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Philosophy exiles us from our tribe and its pleasant certainties; the only consolation is that it makes us a confederate of all humanity.

I’ve been thinking about this for several years because many people in my orbit have strong opinions about the ongoing, disastrous conflict in Gaza and are intent on forcing them on the world (and me). They also have definite, insistent views on the proper remedies. There are several groups (is there ever just one?):

The masses who know little and care less. Some of this is defensible uncertainty, recognition of our limited influence, and an understanding of the ugly places bipolar tribilization takes people.

The Israeli and Gazan partisans with their gotchas, their rhetorical traps, and their endless list of historical facts and justifications.

I find myself in an uncomfortable position: I can find no place on either side. To the Israeli partisans, I defend the Gazans. To the Gazan partisans, I defend the Israelis.

I don’t love this perpetual exile. The inability to find common cause with either side isn’t pleasant. But I’m inured to the perpetual exile forced on me by the unpopular Socratic maxim: “No one does wrong willingly.”

“So when someone assents to a false proposition, be sure that they did not want to give their assent, since, as Plato says, ‘Every soul is deprived of the truth against its will.’ They simply mistook for true something false.” — Epictetus, Discourses 1.27

We’re all the heroes of our own stories. We imagine our words and actions are just, or at least justifiable given our circumstances. If we make mistakes, well, we’re only human. If our confederates are overzealous and occasionally go too far, who can blame them given the circumstances?

Yet we are not — on the whole — willing to grant our enemies similar leeway. They’re evil and unreasonable in their actions and demands. Only we see the light.

Socrates has a key insight here. If your enemies are evil, then compromise and understanding are impossible. If we’re both merely deluded but acting reasonably given our skewed frame of reference and general ignorance, then we have something to work with.

Steel Man The Middle East:

“Whenever somebody wrongs you, ask yourself at once, ‘What conception of good and evil led him to commit such a wrong?’ And when you have seen that, you will pity him, and feel neither surprise nor anger.” — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 7.26

One of the most just things we can do is assume the uncomfortable position of our opponents, even if they seem warped and evil. Allow me to try:

The Gazan:

“I was born into an open-air prison camp with limited education and no real economic opportunities. The highest “legitimate” position I can aspire to is “mayor of the prison camp.” I have limited agency, limited understanding of how my people arrived in this hell, and limited access to unbiased information. I suspect the opinions I hear that don’t align with the Gazan cause are Israeli propaganda. I survive on a drip feed of humanitarian aid. My loved ones and fellow “inmates” are periodically mowed down by an overwhelming force that knows no reason, nor mercy. I have little agency and no hope the status quo will improve if I do nothing.”

The Israeli:

“I used to have sympathy for the Gazans, though they’ve spat on our outstretched hand too many times to warrant much. But after they slaughtered and raped so many innocents on Oct 7, 2023 — that infamous day that will not be forgotten — what little sympathy I had is gone. Now I see the two-state solution is infeasible. They cannot be reasoned with. They cannot be peaceable neighbors. Relenting and granting them further autonomy will invite more abuse. The Christians abroad say turn the other cheek, but they do not offer up theirs’. Others say we should make one nation with the Gazans, but the Americans didn’t make a nation with native Americans until they’d reduced them to politically irrelevant numbers and seized their land. The Egyptians slaughtered and expelled their jews in 1951, the Iraqis in 1949, the Moroccans in 1967 — Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, and all the rest have no jews left. If we become a minority in our country, the muslims will do the same to us — slaughtered, disposed, exiled. We must stand firm. It’s that or oblivion.”

If I were Palestinian, I might join Hamas, not because it was right, but because there was nothing else that might shake the unbearable status quo. If I were an Israeli, I might willingly deploy to Gaza, not because it was right, but because it seemed nothing could create enduring peace, and at least war protected my people.

Dead Ends:

I have more background knowledge about the Middle East than the average American because I’m too interested in the world for my own good. I can explain how history changed forever at Yarmouk. I can weave a story of empires sweeping in and out like the tide and the detritus of peoples left on shore.

But we must recognize that any argument for a justice — for a solution — beginning with the Babylonian captivity or requiring a lecture on the vagaries of Byzantine or Abbasid domestic policy has already failed.

