In today’s “in depth” post, I use a close reading of Barack Obama’s Nobel Lecture to examine peace and the social condition. It is a continuation of a lifetime exploration. Over the years, I have been impressed by the specific promise and limitations of the force of arms and of non-violent collective action

When I was a young man, I tried to be a pacifist, as I reported here. I was strongly opposed to the war in Vietnam, didn’t want to take part, explored the possibility of being a conscientious objector, but perceived the limits of nonviolent resistance. I couldn’t convince myself that it was possible to effectively fight against Nazism without the force of arms. I couldn’t become a pacifist.

Yet, as an adult, and as an eyewitness to the successful democratic revolutions in Central Europe, I was just as impressed by the way non-violent action could be more effective than violence, seeing the success of my friends and colleagues in the so called velvet revolutions around the old Soviet bloc, as being greatly influenced by the character of their non-violent collective action. The non-violent democratic means had a way of constituting the end, imperfect, but nonetheless, truly functioning democracies. This insight informed my explorations of “the politics of small things” and “reinventing political culture.” in the midst of the disastrous “war on terrorism.”

The means have a way of determining the ends. This is a key proposition, which has informed my political reflections in recent years, concerning the transformation of Central Europe, and also concerning the attempted transformations in the Middle East and North Africa, and to politics of Occupy Wall Street. The proposition also informs my review and analysis here of President Obama’s Nobel Lecture (Obama, 2009) as an exploration of the topic of peace and the social condition. I think Obama confronted the complexity of the social condition, though the situation of his winning the prize was both awkward and rightly controversial from a variety of different points of view. The controversy reflects the complicated relationships between violence and non-violence, war and peace, and, ironically, given the depth of Obama’s speech, his response to the controversy have confirmed that Obama earned his prize. This is my tentative conclusion in my latest analysis of Barack Obama as the American storyteller-in-chief.

To read “Peace and the Social Condition: Barack Obama and the Nobel Peace Prize,” click here.

Obama’s Peace Prize was exciting, strange and provocative. There was political poetry and hope in it: the better part of America and its relationship with Europe and the world were being celebrated, as there was the hope that the dark side of American hegemony had passed. But there was also confusion: exactly why did Obama win the prize?

Obama’s critics saw in the prize confirmation that Obama was a cult figure, an eloquent player, but with no substance, winning the Nobel Prize for Peace before he accomplished anything on the global stage. Even his supporters were not sure exactly what to make of it. I was more convinced than most, but I understood my argument approving of his winning the Nobel Prize, published in Poland’s leading newspaper, Gazeta Wyborcza, as a provocation. Clearly, even Obama understood that there was a problem. As he noted in the opening of his lecture:

“I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the considerable controversy that your generous decision has generated. (Laughter.) In part, this is because I am at the beginning, and not the end, of my labors on the world stage. Compared to some of the giants of history who’ve received this prize – Schweitzer and King; Marshall and Mandela – my accomplishments are slight.”

But he turned this to his advantage, at least in giving his speech. The speech became an exploration of the complex relationship between war and peace, as he put it: “the instruments of war do have a role to play in preserving the peace. And yet this truth must coexist with another – that no matter how justified, war promises human tragedy.” He further reflected upon the role of political leadership, particularly his. It was a speech about the social condition and peace and his confrontation with this.

Obama understood the larger issue. Although rightly appreciated for his dissent from the geo-political and military policies of his predecessor, and clearly more reluctant to engage in military aggression, less unilateral in his orientation and deeply critical of the war in Iraq from the beginning, all good reasons to identify him with peace, he was still the leader of the premier military power in the world.

“But perhaps the most profound issue surrounding my receipt of this prize is the fact that I am the Commander-in-Chief of the military of a nation in the midst of two wars.”

The leader of the global hegemon as the Nobel Peace Laureate – he understood that there is a problem and made this the topic of his lecture.

The dilemmas as he saw them in his lecture:

“I come here with an acute sense of the costs of armed conflict – filled with difficult questions about the relationship between war and peace, and our effort to replace one with the other.”

He reviewed arguments for just wars, as he recognized that the need for such justification has been ignored for much of human history. Central values he identified were the fight for human rights and the struggle against human degradation, and also the need to minimize civilian causalities. But problems result. He observed:

“And while it’s hard to conceive of a cause more just than the defeat of the Third Reich and the Axis powers, World War II was a conflict in which the total number of civilians who died exceeded the number of soldiers who perished.”

