50. Why Pagans Aren’t Perfect (III)

I’ve been arguing that a Pagan political philosophy – grounded in a polytheistic world-view – utterly rejects any notions of human perfectibility. It’s important that we understand the problem isn’t simply that people are short-sighted and greedy and will never do the right thing. It’s far more profound than that.

There’s no right thing to be done. Let me explain.

A while back I intimated that, from a Pagan standpoint, a regime of perfect peace and justice is impossible, and isn’t even a worthy objective. Not everybody agrees with me on this, of course. There’s actually an organization – here’s their annual report – known as United for Peace and Justice. According to the group’s co-founder, “now is the time … to link the work for peace to the movements for social, economic and climate justice.” Very inspiring. What could possibly be wrong with that?

Don’t peace and justice naturally go together?

Most folks seem to think so. Back in 2015, the United Nations General Assembly adopted seventeen Sustainable Development Goals for the world, of which #16 was to establish “Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions” everywhere. I’ll refrain from quoting other, similar, sentiments you can easily find on the internet.

And yet a moment’s thought will reveal the fallacy in this. Peace and justice may be good things in themselves, but they’re different goods – and they’ll tend, if anything, to work against each other. In theory, perhaps, you could have either perfectly, but you can’t have both. Maybe you can have perfect peace; however, to attain it, you’ll have to accept at least some injustice. Or you can aim for perfect justice. But in that case, you’ll have to go to war with somebody.

It’s the way of the world. Get used to it.

In the United States, before the Civil War, it was possible for the Northern states and the Southern states to live peacefully side by side, but only at the price of tolerating slavery. It took the bloodiest conflict in our country’s history to end that injustice – and it’s hard to see how anything less drastic could’ve done it.

Today, it’s possible for the United States to live in peace with North Korea, but only if we’re prepared to bond with a regime that starves and brutalizes its own people for the benefit of a narrow parasitic elite. Or we can attempt to overthrow Kim and his minions – which would risk (possibly nuclear) devastation that would fall most heavily on the very population we’d like to help.

I learn from this morning’s New York Times that a UN commission recommends prosecuting forty-one military and civilian officials in South Sudan for various horrific crimes against humanity. Does anyone believe these individuals will ever be brought to justice without an armed “police action” of some sort?

I could go on in this vein for some time, but I think my point’s been made.

Acknowledging that our desire for peace will necessarily temper our passion for justice, and vice versa, we still might aspire to optimize. That is, we could endeavor to develop some philosophical guidelines that would instruct us when forcible action on behalf of justice is appropriate and when it isn’t. We could then be reasonably assured that we’re achieving the most good at the least possible cost – which is perhaps the best we can realistically expect in this world.

Alas, not even that is feasible.

Peace and justice aren’t merely different goods, of a contrary tendency – they’re incommensurable. There’s no way they can be valued in terms of each other. How much peace is worth how much justice? The question doesn’t even make sense. They’re both good in an absolute way – though they’ll conflict – and whether in a particular instance we choose justice over peace or peace over justice, we’ll be committing a virtuous act and a wrong at the same time, with no reliable way to strike a balance.

Consequently, we can never be sure if we’ve arrived at an optimal situation. No matter how many wars we might be fighting at a given time, it’ll always be possible for someone to claim that justice calls on us to fight another. On the other hand, we’ll make excuses for crimes if we’d rather not confront them – and no matter how good our cause may be, someone could claim the price is excessive. It’s not possible, even in theory, to objectively evaluate these contradictory assertions. We’ll likely live in a chronic state of uncertainty and vague dissatisfaction, whatever we end up doing.

That’s politics – and that’s a polytheistic universe. Gods and Goddesses are the sources of Cosmic Significance and Meaning in mundane affairs, and when the Divine Truths collide, human beings can be confronted with insoluble moral dilemmas. It’s not hard to see why most folks would prefer to live in a monotheistic world – where there’s only one God, and one set of Divine Commandments, to worry about.

If only politics, and life in general, were really that simple.

I’ll repeat for the umpteenth time, that none of this constitutes a reason to avoid politics or to scorn it as a pointless power-struggle. Perhaps we should try to be a little less eager to portray our adversaries as agents of the Devil, or to dismiss their concerns as completely without merit.

Maybe the essence of politics is compromise.

Blessed be.

# # #