Steven Schroeder | theses on violence (a work in progress)
This is a work in progress intended as an invitation to discussion and debate. I welcome comments and criticism.
1. Violence always denotes failure.
2. Violence is not a form of power. It is not power pushed to the extreme or raised to the highest level. It is not the last step in an escalation of power.
3. Violence is the opposite of power.
4. There is an inverse relationship between violence and power. As violence increases, power decreases. As power increases, violence decreases.
5. Both power and violence are entangled with freedom, so much so that power can be defined as the practice of freedom, violence as the denial of freedom.
6. There is a positive correlation between power and freedom, a negative correlation between freedom and violence. This is reflected in the frequency with which violence is described as "necessary" (as in the phrase "war of necessity").
7. In a violent state, action is justified by saying we are doing what "we" have to do — often with the additional qualification that we are doing it because of what "they" have done.
8. Presumably, they could have done otherwise. But because they did not, we cannot. We have no choice.
9. This posits both a temporal and a causal structure: what they did determines what we do. Their past circumscribes our present. Our hands are tied.
10. This places power always elsewhere, in the hands of others. What we mean by "we," it seems, is people who can only do what we have to do. What we mean by "they" is people who can choose what they do and, by so doing, determine what we do.
11. Someone, it is often said, has to be "the adult in the room." At the very least, adults in the room should have the capacity for reversible operations: our us is their them, and their them is our us. For us and for them, then, we can only do what we have to do; and, for us and for them, what they do determines what we do. We have no choice.
12. Power is a measure of agency. Violence is a denial of agency.
13. To say that there is nothing worse in the face of violence than silence is to ignore the fact that violence leads to violence.
14. There is nothing worse in the face of violence than violence that initiates a cascade of violence. ("Cry 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war." Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 1)
15. Silence in the face of violence is not doing nothing.
16. Silence is a critical component of language that may be exactly what is called for to prevent a cascade of violence. The silence of a deep breath can be an effective first step in deescalating a violent confrontation.
17. This is not to deny that there may come a time (and that, in a protracted violent struggle, there almost certainly will come a time) when silence is betrayal.
18. If and when that time comes, violence is no less a betrayal. What is called for is not violence but a clear and unequivocal no.
19. The confusion of violence with power that is so much a part of everyday discourse in a world saturated with systemic violence complicates every discussion of violence and power and every fragment of discourse that touches on violence or power.
20. A familiar example is the phrase "speak truth to power" that is often used to describe prophetic action, especially in movements for peace and justice. The phrase is a useful organizing tool, but its image of truth and power facing off may divert attention from the power of truth while tempting people to identify power with oppression and violence. Abandoning the phrase because of its imprecision makes about as much sense as abandoning "sunrise" and "sunset" because they imply a geocentric view in which the sun moves and the earth doesn't. But it is prudent for anyone using the phrase to be clear about how they are using it.
21. When I say "speak truth to power," I have in mind using the power of truth (and of speech) to expose the futility — the powerlessness — of violence. This means that when I use the phrase, "power" stands in for "violence." And this will come back to haunt me in conversations with advocates of violence as a powerful and potentially effective means by which to effect social and political change. If it can also be made to haunt the conversation, it may help create a space in which serious reflection on both truth and power (and on the relation of both with violence) can take place. And it may help us rethink the power of language, including silence.
22. Another familiar example is Martin Luther King, Jr.'s description of a riot as the language of the unheard. "Riot" suggests a violent as opposed to a nonviolent demonstration, and it often implies violent action that takes place when order breaks down and an orderly demonstration becomes disorderly. But in Dr. King's description, the riot is a particular language of a particular group of people, a rule-governed (ordered) action. Dr. King offered this description on numerous occasions, including interviews in which he was being asked to condemn a particular action and the people who participated in it. Identifying the action as a "language," he responded not by condemning but by listening. What, he asked, was being said, by whom, and to whom? What is it, he asked, that America is not hearing? Rather than limiting himself to the violence of the riot, he made the radical turn to the systemic violence, the radical disorder, that precipitated it. (In spite of himself, Richard J. Daley inadvertantly stumbled to the heart of this matter when he said "Gentlemen, get the thing straight once and for all — the policeman isn't there to create disorder, the policeman is there to preserve disorder.") In response to that radical disorder and the violence deployed to preserve it, a riot shouts "look!"
