Defends Political Pacifism
Steger, Manfred B.
IN THE SPRING 2002 issue of Dissent, Jeffrey C. Isaac and Michael Walzer take portions of the American left to task for their moralistic, knee-jerk opposition to the war on terrorism. Wondering...
...But this is the weakest part of his argument...
...It doesn't have an easy answer...
...We'll fight it...
...Take, for example, conflicts in Israel/Palestine, India/Pakistan, Colombia, Central Asian republics, and so on...
...For it seems clear that the al-Qaeda network has been seriously disrupted...
...The oppressive situation for Afghan women has improved only marginally...
...The difficulties of my own position on the "war on terrorism" are quite apparent to me...
...DISSENT / Fall 2002 • 77...
...I doubt that these two would feel comfortable lining up with this movement...
...Civil rights and liberties in our country are being undermined in the name of national security—think of the 2001 Patriot Act...
...I agree that Gandhi and King exemplify the politically responsible deployment of nonviolent strategies...
...This does not mean "all out war...
...We killed between a thousand and thirty-seven hundred Afghan civilians...
...This may be a view associated with Machiavelli and Morgenthau...
...To question the political seriousness of a position is not to question its moral integrity or its right to exist...
...This does not mean "all out war...
...We have to defend civil liberties, robust debate, and political criticism...
...The United States has struck questionable alliances with groups and nations that are profoundly undemocratic and have long records of human rights abuses...
...He is right...
...And in any case al-Qaeda is neither the British Empire nor the Citizens' Councils of the 1950s American South...
...But I have argued that certain kinds of violence can only be opposed by violent means...
...Treading this fine line will be a difficult challenge in the months ahead...
...We struggle, but we will not use violence...
...Instead of defending these texts or the simplistic "left" commentaries regularly circulated on ZNet and elsewhere—a daunting task to be sure—Steger appeals to his own experience at Illinois State University and to the historical examples of Gandhi and King...
...I don't believe in simplistic "prowar" or "antiwar" declarations...
...Moreover, King consciously relied on police and federal troops to enforce laws repealing Jim Crow...
...He knows that those who have employed "just war" arguments to defend the Afghan War—Michael Walzer, Richard Falk, and myself included—have defended the principles of proportionality and noncombatant immunity and have opposed the global and domestic effects of total mobilization...
...and a forty-eight-hour fast protesting the violence perpetrated against civilians in New York, Washington, D.C., and Afghanistan...
...taxpayers billions of dollars, our government has steadily expanded it to other parts of the world...
...Steger's scholarly writings develop a subtle understanding of nonviolent strategies for social change, with which I mostly agree...
...The example of a large-scale "war on terrorism" has been copied by various regimes to justify aggressive action against "subversives...
...But it is not bad, and there is no reason to believe that the responses Steger defends would have represented an effective response to terARGUMENTS rorism...
...Steger insists that the antiwar movement "has played a constructive role...
...Criticism from the left is usually confined to scornful ultrarealist Marxists—a dwindling bunch of sectarians Isaac is not known to hang out with...
...I never believed it would be glorious or perfectly successful...
...For two long days and nights, we engaged passers-by and hecklers in heated debates on exactly those tough political and ethical issues that Isaac claims are rarely raised by the pacifist campus left...
...We have to defend civil liberties, robust debate, and political criticism...
...Let me emphasize, finally, that I agree with Isaac's assertion that finding a proper relationship between means and ends is the most difficult challenge for both political thinkers and activists...
...Presumably in order to defeat a violent adversary one has to mobilize enough violence to overpower this adversary...
...STEGER CLAIMS that the war has been destructive and ineffective...
...Of course, having defined what counts as the "political world," Isaac employs the term "necessary" to imply war-like activities...
...It's not an army fighting against a nation, or a race....It's just police...seeking to enforce the law of the land...
...DISSENT I Fall 2002 • 75 IARGUED IN MY Dissent essay that the campus antiwar left is moralistic and politically irresponsible...
...Indeed, the great respect I hold for Jeff as a friend and political thinker requires me to respond to his arguments...
...The author of Gandhi's Dilemma and Globalism: The New Market Ideology, he is currently working on a book on nonviolence and political realism...
...The difficulties of my own position on the "war on terrorism" are quite apparent to me...
...I doubt that these two would feel comfortable lining up with this movement...
...But it is impossible for me to locate the Gandhi or King of the antiwar movement today...
...This may be a view associated with Machiavelli and Morgenthau...
