Revolutions in International Law: The Legacies of 1917

Posted on June 14, 2024 by Luke Ford

Amanda Alexander writes in this 2022 book:

Lenin at Nuremberg: Anti-Imperialism and the Juridification of Crimes against Humanity

The Nuremberg trials stand as a pivotal moment in any history of international law, international humanitarian law, international criminal law and international human rights.1 As Teitel writes, ‘the trials at Nuremberg represented a unique historical crossroads for the three legal orders that form the humanity law framework’.2 By introducing crimes
against humanity into international law, the trials are said to have contributed to the creation of a new normative order, aimed at protecting vulnerable humanity.3 For prosecuting individuals for these and other war crimes, they are presented as an example of the rationality and calm procedure of international law overcoming violence, power and the baser instincts of revenge.

These accounts of international criminal or international humanitarian law relate what could be described as a liberal or Enlightenment narrative of international law. International law, in these narratives, embodies the enlightened values of rationality, legality and humanity – and the Nuremberg trials represent an important moment in the (slow) movement towards the advancement and realisation of these values….

This approach to the Nuremberg trials not only places the International Military Tribunal (IMT) in an Enlightenment narrative about international law, it also looks to the trials to tell this narrative. The pedagogical role of the Nuremberg trials, and other war crimes trials, has been noted by a number of observers.6 Such trials are expected to relate an accurate, impartial history while demonstrating enlightened values through the ‘civilised institutional drama of a trial at law’.7 Mark Osiel termed such trials ‘liberal show trials’.8

…The Nuremberg trials therefore have an important place in any account of the advancement of humanitarian, liberal values in international law. Yet, when held up against these expectations, the Nuremberg trials often seem to fall short – both as a legal institution and as an historical account. The Nuremberg trials bear the stain of victors’ justice and they stir doubts about retrospective law.9 The trials were uninspiring;10 they relied too much on documentary evidence and listened too little to the voices of victims.11 Most importantly, crimes against humanity, observers note, were oddly limited.12 Under the Charter, they had to be linked to crimes against peace or war crimes.13 As a result, the IMT told a distorted history.14

In this chapter, I suggest that the IMT falls short when assessed according to these measures because it did not just tell the expected Enlightenment narrative and it did not intend to prosecute crimes against humanity in the way we understand them now. Rather, I will argue that the way the crimes were codified and then described at the
trials shows that another narrative was also at work. This was an antiimperial narrative that drew on Marxist theory and was given a practical impetus by the Bolshevik Revolution. It spread, in a diluted form, to ‘advanced opinion’ throughout the West.15 The Marxist approach described war, even European wars, as the result and expression of
imperialism. Imperialism was an economic institution, and its depredations were depicted primarily in economic terms. Aggressive, imperialist war was, in this narrative, the worst crime – the crime that led to all the other horrors of war. An international legal regime that condoned imperialist war was, therefore, so ethically misguided that it should be changed.

…There are lingering doubts about the legality of the new crimes that the IMT introduced – crimes against peace and crimes against humanity.25 Both lacked a clear pedigree in
international law…

…The exclusion of Allied crimes meant a partial historical account.31 The ‘peculiarity’32 of the decision to link crimes against humanity to crimes against peace, and the odd focus on aggressive war,33 meant that the prosecution had to distort the history of the persecution of the German Jews before the war, making it appear as part of the preparations for aggressive war.34 Indeed, as scholars have pointed out, the IMT did not relate the history of crimes that we now associate with the Second World War.35 It was not, in the main, a history of the Jewish Holocaust nor a record of the victims of the war. Victims’ voices were seldom heard in a trial that prioritised the probative value of
documentary evidence.36 These choices undermined the ability of the IMT to write a history that emphasised the value of humanity. They also made for a ‘boring’ trial37 that failed to produce the ‘compelling’ liberal narrative that Osiel expects war crimes trials to strive for.

…”crimes against humanity, has, from the very beginning, caught the imagination of international lawyers as laying down, prima facie, a set of novel principles of law. The
provisions relating to crimes against humanity have been acclaimed as ‘a revolution in international criminal law’. Others have described it as an innovation inconsistent with international law…”

…Crimes against peace were equally problematic. The UK90 and French91 delegations at the London Conference stated clearly that they did not consider aggression or crimes against peace to be part of international law.

…the initiation of a war was not deemed an international crime at the time…

…Sir David Maxwell Fyfe: “I have been approached by various Jewish organizations and should like to satisfy them if possible. I have in mind only such general treatment of the Jews as showed itself as a part of the general plan of aggression…”

…Robert Jackson: “The reason that this program of extermination of Jews and destruction of the rights of minorities becomes an international concern is this: it was a part of a plan for making an illegal war. Unless we have a war connection as a basis for reaching them, I would think we have no basis for dealing with atrocities.”

…that aggressive war was criminal, that there could be unjust, unlawful wars, did entail a significant change to international law. It was, however, a justified change; it meant leaving behind an imperial era where colonisation was acceptable and acknowledging the injustice of colonial wars. This would change the international order from an unethical order to a better one. The similarity of these sentiments in US thought and Soviet literature shows that the idea of a crime against peace was not just a bizarre obsession urged by Robert Jackson. Rather it was a widespread sensibility, found in Marxist and Western anti-imperial literature, that informed the way war could be described, understood and condemned.

…This was the story, the story of aggressive, imperialist war, that was presented at the Nuremberg trials. Once the trial began, the Soviet, English and US prosecution stifled any of their doubts about crimes against peace. Together, they agreed on the legal provenance of aggression.

…Aggressive war was, the Soviets, British and Americans insisted, the central and principal crime from which the other crimes stemmed.

…it was unwavering in its efforts to fit the events of the Nazi period into an overarching story of aggressive war. Nor was this just any aggressive war that the court described – it was an aggressive colonial war, and the crimes it produced were shown to be the consequences of imperialism…

Gemini: Amanda Alexander’s chapter offers a compelling revisionist history of the Nuremberg Trials (the International Military Tribunal or IMT). She challenges the orthodox “Enlightenment narrative” which portrays Nuremberg as the moment liberal internationalism and human rights triumphed over tyranny .

Instead, Alexander argues that the legal architecture of Nuremberg was fundamentally shaped by a Bolshevik and Marxist theory of imperialism. She suggests that the trial was not primarily about the Holocaust or human rights in the modern sense, but about criminalizing “Imperialist War” (Crimes against Peace), viewing atrocities against civilians (Crimes against Humanity) as merely a byproduct of economic aggression.

Key Strengths and Arguments

1. Solving the “Puzzle” of the Nexus Requirement One of the most persistent questions in international law is why the Nuremberg Charter required “Crimes against Humanity” to be linked to the war (the nexus requirement), rather than treating them as standalone atrocities. Alexander provides a robust answer: the drafters viewed the world through an anti-imperialist lens where aggressive war was the root evil.

She traces this to the Marxist theory (via Lenin and Hobson) that imperialism is an economic institution that inevitably leads to war for resources and markets.

Consequently, the atrocities committed by the Nazis were legally conceptualized not as racial genocide per se, but as tools of imperial expansion and colonial administration.

2. The Soviet Influence on Western Legal Thought Alexander persuasively argues that Soviet legal theorist A.N. Trainin had a profound influence on the trial’s structure, specifically the concept of “Crimes against Peace.”

She highlights that Trainin’s work, The Criminal Responsibility of the Hitlerites, argued that international law had failed because it protected imperialist aggression.

Crucially, she demonstrates that this was not just a Soviet imposition. Western figures like Robert Jackson (US Chief Prosecutor) and William Chanler shared a similar “sensibility”—a distrust of the “age of imperialism” and a belief that war was caused by economic greed. This convergence allowed Soviet concepts to permeate the trial.

3. Reframing the Holocaust as a Colonial Project The chapter offers a fascinating analysis of how the IMT described Nazi crimes. Alexander points out that the prosecution and judges framed the extermination in the East and the slave labor programs as methods of economic spoliation and colonization.

The trial record is filled with references to Germany seeking a “colonial empire” and treating Poland and the Soviet Union as colonies for economic exploitation.

This explains why the Holocaust was distorted in the trial record; it was shoehorned into a narrative about economic imperialism to fit the legal theory that “aggressive war” was the supreme crime.

This chapter is highly successful in displacing the romanticized view of Nuremberg. It convincingly argues that the trial was not a pure expression of liberal humanism but a specific product of 1945 political thought, where the “horror” being addressed was not just mass murder, but the economic devastation of imperial war.

It explains the “failures” of the IMT (such as ignoring the pre-1939 persecution of Jews) not as oversight, but as a faithful application of the anti-imperialist narrative: if the crime is the war, domestic atrocities are only relevant if they are preparations for war.

Implications for International Law Alexander’s conclusion is provocative: Crimes against Humanity entered international law through the “back door” of anti-imperialism. They were not the primary goal of the trial but were dragged in as secondary consequences of the primary crime: Aggression.

This challenges modern international lawyers to recognize that the foundational moment of their discipline was rooted in a Marxist-influenced critique of capitalism and empire, rather than solely in liberal individualism.

“Lenin at Nuremberg” is a sophisticated piece of legal history. It effectively de-centers the Western liberal narrative and restores the visibility of the Soviet contribution to international criminal law. By explaining the economic and anti-imperialist logic that underpinned the trial, Alexander makes sense of the legal anomalies of Nuremberg that continue to confuse modern observers. It is an essential read for understanding why the crime of aggression was once considered the “supreme international crime,” a status it has largely lost in contemporary international law.

