I have been struggling to come to terms with two events over the past couple of weeks, one national in scope, the other local. Each has its own simple pathos, yet on closer examination, both also reveal an underlying complexity. What I have to offer this morning is not a definitive answer to either situation, but rather an exploration of how my own thinking about them has developed.
On the face of it, the Elian Gonzalez story doesn't seem very complicated at all. A woman and a man marry, have a son together, then get divorced. The boy lives with his mother until he is six, when she dies in a tragic boating accident. At that point, one would logically assume, Elian should go and live with his father. But that's just the outline of the story; as we all know, the particulars get complicated.
Elian and his mother escaped from the harsh constraints of Castro's Cuba in an illegal and obviously unsafe boat. It's not exactly clear why they left, and obviously Elian had little to say in the matter. The issue is whether to send Elian back to Cuba with his dad. Some have alleged that Elian's father is abusive and alcoholic. It's possible that those allegations are true; it's certain that they suit the purposes of the accusers, many of whom are openly using Elian's plight to embody four decades of anger and resentment against Castro. The issue as posed by Elian's relatives is whether it's better for the child to be raised within Castro's politically and economically repressive nation of Cuba, or in America, the land of freedom and opportunity.
Both Elian's relatives and his father base their arguments on values we believe in. All other things being equal, we usually choose democracy over communism, and for the purposes of child-rearing, immediate family over extended family. The problem is that these two values are being played off against each other, and someone has to make the call. Should Elian be raised by his father or his relatives? Live under capitalism or communism?
In similar circumstances, if Elian's country of origin were Mexico, he would doubtless have been sent back home long ago. If he were a girl and his mother had escaped from Afghanistan, she would not be sent back at all, at least I hope she wouldn't. In general, one can argue that it's better for Elian to be with his father in America. But that doesn't appear to be an option. Sometimes what's best in general is not immediately possible in particular. And that's when tough choices have to be made. Which is the higher value? What are we willing to live with? What price family? What price freedom?
On the face of it, the recent shooting of Patrick Dorismond by an undercover New York City police officer doesn't seem very complicated either. Dorismond was not armed, nor did he initiate the fatal confrontation with the officer. The officer in question made a horrific error; he was wrong.
Yet here too the particulars are more complicated. New York City has become a much safer place over the past few years, and that's a very good thing for most of us. But this increased safety has come with a cost, part of which has been heightened police aggressiveness, especially in high crime areas, particularly towards people of color. The Dorismond killing is deeply disturbing because it does not seem to be a simple horrific accident, but the consequence of a bellicose approach to law enforcement-an approach both symbolized and embodied by the mayor's callous reaction. Ironically, Patrick Dorismond is dead because New York City is a safer town. His death is part of the price we have paid for the reduction in crime rates.
Is the price of our safety now too high? Many who live in New York City now think so, including more than one hundred members and friends of this congregation who recently signed a letter to the mayor. In theory, the streets of this town should belong neither to criminals nor to the New York City Police Department, but to all of us-regardless of color or socioeconomic standing. What would be best, of course, is if each of us were both maximally safe and maximally unencumbered by the intrusive presence of law enforcement officials. But, as with Elian Gonzalez, sometimes what's best in general is doesn't seem possible in particular. Tough choices have to be made. Which is the higher value? What are we willing to live with? What price safety for us? What price freedom for all?
The reason these questions are so difficult is that they attempt to link general values with specific decisions. Yes, I believe in kids being nurtured by their parents when possible, and I believe in democracy. I believe in freedom, and I believe in safety. But the link between those general values and a specific situation is not always clear and almost never simple. That's the real question: when a situation appears to pit two values we cherish against each other, how do we choose?
For much of recorded human history, the process of articulating our values as a society and weighing those values in their application to a specific situation has been called the pursuit of justice. That's why discussions about justice are not merely mind games for the pointy-headed. Justice asks why Patrick Dorismond is dead, and where Elian Gonzalez will go to school and who will tuck him into bed at night.
Martha Nussbaum, the philosopher and legal scholar at the University of Chicago and frequent magazine and newspaper essayist, likes to emphasize the importance of talking about justice by referring to a moment in Plato's Republic. Socrates is discussing the nature of justice with his enthusiastic friends, who have squeezed in a little philosophy between a festival and an evening torch race. But they seem to regard the discussion as a competitive game, not as a serious inquiry. Socrates reproves them. Remember, he says: "This is no chance matter we are discussing, but how one should live." As Epicurus puts it, "Empty is that argument by which no human suffering is therapeutically treated. For just as there is no use in medicine, unless it casts out the illness of bodies, so too there is no use in philosophy, unless it casts out suffering from the soul." Our talk about justice, Nussbaum rightly concludes, has a practical task, a task for humanity.