23. Hearing that shout and looking only at the riot is like seeing a finger pointing at the moon and looking only at the finger.
24. If a riot is an index (like a finger) pointing at a material object (like the moon), the challenge is to see not only the index but also the material object. Thinking of violence as a spiral has proven to be a useful heuristic in this regard. The circular aspect of the spiral models the tendency of violence to reproduce itself: violence leads to violence. The linear aspect models a base/superstructure arrangement consisting of levels of violence, each of which follows from the one below it. At the bottom is the base, the root that gives rise to a multileveled superstructure. Every level influences every other level in a self-replicating system in which every level is also self-replicating.
25. This self-replicating system, the material object toward which a riot points, is the "city" in which we live.
26. It goes without saying that I am not using "city" here simply to designate a human settlement with a large population. But, as is often the case, saying what goes without saying and clearly defining it is a critical step in making a philosophical argument. In this case, what is essential to "city" is human settlement, both as process and as product. The city is what happens whenever and wherever humans settle.
27. That what happens whenever and wherever humans settle appears to be a self-replicating system of systems in which each system is a level of violence that gives rise to violence is a critical factor in hearing the language of the unheard. And that, in turn, is a key to interrupting the cycle of violence.
28. This takes us back to the discussion of "freedom" and "necessity" in theses 5 and 6. If human settlement is necessarily a system of violence upon violence, then it seems that violence is a necessary dimension of human settlement. This raises the question of whether a city in which violence is not necessary is possible. The answer, simply put, is not without confronting the violence on which the city is founded.
29. That confrontation takes us back to the first thesis, that violence always denotes failure. Each level of violence points to a failure in the level below. We (and what we mean by "we" will have to be examined and examined again) tend to notice outbreaks of violence that disrupt what we take to be the order of the city in which we live. It is these outbreaks that typically prompt us to press for public condemnation and "decisive" action (which usually means violent suppression of the outbreak). But if we approach the outbreak as language and listen, we may find ourselves digging down to another level of violence, a level that goes without saying in the self-replicating system we inhabit. Repeating that process of listening to the violence at each level for the violence that lies beneath it may help us get to the bottom of things, a point back at the beginning when we could have said no (as in Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead). At that point, violence is possible, but it is not necessary. That point in which both nonviolence and violence are possible is the point from which we can begin to work our way back to the "outbreak" with which we began.
30. At each level, the violence that goes without saying is entangled with what we mean when we say "we." And each instance of "we" has to be examined for the "they" it excludes.
31. Every response to the question of what we mean by "we" is, at least in part, a matter of naming.
32. Whether the response explicitly names "us" or "them" or both, naming invariably reveals more about the namer than the named.
33. The proposal to designate the time in which we are living a new geological epoch and name it "Anthropocene" is a case in point: it raises the question of what we mean by "we," and, while naming the epoch "Anthropocene" does not answer that question, it gestures toward an answer. This age is new because it is human, and that means "we" are front and center. The epoch begins when we begin and (presumably) ends when we end. The fate of the earth is (presumably) "in our hands."
34. The proposal is intended to focus (human) attention on the impact humans have had and are having on the planet. What distinguishes this epoch is the human presence, and it is properly understood as a geological epoch because that presence is dominant enough to be written in stone. The question, then, is not simply when there came to be a human presence but when that presence became so dominant that it became definitive. What is most interesting to me for this discussion is that there is such a strong consensus that it has become definitive that it goes without saying.
