Well, almost personal. I never tortured anyone except some unfortunate members of a concert audience who had to hear me play the piano on an off-night. But my family did. Apropos of my First Things essay this morning on torture, it seems worth mentioning a not-so-hypothetical case.
Two of my father’s first cousins as well as their uncle survived three years of World War II as partisans in Belarus, not far from where the Bielski brothers’ resistance group was operating. They lived near Slonim, right on the eastern side of the German-Russian division of Poland in 1939. When the Germans marched in with Operation Barbarossa, they immediately killed all the Jews they could find in the border towns.
My grandfather’s sister Feige was the only one of his six siblings who did not join him in America. As the youngest, she had stayed to care for their ailing mother. When the Germans marched in, her teenaged children, Dvora and Moshe, ran out of the back door of the house through the tall grass of the adjoining meadow and reached the shelter of the forest. The parents were only seconds behind them with the baby, but could not reach the forest. They hid instead in the tall grass as the Germans searched the house. While Dvora and Moshe watched, their Polish neighbor pointed out the spot where Feige hid with her husband and child. The Germans killed them.
Dvora and Moshe made contact with their uncle Ascher in the forest and joined the little partisan group he led. Sometime later they made their way back to their village, barricaded the Polish neighbor inside his house, and put to the torch. The neighbor was burned alive.
That was torture, all right: they did it for revenge, and to make a horrible example of a Nazi collaborator. There is a case to made for the use of atrocities to discourage collaboration with radical evil. Did they do the right thing? There is a reason that in our morning prayers we ask God not to put us to the test. Would I have done the same thing in their position? There’s no way of stating the affirmative strongly enough without expletives discouraged on this site.
May 12th, 2009 |
They did the right thing, and not only pour encourager les autres, but it was decorous and fitting to respond to the Pole’s evil treachery in just this fashion.
May 12th, 2009 |
Yes. If someone had done that to members of my family, I like to think that I would have done the exact same thing that your cousins did. That’s justice. Morally, I believe it would be right.
May 13th, 2009 |
They became just as bad as the Nazis and the Polish collaborators when they did that. You don’t know if that Pole was forced by the Germans to show them the location of his Jewish neighbors or not.
May 13th, 2009 |
When one fights monsters, one must be careful not to turn into one. I do not see how one monstrous act can be righteous in light of another.
May 13th, 2009 |
The questions of what one would do and what one should do are distinct. But, at the end of the day, the honest thing to say at this point, at least from my Christian point of view, is that judgement belongs to the Lord (on both parties). Having said that, it remains true that (again, from a Christian point of view) forgiveness, i.e. the ability to give back life to souls killed by their own sins, is more expressive of the divine nature than revenge. In fact, the gravest moral question here is not whether it is right to burn somebody alive, but whether we can deny him the possibility of repentance and redemption, which is the appropriate definition of hatred.
May 13th, 2009 |
I am really surprised to read this Spengler article, let alone the major piece by Goldman in First Things, and the above comments. Is this a religious journal ? May I beg to disagree without being considered a “coward”, a weak guy, or even worse ? I thought that the roman catholic attitude would be “God forgives men” while the Jewish attitude would be “Men forgive men”. Eye for eye seems a bit archaïc to me.
May 13th, 2009 |
Thanks to all of you for your comments. My point is that some acts never are legal, in that we are instructed to do them, but are pardonable under extreme circumstances (which is why there exists the power of pardon).
Jean-Ollivier, the Jewish teaching is that God forgives man for sins against God, but that each person should ask forgiveness of others to whom offense was given. Lex talionis presumes that there are courts of law, and it insists on proportionate compensation (if you kill my sister, I can’t wipe out your family). In this case there was no law, only organized murder.
Carlo, you are making an argument against war in general. Catholic doctrine allows for war under certain circumstances. I am all for giving people the chance to repent, but we didn’t give that to all the people we killed by bombing, soldiers and civilians alike. Your point raises some strange moral issues, for example: if my cousins had shot their treacherous neighbor in the head with a high-powered rifle he would have had no time to repent, but he sure had time to repent while burning in his house.
Jonathan,
My point was that bombing civilian districts of cities during World War II was as monstrous an act as ever civilized peoples carried out, but that it was pardonable given exigent circumstances. Radical evil compels us to fight fire with fire.
Franz Ferdinand,
The neighbor in question was not forced by the Nazis to reveal the hiding place of my great-aunt. The Nazis had just arrived and did not know that she and her husband and child were hiding. The neighbor volunteered out of malice. I do not think there is a moral equivalence here.
May 13th, 2009 |
I wouldn’t waste any tears on the collaborator:
Meir Y. Soloveichik, The Virtue of Hate
http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=425
The deaths of civilians in carpet bombing were regrettable but unavoidable if we were to extirpate Hitlerism.
May 13th, 2009 |
Permit me to clarify my comment regarding one point. I would not think it appropriate to kill the Polish informer solely pour encourager les autres; that would be making his fate an instrument for the edification of other people, making him a means to an end. And I think that would be wrong. I think he deserved his death, and the manner of his death, solely on the merits. For his own edification. And I do not think it deprived him of the opportunity to make a sincere repentance. Indeed, I would hope that his death would have served to bring about his understanding, and would in some sense serve as an expiation, at least partially, of his own crimes.
May 13th, 2009 |
A few thoughts. First, war is hell. Total, genocidal war is hell intensified. Things are done, and should be done, in those conditions that are absolutely prohibited under normal circumstances. Still G-d goes into the hell of battle with us, and does so to impose limits on what is permissible even under those pressures.
In this case, David’s relatives limited their action to the guilty party. (I think we can all agree that “protesting to the authorities” would have been suicidal.) His death, though horrifying under normal circumstances, was not accompanied by the public humiliation of being dragged from his house, tortured in public, and then killed.
