Condemnation Without Absolutes

[Dave Monroe]

>From Stanley Fish, "Condemnation Without Absolutes,"
New York Times, Monday, October 15th, 2001 ...

   "During the interval between the terrorist attacks
and the United States response, a reporter called to
ask me if the events of Sept. 11 meant the end of
postmodernist relativism. It seemed bizarre that
events so serious would be linked causally with a
rarefied form of academic talk. But in the days that
followed, a growing number of commentators played
serious variations on the same theme: that the ideas
foisted upon us by postmodern intellectuals have
weakened the country's resolve. The problem, according
to the critics, is that since postmodernists deny the
possibility of describing matters of fact objectively,
they leave us with no firm basis for either condemning
the terrorist attacks or fighting back.
   "Not so. Postmodernism maintains only that there
can be no independent standard for determining which
of many rival interpretations of an event is the true
one. The only thing postmodern thought argues against
is the hope of justifying our response to the attacks
in universal terms that would be persuasive to
everyone, including our enemies. Invoking the abstract
notions of justice and truth to support our cause
wouldn't be effective anyway because our adversaries
lay claim to the same language. (No one declares
himself to be an apostle of injustice.)
   "Instead, we can and should invoke the particular
lived values that unite us and inform the institutions
we cherish and wish to defend. 
   "At times like these, the nation rightly falls back
on the record of aspiration and accomplishment that
makes up our collective understanding of what we live
for. That understanding is sufficient, and far fr om
undermining its sufficiency, postmodern thought tells
us that we have grounds enough for action and
justified condemnation in the democratic ideals we
embrace, without grasping for the empty rhetoric of
universal absolutes to which all subscribe but which
all define differently.
   "But of course it's not really postmodernism that
people are bothered by. It's the idea that our
adversaries have emerged not from some primordial
darkness, but from a history that has equipped them
with reasons and motives and even with a perverted
version of some virtues. Bill Maher, Dinesh D'Souza
and Susan Sontag have gotten into trouble by pointing
out that 'cowardly' is not the word to describe men
who sacrifice themselves for a cause they believe in. 
   "Ms. Sontag grants them courage, which she is
careful to say is a 'morally neutral' term, a quality
someone can display in the performance of a bad act.
(Milton's Satan is the best literary example.) You
don't condone that act because you describe it
accurately. In fact, you put yourself in a better
position to respond to it by taking its true measure.
Making the enemy smaller than he is blinds us to the
danger he presents and gives him the advantage that
comes along with having been underestimated.
   "That is why what Edward Said has called 'false
universals' should be rejected: they stand in the way
of useful thinking. How many times have we heard these
new mantras: 'We have seen the face of evil'; 'these
are irrational madmen'; 'we are at war against
international terrorism.' Each is at once inaccurate
and unhelpful. We have not seen the face of evil; we
have seen the face of an enemy who comes at us with a
full roster of grievances, goals and strategies. If we
reduce that enemy to 'evil,' we conjure up a shape-
shifting demon, a wild-card moral anarchist beyond our

comprehension and therefore beyond the reach of any
counterstrategies. 
   "The same reduction occurs when we imagine the
enemy as 'irrational.' Irrational actors are by
definition without rhyme or reason, and there's no
point in reasoning about them on the way to fighting
them. The better course is to think of these men as
bearers of a rationality we reject because its goal is
our destruction. If we take the trouble to understand
that rationality, we might have a better chance of
figuring out what its adherents will do next and
preventing it.
   "And 'international terrorism' does not adequately
describe what we are up against. Terrorism is the name
of a style of warfare in service of a cause. It is the
cause, and the passions informing it, that confront
us. Focusing on something called international
terrorism — detached from any specific purposeful
agenda — only confuses matters....
   "When Reuters decided to be careful about using the
word 'terrorism' because, according to its news
director, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom
fighter ... Reuters is simply recognizing how
unhelpful the word is, because it prevents us from
making distinctions that would allow us to get a
better picture of where we are and what we might do.
If you think of yourself as the target of terrorism
with a capital T, your opponent is everywhere and
nowhere. But if you think of yourself as the target of
a terrorist who comes from somewhere, even if he
operates internationally, you can at least try to
anticipate his future assaults.
   "Is this the end of relativism? If by relativism
one means a cast of mind that renders you unable to
prefer your own convictions to those of your
adversary, then relativism could hardly end because it
never began. Our convictions are by definition
preferred; that's what makes them our convictions.
Relativizing them is neither an option nor a danger.
   "But if by relativism one means the practice of
putting yourself in your adversary's shoes, not in
order to wear them as your own but in order to have
some understanding (far short of approval) of why
someone else might want to wear them, then relativism
will not and should not end, because it is simply
another name for serious thought."

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/15/opinion/15FISH.html?todaysheadlines

Pardon me, Murthy, for posting this almost in its
entirety, but I figured, were it to become a topic of
discussion, everybody, NYT sub or no, should have
access to as much of the text as might be needed ...

Stanley Fish, currently the Dean of Liberal Arts and
Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago ...

http://www.uic.edu/depts/engl/faculty/fish.html

Was the architect of the (in)famous Duke University
English Department ...

http://www.linguafranca.com/9902/yaffe.html

And is the author of such seminal texts as
Self-Consuming Artifacts, Is There a Text in this
Class? and, most recently, How Milton Works ...

http://www.mv.helsinki.fi/home/kniemela/fish.htm

By the way, note that OUR "terrorists" used to be our
"freedom fighters."  And consider Fish's remarks about
"evil," "false universals," et al. in re:, say, that
Pynchonian "They," and the possibilities of, prospects
for a ("a") "Counterforce" ...

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Make a great connection at Yahoo! Personals.
http://personals.yahoo.com