Ping Pong 52- A Howl of Evil
The last rant considered the effect of the second world war on morality, this one will look at its effect of the way we understood political society. This effect is felt not just of the level of countries but also within individual societies and at the level of the individual. Each of these spheres of influences will therefore need to be examined in turn within this rant.
The second world war was clearly the death nail for certain aspects of imperialism. That is imperialism had always comprised for a heady mixture of greed, pride, racism but also (to a Far lesser extent) compassion. Britain also attempted to kid itself that it was doing the right thing in Africa or in India. In this cocktail racism is not accidental. In a sense it held the entire edifice together. As long as one had certain attitudes about other peoples then one was both justified lording it over them (and opening their land to exploitation) but also doing so in the name of ‘doing what one could’ of other (non-us) peoples. The Effect of the second world war was then to make this lynch pin utterly unacceptable. The result then being that then entire mental apparatus and smug justification that had foundered empire collapsed .Or perhaps better it fragmented into three rather distinct shards.
The first and most important of the these shards was the collapse in the belief that Britain or France or any of the European imperial powers simply had a god vein right to rule, other peoples. Or to put it slightly differently, what collapsed was the belief that divine and national purpose was one and the same. Britain therefore could no longer claim that it has some kind of moral justification in say, exploiting Iran’s new found oil of its own benefits or in governing India. So that the assertion of imperialism dogma became caught up with the rejection of the third Reich and all it stood for. After all both systems confused divine, biological and moral right with narrow self interested and the squalid racism.
The second shard runs to a degree counter to this one. The west was gripped with the urgency never to let ‘THIS happen again. That is never to let genocide of the level of the third Reich, industrial genocide happen again. However this highly creditable and laudable demands, one that it still very much alive to this day, has proved problematic in two directions. One the one hand it is of course impossible to intervene in all comfits (as was discussed in the last rant),a and therefore the West always ends up looking extremely partial, as it asserts the rights of morality in some conflicts and no others (and is of course not above ignoring the moral dimension completely in the case of Israel). But also there is are rather porous boundaries in definition exactly what This – the thing we will necessarily stop, genocide start. One ends up therefore being caught in a bizarre situation where one has to distinguish between mass murder, the reasonable use of force and genocide. Death and suffering seem to matter less than semantics and the legalistic quarrell about what thought infused that suffering.
The third shard build upon the last tow. The west is then caught up in defining a moral high ground, while all the same is rather selective in its implications. It intervenes therefore at certain conflicts and does so in the name or morality (a move which always imperialist dreams). It then justifies this intervention in the name of morality. This morality ends up treating the countries such as Sudan or Iraq, which no doubt obnoxious regimes as is they were themselves tarred with the colonial brush. That is the horrors of genocide and racism, horrors defined within the west’s treatment of other people, are now seen as integral to the peoples themselves. Mutable therefore stand accuses of behaving is a way that would not disgrace a colonial power, and is now condemned for it.
The effect of this importing of our (past) obnoxiousness onto despicable regimes is of course utterly counter productive. Countries in Africa of course see the suffering Magabwe causes and see the problems in Sudan, and yet they also see the hypocrisy and posturing of the west in tackling thee individuals. They see then both sides, a sight that then Mugabwe plays upon. His accusation that Britain is operating as a colonial power in seeking to remove him is material inaccurate, and yet the understanding of what Mugabwe is in Britain and the reaction to him within the political establishment is certainly the product of an imperialist past, does indeed have echoes of colonialism about it. Pulling back from of own racists imperialist path has therefore been far from easy, and had created a morality which is self evident for us, and yet is caught in the Wreak of what we once were.
On the level of society, the effect of the third world war as been to configure and conform two polar extremes within our society. At one extreme there is the ethic of regulation and control. One will therefore stop the third Reich from happening again by ensuring that certain attitudes are always condemned, and certain parties (such as the BNP) are repressed. One will need therefore to ensure that ‘Political Correct’ language and practice infuses the entire system, and confront the lesser bullies of society with the great bully of the state.
The irony of this move is of course utterly obvious. To enforce toleration is highly problematic. This is because it creates in the wider population that endless acts of self monitoring and worry about the use f language that actual hallmark any repressive regime. It moreover turns ‘Goodness’ into a political policy whose outcome will need to be monitored and whose goals enforced. A move that not doubt warps the nature of the good.; One does not after all need to be good in oneself, one merely needs to be seen to be good – that is needs to meet ones toleration targets….But also it opens up organization to the endless posturing of would be (external) moralisers) and the interventions of those who enjoy enforcing formal morality upon the action of others. Humanity with all it warmth and richness and difficulty, is lost in a welter of forbidden words, ‘incorrect; attitudes and unacceptable buzz word. All of which words (and implicit attitudes) are of course easy to police, and yet will one next o nothing about what is really happening within society.