The point was punishment and deterrence, not vengeance. Radical evil wallows in the lust for killing, humiliation, and torture for their own sakes. And it is fed by the fuel of self-idolatry, which removes all limits on barbarity.
What David’s relatives did was the exact opposite.
I had not heard “forgiveness” defined as “the giving of life back to sould made dead by sin”, but I find it a fascinating formulation. In Jewish teaching, we might agree with this, but we would absolutely insist that the one to be forgiven must want to be forgiven.
For us, this entails acknowledging that he committed a sin. In other words, confession of sin. This is followed by firmly resolving not to repeat the sin, making reparations (for monetary offenses), and asking for forgiveness from the injured party. (As David said,from G-d in the case of ritual offenses, and from both G-d and the injured human parties, or their representatives in the case of interpersonal sins).
I am not an expert of Christian thinking, but it seems to me that even if one holds that G-d’s grace comes to deliver the “unmerited”, still they need to acknowledge that they want to leave their sinful past and walk in the way of that grace.
Otherwise, certainly from a Jewish standpoint, the would-be provision of forgiveness without the confession process is in fact, though certainly not in intent, a confirmation of the evil’s continuance, and the sinner continues to think that what he has done is right and proper.
David, be proud of your family and rejoice in them. They acted, and they acted harshly, but still maintained moral limits and boundaries in the midst of Hell.
Rabbi Chaim Frazer
May 13th, 2009 |
Rabbi Frazer,
I am proud of my family. By providential coincidence — if that is the right word — I had just arrived in Israel for a long-scheduled business trip some years ago when my cousin Dvora of blessed memory collapsed and was taken to hospital, and I was able to get to her bedside in time to communicate the blessing of her American relatives before she lost consciousness and passed away. That was a privilege for which I am profoundly grateful.
May 13th, 2009 |
I don’t know. I fail to see how burning someone in a house becomes morally acceptable even if he was a Nazi informant. Violence in self-defense is one thing, but this seems to be another. Even on the scale of culpability, shouldn’t it be the Nazis who killed their folks the ones to be burned?
I am not sure that engaging in radical evil is pardonable. Engaging in it, even to fight another radical evil, seems to poison the one committing evil even as it destroys the recipient. That it will be done in plights of desperation, there is no question. But, there is a reason we say “never again”. I doubt we will see carpet bombing make a grand return any time soon, no matter how desperate the GWOT becomes.
As General Lee once said, “It is a good thing war is hell, or we may get to like it too much.”
May 13th, 2009 |
“There is a case to made for the use of atrocities to discourage collaboration with radical evil.”
No there isn’t; not a good case in any event. One should not do evil that good may result.
The personal example is obviously a horrific and painful one but if, as David asserts, the partisan group burned the Polish man alive “for revenge, and to make a horrible example of a Nazi collaborator” then it seems to me they acted wrongly. That is, they should not have acted as they did. Perhaps it was (or could have been; which is not at all the same) justified punishment in a situation where civil order has plainly collapsed. However, if that’s the case the act wouldn’t have been murder; but if they acted for revenge and to make an example out of him than it was murder.
On the logic of this post (as well as the more extended essay posted elsewhere), it would have been open to the partisan group to torture the man for hours/days/months before dispatching him. Also, they might as well have raped/tortured/killed his wife and children (if he had any). That after all would be a) an atrocity, b) a horrible example for other collaborators.
It is astounding, and very sad, to read serious argument on First Things that one should torture or murder (make use of atrocities) to fight evil. Like many other readers I’d hoped and expected First Things to be one publication in which consequentialist logic is not supreme.
May 14th, 2009 |
“In this case, David’s relatives limited their action to the guilty party. (I think we can all agree that “protesting to the authorities” would have been suicidal.) His death, though horrifying under normal circumstances, was not accompanied by the public humiliation of being dragged from his house, tortured in public, and then killed.”
For that reason, the action would more properly be referred to as butchery rather than torture. Not that I would be adverse to such under the circumstances…..
May 14th, 2009 |
My point is that there are things which are never permissible that nonetheless are pardonable in special circumstances. That is not Consequentialism: I do not propose to legalize torture. Partisan activities resisting the Holocaust surely count among the most extreme situations imaginable.
May 14th, 2009 |
What actions, then, are pardonable for Palestinians who resist what they sincerely regard as Israeli occupation of their homeland?
May 14th, 2009 |
This a specious question, with malicious intent. You get one answer as a matter of house courtesy:
Palestinians are no personal danger (from Israelis, that is) unless they happen to live next to a rocket-launcher; they are fed and educated by the international community and in general enjoy a much higher living standard than they did before 1948; and they have ample representation before the international community. Those who fled in 1947-1948 have a grievance comparable to Sudeten Germans who who fled Czechoslovakia after WWII, Hindus and Muslims displaced by the end of the Raj, Greeks and Turks exchanged in 1923-1924, etc. Remember that an equal number of Jews was expelled from Arab countries in the late 1940s. This is a classic exchange of population. No-one is supposed to like it, but in no way does it justify acts of violence of any kind — much less random violence against civilians. The use of terrorism against civilians is an expression of radical evil.
May 14th, 2009 |
You can call their action murder, an atrocity, etc., if you like, but I don’t see how it was torture. Could they have chosen a less painful way to kill their neighbor? Sure. But were they deliberately trying to cause pain as an end in and of itself? Doesn’t sound like it. Words have meaning. If we can’t keep these meanings straight we can’t honestly debate anything (see the absurd notion that legitimate but extreme acts of war are actually “terrorism”).
