The Criminal Nature of Great Strategic Thinking

Il pretendait reconnaitre dans l’histoire espagnole recente l’aspiration a une monarchie universelle et il se donnait pour but d’entraver ce projet, d’edifier plutot un equilibre des couronnes ou le roi de France aurait un role d’arbitre et de preponderance. Toutes les ressources de la France devaient etre mobilisees dans cette perspective. De la sorte, tous les plaidoyers pour la reforme des institutions, pour le soulagement du people, pour la liberte de la noblesse et des autres corps du royaume lui semblaient antagonistes. [Yves-Marie Berce, La naissance dramatique de l’absolutisme 1598-1661, p. 134.]

Thus, from such glorious strategic thinking is born not a “great man” but a great criminal, the strategic concept justifying both little murders of dissenting colleagues and great crimes against his own society and other societies. If Richelieu himself came from “a more primitive age,” his habit of dressing criminal behavior in rich strategic thoughts continues to confuse our understanding of world affairs to this day.

And yet, the story is of course not this simple, for Richelieu was, as he launched his expansionist project, in part reacting to Spain’s barbaric sack of Mantoue, a “crime against humanity” we would say today, that was in its turn part of the Spanish reaction to earlier interference in the Italian Alps…by Richelieu. Perhaps one side does indeed need to defend itself against another, but inherent in the employment of militant means justified by grandiose strategic thinking is the self-serving, “ends justify the means” nature of that thinking: “they want to hurt us, so we must hurt them first, and if they defend themselves, that will prove that our pre-emptive strike was justified.

 

Making Qin Great

Four centuries B.C., “China” was not a country but a cultural region of competing baronies, a Medieval feudal region. The barony of Qin, China’s Prussia, was a frontier state still possessing little hint that it would eventually achieve a bloody unification of the huge cultural area in which it tenuously grasped a foothold. Then an adviser brought to the Qin court from the court of a neighboring adversary persuaded the arrogant but not very wise baron of Qin that the first step to making Qin great was not hubris, bombast, and the launching of a war of conquest but the consolidation of the barony’s borders and establishment of a solid political, economic, and military base at home.

第二年， 秦国 果然 在 崤 山 被 晋 襄 公 偷袭， 全军覆没， 只有 三位 主将 逃回 来 秦国。 穆 公 身着 素服 迎接 他们， 懊悔 不已：“ 是我 不听 百里奚 和 蹇 叔 的 意见， 才使 你们 受 此 屈辱。” 从此 无心 东 进， 一心 经营 秦国 本地。 从这 件事 可以 看出 百里 奚 的 智慧 与 远见。 百里 奚 死 时， 秦国 人人 流泪 哀哭， 可见 他 实在 深得 民心。 正是 由于 百里 奚 勤 修 内政， 外 树 威信， 辅佐 穆 公 经营 本地， 收 服 戎 狄， 与 晋国 抗衡， 才使 得 秦国 成为 诸国 争霸 中的 一方 强国， 奠定 了 秦国 未来 称霸 与 统一 的 基础。 [大秦帝国 (The Great Qin Empire): 铁血铸就的一统江山 (中国大历史系列) (Kindle Locations 366-369).]

A century later, having made itself great, Qin swept all its adversaries aside and created the new nation of China.

An interesting historical anecdote, this story is significant for the lesson it has taught later generations of Chinese officials, a lesson clearly in the minds of China’s elite today, as China steadily but cautiously concentrates on establishing global economic ties while keeping its growing military forces close to home and slowly pulling its massive population out of poverty, “talking softly while building a bigger stick.”

Infallibility

While almost no sane person would claim infallibility for himself, very many of us “shift” “the assumption of infallibility…from one point to another.” [John Stuart Mill, “On Liberty,” in Britannica Great Books, V. 43, 277.]

Strange it is, that men should admit the validity of the arguments for free discussion, but object to their being “pushed to an extreme”; not seeing that unless the reasons are good for an extreme case, they are not good for any case. Strange that they should imagine that they are not assuming infallibility, when they acknowledge that there should be free discussion on all subjects which can possibly be doubtful, but think that some particular principle or doctrine should be forbidden to be questioned because it is so certain, that is, because they are certain that it is certain. To call any proposition certain, while there is any one who would deny its certainty if permitted, but who is not permitted, is to assume that we ourselves, and those who agree with us, are the judges of certainty, and judges without hearing the other side.

In the present age—which has been described as “destitute of faith, but terrified at scepticism”–in which people feel sure, not so much that their opinions are true, as that they should not know what to do without them—the claims of an opinion to be protected from public attack are rested not so much on its truth, as on its importance to society. There are, it is alleged, certain beliefs so useful, not to say indispensable, to well-being that it is as much the duty of governments to uphold those beliefs, as to protect any other of the interests of society. In a case of such necessity, and so directly in the line of their duty, something less than infallibility may, it is maintained, warrant, and even bind, governments to at on their own opinion, confirmed by the general opinion of mankind. It is also often argued, and still oftener thought, that none but bad men would desire to weaken these salutary beliefs; and there can be nothing wrong, it is thought, in restraining bad men, and prohibiting what only such men would wish to practise. This mode of thinking makes the justification of restraints on discussion not a question of the truth of doctrines, but of their usefulness; and flatters itself by that means to escape the responsibility of claiming to be an infallible judge of opinions. [Mill, 276-7.]

