Indeed. Whichever moral systems can assert their principles through power are the ones that will predominate in the world. A moral system that cannot (or will not) do this will be eradicated, regardless of the content of its particular beliefs. Moral clarity without power is posturing, and power without moral clarity is tyranny. Both principles and power are required.
The Roman maxim holds true for governments but not moral systems. Christianity was a morally superior system to the Roman paganism but wasn't in any position to assert itself through power. Yet, it prevailed.
Yes, this is a good point about early Christianity. Though I would say that governments largely exist to instantiate moral systems (via laws…Sharia law vs. Western law as an example), so it’s tough to separate the two. Christianity did survive its early centuries without a position of political or military power, while suffering persecution to boot. Roman power does loom large over that survival, though. Rome’s military might shielded the geographical cradle of Christianity as part of its vast holdings. Rome was also very religiously diverse and allowed many non-Roman religions, including Judaism and Christianity (this by no means discounts the persecution of emperors such as Nero or Diocletian, but only notes that there was never a systemic empire-wide campaign. There was never a Roman attempt to eradicate Christianity). Roman culture was amenable to Christianity’s survival, both through the belief that persecuting a religion too zealously could anger its god and through a respect for people who stayed true to their religion at any cost. This combination of culture and hard power allowed Christianity to persist and grow beneath Roman wings - protected by power, just not by Christian power (yet). The new religion percolated through the institutions of Roman power, eventually overtaking them and assuming direct power. Later defenses (or assertions) of the Christian moral system and way of life relied on this power repeatedly, and still do to this day.
The early church spread from the ground up as disciples helped the needy. An example would be adopting babies left abandoned to die and living faithful family lives which became an example to the rest of the population.
If your premise is "the common folk" converted to Christianity by "a tiny bit of duress" then how come the warlord leaders of Rome and Francia got baptized? This isn't a tough question, but it does demonstrate the inherent bias of your thinking.
Firstly, I’m no philosopher, so I may be completely wrong, but two things struck me: 1) would the Melians have really succeeded over the Athenians and survived if they were better prepared for war, or would they have lost anyway? And 2) is victory the greatest good, or are there values worth dying for? Both of those questions seem to lead me to the question of whether, if the Melians had become more war-like, is that how they wanted to live as Melians? Would they still even be Melians? Perhaps they thought the sacrifice was worth it so as not to give up their values. I have no answers, I’m just wondering. Very thought-provoking post. Thanks, Culturist!
Interesting piece, but the Roman answer is a cop out to me...
Thrasymachus makes essentially the same argument in Republic Book 1, justice is the advantage of the stronger, and Socrates spends the rest of the book dismantling it. The key insight is that injustice does not just harm the victim but it disorders the soul of the one who commits it. Thucydides seems to agree.
Keep reading past Melos, and Athens launch Sicilian Expedition the mperial overreach that costs them the war. The Athens logic at Melos is not vindicsted by the rest of History but it is shown to be the rot that brought the empire down.
Si vis pacem, para bellum is strategically sound but philosophically evasive. It answers the practical question "how do you survive?" while also dodging a moral one "what makes power legitimate?" Plato would say here that is not a reconciliation of power and morality at all but just changing the subject.
Indeed, the other half of the Athenian story is missing. Following up on my earlier comment - I credited the Culturist's perspective as reasonable for the weak facing an unconstrained strong power. The problem: this treats the strong acting without constraint as inevitable rather than as a choice.
One year after Melos, the same Athenian assembly uses the same "might makes right" logic to launch the Sicilian expedition. Result: catastrophic defeat, thousand dead or enslaved. Both Melos and Athens would have been better off if Athens had constrained itself.
Here's the coordination problem: If the strong constrain themselves (as prudential realism advises), the weak don't need extreme defenses. If the weak prepare extreme defenses, the strong feel threatened and abandon constraint.
We're seeing this now with Iran. US abandoned JCPOA, bombed during negotiations. Lesson taught: only nuclear weapons guarantee security. We're guaranteeing the nuclear Iran we claim to prevent.
