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Dialogues@RU is published
annually
by the
Writing Program at
Rutgers, The State
University of New Jersey
Volume Three
Spring 2004
Confronting Terror: Reasserting Ethical Resolve over Political Realism - Page 1
by Anthony Vitali
The historical role of religion as the fundamental ethical ordering agent in reality compels today’s world to consider this role in deciphering how to cope with essentially the same basic issue: the ordering of reality into two distinct spheres of good and evil, whereby human civilization may combat not only the terror of anomy, but the anomic effects of terrorism. Thus, in confronting Islamic fundamentalist terrorism with Christian just war tradition, a truly common and productive discourse is possible only when it focuses on the most relevant and meaningful aspect of each tradition: ethics. To achieve this, international relations must be approached by Western policymakers with a perspective that reasserts morality over political realism.
The role of war theory, as extrapolated from religious ethics in moderating warring tendencies between competing cultures, has profound implications on the relevance of religious tradition in both the justification of war and cultural statecraft. By separating the ethical dimension of religious tradition from international relations, especially in terms of war policy, we create by default a de facto anomy of seemingly amoral foreign policy. Thus, to reach agreements on values and conduct, or to establish a resolute moral justification for war, we must carry forward a “conversation between traditions” that is rooted in their relevant ethical traditions. Without this emphasis, we risk having a conversation that ignores, denies, or undermines the relevant connections to the cultural communities that are essential for humanity.
A most impelling case in point concerns the perplexing reality that major civilizations hold contrasting, competing, and even in principle, contradictory conceptions or “visions” of peace. Further elucidating this “Problem with Peace,” as the distinguished Professor of Social and Political Ethics Jean Bethke Elshtain poses it in her book Just War Against Terror, is Elshtain’s contention that “Peace is construed as the elimination of all those who pose an immediate or hypothetical threat” (125). As Elshtain asserts, “All too often people cry, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace, or when the call for peace is dubious or destructive in its means and its proclaimed end. For that reason alone, [different versions of] peace [need] to be examined” (Elshtain 125).
Elshtain presents three contrasting visions of peace: “the conqueror, the just warrior, and the pacifist” (125). In an effort to treat the contemporary concern of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism, it is imperative to consider all three visions as they encompass the dominant cultures of thought commonly deployed in response to such perceived threats. Furthermore, the strains of ideologically-driven politics and the resulting philosophy of international-relations brokers present an even greater diversity of thought on the matter at hand. For my analysis here, it is properly expedient to focus on the conceptions of peace that constitute contradictions in principle, which punctuate the conflict between modern Western Civilization and the Islamic fundamentalists’ chief export: terrorism. As Elshtain explains, “For the conqueror, justice is beside the point . . . This kind of peace seeks a world in which adversarial politics as we know it ¾ Augustine’s conflicting human wills ¾ has disappeared” (126). Elshtain continues, “Interested only in total domination, the conqueror can never rest. There is always opposition somewhere that must be quashed” (126). I would contend (and will elaborate later) that this description is proximate to the conception of peace held by fundamentalist Muslims. In contrast, for the just warrior, or as Elshtain writes, the “just war advocate…[the] demands of justice may require that peace be suspended temporarily in order to prevent or to rectify a grievous harm” (126). The forces of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism are actively pursuing and actuating grievous harm upon the West (e.g., the September 11 attacks). Thus the advocates of just war, myself included, view the Christian conceptions of retributive and distributive justice, as contained in just war tradition, to be priority predicates in the effort to confront fundamentalist terror on “just” grounds, and henceforth to carry forward a productive discourse between these competing notions of peaceful order on the basis of their ethical principles as rooted in their respective religious traditions. Therefore, the perplexity of peace as supported by Elshtain provides the postulate from which I will build the subsequent framework of my analysis on ethical praxis.
Throughout history and across the world, people have turned to the authority of religion in seeking ethical praxis. Religious values, as subjective bases for moral reasoning, have guided societies through the establishment of normative ethical standards. As the noted scientist Edward O. Wilson pointed out in his essay “Back from Chaos,” “The millennium-old rules sacralized by religion seemed to work . . . daily matters of life and death require moral decisiveness” (151). These standards, bequeathed to successive generations in the form of dominant cultural traditions, can aid greatly in defining and understanding the shared and divided borders of civilized world cultures. In attempting to discern the relevant differences that exist between civilized cultures, it is essential to understand the religiously-rooted values and constructs from which cultural traditions were forged, and the historical experiences that have punctuated their subsequent re-shaping. Lending further credence to this idea and providing the framework for my analysis, the renowned sociologist of religion Peter Berger, in his essay “Religion and World Construction,” essentially argues that all religion is a product of human socio-evolution necessitated by the unique demands of human anthropology. Berger’s idea of religion as a social construct and necessary ordering agent of human existence highlights the pivotal role religion has played in functional statecraft. Berger writes, “The dichotomization of reality into sacred and profane spheres, however related, is intrinsic to the religious enterprise” (26). The author continues, “The sacred cosmos, which transcends and includes man in its ordering of reality, thus provides man’s ultimate shield against the terror of anomy” (Berger 26). Historically, the major world religions have established ethical traditions to address these concerns. Such traditions are still relevant to the conduct of war and statecraft because the different contemporary perspectives of these cultures lay collectively constructed in different historical experiences and principally by the influence of their own normative traditions on religion, war, and statecraft. Thus, with respect to my analysis here, the practical considerations of actual statecraft or world building are essentially those of war and peace.
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