An obvious example of such absurdity would be a leader making criticism of himself illegal. A less ridiculous example would be the insistence of “patriots” that their country’s wars are always just and their country’s warmongers always men of peace…and surely never terrorists. And what of the right of racists to promote their creed?

Freedom and License

…those upon whom freedom and equality had been dumped overnight and without warning or preparation or any training in how to employ it or even just endure it and who misused it not as children would nor yet because they had been so long in bondage and then so suddenly freed, but misused it as human beings always misuse freedom, so that he thought Apparently there is a wisdom beyond even that learned through suffering necessary for a man to distinguish between liberty and license [William Faulkner, “The Bear,” in The Faulkner Reader, 1954, 322-323.]

Big Business Gone Berserk

We don’t imagine that the trusts are going to drift naturally into the service of human life. We think they can be made to serve it if the American people compel them. We think that the American people may be able to do that if they can adjust their thinking to a new world situation, if they apply the scientific spirit to daily life, and if they can learn to cooperate on a large scale. Those, to be sure, are staggering ifs. The conditions may never be fulfilled entirely. But in so far as they are not fulfilled we shall drift along at the mercy of economic forces that we are unable to master. [Lippmann, Drift and Mastery, 145-6.]

Government’s Rightful Role

A century after the American and French revolutions seemed to define the rightful, limited role of governments, John Stuart Mill felt the need to write an imposing essay on liberty. With the Confederacy insisting that government could have the right to impose slavery and the fascist era lurking over the horizon even as he wrote, clearly the need was indeed there. Mill’s purpose he stated clearly:

…to ass ert one very simple principle, as entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with the individual in the way of compulsion and control, whether the means used be physical force in the form of legal penalties, or the moral coercion of public opinion. That principle is, that the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to other. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or entreating him but not for compelling him, or visiting him with any evil in case he do otherwise. To justify that, the conduct from which it is desired to deter him must be calculated to produce evil to some one else. The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign. [John Stuart Mill, “On Liberty,” American State Papers, in Britannica Great Books, V. 43, 271.]

This very strict standard of liberty remains far from being understood, much less implemented, in great part because of “an increasing inclination to stretch unduly the powers of society over the individual, both by the force of opinion and even by that of legislation….” Even in the mid-1800’s, Mill could see the troubling force of this troubling dynamic, “as the tendency of all the changes taking place in the world is to strengthen society, and diminish the power of the individual, this encroachment is not one of the evils which tend spontaneously to disappear….” Indeed,

The disposition of mankind, whether as rulers or as fellow-citizens, to impose their own opinions and inclinations as a rule of conduct on others, is so energetically supported by some of the best and by some of the worst feelings incident to human nature, that it is hardly ever kept under restraint by anything but want of power…. [273.]

 

Tyranny of the Majority

Tyranny of the regime, of the majority, or of society: liberty requires defense against all three.

…in political and philosophical theories, as well as in persons, success discloses faults and infirmities which failure might have concealed from observation. The notion, that the people have no need to limit their power over themselves, might seem axiomatic, when popular government was a thing only dreamed about, or read of as having existed at some distant period of the past….In time, however,…[it was] perceived that such phrases as “self-government,” and “the power of the people over themselves,” do not express the true state of the case. The “people” who exercise the power are not always the same people with those over whom it is exercised; and the “self-government” spoken of is not the government of each by himself, but of each by all the rest. The will of the people, moreover, practically means the will of the most active part of the people; the majority, or those who succeed in making themselves accepted as the majority; the people, consequently, may desire to oppress a part of their number;” and precautions are as much needed against this as against any other abuse of power….”the tyranny of the majority” is now generally included among the evils against which society requires to be on its guard. [John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, in Britannica  Great Books 43, pp. 268-9.]

A century and a half later, amid calls to blame all the world’s Muslims for the behavior of its extremists without any admission of the foundational role of our own extremists in the generation of theirs, it remains clear either than we have yet to learn this lesson or that we have forgotten it and need to learn it once again…hopefully without such bitter classes as were offered by the French Reign of Terror (during the rise of democracy) or the McCarran-McCarthy purges (during democracy’s supposed heyday).