May 14th, 2009 |
The neighbor’s crime certainly deserved death. In a Nazi-occupied area, criminality was law and decency was illegal. One certainly could argue that the neighbors who killed the neighbor were, therefore, at that time and place, the legitimate society, the authority, the law, and that their action was, accordingly, a legitimate exercise of the function of the magistrate. That feelings of hatred and revenge were involved would not take away from this fact, if it is a fact. If the private citizens who killed this neighbor were not, in fact, the legitimate government in that time and place, then did legitimate government exist at all in that time and place? But if they were, then did they not have the responsibility to punish the neighbor’s crime?
May 14th, 2009 |
That the retributive actions of the Jews are entirely understandable on a human level goes without saying. However, at several removes, the more abstract moral implications of this story are what interest.
This is an anecdote about that basest of motives, vengeance, and deadliest of sins, wrath. It is not about torture, which is an act designed to elicit information or a confession, otherwise, the perverted act of a psychopath; only in a metaphorical sense can one describe as torture the incinceration of a living human being.
But this story, read as a morality tale, inculpates the Jews far more than the Germans and the Pole. The Germans were state agents executing political and military policy; the Pole acted out of either fear or perhaps expectation of gain. The surviving Jews acted out of raw vengeance, deceiving themselves into believing they had rendered justice. Futher, the murdered Jews were killed quickly; the Pole was slowly burnt alive.
But we are not given enough background to know quite how to interpret it. Crucial facts are lacking. Was the Pole threatened (i.e. psychologically “tortured”) by the Germans into revealing the hiding place? Did he have a family who were threatened? Did the Germans threaten to kill all the Poles in the village if the whereabouts of the Jews were not revealed? The conquered Slavs after all were regarded as little more than vermin by the Aryan Übermenschen.
From the bald account presented, it is clear that both the Germans and the Jews bore criminal responsibility as well as moral guilt, though the guilt differs in degree and kind. The Pole, the protagonist of this tragedy, may have been the only innocent mortal.
That said, I too would probably have willingly deceived myself that I sought justice and indulged in a transitory revel of revenge. Giving full consent of my will to the commission of that deadly sin, I would nevertheless have been merciful and killed him quickly, not subjected him to a slow cremation. As a fated Erinys, I would have tempered Fury with Kindliness, and besought the gods to bestow their mercy and not their vengeance on my shade.
May 14th, 2009 |
I agree with the gist of your post and most of the comments. As a Christian I believe Jonathan, et al, are expressing a sincere but incomplete understanding of G-d’s word on this subject. I only raise the issue because it is important some do not assume too much and superficially discount a POV that otherwise could prove beneficial.
Thank you for sharing your familial history. “Those who think they know better” than we lesser folk deny that persons similar to the Polish neighbor existed. They did and they do. It may not be pleasant to consider, but is suicidal to ignore.
Peace with vigilance
May 14th, 2009 |
After reading these comments, it still seems to me that the interesting question is not what was right in the abstract (that includes the just war question) but rather if mercy and forgiveness are existentially possible or not. Granted that the neighbor deserved to die, is that the end of the story? To me the interesting question is not that they killed him but: did they hate him? If so, wasn’t the evil one doubly successful?
May 14th, 2009 |
Daniel, the position you’ve outlined, in the earlier essay, in this post, and in your comments above is plainly, indeed starkly, consequentialist. You are, I fear, trying to have it both ways: condemn the acts which you can see are in some way wrongful (torture, murder, targeting civilians…) but also assert that they are acts that in difficult circumstances one should carry out. You’re muddying the waters by invoking legality and pardon/clemency. Many consequentialists do not think torture should be legally authorised – because of the risks that institutionalising the practice gives rise to – but that in extreme cases officials should torture, and afterwards they should be pardoned. This is Richard Posner’s position as I understand it. The key question is what should one do?
You said (comment 7):
“My point is that some acts never are legal, in that we are instructed to do them, but are pardonable under extreme circumstances (which is why there exists the power of pardon).”
In the same comment you say, in reply to Jonathan:
“My point was that bombing civilian districts of cities during World War II was as monstrous an act as ever civilized peoples carried out, but that it was pardonable given exigent circumstances. Radical evil compels us to fight fire with fire.”
Later you say (comment 15, which I take it is in part a reply to me):
“My point is that there are things which are never permissible that nonetheless are pardonable in special circumstances. That is not Consequentialism: I do not propose to legalize torture. Partisan activities resisting the Holocaust surely count among the most extreme situations imaginable.”
Again, you’re mixing up three questions: what should the positive law of the land be, what should persons in ‘extreme situations’ do, and how should we respond to those who act in ‘extreme situations’?
The plain import of your remarks on this post, and its replies, and also in the earlier essay, was that there are times when one should confront radical evil by committing atrocities, murdering (that is, intentionally killing) civilians, torturing persons, etc. I take the point that you don’t want to make this (well, torture at least) lawful in advance and that you see that these are terrible acts. And yet you think this is what persons should do to fight radical evil (I’m accepting this term for the sake of argument by the way; I’m not sure I think it has any meaningful content [evil yes, radical evil no]). And afterwards others should pardon them (that is, legally excuse them from liability), not because they made terrible and wrongful choices under duress or some such, but rather because they did the right thing and made what would otherwise be wrongful choices.
I hope you’re uncomfortable with this conclusion, because it is perverse.
It’s quite clear to me that this was your position (if you want to abandon it now, that’s excellent).
In your earlier essay you said (after noting the facts of Hiroshima and the Allied campaign of bombing the German civilian population):
“Horrible methods of war were morally justified because the Axis powers practiced an extreme of evil not previously observed in human history. … Radical evil has no object but to destroy the good, that is, to propagate evil for its own sake. At every cost, this evil had to be defeated. … To defeat Communism, the United States risked horrors beyond anything the world yet has seen—and by doing so freed the world from a great evil.”