35. It is sometimes suggested that what is unique about this Anthropocene epoch is that the species that defines it has the capacity to destroy the planet (cf. Schell's Fate of the Earth). But that could also be said of viruses (and perhaps other species as well). The difference, some argue, is that human beings are conscious of this capacity: not only do we have the power to destroy the planet but, knowing that we have this capacity, we choose to use it and (presumably) could choose otherwise. But, while raising consciousness about the impact of our actions on the planet is laudable, putting the widespread achievement of that consciousness forward as a solution is misguided.
36. It is well documented that people who were fully aware of the destructive capacity of nuclear weapons participated in their development. (Enrico Fermi is a particularly spectacular example.) More importantly, most (if not all) of them did so (or would have said they did so) not because they wanted to destroy the planet or were willing to accept its being destroyed but because they believed weapons that had the capacity to destroy the planet could also be tools with which to save it. They believed developing the weapons was necessary, and that belief continues to drive the development of such weapons and the threat to use them. (There are well known examples of people, including Oppenheimer, who changed their minds about this; but there are many who didn't and many whose change of heart came after the weapons had already been developed.)
37. This question of motivation or, more properly, what we think we are doing and why we think we are doing it, is even more pressing when it comes to human activites contributing to climate change. Every human being on the planet is, by doing what human beings do, contributing to climate change that threatens to make the planet unlivable. Whether we are conscious of this or not, we are most likely to say that we do what we do because we must do it in order to survive and (perhaps) to thrive. We may on occasion say that we do it (or at least some of it) in order to save the planet or to save humanity or for the sake of our people or the sake of our children or our grandchildren or our family or our nation or our community. (With regard to acts of violence, this is the logic of "good guys with guns.")
38. What we do, what we choose to do because we think we must, takes the form of a natural disaster developing slowly to a point at which it engulfs the entire planet. We have met the enemy and they is us (Pogo).
39. We can not reason our way out of this. Trying to do so makes as much sense as standing in the path of a tornado calmly listing all the reasons it would be better for the planet if it stopped. Even if, in the end, we shout the reasons, the tornado will still go on doing what tornadoes do.
40. My grandpa always said that if you're out working on a project (he was a builder) and a tornado is coming your way, the best thing to do is get in your truck and drive perpendicular to the tornado's path. Don't try to outrun it. Don't try to drive through it. Get out of the way. What goes without saying in this is that the tornado is simply natural, a matter of fact, until it collides with us (or some "them" that we care about), at which point it becomes a natural disaster. The same can be said of what we do and what we choose to do because we think we must. It is simply natural, a matter of fact, until it collides with us or some "them" we care about. At that point, it becomes a natural disaster.
41. And when I asked, as I always asked, what if you can't get out of the way, he'd go through the drill of how to protect yourself and the people around you if you're caught in a tornado. Which is pretty much where my granny (who didn't usually have a truck handy) would start: grab the children and head for the storm cellar.
42. Granny and Grandpa didn't always see eye to eye, but on this they were in broad agreement: don't argue with the tornado or stand around railing against it. Make do with what you have, and have the good sense to develop vehicles and structures that can weather the storm.
43. Structures that can weather the storm and vehicles that can transport people at risk out of its path are practical matters to attend to while we dig toward the roots of violence seeking ways to treat the disease rather than settling on measures that mitigate symptoms.
44. The image of digging toward the roots of violence seeking ways to treat the disease rather than settling on measures that mitigate symptoms may tempt us to think of the digger as a healer we expect to name the disease, treat it, and cure it. But the digger is a human being doing what human beings do, and that is what (in thesis 38) was described as taking the form of a natural disaster developing slowly to a point at which it engulfs the entire planet. Digging toward the roots puts the digger on a collision course that will contribute to transforming what was simply natural into a natural disaster. The digger is at best what Camus called a judge-penitent. The digger who is not both is likely to become either victim or executioner. Being both is likely to take a direction similar to what Marx described as "the senses becoming theoreticians in practice."
45. Becoming a theoretician in practice requires taking a critical stance not only toward others but also toward oneself as an other. For the senses to become theoreticians in practice, theorizing must take place in (not before or after) the act. It must be, quite simply, out of one's head, out in the world, out of control.