...As someone who considers himself part of the pacifist antiwar crowd, I always expect to be hammered on the subject of violence by right-wing war hawks like Lynne Cheney or Charles Krauthammer...
...He is right...
...A truly "realistic" evaluation of the retaliatory violence employed by the United States and its allies in the war on terrorism reveals the remarkable ineffectiveness of the violent method...
...But his defense of pacifism misses my point, which was to criticize only one "peculiar strain of pacifism, according to which any use of military force by the United States is viewed as aggression or militarism...
...He knows that those who have employed "just war" arguments to defend the Afghan War—Michael Walzer, Richard Falk, and myself included—have defended the principles of proportionality and noncombatant immunity and have opposed the global and domestic effects of total mobilization...
...In fact, Gandhi counseled his son to choose violent resistance to evil over indifference and cowardice...
...The notion that summoning up a nonexistent international police force constitutes "pragmatic" politics is incomprehensible to me...
...We struggle, but we will not use violence...
...In late October of last year, we organized a peace camp on the ISU quad that featured, among other things, war-refugee style tents inhabited for several days by progressive students...
...One regards how we make political judgments: does my decision to support a military response—in Afghanistan, Kosovo, or elsewhere— require me to endorse the official rationales for such a response...
...This sounds pretty categorical to me...
...The notion that summoning up a nonexistent international police force constitutes "pragmatic" politics is incomprehensible to me...
...their point instead is that all politics must pragmatically attend to questions of means and ends, and that such consideration must include the possible use of violence...
...For him "realism" means arrogance and warmongering...
...Steger should know better...
...But these are the words attributed to this group's leader—Steger himself— by the local newspaper: "We stand up to evil...
...The record may not be great...
...Of course it is...
...This is by no means a great scorecard for the violent method, but because large-scale war is supposedly the only "realistic" course of action, most Americans tolerate the failures of our military response...
...But I do believe that al-Qaeda terrorism is malevolent and must be effectively opposed...
...Indeed, the Bloomington peace statement I quoted was an almost verbatim copy of a statement put out in 1999 during the Kosovo War...
...Is it possible to say this without denouncing the movement and calling for its suppression...
...Isaac's version of campus left pacifism is a grotesque caricature that works well for rhe74 n DISSENT / Fall 2002 torical purposes but hardly corresponds to the "real world" he extols in his essay...
...I DON'T FIND Steger's charges compelling...
...But ARGUMENTS in this world it is not possible...
...But it is the answer to some things...
...But the antiwar movement has been wrong on the issues and dogmatic in its approach...
...He admitted that perfect nonviolence and absolute moral truth remained ultimately unrealizable, but nonetheless emphasized that ahimsa (non-harming) and satya (truth) constituted central ideals that ought to guide political action...
...It evinced little serious effort to assess what is going on now, opting instead for anti–imperialist pieties...
...How are Gandhian tactics a plausible way to respond to terrorism...
...Once people accept that largescale war constitutes the only "realistic" response to September 11, then its many failings are easily shrugged off as "unavoidable byproducts" or "collateral damage," while its often meager achievements are blown out of proportion to maintain the public's faith in the effectiveness of violence...
...And this, alas, is the only world that exists...
...There is, finally , what I can only describe as the question of tragedy in politics...
...it is often a form of complicity in injustice...
...I don't believe in simplistic "prowar" or "antiwar" declarations...
...Steger also accuses me of idealizing "realist" politics...
...Another issue has to do with the rhetoric of political criticism...
...Instead of defending these texts or the simplistic "left" commentaries regularly circulated on ZNet and elsewhere—a daunting task to be sure—Steger appeals to his own experience at Illinois State University and to the historical examples of Gandhi and King...
...THE...A..0f realism is very much part of the dominant ideology of violence...
...I am struck by how few of those associated with the antiwar position are interested in it...
...Steger's scholarly writings develop a subtle understanding of nonviolent strategies for social change, with which I mostly agree...
...Such alternative strategies consistent with the Gandhi-King tradition are easily distinguishable from the conventional militaristic posture favored by political "realists...
...it is also associated with Hannah Arendt, Albert Camus, and others whom Steger would have difficulty smearing as "right-wing" warmongers...
...This arrogant spirit of ontological absolutism pervades his essay...
...In a 1967 speech, the civil rights leader coined the phrase "aggressive" or "militant" nonviolence to refer to forms of direct action designed to interrupt the functioning of unjust institutions and social forces...
...This sounds pretty categorical to me...