There can be no serious denying that this is consequentialism. You effectively say that to defeat evil one has to – that is one should – commit (what would otherwise be) evil acts. For my part, and I suspect for the part of many/most First Things readers, not to mention the entire just war tradition, I do not accept the premise that the intentional killing of German or Japanese civilians was morally justifiable or that one should do whatever it takes to defeat great evils. There are some things one should never do, no matter what the consequences. Other persons are made in the image of God and there are limits to how we may justifiably act towards them.
This post of yours and the previous essay plainly endorse (even if at times reluctantly) the proposition that the right thing to do, what one should do if one is in this situation, is to fight radical evil using any methods whatsoever. That is a disgraceful conclusion. It is not a conclusion that should be endorsed (in the end, after rational analysis) by persons who trust in God.
Elizabeth Anscombe said, in the depths of the Cold War:
“Those, therefore, who think they must be prepared to wage a war with Russia involving the deliberate massacre of cities, must be prepared to say to God: ‘We had to break your law, lest your Church fail. We could not obey your commandments, for we did not believe your promises.’”
I know I’m labouring this point but I think it is of fundamental importance that now, just as in the Second World War and the Cold War, when the temptation is very strong to do evil that good may result, those who adhere to the central, classical tradition of moral reflection resist without compromise consequentialist rationales for murder and torture, even if, sadly and surprisingly, they issue from a source – First Things – that has been prominent in its exposition and defence of that tradition.
May 14th, 2009 |
Actually, it was not a specious question and had no malicious intent.
I was sincerely interested in what your response would be.
Thank you for your answer.
May 14th, 2009 |
In Number 15 David writes:
“My point is that there are things which are never permissible that nonetheless are pardonable in special circumstances. That is not Consequentialism: I do not propose to legalize torture. Partisan activities resisting the Holocaust surely count among the most extreme situations imaginable. “
Many things are “pardonable” simply because of incomplete or inaccurate information, errors in decision-making (such as using the wrong precedent or applying the wrong moral/legal rule in good faith), or good-faith errors in reasoning.
I believe that the example of David’s relatives goes beyond being “pardonable” and constitutes an example of that which would normally be prohibited, but is allowable if not mandated in exceptional situations.
As I wrote earlier, G-d goes into Hell on Earth with us to demand that we preserve moral prohibitions and boundaries in the midst of that Hell. Here is what I said before:
“A few thoughts. First, war is hell. Total, genocidal war is hell intensified. Things are done, and should be done, in those conditions that are absolutely prohibited under normal circumstances. Still G-d goes into the hell of battle with us, and does so to impose limits on what is permissible even under those pressures.
“In this case, David’s relatives limited their action to the guilty party. (I think we can all agree that “protesting to the authorities” would have been suicidal.) His death, though horrifying under normal circumstances, was not accompanied by the public humiliation of being dragged from his house, tortured in public, and then killed.
“The point was punishment and deterrence, not vengeance. Radical evil wallows in the lust for killing, humiliation, and torture for their own sakes. And it is fed by the fuel of self-idolatry, which removes all limits on barbarity.
“What David’s relatives did was the exact opposite.”
In other words, the intent of the action, as best I can understand it was three-fold: to punish the guilty (where going to the “authorities” would have been genuinely suicidal), to protect other innocents (by killing the guilty party), and to deter other would-be miscreants from endangering other innocents. Please note as well that the fact that some time elapsed from the beginning of the fire to the death of the guilty party also gave him time for a final confession to G-d and a chance for Divine forgiveness.
In Number 16 Contra-Example asks:
What actions, then, are pardonable for Palestinians who resist what they sincerely regard as Israeli occupation of their homeland?
It can be a good question. If so, like most good questions it deserves a thoughtful and detailed answer.
Here is the shortest answer: whatever Israelis who resisted what they sincerely regard as the Arab/Muslim occupation of their homeland (and still resist occupation of portions of it) could and can pardonably do. One rule, same rule.
So that, for example, if it is permissible for Palestinian Arabs to act in terms of bombing civilians , making no distinction between innocent and guilty, so too are Israelis permitted to attack Palestinian and other Arab civilians making no distinction between innocent and guilty. At times people cite Deir Yassin as an example of Israeli perfidy. But they neglect to point out that the perpetrators were arrested, tried, convicted, sentenced, and served their sentences. Would that Fatah and Hamas did the same in their jurisdictions.
Let’s look at competing narratives.
As best I understand it, the Arab/Muslim narrative goes something like this:
“True, the Jews suffered horribly under Christian rule, culminating in the Holocaust perpetrated by European powers. And true, Jews have often been treated as second or third class citizens in Arab/Muslim societies (though still generally better than in Christian societies, and certainly better than the European Axis powers acted in the Holocaust). But the reparation for those European sins does not justify evicting the Palestinian Arabs from their homeland. Instead, European countries and the US should resettle the survivors in their countries-which incidentally (especially in the case of the US) give those Jews tremendous safety, opportunity, and respect. What we are asking is that the ‘guilty’ cultures and civilizations take responsibility for their sins, and not transfer the burden of eviction and suffering to another, people, an innocent people, as a means of redressing historical wrongs.”
That is an Arab/Muslim narrative. It may or may not also be shared by Europeans and Americans. But it is not, absolutely not, the Jewish narrative.
Here is the basic Jewish narrative, as I understand it.
“Ever since the failure of the Bar Kokhba revolt in 130 CE, we have tried to return to our land. We always had a continuous presence in the land, and we never stopped hoping for our return to full sovereignty on both sides of the Jordan. A Roman/Byzantine despotic imperium prevented us until 632 CE. Then an Arab/Muslim imperium prevented us, in alternation with the European Christian Crusaders, until 1917. By that time, our plight was so desperate, especially in Europe, that we had begun returning in larger numbers under Ottoman Turkish rule, with desperate hope for success, but few realistic expectations.
