Wars of Choice; Wars of Necessity--"Looking for the Good War"

 

• LOOKING FOR THE GOOD WAR:  AMERICAN AMNESIA AND THE VIOLENT PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS BY ELIZABETH D. SAMET

   

  There is a great deal I like in this book.

   

  I gained many new insights and affirmation of what I knew before:

   

  1.      The sentimentalized memorialization of the Civil War aimed at bringing White people (Unions and Confederates) together, leaving the newly freed blacks suffering the blight of Jim Crow--so well documented by Historian, David Blight.

   

  2.      Fresh for me was how the myth of the Civil War was perpetuated by films in the 1940s and 1950s, particularly the Westerns.  They signaled moral equivalency for each side, failing to recognize that one side (the South) had undertaken war to preserve the enslavement of people. 

   

  3.      Samet underscores the reality that “war is hell.”  Soldiers enter it with a mixture of motives, by no means all noble.  We have tended to glorify World War II through the work of Stephen Ambrose and Tom Brokaw and Steven Spielberg.  Yet, in drawing this out, she undercuts and fails to do justice to the reality that there are some “good wars,” ones that are a necessity in the evil they seek to end. 

   

  I have long believed that there are wars of choice, wars that could have been avoided and some wars that could not.  World War II is a war that couldn’t have been avoided, not unless one goes back to the antecedents for Hitler and deny his existence.  I don’t think the Civil War could have been avoided either, not with the dichotomy of beliefs on slavery.  The Spanish-American War was, I believe, a war of choice.  So was Vietnam, in hindsight, misbegotten.  And the same is true of Iraq.

   

  You can’t read this book without thinking about the war underway right now between Russia and Ukraine, supported by the U.S. and the European Union.  Was this war avoidable?  Historians will study and debate this forever.  I think it might have been avoided if one goes back to the decisions that might have been made at the turn of the century.  While it was a narrow window, I believe there was the possibility that, with more foresight and courageous, imaginative leadership, a Pan-European security arrangement, including Russia, could have been put in place.  Whether it would have lasted forever no one can know.  But I think at that point in time, Putin was open to such an arrangement. 

   

  By the time we reached 2014, however, having had the expansion of NATO, including the prospective inclusion of Ukraine and Georgia in NATO and, importantly, the increasing paranoia of Putin that the West was out to surround him, with enough circumstantial evidence to prove the case, the risk of war was high.  Yet, individual agency still existed, in the person of Vladimir Putin.  I suspect that many other Russian leaders would have reached the same decision he did, but not all.  His belief that Ukraine was part of Russia, something he came to believe in more and more, might not have driven another leader as it drove him to what I believe will be recorded as one of the worst decisions by a leader of a major country in history.

   

  “We are where we are,” now as we  tritely even if accurately say. But there is an great lesson to be learned in this for the future.  Boiled down, it amounts to doing one’s best to see the world as a potential adversary sees it.  We didn’t do that with Russia.  We failed to consider at the turn of the century what would be in the long-term interest of the U.S., Europe, Russia and the world.  We saw the world almost entirely through our lens.

   

  
  

   

  Other insights: 

   

  1.      Our quick 100-day victory in the first Gulf War allowed us to kick the Vietnam syndrome of having failed.  Positive confidence-affirming signals returned and a sense of hubris came with them.

   

  2.      The attack of September 11, 2001 drew on analogies with Hitler which drove us to a flawed war on terrorism, which led us to the misbegotten decision to invade Iraq.

   

  3. Putin's decision to invade Ukraine was clearly a war of "choice" from his standpoint yet a war of "necessity" for the Ukrainians and their western allies. 

  
  

  There is an aspect of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that is especially tragic.  And that is that, even as the Ukrainians rightly view themselves as an independent nation, and are fighting valiantly to protect their independence,  it is also a civil war in Ukraine.  Countless Russian soldiers are fighting, trying to kill men and women who are extensions of their own families.  There are human dimensions here that only time will expose, even as they are being carried out in blood as I write this. 

