Richard Bernstein, Emmanuel Levinas and Radical Evil.

Richard Bernstein, The Abuse of Evil: The Corruption of Politics and Religion Since 9/11 (Cambridge: Polity, 2005).
Richard Bernstein, Radical Evil: A Philosophical Interrogation (Cambridge: Polity, 2002).
Richard Bernstein, Philosophical Profiles (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986).
Hans Urs Von Balthasar, Love Alone is Credible (San Francisco: ignatius, 1963).
Simon Critchley, Infinitely Demanding: Ethics of Commitment, Politics of Resistance (New York & London: Verso, 2007).
Alain Badiou, Ethics: An Essay on the Understanding of Evil (London & New York: Verso, 2001).

I am grateful for the listing of my book and promotions at http://www.anotherbookshop.com/ and http://www.crimsonbird.com/

Richard Bernstein teaches philosophy at The New School University, which is one of the best places in the United States to study Continental thought, since there is a long tradition at that institution of providing refuge to intellectuals fleeing political oppression. (The hope to escape totalitarianism explains why many of us moved to New York, from New Jersey.)

The university was home to many German thinkers who escaped the Nazi horror, for similar reasons, notably Theodor Adorno and the great Hannah Arendt. It is home today to outstanding theorists, such as Agnes Heller and Andrew Arato, as well as Professor Bernstein and Simon Critchley, whose filmed conversation with Alain Badiou is highly recommended. I wish to thank Professor Bernstein for all he has taught me in his fine books.

I have read several of Professor Bernstein's books, especially his writings on evil. (His essay on Hegel and his review of Richard Rorty's work should be required reading for American philosophy students.) I wish to examine a controversy concerning the dialogue on evil in contemporary American politics by way of his writings. Professor Bernstein's latest work addresses this topic.

Many people object to the use by President Bush of the rhetoric of moral exhortation, contending that his deployment of terms like "evil" is a way of avoiding discussion by demonizing the opposition. President Bush has said: "You are either with us or against us." These pronouncements are annoying to many -- especially intellectuals in Manhattan -- who relish talk of compromise and reserving judgment, often saying that "questions of value are subjective." All of which may be true. However, when a guy gets into your place and puts a gun to your head, a little chat about Proust may not be wise. I think this is the point that some of our friends in the heartland, who support President Bush's "War on Terror," wish to emphasize.

In the aftermath of 9/11, discussions of the concept of evil have taken on a new urgency. A theorist who writes books emphasizing the importance of the concept of evil is not likely to deny its significance. Bernstein does not do that. Here is what he does say:

The new discourse of good and evil lacks nuance, subtlety, and judicious discrimination. In the so-called "war on terror," nuance and subtlety are (mis) taken as signs of wavering, weakness and indecision. But if we think that politics requires judgment, artful diplomacy, and judicious discrimination, then this talk about absolute evil is anti-political. As Hannah Arendt noted, "The absolute ... spells doom to everyone when it is introduced into the political realm."

What Bernstein opposes is fundamentalism. He admits that: "There are also many appeals to absolutes that are perfectly legitimate." He is sympathetic to religious traditions of reflection on this topic, as in his discussions of the writings of Emmanuel Levinas and Hans Jonas. A highlight of Bernstein's book on "Radical Evil" is his analyses of those two thinkers' works and discussion of Hannah Arendt's writings. Arendt was a close friend and colleague of Bernstein's at the New School, where tuition has gone through the roof lately.

I especially enjoyed Bernstein's discussion of pragmatism in light of Louis Menand's The Metaphysical Club, and the effort to come to terms with tragedy in the pragmatist tradition. I think pragmatism fails on that score. Bernstein would do well to take another look at Unamuno. Here's a tip: read the final speech by Cyrano de Bergerac in Edmund de Rostand's play, and you will understand something important about the Latin world, which has become a part of America.

When it comes to tragedy, we Latins are among the world's experts (see Andy Garcia's "The Lost City"). America's Jewish and African-American heritage may be a much better place to look for the struggle with tragedy than philosophical pragmatism. My suggestion is that you put Bernstein's work together with Cornel West's writings, especially The American Evasion of Philosophy. West's chapters dealing with C.S. Peirce and Emerson should be compared with the chapters dealing with the works of Michel Foucault and Roberto Unger in Evasion. In the "mainstream" American tradition, we also find tragedy: Abraham Lincoln is a political King Lear, meditating and taking upon himself war's agony as well as "the mystery of things."

Bernstein is not a nihilist. To object to absolutes in politics is not to deny the reality of "objectivity" in our ethical and political judgments, nor does it involve any claims about "perfection." In my experience, these terms are confused by Internet advocates of ethical relativism and nihilism. For Bernstein (me too), there is indeed such a thing as "radical evil" and truth:

Radical evil is making human beings superflous as human beings. This happens as soon as all unpredictability -- which, in human beings, is equivalent to spontaneity -- is eliminated. [Take away all freedom and you take away humanity.] We can understand more fully what [Arendt] means by turning to the description she gives of total domination. She presents a three-stage model of the "logic" of total domination. It is in the concentration and death camps that we find the "laboratories" of totalitarian regimes. And it is in the camps that we find the most radical experiments for changing the character of human beings.

Torture is an example of radical evil. Pope John Paul II condemned torture as an "intrinsic evil." All attempts to modify or control people by way of psychological torments (behaviorist techniques) would fit this definition of radical evil. This is true whether they take place in New Jersey or Abu Ghraib, or in any of the concentration camps of totalitarian States. (See "Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture.")

Sloppiness concerning the use of the word "evil," together with the tendency to slip into the facile use of the term may apply as much to those who demonize the United States and the actions of this Administration as to Mr. Bush's so-called "polarizing" pronouncements.

Bernstein's complaint about arrogance rings a bell with me, but the people whose arrogance and insulting condescension I have experienced, have most often been affluent or upper middle class, so-called "liberal" elites, whose condescending advice is the best way I know to induce vomitting. The lowlifes I've known have usually called themselves "Democrats" -- whatever that means to them -- therapists and lawyers, allegedly, acting "for the good of others." These are the people who say: "We know best how you should live."

If radical evil consists of "making human beings superflous as human beings," then I am confident that the terrorist actions on 9/11 fit the definition. Terrorists do exactly that: they make their victims no longer individuals, but objects or means to the dramatization of terrorists' political causes. The final indignity imposed upon a victim of terrorist evil or torture (I have no problem using the word) is the refusal to see his or her individuality, uniqueness and full humanity, as a result of the pretense that "nothing has been done" to the person. No one is expendable to make an abstract point. ("What is it like to be tortured?")

The persons who were destroyed by terrorists on 9/11 were not abstractions. They were individuals, friends and neighbors, family members, reaching out to those they loved in their final moments. Yet they were not "seen" as such by their murderers, who had lost all capacity for judgment in their blinding hatred or indifference to others. They could no longer see themselves, let alone others. Bernstein provides us with a useful and important philosopher's plea for care and respect in the use of the concept of evil, whether our discussions are grounded in religious writings or secular philosophical texts:

[We face a battle] between those who find rigid moral absolutes appealing, those who think that nuance and subtlety mask indecisiveness, [I include many trendy nihilists and absolute ethical skeptics in this category!] those who embelish their absolute ideological prejudices with the language of religious piety, and those who approach life with a more open fallibilistic mentality -- one that eschews the quest for absolute certainty. [Notice that lack of certainty about what is the case is not a statement about what exists, but nihilists rarely accept such humility.] Such a mentality is not only compatible with a religious orientation; it is essential to keeping a religious tradition alive and relevant to new situations and contingencies.

By way of illustration, I will turn to Bernstein's discussion of the writings of Emmanuel Levinas. Levinas counsels great humility and respect in approaching the enormity of evil, from within his own Jewish religious tradition. Levinas also draws on the Western philosophical project that seeks to struggle, through shared reasoning, with such issues. Bernstein writes:

The thesis I want to advance and defend is that the primary thrust of Levinas's thought is to be understood as his response to the horror of evil that errupted in the twentieth century. Levinas's entire philosophical project can best be understood as an ethical response to evil -- and to the problem of evil that we must confront at the "end of theodicy."

Nihilism and power-worship, as represented by the atrocity of National Socialism, forces us to come to terms with the reality of colossal evil without the consolations of theodicy, without the possibility of an account that makes everything O.K., that is, a theory that (in Hollywood fashion) provides us with a "happy ending." Radical evil is without the possibility of a happy ending, according to Levinas, but not without the hope for justice and meaning. Senator Barack Obama's speeches should be quoted at this point.

Levinas provides us with an ethical reflection on evil for grownups in the aftermath of the nightmares of twentieth century history. (See my story "Pieta.") He reminds us of our concern for that Other, that is always with us already. It may be useful to bring John MacMurray into dialogue with Levinas on this matter. (For example, see The Self as Agent, pp. 106-126.) Levinas begins by noting:

We are much more uneasy and ambivalent about the responsibility of the so-called bystanders, by those who allow such actions to take place, and who justify their complicity by excusing themselves from any direct responsiblity. [See "There comes a time when silence is betrayal."] Despite the voluminous literature about the Nazi era, and the many explanations offered, this still remains one of the most troublesome unresolved questions. How are we to account for the fact that so many people, who were for the most part decent, law-abiding citizens, could be unmoved when their neighbors and even friends were suffering, disappearing, being deported, brutalized, and murdered? [See "An open letter to my torturers in New Jersey, Terry Tuchin and Diana Lisa Riccioli" and "Is New Jersey Chief Justice Deborah T. Poritz unethical or only incompetent?"]