This quest for a legal structure to protect all of us as individuals from the tyranny of the majority, however, is but the first step in an arduous journey yet to be completed, one suspects, by any large society of humans. Far more difficult to achieve because of its subtlety, and more threatening to 21st century democratic societies, is conformity (neatly termed “social tyranny” by Mill:

…when society it itself the tyrant–society collectively over the separate individuals who compose it–its means of tyrannising are not restricted to the acts which it may do by the hands of its political functionaries. Society can and does issue its own mandates: and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practices a tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough: there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling; against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them; to fetter the development, and, if possible, prevent the formation, of any individuality not in harmony with its ways, and compels all characters to fashion themselves upon the model of its own. There is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual independence: and to find that limit, and maintain it against encroachment, is as indispensable to a good condition of human affairs, as protection against political despotism. [ 269.]

 

It’s All the Fault of ‘Those Foreigners’

Brilliance, in governance, is expressed in one’s ability to take the long view, and few Americans have ever surpassed a certain old political scientist’s gift for abstracting and deriving lessons from current events:

…perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to provisions against danger real or pretended from abroad. [James Madison, as quoted by Ralph Ketcham in James Madison: A Biography, 393.]

The context of Madison’s remark was the infamous Alien and Sedition Acts which directly attacked that critical definition of American values, the Bill of Rights, by seeking to destroy freedoms of speech and assembly by making illegal democratic activism against “measures of the government” or bringing the Federal Government “into contempt or disrepute” [see Ketcham, 394]. Democracy (the method of governance) as well as liberty (the goal and value) were imperiled right at the start of the new American experiment in free government by one of autocracy’s favorite weapons, the assertion that “I, Autocrat, cannot be criticized…and am thus above the law.”

The True Nurse of Executive Aggrandizement

In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace to the legislature, and not to the executive department. Beside the objection to such a mixture of heterogeneous powers: the trust and the temptation would be too great for any one man: not such as nature may offer as the prodigy of many centuries, but such as may be expected in the ordinary successions of magistracy. War is in fact the true nurse of executive aggrandizement. In war a physical force is to be created, and it is the executive will which is to direct it. In war the public treasures are to be unlocked, and it is the executive hand which is to dispense them. In war the honors and emoluments of office are to be multiplied; and it is the executive patronage under which they are to be enjoyed. It is in war, finally, that laurels are to be gathered, and it is the executive brow they are to encircle. The strongest passions, and most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast; ambition, avarice, vanity, the honorable or venial love of fame, are all in conspiracy against the desire and duty of peace….

The history of human conduct does not warrant that exalted opinion of human virtue, which would make it wise in a nation, to commit interests of so delicate and momentous a kind as those which concern its intercourse with the rest of the world, to the sole disposal of a magistrate, created and circumstanced, as would be a President of the United States. [James Madison, Helvidius No. IV, Sept. 14 1793.]

If “unanimity is not to be expected in any great political question” because of the fallibility of man, then the power to start a war should surely, above all other powers, be protected from the control of any single person.

Reasoned Compromise

Commenting on the debate over ratification of the proposed U.S. constitution, James Madison observed:

…the diversity of opinion on so interesting a subject among men of equal integrity and discernment is at once a melancholy proof of the fallibility of the human judgement and of the imperfect progress yet made in the Science of government….Companies of intelligent people equally divided…[urge] on one side that the structure of the government is too firm and too strong, and on the other that it partakes too much of the weakness and instability of the Government of the particular states. What is the proper conclusion from all this? That unanimity is not to be expected in any great political question. [As quoted in James Madison: A Biography, Ralph Ketcham, 237.]

As bitter as the pill of compromise may be to swallow for those genuinely aspiring to achieve progress, as opposed simply to personal advantage, the existence of opposition from both extremes simultaneously may be taken as evidence that progress is indeed being made. Unfortunately, the sad tendency of humans to achieve compromise by first compromising principles in a shortsighted descent into lowest-common-denominator deals of convenience that undermine rather than facilitate genuine progress should give pause to one facing such temptation. Madison’s own crucial mistake of accepting slavery as the price of union, the horrifying bill for which came due four score and seven years later and continues in the 21st century to be paid by American society in its seemingly endless fight against the poisonous and still rampant closed-mindedness of the white South powerfully exemplifies the danger of such unprincipled compromises of convenience (rather than compromises of reason based on the modest admission that no one, it seems, is ever likely to understand things perfectly).

If humans are fallible, and every politician who has ever lived has demonstrated this eternal truth, then we should not just anticipate but welcome compromise; when all are fallible and all agree, then the chosen path can only be in error. The danger is not compromise, for the very existence of disagreement should but underscore the inevitable need for course correction; the real danger is the basis on which we find compromise. A reasoned compromise that offers fundamental benefit to both sides by means of creative redefinition of the problem should strengthen the moral foundations and practical durability of the adopted course of action. Madison’s breakthrough insight that a republic need not sacrifice liberty as it gained in size–because greater size would increase the likelihood  of having many factions balancing each other off such as to minimize tyranny of the majority [see Ketcham, 241]–illustrates the potential of a compromise of reason (instead of a compromise of convenience, e.g., agreeing to limit liberty or limit the maximum size of the new U.S. republic, devise a compromise of reason that accepts great size but with the strongest possible structural defenses of liberty, e.g., a powerful and independent Supreme Court, a bill spelling out the implied rights of citizens).