Our ignorance of history costs us, but in this one way, we could use a little forgetting. Many Middle Eastern peoples know too much of their history. They’re obsessed with it and can’t let it go. The many wrongs done to each side are usually real, but each reckoning is an eye-for-an-eye approach to justice sowing the seeds for a counter blow.

If we insist on reasoning via history, our hands are tied. Only the status quo, genocide, or expulsion of one side or the other are viable options. We must give up the idea of totally balancing the scales to move the needle at all. Either that, or we embrace something very dark.

This doesn’t mean there’s no theoretically “just” solution that a wise sage could pick out for us and navigate us toward. After all “median” is not necessarily virtuous. What is halfway between justice and injustice? Not the virtuous mean, but a moderate injustice.

But we’re probably not that sage, and the past’s wrongs are hazy and conflicted, and future outcomes are unknowable. If we want to do better, we must begin from where we are with a very particular kind of talk that can pierce of the veil of delusion we so easily get wrapped in.

Talk that Disarms:

I’ve written about the book Nonviolent Communication, which taught me my only romantic superpower, and remains a valuable tool for any conflicts I find myself in. It’s too clunky for everyday communication, but it’s a surprisingly powerful tool for finding understanding and common ground with an opponent.

Sometimes NVC ends hostility because interlocutors see each other in a new light. But that’s not always the case.

I once ended a conflict with NVC, and nonetheless concluded my interlocutor was a loose cannon I preferred to avoid in future. But they were a loose cannon I understood, and which I’d reached an understanding with, and that can make all the difference. That loose cannon never bothered me again.

Similarly, I’m not so naive that I think NVC will make Israelis and Palestinians link arms and walk off into the sunset like brothers. But NVC creator Marshall Rosenberg brought his communication style to Palestine, and this excerpt from his book is telling:

And so it goes on until calm is found and, “An hour later, the same man who had called me a murderer was inviting me to his home for a Ramadan dinner.”

My only claim is that a certain amount of vulnerability, of dropping our guard, of stating and hearing how an action makes us feel and react — which NVC facilitates — opens a space in which an accord might be forged.

Solutions:

There’s near-universal agreement that the status quo among Israelis and Palestinians isn’t working. It was hard even before October 7, but the military conflict has made it truly ugly. The main actors can’t see their way clear of it.

But I think it’s critical to understand that as recently as 2008, Israel and Palestine stood on the brink of something radically different than the status quo, for good or ill. They were a single Palestinian yes away from having two separate countries, a near-total withdrawal of Israel from the West Bank, a land link to Gaza, and the Old City of East Jerusalem under international control.

Maybe it wouldn’t have worked, but there’s an alternate timeline in which a few outside actors leaned a little harder and promised a bit more support and the course of the Middle East veered off in another direction.

This alternate scenario wouldn’t completely satisfy either side. And maybe it would have ended in more bloodshed and retrenchment. But since we know the status quo doesn’t work, it at least provides a possibility of a different, better outcome.

Maybe we’ll never get back to that offer. Palestinian and Israeli hearts have hardened. Both sides are enraged and disgusted, and our polarized world and international partisanship has made compromise harder.

But if we want anything other than genocide, expulsion, or the status quo, we need to start with this sort of dialogue.

It won’t immediately solve our problems, and it may be a long and frustrating process, but if we believe in justice, then we’re in it for the long game.

I’m reminded of the man who asked the Stoic philosopher Epictetus about a conlict:

“I seek to know this — how, even if my brother is not reconciled to me, shall I maintain myself in a state conformable to nature?”

“Nothing great,” said Epictetus, “is produced suddenly, since not even the grape or the fig is. If you say to me now that you want a fig, I will answer you that it requires time: let it flower first, then put forth fruit, and then ripen.”

— Epictetus, Discourses, 1.15

And that’s all we can do — give communication space to flower, be open to surprising breakthroughs, and hope that down the road our seedling will bear fruit.

Thanks for reading Socratic State of Mind.

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Paul Bloom

came to similar conclusions from a different angle a few days ago, reminding me that I wanted to write this article.

