Rising Up, Rising Down

A Summary and Analysis of Vollmann’s Calculus on Violent Defense of Race/Culture and Creed

In this section Vollmann begins by discussing the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and his assassin James Earl Ray. Vollmann states that Ray accomplished both his ends and means. The means are the death of Martin Luther King Jr. and the ends are the perpetuation of a race war. “The immediate consequences of Martin Luther King’s assassination was large scale violence.” Twenty-six hundred people were injured and forty-six died, property damages reached $45 million, and the government called in the Eighty-Second Airborne division to restore order. He furthers this point by utilizing a powerful simile and asserting that “only anger endures, like the precipitate of a long and ugly chemical reaction.”

Ray rose up when he assassinated MLK and he rose down when he was forcibly retired from racial wars by being sent to prison. This interesting case study segues into Vollmann’s moral calculus on when violent defense of race and culture is justified/unjustified. I would now like to analyze one of the justifications that I find particularly well-thought out. First, violence is justified when “it is directed by a minority against a majority whose actions are causing imminent danger to the minority’s justified identity and expression.” Vollmann continues by adding several caveats saying that force is only allowable “when nonviolence has already failed and violence offers a very convincing probability of effectively achieving its stated result while obeying proportionality, discrimination and limit.” He ends by claiming that violence is justified “when individuals within the group toward which the violence is directed are implicitly and explicitly considered to have the same fundamental rights as those who carry out the violence.”

Vollmann then discusses defense of creed by using the example of Hernando Cortes’ conquest of Mexico under the guise of spreading Christianity. “Spaniards shove opposing creed-defenders aside, and smash the sacred thing. God… has been honored.” Vollmann then entertains an entire argument under the assumption that Cortes’ ends are “soul-salvation for all, and physical salvation for the sacrificial victims.” He does an entire balance sheet in which he tallies the loss of lives on both sides. I find this problematic for two reasons:

1. Vollmann himself admits that this is just a hypothetical exercise and there are multiple confounding motivations behind Cortes’ conquest. Yet I think it is futile to even entertain these ideas when historians have a general consensus that his motivations boil down to three main things: God, Gold, and Glory. Why act like God is the only reason for Cortes’ brutality and grant him undeserved sympathy? Perhaps Vollmann merely wants to analyze a single variable (God), but when are humans’ motivations ever just one thing? Although harsh, I find myself more likely to accept Bakunin’s bold claim that “all religions are cruel; all founded on blood; for all rest principally upon the idea of sacrifice.” There is much that can be unpacked from that quote as well, but I will move on to my second point.
2. Vollmann acknowledges that “the righteous side does not render itself unrighteous merely by killing more people than the unrighteous.” A digestible example of this is President Lincoln’s assassination, which killed only one person while the resulting judicial decision killed five. That does not mean that the execution is unjustified simply based on sheer numbers. Perhaps it is human nature to seek out data to explain what is right and wrong. This is something that we have discussed extensively in class. Is utilitarian calculus the best way to approach all moral decisions? I believe that Professor Carson would say no, although it is definitely an interesting metric to consider.

Vollmann furthers this argument of creed by analyzing the Biblical story of the Canaanite Mother. Essentially, a woman who is of a different creed from Christ begs him to heal her daughter. At first he tests her and then realizing that her faith is strong, he heals the daughter. The Old Testament of the Bible defends “the straight and narrow path of creed with a ruthless unilateralism.” The Old Testament contains many examples of this severity: slaughtering, razing, and enslaving. Vollmann argues that this mindset can be seen in the conquests of Cortes, the abolitionist actions of John Brown, and Stalin’s firing squad.

The New Testament contains deviations from this strict creed that are contingent upon repentance. Christ himself ignores the denunciations of the Pharisees and heals on the Sabbath. But to my understanding, this is what the New Testament is all about. Jews no longer need to keep Kosher and follow the strict rules of the Old Testament; all that is required for salvation is faith. An insight that I find particularly interesting is Vollmann’s assertion that perhaps the meeting of the Canaanite woman was “as much of a turning point for him as it was for her.” I have heard much discussion about Christ’s impact, but few have discussed others’ impact on Christ. Vollmann corroborates this claim by stating that the parable of the good Samaritan came after this meeting. Coincidence? Vollmann thinks not.

Vollmann then decides to discuss the difference between a creed and an end: a creed’s achievement is not necessarily measurable. Faith abandons traditional norms and requires that we rise up (or down) towards the unknown with care towards the wind. Essentially, “faith equals extremism.” Vollmann then names several historical figures with similar levels of faith and descending levels of goodness: “Christ-Gandhi-Joan-Napoleon-Cortes-Lenin-Hitler.” One aspect of a creed is that it must be universal: “we defend our faith by extending it everywhere, pulling down idols and bayoneting capitalists as we go.” There is little to no room left for compromise.

Vollmann ends this volume by discussing when violent defense of creed is justified/unjustified. I would now like to analyze one of the justifications that I take issue with: the idea that defense of creed is allowed when it is morally transparent. But what exactly does transparency entail? Vollmann argues inclusiveness which can be discerned from context. I find this to be quite paradoxical: he is attempting to apply a rule that can be applied to most situations of violence yet in order to apply the rule one has to assess the situational context. So why bother making a rule for creeds which will need to be addressed on a case to case basis? “Context” seems like a cop-out to me. Are my opinions critical? Perhaps. Would William T. Vollmann want someone to argue against his ideas? I think it is likely. My ideas are coming from a desire to engage with the text and perhaps Vollmann himself.

-P.K.

In Volume 2 of Vollmann’s Rising Up and Rising Down we continue to investigate violence and the defenses of its employment. The section that I will be discussing picks up in Chapter 11: Defense of Race and Culture. Vollmann discusses the Whale Hunter’s Maxim which is : “What is forbidden, allowable, or compulsory in one group need not be in another” (II, p. 363). But he raises an issue through the narration of the Pelasgian Dilemma. In this story told by Herodotus, the Pelasgians seek revenge against the Athenians for their expulsions, and kidnap some Athenian women during the festival of Artemis to use as concubines. When these women had children, they raised them to behave like Athenians. These children would not interact with, always supported one another against, and considered themselves above their Pelasgian peers. This was a problem for the Pelasgians because they thought, if they behave like this now, how will they behave when they grow up? Thus, they decided to kill the children, and then murder the mothers. They didn’t believe in the Whale Hunter’s Maxim, for “race, city, clan, and nation were all the same.” You are either a Pelasgian, or assimilate to be a Pelasgian. This idea of “you’re either with us, or against us,” is the reason for the Pelasgians’ proactive self-defense (II, p. 365). Which leads to Vollmann’s next point, he presents the Klansman’s Maxim: “If i believe your race or culture threans mine, I have the right first to threaten you back, then to remove your threat by violence.” So, this leads to the question, do you express who you are and cause harm to yourself and/or others, or assimilate for protection? (II, p. 366). Vollmann resolves that self expression is an inalienable right and you are not culpable should violence be committed against you; if imminent defense is unnecessary, then violence should not go beyond what is necessary to maintain minimal aloofness which is in the right of the group (II, p. 367).

This leads to the question of why does aloofness “matter”? Because the introduction of different practices and beliefs to a group can potentially alter it, possibly better or for worse (II, p. 368). Therefore, to maintain diversity, there should be some “local homogeneity and global heterogeneity.” But if people choose to assimilate into that culture, then it is also the right of that individual’s choice. Violence for the defense of race and culture is not justified if used against someone who has already absorbed the culture. Vollmann would argue “that deciding who can mingle with whom is bigotry” because the given right of self-expression is what justifies the defense of bloodline, therefore “defense of bloodline must come second to defense of individual choice” (II, p. 370).

Another stipulation of the Whale Hunter’s Maxim is “justified in inverse proportion to the proportion and influence of those who practice it in a given instance.” Following this, Vollmann doesn’t find anything wrong with the concept of “White Pride,” but when that is used as justification to act violently in defense against a minority group, then that is oppression and suppression. Minority groups can justly preserve aloofness to a greater extent than a majority group (II, p. 371).

Vollmann sums up three different forms of defense of race, which can be utilized in any and all forms. The first is the imminent self-defense against violent racists and rising up against racist institutions to achieve equality. The second is proactive self-defense (II, p. 371). Vollmann states, “more often than not what’s called racial self-defense is racism.” I think this point is important to make. Acting violently and I would also add unfairly or unjustly against someone or a certain group in the absence of an imminent need for defense, is racist. Because you are in fact, judging and punishing them for they can do potentially that is based on their race and culture. But moving on, the third sort of defense is separatism, which calls forth the right of self expression and minimal aloofness. When interethnic tensions appear insoluble, then separation may serve as a potential solution relatively. This last form is not as likely to be justifiable under less than physically dire situations but a case does arise. in which the minority group that faces aggression to their identity and expression by a majority, where nonviolence failed and violence has a plausible chance of achieving its goals while being proportional, discriminatory, and knowing limits, and lastly when the individuals of the minority group are both implicitly and explicitly believed to have the same fundamental rights as the aggressors of the majority group. Separatism should be considered heavily and not be a first choice, because it can end in divorce and vileness when a plausible alternative is self-expression that can be exercised mutually and respectively and be achievable but albeit through some struggle (II, p. 372). However separatism doesn’t always require violence or force. Vollmann recounts Marcus Garvey, leader of the movement that advocated for black people to go back to Africa (II, p. 374). This separation is also what the Ku Klux Klan wants; there was a mutual understanding between the two groups. From here, Vollmann dives into the defense of race through the eyes of the Klan (II, p. 375). 

