The Contribution of Reinhold Niebuhr's ‘Moral Ambiguity’ to Contemporary Discussions on the Morality of Intervention and the Use of Force in a Post-Cold War World

Abstract

The post-Cold War world poses challenges to traditional principles guiding the ethics of the use of force. Military intervention and the current war on terror are two phenomena that challenge just war criteria such as just cause, right authority, and reasonable hope for success. The just war tradition is helpful but needs to be expanded and re-thought to address the pressing issues of our time. This paper suggests Reinhold Niebuhr's category of ‘moral ambiguity’ as a contribution to the discussion. His application of moral ambiguity to his situation during World War II and the Cold War witnesses to the depth that such a category can add to current international circumstances fraught with moral complexity. Though it too requires critique, contemporary discussions on military intervention reflect many of Niebuhr's evaluations of the ambiguity in the use of force as different global actors seek humane alternatives to provide relief to intense human suffering.     

A Response to the Conference

Abstract

The question discussed in this article is whether Christian theology should influence contemporary political debates. The topic is discussed through two practical case studies: (1) technological advances in genetic engineering and (2) the just war tradition and the use of force. In the first discussion, Dietrich Bonhoeffer's unfinished Ethics is employed to demonstrate the importance of substantial theological categories to resist a reductionist technological utilitarian discourse about the body. Intrinsic human dignity is essentially God-given. In the second, Aquinas and Augustine add theological complexity and substance to secular discussions of war and peace. Human caring is more than the protection of the sovereign state. A peace that is only the absence of war can disguise many harmful situations. In conclusion, theological discussion brings nuance, richness and depth to secular political debates so long as theologians go beyond simplistic contributions such as ‘God demands’ or ‘The Bible forbids’.     

Circling the Square: Moving between Practical Politics and Eschatological Performance

Abstract

The article explores some dilemmas of current Western liberal democratic politics. It proposes that a necessary tension be held between practical politics and radical critique. It reviews the Christian prophetic tradition as a contribution towards doing that and argues for ‘eschatological performance’ as an appropriate way of re-reading this tradition in a contemporary pluralistic context. The article suggests that, to be useful politically, ‘prophetic imagination’ must retain its theological identity and questioning. It critiques the realist/non-realist philosophical framework for doing this, and suggests how responsibly prophetic political theology can be both fluid and critically realist in its outlook.     

Secessions,interventions, and the case of Kosovo

Abstract

This paper examines the question of secession – what causes it, when it is justified, whether force can be used, and what can be done to make secession unnecessary. It goes on to explore the question of intervention in terms of precedents and the UN charter. In the case of Kosovo it attempts an ethical evaluation of Operation Allied Force, making use of the ‘just war’ criteria as a framework. Conclusions are drawn, on the whole favourable to NATO.     

The Great War,the child’s body and the American Red Cross

Abstract

This article examines the child-relief activities of the American Red Cross in Hungary in the aftermath of the Great War, offering an insight into the workings of humanitarianism in interwar Europe. A close look at this one Central European ‘playground’ of transatlantic intervention helps us understand the logic and the underlying political, economic and ideological motives behind Allied humanitarian aid to ‘enemy’ children. Analysis of the ways in which the war’s aftermath affected children, their bodies and their relief throws light on the relationship between violent conflicts, children in need and humanitarian intervention. The article looks particularly at the role of the child’s damaged body and its photographic representation, making it what Cathleen Canning calls an ‘embodied experience of war’. Exploration of the humanitarian discourse around the suffering child helps us identify the humanitarian reaction to the unforeseen social consequences of wartime confrontation. The article argues that the harmed body of the ‘enemy child’ served to mobilise transnational compassion that challenged the war’s deeply anchored ‘friend–foe’ mentality. The child turned into a means of configuring and translating human suffering beyond ideological and political borders. At the same time humanitarian child relief helped to further consolidate asymmetric international power relations.     

James Naughtie,The Accidental American: Tony Blair and the Presidency

Abstract

The terms "justice" and "necessity" are often employed in discussions of war. The just war tradition seeks to delineate when wars are and are not just; other theologians who do not find this approach helpful may nevertheless resort to the logic of necessity. Although unjust, some wars may still be deemed necessary. Barth employs both the language and logic of justice and necessity in his approach to war. The purpose of this paper is to address Barth's exposition of war in relation to his approach to divine justice and the necessity of Christian affliction. It does not attempt to make any large claims about the just war tradition or other approaches to war. Rather, it is intended to be an immanent critique of Barth from Barth's own theology, showing that, although consistent with his view of church and state, Barth's theology of war is inconsistent with his view of both God's character as just and the external necessity of affliction to Christian witness.     