He noted that real enemies continue, even with the demise of the totalitarian threats of the twentieth century:

“The world may no longer shudder at the prospect of war between two nuclear superpowers, but proliferation may increase the risk of catastrophe. Terrorism has long been a tactic, but modern technology allows a few small men with outsized rage to murder innocents on a horrific scale.”

And he drew the tragic observation:

“We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth: We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations – acting individually or in concert – will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified.”

Obama’s opponents accused him of making vacuous promises in his first Presidential campaign. We hear in his lecture quite the opposite. He was confronting the central difficulty. The pursuit of peace often includes the willingness to engage in military struggle, but that means peace, as an ideal, will, therefore, not be realized.

Note: this paradox, in his cogent account, is not the result of some fundamental innate aggressive drive, and there is no need to posit evil or sin as the cause of the paradox. Obama shows that we are locked into a dilemma. Peace includes the fight for rights and dignity, but in engaging in the fight, peace can and often is undermined. Aggressive and sinful drives do not explain this. It is woven into the fabric of social interaction. But Obama’s response to this suggests why his Nobel Prize may have had justification.

Meeting the Challenge

He started with humility, trying to stand on the shoulders of giants:

“I do not bring with me today a definitive solution to the problems of war. What I do know is that meeting these challenges will require the same vision, hard work, and persistence of those men and women who acted so boldly decades ago [referring here to the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights]. And it will require us to think in new ways about the notions of just war and the imperatives of a just peace.”

The humility is based on his sense of who he is and how he came to be delivering his lecture:

“I make this statement mindful of what Martin Luther King Jr. said in this same ceremony years ago: ‘Violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones.’ As someone who stands here as a direct consequence of Dr. King’s life work, I am living testimony to the moral force of non-violence. I know there’s nothing weak – nothing passive – nothing naïve – in the creed and lives of Gandhi and King.”

Yet, he also knows this is in tension with his present responsibilities:

“But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by their examples alone. I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda’s leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism – it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason.”

Informed by President John F. Kennedy, he explored the possibilities for achieving peace not through a radical reform of human nature, but “a gradual evolution of human institutions.”

“To begin with, I believe that all nations – strong and weak alike – must adhere to standards that govern the use of force. I – like any head of state – reserve the right to act unilaterally if necessary to defend my nation. Nevertheless, I am convinced that adhering to standards, international standards, strengthens those who do, and isolates and weakens those who don’t.”

In light of recent events, specifically: the failure to close the prison at Guantanamo, the drone program, secret operations and the like, these words seem to stand as an indictment of Obama’s own policies. I think the remainder of the speech confirms this. Obama’s words stand as the basis of criticism of his own deeds, as his deeds suggests possible answers to the criticism informed by his words.

“Furthermore, America – in fact, no nation – can insist that others follow the rules of the road if we refuse to follow them ourselves. For when we don’t, our actions appear arbitrary and undercut the legitimacy of future interventions, no matter how justified.”

He understands that there have to be rules governing the conduct of military force in order for that force to have any chance to provide the basis of peace. Yet, he oversees and expands the unilateral use of drone warfare without clearly articulated and generally agreed upon rules of this deadly military game.

The Nobel Laureate Obama as critic of President Obama:

“Where force is necessary, we have a moral and strategic interest in binding ourselves to certain rules of conduct. And even as we confront a vicious adversary that abides by no rules, I believe the United States of America must remain a standard bearer in the conduct of war. That is what makes us different from those whom we fight. That is a source of our strength. That is why I prohibited torture. That is why I ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed. And that is why I have reaffirmed America’s commitment to abide by the Geneva Conventions. We lose ourselves when we compromise the very ideals that we fight to defend. And we honor – we honor those ideals by upholding them not when it’s easy, but when it is hard.”

But the Nobel Laureate would not be surprised by the President’s actions as he observed: “Even those of us with the best of intentions will at times fail to right the wrongs before us.” He presents guidance about how he should proceed, suggesting specific ways that we can build a just and lasting peace, with the different ways built upon a single vision. He explained in detail his position but then summarized:

“Agreements among nations. Strong institutions. Support for human rights. Investments in development. All these are vital ingredients in bringing about the evolution that President Kennedy spoke about. And yet, I do not believe that we will have the will, the determination, the staying power, to complete this work without something more – and that’s the continued expansion of our moral imagination; an insistence that there’s something irreducible that we all share.”

… if we lose that faith – if we dismiss it as silly or naïve; if we divorce it from the decisions that we make on issues of war and peace – then we lose what’s best about humanity. We lose our sense of possibility. We lose our moral compass.

Like generations have before us, we must reject that future. As Dr. King said at this occasion so many years ago, “I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history. I refuse to accept the idea that the ‘isness’ of man’s present condition makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal ‘oughtness’ that forever confronts him.”

