Man equals man

[imomus]

"Man Equals Man" is the title of a play by Bertolt Brecht. It's a familiar idea -- that one human life is just as valuable as another one. It's not just the fundamental idea behind communist and socialist thinking, but the idea famously expressed in the American Declaration of Independence:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Of course, "created equal" or "equal before the law" does imply a more meritocratic view of equality; it's only equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. It's possible to imagine (actually, we don't have to strain that hard) a highly unequal society which still believed that all its members had at least been born equal.

The idea of the equivalence of human lives is also present in, for instance, the speeches of Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the UN. When he received the Nobel Prize, Annan made a speech to the Swedish Academy entitled "We can love what we are without hating what -- and who -- we are not".

"In the twenty-first century I believe the mission of the United Nations will be defined by a new, more profound, awareness of the sanctity and dignity of every human life, regardless of race or religion," Annan declared. "What begins with the failure to uphold the dignity of one life, all too often ends with a calamity for entire nations."

It would be easy to assume we were all basically on the same page with Kofi Annan on this question; that one human life equals another, that man equals man. At least in theory, at the level of universal principles. In practice, just about any of us would respond differently to the killing of a family member than the killing of someone in a faraway country, someone we didn't know anything about. Man, at that level of "situation", would not equal man at all. We'd feel that our family member's life was worth at least 1000 times more than the life of some foreign stranger. The difference between a philosophy of equality and a philosophy of inequality would seem largely to be one of situation. Or perhaps a question of strong emotions overcoming rational judgements.

This week the word "proportionate" has been in the news a lot. Figures from Putin to Bill Clinton have condemned Israel's "disproportionate" use of force against Lebanon and Gaza. As Putin put it, Israel of course has the right to defend itself, but its response should be proportionate.

The ratios are interesting. As Mary Ann Sieghart pointed out in yesterday's Times, the ratio of Lebanese to Israeli deaths in the current conflict has been a fairly consistent 10:1. "There were 80 such raids in the early hours of yesterday alone. By late afternoon, some 327 civilians had died in Lebanon, compared with 34 Israelis." In the Gaza conflict, it's 100:1: "Since Israel began its hostilities there, three weeks ago, some 110 Palestinians have lost their lives and countless more have been injured, while just one Israeli has died."

"If this is a proportionate response," says Sieghart, "I’m a satsuma."

So do the Israelis believe that a Palestinian life is worth 100th of an Israeli one? Do they believe that one Lebanese life is worth just a tenth of one Israeli one? This would be narcissism of an incredibly overblown order, family feeling blown up to national level.

One account I read of why Israel responds so extremely to, for instance, the kidnapping of two of its soldiers did, in fact, invoke the idea of family feeling; since all Israelis serve, at some point, in the IDF, it said, a soldier could be anyone's son or daughter. The state responds not in a detached, rational way, but like a crazed parent. There are also many family ties between Israel and the US (many of the vox pop interviews on the streets of Haifa have seemed to be interviews with Americans), which means that the US responds to Israel in this same irrational, situated, "they're family" way. In other words, they buy into the narcissism, the idea that one Israeli life really is worth 10 Lebanese ones, or 100 Palestinian ones.

To some extent, Muslims in the Middle East work by the same logic. That's why, for instance, they blow themselves up as suicide bombers, whereas Israelis never do. One human life, when you're poor and living in conditions of utter misery, really isn't worth the same as a human life living in adequate conditions. So much for "man equals man"; it seems that neither side believes that to be the case, although one side may want it to be.

The American right, meanwhile, is happily poo-pooing the whole idea of a proportionate response. "Americans believe in Colin Powell's doctrine, which holds that "America should enter fights with every bit of force available or not at all"," wrote Dr Mitchell Bard of the American Israeli Cooperative Enterprise. "The United States uses overwhelming force against its enemies, even though the threats are distant and pose no danger to the existence of the nation or the immediate security of its citizens." (Right above this article rejecting the whole concept of proportionality there's an ad announcing "The Coming World War: Find out what Nostradamus says about the years 2007 - 2012.")

The "shock and awe" attitude seen here may seem unbalanced -- in fact, totally unhinged -- but attempts are made to balance it by invoking the Holocaust. "What are the Israelis supposed to do? Wait for a repeat of Hitler's death camps?" screams right wing chat show host Mark Levin. "Never again! Never again!" The Holocaust, apparently, justifies anything the Israelis might want to do to anyone, forever. Hitler, somewhere, is having the last laugh.

The defense of non-proportionate responses isn't confined to the Nostradamian right, though. One Republican senator demanded to know "Whoever said a response to the murder of loved ones should be proportionate?" And Tony Blair has incurred the wrath of many members of his own party by refusing to condemn the Israeli actions, despite the fact that even the Conservative leader David Cameron has.

