International Justice In Theory And Practice.
Toward A Philosophical Reassessment Of Basic Political Concepts And Applications.
(This Lecture Summary was written in June 2004, as my keynote address proposal for the upcoming International Conference on International Justice, to which I had been invited, to be held in early 2005 at the Golden Gate University in Arizona. For some strange reason, the conference was subsequently canceled, and this lecture was never delivered, as if to prove to its author that its proper place is in the dungeon of wishful thinking.)
Our world is in crisis. The whole system of international relations with its central concept of international justice requires a major overhaul. The question is how to go about it.
A standard ‘scientific’ approach does not work, because the root cause of the problem lies beneath the level of specific social sciences, such as jurisprudence, political science, economics, etc., going all the way down to their philosophical underpinnings. We need to define concepts, before we apply them. We must become philosophers, before playing the social scientist.
But, unfortunately, modern philosophy is virtually bankrupt, as a result of the growing divergence between secular and religious thought, that has reached the point of incompatibility. Opponents of religion seem to have succeeded in convincing the world that there exists an unbridgeable gap between fact and belief. But religion is by no means mere fancy. In fact, it provides us with the only genuine ethical foundation for the interpretation of fact. We need the absolute universality of God, in order to rise above the arbitrariness of man.
The Kingdom of Heaven is not of this world, but it is not entirely alien to it, either. Society needs religion. Yet, instead of firmly taking the path of ethical social activism, too many religious thinkers today are totally consumed by their narrow proselytizing agendas, as if their sole mission in life were to get more converts for their specific denominations. As a result, “ultra-secularism” has effectively succeeded in taking over mainstream science and marginalizing religion, while religious scholars are in retreat, and have allowed religion to be perceived in opposition to social science.
(The latter is conceptually wrong. Opposition presupposes the presence of similarity. But religion is not on a par with science. At the deepest level of philosophical contemplation, all science is only a practical tool of human endeavor. Just like a hammer. But how we use this tool, is ultimately generalized as the purpose of all human endeavor, and thus, through the link of philosophy, the scientist enters the realm of religion.)
The result of this disconnect is a philosophical chaos and confusion at a time when clarity is of the essence. America is, at heart, a good and moral nation, built on a solid foundation of wisdom and tradition, yet she is increasingly perceived as immoral. No wonder. At home, her “moral majority” has admittedly lost a culture war to the secularist minority. Abroad, it promotes the utterly immoral doctrine of Globalism, glorifying an universal Will to Profit as the prime mover of human progress, while blatantly claiming a moral superiority over the rest of the world, presumably, on the grounds of those same ethical principles which Globalism has mocked and repudiated. Emancipation from the national culture, emancipation from traditional morality, are freedoms henceforth declared “self-evident.” Welcome ye converts to our new ‘religion’ of pious pulpit talk and the social practice of trickle-down greed and moral promiscuity!
America talks non-stop about freedom and democracy, but what exactly is freedom? What is democracy? What is international justice? When the leader of the free world rejects the justice system of its own followers, as the United States does with the ICJ and the ICC at The Hague, it does not matter who is right and who is wrong. The fact in itself is the best evidence of failure.
The concept of International Justice presupposes an appeal to common morality. All great cultures, being religion-based, carry within themselves the basic ethical component, which alone can serve as the common denominator for the system of International Justice. We must, therefore, tap into that shared Will to Peace and Justice that will unite the whole civilized world against rogue nations, extremist movements, and other mischief-makers. The best way to fight for peace and justice is not by imposing America’s far-from-perfect way of life on other nations, but by rallying all moral forces of our planet against the forces of immorality. And, yes, for starters, Physician, heal thyself!
To be a true world leader in this and other ways, America must present a genuine and universal moral message to the world. She must also be sensitive to the great psychological divide existing between the rich and the poor, the strong and the weak, the fortunate and the not-so-lucky, and realize that being the richest and mightiest world power in the age of Globalization, inevitably antagonizes the rest of the world against her, should she keep trying to force her leadership on others through money and weapons. She should also renounce the philosophy of Globalism, as a destructive ideology, leaving her with the power of Goliath, and denying her the power of David.
That is why it is so important for America’s religious scholars of today, to reclaim the mainstream science territory, lost to secularism, to reassess and reformulate the basic political concepts and their applications, coming up with a definitive ethical theory, offering moral guidance to their nation’s leaders and to American society at large, in this way winning the culture war at home and restoring America’s moral authority abroad.
(This piece, and the lecture behind it, was written with the best intentions, and addressed to a fitting audience at a fitting forum. I was still an optimist then (probably, out of desperation more than on solid ground, even though my optimism was quickly fading even then. Today, I can see more clearly that both my lecture, and my optimism in general ,about the chances of the ‘physician healing himself,’ belong to the dreamy realm of sheer wishful thinking.)