46. The relationship between any individual human being and the whole of all human beings is no more or less unique than the relationship of any individual bee and the whole of all bees — or of any individual member of any species and the whole of that species.
47. The relationship between any individual being that is part of a system (as every individual being is) to the system as a whole is always subject to tensions that become evident when concepts such as "freedom" or "consciousness" or "will" come into play.
48. An individual human being engaged in ordinary activity — in the act of being human — is no more "conscious" of the whole than any other individual member of a whole. We speak of ourselves as being "conscious" or "free" when we are outside an act. In the middle of it, we are simply doing it. And we have no idea how an individual member of another species thinks about an act when they are no longer in the act. Assuming that we are unique in reflecting on an act when we are no longer in the act appears to me to be one more way to draw a boundary around "us" that puts "them" on the other side. What does conscious reflection on an act in process look like to a being that has not been in the act? I suppose it looks like any other act, embedded in a sequence of acts that can be described without reference to conscious reflection or intention.
49. Knowing our selves in our experience to be the center out of which we come to know the universe, we humans routinely overestimate our impact on the rest of the world. More exactly, we overestimate the magnitude and extent of the good that results from what we do. (And, conversely, we underestimate the magnitude and extent of the good that results from what they do.)
50. Only dimly aware of the interconnectedness of all things, we humans routinely underestimate our impact on the rest of the world. More exactly, we underestimate the magnitude and extent of the harm that results from what we do.(And, conversely, we overestimate the magnitude and extent of the harm that results from what they do.)
51. We tend to be blind to (or to actively ignore) unintended consequences of our actions. (And, conversely, we amplify unintended consequences of their actions.)
52. The question is whether, knowing ourselves in our experience to be the center out of which we come to know the universe, we can come to see ourselves, as we see others, as an element no more or less central than any other element in a complex web of relationships.
53. Violence denotes failure because it mistakes a limited view ("through a glass darkly") for a clear justification.
54. Violence denotes failure because it acts as though our limited vision were a vision of the whole. Like a frog that lives at the bottom of a well, we believe what is right before our eyes and act on it with disastrous consequences.
55. Violence misses the mark by taking what is contingent to be necessary. The language of necessity associated with violence is not a conscious dissimulation but a genuine confusion resulting from our inability to see ourselves as one of many centers in a complex web of relationships.
56. In a real sense, every human being is a tragic hero bringing about our own destruction by being what we are. To say that what we do, what we choose to do because we think we must, takes the form of a natural disaster developing slowly to a point at which it engulfs the entire planet (#38) is not a criticism of a lifestyle choice. It is a description of a structure within which we dwell, and that, in dwelling, we reproduce.
57. To be clear, that doing what we do because we think we must takes the form of a natural disaster does not mean that it must always take that form (even if we believe it always has). It could be otherwise.
58. A first step toward otherwise, albeit a baby step, is to insist that as surely as someone has to be the adult in the room, everyone has to recover the ability to be the child. As important as the capacity for reversible operations is the capacity for possibility thinking associated with play.
59. A second step is to challenge the assumption that being the adult in the room means that one person (playing the adult) must take charge and the implication that this means dismissing every other person in the room as childish.
60. The point is to integrate reversible operations with possibility thinking and put both into play in the process of reinventing the structures within which we dwell (keeping in mind that we must keep asking and transforming — dwelling on, one might say — what we mean by we).
61. The type of failure violence denotes boils down to a form of egocentrism that persists well beyond childhood. In adults, it is more likely to be referred to in English as arrogance or hubris, but, like egocentrism in children, it stems from an inability to see oneself as one of many centers in a complex web of relationships (#55).
62. Obviously, egocentrism in children is not a malicious choice or a disease to be cured but the defining characteristic of a stage (a structure of the whole) through which the thought of a child develops on the way to maturity. (Taking up a familiar image found in one of the fragments of Jesus' thought embedded in Christian scripture, this is one of the ways, along with embracing the possibility thinking of play, that we must become like children to enter what is usually translated into English as "the kingdom of God." I believe the term "beloved community" — made familiar by the work of Martin Luther King, Jr. — though certainly not a literal translation, more clearly communicates the import of the phrase.)