When black people were supposed to be freed through the Emancipation Proclamation, they were not granted citizenship and therefore not protected. So for black people, defense of race fell into the first form, a collective defense against imminent aggression (II, p. 376). This self defense of race, on the other hand, requires the racist white people to resist intermarriage. Vollmann continues to outline the double standard of how it was fine if a black woman gave birth to a half-white child, but abhorrent if a white woman gave birth to a half-black child, and Vollmann sees this double standard due to the reasoning that the father can easily walk away whereas the mother cannot do so, so denial is not an option (II, p. 377). I see it as not only this, but white men during this time saw black people as objects, so they justified it to themselves that they were utilizing their property and they were in their right to do so, which is terrible to even write out but I’m laying down my thoughts. In the other case, they see the white woman as being defiled because of her sexual relations with someone who wasn’t even considered human and beneath her. Thus being subject to shame. Black people were seen as subhuman and groups use Biblical references to support their arguments and call them “the beast of the fields,” and the natural order was that they were meant to serve the superior white race. The masters and mistresses would explain they treated their slaves well and deserved their loyalty, while whipping, castrating, and selling their children off (II, p. 378). So when the abolitionists came and changed things, these white people who claimed to follow the natural order wouldn’t allow this, so they formed organizations like the Ku Klux Klan to keep them away (and maintain their own aloofness.) “You destroyed the traditional institutions of separation, so we’ll just have to maintain our separateness in other ways” (II, p. 379).

This view of seeing “outsiders” as beneath us isn’t a new or foreign concept, it has been seen across time and space (II, p. 380). The view was supplied by arguments such as the black person was the real serpent who tricked Eve into eating the apple thus introducing sin into the world (II, p. 381).  Another explained that the white man possesses three elements in his nature: matter, mind, and soul. But black people only have two. Since the soul is supposed to be composed of a noble gas and cannot mix with other elements, “miscegenation can produce only half-breeds with admixtures of the first two-elements. “Hence, no mixed blood has a soul.”” These arguments worked to support the fervent defense of bloodline (II, p. 382).

Intermarriage allowed for the adoption of people outside of your group into yours. The defenders of Southern rights were not having that! But it is no surprise, this was the way they understood the world and this worldview was shaken up when “abolition had been shoved down their gagging throats” (II, p. 382). This left the White Supremacist south to form the Organization because they believed that defense of race and culture required militant defense (II, p. 383). The people who were so convinced that black people were natural slaves thought they ought to stand up for their convictions, and all of their horrendous acts of violence were not seen as this way by them, but as acts of racial self-defense (II, p. 385). Vollmann circles back to the concept that each group can best maintain itself through minimal aloofness, but “too much, and xenophobia will incite violence; not enough, and the groups will get swallowed.” These White Supremacy organizations are not justified because they direct their aggression toward a minority group with much less power than they, and they work to maintain their aloofess by suppressing the rights of the black minority group. Arriving back to the Pelasgian dilemma, do you express who you are and suffer harm imposed onto you or others, or become one of them in order to protect yourself? “Black Americans have neither choice” (II, p. 386). The government turned a blind eye to the violence enacted by the Klan. But this disease of bigotry and hatred wasn’t just contained in the Klan, as in everyone in the Klan was racist but not every racist was in the Klan. Vollmann tells the story of a black boy getting beaten and killed for saying “Bye, baby,” to a white woman. The Klan may not have even been involved, but self-defense was. One of the two murderers explains after the acquittal that he was only trying to scare the kid straight into respectfulness, but when the kid had bragged about his white girlfriend in Chicago, then the line was crossed, and it was war. They were fighting to protect their race, they said (II, p. 387).

The Ku Klux Klan was and is the hope of White Supremacist America and will work to achieve their goals by any means necessary (II, p. 388). The statistics do not corroborate the exact number of black American deaths caused by the violence of white supremacists. Lynches, mob violence, race riots, death by burning. “But from the close of the Civil War in 1865 to the civil unrest of 1965, it’s fair to say that thousands of Americans will violently die in race warfare, and that the majority of the victims will be black.” All in the name of racial self-defense. President McKinley please do something! No, he’s too busy. John Brown and the Soldier’s Golden Rule echo: “Do unto others as you are done by” (II, p. 389).  

This violence committed against black people and its calls for retaliation are drowned and silenced by the rates of black-on-black crime (II, p. 389).

Booker T. Washington was raised with “the idea that one’s degree of ignorance was directly proportional to the darkness of one’s skin, and that “God was white and the Devil was black,”” also advocated for the idea that his fellow black people should work hard, be responsible for themselves, and prepare themselves for future citizenship. This advice was induced by the idea, probably planted in hi early on, that black people had to prove that they were as good as anybody else. On the other hand, W. E. B. Du Bois was more radical, founded the NAACP, joined the Communist Party later on, and disparages Washington for being too lenient on holding white people responsible. He advocated for “a soothing blend of Marxist-Leninism and of eugenics.” Vollmann continues to say that black Americans will be joining wars and learning how to fight and kill and coming to fear white violence less, which is what the Klan feared (II, p. 391). Black Americans sacrifice their lives for a country that won’t let them eat, sleep, and live where they want and are treated inhumanely. They’re tired of being respectful while being killed in the streets. Black Americans begin to fight back. During a race riot, “In Chicago, twenty-five blacks die–and thirteen whites. John Brown would have cried: “To His Name be the praise!”” (II, p. 392).

White racial self defense compels counter defense. So, the Ku Klux Klan state in their Magna Carta the power and purpose of the “Invisible Empire.” That members will disguise their knowledge in the public, “Alien World” and only return to their normal self in private (II, p. 393). Vollmann continues and says that in a sense, he cannot fault the Organization for its aloofness. But when the Klansman’s Maxim is applied, “it seems unwarranted to expect any tolerance of mutual aloofness.” When the Klan defends themselves through the justification of separatism, they are not justified. Being the majority race, they do not possess “the right to menace a group whose existence hurts only their unjustly held privileges” (II, p. 394). The Klan insists on violent means and that this truly is war (II, p. 395). In 1964, the Organization advised its members to join law enforcement to work against black nonviolence with no mention of the Klan, and then employ the night-riders (II, p. 396). 

“But now, after all that is ha suffered, black self-defense tries the splendid method of non-violence” (II, p. 398).

King is on the rise, and he is a political organizer. “On December 5, the boycott begins with forty thousand participants–a number which suggests not only the degree of preparation shown by the organizers, but also the resentment of blacks toward segregation.” When asked to give the keynote address, this would be the watershed moment for King. No time for preparation or refinement, but can King rise up to the challenge and be a moral giant? “Is he a man, an ethical human being, or but an Organization husk?” At the defining moment, King called on for a nonviolent movement centered around Christian love, and no violent retaliation (II, p. 400). However when King starts receiving threats and violence, he applies for a gun permit. And so, other leaders like Malcolm X took the other approach for racial self-defense and King could have easily followed. The aggression intensifies against King and other leaders as they are terrorized by bombings to their homes and are targeted by law enforcement. But this time, “violence merely mobilizes, rather than menaces. Montgomery 1956 will not be Memphis 1866. Terrorism frequently has the unintended consequence virtue of sponsoring sollidarity among its victims.” Finally, “on December 20, 1956, the Supreme Court’s verdict against segregation becomes law” (II, p. 401). Another step forward.

As King and other activists accept more risks and some eventually suffer the ultimate consequence of death, the march continues and is still being countered against racists and with the notion of states’ rights (II, p. 402). King moves onto Albany but Vollmann notes, “the real difficulty is that tactical non-violence is a thirsty vampire, which must feed on violence; and Albany is too smart to offer what the movement and the media want: maimings, murders, beatings, crucifixions. “I did state that racial violence against peaceful demonstrators was an essential prerequisite to securing racial justice,” Martin Luther King will later agree” (II, p. 403). I found this part to be particularly mind-itching. I had always questioned, why couldn’t nonviolent marchers just march, and get their point across? But now I think about it, and believe that these marchers knew that they needed violence for their movement. The movement centered around love and peace was meant to unveil the public hatred and counted that the beast would bare its fangs. Eventually some marchers begin to throw rocks in Albany, and “if everybody but one person is nonviolent, it is not nonviolence.” Albany wins against King and the marchers. Nonviolence is attempted again in Birmingham looking for violence, and finds it there (II, p. 404). This idea of dramatization playing an integral strategic part in the movement never crossed my mind. The violence and aggression that the marchers suffer in Birmingham is displayed across America, “President Kennedy is literally sickened by the police’s cruelty. So are thousands more Americans. White racism is finally earning the hatred of the Alien World” (II, p. 405). 

