Scapegoating Trumps Science during Crises

Scapegoating is the act of blaming an innocent person or a group when things go wrong, and it has been a part of human behavior for thousands of years. We would expect that modern education, ways of thinking, and the application of the scientific method have defeated this human trait, at least amongst the practitioners of science. However, we find that this is not so, and in times of crisis, even science is trumped by scapegoating. During the medical crisis created in the early 1980’s by HIV/AIDS, instead of objectively looking for the causative agent, the biomedical community focused on the lifestyle choices of some of the victims: the gay community. The behavior of the physicians and scientists displayed the same elemental characteristics observed when scapegoating is analyzed in history and literature. Further, by replacing our naïve understanding of the methods of scientific reasoning, with one based on the history of the scientific process, we understand why the biomedical community acted as they did. Let us start with a definition of scapegoating.
The word ‘scapegoat’ is said to originate from William Tyndale’s translation of Leviticus Chapter 16 Verse 10 (Douglas 6), that describes a ritual of the tribes of Israel in which two goats are chosen for sacrifice. Whilst one goat is slaughtered and the burnt meat offered to God, the transgressions of the congregation are whispered into the ear of the other goat, which is then driven into the desert. The goat that escapes is the scapegoat, the vehicle through which the sins of the tribe are driven away. This origin differs significantly from the modern usage of the term, where we always refer to scapegoats as those who are blamed for a crime or an event, and punished for what has happened even though they are innocent. We don’t let them escape; instead we sacrifice them on the altar of false accusation. History and literature have many examples of this, especially in connection with epidemics.
Epidemics have always been a challenge for the medical profession, and many physicians, for example Nostradamus and Hippocrates, have built their reputations by trying to cure the diseases that ravaged society during their times. In the past, these physicians have based their understanding of these diseases on the metaphysical: Hippocrates believed that fevers were due to an imbalance in the body’s fluids and the positions of the stars could predict its onset (Sherman 57). Modern scientists look instead for material causes and adopt a scientific methodology that promotes objectivity, peer review and double-blind trials[i]. The biomedical community is supposed to have left behind the biases and subjectivity imposed by the human mind, but it appears that scapegoating is still an inherent part of their behavior.
By studying many examples of scapegoating in history and literature, Girard has identified three “stereotypes of persecution” that can be used to characterize it (Reader 107-117). Firstly, as a pre-condition for its occurrence, there is “an extreme loss of social order evidenced by the disappearance of the rules and ‘differences’ that define cultural divisions” (108). This homogeneity is echoed in The Plague: “these exiles of the plague…looked like everybody else, nondescript” (Camus 183). The plague strikes indiscriminately, ignoring differences of age, wealth, and social standing. This loss of differences between individuals leads to a cultural and institutional collapse as human relationships disintegrate. All life, and most death, now revolves around the plague, and the individual’s position at home, at work, and in the community, built over many years, is no longer important. The affected populace then starts surmising about the causes of this collapse, inevitably drawing the wrong conclusions.
This leads to the second stereotype: the accusation that a group of people have committed crimes which violate the strictest taboos, and brought about the cultural collapse. Allegations include violent crimes against authority such as parricide, sexual crimes such as rape or incest, or religious crimes such as the profanation of the host. These are fundamental crimes that “attack the very foundations of cultural order, the family and the hierarchical differences without which there would be no social order” (Girard, Reader 110). The populace has now coalesced into a mob, which believes that there are a small number of people who have committed these crimes, and caused the crisis to unfold. All they need to do is to identify these criminals and destroy or drive them away. No proof is needed, either of the existence of the crimes, or the involvement of the accused; the social disintegration is proof enough of both.
Finally, based on numerous examples, Girard shows that the people accused of these grave crimes are consciously chosen, not because there is proof of their guilt, but because they are the most vulnerable members of society. Paradoxically, they are chosen because in the midst of all the homogeneity, they still retain some semblance of difference. Minorities, the disabled, and even royalty are the stereotypical victims of scapegoating (112-113). In some circumstances, the innocent are intentionally chosen as the scapegoats in order to prevent the vicious cycle of vengeance that characterizes blood feuds (Girard, Violence 86). As they are not involved in the original dispute, and these marginalized members of society are powerless, the cycle of revenge is broken by choosing them as victims. Let us use these three stereotypes to analyze the HIVS/AIDS epidemic in the United States.
In the summer of 1981, it was noticed that some young men in San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York were exhibiting combinations of rare disease symptoms. On further investigation, all the patients were found to have impaired immune systems: unable to fight common diseases like pneumonia and tuberculosis, they were dying. As the patients displayed symptoms of more than one disease at a time, it was labeled Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome [AIDS], and different causes were postulated. These ranged from the use of possibly toxic designer drugs, repeated exposure to a combination of infectious agents, or a new infectious agent altogether (Cochrane 178). In the face of spiraling infection rates and deaths, and confusing test results that few scientists could agree upon, prejudice took the place of reason. Ignoring the intravenous drug use of some, and the poor nutritional and general health of most of the victims, researchers and the Centers for Disease Control quickly characterized it as a sexually transmitted disease limited to the gay community; stigmatizing the victims before starting to fight the disease and its spread (14).
By focusing on the sexual lifestyle choices of gay men, the research community passed up other possibilities, and were blindsided with respect to the spread of AIDS in Africa where it is more common amongst heterosexuals (180, 189). The “focus on groups at risk rather than risky activities” (Goldstein 45), increased the marginalization of the “4H” minorities: Homosexuals, Haitians, Hemophiliacs and Heroin-addicts, the groups most affected by AIDS. Heterosexuals have not been considered primarily at risk in North America due to these prejudiced policies, yet in Newfoundland, AIDS is almost completely transmitted through heterosexual contacts (22). Due to the possibility of homophobic stigmatization in close-knit communities, persons at risk of AIDS didn’t get themselves tested, leading to widespread infection.
Looking at the genesis of the AIDS pandemic using the stereotypes identified by Girard, we find that all the elements of scapegoating are present. In the beginning of 1982, the medical community recognized that there was an epidemic that was growing quickly, and rapidly disseminated information about the cases that were being observed (Epstein 49). Although it would be the end of 1983 before it would “achieve the status of a ‘Worldwide Health Problem’ as the headline …in the New York Times” would claim, medical professionals had already recognized it as a health crisis; one that threatened to plunge the world into chaos (55), fulfilling the first stereotype. The second stereotype, violation of a taboo, or sexual crime, was the ‘abnormal’ sexual lifestyle of the homosexuals. Just the name ‘sodomy’ evoked memories of the Old Testament and the destruction of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Cochrane gives numerous examples of the opinions expressed in writing by health officials in San Francisco and the U.S. Public Health Service that linked the AIDS epidemic to the gay lifestyle, and especially to the May 1975 repeal of California’s sodomy laws (22-24). While it was expected that conservative leaders like Jesse Helms claimed that AIDS was a scourge brought down on gays because of their sexual lifestyle (Epstein 52), a similar conclusion by the biomedical community was not. Finally, as a minority that had traditionally been hidden in the closet, gays were the stereotypical scapegoats. We see that all three stereotypes identified by Girard can be applied to understand the behavior of the biomedical community and human nature, the innate behavior developed over thousands of years to preserve the species, trumps the scientific method of reasoning that was invented comparatively recently. Closer scrutiny of this so-called objective scientific process yields an understanding of why this is so.
A scientist using the scientific method supposedly gathers observations that lead to a hypothesis, which is then used to predict a new set of experimental results; the correctness of the prediction validates the hypothesis. Reproducible experiments, and peer review of research findings ensure that facts, rather than prejudice, supposition, or intuition are the basis for understanding the phenomenon being studied. However, as Kuhn points out, the potentially vast number of possible experimental observations in the real world, as well as limitations of the instrumentation used, mean that even the first set of observations are already constrained by a “paradigm” (41) that is believed by the scientist. Scientists do not start from first principles, looking at each possible observation as a data point, but rather start with an assumption of what they already expect to find and design experiments accordingly. These initial assumptions are not necessarily based on scientific facts, but rather on the personal biases of the scientists involved, or the organizations funding their research. This makes it easy to understand the prejudice against gays in the research funded by the conservative Reagan administration of the 1980’s: the scientists were formulating research proposals that reinforced the homophobic views of those controlling the research funds. There are rare instances when a completely different viewpoint is adopted by a scientist, who then proceeds to create a brand new paradigm; Newton, Maxwell, and Einstein are examples of scientists who were revolutionaries, leading to the overthrow of one paradigm by another. As Kuhn describes, this has been the real history of science, and it is not always the experimental validation of a theory that makes a paradigm successful, but rather the personal choice of the scientists involved. This could be due to several reasons, including “idiosyncrasies of autobiography and personality” and “the nationality or the prior reputation of the innovator” (151-152). Thus scapegoating of the gay community by the medical profession in the early 1980’s is not an anomaly; this is how science works, guided by the human nature of its practitioners.
Recognizing that science in practice almost always differs from the idealized process is very important, not just for the scientific community, but for humanity. Epstein points out that Robert Gallo, one of the co-discoverers of the HIV/AIDS link, initially had no interest in a syndrome that was reportedly caused by the gay lifestyle. His interest was piqued only when the research of Luc Montagnard in France showed that AIDS may be linked to a retrovirus, Gallo’s area of specialization (68). Therefore, the scapegoating of homosexuals misdirected efforts that may have led to an earlier development of a test for the virus. Scapegoating is just one way in which the scientific methodology fails to live up to its promise.
Science also falls short of the ideal due to the search for fame, recognition and funding by individual scientists and their arrogance when showered with accolades. Hooper describes the search for a cure to the polio epidemic that scourged the United States from the 1920’s. After Jonas Salk created the first polio vaccine early in the 1950’s, the search continued for a stronger polio vaccine that could be administered orally as a single dose. Mass immunization, especially in the developing world, could not be easily carried out as a series of three injections given months apart. There was a race between groups of scientists in the United States and Europe to create the first oral polio vaccine. All used a live virus created by taking the actual virus that afflicts humans and then attenuating its potency by growing it in a biological medium. These growth mediums were mostly prepared from monkey kidneys, filtered to remove bacteria. As retroviruses had not been discovered at that time, some mediums used may have inadvertently been contaminated with Simian Immune Virus [SIV], a close relative of the HIV. During human trials in the Belgian Congo, using vaccines possibly prepared using chimpanzee kidneys, SIV in the laboratory animals may have mutated into HIV in the humans who received the vaccine. The earliest AIDS cases, and HIV tainted blood have been found in samples collected in the late 1950’s in the Congo, coinciding with polio vaccine trials conducted at about the same time, providing strong circumstantial evidence to support this hypothesis. The enormity of this possibility, both in human and legal terms, has stymied efforts to test polio vaccine samples from that era for HIV, in order to verify whether they were contaminated. But maybe this is just an instance of science being the scapegoat?
Putting this allegation, that one variant of the live polio vaccine was the source of HIV, under the microscope we can see some distinct patterns. Once again there is a social collapse: the horrific spread of AIDS in Africa. Once again there is the breaking of a taboo: mixing the biological matter of different species to produce the vaccine, which could be termed the ultimate form of miscegenation. In fact, Hooper specifically mentions transplants of animal into humans as a possible source of new human viruses (816). And once again a victim: the scientist. Of course, in this case the allegation could easily be proved or disproved with a simple test of the stored polio vaccines. The demand by Hooper that this be done, may be the most telling evidence that this is not an act of scapegoating: no proof is needed to condemn a scapegoat.
Science, and its first cousin Technology, have transformed the lives of all humanity in ways that are both good and bad. Whether the good outweighs the bad is difficult to judge, and requires us to make value judgments not just with respect to science, but with respect to life itself. This is what scientists and technologists do all the time, yet claim to have an objective process. Our analysis of scapegoating in the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the real history of scientific discovery shows that much of what happens in science is not objective, but affected by external factors. It is time to recognize this and take control of the process. The first step would be a de-mystification of science and its processes, by publicizing the reality behind the way it appears to work.
Educating the lay public about the drawbacks of the real processes of science may be viewed by scientists as a means to seize political control of their profession, and a throwback to the times of Galileo; his was an example of a scientist who was forced to recant his scientific results to conform with the religious authorities of the time. But there is already an implicit social, political, even religious bias in real science; making it explicit lets us confront the biases head-on and deal with them up-front as stated assumptions. Only then can scientists focus on the problems that face humanity, not scapegoats nor themselves.
Works Cited
Camus, Albert. The Plague. Trans. Stuart Gilbert. New York: Vintage International, 1991.
Cochrane, Michelle. When AIDS Began. New York: Routledge, 2004.
Douglas, Tom. Scapegoats. London: Routledge, 1995.
Epstein, Steven. Impure Science. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996
Garrett, Laurie. Betrayal of Trust. New York: Hyperion, 2000.
Girard, Rene. The Girard Reader. Ed. James G. Williams. New York: Crossroad, 1996.
---, Violence and the Sacred. Trans. Patrick Gregory. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977.
Goldstein, Diane E. Once Upon a Virus. Logan: Utah State University Press, 2004.
Hooper, Edward. The River. Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1999.
Kuhn, Thomas. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1962.
Sherman, Irwin W. The Power of Plagues. Washington, D.C.: ASM Press, 2006.