For Levinas, the only human response is ethical:

This is precisely the ethical response that recognizes that the otherness of the other can never be totally comprehended, that I am infinitely responsible for and to the other person, whose suffering is ethically more important than my own suffering. ("The Soldier and the Ballerina.")

When challenged by a group of students who asked Levinas if he had ever seen that "infinite responsibility" for the other, Professor Levinas responded: "Yes, just now, in this room."

We begin to come to terms with evil by directing our efforts at grasping the humanity and pain of others, by seeing them, those persons as persons whose agony is our responsibility and concern, so that we yield ourselves to it in an effort to heal moral wounds. "Die in order to live," Hegel says. Norman Mailer, The Castle in the Forest (New York: Random House, 2007).

This aspect of Jewish thought on the nature of mercy and redemption in response to evil, is central to what has been called the "Jewish Jesus" or the Hebrew component in Christianity (see my quote from Hegel), which I celebrate for ethical reasons apart from any supernatural claims. (See, again, my story "The Soldier and the Ballerina.")

In discussing love as "God's grace," the Catholic theologian Hans Urs Von Balthasar writes:

The first thing the cross does is to [negate] the world's word, by a Wholly-Other Word, a word that the world does not want to hear at any price. For the world wants to live and rise again before it dies, [a happy ending] while the love of Christ wants to die in order to rise again in the form of God [love] on the other side of death, [transcending evil,] indeed, in death.

We must fear the loss of humanity that makes indifference to the suffering of others an epidemic today, as evidenced by the notorious Kitty Genovese murder and many like it since that horrible incident. This need for "love as sanity" is what Thomas Merton suggests in his writings dealing with our status as "guilty bystanders."

We are alienated from one another, bored, indifferent, half asleep, as we trudge to the office in the morning. An incident such as the 9/11 tragedy can awaken those of us who survive, even in altered form, to the presence of others whose pains we share, to the reality of love and evil as polar opposites both within us as well as in the eyes of those we "see," really see, around us in the world. The "cross," yes, the cross is a most helpful symbol and daily reminder of all the suffering in which we share, since the very word "cross" derives from cruciare, torture. ("Is this atheism's moment?")

To the extent that the misuse of the discourse of evil deadens our sensibilities to the reality and malignancy of great wickedness, it is harmful to this moral awakening. So is the denial of the reality of evil or ethics in all of our lives. The best counsel is humility and careful thought, giving ourselves permission to feel the pain of others as well as our own, and a willingness to see the full horror in the world and reflect on it -- without illusions about total understanding -- while always celebrating the love that makes so much pain bearable. To ask to be seen is only possible when one is willing to expose scars and deformations, wounds, burns and amputations. (See "America's Holocaust.")

It is possible that even great evil can be borne, but only if its victims are SEEN in their pain and outrage as well as brokenness. To pretend that nothing has happened -- that, say, the Holocaust is a myth -- is to erase the humanity and existence of victims of evil entirely, making their moral survival and any redemption impossible. Victims have an annoying tendency not to go away, however, but to insist on confronting the evil that has blighted their lives. Like the student standing before a tank in Tienamin square, I will not be moved in any confrontation with evil.

Arundhati Roy's "Public Power in the Age of Empire."

Viruses and spyware may alter the format of this blog, again, so that my profile (which should appear on the right side of the page) may be moved to the bottom of the page. I wish to thank "All Bookstores.com" for including my book in their listings. censorship, harassment and other crimes are always expected from American officials who claim to be defenders of freedom and democracy.
http://www.allbookstores.com/Philosophy/Movements/Phenomenology_p6sd.html and also for the favorable mention at: http://caveatventer.blogspot.com/2005/04/link-changes.html
In the UK, my book is now available at: http://bookshop.blackwell.co.uk/jsp and a profile has been created at: http://www.writersnet/writers/37159 and http://anotherbookshop.com This essay has been discussed at http://www.desipundit.com/ Unfortunately, my second book is not being distributed to book sellers because of censorship.

Arundhati Roy, Public Power in the Age of Empire (New York: Open Media/Seven Stories Press, 2004), $7.95
Arundhati Roy, Power Politics (Cambridge: South End Press, 2001), $12.00
Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things (New York: HarperCollins, 1998), $13.00.

Introduction.

Political controversy is a traditional American passtime, like baseball. Heated exchanges are not only common in a time of war, but a most welcome feature of a free society at any time. Public debate and disagreement are what keep a democracy honest about its values and purposes in the world. It was exactly such a debate, a few decades ago (arguably), that finally brought an end to a pointless and cruel military struggle in Southeast Asia. Now we face a similar situation in the Middle East and South Asia.

The war in Iraq has mobilized the "global" -- a dirty word for some is "global" -- forces of anti-Americanism as nothing else has for several decades. At a visceral level, there is something about the Bush Administration and the currently prevailing "core values" of the people of the United States that many political commentators, including quite a few within the U.S., find infuriating. Respected writers and students at elite universities, both domestically and internationally, now speak of the only remaining superpower in the world as inherently "evil," or as an "empire," or as "the primary source of much of the world's poverty and misery."

Americans are often surprised at the level of hatred directed at them throughout the world; at their reputation for stupidity and arrogance; and at the vilification and ridicule directed at President Bush and his so-called "cabal of thugs" (Arundhati Roy). The history that Americans are taught at schools, like the history taught at most state schools, is nationalistic and jingoistic. On the other hand, the books and historical facts are widely available for all to study. Anyone who wishes to learn the "facts" of history can do so in the U.S. as well or better than anywhere else. Regrettably, the passage of time has proved that "cabal of thugs" may have been an understatement as a description of Bush/Cheney's paranoia and regime.

I believe that it is absurd to relegate the U.S. to the category of Stalin's Soviet Union or Hitler's Germany, and yet those are the comparisons made today by allegedly "serious" persons in criticizing the policies of the current administration (Bush/Cheney), policies which can certainly use some criticism.

Is this fair? How do we account for it? Why are American "pundits" so unprepared to respond to these charges? Why do they seem to devote all of their time and energy to chatting with one another about the minute strategic considerations of politicians of both parties, as they jostle and shove one another in seeking the best seats at the table of power? These sorts of arguments ("How do you think the bill will play out on the Hill?") are absolutely irrelevant and uninteresting to the people of the world, who need to hear from Americans about how they justify -- or even understand -- their nations' actions at this difficult time.

What follows is one ordinary American's response to some of the best expressed and most interesting criticisms of the United States, by one of the world's most articulate and celebrated spokespersons for the "anti-America" or "anti-Bush" campaign, a self-described "enemy combatant" of this alleged U.S. "empire." I do not believe that the U.S. is a military empire or has imperialistic ambitions. I am sure that the only "enemy combatants" who need to worry about the U.S. military are those who terrorize others or who promote terrorism. Hence, I am sure that there will be much room for disagreement between us, despite my experience of torture in an American state and opposition to many policies of this government.

After several years, much of what I feared and hoped was untrue has become, evidently, all-too true in our dirty war in Pakistan, murders in Afghanistan (now captured on video), and increasing disdain for civil rights at home. Compare "We Can't Tell You," (Editorial) in The New York Times, April 4, 2010, at p. 8 with Elizabeth Bumiller, "Video Shows 2007 Air Attack in Baghdad That Killed Photographer," in The New York Times, April 6, 2010, at p. A13.

Who is Arundhati Roy and is she really an "enemy combatant"?

Arundhati Roy is a magnificent writer, whose work I admire and with whom I agree on many issues, but whose opinion of the United States (I think) is inaccurate and way off the mark. In arguing for this conclusion, I begin with some biographical remarks. I will then express appreciation and agreement with much of what Ms. Roy has to say. Next I focus on her pamphlet Public Power in the Age of Empire, contending that it is fatally flawed -- even as a piece of advocacy -- by overstatement, unsupported generalizations, unqualified invective, along with a failure to consider alternative evidence and arguments. I conclude with some personal opinions and suggestions. It should not be necessary for me to acknowledge that I have learned a great deal from Ms. Roy. I am happy to recommend her books to readers everywhere, especially to those who disagree with her.

I must say, in all honesty, that I have been compelled to move closer to Ms. Roy's position over the past several years due to an unrelenting barrage of disclosures of blatant, unrepentant, cynical as well as unpunished criminality on the part of prominent American officials endorsing torture and indiscriminate killing in our "War on Terror." This is not the America I love or hope to live in for the rest of my life. This is a sad thing to say, but I am deeply concerned about the threat to Americans' civil liberties and our increasing responsibility for great crimes in the world.