I discuss how we can expand this idea of the clear-sighted middle to all of life and our society, as Socrates did:

Four Habits of Wise People in Foolish Countries

Andrew Perlot

·

August 8, 2024

Read full story

Read the original article here.

Original article.

I was happy to stumble on Sara Ness’s Substack after losing track of her for years. We met in 2013, when she was running an Austin Relating Games group, and I’ve always been impressed with her thoughtful ideas about communication, connection, and community. We’ve decided to exchange some letters about overlapping interests, and we’ll continue as long as we and our subscribers enjoy it. Let us know what you think.

Dear Sara

Rebuilding community from the fractious status quo is like nuclear disarmament.

I thought this while reading your article on balancing personal desires and community well-being in a world where individualism has swept the field.

You did a good job summing up the situation:

“In a society that thinks of every individual priority as “self-care” and any concession as “self-sacrifice”, how do we learn to see prosociability as a positive value, without becoming martyrs to the common good?”

A similar dynamic reigned between the Soviet Union and the US during the Cold War. It was commonly acknowledged that having less potential to wipe all life from the face of the earth was a good thing, just as today many think individualism has gone too far and society is paying the price.

Today, no one wants to be the prosocial “martyr” who’s taken advantage of while everyone else “self-maxes”. And the cold warriors didn’t want to unilaterally disarm — the risk of being obliterated by a better armed opponent was real.

The solution — implemented gradually over decades — started from very modest beginnings.

First, let’s agree to not detonate nuclear bombs in the atmosphere or our oceans (1963).

Then, let’s agree to not spread nuclear weapons to other countries (1968).

And by the time you got to the 1970s and 1980s, they were limiting or eliminating a wide range of missiles and bomb types.

Gradually, the threat of nuclear annihilation began to recede. Norms around nuclear weapon use (don’t) and rhetoric about threatening their use (don’t) began to change.

But it only worked because each country agreed to open up to an almost claustrophobic level of military monitoring by the other side. Inspectors were sent in to make sure each side kept their side of the bargain. An entire monitoring apparatus was erected to pull this off, and neither side liked it.

The Clostrophic Small Town:

Have you ever been immersed in small-town life? Clostrophobic, in-your-business small towns are half extinct in the US, but they still exist abroad.

I’ve been lucky enough to travel widely, collectively spending years overseas in countries where traditional communalism still reigns and the clostrophobia (outside large cities) is still very much in evidence.

You’re being watched, and that has upsides and downsides. It means that if you’re sick or sad or lose your job, your community is paying attention and ready to step in and help. But it also means they’ll be ready to pounce when your individualism clashes with their sense of propriety and morals.

Remind me to tell you how I got in trouble in Cambodia for failing to sweep the communal sidewalk when it was my turn three weeks in a row. Those old Caombodian ladies were pissed! They liked their sidewalks clean, and didn’t like the foreigner who didn’t prioritize their priorities. And if I’m being honest, that was the problem. I forgot not because I didn’t intend to do it, but because deep down I thought sweeping outdoor sidewalks was a silly waste of time and gave it no thought at all. I usually remember to do what I find important, and sidewalk sweeping will likely never be a big priority for me.

And so we see the problem. Arriving at a macro-level consensus about what standards of “group maxing,” are appropriate and what kinds of individual choice we should reign in for the collective is very hard. Traditionally, they were dictated by religion and tradition more than negotiation. And even if we manage to agree in theory that certain standards are good, follow-through will be a challenge. How many want to subject themselves to this level of scrutiny as society gets more experimental with its relationships and personal life than ever before?

In “The Righteous Mind,” psychologist Jonathan Haidt describes a “red pill moment,” where he recognized the “possibility that there were alternative moral worlds in which reducing harm (by helping victims) and increasing fairness (by pursuing group-based equality) were not the main goals.” He came to that conclusion while studying the morality of non-Western cultures.

A return to macro-communalism might require a shift like this, and I’m not sure how we get there.

Think about every long-term, successful communal structure in the modern world. They’re either large in scope and rely on bureaucracy, monitoring, and enforcement, or they’re driven by idealists who drink the Kool-Aid.

