt an Agambenian expression which Oakeshott would find amenable in this context, we should deactivate the need to orient our conversations toward practical purposes and goals such as political commentary, ideological debate, problem-​solving, information, and persuasion.34 The elevated discussions I describe would count as inoperative conversations, that is, as conversations that do not serve any goal or purpose. Implementing this liberated and intentional approach to conversation would mean more real-​life transformational conversations, which may slow down the economic ordering of all areas of human life by opening up some discussions that have no imposed structure whatsoever. Now, this model requires, of course, the ready openness of a dialogue partner, which is not always possible in cases of, for example, exploitation, sexism, and racism, situations in which true and open conversation is not, to say the least, really an option because of the prejudice and bad faith of one’s interlocutor. But when a biased conversation partner wants to make a sexist or racist “point,” to impose their will upon their discussion partner, to humiliate the other discussant, or to extract some argumentative concession, that speaker acts according to a purpose in that dialogue. In other words, they are conducting their side of the conversation according to their own goal or agenda. It is the very idea of an external conversational goal that, at least some of the time, I am suggesting we abandon.

34

For his employment of the term “deactivation,” see Agamben, “What Is a Destituent Power?,” 69–​71.

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My position that inoperative conversations contain no purpose can also serve as a counterpoint to a recent objection to the possibility of political dialogue. In an online essay commemorating the 90th birthday of Jürgen Habermas, who is famous for developing the ethics of “communicative rationality,” Raymond Geuss rejects the idea that discussion possesses any political salience. Geuss argues that a priori norms of communication, like those described by Habermas, are completely ill-​equipped to bridge genuine ideological divides such as those prominent in the contentious debates concerning Brexit in the United Kingdom: “Discussions, even discussions that take place under reasonably favorable conditions, are not necessarily enlightening, clarifying or conducive to fostering consensus.”35 Note, however, that Geuss’s critique does not apply to inoperative and transformational conversations, which are not oriented toward goals like building consensus. Rather, inoperative dialogue is open-​ended, improvisational, and ongoing, and need not result in any form of achieved consensus, persuasion, or indeed any solution whatsoever. Though this was not Geuss’s intended point, his critique of the political potential of discussions because they are unable to produce ideological results unwittingly underscores how beholden our imaginative conception of conversation today is to economic or work-​oriented goals and purposes. Geuss cannot even conceive of transformational conversations as I am envisioning them, namely, as dialogues in which each partner is gradually disarmed and forced to sensitively respond to the contributions of another speaker, thus eventually transforming the perspective of both participants without either of them necessarily intending to do so. 7

Imagining a Form of Life and Peace

My claim is that inoperative conversations that are capable of having this transformational effect could slowly exert a spiritual influence throughout our culture without those conversations addressing political and technical topics or having any direct instrumental result or material benefit. To the extent that we engage in reciprocal discussion with family, colleagues, friends, and peers who might push us toward particular conversational purposes and goals that involve debate and persuasion, inoperative conversation emerges as a counterbalance that frees up conversational spaces that serve no goal or purpose. Conversation understood and practiced in this elevated and inoperative sense 35

Raymond Geuss, “A Republic of Discussion: Habermas at ninety.”

288 Liakos restores the human being, at least for the duration of that dialogue, to what Agamben called our essential inoperativity, that is, our potential to not always follow imposed ways of being and discoursing. In perpetuating and participating in purposeless and inoperative conversations, we would resist the violent demands of economy understood, following Agamben, as “ordered functioning.”36 The felt need that so many of us experience to participate in discourses and debates counts as an economic imperative in Agamben’s sense. In other words, we are experiencing the pull of managerial requirements to participate in a structured activity. Social media is the prime example of this sinister phenomenon. Further, we are aware today of authoritarian injunctions to participate in economic activity more generally. This fact is underscored by debates surrounding “reopening the economy” during the covid-​19 pandemic. As one free-​market economist puts it, “utilizing our scarce resources to battle covid-​ 19 at all costs, thus sacrificing our economic well-​being and limiting our future growth … means that we will be relatively poorer in the future.”37 The health of the economy supersedes the health of the people. This political perspective dramatically illustrates the hegemony of the economy we have considered. In such a climate, Agamben’s critique of economy could not appear more urgently needed and prescient, and Oakeshott’s conversational exemplification of inoperativity emerges as a promising tool of resistance to economic demands. Inoperative conversation takes place outside economy and lives up to Agamben’s promise to shift the site of politics. From Agamben and Oakeshott, we have learned that inoperativity or play can meaningfully respond to the all-​consuming demands of economy or work. But how to implement, on a social scale in the twenty-​first century, the “form-​ of-​life” of a Franciscan monk, as Agamben encourages us to do, is difficult to envision. To the extent that this problem is not merely political but rather concerns our form of intelligibility and capacity for sense-​making, I suspect imagining a form-​of-​life is beyond the scope of political philosophy. It is here that I think the inoperative potential of transformational conversations becomes so important, even if a radical political theorist like Agamben himself might consider such a genteel option insufficiently extreme. Individuals, in their own lives, can prepare and comport themselves to conduct such conversations, and it is conceivable that we could really engage in these dialogues with other people to whom we are close enough to converse intimately. Following here the 36 Agamben, The Kingdom and the Glory, 18. 37 Claus Wiemann Frølund, “Yes, There Are Tradeoffs between Disease Prevention and Economic Destruction.”

