Deadly Parallels

A student of warfare eventually sets to classifying armed conflicts
according to various of their characteristics: length,
multidimensionality, number of nations involved, precipitating issues,
bloodiness, and so forth. Mankind has known warfare long enough, and
broadly enough, to produce many categories of armed strife. In forming
such classifications, the student is likely to put greatest emphasis on
the aspects of warfare that fascinate him personally; thus two such
persons are likely to disagree about some of their respective
assignments. However, we are essentially unified about one thesis: the
most horrifying wars are those fought over religious doctrines.

The core idea here, of course, is that the conviction that "This is
God's war; God's on my side" leads all too easily to the convictions
that: 1) the enemy is the embodiment of evil, and therefore: 2) you must
win or die -- and in winning, no tactic, however foul it might be
adjudged in other circumstances, is to be considered out of bounds.

We can see this mechanism at work among the jihadists of Islam. It's
doubtful that any non-religious cause could assemble so many terrorists
willing to kill themselves and as many complete innocents as possible
(ironically, often including members of their own faith). Granted that
there have been a few, but their numbers are trivial compared to the
legions who've committed the nearly 20,000 documented terrorist acts
Muslims have perpetrated since September 11, 2001.

Religious belief, as I've written before, constitutes a specific
category of idea: one which can neither be proved nor disproved. Which
leads me to an overwhelming question:

Does religious belief differ qualitatively from political conviction?

* * * * * * * * * *

Over the course of recorded history, many issues and aspects of human
society have animated one or another political posture. Today, political
controversies tend to center on a small number of sub-categories of
issues:
-- Rights;
-- "Public morality and decency;"
-- Economics.

It's notable how many political issues are promoted by their backers as
issues of rights. Rights are the highest of all political entities --
"Political trumps held by individuals" (Ronald Dworkin) -- and so, if a
demand can be plausibly posed as a right, it will trump all lesser
matters, including cost, "social utility," "community standards," and so
forth. But argument over how to tell a right from a claim that's not a
right is unending. Indeed, it appears that it cannot be finally settled,
if only because no group is willing to see the possibility of promoting
its demands as rights permanently foreclosed.

But if we cannot agree on the defining characteristics of a right, how
could we ever prove or disprove the claim that such-and-such demand is a
right?

Economic controversies are comparably thorny, but for another reason: in
an economy more complex than bare subsistence farming or hunter-gatherer
bands, it's impossible to prove that the events that followed a
particular change in economic policy were or weren't caused by that
change. There are always other factors at work, to which one can appeal
for ambiguity about causal relations. True, we often take a sufficiently
strong, sufficiently repeated correlation as "proof enough," but that's
not the same as irrefutable proof or disproof.

Need I talk about "morality and decency" issues? Aren't these the most
obviously religious of all, even when they're not clearly just matters
of taste?

* * * * * * * * * *

The inability to prove or disprove one's position on a political
controversy thus exhibits a strong parallel to religious conflicts. And
we know how long a political battle can last. Oftentimes, it seems that
the only way to settle such an issue is to wait until all the proponents
of one side have died off. That doesn't guarantee that the other side is
correct, of course, but it does put an end to the squabbling...at least
for the moment.

Many conservatives have voiced astonishment over the enduring conviction
among many persons that socialism is a workable economic system. Many
have professed bewilderment over the idea that homosexual marriage is as
meaningful as heterosexual marriage, and should be admitted as a
"right." And many, especially on the libertarian side of the
conservative spectrum, have wondered aloud how much failure, and how
many tragic and atrocious secondary consequences, it will take to get
general agreement that the War on Drugs is as bad an idea as Prohibition
ever was.

The persistence of these things is far easier to understand if we view
them as religious controversies rather than intellectual disputes. So is
the rising usage of extremely foul tactics by the supporters of
socialism, homosexual marriage, and the Drug War. When a religious
warrior sees his side losing, he doesn't abandon his post; he digs in
and reaches for the poison gas, the biological weapon, or the nuke. Nor
will he surrender, short of death. His faith is unshakable; you can't
prove him wrong!

* * * * * * * * * *

Political combat has never been more vicious. The tactics in use have
descended well below mere slander and defamation. Actual corpses have
already accumulated at the margins. More will follow.

Today, the objective evidence for certain political propositions seems
conclusive to many of us. However, those who cleave to the losing sides
in those controversies hold the highest of our public offices, or are
allegiants of those officials and thus enjoy unique protections. They're
clearly digging in. They appear resolved to fight to the last man and
the last bullet. And as their last bastions fall, some will decide that
the sacred Cause demands that they take as many of us as possible with
them.

Beware.