Rational Philosophy

Humility, ironically, arises out of an enforced awareness that one isn’t all one’s cracked up to be. Young children have a supreme sense of power and entitlement. My son needs constantly to be reminded to append the word ‘please’ to his commands. For a three year old he’s not unusual in this regard. He hasn’t yet learned that supreme power is never as supreme as it seems.

(As a parent, on the other hand, I am assured a constant supply of humility as I grapple with the need to balance my needs and desires with those of my children. Suffering a “Maisy” DVD, for instance, not to keep my son quiet (or not primarily so) but because that’s what he wants to watch and who am I to tell him that it isn’t compelling viewing?)

Pervez Musharraf has announced that he will step down from his position as head of Pakistan’s military on Thursday. He’s promised this before and reneged, but this time the circumstances would lead me to think that he will follow through. Musharraf has been served a dose of humility by Saudi Arabia. He’d gone there to ask King Abdullah to keep ex-leader Nawaz Sharif in exile until after the elections. The king demurred, saying he didn’t want to get in the middle of Pakistan’s politics. Musharraf’s hold on power apparently wasn’t as clear to the king as it once had been. As Sharif returns to Pakistan with a flourish, it’s likely that Musharraf will forgo his military position in the hopes of holding onto his political position.

It’s unclear whether President Bush has been experiencing humility or not. Having lost control of Congress and hoping to stay relevant, Bush has turned or has been turned toward political strategies that his administration had derided. He has been signing executive orders to outlaw the fishing of endangered species in Federal waters (a practice that’s already banned), clearing airspace for holiday flight schedules, and setting up a bilateral middle east peace summit (something he had poo-pooed in the past). Across the globe in Australia, the ousting of Prime Minister Howard removes another Bush crony from world politics. The new Labor PM, a speaker of Mandarin, will likely remove Australian combat troops from Iraq and may stop the sale of Uranium to India, since India hasn’t signed the international nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Although Bush undoubtedly can find it in himself to confess his love for Mandarinians, his loss off a staunch ally in Howard surely should make him feel even more isolated. But although the signs would indicate that Bush should be feeling humbled, it’s not a certainty that he does; one of Bush’s defining traits seems to be self-confidence in the face of his own incompetence.

And the GOP, faced with a shortfall in donations for campaign financing, has been targeting wealthy potential candidates in the hopes that they will fund their own campaigns. This is a turnaround. Usually it’s the Democrats who find themselves strapped for cash. Does the GOP feel humbled? Well, for now perhaps, but in the long run I doubt it.

Unfortunately, humility often doesn’t stick.

Sharif has been away long enough that people seem to have forgotten his own frightening ideas and tactics. (Sharif wanted to throw out the Pakistani legal system in favor of a system of law based strictly on the Koran.) Musharraf wasn’t the only one to denounce him as a fascist. Sharif’s own leadership was rocky to say the least. Kicked out of office and exiled for many years one would think that he has had time to reflect and reconsider his egotistical ambitions. Now he returns promising to save the country. Oh, dear.

In politics, while personal humility is rare one feels that it can happen, whereas humility of a party or group seems elusive at best and probably impossible.

Humility, I think, comes in two flavors — expedient humility and true humility. I induce expedient humility in my son when I tell him to say please and thank you if he wishes to continue to get the things he’s asking for. He complies because he understands the risk of non-compliance. So, too, the politician who finds himself in a position of compromised power knows that he must adapt or sink. For a while he swallows his pride and does things that he doesn’t really want to do.

True humility comes about when one acknowledges that one’s own desires and ambitions must be measured and tested against those of others, and that, if we want to avoid oppressing others, we must err on the side of favoring their desires of others over our own. For a political party, or an inveterate politician, true humility is an anathema.

One can only hope that whoever attains power after the shakeout in Pakistan feels enough pressure to induce expedient humility. The same can be said for next year’s election here in the US. For our children, on the other hand, we can hope that repeated reminders of the benefits of humilty will induce the self-reflection and awareness required to inculcate true humility. This way lies the better future of the human race.

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Last week I wrote about the long term risk posed by the Bush administration’s tame response to President Musharraf’s abrupt dismantling of Pakistan’s democratic apparatus. I framed the administration’s reluctance to come down hard on Musharraf in terms of political expediency. But as I read the NY Times recent interview with Musharraf, it occurred to me that Musharraf and Bush perhaps have a lot in common, and that maybe subconsciously (or consciously) Bush doesn’t want to take strong steps against Musharraf because he identifies with him. Not that we should take everything Bush says literally, but he has been quoted as referring to Musharraf as “my buddy and my friend.”

“The emergency is to ensure elections go in an undisturbed manner,” Musharraf says, which reminds me of Bush’s defense of domestic surveillance as necessary to maintain security.

“I know what [the Pakistan people] feel about the emergency when all these suicide bombings were taking place,” Musharraf commented on the increase in suicide bombings, “Their view is, Why have I done it so late.” Which recalls Bush’s insistence that the American people elected him and support his policy of invading Iraq.

The Times also reports that Musharraf defended his dismantling of the Supreme Court because the court had questioned the validity of his re-election. Similarly Bush has attempted, and in some cases
succeeded, in redefining standards for torture, or ignoring international conventions or protocols, because he doesn’t like the restrictions they place on him.

