A Commentary on the Passing Scene by
Robert Paul Wolff
rwolff@afroam.umass.edu
Wednesday, November 30, 2022
ALMOST FAMOUS
I have just learned that In Defense of Anarchism will be translated into Arabic and published in Kuwait. I guess it is too much to hope that it will be translated into Farsi and published in Iran.
I am not sure that your essay In Defense Of Anarchism, with its emphasis on individual autonomy and resistance to authority is going to be a big hit in the Arab/Muslim world.
Along these lines, we are seeing reports of massive riots in China over its covid containment lock-down policy. Here, in the U.S., when people were complaining about the need to wear covid protection masks and taking other precautions, many of us were critical of those who protested that these measures violated their right to individual liberty. We condemned them for repudiating the social contract and disregarding our responsibility to others by taking measures to curtail the transmission of the virus. Query: Are the Chinese who are rioting subject to the same criticism, or has China crossed a line that divides individual liberty from social responsibility?
The standard answer, which will get you an A in any freshman course, is that the U.S. government has democratic legitimacy and thus can order people to wear a mask and the Chinese government, being a dictatorship, is not democratic and thus, not legitimate and thus, has no right to order people around.
However, in the real world everybody has their favorite rioters. The American left defends the rioters after the murder of George Floyd and obviously condemns the pro-Trump rioters in Washington. Vice versa for the right. In Chile the left defends Mapuche Native-American protesters who block highways (and even burn lumber trucks) and condemns rightwing truckers who go on strike, blocking highways to get fuel prices subsidized and more police protection. Here too vice versa for the right.
It all depends on which team you are on. I'm on the team that defends the riots after the murder of George Floyd and condemns the riots in Washington D.C.
As is said, one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist.
It is misleading to say that "the left" --tout court-- defends the rioters after the murder of George Floyd.
I certainly do not. Spasms of violence against property after the police murder of a Black person are understandable expressions of frustration (and in some instances simple greed for the consumer goods looted), but those on the left who decry the racist murders that ignite the rioting need not, and many do not, condone that rioting. It is counter-productive and muddies the message that must be sent about racist policing in America.
By contrast, virtually no one on the right has genuinely and sincerely condemned the January 6th insurrection and called for the swift and severe punishment of the perpetrators.
I fear that your comment, Marc, is a case of "bothsides-ism."
Interesting answer, but it avoids the specific question I raised. And actually I do not believe that appealing to a supreme deity provides the answer. If Americans, and/or Chileans, rioted against health measures imposed by their democratic governments, would you support or condemn the rioters? Would your answer change regarding the Chinese rioters just because China is not a democratic government? Does one’s obligation to be socially responsible depend on the form of government one lives under? In Defense of Anarchism, Prof. Wolff maintains that exercising one’s individual autonomy is a moral duty (I believe I got that right, Prof. Wolff?) In the case of a covid pandemic, how does one’s individual autonomy stack up against one social responsibility to curtail the spread of a deadly virus?
This question has wider implications. For example, after the U.S. invaded Iraq and inter-religious violence broke out, some opined that Iraq was in fact better off under Hussein’s tyranny, since he was able to control and prevent such violence using the brutal methods of his iron fist.
" In the case of a covid pandemic, how does one’s individual autonomy stack up against one social responsibility to curtail the spread of a deadly virus?"
Marc, your question is apples and oranges. Masks are also ubiquitous in Japan and Singapore, etc. and besides the point. China does massive and very intrusive lock downs that besides screwing up individuals' lives also has/will have serious short and long term economic consequences for the Chinese Economy. China also refuses to use the effective vaccines and meds developed in the US and Europe. The underlying background, of course, is an authoritarian, imperialist nation that under Xi seems to be reverting to some flavor of Maoism/Stalinism. Also peasant revolts against governmental corruption and oppression dates to before the Han Dynasty.
There is no comparison with how China is dealing with Covid and how the US, Europe, etc. dealt. BTW, I hope you all are up to date on vaccinations.
The opposition here was mainly wing nuts and snowflakes who preferred horse meds to vaccines. BTW, vaccinations for the usual common diseases are way down in Republican majority areas.
Re: Floyd "riots." Way most of the demonstrations were peaceful, First Amendment things. Also, there were far right agents provocateurs in a few cases causing damage and setting fires as well as the usual opportunists smashing and looting. In other cases (e.g. New York) the violence was provoked by the police. Like the crime coverage prior to the recent midterms, the media used a few instances and a lot of B-roll to roil the rubes.
As Leiter put it at the time, we really don’t know whether George Floyd was killed because he was black, rather than because he came from a poor, marginalised background, which is the category that best correlates with police violence in the US, in fact. Moreover, it is worth noting that Floyd’s race was not a factor in the trial of the police officers who killed him. We really don’t know whether it was a ‘racist murder’.
I acknowledge that China’s measures to deal with the covid pandemic in China are more draconian than those which were initiated in the U.S. and elsewhere (except I recall that Great Britain also imposed some rather severe measures, which ignited protests there). However, the pandemic conditions in China are also different from the conditions elsewhere, i.e., a much larger population, with higher density contact distances, making transmissibility of the virus easier. If China’s assessment of the higher risk there than in the U.S. is accurate, then why would the resistance of their population not be deserving of the same condemnation you are willing to apply to America’s covid deniers, under less taxing circumstances?
I am starting to experience the angst I assume that my parents experienced as they aged, and saw the obituaries of celebrities from their youth. Christine McVie of Fleetwood Mac has passed away, at the age of 79.
The Chinese leadership has been trying to push for more social responsibility in the last two decades by instructing its population to embrace Confucianism a great deal more. The only problem with that is that a lot of Confucius texts talk about the Mandate of Heaven & how rulers should be deposed if they fail to please the people they rule over.
"As is said, one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist."
You're a hero on one side of the river & considered a criminal on the other.
This publication in Kuwait and the translation into Arabic must be highly appreciated. The number of books published in this language area is extremely much lower than in the West. There were five times more books published in Greek in 2016 than in the entire Arabic-speaking world in the same period. If you consider that almost 20% of them are religious literature, it is a miracle that they print the book of an atheist who is also an American.
ps. If one takes the Arabic literature of the Mediterranean states out of the calculation (thus from Morocco to the Lebanon) the number of the publications sinks extremely).
