Here is a metaphor that occurred to me as I finished my last post.
Violence is to the body politic what inflammation is to the body. In critical moments, it may save us from acute danger, but as a chronic condition it is utterly ruinous.
Showing posts with label IRA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label IRA. Show all posts
Monday, October 24, 2011
Violence and Fragility
This represents a continuation of my thoughts about terrorist violence.
Violence is a bad long-term solution to moral problems because it creates more trouble than it solves, eventually doing injury to the cause that it is invoked to protect. (Despite the fact that it existed nominally to protect Irish Catholics from Protestant violence, the IRA ends up being responsible for more Irish Catholic deaths than any other organization in Ireland, North or South: read Shanahan's book for references.) But the real problem is something different.
When do people get violent? Is it not when they have run out of other options, when they are "backed into a corner" (as the saying goes)? One thing that holds true across all of the terrorist groups I have looked at (Muslim zealots, Basque and Irish nationalists) is that they feel trapped: they are "oppressed" by powers to which the only sane response (in their eyes) is violence (up to and including suicide, whether by detonating themselves in public or going on hunger strikes in prison). The vision that gives meaning to the life of a terrorist gives him freedom (to think, to find meaning in life), but that freedom comes at a terrible cost, because it is inherently fragile. It depends on other people having feelings that they may not (and in the case of modern terrorists, do not) have. It demands validation that history appears very loathe to give (as the overwhelming majority of Muslims, Irish, and Basques continue to reject the visions of utopia that their less inhibited comrades proclaim). The fanatics, inspired with the holy zeal of absolute truth, cannot admit this. Even if they do, they promptly cast themselves as prophets who will "lead the way" in spite of their people's backsliding ways. If enough of us play the bloody hero, they seem to think, surely the cause of Allah will prosper, and the nations of Euskadi and Ireland will shake off Britain and Spain to become heaven on earth.
As for those who actively oppose the terrorists, they are pond scum, orcs with no real motivation backing up the mindless cruelty they inflict on true Muslims, Irish Catholics, and Basques. You don't treat with pond scum. You don't compromise. You do whatever it takes to get the orcs off your land and out of your life. If that means blowing up some of their ill-favored children (or the children of others too blind to see them for the irreparable cancer that they are), well then, so be it.
There is an important common thread here between terrorist reasoning and the ongoing financial collapse of the Western world. Banks are failing because the way we do business in a modern world is too efficient: there is only one true way to do things, the cheapest way that maximizes profit. Ideologies are failing because they are likewise too efficient: there is only one true way to exist, and that is the way of Allah (as preached by Osama bin Laden). When maximizing profits creates snafus, true believers in the modern market economy cannot think of a new way to do business: like an alcoholic who has drunk all the gin in the house, they start raiding the medicine and cleaning cabinets, grasping for anything to keep their drunken dream of happiness alive. Just so, when the violent way of Allah creates hell instead of heaven, the terrorists respond with more violence, hoping that the ideologically driven crusade that is in many ways the cause of their problems may magically turn into a solution. When Coriantumr kills Shiz (Ether 15), they may finally have their way. If there are no people left in the world, then there will be no sectarian violence! But is that the best resolution we can come up with? What is the point of heaven anyway, if the only way to have it is to raise hell?
The more I think about moral conflicts, the less useful violence seems to me. It has its place, of course, and it will not be denied. But that does not mean that that place is necessarily where past generations have put it. And there are differing degrees of violence. I can kill someone actively, or I can passively make their lives so miserable and impossible that they kill themselves. I can hurl bombs, or I can hurl insults. (Note that polite insults are still insults.) If the choice is necessarily between one and the other, I naturally prefer the insults and the passive aggression (whether I am on the giving or the receiving end). But I would actually like to maintain my distance from both kinds of violence. I want my way of life to be as nonviolent as possible. Ironically, this requires that I admit some violence, since to deny it entirely would merely lead to its appearing under some clever disguise (like the "re-education camps" employed by certain high-minded regimes). Pretending that I am utterly harmless is as silly and as wrong as indulging every opportunity I have to do harm. I have to admit the real harmfulness that is in me. I have to know it, and I have to develop real means of dealing productively with it. This is tough stuff, requiring a lot more moral fiber than many of us seem to think (to judge from our public discourse).
