Very well written it reminds me of the C.S. Lewis quote
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
Well, I know what you mean, but I think Robespierre had that covered. A lot of what we now experience is really just a repetition of themes that emerged during the French Revolution.
Apr 7, 2023·edited Apr 7, 2023Liked by David McGrogan
Aye, it remains true that those who ignore history's mistakes are doomed to repeat them. Yet it is also true that we habitually back-project our concepts into the past. 'Weaponisation' is a contemporary concept: it did not exist until the forces that led to 'disinformation' created the term. I therefore claim that 'weaponisation of kindness' is a contemporary concept, while not denying (never denying!) that the roots of everything that is present run deeply into the past. 🙂
Apr 9, 2023·edited Apr 9, 2023Liked by David McGrogan
Since writing this comment, it has troubled me. I've been led to think about this concept of 'weaponise' and why I am drawing significance from this being 'a term for our time'. I found something of an answer by going back to my book Chaos Ethics:
"According to a popular view, eloquently expressed by Isaiah Berlin, politics is nothing more or less than 'ethics applied to society'. Our laws, therefore, which are the product of political action, are purported to be merely our ethics elevated to the level of the nation. I find in this idea a disturbing distortion of the relationship between politics and ethics, since - to invert the famous quote by Carl von Clausewitz - politics is now the continuation of war by other means. The reason our political situation is in perpetual stalemate (especially in the United States) is precisely because we have given up on the difficult challenges of ethics in favour of continuing a long and entrenched battle to politically defeat our opponents who are definitely wrong."
To 'weaponise kindness', therefore is only to co-opt into this war the one thing that might, under different circumstances, end it.
All this reflection then turned me back to your remarks on Arendt's remarks on the French revolution, because I think it's clear that this marked also a period that was not officially war, but neither could you sanely consider it peace. And this brings me back to your statement:
"The truth is quite the opposite: compassion and cruelty fit one another hand in glove when the former is transposed from the realm of interpersonal relations, where it belongs, to the realm of politics, where it does not."
All of which suggests that our root problem - the problem we share with Paris after the French Revolution - is that we have lost our sense of what politics can mean, we have lost any sense of there being a negotiation about how we will live together.
Many thanks for stimulating these thoughts, and I hope you have no objection to long comments since I largely specialise them. I was rather proud that my initial comment was a single sentence! I have since then, alas, utterly destroyed my brevity.
Yes, I think this is basically right - the problem is that 'compassion' has become elevated into a kitsch (Kundera is brilliant on this) and hence a political force, which it should never be. Compassion is generally (not always) a good thing in one's personal life but this doesn't make it good when writ large as a kind of political end in itself.
As an aside, and sorry to hark back to Foucault, but his lectures collected in 'Society Must be Defended' are worth reading. He begins with the very inversion of Clausewitz's maxim that you offer, and then picks it up and runs with it. It's very thought provoking reading.
Thanks for continuing our discussion! I have dabbled with Foucault but have generally preferred other interlocutors for the simple reason that Foucault is the most cited philosopher of the twentieth century, and I fear that this kind of polarisation of references can be somewhat counter-productive to human knowledge. To put this another way: since so many have already covered this flank, my eyes ought to be elsewhere.
I am writing a Stranger Worlds inspired by our discussion here (although it may not be apparent that it is...) that will run some time around June. I'll try to remember to share a link when this runs.
In the meantime, an international move is upon me (yet again) so you can enjoy some silence from me in the comments, but I definitely plan to respond to your most recent post when I get a moment, I just don't know which side of the Atlantic I'll be when it happens!
Very well written it reminds me of the C.S. Lewis quote
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
CS Lewis was a prophet.
The twenty first century risks being remembered as the time that kindness was weaponised.
Well, I know what you mean, but I think Robespierre had that covered. A lot of what we now experience is really just a repetition of themes that emerged during the French Revolution.
Aye, it remains true that those who ignore history's mistakes are doomed to repeat them. Yet it is also true that we habitually back-project our concepts into the past. 'Weaponisation' is a contemporary concept: it did not exist until the forces that led to 'disinformation' created the term. I therefore claim that 'weaponisation of kindness' is a contemporary concept, while not denying (never denying!) that the roots of everything that is present run deeply into the past. 🙂
Since writing this comment, it has troubled me. I've been led to think about this concept of 'weaponise' and why I am drawing significance from this being 'a term for our time'. I found something of an answer by going back to my book Chaos Ethics:
"According to a popular view, eloquently expressed by Isaiah Berlin, politics is nothing more or less than 'ethics applied to society'. Our laws, therefore, which are the product of political action, are purported to be merely our ethics elevated to the level of the nation. I find in this idea a disturbing distortion of the relationship between politics and ethics, since - to invert the famous quote by Carl von Clausewitz - politics is now the continuation of war by other means. The reason our political situation is in perpetual stalemate (especially in the United States) is precisely because we have given up on the difficult challenges of ethics in favour of continuing a long and entrenched battle to politically defeat our opponents who are definitely wrong."
To 'weaponise kindness', therefore is only to co-opt into this war the one thing that might, under different circumstances, end it.
All this reflection then turned me back to your remarks on Arendt's remarks on the French revolution, because I think it's clear that this marked also a period that was not officially war, but neither could you sanely consider it peace. And this brings me back to your statement:
"The truth is quite the opposite: compassion and cruelty fit one another hand in glove when the former is transposed from the realm of interpersonal relations, where it belongs, to the realm of politics, where it does not."
All of which suggests that our root problem - the problem we share with Paris after the French Revolution - is that we have lost our sense of what politics can mean, we have lost any sense of there being a negotiation about how we will live together.
Many thanks for stimulating these thoughts, and I hope you have no objection to long comments since I largely specialise them. I was rather proud that my initial comment was a single sentence! I have since then, alas, utterly destroyed my brevity.
Happy Easter!
Yes, I think this is basically right - the problem is that 'compassion' has become elevated into a kitsch (Kundera is brilliant on this) and hence a political force, which it should never be. Compassion is generally (not always) a good thing in one's personal life but this doesn't make it good when writ large as a kind of political end in itself.
As an aside, and sorry to hark back to Foucault, but his lectures collected in 'Society Must be Defended' are worth reading. He begins with the very inversion of Clausewitz's maxim that you offer, and then picks it up and runs with it. It's very thought provoking reading.
Thanks for continuing our discussion! I have dabbled with Foucault but have generally preferred other interlocutors for the simple reason that Foucault is the most cited philosopher of the twentieth century, and I fear that this kind of polarisation of references can be somewhat counter-productive to human knowledge. To put this another way: since so many have already covered this flank, my eyes ought to be elsewhere.
I am writing a Stranger Worlds inspired by our discussion here (although it may not be apparent that it is...) that will run some time around June. I'll try to remember to share a link when this runs.
In the meantime, an international move is upon me (yet again) so you can enjoy some silence from me in the comments, but I definitely plan to respond to your most recent post when I get a moment, I just don't know which side of the Atlantic I'll be when it happens!
With unlimited love and respect.
Chris.