Vollmann takes care to note “we must remember the rising white arms also. We’ve agreed that defense of race is justified when its cause lies open to all–i other words, when its purpose is to defend the possession of rights which ought to be applied irrespective of race and culture.” The reason though that there were fewer white egalitarians than there should have been was because this was “just a “black thing.”” There is still a disconnect (II, p. 406). Eventually, the President will send a civil rights bill to Congress that year, pretty close to a century after that first civil rights bill passed against Andrew Johnson’s veto” (II, p. 407).

Vollmann presents the idea that “a threat to property ownerships (of real estate, of human beings) constitutes a threat to authority. This fear induced by the threat to authority causes repression in the name of defense of authority (II, p. 407). This not only makes the slaves’ lives worse, but their master’s too. Thus the increasing destabilization of the relationship between master and slave, a spiral that gets keeps feeding on its own ruthless path (II, p. 408).

The Klan continues to employ violence against King by bombing his motel and his brother’s house. President Kennedy is too busy to desegregate everything the civil rights bill sits in Congress. Forcing King’s hand, he marches on to Washington. One FBI memo states, ““I believe in the light of the King’s powerful demagogic speech yesterday he stands head and shoulders over all other Negro leaders put together when it comes to influencing great masses of Negroes. We must mark him now, if we have not done so before,  as the most dangerous Negro of the future in this Nation from the standpoint of communism, the Negro, and national security”” (II, p. 409). Vollmann and I stand in agreement, it is horrifying to know that the FBI labeled King as the most dangerous Negro of the future and used their authority against him by plotting to destroy his marriage and when they would uncover plots against his life–they refused to warn him (II, p. 411). Vollmann further analyzes King and distinguishes him from Gandhi. While Gandhi represented “a vast majority against an increasingly insecure minority elite,” King represented “a minority brutally mistreated by a majority of incomparably greater power” (II, p, 410). Vollmann sees King as having a legitimate out to halt his nonviolence position and movement, for when Vollmann drew his moral calculus of when nonviolence fail against violence for adequacy, the second case of when the sacrifice was unlikely to limit the violence of the aggressor, this truly did apply to black nonviolence. Even though King saw this out, he chose to not take it. “He set himself a far higher standard than he needed to, and for that alone he’s one of my heroes” (II, p. 411).

Nonviolence was not just a dramatization and a tactic, but he truly believed it as “a way of life–of life eternal.” But even when four black girls are killed by a bomb in a Birmingham church, he continues with this notion while others, including the parents of one of the victims, see his political plea and words as accommodationist. Others want to retaliate in violence, but King continues to march onwards to Detroit (II, p. 412).

King’s dramatization is criticized for the following interpretations: 1) a well-meaning but misguided accommodationist, 2) a champion of equal rights and fairness for all races, 3) a champion of black rights, and 4) a thief of white rights. The Klan knows they need to act as the movement continues on making headway (II, p. 413). 

King proclaims that the movement through nonviolence had disrupted the system which was not entirely true because violence was conducted just largely on the police’s part (II, p. 413). However, 1965 is the first year for the start of race riots (II, p. 414). King faces opposition from people outside of White Supremacy America, including other black activists (II, p. 415). 

Why? “The Victim’s Maxim runs thus: If any members of the Other Side harmed any members of my side, then the Other Side is completely in the wrong. From this the Victim’s Corollary follows with divine unassailability: If my own kind have been harmed, then any moderate of my own kind is an enemy.” Vollmann notes that “whether or not they know it, these people have begun to constitute a nebulous Organization of their own” (II, p. 416). 

King is starting to crack. The movement stood up to White Supremacy America, but has not defeated it. He acknowledges that most white people want improvements, but not equality for balck people. He foresees the split of the movement into different factions and now has to decide whether he should put his principles second to popularity (II, p. 417). Vollmann relieves King and grants him the right to do this, because he didn’t trim his principles before when facing the oppressors. With that being said, “he’d already begun to wonder whether the white moderate might be more of a threat to racial equality than the Klan.” But is this the Victim Corollary? King may well be losing his grip and cannot hold steadfast on to the power of love (II, p. 418). King has become jaded towards the end of his life, for he writes in an article, which becomes published posthumously, that the people are basically at the brink of violence, and if it came to it then as King said, “In any event, we will not have been the ones who have failed.” But Vollmann calls upon “whenever possible to add to the face denotation of a person’s words the context of his actions” (II, p. 419). But in context, King’s stance is followed by the idea of what is granted by power, is allowed. But Vollmann interjects “Violence cannot be justified if it gives itself carte blanche.”  “Martin Luther King is closer to the merciless rigidity of John Bown than he ought to be. And so, at this moment in time, is the entire civil rights movement. Maybe it has to be so.” But at least the movement was righteous (II, p. 420). 

Vollmann relays an anecdote of how two professional black people suffer “waves of almost literally insane rage when they see their white coworkers, or indeed, any whites.” But Vollmann has a problem with the term “whites.” Who does, and who does it not encompass? Him? Vollmann then outlines the moral calculus of King, for his primary end was to gain the rights and liberties of white Americans, for black Americans through nonviolent means, and resulting in many specific gains and retaliation committed by white racists like the Ku Klux Klan (II, p. 421).

-K.D.

Continuing his discussion of violence in defense of authority, Vollmann begins by discussing the Constitution’s authority.  Vollmann thinks that it can cut both ways.  On one hand, the constitution can give President Lincoln the authority to use force to defend the Union.  On the other hand, its structure can also be construed to justify the practice of slavery under the banner of states’ rights.  The constitution itself, he holds is the document which can constrain authority, and render it legitimate through law.  Slavery then, remains within the bounds of that legitimacy.  In order to move forward, Vollmann writes, law must be flouted by a new revolutionary authority to bend the rules of society into proper shape. (II p 306-311) From there, the discussion goes to Sherman’s march, and describes Lincoln’s logic for the defense of the Union.  Then, in a blinding twist of fate, Vollmann sides with the south, stating that since the slave states didn’t vote for Lincoln, his authority was imposed on them, rendering his authority illegitimate ( II p 311). I had to do a double take on that one, but Vollmann is happy to expand on his logic in the next section

From there, Vollmann outlines what he sees as the circumstances in which defense of a preexisting authority can be justified and when it is unjustified, and describes what he views as the instances where an authority is illegitimate.  The descriptors are a secessionist’s dream.  Authority cannot be defended unless it provides anyone who wishes to exit society with a peaceful means of secession. There is also a caveat included that authority must enrich its citizens, which of course would vindicate the lost cause, since it was previously established that slaves were not considered sovereign citizens, and by outlawing the practice, the government would certainly have detracted from the wealth of the slave owning class (II p. 312-313).  It strikes me that there is not a lot of room for a stable functioning government within the guidelines, but maybe I’m just a little more authoritarian, and don’t think that government should allow secession for anyone who feels slighted.  Taken to its logical libertarian extreme, Vollmann’s argument can be used to justify secession for almost any regulation on commerce.  It’s my opinion that such a set of commandments cannot be used for a functioning society.

The issue of slavery, Vollmann likes to consider separately from the issue of secession.  He acknowledges that the secession of the South was for the protection of the slave authority, and roundly condemns this dark version of capitalism, but still holds that Lincoln was wrong to prevent secession.  Then he goes on to stay that the outcome of the situation was the best: the destruction of slavery in the United States.  However, this begs the predictable consequentialist question.  If the best outcome was brought about by a deviation from his moral calculus, why is his calculus correct?  (II p. 313-318)   In spite of this over the next few pages, he continues to paint Lincoln as illegitimate in his authority, describing the fight to preserve the Union as nothing more than an aggrandizement of the authority itself, even comparing Lincoln’s authority to that of Napoleon at one point (II p. 319-329)

From there, we move naturally to Chapter 11, and Vollmann’s discussion of violence in defense of Race and Culture.  He starts off by praising John Brown as a true revolutionary and a moral leader.  In this section, Vollmann discusses Kansas, and the cycle of violence which engulfs the state as the pro and antislavery factions duke it out.  He arrives at the conclusion that John Brown was indeed a murderer and a terrorist, but that his violence was justified  (II p. 343-359).

Then Vollmann speaks on the topics of race and culture more broadly, musing on the fact that these institutions create feelings of kinship and solidarity which can, if left unchecked lead towards a tendency for violent domination of the outgroup.  His solution is simply to check these impulses.  The conclusion he comes to is, in his words, defense of race becomes illegitimate when it sees difference as inferior (II p. 360-363).

-M.H.