The debate every four years in U.S. presidential elections between those who aspire to elect a true reformer and those who cynically if accurately warn that failure to support “better than nothing” will simply give power to “worse than nothing.” Clearly, we are making very little progress toward the invention of a “Science of government.”

 

They Will Welcome Us With Flowers

And on Day 1, they did, indeed, welcome the invaders with flowers, but the invaders came not as liberators but drunk with hubris, so on Day 2, the people revolted.

今 燕 虐 其 民， 王 往 而 征 之， 民 以为 将 拯 己 于 水火 之中 也， 箪食壶浆 以 迎 王 师。 若 杀 其 父兄， 系 累 其 子弟， 毁 其 宗庙， 迁 其 重 器， 如之 何其 可 也！ 天下 固 畏 齐 之 强 也， 今 又 倍 地 而 不行 仁政， 是 动 天下 之兵 也。[司马光 (2012-11-23). 资治通鉴(1) (Kindle Locations 446-448). Kindle Edition.]

Just now the ruler of Yen was repressing his people. Your Majesty went and punished him. Assuming you were about to deliver them from disaster, the people welcomed your army with food. But you killed their fathers and elder brothers, imprisoned their sons and younger brothers, pulled down the state ancestral temple, and took the ceremonial vessels back to Ch’i. How can this be! The whole world fears Ch’i’s power. Ch’i’s having doubled its territory and still not instituted good governance is what sets in motion the world’s troops. [My rephrasing of Legge’s more literal translation in Ch. 12, 172.]

In Denial

孟子謂齊宣王曰：「王之臣有託其妻子於其友，而之楚遊者。比其反也，則凍餒其妻子，則如之何？」

王曰：「棄之。」

曰：「士師不能治士，則如之何？」

王曰：「已之。」

曰：「四境之內不治，則如之何？」

王顧左右而言他。[Liang Hui Wang Ch 13 in CText.]

1. Mencius said to the king Hsuan of Ch’i, “Suppose that one of your Majesty’s ministers were to entrust his wife and children to the care of his friend, while he himself went into Ch’u to travel, and that, on his return, he should find that the friend had let his wife and children suffer from cold and hunger;–how ought he to deal with him?” The king said, “He should cast him off.”

2. Mencius proceeded, “Suppose that the chief criminal judge could not regulate the officers under him, how would you deal with him? ” The king said, “Dismiss him.”

3. Mencius again said, “If within the four borders of your kingdom there is not good government, what is to be done?” The king looked to the right and left, and spoke of other matters. [The Works of Mencius, Bk. 1, Ch. 6 in James Legge, The Chinese Classics pp. 164-5.]

Masters and Slaves

During the Roman Empire there lived a slave who was freed from slavery to a self-styled “master” and became a philosopher. He was later kicked out of Rome by a higher “master,” one of the lesser Roman emperors, for being an academic (something all self-styled masters–be it of household slaves, employees, or the common man—greatly fear…and justly so for none so threaten a master as a thinker). Epictetus, the name by which we know this thinker, went on to free himself from the ties that bound him and left behind some very dangerous thoughts.

Zeus said to Epictetus: “I have given you…this faculty of desire and aversion…and if you will take care of this faculty and consider it your only possession, you will never be hindered, never meet with impediments; you will not lament, you will not blame, you will not flatter any person….”

when it is in our power to look after one thing, and to attach ourselves to it, we prefer to look after many things….Since, then, we are bound to many things, we are depressed by them and dragged down.

“[the goal is] “to have studied what a man ought to study; to have made desire…free from all that a man would avoid….Like a man who gives up what belongs to another. [The Discourses of Epictetus Book One, Ch. 1 in Britannica Great Books 12: 105-6.]

Evidently, the Roman Empire discovered the ills of the consumer society two millenia before us! Too bad that the modern rulers of the universe have not yet acquired the maturity to avoid grabbing “what belongs to another.”

The Islamic State’s Victory in Vienna

Judging from the official document released by the participants in the Vienna talks on Syria, the Islamic State won a smashing victory simply by sitting on the sidelines watching the international cockfight.

The first two conclusions of the “mutual understanding” resulting from the October 30 Vienna peace talks on Syria expose the fundamental flaw: both points say the same thing – that the “state” is more important to these officials than the “people.” Point 1 calls for preservation of Syria, even though it is precisely the existence of that post-colonial institution that lies at the root of the endless mistreatment of the minorities shoved into it. Point 1 serves the convenience of global leaders eager for stability and influence rather than helping the people who live there. Point 2 calls for the preservation of “state institutions;” in so far as I am aware, the only state institution that currently functions in Syria is Assad’s barrel-bomb war machine. Only with Point 3 is any attention granted those poor people in what used to be called “Syria” who have not yet succeeded in emigrating. And who in this world ever remembers “point 3” of any list?