[i] In a double-blind trial the efficacy of a treatment is tested by pairing up test subjects who share significant characteristics such as age, sex, ethnicity etc., and then giving one the treatment and the other a placebo. By keeping the identity of the person actually being treated secret, and both under close observation, the efficacy is measured.

An Imaginary Dialog: Socrates meets a Skeptic

Socrates and Skepticus meet in Piraeus at Polemarchus’s house, where Socrates had just a few weeks ago had the discussions that are detailed in Book One of Plato’s Republic. The group has just had dinner and is settling down to an evening of discussion. As a newcomer to the group, Skepticus asks the first question.

Skepticus: Tell me, Socrates, what is the most important thing to learn about?

Socrates[1]: The form of the good is the most important thing to learn about, and that it is by their relation to it that just things and the others become useful and beneficial. You know that even the fullest possible knowledge of other things is of no benefit to us, any more than if we acquire any possession without the good[2].

Skepticus: We haven’t understood what is good as yet, so how can we begin to decipher its pattern? You must explain.

Socrates: The masses believe pleasure to be the good, while the more refined believe it to be knowledge. But they cannot show us what sort of knowledge it is, but in the end are forced to say that it is knowledge of the good[3] -- as if we understood what they mean when they utter the word “good”[4].

Skepticus: That sort of circular reasoning does not lead us to a conclusion. I have heard it said that good has three meanings. In one of its meanings, good, they say, is that by which utility may be gained, this being the most principal good and virtue; in another meaning, good is that of which utility is an accidental result, like virtue and virtuous actions; and thirdly, it is that which is capable of being useful; and such is virtue and virtuous action and the good man and the friend, and gods and good demons. But in describing as good what is useful or what is choiceworthy for its own sake or what is contributory to happiness, one is not exhibiting the essence of the good but stating one of its properties[5].