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lead of Oakeshott, I think of transformational conversations as a small-​scale attempt to implement inoperativity or play in our daily lives so as to contribute to a slow, gradual, and unpredictable but meaningful spiritual shift in our culture. Could such a shift produce a more peaceful politics? Philosophers of peace such as Fred Dallmayr have championed dialogue as a means “to achieve a shared appreciation and recognition of differences.”38 Such a project is laudable but is not exactly my own, since that model imposes a goal or objective onto conversation. Peace, in Dallmayr’s view, is the optimal political objective of discussion. In my view, by contrast, purposeless, improvisational, and inoperative conversations can best contribute to an atmosphere of peace only by creating a dialogical space that eludes the felt need that characterizes so many of our conversations to accomplish something or to directly resolve polarized differences. Eluding the need to accomplish or do anything in conversation, although an indirect and modest avenue to peacefulness, would still be significant. The goal of a modal political ontology in general is to imagine a form of life that is not governed by any external goal or purpose imposed upon our activity. If there is some possible space in our lives for discussions that deactivate the apparent need that we feel throughout the rest of the day to contribute something or to follow some guideline, then maybe we could eventually begin imagining larger and more significant and expansive spaces that are deactivated and liberated in the same way. Transformational conversations are a small step on the way to an inoperative world.39

References

Agamben, Giorgio. The Kingdom and the Glory: For a Theological Genealogy of Economy and Government. Translated by Lorenzo Chiesa with Matteo Mandarini. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011. Agamben, Giorgio. The Highest Poverty: Monastic Rules and Form-​of-​Life. Translated by Adam Kotsko. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013. Agamben, Giorgio. “What Is a Destituent Power?” Translated by Stephanie Wakefield. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 32, no. 1 (2014): 65–​74.

38 39

Fred Dallmayr, Integral Pluralism: Beyond Culture Wars, 115. This essay has undergone many iterations. I would like to thank Will Barnes and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful guidance. I read a draft of several sections of this paper as a “Philosophically Drinking” public philosophy talk in Houston, Texas, on January 28, 2020, and I thank the audience at that paper for improving the essay.

290 Liakos Barthold, Lauren Swayne. Overcoming Polarization in the Public Square: Civic Dialogue. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020. Boersema, David. “Peace: Negative and Positive.” In The Routledge Handbook of Pacifism and Nonviolence, edited by Andrew Fiala, 116–​24. New York: Routledge, 2018. Cady, Duane L. From Warism to Pacifism: A Moral Continuum. Second edition. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2010. Chiesa, Lorenzo and Frank Ruda. “The Event of Language as Form of Life: Agamben’s Linguistic Vitalism.” Angelaki 16, no. 3 (2011): 163–​90. Dallmayr, Fred. Integral Pluralism: Beyond Culture Wars. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2010. Frølund, Claus Wiemann. “Yes, There Are Tradeoffs between Disease Prevention and Economic Destruction.” Mises Institute Blog. April 7, 2020. Accessed May 5, 2020. https://​mises​.org​/wire​/yes​-there​-are​-tradeo​ffs​-betw​een​-dise​ase​-pre​vent​ion​-and​ -econo​mic​-dest​ruct​ion​. Gadamer, Hans-​Georg. Truth and Method. Second revised edition. Translated by Joel Weinsheimer and Donald Marshall. New York: Continuum, 2004. Gadamer, Hans-​Georg. “The Incapacity for Conversation.” Translated by David Vessey and Chris Blauwkamp. Continental Philosophy Review 39, no. 4 (2006): 351–​59. Galtung, Johan. “Violence, Peace, and Peace Research.” Journal of Peace Research 6, no. 3 (1969): 167–​91. George, Theodore. “Are We a Conversation? Hermeneutics, Exteriority, and Transmittability.” Research in Phenomenology 47, no. 3 (2017): 331–​50. Geuss, Raymond. “A Republic of Discussion: Habermas at ninety.” The Point. June 18, 2019. Accessed August 26, 2020. https://​thep​oint​mag​.com​/polit​ics​/a​-repub​lic​-of​ -dis​cuss​ion​-haber​mas​-at​-nin​ety​/​. Lawn, Chris. “Adventures of Self-​ Understanding: Gadamer, Oakeshott and the Question of Education.” Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 27, no. 3 (1996): 267–​77. Liakos, David. “Hermeneutics and the Conservatism of Listening.” Cosmos and History 16, no. 2 (2020): 495–​519. Mitchell, Mark T. The Limits of Liberalism: Tradition, Individualism, and the Crisis of Freedom. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2019. Nielsen, Cynthia R. and David Liakos. “Dialogical Breakdown and Covid-​19: Solidarity and Disagreement in a Shared World.” Journal of Applied Hermeneutics (2020), Article 11: 1–​12. Oakeshott, Michael. Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays. New and expanded edition. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1991. Oakeshott, Michael. What Is History? And Other Essays. Edited by Luke O’Sullivan. Exeter: Imprint Academic, 2004.

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Rorty, Richard. Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979. Soininen, Suvi. “Michael Oakeshott and the Conversational Paradigm of Politics.” Redescriptions: Political Thought, Conceptual History and Feminist Theory 9, no. 1 (2005): 135–​56. Vallier, Kevin. Must Politics Be War? Restoring Our Trust in the Open Society. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. Whyte, Jessica. Catastrophe and Redemption: The Political Thought of Giorgio Agamben. Albany: suny Press, 2013. Zartaloudis, Thanos. “Government/​Oikonomia.” In The Agamben Dictionary, edited by Alex Murray and Jessica Whyte, 84–​6. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011.

Index abortion 55 absolutism 3, 18, 56, 59 cynical 46, 51 inauthentic 48–​49, 53 moral 5, 42, 50, 52 activism  depolarized 171 social 16, 240 activity 268–​69, 270, 276, 285, 289 and Christian ontotheology 19, 272 and conversation 273, 279–​80, 283, 286–​87 criminal 178 demands of 284 of hate groups 13, 192–​93 and moral development 261 and playfulness 20, 278 poetic 277 practical 274, 281–​82 productive 275 structured 288 See also Agamben, Giorgio; economy; inoperativity; Oakeshott, Michael; play addiction 54 adversary (adversarial) 72, 74, 171 as enemy 149 engagement with 170 interrelations and 5 political 76 relationships 77 respect for 75, 79 U.S. system as 98 African Americans 220, 221, 224, 232 Agamben, Giorgio 19–​20, 273 and Christian ontology of activity 271–​72 and conversation of mankind 274 and “economy” 269–​70, 282–​83 and essential inoperativity 21, 275–​ 78, 288 and transformational conversations 279–​81, 284 agency 13, 131, 170 agon 6, 93–​94, 97 agonism 6–​7, 94, 98 democratic 84, 97