Arundhati Roy was born in 1961 in Bengal, India, but was raised in Kerala. She studied architecture (yes, "architecture") in the Delhi School of Architecture, but became a writer instead, opting to design books and scripts, rather than buildings. She now lives in Delhi with her husband, film-maker Pradeep Kishen. Her novel The God of Small Things (1997), won the Booker Prize and has become an international bestseller. Ms. Roy's subject in this essay is the use of public power, "people's power" to oppose the actions of an "empire," the U.S., that she sees as threatening the peace and security of billions of people on the planet. She begins with an unsettling observation:

"... the most powerful nation in the world -- with its unmatchable arsenal of weapons, its history of having waged and sponsored endless wars, and the only nation in history to have actually used nuclear bombs -- is peopled by a terrified citizenry, jumping at shadows. A people bonded to the state not by social services, or public health care, or employment guarantees, but by fear." (p. 8, emphasis added.)

I am not "bonded to the state by fear," but by a rational decision to accept political principles that I believe are at the heart of the United States of America that transcend the actions of any political leader or elected official, from either party. My loyalty is reserved for the Constitution and the institutions and offices created by that document, rather for any individuals who temporarily occupy them. Among these principles is the concept that freedom of expression -- especially when criticizing the government -- may not be abridged by that government, so that critics, like Arundhati Roy, are welcome to speak in criticism of the U.S. and to publish books arguing that the nation is an "evil empire" ("evil" being a concept which she seems to recognize as valid, unlike some of her supporters).

I say this as a writer who struggles against Internet hackers and censors from New Jersey on a daily basis, whose works are routinely defaced, altered, even destroyed to the indifference of public officials entrusted with enforcing civil rights who look the other way or commission these crimes.

Ms. Roy recognizes that "free speech" is a "good thing" and that the U.S. recognizes this right as belonging to all, equally, including those of its critics who are not citizens, but visitors to the nation. Moreover, such critics are welcome to earn substantial sums based on the books that they sell criticizing the U.S. government, opposing the actions of that government in this war, and also to make a pretty penny in speaking fees, so as to donate those funds to their chosen political "cause," whatever that "cause" may be, or just to invest those profits in "corrupt" (but successful) American businesses, which is even better for the U.S. economy.

To the extent that the U.S. legally protects such a principle of free expression in its organic documents, it cannot be acting as an "empire" or as a totalitarian power, according to Ms. Roy's own principles, only in a "good way." Furthermore, if the U.S. is an evil empire, then neither Ms. Roy nor her publisher will wish to contribute to its coffers. Yet both author and publisher make substantial payments in taxes on their earnings in the U.S. to the national treasury, neither of them have chosen to give away their books so as not to contribute to the war machine, nor have they elected to give up their earnings. These taxes that we have paid, presumably, may go towards the war effort we both oppose. What can one do?

Since Ms. Roy is a business partner of American publishers, for whom she makes money with her books, as she does for herself, and also for the television stations on which she appears -- by allowing them to sell time to advertisers -- it appears that Ms. Roy is a poster child for the very globalization that she deplores in her writings. Her own actions seem to contradict her statements. What forms of capitalism are acceptable?

What is more, if the U.S. is wise and good -- at least with regard to its decision to protect the right to political dissent for one and all, that is, by guaranteeing "freedom of expression" -- then other nations would be right and good to do the same. Furthermore, if we agree that this right to dissent exists and is a matter of universal human entitlement, then each of us and every nation has the obligation to support recognition of this right in all nations and for all people. Thus, Ms. Roy should join President Bush in calling upon nations to allow for political dissent and not to imprison intellectuals or artists for opposing their governments, as so often happens in many nations other than the United States, like Cuba, that (mysteriously) do not seem to receive the passionate criticisms of Ms. Roy. Tragically, this same repression is increasingly happening within the borders of the United States. ("Freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal.")

If there is any doubt about it, let me be clear about my support for political dissidents and prisoners of conscience everywhere, including any who may be so described in the U.S., Cuba, North Korea or anywhere else. Not all nations (or U.S. states) have been so considerate of the right to free speech. Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq certainly was not. North Korea, China and Cuba, as I say, are also not above criticisms on human rights grounds, but then, neither are we.

Trying to suppress Internet speech -- including opinions and accusations found in this blog -- is not compatible with First Amendment values. Hence, all of us and all nations that are "freedom loving," as I am sure that Ms. Roy is, have a de facto obligation to oppose governments that deny such rights to their people. It follows that we must all wish to see free speech and other fundamental rights "exported" to the world. On that one issue, again, it appears that Ms. Roy and President Bush -- on the basis of their public statements alone -- are in agreement, setting aside speculation about the "real" motives of either or both of them. Politics certainly does make for strange bedfellows.

Free speech includes the right to publish one's thoughts on the Internet, without harassment or obstruction. Internet censorship, both official and unofficial (in my experience), comes from the Left just as often as the Right. My struggles in this blog attest to that much. Ms. Roy ought to welcome the first free elections in Iraq that took place on January 31, 2005. These were also the first elections in which women were both eligible as candidates and could vote for candidates. Her statements suggest that she supports such developments, but these developments have only occurred because of the U.S.-led coalition's efforts in that country. Hence, she ought to support those coalition efforts, if only to the degree that they foster greater democracy for Iraquis. Where do we stand on such principles today in Pakistan? At what point does the killing in Iraq vitiate any progress for democracy?

At a time when developments in Pakistan are depressing examples of the fragility of democracy rationalized, as always, with expressed concerns about "security," it will be interesting to see where the U.S. stands in the controversy. Will principle win out over political alliances, so that the U.S. will criticize this alarming departure by Musharaff from the Pakistani Constitution? Things may be worse today with even greater corruption in Pakistan. Or will the U.S. look the other way when a dictator is "one of our guys"? I fear that the latter option will win out in the Bush Administration. People in the world are not stupid. They see these contradictions in American foreign policy. I wonder whether they also see the core values of this great country for which many of us "on the ground" are fighting, every day, often at great personal risk.

At this point, the critics of the U.S. begin to cough a bit nervously and to qualify the right to free speech with talk of the need for education and equittable distribution of food, but those issues (which we can discuss separately and on which we may well agree) do not alter the point that the very people making optimum use of the spoken and written word, often at a profit, within the U.S., are logically bound to support the fostering of such political rights for others, elsewhere in the world. If so, then they should admit that the existence of these rights in the U.S. is a good thing, making the U.S. a good nation and a champion in the world with regard to the defense of freedom of speech.

I am aware that the rationale for the war in Iraq was not to promote free speech, but to contain a murderous dictator -- a dictator who either possessed, or sought to possess, weapons of mass destruction which would certainly have made him a menace to the region and to the entire world. One effect of the invasion that even its critics ought to celebrate and welcome is the possible increase in freedoms for millions of Iraquis, like those who voted on January 31, 2005. I say this as someone who was against the war in Iraq, opposing it publicly, at the time when it was first proposed. In November of 2007 many of those hopes have been dashed. The increasing human cost of this military "effort" in Iraq is making the situation a global catastrophe.

As for "jumping at shadows," I was in New York on 9/11. I can assure the world that the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center were not "shadows," nor were they "illusions manufactured by Hollywood." They were quite real, so was the death and destruction that followed this "event." It is not simply the thousands who were maimed or killed on that day who are the victims of those incidents. It is also the family members and loved-ones of direct victims, particularly those who do not know the ultimate end of their loved-ones, who continue to be victimized and to suffer every day because of the horror of those events and the pain of living with uncertainty. I have experienced similar emotions in my life. If you want to define "evil," 9/11 is a good place to start.

Is a military action to punish those individuals who were directly responsible and the regimes which made it possible for them to act effectively against innocent civilians, a "U.S.-sponsored terrorist war"? (p. 9.) I do not think so. I believe a plausible argument for U.S. action in Afghanistan is available, whatever one may think of the Iraq campaign. The spiraling number of atrocities may deprive us of any moral argument for a continued presence in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Pakistan.

Self-defense is also a fundamental right of individuals and nations. I am sure that among the most important responsibilities of political leaders is the duty to protect populations from the sort of acts that took place on 9/11. After all, the actions of the Bush Administration may have something to do with the absence of any further incidents comparable those that took place on 9/11. An open question is whether those actions have also produced global conditions feeding hatred of Americans to such an extent that a worse attack against the nation is already being planned, as I suspect, probably aimed at one of the nation's great symbols -- like the Statue of Liberty.

I tend to think of terrorists as the people who flew planes into those buildings, not as those who seek to prevent further occurrences of that sort, by the best means available, given the intelligence in their possession within the boundaries of the law. These preventive measures have, so far, apparently succeeded in eliminating further major incidents of terrorism within the U.S. This is not to deny that the methods used may be challenged for inhumanity or ineffectiveness in the long run. It is not -- not at all! -- to excuse the criminal actions of individuals who are being prosecuted, convicted and sent to jail, as I type these words, for the tortures at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. It is not to deny that there is political corruption in the U.S. (New Jersey, which is controlled by Democrats, comes to mind), and that we desperately need campaign fiance reforms, if we want to do something meaningful about ending that corruption in the future. The exoneration of Bush's torture lawyers and doctors is a shameful abdication of legality and decency by America. ("America's Unethical Torture Doctors" and "Is America's Legal Ethics a Lie?")

