Continued on from the last post. A day later than I was supposed to. Nevermind.
John Rawls – A Theory of Justice
Rawls is another of the dozens of dull, unremarkable authors I was forced at gunpoint to study at university, and the second to make the list on the basis that his book was actually really good. A Theory of Justice creates a theoretical position for the nature or value of justice and acts as an advocate of increased social justice globally. His thought experiment, lifted from another dusty academic, is that of the Original Position and the Veil of Ignorance. Which really makes you think about the world, if you do it right.
The experiment runs like this. You have to try and forget everything you know about yourself and the world in general. You are only some sentient blob, floating in the darkness of space. You know you will be born, at some point, into some world. You don’t know where, or when. You have no idea if you will be male or female, if you will be gay, straight, bi or trans. You do not know what country or culture you will be born into. You have no idea if your parents will be rich or poor within that society. You know nothing about the prevailing disposition of the world socially, politically, economically, culturally, sexually, religiously or any other 'lly that springs to mind.
Knowing your creation is inevitable, but ultimately nothing else, Rawls invites you to craft a world to be born into, essentially. Would you want a world with enormous divisions between rich and poor? Would you want a world that discriminates and hates certain members based on a pointless set of ancient prejudices?
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| "Man, I hope its choked full of racists. That'd be sweet." |
The notion is that because all humans are generally rational people, we would seek to create the best possibility for ourselves, rather heap all the good things in one place and pray to god that you’re born there, which is currently First World, white, male in the ‘how good do you have it’ stakes. It is a constant reminder as to why people should endeavour to create and propagate social justice and egalitarianism. I’ve had some great – and by that I mean fucking horrendous – discussions with people who, because of their own good fortune, are more than happy to continue the way things are because basically, it sucks to be someone else and that’s life, I’m afraid.
Rawls misses the boat on one thing is that he uses it to advocate liberalism and generally tinker with liberal democracy, which kind of stops short of where I’d like it to go, which is Anarchism or Anarcho-Communism, to be a little less vague. But that’s obviously because I’m a filthy idealist. Better to let the fuckers starve.
Alan Moore – Watchmen
Alan Moore’s Watchmen is probably my favourite book of the moment. It isn’t the believable and memorable characters it has in spades. It isn’t the exploration of war, sexual fetishes, violence, or the hazy line between fascism and mob justice. For me the best part of Moore’s work is the way it unpacks Machiavelli’s The Prince with the a cold hard backhand of rationalized mass murder.
Different threads come together throughout Watchmen, forming the big reveal you see at the end. Without wanting to give too much away, it is precisely this ending that makes the book as good as it is. You’d have to read it, but it fits very well with my somewhat depressing view of political morality. You’re faced with the classic ticking time-bomb scenario and the brutal horror that lurks beneath the philosophy of utilitarianism. Watchmen gives me chills, and not in a nice way.
Utilitarianism, maximising the greatest good for the greatest number, is the way in which any sane contemporary government operates. Albeit with the strings pulled by consumerism, mass media and false consciousness. It is what makes sense in a disarming, happy way. We want people to be happy, right? And we want the most people to be happy and safe and free for the least discomfort. Generally this manifests in harmless things like the smoking ban. Some people lose, but generally everyone is better off. But occasionally, it is used to determine not the maximum amount of utility gained, but to find a solution where the minimum amount is lost. Everyone loses, but fewer people lose more.
So if there is a ticking bomb in a city of thousands, do you torture a few people to find out where it is and prevent massive loss of life? If an aircraft is hijacked over the capital, do you shoot it down to stop another 9/11? What is three hundred lives, unfortunate and horrible as it is, compared to three thousand?
If The Dispossessed gave me a realistic enough articulation of Anarchism, albeit set in the future in a heavily contrived scenario, and if The Left Hand of Darkness caused me to re-examine the way I looked at gender, then Moore's Watchmen smashed my naive childish hopes and reduced me to a pseudo-philosophical vegetable stewing in a mire of cynical loathing. Some poetic license may have been involved in the last sentence.