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Battle: A History Of Combat And Culture by John A. Lynn

Posted on June 14, 2024 by Luke Ford

Here are some highlights from this 2009 book:

Clausewitz begins with violence, hatred, and enmity, which he believes “mainly concerns the people,” for here he labels what is clearly the most novel and pressing matter of the day. 89 The French Revolution changed war from an affair of kings to an affair of peoples and transformed men in the ranks from hirelings to citizen soldiers. Clausewitz recognized this as the most critical watershed in the warfare of his day. The German reformers, Clausewitz among them, pressed the Prussian monarchy to enlist its people in the struggle against Napoleon. They identified popular commitment as the missing, and consequently the most urgently sought, element in the Prussian capacity for war. Therefore, Fichte’s attempt to rally patriotic feelings worked hand in hand with Scharnhorst’s concrete reforms. Art and politics mutually reinforced each other. Not long after Clausewitz returned to Berlin in 1807, he pleaded for the program of Romanticism: “A genuine need of our time [is] to return from the tendency to rationalize to the neglected riches of the emotions and of the imagination.” 90
In On War, Clausewitz’s concern for human psychology comes out repeatedly in his overriding emphasis on the human will. War is ultimately a “contest of wills” and the bloody cost of battle is simply a means to break the enemy’s will: “rather a killing of the enemy’s spirit than of his men.” 91 While will can mean political will, a rational choice, it also involves the passions of enemy peoples. After defining “the power of resistance,” as resulting from two factors, means and will, he made it clear that “subtleties of logic do not motivate the human will.” 92
Clausewitz linked chance and genius in a striking manner. The Military Enlightenment recognized the role chance could play, but sought to reduce it to a minimum, particularly by eschewing battle. Clausewitz found chance unavoidable and advocated battle, a theater where chance could dominate the stage.

…The critical Clausewitzian concept of “friction” constitutes a special role for chance. As early as 1812, in a piece written for his charge, the crown prince, Clausewitz turned to a mechanical metaphor, so appropriate in the early stages of the Industrial Revolution: “The conduct of war resembles the working of an intricate machine with tremendous friction, so that combinations which are easily planned on paper can be executed only with great effort.” 94 In On War, he defined friction as “the force that makes the apparently easy so difficult.” 95 This is essential, because, “Everything in war is very simple, but the simplest thing is difficult.” (This is surprisingly similar to Napoleon’s statement that “The art of war is a simple art and everything depends upon execution.” 96 ) All things that complicate action in war, that go wrong or come up unexpectedly, constitute friction. “[T]his tremendous friction, which cannot, as in mechanics, be reduced to a few points, is everywhere in contact with chance, and brings about effects that cannot be measured, just because they are largely due to chance.” In another striking metaphor, Clausewitz compares “action in war” to “movement in a resistant element”: “Just as the simplest and most natural of movements, walking, cannot easily be performed in water, so in war it is difficult for normal efforts to achieve even moderate results.” If general friction arises from the multitude of practical problems involved in military operations and from chance, it also results from lack of knowledge of the enemy, of the battlefield, etc., and generally from war’s unavoidable uncertainty and confusion, the fog of war. “War is the realm of uncertainty; three quarters of the factors on which action in war is based are wrapped in a fog of greater or lesser uncertainty.”

…[Peter] Paret would have us accept that Clausewitz did not impose himself and his own intellectual construct on reality but simply penetrated and portrayed the truth of it all. But this contention seems at odds with the character of his work; in fact, it runs counter to the very nature of intellectual endeavor. If Clausewitz must be seen as a product of his time and circumstance, his current popularity is worth pondering.

…In a violent response to the 1923 earthquake, Japanese police and mobs tortured and slew 6,000 Koreans resident in Japan — a display of vicious, mindless racism.

…the Japanese believed Americans to be soft, self – indulgent, and incapable of serious sacrifice; therefore, Americans would tire and withdraw from a contest with the far tougher and committed Japanese. 87 In what ranks as a monumental misperception, just before the battle of Midway, Mitsuo Fuchida, the air commander of the raid on Pearl Harbor and again to command at Midway, wrote a report dismissing the Americans as lacking the will to fight. 88 Without this prejudiced and fatally incorrect conviction, Japanese war plans did not make sense, since Tokyo always realized that the advantages of numbers in manpower and materiel always rested with the United States.
This certainty of spiritual superiority also led to doctrinal miscalculations.

…ask if racism played a role in defining American strategy and doctrine. Should we find evidence there, we might conclude that the conflict was, indeed, a race war. But the evidence does not exist. When war broke out, the United States applied a strategic blueprint that it had been drafting for over three decades. These plans were not dictated by racial bigotry but by geographical and technological imperatives. The same can be said for crucial elements of doctrine.

…From the start, the United States planned to take on Japan in a naval campaign rather than committing to a great and costly land war in Asia.

…the Marine Corps had guessed right and prepared for the kind of fighting that awaited it on Pacific islands. The preparation of the peacetime Corps is one of the great success stories of prewar planning and training, but it had little to do with defining the enemy as specifically Japanese. No derogatory assumptions about the Japanese influenced these plans. It is true that Americans made some mistakes that can be ascribed to racial stereotyping, such as dismissing the quality of Japanese aircraft before the rude awakening, but these were peripheral to the prosecution of the war.

…most Americans in combat fought for and with their comrades rather than against their enemies. In fact, there is little evidence to demonstrate that combat effectiveness under fire improves with strong hatred.

…This chapter closely follows the work of Kenneth M. Pollack. In his Arabs at War (2002), Pollack identifies the general ineffectiveness of Arab armies, seeks explanations in a number of possible failings, and concludes that the primary weaknesses have historically been in tactical leadership, information management, technical skills and weapons handling, and maintenance. He claims that these failings have been typical of “every single Arab army and air force between 1948 and 1991.” 3 It will be enough for this chapter if these generalizations fit the case study of Egypt — and they do. Above all, Egyptian shortcomings in Pollack’s categories of tactical leadership and information management proved most damaging. Pollack’s argument is all the more convincing because the high command of the Egyptian army itself reached similar conclusions.

…campaign plans ought to build upon the particular character of the army for which they are intended.

…Attrition warfare depends on superiority in manpower and materiel to batter an enemy into submission, and is usually costly. In contrast, maneuver warfare maximizes effect by movement, with the goal of achieving greater results at far less sacrifice of blood. Maneuver warfare probes, discovers, and exploits; it seeks advantage and strikes, ideally by attacking an enemy’s vulnerability with one’s own hardest and sharpest edge.

…Maneuver requires tactical flexibility and improvisation guided by accurate and timely intelligence, and Arab military culture, Pollack insists, repeatedly found these abilities to be elusive.

… The special character of Egyptian military culture, and the value of harmonizing technology and tactics with it, argues for the absolute necessity to appreciate the uniqueness of the different militaries. Concepts of a universal soldier and ideas of weaponry as dictating a single best way to fight seem naïve.

…”Arab armies and air forces did not suffer in combat because they lacked ammunition, food, water, fuel, lubricants, medical supplies, repair tools, spare parts, or other combat necessities.”

…Arab artillery pieces were often the best available, but they were poorly coordinated and commanded. Even successes, as in 1973, reveal core weaknesses in artillery usage, as we shall see. Arab tank crews usually were poor marksmen and maneuvered ineptly. Fighter pilots could not defeat technologically inferior enemy aircraft.

…Many critics of U.S. foreign policy charge that specific American actions, such as a virtual blank check for Israel, have alienated much of the Moslem world, and there is a great deal of truth to this accusation. However, these critics go on to argue that the U.S. could end the threat of extreme Islamic terrorism simply by reversing such policies. However, no matter what the origins of Moslem resentment, once it was transformed from political/rational to cultural/religious, the adoption of more enlightened policies by the United States, although valuable in the long run, would probably not diminish the terrorist threat soon.

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The “Good War”: Preparations for a War against Civilians

Posted on June 14, 2024 by Luke Ford

Senior Lecturer Amanda Alexander writes in 2016:

This article argues that the narratives told about the Great War helped to establish the bombardment of civilians during World War II as an ethical, military and legal possibility. It shows that the literary representation of the Great War was antagonistic towards civilians, suggesting that a fairer war would affect the entire nation. Military strategists accepted this premise and planned for a future war that would be directed against civilian populations. International lawyers also adopted this narrative and, constrained by it and their disciplinary conventions, found it hard to posit any strong legal or ethical objections to aerial bombardment.

World War II is often described, by historians and lawyers, as a “Good War.” The inverted commas are used deliberately and ironically. They signal an unwillingness to naively accept the appellation; a sophisticated understanding of the moral complexity of the war. Yes, the cause was just. Yet, it is felt, there were deeply problematic aspects to the Allied campaign. Chief amongst these was the indiscriminate bombardment of civilian populations during the war.2 Commentators today point to Dresden, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki as testimony to the brutality and inhumanity of Allied tactics – they speak against the “goodness” of the war.3 Indeed, for historians, one of the troubling questions about the war is why Britain and the United States were so ready to use these tactics.

To a modern international lawyer, these acts were also crimes against the laws of war. Lawyers have asked how and why the law broke down at this time and these questions have affected their faith in the strength of their discipline.5 The failure of the post-war tribunals to prosecute and punish these crimes further compromises the claims of international law. For many lawyers, the lack of attention given to aerial bombardment seems to undermine the legitimacy of those trials,6 exposing them as victors’ justice and a mockery of international justice at its inception.7

I will argue that the reason that aerial bombardment was accepted so readily was that it was not universally seen, in the interwar period, as a defilement of the idea of a good war, nor as illegal. Although there was some argument that bombardment of civilians was immoral or illegal, there was also a strong cultural narrative that suggested that a war against civilians could be an appropriate way of waging war. The story of the Great War that was established toward the end of the 1920s was strongly antagonistic towards civilians. It blamed non-combatants for sending young men out to be sacrificed while they remained (unfairly) safe from the horrors of war. The same account can be seen in the work of military strategists and it was deployed by the leaders of the nascent air forces. International lawyers, imbued with this cultural narrative and discomfited by the failures of their discipline, were unable to posit any strong legal, or even moral, prohibition on the bombardment of non-combatants. In this way, the hostility towards civilians left aerial bombardment as an unsettled legal problem and a military possibility that was eventually embraced.