and nonviolence 83, 85, 98–​99 political theory of 96 See also anarchism; solidarity Agonistic Solidarity 5, 65, 79 as common bond 73–​74, 76, 77 as normative idea 75 and partisanship 78, 80 See also equality American Constitution. See U.S. Constitution American Presidential election (2020) 149 anarchism 90, 96–​97, 99 communitarian 88–​89 misunderstanding of 86 nonviolent 84 See also polarization anarchy of difference 6–​7, 83, 85, 90, 95 See also agonism anger 53, 77, 78, 128, 250, 259, 263 animosity 63, 76, 77, 179, 195 antagonism 5, 73–​75, 77 anti-​Catholicism 178 anti-​Semitism 177 Arab oil embargo 30–​31 archetypes 83, 90–​91, 96 See also polarization Arendt, Hannah 21, 148, 165, 228 Aristotle 70n29, 161n9, 164, 261 assassination 57, 234 assimilate (language) 240 authoritarianism 19, 79, 92–​93, 97, 118, 152–​ 53, 170, 270, 288 Bacchanalian 51 Bakunin, Mikhail 86 bias 15, 222–​23, 225, 274 bipartisanship 64, 106 Black Lives Matter 149, 161n9 Blackness 203 blue states 218 See also violence bourgeoisie 95 Brexit 287 Brown v. Board of Education 188–​89 Buddha Nature 18, 261

Index Buddhism 93 Campert, Remco 148 capitalist 96, 129, 132 carceral ethos. See carceral state carceral state/​system 7, 105–​6, 112, 119 citizenship and 116, 122, 123 inverted ethos 120 political power of 113 public understanding of 115 punishment and 117 reform 118 See also criminal justice system; inequality; mass incarceration Chappelle, Dave 42, 54–​55, 57 Chauvin, Derek 10, 156–​57 cheekiness 5, 42, 50–​51, 57–​60 Christianity 19, 47n16, 271–​73, 93 citizenship 8, 76, 108, 113–​14, 116, 121–​22, 123 civil death. See carceral state/​system; criminal justice system; mass incarceration civil disobedience 25–​27, 29, 33, 35, 37–​ 38, 248 civil rights. See U.S. Civil Rights movements Civil Rights Act of 1964 188–​89 civil unrest 128, 175 civil war. See war Clark, John 88–​89 class 6–​7, 106, 273 custodial 116–​17, 119 cynicism 47 discrimination and 134 incarceration and 114, 120 middle 47, 59 struggle 95 warfare 96 working 58 climate change 66, 73, 132, 268 Clinton, Bill 225 Cohen, Joshua 96–​97 Cold War 91, 217–​18 Collin v. Smith (1978) 177 commentary (political) 281, 284, 286 common good 129 communicative rationality 2, 108, 287 community 9, 22, 48, 52, 55, 63, 130–​31, 188

293 academic 16 action 160 beloved 6, 85, 86, 89 fragmented 127–​29 impossible 88 justice 132–​33, 134–​35 lgbtq 176 minority 54 national 254 and nonviolence 257 organizations 122 political 8, 111n21, 121, 123 scientific 66 security and 137–​38 shared moral 162, 164, 168–​69 Transgender 57 See also Mill, John Stuart; utilitarianism competition 67, 94–​95, 113, 149 compromise 3, 7, 36n9, 79, 98, 128, 149, 282 conflict 42, 65, 75, 85, 87, 97–​98, 251, 263 agonistic 99 archetypes of 90 class 96 discourse and 13, 281–​82 elimination of 86 escalation of 2n18 ideological 194 internal 254 interpersonal 252 and justice 131, 215n31 nonviolent 6, 83, 89, 94, 246 and partisan politics 67–​68, 71–​73, 80 resolution 16–​19, 84, 95, 127, 247, 255–​ 61, 265 social 88, 91, 93, 108 violent 58, 92, 262 conformity 29, 33n6 consciousness 6, 44, 207 civic 116 cultural 282 and the Enlightenment 46 false 45, 47–​48, 58 and healing power 18, 259 in nonviolence 253 public 258 See also Hanh, Thich Nhat; Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich; King, Martin Luther, Jr.; Rosenberg, Marshall

294 Index consensus 77, 97, 109, 139, 219, 252, 281 building 287 emphasis on 75–​76 forced 95 global 180 inoperativity and 21 pluralistic 6 reasonable 96 conservatism 47–​48, 54 constitutional patriotism 110, 114, 122, 123 See also Habermas, Jürgen contempt 31, 77, 184 cooperation 2, 50, 76, 87, 170, 248, 264 coronavirus. See Covid-​19 corporations 7, 113, 159 corporeal expression 12, 15, 179–​80 See also hate speech; personal expression counterprotest 194 See also protest Covid-​19 20, 218, 288 creativity 83, 92 crime 112, 116, 181 fighting 115 history 119 street 120 victims of 114 violent 220 criminal justice system 7, 105, 112, 124 critiques of 106–​7, 111, 123 governing through the 115 political inequality and 114, 116 reform 8 and social status 117 See also carceral state; mass incarceration critical race theory 202, 219, 225, 235 cruelty 7 custodial class 116, 119 See also carceral state/​system custodial lifeworld 116 See also carceral state/​system cynicism. See Left Cynicism Davis, Angela 8 Davis, Sammy, Jr. 42–​43, 54 Davson-​Galle, Peter 10–​11, 151–​53, 155–​56n5, 158, 166 dehumanization 77, 180, 185, 187, 191, 225, 233

democracy 6, 13 adversarial 69 as competitive struggle 71 counterweights to 113 deliberative 21 failure of 7 informed 127 liberal 5, 74 legitimacy and 123 politics of 94 quality of 79 threats to 2 See also Agonistic Solidarity; democratic democratic  change 73n38 citizens 72 commitments 78–​79 counter 118 ethos 119–​20, 122–​23 function 70n29 governance 106 ideals 223 institutions 98 legitimacy 121 politics 69 Democratic Party 1, 91 demonization 77, 149, 159 depolarization 3, 6, 83–​84, 99, 170–​71 and commitment to nonviolence 92 political 38–​39 project of 42 racial 215 desegregation 240 detainment 152 See also carceral state/​system; police devotion 79, 131 dignity 12–​13, 29, 194, 257 human 176, 181–​82, 184–​86, 190 individual 177 moral 51 standard of 188 of victims 234 discourse 2–​3, 7, 13, 21, 149, 219, 222, 224 changes in 227, 237 construction of citizenship and 116 critical 56, 235, 242 dehumanizing 233 democratic ethos 120–​23