   

  It’s hard to imagine the conflicted feelings—the horror—felt by a Russian soldier who thought he was going to Belarus for exercises and found himself invading Ukraine to kill someone who could be a friend or relative. 

   

  Many of the Shakespearian plays which Samet cites were about civil wars in England.  The agony of those wars is being mirrored in Ukraine in ways that will eventually be written about in history and literature.

   

  4.    Samet refers often to my favorite philosopher, Reinhold Niebuhr.   He brought a cautionary reading to history.  Beware, “if virtue becomes vice through some hidden defect in the virtue; if strength becomes weakness because of the vanity to which strength may prompt the mighty man or nation; if security is transmuted into insecurity because too much reliance is placed upon it; if wisdom becomes folly because it does not know its limits.”

   

  Niebuhr believed that this risk had poisoned the evolution of Communism in the 1950s.  And it’s fair to say it has affected us, too, in the United States in our own history.  In fact, it is endemic to human nature.  Moral complacency and superiority can come to easily justify doubtful means to achieve ostensibly virtuous ends. 

   

  American innocence—the faith in the essential virtue of our society that makes any critique evidence of ill-will--is more than cautionary.  It’s a warning.  Yet, we must not allow this to bring us to a position of ultimate relativism.  We must recognize that there are truths to be honored, nowhere better summarized than in the words of our Declaration of Independence:  “All men are created equal.”

   

  All of this is a reminder of what I’ve seen in the lives of everyone, including myself.  We are curious compounds of good and evil.  Stubborn idealism comes at a price:  namely, an intolerance of complexity, compromise and ambiguity.  Yet, again, we cannot allow this to leave us awash in the foggy no-man’s land of relativism.

   

  5.     Robert McNamara’s The Fog of War is worthy of comment.  McNamara’s story illustrates “the slipperiness of beginnings and ends, the refusal of war to stand still long enough to be shaped into a coherent story; the ambient fog obscures causes and consequences as well as ends and means.”

   

  5.      Today, Samet asserts, we celebrate the veteran of World War II as almost an archetype of stoic humility rather than a readily identifiable individual.  Samet castigates this in a way that I strongly disagree with.  For there are values, even if not always present, even if sometimes simplified in their motivation, revealed by the best of what happened in World War II. The celebration of loyalty, of courage, of sacrifice, of seeking freedom over tyranny.  I find the celebration of  these and other values to be a good thing so long as it not romanticized and sentimentalized to the point of disguising the reality that war is hell. 

   

  6.      The sentimental memorialization of the Civil War, with its invidious impact on race relations, continued well into the 20^th century.  In 1936, Franklin Roosevelt unveiled a statue of Robert E. Lee.  His speech tapped into the popular interpretation of the Civil War and Lee.  It also acclaimed Lee as not only a “great leader of men and a great General,” but also as “one of the greatest American Christians and one of our greatest American gentlemen.”  Roosevelt’s position may have been anchored in a genuine belief, but I doubt it.  It certainly was anchored in his need to get the Southern vote to win the presidency.

   

  7.      Frederick Douglass foresaw in his 1875 speech what the reconciliation for the White race through the romanticization of the Civil War meant as he plaintively asked:  “When this great White race has renewed its fallacy of patriotism and float back into its accustomed channels, the question for us:  In what position will this stupendous reconciliation leave the colored people?  What tendencies will spring out of it?”

   

  Let me conclude as Samet concludes with timeless words from Lincoln.  She draws on his speech of 1838.  Lincoln was meditating on the theme of “the perpetuation of our political institutions.”  He did so, as he writes, with “a curious mixture of respect and impatience.”  The respect grew from his celebrating the importance and influence of the men who had created this country.  A few were still around.  They may have seemed to be “giant oaks,” but they were not giants, only men.  Heroes for their own time but not for all time.

  “In his remarks, Lincoln respected the past without being paralyzed by it.  He understood the ways in which improvement must temper veneration and reason moderate passion. He recognized that only truth could conquer the dangerous distortions of myths,” Samet eloquently writes. 