Socrates: What about those who define the good as pleasure? Are they any less full of confusion than the others? Or aren’t even they forced to admit that there are bad pleasures? I suppose it follows, doesn’t it, that they have to admit that the same things are both good and bad?[6]
Skepticus: The properties that indicate something is good belong either to the good only, or to other things as well. But if they belong to other things as well, they are not, when thus extended, characteristic marks of the good. On the other hand, if they belong only to the good, it is not possible to derive from them a notion of the good[7]. This would lead to circular reasoning.
Socrates: Isn’t it clear, then, that there are lots of serious disagreements about the good? Yet this is what every soul pursues, and for its sake does everything. The soul has a hunch that the good is something, but it is puzzled and cannot adequately grasp just what it is or acquire the sort of stable belief about it that it has about other things[8].

Skepticus: If we closely examine any of our opinions, not just about the good, we can find contradictions of equal weight in the views expressed by various thinkers. Hence the only stable position is to suspend judgment and come to a state of quietude in respect to matters of opinion. The man who opines that anything is by nature good or bad is forever disquieted: when he is without the things which he deems good, he believes himself to be tormented by things naturally bad and he pursues after the things which are, as he thinks, good. On the other hand the man who determines nothing as to what is naturally good or bad neither shuns nor pursues anything eagerly; and, in consequence, he is unperturbed[9].

Socrates: Must we remain thus in the dark about something of this kind and importance[10]?

Skepticus: This lack of understanding is not just about the good, but is equally true about the notion of evil. This is because nothing is by nature either good, or evil or indifferent. By indifferent I mean “that which contributes neither to happiness nor to unhappiness”. Things that move by their very nature, move all men alike. But as we are not all moved alike by the so-called goods, there is nothing good by nature. In fact it is impossible to believe either all the views now set forth, because of their conflicting character, or any of them. As there does not exist any agreed criterion or proof, I am reduced to suspending judgment, and consequently I am unable to affirm positively what the good by nature is[11].

Socrates has been unable to shake off Skepticus’s argument that deciding whether something is good or bad is impossible if we consider all the opinions expressed on it by various people. Socrates has himself admitted that some things that are thought to be good, can also be bad. Skepticus has won the first round and declared himself indifferent to the good. Socrates now moves the argument from the good, to the form of the good, hoping that the abstraction will be easier to deal with, compared to the concrete.

Socrates: Let’s set aside what the good itself is for the time being. Instead, let me tell you about what seems to be an offspring of the good. We say that there are many beautiful, many good, and many other such things, thereby distinguishing them in words. We also say that there is a beautiful itself and a good itself, and posit a single form or pattern belonging to each. We say that one class of things is visible but not intelligible, while the forms are intelligible, but not visible[12].

Skepticus: I also distinguish between appearances, which are affective sense impressions, and the reality of the underlying objects. So while some things may appear to be good, we need to judge whether they are really good, and if we are unable to do so, we must suspend judgment and declare that we do not have an opinion whether they are really good. Tell me more about the form of the good, as understanding that may help in judging whether something is good or not.

Socrates: That what gives truth to the things known and the power to know to the knower is the form of the good. Just like the colors of things seen in the light of the sun are more clearly visible than when they are illuminated by the lights of the night, when the soul focuses on something that is illuminated both by truth and what is, it understands, knows and manifestly possesses understanding. Knowledge and truth are goodlike, but the state of the good is yet more honored. Not only do the objects of knowledge owe their being known to the good, but their existence and being are also due to it; although the good is not being, but something yet beyond being, superior to it in rank and power[13].

Skepticus: Where does this form of the good reside and how is it used by the soul? How do we use this to pass judgment on appearances and determine reality?

Socrates: There are these two kinds of things, the sensible, which you call appearances or the objects of sense perception, and the intelligible, also called the objects of thought. The sensible can be further subdivided into images starting with shadows, then reflections in bodies of water, and the originals of these images—that is, the animals around us, every plant, and the whole class of manufactured things. The intelligible can also be divided into a section where the soul, using the images we have described, is forced to base its inquiry on hypotheses, and proceeding to a conclusion. In the other subsection it makes its way to an unhypothetical first principle, proceeding from a hypothesis, but without the images used in the previous subsection, using forms themselves and making its investigation through them. This is what reason itself grasps by the power of dialectical discussion, treating its hypotheses, not as first principles, but as genuine hypotheses in order to arrive at what is unhypothetical and the first principle of everything. Thus the four subsections correspond to four conditions in the soul: understanding, thought, belief and imagination[14].

Imagination is used to convert the images that are in the visible realm to objects in the mind that preserve their essential properties, but can be willfully changed by the mind. Beliefs are conclusions that are arrived at without reasoning. Those who start from hypotheses and use forms to come to a conclusion, like mathematicians, are engaged in thought. When someone reviews these hypotheses very closely and distills a genuine first principle and then uses it, and only forms but not images, to argue using the power of dialectical discussion to a conclusion, it is called understanding[15].

Skepticus: Thus the form of the good, as well all other forms, is in our imagination, and we use these forms, not images, along with hypotheses to engage in thoughts that lead to conclusions. But as the initial hypotheses cannot be proved, the conclusion we arrive at is on shaky ground. However, I admit that I am still intrigued by your concept of the form of the good and want you to explain what you mean by it.

Socrates expounds on his metaphor of the cave[16], which has most humans strapped into a fixed position able to look only at shadows of real objects created by a fire, and able to only indirectly associate the sounds and smells with these shadows. It is only when they are freed and taken out of the cave into the sunlight that they are able to appreciate reality, and understand the forms including the form of the good. Skepticus doesn’t dispute that humans have a difficult time consistently converting the sense impressions into opinions that everyone agrees on, and instead of assuming that there is a tunnel out of the cave, prefers to suspend judgment.

Socrates: The realm revealed through sight should be likened to the prison dwelling, and the light of the fire inside it to the sun’s power. If you think of the journey upward out of the cave as the upward journey of the soul to the intelligible realm, the last thing to be seen is the form of the good, and it is seen only with toil and trouble. Once one has seen it, however, one must infer that it is the cause of all that is correct and beautiful in anything, that in the visible realm it produces both light and its source, and that in the intelligible realm it controls and provides truth and understanding; and that anyone who is to act sensibly in private or public must see it[17].

Skepticus: While you have constructed an elaborate metaphor that explains why the form of the good is important and how it influences not just the good, but also truth and understanding, you have not described the form itself. It appears to me that we are both shackled in the cave, peering at shadows.

Socrates: This is exactly what I am trying to explain. Those who have not been led out of the cave into the light cannot comprehend the forms, but they remain enamored of the shadows they have seen all their lives. Only those who have been outside can make the judgments about reality while others see only the appearances, the shadows, and cannot apprehend reality. Their souls need to be made receptive to reality through a proper education.

Skepticus: This assumes that the soul is apprehensible, but that seems to be in dispute, with some asserting that the soul has no existence, others that it has existence and the rest have suspended judgment. If we are to make a decision regarding these conflicting claims, and we decide that the soul doesn’t exist, then it is inapprehensible. On the other hand, if we decide that the soul does indeed exist, with what instrument do we so decide? If it is by the intellect, which is the least evident part of the soul – as is shown by those who agree about the real existence of the soul, though differing about the intellect—then that is absurd as they will be proposing to decide and establish the less questionable matter by the more questionable. Thus there is no way to decide if the soul is apprehensible[18].

Even if the apprehensibility of the soul were to be granted, we cannot decide whether the soul has the ability to apprehend the form of the good. In order to prove that the soul of man can apprehend the form of the good, we need the corroboration from the soul of another animal. But why should we believe that other animal, so we would need a further corroboration, and so on ad infinitum[19].

Socrates: But then you can believe nothing!

Skepticus: The skeptic sets out to pass judgment on the sense appearances and ascertain which are true and which false, but finds contradictions of equal weight, and being unable to decide between them, suspends judgment. This leads to a state of quietude with respect to matters of opinion[20].