More on this later. For now, I'm tapped out.
Violence is a bad long-term solution to moral problems because it creates more trouble than it solves, eventually doing injury to the cause that it is invoked to protect. (Despite the fact that it existed nominally to protect Irish Catholics from Protestant violence, the IRA ends up being responsible for more Irish Catholic deaths than any other organization in Ireland, North or South: read Shanahan's book for references.) But the real problem is something different.
When do people get violent? Is it not when they have run out of other options, when they are "backed into a corner" (as the saying goes)? One thing that holds true across all of the terrorist groups I have looked at (Muslim zealots, Basque and Irish nationalists) is that they feel trapped: they are "oppressed" by powers to which the only sane response (in their eyes) is violence (up to and including suicide, whether by detonating themselves in public or going on hunger strikes in prison). The vision that gives meaning to the life of a terrorist gives him freedom (to think, to find meaning in life), but that freedom comes at a terrible cost, because it is inherently fragile. It depends on other people having feelings that they may not (and in the case of modern terrorists, do not) have. It demands validation that history appears very loathe to give (as the overwhelming majority of Muslims, Irish, and Basques continue to reject the visions of utopia that their less inhibited comrades proclaim). The fanatics, inspired with the holy zeal of absolute truth, cannot admit this. Even if they do, they promptly cast themselves as prophets who will "lead the way" in spite of their people's backsliding ways. If enough of us play the bloody hero, they seem to think, surely the cause of Allah will prosper, and the nations of Euskadi and Ireland will shake off Britain and Spain to become heaven on earth.
As for those who actively oppose the terrorists, they are pond scum, orcs with no real motivation backing up the mindless cruelty they inflict on true Muslims, Irish Catholics, and Basques. You don't treat with pond scum. You don't compromise. You do whatever it takes to get the orcs off your land and out of your life. If that means blowing up some of their ill-favored children (or the children of others too blind to see them for the irreparable cancer that they are), well then, so be it.
There is an important common thread here between terrorist reasoning and the ongoing financial collapse of the Western world. Banks are failing because the way we do business in a modern world is too efficient: there is only one true way to do things, the cheapest way that maximizes profit. Ideologies are failing because they are likewise too efficient: there is only one true way to exist, and that is the way of Allah (as preached by Osama bin Laden). When maximizing profits creates snafus, true believers in the modern market economy cannot think of a new way to do business: like an alcoholic who has drunk all the gin in the house, they start raiding the medicine and cleaning cabinets, grasping for anything to keep their drunken dream of happiness alive. Just so, when the violent way of Allah creates hell instead of heaven, the terrorists respond with more violence, hoping that the ideologically driven crusade that is in many ways the cause of their problems may magically turn into a solution. When Coriantumr kills Shiz (Ether 15), they may finally have their way. If there are no people left in the world, then there will be no sectarian violence! But is that the best resolution we can come up with? What is the point of heaven anyway, if the only way to have it is to raise hell?
The more I think about moral conflicts, the less useful violence seems to me. It has its place, of course, and it will not be denied. But that does not mean that that place is necessarily where past generations have put it. And there are differing degrees of violence. I can kill someone actively, or I can passively make their lives so miserable and impossible that they kill themselves. I can hurl bombs, or I can hurl insults. (Note that polite insults are still insults.) If the choice is necessarily between one and the other, I naturally prefer the insults and the passive aggression (whether I am on the giving or the receiving end). But I would actually like to maintain my distance from both kinds of violence. I want my way of life to be as nonviolent as possible. Ironically, this requires that I admit some violence, since to deny it entirely would merely lead to its appearing under some clever disguise (like the "re-education camps" employed by certain high-minded regimes). Pretending that I am utterly harmless is as silly and as wrong as indulging every opportunity I have to do harm. I have to admit the real harmfulness that is in me. I have to know it, and I have to develop real means of dealing productively with it. This is tough stuff, requiring a lot more moral fiber than many of us seem to think (to judge from our public discourse).
