The Borders of Things

On Citizenry

I told my friend Aaron Collier that I was trying to step back from political debates. But as soon as you do that, something strikes you as worth saying. So here goes.

Ever since I've read Wright's article on "Progressive Realism," I've been gnawing over the following statement:

"This sounds harsh, but it is only acknowledgment of something often left unsaid: a nation’s foreign policy will always favor the interests of its citizens and so fall short of moral perfection. We can at least be thankful that history, by intertwining the fates of peoples, is bringing national interest closer to moral ideals."

After I was chided a few months ago for using the term "just war," (a criticism I don't entirely agree with but can understand), I've been trying to determine if the needs of realpolitik must simply be accepted as such, and, as a consequence, the moral agnosticism that those needs demand. Clearly, even the most trenchant of conservative realists would not say that moral criteria are entirely irrelevant to the world of international shenanigans; but the extent to which they apply is another question.

For many "realists," the deciding factor will be the global market and the needs of the nation state. According to this logic, it is in a nation's best interests to act justly, since that is the best way to win friends and influence people. On those rare occassions that acting for the good of the nation falls outside any real ethics . . . well, you can't win them all.

While there is an honesty to this argument that I respect, I cannot accept it. Primarily because ethical reasoning is subordinated to "practical" or "pragmatic" reasoning. The markets come first and if ethical behavior, just actions, and wise stewardship can't fit the market--well, too bad for them. The line of argument doesn't start with what ought to be, it starts with, and ultimately ends with, what is. If you go too far down this path, you quickly end in a form of moral relativism under the guise of hard nosed "reality."

What's even worse, and this is where my "just war" opponents were trying to get me on, I think, is dissimulation--that is, acting pragmatically and purely pragmatically and speaking as if it is on ethical grounds. I would say this is at work in the anonymous administration official's statement regarding holding off pressure on Israel: "We are not going to be wagering with the lives of innocent people here.” Actually, that's exactly what we are doing: innocent people are dying, and will continue to die, over the next week. But Israel (who in a postmodern moment has denied the innocence of those civilians) and the US are saying that such an immoral act as killing the innocent is necessary for the security of Israel's citizens since it is inevitable if Hezbollah is to be defeated. And maybe in the needs of realpolitik they're right but that doesn't make them moral. It is the worst kind of hypocrisy to combine the two. (I personally think they're wrong, that this kind of killing only produces more terrorists, but that is the grounds of political debate, not moral debate per se).

But to divide the two, as I've suggested, has potentially horrific consequences. It results in moral nihilism and a purely instrumental logic that treats people as means to an end, the definition of moral ineptitude.

So what is the solution? I think it has to do with that fine principle of division of power. And I would say the crucial division is not between the executive, judicial, and legislative branches, but in the more basic division between the citizenry and the state. Here's why.

The state, at least in a representative government, is designed to both represent and rule. That is, it has a job to do, and like all jobs they are provisional, incomplete, and never perfect. But, as a site of power, the state is the principle agent--an actor which can make things happen. Consequently, the state is a moral agent: that is, the state can act morally or immorally precisely because it can act. The paradox, however, is that power is never produced by ethics, only desire. In other words, being ethical does not make you automatically more powerful. Arresting the desire for power, whether your own or others, is the source of power, and power in turn, narcissistically, always desires its own. This is machiavelli at his best; the very thing that is able to act morally must, because it is able to act, respond to other demands.

What counteracts this power? The citizenry. How? Precisely because the citizenry is free from the demands of power, the citizen is free to be a moral voice. The citizen is not an agent, per se, because the citizen gives up agency to the state. But, as a result, the citizen can (although does not always) respond to and advocate moral demands.

This is why a healthy citizenry is so important--and why those who try to make citizens submit to the demands of realpolitik are on the road to totalitarianism and an ethical wasteland. It is precisely because the citizenry can speak up, can call the power to account ethically, that it is able to exert a form of power even as it renounces it. The paradox of the citizen is that only by giving up the needs of power can it have an ethical voice, one which then can be used to influence the state. Those who would, for instance, tell people protesting war to get their heads out of their asses, are making a huge blunder--they are cutting off the moral voice. At the same time, those who would act as if the state is evil for not acting perfectly morally are also making a mistake--they do not understand the way power, once it is given, must work.

Of course, this all breaks down in a non-democratic system. If the opinion and voice of the citizen is silenced, then realpolitik becomes the only player in town. And of course the moral voice of the citizenry is not necessarily going to act ethically--as Deleuze points out, the German citizens were not duped. In a very real way, they wanted the gas chambers; they wanted fascism. But the state can't be trusted to morally reign in its citizens--its logic will not allow that. It will only act morally if it is in its best interests to do so. Which isn't acting morally at all.

Finally, I would like to suggest that there is one place where these two functions, the citizen and the state, come together. That is in the practice of community. In community, both moral agency and a moral voice exist simultaneously. But that is for another post.

Posted by pjaussen at July 19, 2006 05:42 PM | TrackBack