Positive Punishment
I tweeted approval of Gene Callahan’s spanking of a stupid pro-Cuba-travel-ban column by Mary Anastasia O’Grady in today’s Wall Street Journal but have one further comment that doesn’t fit into 140 characters. What we see in the article is a familiar phenomenon that represents either a sickness in our culture or a sickness in the human species. I can’t decide which.
Across a whole range of problems there’s a class of responses I’ll dub the “low road” and another class I’ll call the “high road.” Examples of the former include war, torture, sanctions and blockades, imprisonment, aversive conditioning of all types (spanking; “dominance”-based animal training). Examples of the latter include diplomacy, rapport-building, civil disobedience, the free exchange of goods and ideas, decriminalization and rehabilitation, positive conditioning (of humans and animals).
I don’t presently care to argue that there is never any “need” to go down any given low road. In some cases I may support some low roads for some purposes. Locking up murderers, for instance. In other cases – torture – I have a much easier time saying “Never go there.” But what we see over and over again is that we judge high-road approaches as failures unless they produce nigh-instant and complete favorable results, while we show nearly infinite patience for journeys down the low road.
Nine years into the invasion of Afghanistan we have to agree that pulling out after a decade is just too soon. Back in 2001, the Taliban’s failure to turn over Osama bin Laden within a couple of weeks showed the hopelessness of diplomacy. When torture “works” at all it takes weeks and months, just like more classic rapport-building methods of interrogation. And it involves more false positives. Plus, oh I forgot to mention, it is deeply evil. But even though classic interrogation methods produce statistically better results, we live in fear that there may be some time somewhere that torture might get an answer that classic interrogation missed, so of course we must continually torture for that possible moment’s sake. As Gene points out, O’Grady judges the European and Canadian liberation of travel to Cuba a failure because Cuba has not become a neoliberal paradise in the decade since, while leaving aside the fact that Cuba hasn’t become a neoliberal paradise after 50 years of American cold-war against the country.
Compare also the standard neocon “U SUCK LOL” directed against nonviolent resistance – Hitler would totally have just killed Gandhi hahaha! We accept that successful violent resistance might take years or decades to achieve victory – Mao, Castro – and that guerrilla movements might suffer casualties to ranks and leaders but keep on. But we can’t imagine that nonviolent resistances might achieve the same. The war on drugs will surely work at some point – we’ve only been at it for 90-odd years, trillions of dollars and countless deaths and humiliations. But should anyone anywhere decriminalize anything, a single death or inconvenience in the first week would condemn the entire effort. It takes time to get an animal to do what you want with positive reinforcement. It takes time to get an animal to do what you want with negative reinforcement. But taking the former time is simpering weakness while taking the latter is manly resolve.
The open question, to me, is who “we” are in the above. American culture, or the human race? I suspect the latter, and that relative power simply gives the US a greater opportunity to take low-road approaches. But I’m not sure.
Comment by Ray —
July 1, 2010 @ 7:48 am
the sad thing is that relative power should give you the opportunity to take the _high_ road, to hold out past the mirage of immediate satisfaction long enough to get to the better outcome. but it rarely seems to work like that.
Comment by Mr. Obscura —
July 1, 2010 @ 8:33 am
The pervasiveness of the low road throughout history argues strongly that it is human nature. To paraphrase Douglas Adams, you get hung on a tree for suggesting that everyone should be nice to everyone else for a change.
Comment by Professor Coldheart —
July 1, 2010 @ 8:55 am
Could it be an example of the “make-work” bias that Bryan Caplan and others have written about? At least when the US is invading a country, they’re doing something. Look at all the APCs rolling down the streets! But when the U.S. is engaged in diplomacy, what’s really going on? Two guys in suits having tea behind closed doors, yadda yadda. Enough talk! We demand ACTION!
Comment by Anticorium —
July 1, 2010 @ 9:36 am
Geopolitically speaking, Jim, you’d make a lousy Green Lantern.
Comment by Barry —
July 1, 2010 @ 9:38 am
Jim, this is an incredibly good post – I love the heart of it:
“But what we see over and over again is that we judge high-road approaches as failures unless they produce nigh-instant and complete favorable results, while we show nearly infinite patience for journeys down the low road.”
Comment by Scamp Dog —
July 1, 2010 @ 9:49 am
The problem is that we face no consequences for taking the low road. “We” in this case meaning the people making the decisions, not you losers who pay taxes, join the military, or get mistaken for a criminal. Or have a conscience.
