The Cynic and the Fool
What does it mean when politicians autograph bombs?
Both sides do it. On Sunday, the Democratic Governor of Pennsylvania Josh Shapiro accompanied Ukrainian president Vlodymyr Zelensky on a photo op in a military facility, where they both signed their names on artillery shells. “We must all do our part in the fight for freedom — from the workers in Scranton who make Pennsylvania the arsenal of democracy to the brave Ukrainian soldiers protecting their country,” Shapiro later posted on X.
Last May, while visiting Israel, former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley visited an IDF facility and also scribbled her name on an artillery shell, along with words of encouragement: “Finish Them.”
I don’t blame Zelensky for doing it. The man is fighting for his country. He has no choice but to pay obeisance to the empire that is on his side. But what about Shapiro and Haley? Maybe you find their gesture noble; maybe you find it repulsive. Maybe you rolled your eyes. But I am wondering about their motivations.
(I am setting aside the moral question of whether the US should support Ukraine or Israel. I guess my own cynicism is showing: I am assuming that sound moral calculus is not what is motivating Haley or Shapiro.)
Were they motivated by a feeling of righteousness — that is, by a cocksure certainty that they are fighting on the Right Side of History? Or were they merely doing what calculating politicians always do: grandstand before a crowd, pander for influence, and elbow their way into the headlines?
Another way to ask my question is: when a politician signs their name to an artillery shell, are they being cynical, or moralistic?
I am thinking here about a recent essay published on Wisdom of Crowds by David Polansky. In it, he laments: “Americans too often think that the purpose of political observation is to discern rightness or fairness, such that politics itself basically cashes out as applied morality and law.” In other words, Americans tend to view political problems, especially geopolitical problems, in terms of right and wrong. The problem with this attitude is that it assumes “a certain dubious position of objectivity on our part,” as if American analysts were free of interests and biases of their own.
On the contrary, Polansky argues, because the United States is the biggest global power, it is more difficult, and not less, for it to assume the role of moral arbiter in foreign affairs.
Polansky’s essay was met by strong criticism from the great socialist writer George Scialabba (do give his omnibus anthology a read). Ultimately, Scialabba’s problem with Polansky’s argument is philosophical: He doesn’t think it’s possible to separate morality from political analysis. “Any attempt to radically separate the moral and the prudential is incoherent,” Scialabba writes. “It is impossible to frame an argument — any argument — without knowing what one wants or what, in the most general sense, is desirable.”
On a practical level, Scialabba says, “No one who knows anything about the history of American foreign policy can find it the least bit plausible that concern for legality and morality has played even the smallest part in it.”
Scialabba’s comments generated a back-and-forth with Polansky that is well worth your time. The two minds generated more light than heat — an exemplary exchange for Wisdom of Crowds. But I would venture to add that the clash reveals an area of tacit agreement: both Scialabba and Polansky are skeptical of American power. Scialabba is skeptical of it on moral grounds and Polansky on prudential ones. Both fear that American power projected into the world can end up doing more harm than good, even if it is wielded with the best of intentions.
And so I wonder what each would make of Shapiro and Haley’s bellicose gestures. Are they evidence of moralistic outlook, or a cynical one? Puritanical or Machiavelliian?
Pushing the matter further: are Shapiro and Haley fools, or was their gesture a tactical gambit? I guess the answer could also be: both. But if so, is theirs a self-righteous, moralistic foolishness, or a reckless, cynical foolishness?
I myself don’t know what to think about the matter. On the one had, we Americans do, for better or worse, indeed have a sense of moralism and righteousness in world affairs. On the other, politicians are politicians.
One thing seems certain: Shapiro and Haley are suffering from hubris, whether it be the hubris that comes from thinking you have the world under your control, or the hubris that comes from lacking the worldly experience that should teach you otherwise. I wonder whether Scialabba and Polansky would agree with me on that.
This post is part of our collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Governance and Markets.
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There’s something ephemeral and unreal about American opinions on foreign wars, like they’re championing a sports team or some fictional character’s romantic endeavours on a television show. Whether it’s Democratic sloganeering or David Sacks’ shitposting it’s all a semi-fictional ‘event’ to them that’s easily processed into culture war dynamics, and not something kinetic and physical. Nor does it really have to be, of course. The American dream is another continent, another world entirely.
The reality is that people in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia should be in command of their own destinations and not rely on American support that might vanish at any moment for reasons entirely unrelated to their local reality.
I was talking about this piece with my husband and he brought up this striking quote from Eisenhower, early in his Presidency:
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.”
Eisenhower was no pacifist, of course; he'd been a general in WWII. But he had a strong understanding of the respect due to the tragedies of war. He also ended his Presidency with that famous speech warning about the dangers of the "military-industrial complex" and its political power. The political power of the arms industry is surely at least partly responsible for Shapiro's choices, here, as Jarvis Coffin notes. I don't think that's an excuse, though. Shapiro might feel bound to support his constituents and their industry, but this would not preclude him from nevertheless treating weapons and their deadly purpose in an appropriately sober fashion.