Politics is the art of the possible, they say. That expresses above all the great limitations of politics. A great leader certainly has power, but only as much as he is given by the circumstances.
Even the most autocratic king is confined to a small number of alternatives, and also the revolutionary leader who is prepared to tear down the existing society and build everything anew is subject to the forces of history. Would there have been a World War II without Hitler or a Russian Revolution without Lenin? Those questions cannot be answered, but we can say that history made Hitler possible and his power remained limited to the possibilities of history.
Even the mightiest leader remains tiny compared to the forces of history. That may be a comforting thought.
The world is not perfect, far from it, and no society is perfectly arranged. Everything can be improved and in order to improve we need to change. What is so attractive about the existing conditions anyway?
Conservatives want to preserve society the way it is even though it’s completely improbable that we live in the best of all possible societies. They imagine certain conservative values that have proven themselves throughout the ages and therefore have to be the best. But history mainly tells about errors and catastrophes and if it teaches us anything, it is that we shouldn’t act like our ancestors. The past was a mistake and the present is a mistake, and if the future is to be right, we have to do something different. That calls for a revolution.
But one strong force in human nature speaks against it: Habit. True, the existing order is far from perfect, but it’s the one that best fits the habit. It has formed the habit and the habit has formed it. Often it is not so important how things are done as long as there is agreement and we feel safe in a predictable environment. Therefore we wish for stability. (Even those of us who enjoy a changeable life need a basic stability.) All change brings a degree of stress and only the prospect of qualitative improvement above a certain level can make up for it.
Social change considered strictly in itself is an evil and it can only be justified if it leads to something good. Overzealous reformers and revolutionaries want to eliminate irrational conventions and don’t understand that their seemingly logical struggle is both pointless and harmful. A convention that doesn’t cause suffering should not be changed even if it is irrational, because it takes time to create a new one and conventions are necessary for human interaction.
But of course many people are suffering in present society. The world is fundamentally unjust. Conventions that are permanently oppressive to a big part of humanity are anything but harmless. Centuries of civilization and high culture may be guarding India’s caste system, but that doesn’t make it any more just. Nothing can attain moral value only because succeeding generations have developed habits and customs. What is moral must be capable of a rational defense and injustice can ultimately never be rational.
Morally neutral conventions should not be changed because it’s usually simpler and more effective to act according to habit rather than getting used to something new. But injustice should wake us up from our habitual sleep.
Why are we so afraid of words? Words have no magic power. They are arbitrary symbols and it shouldn’t matter what they signify as long as there is agreement among the users of the language. If we all agree what something means and there is no ambiguity, there is no reason to wish for another name of the thing. Language is communication and its purpose is effective understanding.
But words are given magic power and this superstition is widespread. Time and again people insist on things being called something else, and they are always ready to feel offended and upset if they think themselves hit by the wrong hocus-pocus.
A classic in this quarrel is the indication of race.
There used to be something called the Negroid race and a person of this race was a Negro. This word means nothing else. It is a combination of five letters that only refers to such a person and no other object in the universe, and therefore it shouldn’t cause any misunderstanding or insult anyone. But someone must have sensed the magic power of the word and felt offended. They demanded that from now on the race was to be called black and the people should be black.
Black! That word already existed in the language. It signifies the darkest and saddest color and is often used in rather unpleasant circumstances. A black outlook doesn’t bode well and black magic should certainly be avoided. In any case, no one really has black skin anyway, but brown, so why insist on calling it black?
Whatever, who cares, a word is just a word and if you want it to be black, then let it be black. No? No. After a while this had also become offensive and a new expression was invented: African American. A long and awkward term that was supposed to make someone happier.
As a designation of race it is hopelessly inaccurate. If you are in America and see a person who looks like an African American, you can’t know if that’s really what he is. You see that he is a Negro or black, but maybe he’s not an American. What would you call him if he was a Brazilian or a Nigerian?
“African American” has a logical reference that is different from what it was supposed to refer to. It was meant to be a designation of race, but seems to indicate citizenship. What should a person of African descent be called if he is not an American? Is he still black? African Brazilian? African Nigerian? (A Nigerian is probably African regardless of skin color, one would think.) Or how about an American with Egyptian parents and Arab looks. Isn’t it reasonable to call him an African American?
No, what was needed was a word that only had a racial reference and such a word existed from the start. Only “Negro” could mean nothing else.
There are a lot of similar examples in modern public parlance. One insists on changing words and thereby imagines reality to be changed.
If this obsession is motivated by an innocent wish to make the world a better place, it is completely misconceived. The world remains the same, but the human communication process is made more complicated and that leads to nothing good.
