Negotiating Peace from Inside Out
(67) Negotiating Peace from Inside Out: Spinoza as a Responsible Trump
An active reason discovers the underlying determinisms that shape
our thoughts, words, and behaviors, and often make us err. Radically
enlightened negotiators realize that most of what they do is not free,
but stems from their personal human nature and conditioning, from un-
questioned prejudices and assumptions. The lack of free will, once un-
covered, however, sets them free to take the narrow road of “adequate
ideas” (McAllister 2014), which a healthy mind is seeking through facts,
evidence, and sound arguments.
Whatever the state of affairs out there in the world, negotiators
who reach inner peace or “ataraxia” (a state of mental tranquility that
many Greek philosophies prescribed) are peace itself, its perfect and
concrete embodiment, what it looks like without contradiction and the
proof of its actual realization. They can be like the eye of a storm, calm
when everything around is shaking. As Eleanor Roosevelt (1944b) put it,
“Friendship with oneself is all important, because without it one cannot
be friends with anyone else in the world.”
The Outer Peace Negotiation Follows
Humans who have found the joy of living in peace continuously seek
deep down what makes them more powerful and happier; that is, what
creates the most “subjective value” for them (Curhan, Elfenbein, and
Eisenkraft 2010). Because humans are social and political beings by nature, what they need most is the amiable company of others. Therefore, when they know for themselves that peace is one of the most useful conditions for self-realization as individuals, and when they observe that some people are at war in themselves or with each other, they also know that peace that is the most useful to one is what is the most useful
to all, by application of a common humanity principle. Therefore, joyful negotiators consider it their responsibility to increase others’ happiness
in line with theirs and therefore to decrease the deleterious effects of
the “sad passions” they witness and sometimes bearExtending the power of their reason to the world of others, individuals can negotiate peace outwardly. Those who exude the felicity of inner peace and therefore love themselves and others have the
ethos, the character, to lead the expansion of peace beyond themselves. Under
the guidance of their robust reason, they can lead peacebuilding efforts
out there in the world and handle, without intrapersonal or interpersonal risks, belligerents who are ignited by toxic emotions and by their subsequent confusion.
Happy responsible negotiators can help others out of the wars that rage within families, and within or between organizations or nations. The outer peace they can promote is the sociological form of a net broadly cast that embraces more than one: “Whatever is conducive to man’s social organization, or causes men to live in harmony, is advantageous” (Spinoza [1677] 2002: 342).
Leaders of good will, who already radiate with genuine and serene happiness, apply their gentle reason to diplomatically discuss the most contentious issues with the most difficult protagonists, and seek facts, data, and explanations to comprehend the most complex emotions and identities. Their ongoing positive attitude becomes contagious, to the extent that belligerents who first perceived their conflict as insoluble
are enthused by the love they receive and begin considering a resolution of their own conflict as well. A pleasing ethics of transfer operates, in which a mediator or negotiator who models benevolent behaviors is rewarded by reciprocity when others adopt them too. “Laugh and the world laughs with you” (Wilcox 1883).
Consequential Endnote
We call on leaders, whoever they are, to help build peace. But can they
do this work if they have not achieved peace within themselves? “Peace
will not be built, however, by people with bitterness in their hearts,”
Eleanor Roosevelt wrote (1944a). Irresponsible leaders who have never
worked on themselves, who are at war with themselves and often everyone else, are in no condition to support coexistence. “For a man at the mercy of his emotions is not his own master” (Spinoza [1677] ). Unless those leaders transform themselves, they risk bad encounters for everyone; their whims add to the sadness and uncertainty of conflicting parties; their fighting words are unfit to appease; their mere presence fuels escalation. Though “vain glory” can play tricks, it is the “self-contentment that is fostered only by popular esteem” (Spinoza [1677]). Spinoza warned us that “Whatever we desire as a result of being affected by hatred is base and, in a state, unjust” Leaders who indulge in hate and injustice do not leadthey mislead; they conspire against peace and constitute a danger to our community.
At least, rational beings “must be able to live peacefully and securely among individuals guided chiefly by their passions, who regard as enemies anyone they perceive as impeding them from satisfying their desires, impulses or lusts” (Bagley 2015). They should desire the “rest inside” for “outside” (Callières [1716]), inner and outer peace.
Benedict Spinoza (1677) wrote, “For peace is not just the absence of war, but a virtue that comes from strength of mind.”
Extract of sample "Baruch Spinoza's Solution to the Inside Outside Problem"
During the said Modern period, there were several prominent philosophers. There were the rationalists, on one hand, led by Descartes, Leibnitz, and Spinoza himself. On the other hand, there were the Liberalists like Hobbes, John Locke, and Berkeley. Rationalists took mathematics as their model for knowledge, and empiricists took the physical sciences. Thus the Ethics is written in a Euclidian manner, based on propositions, axioms, and proofs.
