Conrad Black and the visceral trump card

When it comes to moral systems, hypocrisy, inconsistency and exceptions are different things. Hypocisy, as  La Rochefoucauld put it, is the tribute vice pays to virtue. Hypocrisy reflects an inability or unwillingness to live up to one's own standard or a standard one inauthentically espouses. Sometimes I think hypocrisy gets a bad rap. Implicit in hypocrisy is an acknowledgement of the worthwhileness of that standard. I think we're better off if our cads are Dr Johnsons rather than Hugh Hefners.

But let's talk about the related phenomena: inconsistency and exception. Exceptions are an acknowlegement that a system can't apply to all cases. Inconsistencies, I suppose, are exceptions you can't or don't justify.

The tightest systems allow for no exceptions: I love the fact that exceptions aren't needed for the Roman Catholic divorce prohibition. If what appears to be a Catholic marriage breaks down, it was never truly a Catholic marriage, therefore no Catholic marriage has ever broken down. Many ideologies have the same escape valve.

However, most systems need exceptions, and they need the right kind.  In the public square, an allowable elision or aberration has to be articulated in a way that doesn't undermine the principles behind the rule/system itself. Understandably, a lot of effort goes into this process. Just look at the hundreds of years of writing on Just War Theory. Among one's ideological fellow travellers, however, quite often all one needs for a socially acceptable exception is a shared visceral reaction. 

This brings us to Conrad Black, the recently incarcerated historian, commentator and businessman I recently favourably quoted on this blog.  A lot of political progressives downplay the punitive, retributive and deterrent sides of criminal justice. Criminal sanction is, apparently, for a) rehabilitation/restoration, b) public safety, and c) punishing Conrad Black.

There are reasons for the antipathy towards Black. He is, or at least was, rich. He's vocally conservative. He carries himself in a way that some see as snobbish, the effect of which is exacerbated by his conspicuous propensity to marshall the veritable cornucopia of ostentatious words he has at his disposal. He can come across as a bit patronizing.

In 2006, Black was changed with just about every white collar crime imaginable. Over time, all the charges save one were either dropped, resulted in a 'not guilty' verdict, or were overturned on appeal. He's served 28 months and has lost much of his wealth and esteem. Yet, mention his name in some circles and you'll hear rants about how he should spend the rest of his life in jail, and not the comfortable kind of jail either. This is how exceptions work. When theorizing, they're hard to rationalize; in the real world, we reach for the visceral reaction trump card immediately.

There is no chance Conrad Black will 'reoffend'; no accountant or CFO will let him anywhere near an even slightly grey business deal. I'm pretty sure he's not looking to go back to prison, despite his affinity for those with whom he shared accommodations for more than two years. But Black is the exception. People who lament that barbarism of longer jail sentences, mandatory minimum sentences, or uncomfortable prisons, want him to rot in jail. That says more about humans and less about Black.

This sort of viscerality trumping the system isn't particular to this case of course.  I can't remember who it was that observed that, for the most part, Americans actually believe abortion is allowable a) when the health of the mother is at risk, b) when the pregancy is the result of rape, and c) in whatever my own situation is. This is a bit cynical, but it rings true.

I'm not pointing this out to say that viscerality (visceralness?) has no place in moral thinking, or to approve of a Platonic priority for reason over passions.  But if we're going to have systems, and we need to have systems, we shouldn't toss them out the window when someone or something ellicits visceral hatred or wet-eyed sympathy.

Moving too fast on Mubarak?

A while back I wrote a piece on dictators' exits.  Yesterday I wrote about the messiness of Egypt's current mess. If those posts were a pale ale and a stout, this one's a black and tan. 

Egyptian opposition leader Monir Abdel Nour was on the CBC Radio's As It Happens (starts at 9:45 in the clip) yesterday arguing that Hosni Mubarak needs to remain in power for a least two months in order for necessary constitutional changes to be made.  It's quite a compelling argument. Without the necessary constitutional changes and administrative transitions, and without a timely fair election (which just can't be done immediately), whoever takes over from Mubarak may face chaos and hold power, as Mubarak currently does, without legitimacy.  Or, perhaps even worse, the military could impose one of their own, as they did in 1956.

In the National Post, Conrad Black makes a similar argument about order and legitimacy post-Mubarak, and like Nour, says Mubarak has to be allowed to transition out of power over the coming months.   Black posits that leaders faced with mass protests can, a) flee, b) order the protesters to be fired upon (although those ordered to do so don't always obey - see Ceaucescu), or c) wait until the situation makes the majority uncomforable enough to side with a legal resolution rather than passionate chaos.  Black uses De Gaulle's response to France's 1968 uprising as an example of the masterful use of option c.  He suggests Mubarak, while not himself legitimate, is trying to do the same, and will use the time it'll buy to transition out peacefully. The fact that Mubarak may have sponsored the chaos-inducers doesn't seem to me to undermine Black's argument that, legitimacy and stability wise, option c may be better for everyone than the option a the protesters and many westerners want to see.

Legitimacy is about procedures and legality and all that, but more than anything, it's about people buying in.  The appearance of mob-rule, however real the greivances, could lead to a lot of horrible years for Egypt.