And so if you kill millions to save billions, you did the right thing, didn’t you?*
Ursula Le Guin – The Wind’s Twelve Quarters
Generally speaking, The Wind's Twelve Quarters is a decent collection of Science Fiction stories that doesn't dwell too much on the science. Nor is it the kind of trashy sci-fi associated with fanboys writing poor Star Wars offerings to Mary-Sue their way into Princess Leia's armoured bodice. It is much deeper than that. And while all of the stories in the book are good in their own right, one in particular stands out, and that is The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
"The room is about three paces long and two wide: a mere broom closet or disused tool room. In the room, a child is sitting. It could be a boy or a girl. It looks about six, but actually is nearly ten. It is feeble-minded. Perhaps it was born defective, or perhaps it has become imbecile through fear, malnutrition, and neglect... ...but the child, who has not always lived in the tool room, and can remember sunlight and its mother's voice, sometimes speaks. "I will be good, " it says. "Please let me out. I will be good!" ... ...The child used to scream for help at night, and cry a good deal, but now it only makes a kind of whining... It is so thin there are no calves to its legs; its belly protrudes; it lives on a half-bowl of corn meal and grease a day. It is naked. Its buttocks and thighs are a mass of festered sores, as it sits in its own excrement continually.
They all know it is there, all the people of Omelas. Some of them have come to see it, others are content merely to know it is there. They all know that it has to be there. Some of them understand why, and some do not, but they all understand that their happiness, the beauty of their city, the tenderness of their friendships, the health of their children, the wisdom of their scholars, the skill of their makers, even the abundance of their harvest and the kindly weathers of their skies, depend wholly on this child's abominable misery."
I first encountered The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas during a lecture on Political Morality at University, and like Watchmen, it was soul crushingly powerful. It is an extreme, contrived and ultimately unrealistic and overly simplistic view of things - that one child's continued torment and suffering is directly related to the good of the entire city.
But it strikes a deeper chord on two levels.
First, there is the temptation to see the citizens as horrible monsters, living out perfect lives on the back of one persons unending suffering. As I said, this is unrealistic and too simplistic. Omelas is a metaphor, reality is subtle. Then it creeps up on you. The news reels off a list of far off wars, natural disasters, corrupt dictatorships and impoverished millions. Charity adds run, begging for money to help improve conditions of someone, somewhere else. And you tune out, turn off the TV and go to bed. Tomorrow you have to go to work, or visit a sick relative. Perhaps a friend is feeling down over a breakup. Maybe you can't go out at the weekend because you're skint. We are not like the people in Omelas. Our lives are not perfect.
Imperfection is almost an excuse. We are not directly responsible for the suffering of others. We're just privileged to live where we are. We did not choose this life, and we do not perpetuate this world any more than the next door neighbour. We are innocent, we have our conscience. We know that what happens elsewhere is horrible. We are powerless. And so, by a series of excuses, by an unwillingness to accept our own role, we abscond any responsibility. The people of Omelas are monsters. Evil dictators, corrupt bankers and exploitative corporations are the wrongdoers. We are not. Our innocence is guaranteed. Inaction is not the same as guilt.
It's been a few years since I properly studied politics. I read through lecture notes last night and marvelled how I'd managed to write such in depth, well thought out complete bullshit in high academic language. So maybe there's an answer, but until someone tells it to me, the second problem is that I get a headache. We can postulate utopias. We can hypothesise on alternatives. We can demand change, but can we argue with "the greatest good for the greatest number"? Acting in that manner makes winners and it makes losers. Can we, in good conscience, remake the world to be the way we want it, and call it fair and just, and escape the charge of utilitarianism? Shall we wish people away, because they stand in the way of progress? After all, we are creating a better world. We're stopping injustice, we are standing against oppression, bigotry, starvation, poverty. All that good stuff. But can we act without causing suffering? Can you truly create a world where no one loses?
The Wind's Twelve Quarters is a good book in of itself. I often find myself reading back through the pages. Semly's Necklace, Winter's King, Nine Lives, Vaster Than Empires... they're all pretty good. It is an enjoyable read, and I read some of it again last night when the introduction to Brave New World was too time consuming to bother with. There is only one story in the entire book I don't read anymore, because it used to keep me up at night.
* That's what I tell myself.