“Providentially the United Kingdom, a Christian country, gave us a foothold with the approval of the League of Nations. But our overall situation worsened, and the Holocaust shook the foundations of our existence as a people. Providentially again, in 1947 the United Nations authorized sovereignty for us in a part of our land. To get an idea of how remarkable this was, the United States and its allies, the Soviet Union and its allies, and the Latin American Catholic countries (many of whom disregarded the frantic pleas of their bishops, who warned that restored Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel struck at the heart of Christian theology) all had to vote in favor of us.
“But it was still just a chance for us, not a gift. We had to fight for out survival. And we lost 1 per cent of our population dead, and countless others wounded. In 1967, we again had to fight for our survival, and we liberated the land west of the Jordan, including the holiest sites in our eternal capital of Jerusalem. Since then, we have formally renounced our title to the lands east of the Jordan (known simply as Trans-Jordan under the British Mandate), and offered to renounce a substantial portion of the land west of the Jordan, including land that we liberated in 1948 and 1967. To no avail. Moreover, the brief break in European anti-Semitism occasioned by the Holocaust seems to have ended.
“When we look at how long it took Christian countries, which had imperial and/or great power backing, to liberate themselves from the Arab/Muslim imperium, we are genuinely stunned at their lack of sympathy for us. Spain took over 700 years, Greece, Rumania, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia took centuries. From the time of the first break in imperial hostility (1917) to a partial restoration of sovereignty (1948) was a mere 31 years. And only 19 years later was the liberation of the entire western Land of Israel, including Jerusalem. In fact, we have ruled a united Jerusalem, one truly open to adherents of all 3 Abrahamic faiths, more than twice as long as did the Jordanians, and infinitely longer than any past ‘Palestinian’ government, which to date has never ever existed.
“We can understand why the Arab/Muslim world can be blind to our achievements, but why the Western world? Can they not see that the democratic institutions that we have built are in fact open to our Arab citizens, and in some cases to Arab non-citizens as well (the right to vote in municipal elections in Jerusalem to Arab residents who are non-citizens, the access to an independent judiciary headed by our Supreme Court to Arab residents of Judea and Samaria)? Don’t they see that we, not the Jordanians, built the first Arab universities and colleges in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria? That we greatly improved health services, saving thousands of Arab lives and lengthening thousands more. That only in Israel is there a free Arab press, including correspondents from Al Jezera and other foreign sources, that doesn’t have to worry about harassment and worse for journalists? Are we perfect? No, but compare us to what any other liberation movement and wartime government has done, and don’t we look pretty good by comparison.?”
Do I believe, or even accept, the Arab/Muslim narrative? No, I don’t. But I do believe that they believe it, and that they can believe it without necessarily demonizing Jews or Israel. For me, that means that it would be a good thing to try to accommodate that narrative, even though I don’t share it. That means, among other things, using the institutions of a civil society to explore making a mutually acceptable solution that gives the Arabs and Muslims a basis for their own sense of dignity.
Do Arabs and Muslims believe, or even accept, the Jewish narrative? No they don’t. But, what is more troubling, they don’t seem to see that Jews and Israelis believe it, and that they can believe it without demonizing Arabs and Muslims. And rather than building a civil society and using its institutions to seek a mutually acceptable solutions that gives Jews and Israelis a basis for their own sense of dignity, they seem to use their grievances as a release from moral boundaries and restraints. That release is not confined to their relations with Jews and Israelis, it spills over into their relations with each other (honor killings, knee-capping opponents, murdering opponents, a politicized pet judiciary, muzzling the press), and threatens to drive them deeper into barbarism.
Israel believes, and acts on the belief, that they must hold themselves to a high moral standard, specifically in terms of observing moral restraints. Their real record (rather than UN fantasies), compared not just to their opponents but to such beacons of civilization as the US and Britain in World War II, is genuinely outstanding. Israelis expect to hold themselves to a high standard, a very high standard-but not an impossible one.
The Arab/Muslim opponents, on the other hand, use their political intensity to relieve themselves of moral restraints.
One path maintains moral integrity, and lays a foundation for eventual accommodation and reconciliation. The other leads to barbarism, and deposits quicksand, enveloping itself in the abyss and seeking to drag others into it.
May 14th, 2009 |
Gandhi also recommended that the Jews offer their throats to the Germans — I think that was his exact phrase — and appeal to conscience rather than resist during World War II. Had the Allies done that in World War II civilization no longer would exist; had the US failed in its resolve to risk nuclear war to bring down the Soviet Empire (and the Reagan administration knew it was risking war — I was there and I know this first hand) — the Soviet Empire still would be there. We cannot see the full outcome of our actions; we have to make bets as best we can. Those who require us to eschew torture under all conceivable circumstances also should require us to avoid bombing the enemy if there is a significant probability of civilian casualties — which would be to say, never. We would then be like the Pirates of Penzance who, once it is known that they will not rob orphans, find that everyone they capture is an orphan.
The only logical outcome of this way of thinking is pacifism, and we might as well say so.
As far as my relatives were concerned: the German war-fighting strategy depended on shocking subject population into intimidation, and demoralizing the non-Jewish population through collaboration in the killing. Disrupting this Satanic strategy was a virtuous and good thing to do. It was the only effective way to fight, both for one’s own life and for the defeat of radical evil.
As for First Things: I am new to the magazine, but I am reliably informed that the treatment of torture in my essay on the website was consistent with the long-held views of Richard John Neuhaus.
May 14th, 2009 |
Thank you very much for your response, Rabbi Chaim Frazer.