Trotsky and Lincoln

Vollmann begins this chapter on the merits of authority with a brief comparison of the kinder leadership of Lincoln with the cold and ruthless leadership of Trotsky. He describes the mechanical nature of Trotsky’s authority and his contempt for the idea of the sacrality of individual human life. All the mattered for Trotsky was the achievement of the revolution, and thus individual human lives were merely means to that end. With this account, Vollmann poses the guiding question of the chapter: “When is it justified to make our fellow human beings obey us unto death?” (II p. 243).

What is Legitimate Authority

Vollmann then moves to ask on what grounds might an authority say that it is able to justly defend itself from those it rules. Is it similar to the way a social class or nation defends its ability to defend itself as a whole in the face of struggle?

Oppression and Defense

Violence from authority is typically considered justifiable if the authority itself is considered just by ongoing consensus. This is the normative standard that Vollmann holds and argues that most regimes hold it as well. This was Lincoln’s reasoning for opposing the Southern secessionists. By letting them secede, Lincoln argued, a dangerous precedent would be set that would permit further secessionists movements and therefore the destruction of an otherwise just union. Inconsistently however, Lincoln himself wrote in accordance with the revolutionary belief of the American founders that citizens have a constitutional right to dismember or overthrow a government with which they grow “weary.” Vollmann draws a parallel between Trotsky’s argument for the right to revolution and Lincoln’s position here, among other comparisons in regards to oratory skill and popular support. We get closer to Vollmann’s question: Is it just for a leader like Lincoln to oppose a revolutionary movement against the authority of their state?

Some Thoughts on Armies and Whorehouses

Vollmann introduces an analogy from Tolstoy as a way of getting at the problem of resisting state violence. Tolstoy compares a society predicated on force, such as Trotsky’s Red Army, or just about any other state imaginable, to a school or hospital funded by whorehouses, which are “loathsomely unjustified institutions” (II p.246). Tolstoy takes a stance similar to that of the Southern secessionists that the prostitutes have a right to abandon their work even if that may lead to the complete collapse of the institution their labor supports. Trotsky might argue that the prostitutes should form a military force and depose their pimps only insofar as the revolution does not eventually require that they go back to being prostitutes to support the new formed regime. Lincoln would bar the girls from leaving, but grant them every privilege that he could. However, in the case of the American civil war, the secessionists denied the existence of any such whorehouse, namely slavery, while Lincoln openly acknowledged it.

While Tolstoy advocates removing oneself from the social contract of an unjust state, he argues for doing so only non-violently given our implicit contract of self-restraint. For this reason, Tolstoyans make less revolutions than Trotskyites or Leninists, and yet are still revolutionary enough in their beliefs to be subsequently sent to gulags by Trotsky’s successors.

From Warfare or From Harmony

Vollmann now wants to return from his digression to the primary question: what is legitimate authority? Is it that authority ought to be “gentleness without weakness” as Ibn Hudhayl al-Anadalusi suggests, or rather that “authority comes from warfare” and violence, as a major fourth century Chinese text proposes?

Seven Questions

Vollmann lists seven questions that may act as a guide towards determining the legitimacy of a government based on its relations with the mases:

1. Are the officials assistants of the people, or do they constitute a ruling class?
2. Does the government perform its duties by love or by force?
3. Does it enrich its citizens or make them poorer?
4. Does it enhance liberties or restrict them?
5. Does it treat the governed equally?
6. Do people feel safer under the government or more threatened?
7. Does the regime’s prescriptive definition of justice match the working definitions of its citizens or clash with them?

When Lynching was Necessary

Vollmann examines several examples to illustrate and test the limits of what he calls the Lincolnian and Gandhian moral calculus: authority and its violence are justified when “most people” legitimize that authority by uncoerced and willing participation in its politics” (II p.150). Vollmann looks briefly at the examples of mob rule during the French Revolution and the reign of terror, 19^th century Western US frontier justice, lynching in the American south, and Tanzanian state sanctioned vigilante groups. He then offers an alteration to the Lincolnian calculus to emphasize the importance of the legitimacy of the violence itself as well as the legitimacy of the authority to commit such violence. The clarifying example he gives is that when there is an active court system, lynching is wrong, no matter how much the vigilantes try to justify it, or how popular their support.

Legitimacy as Legal Tempo

Vollmann adds the pace of legislative action as an indicator to the legitimacy of authority. Stable, non-authoritarian governments like Canada often have ritualistic and slow processes by which bills become laws. This prevents the overzealous implementation of laws that might severely adversely affect the lives of citizens. The authoritarian governments of Hitler and Stalin on the other hand despised slow-moving parliamentarianism, and sought to impose their will into law as quickly as possible.

The Foundation of Authority

It is not possible for a single man to impose his tyranny. Rather, he requires at least an army and a consensus grounded at least on fear. This means that there is an ultimate final authority within each person to choose whether or not they will commit an act simply because it was ordered to them.

Hitler’s Three Pillars of Authority

The three pillars of Hitler’s authority that Vollmann proposes are tradition, popularity, and force. Vollman continues to push against the idea that force alone is enough to legitimize power. Vollmann qualifies the extent to which popularity can be used to describe the legitimacy of rulers like Hitler who decidedly excluded certain citizens from civil society in conjunction with an effort to exterminate them completely. As Vollman puts it, “how popular is the lyncher to the lynched?” (II p.256). This gives Vollmann pause in suggesting that simply being “popular” gives one’s government legitimacy.

Hitler’s authority is illegitimate because he trampled on the individual rights of the self. His popularity and consensus with the people were based solely on his own personal mandate, and his appeals to tradition were merely “window dressings” for force. Traditions that opposed further war and the Decalogue meant nothing to him and traditional legal processes and authorities were discarded.

Legitimacy as Law

Jefferson and Lincoln appealed to a sense of law, which unlike tradition cannot be subjectively defined by any given leader. There is a storage of relatively finite meaning within the law that resists quick, radical interpretations from the whims of particular rulers. But law is as insufficient as Hitler’s three pillars because of the range of possibilities that a law could have. Both Lincoln and Trotsky made appeals to the law, and yet both had radically different political goals. This is because the laws were from separate authorities, Marx for Trotsky, the US Constitution for Lincoln.

Legitimacy as the Destruction of False Consciousness

Despite its flaws, any democratic state that serves the interests of its sovereign citizens appeals to some sort of consensus among its citizens. This means that insidious figures like Hitler can rise to power and form illegitimate authorities within the confines of otherwise legitimately functioning political systems. Perhaps in these cases the people themselves are imbedded in a “false consciousness,” a term Vollmann borrows from Marxism to describe the self-deceiving belief in the legitimacy of one’s own oppressor. Vollman gives the example of a “kind slave master,” an oxymoron to be sure, that allowed his slaves to read the bible. His neighbors decried this decision to permit slaves to read, and so he gave the appearance of being a “just slave owner,” however this of course does not justify the act of slavery. Vollmann agreeably cites Fanon who says that the “aesthetic expressions of respect for the established order serve to create around the exploited person an atmosphere of submission and of inhibition which lightens to task of policing considerably” (II p.260).

The Legitimacy of Revolutionary Authority

Vollman assesses the Marxist, revolutionary view of authority that seeks legitimacy from the future it brings, not the past it sustains. Merleau-Ponty frames this as the justness of “progressive violence” that exists towards its own suspension rather than self-perpetuation. That is to say that the violence of Marxist revolution is justified because of the future it brings and the popular support it will have by the people living after the revolution. Because of this, it has the burden of proving the justifiability of both its means and ultimate, unknowable, end.

Trotsky’s Dirty Razor of Terror

After his digression into various arguments for what legitimates authority, Vollman now moves towards a proper assessment of Trotsky and Lincoln. He begins with Trotsky in the following sub-sections.

“Excessive Self-Confidence”

Vollmann briefly examines a photograph of Trotsky here and describes his self-confidence and egoism—a trait held, almost necessarily, by most revolutionaries. He includes a note of the mutual disdain between Stalin and Trotsky for this very reason.

Alexandra Lvovna

This section reflects on Trotsky and Lenin’s relationships with intimate partners as an indication of how they understood human relationships in general. Both men pursued wives and mistresses who agreed with them politically and who had no personal ambitions outside the ambitions of the revolution. In accordance with true revolutionary ideology, the individual of the present means nothing compared to the utopian population of the future.

Every Tenth Man

Because the revolutionary ideals were not yet realized anywhere, there was debate over the proper means to achieve them. Thus, there were debates and disputes between many of the major Marxist revolutionary figures like Trotsky, Stalin, and Lenin. Lincoln, on the other hand, had two sets of concrete guiding principles: The Ten Commandments, and the US Constitution. Similarly, his goal was very concrete and measurable compared to the idealist and indeterminate goals of the Russian revolutionaries. Thus, if Trotsky determined that it was necessary to kill every tenth man who dissented, then so be it.