Whatever may have been accomplished with a wink during lunch, the document these diplomats released gives no hint of anything more than a tragic lowest common denominator sellout of the Syrian people by governments trying to maximize short-term benefits and apparently incapable of imagining creative, positive-sum solutions. The participants in this little meeting should contemplate this: the failure of the Vienna meeting to demonstrate progress constitutes a huge victory for the Islamic State.

This is a curious outcome. If the Islamic State threat does not suffice to focus the minds of global leaders, then exactly what will it take? Certainly, Putin is riding high for the moment, but he could have been happy with consolidating his links to the Allawites, keeping his naval base, and taking home his new position as one of the arbiters of the Mideast. Iran could have been satisfied with its new acceptance by everyone as a member of that arbitration committee, a huge step forward for Iran’s prestige and national security, plus a clear message from Washington that its military presence in some portion of post-Syrian space would be acceptable; from that the U.S. and Iran and Russia could have proceeded to elimiinate their common Islamic State enemy, with the now non-existent Syrian state replaced by Russian, Iranian, Saudi, Kurdish, etc. spheres of influence.

Indeed, this outcome is so obvious given the fear inspired in everyone (except of course the odd couple Erdogan and Assad) by the increasingly well entrenched Islamic State that perhaps, with a wink and a nod, the participants indeed did agree to exactly that but are all just too embarrassed to admit it in public. Well and good, except that agreements kept secret when they should be trumpeted as historic successes just set up the good guys for becoming the road kill of extremists. So, tragically, at the moment, the Islamic State appears to have won a very dangerous victory that can only fill its propaganda machine with new energy.

Whatever the real story of the Vienna meeting, it was handled badly and for that the world will pay.

Helping a Desperate Flea

Should a state help a weak neighbor? In one of the first lessons in his history of China up to his day (Song dynasty), Sima Guang counsels, by implication : Certainly not for the neighbor’s sake, but still…perhaps it could be advantageous to one’s own agenda.

魏 庞 涓 伐 韩。 韩 请 救 于 齐。 齐 威 王 召 大臣 而 谋 曰：“ 蚤 救 孰 与 晚 救？” 成 侯 曰：“ 不如 勿 救。” 田 忌 曰：“ 弗 救 则 韩 且 折 而 入于 魏， 不如 蚤 救 之。” 孙膑 曰：“ 夫 韩、 魏 之兵未 弊 而 救 之， 是 吾 代 韩 受 魏 之兵， 顾 反 听命 于 韩 也。 且 魏 有 破 国 之志， 韩 见 亡， 必 东面 而 诉 于 齐 矣。 吾 因 深 结 韩 之 亲 而 晚 承 魏 之 弊， 则 可受 重利 而得 尊 名 也。” 王 曰：“ 善。” 乃 阴 许 韩 使而 遣 之。 韩 因 恃 齐， 五 战 不胜， 而 东 委 国 于 齐。

[司马光 (2012-11-23). 资治通鉴(1) (Kindle Locations 277-279). . Kindle Edition.]

When the Chinese Warring States period state of Wei threatened tiny Han, Han asked Qi for help. Strategist Sun Bin counseled the Qi king to wait until Han was attacked and turned in desperation to Qi, then to rescue it for the double purpose of enabling him to take revenge against Qi for personal reasons and to achieve fame (presumably for the state, though this is ambiguous). Exactly what kind of “fame” Sun Bin wanted to achieve by this duplicitious behavior may be questioned. By the same token, the purpose that Sima Guang had in selecting this historical vignette from among many for inclusion in his history is equally ambiguous. The sneering nature of the Qi counselors is indicated by their use of the word “flea” [蚤] to describe their Han neighbor.

Multiple lessons can be derived from the broader story, among which is a lesson taught by the personal story of Sun Bin. As a successful strategist in his later years for the state of Qi, he both helped his new state and took revenge for his personal mistreatment in earlier years as an official in Wei, revenge that destroyed the power of Wei. Let the powerful think twice before mistreating subordinates.

Note: This strategic analysis led to the Battle of Maling. For Sima Qian’s account, see the Sun Zi’s Biography in the Shiji.

君臣 之 礼 [Chaos Between Rulers and Officials]

君臣 之 礼 [Chaos between rulers and officials]…the endless lament about those who presume to govern us:

乌呼！ 君臣 之 礼 既 坏 矣， 则 天下 以 智力 相 雄 长， 遂 使 圣贤 之后 为 诸侯 者， 社稷 无不 泯 绝， 生民 之类 糜 灭 几 尽， 岂不 哀哉！[Sima Kuang 司马光 (2012-11-23). Comprehensive Mirror 资治通鉴(1) (Kindle Locations 42-43).  . Kindle Edition.]