This dialog between Socrates and Skepticus illustrates the difficulty of defining the good as well as the form of the good to the satisfaction of a skeptic. Socrates starts by trying to define good, but after getting stuck in contradictions of his own making, as well as Skepticus’s, he attempts to raise the level of abstraction. However, Socrates’s exposition on the form of the good focuses more on its properties and why it is not evident to humans (as most live in the cave), but not so much on what it is. By contrast, Socrates does a better job describing the form of good poetry[21]with concrete examples of what it should and should not include.

The skeptic not only challenges Socrates in terms of arguments, but eventually the foundation of his thinking. Skepticus believes that by suspending judgment, and accepting the quietude of the inability to know reality, man is happier. Plato believes in knowledge, rather than the willful acceptance of ignorance, as the source of happiness. This fundamental difference of opinion on what makes us truly happy that separates Plato and Sextus Empiricus (and their proxies, Socrates and Skepticus) is all the more relevant today as the explosion of knowledge and data has dimmed our understanding. Accepting that we cannot form an opinion on all that is non-evident leads to mental peace, now more than ever before.

Works Cited
Empiricus, Sextus. Outlines of Pyrrhonism. Trans. R. G. Bury. Amherst: Prometheus Books, 1990.
Plato. Republic. Trans. C.D.C. Reeve. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2004.

Animesh Mukherjee
Chris Bobonich
MLA 209: Reason & Reality
Final Paper
March 24, 2007

Notes

[1] Many of Socrates dialogues here are copied verbatim from Plato’s Republic, Trans. Reeve. Quotation marks are not used in order to leave the flow uninterrupted, but every quotation is footnoted with the source. Similarly, some of the arguments given by Skepticus use the text from Sextus Empiricus, Trans. Bury verbatim. The original work in the paper is the juxtaposition of these dialogues to attempt to form a conversation that never happened, as well as a commentary on the arguments.
[2] Plato 505a
[3] Plato 505b5
[4] Plato 505c1
[5] Empiricus III, 171-174
[6] Plato 505c6-c11
[7] Empiricus III, 173
[8] Plato 505d-e
[9] Empiricus I, 26-28.
[10] Plato 506a
[11] Empiricus III, 182.
[12] Plato 507b10
[13] Plato 508e thru 509b9
[14] Plato 509d6 thru 511e5
[15] This interpretation of understanding is based on a conversation with Chris Bobonich
[16] Plato 514a thru 517a6
[17] Plato 517b thru 517c5
[18] Empiricus II, 31-33.
[19] Empiricus II, 36.
[20] Empiricus I, 26-28.
[21] Plato 377e

Is Unilateral Disarmament a Moral Choice?

In 1959, after his early victories in the African-American freedom struggle, Martin Luther King Jr. visited India to learn more about Gandhian non-violence in its country of origin. At the end of that visit he made “an appeal to the people and government of India…to call for universal disarmament, and…declare itself for disarmament unilaterally”[1]. Unsurprisingly, his suggestion was not taken up, although India did take a leading role in the non-aligned movement. Notwithstanding an early stand against nuclear weapons, India was to test its own just fifteen years later. The nation that gained independence from its colonial masters through peaceful non-violent means was determined to preserve its freedom by building up a modern military that included nuclear weapons. Examining the moral choices that confront a modern state that wants to live in peace, both inside and outside its borders, as well as meet the economic aspirations of its citizens, we find that India partially made the correct choice when it failed to heed King’s advice. Developing nuclear weapons was correct, but building up a modern army, navy and air force with heavy weapons and almost a million personnel was a waste of valuable resources.

Disarmament Defined

As the word can have a wide range of meanings, first of all I need to define what I mean by disarmament. I do not intend it to mean that all offensive weapons of any kind are to be outlawed, and that even the police forces are not allowed to carry guns. That would open the state to being ruled by criminal gangs and thugs. Most reasonable persons will accept that small arms which allow the individual to defend herself, lawfully regulated and registered, would not be a violation of disarmament. As Teichman notes, Quakers who are otherwise against the violence of war are not against the need for armed police and the “violence of the magistrate”[2]. Small sea and aircraft such as coast guard cutters and helicopters needed to defend the state against pirates, smugglers and terrorists could also be used. Armored personnel carriers, protected bunkers at the borders and reinforced concrete shelters for essential services and civil servants would also be allowed. Heavy weapons, missiles, fighters, long-range bombers, artillery, battleships and frigates would be banned, as well as weapons of mass destruction of any kind. Thus the state would have a self-defense capability to a certain extent, but would be unable to take offensive action against other states. This is similar to the conditions imposed on Japan and Germany after World War II. In the Indian context, this would mean that while the army, navy and air force would need to be disbanded and its equipment disposed off, the paramilitary forces such as the Border Security Force, the Coast Guard, Central Reserve Police Force, and the state police and civil defense forces would be retained.

Threats to a Nation

We next need to examine the threats that a modern state such as India faces. These could be internal, such as armed insurrection or terrorism by a group that does not feel that the participative democratic processes have worked for them. Assuming that heavy weaponry could not have been brought into the country or seized by such a group, this threat could be dealt with by the police forces. For example, the past troubles in Punjab or the current problems with the Maoists need to be tackled with a combination of political and police action. Disarmament does not affect the outcome in these cases as bombing, strafing or use of heavy weapons would not be appropriate.
In the case of external threats, there are four possibilities. Firstly, countries that share a border with India, possibly along with their allies, could attempt to take control of border areas because they covet the resources available there. The best defense against an enemy being able to hold onto such an acquisition for too long would be the creation of participative democratic institutions and polity throughout the state. As Machiavelli notes, an invader would “always need the backing of the local people to take over a province”[3]. Holding on to the new acquisition, even if it was acquired through treachery, is difficult: “anyone who becomes master of a city accustomed to its freedom, and does not destroy it, may expect to be destroyed by it”[4]. In any case, the persons who helped the invader “in the hope of bettering themselves…find themselves deceived…when they discover that things have got worse…(as) a new prince must always harm those over whom he assumes authority, both with his soldiers and with a thousand other hardships that are entailed in a new conquest”[5]. Thus the best defense against acquisition is freedom, the rule of law and participative democracy.
This threat can be mounted in more subtle forms: aggressors could “under the cloak of economic, military and technical aid…dominate the economic and military structures of…nations”, or take over “by raising and manipulating puppet governments”[6]. In addition, corporations or criminal gangs could gain control of a state. These are once again threats that would not be fought using a modern army, but rather with participative democracy and the rule of law.
The second threat is blocking access to trade, especially essential resources from other countries. This could take several forms ranging from blocking participation in banking, transportation, or commercial transactions, and export controls etc. For example, it is illegal for persons and corporations in the US to trade with Cuba. Even travel is restricted, in spite of the presence of large numbers of Cuban immigrants in the US. While a blockade of this kind cannot be overcome by armed forces, a strong navy can prevent the blockade of ports and protect cargoes. India, Malaysia and Singapore cooperate to keep the Straits of Malacca safe for ships by combating piracy. However, as pirates seldom have access to large vessels, the navies of these countries don’t need battleships to fight them.
The third form of aggression is from terrorists who have an agenda to destroy the way of life or are against the ideology or theology of the state. Al Qaeda does not plan to invade and take over the US, but objects to its ideological positions and actions taken by the US to promote its interests in the world. However, as Al Qaeda has no large economic or physical structures that can be targeted and destroyed, but rather operates under cover within otherwise peaceful societies, the use of modern weaponry to target it is limited. On the contrary, in Afghanistan the civilian deaths that accompany NATO airstrikes blur the moral difference between the terrorists and the forces that fight them in the eyes of the populace.
Finally we have the case when a powerful nation wages war in support of its ideological stance, for access to resources, or to support an ally. The United States waged a war in Vietnam in order to prevent the free communist northern part of the country from freeing the southern part from French colonial rule, as it was afraid that this would trigger a series of communist takeovers of newly emerging nations all over the world; the so-called domino effect. Escalating from advisory and training missions established in 1954, the US was to participate in a rapidly escalating ground war, as well as use napalm, defoliants, high explosives and cluster bombs not only in the conflict, but also on the neighboring countries of Laos and Cambodia. The proceedings edited by Duffet catalog the illegal and immoral acts perpetrated by the US government on a people half-way around the world. The United States Air Force considers all military, economic, political and psychosocial components of a state as legitimate targets. The last includes “the moral strength of the people as manifested in their internal stability, unity, national will…this is often reduced in terms of morale”[7]. This is the justification for cluster bombing of civilian targets that include schools, hospitals, factories and farms, where defoliants were also used to destroy crops.
In three of the four possible threats that are sketched above, invasion, blockade and terrorism, a modern military with heavy weapons cannot be used as a defense. To defend itself from being divided up amongst its neighbors, a state could use such an army to guard its frontiers, but the best strategy is to ensure that its citizens could keep up a prolonged insurgency against the occupiers, and make it too expensive to hold onto. The most powerful military force in the world is finding that it needs political solutions in Iraq, rather than just more troops. However when subjected to an overwhelming force that seeks to destroy rather than acquire, there is only one defense: offense. If North Vietnam had nuclear weapons and long range missiles capable of reaching US population centers, the extensive bombing of its cities could never have been considered by the US.
So far we have discovered that most external and internal threats can be overcome without a large modern military force, except that the ability to strike a decisive blow against an enemy can act as a strategic deterrent. Thus we see that disarmament in terms of dismantling the modern heavy military forces is a moral choice as long as the following three specific measures are taken.