To be frank, I'd be very concerned if Chileans rioted against health measures imposed by the authorities.
First of all, because I'd be directed affected since I am 76 and am much more likely to become seriously ill from or to die from a pandemic than younger people who riot.
Second of all, because I voted for the current Chilean government (in fact, I voted for Boric in the primaries, in the first round and in the run-off) and still support it and so I am opposed to protests against his government.
Third, I live in downtown Santiago, which is the area where almost all protest marches and riots take place and thus, they affect my quality of life. For example, during the months of violent demonstrations with looting and arson that took place in 2019, I was once unable to go to see my cardiologist because subway stations were closed and the taxi I then tried to take was unable to pass various obstacles, kids throwing stones, cops firing tear gas, etc. Several times I've had to walk long distances to reach my home because the subway was closed due to violent demonstrations. They close the subway because in 2019 many subway stations were totally trashed by demonstrators.
Do I care about rioting in China? Not much.
Do I sometimes care about what occurs in faroff countries? Sometimes, yes.
Do I believe that exercising one's individual autonomy is a moral duty, as you claim that Professor Wolff does? No, I don't believe much in moral duties. I am a fairly autonomous person and that's a personality trait, which I believe I inherited from both of my parents.
You have over-personalized my inquiry about the conflict between self-autonomy and social responsibility. In prior comments, if memory serves, you have indicated that empathy for others is an essential human characteristic. So why not empathize with the plight of the Chinese protesters?
aaall,
Thank you for your reference to the Supreme Court decision in Jacobson v. Massachusetts (1905), in which the Supreme Court sustained the constitutionality of a compulsory vaccination statute enacted by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. A Massachusetts resident/citizen refused to be vaccinated and was prosecuted for violating the statute. The defendant challenged the constitutionality of the statute as violating his right to liberty under the 14th Amendment. The Supreme Court of Massachusetts rejected his argument and he took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. The U.S. S. Ct. affirmed the constitutionality of the statute, stating:
“We are not prepared to hold that a minority, residing or remaining in any city or town where smallpox is prevalent, and enjoying the general protection afforded by an organized local government, may thus defy the will of its constituted authorities, actin in good faith for all, under the legislative sanction of the State. If such be the privilege of a minority then a like privilege would belong to each individual of the community, and the spectacle would be presented of the welfare and safety of an entire population being subordinated to the notions of a single individual who chooses to remain a part of that population. We are unwilling to hold it to be an element in the liberty secured by the Constitution of the United States that one person, or a minority of persons, residing in any community and enjoying the benefits of its local government should have the power thus to dominate the majority when supported in their action by the authority of the State.” This statement juxtaposes the rights of the individual against majority rule of the State. In this context, the Supreme Court’s decision upholding the police power of the State to protect the health of the majority may be regarded as sensible and acceptable. But what if the individual right at issue is the right to refuse to serve in the military during a draft; or the right of a transgender student to use the bathroom of his/her preferred gender identity?
Contrast the decision in Jacobson with the decision issued earlier this year in National Federation of Independent Business v. Department of Labor (June 13,2022), in which the Supreme Court held that the vaccination mandate issued by OSHA to curtail the spread of the covid virus was unconstitutional. The Court stated:
“On the one hand, OSHA claims the power to issue a nationwide mandate on a major question but cannot trace its authority to do so to any clear congressional mandate. On the other hand, if the statutory subsection the agency cites really did endow OSHA with the power it asserts, that law would likely constitute an unconstitutional delegation of legislative authority. Under OSHA’s reading, the law would afford it almost unlimited discretion – and certainly impose no ‘specific restrictions’ that ‘meaningfully constrai[n]’ the agency. … OSHA would become little more than a ‘roving commission to inquire into evils, and upon discovery correct them.’” (Citations omitted.)
How to reconcile the two decisions? The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, through its legislature which represents the will of the majority has the constitutional authority to compel vaccinations for the protection of the health of the majority. OSHA, by contrast, does not have that authority unless the statute voted on by a majority of the Congress creating the agency specifically authorized a vaccine mandate. General language describing the scope of OSHA’s authority was not sufficient.
The above represents a legal answer to my question regarding balancing individual autonomy with social responsibility, and the legal answer depends on the constitutional and statutory authority of the entity which is doing the balancing. But my question was broader than just a legal question. My question goes to the question of balancing one’s moral obligation to asserting one’s own autonomy – regardless what the law says – and one social responsibility. Do we have any social responsibility that takes precedence over our individual autonomy?
In “In Defense Of Anarchism,” Prof. Wolff writes:
“The responsible man is not capricious or anarchic, for he does acknowledge himself bound by moral constraints. But he insists that he alone is the judge of those constraints. He may listen to the advice of others, but he makes it his own by determining for himself whether it is good advice. He may learn from others about his moral obligations, but only in the sense that a mathematician learns from other mathematicians — namely by hearing from them arguments whose validity he recognizes even though he did not think of them himself. He does not learn in the sense that one learns from an explorer, by accepting as true his accounts of things one cannot see for oneself.
“Since the responsible man arrives at moral decisions which he expresses to himself in the form of imperatives, we may say that he gives laws to himself, or is self-legislating. In short, he is autonomous. As Kant argued, moral autonomy is a combination of freedom and responsibility; it is a submission to laws which one has made for oneself. The autonomous man, insofar as he is autonomous, is not subject to the will of another. He may do what another tells him, but not because he has been told to do it. He is therefore, in the political sense of the word, free.
“Since man’s responsibility for his actions is a consequence of his capacity for choice, he cannot give it up or put it aside. He can refuse to acknowledge it, however, either deliberately or by simply failing to recognize his moral condition. All men refuse to take responsibility for their actions at some time or other during their lives, and some men so consistently shirk their duty that they present more the appearance of overgrown children than of adults. Inasmuch as moral autonomy is simply the condition of taking full responsibility for one’s actions, it follows that men can forfeit their autonomy at will. That is to say, a man can decide to obey the commands of another without making any attempt to determine for himself whether what is commanded is good or wise.