...I don't mean to deny the moral, economic, and political costs of the war—nor the dangers of militarism...
...In fact, our preferred practical strategy—to treat the attacks as crimes against humanity and therefore respond with an international criminal investigation and prosecution within the framework of international law—relied on the employment of some violence through the apparatus of international law enforcement...
...Here is another example: "To accomplish anything in the political world, one must attend to the means that are necessary to bring it about...
...But it is not bad, and there is no reason to believe that the responses Steger defends would have represented an effective response to terARGUMENTS rorism...
...Nowhere have I argued that violence is the answer to all problems or that it ought to be employed cavalierly...
...DISSENT / Fall 2002 • 77 In countless post–September 11 interactions with students, faculty, and community members critical of the war effort, I encountered pacifist arguments that were far more thoughtful and nuanced than Isaac would have us believe...
...I believe it does not, but this warrants further discussion...
...This overreliance on military means has only pulled us further into the apocalyptic scenario of terrorist strikes, counterstrikes, and deepening misery...
...Another issue has to do with the rhetoric of political criticism...
...JEFFREY C. ISAAC'S most recent book is Democracy in Dark Times...
...The 76 n DISSENT / Fall 2002 mere invocation of these tactics doesn't constitute a serious political argument...
...This is where Isaac's piece comes in...
...The Caricature Who belongs to the pacifist campus left...
...But the antiwar movement has been wrong on the issues and dogmatic in its approach...
...it doesn't suggest strategic subtlety...
...But post–September 11 antiwar statements typically lacked any such subtlety...
...How are Gandhian tactics a plausible way to respond to terrorism...
...it is also associated with Hannah Arendt, Albert Camus, and others whom Steger would have difficulty smearing as "right-wing" warmongers...
...And in any case al-Qaeda is neither the British Empire nor the Citizens' Councils of the 1950s American South...
...Yes, the exercise of speech and associational freedom in a democracy always has a constructive dimension, and some of the points made by antiwar critics have been good correctives to the Bush line (most of these points, regarding excessive militarism and the erosion of civil liberties, have also been made by left liberals who support the war...
...In our closing statement (published in a local progressive weekly), we emphasized that "any search for peace and justice in response to the attacks of September 11 is a difficult, complicated, and less-thanperfect search...
...their point instead is that all politics must pragmatically attend to questions of means and ends, and that such consideration must include the possible use of violence...
...To be a "pacifist" means to believe that peace is better than war, social justice better than injustice...
...And that's exactly the position taken by many groups on the pacifist campus left: respond to the attacks of September 11 with the intelligent use of police force within the framework of international law...
...It is hard to see what is wrong with that...
...But these are the words attributed to this group's leader—Steger himself— by the local newspaper: "We stand up to evil...
...Isaac points to "progressive faculty and student groups, often centered around labor solidarity organizations and campus Green affiliates" such as the Student Peace Action Coalition Network, the National Youth and Student Peace Coalition, Global Exchange, and the Bloomington (Indiana) Peace Coalition...
...To question the political seriousness of a position is not to question its moral integrity or its right to exist...
...For him, the events of September 11 should have taught naïve peaceniks on the left a morally tough but politically necessary lesson: learn to work with the inevitable violence and messiness of the "real world" or accept political irrelevance...
...But, here too, more attention to the rhetoric of public debate would be worthwhile (those for whom all "realism" is Kissingerian might also want to attend to this...
...I never believed it would be glorious or perfectly successful...
...There is, finally , what I can only describe as the question of tragedy in politics...
...we should promote multilateral and cosmopolitan institutions, oppose the idea of a "war against evil," and insist that "terrorist" threats be carefully specified and the responses publicly justified...
...and the cataclysmic predictions of doom have proved wrong (on this score, see Richard Falk's "Appraising the War Against Afghanistan," Social Science Research Council, http://www.ssrc.org/sept 11/ essays/falk.htm...
...In categorically repudiating violence, it refuses in principle to oppose certain violent injustices with any effect...
...At the same time, however, we consciously evoked the moral and political insights of the Gandhi-King tradition of nonviolence...
...Steger asserts that my tone is one of "haughty confidence" and claims that I caricature the pacifism of the campus left and idealize "realist politics" in general and the Afghan War in particular, mirroring the views of "right-wing hawks...
...But I do believe that al-Qaeda terrorism is malevolent and must be effectively opposed...
...Moreover, we explicitly acknowledged the impossibility of adhering to unblemished moral standards...