On all of those issues, I expect that Ms. Roy and I agree, and that we both disagree with President Bush (although I am not so sure about that), in our severe criticisms of practices that currently prevail in the United States. I also deplore and I am disgusted by the complicity of physicians and other therapists in the design of psychological torture techniques to extract information from persons, whose guilt (if any exists) has not been determined by a tribunal. Such practices violate universal human rights guarantees and key provisions of the U.S. Constitution. They are also evil, as are those who engage in them. Ms. Roy goes further, however, dismissing the entire American political system as a "sham." She thinks that Democrats are not better or different from Republicans:

"It's true that if John Kerry becomes president, some of the oil tycoons and Christian fundamentalists in the White House will change. ... But the real concern is that in the new administration their policies will continue. That we will have Bushism without Bush." (p. 16.)

According to Ms. Roy,

"... it's no surprise that you have two Yale University graduates, both members of Skull and Bones, the same secret society, both millionaires, both playing at soldier-soldier, both talking up war, and arguing almost childishly about who will lead the war on terror more effectively." (p. 17.)

There certainly is a difference between John Kerry and George Bush. There are many, very specific and substantive differences in their proposals that made the choice between them meaningful to millions of people, not all of whom are "oil tycoons and Christian fundamentalists" (stereotypes are not fun for anyone). Ordinary people worked for many hours on both campaings. Although I was not a Kerry suporter -- and I am not a Republican or Democrat -- I do feel a responsibility to defend John Kerry at this point.

Setting aside Mr. Bush's military service, Senator Kerry was not someone who was "playing at soldier-soldier" when he put his life on the line to serve his country in Vietnam, regardless of his personal feelings about that war. He was hurt in the presidential election precisely because he was not "talking up war." Instead, he had the strength of character to stand up for his beliefs and oppose a Chief Executive during war time on a very subtle and complex issue of what course of action to follow in the aftermath of the U.S. entry into this conflict, without catering to cheap popularity or vote-getting. I respect him for that.

These are not easy issues. An immediate U.S. withdrawal could well result in a bloodbath in Iraq and the spread of conflict throughout the Middle East. America's political candidates are not merely different brands of "detergent." They are not "owned by" corporations, but their campaign efforts are too often influenced by corporate contributions, so that both Kerry and Bush would probably favor some kind of finance reforms for future elections. I sure do. So does Senator John McCain, whose possible candidacy for the Republican nomination in the next presidential election is welcome by many people who do not think of themselves as Republicans.

American national political battles take place at the center of the political spectrum because that is where most undecided voters are to be found, not because all candidates are bland and boring.
The U.S. is not the place to go for romantic political slogans and charismatic leaders because Americans, thank God, are suspicious of men or women on a white horses promising pie in the sky. The American political order rests on highly intelligent and pragmatic compromises that seek to respect the interest of all factions, to share power, accomodating the competing interests and values of a highly heterogeneous population. It is not glamorous, but it works -- as history demonstrates -- preserving democracy and allowing for the inevitable battles over fundamental issues to take place within the institutions of government, peacefully, with the exception of our one bloody civil war. It was that civil war which confirmed the wisdom in our system of unglamorous compromise and negotiation, of legal rather than military battles. Debate, not violence. That's why we don't -- or shouldn't -- silence people.

"I am always happy to hear that a foreign leader is a politician," one American president said, "that means I can work with that person." Yes, Americans are great at making "fair deals" and I am very pleased and proud of that fact. It is a relief to think that a negotiated solution is always preferred. Yet reason is not persuasive to those who are "unreasonable," as President Kennedy said. The military option is sometimes unavoidable. I say this as one who was against U.S. entry into a war with Iraq, who now wishes to see that conflict end as soon as possible. My concern is that an abrupt departure will have far worse consequences for all -- including Iraquis -- than a continuing U.S. and coalition presence, until some stability is achieved. In April, 2010 it is obvious that our continued presence in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan is enhancing the dangers for all in the region and that we must get out of this conflict.

Is the U.S. an evil empire and the source of poverty in the world?

It borders on the surreal that the U.S., the nation contributing more than any other to the collapse of Left and Right totalitarianisms in the twentieth century, is now described as "evil." An "error" was inserted in the foregoing sentence since my previous review of this essay. This is a daily experience of violation for me. ("Roberto Unger's Revolutionary Legal Theory.")

I am the first to admit that American governments make mistakes, can be unwise (often from seeking instant solutions to complex problems), but the U.S. is not responsible for poverty in the world. Washington does not delight in crushing the economies of developing nations with debt or exploiting people to increase corporate profits. American media products succeed in the world not because they are evil, but because they are better at providing entertainment and amusement, even genuine art on occasion (and sometimes both), than any other communication media in the world. This is especially true of American cinema, which is simply unrivaled in its popularity and will, deservedly, remain so for some time to come. As Noam Chomsky, who would disagree with me on much of this, would say: "Let us examine the facts":

The U.S. spent 15 billion dollars in foreign aid last year. By comparison, the European Union -- with a comparable GDP -- spent about 33% of that sum. More than 3 million lives are saved each year through USAID immunization programs alone. Over the past decade, USAID provided some 15 million dollars in technical assistance for the energy sectors of developing countries. The United Nations Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade, in which USAID played a major role, resulted in 1.3 billion people receiving safe drinking water sources, and 750 million people receiving sanitation for the first time.

USAID funds have been directed at literacy efforts with some impressive global results: literacy rates are up 33% worldwide in the last twenty-five years, and primary school enrollment has tripled in that period. Since 1998, USAID's education partnership program has established over 160 partnerships involving more than 200 U.S. colleges and universities from 40 states. These partnerships are building the capacity of 160 developing country higher education, research and training institutions in 58 countries. There are pages and pages of additional statistics establishing beyond any doubt the fundamental role played by U.S. contributions to humanitarian efforts in the world. See http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/education_and_universities/partnerships.htm

This is to say nothing of contributions by individual Americans, who are (by far) the most generous individual contributors in the world. Bill Gates alone will contribute 750 million to 1.2 billion dollars to education and health care efforts in Africa this year, apart from his contributions to American schools. U.S. government contributions to Tsunami relief efforts are now in excess of 500 million dollars and more is on the way from private individuals. This sum exceeds what any other single nation will contribute.

In Ms. Roy's homeland, "agricultural research sponsored by the U.S. sparked the so-called 'Green Revolution.' These breakthroughs in agricultural technology and practices resulted in the most dramatic increase in agricultural yields and production in the history of [humanity], allowing nations like India and Bangladesh to become nearly food self-sufficient." http://www.usaid.gov/about_usaid/accompli.html

These are factors that should be taken into consideration when assessing the moral quality of the American people. They do not seem to be the work of an evil empire. Let us distinguish Americans from government officials in one administration.

I am not a graduate of Yale University. I am no government worker. I am an inhabitant of the bottom of the society in the U.S., a member of its underclass. I see American society at its worst, where it most needs reform. Yet even at its worst, it is preferable to most other places that I have seen or studied. This may even be true of New Jersey, though I am "reserving judgment" on that issue. Ms. Roy writes:

"So when we speak of public power in the age of empire ... the only thing that is worth discussing seriously is dissenting power." (p. 26.)

Only those who agree with Arundhati Roy will count as true wielders of public power. Everyone else, including most Americans, is a deluded "slave." As for the insurgency in Iraq, it does not matter how many innocent civilians they kill, nor how many terrorist acts they perpetrate because:

".. if we are only going to support pristine movements, then no resistance will be worthy of our purity." (p. 33.)

Murder of Iraqui civilians and Americans by the heroic Iraqui "resistance" is O.K., while any action by Americans in response must be deplored. Yet Ms. Roy had previously written:

"Nothing can excuse or justify an act of terrorism, whether it is committed by religious fundamentalists, private militias, people's resistance movements -- or whether it's dressed up as a war of retribution by a recognized government." Power Politics, p. 126.

When did she change her mind? Was she right then, so that she is wrong now (as I believe)? Or is she right now, so that she was wrong then? Shall we leave it to Arundhati Roy to decide when and by whom murder or terrorism is acceptable? When "resistance fighters" kill Americans it's always hunky-dory? I hope not. I sure don't think so. No so-called "resistance" that is guilty of killing the innocent, as a matter of policy, merits any moral person's support. No resistance which makes use of terror -- as a routine tactic -- is good or justified. The U.S. and other coalition forces do not behave as the insurgents in Iraq do, do not target civilians, do not seek chaos and violence for their own sakes. This is the sort of difference that makes a for a significant moral distinction. Our use of robot bombs in Pakistan is criminal and may place us on the same level with the people we are fighting in the Taliban. ("Civilization and Terrorism.")

Conclusion: Between Hope and Despair.

Arundhati Roy is a great writer. She is highly intelligent, lyrical, with depth of feeling and insight. Her bitter denunciations of America and her view of the United States government as a malignant force, comparable to fascism, strikes those of us who live here as much more unreal -- with all of the faults of the government granted -- than anything produced by Hollywood. The tone of outrage and anger in her prose certainly seems appropriate to what she describes, but not to the reality that we see and experience every day. It is as though the world described by Ms.Roy and her "American Empire" belong in a novel. Perhaps her next great epic will be called "Empire and Slaves."

The United States is mostly ruled by well-meaning and energetic persons of average intelligence (and sometimes much more than that), doing their best, to make the world safer and more prosperous. Often they make mistakes -- sometimes due to ignorance or stupidity -- usually with the best intentions. Wealth is not good or evil in itself, as Marx acknowledged. It is better when people are fed and clothed, sheltered and educated, than when they are not. And all of those "good" things cost money. Hence, the people who are adept at getting and spending money, like Bill Gates or Mike Bloomberg and many other Americans, are usually helpful in solving the world's economic problems.