Three-step Disarmament Program

The first step is the creation of a free participative democracy with the rule of law and ensuring that the minimum social needs of food, shelter, health care and education are met. This provides channels for internal dissension to be resolved peacefully, and external parties have few wedge issues to use to divide the populace. The ultimate goal is a civilian populace involved in their government at local, state and federal levels, and united in their determination to preserve it. Even if external aggressors manage to take parts of the state for themselves, the next step that needs to be taken will help ensure that they fail.
The second measure that has to be taken is the development of police and paramilitary forces with light weaponry and armor well integrated with the populace. These forces can be used to patrol the border, against terrorists and criminals and also in case of natural disasters. By having short service commissions in these forces and creating a reserve force in the population, it provides a pool for a quick call-up in case of threat, or trained insurgents in case a resistance movement is needed against an occupier. This is the model followed by the Swiss and copied successfully by Israel. By focusing on self-defense by a trained citizenry, rather than creating a force capable of external aggression, the state has a mobile and flexible force that is useful in peacetime as well as during war.
The third and final measure is the development of long-range strategic weapons including nuclear weapons that can deter a potential aggressor. The stalemate of mutually assured destruction, and the negative moral consequences of threatening to use weapons of mass destruction against civilian targets notwithstanding, this is the most efficient way of assuring the safety of its populace. Is it really such a bad moral choice after all? Teichman[8] argues that a weak populace facing genocide can, if embarked in a just war, “do whatever is judged essential to win”.
One fundamental moral concern for a state is the safety and security of its citizens. Assuming that a state treats its citizens well, provides equal political and social opportunities for their advancement and does not provoke its neighbors, it should be able to live peacefully without external aggression. In the aftermath of the Japanese defeat in World War II, Ho Chi Minh was able to free Vietnam from centuries of foreign rule, first by the Chinese and then by the French and Japanese. But the country was divided and it took almost twenty years of fighting till it was reunited in 1975. During this time the government of the northern part was unable to fulfill its moral obligation to protect its citizenry from the attacks by the US, and in fact these attacks spread to Laos and Cambodia. The only defense against these attacks by a super-power would have been a strategic long-range weapon system capable of hitting targets in the US. This is the reason why the war was in Vietnam and not in China or the Soviet Union.

Objections

There can be at least three objections to this position on disarmament. The first argument is that of the pacifists: you can not make peace by preparing for war. According to Teichman, while there are many forms of pacifism which hold that war is intrinsically and essentially evil, they are wrong when they say that there are absolutely no situations in which taking up arms would be the lesser evil in a forced choice. Preparation for this forced choice is morally right. But this does not mean it is right to choose war when there is no forced choice[9].
Secondly, while national defense is the justification for developing the strategic weapon systems, a change in the political climate of the country could lead to it being used for offensive actions, both militarily and morally. Alternatively the weapons may be taken over by terrorists, hence it is better not to build them in the first place. This is a difficult argument to refute, but as long as adequate safeguards are built into the triggering systems and the control of the weapons is jointly held by the three branches of government, the executive, judiciary and legislature, it is a controllable risk.
Finally, it could be argued that the country could join into a mutual defense pact with other countries that would guarantee its safety in case of aggression. There are several arguments against this suggestion. The United Nations is supposed to provide this protection, but is too unwieldy and racked by the interests of the permanent members of the Security Council to be effective. Joining military pacts such as NATO require the country to take an ideological position that in fact can have the opposite effect: instead of guaranteeing peace, it will guarantee the addition of specific enemies to the roster of potential aggressors. A good example of a coalition coming to the rescue was the 1991 expulsion of Iraq from its invasion of Kuwait. It could however be argued that if Kuwait had been considered to be a prickly acquisition rather than a rich country with a small native population outnumbered by expatriate workers who would turn tail as soon as it was attacked, the attack would never have taken place in the first place.
While we have been exploring events and threats that a country may be subjected to, we haven’t as yet explored legitimate uses of aggression. We have recently had several examples where intervention was used and was somewhat effective, and others where it should be used. Bosnia, Sudan, Cambodia are all examples where external aggression was used to control internal oppression. Darfur, Myanmar, North Korea and possibly Zimbabwe are places where we would like to see external aggressors help free an oppressed people. But the mixed results in many of these interventions, even if they were UN sponsored and used peace keeping troops from member countries, as well as the lessons of Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001, mean that this cannot be a good reason to involve heavy military forces. For police actions and natural disasters, the light paramilitary approach proposed will work.

Conclusion

Teddy Roosevelt is credited with saying: “Carry a big stick, but tread softly”. While we should be wary of taking support for a moral position from the adventurer who built his political career on the fictional exploits of the Rough Riders in Cuba, there is much to be said for his advice. Countries that have neglected to build strong internal defenses but have relied on heavy fortifications, like the Maginot line, have often been surprised by an enemy more flexible or amoral than themselves; the Germans were willing to wage war on neutral Belgium to go around the strong defenses of the French in World War I. Those who have relied solely on the morale and fighting power of its citizenry, like North Vietnam have suffered unnecessarily from the aggression of a super-power.
I have proposed the use of a deterrent threat that if carried out may be considered to be morally wrong. It could be argued that even if it was not actually carried out, but it averted war, from a Utilitarian point of view, this is better. For an Absolutist both the threat and the preparation that is needed in order to effectively make it are as bad a performing the deed[10]. However, until war is abolished for ever, I have no choice but to support the Utilitarian position.