Thinking the other,thinking otherwise: Levinas’ conception of responsibility

ABSTRACT

Probably no other philosopher described the encounter with the other (human being) in a more radical way than Emmanuel Levinas. This led him to a new interpretation of responsibility as origin of all our ethical obligations towards others. He put into question a philosophical tradition of thought he accused of taking the ego as sole origin of all foundation of meaning. In this paper, I begin by outlining Levinas’ criticism of the occidental tradition of thought to explain the place of the other in his writings. I go on to explicate Levinas’ peculiar understanding of ‘responsibility for the other’. I will show how important it is in Levinas’ work not to isolate the question of responsibility from the question of justice. Finally, I examine what other capabilities would be required in order to act in a responsible and just way.     

Chemistry: Facts not Fiction

Abstract

Brecht has said that ‘the task of science is to lighten the laboriousness of human existence’ and some examples are given of the way chemistry has contributed to this task. Yet great challenges remain – atomic war and the population explosion – and it is essential to achieve a just and informed balance between benefits and risks. Uninformed criticism of chemistry in the media is roundly condemned, and tribute is paid to antipollution measures taken by the chemical industry. The common language which unites scientists from all nations must be used to further peace and understanding in the world.     

Now More than Ever: Terrorism,Asymmetric Warfare,and the Just War Tradition

Abstract

For more than fifteen hundred years, the just war tradition has provided guidance about when wars should and should not be fought. It has also incorporated standards for how wars should be fought. The tradition rejects the claim that all use of force is evil, suggesting instead that in some circumstances the failure to use force is wrong. War is never desirable, but sometimes it is both right and necessary. The just war tradition helps us understand when this is true. The tradition developed to help control conventional warfare, but it is no less applicable to the terrorism and asymmetrical warfare prevalent in contemporary conflicts. In a world where American military power is unmatched, any opponent's best option is some form of asymmetric warfare. Such warfare is frustrating to conventional forces and tempts them to respond with an "all's fair in war" approach that is both morally wrong and militarily counterproductive. Neither pacifism nor "realism" deals adequately with the challenges of twenty-first century warfare. Only the just war tradition provides clear guidance about when and how it is right to go to war and places this in the context of establishing a peace based on justice and equity.     

The Case for a Pre-emptive Strike,and so forth …

Abstract

This article is a response to the piece by Stephen Strehle in issue 5.1. It is recognized that a variety of theological and political perspectives come from the US, but argues that this is a poor illustration of contemporary political theology. Strehle, it is suggested, has a mistaken understanding of US history and represents a strand of American thought which has failed to acknowledge the faults of an imperial past, in particular the crimes committed against ‘native’ peoples. The war against Iraq is presented as a further illustration of an imperial mentality which pervades parts of US culture. Strehle fails to recognize the flaws apparent in the morality of the West. The critique of the place of just war theory in contemporary geo-political conflicts is challenged, as is the assertion that the church has a duty to follow the government of the day. The article ends with a recognition of the value of, and inspiration resulting from, much US political theological thought.     

George W. Bush's War on Terrorism and Sin

Abstract

In George W. Bush's inaugural address, informed by ‘compassionate conservatism’, there was a tension between two familiar goals in US political discourse: conserving the status quo and changing the world for the better by cleansing it of sin. In Bush's discursive construction of the war on terrorism, ‘compassionate conservatism’ and the construction of sin were folded into a unified discourse, with the emphasis on preventing dangerous change rather than creating positive change. A static state of safety, constantly protected by ‘compassionate conservatism’ and war, is now offered by American conservatives as the most viable and most patriotic way to stave off the forces of sin.     

Editorial: Social Spirituality: Monastic Cell or Hectic Street?

Abstract

What makes theology political? Is it the social location of the author, the sources drawn upon, or the content of the argument? Each of these three possibilities is theologically significant, but a little reflection proves none of them decisive in claiming the adjective ‘political’ for a theology. The ‘material production’ of theological works cannot, by itself, render one theology political and another apolitical; for all theological works share a similar ‘social location’ given the similar socio-economic reality of publishing. Whether or not theology is political, or adequately political, cannot finally be determined by material production, the authors' social location or the content of the argument per se. Such forms of apodictic reasoning cannot distinguish apolitical from political theology. It can only be a function of practical reasoning. It alone can advance the current stalemate among persons that theology should be characterized as ‘church’, ‘confessional’, ‘sectarian’, ‘liberatory’, ‘political’ or ‘public’. I argue that the best we can do to adjudicate these differences is to engage in, as Charles Taylor has so aptly put it, practical ad hominem arguments.     