A Brief History of Decimation

Trotsky continued a long tradition of taking the families of conscripted soldiers hostage as well as executing deserters. Lenin and Trotsky made efforts to implement execution policies for deserters and slackers on the front lines. Historians estimate that in a single year 4,337 soldiers were executed compared to 1.5 million deserters in another single year span.

Trotsky’s Maxim, and What Might Circumvent It

No one who disagrees with Trotsky is allowed to judge Trotsky. This was Trotsky’s maxim that describes the fact that the revolutionary determines their own standards and rules and anyone who disagrees with them is by definition against the revolution and therefore an enemy.

Vollmann gives an outline of the “Rights of Authority:”

• Self Defense
  • a) Defense of sovereignty
    • defense against opposition
    • defense against factionalism
  • b) Defense of homeland
  • c) Defense of ground
• Enlargement
• Deterrence
• Retaliation
• Punishment

“Indications of Justice”

• Violence promotes nonviolent stability
• In accord with authority’s stated conscience
• Conformance with law
• Consensus untainted by
  • False consciousness
  • Exploitation of third parties
• Respects rights of the self

These lists only apply to incumbent and authorities and not revolutionary ones.

“Indications of Justice: Revolutionary Authority”

• Violence aims at a non-violent future
• In accord with authority’s conscience
• Will someday bring about rule of law
• Consensus among all adherents

He then adds two pieces

• Violence will destroy false consciousness
• Violence will rescue oppressed people

Repression and Inspiration

Trotsky stated that there were two sorts of military work: repressing and inspiring. Vollmann proposes that these two things were one and the same for Trotsky, as his brutal reputation was something of an inspiration to revolutionaries and soldiers. It is noted that even his enemies gave him credit for his charisma.

 Limitations of Trotsky’s Power

Vollmann does not want to hold the same standard of mercy for both Lincoln and Trotsky given the disparate goals and circumstances of their projects. Lincoln commanded the incumbent government of a large state as its head of state while Trotsky led an army against such a figure and enjoyed no settled moral privileges. Trotsky’s policy was cruel as was all the revolutionaries’ policy at this time.

Trotsky’s campaign led to far more oppression than liberation, and thus we have no reason to call his actions good. However, Trotsky cannot be defined as a simple murder or inspirer of murderers because his cruelty saw some limits, although they were entirely self-conceived and were at times open to fluctuation.

For Vollmann, there is something different between Trotsky and a loyal Nazi or some other morally corrupt actor. Despite his cruelty, Vollman gives an admirable account of Trotsky as a man who suffered and toiled for a cause he adamantly believed in and thought was right. Vollmann goes so far as to say that he was someone capable admiration and love. He professed an unbending rage at the exploitation of toiling people, and yet one of his greatest flaws was that this anger was greater than his compassion. Trotsky and Lenin were both justifiably enraged by senseless oppression and murder of common people for the sake of bourgeois goals and wars. However, their means employed a level of violence and repression similar to that which they claimed to oppose.

“Something Snapped in the Heart of the Revolution”

Was the violence of the revolutionaries inherent? Trotsky recounts that something “snapped” in the heart of the revolution after assassinations of several important leaders and the attempted assassination of Lenin in 1918. He argued that the violent upsurge was an act of self-defense against the repression of the state. Vollman clarifies though that the violent and brutal nature of the revolution was set long before any major assassinations of revolutionary leaders.

A Blood-Red Sunrise at Brest-Litovsk

Trotsky was an unwavering character with a rather narrow vision not easily changed with compromise. Vollmann recounts the time that Trotsky demanded his contingent eat separately from the Germans at the 1918 Brest-Litovsk peace negotiations. This was somewhat understandable given the greedy and relatively humiliating deal offered to the Russians by the Germans that would have ceded significant portion of the Russian economy and territory to German control. This deal was a perfect example, for Trotsky, of the evil capitalist militarism that had infected Europe. He also held a relatively strong belief that his efforts in Russia would spread across Europe, and in fact they did with several significant uprisings in Germany around this time. The goal was nothing short of global communist revolution.

Because the revolution uses little discretion in regards to its use of violence, there must a proportionately high standard of legitimacy. One way to maintain a high standard, according to Vollman, is to develop a greater sense of empathy for the enemy on the grounds that violence in itself is bad and should be mitigated when possible. Trotsky saw little value in this ideal. Trotsky could not stand those allies that insisted on treating the enemy with respect, and scoffed at the idea of “breaking bread with the adversary” (II p.281).

Kamenev, The Empathetic Bridge

Kamenev was Trotsky’s brother-in-law and was held in a great deal of contempt by Trotsky who saw him as a weak spirited member of the party given his often-sympathetic approaches to their adversaries. He would often be sent on social or diplomatic excursions with other parties and would come back “with him a bit of some mood alien to the party,” according to Trotsky (II p.282). Vollmann poses a perfectly legitimate question here: why is there so much harshness and incivility from someone whose goal it is to create a utopian civil society with absolute unity among its people? Why is the idea of civility in civil uprising so absurd?

Vollmann goes on to state: “violence without empathy cannot hope to construct authority consensually” (II p.283). Vollmann seems to believe that had Trotsky demonstrated a sense of empathy his violence would have been at least somewhat more justified.  If a government is to advance the interests of both the leaders and the led, then it seems as though an empathetic bridge would be necessary. For people like Lenin and Trotsky who claimed to act in accordance with the masses, one of their major failings was this lack of empathy for individual human life. We must not lose sight of limits and basic appeals to empathy during a revolution that makes only appeals to extreme desperation and necessity.

Unreserved Endorsements

Trotsky was always frustrated at what he perceived as a lack of respect by members of the revolution who brought Lenin to more popularity. He an example of his own self-conceit he wrote a letter of resignation as the People’s Commissar of War and instead remain solely on the Revolutionary-Military Council. His “vanity was appeased” and he was not permitted to resign by the Central Committee. Lenin wrote in a letter to a fellow leader regarding the incident, “[Trotsky] is in love with the organization, but as for politics, he hasn’t got a clue” (II p.285).

The Central Committee subsequently gave him letters of “unreserved endorsement,” and made an effort to demonstrate their appreciation for him. The point Vollmann wants to make with this anecdote is that it accurately summarizes the effect of revolutionary authority. If you agree absolutely with whatever the authority decides, the authority will in turn give you unrestrained endorsement and freedom to commit reckless acts of violence and repression.

Toward a Calculus of Revolutionary Authority

After the examination of Trotsky, Vollmann asks again: When is revolutionary authority justified?

Violent Defense of Revolutionary Authority is Justified:

1. When the revolutionary leaders and those for whom the revolution is being fought agree on the means and ends of the revolution
2. To consolidate power and stabilize the area under control
3. To bring the revolution into conformance with the norms and limits appropriate to incumbency
4. To carry out the revolution
   1. Caveat: Violence used to carry out the revolution is only justified so long as the revolution has not completely consolidated power and established its authority

Violent Defense of Revolutionary Authority is Unjustified

1. When it assumes its own infallibility through appeals to a future justification that prevents any check or correction
2. When its ends rather than mere military necessity force subjects to cut themselves off from their ordinary attachments
3. When it revolutionizes the masses against their will for a prolonged period of time
4. When it sunders prior civic allegiances without creating new ones
5. When it assigns violence no limit

Defense of Authority as Intrigue Against Stalin

Trotsky set up his own demise in banning opposition. Because when he was eventually labeled an opposer, he had no where to turn, especially considering his strained relationship with Lenin. Trotsky cared far more about ideas themselves than either Lenin or Stalin, which explains in part why Lenin turned to Stalin and not Trotsky.

Vollmann proposes that Trotsky’s fall from grace was precisely because of his superior intellect which made him take disagreements personally. He had few friends despite his charisma and seemed to burn the few bridges he had on a whim. In a sense, he was too idealistic and unpleasant to be kept around.

Defense of Authority as the Neutralization of Trotsky

By 1924 Stalin had asserted that Trotsky’s ideas were both absurd and based on misunderstandings of Lenin’s letters. Vollmann compares this accusation to something like accusing a Catholic cardinal of misreading the Bible. After removing him from his position as Commissariat of War, Stalin ultimately removed Trotsky from the Politburo within a year. After further attacking the authority of the Soviet Union he was then expelled from the Central Committee. A month later, after hosting a rally against the policies of Stalin, he was removed from the party and sent into exile. In 1935, the government banned Trotsky’s works from public libraries and all efforts were made to erase his image and thought from public discourse. With this, the revolutionary authority had “defended itself,” just as it entered a period of extreme internal strife and a series of show trials aimed at purging dissenting views.

Defense of Authority as Self-Defense

This final section on the extended essay on Trotsky consists of Vollmann’s own account of visiting the home of Trotsky in Mexico where he was assassinated. Trotsky’s grave remains with nothing more than a red flag flying over it, with his name along with a hammer and sickle engraved on the tombstone. Vollmann reflects on what Trotsky might have thought about while living there. Had he hoped for Stalin’s death, or was he more likely worried that the encroachment of Hitler would be worse of the revolution than Stalin’s death.