Israel’s socialist kibbutzes are a great model of the later. Members who’d do better making their own way in the world willingly sacrifice their “self-maxing,” for the good of a whole, papering over a lack of ability and drive in the rest. They do this because they believe in the Kibbutz's mission. Little monitoring is necessary because they know it’s right, so they willingly put themselves in harness and pull.

Willing Martyrs

Your write:

“How do we negotiate our own inner complexity, such that we can make choices about what morality, needs, and community to prioritize?”

I think we need to start with a belief that some things objectively matter and are not relative. If we can’t get that far, we’re not going anywhere. It’s one thing to say we value community, but if there’s no underlying — perhaps for some even transcendent — why, butressing community alruism, that support tends to disintegrate as soon as it’s inconvenient or effortfull to maintain.

Unfortunately, nihilism has become pretty popular and uncontroversial. Many people have no why at all in their lives.

I’ve written how many “spiritual” people who won’t willingly handcuff themselves end up destroying themselves in the end. We all need some restraints and beliefs about what matters for our day-to-day life.

Why "I'm Not Religious, I'm Just Spiritual" People Flounder

Andrew Perlot

·

September 16, 2024

Read full story

This is why I find having a philosophy of life so valuable. It’s a lens I’ve examined thoroughly, which I can use to interpret the world and my actions.

A major part of my cobbled-together philosophy of life is a stolen paradox — virtue is the only good. I happen to believe virtue makes you happy, which I know is a big claim.

The nice thing about it is that it’s good in and of itself — No reciprocity required. I don’t need to wait for mutual “self-maxing” disarmament to act.

The philosopher Marcus Aurelius put it this way:

“Some people, when they do someone a favor, are always looking for a chance to call it in. And some aren’t, but they’re still aware of it—still regard it as a debt. But others don’t even do that. They’re like a vine that produces grapes without looking for anything in return.

A horse at the end of the race …A dog when the hunt is over …A bee with its honey stored …And a human being after helping others.They don’t make a fuss about it. They just go on to something else, as the vine looks forward to bearing fruit again in season.

We should be like that. Acting almost unconsciously.”

— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 5.6

Since I prize justice, and am looking to execute on that, I often ask myself how I should balance community-maxing with self-maxing. This has resulted in me doing more volunteer work, and finding various ways to “give back.” But, notably for our purposes, it hasn’t brought me toward communal living and being the kibbutz type. Why? I’ve come to a very ancient conclusion.

Wise people of East and West have often insisted that the majority make big mistakes, and are making themselves miserable.

Shakespeare: “Lord, what fools these mortals be! (Midsummer Night’s Dream)

Seneca: “What fools these mortals are!” (Letters, 1)

The Bible: “The number of stupid people is infinite (Ecclesiastes 1:15).”

The Upanishads: "Fools, dwelling in ignorance, yet imagining themselves wise and learned, go round and round deluded like the blind led by the blind." (1.2.5)

The Dhammapada: "Blind is this world; few are those who see clearly. As birds escape from a net, few go to a good realm." (174)

I’m not going to help idiots idiot harder, and some forms of community support would do exactly that. And so I need to walk a tightrope — doing good in alignment with my values and not giving of myself unconditionally. I’m applying judgment to others and helping them only in certain avenues I align with, which is another taboo in today’s world. And anyway, our beliefs of this kind are personal. They can’t the scaled — people need to get to their beliefs in their own way. So we need to find a different way to scale if we want to prop up communalism and community.

A Happy Middle?

So we’ve outlined the ends of a spectrum:

Enforced bureaucratic communalism and social welfare programs.

?

What we’ll willingly do as individuals because we believe in it and find it important. Those who have imbided a certain brand of Kool-Aid are on board for certain kinds of altruism and self-sacrifice for the greater good, but probably different versions of it.

But do you think there’s anything in the second spot, one that avoids the “nuclear disarmerment problem”? Is there something beyond the individual, but short of a top-down imposition where local-level communalism can sprout up and thrive, despite differences and our individualist culture? What does that look like?

I’m eager to hear your thoughts, or where you think I’ve gone astray in my assessment.

— Andrew