In addition to his 750 million dollar contribution to African relief and education efforts, Bill Gates is one of the foremost forces for technical education in the world, doing more than many nations to assist with computer literacy and science training in poor nations. Whatever you may think about Microsoft or even if you hate computers, for his charitable contributions alone, the world is much better with than without Bill Gates. Besides, any time a man with several pens in his pocket marries a supermodel I find new reason to hope that there is a just God in the universe.

Americans are not paranoid, do not jump at shadows, do not hate everyone else (for one thing, "everyone else" can be found right here in the U.S., usually in any neighborhood in New York). The primary U.S. objectives in foreign policy are stability and peace, which are good for prosperity and "for people too," as the politicians say. Any presidential administration is made more bearable by the thought that "soon there will be a new pack of rats in the White House." The U.S. really does hope to foster human rights, including the right to free expression of its critics, democracy, free trade (and no, that is not a bad thing), improved medical and educational care for all persons in the world. Are we naive or idealistic? Maybe. Evil? No.

Never count out American idealism and "know how." These qualities are on display, at their best, when humans find themselves playing golf on the moon, witnessing the collapse of the walls of totalitarianism in the twentieth century, or in the eyes of African children in a refugee camp invited to a screening of "The Wizard of Oz" by those "evil" Americans, flying in food and medicine from the "mid-west," often at their own expense or as volunteers. What have you done lately for the poor?

In the great film "Casablanca," we are reminded not to "underestimate American bungling." After all, American efforts may yet leave the Middle East and the world safer, better fed, more stable, better educated, more prosperous and healthier than it has ever been before. Admittedly, the chances for a good outcome in Iraq seem to be disappearing. Yet there is still hope. I suggest that we work to make those hopes a reality. I always love a happy ending. Don't you?

What little chance exists for a happy ending in our struggles in life will be gone at the instant when we decide that "nothing matters" or that "we have seen through it all." Cynicism and nihilism are ways of embracing death. Hopefulness and optimism are as American as Sweedish apple pies or my favorite Indian bread, nan, from the restaurant at 178th Street.

Angela Davis and the Need for Theory.

Angela Y. Davis, If They Come in the Morning (New York: Signet, 1971).
Angela Y. Davis, Autobiography (New York: International Publishers, 1974).
Angela Y. Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete? (New York: Seven Stories, 2003).
Duncan Kennedy, Legal Education and the Reproduction of Hierarchy (Cambridge: Afar, 1983).
Josef Pieper, In Defense of Philosophy (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1966).


An interest in philosophy or literature is a guilty secret for many young people today, especially for young minority men. The United States has always been hostile to intellectuals, but this attitude is now more widespread than ever. It is no longer a source of self-scrutiny or doubt, so that dismissiveness concerning the life of the mind -- as opposed to pursuit of money and power -- is simply said to be "common sense." Ironically, even in universities this attitude may be found, together with contempt for intellectual achievement or true learning as "irrelevant" in the "real world."

Law schools are often places where a blinkered, narrow focus is deemed a sign of seriousness and practicality. ("Is this going to be on the bar exam?") Business schools are not far behind in this attitude, which may have something to do with the impoverishment of spirit in American life so often noted by commentators and visitors to our shores.

Money and power are the gods to which we really pray. Fame and status are minor deities. In our spiritual hunger, we confuse the superficial rhetoric of New Age preciosity and affectation for genuine philosophical insights and true religion. This confusion is the only explanation that I can find for the popularity of a novel like The Da Vinci Code.

Philosophy is desperately needed, since the confusion and ignorance of the intellectual tradition found in judicial opinions and government reports as well as in many published works -- which often receive respectful reviews in leading publications! -- is nothing less than stunning. Many such celebrated texts are, in fact, self-undermining.

I plan to focus on law school attitudes, together with the mores of lawyers and judges, only because they are familiar to me. I am sure that other examples are available from public administration and business. I distinguish pop fashion and entertainment from true arts. Some celebrities are just that; others are artists who happen to be famous. Among genuine artists hostility to intellectual achievement and wisdom are rare, among trendy celebrities and people who go to parties, they are quite common.

Oliver Wendell Holmes said that "the law sharpens the mind by narrowing it." Persons with narrow minds -- however sharp they may be -- should not be making values decisions for society, decisions such as: whether persons have a right to die; or whether an infant born horribly disfigured should be "terminated"; or whether human embryos may be "used," thrown away, or destroyed after abortions; whether organisms created in laboratories may be patented and those patents then sold to the highest bidders, something currently permitted under U.S. intellectual property law.

These and many other questions in law involve philosophical assumptions -- sometimes contradictory ones -- having important implications that are often unrecognized, with the result that much American case law is incoherent or inconsistent, at a theoretical level, creating more legal work for an overburdened system in the hopeless task of clarification.

Law school study consists largely of reading "cases" and seeking to relate and reconcile them with emerging patterns of doctrinal development in jurisprudence. American legal education is weak in the teaching of theory. Legal and general culture are almost non-existent in the average law school graduate, even in graduates of so-called "elite" schools.

Theory is not practical, in a narrow sense, because it is not supposed to be. Yet theory (vision) is essential for reasons that certainly do have practical significance. Take another look at the name or title of this blog. Philosophy is essential to our practical concerns -- in the widest possible meaning of the word "practical" -- because theories determine the quality of the "inner" life of a person or society, by not being practical in an "instrumental" or narrow sense.

"Philosophy does not serve any purpose -- not only as a matter of fact, but because it cannot and must not serve any purpose! In the words of Martin Heidegger, 'It is entirely proper and perfectly as it should be: Philosophy is of no use!' ..."

This statement by German thinker and Thomist Joseph Pieper could not be made by an American philosopher, reared on James and Dewey -- nor by a Marxist, perhaps -- but notice the very specific point being made:

"This privilege [of philosophy] is called freedom. Philosophy by its nature is a free endeavor, and for this reason serves no one and nothing!"

And again:

"Analyzing Aristotle's text in his Metaphysics, we find to our amazement that 'free' there means the same as 'non-practical'! 'Practical' is everything that serves a purpose. Precisely this, then, does not apply to philosophical reasoning or theoria. Philosophy is 'free' insofar as it is not geared toward some purpose outside itself. Philosophy, rather, is an endeavor containing its own meaning and requires no justification from a purpose 'served.'..."

Paradoxically, it is disinterested speculation (not for money) that yields the attitude of mind and learning which is most useful in confronting, say, legal questions with important values implications. Philosophy serves no single or narrow instrumental purpose, neither do you, because both philosophy (and you, as a person) are concerned with the "free" formulation of ultimate or non-instrumetal purposes. (See my story "Pieta.")

"Theoria and theoretical are words that, in the understanding of the ancients, mean precisely this: a relationship to the world, an orientation toward reality characterized entirely by desire that this same reality may reveal itself in its true being. This, and nothing else, is the meaning of truth; nothing else but the self-revelation of reality."

The crucial insight is this:

"... 'contemplation' means a loving gaze, the beholding of the beloved. We have to raise the question, then, whether philosophical reflection on reality as such may not equally presume or imply some kind of acceptance of this same reality. I hesitate to use the word 'love,' because it is too big. 'Acceptance,' on the other hand, seems too imprecise and too weak. Even those who are simply incapable of any philosophical theoria because they consider the objects of the world, and perhaps even human beings (excepting themselves), as so much raw material that may be useful for some purpose -- even those 'masters and owners of nature' [capitalists] could be said in a certain sense to accept reality and find it good: good of course for them and their aims. For the true philosopher, however, the challenge seems to be this: to acknowledge before any consideration of specifics and without regard to usefulness, that reality is good in itself -- all things, the world, 'being' as such; yes, all that exists, and existence itself."

This is not a prescription for quietism or conservatism, necessarily, nor is it a radical program. It is to suggest that to see something or someone, you must not reduce the subject of contemplation to your "narrow" purposes or intention of manipulation. At this point, Marxism becomes highly relevant. This is an attempt to escape both commercial and legal relations that are objectifying. I seek to join thinkers like Lukacs, Gramsci and Chomsky with Merton and Buber. My goal as a "Hegelian Kantian" may be to kidnap a bit of the Marxist and Christian project for my own purposes of spiritual, and only then material liberation. Therapists should take note. It is important to recognize the autonomy of the subject of contemplation, so as to recognize his or her free essence. I am not -- I never will be -- what you can reduce to your categories and jargon. I am not something to be placed in a specimen jar and labelled. I will not be controlled by your bullshit.

This respect for autonomy is particularly true in the human realm, so that all externalizing intellectual approaches -- such as the scientific or legal and commercial approaches that view reality through the prism of a particular research agenda or methodology -- will be inadequate to grasping the full and complex reality of another free being or the world of meanings and values created -- and creating -- those free beings. U.S. hostility to theory is kept in place by an informal system of rewards and demerits that begins in law schools. Resistance to this form of chosen "stupidity" or "narrowness," for a few people, then simply "happens" at some point in their lives. Duncan Kennedy writes:

"There are no absolute radicals, just people being radical in particular situations. People don't (at least in my experience) get to be like that by deduction from general principles. There's no more reason to hope you can convert them by logic than to fear they'll desert if the theory isn't right. It's more like you wake up one morning knowing that you aren't going to stand some abuse or injustice for another day, not knowing what will happen as a result, not even sure you can justify whatever it is you're about to do."