The urgent question for great powers isn't "how should the weak defend themselves?" (important but self-fulfilling). It's "how do we avoid creating the threats we fear?"
Has it not been this way throughout all times? These Grecian civil wars mark the start of our documented understanding of human nature's apparent desire for conquest.
Fair enough, and true enough. I guess I just want to believe that the human community can be better, and that the past 50 years of social gains meant that we were becoming better.
I think our human communities have gotten much better, more accountable and more able to adapt to circumstances.
Alas our (fallen, in my view) nature remains constant. We can only do what generations have done--strive to do better and acknowledge evil will always exist on Earth.
Then, it's time for the next generation to figure out the same thing with guidance from the past.
Gotta hand it to those humans, tho, they really have figured somethings out and made a respectable showing of it all...imho
If you want to understand human nature, read the Bible. Evil has been around since the beginning. And people themselves are always evil, only tempered and redeemed by God's Grace through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
There will never truly be peace until Jesus has returned and vanquished all evil. We human beings can certainly never accomplish it on our own.
You’re right, of course. The longer view confirms that while progress is always possible, evil has not been eradicated, and will ebb and flow like all of nature, human and otherwise.
Reminds me of a Rhodes scholar, Romanesqly cheekily in tongue, retorting to legal inquiries on being caught, undrycleaned-blue-dressed handed: "Define "IS..."
Authority decides right and might deciding authority is the oldest and natural way authority is established.
It is natural truth in that way it is right despite and abscense of moralities. It is right despite how right or wrong it may be, that is truth or a form of it.
One might find it is painful in abscense of authority to establish the difference between what is true and what is right 😜
If a guilty party is unwilling to cooperate, justice is necessarily administered using force. There can be no justice without the threat of force. Justice can also be denied by threat of force. To quote Heinlein, "...force, my friends, is violence. The supreme authority from which all other authorities is derived."
“I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.” - JRR Tolkien
Saying that the weak are only saved by ceasing to be weak is not much of an argument. If both parties had similar power you wouldn't even need the moral argument, as power itself would act as a deterrent. Also, one does not stop being weak just by wishing, or all beggars would ride. Therefore the value of the moral argument, as presented here, only has three possible outcomes: (i) making for a nice tombstone and no factual difference at all, (ii) probably still a tombstone but with censure for the winner whether immediate or delayed (remember the Nuremberg trials), or (iii) pushing the weak but morally-minded to band together against the immoral aggressor (such as the Delian League in Ancient Greece, or the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War, or the Coalition of the Willing in the Ukraine War).
We should consider that fairness, having a just cause and the force of reason are at the basis of human interaction. Throwing away those principles takes us back to the law of the jungle and destroys the fabric underpinning society as well as international relations. You cannot erase a civilisation off the map just because you don't like somebody's attitude. You can't go around sinking ships just because you feel like it. Invading another country because you covet their resources is not justifiable. Deciding that rules do not apply to you just risks other people deciding to treat you in the same way until you learn the lesson. Athens never recovered the political power it held before the Peloponesian War. Napoleon got pounded by the other European powers until he stopped getting back up. Japan got two nuclear bombs for biting more than they could chew. There are reasons why we decided on a rules-based order. The main one is that the alternative is not sustainable for any of the parties involved.
It is not correct to state that you “cannot” do these various things. Rather, you SHOULD not do them, though you can. Clearly, this is a moral imperative, but not everyone shares it. Therefore, I think the Romans were correct in assessing that you have to deter those who would use power without moral compunction.
The will to power is in built into us all whether we like it or not. It’s hardwired into the reptilian part of our brain and it is something the Marxist Utopia builders never include in their feverish calculations. Some say we progress as a species because of a curious spirit, but this is naive nonsense taken in isolation - we progress through war and carnage. Our greatest skill is in our ability to make weapons and if we were honest we would recognise that technological trappings we all enjoy in this unusually long period of relative world peace are all spin offs from the last World War. I fear that our species will only survive in the long term if it is driven off planet after another devastating World War - one that this time will be so earth damaging that we become desperate to find other resources. We adapt or we die - this is the fundamental code of nature we can never escape from. Remember, the Universe is only 15 billion years old and we are the product of a second generation star. So perhaps the Universe is not yet old enough to be able to produce mature intelligence - one that is unhindered by a physical and emotional need to survive at all costs.