At the other pole there is the lauding of the individual. The individual is opposed to big states and big solutions. It is them and their morality that not just the rightwing think is the bed rock of society. The struggles of individuals with the world that they find themselves in is then pitched against the machinations of the state. The latter is seen as the locus of regulation and oppressing while the former is a glorious shout for freedom, form oppression and freedom from any narcissisms. The rubric therefore runs as it was the individualist nations of Britain and America that fought the Third Reich (and also communism) individualism itself needs to be cherished and extended. It lone offers hope
And yet we are currently caught in the ruin of this policy. This ruin is almost inevitable because at its heart this simple claim for independence has a fallacy. Each individual might claim to be them selves alone and yet that selves includes within it, and as something annexed o the individual many of the implicit assumption of society. To be a me therefore includes within it assumptions about social position and rights to resources. Rights that of course the rigid imposition of individuality cannot actually allow. They can therefore only be allowed within the system if one assumes that this social position is somehow integral to the individual. A dangerous move because anything that then comprises or is seen to comprise this position is necessarily seen as a personal attack. Migration therefore, which ‘threatens’ (or can be seen to threaten) an individual status is necessarily to be condemned, and be condemned at all costs (including the cost of appearing at least racist).
In recent years the latter pole has been allowed to triumph. The baking problem was in a sense creates both the problem of regulation. This problem is sense started because governments turned regulation into apolitical foot ball. Government claimed that its task so to set and police the framework within which individuals then competed with one another. The problem was of course this simplistic claim allowed to much power to the individual, in that no government could afford to set of a system that actually restricted the number of things and individual was allowed to be. the system that as created had to allow for 9and regulate for) everyone having a chance, and everyone having access to money irrespective of the wider economic implications. Individuals were therefore necessarily allowed more than in terms of the system they had a right to, and the entire system floundered on that allowance.
In effect society escape the Third Reich and its implication b splitting up and opposing individualistic and regulative tendencies. As along as these two are kept apart, and so the poisons that watch out at the one level are countered at the other, the logic runs we are save. Well perhaps (although the anti- terror laws appears to comprise this division). What is also is certain is that we are destined to lurch between these two poles constantly, dragged from the one to the other, with no hope of anything different or better allowed: Freedom or regulating – choose now is our mantra…
At the level of the individual it is clear that the condemnation of the third Reich and all its action as creates odd and very impure crystals of thought in one minds. These crystals capture in the same prism or the same locus of understanding elements that are not doubt useful to think and elements that are not, with the divide or schema that runs between the two being utterly porous and complex. Take for example the emotive topic of racism. At the one level it is clear that racism is now quite unacceptable, and good thing to. Language and thoughts that a generation were common place and even normal is now rejected as suspect. This process is a containing one (so language o ten years ago is more problematic than the language of today). And yet this destruction while thoroughly good in itself, has an odd problem. It has no real logical end. there is no real point or at least a very problematic point were one can separate out the ‘racist' elements of a life from the normal bedrock or prejudice and laziness and imbilicillity on which they are founded. The erosion of racismt thereofre very easily slips into a far wider putsch against entire set of attitudes. These attitudes could well be obnoxious if they are ever actually acted upon, but just as easily be relatively harmless or at lest would be if they were not directly attack in the quest to eliminate racisms.
In effect therefore we create will impure crystals in the mind, crystals that capture within their configuration not just one move but an entire system (and mental institution) that supports and maintains that prejudice. We turn therefore our minds into an object to police or to worry at. We worry at each other minds and monitor or police them. The problem being here that there is a double touchstone. One the one hand it is more that likely that those over badgered for their believes will assert their blind right to be prejudice (and right that includes racist thought). On the other hand the discovery of fascism and prejudices in others removes the necessity for further thought . Each party therefore turns away from the other and rushed to quickly condemn, at the just the moment when actual thought and care is needed, to sort tough the complexities of being (or not being) racist.
The problem that the second world war posed as a sense the problem of the absolute. Justice and to confront perhaps for the first time an absolute in the living world. this absolute then infused all subsequent thought and warped a system in its name. Our problem is that we are very far from escaping this warp. The absolute of evil therefore for good or ill effects and the deepest level our understanding of justice and modernity. We therefore crave ‘human rights’ and ye have very little ability to define them meaningfully and no ability consistently enforce them. the absolute becomes moral compass’. That is a direction which shows us the way to go and yet offers no clue about how one should proceed in it direction , and no hope of avoiding the little detours that one perforce endlessly makes upon such a journey. Perhaps the only way out of such an impasse is to reconfigure ones understanding (in the light of the Third Reich) what it is to be human. So that instead of having humanity attempt to respond to an absolute that remains beyond them, one needs to reconfigure ones understanding of humanity itself in the light of this absolute. It is to this attempt (by post war existentialist philosophers) the next rant turns.