For example,

"Sometimes things bubble to the surface in a group of friends that sound more oppositional than you thought you were, and they support rather than shun you. Or an opponent treats what you thought was a moderate statement as advocacy of socialism or 'radical feminism,' and you find yourself defiantly embracing the label instead of weasling out of it. It's then that one begins to want theory -- to want it as a way to express one's new orientation, rather than to determine its content or serve it as an instrument."

These ideas lead to a view of social theory as a kind of freedom that serves and fosters collective human freedom in society. It leads to a radical project of truthfulness at the cost of professionalism, of justice over technical legality. It leads to the understanding that there is, as Lon Fuller suggests, "a morality that makes law possible."

Theory or genuine philosophical probing, with love for the victims of power, of what is humanly necessary produces in me an iron-like determination to oppose all that denies freedom and justice. These insights lead me, equally, to the work of thinkers such as Angela Davis and Thomas Merton, Noam Chomsky and Simone Weil, Ernst Bloch or Walter Benjamin and Martin Buber. I am aware that people find it shocking that I associate such texts.

Theorizing has also produced an enormous inpatience and boredom in me with the bromides of America's legal establishment, whose canned arguments of "policy" just don't cut it any more. New thinking is desperately needed, both at the level of principle and in terms of political and legal theory. Unfortunately, there is not too much original or new thinking around. In fact, there's not too much thinking around.

This philosophical stance is threatening to the legal profession and social order, so that it will always be punished and discouraged. It is no accident that legal and social theory is not required in most American law schools. Political philosophy and jurisprudence are also not required subjects. The legal system is used as a mechanism of adjustment and conformity, but it can be the opposite. Think of how contemporary these warnings seem today, though they were issued in 1971, by Angela Davis:

"The ruling circles of America are expanding and intensifying repressive measures designed to nip revolutionary movements in the bud as well as to curtail radical-democratic tendencies, such as the movement to end the war ... The government is not hesitating to utilize an entire network of fascist tactics, including the monitoring of congressmen's telephone calls, a system of 'preventive fascism,' as Marcuse calls it, in which the role of the judicial and penal systems loom large."

If it is clear that philosophy is deemed dangerous, yet trivialized or marginalized, eliminated from the law school curriculum -- though it is taught to law students in Europe and Latin America -- then we need to wonder why this is so. How can it be useful to the U.S. power structure to have lawyers and judges who are so often lacking in philosophical sophistication and a population without the theoretical training to detect contradictory or incoherent messages from public officials or decision-making authorities? Why are we content to accept stupidity in ourselves or in high places? Why is it reassuring to us to believe in a "Forest Gump-like" simplicity in politicians and judges? If knowledge is power, should it surprise us that politicians are afraid of that power in the hands of the people?

Pieta.

"Belief in the existence of other human beings as such is love."

Simone Weil, "Love," in Sian Miles, ed., Simone Weil: An Anthology (New York: Grove, 1986), p. 270.

This story is for the women I love.


The big day came, but I wasn't interested. The newspapers and television had been filled with the news for weeks. Scientists from all over the world had received messages in something like radio waves -- except they were much more sophisticated and powerful signals -- picked up with all the high tech listening devices that were one part of the human search for extraterrestial life. No one had expected that these devices would provide us with a signal of non-human origin, purporting to come from God, anouncing an exact date for His arrival on earth. God was due to arrive on New Year's Day, at 12:00 A.M., at Times Square, New York.

Dignitaries, politicians, representatives of all the major religions, the U.N. General Secretary -- all had crowded into the city. The subways were even more packed than usual at this time of the year, commuting was impossible with the holiday crowds and all of the "God tourists." The anouncement of God's expected visit had resulted in hotel fees and cab fares going up, of course, but no increases in salaries. Ordinary citizens were to be kept behind barricades and police lines. Photographers had staked out positions all over the place.

As an atheist, I had no interest in the proceedings. If God was coming to earth, I didn't want to meet Him. I don't want to know Him. I don't want to shake His hand or take my picture with Him. What about the Holocaust? What about Darfur? What about the months of agony before my grandmother died? Her blissful happiness at the end of her life is a mystery. She looked at me, as she was dying -- in excruciating agony -- and said: "God is good." I remember, but still do not understand her final smile. My grandmother had been a seamstress. She had nothing. She suffered a great deal in her life. What was the point? How could she describe her life as good?

If there is a God and He shows up, I want to ask Him about Stalin and Pol Pot. Albert Camus was right: "The Last Judgment will be of God, not of man."

Most of all, I want to know why He has placed me on this cross. I love someone, who disappeared. No one knows whether she is dead or alive. I cannot find or speak to her. I cannot stop bleeding from this wound, from the uncertainty and yearning. Is she in pain? Is she suffering? Is she dead? I also cannot stop loving her. I cannot medicate myself out of the pain, terrible pain, because the love and ache is the place where I wake up in the morning and where I eat or try to sleep at night. It is where I bathe, or try to work. It never leaves me. I never leave it. I cannot stop being furious at the misery caused by powerful hypocrites in society, including injustices and offenses that I have suffered personally. The hypocrisy and malice of men and women in robes of office sickens me.

Suicide is no option because there are people who love me, who would be devastated by my death. They would be in the position I am in now, asking "why" for the rest of their lives. I cannot do such a thing to others, especially not to a child. So this place of pain, this space filled with agony, is where I must dwell forever. Why me? What did I do to Him?

I must walk in my bare feet along the edge of this razor for the rest of my life.

I don't want to hear any bullshit about how evil is an "aesthetic" requirement in the great drama of life. An all-powerful God could provide all of that drama with bliss (King Lear as a romantic comedy), without suffering or pain, unless He is a sadist. No nonsense about free will please. God could permit freedom without evil, that's why He's God. If He can't, then He is not all-powerful, just another suffering soul. I know all the trick answers and the boilerplate stuff. I am an ex-priest; ex-philosophy professor; ex-person. I work at the U.S. Post Office now, with lots of other ex-persons. "How many stamps do you need, mam?"

When the big day arrived, I worked late, as usual, then bought myself a paperback thriller on the way home from 34th Street. There was no public transportation, so I could only walk towards my apartment at 89th and Columbus. Midtown was a nightmare. Millions of people crowded the Streets to see God. Vendors were selling t-shirts with many images of God. At midnight, I found myself unable to move, except very slowly, at Times Square (God was nowhere to be found!), as news cameras were aimed at the heavens. He probably wasn't going to show up. Typical. Deus Absconditus.

"I think this is all nonsense." A woman said this.

"Me too."

She was about my age, mid-forties, office worker type, attractive and pleasant. She was cold, so she bundled herself into her simple cloth coat, placed her hands in her pockets. I noticed a brace on one foot, which seemed smaller than the other and realized that she must be hurting from all the jostling and walking.

"I'm trying to get home." She said. I felt terrible about her situation, so I offered to help.

"I'm walking that way, uptown. Do you want to take my arm?"

"Yes." She said.

She moved slowly. We chatted on the way. She was a school teacher, retired because of a degenerative and (I almost cried when she said this), eventually, fatal muscle disease. She spoke of her daily experiences with her brace and of the humiliations of the body. God better not show up. It would take time for the illness to progress, she told me, so she made the most of every day. She loved theater; she read (we spoke of Shakespeare); she visited museums; she had never been married and lived alone. We had to stop pretty regularly because it was difficult for her to walk. I felt so much sympathy for her suffering. I was awed by her dignity and courage.

I never laughed so much with anyone. Also, I had never been so forthcoming about my own troubles. She made me feel relaxed and at peace. I felt that I could say anything to her, just be myself. She understood and accepted me. She liked music. So I offered to play Mozart for her. I had a new CD player. She only lived a few buildings away from mine. I figured we both needed company this night.

Her determination was something to see. The pain she felt in walking, her frailty, the way she hung on to my arm, laughing all the while. It took us a few hours to make it home -- like on 9/11 -- but she did not wilt. Despite the physical torture she must have been experiencing, her concern was for me. She made tea for both of us, and we rested. She listened to Mozart with me. We talked for hours. We even wept a little.

I couldn't allow her to leave, but I felt that it was too soon for any greater intimacy. I prepared a bed for her in the spare room and carried her into it. She laughed all the while, though I could see that she had no strength left, even as I felt so much stronger and more purposeful than I had in years. Strangely, I was filled with hope and joy about the future.

I slept better than I had in years and awoke to find her gone. I only knew her first name, "Regina," but no exact address, no phone number, nothing. How could this happen to me? Then I noticed a green ring made of stone that she had purchased on the street for $5.00. She had worn it throughout the evening. She left it on the nightable, without a note or anything. It was placed next to a small reproduction of Michelangelo's "Pieta," that I had purchased when I was a student in Rome.

Noam Chomsky's "Libertarian Socialism."

In a great Woody Allen story, an intellectual escort service promises to "send over a couple of blondes to explain Noam Chomsky to you." If only they were plus-size models, I might take them up on the offer.