So either the idea of proportionality is out the window -- and with it the most important idea in the American declaration of Independence, and behind the United Nations, the idea that man equals man -- or it's been temporarily suspended, along with other, related ideas like habeus corpus or the right to be innocent until proven guilty, because somebody is attacking members of our family.

But why is Israel "our family"? These little girls, so blithely signing missiles which will kill someone in Lebanon who -- apparently -- doesn't matter, are not relatives of mine. Why do our leaders support the Israeli state right or wrong? Sure, we don't elect families, we're born into our kinship with them, which remains indissoluble until we all die, and endures whatever bad things they do. Maybe, culturally, the Christian religion is what ties us to the Israelis. It's a tragic tie, all the more tragic since the parties to it don't even live by Christian principles; as Mary Ann Sieghart pointed out in The Times, "the 'eye for an eye' doctrine of the Old Testament was not a vengeful prescription but was designed precisely to restrict vengeance to that which was proportionate. The verse did not ordain ten eyes for one eye, which is the ratio the Israelis are currently pursuing." (Some of us prefer the New Testament anyway: turn the other cheek. An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.)

I want to end with another quote from Kofi Annan's Nobel lecture, "We can love what we are without hating what -- and who -- we are not". It's about how we ought to hold onto the idea of nurturing equality -- that elusive 1:1 ratio -- because without it we're lost:

"Today, in Afghanistan, a girl will be born. Her mother will hold her and feed her, comfort her and care for her just as any mother would anywhere in the world. In these most basic acts of human nature, humanity knows no divisions. But to be born a girl in today’s Afghanistan is to begin life centuries away from the prosperity that one small part of humanity has achieved. It is to live under conditions that many of us in this hall would consider inhuman. Truly, it is as if it were a tale of two planets.

"I speak of a girl in Afghanistan, but I might equally well have mentioned a baby boy or girl in Sierra Leone. No one today is unaware of this divide between the world’s rich and poor. No one today can claim ignorance of the cost that this divide imposes on the poor and dispossessed who are no less deserving of human dignity, fundamental freedoms, security, food and education than any of us. The cost, however, is not borne by them alone. Ultimately, it is borne by all of us –- North and South, rich and poor, men and women of all races and religions."

Annan was too diplomatic to say it, but he could even more tellingly have contrasted the life of an Israeli with the life of a Palestinian just a few metres away. Nowhere are the "two planets" squeezed more closely together than in the tight, tense grid of today's Middle East, and nowhere do we more need the ideas of equality and proportionality. The ratio we need to aim for is 1:1. Man equals man. My family is everybody.

Comments

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

The ratio we need to aim for is 1:1. Man

That could only really be achieved by permanent war. Remind me of the ratios of death in World War 2 - I don't think they tell you a great deal about who was right and wrong.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

this explanation certainly makes it sound like this was facilitated by the media, which, given the pictures and the visual semiotic tropes in the reportage of this conflict, historically (on both sides), wouldn't surprise me.

http://www.sandmonkey.org/2006/07/18/the-fucked-up-pictures-explained/

[imomus.livejournal.com]

That "explanation" explains very little to me. It doesn't explain, for instance, why parents stood by while their children touched live ammunition, or signed it "with love" just before it was shot at somebody just over the border, or did it in front of the world's media knowing that it would become a symbol of their attitude.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

In other words, what's really clear is that the message these parents are teaching their kids is not "man equals man". It's "kill or be killed". Which, as we know, has a tendency to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I want to say something else, too. People who poo-poo the idea of progress in human morality ignore, for instance, the way the Old Testament's "eye for an eye" thinking evolves into the New Testament's "turn the other cheek". Of course, we shouldn't stop there. The next step in that progression would be something like "neutralise the aggression at source by removing the hatred that causes it". It's a pity that the people who wrote the Old and New Testaments can't seem to get even to stage 2, let alone stage 3 in that progression.

[(Anonymous)]

It's a pity that the people who wrote the Old and New Testaments can't seem to get even to stage 2, let alone stage 3 in that progression.

Hmmm...

http://www.jewishtribalreview.org/open.htm

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Actually, never mind 2 or 3, it would be okay if they even just stayed, for the time being, at morality stage 1, an eye for an eye.

The thing is, taking a right wing perspective, let's say the disparity between rich and poor really did make one group of people 100 or 1000 times more powerful than another. This could have a good side; there could be "enlightened colonisation". Insecurity would not figure; the ubermensch would dominate, sometimes in an enlightened way. The British in India in the 19th century are often cited as an example of this.

The problem is, we ubermensch types are not gods. We seem to have lots of power to destroy, but very little power to create. We can smash the infrastructure of Iraq, but not rebuild it. Our "superiority" is merely in ordnance and firepower, and our willingness to use them. Not in ordinance. Some would call that inferiority.

