War and Violence in the Philosophy of The Numinous Way
The Morality of The Numinous Way
In order to understand the concepts of war and violence in terms of
the philosophy of The Numinous Way, it is necessary to begin by
outlining the morality of The Numinous Way, since war and violence
are inseparably bound up with how one understands morality.
Morality is, for The Numinous Way, a consequence of individuals
using the faculty of empathy [1] - that is, a consequence of the
insight and the understanding (the acausal knowing) that empathy
provides for individuals in the immediacy-of-the-moment. This
insight and knowledge is of how we are not isolated human beings,
but rather only one fragile microcosmic nexion and thus connected to
all Life, sentient and otherwise, human and otherwise, of this
planet and otherwise. Consequently, there is a cosmic perspective -
a cosmic ethic - and compassion: that is, the human virtue of having
συμπάθεια with other living beings, and the feeling, the
knowledge, that we should treat other human beings as we ourselves
would wish to be treated: with fairness, dignity, and respect.
The morality of The Numinous Way is therefore defined by a personal
honour, a personal compassion, and the personal virtue of justice.
For justice is not some abstract concept, but rather a personal
virtue, as εὐταξία [2] is a personal
virtue. For justice is the personal virtue of fairness; the quality
of balance, and is linked to other
personal virtues as mentioned, for example, by Cicero:
"Aliis ego
te virtutibus,
continentiae, gravitatis,
iustitiae,
fidei, ceteris
omnibus." [3]
This morality is therefore a personal one so that it is the living
individual of honour - someone who possesses certain virtues - who
represents, who is, the cosmic ethics of The Numinous Way. For,
"the Cosmic Ethic [...] cannot live in some law, in some
Institution, in some Court, in some dogma or in some abstract
theory. To be numinous, to presence the numinous, what is ethical
requires a living honourable person, not some abstract theory of
ethics." The Natural Balance of Honour (2011)
Thus the source of, the authority for - and the reason for choosing
- such a morality is and can only be the judgement of the
individual, deriving as this judgement does from their empathy and
their unique πάθει μάθος.
The Source of Authority
For The Numinous Way, there is no authority other than that of
personal empathy, personal honour and πάθει μάθος. That
is, the source of authority is personal, and the bounds of this
authority are defined by honour, with The Numinous Way thus being:
"the Way of the numinous and individual authority of πάθει
μάθος where one’s own empathy and one’s own learning from
practical experience take precedence and are considered a means
for us to become a friend of σοφόν and thus acquire the
virtue and the skill that has been termed wisdom." Preface,
Selected Writings Concerning The Numinous Way (2011).
In practical terms, this means that the individual following or
being guided by this Way relies on and is guided by their own
judgement, their own experience, and a Code of Honour, and does not
relinquish these in favour of some chain-of-command or in favour of
accepting the authority of some supra-personal institution, of some
law, or of some association, political party or whatever. In place
of accepting and submitting to such external authority there is only
the giving of personal loyalty according to a Code of Honour, with
such giving by its honourable and personal nature never involving
the individual in relinquishing their own judgement or acting
contrary to that Code of Honour.
Violence, War, The State, and Leges Regiae
Used in its correct, original, non-pejorative way, violence is using
physical force against another person sufficient to cause some
physical injury. However, a fairly recent synonym for violence is force
- a term often used by politicians and castellans and theorists of
The State, among others, when they attempt to try and justify the
use of violence by those persons (such as the police) such
politicians and castellans (and others) believe have some 'lawful
authority' to inflict injury on people.
The distinction that such politicians and castellans and others thus
attempt to make between violence and force reveals their reliance,
stated or unstated, known or unknown, on the principles of Leges
Regiae. That is, on the principles used historically
by kings and emperors and their courts where someone or some group
assumes authority over others, and thus exercises command over them,
makes decisions for or on behalf of them, and, ultimately, by the
use of violence and the threat of punishment are able to force or
persuade others to obey them and their commands.
Principles, for example, manifest in the ancient Jus Papirianum
attributed to Sextus Papirius:
"After Romulus had distinguished the persons of higher
rank from those of inferior condition, then he passed laws and
apportioned the duties for each to do...
For the king, he chose the following prerogatives ... to
maintain the guardianship of the laws and the national customs,
... to judge in person the greatest of crimes ... to have absolute
command in war. " [4]
Notice how Romulus - the legendary King of ancient Rome - assumed
the authority to divide individuals into categories - high and low -
and how he manufactured laws, and told individuals what their duties
would be, and assumed absolute command in war.
Modern nation-States have, via people such as Augustine of Hippo
[5], simply replaced kings and emperors with Prime Ministers,
Presidents, or representatives (or whatever) and covered or
attempted to cover their use of violence (by their police forces and
armies) and the threat of punishment (such as prison) by rhetoric
about 'law and order' and by social and political theories (such as
that of democracy). But the demand that individuals accept some
supra-personal authority remains the same, as does the threat or the
use of violence against individuals by officials appointed and
approved by such personal authorities, as does the demand that
individuals forsake their own judgement and rely instead on the
judgement of ministers, governments officials, and on the Courts of
Law of The State. In addition - as it was for the Roman kings and
Caesars - the individual is expected to obey the laws they
manufacture, with such laws being regarded as 'just' and moral.
