Download Julie`s Thoughts on War and the Price of Hubris Juliana Paradise

Julie’s Thoughts on War and the Price of Hubris
Juliana Paradise Hunt
March 6, 2003
As these final days of peace pass too quickly, one gets the feeling that we
Americans, too used to being ‘winners’ in the overall scheme of things, have not really
considered (except perhaps in the pit of our stomachs) the true worst case scenario we
may be setting up for. But since there may still be time for us to recognize, if not set
aright, the potentially tragic dimensions of the error we are about to undertake, it would
seem wise to put ourselves in mind of the parting thoughts of our late President John F.
Kennedy.
In the speech he was to deliver on the day that he died, this
great democratic leader cautioned us to remember that:
“We are watchmen on the walls of world freedom. We ask…that we may be
worthy of our power and responsibility—that we may exercise our strength with
wisdom and restraint—and that we may achieve in our time and for all time the
ancient vision of peace on earth, good will toward men. That must always be our
goal—and the righteousness of our cause must always underlie our strength.”1
Given JFK’s logic—that it is the righteousness of our cause which underlies our
strength—it’s no wonder then that Osama Bin Laden can assure his followers that they
can be confident of victory in the upcoming conflict, for their enemies cause is less than
just, and what’s more, he says, our soldiers know it!
Twenty-four centuries ago, the ancient Athenians, who had given life to the first great
democracy, learned the hard way that might does not make right when they too forgot the
critical distinction between protective and imperial empire. Apparently ‘Old Europe’
understands this better than modern Americans do—but then we barely remember the
Golden Age of Clinton (and relatively speaking, it was!) so it’s little surprise that we
don’t remember the Golden Age of Athens!
But there will be time for remembering…after. When this last chance to preserve our
beloved democracy has passed, we may have many long years to recall nostalgically the
ideal that gave rise to the greatest country the world has ever known. It is an ideal that
some democratic leaders pursued with heart and wisdom. We may recall with fond
sadness, like the memory of a long lost love, the vision of our once free and open society
engaged in energetic dialogue in which every voice was counted and dissent was
cherished as the only impediment to tyranny. We may think back with tender irony on the
once healthy and prosperous community whose strength was grounded in the un-coerced
adherence of reason to justice.
We will no doubt grow sad of heart to recall how, once upon a time, rather than squander
precious resources and young lives, some democratic leaders addressed the problems of
excess capital and labor by putting their populations to work in ways that uplifted the
entire community to its highest potentials. Not unlike FDR’s New Deal, Pericles drew on
the untapped genius and talents of the Athenian people to undertake a building program
that would produce all the great monuments of antiquity in the course of his single
administration. While no one will remember our enemies when we are gone, he assured
them, these testaments to our excellence will make Athenian democracy immortal for all
time.
Perhaps then we will understand, albeit too late, why the only legitimate power is the
kind that great vision and intelligence wields. True democracy requires leaders of the
highest order with a vision of the peoples’ true potentials and the skills of great educators
to help them see what could be—for it’s impossible to hit a target we don’t aim at.
And then perhaps we will recognize the fine line we are now overstepping—that between
power as responsibility and power as license. This understanding is a critical component
of a truly democratic vision, one which compelled Pericles to scold his population when,
in response to ‘terrorist attacks’ from their Spartan rivals, their hunger for glory and
revenge ran high. To moderate their expansive ambitions, Pericles reminded the
Athenians that they had acquired their empire, not by conquest, but by defending the
rights of free people against those who would obliterate those rights. Protective empire
may sometimes be necessary, he argued, on the grounds that it is the responsibility of
those who can to protect those who cannot defend themselves. But do not be fooled or
confused, he warned, by those who would exploit this opportunity and use the same
words—'the rights of free people'—to defend lesser motives. A populace open to
persuasion is always vulnerable to the rhetoric of the few who would use power for
nothing better than the pursuit of more power.
The oligarchs of ancient Athens, seething at the success of Pericles’ building program
and the general prosperity brought about by his administration, practically drowned their
population in rhetoric and double-speak. The so-called ‘Party of the Good and True’
turned up scandal after scandal, prosecuting him for everything from embezzlement to
squandering public funds to sexual indiscretion—a familiar scenario to Americans.
Scrambling to win back public favor, they promised themselves (behind closed doors)
that, if they ever got their hands on power again, they would simply never give it up. And
so it came as little surprise when, unable to replace the great Pericles after his death,
those who stepped in to take his place saw to it first thing that democratic rights and
freedoms were quickly and steadily obliterated—not unlike the process underway in the
United States as we read our morning papers.
