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bettyfair · 3 months ago

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Conscientious Objection & Slacktivism

Part 2 in my musings on "There’s no ethical consumption under capitalism"

Bills quote took me by surprise because, to my shame, it was maybe the first time I realised that I too dislike liberals.

I’d always heard talk about pathetic liberals, either by my father who accused me (someone who has never voted Labour) of being a liberal Labour lover, or by American children who love communism & soviet hats and figure they could live easily without Starbucks.

It really wasn’t until it was laid out as above that I figured what it really meant.

My fist memory of politics is the fallout from 9/11. I remember seeing a newspaper cutting in a flat window from my school bus on the way home. It said “No to War”. I remember seeing that and thinking – well who would be pro war! I guess at 12 years old and growing up in rural Wales, you’re not really overly aware of America’s deep desire for oil and the military complex profits.

I remember 9/11 too – I remember coming home from primary school and watching the first plane hit the tower on the news repeats over and over.

It all seemed very strange, because my concept of war was something that was in the past – Trench foot, tanks and accents that are seemingly extinct. I guess that’s growing up in the British school system. The war is WWII where we fought Nazi’s. Not any of the Wars we’ve fought since. I don’t remember ever learning about Ireland.

I can’t really say that the strangers window display influenced me into left wing politics amid a right wing household. I wonder if that really is an old school display of liberalism? How much impact did that have from a window in Mid Wales? Did they leave the country in protest after the outbreak of war?

Disobedience and Why Socrates didn’t run.

Fun fact! Conscientious objection day is celebrated on May 15th – which is my birthday in every year I have been alive so far.

Socrates is an ancient Greek Philosopher. Arguably the most famous philosopher of all time. One of the best facts about Socrates is that no one can claim to have ‘read’ him, because there exists no texts directly from Socrates himself. Instead he exists in the works of other philosophers, mainly Plato, his student. The ancient Greeks wrote philosophy more like plays than like essays or novels, and so Socrates appears as a literal named character in a lot of Plato’s works. In my opinion this also makes it as accessible as any form of philosophy can be, but then by reading the ancient Greeks you are starting as near to the start as it is probably reasonable to get.

A lot happened to Socrates but here we will start from the end: Socrates forced poisoning by the Athenian government, unjustly, at the ripe old age of 71.

These events are mostly covered in Plato’s work ‘Crito’. Written as a dialogue between Socrates and his friend Crito of Alopece. Too much goes on in this short work for me to truly cover here. But the meat of what I want to get to is this – Socrates had a chance to escape his punishment, and he does not.

“Socrates: “…” a man to do what he admits to be right, or ought he to betray the right? Crito: He ought to do what he thinks right. Socrates: But if this is true, what is the application? In leaving the prison against the will of the Athenians, do I wrong any? or rather do I not wrong those whom I ought least to wrong? Do I not desert the principles which were acknowledged by us to be just? What do you say? Crito: I cannot tell, Socrates, for I do not know. Socrates: Then consider the matter in this way: Imagine that I am about to play truant (you may call the proceeding by any name which you like), and the laws and the government come and interrogate me: "Tell us, Socrates," they say; "what are you about? are you going by an act of yours to overturn us- the laws and the whole State, as far as in you lies? Do you imagine that a State can subsist and not be overthrown, in which the decisions of law have no power, but are set aside and overthrown by individuals?" What will be our answer, Crito, to these and the like words? Anyone, and especially a clever rhetorician, will have a good deal to urge about the evil of setting aside the law which requires a sentence to be carried out; and we might reply, "Yes; but the State has injured us and given an unjust sentence." Suppose I say that?

Can’t you see how accessable this is? If you are surprised at the sheer about of questions that Socrates offers up in his argument then you are unfamiliar with the Scoratic method.

During his trial is when Socrates was said to have uttered the unquestionably instagramable phrase "The unexamined life is not worth living". I’ll leave that there as it is.

So why did Socrates not run – essentially, in very short and uncomplicated manor, Socrates believes that in escaping punishment he was breaking the law, and that to break one law because you find it unjust or unfair, then you are denying the laws themselves. Socrates argues that he has agreed to the laws and to be judged by them – creating one of the earliest arguments for the ‘social contract theory’.