Thus justice - far from being a personal virtue, defined by honour -
becomes what some king, some Caesar, some τύραννος,
or some government decrees it is according to the laws they
manufacture and which their officials and their Courts uphold and
enforce, by violence (or the threat thereof) and by imprisonment (or
the threat thereof). Hence all the rhetoric by castellans and
officials of The State that individuals "should not take the law
into their own hands", whereas true - natural, numinous, living -
justice only exists in living honourable individuals and their
actions.
This usurpation of personal
judgement and natural justice is overtly manifest in war. War - the
bellum of Latin writers such as Cicero and Livy - is armed
conflict involving large opposing groups where there is acceptance,
by those fighting, of some recognized chain-of-command and of some
supra-personal commanding authority who or which is or are
personally unknown to most if not all of those accepting such
authority, and where the conflict is mostly if not entirely
non-personal for all or most of those involved. That is, war mostly
or entirely results from the pursuit of some abstraction, or from
the desire, the beliefs, of some leader or commander, or from the
political or social or religious agenda or polices of some
supra-personal authority such as some government.
In The Numinous Way, a distinction is made between war and combat
in that combat refers to gewin - similar to the old Germanic
werra, as distinct from the modern krieg. That is,
combat refers to a more personal armed quarrel between much smaller
factions (and often between just two adversaries - as in single
combat, and trial by combat) when there is, among those fighting,
some personal matter at stake or some personal interest involved,
with most if not all of those fighting doing so under the leadership
of someone they personally know and respect and with the quarrel
usually occurring in the locality or localities where the combatants
live.
Thus, war is contrary to The Numinous Way - to the Cosmic Ethic -
not only because of the impersonal suffering it causes, but also
because it is inseparably bound up with individuals having to
relinquish their own judgement, with them pursuing some lifeless
un-numinous abstraction by violent means, and with the development
of supra-personal abstract and thus un-numinous notions of 'justice'
and law.
Hence, there is, for The Numinous Way, no such thing as a 'just war'
- for war is inherently unjust and un-numinous. What is just
and lawful are honourable individuals and their actions, and such
combat as such individuals may honourably and personally undertake,
and such violence as they may honourably and of necessity employ in
pursuit of being fair and ensuring fairness.
David Myatt
October 2011 CE
Notes
[1] For a basic explanation of empathy, see my essay Introduction
to The Philosophy of The Numen
[2] εὐταξία is what I would describe as the quality, the
personal virtue, of self-restraint; of personal orderly (balanced,
honourable, well-mannered) conduct especially under adversity or
duress.
Regarding εὐταξία, Cicero
wrote:
" Deinceps de ordine rerum et de opportunitate temporum
dicendum est. Haec autem scientia continentur ea, quam Graeci
εὐταξίαν nominant, non hanc, quam interpretamur modestiam, quo in
verbo modus inest, sed illa est εὐταξία, in qua intellegitur ordinis
conservatio. Itaque, ut eandem nos modestiam appellemus..." De
Officiis, 1, 40, 142
[3] M. Tullius Cicero, For Lucius Murena, 10, 23. My
translation is: 'For your other virtues of self-restraint, of
dignity, of justice, of good faith, and all other good qualities...'
[4] The quotation is from the reconstruction of the texts
given in: Allan Chester Johnson, Paul Robinson Coleman-Norton, and
Frank Bourne. Ancient Roman Statutes: A Translation with
Introduction, Commentary, Glossary, and Index. Austin:
University of Texas Press, 1961
[5] The assumed need for individuals to accept supra-personal
authority is much in evidence in Augustine, especially in his De
Civitate Dei contra Paganos in which he champions a order, a
hierarcy, with God its pinnacle and ordinary individuals at the
bottom. In between are those appointed to oversee indivuduals and
ensure 'order' with everyone in their rightful place: "Ordo est
parium dispariumque rerum sua cuique loca tribuens dispositio."
(XIX, xiii)
As Augustine writes in Contra Faustum Manichaeum
(XXII, 75): "The natural order, which would have peace amongst
men, necessitates that the judgement about and the authority
to declare war should reside in those who have authority over others
[a monarch/prince]."
In addition, his rhetoric regarding the necessity of waging war is
remarkably similar to that of modern politicians:
"War is undertaken to bring about peace. Therefore, even
during war, remember the value of peace so that when those you
have fought are conquered you can show them the advantages of
peace..." (Contra duas epistulas Pelagianorum ad Bonifacium
Papam, CLXXXIX)
He also, it seems, in writing about a 'just war', provided them with
rhetorical justification for castigating their enemies as 'evil', as
'wicked' and they themselves, even though they may cause suffering
and death, as doing what is 'right', what God decrees, as, for
example, Bush and Blair did during the invasion and occupation of
Iraq, and as with the desire of some nation-States to humiliate and
vanquish those deemed as enemies. As Augustus wrote in De
Civitate Dei contra Paganos:
"Nam et cum iustum geritur bellum, pro peccato e
contrario dimicatur; et omnis uictoria, cum etiam malis prouenit,
diuino iudicio uictos humiliat uel emendans peccata uel
puniens." [ For even when we wage a just war, our enemies
must be sinners, for every victory then, even though gained by
evil men, results from divine decree, with the vanquished
humiliated and their sins either punished or wiped away. ]
XIX, 15