...the Taliban regime has been destroyed...
...He doesn't provide much detail on each group, but it is clear what he dislikes about all of them: their substitution of moral rhetoric for sober political considerations, their imprudent and ineffective use of language and symbols, their vague and empty policy proposals, and their refusal to "act decisively against terrorism...
...Presumably in order to defeat a violent adversary one has to mobilize enough violence to overpower this adversary...
...The record may not be great...
...During the fast, students collected money that went to both the September 11 Fund and a fund for Afghan war refugees...
...But it is the answer to some things...
...For it seems clear that the al-Qaeda network has been seriously disrupted...
...It is hard to see what is wrong with that...
...It evinced little serious effort to assess what is going on now, opting instead for anti–imperialist pieties...
...a ten-foot "wheel of peace and justice" listing major violent conflicts all over the world...
...The texts of the many antiwar groups I cited are as moralistic as I claimed...
...But it is impossible for me to locate the Gandhi or King of the antiwar movement today...
...I have worked closely, for example, with the Peace & Justice Coalition at Illinois State University (ISU), a small but representative group, probably similar to Isaac's Bloomington Peace Coalition...
...But, here too, more attention to the rhetoric of public debate would be worthwhile (those for whom all "realism" is Kissingerian might also want to attend to this...
...What has actually been achieved...
...This is why, from the standpoint of politics—as opposed to religion—pacifism is always a potentially immoral stand...
...As he put it, "I believe in the intelligent use of police force....And I think that is all we have in Little Rock...
...Finally, Osama bin Laden, Ayman alZawahiri, Mullah Omar, and other leading Taliban and al-Qaeda members have not been captured...
...we should promote multilateral and cosmopolitan institutions, oppose the idea of a "war against evil," and insist that "terrorist" threats be carefully specified and the responses publicly justified...
...It has also contributed to the rapid buildup of a national security regime that threatens our liberties and democratic arrangements...
...War" is not the answer to everything...
...There is no 'golden' solution waiting to be found...
...This is an issue that demands the attention of anyone who is serious about political ethics...
...Treading this fine line will be a difficult challenge in the months ahead...
...Steger asserts that my tone is one of "haughty confidence" and claims that I caricature the pacifism of the campus left and idealize "realist politics" in general and the Afghan War in particular, mirroring the views of "right-wing hawks...
...JEFFREY C. ISAAC'S most recent book is Democracy in Dark Times...
...It doesn't have an easy answer...
...I believe it does not, but this warrants further discussion...
...Nowhere have I argued that violence is the answer to all problems or that it ought to be employed cavalierly...
...Steger says that his ISU group defies my characterization...
...I am struck by how few of those associated with the antiwar position are interested in it...
...None of the nine pieces I've written since September 11 have idealized violence or war...
...In short, the only way to fight terrorism is to declare a large-scale war on it, thus fighting violence with greater violence...
...Steger says that his ISU group defies my characterization...
...Even the two grand figures of twentieth-century pacifism—Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.—consistently acknowledged the difficulty of reconciling ethical principles with political power...
...Still, his piece raises some important issues...
...it does not lock pacifists into an absolutist position...
...Anybody challenging Isaac's conclusions or his underlying realist metaphysics is naïve, unpragmatic, vague, irrational, an accomplice of terrorism, and—this is my favorite charge— out of touch with the "preoccupations and opinions of the vast majority of Americans...
...Most people I talked to and marched with seemed to be fully aware that there exists no easy moral solution to the current political situation...
...I don't mean to deny the moral, economic, and political costs of the war—nor the dangers of militarism...
...Yes, the exercise of speech and associational freedom in a democracy always has a constructive dimension, and some of the points made by antiwar critics have been good correctives to the Bush line (most of these points, regarding excessive militarism and the erosion of civil liberties, have also been made by left liberals who support the war...
...Steger refers to this as "fighting violence with greater violence...
...But this is the weakest part of his argument...
...But what is this fresh start supposed to look like...
...on balance, its members have expressed morally nuanced opinions and offered pragmatic alternative strategies...
...MANFRED B. STEGER teaches political and social theory at Illinois State University and the University of Hawai'i-Manoa...
...Like so many mainstream journalists, Isaac does not hesitate to associate pacifism with unintentional support for terrorism: "[I]n a world of real violence and injustice, moral purity is not simply a form of powerlessness...
...The 76 n DISSENT / Fall 2002 mere invocation of these tactics doesn't constitute a serious political argument...