Vollmann draws a comparison between navigating the narrow hallways of Trotsky’s home to the experience of reading his books. Vollmann writes, “everything is scientific, proven, perfect; the passage takes me this way because it is the only way to go” (II p.294). Trotsky’s intellect, as was previously described, was also his downfall. He worked to create a society that strove to be moral by wrapping everyone up in a ruthless domination from the top down. This meant working and being “good” according to the specific desires of the leader—following Trotsky at all costs.

When is Political Assassination Justified?

 Vollmann now asks, in light of his analysis of Trotsky’s life and death: When is political assassination justified? Rather than give an explicit answer, he instead offers several different competing justifications.

For Tolstoy it is never justified to kill the leader, but one must work to cut off the social condition from which they rose. Following US President McKinley’s assassination, anarchist writer Alexander Berkman wrote that political assassination is justified when it is directed “against a real and immediate enemy of the people” (II p.298). Che Guevara expressed some reservations about political assassinations unless in circumstances where it would eliminate the leader of the opposition. And, finally, for Trotsky’s assassin Ramon Mercader, political assassination is justified when “it is ordered by Comrade Stalin” (II p.299). 

-R.W.

Chapter Eight ends with an exploration of people’s varying conceptions of honor, which honor Vollmann divides into five categories. The first category places honor above self—as something paramount. The second category says that honor may be placed above other ends, but that it is not consistently supreme. The third category says that honor is a custom, justification, or neutral characteristic. The fourth category reduces honor to a means which can be used trivially, and the final and fifth category condemns honor to irrelevance or odiousness. He explores these categories through quotes without commentary.

A defense of monuments section uses pictures of monuments and pictures of people as living monuments to explore how people are and respond to visual claims regarding honor. The images include piles of Iranian helmets cemented to a larger monument, each with a bullet hole, and smiling people standing before a portrait of Saddam Hussein.

Chapter Nine is titled ‘Defense of Class.’ Class, according to Vollmann, has four component parts: function, status, property, and rank. Class is not inviolable; it generalizes the roles that people play and how they are perceived, both in terms of reputation but also regarding the distribution of resources, and class is present in nature. Vollmann looks to ants and wasps to highlight the functional origins of class. Ants have clear casts whose origins are biological and completely determinate of their behavior. Queens dominate reproduction, while others ensure her survival and reproductive success. Among these others, young ants tend to the larvae while older ants sacrifice themselves on dangerous foraging missions. Similarly, humans also have divisions in class based on biology; in nomadic societies, the value of men related to their ability to provide food for their social groups and the value of women related principally to their ability to reproduce. Those who could not contribute may have been expected to find ways to reduce their burden on others, sometimes through their deaths.

Ants, however, are purely biologically driven according to Vollmann, and their behaviors can be manipulated through pheromones. Worker respond to the scent of their queen just as they would to their actual queen, and unproductive queens may be killed by their own workers—their children. Humans have status, and it generally relates to function. Status is often dictated by class, although there is status within each class. Class is defensible when it is related to function, but when class ceases to be related to function (when it ceases to be potentially necessary), then it becomes indefensible.

Vollmann believes that property is highly consequential. He cites Clarence Darrow and the FBI in asserting that 90% of crimes are property-motivated and he equates relative poverty with misery. Defense of property is allowed, but not against the genuine need of another (for example, you can’t defend your apple against a starving child) and you cannot shoot a burglar in the back. The right of others to life exceeds one’s right to property. Class, which includes property, is only defensible when it is necessary. Further, class is ultimately derived from function, so property (when it is defensible) must also be derived from function.

Rank exists purely within the minds of those who participate in it, and it is aided by props whose effectiveness is measured less directly by their utility of their use than the conveyance of certain relations. Mundanely, a wedding ring indicates marriage and sexual unavailability. The sacrifice of a slave indicates power and dominance, and according to Vollmann thoroughly demonstrates the non-economic nature of rank and slavery.

-T.C.

Chapter 7

In the Judge’s Chair

Vollmann asserts that the remaining chapters of the first half will study justifications for violence, and the audience will metaphorically imagine themselves in the “judge’s seat” for judging cases of imminence and futurity. Vollmann offers an outline to excuse varying cases of violence around the world, pulling from temporal differentiations. From defense of revolution, race, honor, and class to revenge, retaliation and deterrence, Vollmann’s roadmap will take the reader on a journey to apply a moral calculus to instances of justifiable violence.

Justifications, Self Defense

Chapter 8: Defense of Honor

Vollmann remembers the gallant legacy of Captain Nolan, a British officer known for his role in the Charge of the Light Brigade. He then invokes the legacy of Bill Clinton, simply picking up the phone and calling in a missile strike. In this juxtaposition, Nolan exemplified veritable valor as he charged into bayonets and cannons. How do we reconcile this showing with a more passive call to arms by Clinton?

Besides our physical bodies, there lives a moral, mental, and emotional being. Vollmann states the real aim of violence is to “conquer, direct, warn, mark, injure, suppress, and obliterate the consciousness within the body.” Taking this context into consideration, Vollmann defines honor as “the extent to which the self-approaches its own particular standard of replying to or initiating violence.” Often, honor is identified within the right of local norms. A revolutionary, a saint, and a military commander all perceive this honor in different ways. To simplify his inquiry, Vollmann partitions the concept of honor. Inner honor is unknowable to others. It is the degree “of harmony between an individual’s aspirations, deeds, and voluntary or involuntary experiences.” Outer honor is the degree “of esteem which someone is held.” It derives from status or the alignment between his professed aspirations and known deeds. Vollmann states that honor can also be cross-divided into individual and collective. Outer collective honor comprises a group’s official face and presence, while inner collective honor is the degree of adherence to the ideals it professes.

In urban cultures, the social contract is more formalized and systematic; inner honor declines to illegitimacy. Likewise, outer honor slips out of the individual agency. Vollmann outlines the Shepherd Maxim: as authority enlarges itself, its obligation to protect from violence the individual it controls increases. The ability of those individuals to defend themselves decreases. Kindness proposes a different maxim: honor should not be derived from standards in which we cannot control. Vollmann discusses different honor interpretations of rape.  In some cultures, women are blamed for the violence against them. They are victims of dishonor. For example, in Afghanistan, a rapist destroys not only the woman but her family as well. The girl may be killed to preserve the remaining moral body of the family. Violence involving women is not limited to Eastern cultures; young unwed mothers may commit infanticide to defend her outer honor. Outer honor is determined by the purity of another purview. Inner honor can be easily swayed by this outer honor. As Vollmann notes, outer honor gives security, helping one to solidify a secure, standard role in society. Honor can wipe away doubt, such as committing suicide before a surrender. Vollmann comments on the honor of Adolf Eichmann, an engineer of the Holocaust. Vollmann marks Eichmann high in all aspects of honor, both inner and outer. There are two kinds of honor: pride and fame. To Vollmann, we are not entitled to judge another self until their expression sets out to achieve a purpose.

There are ways to don public honor in uniforms, garments, or monuments. In this discussion, Vollmann compares outer honor to a molecule that can be divided into ethical electrons. Vollmann further divides the concept into its subdivisions:  class, status, prestige, and popularity. Class is an objective measure of one’s position in society, status is an objective measure of one’s relative allocation of power and resources, prestige is the union between status and outer honor, and popularity is a quantifiable measure of how much one is liked. Next Vollmann displays his induction table on his presumed motivations associated with a violent defense of honor. Among the list are famous episodes including Joan of Arc’s suicidal refusal to recant and Japanese kamikazes. He classifies each instance with its motivation, the type of honor it concerns and differentiates its mean and ends. Vollmann’s grand inductive conclusion is that “no act ever in and of itself be an end of outer honor, only a means.”

 Collective honor can never give rise to deeds which are ends in and of themselves. An exception is an aestheticism. Vollmann reflects on Napoleon’s Arc de Triomphe. As a reification, the monument personifies Napoleon’s honorable conquests. The defense of collective honor provides a tool of practical, predictable utility for social engineers looking to capitalize on genus identification to strengthen a social organism, like an army. However, the violent defense of collective honor cannot be justified when the justification is just honor itself, and there is no threat of physical harm.

Vollmann asserts he does not believe collective honor is solely an artifact instilled by superior manipulators. We may be lured into making promises against our innate interests with the manipulation of collective honor, but honor will work toward common long-term interests. We fight this trend when there is a justified defense, and it is moral to establish the spirit of the group. Vollmann considers Joan of Arc a prime exemplifier of honor. She is graded with high marks in all aspects of honor, excluding outer honor from the English perspective where her unfeminine rebellion portrays her as diabolical. While acknowledging her political naivety, her pious and honest standards to the Lord requite admiration.

In determining the ends for which honor is invoked, Vollmann outlines the following: leadership ends invoke honor for the sake of control, emotional ends invoke honor in order to guard or increase satisfaction, ethical ends preserve honor in order to preserve of achieving justice, and expedient ends invoke honor in order to gain or protect something.

