There are five ways of imagining policy conflicts that make it likely we will see ourselves as having no option but some degree of aggression—that is, to see a policy disagreement as discursively insoluble. The first is believing that one is a voice crying in the wilderness, a prophet sent by God speaking an unpopular and yet immediately recognized Truth. Claiming that no one is listening, that one is all alone, is a lively glimpse of being fourteen, and, as in the case of Muir, it isn’t necessarily entangled with victimization or persecution. By claiming that God is on one’s side, one does seem to be implying that opponents are un-Godly, a characterization that fosters motivism (discussed later). It also seems to imply that negotiation, bargaining, and even inclusive deliberation are problematic—prophets aren’t known for sitting down at a table with opponents and working out a yes-yes solution. But (again, as in the case of Muir), it’s often nothing more than rhetorical flourish, venting, or a bit of hyperbole. It doesn’t inevitably or necessarily prohibit using deliberation to find a political solution far short of violence against the Other.
The second is shifting from policy disagreements to questions of identity. If, for instance, there is a minister with a different interpretation of the faith/grace/works conundrum from us, we may feel threatened by his rhetorical success. If we confuse our feeling threatened with his being a threat, then we’ve made him the problem—not his rhetorical effectiveness, nor our ineffectiveness, nor the conundrum, but his presence in our community. A policy issue has become a conflict of identities.
The third is to frame that conflict of identities in terms of essential, almost ontological, strife between good and evil—those who disagree with us do so, not out of principle, but out of their identity as bad people, and their loathing for good. John Winthrop, for instance, categorized all the conflicts as parts of Satan’s plot to destroy the Puritan project. Cotton Mather, when more or less forced to admit that the witch trials had been badly managed, still deflected responsibility, maintaining that the events were Satan’s fault.
Once such a plot is posited, then it cannot be falsified. Disconfirming evidence (for instance, that the witchcraft convictions depended on violating evidentiary norms, that there is a long history of disagreement about Scripture) is deflected and dismissed. Hutchinson’s death at the hands of Siwonoy is proof that she was wrong; he doesn’t draw that conclusion about others killed in wars on indigenous peoples. It’s only evidence when it confirms the already existing beliefs.
Because we are threatened with extermination by an Other plotting against us, we have moral license. “Moral license” is the fifth way of imagining policy conflict, and it follows from the others. We don’t condemn victims who violate ethical norms in order to save themselves or their group; moral license means that individuals or groups are free to violate those norms while still claiming the moral highground. One of the crucial tenets of reasonable deliberation is that discourse rules (e.g., is it okay to lie?) are reciprocal—all parties are held to them. But, if it is a question of extermination, we’re likely to allow the victim to lie, but condemn lying in the aggressor. If we believe ourselves to be already or imminently victimized, we are likely to believe ourselves and our in-group rhetors and leads to be justified in lying—to be unbound by any discourse rules, especially reciprocity. Thus, if we are rhetorically successful in persuading ourselves or others that we face an existential threat, we are less bound to find non-violent ways of resolving the conflict, and will be seen as more justified in violating norms. Sometimes that violating of moral and rhetorical norms is hypothetical, as when slavers justified mass killings of African Americans on the grounds that the slaves would do it if they could (what’s called “the wolf by the ears” argument).
What I hope this list suggests is what will be pursued in this book: there is a complicated relationship between rhetoric and war. The more that we believe that our disagreements can be solved discursively—that is, the more faith we have in the power of pluralistic approaches to persuasion and deliberation–, the less likely we are to believe that our only choice is war. The more that we are persuaded that there is an evil Other already at war with us, and determined on our extermination, the less likely we are to value or demand inclusive, pluralist, and reasonable rhetorical approaches to our disagreements. The more we are persuaded that this war is total war, signified and engaged in major and minor ways, the less likely we are to believe that there are neutral actions or actors, and the more likely we are to find ourselves treating normal policy disagreements as themselves a kind of war. When politics becomes a kind of war, I will argue, we have to think carefully about what kind it is.
This isn’t a book about military strategy, or military history; it’s about rhetoric. We’re primed to reason badly when it comes to questions about war because the prospect of being the victim of violence activates so many cognitive biases, especially binary thinking. Under those circumstances, deliberation can easily be framed as opting for cowardly flight instead of courageous fight, as unnecessary at best and treasonous at worst. It’s precisely because disagreements about war are so triggering, so to speak, that we need to be deliberately deliberative. To say that we should deliberate reasonably before going to war is banal in the abstract, but oddly fraught in the moment, and this book uses several cases to explore why it is that we often evade deliberation even (or especially?) when the stakes are so high.
But, if war and deliberation are incompatible, then war and democracy are incompatible, because democracy thrives on deliberation. This isn’t to say that every decision about a conflict should be thoroughly deliberated—that would be impossible and unwise—but that deliberation doesn’t weaken the will for war if there is a strong case to be made for that war. If advocates of war can’t make their case through reasonable policy argumentation, then they probably have a bad case, and it’s likely an unnecessary war. War triggers cognitive biases, and so deliberation is necessary to counter the effects of those biases—contrary to popular belief, we can’t simply will ourselves not to rely on biases; deliberating with people who disagree can, however, do some work in reducing the power of the biases. But, not all rhetors want us to reduce the power of cognitive biases. Because we are averse to deliberating about or during war, rhetors engaged in normal political disagreements who are unable or unwilling to advocate a policy rationally are tempted to claim that this isn’t normal politics; it’s war. If they can persuade their base that this situation is war, then they won’t be expected to deliberate. The cognitive biases triggered by war will motivate the audience to believe beyond and without reason, and some political leaders and media pundits want exactly that. We shouldn’t.
One of many weird things about politics is how people claim that their opposition to a political figure is a question of principle, but that principle only seems to apply to an out-group politician. Thus, if Chester embezzles, and you are anti-Chesterian, you are likely to try to make your position seem reasonable—and not just in-group fanaticism—by claiming that you’re opposed to dodgy real estate dealing on principle.
A lot of people believe that the Nazis were leftists. These are people who believe that the complicated and vexed world of thoughts about politics can be divided into an us (right wing/conservative) and everyone else, whom they think of as leftists. And that our current categories of politics go back through eternity.