...Wondering why there can't be a decent ("intelligent, responsible, morally nuanced") progressive camp in the world's sole remaining superpower, Walzer suggests that the left's only way out of its current theoretical and practical stagnation lies in making a "new beginning...
...The texts of the many antiwar groups I cited are as moralistic as I claimed...
...Steger also accuses me of idealizing "realist" politics...
...This is an issue that demands the attention of anyone who is serious about political ethics...
...it doesn't suggest strategic subtlety...
...My own experience with the pacifist campus left suggests a different picture...
...For him "realism" means arrogance and warmongering...
...Note how Isaac claims for himself the same omniscient vantage point that he so dislikes in the campus left...
...How is it possible to support human rights and cosmopolitanism and at the same time argue that certain situations call for military responses in tension with these values...
...But his defense of pacifism misses my point, which was to criticize only one "peculiar strain of pacifism, according to which any use of military force by the United States is viewed as aggression or militarism...
...Isaac's cheap rhetorical appeal to "common sense," is, indeed, an embarrassing move for an intellectual descendent of the gadfly Socrates who contributes regularly to a progressive magazine titled Dissent...
...the Taliban regime has been destroyed...
...One regards how we make political judgments: does my decision to support a military response—in Afghanistan, Kosovo, or elsewhere— require me to endorse the official rationales for such a response...
...However, my own experience suggests that Isaac grossly overstates his case...
...Throughout his article, Isaac adopts the questionable metaphysical assumptions that underlie the realist paradigm: "In the best of all imaginable worlds, it might be possible to defeat al-Qaeda without using force and without dealing with corrupt regimes and political forces like the Northern Alliance...
...I am sure that his presence elevated its discussions...
...and the cataclysmic predictions of doom have proved wrong (on this score, see Richard Falk's "Appraising the War Against Afghanistan," Social Science Research Council, http://www.ssrc.org/sept 11/ essays/falk.htm...
...I agree that Gandhi and King exemplify the politically responsible deployment of nonviolent strategies...
...Steger refers to this as "fighting violence with greater violence...
...I'm sure that a number of dogmatic moral absolutists have indeed found their way into DISSENT / Fall 2002 n 73 ARGUMENTS the pacifist campus left...
...Steger insists that the antiwar movement "has played a constructive role...
...Of course it is...
...We'll fight it...
...Steger should know better...
...I DON'T FIND Steger's charges compelling...
...IARGUED IN MY Dissent essay that the campus antiwar left is moralistic and politically irresponsible...
...Although the war on terrorism costs U.S...
...None of the nine pieces I've written since September 11 have idealized violence or war...
...King, too, noted that nonviolence always contains a "disruptive dimension...
...We toppled the Taliban regime, but the fighting in Afghanistan hasn't come to an end...
...Idealizing "Realist Politics" Another reason for the systemic distortion and marginalization of the campus left's pacifism is the widespread idealization of so-called "realist politics...
...How is it possible to support human rights and cosmopolitanism and at the same time argue that certain situations call for military responses in tension with these values...
...Is it possible to say this without denouncing the movement and calling for its suppression...
...Still, his piece raises some important issues...
...I am sure that his presence elevated its discussions...
...STEGER CLAIMS that the war has been destructive and ineffective...
...Contrary to his account, however, I believe that the pacifist campus left has played a constructive role by countering realist mainstream arguments that favor an all-out war on terrorism...
...In my view, he uncritically proposes that the left adopt a realist narrative that equates pacifism with moral dogmatism and political impotence—an influential myth that serves only to shore up the dominant ideology of violence...
...Adopting a tone of haughty confidence reminiscent of Niccolà Machiavelli, Hans Morgenthau, Henry Kissinger, and other maestros of Realpolitik, Isaac urges the pacifist "campus left" to abandon its "debilitating moralism" and instead warm up to the levelheaded pro-war stance embraced by the vast majority of Americans...
...Indeed, the Bloomington peace statement I quoted was an almost verbatim copy of a statement put out in 1999 during the Kosovo War...
...War" is not the answer to everything...
...From the beginning, we attracted a wide variety of individuals, including ex-Marines-turned-pacifists, antisweatshop student activists, aging New Left faculty members, and anti-domestic violence activists...
...Isaac's pigeonholing of the pacifist campus left is wrong...
...But I have argued that certain kinds of violence can only be opposed by violent means...
...But post–September 11 antiwar statements typically lacked any such subtlety...
Vol. 49 • September 2002 • No. 4
