Nygaard Notes #339

Nygaard Notes
Independent Periodic News and Analysis
Number 339, July 31, 2006

On the Web at http://www.nygaardnotes.org/

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This Week: Thinking About Wars

1. “Quote” of the Week
2. Off the Front Page: U.S. Violates International Law (Again)
3. Thinking About Wars, and So Forth

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Greetings,

Last week I said I would apply the “MCD” way of thinking to a range of other issues. So that’s what this issue is all about. It’s just a little thought experiment, but I hope it will stimulate some questioning and some original ideas in some of the readers of the Notes. Let me know if it does!

In solidarity,

Nygaard

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1.
“Quote” of the Week

Here’s an old story that I first heard many years ago. (It’s not really a “Quote,” but so what?)


Once upon the time there was a small village on the edge of the river. The people there were good and so was life in the village. One day a villager noticed a baby floating down the river. The villager quickly jumped into the river and swam out to save the baby from drowning.

The next day the same villager was walking along the riverbank and noticed two babies in the river. He called for help, and both babies were rescued from the swift waters. And the following day four babies were seen caught in the turbulent current. And then there were eight, and still more.

The villagers organized themselves efficiently. The rescue squads were now snatching many children each day. Groups were trained to give mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Others prepared formula and provided clothing for the chilled babies. Many were involved in making clothing and knitting blankets. Still others provided foster homes and placement. While not all the babies could be saved, the villagers feel they were doing well to save as many as they could each day.

One day, however, someone raised the question, “But where are all these babies coming from? Who is throwing them into the river? Why? Let's organize a team to go upstream and see who is doing it.” The seeming logic of the community’s leaders countered: “And if we go upstream who will operate rescue operations? We need every concerned person here.”

“But don't you see,'' cried the one lone voice. “If we find who is throwing them in, we can stop the problem and no babies will drown. By going upstream we can eliminate the problem.”

“It's too risky,” replied the leaders.

And so the number of babies who drown increases daily. The number of those saved increases, but the number of those who drown increases even more.

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2.
Off the Front Page: U.S. Violates International Law (Again)

On July 29th various news agencies reported that the UN Human Rights Committee on Friday called the U.S. an international outlaw. That’s not exactly how they put it, but here’s some of what they did say:

Agence France Presse (AFP) said, “The committee is concerned by credible and uncontested information that the state party [the U.S., that is] has seen fit to engage in the practice of detaining people secretly and in secret places for months and years on end...”

“‘The state party should immediately abolish all secret detention facilities. It should also grant prompt access by the International Committee of the Red Cross to any person detained in connection with an armed conflict,’ said the Committee.”

The Reuters News Service said that “The UN body also expressed concern at the acknowledged past use of interrogation techniques like prolonged stress positions and sleep deprivation that could be seen as torture.”

The call of the Human Rights Committee to immediately abolish all secret detention facilities “echoes a similar demand in May by the UN Committee Against Torture,” said Reuters.

Officials of the U.S. government issued a novel response to the U.N. Committee’s report. They “accused the committee of spending too much time on the United States,” said the Reuters report, which went on to quote U.S. State Department Legal Adviser John Bellinger saying, “We find these conclusions outside the scope of the Committee's mandate and an unfortunate diversion of the Committee's attention.” In other words, the U.S. will ignore international law, as usual when it is inconvenient.

This attitude and pattern of behavior did not escape the notice of the Rights Committee. The AFP reported that the UN’s 18 legal experts, in their report, “listed a wide range of concerns relating to the conduct of US President George W. Bush’s ‘war on terror’, but also about the human rights situations in the United States.”

“[Bush administration officials] were isolated in their interpretation of international law and even their concept of domestic law does not match that of the Supreme Court,” said the Human Rights Committee's chairwoman.

I saw one brief report on all this in the U.S. press, in the form of a few paragraphs on page 4 of the July 29th New York Times. I don’t think it ran anywhere else in the U.S., although it was widely covered overseas. Seems like Front Page News to me.