More on this later. For now, I'm tapped out.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
The Irish Republican Army
Timothy Shanahan. The Provisional Irish Republican Army and the Morality of Terrorism. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009. ISBN: 0748635300.
Richard English. Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. ISBN: 0195177533.
Both of these books tell much of the modern story of the Irish civil war and its ongoing bloody aftermath. English's book is more historical (offering evidence and trying to interpret events with an eye toward understanding what really happened), while Shanahan's is more philosophical (going beyond what happened to inquire why it happened and whether it should have happened, i.e. how it can or cannot be justified). If you want a timeline (from the nineteenth-century Fenian movement to the 1916 Easter Rising to the 1969 schism that produced the Provisional IRA), English is good. If you want a discussion of moral positions, English is still good, but Shanahan is better.
Reading these books piecemeal, distracted by my real life, I cannot claim to have digested them thoroughly. But I know enough to articulate better some of insights from my study of terrorism. I am going to go through these quickly here.
(1) Terrorists are people, too. There was a point in my life when I thought of terrorists the way other Tolkien characters think of orcs. Terrorists were pond scum, whose human form was just some kind of disguise. In English and Shanahan's books, however, you see that the IRA are just people: they live, long, believe, suffer, and die the same way the rest of us do. They don't like blowing up babies. They don't do it for fun, but like many of us, they can be suckered into doing stupid things "for the greater good."
(2) Terrorists believe in absolute truth. The most frightening insight into the terrorist mind that my research has revealed is its obsession with the one "true" way of being. All terrorists are dedicated to a cause that is bigger than they are, a cause which they see as the work of God, a cause before which every knee must bow and every tongue confess. This insight is frightening because of my former belief in absolute truth. Now that time has worn off some of the initial shock of learning that absolute truth stokes some very dangerous ideological fires, I can see that the mirage of absolute truth offers some benefits too (along with stultifying mental rigidity and the occasional bomb). It helps people (especially those with truly miserable lives) find purpose and meaning in their suffering. In the case of the Irish revolutionaries, it redeems their feelings of helplessness in the face of coercion, whether from the British military (who outgun them), or from their own countrymen (who outnumber, hate, and fear them). It gives them a means for exerting some influence over the course of their own lives. Their lives are not just wastes of time and space: they are contributions to a glorious Irish destiny, which the soldiers of the IRA see as a republic uniting all the counties in perfect harmony. This harmony is entirely unhistorical and impossible, of course, since a significant number of Irish people do not believe in it. As with the Basques, so among the Irish there are deep ideological fissures separating members of a single culture.
(3) Violence is never a good long-term strategy. The real problem that terrorists consistently run into is that their way of finding meaning in life brings them into violent conflict with other people. Their meaning requires that other meanings submit or die. They cannot compromise (because their truth is absolute). They cannot back down. They cannot change their minds. What is it that gives them this impossible rigidity? It is the power of conviction. Faith in their absolute truth leads them to do and say things that cause their fellowmen significant (and even irreparable) harm. As a result, they are naturally feared and hated. Their cause falls into disrepute among non-believers, who denounce them as monsters and/or crackpots and even (in the case of the IRA) mount armed counter-resistance against them. Uncompromising hatred breeds uncompromising hatred, and the terrorist dream of heaven ends up creating hell on earth. Instead of an Ireland divided but civil, we get an Ireland divided, blown up, and extremely angry.
I think there are many important lessons to learn from terrorism. For me, the most important lesson has been that I need to make a conscious effort to find ways of dreaming and believing that do not put me on the warpath with other people. I do not want my dreams of heaven to make life on earth hell. I am not interested in fighting wars (whether the "cultural" wars we talk about today in the USA or actual shooting wars like the one fought by the IRA). In the context of Mormonism, my study in terrorism is one of the reasons I refuse to be a bitter ex-Mormon. I don't think that would make anything better, really, for me or for anyone else. It would just pile more fuel on the awful fire of uncompromising emotional enthusiasm that has destroyed so many good things in this world (including much of modern Ireland). My studies are also part of the reason I cannot ever have the faith I once had, either. I cannot believe in something so fervently that I become closed to compromise, to doubt, to mercy. I cannot believe in absolute truth. I find it immoral.