May 15th, 2009 |
David, that is absurd. Adherence to the just war tradition, which precludes deliberate targeting of civilians, does not collapse to pacifism. There is all the difference in the world between attacking military targets knowing that an unintended side-effect of one’s act may be the death of civilians and attacking civilian targets intending precisely to kill innocents to persuade combatants to surrender.
Your position (shared by any number of other well-meaning but confused persons) is quite simply that we should murder the women and children of our enemies to sap their will to fight. That is abhorrent. Yes, the Allies should have fought the Nazis and the Japanese without adopting a campaign of terror bombing.
As for disrupting the Nazi’s satanic strategy, I take it that you do accept the logic I outlined in my earlier post – it is at least an open possibility that one should rape, torture and kill the collaborator’s wife and children, because this would be a useful atrocity that would deter other collaborators (more effective than just killing the collaborator). And of course, again on this (perverse) logic, one need not kill (in as painful a way as possible) actual collaborators, but rather persons who are widely thought to be collaborators.
I’m all for fighting the Nazis. And I have a lot of sympathy for those who adopt reprehensible means when placed in difficult situations. That’s relevant to how one should respond after the fact, but it doesn’t settle what we should judge should be done.
This is Richard John Neuhaus on torture (in First Things in 2004):
“Torture as defined in international agreements to which the U.S. is party — outrages against human dignity, humiliation, degradation, mutilation, the threat of death — is never morally permissible. … The uncompromisable principle is that it is always wrong to do evil in order that good may result. This principle is taught in numerous foundational texts of our civilization and is magisterially elaborated in the 1993 encyclical of John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor. We cannot ask God’s blessing upon a course of action that entails the deliberate doing of evil.”
May 15th, 2009 |
My only question is why they burned him. I would have killed him with my own hands.
May 15th, 2009 |
Richard,
I agree with Fr. Neuhaus’ formulation that torture is nowhere permissible. Nonetheless there are rare and extreme circumstances under which you are I both would employ it (“ticking bomb” situations for example). At least I would, and I hope you would. I would expect to face legal consequences, and I would ask the governor for pardon. My position is that such “lifeboat situations” are so unusual and difficult to define in advance that it is fundamentally wrong to establish guidelines in advance — that is, to make them permissible ex ante — although there are circumstances that are pardonable.
Just war doctrine isn’t that clear cut. The diarist Viktor Klemperer, a Jew who survived in Germany because he was married to a Gentile, was close to Dresden in 1944 awaiting deportation. He predicted that the Allies would destroy Dresden as its logistics made it the logical staging area for German defense against the Russians — that is, on purely military grounds. If this was obvious even to a non-person with limited access to information on the ground in Germany in 1944, it should have been obvious to the people who complain about the targeting of civilians in Dresden. The trouble is that several hundred thousand civilians were sitting on infrastructure with high military value. Was the Dresden raid defensible on military grounds? Absolutely. Whether the defense would hold up in the light of full information, I do not know, but the defense can be made.
During the Cold War, many of the calculations centered on how to win a nuclear war. One of the reasons we won is that once we had the Pershings installed in Germany, we had an advantage in a nuclear exchange. That would have annihilated Germany, by the way, which explains the pacificism of many Germans (they never would have known who won the war and therefore had only an abstract interest in its outcome) but we treated them the way Stalin treated punishment battalions during the Second World War. It was all about how much our respective populations would survive.
It wasn’t a matter of limited collateral damage. That WAS the damage. We put hundreds of millions of lives into play, if that is the right word.
Now, in a lawless situation, in which the occupying power embodies Satanic evil, acts of resistance of the kind my cousins carried out are not only justified, but required.
What amazes me is that no-one has picked up on what should be the mos controversial and morally difficult aspect of my essay: how do we respond to civil chaos in the Islamic world? My argument was that we cannot expose large numbers of our people to a culture capable of radical evil (e.g., suicide bombing on a large scale) without risking contamination, so we should quarantine such situation as much as possible. That means standing back and refusing to intervene under some pretty terrible circumstances.
All the military people around Obama talked of using the armed forces to prevent genocide. I do not think we can do so in many situations; I think if we try it will backfire on us in some circumstances.
May 15th, 2009 |
“What amazes me is that no-one has picked up on what should be the mos controversial and morally difficult aspect of my essay: how do we respond to civil chaos in the Islamic world?”
It proves your point. We* quickly distance ourselves from the choice of your relatives in the face of, yes, radical evil and at the same time rather not discuss the current political and military challenges our countries face.
Even my homecountry Germany committed a few thousend soldiers to afghanistan, i.e. transferred young westerners in an absolutely foreign environment, confronted with dreadful and lawless enemies. In public, however, our troops are preferably seen as some kind of police or development aid workers, building a peaceful and democratic society for the Afghans. Outright loughable, if it weren’t so cynical, for real blood is shed.
My country isn’t able to define the enemy, the ‘real’ purpose of the mission and the means to achieve that. It also fails to support the soldiers in fundamental ways. The public interest in the horrors they have to cope with is little and when they come home in coffins, few take notice.
It’s telling and distressable, that even on the Spengler Blog, with a majority of US-American readers, I guess, the mindset seems comparable.
“My argument was that we cannot expose large numbers of our people to a culture capable of radical evil (e.g., suicide bombing on a large scale) without risking contamination, so we should quarantine such situation as much as possible. That means standing back and refusing to intervene under some pretty terrible circumstances.”
Couldn’t agree more!
By *We* I meant the majority of western christians and presumably some liberal jews at that.