Index discourse (cont.) difficult 129 as echo chamber 139 of fear 128 gender 57 genuine 45 open 110 of oppression 238–​39 partisan 72, 77 peacemaking 10, 135–​38 pejorative 228 philosophical 8 polarized 20, 60 political 4–​5, 15, 50, 59, 67–​68, 76, 80, 232 public 134 of racism 201–​2 rational 258, 283 theory 9, 106–​9, 111, 113, 118–​19 toxic 231, 234 See also carceral state/​system; violence discrimination 12, 134, 179, 181–​82, 188, 233 disgust 77 dissent 45, 281, 285 dissidents 161, 170, 190 diversity 2, 6, 83–​84, 85, 91, 99 and class 96 compared to polarization 89–​90, 95 of ideas 175, 195 intersectional 93 of linguistic violence 239 and positive peace 86–​88 reductive concept of 85 safeguarding 9 of semantics 214 division 5, 12, 67, 127, 130, 179–​80, 219, 281, 283–​84 See also consensus dog whistles 225 double entredre 43, 53, 58 Douglass, Frederick 199, 202 economy  of Christianity 272 as compulsory structure of activity 268, 270–​71, 275–​76, 284 as financial system 66, 134 health of the 288

295 limits of (as function of activity) 278, 281–​83 education 9, 48, 127, 129 higher 47 moral 14, 164, 169, 261 political 133 power of 10, 139 theories of justice and 132 See also Brown v. Board of Education; Mill, John Stuart egalitarianism 9, 118, 120–​21 egoism 4, 51–​53, 59, 167–​68 elenchus 17, 249 emotions 18, 77, 252, 254 enemy 21, 76, 78, 92, 149, 152, 190, 281 See also adversary Engaged Buddhism. See Hanh, Thich Nhat Enlightenment, the 44n7, 45–​46, 127 entrepreneurs (political) 149–​50, 152, 158, 160, 170 environment 160, 233, 260 degradation 11–​12, 150–​51, 159, 166 political 36 epistemology 164, 201 equality 5, 13, 189, 194–​95, 214 commitment to 73–​74 conceptions of 58 cynicism and 49 democratic 8, 68, 120 disagreement over 76 free speech and 187, 193 gender 181 as human right 182, 186, 188, 190 and marginalized groups 236 partisanship and 72, 75 political 115 policy and 107 See also Agonistic Solidarity essentialism 15, 57, 229, 235 ethnic cleansing. See genocide euthanasia 10, 151–​54 exclusion 8, 35, 93, 110, 119, 123, 217, 228, 236 execution 152, 159 existentialism 19, 47, 93, 97, 134–​35, 185 exploitation 54, 159n8, 286 expulsion 98, 218 extremism 91, 127, 181

296 Index evil 130, 251, 261 banality of 228 forces of 76–​77, 256 good vs. 3, 133 immunity from 134, 136 intention to do 30

freedom of speech 12, 13, 99, 188 abridgment of 177 and hate speech 182, 189–​90 protections of 98 true defenders of 194 Freud, Sigmund 45, 69, 93

false consciousness. See consciousness fanaticism 95 Fanon, Franz 15, 202, 225 fascism 9, 221 F.B.I. 13, 192 fear 44, 77, 93, 150, 161–​62 appeals based on 135, 137 caused by toxic speech 232–​33 criminal justice and 121 discourses of 128, 175 expression of 74 freedom from 134 minimization of 10 news media and 139 of the Other 78, 122 in white America 205 feminism 207, 219, 235 firefighters. See malicious compliance First Amendment 177–​78, 187, 190, 195 Floyd, George 10, 148, 156–​57 formerly enslaved 93 form-​of-​life 19, 271–​72, 284, 288 Fourth Estate 128 freedom 3, 9, 13, 134, 188 of assembly 99 collective  conditions of 67 defenders of 193 of expression 182, 186, 189, 190 and human rights 91, 181 individual 10, 130, 139 partisanship and 72, 74 polarity as threat to 149 principles of 86 religious 129 respect for 107 of thought 131 unstructured 269 See also First Amendment; freedom of speech

Galtung, Johan 42n1, 84–​85, 87, 91–​92 Gandhi, Mohandas K. 16–​18, 86, 157n7, 246 on compassion 252 and law of love 260 and nonviolent resistance 247–​48, 251, 253, 255, 265 and violence 256 See also conflict; Hanh, Thich Nhat; King, Martin Luther, Jr.; nonviolence gaslighting 233 genocidal language games 15, 217, 227, 229 genocide 15, 98, 162, 175, 193 and Indigenous North Americans 209 and dehumanizing language 191, 220, 224, 227–​28, 230, 237 Germany 186, 224 global warming 66–​67, 159, 166 See also climate change; environment Grant, Ulysses S. 26–​27 Greco-​Roman Kynicism 51 grievances 149, 177 guilt 4, 46–​47, 49, 53–​54, 58 See also Left Cynicism Habermas, Jürgen 96 and communicative rationality 287 on constitutional patriotic solidarity 110, 114 on crime-​centered governance 115–​16 and critique of social reality 107–​8 on discourse principle 8, 106, 109, 111 on informal political structure 119 on unequal society 7, 112 Hanh, Thich Nhat 18, 246, 250, 259 and capacity for goodness 261 and compassion 252 Engaged Buddhism 253 and habit energies 260 on healing 259 See also Gandhi, Mohandas K.; King, Martin Luther, Jr.; nonviolence

