Quinta Jurecic discusses her ongoing experiment in philosophy on Lawfare:
But then Donald Trump was elected to the presidency.
The result is that we now find ourselves confronting a remarkable controlled experiment of sorts as we lurch from the exquisitely presented moral anguish and self-involved seriousness of Barack Obama to the proud, almost avowed moral emptiness of Trump.
Here’s one side of the contrast: Over the last eight years, President Obama has given a bravura performance as our philosopher-king, reading Thomas Aquinas and pondering the moral necessity and cost of targeting threats to the United States with deadly violence—and making sure we all know that he is doing so. The administration has been at pains to emphasize that we live in a country with a just-war theorist in the Oval Office. And the targeted killing program has been fitted closely to the individual moral character of that theorist in chief, who believes himself alone to be possessed of the moral seriousness necessary to preside over a program comparatively free of other institutional constraints.
Here’s the other side of the contrast: Our president-elect is a man who appears to have no capacity whatsoever for self-reflection or self-doubt and who has given every appearance that he is so narcissistic that he lacks the capacity to weigh the value of his soul against his love of country—or even to understand what that comparison means.
Gimme an exercise wheel. Earlier, Quinta stated,
And to paraphrase Machiavelli, in order to carry out the work of politics, the leader must love his or her country more than his or her soul—that is, the leader must be willing to carry out ugly and even violent actions for the sake of the country, while keeping sharply present the knowledge that such action degrades the soul. The long-running argument is whether only a person willing to degrade his or her soul for the sake of country—and yet keep the painful knowledge of those moral compromises always in mind—is fit to lead a country. Does this willingness to compromise and do violence, and yet always feel the pain of compromise and violence, really make for a better leader?
Which even as nicely stated as that, covers up some nuance. In Machiavelli’s time, the vast majority of the people stayed put, with no access to transit systems; this resulted in similarly anchored attitudes, leading to xenophobia. Today, it’s much easier to move across borders, to see that people are people.
Given that knowledge, a leader has to operate with the knowledge that their actions will be judged by those who might emigrate to your country, bringing valuable knowledge and skills – or move against you as an enemy and even danger to the general welfare. The consequences of violent actions against non-citizens is different from Machiavelli’s time, and must be considered in light of how the technology of today, in transit, communications, and even detection and monitoring will show the results to everyone who may matter.