“This is an important point, and it should not be confused with the false assertion that a man can give up responsibility for his actions. Even after he has subjected himself to the will of another, an individual remains responsible for what he does. But by refusing to engage in moral deliberation, by accepting as final the commands of the others, he forfeits his autonomy. Rousseau is therefore right when he says that a man cannot become a slave even through his own choice, if he means that even slaves are morally responsible for their acts. But he is wrong if he means that men cannot place themselves voluntarily in a position of servitude and mindless obedience.”
How does the balance between individual autonomy and social responsibility in the context of government issued covid regulations get resolved in the context of one’s right – indeed one’s duty - to individual autonomy as set forth in Prof. Wolff’s essay? Does a Chinese protester who has examined his conscience and determines that it would be immoral for him/her to forfeit his/her autonomy to the dictates of the Chinese government, regardless the potential effects on his/her fellow countrymen/women, make a defensible moral choice?
Anonymous Nov 30 3:32pm: As Leiter put it at the time, we really don’t know whether George Floyd was killed because he was black, rather than because he came from a poor, marginalised background, which is the category that best correlates with police violence in the US, in fact.
Leiter approvingly cites an essay by Adolph Reed that argues that too much is being made of racism as a factor in police brutality and that the real problem is police misconduct in interactions with the poor. https://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2020/06/racial-disparity-does-not-help-make-sense-of-patterns-of-police-violence.html
But a recent census data-based study by Justin Feldman examining rates of police killings in terms of race and class found that less than a third of the considerably higher level of police killings of blacks compared to whites could be explained by the higher levels of poverty among blacks.
By definition, empathy can only be expressed between human beings, not between human beings and government institutions. One can empathize with the human beings who implement the government policies, but not with the government itself. In this context, for whom should we have greater empathy – the Chinese protester who is seeking to assert his/her autonomy by rejecting the government’s stringent covid restrictions, even if it increases the risk of his/her fellow countrymen/women of contracting the virus; or the humans implementing the policy, such as Chairman Xi Jinping, who sees it as his duty to impose the stringent regulations as an expression of the protesters’ social responsibility to protect the health of their countrymen/women?
A recent study? The Feldman study is from June 2020, just like the Leiter post you link. And from the conclusion of the Feldman study, to quote in full:
"In addition to confirming previously documented racial/ethnic inequalities in the Unit ed States, the analyses above identify strong socio-economic inequalities in rates of police killings. Rates of police killings increase in tandem with census tract poverty for the overall population, and within the white, black, and Latino populations. For white people, the rate of police killings among the poorest fifth of census tracts (7.9 per million) is similar to the rate among black people in census tracts with the second-lowest poverty (i.e. the second quintile (sic); 7.7 per million). Higher poverty among the black population accounts for a meaningful, but relatively modest, portion of the black-white gap in police killing rates. In contrast, higher census tract poverty fully explained the Latino-white gap, and the police killing rate among Latinos was lower than expected given their relatively high rates of census tract poverty.
There are a few important limitations of these analyses to consider. First, census tract poverty is an imperfect proxy for individual socio-economic status, as the individual may not have lived in the area where the police killing occurred. Prior research suggests that a person is likely to spend time in areas that are similar socio-economically to the areas where they live.(note 7) However, it is possible that police target individuals precisely because officers view them as ‘not belonging’ in a community. Second, the analysis of census tract poverty’s contribution to racial/ethnic gaps in police shootings may be affected by mediator-outcome confounding including, for example, prior common causes of both poverty distribution and police killing rates such as geographic region. Finally, Latinos are a heterogeneous group that includes individuals of multiple racial backgrounds, and I was unable to explore how this may translate into differences in rates of police killings within the Latino population."
Don't see anything that refutes or doubts the points raised by Leiter/Reed.
I acknowledge that statistics, in and of themselves, may produce a mixed picture regarding police use of excessive force in the African-American community, versus in lower economic communities, and not indicate that the rate in the African-American community may be attributable to race, rather than socio-economic status. However, there are indications of racism which statistics may not reflect. For example, each police encounter is characterized by the degree of anger exhibited by the arresting officer(s); the degree of force used by the police in apprehending the accused; the provision, or lack thereof, of medical aid, and the speed with which it is provided. The statistics do not reflect these more subjective criteria, that can differentiate a race-based arrest from a socio-economic based arrest.
For example, in the George Floyd case, Derek Chauvin displayed a disturbing degree of indifference to George Floyd’s cries that he could not breathe. How many cases of arrests of poor whites displayed a comparable indifference, and how would one measure it? Similarly, the degree of force which was used in the effort to force George Floyd into the police vehicle may also represent anti-Black racism, rather than just socio-economic hostility. Are there statistics on the degree of force used in arrests of Blacks, versus arrests of poor whites? These considerations led me to believe that the mistreatment of George Floyd was in part attributable to anti-Black racism.
Isn't it possible that in some cases, such as that of George Floyd, the police act out of racism, but when you look at the majority of cases, the police merely show a hostility towards society's losers, people from low income groups of all races and ethnic origins?
Yes, I agree that is possible. But we cannot rely just on statistics in order to determine in which cases are there elements of Black racism, rather than social-economic bias. We have to examine the facts in each individual case - if a Caucasian police officer utters a racist term while arresting a Black suspect, and then beats the crap out of him/her, then the fact that anti-Black racism was a motive in the arrest becomes likely. As we are taught in law school, each case turns on the specific facts of that case, statistics notwithstanding.
The state prosecution of Derek Chauvin did not turn on whether his mistreatment of George Floyd was racially motivated. He was charged with using excessive force, resulting in George Floyd’s death. Whether his conduct was racially motivated was irrelevant.
Whether a crime is racially motivated plays a large role in the case of a federal prosecution for violating a victim’s civil rights. In a case which I have referred to previously on this blog, the Vincent Chin murder case, whether his killers, who beat Vincent Chin to death with a baseball bat in 1982, were racially motivated became a major issue in the case. In the Michigan trial court, they pled nolo contendere to manslaughter. At the sentencing hearing, the prosecutor failed to appear and the defense attorneys claimed that their clients had acted out of self-defense – a blatant lie, since Vincent Chin was unarmed. The sentencing judge sentenced the assailants to probation and a $3,000.00 fine. This sentence justifiably enraged the Asian community in Detroit, and they formed an organization named American Citizens for Justice (ACJ) to have the sentence overturned. I filed a writ for superintending control in the Michigan Supreme Court on behalf of ACJ, arguing that the defense attorneys had committed a fraud on the court by claiming their clients had acted in self-defense, and that because the prosecutor – the People’s representative – had failed to appear on behalf of the People, a private organization had the right to advocate for a re-sentencing. The Michigan Supreme Court denied the writ on the basis that private citizens do not have “standing” in criminal cases.
