Responding to Peter Beinart’s apology for supporting the war (unimpressive by comparison with the Bjorn Staerk piece I linked recently, but at least expressing some willingness to look at the reasons he got it so wrong) Hilzoy makes an important point
I admire Peter Beinart’s willingness to think about what he got wrong, and why. But while I think that he’s right to say that we can’t be the country the Iraqis and South Africans wanted us to be — a country wise enough to liberate other countries by force — there’s another mistake lurking in the train of thought he describes. Namely:
It’s not just that we aren’t the country Beinart wanted to think we were; it’s that war is not the instrument he thought it was …
Violence is not a way of getting where you want to go, only more quickly. Its existence changes your destination. If you use it, you had better be prepared to find yourself in the kind of place it takes you to.
There’s something even more fundamental to the appeal of violence. People are often faced with an unjust situation, where there is no apparent way to put things right. The injustice can be political or economic, as with a dictatorship or an unfair allocation of wealth, or it can be something like an incurable disease striking a loved one.
In these circumstances, where rational thinking produces a counsel of despair, it’s natural to take the view that “you have to do something”. In the case of incurable illness, the response may be a search for “miracle cures”. In other contexts, it’s more likely to be a resort to violence. This response is evident, not only in overtly political contexts, but in a whole genre of Hollywood movies where the protagonist (usually, but not always, male) is “mad as hell, and not going to take it any more”, and in real-life events that inspire, or are inspired by, such movies.
Sometimes, violence or the threat of violence is indeed the only effective way to resist injustice, but mostly it’s a way of making a bad situation worse.
To sum up, Violence is not a way of getting what you can’t have
(Via Surfdom)
* In a probably vain attempt to keep debate on track, I’ll say that violence in self-defence, or in defence of others who are under immediate attack, is sometimes necessary (World War II being the prime example, along with recent cases like that of Bosnia). There’s some room for argument about the limits of such defensive war, but I don’t intend to argue about that. On the other hand, examples where initiating violence is the only way to achieve goals that can’t be achieved peacefully, and where the benefits of resorting to violence exceed the short-run and long-run costs, are very few.
John Quiggin 
Rufus Issacs wrote a book on Differential Games (complicated decision problems many of which involve conflict) where his opening gambit was – not all problems have a solution. Some do but not all. I think you are saying violence does not solve many problems, a point I agree with. Violent solutions are often understood as ‘decisive moves’ (the ‘male’ in your movies) to end a difficult situation particularly when one side has overwhelming power. They typically turn out not to be so – the suggestion of decisiveness is illusory. David can beat Goliath or put vup a good fight.
Violence changes your destination? Yes, if you hurt someone they (& their allies) will want to hurt you even more. And violence is seldom neat – there are ‘indirect costs’ and a myriad of complexities. Violence begets violence.
Yes the dire situation in Iraq an instance.
I was talking to someone the other day about the possibility of the US invading Iran. It occurred to me that the best argument against the invasion was simple. A lot of people will be killed and injured and there isn’t much that justifies that. It’s the answer of a child but its probably the right answer.
I enjoyed this post – pacifism is probably not sensible but, as an ethic, it isn’t stupid either.
Harry Clarke, violence begets violence, of course it will. As a rural person, you don’t cause agnst to animals (or people) by being violent , you will get bitten, you judge the occasion and act in a non threating manner to come to an arrangement, to each an advantage. Any one who handles livestock knows this, hell, it’s natural. There’s no ego involved , no power play, it’s common sense. So we get Bush, Blair, Howard stuff up where they use an elected position to play greed and ego games, to justify their position, and whilst they are so bloody keen to use our children in their thoughtless power trips,where were they when the call to arms(Viet Nam, or Falklands) were being played out. (As an aside,was anyone around when Howard locked himself in a car at a anti Viet Nam demo in Sydney?, when the crowd booed him?), I was, and I was also in the numbers lottery and called up.
I can’t express myself as well as most of you do here, however I hope you know what I’m trying to say. I’d like to see these three (Howard et al; ) spend a fourteen hour day sorting out cows and calves, shearers, dogs , cranky old ewes, rams , the local Shire, (not in any particular order) then get tossed around by the ATO, that teaches you tolerance , these people just have no idea, and as for the Rodent, well he’s an old man, so am I, however I hope, know, I’m more respected than he will ever be, I may not have made a mark on Australia the way he has,but I have tried to live a decent life.
