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The political & the ethical: any fatal difference?

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bell jar

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I define armed force, police, court, administrative agency and suchlike as "coercive instruments".

To many people who accept ideologies that support freedom, "coercive instruments" constitute the "fatal difference" between the political and the ethical. "Coercive instruments" or lack thereof become a determinative of the way people regard a thing. For the same norm, if implemented by government, it is a coercion and unacceptable; if spontaneously implemented by ordinary people without any government's agitation, it is not a coercion and "acceptable".

But if a bad effect can be rendered by both "coercive" and "non-coercive" mechanisms, the dichotomy of coercion/non-coercion (or political/ethical) is not as fatal as some people speculate. According to my speculation, politics is not independent from ethics; rather, it is a particular form of ethics. Without ethics, there will be no politics.

The operation of a coercive instrument lies on a series of directives. The mechanism is: the superordinate (officials of higher ranks) give incontestable directives to the subordinate (ordinary people or officials of lower ranks) and the subordinate implement those incontestable directives no matter what they are. The directives can be a resolution to build a skyscraper or the repression of a massive demonstration. The contents of directives are irrelevant to the operation of a coercive instrument.

Consider one member of the subordinate refuses to implement the directive of a ruling entity, what will be the end. Needless to say, he/she will be punished for his refusal to implement the ruling entity's directives.

This means, 1) he is able to refuse to implement directives. But 2) if he exerts this ability (which means he does refuse to implement directives), he will be punished by superordinate via various coercive instruments. Any ruling entity cannot prescribe a person's ability, so it needs a backup supports to punish those who employ their abilities which are not favored by superordinates.

But "to punish the apostate" is also a directive. Then ruling entity faces the same situation: what if the second member of coercive instruments refuses to implement these directives again?

The ruling entity can only employs its rest members of coercive instruments to punish the former two apostates. Thus it again faces the same situation of the possibility of the third, forth, fifth … members of its coercive instruments becoming apostates.

The end of this circle is the complete disintegration of the entire coercive instruments and therefore any political oppression will become impossible.

In the preceding example I assume that the members of the coercive instruments becoming apostates is a successive process. In fact, those members can become apostates simultaneously. It is possible that 20% of members of the coercive instruments become apostates simultaneously, or 95%, or 100%. I also omit ordinary people. Because if ordinary people violate the directives of superordinates, they will be punished as those apostates of coercive instruments.

Given this fact, how a coercive instrument can stay surviving and political oppression is tangible and effective?

It is right to say that the coercive force itself can maintain its existence. If we cast some consideration to the preceding example, we will see that ultimately it is the ethics that maintain its survival: it is the ethical belief that any member of the coercive instruments and ordinary people must unconditionally implement the various relevant directives of their superordinates. If no one believes this ethical norm, any coercive instrument must collapse and the whole society must become an anarchist society. If a lot of members of coercive instruments refuse to accept this ethical norm, the effectiveness of political oppression will become impaired.

In August Coup of Soviet Union, many military officers refused to implement their de facto superordinates' directives of enforcing martial law and arresting Boris Yeltsin. Thus the Coup became abortive only three days later.

People usually highly discriminate the "legal" government from "illegal" government. They are prone to observe the directives from a "legal" government and refuse to observe the directives from an "illegal" government. (In some enlightened countries, people only implement humane directives. If G. W. Bush issued the directive that dissolve the Democratic Party, no one would implement it.) This inclination can only be regard as an ethics, because this inclination logically precedes any government.

So all governments, although commanding coercive instruments, still need to justify its legitimacy and legality. In democratic countries, electoral governments are seen as legal. If some other aspirants initiate a coup and organize a new government, it is highly possible resisted by ordinary people as well as members of coercive instruments. In dictatorial countries, governments must use propaganda and public education to construct an ethical atmosphere in which it is regarded as a legal government. Or else their coercive instruments will not be so obedient to governments. This is how ethics underpins politics.

Fear of possible punishment is another underpinning that make coercive instrument staying surviving and political oppression keeping tangible and effective.

Every country has colossal coercive instruments which include a large number of personnel. If the whole coercive instrument is to collapse, all of its personnel must refuse to implement its superordinates' directives simultaneously. This is less possible. If some of its personnel want to refuse to implement the superordinates' directives, they will scruple at the fact or anticipation that other members of coercive instrument will still implement the leaders' directives and thus they themselves will be punished by those other members. So the integration of a coercive instrument is hard to break and political coercion is still highly effective.

But this dilemma is not unique to members of coercive instruments. If someone fears the possible moral sanction of other people, he will still do things he doesn't like to do. Again there is no fundamental difference between the ethical and the political in this respect.

If there is no such a "fatal difference" between politics and ethics, the mentality that keeping stern attitude toward government and tolerant attitude toward "civilian norms" will be problematic.

For example, the restriction of dressing is a worldwide trouble. Disregarding quite a few bigoted people who must restrict other people's freedom of dressing, some people still differentiate two kinds of restriction: One is Saudi Arabia's legislative restriction of dressing; another is the customary restriction of dressing. Therefore the former is coercion and should be condemned; and the latter is not coercion and should be tolerant. (Or people who condemn this customary restriction usually be condemned. This is often the case.) But the fact is that "legislative restriction" is just a roundabout manifestation of "customary restriction". If no one or only a few one think it is ethical to restrict people's freedom of dressing, how can the government legislate this restriction and how can the police effectively implement this restriction? No custom, no law. The political are ultimately the ethical.

My last conclusion is that current anti-government movement is theoretically fruitless. Because the hazard of politics is indeed the hazard of ethics (or morality). If ethics is not shaken, government will keep intact.

[P.S., some people believed that morality must involve the question of harm. If no harm, it is not the realm of morality. But most people don't think so. For example, when Bush commented on his intended prohibition of same-sex marriage, he said same-sex marriage is immoral; same-sex marriage violates morality (at least in my language the word he used is "morality"). Is this a "grammar mistake"?

I think the concept "normativity" cannot substitute the concept "morality". Because morality is more than a norm, it has fused a positive or affirmative value judgment of people. It is not just a "norm" but a "good norm". ]

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I define armed force, police, court, administrative agency and suchlike as "coercive instruments".
Why would you define these notions, when we already know what they mean -- what is the purpose of the definition for you? What justifies your particular definition? What is the referent of "suchlike"? Why would you bother to "define" a well-understood concept like "police" and not bother to define "coersion"? Are you aware that the police do not coerce, and that in a free society they are prohibited from coercing? Perhaps if you focused on your first sentence and tightened up your thinking, the remainder of your post would appear to be "about" something.
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