Bill Clinton, for his part, was steward to the greatest prosperity the world has ever
witnessed. His economic policies held wages, housing, and the market up, while keeping
unemployment, poverty, and crime down. His foreign policies made friends of old
enemies and even made age-old enemies friends with one another. And not only did he
fulfill every campaign promise he ever made, he even fulfilled those promises that
administrations before and after him made and failed to keep. He promoted peace on
every front, proved himself a friend to the disadvantaged at every turn, and made us all
wealthier in myriad ways in the process. Which is, of course, exactly the reason his
political enemies hated him so much, as well as the reason why the world misses his
intelligence, vision, and leadership more with each passing day.
What it does not miss is the venomous persecution our oligarchs put him (and us)
through. However, considering that they are the very same who are now taking us into
what our ‘enemies’ promise will be World War III, I for one would willingly trade this
nightmare for that one. Would that we could rewind…
Ah, but are we sure we cannot? Like Scrooge on Christmas morning, we could still
awaken to recognize that this nightmare is, as of yet, still only a prophesy! Given this
administrations’ will to power, this war would be difficult to avert, to be sure. Difficult,
but not impossible! Though the solution may require that we take a lesson from the
methods that have so recently been used against us—someone, somewhere, must have the
‘smoking gun’ that will disempower this administration—A chatty friend? A blue dress?
Evidence that he inhaled (or in his case, snorted—oh, never mind, we knew that and
‘elected’ him anyway). Maybe he can be embarrassed into an impeachable lie! Did you
sabotage the arms inspectors? Did you spy on our allies? Do you have any clue what you
are doing?
Like tyrants in all times and places, the oligarchs of ancient Athens began as popular
leaders who were able to tap into the fear and self-interest of their followers, and to use
the trust that their sheep’s clothing had secured to convince the people to give up their
rights and freedoms—precious valuables which, little did they realize, could never be
recovered. That can’t happen here, you say? Clearly they thought that it couldn’t happen
there?!
What began in ancient Athens as the diminution of civil liberties quickly grew in the heat
generated by war into widespread confiscations and judicial murders—beginning with the
leaders of the democracy, then the moderates, then those among their own ranks who
complained of these crimes, and even some who did not, but were merely suspected of
dissident sentiments. The oligarchs continued their bloody massacre until they had done
away with any and all who would challenge them, ending finally with the execution of
Socrates, which is widely recognized to have been the death of the Golden Age of
Athenian Democracy.
The point is that for a short time yet, at least, we do still have time—we do still have
democracy—and we do (at least in theory) still have the freedom to say what we think.
For freedom is not merely the ability to vote, it is the ability to think for ourselves.
Rhetoric is a powerful tool, and an equally powerful weapon, for words can as easily lead
to evil as to good. Indeed, the ancient ideal of democracy would have the steadfast
endurance of the Parthenon itself were it not for how easily the poison of hubris takes
root in the heart when we fail to distinguish between rhetoric and reason.
This is why the opposition to this war would never use such methods against this
administration as were employed by them against our last ‘liberal’ administration—
because we are and wish to remain, quite simply, above it. We believe that right makes
might. We believe that good people needn’t wear sheep’s clothing. And we believe that,
however much damage the power-hungry among us might do, in the end, they do the
most harm to themselves. At times like this, it is a difficult philosophy to live by,
especially given how much suffering this administration is about to inflict. But even the
swift victory they envision would be Pyrrhic, at best, planting the seeds of their own
destruction in the process.
There is a high price to be paid for excessive pride and self-regard. Athena herself—the
champion of democracy—was also the champion of the universally accepted moral law
that, one way or another, ‘hubris should be punished.’2 In the end, we all must live with
ourselves.
And so, as we enter into this bloody massacre, the question for each of us in George
Bush’s America (which, it should not be forgotten, is “544,000 votes smaller than Al
Gore’s America”3) should be this—is it happening in my name?
We call ourselves ‘conservative’ when we wish to ‘conserve’ our freedom and security.
And, in and of itself, pursuit of self-interest is not necessarily a bad thing—for we are
each and all responsible for taking care of ourselves. But as Socrates was quick to point
out, while everyone does what they think is good for them, not everyone knows what that
is! If you must follow someone, he cautioned, at least follow those who have your best
interest at heart.
If we continue on the course we are currently following, many of us will not live to regret
the tragic proportions of this seemingly small error our country is about to undertake. But
some among us will have plenty of time after to ponder how much better we might have
understood our true interests before the slaughter. And we will have to ask ourselves
then, was it the lust for wealth, after all, or merely the fear of poverty, which made us so
willingly complicit in that alliance of the rich and powerful who took their own side
against the poor of our own and other countries alike? And we will have to admit, then,
what we have such a hard time seeing now—that when fear is used to motivate a
population, it is, by definition, ‘terrorism’?
