U.S. Army Spc. Alyssa Peterson (Sketch by Margo Bendery, staff illustrator for Engaging Peace)
Today we introduce identifying better alternatives, the moral engagement counterpart to advantageous comparison.
As discussed in Monday’s post, the moral dis-engagement mechanism of advantageous comparison operates by helping people believe that whatever violence they approve will have a better outcome than not using the violence. Basically they are endorsing the common assumption that what is portrayed as the lesser of two evils is in fact moral.
Identifying better alternatives, according to psychologist Albert Bandura, takes two forms:
- Acknowledging that there is never a permanent advantage to using violence in the pursuit of power, and
- Recognizing that the greatest long-term advantage to the human race comes from identifying peaceful alternatives to violence.
Regarding the first form, as Andrew Bacevich, a professor of history and international relations at Boston University, said in a recent (June 27, 2010) Washington Post article: “Long wars are antithetical to democracy. Protracted conflict introduces toxins that inexorably corrode the values of popular government.”
Bacevich expressed concern over the so-called “volunteer force” created in the U.S. after the Vietnam War, and warns of the dangers of creating a force that allows the country to engage in conflicts without end: “Throughout history, circumstances such as these have bred praetorianism, warriors becoming enamored with their moral superiority and impatient with the failings of those they are charged to defend.”
In our view, it is also a more general sense of moral superiority that allows many Americans to tolerate the aggressions of their government.
History has many surprising examples of people who have chosen better alternatives than violence as a way to achieve security. Mohandas Gandhi and Nelson Mandela are obvious examples. People in power in various countries have realized the advantages of ending aggression–consider South Africa when it ended apartheid and Northern Ireland when both Protestant and Catholic leaders undertook peace talks.
A tragic example can be seen in the case of Spc. Alyssa Peterson, an Arabic-speaking military interrogator in Iraq who was reprimanded for showing empathy for prisoners. She ultimately chose suicide over participation in the torture of prisoners.
Our government must develop better alternatives for responding to people of conscience who resist engaging in inhumane behavior.
Kathie Malley-Morrison, Professor of Psychology
Bacevich has certainly made a correct assumption when it comes to how we as Americans respond to wars. When John F Kennedy assumed office, he surrounded himself with some of the smartest men in the United States, calling them the “Best and the Brightest.” These words were eventually used by Kennedy to describe the people of America and the country itself. This notion that we are the best people in the world, that we as Americans are exceptional allows us to ignore the actions that are committed by our government. Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq were never declared wars, they were merely means to and end, for America to show everyone that we are the best and that no one should question us. Shows such as those of Rush Limbaugh, and various anchors or guests on the news declare that those who don’t support the war are un-American, un patriotic, and are the equivalent of terrorists.
Those who don’t support the war are certainly un-American, but not in the way that people say they are. They are un-American in the sense that they refuse to ignore the actions of their government, they are not going to ignore their governments actions and blindly believe in the moral superiority. Rather I feel it is our duty as citizens that we protect those around us from believing in the moral superiority of the government, and they have to realize that just because the government says that one action is our duty, we do not have to follow it. Rather it is in our own interests and the interest of other citizens that they do not get caught up in the game of playing soldier and Heroes and Villains, because they don’t realize that the suffering is real, the violence is real, and that other parts of life are more vital than war.