297

Index harassment 233 and freedom of speech 177, 186 legal 159, 183–​84 sexual 207 harmony 6, 19, 149 aspiration to 88 complex 92 living in 17, 284 and moral truth 248 and nonviolence 251 and partisanship 65 and positive peace 87, 89 sustainable 257 hate crimes 13, 192, 242 hate group(s) 13, 191–​93 See also hate speech hate speech 12–​13, 175–​77, 185–​86, 191, 193 and censorship 190, 194 criteria of 178–​80 and free expression 189 as harm 233 as ideology of supremacy 192 impact of 181 psychological effects of 183 in public spaces 184–​85 to silence others 187 as threat to democracy 195 thwarting 15 tolerance of 188 verbal attacks 182 as violence 228 hatred 16, 22, 77, 78, 175, 200, 202, 205 healthcare 73 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich 6, 44, 85, 88, 93, 95 hegemony 7, 15, 76, 93, 96, 98, 224, 275, 277, 288 Heidegger, Martin 45, 280n27 Henry, Patrick 128 Heraclitus 94 hermeneutics 201, 207, 273n10, 285n32 hierarchies 6, 90, 96, 106, 120, 134, 194, 200, 240 Holocaust 162 homeostasis 50, 52, 54 Homer 94 homogeneity 92 homophobia 178, 190, 195, 225

hooks, bell 222 hope 49, 52–​53, 56, 74, 93, 122, 273 hostility 4, 31, 49, 57, 63, 94, 204 human life 19–​20, 92–​93 and inoperativity 269, 272, 275 and productive goals 276, 278, 281 and transformational conversation 280, 286 See also social life human rights 13, 110, 115, 181–​82 Hutu 217, 224, 227–​29 hyperpolarization 79 idealism 46–​49, 53 identity 5–​6, 51–​52, 55, 98, 135, 179 and anarchism 93, 96 collective 65, 69, 89–​90 conflict 84 corporeal 12, 179–​80 formation 93 and hate speech 178, 184–​85, 191 marginalized 175–​76 nature of 99 partisan 5, 71–​75 personal 203 political 3, 68, 76, 91, 195 politics 195 protected 180 religious 72 and violence 92 ideological 49, 282 analysis 269 complexities 15 debate 284–​87 defense of supremacy 95 demands 3 frames 58 imperviousness 171 insecurity 56, 59 as internalized normativity 44n7 killing 152 language 222 paradigms 43, 53, 55 polarity 13, 54 self-​deception 44n7 See also ideology ideology  anti-​democratic 13

298 Index ideology (cont.) critique 44–​46, 48, 50–​51 and language 15, 193–​94, 224 political 3, 20 of white supremacy 13 See also ideological immigrants 120, 159–​60, 168, 184, 217, 220, 224 incivility 3, 25, 29, 31, 33–​34, 39, 150, 242 inequality 7, 13, 51, 106, 113–​14, 222–​23 inferiority 12, 179–​80, 188 in-​group 92, 195 injustice 44–​45, 47 addressing 51 class 273 complicity in 49, 54, 158, 163 and hate speech 195 hermeneutical 207 and hopelessness 52 and language work 240 and nonviolence 251 overcoming 58, 258 persistence of 56 racial 7, 203, 213–​14 resistance to 150 and security 131–​32, 137 and silence 283–​84 social 217, 221, 239 and the status quo 241, 248 systemic 160–​61, 169, 256 victims of 237 inoperativity 19–​21, 269, 275 and conversation 278, 281, 284, 288–​89 essential 276–​77 See also activity insecurity 49, 56, 59, 122, 205 integration 54, 87–​88, 92, 109–​10 intellectual vulnerability 171 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (icerd) 181 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (iccpr) 181 internet culture 158, 193, 283 intersectionality 15–​16, 84, 89–​90, 93, 218–​ 19, 235–​36, 240–​41 irony 34, 38, 43, 47, 51, 52

January 6 Insurrection 149, 152 Jesus Christ 26 See also religion; uncivil obedience Jews 148, 217, 221, 224, 232 jus in bello. See war justice 3, 7, 21, 76, 106–​8, 132, 281 commitment to 5 conceptions of 58 and cynicism 49, 54, 59 freedom of speech 190 inclusive 50, 60 and the law 4, 37 legitimate claims of 149 nonviolence and 17–​18, 260–​61 peacemaking and 129, 136–​38 proponents of 150 through protest 30, 128 racial 13, 15, 73, 215 restorative 8, 121 rights-​based 9–​10, 135, 181 semantics and 199–​200 social 12, 219, 235–​36, 238–​39, 241 struggle for 284 utilitarian 127, 131, 133–​34, 139 and war 256 See also criminal justice; injustice just war theory. See war Kampf 6, 95 Kampf um Annerkennung 95 Kendi, Ibram X. 150 Kierkegaard, Søren 45, 51 King, Martin Luther, Jr. 6, 17–​18, 235, 246 and the beloved community 86 on capacity for goodness 261 on creative tension 260 on direct action 257–​58 principled approach to nonviolence 247 on nonviolent resistance 249, 254, 255–​56 on systemic reformation 252 on unjust laws 251 Kueng, J. Alexander 15 Ku Klux Klan (kkk) 191, 264 Lane, Thomas 156 language. See pejorative language

299

Index law enforcement 194 See also criminal justice system; police Left Cynicism 4, 42, 46–​47, 49 examination of hateful polarity 56 and Kynical insubordination 59 and moral absolutism 58 and opponent subjectivity 50 legislation 109, 149, 178, 180, 188, 195 legitimacy 9, 68, 77, 109–​11, 113, 116, 123, 135, 236 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm 93 lgbtqiaa+​ 54, 93, 149, 160, 176, 236 liberty 6, 98, 117 agonism and 97, 99 anarchists and 85, 88, 90 depolarization and 83–​84 individual 91–​92, 118, 131 nature of 87 and nonviolence 98 right to 130 shared commitment to 73–​74 struggle for 93 unifying vision of  values of 5, 75–​76, 89–​90 See also agonism; depolarization; nonviolence linguistics 201, 241 See also violence Lorde, Audre 34 Lynch, Patrick 29 Malcolm X 202 malicious compliance 3, 25–​27, 30–​32 See also uncivil obedience manifesto 224, 232 marginalized 42, 105 communities 12, 185 groups 113–​14, 118, 120, 218, 242 identities 175 victims 237 voices of 235 Martin, Dean 42–​43 Martin, Trayvon 193 Marxism 6, 19, 45, 50, 88, 95–​96, 272–​73 Marx, Karl 6, 88, 95–​96, 227, 272 mass communication 13, 191, 193 mass incarceration 7, 117, 119, 217 carceral ethos of 114, 116, 120

