by Santiago Ramos at The Wisdom of Crowds: Both sides do it. On Sunday, the Democratic Governor of Pennsylvania Josh Shapiro accompanied Ukrainian president Vlodymyr Zelensky on a photo op in a military facility, where they both signed their names on artillery shells. “We must all do our part in the fight for freedom — from the workers in Scranton who make Pennsylvania the arsenal of democracy to the brave Ukrainian soldiers protecting their country,” Shapiro later posted on X.
Last May, while visiting Israel, former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley visited an IDF facility and also scribbled her name on an artillery shell, along with words of encouragement: “Finish Them.”
I don’t blame Zelensky for doing it. The man is fighting for his country. He has no choice but to pay obeisance to the empire that is on his side. But what about Shapiro and Haley? Maybe you find their gesture noble; maybe you find it repulsive. Maybe you rolled your eyes. But I am wondering about their motivations.
(I am setting aside the moral question of whether the US should support Ukraine or Israel. I guess my own cynicism is showing: I am assuming that sound moral calculus is not what is motivating Haley or Shapiro.)
Were they motivated by a feeling of righteousness — that is, by a cocksure certainty that they are fighting on the Right Side of History? Or were they merely doing what calculating politicians always do: grandstand before a crowd, pander for influence, and elbow their way into the headlines?
Another way to ask my question is: when a politician signs their name to an artillery shell, are they being cynical, or moralistic?
I am thinking here about a recent essay published on Wisdom of Crowds by David Polansky. In it, he laments: “Americans too often think that the purpose of political observation is to discern rightness or fairness, such that politics itself basically cashes out as applied morality and law.” In other words, Americans tend to view political problems, especially geopolitical problems, in terms of right and wrong. The problem with this attitude is that it assumes “a certain dubious position of objectivity on our part,” as if American analysts were free of interests and biases of their own.
On the contrary, Polansky argues, because the United States is the biggest global power, it is more difficult, and not less, for it to assume the role of moral arbiter in foreign affairs.
Polansky’s essay was met by strong criticism from the great socialist writer George Scialabba (do give his omnibus anthology a read). Ultimately, Scialabba’s problem with Polansky’s argument is philosophical: He doesn’t think it’s possible to separate morality from political analysis. “Any attempt to radically separate the moral and the prudential is incoherent,” Scialabba writes. “It is impossible to frame an argument — any argument — without knowing what one wants or what, in the most general sense, is desirable.”
On a practical level, Scialabba says, “No one who knows anything about the history of American foreign policy can find it the least bit plausible that concern for legality and morality has played even the smallest part in it.”
More here.
