Is 85 million a fair price for a just war?

Pacifism through the prism of less-than-obvious explanations

War is dreadful, but World War II was just unavoidable. We had no choice but to attack Germany. We had no choice but to defend Poland. We had no choice but to wipe out Japan. For the Allies, the Second World War was a just war. Nobody likes to go to war, but we had no option. Yes, it’s unfortunate that 85 million people ... three per cent of the then global population, needed to die. For our justice.

An ugly rabbit.

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Do you come with me down these frosty roads less travelled by? Do you take all of the truths and beliefs you ever held about what is right and what is wrong and ask yourself: how does it come that I hold to these things? Are these truths that we have arrived at of our own volition? Or are they truths that have been presented to us as possible, and which we have weighed up, and after due reasoning, agreed with? Or, are these truths that have been spoon-fed to us?

Not everything is crazy little ideas of the deep state, and conspiracy theories, and “they’re after us”. We hear an alternative view and, as we listen to its arguments, half of us already hook off: it’s a rabbit hole. Something that causes such consternation with its less-than-obviousness obviously needs some explanation. But when the explanation is embarked upon, it becomes a rabbit hole. If one wants to preserve one’s pre-formed, die-cast, modular view of the world in which one lives, then, clearly, one needs a ready supply of stock phrases with which to assail those who cautiously raise a finger to enquire, “Excuse me, might I just ask a question?”  Rabbit hole is one. This, here, is a rabbit hole. And it leads to a very ugly rabbit.

Once the direct and obvious, visible, clearly illuminated, scientifically proven explanations are departed from, then a less-obvious, less visible, less clearly illuminated and less scientifically proven explanation labours to win ground. The devil is in the detail, they say, and, in the realm of an effect’s minutiae, a supposed cause pales into indirectness, is less supported by concrete evidence (which is precisely where the less-obviousness of the cause becomes apparent), whereupon the explanation fails and is rejected. Especially if one has a vested interest in the more-obvious cause of the effect in question. The obvious is right; the less obvious is wrong?

An example: say I have a hole in my budget because I splashed out on a night on the town. I have the receipts. I can see how much I spent. I know how much was in my wallet. The difference is what I spent, borne out by the receipts. Cause: spending. Effect: hole in budget.

But when an effect and its putative cause are more removed from each other, the causation becomes more susceptible to being dismissed as speculative, and that can be a good thing.

Let’s suppose the secret service murdered John F. Kennedy. That is speculative. Shall we reject the notion? Yes, on the whole, it would be good to reject that notion. Why? Well, because proving its veracity brings us no further: the secret service is still the secret service and, regardless of who killed JFK, the man is dead. Isn’t that so? He is dead, isn’t he? Anyhow, if we had concrete, corroborated evidence of the secret service’s involvement, no one would ever stand trial. Donald Trump is a petty thief by comparison with that level of criminality. We ultimately accept the Lee Harvey Oswald story because speculating about any other explanation scares the bejesus out of us. And not having the bejesus scared out of us is our vested interest in letting that sleeping dog lie.

But take another case: the burning of fossil fuels and global heating. Do you want to deny that causation, or are you tempted to embrace it? Read oil industry bumph on the subject for an hour or two and even the hardest-nosed ecologist would start to weaken. Is that a reason for climate scientists just to ignore the arguments of big oil? Clap their hands over their ears and shout “la-la-la-la” in a loud voice? I’ll say: I am working hard at my carbon footprint, but I also allow myself to ask: will it make any difference in the end?

Let’s say I push a man off a platform on the New York subway and he falls to his death in front of a train: then I am guilty of his homicide. I pushed him, with intent, he fell, he died. Cause and effect. If it’s proved, that is. If I can’t be fingered, from camera evidence or witnesses, it’s as if it wasn’t me. The man is still dead, but now I didn’t do it. If I don’t get caught, the cause of him falling is a mystery. That is absurd, but true: legally, I’m innocent, because everyone’s innocent till proven guilty, until they’re identified, charged, tried and convicted. (Jack Ruby died an innocent man, don’t you know?)

But, here’s another question: why is the subway even there? If there were no subway, no one could be pushed off platforms in front of trains. Well, it is so, isn’t it? What about the Verrückt water slide at Schlitterbahn Kansas City water park? People died on the maddest water slide in the world. People sued and closed the place down because people died. There’s a clear difference: the water slide was built to make money, but the New York subway wasn’t. Was it? Right, why was the New York subway built?

Do you know how many men died in the construction of the New York subway? Let me tell you: more than ever died falling off a platform in front of a New York subway train. Let’s suppose the New York subway was built for the best of reasons and all the deaths were tragic accidents for which the men’s families were duly compensated (like with the Brooklyn Bridge). Okay, New York’s a red herring. But: why does the Boston subway suck? I mean, why was it built on precisely the wrong grid plan (it has no circle line, so everyone has to transit through downtown)? And why was the Brussels subway built to serve wealthy, middle-class suburbs of white-painted villas? Subways are mass transport solutions, they’re meant to go into poor neighbourhoods. Aren’t they?

