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Ends, Means, and All That JazzFebruary 11, 2007 In its current draft Squatters' Speakeasy opens with two unnamed persons, one male, one female, shooting an arrow into a real estate sign. They have their reasons, most of which I agree with. A couple of scenes later the editor in chief of one of the island's two weeklies appears: he's spluttering with rage, both at the anonymous perpetrators and at all the Vineyarders who think it's funny. This editor is relatively new to both the island and the job; he's in his mid-thirties and if he had a god it would be Milton Friedman, the late "market über alles" economist. I've been making fun of this guy ever since he showed up -- his nickname is Whit Whippersnapper -- so it was disconcerting to realize as I listened to him rant, and try to explain to a visitor why the "vandalism" (as he calls it) should be taken seriously, that he has his reasons too. What's more, they make a lot of sense. As its title suggests, Squatters' Speakeasy involves plenty of extralegal and illegal activity. The Mud of the Place, as I'm fond of saying, is mostly about straight arrows -- the irony there is that the two protagonists are a gay man and a lesbian, who aren't straight at all and who flirt with censure, arrest, and even (in some places) death whenever they act in a manner that might be interpreted as gay or lesbian. Civil disobedience is more credible when the civilly disobedient are scrupulously law-abiding most of the time. If you habitually break every law that inconveniences you, who's going to believe that you're withholding your taxes for moral reasons? So I read with great interest an essay that was posted to AlterNet a couple of weeks ago: When Does Green Rage Become Ecoterrorism? The piece is long, rambling, and not all that well focused -- I suspect because the author, Matt Rasmussen, is grappling with these questions for the first time -- but it's still very worth reading. As one who's been grappling with these issues for a very long time, I can report that they're deep and complex and they don't stay grappled. By the time I graduated from college (with an unofficial minor in antiwar organizing and student activism), I understood that "the ends justify the means" was self-delusionary. The means become the ends. Killing for peace, as the slogan went, is like f*cking for virginity. I've never quite been able to eschew violence completely or call myself a pacifist, mainly because I can imagine political situations far more desperate than anything I've ever experienced and I can't say what I would consider justified in those situations. I do know that "justify" is a trickster verb and human beings can rationalize almost anything. "Everyone's the hero of their own story," as I'm so fond of saying. We're all pretty good at justifying ourselves. "I shot up a high school and killed a few students and teachers because some other students and teachers treated me like sh*t." "We attacked Iraq because Saddam Hussein was a murderous dictator." Etc., etc. To evaluate political actions, or the ethics of individual actions, I think you have to look a little deeper. What kind of society do you want to live in? Does your action help bring that society into being? How? What are its likely consequences? What are the alternatives? And what are your motives? Your motives may be the most important factor, but they're definitely the most shifty. Motives that look disinterested and rational today may seem wildly deluded a week or a year from now, and what irrevocable, irreparable acts have you committed in the meantime? As a college antiwar activist I learned up close and personal that two people can use the same ideology, philosophy, or theology to justify diametrically opposed means and ends. Over the years I've come to believe that what each of us brings to any ideology, philosophy, or theology is at least as important as its principles and teachings. Needs. Motives. Personality. Given a choice, I'd rather spend time with, say, a Catholic who's willing to ask questions and tolerate dissent than with a feminist who isn't. Put another way: Some people like to blow things up. They're going to blow things up no matter what. Some of them get jobs that involve legally blowing things up: building highways, urban renewal, bomber pilot . . . Some just do it; when they get caught, they tell the cops and the shrinks that they like to watch things go boom, and pretty soon they're in the loony bin. Some of them come up with some political explanation about how they're not just blowing things up, they're trying to overthrow the ruling class. When pressed to explain how blowing things up overthrows the ruling class or builds a revolutionary movement -- they tend to have a hard time being convincing. My unnamed characters have their reasons for shooting arrows into that particular real estate sign. They're also having a blast sneaking through the woods on a balmy May evening. Why are they really doing what they're doing? How about those who grab their example and run with it? Where is it going to end up? Damned if I know. I'm just the writer.
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