Richard English. Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. ISBN: 0195177533.
Both of these books tell much of the modern story of the Irish civil war and its ongoing bloody aftermath. English's book is more historical (offering evidence and trying to interpret events with an eye toward understanding what really happened), while Shanahan's is more philosophical (going beyond what happened to inquire why it happened and whether it should have happened, i.e. how it can or cannot be justified). If you want a timeline (from the nineteenth-century Fenian movement to the 1916 Easter Rising to the 1969 schism that produced the Provisional IRA), English is good. If you want a discussion of moral positions, English is still good, but Shanahan is better.
Reading these books piecemeal, distracted by my real life, I cannot claim to have digested them thoroughly. But I know enough to articulate better some of insights from my study of terrorism. I am going to go through these quickly here.
(1) Terrorists are people, too. There was a point in my life when I thought of terrorists the way other Tolkien characters think of orcs. Terrorists were pond scum, whose human form was just some kind of disguise. In English and Shanahan's books, however, you see that the IRA are just people: they live, long, believe, suffer, and die the same way the rest of us do. They don't like blowing up babies. They don't do it for fun, but like many of us, they can be suckered into doing stupid things "for the greater good."
(2) Terrorists believe in absolute truth. The most frightening insight into the terrorist mind that my research has revealed is its obsession with the one "true" way of being. All terrorists are dedicated to a cause that is bigger than they are, a cause which they see as the work of God, a cause before which every knee must bow and every tongue confess. This insight is frightening because of my former belief in absolute truth. Now that time has worn off some of the initial shock of learning that absolute truth stokes some very dangerous ideological fires, I can see that the mirage of absolute truth offers some benefits too (along with stultifying mental rigidity and the occasional bomb). It helps people (especially those with truly miserable lives) find purpose and meaning in their suffering. In the case of the Irish revolutionaries, it redeems their feelings of helplessness in the face of coercion, whether from the British military (who outgun them), or from their own countrymen (who outnumber, hate, and fear them). It gives them a means for exerting some influence over the course of their own lives. Their lives are not just wastes of time and space: they are contributions to a glorious Irish destiny, which the soldiers of the IRA see as a republic uniting all the counties in perfect harmony. This harmony is entirely unhistorical and impossible, of course, since a significant number of Irish people do not believe in it. As with the Basques, so among the Irish there are deep ideological fissures separating members of a single culture.
(3) Violence is never a good long-term strategy. The real problem that terrorists consistently run into is that their way of finding meaning in life brings them into violent conflict with other people. Their meaning requires that other meanings submit or die. They cannot compromise (because their truth is absolute). They cannot back down. They cannot change their minds. What is it that gives them this impossible rigidity? It is the power of conviction. Faith in their absolute truth leads them to do and say things that cause their fellowmen significant (and even irreparable) harm. As a result, they are naturally feared and hated. Their cause falls into disrepute among non-believers, who denounce them as monsters and/or crackpots and even (in the case of the IRA) mount armed counter-resistance against them. Uncompromising hatred breeds uncompromising hatred, and the terrorist dream of heaven ends up creating hell on earth. Instead of an Ireland divided but civil, we get an Ireland divided, blown up, and extremely angry.
I think there are many important lessons to learn from terrorism. For me, the most important lesson has been that I need to make a conscious effort to find ways of dreaming and believing that do not put me on the warpath with other people. I do not want my dreams of heaven to make life on earth hell. I am not interested in fighting wars (whether the "cultural" wars we talk about today in the USA or actual shooting wars like the one fought by the IRA). In the context of Mormonism, my study in terrorism is one of the reasons I refuse to be a bitter ex-Mormon. I don't think that would make anything better, really, for me or for anyone else. It would just pile more fuel on the awful fire of uncompromising emotional enthusiasm that has destroyed so many good things in this world (including much of modern Ireland). My studies are also part of the reason I cannot ever have the faith I once had, either. I cannot believe in something so fervently that I become closed to compromise, to doubt, to mercy. I cannot believe in absolute truth. I find it immoral.
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