Obama’s position is nuanced, thoughtful and political (in both the good and the bad sense). He identifies with radical peace advocates, those who present a principled opposition to violence, but as a responsible politician he cannot live by their principles alone. Thus, the tension between his stated ideals and his policies.

There are two ways of interpreting this. Either he is a hypocrite or a statesman. He is able to depict ideals in his speech, and to declare commitment to their pursuit, but he is also committed to dealing with difficult realities in consequential ways in his actions.  How we judge the relationship between the ideal and the reality is a matter of political opinion, more or less informed.

Some are sure that Obama’s Peace Prize was undeserved and that his subsequent actions confirmed this. Not only did he do little before he won the prize. Subsequently, he has not acted as a Nobel Peace Laureate should. He escalated the war in Afghanistan. The U.S. drone program has been greatly expanding during his watch, without clear justification and without a public specification of its limits. And under his leadership the U.S. played a key role in the war in Libya. In many ways, he has continued Bush’s policies and directions.

Others will counter that Obama actually has helped de-militarize American foreign policy, winding down two wars. He has publicly and clearly affirmed U.S. commitments to respect the Geneva Agreements and ended the American use of torture, so called “enhanced interrogation.” And under Obama’s leadership, American military engagements have been multilateral and debated in and supported by the United Nations. This was noteworthy Libya, and is being repeated right now in Mali. His policy of “leadership from behind” which is much ridiculed by his militaristic critics, certainly appears as a step in the direction of a more peaceful world order. The term refers to a change in the use of American force in the world. It suggests that the U.S. will not use military force on its own without international support.  Rather than imposing American will with America’s overwhelming power, he seeks to embed American power within internationally legitimate concerted actions.

I actually appreciate both this support and criticism of Obama. Both are consistent with Obama’s lecture. On the positive side, in a threatening world, he has somehow managed to work for the ideal of peace, but he has also fallen short of the very ideals that he has publicly embraced. His lecture illuminates both the criticism and the appreciation, worthy of careful consideration by those concerned with the issue of peace in our times. The commander in chief of the world’s most powerful military force struggling with the dilemmas of the power at his disposal, an intriguing exercise, worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, as he confronts the social condition.

Goldfarb, Jeffrey C., December 3, 2012, “Lincoln:Art and Politics,” Deliberately Considered.

Goldfarb, Jeffrey C., December 13, 2012, “The Social Condition,” Deliberately Considered.

Makiya,, Kanan, 1998, Republic of Fear: The Politics of Modern Iraq, University of California Press.

Michels, Robert, 2008, Political Parties, A Sociological Study of The Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy, Kessinger Publishing, LLC (originally 1915).

Obama, Barack, 2009, “A Just and Lasting Peace,” Nobel Lecture.

We already have interesting confirmation of the hypothesis in the many posts and discussions in our first months of operation.  A discussion that developed in response to my post on the Afghan women’s soccer team, I think was particularly illuminating.

I started with an examination of an instance of the politics of small things. This opened a discussion of the big issues on the question of war and peace, and to my mind the discussion came to a strong insightful ending with a reply that used the perspective of everyday life to address the big issues under discussion.

There were notes on all sides of the issue, from Michael who critically but sympathetically reflected on the American position, to Alias who denounced the NATO effort in no uncertain terms, and opinions in between, including mine. But Mariam Yasin, offered another perspective completely. That of a person against all wars and as someone whose position in the conflict provides a unique perspective:

“There are too many stories of family and my family’s acquaintances killed by Americans, Soviets, and Taliban. This is not to mention the dispersal of Afghans; Afghans just want to be left alone. My family’s house was not shelled by Taliban, but by the Americans and coalition forces. Fortunately no one was hurt that time.”

She made telling observations in her two replies:

“Though I would have to agree that women have regained new means of re-entering social and political life in Afghanistan, I believe there is too much ignored by the strong focus on women and women’s rights…

The struggles faced by Afghan men are ignored and effaced because, as we know, Afghan men are terrorists. However, their mere “inclusion” in society and presence in public life is also a matter of life and death. Those without beards, for instance, risk imprisonment or even immediate execution. Men and boys brave all sorts of dangers to work for whatever meager wages they can manage.

Why don’t we actually speak more about the Bible verses marked on the sides of American weapons or on the targeting sights? Why don’t we speak of the American boys handed guns with the knowledge that they will most likely be shooting people? What does such an act do to American society? Why does the government offer the poor and disenfranchised a chance at an education only if they go to war? Are there those who believe that Afghan children, who have grown up and are growing up through nearly four decades of war, will forget the invasion, occupation, and death?”