63. That arrogance is pervasive in interpersonal and international relations is hardly surprising. What is more surprising is humility.
64. History is riddled with wars precipitated by what J. William Fulbright called "the arrogance of power." His eyes were on the American war in Vietnam, raging at the time he wrote the book to which he gave that title (1966); but the war du jour as I write, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, serves equally well as an example. Keeping in mind the relationship between power and violence with which these theses began, I would prefer to speak of the corruption of power by arrogance. Power is not in and of itself arrogant; but when it becomes arrogant, it morphs quickly into violence of the sort that was pervasive in Vietnam as Fulbright wrote and is pervasive in Ukraine as I write now. As power morphs into violence, actors entangled in it come to see their freedom as more and more circumscribed until it disappears altogether and they come to see their actions as necessary. That necessity is embedded in a narrative account that makes the conflict (among other things) a war of words. This applies to all actors in the increasingly violent (and intractible) conflict.
65. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is not justified (nor was the US invasion of Vietnam). From the perspective of the invaders, this adds urgency to the construction of a narrative that justifies it. Coming to know the narrative in which an act of violence is embedded is a critical step in stopping the violence (as critical in stopping it as in sustaining it). In the invasion of Ukraine, that narrative includes the post-USSR expansion of NATO (as surely as the narrative in which the American war in Vietnam was embedded included the domino theory). Acknowledging that the narrative includes the expansion of NATO is not to endorse or sympathize with the narrative. It is, however, to shine a light on the expansion. To simply ignore it would be as foolish as it would have been to simply ignore the domino theory when confronting the American war in Vietnam. At the same time, to try to shout it down is no more effective now than it was then. To come to know the narrative as it is being constructed is to increase the likelihood that the violence can be ended. The more complete and canonical the narrative becomes, the more intractible the violence and the more inevitable the response.
66. Coming to know the narrative may be thought of as part of the deep breath mentioned in thesis 16, a potentially effective first step. Not an answer or a victory. A first step.
67. And this raises the question of whether what we (as always, including the question of what we mean by "we") are looking for is an answer or a victory. If our answer to that question is yes, we will have taken a first step toward the corruption of power by arrogance and the violence that follows. (Victory is not beautiful. Beautify it, and you are happy with murder... When a victory is won, treat it as a funeral, daodejing 31.)
68. If we aim to win a war, we are sure to lose. If we aim for an answer of which there is no question, there is no question we will miss the mark.
69. And if our answer to the question of whether we are looking for an answer or a victory is no, we may have taken a first step toward the power of peace.
70. The critical second step is embracing possibility, refusing the language of necessity. Confronted with a violent conflict, if what we seek is an end to violence, we will not embrace a narrative in which violence is necessary. (Frieden schaffen ohne waffen.)
71. With regard to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, this means rejecting the claim that the only way to effectively oppose the invasion is to arm Ukraine. It also means rejecting the claim that opposition to the invasion requires further expansion of NATO and/or increasing the military budgets of NATO members.
72. With regard to the Russsian invasion of Ukraine, it also calls for critical attention to the narratives we have constructed around the war. Focusing our attention on this war to the exclusion of other conflicts (Israel/Palestine, Myanmar, Ethiopia, Columbia, Afghanistan, Somalia, DRC, Syria, Sudan, Yemen...) is problematic. Covering the war around the clock as though it were a football game is problematic. Creating a climate in which the pressure to avoid any appearance of sympathy for Russia is so intense that it leads an established author writing in English to publicly withdraw a novel set in Siberia is problematic.
73. More generally, the single-minded focus on armed resistance to a specific power as though that resistance and the elimination of that power is the only way to make peace is ludicrous. ("And you know that peace can only be won when you blow them all to kingdom come" -Country Joe and the Fish).