Organised, structured violence such as the violence inflicted by police or an army can actually be very effective. That’s because they know where they are going, and violence is the way to get there. War may not tame the Iraqis but did indeed sterminated hundreds of indigenous populations across the world. Police intimidation, persecution, torture and murder work pretty well in keeping people passive and/or acquiescent.
Nanni suggests that violence must be major and decisive to be effective.
Thus one of the beliefs in Afghanistan is that if you are to kill one member of a family then the whole family must be killed as otherwise there is a need to avenge the death which can involve negotiation over a blood price or else killing in return. No doubt this reflects a long term failure of the rule of law as well as tribal customs – however it is part of the reason why the war is still not over.
One of the significant failures of the current US adventure in Afghanistan and Iraq is that the USA was not prepared to put in sufficient forces to subdue all all opposition and neither did it understand the psychology of the people or their access to weaponry equivalent to that used by the invaders. Violence has escalated and there is no violent solution on offer – in the end diplomacy is the only solution – if this is possible where violence has been so prevalent for so long.
Jill — how many forces do you think the US would need to commit, and how long do you think they would have to stay there to “win”?
You can look at the type of forces the French had in Algeria, Russia had in Afghanistan, Russia has in Chenya etc. My guess is that the Americans would need so many forces for so long they would bascially be broke by the time anything useful changed.
“I have tried to live a decent life…”
Hear, hear.
As the revelations from the NSW Coroner’s inquiry into the Balibo Five have shown, decency seems inimical to our political class and has been for a long time. The deal Howard has clearly struck with Cheney for Hicks to be offered some sort of plea bargain allowing him to be labelled a terrorist and released but not allowed to talk to anyone shows how these people think. Would such a deal be being considered if Hicks was a genuine terrorist? Of course not. Hicks’s freedom was sacrificed without a second thought because it was politically expedient to do so, and now he is to be offered partial freedom in order to neutralise the political embarrassment he has become.
It’s like Dostoevsky’s thesis in the Devils: having the power of life and death makes you feel god-like – the trouble is that it’s much easier to get that feeling by engaging in dealing death. Giving and enhancing life is a much tougher ask. Tony Soprano has higher aspirations to living the decent life than these people.
Under the post “What Went Wrong?” (1/3/07), Jack Strocchi said: “…We should not invade their world and try to make them over into facsimiles of us. Iraqis dont like being invaded and even if they did it is doubtful whether their culture could adapt to modern civic norms…” The resort to violence is partially predicated (insofar as there are any justifications outside domestic political expediency) on a very old fashioned racism. “Our newly-conquered peoples,/ Half devil and half child” is apparently a continuing attitude.
The objective of influence is consent.
Sometimes consent has been manufactured by genocide. This is the history of New World settler societies, including Australia and the US. Non-consenting populations were removed or wiped out and replaced with consenting populations.
That option isn’t available in the Middle East.
Therefore, consent must be achieved by persuasion.
Yet, the means used by the COW to persuade are identical in quality, if not quantity, to the means previously used to exterminate.
The history of imperialism is too well-known, including by the people of Iraq. The use of violence, especially garrisoned soldiers, immediately reminds people of the appalling history of imperialism.
This memory, knowledge and suspicion serves as the most effective recruiting sergeant for armed resistance.
The occupying powers are constantly faced with a dilemma: do we risk looking more like imperialists by ramping up our military commitment, or do we deny and repudiate one of the foundational myths of our culture: that frontier violence works?
Jill Rush makes a good point about the unwillingness of the COW to commit sufficient troops to achieve a monopoly of violence.
Part of the reason for this failure is the paralysing effects of the dilemma I mentioned above.
But the major reason is that sufficient forces simply don’t exist. That is because subject peoples have learned from history. They know how to destroy the pretensions of imperialists.
Thus Bush lost as soon as he lost the debate in Iraq over whether or not the US was imperialist in intent.
I believe Bush didn’t have to lose that debate. In that crucial facet of the war, Bush was his own worst enemy.
I think the key sentence here is “examples where initiating violence is the only way to achieve goals that can’t be achieved peacefully…are very few”. I would suggest, not so few – which may be why wars persist (and some states are more warlike than others).