Noam Chomsky is an intellectual hero. He is fearless in confronting power, whether one agrees with him or not, you can only feel admiration for Chomsky's integrity and courage.

I will seek to explain a little of Chomsky here, free of charge, as I chat about Chomsky's popular discussion of "government for the future." I am not a natural blond. However, in the right circumstances, I can be a blond.

Yesterday was a slow day, so I read two books: Chomsky's Government in the Future (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2005), which originally appeared in 1970, and L. William Countryman's, Love Human and Divine: Reflections on Love, Sexuality, and Friendship (Harrisburg: Morehouse, 2005).

There are few people who would associate these two texts. I believe they are complimentary. Yes, I have read Herbert Marcuse. Chomsky's concern in his essay is with distinguishing between three contemporary forms of government, stating a preference between them, while suggesting a direction for government in the future. Chomsky demonstrates that ideas and systems "evolve" -- kind of like us -- from one form into another, so as to adapt to changes in the intellectual and material environment.

What is the role of the state in an advanced industrial society? To answer that question, I think it's useful to set up as a framework for discussion four somewhat idealized positions. I want to call these positions, first, classical liberal, second, libertarian socialist, third, state socialist, fourth, state capitalist. ... I think that the libertarian socialist concepts -- and by that I mean a range of thinking that extends from Left wing Marxism through anarchism -- are fundamentally correct and that they are the proper and natural extensions of classical liberalism into the current era of advanced industrial society.

I am not inclined to base my political position on Marxism. Nonetheless, I certainly recognize that there is much valuable wisdom in the Marxist tradition of thought on matters of politics and government. For me, as a democratic socialist -- located pretty much in the same territory as Chomsky on the political map -- the basis of political ethics (or any other kind of ethics) is love.

Love is a troublesome word and phenomenon in human life, one which (I believe) includes the ideas of freedom and equality. Love is only possible for free persons, as equals, so that an ethic of love -- grounded in Western religious traditions or in secular ethical thought -- immediately implies a set of political values aiming at social justice, especially with regard to the distribution of material resources. A great philosopher who develops these ideas (as a Conservative) is John MacMurray. For the boys in the smoke-filled rooms, I am saying that wealth and power should be more evenly distributed in society. I sense a productive tension in Chomsky's politics between his anarchism and Marxist-influenced socialism, a tension which is explored in his other writings more than in this essay.

In other words, beyond a Kantian setting of limits or duties owed to others, i.e., "don't murder people," there is the problem of how our affirmative actions -- especially on a legal and political level -- are to be guided. I think Jeffersonian insights, building on an ethics of love and compassion, are inescapable in thinking through these issues. I was surprised that Jefferson is not mentioned by Chomsky in this work. Yes, Jefferson wanted small government for gentlemen farmers, but he wanted equal power in the hands of individuals -- which today includes all of us -- as against government, with an insistence on "generosity to the poor."

Similar insights may also be drawn from Chomsky's own Jewish tradition, notably from the kaballistic Marxism of Ernst Bloch. Not surprisingly, Chomsky mentions an Israeli kibbutz (p.21.) to illustrate notions of community and the plausibility of anarchist ideas. Chomsky recognizes and defends the importance of individual freedom as a foundational value in modern thinking about politics and the state. Yet he asks us to consider what the emergence of international conglomerate capitalism has done to Enlightenment notions of liberty (he quotes Humboldt) understood as "nonintervention by the state." This would be Chomsky's response to Jefferson. Chomsky is duly wary of power (pp. 38-39, discussing Kant) and is not holding, say, 1970 Bulgaria up to the reader, as a model of good government for us.

"Take the most radical of revolutionaries and place him on the throne of all the Russias or give him dictatorial powers ... and before the year is out he will be worse than the Czar himself." (Chomsky quoting Bakunin, p. 33.)

Chomsky is certainly right that, given the reality of human needs in our world, only a form of socialism (providing some allowance for individual incentive and profit) that is respectful of civil liberties can hope to satisfy those needs for the vast majority of people. Many conservatives agree on the freedom part of his analysis, but reserve compassion for the exercise of private conscience by individuals (Jefferson's response to Chomsky).

"By giving the government too much power," conservatives say, "we will only get less freedom and no greater social justice, just lots of corruption." New Jersey is the best example of the potential for abuse by government and politicians in a free society. I respect these conservative concerns. Nevertheless, I think that Chomsky is right to conclude:

... human needs ... to an ever more critical degree can be expressed only in collective terms. It is surely conceivable and is perhaps even likely that decisions made by the collective itself will reflect these needs and interests as well as those made by various soulful elites.

In any event, it is a bit difficult to take seriously arguments about efficiency in a society that devotes enormous resources to waste and destruction. As everyone knows, the very concept of efficiency is dripping with ideology. Maximization of commodities is hardly the only measure of a decent existence. (pp. 44-45.)

Beyond "maximization of commodities" is the SPIRITUAL need for love in human life, friendship and community are derivative from it. This idea of love is no wishy-washy emotion, but a force that can topple governments. To trivialize or be dismissive of it is foolish. Theologian and Episcopal priest, Professor Countryman points out something even atheists can accept:

God's passion for us and for the whole of creation is what summons us to a comparable passion. And that passion must necessarily work itself out in our behavior with and towards the beloved. ... [But also towards all others.] The drive towards connection is fundamental to our humanity. The specifically sexual forms of eros are an important subcategory of it, not the whole. We tend to assume that the story of God's forming of Eve from Adam's side is about the creation of sexual companionship. But in the twelfth century, Aelred of Rievaulx read it as being about the creation of friendship and of community. In fact, he treated it as the origin of monastic community. Our tendency to separate sexual eros from the broader eros that generates such connections seems to me misplaced. (pp. 37-38.)

The following quotation is not from the writings of Karl Marx, but from the work of Christian philosopher John Finnis:

... beyond a reasonable measure and degree of such use for his or his dependents or co-owners' needs, [the capitalist] holds the remainder of his property and its fruits as part (in justice, if not in law) of the common stock. In other words, beyond a certain point, what was commonly available but was justly made private, for the common good, becomes again, in justice, part of the common stock ...

See, Natural Law and Natural Rights (Oxford: Clarenden, 1980), pp. 172-173; Roberto Unger's work ("the theory of organic groups") may be quoted, or Cornel West's writings. Wealth is not good or evil; the uses to which wealth is put that determines its moral quality. Please study the arguments in John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Harvard: 1971).

Liberals and socialists do not have to shy away from discussions of spirituality in public life. They should not deny the importance of values in a public square that remains neutral with respect to the various religions, while welcoming spiritual values as belonging in the ethical and political conversation of our times, especially when it comes to defining the good life. Our spiritual or religious values may be liberal, not fundamentalist values. I remember Mario Cuomo's eloquence on this subject in the early eighties.

In a new dialogue on the life of spirit, including the variety and equal value of eros for persons (regardless of sexual orientation), and in the call to compassionate citizenship in a continuing revolutionary struggle against poverty, we socialists and liberals still have much to contribute and accomplish.

Ernst Cassirer and the Philosophy of Symbolic Forms.

Please compare this essay to "George Santayana's Darkest Hour and the Mysteries of Quantum Mechanics" and "The 'Galatea Scenario' and the Mind/Body Problem."




I was up late last night finishing Ernst Cassirer's book Language and Myth (New York: Harper&Bros., 1946). I wish to discuss some insights found in that work. For present purposes, I shall confine my supplemental sources to Cassirer's Essay on Man (New Haven: Yale, 1944). My copy is the Bantam paperback version of this work. And I shall also make use of S.G. Lofts, Ernst Cassirer: A Repetition of Modernity (New York: SUNY Press, 2000).

I will not refer to Susan K. Langer or the important French thinkers influenced by Cassirer. Cassirer is one of those very impressive Germans. We bow to them, the "Master Thinkers," and genuflect in their direction, because they are always suggestive to us in our own reflections. Admittedly, Cassirer is both pretty clear and still profound in a very heavy, Euro-theorist way. All the years of teaching at Yale must have helped.

I am attaching Cassirer's photo to this essay. Images are often blocked by New Jersey's hackers and, soon, I may be prevented from posting any images to accompany my writings. However, while it is possible to do so, I like to give readers a sense of the humanity of philosophers.

Cassirer's work may be associated with the writings of Gadamer and Ricoeur (who is French, but can hold his own with the Germans), as well as Derrida and numerous theologians. To my knowledge, regrettably, there has been no substantial effort to associate the works of Cassirer with Chomsky's rationalistic linguistics. Aside from the classical Rationalists, Chomsky's work is ripe for comparison with the new philosophy of symbolic forms as well as with recent defenses of a priori reasoning, notably in the work of Christopher Peacocke. Some theological writings making use of R.G. Collingwood's work on history and aesthetics may also be associated with this tradition of reflection on symbolic and interpretive rationality.

Cassirer's dates are 1874 to 1945. He began his intellectual work as a philosopher of science, after completing studies in Marburg, but became a leading member of the Neo-Kantian movement in Germany, impressing even Heidegger and Husserl with his awesome learning. Like Jung, Cassirer's range of scholarly and scientific references is breathtaking. Cassirer remained a Kantian throughout his intellectual life, shifting his focus from a search for the attributes of mind in the form of the "Categories of the Understanding" (Critique of Pure Reason) to language, as the ocean in which we both swim and seek understanding as well as knowledge in our search for fully human lives.