Pingback by The High Road and the Low | The League of Ordinary Gentlemen —
July 1, 2010 @ 9:55 am
[...] Jim Henley expresses something that had been in the back of my mind, in some form, for a very long t…: Across a whole range of problems there’s a class of responses I’ll dub the “low road” and another class I’ll call the “high road.” Examples of the former include war, torture, sanctions and blockades, imprisonment, aversive conditioning of all types (spanking; “dominance”-based animal training). Examples of the latter include diplomacy, rapport-building, civil disobedience, the free exchange of goods and ideas, decriminalization and rehabilitation, positive conditioning (of humans and animals). [...]
Comment by Nicholas Weininger —
July 1, 2010 @ 10:01 am
A fine post, Jim. My own sense is that, for whatever reason, a “low road” success feels to us, viscerally, like a real accomplishment in a way that a “high road” success does not; so we condition ourselves to remember the effectiveness of our “low road” successes and not our “high road” ones. Thus the neocon love of proclaiming that “there is no substitute for Victory!”. This may be a consequence of the “make-work bias” mentioned in #3, or it may be some relic of our evolution; I don’t know.
On a more frivolous note, it seems to me that you who are normally so prone to witty and elegant blog titles have disappointed on this one. The obviously correct title for this post is “And I’ll Be in Scotland Afore Ye”.
Comment by Andy Wilton —
July 1, 2010 @ 11:15 am
Very interesting post, but FWIW from my European perspective this bias toward low-road solutions does feel rather distinctively American. I may be missing something, but I can’t think of a UK or French issue where this pattern (instant results expected of high-road solutions but not low-road ones) shows up. I can’t rule out relative power as a partial explanation, but ISTM the UK and France should still be up the US end of the spectrum if that’s the only factor at work.
Comment by Thoreau —
July 1, 2010 @ 11:33 am
This is definitely among your best posts, Jim.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
July 1, 2010 @ 11:52 am
Agreed with Thoreau. Though I’m not clear, given history and current events, why that’d even be a question of human nature as opposed to some barbaric American mutation.
As per Professor Coldheart’s point, the low road looks more like doing something, even if the method in question is inferior than a high road method. In democracies, doing something looks good for politicians and reassures people. Outside of democracies, doing something reassures the (reasonably) loyal and intimidates the opposition. Political systems encourage the use of the low road.
Comment by Eric Martin —
July 1, 2010 @ 12:18 pm
I may be missing something, but I can’t think of a UK or French issue where this pattern (instant results expected of high-road solutions but not low-road ones) shows up. I can’t rule out relative power as a partial explanation, but ISTM the UK and France should still be up the US end of the spectrum if that’s the only factor at work.
British empire? France’s colonial history?
Comment by albatross —
July 1, 2010 @ 12:39 pm
This is a nice insight, and I need to think more about it. I suspect partly, this is a bias toward visible action, and partly, it just feels good to have someone you’re allowed to kill and mistreat without feeling guilty.
Think about how often the bad guys in some fantasy novel are orcs or trollocs or whatever, rather than other human beings who love and feel and cry for their mothers when they’re bleeding out from that nasty sword wound you gave them. Or how much effort is made in propaganda to make the enemy into interchangable faceless monsters who don’t feel anything but fear and can’t be reasoned with–faceless jihadis, faceless Germans, faceless Japs, faceless blacks–there’s something liberating about being told “these are people you can mistreat, torture, kill, humiliate, and crush, without guilt, without it reflecting badly on you as a human.”
I suspect it’s a little like rooting for your favorite football team, but much more powerful and destructive.
Comment by Chris Quinones —
July 1, 2010 @ 12:59 pm
Jim: Brilliant.
Mr. Obscura, 2: With an opposing viewpoint, I present Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
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July 1, 2010 @ 1:51 pm
[...] of the Day July 1, 2010 tgirsch Leave a comment Go to comments Jim Henley: Across a whole range of problems there’s a class of responses I’ll dub the “low road” and [...]
Comment by Paul McLeod —
July 1, 2010 @ 2:22 pm
Probably there are many cognitive and emotional biases at work here, not least that vengeance produces much more immediately satisfying emotions than does forbearance (though that just requires us to explain something at one further remove; I’m sure some evolutionary-psychology, in-group-out-group story could be concocted fairly easily. You will note that all of the victims of low-road tactics have been placed outside the group, even when they are American, though again whether the social expulsion or the low-road treatment came first, and which encourages the other, could be up for debate).