The US had some remarkable successes in its early wars of conquest – the Mexican-American, Spanish-American wars and, of course, the seizure of native American lands (which seems to have been done with much greater violence than the Canadian equivalent). The Spanish war gave them not only Cuba, but also Hawaii, Guam (seized as staging posts) and the Philippines. The other two gave them a continent-sized state.
I tend to agree with Nanni on this one. Of course JQ is also right about the calculation required. Hubris seems to have been a major problem in some recent cases.
Pr Q says:
Pr Q is making a simple but profound point, although he has not gotten around to explaining its profundity. Our ancestors evolved to use violence for both the redress bads and progress of goods.
We did not inherit sophisticated means of moral calculation. We have inherited an instinct to shoot first and ask questions later.
This is why primitive man is naturally aggressive both in inter-personal and inter-political relations. We are naturally pacifistic to most familiars. And militaristic to most foreigners.
Sometime, not too long ago, we discvered civilization. This, institutional terms, means granting citizens rights to lawful process against each other and like recognition by the state. We can call this civil legalism.
It is unlikely, going by the German experience, that civility is a biologically conserved instinctual inheritance. More likely civility is a sociologically constructed intellectual imprint.
The fact that our technological inventions and sociological institutions are so much more powerful and complex now means that our instinct for violence has a much greater capacity to cause mischief. It therefore must be ever more vigilantly curbed.
Thus the progress of civilism means we should become more legalistic and less militaristic. And the process of legalism is more effective as we become more globalist and less tribalist.
All this is common sense but can become clouded in the heat of battle and the fog of war.
Hilzoy says:
It seems that military action is not a good replacement for policing and in the case of people living where there is no effective police and judiciary, the urge to join an armed group and do something must be high, especially if you are on the receiving end already. Of course, without doing proper investigating and lacking requirements for evidence, militias and military will act against perceived as well as proven enemies. There is evidence to show that people get pleasure/satisfaction from seeing someone perceived to be bad get harmed. No trial or even clear evidence appears to be required. When simply being a member of a particular ethnic group is counted as being bad – or barbaric/uncivil – the abhorrance we ought to feel when those people come to harm is absent. We may actually enjoy it. Especially if it’s at a safe distance and we don’t have to see the messy details and messy consequences first hand.
Personally I don’t believe we are so much more civil or are less capable of barbaric acts than those in Iraq – we have the good fortune to live where there are more or less effective police and courts and thus have less incentive as well as disincentives to take matters into our own hands.
Violence has achieved not just the ‘consent’ of the conquered, (Katz) it has also secured the grounds for democracy and for many of the rights and liberties now enjoyed by everybody writing on this blog. Civil wars (English and US), civil strife, and resistance to occupation to name just a few instances of organised and disorganised violence, have all been part of the ‘mix’ of actions used by people to achieve their aims, or to defend what they believed to be their rights.
It is more interesting to look at who is propounding the use of violence and the aims asserted for its utility, than to speak in ‘generalities’ about it. Pacifists are the only people who have a consistent view on the topic, based on a total rejection of physical force as a means of achieving desires, whether individual or social.
The Iraq war was violence unleashed on a people in the name of a spurious cause, and for reasons that had nothing to do (except in the ex post facto justifications for it) with the well being of the people of Iraq, their security or safety. The key thing is that the people against whom the violence of invasion and occupation was launched, had no say, absolutely no say at all, in the whole exercise. ‘Bad faith’ barely covers the arguments and reasoning advanced by those who now argue that the supposed ‘ends’ of that debacle (democracy) justified the means (the total destruction of the whole society).
This is not at heart an argument about violence, it is an argument about the kind of politics which supports violence in terms of the ‘identities’ of those that practice it. We can see this clearly, in the horror rightly expressed at the loss of life occasioned by the destruction of the World Trade Centre, and the insouciance expressed by most on the question of how many Iraqis have actually lost their lives through the violence extended ‘on their behalf’ in their own country.
Conrad,
I don’t believe that any number of troops would win in Afghanistan – a country that has managed to shake off ( with horrific results) every conqueror in recent history. The terrain is brutal , people’s houses are fortresses and the war lords are laws unto themselves.
That being said I am not sorry that the Taliban were displaced – a more miserable group of people would be hard to imagine.