Works Referenced

Duffet, John, Ed., Against the Crime of Silence: Proceedings of the Russell International War Crimes Tribunal. New York: O’Hare Books, 1968.
King, Martin Luther, Jr., The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr.. Ed. Clayborne Carson. New York: Warner Books, 1998.
Machiavelli, Niccolo, The Prince. Tr. and Ed. Robert M. Adams. New York: Norton, 1992.
Teichman, Jenny, Pacifism and the Just War: A Study in Applied Psychology. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986.
[1] King, pg. 129
[2] Teichman, pg 31 & 40
[3] Machiavelli, pg 5
[4] Machiavelli, pg 15
[5] Machiavelli, pg 5
[6] Duffet, pg 105
[7] Duffet, pg 243 quoting from ‘Fundamentals of Aerospace Weapons Systems’, USAF ROTC
[8] Teichman, pp 109-110
[9] Teichman, pg 100
[10] Teichman, pg 120

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Animesh Mukherjee
Chris Bobonich
MLA 252: Basic Issues in Philosophy
Final Paper
June 9, 2008

Preserving Diversity in Democracy

In a democratic government the opinion of the demos, the citizens, is supposed to control decision-making. This can be through participation, as for example in ancient Athens where each citizen was required to serve the polis for a few weeks every year, actually sharing the burden of government. Alternatively, it can be through representation, where the citizens vote for candidates from amongst themselves, who then perform some of the work of government for a limited time. Democratic government has been in practice a mixture of these two forms, and a fundamental problem has been to preserve diversity of opinion and participation. Preventing dictatorship by the majority, or catering just to the needs of a powerful minority, is important in all branches of the government: executive, judicial and legislative. This can only be achieved by preserving diversity on a variety of dimensions, and taking active steps to make sure that every citizen has a chance to participate and be heard: we need a government that involves each individual.

Importance of Diversity

In the biological world, diversity invigorates life, as more variation in each of the interdependent life forms leads to natural selection from a wider range, and therefore a better chance to create an improved life form that survives in the struggle for existence. In social and political systems, we need to ensure that a wide variety of voices and opinions are heard, and all sections of society, no matter how small in number or diverse in their opinion, have a chance to prosper and thrive. Their actual fate should be based on natural selection, not the arbitrary actions of any dominant group or class. Political and social groups or classes can be considered as varieties of the same species, homo sapiens and their ability to utilize and adapt in the competition with all the other species on the planet is the key to their survival. Unchecked, individuals or groups would do all that is needed to propagate at the cost of the other varieties of humans, other species and even the planet.
Government is a tool used in this struggle for existence[1], invented because the long-term survival and prosperity of society requires a controlling authority. When this is taken over by a single ideology or class, all the varieties that arise as a natural response to changes in the physical environment and the biological ecosystem no longer have a voice in shaping the future. The societies that have stopped listening to the varieties in their midst eventually end up out-of-step with the nuances of the ground reality and are replaced, sometimes at great human and social cost, by a new structure that is more in tune with reality. Only political systems that ensure that every voice has the freedom to speak and participate are able to make the infinite course corrections needed over time to ensure that they are in tune with the rest of the planet.

The Purpose of Government

The fundamental purpose of government is to regulate and control man’s struggle for existence. It does this through the organizations that provide the defense, law and order, justice, financial, communication, health, education, welfare and other needs of the nation; this is true even in monarchies and dictatorships. In the case of democracies, there is an additional purpose: “increase the sum of good qualities in the governed, collectively and individually”[2]. This is to be done specifically to help meet the three criterion needed for a government to be successful: the people must be willing to accept its rule, be willing and able to do what is needed to keep it standing, and do what it needs of each of them to fulfill its purposes[3]. This requires the citizens to participate not just in electing their representatives, but engage in the work of government. The regular participation in this work by each and every citizen, not just leaving it to an “other” who runs the government[4], is the hallmark of democracy.
Mill distinguishes between the normal educative task of the government, i.e. to provide a basic education to each citizen, and the “degree in which [political institutions] can promote the general mental advancement of the community… virtue, and in practical activity and efficiency”[5] through the engagement of every citizen. Personal participation in some aspect of government work by each citizen moves them from theoretical posturing to a deeper understanding of the practical difficulties involved in implementing policy in a complex world, making them better citizens. Mill claims that government has the most influence in taking the people to the next level of civilization, that a despotic rule creates a “mentally passive people”[6] and the “ideally best government… is that in which the sovereignty…is vested in the entire aggregate of the community; every citizen not only having a voice…but being…called on to take an actual part in the government, by the personal discharge of some public function”[7]. The problem is to design the political process so that it harnesses the diversity of that aggregate.

Dimensions of Diversity

In the social and political sphere, diversity takes many forms. There is gender, ethnicity, language, culture, level of education, religious belief or the lack of it, age, sexual orientation, political affiliation etc. These, and many other parameters, are important dimensions of diversity that any democracy has to serve, without letting any one voice drown out the others. Unfortunately the “one-man one-vote” model used in most democracies, as well as problems in financing participation and candidature have ensured that only a narrow slice of the “aggregate of the community” actually can participate. Most of the citizens are relegated to merely voting for their representatives every four or five years, unable to make their voices or ideas heard; only rarely do they participate, that too just at the local level.
Historically, participative democracy has only worked at the local level since the citizens have other responsibilities at work or on the farm to look after. Therefore, they can only devote part of their time to government work and cannot travel very far. If participation required them to spend days or weeks at a central location, it would limit the range of citizens who could take part. Increasing complexity of the job, and the professional training needed for most government positions have reduced the posts that can be effectively performed by citizen-participants. Hence, citizen participation in the actual work of the government in most countries is limited to the legislative branch, advisory positions, or jury-duty.
People’s representatives are chosen from a constituency to fulfill legislative functions. Diversity can sometimes be preserved by the choice of constituency and the number of seats allotted. For example in the United States Senate, there are two seats for each state of the Union, providing Vermont, a very small state in terms of land area and population with the same number of votes as California, which has a population, land and economy larger than most countries in the rest of the world. This balances the votes that California has in the Congress in which seats are allotted based on population. Thus, the opinion and diversity represented by Vermont is preserved[8].
Time is also an important dimension of diversity. A recent feeling amongst the citizenry, brought on by current events, should not completely take over the policies and programs of the government. The time dimension is used in various ways in the United States. First, elections in the US are on a fixed timetable, with Congress, the Executive and the Senate on two-, four- and six-year cycles respectively. Instead of elections being called when the timing is convenient to those in power or due to the pressure of current events, a rhythm is maintained. Second, all the positions are not offered up for election every cycle, but only a fraction. This preserves continuity, instead of a wholesale changeover. Third, there are term limits imposed on all offices, ensuring that new blood, and therefore new ideas are brought in regularly, another form of diversity.
Geography dominates most political entities. Apart from the fact that national or state governments are based on geographical entities, almost all democracies organize their political posts using geography. While this may make sense for the purposes of organizing a set of governmental functions, it makes less sense for political purposes. It emphasizes one dimension of diversity, geography, to the detriment of others such as sexual orientation. Assume, for example, that homosexuals are randomly distributed as ten percent of the population. In a system of representation based on geography, they would never be able to get a representative elected without support from other groups, yet on purely democratic principles, they should get ten percent of the representatives if the whole nation or state is considered. Mill describes and recommends a way to resolve this issue.