For a publication that so frequently discusses Christian theology, seems like a strange article to ponder if killing or exercising power over the weak is justified based on the morals and opinions of ancient pagan societies…
Or...you can instead watch the grass grow while listening to your thighs spread... or ponder the lessons of deadened societies wth other ponderers, and reflect on the time-ravaged, skeletal remains, of Rome's coliseumed, outdoor museumed debris, -once proud, ravenously lion-hearted, marble-ribbed edifices, that seated roaring bloodlusting hordes of sheep ruled by rabid wolves, now famed-fun spots for selfie-seeking tourists. Or...do something else...or, not.
If you think these "ancient pagan societies" have nothing to contribute to Christians, you're just being a philistine. All the great doctors of the Church read these great books of Antiquity and pondered about them.
Not arguing that at all, but Christian morality was a radical movement against the laws and values of these exact societies (not much has changed!). Jesus certainly did not preach of strength projection or “preparing for war”. These are the desires and ambitions of man.
I am fighting for America in a new and different way, via an online “third path” to a better societal problem solving future at EthicalGovtNow.org. I urge all liberal thinkers to visit today, evaluate our path and join our patriotic movement.
Plato thought so. If you think the structure is pyramidal then the algorithm for the social organism is a control structure, power creating form. Is another structure possible? Perhaps only by creating (democratic) sub-sets where that power is exercised on a contributory rather than dominating role in the maintenance or evolution of the social organism.
Indeed. Whichever moral systems can assert their principles through power are the ones that will predominate in the world. A moral system that cannot (or will not) do this will be eradicated, regardless of the content of its particular beliefs. Moral clarity without power is posturing, and power without moral clarity is tyranny. Both principles and power are required.
The Roman maxim holds true for governments but not moral systems. Christianity was a morally superior system to the Roman paganism but wasn't in any position to assert itself through power. Yet, it prevailed.
Yes, this is a good point about early Christianity. Though I would say that governments largely exist to instantiate moral systems (via laws…Sharia law vs. Western law as an example), so it’s tough to separate the two. Christianity did survive its early centuries without a position of political or military power, while suffering persecution to boot. Roman power does loom large over that survival, though. Rome’s military might shielded the geographical cradle of Christianity as part of its vast holdings. Rome was also very religiously diverse and allowed many non-Roman religions, including Judaism and Christianity (this by no means discounts the persecution of emperors such as Nero or Diocletian, but only notes that there was never a systemic empire-wide campaign. There was never a Roman attempt to eradicate Christianity). Roman culture was amenable to Christianity’s survival, both through the belief that persecuting a religion too zealously could anger its god and through a respect for people who stayed true to their religion at any cost. This combination of culture and hard power allowed Christianity to persist and grow beneath Roman wings - protected by power, just not by Christian power (yet). The new religion percolated through the institutions of Roman power, eventually overtaking them and assuming direct power. Later defenses (or assertions) of the Christian moral system and way of life relied on this power repeatedly, and still do to this day.
The early church spread from the ground up as disciples helped the needy. An example would be adopting babies left abandoned to die and living faithful family lives which became an example to the rest of the population.
What "duress" was put on say Emperor Constantine or Clovis to make these leader and their nobles get baptized?
If your premise is "the common folk" converted to Christianity by "a tiny bit of duress" then how come the warlord leaders of Rome and Francia got baptized? This isn't a tough question, but it does demonstrate the inherent bias of your thinking.
Firstly, I’m no philosopher, so I may be completely wrong, but two things struck me: 1) would the Melians have really succeeded over the Athenians and survived if they were better prepared for war, or would they have lost anyway? And 2) is victory the greatest good, or are there values worth dying for? Both of those questions seem to lead me to the question of whether, if the Melians had become more war-like, is that how they wanted to live as Melians? Would they still even be Melians? Perhaps they thought the sacrifice was worth it so as not to give up their values. I have no answers, I’m just wondering. Very thought-provoking post. Thanks, Culturist!