But I think this could be one of the main factors: high-road strategies seem to imply some sort of association with and approval for the party behaving “badly” (quotes to cover cases where the badness of the behavior is a matter of disputed perspective). Low-road strategies, meanwhile, make it clear that the punisher is in no way responsible for, tainted by, or favorable towards the “bad” behavior. Taking the low road allows one to say “Hey, it’s not me, it’s them! I’m doing everything I can to stop it!” Whereas the high road, as it involves offering rewards to “bad” people, can make you look like an enabler even when you’re not, having constructed your incentives well. No one wants to open himself up to criticism on that front, effectiveness of the strategy be damned.
Comment by Kief —
July 1, 2010 @ 3:20 pm
Yes, you may be missing something – try any news source here in the UK the past few days. Ken Clarke has suggested that the criminal justice system should focus on methods that are proven to actually reduce crime, rather than continually ratcheting up the length and number of prison sentences. The reaction in the street, and in his own party, has been unequivocally low road.
Your European perspective may also be missing, well, examples outside of your own perspective. It’s not very hard to find examples of countries other than the US where the populace cheers on authoritarian governments, even when given semi-democratic opportunities to choose (Putin, anyone?).
I would say that the Northern European preference for the high road is the exception, rather than the American preference for the high road. But then I keep thinking of examples where even smugly pacifist European countries go for the low road (immigration).
So in short, yes you are missing quite a lot.
Comment by Walt —
July 1, 2010 @ 3:54 pm
This is a brilliant post, Jim.
Comment by Jim Henley —
July 1, 2010 @ 4:42 pm
@Nicholas: See, this is why I do the titles. Your suggestion blows.
@Andy: What I think you’re missing is that the major European countries eventually had dire experiences on the low road: hit bottom as it were. We have not ever suffered substantially from our own aggression the way France, Germany, Italy et al have suffered. Yes, this is at least ironic given my overall thrust in the main post.
Comment by Glaivester —
July 1, 2010 @ 7:40 pm
One obvious issue is spite. If someone is associated with terrorists who are threatening you (I’m using a generic “you”) here), torturing the terrorists until they break is an attractive option quite apart from how well it works, because even if ti doesn’t work, well, at least that bad guy who threatened you no longer has his testicles attached to his body!
In a similar way, I would not underestimate the amount of spiteful satisfaction that people get telling Cuba “You want to take stuff from our friends through nationalization? Fine! We’ll make life as miserable for you as possible!” You cross us, we’ll make you pay!
Comment by JohnTh —
July 2, 2010 @ 4:14 am
I would throw my hat with Andy Wilton that current European (and Canadian btw) norms are reasonably exceptional in at least being vaguely patient of ‘high road’ approaches, and with our host in believeing that this is not unrelated to an abiding memory of where very hard-core ‘low road’ approaches can get you. The Nazis especially were the distilled essence of low-roadism in virtually all areas of life.
Europeans’ dislike of immigration does not disprove the above – as I understand the concept, it doesn’t cover other areas of policy preference like immigration mix, taxation etc – just the key belief that inflicting pain is a more credible way of solving a wide range of issues than alternatives.
Comment by Kolohe —
July 2, 2010 @ 5:52 am
The high road low road dichotomy was covered by a philosopher who lived a long time ago far far away
The seductiveness of the quick and easy path is larger than an American impulse; it may be larger than an any human impulse.
Comment by Fred Beloit —
July 2, 2010 @ 6:55 am
Yes, the low roads. Examples: Wild and irresponsible spending of taxpayers money. Pretending that a significant percentage of the Muslim population don’t want to destroy our way of life. Saying yes to open borders. Backing government control of most aspects of our lives, e.g., sickcare. Religious zelotry in favor of the pseudo-scientific concept of “global warming.”
Low roads. Low roads.
Comment by Sandy —
July 2, 2010 @ 6:58 am
@Andy & @JohnTh: It’s easy to take a diplomatic approach when you don’t have the force projection to take a low road approach.
Canada has had a history with its native peoples which has often succumbed to the low-road approach.
The last time France had much of an independent force projection capability, it collaborated with Britain and Israel to seize the Suez–with the US refusing to back them. I would also guess that Algerians might also have a different perspective on France’s toleration for the low road.