74. Recalling the image of digging toward the roots of violence seeking ways to treat the disease rather than settling on measures that mitigate symptoms (#43-44), the disease is the militarization of everything. The treatment is demilitarization. This applies not only to Ukraine but to our response to "security" across the board. We create a toxic environment and are surprised when people — young and old — are poisoned by it.
75. I return again and again to the Greek tradition of tragic drama because it is one place where heroes are routinely depicted as complex and often toxic, always self consuming, characters — not role models but cautionary tales. And I have found myself reconsidering Ismene in Sophocles' Antigone because Ismene's solidarity with her sister (the hero of the tragedy), in which she sets aside her principled obedience to the law when she comes to see what the law has done to her sister as unjust, is an act of civil disobedience (as surely as was her sister's symbolic burial of their brother) that is a species of disarmament that may provide an alternative to the toxic self-consumption of the tragic hero.
76. It is difficult to say when a particular war began (and in the case of past wars to say when they ended) without drawing a line that marks a political position vis-a-vis the war. That is certainly the case in talking about Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, Korea, and World War Two. That it is also the case in talking about the war in Ukraine is evident from heated exchanges among people on the left about arming Ukraine and seeking a cease fire as a first step toward a negotiated settlement. How quickly lines have been drawn within organizations and movements that have been consistently antiwar for at least 75 years has been jarring. The rigidity of those lines and the dismissal of principled opposition to arming Ukraine – to the point in some cases of saying that one cannot be progressive if one does not support providing weapons to Ukraine – are among the factors that prompted me to begin drafting these theses. The rigid lines and the apparently automatic dismissal of nonviolent responses seem to me to be signs that the toxic self-consumption of the tragic hero is alive and well on the left. And it seems to me that this has blinded us to opportunities for disarmament (or at least deescalation) that have been present since before the Russian invasion and may still offer possibilities for something more than "there must have been a time when we could have said no."
77. Received wisdom encourages us to begin at the beginning (which often means not beginning at all), but rather than venturing into the swamp of when the Russia-Ukraine war began, I suggest that we embrace being in medias res and take a look at perchings on our flight that may be or may have been teachable moments in which we could have said no. Some of these moments have passed, but all can still help us think about ways to approach violent conflicts in nonviolent ways.
78. Violence, like the finger pointing, is an index. It always points toward failure. But failure is not so much a material object as a description of the state of an object; so violence may point toward a variety of objects, each an instance of failure. Every act of violence is itself a failure. So an act of violence may be self-referential: it may point to itself. But it may also point (and it often does) to another act of violence or to something else altogether. This leaves open the possibility that an act of violence may point toward something good – and its failure may consist (and it often does) in missing the mark, the good toward which it (like all things) aims.
79. Turning to the perchings on our flight mentioned in theses 77, where we are perched now (and, in this case, by "we," I mean citizens of the United States) is a moment in which we have directly or indirectly created a standing army equipped to fight a long war in a region where such armies have had disastrous consequences over the past two thousand years. We have made it clear that one of our reasons for equipping this army is to "weaken" the government responsible for the invasion force that is prepared to be the other side in this long war. The government we have set out to weaken possesses one of the two largest nuclear arsenals on the planet, and, like the government that possesses the other (that would be ours), has not unequivocally pledged not to use it (or to use it first). Obviously, even if such a pledge were made, it would be difficult to believe, particularly coming from a government destabilized by war to a point at which it believes itself to be in danger of falling or coming from the only government that has used nuclear weapons in war (that would be ours). When we (by which, in this case, I mean the United States government) used nuclear weapons in war, we used our entire arsenal before turning our attention to building a larger arsenal by means of "a permanent war economy." It seems to me that this is one of those times when we could have said (and perhaps still could say) no. The most direct way to do that now would be to refuse to provide arms to either side in this conflict. Obviously, that refusal would not change the fact that two massive armies prepared to engage in a long and brutal war are already in it. Nor would it stop either side from securing weapons from whatever sources are willing to provide them. But it would cut off one source; it might encourage other sources to take similar steps; and it would free us to redirect the resources we are now pouring into weapons to humanitarian assistance for people displaced by the war and specifically to refugee programs to help persons forced to relocate. In addition to refusing to supply weapons, we could pledge to support an embargo on weapons that are flowing into the region and to enforce penalties on companies profiting from arms sales in the region.