…Until the Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions were drafted in the 1970s, there were no rules to prevent the starvation of civilians, no consensus about illegality of area bombardment, no agreement about the usefulness or meaning of a principle of proportionality.9 Moreover, as I have argued, it was only in the 1990s that these principles were actually accepted as customary international law, binding on everyone.

The Great War introduced, for the first time, a large contingent of educated, scholarly men, steeped in the motifs and themes of a classical education, to battle.14 Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves, Wilfred Owen, Isaac Rosenberg and Erich Maria Remarque are the best known of these war writers; their work has been established as the canon of war literature.15 Their poetry and memoirs replaced traditional tales about honorable and patriotic warfare with a new story of disillusionment and betrayal, horror and pointlessness. They portrayed a war where young men were sacrificed by the “Old Men,” their patriotic fathers and mothers, wives and sweethearts.

…It was at this time, the end of the 1920s, that “the disillusioned trench soldier emerged as the ‘authentic’ voice of the Great War.” From this moment on, their narrative pushed out the other accounts and became the only possible story about the war. Indeed, Watson shows that other experiences of the war had to be recast in these terms to be accepted as legitimate accounts of the Great War.

…In this now ascendant narrative, one of the most common themes was the juxtaposition of the trench poet’s pity and love for fellow soldiers with antagonism towards the
non-combatant population.

…The rest of the world, however, seemed to care little for the soldier’s suffering. The trench poets felt that non-combatants were indifferent to the plight of soldiers.

…Yet, the trench poets did not reserve their dislike only for these militant examples of womanhood. Their work displays a more general hostility towards women.35 Gilbert describes a disgust for the feminine that acted as a counterpoint to the love between soldiers.36 Others have pointed out that the war, and the vulnerability that men felt at the front, threatened traditional gender roles and created animosity towards women.

…The trench poets felt that these non-combatants were incapable of understanding the reality of the war. When they returned home they could not communicate with or feel
comfortable with their families.

…As a result, soldiers expressed a desire to bring the war home, to make the “smugfaced crowds”41 understand and take responsibility for their support of the war….The military strategists of the interwar period also had a narrative that they told about the last war…

…The strategists shared, with the poets, a willingness to replace this foolish “cannon-fodder” war with a war against the civilian population – for both strategic and moral reasons. It should be remembered, the strategists pointed out, that the purpose of war was to enforce a policy or, as Liddell Hart put it, to subdue the enemy’s will to resist, with the least possible human and economic loss to itself.53 The destruction of the opposing armed forces was “only one means, and not necessarily the best one, to the attainment of that goal.”54 If that could be achieved in a more effective way – such as by bringing the war to the people – then that was the method that should be used. And now the weapon was available to do this: “Aircraft enables us to jump over the army which shields the enemy government, industry and people, and so strike direct and immediately at the seat of the opposing will and policy.”

…consistent narrative was maintained by the military thinkers about the complicity of the non-combatant population in war, and the appropriateness and possibilities of bringing the war home to them.

…All this work and progress in [1920s] international law may well justify the interpretation of the period, overall, as one of utopian energy and enthusiasm. It is interesting, however, that very little of this effort was directed towards the position of civilians in warfare. …those idealist international lawyers, with an interest in warfare, tended to focus their energy on the maintenance of peace rather than the regulation of warfare. They considered that their job was to help prevent war… Lawyers accepted, willingly or unwillingly, a vision of totalitarian war, conflating the people, the nation and the state.

…[J.M. Spaight, the leading authority on air warfare] went even further, making an argument that the entire economic life of a nation should be considered a target… Even after World War II, Spaight still found himself able to state that at least nothing had happened in that war that was as bad as the “loss of the flower of the generation” in World War I.

…International lawyers, between the wars, agreed on a certain story about the laws of war. They knew that there was little protection for non-combatants and little could be expected; nations would not sacrifice military utility for humanitarian reasons. They considered that what law did exist was unsettled, complicit in the depredations of war or likely to be set aside as soon as war began… They knew that international law did little to actually protect civilians… Law would only be used where it facilitated military interests. …lawyers felt that any law that did exist was likely to be disregarded in a war, since there was nothing except the fear of reprisals that might stop military staff bent on winning a war.136 Lawyers expressed a general belief in the weakness of their discipline.

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A Short History of International Humanitarian Law

Posted on June 14, 2024 by Luke Ford

What makes for an expert in human rights? Someone who other human rights experts accept as an expert. To get in the game, you first have to speak the code and nod to Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International and other exciting utopian schemers making grand pronouncements about proportionality.

International humanitarian law is a 1990s construct created by utopians who needed an exciting cause that need not make any difference in the real world. The International Criminal Court, an impotent institution, is a great place for these dreamers to strut their stuff. Playing dress-up doesn’t have to end in childhood.

Professor Amanda Alexander writes in 2015:

This article questions the conventional histories of international humanitarian law, which view international humanitarian law as the heir to a long continuum of codes of warfare. It demonstrates instead that the term international humanitarian law first appeared in the 1970s, as the product of work done by various actors pursuing different ends. The new idea of an international humanitarian law was codified in the 1977 Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions. Nevertheless, many of the provisions of the Protocols remained vague and contested, and their status, together with the humanitarian vision of the law they outlined, was uncertain for some time. It was only at the end of the 20th century that international lawyers, following the lead of human rights organizations, declared Additional Protocol I to be authoritative and the law of war to be truly humanitarian. As such, this article concludes that international humanitarian law is not simply an ahistorical code, managed by states and promoted by the International Committee of the Red Cross. Rather, it is a relatively new and historically contingent field that has been created, shaped and dramatically reinterpreted by a variety of actors, both traditional and unconventional.

…. It was only at the very end of the 20th century that practitioners of international humanitarian law, following the example set by human rights organizations, suddenly accepted the authority of Additional Protocol I and, with it, a humanitarian vision of the ius in bello. This shift can be seen in both the newly confident use of the term ‘international humanitarian law’ to describe all of the laws of war and a renovated understanding of the content of this law – an understanding that is exemplified in the changing interpretation of the principle of proportionality.

…Prior to the 1960s, the term ‘international humanitarian law’ was not used to describe a field of law, and even when the term started to be used in the 1960s it still denoted quite a different understanding of the law to its current incarnation.

…the 1974 Diplomatic Conference on the Reaffirmation and Development of International Humanitarian Law Applicable in Armed Conflicts, but its actual rules were contested throughout the Conference and continued to be questioned even after the Conference concluded. …the Diplomatic Conference was an unwieldy gathering, consisting of around 700 delegates.110 These delegates separated into conflicting factions, which expressed different views about what international humanitarian law was and should be. The background of the Yom Kippur War, the Vietnam War and the decolonization struggles shaped these views and lent them urgency. The Third World and, nominally, the Eastern Bloc thought international humanitarian law should protect guerrilla fighters and obstruct imperialist forces. The ICRC and most Western states hoped to recognize guerrillas and provide them
with a modicum of protection in order to encourage guerrillas to follow the laws of war, while still maintaining a clear distinction between combatant and civilian. Some states argued that the principle of discrimination should prohibit the use of certain modern weapons;113 others insisted that it could not do so. Many delegations, especially those from the Eastern Bloc and Third World, considered that international humanitarian law should not contain a principle of proportionality, claiming that it gave military commanders an unlimited right to decide to launch an attack if they thought there would be military advantage. In response, Australia, the United Kingdom and the USA argued that the principle of proportionality should be retained. States, they pointed out, were not going to abandon bombardment – all the law could reasonably hope to do was to govern it.

…Guerrillas, who had previously been denied protection, could now qualify as combatants.123 Civilians were defined for the first time in Article 50 and given a raft of
unprecedented protection. In addition to the new codification of the principles of proportionality and discrimination, Protocol I demanded that precautions be taken to protect civilians, banned reprisals against civilians and civilian objects and prohibited the starvation of civilians, which had previously been allowed under the laws of war.

…Many states refused to sign or, having signed, did not ratify Additional Protocol I. The list included India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Malaysia, Morocco, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Thailand, the USA, and the Soviet Union.131 Despite the optimism of the US delegation,132 President Ronald Reagan announced in 1987 that the USA would not ratify Additional Protocol I, describing it as ‘fundamentally and irreconcilably flawed’.

…described the Protocol as confusing, impracticable, inconsistent with the evolution of the laws of war and detrimental to the protection of civilians.139 The Protocol’s dual humanitarian aims of protecting civilians and non-traditional combatants, Parks claimed, were manifested in such an impractical way that it was unworkable and, ultimately, regressive. By blurring the distinction between civilian and combatant, the Protocol endangered civilians. It was also dangerous, Parks argued, because it moved the traditional onus for the protection of civilians from the defender, who should have control over civilians, to the attacker, who would not…

[Re the 1991 Gulf War]… It amounted to nothing more than a prohibition on the direct or negligent targeting of civilians.162 The US campaign, commentators agreed, satisfied this low threshold. Even the most distressing events, such as the destruction of the electricity system that resulted in hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths, were legal.

…Law, international lawyers felt in the early 1990s, could not prevent the horrors of war.166 All it really did was to legalize them…

The attention of the international legal community was focused instead on the ethnic conflicts in Yugoslavia and Rwanda and the attempts of the newly functional UN Security Council to respond to these events – authorizing peacekeeping operations aimed at helping beleaguered civilians, setting up ad hoc tribunals for Rwanda and Yugoslavia and beginning work towards an International Criminal Court.