The causation in all these musings is less obvious. Oh, there are transportation histories that will relate how crowded the downtown streets of New York were in the early 20th century and how essential it was to relieve the congestion, and what a boon the subway was for everyone commuting to work and what-not (if only to avoid stepping in horse manure). I have no clever answers to all those questions. And the beauty of a less-than-obvious explanation (if I might reformulate the term conspiracy theory) is that there is always an obvious explanation somewhere that allows one to dismiss the less-than-obvious one as cobblers.

But surely you appreciate that the queries into the less-than-obvious category are nonetheless there to be asked? In fact, it’s the obviousness of the obvious explanations that somehow invites the enquiry into the less-than-obvious explanations in the first place. Don’t judge a book by its cover. Appearances can be deceptive. De vlag dekt de lading niet. Leave no stone unturned. The truth is out there somewhere. And perhaps it can be found by looking behind the obvious reasons at the less-obvious ones.

Sometimes less-obvious reasons make no apparent sense, but that doesn’t dismiss them, it just relegates them: worthy of further analysis, like penicillin, or a serial murderer: Agatha Christie made her fortune with less-than-obvious explanations. What makes less-obvious explanations into obvious explanations is either Hércule Poirot or the element of critical mass, where the effect that is sought is of such scale that no one person could do one single act to bring it about. And the causation has to be established (until we know better) with the test of whether the less-than-obvious explanation stands to reason. Feasibility, and likelihood. Less why would anyone do that? More if you actually wanted to cause that effect, is the cause that’s less-obvious a valid cause, if only because it’s less-obvious?

For instance, the composition of the US Supreme Court and the career path of Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society lend a credence to theories of power manipulation that would have been dismissed as poppycock 20 years ago or formed the subject of a novel like The Pelican Brief.

Another for instance: coinage was invented so we could pay our taxes. You may dispute that and say it was invented to promote trade, but trade existed for a long time before coinage was invented and, if the idea that it was invented to pay taxes is dismissed, then how do you think we would have paid taxes if coinage had not been invented? Render unto Caesar, because his bonce is on the coin. No coin, no bonce.

Or: feminism was encouraged by J. D. Rockefeller to sow the seeds of a culture war. It may be that by positing that stance, I reap criticism as a misogynist: claiming that a women’s place is in the home, bringing up baby, and anyone who naysays feminism is just despicable. I don’t want to be despicable, but the fact I might be labelled a misogynist somehow proves the posit right: feminism in the 1970s did exactly that—created a culture war. And, like it or not, dual income households became wealthier, women were able to attain professional standing in the workplace (whereupon they swiftly encountered glass ceilings), juvenile delinquency increased, latchkey kids became a rule rather than exception, nutrition slipped as families turned to convenience foods, a new creche industry was born and now dual income families moan about the cost of childcare. Is there anything misogynistic about these observations? Yes, if you’re a feminist. No, if you’re not. Ergo: culture war.

The question is less did J. D. Rockefeller engineer it? and more was it engineered, by whomever? Who stands to benefit from a feminist culture war? Maybe an industrialist who wants cheap, malleable labour in his industrial plants? It’s at least feasible that women asked to give up home duties to go into factories to earn a weekly wage may have baulked, saying, “Sorry, no: I have duties in my own home.” But fewer of them will say that if they’re goaded to come into the factories, to show the men that you’re just as capable as they are.

Or: the motor industry invented the term jaywalker in order to confer a certain immunity on car drivers and place the blame for pedestrian accidents on the pedestrian. Traffic laws do not apportion rights of way; they apportion liability and, to do that, they apportion blame, and it is the motor industry who tells government who to blame.

The blame for an accident between a car and a pedestrian should not, in the automotive industry’s view, lie with the motorist (we can’t encourage the idea that cars are dangerous, after all). There are some urban intersections in the US that cannot be walked across: they can only be negotiated with a motor vehicle, and whole streets that have no sidewalks. Instead of, like in European countries, having roads to connect settlements, and streets in downtown areas, much of the US and Canada is criss-crossed with so-called stroads, which carve a canyon through even the smallest town, rendering the environment soulless and uninviting for pedestrians, and allowing urban speed limits of 70 kph, incorporating huge expanses of tarmac as parking lots, with all the cosy cute things inside of shopping malls, but very little community on the actual street. When all’s said and done, the street is supposed to be the shared thoroughfare of communication for a community, but a stroad is very intimidating for walkers.