May 15th, 2009 |
This story is told from your family’s point of view. Maybe their version of what happened is truthful. And maybe it isn’t. Maybe they were justified. And maybe they weren’t. Maybe they were mistaken about the circumstances. And maybe the whole thing is fantasy and never happened at all. How would I or anyone else know? I wasn’t there. The person who wrote this article wasn’t even there. Therefore, I can not and will not sanction the murder of another human being. The fact that the murder has already happened is irrelevant. Anyone who supports murder is a murderer at heart. And I am ashamed that so many of my fellow human beings would so glibly support such an act.
May 15th, 2009 |
Oh, I’m pretty sure it happened. I heard the story first hand from people who had no particular wish to remember it, much less to invent it.
But permit me to recall George Orwell’s word: “We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm.” How many of the posters here are rough men (or women)? My cousins weren’t particularly rough people. They were teenagers. After the war Moshe became a Haredi in Israel and had a very large family. It’s easier to be an armchair ethicist. Real situations in the real world may be messier and extreme actions in extreme situations may be pardonable. In this case, standing up to the German army with no resources hand counts for heroic, in my judgment.
May 15th, 2009 |
I read a number of comments on this dreadful story. Alle Achtung to Spengler for letting these family secrets come out. Nevertheless, I am not convinced by the arguments in favour of what seems to me as a private pogrom. Pardonable afterwards, with “circonstances atténuantes”, maybe, but certainly not an example, let alone a rule, for the future.
May 16th, 2009 |
I contend that it is possible for an act to be both good and evil, right and wrong. In the case illustrated in this article, killing the Polish man was wrong, but we pardon the offense and believe that God will as well since it was justified, perhaps necessary in the face of the greater evil.
The reasoning behind this seeming contradiction of the possibility of an action being both right and wrong is as follows: A person who decides to engage in an evil act, whether torturing combatants or bombing civilians, sacrifices his own salvation to save the lives of others. He would go to hell so that others may live and go to heaven. In this sense, such evil actions can be the ultimate selfless sacrifice.
The man who acts as such can be far greater a man than the one who lets evil win- corrupt, kill, destroy- so that he may have clean hands and the eternal comfort of heaven.
May 16th, 2009 |
I understand that we need to fight back when we are attacked. But here is another dimension. A friend of mine told me the following true story about how one of her relatives survived the Holocaust in one of the Eastern European countries. During World War I, a Jewish guy saved someone’s life, and during World War II, the son of this person who was saved by a Jew during World War I, this time saved the life of the son of this Jewish guy who had saved his father, by hiding him from the Nazis. There are righteous pagans.
May 16th, 2009 |
GVB, there are reasons that the Psalmist wrote that His throne is enveloped by clouds: divine judgment sometimes is beyond us.
And I agree that my cousins’ action is not a precedent or a guide to the future: how could we anticipate that Hell would break out and run rampant in this fashion?
May 17th, 2009 |
One evening while I was ranting about some act of the government and demanding ‘justice’ my wife looked up from her book and ever so softly said, “I always pray for mercy, and let God take care of justice.”
I would, of course, have killed the Nazi collaborator.
May 17th, 2009 |
Thanks, Robert. My Shabbat reading yesterday was a couple of books about or influenced by Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, the great Talmudist and theologian at Yeshiva University. His rabbinic dynasty came from Brest (Brisk), a couple of hundred kilometers from where my family lived between Slonim and Bialystock. The Brisker school of Talmud trained hundreds of brilliant Jewish legal minds capable of parsing the finest points of ethics — and the Nazis came in and slaughtered these studious, unworldly, gentle people. My family burned potash, carted produce, repaired locks and guns, and ran small businesses. We had one sofer (Torah scroll copyist) in the family, but never a rabbi or cantor. They knew how to use weapons. The Bund had trained them secretly in anti-pogrom defense groups before World War I. If they had asked the rabbis from Brisk what to do, I don’t know what the answer would have been: the rabbis were dead when the time came.
May 17th, 2009 |
In Number 30, David writes:
“What amazes me is that no-one has picked up on what should be the mos controversial and morally difficult aspect of my essay: how do we respond to civil chaos in the Islamic world? My argument was that we cannot expose large numbers of our people to a culture capable of radical evil (e.g., suicide bombing on a large scale) without risking contamination, so we should quarantine such situation as much as possible. That means standing back and refusing to intervene under some pretty terrible circumstances.”
The problems of the Arab and broader Islamic worlds are neither recent nor simple. To simplify somewhat, the wide prevalence of autocratic regimes coupled with drastic under-development of their societies have led to massive dissatisfaction from within, and no clear path to reversal. If anything, the presence of vast oil and natural gas resources within some of these countries has also produced a tragically skewed distribution of wealth both between countries and within countries.
Several years ago, the United Nations commissioned and received a thorough report analyzing the state of the Arab world. It was produced by Arab and Muslim researchers, and was devastating in its clarity and its conclusions. It was also buried, for all practical purposes, in terms of any significant action by Arab governments.
If we accept Father Samir’s analysis, discussed in other threads on this blog, that Islam has 2 equally legitimate trends of interpretation, one violent and one peaceful, then David’s underlying question is “what do we do to protect ourselves from the violent tend and to encourage the peaceful trend”?
Joined at the hip to this question is another, one asked incessantly by Pope Benedict XVI both during his days as Cardinal Ratzinger and during his pontificate: how does the West, especially Europe, free itself from “the dictatorship of relativism”? If the West, especially Europe, does not establish and hold itself to clear and firm moral/ethical standards, how can it even begin to do so with others?
Whether through military action, police work, diplomacy, economic relations, or dialogue, we are going to be engaged with the Arab/Mulsim world for quite some time, and quite likely on multiple fronts with multiple dimensions.
And we will need multiple responses.