Vollmann then discusses the honor of Napoleon. He claims Napoleon conducted himself in an honorable manner, showing sympathy to and taking responsibility for his fallen soldiers. He personified martial ardor, concurrently letting the revolution control their own representation. Napoleon prioritized was glory and honor of arms, and then the preservation of his men. Vollmann acknowledges his character flaws, but serves praise for his figure. He argues Napoleonic honor lies between ethics and pure aesthetics. He was gallant, ruthless, and possessed a measure of intrinsic honor For example, he didn’t torture his own citizens. In artistic depictions, Napoleon is preserved as a dynamic, commanding figure. His collective honor was rewarding and expedient in his successful military campaigns. Napoleon was a popular despot.

Next, Vollmann discusses Dwight Edgar Abbot at a California Youth School. The toughest “Straights” degrade and rape the “punks” to destroy the vestiges of their masculinity. Vollmann says the one common excuse for violence is the inevitability. In the Abbot case, Abbot slashes another inmate’s throat who attacked him. Vollmann explores if Abbot had a choice. If he refrained from retaliation, he would’ve been free. However, Abbot was a literal prisoner of his honor and sacrificed his freedom to defend his reputation.

Vollmann touches on characters like King Olaf from Norse mythology, and Sun-Tzu. Olaf fought defensive battles for the sake of his stays, and Sun-Tzu vanity explains instances of violent outbursts. However, it is that both men must defend their honor more vigorously or else he will lose his status to another who can represent honor better.

To Vollmann, honor comprises means as well as the end. Violent defense of honor is justified when honor is altruistic, the defense of honor corresponds with other justified defense, or if the defender’s peers agree that dishonor is equivalent to physical death. Violent defense of honor is not justified when it is a defense of collective honor alone, it is against a nonviolent victim, or linked to another end. To end, Vollmann discusses Chairman Mao’s personal Doctor, Li Zhisui. Dr. Li admits his dishonor, as he was passive in Mao’s murderous programs. He acted as “Mao’s lapdog” acquiescing his collective honor to gain favor with the leader. He lived shamefully while millions starved. In contrast, a woman named Nien Cheng refused to submit to Mao. She was willing to submit her body to continued violence for the sake of her mortal body. Vollmann admires her inner honor. Dr. Li failed to rationalize how his service by in large helped destroy millions of lives as he cared for Mao.

A.A.

Chapter 5: Where do your rights begin?

Vollmann states that “involuntary attachments are not binding” and “voluntary attachments may be withdrawn at any time” (I, p. 263). Both conditions may be overridden and one will return to the state of nature with the exception that “the Golden Rule should always be respected” (I, p. 265). Following the logic of this idea, Vollman discusses the idea of the consent of the governed. If the authority fails to respect the Golden rule and is increasingly involuntary, then the regime approaches upon illegitimacy. I believe that these statements are true up to a certain point: they fail to consider the element of force. An involuntary attachment IS binding if there is sufficient force to back it up. Perhaps one if physically forced, but morally free. It is interesting to consider the blurred lines between physicality and morality.

Section 6: Means and Ends

 Vollmann begins by discussing the autonomy of the self: the right to defend or fail to defend oneself and the right to end oneself. The idea of defending oneself once again brings up the idea of illegitimate governments and rising up against them. On the flip side of this argument, it may very well be that “the nation that I was once a part will invoke self-defense to hunt me down and kill me” (I, p. 268). This unearths a whole host of moral questions.

Vollmann asserts that ethics is the evaluation of justifications and justifications are the links between ends and means. Using this logic, Vollman finds issue with Sergey Nechaev’s statement that “everything is moral that assists the triumph of revolution” (I, p. 269). Nechaev is essentially arguing to only consider the ends, i.e. the revolution.

Next Vollmann claims that “an inconstant end is a sure sign of a deceitful or outright evil expediency” (I, p. 272). I agree that the end goal should remain consistent or why bother fighting for it in the first place? Vollman states, “fix the end; lock it; raise it; present it; preserve it. If it is truly good, be faithful to it.” Additionally, violence without an end is never justifiable while violence for a noble end is debatable. This assertion calls into question what causes are just and noble. This leads us to Vollman’s next analysis of when people or movements are justified in rising up.

The notion of rising up is one that Vollmann considers to be a right insofar that it is justifiable: “we are upright animals. When we rise up, when we stand up, we come into our own, we come into our rightful and natural inheritance.” This echoes the sentiments of the right of revolution: the duty of the of the people of a nation to overthrow a government that acts against their common interests and/or threatens the safety of the people without cause.

It is also important to weigh the costs and benefits of rising up in an attempt to gain more control over one’s life. There is the potential to ascertain more self sovereignty, but on the other hand “what goes up will only come down the harder.” This is in direct contention with Gandhi’s assertion that “one must scrupulously avoid the temptation of a desire for results.” Does one take half a loaf of bread when he/she stands to lose/gain the whole loaf? Gandhi would likely agree that holding out for the whole loaf is better because it is impossible to know the consequences of one’s actions. Yet it is to my understanding that Vollmann is playing the long game and believes that compromising the means due to anticipated consequences is at times acceptable as long as one does NOT compromise the ends.

 Vollmann then undertakes the lofty goal of attempting to rank the fairness of harming another human being. He ranks the justifications in decreasing order of fairness:

1. What you’ve done
2. What you are: allegiance
3. What you haven’t done
4. Whom you associate with
5. What you might do
6. What you are: biological, religious, or ideological identity. What you have.
7. The fact that you are.

I cannot say that I agree with the assertions of six and seven. The gloomy conclusions provide a justification for killing Jews on the basis of being Jewish or killing a person on the basis of existing. Vollmann qualifies his argument by saying that ethics are quite subjective in practical application because “the very same means, in the service of the very same end, may well produce different and even opposing results.” This perhaps explains why Vollmann includes so many case studies throughout history, literature, and philosophy. “One of these soldiers will live; one will die. One regime gains the victory, one the bondage.” This is perhaps the only claim that Vollmann makes that I believe is 100% correct: that in practice there are so many different conditions that muddle the results so it is difficult to assert a theoretical framework to analyze all means and ends.

— PK

William Vollmann begins the third chapter of Rising Up, Rising Down, “Where Do My Rights End?,” by outlining four essential choices that individuals have a right to make in determining whether violence is justified:

“1. Whether or not to violently defend itself against violence;2. Whether or not to violently defend someone else from violence;3. Whether or not to destroy itself;4. Whether or not to help a weaker self destroy itself, to save it from a worse fate.”

In fact, he holds the belief that these are “the self’s only rights” (I, p197-198, Citation 8). All of these decisions, however, are contingent on the condition that the decision maker has no allegiance to authority, such that an individual might be compelled to remove themself from “the line of fire.” This is consistent with Vollmann’s perspective that individuals are placed in a unique situation in that the government has the unique legal authority, and sometimes obligation, to wage violence in certain circumstances. This chapter, along with the entirety of the book, seeks to clarify questions about the morality of violence rather than the legality of it.

Vollmann builds his argument with the support of specific examples of violence to further clarify what he constitutes as moral and immoral decisions. Many of them involve a mother making a decision that could lead to the death of her child, such as the mother who was interrogated by being forced to listen to her child being tortured by officers of the state. She did not choose to save her child, likely asserting that the state is responsible for her child’s death by refusing to participate. A main point Vollmann tries to get across is that violence is often the result of intolerable circumstances that people are placed in, and the decision they make must be judged in full context of the situation. There will not always be a favorable choice in any given decision, and it is up to the individual to make the most moral decision regardless of consequences and horror of the circumstances, even if it is not their doing. A primary assertion throughout the work is that 1) “So-called involuntary attachments are not binding” and 2) “voluntary attachments may likewise be withdrawn at any time.” However, this seems to conflict with the statement at the beginning of the chapter that moral decisions to wage violence are contingent on the fact that an individual does not have allegiance to any collectivity or authority. If voluntary attachments can be rescinded whenever, how can an individual be exempted from the four essential decisions of violence based on their allegiance? Going off both of these assertions, every individual should be held to the same moral standards regardless of allegiances, especially voluntary ones, since they are “not binding” and can be “withdrawn.” Say,for example, a police officer is the very first responder to the scene of an active shooter. He could enter the building alone immediately under the great risk he will be killed by the gunman and a small chance he is able to save others from the shooter’s violence. Or, he could follow his department’s protocol that says he needs to wait for additional support to arrive. Because of a voluntary allegiance to authority, he decides to wait for backup and three more people are killed as a result. Did he make the right decision? According to Vollmann, he would have been justified in waiting based on his allegiance. But would a private citizen have had a moral obligation to enter the building and attempt to save his fellow citizens? I don’t know what the right answer is, but both the private citizen and the police officer should be held accountable to the exact same standards when determining “whether or not to violently defend someone else from violence.” This is because the police officer’s voluntary attachment to his department can “be withdrawn at any time.” While there are certainly some conflicting statements throughout the chapter, William Vollmann makes a lot of interesting points on the morality of violence with a myriad of examples from specific instances of it and from both ancient and modern philosophers. What he has set out to accomplish—to provide clarity on the morality of violence—is no easy task.