In short, Andorra’s peaceful history in world affairs does not equal proof of Andorran saintliness. It just means that the low road is cut off for them, so it’s the high road or nothing.
Comment by Jim Henley —
July 2, 2010 @ 7:14 am
Fred, thanks for trying to exemplify the problem rather than just explain it. It is more dramatic, and as Frost said, “Everything written is as good as it is dramatic.”
Sandy, but: the major Euro powers don’t just lack independent force-projection capability by coincidence, do they? It’s the outcome of priorities set by their political system over the last half-century.
Furthering the theme, England is the country in the region least devastated by aggressive war. Yes, the blitz was bad, but not nearly so bad as what happened to any continental country involved in WWII. Or WWI or, in the case of France, all that plus 1870-1.
OTOH, Canada suffered even less, and they haven’t gone looking for trouble either.
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July 2, 2010 @ 7:52 am
[...] Friday links July 2, 2010 // 0 – Jim Henley on the high road and the low road [...]
Comment by Will Twiner —
July 2, 2010 @ 7:57 am
Andy Wilton:
not meant as an insult, but what about Europe’s current manly resolve to punish its workers and social institutions for the greed and lack of forsight of the banking class? As though “austerity” in the middle of a World Economic Crisis (note I did not use the “d” word) will somehow help?
Comment by JohnTh —
July 2, 2010 @ 8:09 am
And following up what Jim said, the UK is probably the most ‘low-road’ country in NW Europe, with (I believe) harsher prison sentences, a tougher Army and more wars than the rest. As for capability, I also with him about causation between force-projection capability and low-road-ism (sadism?). To take one example, the Netherlands is about twice as populous and three times as wealthy as Israel, but has only a fraction of the latter’s military power because there is no national enthusiasm (or need) for hawkishness – aka killing people and blowing shit up (or even for being dragged into ‘peace-keeping by Americans). Should the European countries ever rediscover their inner low-road id, I’m quite sure that their wealth and industrial power could get them as much ‘force projection capacity’ as they care to have. I’m glad they don’t want it.
Comment by linus Bern —
July 2, 2010 @ 8:39 am
Another side to this is that taking the highroad is interpreted as weakness, and the low road is strength. The reality is quite the opposite. People and nations that are strong and confident in their position take the highroad, (such as forgiving, or speaking to your enemies). People and nations that are weak and fearful take the lowroad.
Comment by Nancy Lebovitz —
July 2, 2010 @ 8:54 am
23. Comment by Fred Beloit:
Open borders is the low road?
Comment by Fred Beloit —
July 2, 2010 @ 9:00 am
linus say: “People and nations that are strong and confident in their position take the highroad, (such as forgiving, or speaking to your enemies).”
Yes, linus, countries like Iran are speaking to us all the time. They say No to Obama. They say they only want electric power because they plan to put light bulbs in their mid- and long-range missle points. They say no to their own citizen protesters. Low-road countries like Israel have no right to defend themselves against the enemies that surround them and should simply forgive and give up. Such is your high road.
Comment by Jim Henley —
July 2, 2010 @ 9:10 am
People, it’s important to recognize Fred’s point here, which is, ANGER! ANGERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!
Comment by M —
July 2, 2010 @ 9:17 am
I think it is much more likely that the authoritarian personality is to blame for most all of these problems, and it is the unfortunate reality that the authoritarians are often the ones who will continue fighting to get their way even long after they have clearly lost.
And that is they they do, eventually, ruin everything they come in contact with–they batter everyone else into submission, since that submission is what really matters to them.
Comment by linus Bern —
July 2, 2010 @ 9:19 am
Hey Fred,
With regards to Iran, where has the low road policy gotten the US in the last eight years? Less than nothing.
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July 2, 2010 @ 9:44 am
[...] endless patience with the ‘low [...]
Comment by Sandy —
July 2, 2010 @ 10:19 am
@JohnTh You do realize the Netherlands put troops in Iraq, right?
@Jim:
Seriously, your only explanation for the forces status of Europe is culture? Free riding, path dependence, strategic situation, economic development, center-periphery theory, hegemonic theory, none of these things matter as much as just bein’ nice guys?
Because if you ignore all of those other factors, you’ve got Bushian unicausal explanations. If not, then the low road may be one factor among many but it loses potency as an argument.
On timescales of less than a century, I think human nature can be treated as a constant.