JFK would have us remember, “Of those to whom much is given, much is required”—
especially by way of self-restraint. Until this administration, the United States would not
have needed reminding that true democracy requires a strictly defensive foreign policy.
Great leaders know that true power lies not in external force, but in internal strength. The
terrorists of 9/11 will truly have won (to use the rhetoric so over-worked since that event)
when they have convinced us to betray our own ideals, and turned us into…well, uh,
terrorists.
And so, on the eve of the Peloponnesian War, seeing that the rhetoric of hate and revenge
had taken root in his people and finding himself unable to restrain the wolves from
herding the overzealous population of Athens to slaughter, the sad-hearted Pericles
sounded very much like Democratic senator Robert Byrd on the floor of the U.S. Senate
last week. In a brief moment of lucidity (rare these days in that chamber), one lone
democrat found the courage to protest an oligarchic administration which has
“squandered a projected surplus of some $5.6 trillion…fostered policies which have
slowed economic growth…ignored urgent (domestic) matters…split traditional alliances,
possibly crippling for all time order-keeping entities like the United Nations and
Nato…called into question the traditional worldwide perception of the United States as a
well-intentioned peacekeeper…(and) turned the patient art of diplomacy into threats,
labeling and name-calling.”
Byrd’s words (which seem to have gone unnoticed by the US media) bear repeating:
“This reckless and arrogant administration has initiated policies which may reap
disastrous consequences… The kind of destabilizing foreign policy debacle that the
world is currently witnessing is inexcusable. Many of the pronouncements made by this
administration are outrageous.” And yet, “on what is possibly the eve of horrific
infliction of death and destruction on the population of the nation of Iraq—a population
of which over 50% is under age 15—this chamber is silent. On what is possibly only days
before we send thousands off to face unimagined horrors of warfare—this chamber is
silent. On the eve of what could possibly be a vicious terrorist attack in retaliation for our
attack on Iraq, it is business as usual in the Senate. We are truly ‘sleeping walking
through history’.”
“This war,” Byrd concluded, “is not necessary at this time… Our mistake was to put
ourselves in a corner so quickly. Our challenge is to now find a graceful way out of a box
of our own making. Perhaps there is still a way if we allow more time.”
This was Pericles’ prescription as well: “If you will not be persuaded by me, at least
listen to Time—that wisest of all counselors!” For this is no trifle we undertake—it is
sure to be, as the king of Sparta forewarned his people, “A war we will leave to our
children!”
And so, after 30 years of peace and prosperity, and despite the cautions of the only truly
democratic leader the first great democracy would ever know, the Athenians flung
themselves headlong into the Peloponnesian War—a war which would last nearly three
decades, would kill a full third of the Athenian population, and would destroy her
military, her empire, and her democracy—insuring that the once great democracy would
never know freedom or security again.
So much for the self-interest of conservatives…
And for his part, Pericles (stricken with plague by now) was said to have fought best of
all. And when it was discovered after his death that in all his forty years at the pinnacle of
power, he had not increased his own estate by a single drachma, his loss was swiftly
appreciated, for another like him was nowhere to be found. For this and many reasons,
Pericles would be remembered as having achieved a balance of courage and temperance
in his rule that is seldom achieved in any human life, let alone one given to politics. And
yet, in an ironic and cruel twist of rhetoric, ‘the great man,’ as he would be remembered,
has been credited by history with responsibility for starting the war. Not unlike how the
peace movement is today being blamed for empowering Saddam. Go figure.
So the lesson of all this would seem to be that the challenge to freedom loving people in
America today, as it was in ancient Athens, is to remember, to remind one another, and to
require that our leaders understand, that we all—people everywhere—require peace to
realize our true potentials.
All of which is why Socrates warned that the real challenge for democracy is to keep
power out of the hands of those who are in love with it. It is a dictum Americans would
do well to remember—now while there may still be time—because the last time
democracy was usurped by the forces of oligarchy, it took 2000 years and the discovery
of a ‘New World’ for it to find fertile soil again.
Juliana Paradise Hunt teaches Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Marathon
County. She is currently working on a novel and film adaptation of Plato’s Socratic
Dialogues.
1
Speech to have been delivered before the Dallas Citizens Council, Dallas, Texas, November 22, 1963.
Vital Speeches of the Day (Vol. XXX, #4. Dec.1, 1963) p. 107.
2 Donald Kagan, Pericles and the Birth of Democracy.
3
I believe this quote came from Robert Fisk’s column in the Guardian; if you need the source, I’ll find it.