Saturday 8 November 2008

An Interview with Michael Walzer


In your introductory lecture for the Master in Asti you argue in favour of the teaching of ethics in schools. Can you explain why?

MW: It seems entirely normal to want to teach young people how to behave in the world, how to treat other human beings, and how to think about the responsibilities of citizenship. What is odd is that anyone should think that this isn’t a necessary part of the educational process. Obviously, school isn’t the only place for moral education; the family is important and so is the church, synagogue, or mosque. But the school is the right place for a more reflective teaching; it is the place to invite arguments about right and wrong, just and unjust; it is the place to discuss moral dilemmas and hard choices. Where else can we do that?

To some, yours appears a welcome proposal, but it’s not difficult to imagine that those are likely to be a minority. Nowadays the general attitude in many countries seems to be rather sceptical on the same possibility to agree on a shared understanding of what ethics is. What would you say to those critics to persuade them of the feasibility of such courses?

MW: Some shared understanding there certainly is - on the wrongness of murder, for example, and of hurtful actions, and of deception. But we won’t agree on the applications of even these simple principles, and that is precisely why we need to talk about them. Young people need to learn how to think about moral difficulty, and how to join the moral arguments that have been going on for many centuries, and how to explain their own moral decisions to other people. We don’t need to get them all to agree; we need to teach them to disagree in better ways, with greater knowledge, more seriously, and with some understanding of views different from their own.

In 1999 you wrote ‘Drawing the Line’ a paper on religion and politics that has been highly influential in the debate on the role of religion in the public sphere. Recently is becoming increasingly difficult to “draw the line” in a satisfactory way - even in countries with a long tradition of religious toleration like the United Kingdom or the Netherlands. Writing on the same topic today, is there something you would change of your approach in that paper?


MW: It wasn’t so easy to draw the line even in 1999. I don’t think that, writing today, I would change anything in that paper. But there is much that might be added, specifically about the integration of Muslim communities into European countries that don’t have the commitment to religious pluralism that has been central to the American experiment from the beginning. So far as the US is concerned, I hope that we can treat Muslim immigrants in exactly the same way that we have treated other immigrants from other religious communities. And I hope that the difficulties posed by Islamic radicals will turn out to be very much the same as the difficulties posed by Christian fundamentalists (which were the immediate occasion of my writing in ’99). But the European experience is different, and will be different, because most European countries have strong and singular religious traditions - Catholic, Lutheran, Anglican - and you have always had a hard time with religious minorities, or, better, religious minorities, have sometimes had a hard time with you. I don’t think that I can tell the Italians, or the Dutch or the English, how to draw the line. You have to work that out in accordance with your own circumstances and your own political culture.

Many Left-wing commentators in Europe are enthusiastic about the possibility of a President Obama. You live and teach in the U.S., but you are also familiar with European political culture. What is your advice to these “Obama enthusiasts” in Europe. What is the mistake they should try to avoid in their assessment of the democratic candidate’s policies?

MW: He isn’t a leftist, our Obama. His decision to run from the center and to run against partisanship, “above the fray” - this was, of course, a strategic decision, but I believe that it also reflected his deepest sense of himself. He will turn out to be (if he is elected, as I pray he is) a more radical president than he wants to be - first of all, because of the economic crisis and, second, because no one on the right will respect his non-partisanship. He won’t be able to enact the health care program he has advocated, for example, without a bitter partisan fight. But still, he will cleave to the center as best he can; he will appoint some Republicans to his cabinet; he will be a cautious leader. The biggest “change” he is looking for is in the atmosphere in Washington: he wants to shut down the bitter ideological struggle. He wants a quiet pragmatism. He won’t get it, but he also won’t turn the US into a social democratic state. He will do more than he wants to do, but less than the “Obama enthusiasts” want him to do.
On the other hand, just think: he will shut down Guantanamo; he will terminate rendition; he will repudiate the torture memos. A big change!

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