I am a supporter of the war. The terrorist attacks of 11 September, and their aftermath, have profoundly affected me psychologically as well as politically. I was horrified and outraged by these attacks. I have no doubt that the attackers are the enemies of the United States, of liberal democracy, and of universal values. I also have no doubt that these enemies are violent and that military force must be used to destroy their terror network; perhaps if possible to bring them to justice; and to provide some measure of security against the possibility of future terrorist acts.
I am a believer in human rights and in international law. I believe that the survival and flourishing of humankind requires us to develop, nurture, and support new forms of global responsibility, practices and institutions rooted in civil society, but also new forms of legal authority and international criminal enforcement. And yet I do not believe that current intimations of these new forms of responsibility are robust, effective, or possessed of global legitimacy. And so I believe that critics of war who appeal to international law are naïve, and indeed that their appeal is really a call to do nothing in the face of terror.
But as I have spent innumerable hours over the past six weeks thinking about current events, I have also been caused to think about the meaning of the very words with which I began this piece: I am a supporter of the war. This has not been an academic exercise. It is a form of self-reflection and indeed of political judgment, an effort to think hard about what I am doing with these words. For it seems to me that it is natural, and inevitable, in this time of crisis, fear, and war, that we are forced by circumstance to speak in such terms, declaring our support for or, for some, opposition to the war. And yet it also seems that at the same time that we are pressed to issue such declarations, we also should think about what such declarations mean.
Unpacking a declaration
The first thing to note about my statement is its beginning. I am. By using such a phrase we fix ourselves in time, as we must. At any given moment, each of us is likely to have an opinion, and, in declaring this opinion, at that moment, we are saying what we believe at that moment. But the simple statement I AM a supporter of the war leaves no room for the qualification that in fact is entailed by the very statement that right now I am a supporter of the war, but this might change, that I am a thinking being who is constantly evaluating events and strategies and who may be caused, on reflection, to change his mind. A public discourse of simple declarative statements obscures the inherently dynamic character of our opinions. This is why is important to step back and interrogate our grammar.
The second thing to note about my statement is its concluding words the war. What does this mean? Does it mean the general policy of military response to terrorism? Does it mean every aspect of the strategy and tactics behind the Bush administrations actual military response? The concluding two words of my statement do not answer these questions. But these questions are crucial. And, in point of fact, the ambiguity of the words the war accurately encapsulate my own deeply complex and ambivalent thoughts and feelings. For, while I know that I support a military response, and that I see no alternative to a military response, I also know that I have serious doubts about both the strategy and tactics of the current military response.
The third thing to note about my statement is what it does not say. It does not say anything about what I think about many other things human rights; the requisites of true global responsibility; the limits of unilateral foreign policy; the importance of defending civil liberties in a time of war; the folly of attacking and dismantling the public sector, as conservatives have practiced and preached for the past two decades; the need, here at home and elsewhere, to attend seriously to problems of economic inequality, environmental degradation, racial injustice, and national chauvinism.
The above list is simply a sampling of what matters to me politically. Many of the issues listed relate, directly or indirectly, to the prosecution of the war. Many of them do not, and are no less important for that. At this moment many of these issues have taken a back seat to the question of war, for the nation but also for me. And this is perhaps warranted. But these questions are nonetheless important to me, and they raise questions of importance to our politics. And yet my simple declarative statement of support of the war, by its very nature, is silent about these things.
The fourth, and perhaps most important thing to note about my statement, is not a feature of its grammar but of its very character as a declarative statement: how situationally specific such a statement really is.
To declare is to act
We are inclined to think that political opinions are best expressed in the form of such declarative statements. A culture of polling and punditry surely helps to sustain the idea that we can and should state our opinions in simple, declarative form: I am in favor of X, I am against Y. But this is not wholly an artifact of certain unfortunate features of our political culture. It is a feature of political reality itself. There are occasions when it is necessary to formulate what one thinks in such terms. Such occasions are moments of singular decision. One such occasion is in the act of voting, where one must decide, simply, who or what to vote for, whether a candidate, a party, or a referendum item. Another such occasion is in the course of compliance with specific laws. The payment of taxes, for example, involves a decision to comply with the tax law. On the date that taxes are due, each individual must decide whether to make the payment in question.
One might decide, as did Thoreau, that one does not wish to comply with the payment of taxes that support a war. One may thus feel compelled to declare ones opposition to war in the course of such a decision. There is, finally, the decision to fight, whether as a conscript, an enlistee, or volunteer. Perhaps more than any other individuals, soldiers are pressed by circumstances to decide, in the starkest of terms, whether or not they support a war, by virtue of their decision whether or not to participate in the war, to place their lives on the line or willingly to take the lives of others.
Thinking openly, deciding provisionally
The above situations are not, to be sure, the only situations in which it makes sense to offer declarative statements about war. There are surely many other occasions letters to politicians, public demonstrations, arguments with friends or adversaries where one may reasonably feel moved to make such declarative statements.
But unlike voting, tax payment, and war fighting, such situations do not require that we make a decisive choice for or against. We are of course free to do so if we choose. But there is nothing about the situation that requires it. And there is even less about such situations that requires us to articulate our decisions or actions, whatever they may be, in simple declarative statements.
Indeed, for most of us, the general situation of being an individual and a citizen is rarely like the situation of the voting booth. It rarely places us in a position where we must think, and articulate our thoughts, in terms of clearcut declarative statements. We may sometimes choose to think and speak in such terms. But we also have the option of thinking, and speaking, in more complex terms. This is not a luxury that politicians and soldiers can typically afford. But it comprises, I would suggest, the main virtue of ordinary democratic citizenship.
The virtue I have in mind is intellectual complexity and openness, a willingness to think and speak with subtlety and depth, to listen to others, and to be attentive to changing circumstances and open to changing ones mind. What I am talking about is not indecisiveness. It is a certain kind of serious and intelligent civic responsibility. It involves an acknowledgment of the need to take positions and to offer support or, perhaps more typically, to refuse to oppose or to offer resistance. It involves an acknowledgment of the need to issue declarative statements. But it also acknowledges the limits of such statements, and the importance of also, simultaneously, thinking and talking in other ways, keeping questions and doubts open, keeping the possibility of change open.
The provisionality of democratic decisions is one of the things that distinguishes them from the decisions of non-democratic regimes and societies. In a democracy, political accountability and freedom of expression make all political decisions provisional. The government needs to make decisions. And we, as citizens, sometimes need to make our own decisions about whether to support or oppose these governmental decisions. But all of these decisions are provisional. All are subject to change. And it is communication about the issues, in all their complexity, that helps to ensure that political decisions are never dogmatic, never set in stone, never artifacts of coercion or inertia but instead are the products of public intelligence. Public intelligence is a precious feature of a democratic society, all too rarely appreciated, all too rarely achieved. It is never more needed than now, at a time of national crisis and war.
Wielding weapons, and words
I am a supporter of the war.
But what I think, and what I also say, is in fact much more complicated than this simple declarative statement.
In the weeks, months, and years ahead, it is important that each of us is very clear about what we are doing with our words. We will be pressed to make declarative statements. And such statements will have their place. But it is just as important to remember that the qualifications, and the questions, and the ambivalences have their place. We need to make sure that they have their place in our individual minds. And, even more important, we need to make sure that they have their place in our public culture.
The struggle against terrorism is a struggle on behalf of security and of life. But it is also a struggle on behalf of freedom and democracy. Right now the defence of our democracy requires us to be attentive to the things we do with weapons. But above all, democracy requires us to be supremely attentive to the things we do with words.