Mary Shelley’s ‘Romantic Spinozism’

ABSTRACT

Mary Shelley (1797–1851) developed a ‘Romantic Spinozism’ from 1817 to 1848. This was a deterministic worldview that adopted an ethical attitude of love toward the world as it is, must be, and will be. Resisting the psychological despair and political inertia of fatalism, her ‘Romantic Spinozism’ affirmed the forward-looking responsibility of people to love their neighbors and sustain the world, including future generations, even in the face of seeming apocalypse. This history of Shelley’s reception of Spinoza begins with the fragment of the otherwise lost translation of the Theologico-Political Treatise (1670) on which she collaborated. It extends through her journals, letters, poetry, and her second great work of speculative fiction after Frankenstein (1818): a post-apocalyptic novel set in the year 2100, The Last Man (1826). Through a creative synthesis of Spinoza with Plato, Cicero, Wollstonecraft, and Glasite Christianity, Shelley developed an anti-apocalyptic conception of love as apocatastasis: a cyclical restoration of an ethical attitude of stewardship toward the whole world and its necessity. Through this recovery of a vital chapter in the history of European ideas, Shelley emerges as a central figure in Spinozan philosophy, especially the ethics and political philosophy of love.     

Adriano Celentano and the origins of rock and roll in Italy

Abstract

This article examines the way in which American rock and roll was translated into Italian culture. It argues that Italian versions of rock and roll were not just ‘watered down’ or ‘domesticated’ versions of the original. Rather, Italian rock emerged from a context that was different in musical, ethnic, political, linguistic and religious terms. By focussing on Adriano Celentano (the most prominent ‘Italian Elvis’ of the 1950s), it is shown that Italian rock singers evolved from mere imitation to cultural forms that were more related to the Italian environment. Musically, this meant a relationship with the domestic melodic tradition, jazz and American rock and roll rather than the blues. The rebellious attitude of early singers was a function of the hostility demonstrated towards them by political and religious authorities. Once this attitude was replaced by one of co-optation, opposition was replaced by modernizing integration. A figure like Celentano managed to be simultaneously defiant and conservative, pagan and religious, conformist and non-conformist. The resulting contradictions were concealed beneath a personal magnetism partly based on an established ‘cool’ style that appealed to the new categories thrown up by social and economic changes. Celentano's fame was confined to Italy not because he merely imitated American rock but because he developed an original synthesis that was specifically adapted to Italian tastes.     

The ‘radical humanism’ of ‘Cap Anamur’ / ‘German Emergency Doctors’ in the 1980s: a turning point for the idea,practice and policy of humanitarian aid

Abstract

Historiographies of humanitarian aid and aid agencies alike had suggested an ever-growing politicization and militarization following the end of the ‘cold war’. But already in the 1980s, the field of humanitarian aid underwent extensive changes; new aid agencies no longer relied on Christian ideas of charity or leftist internationalism, short-term aid gained new importance and an ever-growing disaster awareness can be observed. The relief organization ‘Cap Anamur ’/’ German Emergency Doctors’ (GED) was founded in 1979 with the purpose of saving the so-called ‘boat people’. Typical for its time, it ascribed to a pure and innate humanitarian impulse summarized under the term ‘radical humanism’. Using the example of GED the article sets out to scrutinise the policies of this new humanitarianism that can be summarized as ‘controlled demerging’. The article brings into focus humanitarian aid as such, its own logic deriving from a particular idea of humanitarianism, considering both site-specific practices and also specific policies that are not necessarily congruent with political or economic interests. It becomes clear that the basis for the new political meaning humanitarian aid gained from the 1990s onwards was already laid by the humanitarian-aid agencies themselves.     

Double opening,split temporality,and new spatialities: an interview with Sandro Mezzadra on ‘militant research’

Abstract

A militant research approach, Mezzadra suggests, should gesture towards a ‘double opening’: towards struggles on the one hand, and towards the production of concepts and theoretical innovation on the other. Mezzadra defines militant investigation as ‘the ability to localize and consolidate the possibility for ruptures’ and as a practice that does not take the meaning of ‘political struggle’ for granted. Building on the ‘within and against’ militant posture of the Italian Workerist tradition, Mezzadra reflects on the split temporality of militant investigations and on the contested spaces of a political epistemology of migrations.     