In the meantime, my colleague, Liza Chan, was engaged in gathering evidence to convince the DOJ to prosecute the assailants for violating Vincent Chin’s civil rights. She interviewed Vincent’s friends who had accompanied him to the strip bar where they were having a bachelor party one week before Vincent’s scheduled marriage. She interviewed the strippers at the bar regarding what they saw and heard prior to and during the argument which erupted at the bar between Vincent and two of the patrons, who turned out to be his assailants. One of the strippers reported that she remembered that Vincent and the two patrons started out having a friendly exchange, which began to get heated. She recalled Ronald Ebens, who was at the strip bar with his nephew, Michael Nitz, both laid-off auto workers due to the influx of Japanese vehicles in the U.S., yell at Vincent, “It’s because of you motherfuckers that we’re out of work.” This was sufficient evidence for the DOJ to conclude that their murder of Vincent was based on anti-Asian hatred, and that the murder violated Vincent’s civil rights. At the trial in federal court in Detroit, the stripper took the stand and testified to what she had heard. Ebens also testified, and the federal prosecutor succeeded in goading him into making statements which implicated his anti-Asian bias. Ebens was convicted; his nephew was acquitted.
On appeal, Ebens' attorneys subpoenaed tape recordings which Liza had made of her interviews, and argued to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals that she had improperly coached the witnesses. The 6th Circuit reversed the conviction and ordered a re-trial. The defense attorneys also move for a change of venue, and the case was reassigned to Cincinnati. On the re-trial, Ebens did not take the stand. The stripper’s testimony was the only evidence that his assault on Vincent was racially motivated. The jury acquitted. Apparently the jury felt it could not take the word of a stripper. As a result, two men got away with murder, and spent only a few weeks in jail while awaiting the sentencing.
This past summer, ACJ held a four-day commemoration of the 40th anniversary of Vincent Chin’s murder. I attended several of the sessions, including the showing of the documentary, “The Death Of Vincent Chin.” After the documentary was concluded, I went up to the stage to speak to some of my former associates who had worked on the case back in 1982-1983. As I was standing in front of the stage to speak with my former colleagues, an older gentleman who was standing next to me asked me who I was and whether I had any connection to the case. I told I did and how. He then handed me two copies of a letter and asked me to deliver one copy to Helen Zia, the President of ACJ. I agreed to do so, but asked him who he was and what the letter was about. He told me he was the son of the judge how had issued the sentence, and that he and his father had had a falling out of the lenient sentence. He said the his father’s decision haunted him over the years, and he wanted to make amends. His letter was a letter of apology to the Asian community.
Two years ago I was contacted by a woman in California. She indicted that she was an author of children’s books and wanted to write a book for teen-agers about the Vincent Chin case. She was coming to Michigan to meet with Liza Chan (who was hospitalized0 and wanted to meet with me to find out more about my role in the case. We arranged to meet at a conference room in a nearby hotel. We spoke for about two hours, and I provided her with a copy of the 105 page brief I have written in support of the writ for superintending control. She was accompanied by a photographer, to take my picture for the book. At one point the interviewer left the room to make some phone calls, and the photographer proceeded to take pictures of me. I asked him how he had gotten involved in the project, and he responded, “I am Vivian’s son.” The answer, at first, did not register with me, he saw the quizzical look on my face, and stated, “Vivian, Vincent’s fiancé.” My jaw dropped open. After Vincent was killed, his fiancé married one of Vincent’s friends. Her son told me that he did not know about his mother’s relationship with Vincent until he was a teen-ager and some of his friends asked him about the Vincent Chin murder. He then asked his mother, and she told him about her relationship with Vincent, something she tried not to talk about.
The problem with Xi's covid response wasn't the initial zero-covid policies (every country was more or less failing about), but the failure to move beyond it and implement vaccination policies using effective vaccines regardless of who developed and produced the vaccines.
Perhaps one problem with policing is allowing folks with only a H.S. diploma, a GED, or an A.A. to join up as well as hiring under ~25. I believe surveys have shown officers with a BA/BS are around 40% less inclined to use force.
In Chile we received the Chinese vaccine, Sinovac, in early 2021 before Pfizer was available. Sinovac radically reduced the possibility of death or hospitalization from the original Covid virus and lowered but did not eliminate the possibility of catching the virus without becoming seriously ill.
Since then, we've received booster from Pzifer and now the so-called bivalent Pfizer vaccine which give fairly good protection from the current variants of the Covid virus.
The question I have is that if the Chinese were capable of developing an effective vaccine against the original Covid virus, why haven't they developed a vaccine for Omicron and other current variants?
aaall said: I believe surveys have shown officers with a BA/BS are around 40% less inclined to use force
That may be the case but it doesn't nec. establish a causal relationship betw more formal education and more caution or responsibility in use of force. The causal factor could well be simply age. The older one gets, the less impulsive etc -- perhaps.
Good internal training would seem more important, at least to me, than the possession of a 4 yr degree. Really shdnt be nec. to be a competent, responsible police offer. High school diploma or associates degree shd be enough. What you do by increasing the formal educational requirements is exclude people who, with the proper training and mentoring, might make very good officers. And since excluding such people makes no sense, the 4 yr degree requirement also makes little to no sense - or so it seems to me.
Prof. Wolff,
ReplyDeleteI am not sure that your essay In Defense Of Anarchism, with its emphasis on individual autonomy and resistance to authority is going to be a big hit in the Arab/Muslim world.
Along these lines, we are seeing reports of massive riots in China over its covid containment lock-down policy. Here, in the U.S., when people were complaining about the need to wear covid protection masks and taking other precautions, many of us were critical of those who protested that these measures violated their right to individual liberty. We condemned them for repudiating the social contract and disregarding our responsibility to others by taking measures to curtail the transmission of the virus. Query: Are the Chinese who are rioting subject to the same criticism, or has China crossed a line that divides individual liberty from social responsibility?
I almost never agree with you, Marc, but I do like your question!!!