   

  And so Lincoln returns to what we find in the Declaration of Independence:   “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”  “That is the electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together, that will link those patriotic hearts as long as the love of freedom exists in the minds of men throughout the world.”

   

  That is what we were fighting for in World War II and achieved.

   

  That is what the Ukrainians are fighting for at this moment.  It is inspiring.  It is not to be forgotten, not ever, and I doubt if it ever will be.  However, I hope in time we will also seek to understand what led to this war and what we can draw from this understanding that might allow us to avoid a similar war in the future. This is an extremely relevant hope today in constructing a relationship with China which does not result in a competitive relationship morphing into an existential conflict that could lead to war.

  
  

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The Ever Present Threat of Fascism



Jason Stanley has written a still very timely book: How Fascism Works:  The Politics of Us and Them.

One reviewer described it this way:  “No single book is as relevant to the present moment".  

That it seems to me is a fair description.  Stanley wrote it in 2018 in the midst of Trump’s administration.  But the factors which he so eloquently cites that are accounting for a rebirth of fascism, not just in the U.S. but in other countries including Hungary and Poland, are neither new nor did they end with Trump’s departure.  As Stanley writes, “A moral of this book is that fascism is not a new threat but rather a permanent temptation.”  In fact, it’s been with us to one degree or another throughout our history, surfacing to higher levels at times of the inequality and pressure on the majority group that feels it’s being displaced by some new contaminating group.

 

Stanley meticulously dissects several elements that combine to form the foundation for fascism’s appeal.  They include the mythic past, propaganda which at its worst turns into denying the existence of truth, anti-intellectual, unreality, hierarchy, victimhood, the appeal to law and order, capitalizing on sexual anxiety and citing large cities and urban elites as the source of contamination.

 

The America First movement led by Charles Lindbergh was the public face of pro-fascist sentiment in the U.S. as the ‘30s went on.

 

The particular danger of fascist politics comes from the particular way it dehumanizes segments of the population.  Genocides and campaigns of ethnic cleansing are regularly proceeded by the kind of political tactics we have seen in Myanmar, Nazi Germany, Serbia and the Deep South under Jim Crow.

We must be aware of, confront and counter this ever present danger of dehumanizing others. We must remember: Every Counts, always.

 

 

My Overriding Concern About the Supreme Court Decision on Race-Conscious Admissions

To be clear, I am very concerned that the recent Supreme Court decision will make it significantly more difficult to achieve the racial diversity which is so important to achieving the positive  learning environment which diversity, including racial diversity, has been shown to provide. 

But this is not my only concern.I am deeply worried that this decision will be interpreted incorrectly and cynically  presented by many as validating and justifying the unfounded and counter-factual assertion that racism and racial inequities no longer exist. They will therefore argue that there is no justification for special programs and initiatives to address what are undeniably self-evident, significant racially defined and influenced systemic gaps in education, health care, employment, work place practices, police actions, application of prison sentences, housing, lending practices and more. 

Those of us who recognize that the perverse effects of racist influenced polices, attitudes and cultures are still with us, even if not always motivated today by conscious racism, must redouble our commitment to achieve racial justice. We know that significant racial inequities arising from policies and cultures-- some of the past, some still with us--demand continued intentional action and intervention and measured assessment of progress if we are to have justice for all and enjoy the manifold benefits a diverse society offers. 

How Experiencing Another Person's Life Can Shed Light on Your Own Life

 

 

I have written before about “why I love to read.”  Among the many reasons, one is the light that learning about another person's life has shed on my own life. 

  

There are no two books which had this impact more clearly than Katherine Meyer Graham’s personal memoir and James Reston’s memoir, Deadline.  

 

In her memoir, Katherine Meyer Graham writes of the time when she had just assumed leadership of the Washington Post, following the suicide of her husband, Phillip.   It turns out the path that Ms. Graham trod to leadership was a lot like my own.  She writes: 

 

I was encumbered by a deep feeling of uncertainty and inferiority:  the need to please and be liked.  What people really want is logical, rational leadership—not a ‘love-in.’ I asked for opinions from too many.

