Thick and thin morals

Very often anti-Semitism is just vulgar. Historically, it is attributable to fear of an unknown,  different religion, or to jealousy because of a certain prosperity. And up to this day these factors are still effective.

That does not mean that anti-Semitism is easy to combat, but in a sense one can stand above it. Why should one not be different, why should one not be prosperous?

But it’s not always that easy. Certainly in the past there was more than prejudice or jealousy, then philosophical positions were at stake. An important one was the appreciation by ancient and Christian traditions of universalism in our thoughts and actions. For Socrates and Plato something was only true if a reasonable person thought so, because then it would be true for everyone. And for Jesus and Christianity charity is only authentic if it is performed to everyone, no matter how far away and how unknown.

Opposite this kind of love for globality any particularism is in a difficult position. And particularistic the Jewish people has always been and has always wanted to be in some degree. It constituted a clearly defined group, with its own identity, its own tradition and preferably its own country. That could not but collide with a philosophical tradition that never did with less than universal validity. And defense of its own particularism was certainly not easy because many Jews themselves were not immune to the beauty of a universal morality and law.

This ode to universalism is still widely sung. Recently by a Dutch columnist who wrote disparagingly about the morality of monkeys that would be focused only on the own group. The lots of attention for that morality under the influence of primatologist De Waal makes him fear for the universalism of the Christian message. And without universal Christian message, all morality will break adrift, so he fears.

But this love of universalism already for a long time lost the obviousness it once had. A few decades ago postmodern philosophers already put the Great Universal Stories on a side track. More important is that nowadays an increasing number of sober, modest philosophers have an eye for the fact that universalism as a guideline creates abstract, sterile, say thin relationships, which may well be worldwide, but at the same time lack content. The philosopher and historian Ankersmit says it like this: “If you are in solidarity with everyone, you’re with no one in particular; in fact then you are in solidarity with no one”.

More than before there is the realization that people and groups always have to start somewhere, in a limited, manageable context, in particularism. That’s to say in thick relationships, in which you feel comfortable, and of which you hope you can expand the circle of people that belong to it.

That this is so, could be inferred from the fact that nationalist feelings nowhere were so virulent as in universally orientated Christian Europe. It is amenable to consider this as compensation for too lofty universalist ambitions.

This plea for thick, rooted relationships is not a license to indulge in ethnic or racist prejudices targeted at other groups. But it is a plea for a revaluation of particularism which does justice to the complex reality and thereby can achieve more than a sterile universalism ever could.

Also see The Trap of universalizing Reason

A single sentence

The magic of reason may be enchanting. And its power is perhaps the most palpable when we indulge to the spell of a clear, closed, logical argument, set up by ourselves or by someone else. We then sense its charm, until we encounter somewhere, half hidden, a subversive, uncomfortable little sentence. To the effect that the whole idea we were cherishing runs empty like a punctured balloon.

It often are short sentences that bring about such an effect, mostly of a somewhat hesitant and shy nature.

The economist Keynes was the author of one such short, but deadly phrase, in a remark he made with regard to he story of classical economics. This story, told since the nineteenth century by economic philosophers and eagerly embraced by practicing economists, is a prime example of a closed, rational argument. The argument boils down to the idea that an economic system always automatically moves to balance. Crises may occur, but are easily explained as caused by an inefficient supply of commodities. For in the classical theory savings somehow always find a destination when the price of goods is correct. It may take some time, but equilibrium will naturally arise again. And then suddenly Keynes comes in and says: people and institutions can simply, regardless of prices, stop investing and consuming, for example because they are uncertain. That’s puzzling perhaps, but consumers can say ‘no’ indeed. And gone is the security of the closed model.

A similar sudden transition from certainty to uncertainty occurs in the article about the economic crisis which Frank Ankersmit recently presented in a Dutch paper. As a reader you are carried along by his presentation of the models designed during the economic-financial hype. You feel the reassurance which flows from the idea that in those models all variables are identified: future returns, risks and impact of those risks on the future returns. But then suddenly he says: “There is always the possibility that a significant variable was excluded”. Such a sentence is devastating, because it abruptly destroys the absolute certainty. Indeed, if one stone falters, the entire edifice may collapse. And that’s what happened.

In philosophy also all-encompassing ideas have often been embraced. For example the idea that all people ‘essentially’ are the same, and that any ethics should depart from that idea. But what, the philosopher Hillary Putnam asks, if sometimes someone believes that some others are not 'really' the same? That opens, he says, the door to a holocaust. And gone is the argument, gone ethics, because of that one sentence. The supposed, and sought universality has suddenly disappeared, arbitrariness immediately creeps into the story. Our grip is gone.

One may get sad because our logical stories often prove to be unsustainable. But is it a solution then, to do what the Charter for Compassion did recently, namely to emphasize once more the intent to treat “everyone, without exception, with absolute dignity, fairness and respect”? Or is, in fact, such a statement totalitarian? And can it actually have any other effect than fueling cynicism, and thus endangering all ethics, because the professed intent is simply impossible?

It is the merit of Levinas, amongst others, to have pointed out that those disturbing little phrases may also be interpreted in a positive way. They break through the totalitarian nature which our ideas soon adopt when they are allowed to move ahead undisturbedly.

Don't trust the cold intellect

In philosophy they produce sharpwitted but deadly pale polemics and above all a great self-complacency. In ICT they are recognizable as uncommunicative nerds. In the financial world they endlessly invent models and cause a credit crisis.

I refer to a type of person that can be described as consistently rational, showy acute but without an eye for, or in any case without any concern for the surrounding world. That’s the way this type of person is being portrayed by the Dutch columnist Schaberg.

Schaberg adds a warning to his portrayal, as far as the avid whizz kids are concerned in their suits and with their taste for expensive cars. Because they saddled the world with billions of losses and with an economic crisis, but stand ready again behind the scenes, waiting to resume the aborted game. Indeed, maybe it is not so smart for these guys to be called ‘smart’?

I think real brightness looks differently. Real brains respect the environment, recognize that invented linear calculationmodels do not reflect the complexity of human society. Indeed, really smart it is to view the pretensions of the clever rational thought with great suspicion.

Maybe that’s too difficult for economists. Anyway, that’s what suggests Frank Ankersmit. He argues that the economy time and again surrenders to simplifying rationality which narrows reality. Therefore the economy will keep running into deadlocks and will continue to be thrown back on the interference of government and politics.

But is it too difficult for us, the onlookers, as well? I think we, the public, certainly can pull some weight against the new generation of greedy whizzkids which Schaberg sees waiting ready to strike again. What we need to do is: not to be impressed by their cleverness. We cannot cure them of their greediness, that’s just too human. But greediness disguised as cleverness can be stopped, I think, if only the public no longer falls for it. Therefore, let us gape a bit less in admiration at the dizzying model-thinking, because it is bloodless and hollow. And instead nurture the awareness that society is something vulnerable and complex. Indeed, that’s complicated enough already.