I believe that once again Pope Benedict XVI (both during his pontificate and his Cardinal Ratzinger career) has identified the crucial fulcrum with crystal clarity: we must build, (or re-build) strong moral/ethical values and standards by which we bind ourselves, and which have a link to that which transcends us.
In Europe, we are at a crisis stage, as the most elementary signs of hope, marriage and children, have drastically withered (also discussed in other threads of this blog). This deprives us of any real opportunity to set an example of lived life which can inspire others, as well as chokes off the development of any ideas which can show a path to a better way.
As I read Catholic analysts, both Pope Benedict XVI and Pope John Paul II have striven to produce an “affirmative orthodoxy”, a re-adaptation of traditional Catholic teaching and culture to provide an alternative to the statist orientation of Western countries which hands out today’s economic goodies with no clear anchor in the transcendent needs of mankind, even the transcendent needs that operate within the purely human frameworks of marriage, children, and family.
True, post-World War II Europe has finally learned how not to constantly make war on itself. But at a terrible cost, that of abandoning the prospects of a peace that can thrive for generations.
America seems much better off in that respect, and again Pope Benedict XVI noted that during his US visit.
So one line of defense against Islamic chaos is to firm up for ourselves that for which we stand, and stand firmly.
A second is to carry those values and standards into international forums, especially the UN and diplomatic relations with Arab/Muslim nations. We don’t necessarily have to insist that they abide by our standards, but we must make clear that for the most part they don’t, and we know that they don’t.
Third, we must foster those in the Arab/Islamic worlds who want to build on Islam’s peaceful interpretation. Success here will take at least decades, if not centuries. Muslims themselves must confront the choice between violence and peace, and must make violence unacceptable to themselves.
Next, it is crucial to help an Arab or Muslim country (preferably one that is both) become an example of the advantages of choosing peace. Otherwise, Arab/Muslim masses will probably see only a choice between autocracy and chaos, and will tend to choose autocracy as the lesser evil-as would many of us. (Ideally, this would be a country significant enough to be noticeable by the Arab/Muslim world as a whole. Let’s hope, with some trembling, that Iraq is on that path.)
Now we can think of “quarantine” or , more precisely “quarantines”. There are many possible levels, Protecting our societies from infiltration of those bent on violence, adhering firmly to our standards of freedom of religion and freedom of expression when they are under attack, insisting on reciprocal freedom of religion, and no doubt many other filters. But for those on the true front lines, the military, police forces, and intelligence services, there is no substitute for imbuing them thoroughly with the bedrock of out own values and principles.
Finally, a contribution from Jewish law to a broader arena. If an agent faithfully performs the terms of his agency, any liability or his actions falls upon the person who authorized him.
There is one major exception. If the agent is authorized to do a sin, then he must refuse. If not, then he, and not the person who authorized him, is guilty of the sin. In other words, a person cannot say “but I was just following orders”.
It took the deaths of six million Jews, as well as tens of millions others, for the victorious Allies to impose this principle into international law in the Nuremberg trials and other anti-Axis trials following World War II.
We dare not forget it, or let it slide into nothingness.
In terms modern threats, Islamic or not (such as Northern Ireland), this means that political grievances, no matter how intensely felt, do not permit deliberate crimes against innocents, and all who plan or perpetrate such atrocities must be brought to justice. The basis of true morality is and will always be the capacity to retain restraint and maintain boundaries, even under trying circumstances.
Rabbi Chaim Frazer
May 17th, 2009 |
Very interesting discussion Reading through these posts, I find Rabbi Frazer’s at 25 the most incisive and Robert Cheek’s wife’s remark about mercy and justice the most moving. Given, God forbid, a similar exigency I hope that I would have the courage to act as decisively.
May 17th, 2009 |
Spengler,
When you get a chance, if you already haven’t, would you please blog on the primary, intrinsic cause of this financial ‘meltdown.” I’m led to believe that it was the gov’t policy demanding ‘housing for all Americans,’ and the consequent Fanny May/Freddie Mack policies that started this whole thing going.
We hear of corporate ‘greed’ ect, but I have a feeling its a little more complex than that and that the gov’t is at the bottom of it all. But I’m not sure…need a little help here! Thank you!
May 17th, 2009 |
Spengler,
Sometime soon I’ll blog over at Postmodern Conservative re: my father and an incident during the Bulge, in the Ardennes, 1944, re: a captured SS officer.
May 18th, 2009 |
Robert,
Here’s a Spengler essay I wrote a year ago that tries to get at root causes of the crash. The “housing for all” idiocy promoted by several administrations was a small part of the problem, IMHO.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/JE20Dj05.html
May 18th, 2009 |
Rabbi Frazer,
Thanks for your thoughts; I agree with your suggestion that the pope is doing his best to persuade Arab/Muslim countries to choose peace. That’s his job. At the same time, I would not be surprised, and I would be very supportive if, Prime Minister Netanyahu attacked Iranian nuclear facilities. That’s his job, maybe.
May 18th, 2009 |
Reply to David in Number 45. While I certainly agree that Pope Benedict is trying his best to help the Arab/Muslim world choose peace, I thought that my real point was that he is trying most fundamentally to help the Western world, especially Europe, choose life and ally itself with those (like Israel) who are also choosing life. (Your post on another thread about Israel having a high birth rate and a low suicide rate is highly instructive. For Western countries, Israel also has a low abortion rate.)
Regarding Prime Minister Netanyahu, I hope that he remembers two quotes from the late Abba Eban, a strong Israeli dove, but not a suicidal one.
Quote 1 (regarding the 1949 Armistice lines being transformed into permanent borders): They are Auschwitz borders.
Quote 2, from the UN debates during the Six Day War: It’s better to be condemned than to be mourned.
It would be a very good thing for President Obama to embrace Eban’s views.
Rabbi Chaim Frazer
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