Mill’s Suggestion

Mill points out that while many consider democracy as the dictatorship of the majority, in reality it is that of the minority. Consider a purely representative government where the people elect their representatives to a Parliament, which is the legislative body. Suppose that the candidate with the most votes is elected, so at most she needs 51% of the vote, but usually a lot less[9]. Hence, the legislator is in practice chosen by a minority. Suppose further that the rules of the house require that bills be passed based on a simple majority. Once again, only 51% of the legislators need assent, each of whom represent a minority, therefore perpetuating control by the minority. In practice, legislators do not usually vote on their own conscience, but follow the party line. In addition, very few bills are simply a position on one side or another, but have many sometimes conflicting or unrelated parts in them. For example in the US Congress a few months ago, the Democratic Party added a clause requiring a timetable for withdrawal of the troops from Iraq, to the bill financing the war. Thus, Republicans who support the war and want to assent to the bill cannot do so. The solution being proposed to this is the line item veto: the President should be able to accept only parts of a bill that she finds acceptable. Thus, the link between the will of the people and the legislation that is implemented is in practice a very tenuous one in representative government.
Mill attempts to tackle the first problem, the quality of representation, by diversifying the geographical constituency to one based on interests. Based on suggestions by Hare and Fawcett, he proposes that in addition to the local candidates on the ballot, the voter should be able to choose or write-in others who are candidates in other constituencies. Additionally, in order to make sure that a person’s vote counts in all cases, he proposes that the voter express her order of preference on the ballot. For each seat in the ballot, the voter would not just put one vote, but give the names of candidates in order of preference. Once a candidate has received enough votes to be elected, the remaining ballots that have her as the first choice would be counted as per their second choice. Continuing this way through all the ballots, would result in a more diverse body than the system used currently[10].
It appears that this system has been adopted in a simplified form in some European countries as the system of proportional representation. However, in Mill’s United Kingdom, the US and many countries influenced by Anglo-Saxon concepts of law and politics, the system continues to be the flawed first-past-the post system. Of course, implementing this system of counting votes needs a centralized tallying center, or the use of technology to tally the preferences over the entire country. Thus, in the case of the US it goes against the bottom-up approach to political organization: here the county is the unit of organization for elections, not a federal body.

The American Way

Alexis de Tocqueville describes many aspects of the American political system in the early nineteenth century that support both diversity and participation. The first of this was the concept of the township. Settled by 2000-4000 persons, this was the lowest level of granularity in the political system where the “organization of the township preceded that of the county, the county that of the state, the state that of the Union”. For example, in New England, the body of voters appointed their fellow-citizens to various paid full- and part-time positions to carry out the work of governing, but for any action other than upholding the law, they would have to bring their proposals in front of the general assembly. No system of representation is required at the local level where “law and government are closer to those governed”. The administrative and technical skills needed for the nineteenth-century American township were well within the reach of its ordinary citizens and could be rotated amongst all who were willing and able. The township provided a minimal level of government, since the citizen was supposed to be “master in his own affairs where he is free and answerable only to God” [11], making it less intrusive and controlling than modern government.
At the next levels of government, the county, the state and the Union, the act of governing requires full-time application of skill and knowledge, but the citizen still has a participatory role as the “public, mainspring of the whole checking machinery”[12]. For example, in Massachusetts, Justices of the Peace appointed by the Governor form Sessions Courts where actions could be brought against public officials or even townships[13]. The decrees from these courts, while enforcing administrative rules, were judicial in nature and enforced by the county Sheriff. Thus, while the increasing complexity of public administration as we progress to the larger geographical units requires full-time professionals, but they are ultimately made answerable to the people at a local level. Not only does this provide participation, but increases diversity: the opinion of local citizens affected by the administration is placed as a check over what could become an over-professionalized bureaucracy.
Of course, from our modern point of view the diversity described by de Tocqueville is incomplete: women and African-Americans were denied their voice, as were most persons who did not fit into the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant mold. However, the systems and institutions created were easily extended to include these dimensions of diversity as societal changes forced the dominant class to accept them, as well as others, as equal.

Conclusion

We need to create stable systems of government that evolve naturally over time, adapting to the myriad changes in the political, social and physical environment by tuning into the many dimensions of diversity. Every individual citizen must be given a chance to participate and contribute, and this means using modern technology to change the way governments operate.
In modern manufacturing there has been a move away from the “large batch step process” in which a factory was organized to perform many small manufacturing steps on a large batch of parts. The diverse demands of the consumers coupled with better flow of information between all participants in the process have led to the redesign of manufacturing processes so that smaller batches are processed and the final product individualized for each consumer. Companies such as Toyota now claim to have achieved an “economic order quantity”[14] of just one car, meaning that their manufacturing processes are agile enough to build each vehicle to order. This raises the question: can we build political and social systems that involve each individual? During the last century we have seen the failure of mass movements on the left and the right, and the totalitarianism that results when we stop engaging the individual, albeit a confused, opinionated, diverse person, in politics. Fortunately, just as in manufacturing, we now have technology that promotes the communication paths between the individuals that belong to each dimension of diversity and the institutions that govern them. Just as retailing is being re-oriented to service the “long tail”[15], politics and government needs to re-configure itself to serve all the dimensions of diversity.
While the technology required to create a government based on each individual is advancing every day with the development of social networks, the political and administrative frameworks needed for this lag way behind. The US has the technology to enable these changes, but its dependence for its constitution on the exact thoughts of the Founding Fathers, make it unlikely to take political diversity to the next stage. Countries that joined the democratic club after being liberated from colonialism may be better suited to the changes needed, but most lack the access to technology needed to pull it off. This leaves countries like Russia, China, India, and Brazil that are grappling with the problems of diversity while enjoying explosive economic growth. These are the new frontiers where we need more diversity in democracy.

Animesh Mukherjee
Paul Robinson
MLA 9: European Thought & Culture
Final Paper
December 16, 2008

Works Referenced
Darwin, Charles. The Origin of Species. In Darwin, selected and edited by Philip Appleman. New York: Norton, 2001.
De Tocqueville, Alexis. Democracy in America. Tr. Gerald E. Bevan. London: Penguin Books, 2003.
Liker, Jeffrey K. The Toyota Way. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004.
Mill, John Stuart. Utilitarianism, Liberty and Representative Government. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1951.
[1] Darwin defines the term: “…including dependence of one being on another, and including (which is more important) not only the life of the individual, but success in leaving progeny” on pg. 108.
[2] Mill, pg. 259. While he quotes Bentham, the text and the reference to Bentham’s classification of man’s qualities as moral, intellectual and active, evoke Plato’s The Republic.
[3] Mill, pg. 237
[4] It is common in most democracies to forget that democracy is “government of the people, by the people and for the people”, and concentrate on what “they”, the government being outside the people, can do “for the people”.
[5] Mill, pg. 262
[6] Mill, pg. 272.
[7] Mill, pg. 278, emphasis added.
[8] The example is from de Tocqueville.
[9] If there are two candidates, one of them needs at least 51% to win. However, if there are three, four or five candidates, the minimum percentage needed to win becomes 34%, 26% or 21%.
[10] Mill, pp 344-370.
[11] De Tocqueville, pg. 52, pg. 74.
[12] Mill, pg. 261
[13] De Tocqueville, pp. 89-92
[14] Defined as the number of parts that have to be produced in a batch in order to minimize the production costs. This used to be based on just the setup cost and the per piece processing cost, but is now based on the entire cost chain starting with customer acquisition cost, inventory and costs for disposing of excess parts produced, as well as loss of business due to inability to meet the customer’s specific need in time.
[15] The concept that if we were to plot a graph of consumer preferences with the number of persons who want a specific product or configuration, it typically has a sharp drop off after the commonly sold set of characteristics, and then a long line (tail) where there is just a little demand for each of many different variants. The internet has made it possible for the consumers who require these diverse versions of the product meet up with their producers in a way that traditional brick-and-mortar cannot. Take for example a musical genre that has little demand and therefore cannot get a mainstream label to produce and market its CDs. The internet allows these artists to sell the music directly as downloads to its aficionados, creating a diverse market.

Re-thinking Indian Democracy

Watching the news on Indian TV these last weeks as we collectively analyze the carnage in Mumbai leads to soul-searching in so many ways. It takes an effort to get over the shock and horror of the terror acts committed, to mourn the dead and honour the brave, but we need also to think deeply about what we have seen and heard and understand what India needs to do so that the nation can get back on track.