Comment by Thoreau —
July 2, 2010 @ 10:47 am
Espousing the high road is a good way to get yourself crucified, Jim. Look at what happened when that Jewish guy ran around preaching peace and love.
The low road is much safer.
Comment by Jim Henley —
July 2, 2010 @ 11:04 am
Sandy: Huh? Where do I argue that “only explanation for the forces status of Europe is culture?”
Comment by Andy Wilton —
July 2, 2010 @ 11:15 am
@Will Twiner: very interesting point. Going by Paul Krugman, the pro-austerity camp in Europe do seem to have made their minds up on the solution without recourse to (or indeed in the face of) the evidence. The problem is, the people concerned probably see austerity as the *high* road. If European attitudes to eg torture are shaped in large part by WWII, the German attitude to inflation goes back to Weimar.
Is this a wider problem? Can we agree on which solutions are high road and which aren’t? In France, if you went on talk radio and said that torturing suspected terrorists was okay, you’d wind up in court charged with war crimes apolgism. Is this the high road (stops us going down the slippery slope of Nazism) or the low road (endangers freedom of speech and thus puts us on that very slope)? I’m guessing US and continental European views would differ here.
Comment by JohnTh —
July 2, 2010 @ 11:33 am
Sandy, I do realise that the Netherlands put troops in Iraq, as I tried to indicated with my ‘dragged into peacekeeping by Americans’ comment. But it wasn’t very popular at home, and neither was a similar adventure in Iraq. In general, warlike, low-road conduct against foreign nations & people(outside a soccer pitch, obviously!) is not popular in the Netherlands.
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July 2, 2010 @ 1:00 pm
[...] of a blogfest going on today at obsidian wings . The blogfest quotes a previous post at Unqualified Offerings . The thesis that generated this term paper is : “Across a whole range of problems [...]
Comment by monica wing —
July 2, 2010 @ 1:38 pm
The low road options you mention are methods that do not require the co-operation of, or any sort of positive engagement with, the person or group they are imposed on, while the high-road options do. It’s about who is to be in control, it’s about saying “I’m going to MAKE you do this” – even in situations where we, in fact, cannot.
Comment by Someone Who Doesn't Want to Lose His Job —
July 2, 2010 @ 1:42 pm
Jim: “Fred, thanks for trying to exemplify the problem rather than just explain it. It is more dramatic, and as Frost said, “Everything written is as good as it is dramatic.””
and: “People, it’s important to recognize Fred’s point here, which is, ANGER! ANGERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!”
Great responses.
Also: wonderful post. Maybe the best blog post I’ve read in a while. My greatest concern in the last election was finding a way to put an end to the official respect the pro-torture faction gets from the US Government. Since I found out that there isn’t a candidate (regardless of what they say in trying to get elected) that will follow through on an anti-torture position when given the power, I’ve despaired for any hope for American politics. So I’ve thought a lot about this issue but never looked at it in this way before.
This is the definition of what a good essay (or blog post) is meant to do.
Comment by Jado —
July 2, 2010 @ 2:23 pm
“Low road” is east when you are a Red Lantern. Heck, it’s actually mandated.
So it’s not that we as humans have this in our character, it’s just that our hearts have been replaced by Red Power Rings and we are blinded by rage.
Comment by Someone Who Doesn't Want to Lose His Job —
July 2, 2010 @ 3:00 pm
Yellow lanterns tend to take to the low road often as well.
Comment by abb1 —
July 2, 2010 @ 5:18 pm
It’s the power thing.
Nice guys finish last; those who crave power and eventually become powerful are assholes. That’s all there is to it.
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July 2, 2010 @ 9:04 pm
[...] for the Devil 2 07 2010 Unqualified Offerings gives an excellent insight that applies across so many issues (emphasis mine): Across a whole range [...]
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July 2, 2010 @ 9:29 pm
[...] I don’t presently care to argue that there is never any “need” to go down any given low road. In some cases I may support some low roads for some purposes. Locking up murderers, for instance. In other cases – torture – I have a much easier time saying “Never go there.” But what we see over and over again is that we judge high-road approaches as failures unless they produce nigh-instant and complete favorable results, while we show nearly infinite patience for journeys down the low road. via highclearing.com [...]
Comment by Doctor Science —
July 2, 2010 @ 10:05 pm
Here from Obsidian Wings, and I’m going to largely repeat what I said over there:
The key word here is *manly*. In normal non-military life, the high road can be taken by men and women; the low road, because it depends on physical size and strength, is taken by men.