Toward A Philosophical Reassessment Of Basic Political Concepts And Applications.
(This Lecture Summary was written in June 2004, as my keynote address proposal for the upcoming International Conference on International Justice, to which I had been invited, to be held in early 2005 at the Golden Gate University in Arizona. For some strange reason, the conference was subsequently canceled, and this lecture was never delivered, as if to prove to its author that its proper place is in the dungeon of wishful thinking.)
Our world is in crisis. The whole system of international relations with its central concept of international justice requires a major overhaul. The question is how to go about it.
A standard ‘scientific’ approach does not work, because the root cause of the problem lies beneath the level of specific social sciences, such as jurisprudence, political science, economics, etc., going all the way down to their philosophical underpinnings. We need to define concepts, before we apply them. We must become philosophers, before playing the social scientist.
But, unfortunately, modern philosophy is virtually bankrupt, as a result of the growing divergence between secular and religious thought, that has reached the point of incompatibility. Opponents of religion seem to have succeeded in convincing the world that there exists an unbridgeable gap between fact and belief. But religion is by no means mere fancy. In fact, it provides us with the only genuine ethical foundation for the interpretation of fact. We need the absolute universality of God, in order to rise above the arbitrariness of man.
The Kingdom of Heaven is not of this world, but it is not entirely alien to it, either. Society needs religion. Yet, instead of firmly taking the path of ethical social activism, too many religious thinkers today are totally consumed by their narrow proselytizing agendas, as if their sole mission in life were to get more converts for their specific denominations. As a result, “ultra-secularism” has effectively succeeded in taking over mainstream science and marginalizing religion, while religious scholars are in retreat, and have allowed religion to be perceived in opposition to social science.
(The latter is conceptually wrong. Opposition presupposes the presence of similarity. But religion is not on a par with science. At the deepest level of philosophical contemplation, all science is only a practical tool of human endeavor. Just like a hammer. But how we use this tool, is ultimately generalized as the purpose of all human endeavor, and thus, through the link of philosophy, the scientist enters the realm of religion.)
The result of this disconnect is a philosophical chaos and confusion at a time when clarity is of the essence. America is, at heart, a good and moral nation, built on a solid foundation of wisdom and tradition, yet she is increasingly perceived as immoral. No wonder. At home, her “moral majority” has admittedly lost a culture war to the secularist minority. Abroad, it promotes the utterly immoral doctrine of Globalism, glorifying an universal Will to Profit as the prime mover of human progress, while blatantly claiming a moral superiority over the rest of the world, presumably, on the grounds of those same ethical principles which Globalism has mocked and repudiated. Emancipation from the national culture, emancipation from traditional morality, are freedoms henceforth declared “self-evident.” Welcome ye converts to our new ‘religion’ of pious pulpit talk and the social practice of trickle-down greed and moral promiscuity!
America talks non-stop about freedom and democracy, but what exactly is freedom? What is democracy? What is international justice? When the leader of the free world rejects the justice system of its own followers, as the United States does with the ICJ and the ICC at The Hague, it does not matter who is right and who is wrong. The fact in itself is the best evidence of failure.
The concept of International Justice presupposes an appeal to common morality. All great cultures, being religion-based, carry within themselves the basic ethical component, which alone can serve as the common denominator for the system of International Justice. We must, therefore, tap into that shared Will to Peace and Justice that will unite the whole civilized world against rogue nations, extremist movements, and other mischief-makers. The best way to fight for peace and justice is not by imposing America’s far-from-perfect way of life on other nations, but by rallying all moral forces of our planet against the forces of immorality. And, yes, for starters, Physician, heal thyself!
To be a true world leader in this and other ways, America must present a genuine and universal moral message to the world. She must also be sensitive to the great psychological divide existing between the rich and the poor, the strong and the weak, the fortunate and the not-so-lucky, and realize that being the richest and mightiest world power in the age of Globalization, inevitably antagonizes the rest of the world against her, should she keep trying to force her leadership on others through money and weapons. She should also renounce the philosophy of Globalism, as a destructive ideology, leaving her with the power of Goliath, and denying her the power of David.
That is why it is so important for America’s religious scholars of today, to reclaim the mainstream science territory, lost to secularism, to reassess and reformulate the basic political concepts and their applications, coming up with a definitive ethical theory, offering moral guidance to their nation’s leaders and to American society at large, in this way winning the culture war at home and restoring America’s moral authority abroad.
(This piece, and the lecture behind it, was written with the best intentions, and addressed to a fitting audience at a fitting forum. I was still an optimist then (probably, out of desperation more than on solid ground, even though my optimism was quickly fading even then. Today, I can see more clearly that both my lecture, and my optimism in general ,about the chances of the ‘physician healing himself,’ belong to the dreamy realm of sheer wishful thinking.)
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