Everyone has to participate

The first step is that we need to take our nation back. Take it back from those to whom we have entrusted it for over 60 years, and give it to the people, all the citizens who deserve far, far better. Shake off the colonialism of the mind, the attitude that there is a “they” that is the government, that they are the “mai-baap” of us all and control our collective destiny. It is time for the second freedom struggle.

What does it mean to be free? Rabindranath Tagore defined it in terms of knowledge, unity, truth, striving for perfection and above all, holding our heads high at all times. Unfortunately, we have lost all of these in the political institutions we have created in the last sixty years. Not a single political party in the country practices transparency in its leadership, its internal organization or its accounts. The people have no knowledge of what really happens inside them, or inside the government. Steps like the Right To Information Act have given us some reactive oversight after the fact, but there is no proactive participation in decision making by the people.

Truth is usually the first casualty once a politician or an officer takes charge. Sometimes this is a strategic need, but in most cases it is used to hide something that pampers some interest that the public shouldn’t get to know about. Fortunately we have a courageous press that probes and reveals much more than those in power want us to know about. But truth shouldn’t be something we have to extract as if we were a nation of dentists, it should be offered up to us as the partners that we are in this undertaking, as our right. This means that not only should the press probe and discover, but every government agency should openly offer everything it knows to its citizens. We don’t want the sound bites of seasoned politicians, we want the hard facts from professionals who can participate in discussions that help us understand what is being done in our name. And be willing to change their plans based on our feedback.

In India we have a billion people who each day have to fight for survival, fight to get ahead and keep the place that they have carved for themselves. Everyone strives for perfection in their own way, but we see that many of those we have given privileged positions, to carry out the work that we have delegated to them, forget that they have to continually strive for perfection too. A position of power and responsibility in the public or private sector, in a corporation or a NGO or even in the family carries with it the expectation that the person holding the position is in a daily struggle to do a better job, anticipate what might go wrong, and help the nation succeed.

As a nation, each one of us has to hold our head high and look the politician, the officer, the manager, the organizer and the patriarch in the eye and demand competence and truth, action and participation, or ask them to abdicate and let someone better do the job. But this cannot be a one-way street: each of us have to do our part in taking this nation to greatness. For too long we have each considered our civic duty consists in paying our taxes and turning up to vote. We need to take part: this is how we do it.

Home and Around

Like everything else, it begins at home. We cannot be a great nation until each one of us takes care of the part that has been entrusted to us. Once we do that, we need to look outside our boundaries and see what help our neighbours need. Not just the neighbours who live in the adjoining flat, but those who live in the adjoining slum. Join or form a neighbourhood association and work together to improve the collective lives of all who live around you. Make sure that you reach out to the adjacent neighbourhoods and coordinate with them to make your part of the city or town secure, clean, with good roads and drinking water. Reach out to the incumbent politicians and local officers and make it clear to them who the boss is. Help them get rid of crime in the neighbourhood, and make sure that they are supportive. Else they will lose your support in the next election.

Prepare for disasters: not just terror attacks, but fire, heavy rain, earthquake or flood. Organize community meetings to get everyone involved, make sure that there are people trained in first aid, keep essential supplies, create maps/plans of your neighbourhood that would help in case of emergency and choose and train volunteers to organize a response should anything happen. Hold drills and refresher training from time to time. This is not just at home, but at work and in the school. Don’t wait for someone else to ensure your safety, do it yourself.

Once we have an involved citizenry looking after their homes, workplaces and neighbourhoods, we need to take the next step: we need to transform the existing government setup into something that is geared up to meet the people’s needs. The first step is to create elective posts of local representatives for each department that is directly concerned with the people. For example, at an annual general meeting of all the neighbour associations that fall under a police thana, two representatives should be chosen who have the right to supervise the actions of the police in these neighbourhoods. They would have the right to visit the lockup at any time of the day of night, accompany the police on any raids they make, and also help anyone in their neighbourhood with the police. In order to give them teeth, they need to have access to officers higher in the chain of command. Some remuneration has to be provided and some reimbursement for expenses, by the association and there should be a limit that no one can hold this position twice in succession.

Similar representatives should be chosen for water, public health, electricity, gas, roads, garbage etc and we need to make sure that procedures of these department recognize the supervision by these local citizens. By making the parts of the administration that interact directly with the people part of the community, and making the members of the community part of them we will improve efficiency, reduce corruption and ensure the right prioritization of resources that meets local needs. This will go a long way to making everyone’s immediate lives better. It will also make us all better citizens as we better understand what it takes to run a neighbourhood, a ward, and a part of a city.

For the larger units of administration like the entire city, district, state or the nation, other changes are needed to make them more responsive to the citizens and for the citizen to participate fully in their operations. But in the meantime, if the citizens use the neighbourhood groups to educate themselves about the issues faced in the larger units, discuss the pros and cons of the policy and legislation and invite participation in these deliberations from the elected representatives and political parties, they can participate more completely in the elections. Not base their votes on a little knowledge gleaned in the campaigning period, but through a better understanding of the issues and the players.

Gathering Intelligence and Working with the Community

There are calls now for new legislation to counter terror, for a centralised force to fight terror, to get politics and law and order out of the mix, and concentrate on this new enemy we have. These are all misguided attempts: the answer is to look within for the solution, to act locally, to understand how terror works and be able to detect it before the attack.

We will never conquer terror until we conquer smuggling. We will never conquer smuggling until we defeat drug dealers and petty crimes. We will never defeat drug dealers until we have a clean police force that focuses on really being a part of the neighbourhood and fighting all the types of crime that occurs. This will happen when the people work with the police, not fear them. This means that police must be professional, and paid well and trained well. Recruitment should be open and transparent and the feedback of the neighbourhood associations must be taken into account for appointment to the top posts. Instead of a colonial police that enforces the raj of the state or the local politician, we must have a police that is with the people. Then the people will be with the police.

People should feel encouraged to look to the police to solve their problems, and they will bring the intelligence that will stop terror. The newcomer to the locality, the theft of materials that may be used in bomb-making, the presence of arms and ammunition, are all sights that may be noticed, especially by those who live on the margins of our society. If they feel that reporting these things bring more trouble than it is worth, we will never have the intelligence that we need.

The same goes for the health services: unless the people trust that they will be helped, and not put in greater hardship, they will not go for treatment. This could delay the detection of a biological attack, as patterns of illness and outbreaks need to be correlated to understand if an attack is in progress.

The information and tips that the police get needs to be analysed centrally so each and every police person should use SMS to send in reports to their local thana, which are automatically relayed onto state and central servers for immediate correlation. This should be expanded to include health services, neighbourhood associations, the press and other sources so that enough data is available for correlation.

This is of course the place for the central forces: to analyse the intelligence in time, or when the terrorist has been stealthy enough, and when the warning signs are too many and confusing. A central agency can help in three ways. First of all, by correlating the information from all over the country, matching the patterns with information gained from other intelligence agencies, and applying the knowledge and experience of those who have been fighting terror for many years. Secondly, by training first responders in detecting and fighting terrorists and ensuring that they have the equipment and procedures that ensure they can work together with the central forces. Finally, the central forces can step into the breach to backup the local forces.

The final step is to appoint the spokesman. During these chaotic events when everyone is looking for information, there has to be an authoritative source that can reach out through the media, the internet, through localized SMS to inform the affected people and the rest of the country and even the world about what has happened and what action is being taken. It is at these times that keeping quiet does a lot of harm and allows rumours to circulate. Every city, every state and the centre should have a single source for information which has intimate knowledge of what is happening, but divulges only that part of it that wont harm operational activities, yet keep the right amount of information flowing. A quick initial briefing, and then hourly updates would not only keep morale up, but could be used to enlist the help of the people to apprehend the culprits.

The responses to the heart-rending events need to be thought through carefully. Lets us all work together to build a better India from the ashes of our naïveté, getting involved and participating in democracy.