Therefore, taking the low road looks more Manly, the kind of thing a Real Man would do. That high road where Atticus Finch is walking has women on it too, so how Manly can he really be, hmm? In general social interaction (like, say, blog comments) I call this “the way to prove that you have a dick is to act like one.”
So, I think the popularity of the low road in America is because it looks reassurringly masculine to people who are very, very anxious about their masculinity. Or about the masculinity of their men.
Comment by Leonard —
July 3, 2010 @ 11:15 am
Jim perhaps you might make clear what the difference is between “high” and “low”. To you, that is. Otherwise, it might be hard to analyze why the one is more appealing.
For example, at least looking at things historically, applying “sanctions” was the high road, not the low. The low road was war. (I guess progressivism has now progressed to the point where even sanctions are now considered low.) But anyway, if you cannot classify which road sanctions are, then obviously it’s going to be hard to argue that sanctions are either tried to much or not enough.
I can certainly tell you what the high and low roads are in my opinion. The “low road” is the use of force. The “high road” is the attempt to apply the moral prescriptions of Christianity in its post-theist morph. Our Lord, Jesus Christ, told us to turn the other cheek. We still obey this commandment, even though we don’t really believe that dude was God or anything so gauche as that anymore. What is the point of the Christian commandment? Why does it work? It works by conversion: the miscreant expects us to go all “low road” on his ass, but we don’t. He is impressed by our loving forebearance, and has a change of heart. He, like all men, has the inner light of God within him, and recognizes our brotherhood. Then he, too, is filled with love, and because of that, ceases to offend against us.
Thus, we should negotiate with killers (so long as they are not right-wing). This is deeply counterintuitive to the human animal, I think. Only really smart and educated people are able to argue that force doesn’t work. And it is also contrary to pragmatic concerns. Historically, the way to deal with a killer was to kill him. The way to deal with errant animals, children, or wives was to beat them. And the way to deal with a country that made war on you, was to conquer it, kill whatever leadership was there, and rule it, using however much violence was necessary to force the population to submit. These methods, the “low road”, worked just fine for 99% of human history. It is only in the latter half of the 20th century that we see states routinely unable to effectively conquer and rule other weaker states.
Is it uniquely American to be impatient about the “high” road? No. It is human. Faithful progressives will follow the high road til hell freezes, whereas anti-progressives will never take it in the first place. But we don’t expect most people at the extremes. Rather, most are either lightly committed progressives, or traditional Christians. Being Christian, both groups will be willing to dabble in peaceful cheek-turning, but neither will be deeply committed to it. (We have but two cheeks, after all, and the Sermon on the Mount is not so clear on how to deal with the evil man who keeps smiting you.) Thus, we see what you complain of: we try the Christian policy for a little while, which both traditional Christians and progressives agree on. But soon, lacking result, first the traditional Christians, then the more pragmatic progressives, give up on it.
There’s one other reason why the impatience is imbalanced. The nature of force is that it is resented by its target and will be resisted if resistance seems likely to succeed. Thus, if you do it at all, you can’t do it halfway. This always makes it very hard to switch from the low road (force) to the high (being nice). Once you’ve killed someone’s family, they just are not going to love you. “If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will, as it did Obi-Wan’s apprentice.” By contrast, no matter how long you’ve been nice, you can always decide to get nasty without any problem. (Indeed, IMO to the limited extent that being nice works at all in international relations, the active ingredient is the threat of getting nasty.)
Even the most faithful progressives are still stuck with primitive human moral sentiments, and thus have an intuitive sense that the low road works. Thus, although they find it distasteful and immoral, if for whatever reason they get onto the low road, to the extent they are pragmatic, they will stick with it. (Exhibit: Obama’s war.)
Comment by Jim Henley —
July 3, 2010 @ 12:07 pm
But I did classify what sanctions are. “To me.” It’s in the main body of the post. Sanctions as practiced by governments are low-road approaches because they are based on dominance and coercion. (Keep in mind that I no longer accept the libertarian or ancap definitions of the latter term.)
Low-road strategies exist on a continuum, but the very fact that the body politic saw no other alternative to war but “sanctions” against Iraq last decade or Iran now demonstrates the poverty of our outlook, not a problem with my categories.