critique of 108 discourse and 224 and political dysfunction 112 social context 107 See also carceral state/​system; criminal justice system mass killings 13, 192 materialism 4, 44n7, 54, 59 material reality 175–​76 McCain, John 78 McCarthyism 191 membership 6, 96, 185, 193 middle class. See class middle-​ground 170 Mill, John Stuart (J.S.) 9, 127–​28, 139 on freedom of expression 13, 132, 187–​88, 256, 258 on minorities 133 on personal freedom 130–​31 revisionist interpretations of 129 on security 134–​38 Mills, Charles 15, 158, 224 mindfulness 17, 248, 250, 255, 259, 261, 263, 277 See also Hanh, Thich Nhat minority/​minorities 93, 133, 159, 189–​90, 215 entitlement 54 groups 184–​85, 220 rights 129, 181–​82 voice 9, 130 See also community; marginalized groups mobilization 77, 149, 170 moral agents 157, 160, 162, 164n10, 167–​69 moral callousness 11–​12, 151, 159, 166–​67 morality 44n7, 139, 160, 171 analytic 8 discourse and 109 and nonviolence 261–​62, 265 social oppression and 168 theories of 106, 123 wrong doing and 169 moral standards168  Morrison, Toni 217 multiculturalism 93 naiveté 4, 45, 47, 51–​52, 58, 284 national debt 66 National Motorists Association 31

300 Index National Socialist Party v. Skokie (1977) 177 Nazism 165, 168, 177, 217, 224 negotiation 75, 79, 248, 262 See also nonviolence neo-​Nazis 232 See also Nazism; white supremacy Netflix 54, 57 Nhat Hanh. See Hanh, Thich Nhat Niemöller, Martin 148 Nietzsche, Friedrich 45, 52 nihilism 86, 98 non-​responsive wrongdoing 149, 151, 171 nonviolence 85, 246, 255, 265–​66 approaches to 16, 19, 260 commitment to 92–​93 linguistic 219, 238, 241–​42 as norm of democratic politics 6, 97, 99 and polarity 15, 91, 235 and resistance theory 17, 86, 98, 247, 251 See also Gandhi, Mohandas K.; Hanh, Thich Nhat; King, Martin Luther, Jr.; nonviolent communication Nonviolent Communication (nvc) 249–​51, 258, 260–​61 and conflict resolution 255 and interpersonal conflict 252 investigation and 253 and self-​expression 254 See also conflict; nonviolence norms 97–​98, 109, 113 a priori 287 cultural 191 democratic 80, 164 discriminatory 185 ethical 284 informal 112 legal 27, 28n2, 71, 111n21 oppressive 45, 184n23 social 33 See also agonism nypd Police Union (Police Benevolent Association) 29 Oakeshott, Michael 19, 268–​70, 285 on the conversation of mankind 274, 276–​79, 280–​81 on inoperativity 275, 286, 288–​89 on play 20, 284

on plurality of distinct voices 273 on work 282–​83 Obama, Barack 78 ontotheology 19–​20 See also Christianity oppression 97–​98, 151 free speech 195 and language 16 and the law 109 linguistic 225, 229, 238 marginalized communities and 160 meaningful resistance to 167 social 11–​12, 150, 153, 159, 166, 168 as structural injustice 169 systems of 93, 236, 240 tools of 120 Orwell, George 33 Other, the 18, 49, 50, 60, 179 hatred of 78 as threat to identity 92 violence toward 232 See also marginalized groups out-​group 195 pacificism 85–​86 pandemic. See Covid-​19 partisanship 2, 74 better 65, 70, 80 excessive 79 extreme 22 in healthy democracy 5, 62, 64, 73, 78 hostility against 63 identity and 71 nature of 72 risks of 77 See also freedom; polarity passivity 255, 276, 285 patriotism. See constitutional patriotism; Habermas, Jürgen peace 3, 7, 9, 38, 51, 58, 139, 241 breach of the 182 and coexistence 80 community 128, 132 conflict and 65, 84 cynicism and 49, 54 dialogue as practice of 248 inner 246, 252 through language 12

Index peace (cont.) keep the 130–​31, 180–​81 negative 237, 257 nonviolence and 17–​18, 256 obstacles to 50, 64, 175 officers 152 partisanship and 73–​73 philosophy of 15, 98, 235, 289 polarity as enemy of 21, 85, 92, 149 politics of 5, 8, 59–​60 positive 6, 83, 85–​90, 93–​94, 99 project of 42 proponents of 150–​51 protect the 133 security and 127, 134 semantics and 200, 215 spiritual 269 studies 276, 283 peacemaking 129, 134 discourse 10, 135–​38 sustainable 9 See also discourse; justice; Mill, John Stuart; peace pejorative language 219, 223, 236–​37 and alternative terminology 239 and corporeal violence 15, 217, 226 and far-​right national leaders 220, 231 and genocide 230 linguistic power 222 normalization of 228 as outbreak 233 in partisan politics 218 proliferation of 16 rehabilitation of a term 227 reliance on polarizing essentialism 235 response to 235, 240–​41 and toxic speech 234 See also genocide; hate speech; nonviolence; propaganda; polarity; violence personal expression 12, 179–​80 See also hate speech perspective 54, 56, 171, 279, 287 critical race theory 202 diverse 58 epidemiological 233 ignored 18 multiple 22, 57

301 partisanship and 70, 72–​73, 75 philosophical 123 political 67, 74, 288 between social groups 231 sympathetic 64 of the wronged 203 pessimism 49, 53, 56 Plato 93, 94, 246, 247, 251 play 19–​20, 269, 275, 284 in contrast to working activity 277–​ 78, 288 and conversation 281, 284, 289 See also Agamben, Giorgio; Oakeshott, Michael pluralism 2, 6, 22, 90–​91, 97, 149, 273, 275 See also agonism polarity 3, 5, 9, 60, 79, 127, 149, 235 affective 195 anarchism and 95–​96 elimination of 92 as enemy of peace 21 false 176–​77, 193 and geopolitics 15, 218 group 193 hateful 56 ideological 13 and injustice 131 and language 217, 220 levels of 148–​49 in media 57 pernicious 160–​70 politics of 8, 12, 130, 139 real 176, 190 and rhetoric 152 and satire 59 and security 134 structural 90 tribal 128 uses of 58 violent 6 polemos 90–​94, 97 police 116, 124, 241 brutality 156–​57, 161, 162 as a danger 166 defund the 29 against harmfulness 57 and hazardous society 152 and law 159