When we identify with someone, psychologically speaking, we connect characteristics they posses with similar characteristics that we attribute favorably to ourselves. Identification has served us well as a species. Identification induces empathy which helps us reach outside ourselves to help others. But identification also presents a particular danger that we need to guard against: With an excess of ego, we can wrongly perceive a characteristic that we possess as good, and, by extension identify and sympathize with that characteristic in others.

Bush seems to believe that his arrogance is justified. He knows better than the courts, he thinks, about what he should do and what is acceptable. He convinces himself that he is right to work outside or to twist the rule of law. If Bush were to condemn Musharraf for similar actions he would create dissonance in his view of himself.

Bush likes to perceive himself as popular and in tune with the people. Musharraf, the same. Outwardly, the trait they believe they possess is a feeling for the people; they like to view themselves as regular guys, men of the people. The true identification seems to be murkier. Perhaps they each recognize a similar weakness in the other, a desire to be liked and understood. It seems that they each feel defensive and inferior, feelings that bring with them a certain bravado (which brings us back to their arrogance).

Referring to the jailed the head of Pakistan’s Human Rights Commission, Asma Jahangir, Musharraf calls her “quite an unbalanced character.”

Interestingly, this comment reminds me of Rudy Giuliani and his now famous rant against the “crazy” owners of ferrets (going back to when he was Mayor of NY City).

Rudy Giuliani has said that he would not urge the Bush administration to cut off financial aid to the Musharraf government. “I would not second-guess any president on that because I think they’re in the middle of a very difficult situation right now,” Giuliani said to The Associated Press.

Perhaps Giuliani’s identifies with Musharraf, too. Something we should keep in mind as we move toward next year’s elections.

In an odd but apparently cleverly orchestrated sequence of events, Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf has tightened his grip on his rule by dispensing with the Supreme Court and scrapping the constitution. This only a few weeks after the return to Pakistan of the self-exiled former leader Banazir Bhutto (whose jubilant welcome-home parade was marred by a deadly bomb attack). And only months after Musharraf promised to relinquish his military post if elected president.

Apart from the obvious questions about how these distressing events will affect the future of Pakistan and the region, they pose another question that calls upon the current US administration to decide whether it will denounce Musharraf’s dismantling of democracy, or whether it will decide that it needs a friend in Pakistan more than it needs to stand by the principles of global freedom.

Surprising some, Pat Robertson, the television evangelist and Christian Coalition founder, has endorsed Republican White House hopeful Rudy Giuliani for president. Roberston feels that Giuliani’s qualities as a leader outweigh his shortcomings as someone who supports abortion and gay rights.

And house Republicans have joined Democrats to overturn the President’s veto of the water resources development act, just one a several funding bills that seem set to pit Republicans against their leader.

To quote American Theologian Tryon Edwards “Compromise is but the sacrifice of one right or good in the hope of retaining another - too often ending in the loss of both.” But is this the case? What is the philosophy of compromise?

If Bush continues to court Musharraf’s favor by going easy on him in the face of his anti-democratic measures he will discredit the very ideal he says he seeks to promote — global democracy. Now, there are some who think (I’m one of them) that Bush may even believe that he supports global democracy, when what he really wants is to feel safer and to make his friends and allies wealthier. In which case, compromise would seem to be the most attractive strategy; a slap on the wrist for Musharraf so that America can continue to rely on his support.

Reading Pat Robertson’s comments, his goal in compromise seems to be that he hopes to have a strong leader in the White House, one sympathetic to a broad swath of Christian concerns, even if not all of them.

And house Republicans seek to approve funding they feel their constituents support, even if it weakens the overall coherence of their party and its goals. The long term result of which may be that they hurt Republican chances in the next election and thereby risk not getting what their constituents want in the long term.

From a purely conceptual perspective, Tryon Edwards definition of compromise seems quite good: “the sacrifice of one right or good in the hope of retaining another.” But what Edwards’ sobering analysis doesn’t account for is whether, if one were not to compromise, one would forgo a greater right or good. What’s the alternative? in other words.

Therefore, in considering any specific instance of a compromise, we need to evaluate three things:

1. What do we give up by the compromise?
2. What do we gain by the compromise?
3. What options do we have if we don’t compromise?

Bush’s task at hand will be made more difficult if he denounces Musharraf’s actions and isolates Pakistan. But it won’t be made impossible. From a practical perspective, even without Pakistan’s support Bush can continue to fight the war on terror, albeit less adeptly (if that’s the right word). As a matter of principle, not denouncing Musharraf’s actions would undermine Bush’s declared objectives and make a further global mockery of his rhetoric of freedom.

It’s hard to know what Robertson expects to gain from his endorsment of Giuliani, and it’s hard to imagine that he will lose a great deal by endorsing him, but he did have alternatives (McCain, for instance) who would have provided a safer bet. Perhaps then his endorsement of Giuliani reflects a more principled choice than it might first appear. Perhaps he really does believe that Giuliani will make a strong leader and that this is more important than having a president who doesn’t support abortion and gay rights.

And for the house Republicans, voting with the president would have meant voting, symbolically at least, in favor of fiscal responsibility. This would have been a greater good, perhaps, than achieving some short-lived favor with their constituents. But perhaps the chance to distance themselves from Bush was just too appealing to pass up.

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