Moral equivalency

"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster."

-- Friedrich Nietzche in "Beyond Good and Evil"

Take Back the Media draws our attention to these Ten Commandments yard signs by Georgia artist Bill Fisher.

The signs, if you look closely, actually list "Ten of the Commandments of the Geneva Convention[s]." Specifically, it lists some of the rights and protections afforded prisoners of war.

That's all the signs do. They make no accusations. They point no fingers. They simply list the rules.

The signs' Ten Commandments imagery -- two stone tablets and all -- is all the argument it provides for the legitimacy of those rules. The Geneva Conventions have the force of law, embodied in international treaties which are echoed in turn in American law. Fisher's Decalogue imagery suggests a deeper legitimacy, that such rights are, in Jefferson's phrase, entitlements of "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God."

Yet despite their lack of accusation and argument, the signs seem to provoke an angry, defensive response. A print out of this sign hanging at my desk at work prompted one co-worker to hang in its place a lengthy description of Saddam Hussein's atrocities.

Curious. How did we get to the point where a list of atrocities could be viewed as a rebuttal of the Geneva Conventions?

My co-worker suggested I was promoting "moral relativism." This is, of course, exactly what the sign with its Ten Commandments imagery is arguing against. If you're looking for moral relativism, check out Beijing's argument that human rights are a "Western construct." Or, for another variant, check out the following, from the e-mail my co-worker sent:

... you cannot apply moral relativism to this debate. We ARE the "good guys" and the terrorists (and Saddam's cronies) ARE the bad guys. It does not diminish my regard for our higher moral standing as Americans that we occasionally go astray ...

I don't want to pick on my friend here, but I think the gut reaction he is expressing is typical and widespread, and therefore worthy of attention.

In the same breath he both condemns and advocates a "moral relativism" -- the idea that to be "good" merely involves being better than the bad guys.

I suspect that what he's really responding to is a perceived accusation of what used to be called, back during the Cold War, "moral equivalence."

This old argument occurred in a polarized world in which every country was accounted either one of ours or one of theirs. "They" were, of course, the bad guys -- the Soviets -- and make no mistake, they were very, very bad. Yet in opposing them, we found ourselves with some rather unseemly friends -- people like Ferdinand Marcos in The Philippines, Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire, Gen. Pinochet in Chile, a string of genocidal generals in Guatemala and, in Iraq, a brutal dictator named Saddam Hussein.

Yes, some folks did argue that these odious alliances meant that there could be no moral distinction between the United States and the "evil empire" of the Soviet world. But the vast majority of us who were concerned about human rights were not arguing "moral equivalence" -- we were simply arguing that the evilness of the evil empire did not excuse our own bad behavior or our own tacit or explicit support for regimes like Saddam's or Pinochet's that routinely violated basic human rights.

There is a sense, however, in which I do believe in a kind of moral equivalence. I believe that the moral obligation to respect and protect basic human rights weighs equally on all people and all regimes everywhere. This includes the obligation to follow the spirit and the letter of the Geneva Conventions. Any failure, by anyone anywhere, to meet this obligation is simply wrong and must be condemned.

Does that mean -- or even suggest -- that all such failures are equivalent and equally evil? Of course not. Uday Hussein and his father committed horrors within the walls of Abu Ghraib that its current apologists for torture never dreamed of.

But what is the point of such statements other than an attempt to excuse our own bad behavior simply because others have behaved much worse? What is there to be proud of in the claim that we are morally superior to Uday Hussein?

Scratch any complaint about "moral equivalence" and you will find, just below the surface, the advocacy of evil means -- of torture, murder and lawlessness -- in the supposed defense of the good.

The Abu Ghraib scandal puts America at a crossroads. My co-worker's visceral response -- shaped by the trauma of 9/11, by the Bush administration's manipulation of it and their deliberate conflation of all "evildoers" from bin Laden, to Saddam, to al-Sadr -- is, I fear, likely to win the day. The rationalization of evil in opposition to a greater evil (real or imagined) seems like the only way for many Americans to retain their necessary self-image as "the good guys." That path is sloped, and the slope is slippery.

The alternative, I believe, is to remind Americans of, and to recommit America to, an idea of the good that involves more than simply being slightly better than the worst people we can think of. This will involve, among other things, rejecting the notion that the Geneva Conventions are a "quaint" nuisance and instead championing them as an international embodiment of the democratic principles at the core of the idea of America.

Comments

[Jim]

Fred, Your entries are one of the first things I look for when I wake up my computer. You have hit the nail right smack-dab on the head with this one. Very nice piece of writing!

[ymr049c]

It is a choice between the idea that to be a good guy, you have to be good, vs the idea that if you're a good guy, then whatever you do is good. Works vs grace.

