A lot of people are talking about
Ayer's column in the NYTimes. Some people are asking why it was published, why he was given space. But I think the answer is obvious. Most people still don't have a clear position.
A lot of people seem to be condemning Ayers. But I'm confused as to what the actual problem seems to be. Is it because he's re-writing a bit of history? Maybe. But the splitting and recombining of groups seems a lot more significant when you're an insider. I think the underlying problem is that we constantly keep having this difficult moral problem thrust upon us. And we're sick of it.
There seems to be a lot of contradiction in people's thoughts - especially in the comments (where writers seem to be a bit more prone to espouse their intuitions). Many are condemning the violent underpinnings of the Weatherman movement. But many are also sneaking in that problematic "except in extreme circumstances"
provisio. But it's not clear how one can be justified in making such a move. Where do you draw the line? How do you know when the circumstances are extreme? The problem is that you don't. History tells you whether you did or not; that is, the winners of History.
More importantly, if the Weatherman's bombing campaign had been successful in turning public opinion, what would the consequences have been? That whenever we fundamentally disagree with the government we start blowing shit up?
"No," we think, "this would lead to the rule by the angry mob." Extreme circumstances can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. And even if we try to formalize that line with an intuitionist or pragmatic account, it will simply amount to another rule that could be part of the network of unjust rules.
But "yes," we think, "if there were still slavery or segregation, I'd blow shit up." Certain pictures seem so morally obvious that it's hard to understand how they were not recognized as such. The beauty of hind-sight, we might wax sarcastically; But hind-sight is very compelling. The mere fact of it being hindsight doesn't make it any less true. And truth is something we should at least aim at in a moral theory.
For the most part I'm a Kantian about this. But I had my day as an anarchist. And I feel that urge constantly. I want to fuck shit up when I see an injustice. Though now I'm a bit more humble: when I know I see an injustice. And even then - we can't always wait around for knowledge, which is it's own problem. Perhaps we just have to hope that our parents instilled in us a solid moral habit?
One way I often play with the idea of radical activism is to go the martyr route. It seemed to work well in the Middle East. Not just for extremists; I'm thinking of our Lord and Savior, too. Here's the thing about breaking the law - we don't want people thinking they are above the law. Even when there are bad laws, there are also good laws. But if we can overthrow one, why not overthrow them all? What other ground does law stand upon?
Let's try another direction. What does it mean to think you are above the law? One might argue, it means that the law doesn't apply to you. But that doesn't seem rational, at least. We'd have to be using the term law incoherently. It's universal but there are exceptions. How does that work?
So let's assume we have a coherent interlocutor. What does it mean to be above the law? It seems to mean that you think you are above
the consequences of the law. It's not that the law doesn't apply - you're already admitting you broke the law. What you don't want is to be held responsible for breaking that law. You want to 'get away with it.'
This is where the martyr is different. They accept the consequences; and if jury has mercy, they refuse it.
Under this line of thinking, then, the test for radical action and the knowledge required is
not: Can I accept responsibility? Rather, it is: Do I accept the responsibility? The only noble, violent political act is the one that you take as your own. There is not even the hope of escape repercussions. In fact, you demand them.
And, I guess, when circumstance are dire enough, when enough people are willing to sacrifice their lives to stop an injustice, then you have a pretty good sign that an injustice is occurring.* Of course, that's a pretty extreme requirement. What are the payoffs?
For starters, you don't get people taking radical political action for any-old cause. You also get people who think long and hard about the consequences of their actions.
More importantly, you respect a very Kantian feature of law: that moral law is law that you yourself would prescribe. And, it turns out to be a law that any other reasonable person would prescribe as well. Particular implementations will vary. And this is important - we don't want to be calling faulty implementations an injustice.
One last point: I can't imagine why anyone thinks they make ground by citing SouthPark. It's cute "political lessons" are always contrived, and often speak to a base sentiment about the way the world works - a sentiment that empiricism often proves to be incorrect. In this case, the problem with the underpants gnome explanation is that the only way the plot device would work is if
there were in fact underpants gnomes. So what is the lesson we take outside the realm of SouthPark? That minority opinions are really just crazy, even if they are in fact true. But this isn't what empiricism teaches. It goes too far. We ought not reject ridiculous explanations out of hand; we ought only to reject those explanations that are impossible to falsify.
*Of course, there is also the problem of brainwashing. Here's the thing with suicide bombers, etc. They never face the law. They never face the reproach of their peers, so they never face the possibility that the injustice they perceived was false.
