Further adventures in moral certainty

"I'm sorry for the deaths."

Please let that sink in.

I'm sure this Jesse person thinks he's one of the good guys. One of the people who simply want to bring peace and prosperity to the world. And for him, the way to do that is to smash American hegemony. 

But he doesn't see American hegemony only in its hard power—military, economic. He sees it also in the supposedly "good" things the Empire does, like providing medical assistance around the world. This kind of largesse merely inures global populations to the inherent evil of the American Empire. The world must be cleansed of American hegemony in all its forms. And if that means that thousands—hundreds of thousands, millions, entire regions suffering grievous mortality—then that is a small price to pay for "freedom".

One is very free when one is in the grave.

I've spoken at length about "horseshoe theory". And there are academics—leftists, of course—who blanche at the mere insinuation that they have any truck, share any policy goals, with the fascist right. They want to bring enlightenment to all humanity. They are for democracy and people's empowerment. They strive and struggle against rightist forces wherever they're found. And when they establish this millenarian Utopia, all will be well, and all manner of thing shall be well. 

I won't analyse the relevant policy goals of the right and the left. Because it really is immaterial. What both ends of the horseshoe share is the idea that the ends justify the means. Each sees their version of "the end of history" as the only way for humanity to survive and thrive, and no action, no amount of pain or suffering or death, is too dear a cost. This Jesse "feels sorry" for all the uncounted dead left in the wake of the Trump regime's destruction of USAID; but their deaths are a price he's willing to pay. This Jesse feels sorry for an actual genocide being committed by the regime he undoubtedly helped usher in by his actions and inactions. But one must break eggs for a quiche.

The difference between the right and left in their stated aims is immaterial, inconsequential, and obscures the problem: both are willing to see fields of humanity perish if at the end it produces their desired outcomes. They are martyrs for a greater cause, that of human perfection. Because what they both seek is their own versions of a perfect world, one in which conflict will be banished and the survivors of their revolutionary programs will live in peace and amity. There is no time for mourning when Elysium is within reach.

These are not conservatives. These are not liberals. They are extremists seeking to remake the world in their images. It matters not how bloody it must be. Human history drowns in a sea of blood. Of what account are a few more cupfulls, when the reward is endless?

A person like Jesse can look upon the deaths of hundreds of thousands of human beings—men, women, children, infants newly-born—with the calm equanimity of a man certain in his morality. He answers to higher morals than those concerned with life and death, with the quotidian moments of toiling humanity. He sees that perfection is within grasp, and nothing is more important than that.

People like Jesse frighten me. The past century-plus is replete with men and women like Jesse, seeking to build the Heavenly Kingdom on earth. Auschwitz was created in the service of Utopia. So were the Soviet gulags. Tuol Sleng was the furnace which would temper Cambodians into New Men. Men declaring the arrival of "Year Zero" are thick as dust in the human past. And they haven't gone away. They are with us now. We see them in the Oval Office. We see them at Gracie Mansion. We see them in a fortress on Azza Street. We see them in the warrens of Southern Beirut. The Kremlin in Moscow is lousy with them. In Beijing they are courtly. We see them everywhere, for they are everywhere.

Or, they want us to believe that. They want us cowed in fear, valuing lives in servitude over the unkown.

But as strong as is the human desire to dominate, even stronger is the human necessity of freedom. Not the "freedom" men like Jesse sell. True freedom. Where I am I, and you are you, and we may or may not agree, other than in the inner belief that we should not hurt one another, and neither is the hurting of others allowed. The freedom brought by the knowledge that you and I are both human beings, and we are here for a short time, and frittering it away on the quest for power betrays this precious gift of life. 

Of course, there will always be Jesses. They will always live to hurt others. But it is my firm belief that moral clarity will defeat the moral certainties which bring only death. Homo sapiens will not commit suicide.