Ethics Demonstrated in a Geometrical Manner – The Book
Spinoza’s most famous book and the subject of this study, ‘Ethics Demonstrated in a Geometrical Manner’ appeared in print after his death in 1677. Spinoza uses a geometrical method earlier employed by Euclid in his Elements. Spinoza argues that there is no transcendental God and that the universe exists without any ultimate purpose or goal. The book is exceedingly difficult to understand as it is written in Latin. Because of this, Spinoza “was compelled to express his essentially modern thoughts in medieval and scholastic terms”.
The ethics comprise of five parts or chapters. Part I describes in detail the metaphysics of Spinoza, Part II relates to (a) the nature of mind and how it relates to the body, and (b) a general theory of knowledge. Part III Spinoza deals with ‘effects’, his name for the theory of emotions, and also with human psychology. Parts IV and V explain his ethical theories.
Each part of the Ethics is divided into definitions of key terms, axioms, demonstrations, corollary, and Scholia. Of all these parts, Spinoza chooses Scholia to argue, defend or demonstrate his material in a way which a lesser trained mind can understand. Spinoza adds appendices in Parts I and IV. In Part II, after proposition 13, Spinoza inserts a digression on physics and laws of motion. At the end of Part III, he adds a list of definitions of the effects, as argued therein. Ethics is divided into Part (I to V), proposition (p), definition (d), scholium (s), and corollary (c). The referencing style used in this essay is the referencing style used in the Everyman Library text. All direct quotations by Spinoza are underlined for easy reference
December 1, 2021 Hanukkah Unbound
Fire has opposite meanings to Jews and ancient Greeks.
By Rabbi Meir Soloveichik
The Olympic torch relay is one of the most celebrated of international spectacles.
Kindled in Greece, the torch is borne by runners around the world, ultimately ending up at the host city for the games, where it is used to bring the Olympic flame into being. The torch is seen as a link between ages ancient and modern, between Olympia and the Olympic stadium, a drama spectacularly staged and internationally embraced.
And it was entirely the invention of the Nazis, created as a means of linking ancient Greece to Germany's Aryan identity, and to celebrate the dawn of the Third Reich. The evil origin of the Olympic torch is often elided, but it is important to review the facts. Though many modern Olympics had already been held, it was at the Berlin 1936 games that the torch relay first took place, concocted by chief Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels's group of propagandists.
Thus USA Today reports: "There was no torch relay like this in ancient times," [said] David Clay Large, a history professor, historian of modern Germany and author of Nazi Games: The 1936 Berlin Olympics....The relay came into being as part of the political propaganda used by the Nazis to promote their cause in conjunction with the Olympics. And it has stuck around ever since." While Adolf Hitler was initially uninterested in the Games, which had been awarded to Berlin before he rose to power, Goebbels persuaded him that the event could provide a powerful publicity tool. Hitler ordered Nazi party researchers to find links between the ancient Greeks and the Aryan race. During the relay, onlookers in Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Austria, and Czechoslovakia were encouraged to yell "Heil Hitler" as the flame went by. "That route was significant too," Large added. "Within a couple of years the Wehrmacht would essentially take the same route in reverse as they marched through Europe."
The difference between Greece and Judaism in the second century B.C.E.,is the contrast between the fire of the Olympics and the flames that illumine the menorah. While the Olympic torch was a piece of Nazi propaganda, the Olympic flame that it lit was ancient in origin and did feature in the original Olympics millennia ago. A basin filled with fire was, for the Hellenists, a tribute to Prometheus's theft of fire from the gods. According to Greek myth, Prometheus and Epimetheus were charged by the god with creating man. Zeus gave man fire, but then Prometheus taught humankind to sacrifice animal bones to the gods and keep the best meat for themselves. Furious at this deception, Zeus took fire away, but Prometheus hid it in a reed and bore it away from Olympus. In response, Zeus chained Prometheus to a rock and sentenced him to havinig his liver pecked out by an eagle over and over. In Prometheus Bound, Aeschylus inveighs against the injustice of the gods, as typified by Zeus's conduct. And the injustice is precisely the point, which is why Aeschylus's work is so different from anything in the Hebraic canon. As the great Talmudist and literary so different from anything in the Hebraic canon. As the great Talmudist and literaryscholar Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein once noted, the closest biblical book to Aeschylus's Prometheus is the tale of Job, in which the main character ponders suffering in the face of God's providence.
Rabbi Lichtenstein writes that though he does eloquently protest, "Job knows his place in relation to the Holy One." Job speaks of a good God whose ways we cannot often understand. By contrast, Aeschylus emphasizes a conflict "between power and justice." Rabbi Lichtenstein adds, "The tragedy is that although these two values should work together in harmony, they are in fact in conflict here and ultimately it is power which prevails." This is the metaphysical view expressed by the Promethean myth. And indeed, it is the centrality of power over justice that was being celebrated as the Nazis held aloft the Olympic flame as the purported Übermenschen of their age.
It is therefore fascinating that in Talmudic tales, we find a rabbinic story about the origins of fire that is a mirror image of the Prometheus story. Adam and Eve are banished from the garden and enter a dark and unredeemed world. But in a great act of love, the Talmud tells us, God took two stones and instructed Adam in the art of creating fire. Whereas the Greeks see in fire the story of a rebellion against the gods, and a world where power prevails, fire for Jews epitomizes God's mercy, as well the existence of the divine-human partnership.
