Digressions&Impressions

Hume's blemishes and silences

Yesterday I noted that in his treatment in the Agricola of the Roman conquest of Britain, Tacitus gives pride of place to the speech by Galgacus ahead of the decisive battle. It's an eloquent statement of the argument against empire. It is especially noteworthy that the speech goes well beyond the desire of propertied freedom, and is also an argument in favor of national (or terriotorial) self-determination. Galgacus is reported as fighting for British liberty.

By contrast, Hume, treats the episode very differently:

This great commander [Agricola--ES] formed a regular plan for subduing Britain, and rendering the acquisition useful to the conquerors. He carried his victorious arms northwards, defeated the Britons in every encounter, pierced into the inaccessible forests and mountains of Caledonia, reduced every state to subjection in the southern parts of the island, and chaced before him all the men of fiercer and more intractable spirits, who deemed war and death itself less intolerable than servitude under the victors. He even defeated them in a decisive action, which they sought under Galgacus, their leader; and having fixed a chain of garrisons, between the friths of Clyde and Forth, he thereby cut off the ruder and more barren parts of the island, and secured the Roman province from the incursions of the barbarous inhabitants.

During these military enterprizes, he neglected not the arts of peace. He introduced laws and civility among the Britons, taught them to desire and raise all the conveniencies of life, reconciled them to the Roman language and manners, instructed them in letters and science, and employed every expedient to render those chains, which he had forged, both easy and agreeable to them. The inhabitants, having experienced how unequal their own force was to resist that of the Romans, acquiesced in the dominion of their masters, and were gradually incorporated as a part of that mighty empire--David Hume, History of England.

Before we simply assume that Tacitus's treatment was simply irrelevant to Hume's account in the History of England, it is worth reminding ourselves that Hume quotes Tacitus in the epigraph on the title-page of the Treatise. (Paul Russell has done creative work with this.) And, elsewhere, as Jacky Taylor first pointed out to me, Hume insists that Tacitus is the favorite author of those (at age 50) that prefer "wise, philosophical reflections concerning the conduct of life and moderation of the passions."

In looking at the quoted passage of Hume's History, one might wonder if Hume is even familiar with the Agricola. After all, elsewhere Hume explicitly notes Tacitus's treatment (in the Germania) of the Germans's "fierce and bold liberty" (drawn by the masterly pencil of Tacitus"--explicit and tacit references to this feature of the Germania are sprinkled through Hume's oeuvre). So, Hume does not always overlook this feature of Tacitus's analysis. However, Hume is familiar with the Agricola; he refers to it explicitly in the History of England (here), including in the notes to the passage just quoted where it is his main (only?) source of evidence. 

That Hume omits Galgacus's speech, which evidently does not fit the political narrative he wishes to tell, is less remarkable than the fact that he calls attention to the existence of Galgacus, who plays no further role in the overall argument, at all. So, what to make of this?

First, it is quite clear that Hume is a friend of empire (recall) when it extends (i) 'laws and civility' (even by the force of arms) as well as (ii) generates demand for commercial activity ('desire... the conveniencies of life'), and (iii) promotes 'arts and sciences.' Agricola is not just a successful military leader, but is in Hume's hands transformed primarily into (iv) a wise political legislator that is worth emulating. Strikingly -- especially if one recalls Rousseau --, Agricola's political wisdom consist in making a population feel at ease in its chains. Agricola follows his own "regular plan" (which is contrasted with Galgacus's rash decision to seek decisive battle), and shows that some order needs to be imposed (with the sword) before the fruits of civilization can be enjoyed. It would be unfair to Hume to claim that he only promotes this vision of political leadership (recall), but one should not overlook this strain in his thought either. While (i-iv) are not altogether absent in Tacitus's account, Agricola's subordinate position to the emperor leaves little room for treating him as a political legislator in the way that Hume does.

Second, in Hume's hands the opposition between civilization and barbarism is not understood in terms of empire and freedom. The benefits of empire are emphasized, and it's hard not to discern in this Hume's advocacy of British commercial empire and the Union (of Scotland with England). Rather it becomes a distinction between enjoyable chains and fierce (animal-like) un-tamedness. To put the point starker than Hume does, The 'uncivilized' or barbarous are interpreted as willingly choosing death and thereby marking themselves as worth killing. As we know, this is an enduring, dangerous trope that gets recycled even by my Zionist friends when faced, say, with Hamas's propaganda and suicide-killers.