ReplyDeleteAnonymous,
ReplyDeleteThank you.
What's your answer?
Marc,
ReplyDeleteThe standard answer, which will get you an A in any freshman course, is that the U.S. government has democratic legitimacy and thus can order people to wear a mask and the Chinese government, being a dictatorship, is not democratic and thus, not legitimate and thus, has no right to order people around.
However, in the real world everybody has their favorite rioters. The American left defends the rioters after the murder of George Floyd and obviously condemns the pro-Trump rioters in Washington. Vice versa for the right. In Chile the left defends Mapuche Native-American protesters who block highways (and even burn lumber trucks) and condemns rightwing truckers who go on strike, blocking highways to get fuel prices subsidized and more police protection. Here too vice versa for the right.
It all depends on which team you are on. I'm on the team that defends the riots after the murder of George Floyd and condemns the riots in Washington D.C.
As is said, one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist.
It is misleading to say that "the left" --tout court-- defends the rioters after the murder of George Floyd.
ReplyDeleteI certainly do not. Spasms of violence against property after the police murder of a Black person are understandable expressions of frustration (and in some instances simple greed for the consumer goods looted), but those on the left who decry the racist murders that ignite the rioting need not, and many do not, condone that rioting. It is counter-productive and muddies the message that must be sent about racist policing in America.
By contrast, virtually no one on the right has genuinely and sincerely condemned the January 6th insurrection and called for the swift and severe punishment of the perpetrators.
I fear that your comment, Marc, is a case of "bothsides-ism."
s. wallerstein,
ReplyDeleteInteresting answer, but it avoids the specific question I raised. And actually I do not believe that appealing to a supreme deity provides the answer. If Americans, and/or Chileans, rioted against health measures imposed by their democratic governments, would you support or condemn the rioters? Would your answer change regarding the Chinese rioters just because China is not a democratic government? Does one’s obligation to be socially responsible depend on the form of government one lives under? In Defense of Anarchism, Prof. Wolff maintains that exercising one’s individual autonomy is a moral duty (I believe I got that right, Prof. Wolff?) In the case of a covid pandemic, how does one’s individual autonomy stack up against one social responsibility to curtail the spread of a deadly virus?
This question has wider implications. For example, after the U.S. invaded Iraq and inter-religious violence broke out, some opined that Iraq was in fact better off under Hussein’s tyranny, since he was able to control and prevent such violence using the brutal methods of his iron fist.
" In the case of a covid pandemic, how does one’s individual autonomy stack up against one social responsibility to curtail the spread of a deadly virus?"
ReplyDeletehttps://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/197/11
Marc, your question is apples and oranges. Masks are also ubiquitous in Japan and Singapore, etc. and besides the point. China does massive and very intrusive lock downs that besides screwing up individuals' lives also has/will have serious short and long term economic consequences for the Chinese Economy. China also refuses to use the effective vaccines and meds developed in the US and Europe. The underlying background, of course, is an authoritarian, imperialist nation that under Xi seems to be reverting to some flavor of Maoism/Stalinism. Also peasant revolts against governmental corruption and oppression dates to before the Han Dynasty.
There is no comparison with how China is dealing with Covid and how the US, Europe, etc. dealt. BTW, I hope you all are up to date on vaccinations.
The opposition here was mainly wing nuts and snowflakes who preferred horse meds to vaccines. BTW, vaccinations for the usual common diseases are way down in Republican majority areas.
Re: Floyd "riots." Way most of the demonstrations were peaceful, First Amendment things. Also, there were far right agents provocateurs in a few cases causing damage and setting fires as well as the usual opportunists smashing and looting. In other cases (e.g. New York) the violence was provoked by the police. Like the crime coverage prior to the recent midterms, the media used a few instances and a lot of B-roll to roil the rubes.
As Leiter put it at the time, we really don’t know whether George Floyd was killed because he was black, rather than because he came from a poor, marginalised background, which is the category that best correlates with police violence in the US, in fact. Moreover, it is worth noting that Floyd’s race was not a factor in the trial of the police officers who killed him. We really don’t know whether it was a ‘racist murder’.
ReplyDeleteaaall,
ReplyDeleteI acknowledge that China’s measures to deal with the covid pandemic in China are more draconian than those which were initiated in the U.S. and elsewhere (except I recall that Great Britain also imposed some rather severe measures, which ignited protests there). However, the pandemic conditions in China are also different from the conditions elsewhere, i.e., a much larger population, with higher density contact distances, making transmissibility of the virus easier. If China’s assessment of the higher risk there than in the U.S. is accurate, then why would the resistance of their population not be deserving of the same condemnation you are willing to apply to America’s covid deniers, under less taxing circumstances?
I am starting to experience the angst I assume that my parents experienced as they aged, and saw the obituaries of celebrities from their youth. Christine McVie of Fleetwood Mac has passed away, at the age of 79.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xg1t-fqhbf8
Neither in the US nor in the UK were the restrictions as strict as in some countries in Europe, most notably in Italy, Spain or France.
ReplyDeleteThe Chinese leadership has been trying to push for more social responsibility in the last two decades by instructing its population to embrace Confucianism a great deal more. The only problem with that is that a lot of Confucius texts talk about the Mandate of Heaven & how rulers should be deposed if they fail to please the people they rule over.
ReplyDelete"As is said, one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist."
You're a hero on one side of the river & considered a criminal on the other.
The philosopher Christian Wolff realized the significance of Confucianism & tried to promote its ethical message.
ReplyDeleteThis publication in Kuwait and the translation into Arabic must be highly appreciated. The number of books published in this language area is extremely much lower than in the West. There were five times more books published in Greek in 2016 than in the entire Arabic-speaking world in the same period. If you consider that almost 20% of them are religious literature, it is a miracle that they print the book of an atheist who is also an American.
ReplyDeleteps. If one takes the Arabic literature of the Mediterranean states out of the calculation (thus from Morocco to the Lebanon) the number of the publications sinks extremely).
Marc,
ReplyDeleteTo be frank, I'd be very concerned if Chileans rioted against health measures imposed by the authorities.
First of all, because I'd be directed affected since I am 76 and am much more likely to become seriously ill from or to die from a pandemic than younger people who riot.
Second of all, because I voted for the current Chilean government (in fact, I voted for Boric in the primaries, in the first round and in the run-off) and still support it and so I am opposed to protests against his government.