And so Socrates died – drinking hemlock as depicted in The Death of Socrates. Delivered from Justice at the hands of men.

It’s up to you if you want to imagine Socrates as a dutiful citizen, bending over for the long arm of the law into death. Or, if you choose to see him as a martyrdom of Civil Disobedience.

Much has been said about the social contract theory – if it exists and what one should do. I don’t have the ability to do that here, but it’s worth noting that the majority of us DO believe in it to some extent. Maybe we should reflect on what that means individually before continuing with my ramblings?

All of that is to eventually lead onto Martin Luther King Jr. and his fight against unjust laws, specifically racial segregation laws in America.

“One who breaks an unjust law must do it openly, lovingly . . . and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and willingly accepts the penalty by staying in jail to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the very highest respect for the law.”

To my great shame I do not know much about Martin Luther King Jr.

...

I looked him straight in the eye and told him, I said, ‘I respectfully refuse to obey your orders

https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/voices-of-the-first-world-war-conscientious-objection

It is said that some 16,000 men refused to take up arms and fight in WWI. Most of those who refused to enlist or be conscripted did so on religious grounds. Many of the men were given forced jobs or medical roles to support the nation during war time.

As this BBC article states : Cindy Sharkey, is remembering her grandfather, Eleazor Thomas. A socialist member of the Independent Labour Party, Mr Thomas was a conscientious objector railing against what he saw as a capitalist war, waged to preserve the empire.

He was imprisoned at Dartmoor, where he laboured in gas works, Mrs Sharkey, recalls. "The hardest thing must have been making a choice that meant leaving his wife and children behind with no support as he went to prison," she says.

One of the more famous examples of propaganda in the UK was the White Feather, a method to not only shame the conscientious objector, but act as a warning to other men should they think about also disobeying.

Supposedly representing cowardice, it’s easy to see from the above that it much more likely represented bravery in reality. I really do recommend reading from the Imperial War Museum article for a full picture on the reality of Conscientious Objectors (linked above) and what they went through.

CO’s as they seem to be referred to, were sometimes imprisoned in the UK where they were treated miserably and with undeniable cruelty as the ‘war to end all wars’ continued on, demanding more sacrifice. Still, it did seem to be a fate better than those who were sent to die on the front lines.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin, If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, Bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,– My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.

(Extract from Dulce et Decorum Est – Wilfred Owen)

The existence of CO’s in WWII is more complicated. Clearly this war was more just. If a just war there could be. This article depicts a sad state for CO’s : “Corsellis was one of some 60,000 British men and 900 women who attested a conscientious objection during the second world war. (Many more women would like to have declared themselves conscientious objectors, but had no official way of doing so.) The 1% of conscripted men was proportionally more than the 16,000 who objected in the two years of conscription during the first world war. Most, but not all, objected on religious grounds and were from middle- or upper-class backgrounds. Most, but not all, were still willing to work in some capacity for Britain’s second world war effort.

Clearly the existence of an undeniable evil in Nazi-ism compelled some of those who disagreed with war into some effort to support the destruction of Hitler’s ideology within the realms of their own ethics. Some, obviously still objected completely. The British establishment never the less persisted in their punishment of CO’s. Social punishment as cowards and stripping them of their freedom.

In more recent times, there have been examples of Conscientious Objection during active war. One of the more surreal ones I could find was a squadron of on duty Israeli pilots who signed a letter essentially refusing to bomb civilian population centres in2003, calling the orders illegal and immoral. 4 of the pilots later recanted their signatures after harsh blowback from their decision. One now works for an organisation advocating for a 2 state solution to the American government

Kony2012

Kony2012 is one of my favourite bits of internet history. Sometimes I look around at the behaviour people display online and I wonder if I am the only one who remembers it. Was I the only one there?