I can answer your first question with another famous quote from history: "Never get involved in a land war in Asia." 😉
Interesting piece, but the Roman answer is a cop out to me...
Thrasymachus makes essentially the same argument in Republic Book 1, justice is the advantage of the stronger, and Socrates spends the rest of the book dismantling it. The key insight is that injustice does not just harm the victim but it disorders the soul of the one who commits it. Thucydides seems to agree.
Keep reading past Melos, and Athens launch Sicilian Expedition the mperial overreach that costs them the war. The Athens logic at Melos is not vindicsted by the rest of History but it is shown to be the rot that brought the empire down.
Si vis pacem, para bellum is strategically sound but philosophically evasive. It answers the practical question "how do you survive?" while also dodging a moral one "what makes power legitimate?" Plato would say here that is not a reconciliation of power and morality at all but just changing the subject.
Indeed, the other half of the Athenian story is missing. Following up on my earlier comment - I credited the Culturist's perspective as reasonable for the weak facing an unconstrained strong power. The problem: this treats the strong acting without constraint as inevitable rather than as a choice.
One year after Melos, the same Athenian assembly uses the same "might makes right" logic to launch the Sicilian expedition. Result: catastrophic defeat, thousand dead or enslaved. Both Melos and Athens would have been better off if Athens had constrained itself.
Here's the coordination problem: If the strong constrain themselves (as prudential realism advises), the weak don't need extreme defenses. If the weak prepare extreme defenses, the strong feel threatened and abandon constraint.
We're seeing this now with Iran. US abandoned JCPOA, bombed during negotiations. Lesson taught: only nuclear weapons guarantee security. We're guaranteeing the nuclear Iran we claim to prevent.
The urgent question for great powers isn't "how should the weak defend themselves?" (important but self-fulfilling). It's "how do we avoid creating the threats we fear?"
Wow. I so want to believe this isn't true. But we live in times when the truth of the consequences of unchecked power make it a compelling argument.
Has it not been this way throughout all times? These Grecian civil wars mark the start of our documented understanding of human nature's apparent desire for conquest.
Fair enough, and true enough. I guess I just want to believe that the human community can be better, and that the past 50 years of social gains meant that we were becoming better.
I think our human communities have gotten much better, more accountable and more able to adapt to circumstances.
Alas our (fallen, in my view) nature remains constant. We can only do what generations have done--strive to do better and acknowledge evil will always exist on Earth.
Then, it's time for the next generation to figure out the same thing with guidance from the past.
Gotta hand it to those humans, tho, they really have figured somethings out and made a respectable showing of it all...imho
If you want to understand human nature, read the Bible. Evil has been around since the beginning. And people themselves are always evil, only tempered and redeemed by God's Grace through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
There will never truly be peace until Jesus has returned and vanquished all evil. We human beings can certainly never accomplish it on our own.
You’re right, of course. The longer view confirms that while progress is always possible, evil has not been eradicated, and will ebb and flow like all of nature, human and otherwise.
Blessings, and thanks for a great conversation!
How many people do you know actually wanted to have their entire country shut down during the COVID lock-downs?
How many Europeans actually want millions of muslims in their countries?
One doesn't even have to look to warfare to see that the strong do what they can, while the weak suffer what they must.
Beautiful!
As a Canadian, this is an interesting article to read.
Reminds me of a Rhodes scholar, Romanesqly cheekily in tongue, retorting to legal inquiries on being caught, undrycleaned-blue-dressed handed: "Define "IS..."
All Rhodes seamily lead to Roman decay...
Might makes (decides) right
Authority decides right and might deciding authority is the oldest and natural way authority is established.
It is natural truth in that way it is right despite and abscense of moralities. It is right despite how right or wrong it may be, that is truth or a form of it.
One might find it is painful in abscense of authority to establish the difference between what is true and what is right 😜
If a guilty party is unwilling to cooperate, justice is necessarily administered using force. There can be no justice without the threat of force. Justice can also be denied by threat of force. To quote Heinlein, "...force, my friends, is violence. The supreme authority from which all other authorities is derived."