However the culture where revenge runs deep would require a great deal more winning of hearts and minds – ie non military resources than the COW has been prepared to install. Really it needs to be one or the other – insufficient military and insufficient nation building result in the kinds of disorder we now see in both Afghanistan and Iraq.
We’re back at ends and means then. And I dissent from ‘stoptherubbish’.
The ‘ends’ used to frame the march to war in Iraq–disarm/disposes Saddam, democracy in the middle-east, drain the swamp!–were commendable. Hell, I was writing letters and standing forlornly in the rain saying this kind of stuff back in the late 1980s. What our utter failure in Iraq confirms to me is that we lacked the means, as wise voices were saying from the get go. I don’t see how ‘the total destruction of the whole society’ can be thought of as ‘means’. That’s an output. Not an input. Another 250,000 troops and another $250 Billion dollars might have produced another, better outcome.
Read Wes Clark’s book on NATO in Yugoslavia. In that war the end was regime change in Serbia, motivated by Serbian support for humanitarian atrocities being committed in the rest of the former We’re back at ends and means then. And I dissent from ‘stoptherubbish’.
The ‘ends’ used to frame the march to war in Iraq–disarm/disposes Saddam, democracy in the middle-east, drain the swamp!–were commendable. Hell, I was writing letters and standing forlornly in the rain saying this kind of stuff back in the late 1980s. What our utter failure in Iraq confirms to me is that we lacked the means, as wise voices were saying from the get go. I don’t see how ‘the total destruction of the whole society’ can be thought of as ‘means’. That’s an output. Not an input. Another 250,000 troops and another $250 Billion dollars might have produced another, better outcome.
Read Wes Clark’s book on NATO in Yugoslavia. In that war the end was regime change in Serbia, motivated by Serbian support for humanitarian atrocities being committed in the rest of the former Yugoslavia (specifically Kosovo). The means was air power to undermine the Serbian economy–the comfort of the serbs themselves and mindful of the need to avoid casualties–backed up by a threat of ground invasion–a threat undermined by Bill Clinton’s public diplomacy. The strategy was to ‘encourage’ the serbian people to change the regime. Now, in that case, violence worked. Milosevic backed down over Kosovo, and was replaced as President in a non-violent revolution about a year later. It didn’t work perfectly, of course, but the Balkans are more stable and the lives of the people living there are improved as a result.
You can make the case that even if we had had truly brilliant technical and bureaucratic leadership (and we have not) in Iraq, and even if we had had another 250,000 troops and another $250 billion, it would still have not been enough. Saddam’s regime had been in place for 3 decades, the history of Iraq gives us no precident for how it might be governed as a single country without an iron fist, and there are powerful external actors who care about the outcome of the conflict. The Balkans had an equally troubled history (read Kaplan’s _Balkan_Ghosts_ Tony Judt’s _Postwar_ for the recent stuff) but the region had just been through one revolution (Hell! What’s another one!) and no external actors cared much about the outcome (except Russia, who sent troops into an airport, but were talked out of it).
So, IF getting rid of Sadaam H./Slobodan M.) was a good idea (it was), and IF the means are adequate to achieve the end (they were not/they were), then intervention can be a good thing. And this isn’t an idle question. In Zimbabwe, and east Africa, we’re going to have to ask it of ourselves again.
Memo to Self: Learn 2 Cut-n-Paste, noob!
One could almost mistake JQ for a libertarian. But alas experience tells us that he is very much in favour of violence and coercion.
Terje, this kind of point would be reasonable coming from a pacifist anarchist. But I understand you, and nearly all libertarians, to support violence and coercion (either by states or individuals) in the enforcement of property rights.
That’s not violence, JQ. That’s business.
John,
As you so correctly stated sometimes violence or the threat of violence is indeed the only effective way to resist injustice. I don’t need to be a pacifist to agree with you on that.
Clearly my intended objection was not with regards to you manifesting support for violence and coercion when resisting injustice but with regards to your track record of supporting it beyond the resistance of an injustice.
If somebody is trying to steal your car I’d fully support your decision to resist this injustice with violence (eg punch the bastard). However if somebody uses violence to steal your car because you have two cars and they have none, then I’d condemn their behaviour.
In terms of institutionalised coersion and violence you would seem to fail the libertarian litmus test because you sanction the car theft behaviour if the thief wears a uniform and is popular with the mob and steals from the notionally rich to give to the notionally poor.