[Patrick Mullins]

It is interesting that we are revealed by the Geneva Conventions--there is hardly any better example than the Swiss for putting our own "human rights" or better, our "humaneness" in sharp relief. We can talk about how much "better" we are only if we take a look as well at how much "better" a few other countries are. Yeah, I know, they are smaller and less complicated, but the "bad ones" are more complicated and have had fewer advantages.

That makes the U.S. clearly way below not just an extreme example like Switzerland, but several other Western European countries as well; and also Canada. Certainly all these take far better care of their own than we do, just for starters. I haven't been to Scandinavia or Germany, but I have been to Lausanne and Toronto--and the non-poverty is BLINDING.

[moonbiter]

I sometimes wonder if some people are just physiologically incapable of understanding this. Similar to people with Anti-Social Personality Disorder. It would explain a lot.

I haven't been to Scandinavia or Germany

I've been to Germany -- in fact, I'm moving there next month. There is poverty there, and plenty of bums (all of whom seem to own dogs for some reason). I wouldn't say that they are necessarily better off than the U.S. They are just a little more sane when it comes to issues of class warfare. It's not quite as "fuck the poor" there as here. But it is hardly a utopia.

[Beth]

There's an old joke about a psychiatrist who's examining a new patient. "Now I'm going to show you a series of pictures," the doctor says, "and you say the first thing that comes to mind." He holds up a picture of a house. "Now what does this remind you of?" "Sex," the patient replies. The next picture is of a boat. "What about this one?" "Sex," says the patient. The psychiatrist presents the remaining pictures -- a dog, a car, a tree, a bird -- and to each one the patient responds, "sex". Finally, the doctor turns to the patient and says, "We'll need to do further tests to identify your specific pathology, but it's clear that you're suffering from some form of sexual obsession. "I've got a sexual obsession?" the patient responds, outraged. "You're the one with all the dirty pictures."

There is, as you rightly point out, nothing in the Geneva Conventions poster that suggests moral relativism or moral equivalence. At worst, it is a reminder that America has failed to uphold the Conventions which -- as Joe Biden pointed out -- we signed to protect American soldiers have from abuse. The only 'immoral act' you are accusing the government of is failure to abide by the terms of an agreement. Only an idiot would believe such an accusation is intended to paint America as 'evil'.

Your real crime was in awakening memories of the Abu Ghraib torture in the minds of your coworkers. Rather than deal with the thoughts and feelings those photos awakened in them they have chosen to repress and bury the whole thing. Like the patient in the joke, they refuse to admit their own pathology, instead blaming you for putting up 'dirty pictures'.

[Alex]

In the same breath he both condemns and advocates a "moral relativism" -- the idea that to be "good" merely involves being better than the bad guys.

I think the best short statement I've seen on this subject goes along the lines of, "I have higher standards for my country than, 'At least we don't behead people.'"

[Mike]

"But sometimes, the only way to stop evil is not with good. You must confront it with... another kind of evil." From the trailer for the movie The Chronicles of Riddick.

No doubt a lot of us will see this movie (I know I will) and end up cheering for the "good" bad guy. Or is it the "bad" good guy? I'm no conspiracy theorist, so all I will say is what a coincidence that this notion is now infiltrating popular culture.

This is a great post.

[HP]

Just want to agree with the nameless poster above me, and thank Fred for pointing out that "moral reletivism" is often a solecism for "moral equivalence." I was constantly hearing from the right something that sounded to me like, "You're something that if something's wrong, it's always wrong. That's moral relativism!" And then my head would start to explode. So, thanks for saving my brain.

Moral equivalence is another thing entirely, although if my non-Christian memory can dredge up the proper scripture, "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God," and "Therefore let he who is without sin cast the first stone." I think both the moral relativism and moral equivalence issues were pretty well settled about 2000 years ago. Moral equivalence: Yes. Moral relativism: No.

I've always found the universality of sin in the Gospels to be the most philosophically challenging, and potentially liberating, idea in the book. (Or is that "Book"?)

[Brautigan]

Just points out how fallacious it is to brand certain people (or worse, entire peoples) as "good" or "evil." I don't know of a single person who, in the course of their lifetime, hasn't done both good and evil things.

Certainly, some social structures (totalitarianism, facism) are, if not "evil" then at least "oppressive," but most of us don't get to choose the social structures we live within.

Americans are just as capable of committing evil acts as anybody else, and just because a social/political system is labeled "capitalist" "democratic" or "American" doesn't mean it's not oppressive.

None of this applies, of course, in the case of Dick Cheney. He's just plain evil.

[Bill Fisher]

Wonderful to see this discussion. Frightening that Fred's coworker feels so threatened, but these are the times. Shouldn't the current polarizing atmosphere be a warning sign to us all? When rational discussion of the issues is tantamount to unpatriotism, we are in deep trouble.

Please visit http://billfisher.dreamhost.com/yardsign.htm for two additional yard signs. Fred, I hope your coworker may read my accompanying text to the project.

Best to you,

Bill Fisher