March 3, 2003
PRO CHOICE:
-REVIEW ESSAY: The Conundrum of Evil a review of Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy by Susan Neiman (Walter Sundberg, First Things)Neiman's account of the intellectual connections among those who sought to fit evil into an ordered explanation of reality, especially Leibniz, Rousseau, Kant, and Hegel, is rich and detailed. Leibniz's Theodicy (a term he coined) rationalized and defended the traditional view against Bayle's attack. The experience of moral and natural evil is the just consequence of the imperfection of all created things. Evil is thus a metaphysical necessity. That the universe conforms to general natural laws, discoverable by science, indicates just how well the creation is made: it does not require special divine intervention to keep it working. Leibniz justifies God's ways to man by declaring in essence "that God could not have done any better than He did."The Lisbon earthquake of 1755 exposed Leibniz to ridicule and discredited the effort to explain natural evil as part of a rational scheme. The earthquake, Neiman says, shocked "western civilization more than any event since the fall of Rome." No one could justify the arbitrary punishment of so many thousands of victims. In consequence, Rousseau argued that natural evil should be understood as having no inherent meaning. The purpose of nature is to provide the conditions within which man exercises the freedom to become human. This is an historical and psychological process that involves conflict and suffering and which is the proper subject of philosophy and theodicy. That human nature is not fixed but subject to development means that evil might, at least on occasion, have a constructive role to play. In any case, it is clear that evil (that is, moral evil) comes not from the hand of God but is our own doing. As Neiman summarizes Rousseau, we can do no more than "worry about the evils for which we are responsible."
We mentioned earlier that A Clockwork Orange offers an especially rich take on the issue of good and evil, because it asks us which we prefer: freedom or security. Alex, the lead character, is obviously repellant, even evil. But after undergoing Ludovico's Technique, and losing the capacity to choose to be evil, he's somehow even more troubling. This raises one of the central questions of human existence: Does God want us to be good or does he want us to choose to be good? How you answer that question determines, to a significant degree, your politics. People of the Left believe in the former, and are therefore willing to countenance rather limited freedom in exchange for the security of having daily life controlled and evil lessened. People of the Right believe that freedom is more important than security, even if that freedom creates an environment in which evil is hard to control. Note this is not to say that evil should not be controlled when it can be and punished when it is found, rather that genuine liberty, by its very nature, leaves greater room for evil to thrive and proponents of freedom need to be prepared to accept that. Also, it's important for conservatives (people of the Right) to consider that the choice for security, though we disagree with it, may be legitimate and is certainly attractive to many.
Consider just one issue: guns. The violence associated with guns takes a horrific toll in our society. Those whose primary focus is on averting that violence are naturally hostile to guns. Those of us who focus on freedom are willing to accept a trade off, even one this terrible, in order to protect our rights and liberties. But even as we believe in that freedom and oppose those who would limit it, we can--we must--understand what drives them. We may think them wrong, but we shouldn't just dismiss the quality of their vision. The real dispute between us is not over the world that we want to see emerge, but over the way that we get there. Both sides make a mistake when they treat the other or the other's ideas as evil in and of themselves.
MORE:
One surprising meditation on this duality is M. Night Shyamalan's vastly underrated film, Unbreakable.
M. Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable
is his best film - or at the least, my favorite of his films. I haven't thought of it as portraying what you mention here, though.
Recall that Samuel L. Jackson is convinced that because he exists his opposite must exist.
Posted by: oj at March 3, 2003 9:04 PMSince the earlier thread is somewhere down in the distance, I'll repeat a comment here. I don't buy this claim that the right sacrifices security for freedom and the left sacrifices freedom for security.
Our goal should be freedom and
security. Though we may sometimes compromise freedom in pursuit of security (e.g. giving the Homeland Security dept additional powers to wiretap etc.), or vice versa, in general good societies need both. Neither anarchy (the absence of security) nor tyranny (the absence of freedom) is a good state.
Contrariwise, we can see by the example of, e.g., Saddam that evil does not fit in your security-freedom dichotomy. Saddam is clearly not seeking security, either for himself or society; his invasions of Iran and Kuwait, his sponsorship of terrorism, his intra-Iraq political maneuverings, all have put his own life at great risk, and we know he's placed Iraqi citizens at great risk. And he's not pursuing freedom either.
pj:
Obviously the ideal lies somewhere between the two absolutes.
Saddam has looted about $2 billion and been in power for forty years--by what conceivable measure has he not done well for himself? But that misses the point--Iraq is a security state, which places absolute control over the populace above all other values.
Ah - so "security" is really the opposite of freedom? Then I have misunderstood you.
Posted by: pj at March 4, 2003 8:11 AMpj:
That's it exactly. Imagine a continuum on which one end is absolute security--everyone is fed, clothed, sheltered from birth to death and there's never any conflict--while at the other end is absolute freedom--no behavior is forbidden to anyone. These are the ideals, though we recognize that the first will require a diulling of the human mind to docility and the latter will be nasty and brutish.
I don't think that continuum exists. If people have no freedom whatsoever, then no one's going to get clothed, fed, or sheltered. Look at North Korea -- they come closest in the world to no freedom, and they're starving. The fact is there's no security without freedom.
Similarly, anarchy is not freedom. If anyone can do anything to me, I'm not free. I am free when I'm secure in my rights -- when my life cannot be taken, my property cannot be taken, my freedom of association is not infringed. There's no freedom without security.
PJ;
This is what I was trying to get at in my post on consent. There's a Laffler curve, where increasing security leads to increasing freedom, but there is an inflection point beyond which more security is less freedom. I think that the best way to measure "freedom" is the overall level of consent in the society. Maximize that and you've found close to the best mix of security and freedom.
pj:
Of course it doesn't work, but that is the continuum.
AOG:
Consent, like security or freedom, is a means, not an end, which is why that doesn't work. Let people consent to evil behavior and you've a pewrfectly consensual but vile society.
Conservatives and liberals want freedom and security, but for different reasons. Conservatives are willing to give up the freedom to question societal traditions (they want the security of a well ordered, if inflexible, social community), but demand the freedom of economic self-determination. Liberals tend to want the opposite: a secure economic life (if at the expense of the chance for wealth), but the freedom to flaunt social taboos.
Very few people demand freedom in all realms of life, we tend to be selective in the dimension of life that we wish to be expansive.
Robert -- Though few conservatives want to flaunt social traditions themselves, few would trust the government to regulate social behavior. The modern conservative movement has a very strong libertarian bent.
Posted by: pj at March 5, 2003 7:57 AMRobertD:
freedom only thrives where social traditions reign in Man's worst impulses. Otherwise you need the State to do it.
I agree with you there OJ. That is why the leftist project is becoming so reactionary with it's PC codes. There needs to be a certain level of social consensus on basic laws of civility. Such rules, while seemingly restrictive, actually enhance freedom by reducing social friction. Although I agree with PJ on the need to avoid government intervention. The consensus will never be perfect, and needs to allow flexibility for norms to evolve over time.
Posted by: Robert D at March 5, 2003 6:56 PM