Salaita and the Two Cultures

All politics is local, so it would be unwise to read too much into the  8-1 vote by the University of Illinois Board of Trustees against hiring (or unhiring) Dr. Salaita. But if you look at the sixteen UIUC departments that voted no confidence, the STEM disciplines and even some of the important social sciences (economics, psychology) are conspicuously absent. This is worthy of attention because there is little doubt that the views of the major STEM departments would not have been easily ignored. I have seen reports that suggest that people were reluctant to vote against Chancellor Wise because she is well liked and there is a desire for stability due to a recent history of administrative turmoil. I also suspect that the pro-Salaita campaigners did not help his case by trying to turn this into a wider movement and wedge-issue against Israel. (I am not denying that they were justified in doing so, not the least because right wing Zionists clearly tried to get a hostile critic fired from his job, but it might have been better to have focused exclusively on procedural and constitutional issues rather than turning it into a movement building moment.)*

Even so, the list of departments that voted no confidence points to an important cultural, even sociological divide.** Folk in the Humanities have not come to grips with the fact that many of the professionals in STEM disciplines are, in effect, extremely successful fundraisers and managers of highly skilled technicians. The culture is not corporate in a GE or Wall Street sense, but on the STEM sides of campus there is a different atmosphere from the Humanities. This is not to deny that there are many genuine intellectuals among STEM types and that they have broadly liberal-cosmopolitan views, but their ethic and self-identity is not tied up with the very possibility of permanent, even intense disagreement.

Moreover, STEM folks are, in effect, at-will employees; when the grants dry up, they can get eased out. (Of course, in practice many have skills that are in good demand inside and outside the academy.) Classroom education is ideally based on (charismatic) lecturers with elegant powerpoint slides that need to be memorized (in practice it is often taught by folk that do not have very good language and communicative  skills); education in a STEM field is not really about free-flowing and passionate discussion. (Of course, there are exceptions.) While we all know some STEM-scientists that also have activist sympathies (in ecology, climate science, marine biology, etc.), there is no natural sympathy or affinity with social causes and expansive views on education and debate. (This is, in part, due to the influence of bad images of science generated in past philosophy.)

In so far as universities present themselves as places where ideas are genuinely debated and creativity is valued, the Humanities play an important totemic, even status-enhancing role. It's okay to have Humanities Centers, and funky art galleries, and world class chamber music. But, in reality,  the Humanities are a fig-leaf for the permanent fund-raising activities of the rest of campus (no different from the role of the arts in modern city-planning.) We are good for the luxury life-style that gets projected in glossy folders and fancy clips (cf Veblen); but our concerns are not well understood, and, evidently, we are not very good at conveying the significance of these to our STEM peers, who, of course, have to balance the demands of scientific integrity, publication pressure, managing complex work environments, and grant-making salesmanship. There is really little room for error, and the focus is on getting the job done; politics is a major distraction that, if allowed to surface, may disrupt even destroy a lab's functioning.

 

Why I Support the Legitimacy of Zionism

I would absolutely believe that some day, given the opportunity, they would set up their state again, and that God would choose them anew, so changeable are human affairs.—Spinoza, Theological Political Treatise, Chapter 3 (translated by E. Curley).