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

Have you, er, looked at that link that your anonymous Holocaust denier just posted?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I'd be interested to know what any Americans felt about the fact that their tax-payer dollars have actually paid for the missiles seen in these photographs, and being fired into Lebanon. And that no vote they could make, or direct political action they could take, is going to change that basic fact of American politics. And that apparently there's no act on the part of the Israelis so extreme that they can jeopardize their state's massive subsidy by the US.

Even if, appalled by this, an American comes to live in Europe -- let's say where I'm living right now -- there's no escaping the consequences of this. This is a Turkish area, a Muslim area. Relations now are good between the German and Turkish communities, but last week the Turkish foreign minister warned that public opinion in Turkey -- a moderate Islamic nation -- is turning against America and Europe because of events in the Middle East. Every exacerbation of this situation endangers everyone living together in places where there's this combination of rich and poor, Muslim and Christian.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

The anon may not be endorsing what s/he linked to, but trying to say there are similarities between something I said and something this screed said, but that's a specious argument. Not everything that falls outside of "Israel right or wrong" is automatically anti-semitism.

[zzberlin.livejournal.com]

<< that one human life is just as valuable as another one. >>

but is a life that is related to mine by blood

worth more than one that is not related by blood?

Last time I paid taxes

[zzberlin.livejournal.com]

<< I'd be interested to know what any Americans felt about the fact that their tax-payer dollars have actually paid for the missiles seen in these photographs, and being fired into Lebanon. And that no vote they could make, or direct political action they could take, is going to change that basic fact of American politics. And that apparently there's no act on the part of the Israelis so extreme that they can jeopardize their state's massive subsidy by the US. >>

I am pissed off

I am not an anti-semite

[zzberlin.livejournal.com]

<< Not everything that falls outside of "Israel right or wrong" is automatically anti-semitism. >>

right

how can I

[zzberlin.livejournal.com]

An American girl in Oakland

How can I stop the conservative right?

right now

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Objectively: no.

Subjectively: yes.

And one of the most worrying developments in politics is the abandonment of this objective perspective. With the current administration, the US has become situated (http://imomus.livejournal.com/61236.html), ie has abandoned even the pretense of objective views. This is "family politics".

Re: how can I

[zzberlin.livejournal.com]

I'm writing Obama of Illinois

he can do something I think

Re: how can I

[zzberlin.livejournal.com]

http://obama.senate.gov/

[(Anonymous)]

What I don't understand is what "proportionate" is when the entities in question (Hezbollah and Hamas) are dedicated to wiping Israel off the face of the planet. Not just figuratively, the most benign outcome they can concieve is a mass evacuation of jews from Palestine.

Both of these groups are in the ruling coalitions of their respective countries. Imagine if the U.S. Republican party had a militia that committed massacres in Mexico. Should not Mexico hold the U.S. responsible for the actions of their agents?

Since the groups are part of their nations' governments, their actions are tantamount to war. War is hell. They shouldn't have started a war with a more powerful nation. If Iceland has a beef with Britain, they are ill advised to start a shootin' war and have no grounds to complain if they get spanked.

If a nation with only 3 bombers tried to invade the U.S., should we only scramble 3 planes to fight back, out of fairness?

I don't understand why people seem to think wars are something similar to a ball game, where fairness is the rule and penalties are assessed for ruthless play. Lebanon started a war, and they need to win or sue for peace. And if it's peace they want, they need to police their border better and kick Hezbollah out of their government.

I do gotta hand it to Lebanon for their propaganda machine. If the poltroons here are any indication, it's an effective program indeed.

honest question

[zzberlin.livejournal.com]

<< wiping Israel off the face of the planet. Not just figuratively, the most benign outcome they can concieve is a mass evacuation of jews from Palestine. >>

but that's just because they were there first, right? the palestinians? The Israelis say they have the right to the land because god gave it to them. that is a questionable reason I think.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

More and more, we're seeing ultra-violent responses to things which people putatively "might want to do" or "say they want to do". In other words, when we make massive pre-emptive strikes against someone who "might want to wipe us off the planet", all we do is ensure that they really have a motive for wanting to do just that even more badly.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

(And again, look at the actual ratios of death. Who is really wiping who off the planet, not just talking about it? Who has the capability?)

call richard branson

[zzberlin.livejournal.com]

he's getting folks off the planet

http://www.virgin.com/aboutus/autobiography/

[33mhz.livejournal.com]

PROTIP: The leader of Lebanon is a pro-US/pro-Israel Catholic.

Re: honest question

[ataxi.livejournal.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Palestine

Neither group can argue a sole claim to the region on ethnic/"there-first" grounds if you're going to flip back through the pages of history. The conflict is about people here and now.

[33mhz.livejournal.com]

Clarification: The *president* of Lebanon is a Catholic.