Third, I live in downtown Santiago, which is the area where almost all protest marches and riots take place and thus, they affect my quality of life. For example, during the months of violent demonstrations with looting and arson that took place in 2019, I was once unable to go to see my cardiologist because subway stations were closed and the taxi I then tried to take was unable to pass various obstacles, kids throwing stones, cops firing tear gas, etc. Several times I've had to walk long distances to reach my home because the subway was closed due to violent demonstrations. They close the subway because in 2019 many subway stations were totally trashed by demonstrators.
Do I care about rioting in China? Not much.
Do I sometimes care about what occurs in faroff countries? Sometimes, yes.
Do I believe that exercising one's individual autonomy is a moral duty, as you claim that
Professor Wolff does? No, I don't believe much in moral duties. I am a fairly autonomous person and that's a personality trait, which I believe I inherited from both of my parents.
s. wallerstein,
ReplyDeleteYou have over-personalized my inquiry about the conflict between self-autonomy and social responsibility. In prior comments, if memory serves, you have indicated that empathy for others is an essential human characteristic. So why not empathize with the plight of the Chinese protesters?
aaall,
Thank you for your reference to the Supreme Court decision in Jacobson v. Massachusetts (1905), in which the Supreme Court sustained the constitutionality of a compulsory vaccination statute enacted by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. A Massachusetts resident/citizen refused to be vaccinated and was prosecuted for violating the statute. The defendant challenged the constitutionality of the statute as violating his right to liberty under the 14th Amendment. The Supreme Court of Massachusetts rejected his argument and he took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. The U.S. S. Ct. affirmed the constitutionality of the statute, stating:
“We are not prepared to hold that a minority, residing or remaining in any city or town where smallpox is prevalent, and enjoying the general protection afforded by an organized local government, may thus defy the will of its constituted authorities, actin in good faith for all, under the legislative sanction of the State. If such be the privilege of a minority then a like privilege would belong to each individual of the community, and the spectacle would be presented of the welfare and safety of an entire population being subordinated to the notions of a single individual who chooses to remain a part of that population. We are unwilling to hold it to be an element in the liberty secured by the Constitution of the United States that one person, or a minority of persons, residing in any community and enjoying the benefits of its local government should have the power thus to dominate the majority when supported in their action by the authority of the State.” This statement juxtaposes the rights of the individual against majority rule of the State. In this context, the Supreme Court’s decision upholding the police power of the State to protect the health of the majority may be regarded as sensible and acceptable. But what if the individual right at issue is the right to refuse to serve in the military during a draft; or the right of a transgender student to use the bathroom of his/her preferred gender identity?
Contrast the decision in Jacobson with the decision issued earlier this year in National Federation of Independent Business v. Department of Labor (June 13,2022), in which the Supreme Court held that the vaccination mandate issued by OSHA to curtail the spread of the covid virus was unconstitutional. The Court stated:
“On the one hand, OSHA claims the power to issue a nationwide mandate on a major question but cannot trace its authority to do so to any clear congressional mandate. On the other hand, if the statutory subsection the agency cites really did endow OSHA with the power it asserts, that law would likely constitute an unconstitutional delegation of legislative authority. Under OSHA’s reading, the law would afford it almost unlimited discretion – and certainly impose no ‘specific restrictions’ that ‘meaningfully constrai[n]’ the agency. … OSHA would become little more than a ‘roving commission to inquire into evils, and upon discovery correct them.’” (Citations omitted.)
How to reconcile the two decisions? The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, through its legislature which represents the will of the majority has the constitutional authority to compel vaccinations for the protection of the health of the majority. OSHA, by contrast, does not have that authority unless the statute voted on by a majority of the Congress creating the agency specifically authorized a vaccine mandate. General language describing the scope of OSHA’s authority was not sufficient.
(Continued)
The above represents a legal answer to my question regarding balancing individual autonomy with social responsibility, and the legal answer depends on the constitutional and statutory authority of the entity which is doing the balancing. But my question was broader than just a legal question. My question goes to the question of balancing one’s moral obligation to asserting one’s own autonomy – regardless what the law says – and one social responsibility. Do we have any social responsibility that takes precedence over our individual autonomy?
ReplyDeleteIn “In Defense Of Anarchism,” Prof. Wolff writes:
“The responsible man is not capricious or anarchic, for he does acknowledge himself bound by moral constraints. But he insists that he alone is the judge of those constraints. He may listen to the advice of others, but he makes it his own by determining for himself whether it is good advice. He may learn from others about his moral obligations, but only in the sense that a mathematician learns from other mathematicians — namely by hearing from them arguments whose validity he recognizes even though he did not think of them himself. He does not learn in the sense that one learns from an explorer, by accepting as true his accounts of things one cannot see for oneself.
“Since the responsible man arrives at moral decisions which he expresses to himself in the form of imperatives, we may say that he gives laws to himself, or is self-legislating. In short, he is autonomous. As Kant argued, moral autonomy is a combination of freedom and responsibility; it is a submission to laws which one has made for oneself. The autonomous man, insofar as he is autonomous, is not subject to the will of another. He may do what another tells him, but not because he has been told to do it. He is therefore, in the political sense of the word, free.
“Since man’s responsibility for his actions is a consequence of his capacity for choice, he cannot give it up or put it aside. He can refuse to acknowledge it, however, either deliberately or by simply failing to recognize his moral condition. All men refuse to take responsibility for their actions at some time or other during their lives, and some men so consistently shirk their duty that they present more the appearance of overgrown children than of adults. Inasmuch as moral autonomy is simply the condition of taking full responsibility for one’s actions, it follows that men can forfeit their autonomy at will. That is to say, a man can decide to obey the commands of another without making any attempt to determine for himself whether what is commanded is good or wise.
“This is an important point, and it should not be confused with the false assertion that a man can give up responsibility for his actions. Even after he has subjected himself to the will of another, an individual remains responsible for what he does. But by refusing to engage in moral deliberation, by accepting as final the commands of the others, he forfeits his autonomy. Rousseau is therefore right when he says that a man cannot become a slave even through his own choice, if he means that even slaves are morally responsible for their acts. But he is wrong if he means that men cannot place themselves voluntarily in a position of servitude and mindless obedience.”