Obviously you don’t regard yourself as a libertarian anyway so calling a spade a spade should be no big deal. Your words that I initially quoted were however quite spot on.
Regards,
Terje.
As you say, Terje, I’m not a libertarian, so my conception of justice differs from yours. But I agree that I share with at least some libertarians (though not most in the US who wear this label) a distrust of claims made about the efficacy of violent action, whether by states or their opponents.
Yes I think that you are right. The difference hinges on notions of justice. You support violence and coersion in ways that I think is completely unjust. However I’ll concede that you do it whilst flying a flag adorned with the word justice. I just think it’s a false flag under which all manner of abuse is perpetrated and all manner of injustice enacted. So I don’t much like your flag even if you fly it with sincerity and even if it includes nice words.
My understanding is that most US libertarians opposed the invasion of Iraq. So I am not sure what specifically your exclusion of “American” libertarians relates to.
Two types of people employ violence readily; sociopaths, and 10 year olds.
In my experience, most libertarians are neither. Kinda out of touch with reality. Deluded, mebbe. But not sociopathic.
Ten year olds and sociopaths also employ violence in the name of justice. It is just that their notion of justice is lacking in symmetry. They identify with a form of justice that lacks empathy and is bigoted against the other in deference to the self. However sociopaths and 10 year olds are not unique in their capacity for such bigotry.
Libertarians clearly have a vision for the world that looks deluded to some. However it is not clear to me that it is the libertarians that are out of touch with reality. They are perhaps just highly ambitious in what they strive for. But as they say “every dog has it’s day”.
“But I understand you, and nearly all libertarians, to support violence and coercion (either by states or individuals) in the enforcement of property rights.”
Trouble is, the most problematic instances of violence today have little to do with individuals, and neither is it state v state issues of sovereignty.
Rather, the major issues connected with property rights are concomitants of ethnic cleansing.
Thus, white settler states like Australia are still negotiating with indigenous populations over how much of the property that was expropriated from them is really theirs.
The same applies across the Balkans as the ethnic map is redrawn, yet again.
And the never-ending crisis in Israel-Palestine is fuelled by Palestinian outrage that the property rights of individual Palestinians were infringed by the State of Israel as the foundational act of expropriation preparatory to a massive act of ethnic cleansing.
An interesting counter-example to these issues was the approach of the German government to unification of the two Germanies. The DDR annulled much private title to property. And this remained the state of play for 40 years. Yet, when reunification occurred, many pre-Communist titles were recognised.
In all of these cases, property was theft. But right-wing libertarians prefer to picture property relations as if they were simply disagreements between individuals with equal access to restorative justice.
This patently isn’t the case. And when it isn’t the case, one remedy can be violence.
Hear hear Katz.
One quibble: “And the never-ending crisis in Israel-Palestine is fuelled by Palestinian outrage that the property rights of individual Palestinians were infringed by the State of Israel as the foundational act of expropriation preparatory to a massive act of ethnic cleansing.”
Fuel is being shovelled into the conflagration each new day – this process of expropriation is still going on. Peace Now has revealed in a detailed study that over 40% of land on which West Bank Jewish settlements are being built is privately owned Palestinian land to which the owners have extant title documents. http://www.peacenow.org.il/data/SIP_STORAGE/files/9/2569.pdf
Are you saying that Palestinians are allowed to believe in property rights but libertarians aren’t?
Not sure if this was pitched at me. However I already acknowledged violence as a legitament and effective means to resisting an injustice.
“Are you saying that Palestinians are allowed to believe in property rights but libertarians aren’t?”
Depends on what you mean by “property rights”. If you agree with my categorisation of the different ways in which property rights have been infringed, then disagreement would appear to be unlikely. If you deny that Palestinians had any property rights infringed, then your definition of property rights is deficient.
“Not sure if this was pitched at me. However I already acknowledged violence as a legitament and effective means to resisting an injustice.”
It wasn’t pitched at anyone.
I agree that their property rights were infringed. I think that restorative justice is quite problematic in this case which further strengthens my view that property rights should be treated as somewhat sacred in the first instance.
So there is something more sacred than property rights?
Or is there something more sacred than the property rights of Palestinians only?
Or are Palestinians part of a larger group of folks whose property rights are less sacred than others’ property rights?