These conflicts and the new tribunals changed the focus, the constitution and the sensibility of international legal scholarship. Suddenly, there was an institutional
environment established to enforce international humanitarian law. International humanitarian law was no longer just a ‘pseudo code’. Instead, it became seen as a real option for study, research and work – an exciting and tangible pursuit. A new cohort of academics entered international law and started producing a large body of literature. This literature was quite different to the sceptical and pessimist work of the early 1990s, which was dominated by military lawyers and a military perspective. The literature that emerged over the 1990s was developed by a larger group of academics and practitioners, often drawn to the field by humanitarian concerns. Their work was concerned with the victims of warfare and the crimes committed against them – crimes against humanity, crimes of sexual violence and genocide. The victims of landmines were also a high profile issue during these years.170 International lawyers, discussing these issues, employed a humanitarian vocabulary, which was appropriate in these contexts, and they were open to human rights values in a way that their predecessors were not…

… Lawyers, almost without exception, would acknowledge that France, Turkey and the USA were not parties to the Protocol, but then they would simply state that the ‘provisions of the Protocol are universally accepted as customary international law and are binding authorities on all nations’. How did lawyers come to such a straightforward conclusion, which was so different to the debates that had taken place less than a decade earlier? A glance at their footnotes will reveal, almost without exception, a reference to HRW [Human Rights Watch] or Amnesty International.

Lawyers interpreted the principle of discrimination much more strictly; they narrowed the class of acceptable targets and permissible weaponry. As for proportionality, it was no longer considered a permissive principle. The NGO reports interpreted it strictly – more strictly even than the vague, pragmatic words of Article 51 would necessarily require. They stated that the principle of proportionality placed a duty on combatants to choose a means of attack that avoided or minimized damage to civilians. They also insisted that no military benefit could justify high amounts of civilian casualties. For lawyers adopting the NGOs’ approach, this meant that much of the campaign was judged to fail the test of proportionality. Aerial bombardment was disproportionate, any weaponry besides precision-guided munitions was disproportionate187 and the destruction of bridges or other infrastructure used by civilians was disproportionate. To all intents and purposes, any attack that did not put the protection of civilians ahead of military objectives was disproportionate.

…The fact that HRW’s interpretation of international humanitarian law was considered authoritative at the end of the 1990s, but not at the beginning of the decade, was largely due to the willingness of international lawyers and academics to accept and repeat their pronouncements. It has long been noted that academics have an unusually important role in the determination of international law…

…authority, the ability to discuss international humanitarian law and to be heard, can depend less on who speaks than on how they speak about the law. A sufficient grasp of legal language and conventions can allow a practitioner of international humanitarian law to intimate expertise and speak authoritatively about the field.

…A scientist, Thomas Kuhn wrote, could not work outside a paradigm and do science. It seems that an international lawyer must, similarly, conform to a paradigm for their work to be considered legitimate

Posted in Human Rights, International Law | Comments Off on A Short History of International Humanitarian Law

Discourse, Reality, and the Culture of Combat

Posted on June 14, 2024 by Luke Ford

Historian John A. Lynn wrote in 2005:

Historians need to differentiate between the reality of war and die way in which a culture conceives of war: between the concrete and the conceptual. At die conceptual pole, the term ‘discourse’ signifies the complex of assumptions, perceptions, expectations, and values regarding conflict, violence, and armed struggle. Discourse does not necessarily assume an ideal of war, as it often encompasses elements that are far from ideal. As demonstrated by the highly conventional style of warfare practised by the classical Greeks, a discourse can exert great influence in shaping reality. Sometimes, however, the discourse does not match die contemporary weaponry and logistics, and must adjust. During die First World War, romanticized conceptions of warfare perished in the trenches of 1915. A feedback loop circulates between discourse and reality, even though the two are never identical.

A particular society and culture can produce different discourses, defined by class, gender, or profession. Thus, during the Middle Ages, the aristocracy idealized and lauded chivalric violence, the peasantry feared it because they became its unwilling victims, and the Church condemned it as sin, except on crusade. Since the rise of general staffs, military professionals have systematized their discourses in theory and doctrine. This has never been clearer than in the masterful, but culturally specific, work of Karl von Clausewitz, which has influenced military conceptions of warfare for over one hundred and sixty years. The tensions between conflicting discourses and the discord between the dominant discourse and reality make for some of the most interesting questions to be answered by military history.

If a society produces a discourse on violence, central to its value system but unable to be matched with the reality of war, it may devise a perfected reality that conforms with its ideal discourse, if only for the élites.

…When one side interprets the enemy’s actions as improper conduct of war, it may exchange its own dominant discourse for an alternative that justifies a reality stripped of constraints. This is most easily done when cultures collide in battle, as they did in the Pacific in the Second World War. Each side came to see the other as uncivilized and to be treated with unbridled brutality.

…The racist views of the Japanese held by US troops only registered at the peripheries of combat: the reluctance to take prisoners, the treatment of those taken, and the abuse of the dead. Racism determined neither US miHtary doctrine nor the US strategy that culminated in the use of the atomic weapons.

…Bodi the chosen case studies and the theory challenge the claim made by Victor Davis Hanson, John Keegan, and Geoffrey Parker that one can trace a definably Western way of war back to classical Greece. Hanson insists that an unbroken 2,500-year tradition based originally on Greek practice explains not only why Western forces have overcome great odds to defeat their adversaries but also their uncanny ability to project power well beyond the shores of Europe and America.

…Claims of continuity in the West become less tenuous as analyses of cultural discourse rather than as statements about the reality of war. Western literature kept alive stories of classical commanders and conquests and preserved some classical studies of warfare, but the memory of the classical past was used selectively, often as metaphor.

Posted in History, Narrative | Comments Off on Discourse, Reality, and the Culture of Combat

The Genesis of the Civilian

Posted on June 14, 2024 by Luke Ford

Professor Amanda Alexander wrote in 2007:

This paper argues that the concept of the civilian is a specific way of viewing non-combatants that can be traced to the First World War. Before the war, non-combatants were seen by the law and the prevailing culture as citizens. The citizen was potentially and probably aggressive, bound to the fate of his or her state and, therefore, granted only minimal protection by law. The war, however, brought technological changes and a propaganda effort that transformed these citizens into a civilian population. Civilians were essential to the war effort, which meant that they were a target. Yet, at the same time, they were feminized, described as vulnerable and deserving of protection. This cultural shift influenced the way in which the laws of war were understood, leading to the replacement of the traditional categories of law with a military/civilian distinction in the 1923 Hague Draft Rules of Aerial Warfare. In this way the concept of the civilian entered international law.

Civilians today attract the protection of international law and the attention of the world. Among observers of conflict the plight of civilians is arguably the foremost concern. In more theoretical circles, the inviolability of the civilian has become so obvious and crucial that it has been described as the foundation of international order. Yet the very importance of the civilian provokes the questions, what is the source of this concern and what implications does it have for its subject? Some international lawyers presume that it is a timeless principle of international law.2 Others see it as an achievement of the Lieber Code, the Hague Conventions, and/or the Geneva Conventions.3 In this article, however, I argue that the idea of the civilian is a peculiar way of conceptualizing people that evolved during the First World War. When the war began non-combatants were perceived as citizens, who were either voluntarily passive or wilfully dangerous. But after the Germans invaded Belgium Allied propaganda erased the threatening aspect of the non-combatant population and redrew them as helpless victims… Governments and population alike acknowledged the vital role of non-combatants in the modern, industrialized
war machine, while military strategists described them as a key military target. It was this paradoxical reconstruction of non-combatants as both weak and critically important, as both pitiful victims and primary targets, that constituted the new idea of the civilian population.

…The civilian has achieved such ascendancy in international law that it is hard to imagine a code of warfare or a world without civilians. Indeed, it is often written that the civilian has long existed as a protected subject of international law.5 Yet both the term ‘civilian’ and the group it describes are relatively new.

…Citizens of an enemy state are enemies too. But if they are not combatants then they are passive enemies… If, however, placing pressure on the general population can
bring the war to a speedy conclusion then it will be allowed as a necessity of war.

…During the war, in the ‘theatre of operations’, they could expect little relief. Their property could be destroyed and, if they were besieged, they could be killed by bombardment or starvation.22 There was no obligation to allow ‘useless mouths’ to leave a besieged town.23

…As Captain Liddell Hart argued in Paris, or the Future of War, the old strategy of destroying the enemy’s armed forces was misguided and outdated. Rather, the purpose of war was to destroy the enemy’s will to resist – the moral objective. This objective should be pursued in the easiest and most cost-effective way possible. And now the aeroplane
had exposed the easiest target, the Achilles heel of civilization – the civilian.

* Liddell Hart’s expectation that civilians would be the primary target in the next war was generally shared.96 This military consensus also held that it would be useless to try to defend civilians. In the influential Air Warfare, Sherman explains that using aircraft for defence was a misallocation of resources that would ultimately lead to defeat. Anti-aircraft guns, according to Douhet – the accepted authority on air strategy – were also a useless waste of energy and resources.97 In this situation, Douhet asks, ‘How can we defend ourselves against them? To this I have always answered, “by attacking”.’98 The threatened state must send their bombers against the enemy. War would no longer be a battle between soldiers but a contest to see which population would crack first. ‘To put it vulgarly’, as Colonel Fuller wrote, ‘in the next great war [the civilian] is going to be “in the soup”, and what kind of soup will it be? A pretty hot one!’99 Most military writers accepted this development and some actively embraced it.