“I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.” - JRR Tolkien
Faramir, shurely. Tolkien was only reporting what was said, no?
I heard he even received it from the elves and translated it!
Might is the only thing with power to make it Right.
"He teacheth my hands to war."
It's all there in Perelandra.
Saying that the weak are only saved by ceasing to be weak is not much of an argument. If both parties had similar power you wouldn't even need the moral argument, as power itself would act as a deterrent. Also, one does not stop being weak just by wishing, or all beggars would ride. Therefore the value of the moral argument, as presented here, only has three possible outcomes: (i) making for a nice tombstone and no factual difference at all, (ii) probably still a tombstone but with censure for the winner whether immediate or delayed (remember the Nuremberg trials), or (iii) pushing the weak but morally-minded to band together against the immoral aggressor (such as the Delian League in Ancient Greece, or the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War, or the Coalition of the Willing in the Ukraine War).
We should consider that fairness, having a just cause and the force of reason are at the basis of human interaction. Throwing away those principles takes us back to the law of the jungle and destroys the fabric underpinning society as well as international relations. You cannot erase a civilisation off the map just because you don't like somebody's attitude. You can't go around sinking ships just because you feel like it. Invading another country because you covet their resources is not justifiable. Deciding that rules do not apply to you just risks other people deciding to treat you in the same way until you learn the lesson. Athens never recovered the political power it held before the Peloponesian War. Napoleon got pounded by the other European powers until he stopped getting back up. Japan got two nuclear bombs for biting more than they could chew. There are reasons why we decided on a rules-based order. The main one is that the alternative is not sustainable for any of the parties involved.
It is not correct to state that you “cannot” do these various things. Rather, you SHOULD not do them, though you can. Clearly, this is a moral imperative, but not everyone shares it. Therefore, I think the Romans were correct in assessing that you have to deter those who would use power without moral compunction.
The will to power is in built into us all whether we like it or not. It’s hardwired into the reptilian part of our brain and it is something the Marxist Utopia builders never include in their feverish calculations. Some say we progress as a species because of a curious spirit, but this is naive nonsense taken in isolation - we progress through war and carnage. Our greatest skill is in our ability to make weapons and if we were honest we would recognise that technological trappings we all enjoy in this unusually long period of relative world peace are all spin offs from the last World War. I fear that our species will only survive in the long term if it is driven off planet after another devastating World War - one that this time will be so earth damaging that we become desperate to find other resources. We adapt or we die - this is the fundamental code of nature we can never escape from. Remember, the Universe is only 15 billion years old and we are the product of a second generation star. So perhaps the Universe is not yet old enough to be able to produce mature intelligence - one that is unhindered by a physical and emotional need to survive at all costs.
For a publication that so frequently discusses Christian theology, seems like a strange article to ponder if killing or exercising power over the weak is justified based on the morals and opinions of ancient pagan societies…
Or...you can instead watch the grass grow while listening to your thighs spread... or ponder the lessons of deadened societies wth other ponderers, and reflect on the time-ravaged, skeletal remains, of Rome's coliseumed, outdoor museumed debris, -once proud, ravenously lion-hearted, marble-ribbed edifices, that seated roaring bloodlusting hordes of sheep ruled by rabid wolves, now famed-fun spots for selfie-seeking tourists. Or...do something else...or, not.
If you think these "ancient pagan societies" have nothing to contribute to Christians, you're just being a philistine. All the great doctors of the Church read these great books of Antiquity and pondered about them.
Not arguing that at all, but Christian morality was a radical movement against the laws and values of these exact societies (not much has changed!). Jesus certainly did not preach of strength projection or “preparing for war”. These are the desires and ambitions of man.
I am fighting for America in a new and different way, via an online “third path” to a better societal problem solving future at EthicalGovtNow.org. I urge all liberal thinkers to visit today, evaluate our path and join our patriotic movement.
Plato thought so. If you think the structure is pyramidal then the algorithm for the social organism is a control structure, power creating form. Is another structure possible? Perhaps only by creating (democratic) sub-sets where that power is exercised on a contributory rather than dominating role in the maintenance or evolution of the social organism.