Chance is a scary thing. So much is at stake in the US election and chance will decide. That is scary.
Who is this Trump? He is a combination of personal opinions which don’t fit into the normal trends in American politics. If he was to be elected, the fate of the world may more than ever depend on the random whims of a single individual.
Other candidates are to a great extent carried along by movements in society. We may say that somehow time was ripe for Obama or for Bush, and if they had not been there, someone similar to them would have appeared.
But no one is similar to Trump. He came from nowhere and appeared by chance. By chance did he enter the race, by chance did he win the nomination and by chance he may be elected president.
A system that leaves so much to chance must have considerable weaknesses.
For the sake of the world, let’s hope predictability will be elected.
Was the injustice of history neutralized when the Crimean Tatars returned to Crimea? No, history cannot be repaired, and you cannot step twice into the same river.
It sounds like an elementary example of legitimate compensation. The Crimean Tatars were deported in 1944 and after 1989 they were allowed to come back. But one seems to forget that 45 years had passed and most of those who arrived had either never been there before or were children at the time when they were forced away. Therefore the people who settled on the peninsula were strangers, and we know that a population often react negatively when a large amount of strangers arrive in their midst. 12 percent of the inhabitants are now Tatars, foreigners that is, and that would be a large number for any society.
Please don’t misunderstand. Xenophobia is an ugly thing and as a principle anyone should be welcomed anywhere, but if we admit that this negative part of human nature exists, we also have to accept that it is found among the Russians of Crimea. Stalin’s deportations were terrible, but history cannot be reversed and the present will have to encounter the problems of today.
The one country in the world that is farthest removed from Western values is a close ally of the West. What more do we have to say to reveal the hypocrisy? Saudi Arabia is entirely governed by one ruling family, women have no rights and religious police patrol the streets. Not even North-Korea is in such a plight and Iran, the rogue state, is a liberal democracy in comparison.
True, sometimes we hear about Saudi Arabia and grotesque stories do trickle in, but it doesn’t seem to be getting through to the public consciousness. People should scream about massive oppression and violations of human rights, shouldn’t they, just like they do against other countries. Big campaigns should be organized against the regime, but that is not happening because it’s not in the strategic interest of the West.
Western values are only brought forth when it is advantageous in the international power game. What kind of values is that?
The French tolerance doesn’t tolerate all kinds of clothing. Some totalitarian states also care about what their citizens wear.
Clothes are relatively unimportant and principles without consequences are hardly worth fighting for. You can still live well without insignificant liberties. But when a system contradicts itself, when its laws go against its own principles, then the whole thing is rather distasteful.
A state that values cultivation of manners higher than immediate liberty may consistently forbid certain costumes, but a state that praises direct freedom cannot in such an elementary and obvious way strip away the same freedoms.
The French Republic is battling itself.
There are an awful lot of reasons to outlaw burka, niqab and hijab. Gradually the arguments against these Muslim female garments have become so abundant that it all seems rather suspicious. At first we were mainly told that those clothes were oppressive to women, but lately the list of all their damaging effects is constantly getting longer. Even road safety has been mentioned and whoever strains his brain sufficiently will surely be able to spot more points.
Certain things we dislike without much rational reason. Maybe they are strange and foreign and disturb our quiet habits, but being enlightened people we cannot accept such groundless aversions and hastily we produce rational explanations of our irrationality. We don’t like strangers, we don’t like Muslims, but we don’t like to admit it.
The press doesn’t lie. That is not the problem with modern western news coverage. Yes, they are oh so truthful and praise their freedom being infinitely superior to the false propaganda machinery of totalitarian states. No, they don’t lie, but that’s exactly what makes the lie ingenious and the propaganda effective.
Whoever controls the selection of information controls the truth and forms reality. The receivers, the public, absorb whatever they get and fix their impression accordingly. We imagine that we are presented with the real world, but of course it is only a selection of what the newsmen perceive to be significant, or what they want to be significant. By directing the emphasis they distort reality and lie without lying.
National history is a lie. The formal facts may very well be correct, but the purpose is not to inform, but to create an impression of national greatness.
Any country may be given a glorious history, for even the most miserable people must have produced its heroes and there have certainly been moments that look impressive from a distance.
It’s not necessary to lie. One dwells upon certain dazzling moments and passes lightly through those long and sad periods. Perhaps once upon a time in a distant past the ancestors fought a victorious battle. The event is elaborately recorded in the books. School children are allowed to indulge in honor through many pages and their pride rises. Afterward the following centuries may be brushed away by a few short lines and an impression is made on the mind: Our nation is great!
It’s not a lie, but it’s a lie.
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