The discussion proceeded with an agreement that the policy choices presented a real dilemma.  Mariam agreed.  But she underscored her fundamental position based on her many observations of significant details.

“The only way “out” that I see is a withdrawal of all external intervention in Afghan (Central Asian and Arab) affairs–this includes the so-called Taliban…

For Afghanistan to recover, there needs to be a political and military withdrawal of American and coalition forces. The destruction of the Taliban–politically and culturally–will take place, I have no doubt….”

An interesting perspective, she presents.  Concerned about women’s rights but noting how Afghan men have been demonized.  Very much against the Taliban, but with a strong conviction that they as a foreign import would have been rejected by Afghan’s without outside assistance.  It seems too good to be true, from an American strategic and tactical point of view.  Win the war, by withdrawing.  But as someone who is not able to say as Mariam confidently does, that I am against all wars, my intuition as a pragmatic pacifist, tells me that she might just be right.  There is little evidence that the military option of “the war on terrorism” has been a success or is likely to lead to such success.  The knowledge and the insights of a critical involved person paying close attention to the details of the Afghan experience, such as Mariam, warrants careful deliberate consideration.

Last night in my course on the sociology of Erving Goffman, we discussed the release of classified documents by WikiLeaks.  The students generally agreed with me that the publication was inappropriate and politically problematic.  I think actually only one person dissented from the consensus.  Given the general political orientation of the students and faculty of the New School, this was surprising.  We are far to the left of the general public opinion, to the left, in fact, of the political center of the American academic community.  Our first position is to be critical of the powers that be.

Why not disclose the inner workings of the global super power?  Why not “out” American and foreign diplomats for their hypocrisy?  We did indeed learn a lot about the world as it is through the WikiLeak disclosures.  On the one hand, Netanyahu apparently is actually for a two state solution, and on the other Arab governments are just as warlike in their approach to Iran as Israel.   China is not as steadfast in its support of North Korea and not as opposed to a unified Korea through an extension of South Korean sovereignty as is usually assumed.  And the Obama administration has been tough minded in coordinating international sanctions against Iran, as it has been unsteady with a series of awkward failures in closing Guantanamo Prison.

And, of course, The New York Times, yesterday justified publication, mostly in the name of the public’s right to know about the foibles of its government, and also noted today how the leaks reveal the wisdom and diplomatic success of the Obama administration.

Most of the opposition to the release is very specific.  It will hurt the prospects of peace in the Middle East.  It shows our hand to enemies, as it embarrasses friends.  But my concern, shared with my students is that as it undermines diplomacy, it increases the prospects for diplomacy’s alternatives.

In fact, given the social theorist we have been studying, Goffman, it actually is not that unexpected that my students and I share a concern about the latest from WikiLeaks.  Goffman studied social interaction.  He analyzed how people present themselves in everyday life, and the ritual practices that surround their presentations. He investigated the framing of action, which makes social understanding possible, and he investigates Forms of Talk , the book we were discussing last night.  Most crucially in understanding why we object to the leaks, he shows how all successful group interaction has a front and a back stage.  One is no more true than the other, nor does the presence of a backstage reveal the lie of the front stage.  In fact, the contamination of the front by the back can destroy successful interaction.  This is true of the performances that occur in a family and between families, among groups of individuals, at school, at work, and indeed in international diplomacy.   The contamination of the front by the back can lead to a breakdown in interaction.  Think of our relation with our friends and opponents, on the international stage but also down the block.  In order for successful interaction to occur, people have to share some things, hide others.

We did not proceed to have a political discussion about this last night.  After all, it was a class with its front and back stages and not a political event.  We saw the problem of staging as it illuminated a pressing topic of the day, but we actually didn’t declare and explain our political positions.  There were suggestions, but not careful exploration and debate.  I try to avoid that in my classes as a matter of principle.  I just had a sense of where people stood, perhaps they can reply to this post to fully explain their political positions.

But at DC, I can be more forthright.  I believe WikiLeaks’ disclosures present a clear and present danger to world peace.  I make this bold assertion not because of any particular piece of information that may be particularly damaging, though such information surely has been released.  But because the disclosures as a whole undermine the process of diplomacy as a form of interaction, when diplomacy is what stands between us and war and is a key tool to end foolish wars.  As I indicated in an earlier post, I am becoming more and more convinced that military solutions to the problems of the day are impractical, not likely to yield the desired results.  By  weakening diplomacy, war becomes the default option.  On good peacenik grounds, I am concerned.