Читать книгу Incompatibility and other essays - Peter Lustig - Страница 7

The fact that all the attempts designed to encompass the common interests of humanity have failed, up to a given point, suggests that certain dead ends must have been reached along the way, which were never taken sufficiently into account. Devising a workable strategy to deal fairly and comprehensively with the demands of society requires that those differences that have stood as insurmountable obstacles be defined and discussed at length, before they can be cast aside. This entails drawing up a list of all the known sources of conflict and checking out the reasons why they should have remained unsolved. Systematic failure needs to be traced to the inadequacy of the methods employed, bearing in mind that, although it must be accepted that all the solutions applying to human affairs can only be temporary, some tend to be more conclusive and durable than others and the difference depends only on how they were implemented. In brief, if upon close examination of irreconcilable positions it is found that these are based on unyielding beliefs and fiercely held convictions, coming to terms would call for a discussion as open and uncommitted as possible. Unless something sensible came out of such a discussion, liable to be put into practice, nothing of any consequence would have been attained. That is why a strategy and a method are necessary, given that good intentions alone will never do when it comes to bringing about a change in the hearts and the minds of folks who, for the most part, cannot be expected to make such an effort unaided.

Toward this end, work must proceed at two distinct levels: one to deal with the psychological aspects of personal and collective insecurity and the other, with the objective reality of history and its underlying driving forces. If these two realms of human concerns can be brought together, it can be said that one was on track; otherwise, the result could lead to unrelenting hostility and that, in turn, would make it obvious that nobody was in the least inclined to listen. The issue centring upon the individual and the circumstances would then have to be fought out.

The main purpose of this work is to show up the notion that fighting in order to uphold an idea is a form of behaviour both futile and irrational. Not only because of the ethical inconsistency involved in killing people to improve society, but because the outcome is left to chance, not reason. This should not be understood to mean that the use of force is to be rejected out of hand, as a matter of principle, such as pacifism would have it. But, as long as civilization is bent on making sure that individual freedom does not interfere with social restraints designed to favour solidarity, there will be conflicts of interest, some of which may appear unsolvable. Fighting will not change this, no matter which way it goes, as the world wars have proven, whenever a no win situation arose in the aftermath (which, of course, does not mean that anybody ought to have given up trying to win while the war was still on).

The ground for these wars was laid very thoroughly along theoretical lines. Afterwards, what came to the fore were certain priorities, out of necessity. Freedom never came into the picture, either during the fighting or after. Moreover, the unprecedented practical and humanitarian problems brought about by all out war led to the assessment that its causes had to be economic, and that it was safe to conclude that all the additional suffering that war had brought upon the world might be compensated for by reparations in kind. Reducing the concept of total war to that of a trade war is insubstantial and unworthy of comment. In fact, if the causes of the war were economic, they could be sorted out in the market, not the battlefield. There would be no need for any arms races. Yet, every denizen who qualifies for the draft is rated as a prospective soldier by the demographic statistics. Population figures are even being used as a dissuasive factor, before resorting to warfare, when it appears that the imbalance in manpower might be a deciding factor. (Why else would the U.S. have been reluctant to fight in Korea or South East Asia, while they held a conclusive advantage in industrial capacity and weaponry?) Alternately, as China had opened its economy, in the seventies, and its immense population was no longer regarded as a regional menace, one could hardly say that G.W.Bush’s initiative to integrate the Americas economically compares unfavourably with what is going on in Venezuela, Argentina or Bolivia under ideologically incompatible regimes, opposed to the U.S. for more than just economic reasons.

This being so, one would have to ask what the people who vote for politicians expressing seemingly unwarranted resentment expect to gain while, to all intents and purposes, they appear to be doing so against their own best interests. There has got to be a different reason, or a number of different reasons, capable of providing personal and collective reassurance before cultural discomfiture at the idea that, as a people, they would be suffering the demeaning effect of subjection at the hands of aliens or outsiders. Can it be said that such a disposition of mind ought to be taken casually, because everybody knows that market size creates economic dependency, by definition, reducing lesser partners to minor roles? Of course not, because this kind of subservience amounts to a loss of freedom.