Right now as I write this I have the Invisible Children, original Kony2012 video playing on my second screen. I don’t remember much of the details about it – but I do remember seeing how classmates of mine acted about it on release. The stickers that were put up – people changing their facebook photos to Kony2012. A hashtag before a hashtag. This belief that if we all worked together we could end this great evil. That all we had to do was look at it happening.

Finally, we could end something awful and all we had to do was consume media about it.

For reference, as you might not know, Kony is Joseph Kony – A Ugandan Warlord. What Kony is most infamous for is his use of child soldiers, according to his wiki approximately 66,000 children became salves in his Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). An undoubtingly evil man who is still currently ‘at large’ despite being wanted for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Kony2012 was a well produced video, showcasing the experience of a young Ugandan man – Jacob, who tells the documentary maker that essentially it is better that he (Jacob) dies than stay on Earth. The video is moving, Jacob cries, his story devastating. The documentary maker Jason Russel, promises he will fix it all. He literally promises that. He explains his whole plan to his son “You stop the bad guys from being mean” his son says.

Jason gives details on the LRA. He’s not shy in saying what they do – or showing what they do. It’s bleak, and it’s undeniable. Comments on the video are turned off – I’m relieved at this.

In a really poor choice of words, Jason explains all the good work he is doing with his organisation ‘invisible children’ and says it was funded by “an army of young people”. Those people sharing posts and putting up stickers on lampposts. The ONLY point of Kony2012 was exposure.

I can't undersell this, Jason honestly had no plans past exposure. He just wanted enough people to know about it and the presumably it would stop?

Shortly after Mumford and Son’s plays in the background, Jason celebrates the announcement of US Congress authorising a “small number of US forces [deploying] to central Africa to […] [work] towards the removal of Joseph Kony”. That’s right, the US are going to fight a child army overseas! (fear not reader, as there’s actually more evidence that by this time Konys actual power had dissipated and he was no longer in the region)

Nevertheless Jason is ecstatic at this. What’s right has happened – because of you and your consuming of media.

There was some backlash at the time, the Wikipedia quotes this:

Dinaw Mengestu, an Ethiopian American writer and Africa researcher, wrote that the real world Kony is "not a click away" and a simple solution of raising popular awareness is "a beautiful equation that can only work so long as we believe that nothing in the world happens unless we know about it ... only works in the myopic reality of the film, a reality that deliberately eschews depth and complexity."

And more on the nose, this:

Charlie Beckett, a media communications expert at the London School of Economics (LSE), said what Invisible Children hasn't "got the capacity for is to take that beyond another action. What are they going to do with all this energy and interest? It's going to dissipate. ... I think this will crash and die, I don't think they will catch Kony. People will say they bought the bracelet and stuck posters on lamppost but that could have negative effects when it doesn't actually lead anywhere"

So what did happen to Kony? I already told you he’s still at large, so the US didn’t get him. Well in truth nothing happened. There were so many complaints levelled against Invisible Children and their inability to manage the complexity of the issue, Jason had a very public breakdown that resulted in him running naked through the streets. And yeah, it fizzled out. It turns out all they could do was produce sleek media, and that real change needs more than that – more than eyes and awareness. It needs more than a fucking hashtag.

The people who I went to school with, who had moralised about their facebook Kony profiles, presumably just removed them quietly and went on with their life.

That was that for child armies in Africa. Sorry kids – the media machine moves fast! Hope you know how to Tik Tok dance!

So what did we learn from all that?

Well, nothing it turns out. People still posted black squares and took up some good old fashioned public shaming for those who didn’t. Some even keep the entirety of their political activism online, presumably never taking up conversation with other people in real life – least they disagree. Least they be family!

In recent times, those so inclined could add a Ukraine flag emoji to their twitter bio. I just checked the X account of my old manager / CEO. He’s removed his, one has to assume that was embarrassing?

I had wanted to also talk about the rise of right wing via social media, but it seems I spent too long taking about Socrates and Conscientious Objection. So that will have to be part 2.

And what I thought was going to be 3 parts, now will likely be much more.

Apologies.

#slacktivism #Conscientious objection #War #Socrates #Social contract #Left wing #Government #Kony2012 #Online activism #Trump #Elon musk #fuck trump

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