On the Idea that Courage is Fearing the Right Things...

LVI

A man feared that he might find an assassin;
Another that he might find a victim.
One was more wise than the other.

from Stephen Crane's The Black Riders and Other Lines (1895)

I think I know exactly what Crane is talking about. I think it has, in part, to do with anger.

Dying & Killing

Michael Cholbi over at In Socrates' Wake quoted some lines by a recent reviewer of Rhodes Scholar applications, complaining about the intellectual shortcomings of recent applications, evidence that students are falling short when it comes to critical and philosophical thinking (or articulation). Given my recent trains of thought, this part stood out to me:

A young service academy cadet who is likely to be serving in a war zone within the year believes there are things worth dying for but doesn't seem to have thought much about what is worth killing for.

This is perhaps connected to the kind of intuition/judgment Duncan's students at VMI were having/making about killing civilians. Without thinking clearly about the distinction between what is worth dying for and what is worth killing for--or without seeing that these can come apart--we get all too quickly to this chilling moment in Malcolm X's notorious speech, "The Ballot or the Bullet":

If you don't take this kind of stand [viz: of fighting back in self-defense], your little children will grow up and look at you and think "shame." If you don't take an uncompromising stand, I don't mean go out and get violent; but at the same time you should never be nonviolent unless you run into some nonviolence. I'm nonviolent with those who are nonviolent with me. But when you drop that violence on me, then you've made me go insane, and I'm not responsible for what I do. And that's the way every Negro should get. Any time you know you're within the law, within your legal rights, within your moral rights, in accord with justice, then die for what you believe in. But don't die alone. Let your dying be reciprocal. This is what is meant by equality.

Is it? Or was that part of the speech part of the temporary insanity?

Where Is the High Road?

This sort of stuff can be infuriating. Importantly, I imagine that it's infuriating to folks on both sides of the political lines. Rhetoric tends, perhaps by its very nature, to certain kinds of excess and "flourish," and in the current context, I'm certainly alarmed by what appears to be a growing class of political terrorists in the U.S.--that is, people who believe that killing those with whom they politically disagree (or even discussing it or encouraging it or joking about it) is an acceptable course of action. (At the same time, I realize that a vast majority of people see through this; but a terrorist class does not have to be large to be a problem.) This seems particularly problematic in the context of what is supposed to be a (deliberative) democracy. It belies a terrible ignorance of history and the humanities--Plato's Apology for a start, and Socrates' warning that killing him would not accomplish very much--which reflects something deeply amiss in the American social fabric.

But what I've really been pondering is the question: what is the right response to violent rhetoric and political violence? There seem to be a few options:

1. Find a scapegoat: Blame Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin. Which is roughly what's happening, and I can't see this achieving much, except infuriating everyone over and over.

2. Give a warm-hearted, earnest speech: Talk about bipartisanship and working together and tolerance and the point that violence simply can't be the right way to resolve political disagreements in a (supposedly) civil and democratic society. The sort of speech Obama would deliver with typical eloquence. Edifying, but yawn.

3. Fight fire with fire: Buy guns and create counter-balancing violent factions, i.e. in this context, well-armed lefties. Let Obama (and Peolosi, etc.) start carrying unconcealed handguns. Incompatible with #2.

4. Embrace the One's Targethood: Tell the violent rhetoric-mongers and the actual terrorists, "Bring it on." This probably sounds childish, but honestly, I don't think anything else could have any significant chance of speaking to the people who feel so disenfranchised by the society that they need to resort to the language of violence or to violent action. It would also get the attention of the yawning majority in a way that #2 alone can't. So, take away the thing the violent are trying to have for themselves: the status of a sacrificial lamb. Don't blame them (or their alleged order-barkers), don't ask them for a tolerant hug (since that's not what they want): acknowledge this desire and will to advocate and do violence, acknowledge one's vulnerability to it, and one's willingness to be killed if it must come to that. This is hard. (Seriously: it's very easy to talk about dying for one's beliefs and another thing to face that prospect in all seriousness unless you are a very marginalized person without anyone who loves you.) And this is a non-ideal solution, for a non-ideal situation. In an ideal situation, no one has to be in a position where they must be willing to die for what they believe. I don't think that "bring it on" is exactly the right phrasing, although there is a sense in which this is what Socrates was up to in the Apology. And there are worse examples by which to live.

5. Play Deaf: Just ignore the rhetoric; acknowledge the violence that happens, condemn it, and those who would support such acts, and move on. This is what I try to do because otherwise I'll go crazy. But it's not obviously the right response for those who are more directly engaged in political activity. Perhaps merely "vowing to fight on"--insofar as this is a distinct response from #2 (or #4) fits here.

In any event, I think it would be great to hear Obama and others to acknowledge in a more unnerving and less abstract way that some people think that that political rivals should be killed, to openly acknowledge themselves as those rivals, and in this and other ways to personalize themselves as the targets of this violent rhetoric and, in some cases, action. (Maybe they have, and given my relative inattention, I've missed it.) Violence is easier when the enemy isn't a real, concrete person.

Ashamed

This timeline of recent political violence in the U.S. depresses me and makes me feel deeply ashamed.

(Thanks to Brian Leiter, who shared this link on his blog, for ruining my afternoon, as well as my sense of identity as an American.)