A Critical and Careful Review of Charles Eisenstein’s “War Is Always Justified”
I’ll keep this on the shorter side because all of what I’ve read by Eisenstein emanates from the same flawed logic and magical thinking, with a strong twist of New Age bypassing. I exhaustively broke all that down in a previous critique of his pandemic essay. Eisenstein’s same thinking errors persist in his Nov. 18th piece, “War Is Always Justified.”
His essay begins with a silly, inconsequential grammatical quip. He takes issue with what is not actually an error, but a figure of speech. It’s implied, and obvious, that crimes don’t have agency to commit crimes. If you want an example of a real grammatical error, look no further than Eisenstein’s own sentence describing the alleged error: “It starts with a grammatical issue but it doesn’t end there.” The irony.
Moving forward with Eisenstein’s point: He argues that all war starts because someone justifies it. This presumes that all war is unjustifiable (wrong) and that peaceful states of non-combat are always possible. This simplistic, linear view of peace (and war) has recently swarmed social media feeds, notably in the form of a poem by Rabbi Irwin Keller. I read “Taking Sides” last month and found it to be a well-crafted piece, but not wise. I wonder if this poem inspired Eisenstein, because the poem is Pollyanna-ish, implies that there is no right and wrong, and speaks to the folly of vengeance — all central ideas in Eisenstein’s current essay.
It’s unlikely that humanity can be free of war. For all of history, and as far back as we can discern, humans have been at some kind of war, whether at home or with other tribes and nations. If we accept this to be most likely true, then we might honestly begin the process of minimizing war—rather than living in a fantasy, which is no basis for healing personal or collective crisis and trauma.
If peace were so simple as just having or wishing it, we’d have more of it. Eisenstein is therefore proposing a vision that in all likelihood is unrealistic, fantastical. This doesn’t mean we should not try to be more peaceful, but that we may have to accept a degree of war and unrest in order to be as peaceful as possible for as many people as possible. This is integral thinking, not the black or white thinking that Eisenstein disseminates.
This perspective invokes what I consider a wise and realistic philosophy of war and conflict espoused in famous philosopher Karl Popper’s famous concept and essay “The Paradox of Intolerance.” In his book, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Popper explains:
“If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.”
In other words, certain people and groups are largely, inherently against peace. They are practically beyond good reason and reform to accept peace and tolerance and must therefore be restrained, or “suppressed.” Popper goes on to say:
“But we should claim the right to suppress them [the intolerant] if necessary even by force . . . We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant.”
This way we are not living under the delusion that humans can be at peace if only we ceased to justify violence. Indeed, violence is justified sometimes. If you don’t restrain Hamas, they will destroy you. If you don’t rebel against Israel, it will continue to oppress and violate. The trick, an skillfulness, is to not to let such justifications get out of hand to the point of needless violence.
Hamas is not an organization that can be reasoned with; their founding credo is the murder of Jews and the destruction of Israel. Israel has also been unreasonably intolerant in its violation of Palestinians.
I don’t trust Hamas to leave Israel and Jews alone if Israel ceases fire, and I don’t trust that Israel will cease to oppress, occupy, and violate Palestinians if Hamas “puts down its weapons.” In fact, history suggests, if not evidences, both scenarios to be most likely true.
Eisenstein goes on to write, “But like many of you, I am sick of being asked to pitch my tent in one camp or another.” Charles, you don’t have to. This is another black or white logical fallacy, Eisenstein’s favourite thinking error. It poses only two choices and therefore the only option he asserts left is to choose simplistic peace. This is bypassing. It’s an easy out to not grok the complexity and the ugly, untidy details, and merely assert peace.
Peace, especially for crises involving significant trauma, is not largely amenable to to simplistic, wishful, “forward-thinking” solutions. We can take action to heal the past in order to effect as much peace as possible moving forward.