 

One of the great challenges in life is to be willing to risk one’s self for what one believes is right even when it is unpopular, and may even be wrong and when it goes against the grain.  Key here is to have a very strong conviction on what one believes is very important.

 

I found it very difficult to tell people things they might not want to hear.  That’s where integrity comes in.

 

What I eventually did was to put one foot of the other, shut my eyes and step off the edge.  The surprise was that I landed on my feet.  My initial Girl Scout type of resolve was turning into a passionate interest.  In short, I fell in love with my job.  I loved the paper.  I loved the people.  Despite all my insecurities, I was finally starting to enjoy myself.

 

It’s uncanny to read someone else’s experience and find that it mirrors my own as closely as was the case for Katherine Meyer Graham—loving the job, loving the business, loving the people and from that, enjoying the journey.  

So it was for me, all of it coming together.

 

It was also this feeling of enhanced self-discovery that let me to so enjoy James Reston’s memoir, Deadline.  James Reston was probably the most renowned columnist during the middle decades of the 20^th century.  He wrote for the New York Times.

 

Again and again, I read of Reston’s experience and see my own revealed.  Entering the University of Illinois, having been born and growing up in Scotland, he “discovered then, as I had on that first day in grade school, that the old fear of being laughed at hadn’t left me.  I couldn’t explain it and I never got over it.”  How akin that was to my feeling, my recognition of not being popular, and thus, I believe, seeking too much to be liked.

 

His success at golf gave Reston the same sense of self-worth that I gained from my achievements in studying.  “It was the success in these tournaments that got me into my first (job).”  He was comfortable with golf because it offered a “continuation of the lessons I had learned at home.  It taught me perseverance, it taught me not to cheat—no easy thing for a boy to not cheat.”  In other words, it taught him values. 

 

Back in college, he took away little sayings that never left him, just as I did.  One of his was from Stuart Sherman, an editor of the New York Herald Tribune, who offered as a rule of conduct, “Say each day:  this day is my opportunity to do something which will count for improvement in the lives I touch.  This day, throw your day heartily against the wheel in the mud.  This day speak with increased precision and force.  This day give a lift or an encouraging word to somebody.  Act so that tomorrow will approve today and not look back with disgust and humiliation.”  How similar is this to my fundamental belief: "Everyone Counts". How clearly it echoes one of my favorite blessings: "Make haste to be kind and be quick to love.

 

What will remain longest in my memory, however, about Reston’s experiences was his relationship and long marriage to Sally Fulton.  He was on a date at the age of 22 with a fraternity brother.  He was with one woman and his fraternity brother with another, “a dream called Sally Fulton.”  Reston writes:  “By the end of the first Coke, I could tell we had the wrong partners.  I had reached the firm conclusion that Sally Fulton was the prettiest and brightest girl on campus.  I had read it, of course, about people falling in love but, obviously, nobody had ever experienced anything like this.  It was not a crush but a crash and it was also a problem.”

 

The outcome was predictable.  At the time of writing this memoir in 1990, five years before his death, the Restons had been married for 55 years. Come next November, my wife Francie and I will be married 56 years.

 

Reston’s continued reflections about Sally mirror my own to an uncanny degree.  

The only person who matches my experience that parallels this is Larry Morgan in Wallace Stegner’s novel, Crossing to Safety.  He writes, as I wrote in my personal memoir, “I wrote it not to escape but to relive the happy days with Sally and reflect on those past experiences that might have relevance to the future.”

 

“Sally and I have kept our promises that found that love at last sight is even better than love at first sight.  I have come to believe in personal things that endure in a dizzy world.”  This says it all. 

 

Karl Brown, who works to help Francie and me stay in shape once or twice a week recently asked me   “John, what do you believe has accounted for your success?”  It was an easy question. I responded immediately: “Francie.  She changed my life.  I wouldn’t be here today if I hadn’t met her and hadn’t achieved my dream of marrying her.”

