Category: The Dish

Surveying the British philosopher’s pacifist writings and activism, Jonathan Rée isn’t quite persuaded by how he formulated the nature of war:

The peace agenda of Russell and his followers was always based on the assumption that war is simply a euphemism for the madness of state-sponsored mass murder, and that we could prevent it by standing up for moral and political sanity – by committing ourselves to global justice and the relief of poverty, for instance, or social and sexual equality, or common ownership, or world government…. But the paths to war are paved not with malice but with righteous self-certainty. People who choose to participate in military action are more likely to be altruists than egotists: they are prepared to sacrifice their own lives for the sake of something that transcends them, such as their country or their religion, or socialism, secularism or democracy, or a world where peace and tolerance will reign in perpetuity. Of course they are liable, like the rest of us, to be seriously mistaken in countless ways:

they probably have an inconsistent scale of values, a shaky grasp of facts and a faulty sense of proportion. They may, just possibly, be open to persuasion through tactful argumentation, subtle negotiation and ingenious rhetoric, but nothing will be gained by accusing them of selfishness, nihilism or moral idiocy, or delivering lectures about self-sacrifice, high principle and the future of humanity.

Different threats to peace, like different threats to health, require different precautions and different interventions, depending on the individual case, and success in averting war is going to depend on luck as much as judgement. If the prospect of nuclear extermination has receded since the time when Russell was prophesying it, the explanation lies less in campaigns for peace and freedom than in the unexpected consequences of developments that no one could have foreseen – the calculations and miscalculations of Mikhail Gorbachev, for instance, or the accidental canniness of Ronald Reagan. Irony is a force of history as well as a figure of speech, and in politics you need to be prepared for surprises, even if you are as clever as Bertrand Russell.

(Image: Bertrand Russell and his wife, Edith Russell, lead an anti-nuclear march by the Committee of 100 in London on February 18th, 1961, via Wikimedia Commons)

Xavier Marquez unpacks the political psychology referred to as the “good Tsar” bias, when leaders escape blame for the disasters and mistakes that happen under their rule – anyone or anything but the ruler is held accountable:

The “good Tsar” bias does not incline people to say that the world is just, or to rationalize injustice as somehow deserved, only to deny that those leaders who are closely tied to the symbols of the nation (the Tsar, the Führer, the King, etc.) bear responsibility for bad outcomes in everyday life; that responsibility, instead, is assigned to subordinates. In this respect, the bias appears to be more closely related to what Dan Kahan and others have called “identity-protective cognition“: the closer a leader is tied to the symbols of the nation or group with whom they identify, and the closer people’s identification with the nation or group is, the more difficult it should be for them to accept that the leader is responsible for bad outcomes, since such acceptance threatens one’s identity, and the more likely it will be for them to displace that responsibility onto subordinates as a protective measure. And leaders, like Hitler, who are the focus of high-intensity rituals associated with big national occasions — plebiscitary elections, victories in war, even set-piece speeches on the occasion of good economic news — are precisely the sorts of leaders who become associated with important community symbols; indeed, in important ways, they come to symbolize the community, as long as the rituals are successful.

Dreher applies the theory to various aspects of contemporary American life:

We saw it in Catholic circles post-Boston, with the desperate attempts by some conservative Catholics to wall of John Paul II from the catastrophe. If you were reading certain Catholic blogs at the time, the rationalizations for John Paul’s inaction were legion. The Holy Father was kept in the dark by disloyal subordinates. The Holy Father was too sick to act. The Holy Father has a secret plan to deal with the scandal. Et cetera.

There is no theological reason for this strategy. Papal authority, even papal infallibility, does not depend on the capability of a pope to govern prudently. Dante, in the Commedia, exemplifies the perfectly Catholic position: loyalty to the Church and to its teachings, including the papacy, but unleashing hell on the corrupt popes. The “Good Pope bias” here was not really a theological defense — a theological defense was not strictly necessary — but a psychological one.

It doesn’t have to be focused on a person. You’ve probably heard the line, “conservatism cannot fail; it can only be failed” describing, from a liberal perspective, the way movement conservatives rationalize the failures of conservative government. For these people, corruption, bad judgment, or ineptitude on the part of elected conservative leaders doesn’t disprove conservative ideas or principles; it only means they weren’t really tried. The failed presidency of George W. Bush had nothing to do with the wrongness of conservative ideas, you see; it was because Bush wasn’t sufficiently or genuinely conservative. In this case, the Good Tsar is not a person, but an ideology.

Responding to criticism that Pope Francis hasn’t acted swiftly or decisively enough on the issue of sex abuse by Catholic priests, Garry Wills offers a theory why –  Francis realizes that “without addressing structural issues in the Vatican, meaningful action to restore trust in the priesthood and church authority cannot get far.” One issue is celibacy:

Yes, celibacy does not directly and of itself lead to sexual predation. There are many unmarried men and women who are not predators. But Catholic celibacy is not simply an unmarried state. It is a mandatory and exclusive requirement for holding all significant offices in the Church. This sets up a sexual caste system that limits vision, empathy, and honesty. It enables church rulers to be blithely at odds with the vast majority of their own people. According to a 2011 Guttmacher Institute study, 98 percent of American Catholic women of child-bearing age have had sex—and, of that 98 percent, 99 percent have used or will use some form of contraception. Yet celibate priests tell us they know what sex is really about (by their expertise in “natural law”), and in their view it absolutely precludes birth control. There is an induced infantilism in such cloistered minds, an ignorance that poses as innocence. This prevents honesty at so many levels that any trust on sexual matters begins in a crippled state, handicapping all treatment of sexual predation in the Church.

Another problem that stands in the way of true reform is clericalism:

The previous three problems [celibacy, homophobia, and patriarchy] converge on the clerical mindset that afflicts all bureaucracies, but especially sacred ones. Advancement of one’s career involves deference to those above, adherence to corporate loyalties, and a determination not to hurt the institution (demonstrated by signal loyalty). Questioning “church teaching” is subversion. This leads to support of one’s own in all ways possible—as far as one can go, for instance, in denying sin among one’s colleagues. This is the area in which Pope Francis has made some initial moves, challenging the power of the Curia (Rome’s bureaucracy).

But challenge is not change, and so long as these structural issues persist, it will be impossible to restore trust in the Vatican’s authority. No pope can change all these things all by himself, even one as winning as Francis is proving. If it is to be done at all, it must be by a joint effort of the whole People of God. Perhaps that is what Francis is waiting for. I suspect he would welcome it.

Recent Dish on the topic here.