So what can we say about justice-about the relationship between our values and our decisions? The initial question is this: what does life mean, and what should we therefore value? One can, of course, argue that life simply happened and therefore doesn't mean much at all, if anything. Darwin's survival of the fittest begets Hobbes' state of nature, which in turn breeds a modern economic and political world where might literally does make right, because there is nothing else. Many people disagree, including Robert Wright, author most recently of a book titled Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny.
In case the term "nonzero" is not part of your usual lexicon-in case you are normal, in other words-it comes from the world of game theory, which distinguishes between two different types of human activities: zero-sum games and non-zero-sum games. In zero-sum games such as tennis, boxing, chess, and warfare, the fortunes of the two players are inversely related; one contestant's gain is the other's loss. In other words, I win if and only if you lose.
That is not true in non-zero-sum games, where the players' interests overlap. In an Outward Bound-style ropes course, for example, everyone can do well, especially if they help each other out. Sometimes, the parties' interests overlap totally. In 1970, when the three Apollo 13 astronauts were trying to get their stranded spaceship back to earth, they were involved in an entirely non-zero-sum game, because the outcome would be either equally good for all of them or equally bad. It was, you may recall, equally good.
What does this have to do with justice and the meaning of life? The usual view of history, both biological and cultural, is that it has mostly been written by the winners of zero-sum games. The stronger organisms and more powerful armies and smarter competitors eat or defeat or outfox the lesser ones. Whatever or whoever is left standing after the showdown gets to move on to the next round. History is made and written by the winners.
Wright disagrees with this assessment, both in terms of biological evolution and human cultural development. Simply put, he believes that the driving force in history is the enduring gain that results not when one creature or culture trounces another, but when two or more work to solve problems through cooperation. Wright calls this dynamic the logic of non-zero-sumness. In fact, strong zero-sum competitors-an invading bacteria in the body, for example, or a deadly tyrant like Hitler-ultimately provoke and then lose out to even stronger collaborative responses from, say, white blood cells or neighboring nations, at least in the long run.
In other words, biological complexity and social interdependence have emerged over billions of years as organisms and people have discovered ways to solve shared problems. This tendency of history to reward collaboration instead of competition, Wright believes, is built into the nature of things. In other words, we are all in the same boat. Therefore, over the long haul, we will be better off making choices that resonate with our shared destiny.
But this truth does not always hold sway in the short run. A lot of diseases have killed a lot of people before a cure was found, and a lot of diseases are killing people even today. In the same way, Hitler won a lot of battles and murdered millions before he was vanquished, and many tyrants are still on the loose. Yet if Wright is correct, both disease and demagogues will eventually be overcome. That's the nature of things. But until then, justice is the means by which we step into the breach. It's the process of bringing enduring values to bear on immediate situations.
How can we do that? By promoting what Wright calls non-zero-sumness: the solving of problems through cooperation rather than competition. Since the beginning of time, the path toward the future has always been collaborative. Over the long term, the winners in life and in history will not be the fiercest competitors, but those who seek creative ways for everyone to win. That's just the nature of things.
What would a non-zero-sum outcome look like for Elian Gonzalez? Who knows: perhaps some version of joint custody: daddy and Castro during school terms for a few years, with vacations and holidays here in the U.S., then relatives and the Statue of Liberty during the school term, with vacations in Cuba for a while. However the game is played, Elian will ultimately thrive only if the people around him thrive as well. Over the long run, that's true for all of us. Everywhere. All the time.
What would a non-zero-sum approach mean for the New York City Police Department? That's obviously more difficult to address, but the same principle holds true. I don't believe that safety and freedom are mutually exclusive in the long run, but it will take a lot of vision and will to see how they can coexist. And it will take a lot more honesty as well. We can begin by naming horrors when they happen. We can also realize-and encourage others to realize-that there is no "us and them": we're all in the game together.
As Socrates reminded his friends long ago: "This is no chance matter we are discussing, but how one should live." More than four hundred years after Socrates, the Roman legislator and playwright Seneca put the matter even more pointedly in words which remain wise counsel even today.
This is no time for playing around. You have been retained as counsel for the unhappy. You have promised to bring help to the shipwrecked, the imprisoned, the sick, the needy, to those whose heads are under the poised axe. Where are you directing your attention? What are you doing? Copyright AllSouls 2000.