 

Reston continues in his memoir:  “We have walked the long plank together for 55 years, hand in hand to keep them from trembling and I still can’t think of a better formula for the pursuit of happiness.  I look on these years as a joyful adventure and as an intellectual privilege, for I’ve constantly been in touch with a faithful, generous heart and a quick and independent mind.  Sally not only married me but also educated me.  She kept up with the news and also kept reminding me there were other things in life".

That among much else is what Francie has brought to my life: warmth, an affinity for other people, common sense, and fierce independence and integrity. 

 

 

Meeting the Challenge of the Rise of AI

 

Adrienne LaFrance, Executive Editor of "The Atlantic", has written an eloquent and important essay, titled,  “In Defense of Humanity – We Need a Cultural and Philosophical Movement to Meet the Rise of Artificial Intelligence”/

 

Her essay treats the importance of how we respond to the introduction of Artificial Intelligence.  She believes it is the most important technological innovation in our time and perhaps in history. 

 

Some of her most poignant comments: it “can seem as though ordinary people have no hope of influencing the machines that will soon be cognitively superior to us all, but there is tremendous power in defining ideals, even if they ultimately remain out of reach.  Considering all that is at stake, we have to at least try.”

 

These same words describe the importance of the ideals embedded in the Declaration of Independence and those, too, in Procter & Gamble’s Statement of Purpose.  They pertain also to the ideal of enabling every young person to grow up with the opportunity to fulfill their mission and destiny. 

 

LaFrance continues:  “Transparency should be a core tenet in the new human exchange of ideas—people ought to disclose whenever an Artificial Intelligence is present or has been used in communication.”

“Now is the time as well to recommit to making deeper connections with other people.  Live video chats can collapse time and distance, but such technologies are a poor substitute for face-to-face communication, especially in settings where creative collaboration or learning is paramount.  Relationships cannot and should not be sustained in the digital realm alone, especially as AI further erodes our understanding of what is real.  Tapping a ‘like’ button is not friendship.  It’s a data-point.”

 

She continues:  “We should trust human ingenuity and creative intuition, and resist over-reliance on tools that dull the wisdom of our own aesthetics and intellect.  We can and should layer on technological tools that will aid us in this endeavor, but never at the expense of seeing, feeling and ultimately knowing for ourselves.”

 

This, it seems to me, once again underscores the importance of deep archival research, of experiencing nature in the raw, and having access to personal, “in-the-moment” diaries and journals. 

 

Finally, I will quote these words from LaFrance:  “We should put more emphasis on contemplation as a way of being.  We should embrace an unfinished state of thinking, the constant work of challenging our preconceived notions, and seeking out those with whom we disagree and sometimes still not knowing.  We are mortal beings, driven to know more than we ever will or ever can.”

 

How true that is.

 

And this, finally:  “What remains is the fact that we are on this planet to seek knowledge, truth and beauty—and we only get so much time to do it.”  

So Much for the Assertion that Systemic Racism No Longer Exists and My Son, David's New Book: "Saving Democracy"

 How do these two strands link together? Let me try to explain.

The just released devastating report on the racially biased conduct of the Minneapolis police department--conduct neither new or unique to that city--undercuts claims we here from many people, including presidential aspirants Tim Scott and Nikki Haley, that systemic racism no longer exists. Yes,  there has been progress on the racial front over the past century, but we still have deeply embedded systemic racial inequities which require decisive action. 

Now, turning to my son, David. 

He has released two books over the last year. The first, "Laboratories of Autocracy", identifies in meticulous detail how gerrymandered state legislatures are passing and advancing bills that are counter to majority opinion. They include suppressing voting rights, controlling what children are taught in schools, limiting the right of women to choose, banning books, and weakening already overly permissive gun regulation. All actions that threaten our democracy to the core.

This book has secured a wide and enthusiastic group of readers. However, it has led to a provocative question from many readers. 

"I get it; we have major issues threatening our Democracy. You have convinced me of that. BUT, just knowing that leaves me frustrated; what can I do as an individual to counter this threat?"