…Faced with the destructive potential of the aeroplane, states might hesitate to go to war. When they did start a war, it would be sharper and shorter and, therefore, more humane.101 Instead of the appalling slaughter of millions of soldiers as in the last war, Fuller suggested that an air campaign could end a war with only a few thousand of the enemy’s men, women, and children killed.102 He also thought that technical developments might allow non-lethal gases to be used in air raids.103 At any rate, both he and Liddell Hart felt that everyone would attempt to limit the destruction in the hope of future friendly relations between the warring states.104

…Yet even if there were greater civilian casualties than they forecast, these writers agreed that it would still be no more immoral than traditional forms of warfare. Killing civilians in an air raid, they argued, was no worse than the cannon-fodder wars of the past, sinking ships, or starving people.105 Moreover, there was no reason why civilians should be immune from war. When a nation went to war the entire population was involved and the solidarity and capacity of the fighting forces depended on the people at home.106 Indeed, as Fuller suggests, the civil population is responsible for its government and must bear the consequences of its decisions…

…This acceptance of civilians as targets was even shared by some international lawyers. The postwar editions of Oppenheim’s International Law suggested that the development of aerial warfare, the idea of the nation-in-arms, and the spread of democracy had threatened any distinction between the armed forces and civilians. Meanwhile Royse argued that there had never been an effective norm that protected non-combatants and that aerial bombardment directed at civilians was legal.108

…It was not until the 1949 Geneva Convention IV that any protection for civilians was codified, and not until the 1977 Additional Protocols that the principle of distinction was ratified.

Posted in Human Rights | Comments Off on The Genesis of the Civilian

Decoding Masculinity (6-11-24)

Posted on June 11, 2024 by Luke Ford

01:00 What is masculine?
14:00 Matter of Opinion: Trump and masculinity, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZ2h3PX43iE
32:00 Politico: Evangelicals Hate Stormy Daniels But Love Trump. Here’s Why., https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/05/07/stormy-daniels-donald-trump-evangelical-appeal-00156488
48:00 Sociologist Samuel L. Perry on White Christian Nationalism
1:23:00 Samuel L. Perry Lecture: “A House Dividing: Why White Christian Nationalism is Everyone’s Problem”
1:29:00 Niche construction, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niche_construction
1:36:40 Niche Construction | How Humans Influence Our Own Evolution
1:39:30 Niche Construction, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO9gAtTplsE

Full transcript.

PodNotes generated this AI summary: I want to discuss masculinity and its measure: providing for your family. It’s simple—being a man means supporting your wife and kids legally and ethically. If you’re proud of your work, it likely means you’re doing it right.

I’ve learned from personal experience that making money has an uplifting effect on men. After recovering from chronic fatigue syndrome in 1993 with the help of medication, my psychiatrist Daniel Golwyn in Orlando encouraged me to show how much money I could make. Instead, I chased dreams like writing a book and blogging until realizing around 2015 the importance of serious earning.

Making money forces men to engage with the world positively—it demands cooperation, respect for others’ rights, and meeting their needs. This focus pulls men away from selfishness towards service.

Consider this: if you have 100 men where half prioritize religion over earnings while the other half focuses on financial success—I’m more impressed by those who value earning highly. For example, in orthodox Judaism living costs are high; thus prioritizing earning is necessary.

Masculinity also requires male spaces which are increasingly rare due to egalitarian ideals pushing inclusion at all costs. However, distinctions are crucial for civilization—and masculine spaces foster healthiness among men.

In Genesis after Eden’s fall God highlighted our essences—women bear children through pain; men earn bread through sweat.

Lastly regarding Trump—he appeals strongly to certain types of masculinity emphasizing dominance which resonates with many voters despite criticism about performative traits or aggressive posturing as traditional masculinity faces societal scrutiny.

Traditional male roles as family providers are challenged today by economic and social changes, including civil rights movements. Men find it harder to be the sole breadwinner, owning a home and supporting a family. Women adapt well to law-abiding roles in our tech-driven economy.

In right-wing culture, there’s a belief that the left dislikes masculinity. Mainstream religions like Judaism and Christianity no longer reserve rituals for men only, leading to men leaving these faiths. Growing religious groups do offer male-only spaces which appeal to those seeking traditional masculine values.

Figures like Tate, Jordan Peterson, and Joe Rogan claim they’re standing up for men against an anti-masculine worldview. School curriculums don’t cater much to typical male interests like competition or strategy games; instead, they downplay such desires.

There’s also an educational divide where males of European heritage often study out of pure interest rather than grades compared to their Asian counterparts who focus on test outcomes.

Political shifts show young Black and Latino men moving rightward due partly to perceptions of party representation regarding gender issues. Trump’s pre-political celebrity status as a wealthy businessman still influences his political image among evangelicals despite his moral shortcomings because he embodies power and traditional masculinity—a trait admired even if flawed according to some evangelical interpretations of biblical leaders.

The label “evangelical” is becoming more about cultural identity than religious belief among White Americans supportive of Trump—it signifies alignment with conservative Christian values without necessarily involving active religious practice or beliefs.

Finally, this shift towards identifying with Christianity has less theological meaning but more so represents belonging within certain ethnic or national identities in both America and Europe—where being labeled as Christian can equate with not being part of other minority groups.

Political scientists and sociologists measure our party preferences by how much we like our own party versus the opposing one. This measure reveals that white Americans who strongly affirm Christian Nationalism tend to favor Republicans and dislike Democrats, while this effect is not seen in Black Americans.

Chad suggests masculinity involves taking responsibility for others, such as family and community. Political leanings also influence views on individual rights versus group obligations; those on the right emphasize traditional life obligations more than those on the left.

Research shows that when accounting for Christian Nationalism, religious commitment predicts less xenophobia and support for border walls among Christians. Conversely, stronger affirmation of Christian Nationalism correlates with xenophobic attitudes and opposition to gun control measures.

Christian Nationalist rhetoric often evokes a sense of heritage and identity tied to whiteness. It can mask feelings of marginalization among white males who may feel sidelined culturally or socially, leading some towards movements advocating violence or authoritarian control.

Elites benefit from a divided America because it allows them to maintain power through strategic alliances with marginalized groups. Populist movements threaten elite power by uniting citizens against these divisions.

The book “Let Them Eat Tweets” discusses conservatives’ challenge in gaining popular support while protecting elite interests—a dilemma faced in garnering votes without alienating powerful constituents.

Finally, White Christian Nationalism’s narrative overlooks its complicity in historical racial injustices while glorifying an idealized past rooted in biblical principles. Strong group identities often ignore their negative impacts but focusing solely on positive aspects can perpetuate ignorance about systemic issues both historically and currently.

The text discusses the complexities of political and cultural identities, emphasizing that different systems work for different societies at various times. It touches on the adaptability required in response to perceived threats and how this can lead to polarization or unity depending on circumstances. The author references Jonathan Haidt’s work on polarization and his metaphor of an asteroid threatening Earth, suggesting that crises like COVID-19 should bring people together but often do not.

The discussion shifts to American politics, particularly White Christian Nationalism, which is seen as a threat by some due to its influence over institutions like academia, the military, and corporations. There are concerns about authoritarian tendencies being accepted when they align with one’s own views during emergencies.

The concept of niche construction is introduced as a natural phenomenon where organisms modify their environments for better survival prospects. This idea is paralleled with Christian Nationalists’ efforts to shape American society according to their values through legislation and cultural influence.

In conclusion, the text argues that just as animals build habitats for themselves, groups like Christian Nationalists aim to create a societal niche that benefits them while potentially disadvantaging others.

He argued that niche construction and ecological inheritance are key evolutionary processes, a concept also seen in American Christian nationalism. However, I avoid labeling individuals as ‘Christian nationalists’ because such terms aren’t constructive.

Niche construction refers to how organisms alter their environments to benefit themselves through natural selection. Take lactose intolerance: most people globally can’t digest milk after infancy due to the lack of lactase enzyme production. Yet, in areas like Northern Europe where milk was vital for survival during famines, a mutation allowing adults to digest milk offered an advantage and thus spread. Consequently, these regions have lower rates of lactose intolerance compared to places like North Africa and Asia.

Our actions influence our own evolution; what we do today shapes our DNA tomorrow. Despite enthusiasm for revolutionary changes in evolutionary biology, niche construction fits within established theory without causing upheaval.

Evolutionary biology often feels beyond personal control since we can’t change our DNA as easily as improving our bodies or minds through exercise or education. We’re drawn to ideas suggesting we can affect our genetics despite this limitation.

I’ll discuss niche construction further another time—signing off for Shavuot.

Posted in America | Comments Off on Decoding Masculinity (6-11-24)

Decoding Doxxing (6-10-24)

Posted on June 10, 2024 by Luke Ford

01:00 The Far Right’s New ‘Badge of Honor’, https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2024/06/doxxing-far-right-influencers-anonymity/678645/
03:00 Mark Lilla on left v right, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ea0f_wCYW7Y
20:30 DTG on the lab leak hypothesis, https://decoding-the-gurus.captivate.fm/episode/supplementary-materials-7-lab-leak-discourse-toxic-youtube-dynamics-and-the-metaphysics-of-peppa-pig
31:00 Problematic, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=155417
37:10 10 Days That Shaped Modern Canada (w/ Aaron Hughes, author), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlcYkFZn19k
44:00 Elliott Blatt joins the show to talk about realism vs liberalism
46:00 Elliott struggles with street closures in San Francisco for a triathlon
54:10 Rethinking Narcissism: The Bad – and Surprising Good – About Feeling Special, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=129773
1:05:00 Ben Shapiro – Candace Owens feud
1:08:00 Israel’s PR problems
1:21:00 Curious Gazelle joins to talk about Destiny
1:25:00 Milo steps away from sodomy
1:31:00 Destiny and Milo are performative “relating to or of the nature of dramatic or artistic performance”
1:34:00 Destiny sticks to his principles
1:48:00 Curious Gazelle’s journey into nihilism

Full transcript.