How does the balance between individual autonomy and social responsibility in the context of government issued covid regulations get resolved in the context of one’s right – indeed one’s duty - to individual autonomy as set forth in Prof. Wolff’s essay? Does a Chinese protester who has examined his conscience and determines that it would be immoral for him/her to forfeit his/her autonomy to the dictates of the Chinese government, regardless the potential effects on his/her fellow countrymen/women, make a defensible moral choice?
Marc,
ReplyDeleteIf one is into empathy, why not empathize with the Chinese government?
Anonymous Nov 30 3:32pm: As Leiter put it at the time, we really don’t know whether George Floyd was killed because he was black, rather than because he came from a poor, marginalised background, which is the category that best correlates with police violence in the US, in fact.
ReplyDeleteLeiter approvingly cites an essay by Adolph Reed that argues that too much is being made of racism as a factor in police brutality and that the real problem is police misconduct in interactions with the poor.
https://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2020/06/racial-disparity-does-not-help-make-sense-of-patterns-of-police-violence.html
But a recent census data-based study by Justin Feldman examining rates of police killings in terms of race and class found that less than a third of the considerably higher level of police killings of blacks compared to whites could be explained by the higher levels of poverty among blacks.
https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/PoliceKillings.pdf
https://jacobin.com/2020/06/police-killings-black-white-poverty
s. wallerstein,
ReplyDeleteBy definition, empathy can only be expressed between human beings, not between human beings and government institutions. One can empathize with the human beings who implement the government policies, but not with the government itself. In this context, for whom should we have greater empathy – the Chinese protester who is seeking to assert his/her autonomy by rejecting the government’s stringent covid restrictions, even if it increases the risk of his/her fellow countrymen/women of contracting the virus; or the humans implementing the policy, such as Chairman Xi Jinping, who sees it as his duty to impose the stringent regulations as an expression of the protesters’ social responsibility to protect the health of their countrymen/women?
Eric,
ReplyDeleteA recent study? The Feldman study is from June 2020, just like the Leiter post you link. And from the conclusion of the Feldman study, to quote in full:
"In addition to confirming previously documented racial/ethnic inequalities in the Unit ed States, the analyses above identify strong socio-economic inequalities in rates of police killings. Rates of police killings increase in tandem with census tract poverty for the overall population, and within the white, black, and Latino populations. For white people, the rate of police killings among the poorest fifth
of census tracts (7.9 per million) is similar to the rate among black people in census tracts with the second-lowest poverty (i.e. the second quintile (sic); 7.7 per million). Higher poverty among the black population accounts for a meaningful, but relatively modest, portion of the black-white gap in police killing rates. In contrast, higher census tract poverty fully explained the Latino-white gap, and the police killing rate among Latinos was lower than expected given their relatively high rates of census tract poverty.
There are a few important limitations of these analyses to consider. First, census tract poverty is an imperfect proxy for individual socio-economic status, as the individual may not have lived in the area where the police killing occurred. Prior research suggests that a person is likely to spend time in areas that are similar socio-economically to the areas where they live.(note 7) However, it is possible that
police target individuals precisely because officers view them as ‘not belonging’ in a community. Second, the analysis of census tract poverty’s contribution to racial/ethnic gaps in police shootings may be affected by mediator-outcome confounding including, for example, prior common causes of both poverty distribution and police killing rates such as geographic region. Finally, Latinos are a heterogeneous group that includes individuals of multiple racial backgrounds, and I was unable to explore how this may translate into differences in rates of police killings within the
Latino population."
Don't see anything that refutes or doubts the points raised by Leiter/Reed.
Eric, Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteI acknowledge that statistics, in and of themselves, may produce a mixed picture regarding police use of excessive force in the African-American community, versus in lower economic communities, and not indicate that the rate in the African-American community may be attributable to race, rather than socio-economic status. However, there are indications of racism which statistics may not reflect. For example, each police encounter is characterized by the degree of anger exhibited by the arresting officer(s); the degree of force used by the police in apprehending the accused; the provision, or lack thereof, of medical aid, and the speed with which it is provided. The statistics do not reflect these more subjective criteria, that can differentiate a race-based arrest from a socio-economic based arrest.
For example, in the George Floyd case, Derek Chauvin displayed a disturbing degree of indifference to George Floyd’s cries that he could not breathe. How many cases of arrests of poor whites displayed a comparable indifference, and how would one measure it? Similarly, the degree of force which was used in the effort to force George Floyd into the police vehicle may also represent anti-Black racism, rather than just socio-economic hostility. Are there statistics on the degree of force used in arrests of Blacks, versus arrests of poor whites? These considerations led me to believe that the mistreatment of George Floyd was in part attributable to anti-Black racism.
Marc,
ReplyDeleteIsn't it possible that in some cases, such as that of George Floyd, the police act out of racism, but when you look at the majority of cases, the police merely show a hostility towards society's losers, people from low income groups of all races and ethnic origins?
s. wallerstien,
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree that is possible. But we cannot rely just on statistics in order to determine in which cases are there elements of Black racism, rather than social-economic bias. We have to examine the facts in each individual case - if a Caucasian police officer utters a racist term while arresting a Black suspect, and then beats the crap out of him/her, then the fact that anti-Black racism was a motive in the arrest becomes likely. As we are taught in law school, each case turns on the specific facts of that case, statistics notwithstanding.
Post-script:
ReplyDeleteThe state prosecution of Derek Chauvin did not turn on whether his mistreatment of George Floyd was racially motivated. He was charged with using excessive force, resulting in George Floyd’s death. Whether his conduct was racially motivated was irrelevant.
Whether a crime is racially motivated plays a large role in the case of a federal prosecution for violating a victim’s civil rights. In a case which I have referred to previously on this blog, the Vincent Chin murder case, whether his killers, who beat Vincent Chin to death with a baseball bat in 1982, were racially motivated became a major issue in the case. In the Michigan trial court, they pled nolo contendere to manslaughter. At the sentencing hearing, the prosecutor failed to appear and the defense attorneys claimed that their clients had acted out of self-defense – a blatant lie, since Vincent Chin was unarmed. The sentencing judge sentenced the assailants to probation and a $3,000.00 fine. This sentence justifiably enraged the Asian community in Detroit, and they formed an organization named American Citizens for Justice (ACJ) to have the sentence overturned. I filed a writ for superintending control in the Michigan Supreme Court on behalf of ACJ, arguing that the defense attorneys had committed a fraud on the court by claiming their clients had acted in self-defense, and that because the prosecutor – the People’s representative – had failed to appear on behalf of the People, a private organization had the right to advocate for a re-sentencing. The Michigan Supreme Court denied the writ on the basis that private citizens do not have “standing” in criminal cases.