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3.
Thinking About Wars, and So Forth

In Nygaard Notes #146 I published an essay entitled “Fetishes, Cults, and Infinite Possibilities.” (That’s one of my favorite titles of all time, by the way.) In it, I spoke of what I called the Three Pillars of American ideology: Individualism, Dualism, and Fetishized Freedom. In the essay, I described each pillar and attempted to explain how the three, working together, function to limit our humanity. You can read the whole essay online at www.nygaardnotes.org/issues/nn0146.html
“Carried to their logical conclusions,” I said, “these intertwined ways of thinking can be expected to lead us to exactly where we are.”

Where we are is in a state of perpetual war. War on Terror, War on crime, War on drugs, War on Immigrants, War on Cancer, War in Iraq, and now War in Lebanon and Gaza. How did we get here? How are these “wars” connected?

Part of the answer is, I think, found in an understanding of the Three Pillars. But it also occurred to me as I was writing last week’s essay “Lebanon: Root Causes and Unconventional Thinking,” that there is a way of thinking that leads us repeatedly down the same path. I think this way of thinking actually forms the basis for the Three Pillars. As I said last week, that way of thinking tends to be Dualistic, Simplistic, and Static. I call it DSS.

Also last week I briefly spelled out a different way of thinking that I called MCD. That stands for Multi-faceted, Complex, and Dynamic. I said that if we were to break away from the conventional DSS way of thinking and move toward the MCD way, that would go a long way toward helping us to understand not only the current war in Lebanon, which was last week’s focus, but would also help us understand a whole bunch of other issues.

So, this week, the plan is to try to take a bunch of issues and try to apply the MCD way of thinking to them, and see what happens. As with last week’s summary, this smorgasbord will be so brief that it risks oversimplifying these complex issues. But the point here is to hint at a different way of thinking, not to solve all the world’s problems. So, adjust your expectations accordingly. Here goes...

Contrasting Two Ways of Thinking

DSS Leads To: THE WAR ON DRUGS. Dualistic: There are drug users and non-drug users. Simplistic: Drugs are bad, and to use them is to abuse them. Static: If we catch and punish enough drug users and dealers, we will win the War on Drugs.
MCD Leads To: AN ACTIVE ENGAGEMENT WITH DRUGS AIMED AT HELPING PEOPLE DEVELOP A HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP WITH MOOD-ALTERING CHEMICALS. Multi-faceted: Almost everyone uses drugs of some kind. Complex: People use drugs for all kinds of reasons, and drug use is different from drug abuse. Dynamic: While drug use and abuse have always been with us, and are a part of almost every culture, an ongoing understanding of and attention to the causes of abuse is the best way to reduce the social harm caused by drug abuse. To reduce drug abuse, we need to address BOTH the consequences of abuse and the factors that contribute to it.

DSS Leads To: THE WAR AGAINST TERROR (The WAT?!) Dualistic: There are “Good Guys” and “Bad Guys,” or “us” and “them.” Simplistic: You are either “with us” or “against us.” and one side will win. Static: The Good Guys have to make war until all the Bad Guys are gone, and “terror” is eliminated.
MCD Leads To: AN ACTIVE ENGAGEMENT WITH TERROR AIMED AT PREVENTING HUMAN SUFFERING IN THE SHORT TERM AND ADDRESSING THE CAUSES OVER THE LONG TERM. Multi-faceted: What we call “terror” is perpetrated by a wide range of people, including some people who might be classified as “us.” Complex: While terror is not to be condoned or excused, it can be understood, at least in part. Terror does not arise overnight, and what gives rise to it can be different in different times and in different places. Dynamic: A simple response to a complex problem can give rise to new and different problems, or even make the original problem worse. Actions provoke reactions, and some actions aimed at “eliminating” terror may actually increase it. To rely on a policy of suppression only is like pulling babies out of the river in this week’s “Quote” of the Week. As a current bumper sticker says: “We’re creating enemies faster than we can kill them.”