More subtle than the commonly criticized tendency of the powerful to believe that the people exist for their pleasure, rather than that they serve for the people’s benefit, is the cancerous corruption of competition between the leader and the elite—the high officials, local barons, major CEO’s, and generally the super-rich. The elite always strive to select, manipulate, and bribe the leader. Any leader with a spine will naturally struggle for independence, which may serendipitously lead to some benefit for the oppressed if not forgotten masses…albeit perhaps only after centuries (e.g., the Magna Carta contest opening the door to democracy) or to the people becoming grass under the feet of political elephants. This corrupt and self-serving contest of elephants seems independent of time and culture.

“Chaos between rulers and officials!”The endless lament about those who presume to govern us:

乌呼！ 君臣 之 礼 既 坏 矣， 则 天下 以 智力 相 雄 长， 遂 使 圣贤 之后 为 诸侯 者， 社稷 无不 泯 绝， 生民 之类 糜 灭 几 尽， 岂不 哀哉！[Sima Kuang 司马光 (2012-11-23). Comprehensive Mirror 资治通鉴(1) (Kindle Locations 42-43).  . Kindle Edition.]

More subtle than the commonly criticized tendency of the powerful to believe that the people exist for their pleasure, rather than that they serve for the people’s benefit, is the cancerous corruption of competition between the leader and the elite—the high officials, local barons, major CEO’s, and generally the super-rich. The elite always strive to select, manipulate, and bribe the leader. Any leader with a spine will naturally struggle for independence, which may serendipitously lead to some benefit for the oppressed if not forgotten masses…albeit perhaps only after centuries (e.g., the Magna Carta contest opening the door to democracy) or to the people becoming grass under the feet of political elephants. This corrupt and self-serving contest of elephants seems independent of time and culture.

Austerity for the Poor, Then and Now

The “grandmother of the Russian Revolution,” Yekaterina Breshko-Breshkovskaya, who spent half a century fighting for justice for Russia’s poor or in jail, came of age as Russian nobles were manipulating the landmark 1861 decision to free the serfs by transforming them from starving slaves into starving “free men,” a process that any “free black” in the U.S. South in the 1870’s would have found very familiar, not to mention the people of Detroit, Greece, Puerto Rico in the current era. After liberation in 1917 (her personal liberation from the Tsarist gulag, that is), Breshko described in her oral memoirs the shock of the newly freed serfs at the betrayal of the rich:

The peasant was free. No longer bound to the land, his landlord ordered him off. He was shown a little strip of the poorest soil, there to be free and starve. He was bewildered; he could not imagine himself without his old plot of land. For centuries past, an estate had always been described as containing so many ‘souls.’ It was sold for so much per ‘soul.’ The ‘soul’ and the plot had always gone together. So the peasant had thought that his soul and his plot would be freed together. In dull but growing rage, he refused to leave his plot of land for the wretched strip. ‘Masters,’ he cried, ‘how can I nourish my little ones through a Russian winter.’^ Such land means death.’ This cry rose all over Russia.

The government appointed in every district an ‘arbiter’ to persuade the peasants. The arbiter failed. Then troops were quartered in their huts, families were starved, old people were beaten by drunkards, daughters were raped. The peasants grew more wild, and then began the flogging. In a village near ours, where they refused to leave their plots, they were driven into line on the village street; every tenth man was called out and flogged with the knout; some died. Two weeks later, as they still held out, every fifth man was flogged. The poor ignorant creatures still held desperately to what they thought their rights; again the line, and now every man was dragged forward to the flogging. This process went on for five years all over Russia, until at last, bleeding and exhausted, the peasants gave in. [Breshko-Breshkovskaia, Ekaterina Konstantinovna Verigo, 1844-1934. [from old catalog]; Blackwell, Alice Stone, 1857-1950; Catt, Carrie Chapman, 1859-1947, former owner. DLC [from old catalog]; National American Woman Suffrage Association Collection (Library of Congress) DLC [from old catalog]. The little grandmother of the Russian revolution; reminiscences and letters of Catherine Breshkovsky (Kindle Locations 254-259). Boston, Little, Brown, and company.]

Of course, there is a difference between austerity for the poor in the 1860s and in the second decade of our highly civilized 21^st century. In that time long past, the poor and the sympathetic intellectual had an answer for oppression by the rich: revolution.