I understand Zionism as a legitimate response to the reality that we do not live in a just world. In particular, for present purposes there are two pressing features of this injustice: first, there is no free movement of people (immigration and emigration). Our closed (or at best partially open) borders generate many global injustices. But here I only focus on the fact that this lack of freedom of movement makes minority groups especially vulnerable to local injustices because they can become, in effect, trapped behind borders. (I am not denying that there are some decent liberal and democratic arguments in favor of limiting immigration, but that need not concern us here.) Second, there are ongoing pressures in liberal democracies that generate enduring threats to the survival and dignity of minority groups; some of these pressures are a consequence of democracy and the intolerance or prejudices of electoral majorities (say, against Roma, the dark skinned, etc.), some of these pressures are the consequence of enforced state neutrality and hostility to various religious/cultural practices deemed barbaric, unethical, etc. (e.g., circumcision, ritual slaughter, dress codes, etc.). The pressures consequent democracy can be greatly mitigated by the rule of law, constitutional rights, and education (etc.); while the local details differ greatly, even the most robust constitutional states have ongoing difficulties in ensuring that all citizens are genuinely treated equally and with dignity. The pressures consequent the embrace of liberal values and a secular, even moralized conception of the public sphere generate ongoing tragic conflicts within liberalism pitting, say, impartiality and pluralism against each other. The first feature is a contingent fact about our world and represents the partial failure of liberal democracy. The second feature is, in part, a consequence of contingent local injustices, but may also represent, as long as there are liberal states, a permanent feature of social reality in which group identities and liberal values clash.* These two pressing features generate the structure to which Zionism is a legitimate response, but they are not sufficient for it.

The two pressing features mentioned in the previous paragraph point to the shortcomings and internal tensions of liberal democracy today. But Zionism is rooted, in part, in historical injustice. Jews are a historically persecuted minority. The previous sentence is not a uniqueness claim. The list of historically persecuted minorities is depressingly long (and may well get depressingly longer): in 'Europe' alone we also find, amongst other historically persecuted minorities, Gypsies, Roma, Armenians, Kurds, Basques. Non-European Liberal democracies in North and South America and Australia (etc.) offer their own examples of historically indigenous peoples and descendants of slaves that are historically persecuted minorities. To be a historically persecuted minority is a contingent affair dependent on balances of local power, demographics, economics, religious/natural rivalries, and state institutions. Not all minorities are persecuted, even if they have genuine political disadvantages (this describes the status of Catholics in my native country, the Netherlands, through the nineteenth century). Sometimes historically persecuted minorities stop being persecuted (or a minority). We may be witnessing, for example, the relatively rapid emancipation of gays and lesbians in many liberal democracies. It's because Jews are a historically persecuted minority and because the global political order has the particular character of injustice (recall the two features of the first paragraph above) that Zionism is legitimate.+

By 'Zionism' I mean to refer to a state that has a law of return for Jews. In this sense the State of Israel is Zionist. The point of the argument of the previous two paragraphs is to defend the legitimacy of a Zionist Israel against its critics. So, my argument is neither rooted in or about principles of international law (which is rather permissive of states and too harsh on non-state actors) nor rooted in ideal, moral theory (which is rightly deeply suspicious of any existing state short of a just world government), nor relying on Nietzschean will-to-power. It is a defeasible argument for a non-perfect world. I do not think my approach is original, but I am unfamiliar with a contemporary articulation of it.

While my approach has a moral tenor, it defends Zionism as a pragmatic, political solution to political problems. It is also an argument that bumps up against other legitimate, political aspirations (of Jews and non-Jews alike). It's not a Jewish argument in so far as that I recognize that one can be Jewish – and even accept my diagnosis and argument -- without being Zionist, and that one can also be a Jewish anti-Zionist (for religious and/or secular, moral reasons). The argument is, however, sensitive to Jewish experience, which explains why many Jews qua Jews understand themselves, in part, as a historically persecuted minority.**

Now, my approach is not rooted in democracy (and its purported legitimacy). While I am often impressed by the character of Israeli democracy and sometimes dismayed, there are inevitable tensions between the idea of Zionism and (liberal) democracy. To note this is to reiterate, in effect, the second pressing feature (with its tension between group identity and the demands of impartial morality) I noted in the first paragraph above. So, there is a sense that the very fact of Zionism is both a reminder of the internal tensions within liberalism as well as a limitation from the point of view of the highest ideals of modern liberalism. But I do not want to exaggerate Zionism's inherent flaws; in our imperfect world, the demands of group identity and democracy are constantly being renegotiated. (For example, the country I work in, Belgium, continuously ties itself into constitutional knots over competing claims of community and democracy.) All (liberal) democracies are experimental works in progress. I should also admit that while I am a staunch defender of democracy, its very form generates problems for minorities everywhere. For, in many ways, cosmopolitan, law-governed multi-ethnic empires may be better environments for minorities than liberal democracy developed from nation-states or colonial enterprises.