DSS Leads To: THE WAR ON ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION. Dualistic: There are legal people, and there are illegal ones. “What part of ‘illegal’ don’t you understand?” Simplistic: If people break the law, they should be sent back where they came from. We need to enforce our borders, and we need barriers and police and military force to keep people out. Static: With proper enforcement, only legal immigrants will come to the U.S.
MCD Leads To: A SEARCH FOR AN ECONOMY THAT WORKS FOR ALL. Multi-faceted: People are people, and we all seek to better our lives in various ways, including migrating to a better place. Complex: People understand their life-enhancement options differently. The decision to cross a border in search of a better life has a thousand reasons behind it. Dynamic: The “enforcement only” approach may reduce the incidence of undocumented entry into the country temporarily, but unless the thousand reasons are addressed, people will find ever-more creative ways to migrate where they want to in order to have a better life, reinforced borders and all.

DSS Leads To: THE WAR ON CANCER. Dualistic: There are good cells and bad cells. Simplistic: We need to make war against the “bad” cells and kill them all. Static: Bad cells dead = Health.
MCD Leads To: A NATIONAL COMMITMENT TO HEALTH AND WELLNESS. Multi-faceted: Human life exists in a continuum of “illness” and “health,” with many cells living and dying all the time. Complex: Cancer, and other diseases, are symptoms of an underlying distress or imbalance, with many causes and many interrelated forces working simultaneously. Dynamic: In order to reduce the chances that cancer or the other diseases will recur, perhaps in more deadly forms, we need to deal with these underlying causes. This will also reduce the numbers of people who come down with these illnesses in the first place.

DSS Leads To: THE WAR ON CRIME. Dualistic: Crimes are committed by “other” people who are “bad” people. “We” are “good” people. Simplistic: Bad people must be imprisoned or killed. If there is an increase in crime, we need more cops to catch and imprison the “bad” people. Static: If we have enough cops, and put away enough “bad” people, we’ll have less crime.
MCD Leads To: CREATIVE ENGAGEMENT WITH ANTI-SOCIAL BEHAVIOR. Multi-faceted: Every society has to deal with behaviors that harm people, or that harm the society itself. We are all capable of committing crimes, given the right set of circumstances. Complex: Real security is the result of a social equilibrium that is based on a general sense of justice and fairness. Locks on our doors are important, but they are not fundamentally what keeps burglars out of our houses. What keeps us safe is a general respect for the social order. There will always be some who don’t respect others, and to deal with those people we will always need police and jails. But that is not “the” answer. Dynamic: There is a connection between economic and social injustice and the crime rate, and people’s respect for the law is always evolving and changing. Our job is to understand that evolution and adapt to it effectively by making the law worthy of respect.

DSS Leads To: THE WAR IN IRAQ. Dualistic: There are “good” countries and “bad” countries. Simplistic: If a country is “bad,” then a “good” country can invade it and make it “good.” Static: Once a country is made “good,” it will stay that way, since everyone agrees with our definition of “good.” Our way leads to “stability.”
MCD Leads To: PEACE. Multi-faceted: There are a lot of countries in the world, and every one is different. Complex: Every country is a mix of “good” and “bad.” Including our own. Dynamic: Everything about a country is constantly changing, including the common understanding of what is “good” and “bad” for that country. The relationship between any country and other countries is always changing, as well. To engage with this ever-changing mix of domestic and international factors requires ongoing dialogue and compromise. Even a war doesn’t settle things; it just changes the things that are unsettled.

So many more things I could talk about! Economic policy, tax cuts, health care, environment, same-sex marriage, abortion, energy policy, Social Security, you-name-it. But this is just a small newsletter, and I think you can get the idea from the few examples given here. Try thinking about the issue of your choice, using the MCD system. See if it works for you.

The point here is not to teach anyone the “correct” way of thinking. Rather, the idea is to suggest that there are different ways of thinking that lead to different understandings. That’s not only a good thing to remember when you are trying to understand a particular issue. It’s also a good thing to remember when someone who is different from you seems to have it “all wrong.” They may just have a different way of thinking.

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Jeff Nygaard
National Writers Union
Twin Cities Local #13 UAW
Nygaard Notes
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