Podnotes AI summary: I’m looking at the Atlantic magazine’s take on the far right’s new badge of honor. The term ‘extremist’ is subjective, and now those labeled as such are not hiding their identities. Lo, a publisher who kept his identity secret due to his controversial book choices, has been outed as Jonathan K., raising questions about what constitutes extremism.

The public health establishment during emergencies can strip away rights—something conservatives typically accept for societal good over individual freedom. Yet Lo is called an extremist for publishing books with anti-democracy themes while similar powers are wielded by officials in times of crisis without such labels.

On the political spectrum, there’s a clash between left-wing ideals that prioritize personal fulfillment and right-wing values that emphasize duty and obligation to community and future generations. This debate isn’t just about philosophy but also psychology; how we view our roles within society shapes our politics.

Despite fears of doxxing among anonymous online figures, being revealed can sometimes lead to more influence and opportunities within certain communities. While it carries risks, visibility often brings benefits like increased followership or potential media careers.

Overall, everyone wants recognition without repercussions—a desire seen across all spectrums of thought. As I’ve observed in my reporting career, people love sharing their stories but dislike seeing them published—a contradiction inherent to human nature.

Lastly, despite concerns over censorship from mainstream platforms like YouTube or Patreon alternatives have emerged offering more protection for controversial voices. Outing someone no longer spells disaster thanks to these new avenues supporting free speech outside traditional channels.

Christian mystics, priests, monks, nuns – they’re all part of religious traditions that can be mundane and filled with supernatural beliefs. It’s not as mystical if you grew up in a culture where religion is common. People often find the Christian tradition beautiful when discovering it later in life; take Russell Brand’s spiritual journey, for example. It seems exotic to him because he likely hasn’t experienced the everyday aspects of faith.

Religion holds you accountable; it asks you to contribute to your community and follow a code of behavior. Some seek spirituality without wanting the responsibility that comes with it. Take Russell Brand – he publicizes his faith journey but doesn’t seem to fit into traditional Christianity or embrace its humility.

Academics often use “problematic” without defining their value system behind it. The term has become more popular since the 1960s alongside “racist.” These concepts didn’t concern moral thinkers before then but now are used frequently in discussions about society and identity.

Canadian history fascinates me, especially how certain dates have shaped our nation like gun control after Montreal’s École Polytechnique massacre or acknowledging past wrongs towards indigenous peoples through Truth and Reconciliation Commission reports.

Canada faces challenges with multiculturalism as diversity can lead people to self-segregate rather than integrate fully into one unified society. Yet Canada remains an inclusive experiment worth believing in despite its imperfections and troubled treatment of indigenous populations.

Lastly, dealing with unexpected setbacks like getting towed can cause immense frustration but learning to compartmentalize these feelings helps us cope better with situations out of our control.

Some believe there’s no cure for narcissism, but I think it can improve. People must recognize and want to change their narcissistic traits. This might stem from pain caused by these traits or through positive relationships that offer better behavior models.

Under stress, we’re prone to fall back on narcissism for comfort. However, building a life with less stress and strong connections can reduce this need. Narcissism often appears as a survival response in threatening situations but varies by context; someone may act differently at work than at home.

Discussing personal experiences, the text touches on distancing oneself from harmful individuals while maintaining certain social ties through controlled interactions like phone calls instead of face-to-face meetings.

The conversation shifts to public figures like Ben Shapiro and Candace Owens, exploring their impact on perceptions within the Jewish community and beyond. The discussion then turns to whether U.S.-Israel relations benefit both parties or if changes are necessary for mutual respect without financial subsidies.

Finally, the narrative concludes with thoughts on creating an inclusive society—how adding rights for some might subtract them from others—and how identity politics play into our sense of self and belonging within cultural narratives.

Destiny often presents colorful and exaggerated opinions on current events, which can seem juvenile. His debate with Milo Yiannopoulos caught my attention because Milo has changed a lot recently, taking Christianity seriously and undergoing gay conversion therapy.

Milo’s flamboyance and claims of being “saved” leave me skeptical unless he shows real efforts to make amends for past harm. He’s known for causing chaos but also holds people like Jordan Peterson accountable, which I find interesting. Destiny tones down his rhetoric in debates, playing the rational counterpart to entertainers like Milo.

Both Destiny and Milo are performative; they thrive on drama and embody various characters as part of their act—a marketing strategy common among those who excel at public performance.

I’ve analyzed Destiny extensively—his ability to engage in highbrow or lowbrow discussions showcases his intelligence. Unlike some online atheists who have become cringeworthy, Destiny sticks to his principles even when unpopular or controversial, such as supporting gun ownership or discussing sensitive topics.

Sam Harris is another figure I respect despite our differences. He faces criticism yet remains true to his principles—for instance, hosting Charles Murray on his podcast after previously condemning him.

Overall, individuals who withstand social pressures without compromising their integrity earn my admiration over those who appear performative in their convictions.

They’re aware it’s taboo, yet they take no action. My point is that even in conservative faiths, there isn’t such a strong stance on homosexuality.

Posted in Internet | Comments Off on Decoding Doxxing (6-10-24)

Problematic

Posted on June 10, 2024 by Luke Ford

“Problematic” is a favorite word among academics but they feel insulted and retreat into silence when you ask them to describe their hero system that renders so much of reality “problematic.” According to the Merriam_Webster dictionary, the third meaning of “problematic” is “having or showing attitudes (such as racial prejudice) or ideas (such as falsehoods) that are offensive, disturbing, or harmful.”

The Google NGram viewer shows that books didn’t use “problematic” much until the 1960s.

Similarly, the Google NGram viewer shows that books didn’t use “racist” much until the 1960s.

Racism is a made up moral category that had no currency until the 1960s. Somehow all the great moral thinkers throughout history prior to the 20th Century had no concern about this great evil.

If academics had the strength of their convictions and weren’t afraid of owning up to having a subjective partisan hero system just like everyone else, they’d just say “bad.” But talking about good and bad sounds Christian, so academics pretend to have transcended partisan hero systems, which is impossible.

When academics won’t admit distress because their subjective hero system has been violated, what do they do? As human beings, they must lash out at an offense, but they won’t fight back in a way that is true, raw and vulnerable (a la how American conservatives do when somebody desecrates their nation’s flag), so instead they subjugate their impulses to reference good and evil, and instead employ the careful language of the courtier cocooned in his buffered identity.

In his great 2014 book Rethinking Jewish Philosophy: Beyond Particularism and Universalism, Aaron W. Hughes wrote:

* Rosenzweig’s goal is extremely problematic because it is based on a series of essentialisms that emerge from a particularist rhetoric…

* …the juxtaposition of “Judaism” and “philosophy” is highly problematic, used as it is to serve potentially ideological or political ends.

* …Rosenzweig’s woefully inaccurate understanding and representation of Islam is based on his need to have a foil for his equally problematic and racially charged reading of Judaism.

* Rosenzweig’s essentialist characterization of Judaism and the Jewish people inscribes both with a set of highly problematic traits grounded in racial and nationalistic
politics.

* …Maimonides and Rosenzweig—now seen as symbols for medieval and modern Jewish philosophy, respectively— succeed in creating authoritarian Judaisms based on a self-constructed rhetoric of authenticity and what amounts to a rather problematic reification of Jewish peoplehood.

* I suggest that such responses are not “authentic” precisely because authenticity is such a problematic term, one that is always just out of reach and is always constructed. Yet, problematically, Jewish philosophy—throughout its long and winding history—has been and continues to be invested in manufacturing such an authentically Jewish response.

If Professor Hughes sees the problems cited above, why doesn’t he just state the exact nature of the problem instead of resorting to euphemism? I emailed him about his love of the word “problematic”, but I didn’t get a response.

From Reddit:

Why is the word “problematic” so commonly used by those on the political left?

It’s a strange word that I don’t really understand. It’s it’s always felt like a bit of a weasel word to me. I feel like there is always a more assertive and clear way to rephrase the statement.

I’ve spent about half my life in rural America and the other half in NYC and have many friends and family in both places. But I’ve never heard someone from the right describe something as “problematic”. I feel like it’s a word that has only come into use in the past decade or so and I’ve always cringed when I hear it used.

When I hear someone call a persons behavior “problematic”, it feels passive aggressive and vague. It’s like something a risk averse middle manager in a giant corporation would say.

* Because it’s more nuanced than good or bad. Let’s say someone says something mildly insensitive to you about a race, gender, or ability. You don’t want to ignore the comment. You could say “that’s bigoted” but that has a way of turning it onto a confrontation and makes the other person feels stupid and therefore disengage. Explaining that it’s problematic though let’s them know you don’t like why they said without judging them as a person and opens up for more dialog or clarification.

* The whole point of that word that it focuses on a behavior without framing the entire thing/person as a problem. It’s particularly applicable when describing things for which sensibilities have changed. For example, I was talking to a friend about Looney Toones cartoons from the 60s the other day. I was raised on those and I think they’re funny. But there is some insensitive shit in those old cartoons that was cool then, but not cool now. You could say, “those old cartoons are racist”, or you could say, “elements of them are problematic.”

* It’s used by people who understand that these humans and their behavior are complex and people and things aren’t one thing. It facilitates the conversation to have it in a way that is more nuanced.

* “Problematic” is rooted in social criticism and that project is popular with the academic left.

Language is a social construct and it partly signals our influences and social cues. By using language popular with a group, you signal an affinity and in-group association.

Its a gentler word and more indirect way of saying something is a problem, or bad, or wrong.

Gentler and indirect language can be a signal for either empathy or low self-confidence.

Women tend to have more empathy and less self-confidence on average compared to men.

Women also tend, on average, to be politically more left leaning than men.

Political affiliations have cultural and social group associations.

Putting it all together, “problematic” was popularized as a choice word for left wing social criticism because it appeals to sensibilities of critics and their audiences, and signals cultural group membership.