It is with this in mind that the central ritual of Hanukkah today—the kindling of several small flames in commemoration of a Menorah that burned in the Temple for eight miraculous nights—must be understood. The story of the flask of oil has been mocked by bigoted anti-Jewish writers who celebrate the intellectual achievements of Hellenism. Thus did Christopher Hitchens sneer that "Epicurus and Democritus had brilliantly discovered the world was made up of atoms, but who cares about a mere fact like that when there is miraculous oil to be goggled at by credulous peasants." But such a critique, like most of Hitchens's commentary on biblical religion, entirely misses the point. The contrast between the fire of Greece and the flames of the Talmud allows us to understand that for Jews, to light the menorah is to do more than mark a miracle; it We are indeed forever indebted to Athens for its intellectual achievements, but the menorah's flames remind us of the insights found not in Athens but Jerusalem—that human beings are created in the image of God, and therefore precious and inviolable; that history has purpose; and that countries stand under the judgement of a good and just God. The Nazi effort to seize the Olympian mantle ought to remind us of the dangers of rebelling against this biblical message, as Germany in the early 20th century was, in a sense, the Athens of its age.
This point was made by the late Justice Antonin Scalia in a speech delivered at a congressional Holocaust memorial: You will have missed the most frightening aspect of it all, if you do not appreciate that it happened in one of the most educated, most progressive, most cultured countries in the world. The Germany of the 1920s and early 1930s was a world leader in most fields of art, science, and intellect....Berlin
was a center of theater....German poets and writers included Hermann
Hesse, Stefan George, Leonhard Frank, Franz Kafka, and Thomas Mann....ln architecture, Germany was the cutting edge....And in science, of course, the 'Germans were preeminent. The right response to what happened in Germany, Scalia reflected, "can be achieved only by acknowledging, and passing on to our children, the existence of absolute, uncompromising standards of human conduct. Mankind has traditionally derived such standards from religion; and the West has derived them from and through the Jews."
This, in the end, is what Hanukkah is all about, and the holiday therefore speaks particularly to us today. Throughout much of the West, biblical faith has waned profoundly. No one still sacrifices to Zeus, but given the approach of many to the sanctity of human life and the worshipful embrace of nature, the prospect of a repaganized Europe is all too real a possibility. In a season marked all too often by holiday kitsch, it is worth remembering the clash of cultures that brought Hanukkah into being—and the profound message that the menorah's flames have to teach us.
This essay was originally published in Commentary.
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Notes on the book of Maccabees 1 by Klawans, Jonathan; Wills, Lawrence M. in The Jewish Annotated Apocrypha. Oxford University Press. See my Kindle Edition.
Some quotes.
Lamentations 3:8 גַּ֣ם כִּ֤י אֶזְעַק֙ וַאֲשַׁוֵּ֔עַ שָׂתַ֖ם תְּפִלָּתִֽי׃
RASHI שָׂתַם תְּפִלָּתִי. סָתַם חַלֹּנוֹת הָרָקִיעַ בְּפָנֶיהָ:
He represses my prayer. He shut the windows of the heavens before it.
Resumption 9/2022
Avot 2;4 הִלֵּל אוֹמֵר, אַל תִּפְרֹשׁ מִן הַצִּבּוּר, וְאל תַּאֲמִין בְּעַצְמְךָ עַד יוֹם מוֹתְךָ
Yochanan (John Hyrkanus) the High Priest was the son of Shimon the Hasmonean and succeeded him as high priest and political leader
Brachot 29a
וְהָא תְּנַן: אַל תַּאֲמִין בְּעַצְמְךָ עַד יוֹם מוֹתְךָ, שֶׁהֲרֵי יוֹחָנָן כֹּהֵן גָּדוֹל שִׁמֵּשׁ בִּכְהוּנָּה גְּדוֹלָה שְׁמֹנִים שָׁנָה וּלְבַסּוֹף נַעֲשָׂה צָדוֹקִי.
Jerusalem Talmud Shabbat 1:3
תַּמָּן תַּנִּינָן. אַל תַּאֲמֵן בְּעַצְמָךְ עַד יוֹם מוֹתָךְ. מַעֲשֶׂה בְחָסִיד אֶחָד שֶׁהָיָה יוֹשֵׁב וְשׁוֹנֶה. אַל תַּאֲמֵן בְּעַצְמָךְ עַד יוֹם זִקְנוּתָךְ. כְּגוֹן אֲנִי
תמן תנינן וכו'. בפ"ב דאבות
Feynman "Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts."
Kenneth Craik "The nature of exploration" 1943" "people construct mental models of reality to help anticipate events."
מדרש (סוכה נג ע"א)על הלל הזקן
אם תבוא אל ביתי – אני אבוא אל ביתך, אם אתה לא תבוא אל ביתי – אני לא אבוא אל ביתך, שנאמר: "בכל המקום אשר אזכיר את שמי אבוא אליך וברכתיך
הוא היה אומר כן : למקום שאני אוהב, שם רגלי מוליכות אותי.