Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
In a speech delivered to the International Academy of Philosophy in Liechtenstein in 1993, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn asked, "What is the role, the justifiable and necessary share of morality in politics?"
He continued:
Moral impulses among statesmen have always been weaker than political ones, but in our time the consequences of their decisions have grown in scale.
Moral criteria applicable to the behavior of individuals, families, and small circles certainly cannot be transferred on a one-to-one basis to the behavior of states and politicians; there is no exact equivalence, as the scale, the momentum, and the tasks of governmental structures introduce a certain deformation. States, however, are led by politicians, and politicians are ordinary people, whose actions have an impact on other ordinary people. Moreover, the fluctuations of political behavior are often quite removed from the imperatives of State. Therefore, any moral demands we impose on individuals, such as understanding the difference between honesty, baseness, and deception, between magnanimity, goodness, avarice, and evil, must to a large degree be applied to the politics of countries, governments, parliaments, and parties.
In fact, if state, party, and social policy are not based on morality, then mankind has no future to speak of.
Solzhenitsyn spoke these words by way of a condemnation of the Allied Powers for what he saw as a grotesque betrayal of millions of Soviet citizens who had shed their lives to rid the world of the horror of the Third Reich. In his estimation the West, in seeking to "ingratiate themselves with the victorious Stalin," rendered the Soviet people who had suffered the lion's share of World War II casualties as slaves to the murderous Stalin. And the worst part about this is that they—Churchill, Roosevelt, and later Attlee and Truman—did this knowingly.
Among the most unsettling strategic concessions made by Britain and the United States at Yalta was the repatriation of Soviet émigrés to the USSR regardless of their consent. I don't see any way around calling this immoral.
And yet, when it comes to morality in politics, especially politics of the international variety, conventional wisdom holds that it is impossible to hold states to the same standards that we hold individuals to. This is because players seldom have a choice between right and wrong, and more frequently are left to discern which path represents the lesser of two evils.
What then do we make of Solzhenitsyn's assertion that politics must be based on morality? How is this to be done when we no longer even share a consensus as to what constitutes morality in the first place?
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Comments:
Sep '11
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
Yes, Solzhenitsyn would agree that Machiavelli is a major part of the problem here. See also Havel's essay "Politics and Conscience," where he discusses Machiavelli's influence. Great essay to read in conjunction with this one by Solzhenitsyn. Both can be found in (shameless self-promotion alert) a recently published book called The Great Lie.
Sep '11
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
katievs
Diane Ellis, Ed.
In a speech delivered to the International Academy of Philosophy in Liechtenstein in 1993, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn asked, "What is the role, the justifiable and necessary share of morality in politics?"
I was there for it! (I bet I am the only person any of you knows who ruptured an appendix in Vaduz, Liechtenstein.) My husband and I were students at the IAP at the time.
Awe inspiring speech. It was the first time I was practically overpowered by the impression of moral authorityemanating from a person. You could feel it in the room. · 12 hours ago
WOOWWW!!!!!!!!!
This--and the ruptured appendix, just earned you a copy of The Great Lie which includes the speech!! Send me your address.
Edited on February 18, 2012 at 5:02pmRe: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
Flagg Taylor
Yes, Solzhenitsyn would agree that Machiavelli is a major part of the problem here. See also Havel's essay "Politics and Conscience," where he discusses Machiavelli's influence. Great essay to read in conjunction with this one by Solzhenitsyn. Both can be found in (shameless self-promotion alert) a recently published book called The Great Lie. · 4 minutes ago
The Great Lie is of course, exactly where I myself read the essay. My San Francisco reading group discussed it last week. Here we are:
Jun '10
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
Sometimes circumstances demand that a compromise with the lesser evil is the only choice on offer when presented with a moral dilemma. A good case in point is the situation faced by Chaing Kai-Sheck during the 1940's. The Generalissimo tried to make the case to his allies that Mao was a greater threat to China than the Japanese because communism was antithetical to Chinese culture and tradition. History would prove him prescient, but at the time he was forced to comply with allied demands that he take on the Japanese first.
I suppose that a compromise with evil is a moral decision deferred. Sometimes good needs a respite before coming to grips again with evil. The United States was lucky to have Harry Truman in office when the fight was renewed. Truman may have been the only one (in power) to have the vision and fortitude to take on communism even as the world lay exhausted from the previous conflict. It seems that at the time only Winston Churchill had an appreciation for this fact. As VDH is fond of saying, "sometimes the choices are between bad and worse." But choose we must.