Most of us want peace. But the way to peace is a far different matter. The hurt and trauma on all sides must be acknowledged and healed. Otherwise that hurt goes on hurting others. He fails to acknowledge a necessarily complex and more comprehensive solution, which is to call out both good and bad behaviour. This doesn’t require picking sides and is a more sober non-binary approach. I discuss this on my social feed.
Eisenstein devotes most of the rest of his essay to speaking out against vengeance, quoting many Israeli victims who don’t want revenge for the murderous actions of Hamas. But this seems another mischaracterization and wrong framing. Israel, ostensibly, is not attacking Hamas (and Gazans in the process) out of revenge. They are doing it (again, ostensibly) to protect their very lives against a group whose raison d’être is to kill Jews. I’d also be curious to see how many of Eisenstein’s quoted victims who denounce violent reaction in the face of harm would acquiesce to being killed if their own lives were immediately threatened.
Before quoting Palestinian peace activist Aziz Abu Sarah (whose both/and empathy is refreshing), Eisenstein writes, “But the peace advocate undermines that drama and the roles and justifications that it creates.” Actually, the peace activist unwilling to take a stand on both sides both for reconciliation and for calling out wrongs is unrealistic, partially morally bankrupt, and too timid to achieve the most peace possible — one that is guided by the paradox of peace. Such a person may actually allow for more violence by abstaining and not having the courage and grounding to call out wrongs and rights.
Promoting peace through a simple solution, much like the process of forgiveness, is not simple. It can, however, be a small part of the puzzle towards peace. We must acknowledge right and wrong, for a world without this moral compass is bereft of meaning, compassion, and a livable standard of decency. Eisenstein’s reluctance to adjudicate right from wrong behaviour is the flawed relativism that also seems to inform his anti-science stances. It’s also New-Agey, informed by an alleged non-dual spiritual state (which is actually dualistic), such as that instigated by Rumi’s famous line: Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
I think most compassionate, peace-loving people will agree that killing innocent civilians is wrong. So is destroying an innocent population’s entire infrastructure and way of living. While we may not know what is right, it’s often easier, and worthwhile, to determine what is wrong. The current ethnic cleansing and destruction of Gaza is wrong and there is no justification for it (especially because Israel’s justifications don’t hold water under scrutiny).
Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel famously said, “We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.” I actually consider this statement to be partially true. Neutrality is crucial in many instances. And, we can hold neutrality at the same time that we hold others accountable. Both-and. We must take sides when wrong is done, and even better, the side of calling out wrong on both sides, as is appropriate in the current Middle East crisis.
I want peace. I want as much as possible for everyone. I believe Charles does too, and his heart is in the right place. But putting that wish into action is where skill, groundedness, and realistic wisdom enter. I try to be realistic about what is possible, the complexity of the issue, and how to go about it. Unfortunately, sometimes peace must look like non-peace. I leave you with a poem, for inspiration, from my collection Rebearth:
WE WILL HAVE TO REMEMBER
A Re-creation Prayer
One day when we no longer have to fight,
When there is no Dow Chemical,
Exxon-Mobil or Wall Street,
When the hearth has excused them all
From the circle, and our governments
Have regrown from the soft strata of our bodies
Like Oak trees from the midst of the Sierra Madre,
When the Earth has shaken our lousy adornments
Twisted from her very flesh, is naked again
And can at last release a decades-long sigh
From the soil of generations before us,
We will have to remember to drop
The weapons from our roiling minds,
The armor from our toiling breasts.
When we no longer have to sell lies
For a future of felled trees and fallen skies,
When we no longer have to believe
In a bigger, richer, fatter, or any god,
When we once again feel the living
Ground from our very breath, we will know
The temple of the moon has opened
In our bellies and we can begin
To grieve everything stuck to our bones
So the sun might rise again from the cold seas.
Then, we will have to find fulfillment in ordinary,
Will have to sell ourselves on giving
And grow used to green miles,
To beauty here, no hell, and therefore
To heaven here — and every night now
In the quiet ease of our beds,
We will have to remember that we fought
Not to have to fight anymore.