Freedom can mean a lot of things, depending chiefly on whatever hopes and fears may appear foremost to a person, on his home ground. This is where the question of an identity comes into play. An identity only becomes distinct as it is reflected between individuals, within a community that shares some easily recognizable common traits. (That is why too much diversity in a community is not of much help to achieve this feeling of belonging and it is important to train individuals to conform to a pattern of behaviour through “education”)

Mention of an education brings up the question as to why, even though “uneducated” populations are so malleable to populism, “educated” populations should have had their heads turned by mindless psychos, who had not a thought for the cravings of individuals and whose only aim it was to lock everybody tightly into an airtight system that would respond instantly to each and every one of these maniacs’ whims. This refers to Hitler, Stalin and so forth. Such self-appointed emblems of a shared identity -whether they were called nationalists, communists, fascists, etc.- played upon the uncertainty of the fate that awaited each man who stood unprotected in the path of concerted ethnocentric or class centred action, among cheering crowds galvanized by a rousing sense of fellowship.

In some respects, it might be said that, supposing an overhead view of the plight of both Russia and Germany had been taken toward the end of World War II, it would have been hard to tell the losers from the winners, in terms of victimization and brutality (not to mention material deterioration). It would not take a very far-reaching guess to draw up a comparison of the conditions under which people in the Western democracies were living, with those of the population on the losing side. Hence, there would not be much reason to think that politics were being conducted very differently here and there. Who knows whether Churchill, Roosevelt or Truman would have fared better at a war crimes trial, if they had not won the war? After all, Karl Popper felt he had to write “The Open Society and Its Enemies” to provide moral justification for the West’s decision to fight, so as to make the point clear (presumably because it was not so easy to see).

There can be no question about the ethical motivation supporting the struggle for the survival of democracy being beyond dispute. But, the point being made here is that there was little difference between the values that upheld the faith in their cause, on either side. Furthermore, this same singularity of values was confirmed at the time of post-war reconstruction. It applied to individuals and communities alike. The same traditions, updated. The same loyalties and allegiances. Unfortunately, the same heroics and brainwashing that led previous generations to march joyfully to obliterate everything their upbringing had prepared them to revere, were revived almost as soon as the peace had been signed. Only out of precaution was a shooting war prevented and the cold war kept within limits. But the thinking patterns and the feelings were the same, save for the notion that political integration might save Europe from future heartbreak. To the extent that the European Union would eventually broaden the unit within which otherwise estranged, politically unviable, regional populations could be included, a tentative solution was provided to prevent the possibility of another war. However, in the process, historically relegated national identities were given a place under the sun and stimulated to live up to the same standards that had been curbed by the defeat of militant nationalism. How was becoming a part of the European Union different from lining up with Greater Germany? Could that account for having gone to war?

Writing to enhance people as individuals and as members of separate and sovereign community centred political entities, one is obliged to put forward the notion that, with all the evidence showing that the manner in which men were taught to stand up for themselves and define their identity could only lead to bloodshed and destruction, it is high time that this situation should be addressed from a different angle. Seeing that the largely untrained and illiterate, or barely literate, populations of the Third World might be easier to influence (as the natives of Latin America were influenced by the Church, from the earliest days of the conquista), it would seem unforthcoming to propose allowing one or two generations to go by before expecting any progress to materialize through education. Already the populist trend in politics -not only in Latin America, but chiefly in all those countries with profoundly divided societies- indicates that, even though the people may have little or no understanding of economics, everyone knows well enough what suits him best and politicians who focus on assisting the least favoured sectors will have won the day hands down. So much for populism. A cause that ought to be of greater concern involves what sort of people are really being helped, if elections are going to be won by whoever doles out the largest handout: those who cannot help themselves, or those who will not; or those who turn politics into a full scale racket?