80. At the same time that we stop arming combatants, we could also begin the long (and long overdue) process of dismantling the nuclear arsenals that have kept the world on edge since 1945. The proliferation that has taken place since nuclear weapons were first used in war makes that task more daunting than it would have been in 1945, when we were the only ones in possession of nuclear weapons. But (as would have been the case in 1945) if we said no by dismantling our own arsenal now, it could be a first step that would invite others to follow suit. Our government is (as it was in 1945) the only government that has used nuclear weapons in war. Having demonstrated that we are willing to use them in war if we have them, it is not unreasonable for other governments to expect ours to be the first to give them up (or at least to take the first step).
81. One of the most obvious times to say no came when the Warsaw Pact (founded in 1955) dissolved (in 1991) after the Soviet Union ended. The Warsaw Pact, it is sometimes said, was created as a counter to NATO. But NATO was creaated in 1949, six years before the Warsaw Pact. So it is more accurate to say that the Warsaw Pact was created as a counter to the expansion of NATO (which began with the admission of Greece and Turkey in 1952) and specifically to its eastward expansion, which began with the admission of West Germany in 1955. Spain was added in 1982, and the eastward expansion continued with the admission of East Germany (via reunification) in 1990. That eastward expansion in 1990 magnifies the failure to say no and reaffirms what was asserted by the creation of NATO in 1949: not a division of Europe between "east" and "west" so much as a line between an "us" consisting of the United States and Europe and a "them" consisting of Russia. Mikhail Gorbachev's "one European house" was an invitation to erase that line, and there were numerous opportunities to respond positively between 1985 and 1991. The United States could have taken a step toward erasing the line by withdrawing (or at least stepping back) from NATO at any time during that period. Instead, we pursued policies intended to strengthen NATO and initiate the eastward expansion that is still going on (beginning with Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic in 1999 and continuing with Finland in 2023). One effect of this eastward expansion was to move the two nuclear arsenals mentioned in thesis 79 closer and closer together, which has steadily reduced the time in which to respond to a (suspected or real) nuclear attack toward zero. So far, fifteen countries (most of which were part of the Warsaw Pact) have been added since the end of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact. Rather than stepping back from confrontation, we have stepped forward. We could dwell on the missed opportunities that began with Gorbachev's overtures. But we could also say no now by stepping back from NATO, dropping our support for adding Sweden, and opposing the admission of Ukraine. It is not our place to disband NATO, but it is within our power to step back from the confrontation that alliance has represented from its inception. It is not our place to revive Gorbachev's one European house, but stepping back from NATO might give Europe room to think again about the "we" that is Europe and the "they" it implies. I believe Finland has relinquished its greatest power by joining NATO, and I believe that Sweden could retain that power – a neutrality that can facilitate stepping back and thinking critically about what we mean by "we" rather than embracing violence as a necessity – by not joining NATO.
82. Where we are perched now (and, in this case, by "we" I mean citizens of the world – including citizens of the United States and citizens of the one European house that includes Russia and Ukraine) is a world in which yet another brutal war, fueled by the language of necessity that so often dominates discourse about war, threatens to silence the possibility of peace and plunge the whole world into a violent conflict from which it might not recover. Our response (and now the "we" I have in mind is the government of the United States) has been to plunge heroically into the middle of a violent conflict with a bag of weapons (proclaiming ourselves to be "the arsenal of democracy") and begin handing them out to one side while encouraging others to join us. This is not the response of an agent of peace.
83. If we say that we will say no to violence after this war is won, we will never say it. The time to say no is, as it always is and always has been, now.
15 March 2023 [revised 7 July 2023]