Leaders, Not Dissidents, Make Revolutions

Le cardinal de Richelieu avait affecté d’abaisser les corps, mais il n’avait pas oublié de ménager les particuliers. Cette idée suffit pour vous faire concevoir tout le reste. Ce qu’il y eut de merveilleux fut que tout contribua à le tromper et à se tromper soi-même. Il y eut toutefois des raisons naturelles de cette illusion ; et vous en avez vu quelques-unes dans la disposition où je vous ai marqué ci-devant qu’il avait trouvé les affaires, les corps et les particuliers du royaume ; mais il faut avouer que cette illusion fut très extraordinaire, et qu’elle passa jusques à un grand excès. Le dernier point de l’illusion, en matière d’État, est une espèce de léthargie, qui n’arrive jamais qu’après de grands symptômes. Le renversement des anciennes lois, l’anéantissement de ce milieu qu’elles ont posé entre les peuples et les rois, l’établissement de l’autorité purement et absolument despotique, sont ceux qui ont jeté originairement la France dans les convulsions dans lesquelles nos pères l’ont vue. Le cardinal de Richelieu la vint traiter comme un empirique, avec des remèdes violents, qui lui firent paraître de la force, mais 3une force d’agitation qui en épuisa le corps et les parties. Le cardinal Mazarin, comme un médecin très inexpérimenté, ne connut point son abattement. Il ne le soutint point par les secrets chimiques de son prédécesseur ; il continua de l’affaiblir par des saignées : elle tomba en léthargie, et il fut assez malhabile pour prendre ce faux repos pour une véritable santé. Les provinces, abandonnées à la rapine des surintendants, demeuraient abattues et assoupies sous la pesanteur de leurs maux, que les secousses qu’elles s’étaient données de temps en temps, sous le cardinal de Richelieu, n’avaient fait qu’augmenter et qu’aigrir. Les parlements, qui avaient tout fraîchement gémi sous sa tyrannie, étaient comme insensibles aux misères présentes, par la mémoire encore trop vive et trop récente des passées. Les grands, qui pour la plupart avaient été chassés du royaume, s’endormaient paresseusement dans leurs lits, qu’ils avaient été ravis de retrouver. Si cette indolence générale eût été ménagée, l’assoupissement eût peut-être duré plus longtemps ; mais comme le médecin ne le prenait que pour un doux sommeil, il n’y fit aucun remède. Le mal s’aigrit ; la tête s’éveilla : Paris se sentit, il poussa des soupirs ; l’on n’en fit point de cas : il tomba en frénésie. [Cardinal de Retz, Memoires.]

A series of minor events can invisibly construct a revolution, each event preparing the way for a new and slightly more serious step. From the outside, these tiny changes, appearing either invisible or separate from each other and thus apparently of no long-term consequence–are ignored altogether or noted only in passing and then forgotten; it is so much easier to ignore details than to inquire endlessly into whether or not some long list of details appearing over a prolonged period of time together constitute something of significance. Is not the significance of all these trivial events precisely that not one of them amounted to anything? Perhaps, but not likely: politics is a complex adaptive phenomenon, not amenable to reductive reasoning. Cardinal Retz, in modern parlance, is portraying Richelieu as a master capable of seeing the complexity of reality and Mazarin as but a simple schemer capable perhaps of brilliant manipulation of the political game of the moment but–crippled reductionist thinker  that–to Retz at least–he was, blind to the long-term underlying dynamics.

The Cardinal’s summary of the causes of the Fronde revolt–a classic example of the long-term damage resulting from war, the insidious undermining of society resulting from bad government, and the harm that results from putting power in the hands of the blindly arrogant–constitute a good start for an explanation of many of history’s political disasters:

on ne doit rechercher la cause de la révolution que je décris que dans le dérangement des lois, qui a causé insensiblement celui des esprits, et qui fit que devant que l’on se fût presque aperçu du changement, il y avait déjà un parti. Il est constant qu’il n’y en avait pas un de tous ceux qui opinèrent dans le cours de cette année, au Parlement et dans les autres compagnies souveraines, qui eût la moindre vue, je ne dis pas seulement de ce qui s’en ensuivit, mais de ce qui en pouvait suivre. Tout se disait et tout se faisait dans l’esprit des procès ; et comme il avait l’air de la chicane, il en avait la pédanterie, dont le propre essentiel est l’opiniâtreté, directement opposée à la flexibilité, qui de toutes les qualités est la plus nécessaire pour le maniement des grandes affaires. [Retz.]

While the Cardinal may have been as arrogant and self-serving a politician as any of the other actors who manipulated affairs leading up to the Fronde for their own benefit at the expense of the common good, at least he left behind some thought-provoking memoirs with considerable contemporary relevance.

The Invisible Staircase of Small Event Series

Pendant ces six semaines d’absence, il s’était passé en France tant de petites choses qu’elles avaient presque composè un grand événement. [Alexandre Dumas, Vingt Ans Apres, 250.]

A series of pebbles linked by cause and effect so B builds upon A can be as significant as a single mountain…and with the additional significant trait that perhaps no one will notice–and thus no one will oppose–the rising influence of the staircase of pebbles; the mountain may be as high but invisible. A series of small events may go unnoticed because most observers will assume that after each individually insignificant event, the situation will “return to normal.” If, instead, each event causes a change in behavior that prepares the way for a new change that would otherwise have been less likely to occur, then the result will be: surprise!