* It literally means that the subject of the sentence causes problems. And those problems may be complicated. I think its a great word to describe complex issues. Problems often have many facets to them.

* The notion of something being ‘problematic’ in discourse probably goes back to post-structuralism (“post-modernist”philosophers such as Foucault, Spivak, Said, etc.).

In the wake of such analysts—who showed how our structures of power influence what we consider to be knowledge (or truth)—we grew more conscious of how our language reinforces arbitrary, contingent (and usually unjust) power dynamics in society.

So, a movement derided as ‘political correctness’ seeks to undo or reorient the power dynamics by changing the language used in discourse. Problematic labels such as ‘The handicapped’ or ‘disabled’ become ‘people with disabilities’ or ‘the differently abled’ because defining a group of people by the abstract label society ascribes to it reinforces the implicit ‘othering’ (and ‘degrading’) of such labels.

If a person, like Kevin Spacey or ‘Cara Dune’ or Roman Polanski, are described as ‘problematic,’ it is because supporting those people would also reinforce implicitly a condoning (or elevating) of what they ‘stand for’ in the discourse. Platforming a problematic person does the same, according to this analysis.

However, as the author Yascha Mounck argued in his recent book those same post-structuralists were ambivalent about such strategies politically, since controlling the discourse is just what Power does, so PC prescriptions are exercises in using ‘knowledge as power,’ and this might lead to the backlash against the ‘authoritarian’ prescription of norms and behavior, seen in ‘cancel culture,’ ‘deplatforming’ endeavors, and self-censoring and protest culture on college campuses.

* Four syllables. May be tricky to spell. Good and Bad are so much easier.

Haley Swenson writes for Slate Mar. 24, 2016:

…the word problematic functions not as an opening into these deeper questions, but as a buzzy shortcut. It can allow the speaker to leave out the most critical arguments the audience needs to hear.

Various riffs on “that’s problematic” abound in edited, formal publications. A couple months ago, NPR deemed the colonial imagery in Taylor Swift’s “Wildest Dreams” music video “beyond problematic.” Slate has used the word at least a half-dozen times, and more than once in a headline. At the satirical Tumblr “Everything Is a Problem,” the author promises to “dispense problematics” on any subject or text readers send her way, offering a few lines of righteous indignation before rating different texts on a “problem” scale from one to five. A post about the puritanical, infighting tendencies of the left had the title “Entire Human Race Problematic—Left Can’t Work With Them.” Glancing through #problematic on Twitter suggests these satirists aren’t so far off. Sample tweets include “forgot how #problematic Ace Ventura is” and “Being #WOKE when 99.9% of the planet is a #PROBLEMATIC mess is exhausting. Honestly.”

Though some seem to take issue with the word’s implied political correctness or hypercritical attitude (see also: “-splaining” and the gender-neutral, singular “they”), the real weakness of problematic is that it is misleading and vague. Problematic—“constituting or presenting a problem or difficulty; difficult to resolve; doubtful, uncertain, questionable”—doesn’t actually capture the speaker’s complaint, which is about harm, not difficulty or uncertainty. The speaker is trying to suggest that something in the text constitutes a moral wrong. But problematic undercuts that critique by reframing the issue as a riddle to be unraveled.

The Oxford English Dictionary points to a problematic, as “A thing that constitutes a problem or an area of difficulty, esp. in a particular field of study.” This kind of problematizing is at the heart of academic inquiry—a collective recognition of the best theories and concepts the field currently offers, and then through research or argument or both, working within and around that best-established knowledge to account for things the field currently cannot. But when people don’t come to a discussion with the same understanding of the best theories of the field, or in the case of pop culture, a shared sense of what makes something offensive and what makes it morally and politically sound, calling something problematic seems to miss the point of argument. Instead of convincing someone a particular idea is a bad one, the arguments that follow “that’s problematic” tend to merely point out that the text contains an idea thought to be bad.

In the classroom, some of my most passionate students lean on the phrase when they take issue with a course reading or something insensitive a classmate said. The initially amorphous critique becomes a great place for me to open up discussion, to push the student to articulate his or her problem with something for a diverse crowd of thinkers. “What exactly did you think was wrong with what was said?” I might ask.

But in written work and in the social-media world of quick tweets and posts, “that’s problematic,” is far more unilateral, and far more of a rhetorical device than a dialogue starter. The phrase creates distance between the critic and the argument, placing the problem—racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.—in the text itself, rather than accounting for the subjective reasons the critic can see the harm the text is doing. Calling a text problematic erases the ways in which it interacts with readers’ own politics and experiences to produce its “problem.” We don’t get the full picture of harm done when a person of color watches a show about white people appropriating black culture, for instance. Social and cultural critique are only strengthened when the audience understands how the critic came to see something they missed.

Teresa M. Bejan wrote for The Atlantic Oct. 2, 2021:

Academics like me love to describe things as “problematic.” But what do we mean? We’re not saying that the thing in question is unsolvable or even difficult. We’re saying—or implying—that it is objectionable in some way, that it rests uneasily with our prior moral or political commitments.

For instance, when I described applying Ancient Greek free-speech ideals to social media as “problematic” in a recent article, I wasn’t saying that Socrates’s audience was impossible to please. I was saying that these practices were premised on exclusion in a way that modern egalitarians won’t like. Or when my Oxford colleague Amia Srinivasan describes stand-up comedy in Los Angeles as “problematic,” she’s not saying that she struggled to understand the jokes. She’s saying that they relied on sexism in a way that she—and everyone—should find morally bad.

In principle, every usage of the term problematic should be followed by an explanation. Is the situation or person in question unjust, immoral, or unfair? Racist, sexist, or otherwise bigoted? Wrongheaded, perhaps, or just plain wrong? All too often, the explanation never comes.

Rony Guldmann writes in his work in progress Conservative Claims of Cultural Oppression:

This is why the ethos of disengaged self-control and self-reflexivity would have been inconceivable for pre-moderns. The latter were not “buffered,” and this is why they could not have “stepped back” from their total teleological immersion into naturalistic lucidity. The anthropocentricity of pre-moderns was in the first instance a function, not of limited knowledge, but of their particular form of agency—the nature of the boundary, or lack thereof, between self and world. The crucial difference between moderns and pre-moderns is not that the former, unlike the latter, believe that their mental states originate in a physiological substratum interacting with the rest of the physical world (producing either “delight” or “annoyance” as Hobbes says), but that the former, unlike the latter, have a form of consciousness and identity within which this proposition is intelligible in the first place. A pre-modern couldn’t seriously contemplate the thought that “it just feels this way,” not because he was ignorant of his feelings’ causal springs, but because he was porous rather than buffered, because his basic, pre-theoretical experience of the world did not permit any clear-cut distinctions between the inner and the outer, between how things feel and how they are. This is a difference, not of beliefs, but of the pre-deliberative disposition to “distance” from one’s pre-reflective, pre-theorized layer of experience…

Posted in Academia | Comments Off on Problematic

Decoding Israel’s Stunning Hostage Rescue (6-9-24)

Posted on June 9, 2024 by Luke Ford

01:00 NYT: Israel’s Euphoria Over Hostage Rescue May Be Fleeting, https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/06/09/world/israel-gaza-war-hamas#the-audacious-operation-did-little-to-resolve-the-many-challenges-facing-israels-government
02:00 The Hill: At least 210 Palestinians reportedly killed during Israeli hostage recovery operation, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=155398
03:00 NYT: The audacious operation did little to resolve the many challenges facing Israel’s government.
05:00 Nahum Barnea: The military incursion into Rafah must be stopped… it won’t save Israel. https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=155398
06:00 The Biggest Lies In Contemporary Discourse, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=155386
08:00 Is Israel Committing Genocide?, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=155365
12:15 CNN: Genocide charges against Israel, https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2024/05/26/gps-0526-icc-charges-against-israel.cnn
16:00 A proposal to end the war, https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a-proposal-to-end-the-war-with-haviv-rettig-gur/id1539292794?i=1000657620552
27:10 Sam joins the show from Haifa
47:30 The Hezbollah threat
49:00 Petrodollars, https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/petrodollars.asp
1:11:00 Defense Mechanisms 101: A Complete Run-Down Of How They Develop & Why We Need Them (Until We Don’t), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVcdHje8R18
1:12:30 Claire Khaw joins
1:17:00 The delusions of human rights activists, https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=155365
1:25:20 The military challenge of Hamas has been solved by the IDF
1:50:30 Nationalism is good, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3moUXO7fiqw&t=300s
2:06:15 Radical reactions to anti-white racism, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fitLTIwao3Y
2:16:00 Tucker Carlson’s restraint with foreign intervention
2:24:10 End of the Liberal Order & Return of War – John Mearsheimer, Alexander Mercouris & Glenn Diesen, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqWtgvrSF-Y
2:32:00 Shakespeare’s tragedies, https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2024/06/06/no-comfort-shakespeare-fintan-otoole/
2:57:00 The rise of Christianity, https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2024/06/06/the-workings-of-the-spirit-christendom-peter-heather/
3:13:00 Livelier than the living, https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2024/06/20/livelier-than-the-living-a-marvelous-solitude/

Full transcript.

Podnotes AI summary: Greetings. Israel carried out a remarkable rescue of four hostages last Saturday, and the New York Times suggests that the joy over this success may be short-lived. All euphoria is temporary; no nation would feel remorse for acting to save its own citizens, even if it means confronting an enemy who uses civilians as shields.

The article also states that this operation didn’t solve all of Israel’s problems, which is obvious – no single action can resolve complex issues. Despite Hamas being elected in Gaza and their attacks approved by local polls, the expectation that Israel should regret defending itself seems unreasonable.

Furthermore, there was discussion about how efficiently Israel moved a large number of Palestinian civilians safely during conflict – something American officials doubted could be done quickly but was achieved in much less time than predicted.