302 Index police (cont.) thought 185 trust in the 37 and uncivil obedience 28, 35 political  correctness 185 discourse 15 narratives 5 parties 79, 149 projects 76 structure 99 values 7 politics 5, 8, 127, 139, 273, 280 agonistic 6, 83 authoritarian tendencies 79 carceral state and 113, 118 as contest of ideas 252 democratic 6, 65, 67–​70, 75–​76 hegemonic power and 98 identity 93, 195 informal 112, 114–​15, 119, 121 modern 270–​72 national 3, 128 nature of 66 partisan 62–​64, 72–​74, 282 peaceful 59, 289 polarization in 19, 149 public discourse and 9, 109, 134 reform and 170 and malignant rhetoric 77, 224, 234 role of 130 as system of classification 239 transformation of 277, 284–​85, 288 United States 217, 236 utilitarianism in 133 and violence 94 polyphony 92 power 10, 79 abuse of 187 authoritarian 92 and carceral ethos 114 checks on 13 and collective identity 69 differences 182 executive 115 and freedom of expression 188, 190 gaining 70, 79, 158, 257 healing 18, 259

hegemonic 98 hierarchical 90 ideological complexities of 15 of irony 51 laughter 57 linguistic 222–​24, 228–​29, 230, 232, 238 loss of 264 normative 3 polarization within 89 political 7, 108, 113, 149 positions of 157, 169, 202 regimes of 99 of representation 43 restrictions of 178 to silence 130, 241 social 12, 185 state 109 struggle for 17, 71, 91, 93, 95, 256, 262, 265 unchecked 218 and uncivil obedience 28, 33, 38 prejudice 8, 51, 54, 78, 122, 204, 286 privilege 48, 106, 114, 185, 237 economic 49 and egalitarianism 120 hyper-​ 47 responsibilities and 169 and silence 241, 284 productivity 20, 269, 274, 275–​78 proletariat 93, 95, 96 propaganda 127, 219, 223, 225 analysis 241 and demagoguery 221 and free speech 186–​87 as linguistic violence 228, 235, 242 and racism 184 Prophet Mohammed 57 protected speech 177–​78 protest 25, 162, 171 counter 194 forms of 33, 38–​39, 167, 170, 248 legal 26–​27 political 30 public 3, 178 raucous 111 right to 132 work-​to-​rule 28 See also uncivil obedience Pryor, Richard 42, 53, 54

Index psychology 186, 195, 201 public health 15, 242 punishment 112–​13, 159 abolition of 118 harsh 8 moral theory of 119 social expectations of 122 systems of 108, 117 theories of 120, 123 Putin, Vladimir 225 quietism 285 race  bias 211, 225 citizenship and 116–​17 definitions of 193 discourse on 13, 202–​4, 215 discrimination and 134, 178–​79 epistemic culpability and 210 hierarchies of 114 human 86–​87n10 identity and 12 language and 199–​201, 205–​6 persons of mixed 91 moral culpability and 14, 214 semantics of 208 structures of 106 terminology 209, 212–​13 See also critical race theory; racial; racism racial  bias 152, 225 comedy 54 conflict 91 discrimination 181–​82 divides 49 equality 236 essentialism  expulsion based on 217 hierarchy 106 injustice 7, 203 insensitivity 13–​14, 200–​1, 205, 208–​ 9, 212–​14 insults 187 justice 15, 73, 215 paradigms 91 polarization 2, 199 satire 43, 53

303 slurs 177 See also critical race theory; race; racism racism 2, 114, 161n9, 193, 210 anti-​ 150 discourse of 201–​4, 212, 286 environmental 166 forms of 181 free speech and 195 ingrained 184 intersectionality and 236 marginalization and 43 pattern of 206 and pedagogy 171–​72 protests against 194 systemic 13, 205 vertical polarization 90 See also critical race theory; racial; racism rage 5, 49, 57, 59, 182 rape 162, 200, 234 See also violence Rat Pack 42 R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul (1992) 178 Rawls, John 33n6, 96, 132 reason 171 appeal to 3, 128, 132–​33 and human rights 181 instrumental 19 intervention of 108 moral 164 reconciliation 88, 93, 149, 170 red states 218 See also violence reductionism 83–​85, 92, 99, 127 reforms 107, 113, 115, 117–​18, 170 refugees 159–​60 religion 44n7, 86, 149, 178–​79, 209, 211, 239, 275, 282 See also Christianity; Buddhism; ideology; Jesus Christ; Jews; Prophet Mohammed representation 43, 77, 113, 133, 170 republican 112 Republican Party 1, 91, 225 resistance 11, 96, 148, 151, 170, 262, 266, 288 anarchic 90 dangerous 163 degrees of 240 dynamic 263

304 Index resistance (cont.) group 264–​65 as ideological imperviousness 171 to injustice 150 lack of 164, 166 meaningful 167 native 165 nonviolent 17, 19, 247–​48, 251, 253–​ 57, 260 parallel structures of 169 political 16, 18 satirical 51 underground 159 violent 247 re-​socialization 16, 240 respect 27, 107, 221, 235, 257 adversarial 75–​76, 79, 149 civic rhetoric and 234 and civil disobedience 30, 33n6 equal 170 and the incarcerated 122 mutual 21 revolutionary 33 identity formation 93 tradition 98 violence 90 rhetoric  antagonistic 77 aspirational 86n8 civic 234, 242 dehumanizing 224–​25 divisive 127 of hate speech 185 insubordinate 55 oppositional 5, 50, 59 polarizing 152 toxic 233 white supremacist 13, 193, 220 Rosenberg, Marshall 17, 248 on cultural conditioning 260 on listening 250, 254 and moralistic judgement 251 on natural compassion 18, 252, 261 on nonviolent communication 246–​47, 253, 258 See also nonviolent communication Rousseau, Jean-​Jacques 45 Rwandan genocide. See genocide