The Expediency of Justice

Words carry cultural, philosophical, ideological overtones far more significant than their bare, stripped down dictionary definitions, the term “justice” being one of the most loaded. From the Western democratic perspective, a very short-lived and geographically marginalized perspective (as Solzhenitsyn has pointed out) not to mention being a concept that no state has ever managed to implement, “justice” is defined from near the individual extreme of a political continuum that reaches a social extreme at the other end. The historical roots of this view, which 21st century Westerners are mostly content to take credit for may well extend back to early Christian days. In any case, the contemporary view in a U.S. that likes to forget how recently it has accepted anything remotely resembling individual rights (the morality of slavery split the nation to the point of nearly provoking self-destruction only 150 years ago and only that battle paved the way to ending the economic slavery of restricting voting rights to those with property and the sexual slavery of restricting voting rights to men, while the rich in the U.S. in 2010 won a historic battle to reverse centuries of struggle and legalize the purchase of elections) is so far over on the individual end of the continuum that it is constantly necessary to remind people that individual liberty does not confer the right to poison the commons or ignore the rights of other individuals, be they fellow drivers or victims of an oil corporation’s poisoning of the Gulf of Mexico.

There is of course an alternative perspective, as implied by the existence of a continuum, and that, to simplify the already simplified view of a single continuum into a neat, black vs. white choice, is to place society firmly ahead of the individual. (How some faction is to be selected to define the “needs of society” once the individuals in that society are denied that right is a second-stage question not to be addressed here.) Other continua may well be more important in evaluating the concept of justice than the choice between individual and society; for example, one might argue that the most important choice is between conflict resolution by discussion vs. force truly lies at the foundation of any structure of justice. In any case, those who put society first have a very different definition of justice than those who put the individual first, and when members of these two groups talk to each other, the delicate ship of communication is likely to founder on the sharp reef of how each implicitly, if not secretly, defines “justice.”

Потому не нужны юридические тонкости, что не приходится выяснять — виновен подсудимый или невиновен: понятие виновности, это старое буржуазное понятие, вытравлено теперь (стр. 318).

Итак, мы услышали от товарища Крыленки, что Революционный Трибунал — это не тот суд! В другой раз мы услышим от него, что Трибунал — это вообще не суд: «Трибунал есть орган классовой борьбы рабочих, направленный против их врагов» и должен действовать «с точки зрения интересов Революции… имея в виду наиболее желательные для рабочих и крестьянских масс результаты» (стр. 73).

Люди не есть люди, а «определённые носители определённых идей». «Каковы бы ни были индивидуальные качества [подсудимого], к нему может быть применим только один метод оценки: это — оценка с точки зрения классовой целесообразности» (стр. 79).

То есть ты можешь существовать, только если это целесообразно для рабочего класса. А «если эта целесообразность потребует, чтобы карающий меч обрушился на головы подсудимых, то никакие… убеждения словом не помогут» (стр. 81), — ну, там доводы адвокатов и т.д. «В нашем революционном суде мы руководствуемся не статьями и не степенью смягчающих обстоятельств; в Трибунале мы должны исходить из соображений целесообразности» (стр. 524).

В те годы многие вот так: жили-жили, вдруг узнали, что существование их — нецелесообразно. [Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, 287-288.]

The reason that fine points of jurisprudence are unnecessary is that there is no need to clarify whether the defendant is guilty or not guilty: the concept of guilt is an old bourgeois concept which has now been uprooted…

“A tribunal is an organ of the class struggle of the workers directed against their enemies” and must act “from the point of view of the interests of the revolution…having in mind the most desirable results for the masses of workers and peasants.” People are not people but “carriers of specific ideas.” “No matter what the individual qualities [of the defendant], only one method of evaluating him is to be applied: evaluation from the point of view of class expediency.”

In other words, you can exist only if it’s expedient for the working class. And if “this expediency should require that the avenging sword should fall on the head of the defendants, then no…verbal arguments can help. (Such as arguments by lawyers, etc.) “In our revolutionary court we are guided not by articles of the law and not by the degree of extenuating circumstances; in the tribunal we must proceed on the basis of coonsiderationsn of expediency.

That was the way it was in those years: people lived and breathed and then suddenly found out that their existence was inexpedient. [Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Arch

The Bolshevik thinking portrayed here by Solzhenitsyn lays out bluntly their stunning (to a naively modern Western democrat) dismissal of individual rights, but the Bolsheviks had it wrong in calling individual justice a bourgeois concept. Anyone is in principle capable of understanding the idea of individual rights, from Christians in Rome’s catacombs to a slave seeking freedom like the eloquent Frederick Douglass. In practice, it is not entirely clear what enables one to differentiate right from wrong or to visualize distinctions between liberty and oppression or to seize abstract visions of “justice” and apply them appropriately to real life. Perhaps the key to achieving that is simply to know that fundamentally different assumptions about the meaning of certain common words underlies one’s definitions. It is not just the Bolsheviks who defined “justice” in ways most Americans today would consider alien.