That question led to David's second and just published book: "Saving Democracy: A User's Manual for Every American". As David writes: "Saving Democracy is meant to spur action. Your action. It is structured to challenge and guide each reader on how you can play a more active role in lifting democracy than you might have imagined". The book detail many, many examples of individuals doing exactly that and organizations who will help them do it. 

Here the point of this short essay

I believe we face the same challenge David is addressing to Save Democracy when it comes to racial justice. We need to do two things:

1. We need to document through easily understood and transparent facts that systemic racial bias and actions do continue to exist. We need to identify what they are through impartial, apolitical communication of reality.

2. We then need to help people understand what they can do individually and as part of their organization and community to counter racial bias and system outages. We need to share "best-case" examples of individuals and organizations taking action and changing their behavior to make progress. There are many of them. 

Today, many people will acknowledge we continue to face racial and social justice inequities. But they don't know what they can do to make a difference. We need to guide people in how they can make a difference in combatting the racial inequities that still exist.

The Future of Ukraine and Russia--Amended Post of May 30th

 

The Die Is Cast--Russia Has Failed in Its Misbegotten Effort to Take Over Ukraine--History Speaks With Authority--Our Long Term Goal

MAY 30, 2023

I just finished reading Andrew Robert's magisterial biography of King George III who reigned during the US-British Revolutionary War. There is a lesson from this history which I believe bears on what we are witnessing today as Ukraine fights for its independence. 

Let me explain. 

The timing of America's seeking and achieving its independence could have varied to some degree. If the British had not pursued taxing the colonies as they did (and incidentally had every right to do--the colonies were more lightly taxed than England itself) the outbreak of the Revolution might have been delayed.  But there could have been no doubt that as the nation matured and its population grew (it was doubling every 25 years in the 1700s), its citizens would eventually gain the confidence and motivation to seek and gain their independence. 

It is not surprising that it took almost a decade for the King and most of the British contemporary leaders to recognize that reality.  (It takes a long time for people to accept what they  don't want to accept). 

British soldiers fighting far from their home, many of them mercenaries just like many of the soldiers fighting for Russia today, proved to be no match for the American soldiers fighting on their own ground for their homes and freedom. And , importantly, America was supported in its fight for independence ,by Francie and  Spain, just as Ukraine is supported today by the forces of NATO. In fact, for all practical purposes the outcome of the Revolutionary War was decided by 1778. But the war dragged on and soldiers died for three more years

Russia, led by Putin, is in some ways reliving what happened to Britain fighting the colonies. And also what happened 40+ years ago to Russia in Afghanistan, and what happened to the US in Vietnam, and what happened to the US in Afghanistan. He is pursuing an un-winnable war against patriots fighting on their home ground. 

I don't know how long this cruel and killing war will continue or what the precise terms will be. And I expect there may be a continuing "frozen conflict". But I see no doubt that Ukraine will become a vibrant independent nation akin to Poland and other countries in Central Europe. Ukrainians and their leaders led by President Zelensky  have demonstrated as clearly as possible that their commitment to independence cannot be denied. 

The biggest task of the West as we move forward is to now support Ukraine as fully as necessary to ensure this outcome and at the same time maintain a longterm vision to eventually bring Russia into a security arrangement with the West which respect its history, culture, power and rightful role at the table. 

Indeed, as I have thought about this further, I believe is will only be when Russia and Ukraine are both integrated into a viable security arrangement with the West, even if not identical in their form, that a "frozen conflict"between Russia and Ukraine will be eliminated and peaceful coexistence between these two neighboring countries assured.

To acknowledge this is not likely to happen in my lifetime nor during the rule of Vladimir Putin should not dissuade us from pursuing this as our longterm goal. 

We had the opportunity to do this in the early years of this century. We must not fail again. 

To those who believe that Russia is not destined as a nation to ever be part of a broader European coalition, remember that it was allied with Francie and England in WW I, that Tolstoy's "War and Peace" is leavened with French (as just one small example of the affinity of cultures). 

Also remember how unimaginable it was a century ago that Germany would be keystone in a United Europe.