I think there’s a lot to unpack in “worked” there. And not just “Who? Whom?”
When you’re merely agreeing with a possiblity I already allowed for, you might do well to acknowledge that.’
[I can't quite follow what you're trying to say in a lot of the rest about progressives, post-theist Christians and traditional Christians. I have one point of qualified agreement and one point of disagreement.]
I think there’s something to this, but less than you might think. We don’t just see full-spectrum dominance and all-out resistance hstorically, but ranges of violence on both sides of aggressor and defender. And ultimately the Brits could pull out of Kenya and the US out of Vietnam, for instance, without fear that the local victors would pursue them to the ends of the earth. And despite neocon fearmongering, the actual response of the iraqi government to a dozen years of bombing and blockade after 1991 was to sit back and take it. And there’s no reason to think that, had the US and Britain allowed the sanctions regime to end, that we would have reaped a whirlwind of Iraqi vengeance for the mercy.
That said, I think you accurately describe the mentality, if not the reality it misperceives.
I’m afraid I consider this wildly false-to-fact. Interstate war and threats of war are simply very unusual now. You’d be on firmer ground arguing that torture – including all forms of police brutality – are more the rule than the exception throughout the world.
Comment by Leonard —
July 3, 2010 @ 3:34 pm
I suppose I might have been clearer about that. Your post was about low and high, but you never defined them. You only gave examples. (And yes, it was clear that you considered sanctions as a member of the “low” set. I was pointing out that it might either be looked at as high or low, depending on whether you want to focus on the nature of coercive action itself, or the historical genesis of it.)
You are now clearly saying low-road means an approach “based on dominance and coercion”. OK.
I agree with you that as a historical matter, weaker countries mostly do not attack stronger ones. As you say, Iraq didn’t attack the USA despite the sanctions. Nor would it have been a threat had USG unilaterally ended them. I would count this as a case of the general principle I was articulating; it works in both directions. Because they were weaker, any attempt at force they might make would be unlikely to succeed, but it certainly would have annoyed the USA and would have caused resistance. Therefore they acted wisely and didn’t attempt it at all.
The enemies of USG aren’t dumb, and they do understand that any serious attempt to coerce the US is quite dangerous. Therefore they don’t attempt it. With some notable exceptions, of course. Didn’t turn out well for them.
I agree that we don’t necessarily see “full spectrum dominance” in history. However, we do see very much forced dominance. Aggressors adopt a philosophy of “by whatever means necessary”, and that generally means terror. If a tribe or nation can be brought to heel simply by threatening their big chief, that’s what they did. If it required destroying their country, burning the city, or the enslavement or forced removal of the entire enemy population, they did that, too. Or even killing everyone. Speaking generally, the smaller the army the dominating empire has, the more it must resort to force and terror to maintain its position.
As for threats of war: huh? You are right that war and threats of war are unusual now. (Hurrah for that.) But so are diplomatic successes. Coincidence? I am not sure I can think of any big diplomatic successes recently between adversarial states, can you? I can recall a few in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, when Uncle Sam actually deposed some regimes. (i.e.,Libya, maybe Syria in 2005.) But I cannot think of any since then… Iran? North Korea? Israel? Cuba? Venezuela? Honduras, for pete’s sake? I hasten to add that I don’t want the USG to prevail against any of these opponents; I want it to leave them alone and mind its own business. (Dude! That’s, like, the “ultrahigh” way, or something.) But these are the states the USG has choosen to regard, for whatever reasons, as opponents whose actions it is trying influence via means “high” (mainly) and sometimes “low” (threats of sanctions).
Comment by Larry —
July 3, 2010 @ 10:30 pm
I prefer the high road as the view is great and there is allot less traffic.
Comment by matthew h —
July 4, 2010 @ 1:33 am
The low road is more fun and has more and better explosions even in the first reel. Never argue against fun.
As to culture or species. . .
The correct answer is B. Species.
Comment by stras —
July 6, 2010 @ 1:04 pm
War is not as old as our species, only about as old as agriculture. This isn’t intrinsic to our species, only to our civilization.
Comment by Jess —
July 13, 2010 @ 11:13 am
stras,
You are completely wrong about that. Small-scale war is one of the leading causes of death for young males in the hunter-gatherer societies that have endured long enough to be studied in the modern era.
Besides, even if your claims were true, of what import would they be? Would you propose that we stop practicing agriculture? Or maybe we should just feel really guilty about it?