Dec '10
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
Diane,
Sorry I was away for 25hrs (Shabbos). This is a great post. Great question Diane.
The attitude of the Roosevelt gang after WWII to Stalin is very much the attitude of the Obamites to Ahmedinejad. They are willing to share power with this monster because thay don't have the moral spine to oppose him.
Solzhenitsyn was right. Yalta was immoral. Not till Ronald Wilson Reagan spoke the phrase "Evil Empire" did we show the moral backbone we needed to defeat the evil of Communism.
We are going to need exactly that kind of leadlership again with Iran.
Regards,
Jim
Feb '12
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
Did Churchill agree at Yalta to send back the POWs? If he and Roosevelt did, perhaps they meant to double-cross Stalin when the time came to perform. (Would that double-cross itself be moral?) By that time, tho, it was Atlee and Truman, two naive novices.
Feb '12
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
I was hoping someone would say what Solzhenitsyn meant in that quote. It seems pretty much meaningless to me, tho maybe he said more in other parts of the speech.
Feb '12
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
I think of Martin Luther and the "two kingdoms" notion when I hear that idea. It might be much older than Luther--- was it standard scholastic doctrine too? Or at least of William of Ockham and the anti-papal intellectuals? (I ask because I don't know.)
Feb '12
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
Wouldn't that heighten your moral concerns rather than deaden them? It's easy to say, "Don't kill those 100 civilians with bombing" in the abstract without thinking of the moral problem of whether the immoral thing is rather to NOT bomb them, and thus to kill 1000 soldiers who must fight through unbombed fortifications.
Feb '12
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
I stayed in a Domenican monestary inPoznan, Poland in 1984. During my stay I had several conversations with a man who told me all about the Nazi occupation, and then the soviet occupation. In 1984, FDR was despised, Reagan adored because of the moral stances they took, and each stance had a profound effect on generations of eastern Europeans. FDR could see the suffering that would have taken place had American forces secured Eastern Europe, but I suspect he did not see the great suffering that took place because of his decision. There are moral compromises in our individual lives because problems are often very complex. These same compromises exist undoubtably in the public sphere.
Feb '12
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
Ironically, one of the main streets in Poznan was named 'Franklin Delano Roosevelt Street, and the irony was not lost on its citizens.
Feb '12
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
I think it important to note that while we certainly could have, and should have taken the whole of Germany before the Soviets, we would have had to go to war against Russia in order to occupy Eastern Europe. Remember, victory in Germany coincided with the final invasions of Japanese controlled islands near Japan, and that momentum demanded an invasion of Japan without a prolonged lapse of time.
Nov '11
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
Solzhenitsyn is a good starting point for this sort of discussion, but not a good stopping point, because . . . Although Solzhenitsyn was a great and good soul, who, much like the Polish Pope, courageously exposed the failings of modernity both in Communism and in the West, Solzhenitsyn was not a great thinker. His critique of The Enlightenment was and remains useful, as a corrective against uncritical acceptance of any unmitigated version of the Modern Experiement.
Repeat after me: Mixed regimes! Mixed regimes! Mixed regimes! Mixed regimes! Mixed in almost any way you can think of to mix them!
Apr '11
Re: Friday Night Conundrum: What Is the Role of Morality in Politics?
Hailing from a country where the direct impact of Yalta is still being felt to day. I can not say what I would have done differently than Churchill or FDR. England could not have fought the USSR for the sake of Eastern Europe on its own, and I don not think the Americans with 5 years of pro Soviet War time propaganda would have understood why now we were fighting Uncle Joe (a phrase that still burns my soul to hear). My great grandfather and grand parents along with other relatives spent time in communist prison camps in Romania, thanks to Yalta.
I agree with the view that the first thing a moral society must do is to speak the truth. We do not always have the power (mental or physical) to over come injustice, but so long as we speak up against it we are fighting it. That is the duty of all moral people, to fight injustice and tyranny, as best as we can. We can not demand victory for that is never a guarantee.
Solzhenitsyn is mad we did not win against the USSR at Yalta, but we did keep fighting them, and won eventually.