–CT

In the essence of Vollmann’s writing style, I will follow his spirit and write boundlessly and diffused in mirroring him of allowing the reader to enter my mind and thoughts. That’s what Rising Up and Rising Down really is, aboarding Vollman’s train of philosophical ideas and beliefs about violence, death, weapons, and its ethics; and atypical as he is not a philosopher, but has an amalgamation of first hand experience. Vollmann’s integrity to understanding and comprehending experience, and to its highest capacity verbalize it, is refreshing. People will sacrifice their artistic uprightness for what the publisher wants, for the sales, for what the audience wants. And so I respect his approach, and tapping into my schema of the ideal writer, he documents his ideas and experiences for the sake of its own sake. But let’s get back on track with this train‒and head straight into Chapter 2: On the Morality of Weapons.

In the beginning, he starts off with quotes that illuminate the different perspectives on the morality of weapons and how it has changed across time and space. Vollmann claims that the knife and the gun provide three things: security, autonomy, and power (I, p. 109). When referring to Trotsky on his supportive stance of the Communist Party to arm the Chinese Proletariat, he wrote, “A people that today, with weapon in hand, knows how to deal with one robber, will tomorrow know how to deal with the other one.” While “the other one” refers to the class enemy, Vollmann shortly notes that this “logic would apply to any “other one.”” I liked this small piece, and this says to me that once the power of the weapon has been introduced, it can and will be yielded upon others who may not be your predisposed enemy but an enemy conjured‒time is linear and there is no reversal of opening Pandora’s box. Vollmann continues with this thesis that this power doesn’t just garner respect to the armed individual, but that it can lead to the self-respect of said individual. That the security the power provides is a prerequisite for autonomy, and considering everything in relativity, Vollmann states the “incapacity to do evil is of course a relative good)” but “when we reduce the evildoer to that state we are doing the right and necessary thing for us, and only incidentally for him (by, say, preserving his existence at the price of rendering him helpless).” Isn’t that just a concept that causes one to snicker and slightly shake their head? Vollmann, on brand, ends the paragraph referring to how men capable of evil were bestowed weapons in ancient Athens, and we do not read about the “men whose virtue was that they could not harm the polity.” To distinguish the evildoer and the men capable of evil is notable, but autonomy and self- respect is in absolute terms (I, p. 110).

The Amorality of Empowerment

Vollmann examines the morality of weapons in the frame of self-defense. People have advocated and defended the use of weapons because it is their only means to stop and defend themselves if they are found in the position of the intended victim; that if we cannot rely upon the authorities to protect me, then I have to rely upon myself to do so. Therefore, Vollmann believes that justifiable homicides are another relative good, because if they have to be committed then it ought to and better be justifiable (I, p. 111).When given the statistics of criminal acts perpetrated in Washington in 1993, 86% of the assailants that were armed were armed with a handgun. It seems to me criminals love handguns, but I suppose I can say that these victims would’ve loved to have a gun during the time of said wicked acts.

Of Crimson Storms and Their Weathermen

When everyone has a weapon, there will be undirected violence. People will defend their rights to a weapon but the double-edged sword is that undirected violence will occur as a result to everyone having a weapon. What is elluded is that violence is almost inherent in some people, and that it is a given that it will occur.  “Instead of double-edged swords, our Blues and Greens carry double-edged guns with which they kill their enemies, their friends, strangers, lost souls, lost children. Take their guns away, and at least some of them will go back to swords” (I, p. 113). Even if the gun is taken away, is it that violence is intrinsic in some that we will never be truly free from the chances of a violent death? Is nature something to condemn?

A Note From the Ambassador 

Vollmann leads to the idea that the power of the weapon is equivalent in both the hands of the murderer, and the watchful householder. Choosing to take a step back, he turns to look at not the morality of the weapon but the degree of necessity. A dilemma, if you have one then I must have one, and when the gun is acquired it becomes a part of me (I, p. 114). It forces people in the position that if I have the power to take, I will use that power to disregard yours and to preserve my own. If it’s either you or me, I will choose me everytime.

Mantras and Blood-Stained Snow

Occasionally, the power that is provided by the weapon: security, autonomy, and power, can be granted by nonviolence as well. There is something about living with radical integrity, there is a power and serenity to it. But there’s always a looming doubt whether we are right or not. So we find our strength in numbers and turn into a mob while the “saint practices nonviolence in isolation” (I, p. 115).

My Gun Was My Rosary

Vollmann recounts multiple anecdotes of women who were placed in a position where having a gun would’ve and could’ve been their savior.

He tells the story of his wife asking him to walk her dog with her because she didn’t feel safe to do so alone. The night they went out, two men approached them but Vollmann signaled that he was carrying a loaded weapon. The men sneered and walked away. Vollmann did not feel intimidated, he felt powerful because he had the miracle of his gun to save their lives if needed.

But the Rosary Confers No Eternal Life

Vollmann addresses the problems that arise when examining the principles of other weapons besides guns and knives. He mentions the case of the Japanese terrorist group, Aum Supreme Truth and how they used chemical warfare to kill people in the subways of Tokyo. The nature of chemical warfare contains an issue of controllability. Therefore, Vollmann notes, “…so often in this study of violence, that principles can’t be easily nailed down, that merely knowing the tool of violence employed is insufficient; we must also be apprised of the relation between victim and perpetrator” (I, p. 122). Then he continues and asserts in his opinion, that the weapon chosen hardly matters most of the time, because the victims aren’t just the people who experience it directly but also the people who suffer second handedly through hearing about it from rumors or the media. That weapons increase the chances of killing and hurting without intent, and these wounds will leave permanent cavities. More weapons, more death, more cavities, and neither party will concede. How can you concede when your life is in the hand of the other and you’d be much more likely to believe that will give yours up before theirs? 

The Rainbow of Le Chambon

Vollmann brings up the story of Le Chambon, a pacifist French village that helped save thousands of Jews from the Nazis, and a soldier named Philip Hallie struggles with knowing where his heart lay. Did it lie in the necessary violent war to stop Hitler, or within the mountain village? He is given his answer when a lady, whose children were saved by the village, tells him that the Holocaust was a storm and Le Chambon was the rainbow. Hallie’s account, to be quite honest, brought some tears to my eyes. How powerful peace and mercy and righteousness is; how it can serve as the single light post in the vastest, and darkest ocean; a flare of warmth from a fire in the coldest tundra; a rainbow in the storm.

This goodness can only be utilized against the opponent if there is humanity within them to begin with.

The Stability Which Can Only Rest in a Fanatical Outlook 

Vollmann analyzes Gandhi and his beliefs on nonviolence, most notably his line, “Impotence is in men” (I, p.132). Vollmann has an objection to this, and his response is, “What about the gassed children?” Should this impotence be seen as a fault of the children? And what about their capability of even being a martyr? People suffer and die, and it ought to mean something but at what lines have to be crossed to reach martyrdom that was never asked for to begin with? Vollmann grapples with Gandhian principles as they relate to his own life and he still doesn’t know whether they’re wrong or not. If anything, this nonviolence and submission would’ve, Vollmann relates, made him “feel even more foolish and worthless than I already did” (I, p. 133). The maxim of “do unto others as you would that others do unto you” was contrasted with the maxim “do unto others as you hope and expect that others will do unto you.” Vollmann explains that satyagraha is only valid so long as the sacrifice is for something, and that eventually this sacrifice is powerful enough that it will cause the perpetrator to halt his aggression. Vollmann asserts that if one or both conditions are not met, then counter-violence would be justified (I, p. 134).

Emotional Attachments or the Pursuit of Unsullied Joy

The main story woven through this piece is his wife going out to walk with her dog, and while she is gone, Vollmann ruminates over all of the violent things he has seen and experienced. He is gathering his thoughts and comes to believe that nonviolence and satyagraha can only be followed by people who have voluntarily become emotionally unattached (I, p. 135). Brutal nightmares come to him, and while he is lost in his ocean of violent images, he continuously notices that his wife has not returned despite it getting darker and darker outside (I, p. 136). He declares that he will take action, and commit violence if he needed to, to help her. He has an emotional attachment to her and he will reject nonviolence for sullied joy, to save his wife (I, p. 137).

Continuum of the Right to Bear Arms & Guns in the USA 2000

Quotes given through a span of time, the earliest dating back to 1787, in support of the right to bear arms (I, p. 138).

Inclusion of a photo essay, a compilation of pictures of guns in the USA. To illustrate the power given by the gun to the wielder, with a more positive tone. Vollman sees the distinction of gun culture between the city and the country, and decides to display those voices, and everything in between.

–KD