The Tannenberg myth in history and literature, 1914–1945

ABSTRACT

The Battle of Tannenberg in late August 1914 has been described as the ‘most powerful German myth’ of the First World War. This essay analyses the role of the battle in German collective memory up to the end of the Third Reich. During the war, the victory in East Prussia was celebrated widely and greatly contributed to the personality cult surrounding Paul von Hindenburg. After 1918, Tannenberg served right-wing circles as a political argument against the post-war order, evoked to underscore the notion of German victimhood against Slav ‘encirclement’, the ‘war guilt lie’ and the territorial provisions of the Treaty of Versailles. However, it never really captured the attention or imagination of writers and artists. Linked primarily to national-conservative groups and ideals, Tannenberg was also of no major significance in National Socialist propaganda.     

Critical tourism scholars: brokers of hope

Abstract

The past four decades of tourism research have demonstrated that the field would be impoverished without recognising the human aspect of scientific inquiry. The contributions made through critical approaches, Indigenous perspectives, qualitative methods and morally instilled concepts such as ‘sustainability’ or ‘community development’ have accentuated that tourism scholars are not detached and value-free producers of knowledge. Rather, our gender, ethnicity, personal and political views enter research agendas and actively shape knowledge. Alarmed by a host of social, economic, environmental, political and ethical concerns, and motivated to end injustice, inequality, oppression and discrimination, we also circumnavigate hope. However, researchers’ relationships with hope can be problematic, as evidenced by the recent tensions within critical tourism scholarship. In order to examine the extent to which hope ought to be part of tourism research, it is important to engage with the notion of hope seriously and methodically. By drawing on different varieties of hope, it is argued that these can underpin research projects to different degrees, including critical hope, hope-as-utopia, transformative hope, radical hope and pragmatic hope. It is emphasised that hope is connected to critical research in elementary ways and plays a vital role in envisioning a more just, inclusive, sustainable and equitable world. The acknowledgment of hope as part of critical research is particularly valuable amid the COVID-19 pandemic – an event with devastating consequences for communities worldwide. Through a hopeful lens, our momentary loss of tourism may bring with it a renewed appreciation and care, which has been eroded by rampant commodification and comatose consumerism. The hope driving post COVID-19 visions of tourism is argued to lie in more thoughtful and responsible engagement with tourism, and in our ability to positively transform it.     

Communities of discourse: Ideology and social structure in the reformation,the enlightenment,and European socialism

In contrast to the conventional view of Ludwig Feuerbach as a left-wing Young Hegelian, this article argues that his primary contribution to philosophy is to be found in his later ethics, the basis of which may be discerned in his earlier writings. Over and above recent work on Feuerbach's aesthetics, his relation to Herder, and the relationship between aesthetics and ‘theological politics’ in his thought, Feuerbach's philosophy can re-evaluated, in relation to Epicurus and the French libertin tradition, as articulating an ethics of hedonism. In The Essence of Christianity (1841), the Nachlass fragment ‘Elementary Aesthetics’ (1843), and his Principles of the Philosophy of the Future (1843) Feuerbach moves towards the vitalist materialist position that culminates in his (proto-Nietzschean) insight in ‘Against the Dualism of Body and Soul, Flesh and Spirit’ (1846) into the world as an ‘aesthetic phenomenon’, thus laying the foundations for his recognition of the centrality of sensuous pleasure to the ethical life.     

Caesar: a life in Western culture

Abstract

Professional associations of archaeologists and anthropologists have produced numerous codes of ethics in recent years. Their compilation is motivated as much by the desire to promote standardized professional practice as a wish to enshrine correct ethical responses. The precise wording of these is often minutely scrutinized (although not minutely enough, I argue), but their overall purpose, status or value is rarely considered. This paper considers that the formulation of ethical codes is of limited value and may even be counter-productive. The ambiguities and problems in interpreting concepts such as ‘respect’, ‘indigenous’ and ‘compromise’ are never explored or even acknowledged. Instead, the complexities of genuine ethical dilemmas, when contradictory or incompatible values collide, are circumvented or ignored. Codes of ethics fail to provide a clear guide to practice in cases of profound and complex conflicts of interest. Instead, it is argued here that ethics are historical and contextual; appropriate responses to ethical dilemmas should be developed on a case-by-case basis and require thought, debate and discussion, rather than the application of a rule. Codes of ethics promote conservatism and conformity, reinforce the power of hegemonic institutions and pre-empt ethical debate. Moreover, because they pretend to supra-contextual applicability, several of the principles enshrined in ethical codes could easily be used to support racist or otherwise politically objectionable movements.