Norm on apology

My introduction to Norman Geras' work was a winter Dissent piece that I did a long post on. "The Reductions of the Left" eloquently outlines many of the same reactions I have to dodgy "explanations" of terrorism from the left. I find that these explanations, although couched in terms of humanitarianism and appeals to justice, are not only morally impaired, but hijack terrorism to advance wretched agendas that are increasingly deaf to human suffering.

A new normblog post revisits the issue:

It needs to be seen and said clear: there are, amongst us, apologists for what the killers do, and they make more difficult the long fight that is needed to defeat them. [snip] The plea will be made, though - it always is - that these are not apologists, they are merely honest Joes and Joanies endeavouring to understand the world in which we all live. What could be wrong with that? What indeed? Nothing is wrong with genuine efforts at understanding; on these we all depend. But the genuine article is one thing, and root-causes advocacy that seeks to dissipate responsibility for atrocity, mass murder, crime against humanity, especially in the immediate aftermath of their occurrence, is something else.

Note, first, the selectivity in the general way root-causes arguments function. Purporting to be about causal explanation rather than excuse-making, they are invariably deployed on behalf of movements, actions, etc., for which the proponent wants to engage our sympathy or indulgence, and in order to direct blame towards some party for whom he or she has no sympathy.

And the vocabulary of causal determinism is employed to evoke natural forces that implicitly purge the explanation of moral agency on the part of the terrorist. That is why folks like Norm and myself get so agitated by such scientistic rhetoric. It's deceptive semantics and it's bad explanation. It is ludicrous scientism employed for political gain. By surreptitiously removing any notion of voluntarism in the rote "explanation," it becomes impossible to attribute responsibility to the killer for the killing. Norm:

The fact is that if causes and explanation are indeed a serious enterprise and not just a convenient partisan game, then it needs to be recognized that causality is one thing and moral responsibility another, and though the two are related, they aren't the same thing.

When such arguments are challenged, the ground often shifts from the simplistic "X is bad, hence America/the West caused x," to the only slightly less simplistic appeals to "grievances" and various overwhelming emotional states that are -- naturally -- the fault of America/the West. The insertion of a middle premise doesn't change the core argument, it only obfuscates it a bit. I call it the Anti-American Metaphysics.

People who employ these arguments often convince themselves that others just don't get it, because of a lack of empathy, and if only there were more empathy, understanding would increase and the world would be better for it, etc.  A satisfying sanctimony, therefore, pervades logic that appropriates terrorism for rhetorical gain, and is presumed so self-evidential that anyone who doesn't buy it doesn't get it. We get it. We just don't buy it. The fact is, I for one, and many others, can and do empathize, knowing that it is imperative for understanding, and all that empathy does is strengthen a belief in the necessity of fighting back unrelentingly and ferociously.

Addendum: See also an Oliver Kamm post on a Times op-ed piece. "No quarter" is exactly right.

Comments

[Seth]

I think it's possible to understand that both "sides" (the U.S. government and the terrorists) have done things which are morally wrong. Setting motivations aside: The U.S. has been meddling with governments in the Middle East for decades, and that's wrong. Islamist extremists have been detonating suicide bombs amidst innocent cilivians for decades, and that's wrong, too. One does not justify the other, and each person or group is ultimately responsible for their own actions.

The real problem I think that the left has is the hypocrisy of some within the American government -- namely, their apparent inability to articulate a single mistake they have made. Acknowledging our own mistakes doesn't diminish the heinousness of the crimes of terrorists; in fact, it would put us in even starker contrast to them and make our case clearer...