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I know, I know. What we have done to our political
vocabulary by supporting the Egyptian generals who took power from the elected
Muslims is too obvious to comment on.
Everybody knows that our word "democracy" no longer means
"power to the majority of the people through elections." Everybody knows that if it doesn't mean
that then it has no spine. And
everybody knows that the next time we use it to go nyah nyah to the Russians we
will fall on our asses. But still.
And here's something else
everybody, including word-picky English teachers like me, knows: that your
linguistic ass is sometimes the last thing that needs protection. Anybody who doesn't know that should
read Michael Gordon and Mark Landler's story in Thursday's New York Times (10-10-13), identifying what currently most needs
our protection in the Middle East: the 1979 peace treaty between Egypt and
Israel. The generals are our best
guarantee that the treaty, and therefore Israel, and several hundred American Congressmen,
will remain upright. Gordon and
Landler point to what every patriot old in statecaft knows: the political comes before the
linguistic. But still.
But doesn't the ethical come
before the political? If it does
then we've put the linguistic further back in the line. I tell myself that it would be unethical
to betray Israel now, after so much support, so much common interest, so much
sympathy after the Holocaust. And
betrayal, man that's what Dante said was the worst sin, to be punished on the
floor of Hell. And Dante was
speaking for Thomas Aquinas, who spoke for Aristotle, who in ethics spoke for
all of Western Civilization. If you've
got that kind of support for your
move on the Muslims how can you hold back? And, more to the point, what excuse do you have to whine
about word use?
Well, you might have an excuse,
the ever-ready realpolitik excuse, if you were persuaded that what you see as
ethical behavior is really tribal behavior. Loyalty to the Judeo-Christian tribe, upped to Western
Tribe, is what drives our actions in the Middle East. It's a war of tribe against tribe out there, and words are
soldiers in that war. We had some pretty
stout ones — like "democracy" and "human rights," with
"Enlightenment" backing them up — that are no longer standing up so
well. For the strength of the
tribal army alone our generals (word-generals, PR guys) need to know that. Telling them of the reality is not
whining.
But even habitual whiners are
making no comments. Might it be like
commenting on a cripple? After
Secretary of State John Kerry, said, right after the coup, that Egypt’s
military leaders were “restoring democracy” (NYT 8-1-13) everybody looked away
from the word — as they surely will do again after the statement he made
Thursday, that "the United States will consider resuming aid to Egypt 'on
the basis of performance' that encourages democracy through elections"
(Reuters, 10-10-13). I have no
doubt that, as he keeps flogging the poor, broke-back word along, we will keep
averting our eyes.
And I suppose we will keep biting our tongues because only the socially
clueless, the out-of-it prof, would speak in such poor taste. That's it, I guess, but maybe not all
of it. There is another reason: consistency,
unwillingness to contradict oneself.
This is the way you play the tribal game once you have committed
yourself to it. Tribes fight
pragmatically, with rhetoric.
Their test is not, "Is it true?" but "Does it work for us." When an untruth works better (or in
this case, less disastrously) than a truth you use it. Pointing out that your tribe's
spokesman speaks an untruth keeps it from working. That weakens the tribe. Good tribesmen don't weaken their tribe. Ethics again, plus logic.
But
there's a remaining question, still realpolitikal, still intra-tribal: what
weakens a tribe more, breaking the backs of its words or calling attention to
their brokenness? And, as so often
with that kind of question, we have to look long-term and short term. For the short term I think we might
well say that it's best not to call attention to the fact that our finest word-soldier
is crippled. But we can't forget
the long term. Broken backs don't
heal quickly, and we don't know what battles lie ahead, what regimes we'll have
to claim a difference from.
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