Cassirer was a model of ethical behavior. He resigned his position in Germany with the rise of the Nazis, opposed antisemitism, was always on the side of civil liberties and universal human rights. He is a source for both hermeneutic interpreters and phenomenological thinkers. Think of the difference between understanding (humanities) and knowledge (science), which of these ways of grasping "what is" do you find most useful in the effort to figure out what people are like? Do you agree that we need both to fully understand persons? If so, why?

This is an open book test, folks, use anything you like. In a way, Cassirer's work deals with exactly these questions and tries to answer them.

I was prompted to these reflections by a recent consideration of Daniel Dennett's discussion of the religious impulse in persons, which suffers (I believe) from an overly narrow understanding of mythical and poetic thinking, as well as from a failure to fully appreciate the pervasiveness of imagination in all theorizing and reasoning. Cassirer locates the mythic impulse in humanity within the ambiguity and mystery of language:

All linguistic denotation is essentially ambiguous -- and in this ambiguity, this "paronymia" of words lies the source of all myths. ("Metaphor is Mystery.")

It follows that:

Mythology is inevitable, it is natural, it is an inherent necessity of language, if we recognize in language the outward form and manifestation of thought; it is in fact the dark shadow that language throws upon thought, and which can never disappear till language becomes entirely commesurate with thought, which it never will. Mythology, no doubt, breaks out more fiercely in the early period of the history of human thought, but it never disappears altogether. Depend upon it, there is mythology now as there never was in the time of Homer, only we do not perceive it, because we ourselves live in the very shadow of it, because we all shrink from the full meridian light of truth ... Mythology, in the highest sense, is the power exercised by language on thought in every possible sphere of mental activity.

We need to remind Professor Dennett of Cassirer's point concerning language. The mystery of language and its dual nature as both a precise description and a deep reflection (mirror and door?) of our dreaming and practical natures, as embodied minds, leads to paradoxes of simultaneous descriptiveness and allusiveness, which are contained in words "formed" into sentences. Words, for Cassirer, are the most crystalized "form" (eidos) of the symbol. And symbols are what is found at the bottom of all thought -- including scientific thought -- because they are the sources and bases of languages.

... all mental processes fail to grasp reality itself, and in order to represent it, to hold it at all, they are driven to the use of symbols. But all symbolism harbors a curse of mediacy; [this great thinker, you will notice, speaks of "curses." Symbolism] is bound to obscure what it seeks to reveal. Thus the sound of speech strives to "express" subjective and objective happening, the "inner" and the "outer" world; but what of this it can retain is not the life and individual fullness of existence, but only a dead abbreviation of it. All that "denotation" to which the spoken word lays claim is really nothing more than mere suggestion ...

Hence,

... knowledge as well as myth, language and art, has been reduced to a kind of fiction -- to a fiction that recommends itself by its usefulness, but [can] not be measured by any strict standard of [external] truth, [unless it is] to melt away into nothingness.

The campus relativists are getting exited at this point. Calm down people. "Hey, that means it's all relative!" Not quite. Cassirer is a Kantian, who discovers objectivity and truth in language and its use, in the power of symbols to convey meaning. Yet it is an internal truth -- internal to language-using animals, meaning us, deploying valid descriptions of a world filtered through the prism of mind and our dreaming-wishing faculties, so that phenomenologists and Freudians, Jungians, structuralists and deconstructionists all pick up Cassirer's batton and run with it in different directions. No we do not lose objectivity as a feature of languages and their use.

Cassirer pauses to make an epistemological point, then moves on to his ultimate interests (dictated by the logic of his discourse) in religion and art. I will leave his views of art for another day. First, epistemology:

Our epistemology will not have any real foundation until philology and mythology have revealed the processes of involuntary and unconscious conception. The chasms between specific perception and general concepts is far greater than our academic notions, and a language that does our thinking for us, leads us to suppose.

Think of all that is left out, for example, from legal language. What happens to a mind, even a good one, habituated to such a linguistic "mold" for apprehending reality? What will such a mind fail to appreciate? What will such a mind not perceive? http://www.judiciary.state.nj.us/lon.jpg

Legal scholar and philosopher of law, James B. White, has devoted his work to the examination of legal language and thought. Professor White's writings are fascinating on the ways that legal and political issues are shaped, often decisively, by the unconscious structures and forms of legal language which alters the mind by means of an unexamined rhetoric of rules. See James B. White, The Legal Imagination (Boston: Little & Brown, 1973).

Professor Cassirer discovers at the deepest center of language both an ethical drive and a religious presence, "the shadow of God" in the power of "naming." Symbolizing is always a gesturing at something transcendent. Thus, it is inevitable that:

Every impression that man receives, every wish that stirs in him, every hope that lures him, every danger that threatens him can affect him religiously. Just let spontaneous feeling invest the object before him, or his own personal condition, or some display of power that surprises him, with an air of holiness, and the momentary god has been experienced and created. ...

Notice where this takes him:

Reason and Understanding, Wealth, Chance, Climax, Wine, Feasting, OR THE BODY OF THE BELOVED. ... Whatever comes to us suddenly like a sending from heaven, whatever rejoices or grieves or oppresses us, seems to the religious consciousness like a divine being. As far back as we can trace the Greeks, they subsume such experiences under the generic term of [eidos? catharsis? or ecstasy?].

For Cassirer, every genuine judgment -- based on conceptualizing -- is "synthetic," in a Kantian sense, because it is a uniting of parts into a whole. Thus, human language-use and thought is inherently religious as well as moral ("words dignify reality") because it is suggestive of the metaphysical tasks assigned to all of us, including escaping the individual ego into the social, moving from particular to universal, as material bodies reaching for their spiritual essences. (See "Why I am not an ethical relativist.")

This fecund and creative core of language in the primal "naming power" -- the divine, if you like -- is a feminine principle. Cassirer's knowledge of anthropology is awesome. God or the divine, if you wish to express it metaphorically, is first feminine and prior to the masculine divinity in human linguistic history. Fans of the Matrix films should note that this would make the Oracle earlier than the Architect of the Matrix. Think about whether it makes more sense to associate the feminine as opposed to the masculine principle with "giving birth" to consciousness or language, civilization flows from religious "representation." A number of scholars now suggest that literature as well as religion may be women's inventions -- these "discourses" may amount to the same activity or art. (Harold Bloom, Marina Warner, Elaine Pagels.)

The first creation of the word must have been inspired by some idea of a living, personal being, the "Startler," and "Flight Producer"; in countless applications of the supposed abstract word, this being still appears ... The same process must be assumed for the making of all feminized abstractions. The feminine adjective only became an abstraction after it had denoted a female personage, and in primitive times this could not have been conceived as anything but a goddess.

The power to name, which is true dominion over creation -- the source of all thinking and consciousness -- may be traced to the feminine principle, which is later given mythic expression and demoted from the divine to our old friend Eve, running around in the buff in that famous garden. Human intelligence and imagination both come from the feminine side of the human mind, which would not surprise me. Women, wow. Now what do you say when they tell you to take out the garbage? "Yes, mam."

Those men who are not too depressed by all of this, may wish to check out Elaine Pagels, Adam, Eve, and the Serpent (New York: Random House, 1988), especially chapters 4 and 5, also the writings of the theologian Elizabeth Johnson, especially She Who Is. (See my short story "Faust in Manhattan.") Do not consult The Da Vinci Code.

Finally, we live in the age of psychobabblers and people who are, "like, really scientific," and hence, way above "mere" philosophy. Much worse are persons whose intellectual lives are confined to subjects likely to be found on the bar exam. Some of these persons enjoy inserting errors in my writings. I wonder why?

Much of this important scholarship is lost on anxious education and psychology majors as well as law students in search of "studies" concerning what "four out of five dentists" tell us about life or what Oprah Winfrey thinks is the meaning of it all. Meanwhile, George Steiner -- in a Cassirer-inspired moment -- reminds us, sadly and wearily, of what it means to be human and what we are called upon to do as intellectuals in a jaded age:

I sense that we shall not come home to the facts of our unhousedness, of our eviction from a central humanity [Adam and Eve in that garden again] in the face of the tidal provocations of political barbarism and technocratic servitude, if we do not redefine, if we do not re-experience, the life of meaning in the text, in music, in art. We must come to recognize, and the stress is on re-cognition, a meaningfulness which is that of a FREEDOM of giving and of reception beyond the constraints of immanence. [sic.]

Finally, I can really appreciate these words after struggling against spyware, viruses and hackers this morning:

To argue this, to make it even worth serious disagreement, I must look insistently at the relations between language and the boundaries of language on the one hand, and the nature of aesthetic statement and [religious] experience on the other. I must, even if only provisionally, consider the intimate complementarities between an authentic act of reading, an authentic motion of answerability to music and art, and the rights to human privacy [do not interfere with a person creating his or her work!] to the wholly personal hospitality we owe our own death -- rights and an indebtedness now under pressure of narcotic devaluation in a culture of the secondary.

Real Presences (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1989), pp. 49-50.

Norman Mailer is right, "the shits are killing us." Cassirer and Steiner's works are reminders of what is still possible in intellectual life, if only we will listen so as to be.