Meanwhile car drivers ogle one another, envious of the next guy’s latest-model automobile, and honk if that smug guy with the new car stays more than a few seconds at that green light. It’s a town planning and statutory liability situation, which was created by the automobile industry in the 1950s, when things like Interstate freeways were being planned and constructed. Oh, yes, they invented the word freeway as well. To disabuse motorists of the idea that driving takes a toll. Out went the old (paid) turnpikes, in came the nice, new, fresh freeways, with two, three, sometimes six lanes each way, splitting neighbourhoods into isolated communities deafened by engine and tyre noise and poisoned by lead fumes but, no matter, these were areas that motorists drove through, but not, of course, where they lived. If this wasn’t engineered by the motor and oil industries, they must be mightily relieved that it happened just like that.

Or one small, but instantly identifiable, excess of governmental prerogative: Iraq has oil, and so does the Bush family that invaded it.

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So, to the matter that spurred this discussion into existence: the Second World War was unavoidable. Wrong. The fact that that is wrong is not, however, obvious. We convince ourselves that the Allies had no choice but to engage Germany and Japan in mortal combat. Our reason: because we cannot conceive of pacifism, or of what pacifism consists of, or how we would ever achieve a pacifist society. Well, one thing is obvious: it’s not easy. Killing is not easy. It is hard. And, if it isn’t hard for you, then it damned well ought to be: you are the problem. We do not do these things because they are easy. We do these things despite the fact they are hard. Stop.

It is not unreasonable to posit that the Second World War was avoidable. And, while we’re at it, the Russo-Ukrainian War as well, and the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, and the Falklands (Peter Carrington as much as admitted it), and all the wars.

As you stand by the Cenotaph, and loop that plastic and paper poppy into your buttonhole to demonstrate to the world your patriotic backbone, upper lip stiffened to the chill November wind, I want to agree with you; I so want to agree with your sense of service, sacrifice, honour and national pride, patriotism, values, selflessness. But they who are the source of your sentiment lie deep in the cold earth, and not at their own behest. I can’t agree with you. I can’t.

Service to a nation that is defined in terms of animosity to all other nations. Sacrifice that is defined as a willing acceptance of death in the name of failed politicians and diplomats. Honour that eschews all ruses and devices, all tricks and deceptions, all feigned acts and pretences. What is war if it is not all of these things? Pride and patriotism that directs its devotion to a square of cloth instead of the flesh torn apart by the battle, the blood shed for a capital market. Values that deny the values of them, the foreigners, for which we conquer and vanquish, to eradicate what others hold as … values. And our unremitting selflessness: we give so much of ourselves, the world is humbled by our generosity of spirit, as we blast their cities and bayonet their sons. I can’t.

Our statesmen and -women cannot be average. They may not be ordinary. They may not be me: a failure and a sentimental sobber. No, they have forgone that option. They must be stalwart, stoical, solid, supremely exceptional. They must be the cream of our societies’ intellect, possess insight, foresight and judgement far beyond what anyone reading, or writing, this article can muster. Because upon it depends life. There is no more supreme responsibility than the decision over life and death.

We, the taxpayers, who rely for all we have, and for the security that surrounds us in the having of it, are billionfold many. They number 200 or so. If we cannot rely on the skills and abilities of 200 exceptional men and women to preserve peace on this Earth, if the only solution for guaranteeing our security is to send 85 million—that many—of our fellow men and women to the slaughter, then the nation state as a concept has irredeemably failed. And it will continue to fail, for as long as it bears a greater likeness to organised crime than it bears to organised society.

If, when we are confronted with the recalcitrant, unbending, insistent, conniving, bullying, criminal leaders of adversaries, we avidly respond by mustering powers and marching to battlefronts, then the nation state as a concept has no more future than do gangs of hoodlums; for it has failed, abjectly, in its fundamental precept: to secure peace for its citizens. We vaunt nuclear weapons as some guardian of security, and wantonly brandish—in our supposed defence—conventional weapons just as destructive to a mother nursing her babe.

Chamberlain couldn’t know he declared a war that would be the bloodiest to date. How could he have imagined it? Could we not rein in the excesses of one country? Is the structure of our international community so pitted with decrepitude that we cannot do these things? Is it so very hard to do, reining in the wicked, without joining them? What is the price of blood? Is their blood so much cheaper than yours? Or is all blood cheap till guns are laid down and diplomats again light their cigars in leather-padded libraries? When will we engage the bloodiest battle ever?

If, on the 3rd of September 1939, a declaration of war was the sole option open to our governments, then that war was our fault. We needed to try harder. And thereby have we forfeited any entitlement we might have ever imagined for ourselves to cite justice on our part of the conflict. All our declaration of war did was to prove our ineptitude in the quality which we vaunt highest: our civilisation.

We are eight billion, and they are 200. We are entitled to expect the supreme standard of diplomatic skill. For, without that, we pay with our lives.