satire 5, 42, 60, 180n9 and ambiguity 58–​59 critique of naiveté 51 racial 43, 53–​54 as truth 56 as weaponized comedy 57 satyagraha. See Gandhi, Mohandas K. self-​contained breathing apparatus (scba) 30 See also uncivil obedience Sellars, Wilfrid 230, 233 sex 48, 206–​7 sexism 90, 114, 195, 286 Sinatra, Frank 42–​43 slow drivers. See uncivil obedience slurs 177, 222, 230 See also pejorative language snowflakes 185, 193 See also hate speech Snyder v. Phelps (2011) 178 social  contract 97 control 7, 123 damage 185 life 42, 52, 93, 99, 108, 114, 121 justice 12, 15, 219, 235–​36, 238–​39, 241 media 9, 50, 135, 167, 193, 268, 283, 288 movements 67, 68n19, 111, 149 welfare 2, 8, 122, 131 Socrates 17–​18, 246n1, 247, 254, 262 and absolute knowledge 249 on moralistic judgements 251–​52 philosophical dialogue 248 on rational thought 258 on truth 261 and virtue 253, 257, 260 See also nonviolence; Rosenberg, Marshall solidarity 5–​6, 51, 59, 115, 199n2 anti-​ 58 lack of 50 and shared constitutional principles 119, 122 patriotic 110, 114 poisoned 129 See also Agonistic Solidarity Sophocles 93 Southern Poverty Law Center 192

305

Index spiritual  dispositions 92 influence 287 level 260 peace 269 practice 12, 179 psycho-​ 93 resonances 277 shift 18–​19, 21, 289 spoils system, the 98 stasiology 94 stasis 94, 97 streetscapes 8, 122 superiority 5, 44–​45, 179–​80 intellectual 12, 49, 59 moral 52–​53 superpredator 217, 220, 224 Supreme Court (scotus) 177–​78, 182 surveillance 116, 119, 234 tension  and aspirational conversation 281–​82 creative 260 hidden 257–​58 and norm critique 8 and partisanship 62 between reality and collective imaginary 19 release of 250 social 93, 256 in the United States 13 unresolved 92 Terminiello v. Chicago (1949) 177 terrorism 98, 159, 181, 220, 224 Thao, Tou 10, 156–​57 thought police. See police tolerance 2, 129, 133, 175, 240–​42 torture 131, 152, 162, 168, 234 totalitarianism 152–​53, 237 toxic  culture 191 environments 159 rhetoric 233 speech 219, 226–​27, 230–​32, 234–​35, 241 toxicity 230–​34 traitor 76 transformational conversation 20, 279–​ 82, 285

transsexuality/​transgender 25, 57, 149 trauma 12, 47, 49, 52–​54, 56, 59, 185, 260 Trickster, the 50–​51 Trump, Donald 25, 47n16, 220–​21, 224–​ 25, 231–​33 trust 8, 37 and the carceral state 122 and debate 263 forms of 121 loyalty and 264 social 33, 123, 233 undermining of 149, 170 Tutsi 217, 224, 227–​29 uncivil disobedience 4 uncivil obedience 3–​4, 30, 32n5 as Christian principle 26 and conceptual inconsistencies 36–​37 as disruption with purpose 29 as humorous act 34–​35, 38 and justice 30 versus policy loopholes 27–​28 as political action 32–​33 as protest 39 undesirables 159–​60, 164–​66 unemployment 66 United Nations 178, 181, 231 United Nations Secretary-​General 178 unity 6, 10, 54, 73–​77, 85–​87, 89, 112, 138–​39 Universal Declaration of Human Rights 181 UN Strategy and Plan of Action on Hate Speech 181 U.S. Civil Rights movements 27, 190, 202, 222, 236, 240 U.S. Constitution 7, 128, 177 U.S. Department of Defense 25 utilitarianism 9, 44n7, 127, 132–​33, 154n4 and consensus 139 focus on justice 134 liberal 131 as polarizing philosophy 128, 130 and security 135 utopianism 6, 85, 87, 96, 99 verbal attacks. See hate speech victimization 116, 118, 122, 203 violence 2, 17, 94, 128, 163, 248, 250, 255 anarchists and 86

306 Index violence (cont.) anti-​Asian 149 cessation of 256 class 6, 95–​96 and comedy 56–​57, 59 control of 87 of the criminal justice system 7 defensive 150 discursive 269 extreme 229 gender-​based 181, 194 hegemonic power and 98–​99 institutional 16 internal 247 linguistic 16, 175, 178, 191, 219, 223–​24, 226, 240 nature of 97 normative 44–​45 partisanship and 5, 72 physical 15, 217–​18, 220, 227, 230–​39 polarization as cause of 42, 83–​84, 90, 92 police 162 political 132 as power struggle 262 in prisons 119–​20 racial 13, 192–​93, 199, 205, 215 rates of 180 sanctified 160–​61, 169 silence as 283–​84 and social change 18, 22 structural 93, 241–​42 threats to security and 9–​10 against victimized groups 228 victory through 257 virtue 3–​4, 33, 130, 133, 170–​71, 257, 277 of civility 31 epistemology 164 intellectual vulnerability as 171 knowledge as 253 moral 260 signaling 50, 56 volatilization 51, 58

voter suppression 149, 160 voting 1, 7, 68, 113, 129, 132 vulnerability 4, 17, 52, 56, 59, 171, 252 Walker, Kara 56 war 98, 237 abstaining from 269 civil 2, 97, 129 and death 11–​12 dissidents and 190 and health of the state 95 individual action in 169 just war theory 160, 256 meaningful resistance to 167 morality and 168 nuclear 218 as polarizing event 94 wrongdoing during 151, 162, 166 See also Cold War; wwii Washington, George 63 weakness 77, 165, 185 Weimar Republic 128 welfare 2, 8, 122, 129, 131–​33, 161, 221, 225 Western politics 270 Western tradition 94 white fragility 14, 54, 200 backlash 204–​5 cause of 203 and claims about character 211 contributing factors to 206 reduction of 212, 215 semantic tools to prevent 214 white ignorance 158, 163 White Nationalism 13, 192 whiteness 47, 203 white supremacy 13, 54, 184, 188, 193 Wittgenstein, Ludwig 15, 219, 223, 226 World Health Organization 231 World War ii 186 wrongful convictions 105 See also carceral state/​system; criminal justice system