No. Their property rights are as sacred as anybody elses. Are you disagreeing with the assertion that restorative justice in this instance is problematic? It is not as simple as asking a kid to return the tennis ball he took from his classmate, even if the principles are essentially the same.
There is a reasonable argument that property rights that are lost through theft will decline over time. The taxes that were taken from me 10 years ago can not easily be restored. The crimes of conquest that my viking ancestors undertook can not be undone. The point is not that we should (or shouldn’t) untangle the legacies of history but more that we should be guided by history to ensure that our institutional conventions minimise a repeat of such folly and injustice.
It is hard to unscramble an egg. So if scrambled eggs is a problem it is best to take measures to avoid the scrambling.
“It is not as simple as asking a kid to return the tennis ball he took from his classmate, even if the principles are essentially the same.”
No, it’s simpler. In the case of a tennis ball you have nothing more solid than two conflicting stories. In the case of real estate you have a title that is provable in a court of law, if one exists.
You are free to challenge in a court of law the right of the government to tax you. Good luck.
At some stage in the past the victims of Vikings gave up their efforts to have their property returned. This is not the case with Palestinians. Nor was it the case of those persons whose property had been confiscated by the DDR.
In some jusidictions squatters may gain legal title by adverse possession so long as their possession of real estate is not challenged by the putative owner.
If the state of Israel has claimed that Palestinian title has been annulled by adverse possession, I’d be interested to have such information. Otherwise, so far as I know, the state of Israel has not annulled Palestinian title. It has merely transferred custodianship.
I’ll work on the kid who took the tennis ball. You work on Israel. Lets see who encounters the most difficulties.
As regards getting the government to return my taxes there is a problem with restorative justice via the courts. The courts recognise the rules made by the government not the rules made by me. It is precisely the imbalance you alluded to earlier. Of course institutionalising the rule of law, like institutionalising property rights, is on balance a good thing. However if laws allow routine plunder of private property (such as my pay cheque) then we don’t get the best of both.
The tennis ball example seems simpler to you because you imagine yourself to have a monopoly of violence.
But that isn’t the sense in which we have been discussing “simpler”. We mean “more clear cut”.
Katz:
On the contrary, it is only the threat of violence that ensures the government can continue violating my property rights by taking an ever increasing proportion of my income in taxes.
If I refuse to pay, they take me to court. If I refuse to abide by the court’s orders, they issue a warrant for my arrest. If I refuse to go quietly, the police will employ violence, up to and including murder, in order to force my compliance.
“If I refuse to pay, they take me to court. If I refuse to abide by the court’s orders, they issue a warrant for my arrest. If I refuse to go quietly, the police will employ violence, up to and including murder, in order to force my compliance.”
So Libertarian, when was the last time you did this? I should guess that you are so habituated to doing this that less violence is needed to make you do it than is needed to stop you from murdering your next door neighbour.
Therefore the background threat of violence is no more intrusive in relation to tax than it is in relation to murder.
Are you any more a murderer than you are a tax rebel?
I think not.
Katz, the background threat of violence is the only thing keeping me paying my taxes.
Morality prevents me murdering my neighbour.
But the authorities’ threat of violence to induce you to pay your taxes isn’t problematic, Libertarian. You don’t resist it. Therefore it isn’t a problem to the tax collecting authorities. It may be a problem to you in the sense of emotional outrage, but who cares, besides your good and law abiding self.
Whereas the Palestinians have been resisting violent usurpation of their property for more than 50 years.
Let us all know when you actually decide to resist so that we can follow your fate in the newspapers.
Ah, but I do resist the authorities. Just not with violence, since short of declaring myself a sovereign state and raising my own militia, I can’t win that battle.
Like most citizens who pay far more than their fair share of taxes, I exploit every loophole in the tax laws that I am legally able to.
And who created those loopholes Libertarian?
You’re running through a maze made by your oppressor.
That’s what lab rats do.
How problematic is that?
Governments by-and-large don’t set out to create loopholes – they close them.
Nevertheless, regardless of whether tax-avoidance is problematic for the oppressors (they certainly like to claim it is), it is problematic for the oppressed.
Which was my original point.
If the Palestinians conceded to the expropriation of their property that would be problem solved for the state of Israel.
Quite clearly, that hasn’t happened.