In the meantime, my colleague, Liza Chan, was engaged in gathering evidence to convince the DOJ to prosecute the assailants for violating Vincent Chin’s civil rights. She interviewed Vincent’s friends who had accompanied him to the strip bar where they were having a bachelor party one week before Vincent’s scheduled marriage. She interviewed the strippers at the bar regarding what they saw and heard prior to and during the argument which erupted at the bar between Vincent and two of the patrons, who turned out to be his assailants. One of the strippers reported that she remembered that Vincent and the two patrons started out having a friendly exchange, which began to get heated. She recalled Ronald Ebens, who was at the strip bar with his nephew, Michael Nitz, both laid-off auto workers due to the influx of Japanese vehicles in the U.S., yell at Vincent, “It’s because of you motherfuckers that we’re out of work.” This was sufficient evidence for the DOJ to conclude that their murder of Vincent was based on anti-Asian hatred, and that the murder violated Vincent’s civil rights. At the trial in federal court in Detroit, the stripper took the stand and testified to what she had heard. Ebens also testified, and the federal prosecutor succeeded in goading him into making statements which implicated his anti-Asian bias. Ebens was convicted; his nephew was acquitted.
On appeal, Ebens' attorneys subpoenaed tape recordings which Liza had made of her interviews, and argued to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals that she had improperly coached the witnesses. The 6th Circuit reversed the conviction and ordered a re-trial. The defense attorneys also move for a change of venue, and the case was reassigned to Cincinnati. On the re-trial, Ebens did not take the stand. The stripper’s testimony was the only evidence that his assault on Vincent was racially motivated. The jury acquitted. Apparently the jury felt it could not take the word of a stripper. As a result, two men got away with murder, and spent only a few weeks in jail while awaiting the sentencing.
Post-script:
ReplyDeleteThis past summer, ACJ held a four-day commemoration of the 40th anniversary of Vincent Chin’s murder. I attended several of the sessions, including the showing of the documentary, “The Death Of Vincent Chin.” After the documentary was concluded, I went up to the stage to speak to some of my former associates who had worked on the case back in 1982-1983. As I was standing in front of the stage to speak with my former colleagues, an older gentleman who was standing next to me asked me who I was and whether I had any connection to the case. I told I did and how. He then handed me two copies of a letter and asked me to deliver one copy to Helen Zia, the President of ACJ. I agreed to do so, but asked him who he was and what the letter was about. He told me he was the son of the judge how had issued the sentence, and that he and his father had had a falling out of the lenient sentence. He said the his father’s decision haunted him over the years, and he wanted to make amends. His letter was a letter of apology to the Asian community.
Post-post-script:
ReplyDeleteTwo years ago I was contacted by a woman in California. She indicted that she was an author of children’s books and wanted to write a book for teen-agers about the Vincent Chin case. She was coming to Michigan to meet with Liza Chan (who was hospitalized0 and wanted to meet with me to find out more about my role in the case. We arranged to meet at a conference room in a nearby hotel. We spoke for about two hours, and I provided her with a copy of the 105 page brief I have written in support of the writ for superintending control. She was accompanied by a photographer, to take my picture for the book. At one point the interviewer left the room to make some phone calls, and the photographer proceeded to take pictures of me. I asked him how he had gotten involved in the project, and he responded, “I am Vivian’s son.” The answer, at first, did not register with me, he saw the quizzical look on my face, and stated, “Vivian, Vincent’s fiancé.” My jaw dropped open. After Vincent was killed, his fiancé married one of Vincent’s friends. Her son told me that he did not know about his mother’s relationship with Vincent until he was a teen-ager and some of his friends asked him about the Vincent Chin murder. He then asked his mother, and she told him about her relationship with Vincent, something she tried not to talk about.
Marc, may be of interest:
ReplyDeletehttps://twitter.com/AkivaMCohen/status/1598487532764798983?cxt=HHwWjoCxhaT8-64sAAAA
Seems like Musk has some problems.
The problem with Xi's covid response wasn't the initial zero-covid policies (every country was more or less failing about), but the failure to move beyond it and implement vaccination policies using effective vaccines regardless of who developed and produced the vaccines.
https://balloon-juice.com/2022/11/30/guest-post-the-coronavirus-sparked-protests-in-china/
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2022/12/01/xi-jinpings-zero-covid-policy-has-turned-a-health-crisis-into-a-political-one
https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/12/china-is-stuck-in-a-covid-19-trap/
Perhaps one problem with policing is allowing folks with only a H.S. diploma, a GED, or an A.A. to join up as well as hiring under ~25. I believe surveys have shown officers with a BA/BS are around 40% less inclined to use force.
In Chile we received the Chinese vaccine, Sinovac, in early 2021 before Pfizer was available. Sinovac radically reduced the possibility of death or hospitalization from the original Covid virus and lowered but did not eliminate the possibility of catching the virus without becoming seriously ill.
ReplyDeleteSince then, we've received booster from Pzifer and now the so-called bivalent Pfizer vaccine which give fairly good protection from the current variants of the Covid virus.
The question I have is that if the Chinese were capable of developing an effective vaccine against the original Covid virus, why haven't they developed a vaccine for Omicron and other current variants?
aaall said:
ReplyDeleteI believe surveys have shown officers with a BA/BS are around 40% less inclined to use force
That may be the case but it doesn't nec. establish a causal relationship betw more formal education and more caution or responsibility in use of force. The causal factor could well be simply age. The older one gets, the less impulsive etc -- perhaps.
Good internal training would seem more important, at least to me, than the possession of a 4 yr degree. Really shdnt be nec. to be a competent, responsible police offer. High school diploma or associates degree shd be enough. What you do by increasing the formal educational requirements is exclude people who, with the proper training and mentoring, might make very good officers. And since excluding such people makes no sense, the 4 yr degree requirement also makes little to no sense - or so it seems to me.