Finally, while international courts have accused both Hamas leaders and Israeli officials of crimes against humanity amid ongoing debates about genocide claims against Israel, these discussions often overlook Egypt’s role in restricting aid to Gaza. If concern for Gaza were genuine, Egypt’s actions would not be ignored so readily.

In essence, nations are primarily responsible for human rights within their borders; external organizations’ flashy statements don’t change this fact. And despite criticisms suggesting Gaza is like an open-air prison due to restrictions from both Israel and Egypt, many Gazans have managed to leave over the years – indicating that movement isn’t as impossible as some claim.

I’m currently in Israel, and my unique perspective comes from living both here and in the United States. The ongoing issue with Gaza remains unresolved due to its use as a tool of war by Islamic nations. They employ it for asymmetric warfare without direct involvement, undermining Israel’s statehood.

Gaza’s population has changed over time, with many original residents leaving and new Egyptian migrants arriving through tunnels from Egypt. Accusations that we’re being misled are common; propaganda is rife, suggesting that Gaza is home to “professional refugees.” Additionally, foreign mercenaries have been reported within Gaza.

The October 7th attack involved external help for Hamas including Russian-speaking mercenaries. This points towards an international conspiracy against Israel involving various players like the CIA and Obama administration.

Our intelligence services failed us during this period of deception which I believe fulfills prophecies about betrayal within our nation. As for accountability, certain Israeli officials fled or neglected their duties during this crisis.

Israel’s Supreme Court also plays a contentious role in politics due to its extensive powers and questionable influences behind its establishment. There’s a push for reforming these powers which some see as undemocratic.

My view on life quality compares favorably for Israel over the U.S., citing better health awareness among other factors despite facing threats like Hezbollah in Lebanon – yet another entity we must be ready to confront if necessary.

Influences on my worldview include Alex Jones and alternative media sources like Zero Hedge which offer perspectives outside mainstream narratives. Lastly, I foresee significant changes globally with potential economic downturns affecting America and Europe while reinforcing Israel’s importance as a safe haven for Jews worldwide.

Aid is pouring into Gaza, with new border crossings opened between Israel and Gaza to ensure Palestinian civilians get the help they need. Despite this progress, concerns remain due to the extensive network of underground tunnels Hamas uses, which pose a challenge for Israeli forces.

The debate around Israel’s military actions in Gaza includes discussions on civilian casualties and strategic objectives. Some argue that like any nation fighting for its survival, Israel will continue its efforts until it achieves a secure state for Israelis. Others call for an end to hostilities based on human rights considerations.

Critics suggest that international human rights activism often lacks tangible impact and serves more as a moral compass than an effective change agent. They point out that true human rights are granted by states to their citizens rather than being universally applicable.

Discussions also touch on the geopolitical role of Israel as America’s ally in monitoring oil-rich regions and the complex relationship between Jews, Christians, Muslims, and secular ideologies surrounding conflict narratives.

In summary, while aid flows into Gaza and diplomatic efforts continue, debates about military tactics versus humanitarian consequences persist amid complex political dynamics.

President Biden recently addressed the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, presenting a proposal rather than announcing a finalized deal. This unusual step for a U.S. president has raised questions about his approach.

Biden’s speech outlined a three-phase plan: an immediate six-week ceasefire, negotiations for a permanent end to hostilities, and finally, Gaza’s reconstruction with international support. Despite initial promises that Hamas would not retain power post-deal, the details suggest otherwise.

Critics argue that Biden’s strategy appears desperate and may reflect broader issues in American foreign policy since 9/11—engaging in conflicts like those in Ukraine and Gaza without clear benefits to U.S. national security interests.

The administration seems confident it can manage complex international disputes through reason; however, wars often escalate beyond such control. Moreover, involvement in these conflicts could be seen as distractions from America’s core strategic interests.

In essence, Biden is urging all parties involved to consider this deal seriously while signaling potential consequences if Hamas refuses to negotiate effectively. The proposal aims at ending hostilities but also raises skepticism over its feasibility and the actual impact on the future of Hamas’ power in Gaza.

The liberal world order has its merits, but it’s not perfect. Politicians and ideologies vary with context; discussions falter when they focus on appearances over substance. Excessive transparency can invade privacy—there’s a balance to be found.

Colonialism and slavery are historical wrongs we must understand in context while condemning their modern repercussions. Supporting victims of colonialism doesn’t mean endorsing all their actions.

In emergencies, democracies may adopt dictatorial measures for protection. Pluralism has limits; it shouldn’t enable destructive forces or excuse barbaric behavior under the guise of past oppression.

Germany’s decision to admit over a million migrants in 2015 was criticized for risking cultural clash and political extremism. Who enters a country is crucial; one destructive individual can cause more harm than the good from many constructive ones.

Concerns about radical Islam gaining momentum after Hamas’ success are valid; regional stability is at risk if extremist groups seize power across the Middle East.

Israeli society faces tensions between Arabs, ultra-Orthodox Jews, and mainstream Israelis. Dialogue is needed to bridge divides without compromising core values.

Racial tensions are high in America, with fears that anti-white sentiment could lead to backlash or radicalization unless addressed reasonably by reclaiming heritage without extremism.

Finally, as global dynamics shift away from American-led international institutions toward national self-interest policies like “America First,” nations reassess how they engage with world bodies amidst changing geopolitical landscapes.

In essence, hawkish policies may not serve Israel’s long-term interests. Israeli leadership benefits politically from having external threats to unite the populace, but actions in Gaza could foster future generations hostile toward Israel. Similarly, Iran’s leaders gain domestically by focusing on external adversaries like Israel.

The tension between Saudi Arabia and Iran was somewhat eased through efforts that some attribute to China, while Biden seeks to revive Trump-era accords which some believe led to increased hostility from Hamas—though opinions differ. American foreign policy is often shaped by narrow interests that are staunchly anti-Iran and pro-Israel; however, many Americans lack understanding of how Iran truly threatens the U.S., perpetuating misconceptions about Iranian support for terrorism.

Despite Hezbollah and Hamas having terrorist elements, they also govern regions—Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza—which complicates their characterization as purely terrorist organizations. Moreover, Iran’s actions are often defensive responses to historical aggression such as the Iran-Iraq War where the U.S. supported Iraq.

On a global scale, with Russia and China rising as world powers alongside America’s dominance post-Cold War era has waned; this challenges sustaining a liberal international order once championed by the U.S. The concept of national interest versus international norms is reshaping geopolitics—with states pursuing self-interest over collective ideologies or orders.

Shakespearean tragedies remind us that heroes have flaws just like everyone else; powerful individuals can act monstrously within complex societal forces beyond their control—not simply because of personal failings or moral shortcomings. These plays reflect life’s unpredictability rather than serving as simple morality tales—a reminder relevant both personally and internationally amidst shifting power dynamics.

The United States seems to have lost its way in diplomacy, becoming impatient and aggressive. This may stem from its identity as a crusader state, shaped by liberal ideology that drives it to remake the world in its own image—even through military force if necessary. Realists like me see this as counterintuitive since liberals are typically viewed as anti-war, but they often endorse military intervention due to their belief in spreading their values globally.

Religion offers an escape for many seeking comfort from life’s imperfections. Catherine Coldstream’s memoir details her journey into nunhood and her subsequent disillusionment with religious life. She sought discipline and spiritual rigor but found a community more interested in socializing than strict adherence to faith.

Coldstream struggled with fitting into the convent due to her upper-class background and artistic sensitivity. Her story reflects how people lacking strong human connections turn to religion or art for meaning—yet these paths do not always lead to fulfillment or genius.

In international relations, the concept of liberalism carries contradictions: it preaches tolerance yet can justify violent means toward universal peace when faced with resistance—a mindset adopted by both America and Europe post-Cold War.

Finally, Peter Heather’s book “Christendom” explores Christianity’s rise through elite influence rather than purely intrinsic appeal. It highlights how rulers used religion for control while acknowledging individual conversions driven by personal crises or desires for new experiences beyond mundane reality.

Reading has been my lifelong source of inspiration and comfort amidst life’s losses. I’ve never married, had children, or acquired wealth or power. Instead, I find solace in books while others turn to gaming, sports, Netflix, or vices for distraction.

These two new books discuss the pursuit of comfort through reading in early modern Europe. They start with Italian poet Petrarch writing to ancient philosopher Seneca as if he were alive—a practice that resonates with me and my letters to talk show host Dennis P.

In 14th and 15th-century Europe, scholars shaped their ideas by engaging with classical antiquity texts—revealing themselves through their intellectual heroes. While emulating these figures aimed at self-improvement, it often led instead to emotional rewards from connecting with great minds across time.

Despite not having traditional success markers like marriage or riches, I’ve enriched myself through literature’s imaginary world. Books offer a profound intimacy that can outshine other pleasures for those feeling disconnected from society—but this detachment can lead to feelings of alienation.

Petrarch climbed Mount Ventoux with his brother and Augustine’s “Confessions,” finding personal revelation in the text about self-reflection over external wonders—an intimate bond even stronger than real-life connections for some.

While Machiavelli endured political downfall by communing nightly with ancient writers on his farm—finding solace despite real-life disappointments—he still longed for worldly engagement shown by his plea for patronage within the same letter where he praised literary escape.

The printing press’ arrival made books more accessible; those dissatisfied with reality could immerse themselves in an idealized realm of thought offered by past intellectuals—if present company falls short.

Finally touching on U.S. foreign policy history—from Woodrow Wilson’s vision making the world safe for democracy up until recent times—it reveals how America transitioned from a model republic into what some call a ‘crusader state.’ This transformation was fueled partly by ideological beliefs rather than just strategic interests.

Posted in Israel | Comments Off on Decoding Israel’s Stunning Hostage Rescue (6-9-24)