Because proponents of democracy are constantly battling its enemies, the ethics of fighting should be an important subject for its champions.
Slavery constituted the most egregious nullification of democracy in America. Those reduced to the status of human property were denied any say in government and made vulnerable by law to the cruelest depredations. Under slavery, children could be taken from parents to be sold on the auction block. Husbands could be separated from wives at the whim of masters. In most states of the slavocracy there was no such crime as the rape of an enslaved woman. Any decent version of democracy required the abolition of slavery. That goal offered as apt a reason as anything imaginable for resorting to a wide gamut of means, including violence, to erase an evil regime. Should we believe, however, that slaves (or anyone) can justifiably use any means to fight enslavement?
Some observers see slavery as so intolerable that those seeking to depose it can rightly embrace any means to do so. They echo writer Loyle Hairston’s proposition that no one can commit a crime against slavery. They embrace the logic once articulated by Michael Walzer that “there is a sense in which oppression makes men free, the more radical the oppression the more radical the freedom. Thus slaves . . . are set loose from the normal restraints of social life . . .” Adoption of this view largely explains why, amongst students of the fight for racial democracy in America, Nat Turner’s slave rebellion is not only widely praised but fiercely defended against virtually any criticism. The most consequential slave uprising in United States history, the Turner rebellion erupted in 1831 in Southampton County, Virginia. Propelled by sixty to eighty enslaved and free blacks, the insurrection lasted about two days before it was brutally repressed, with Turner’s execution along with scores of fellow African Americans, some of whom had supported the rebellion and some who were killed arbitrarily in fits of racist vengeance. During the revolt, rebels killed fifty-five white men, women, and children – including a decapitated infant who had been sleeping in a cradle.
The arguments over the ethics of political struggle in which I have been involved have often taken place, figuratively or sometimes literally, under posters picturing a stern-looking Malcolm X alongside the slogan “By Any Means Necessary!” I object to that slogan if it means abjuring limits that morally bind dissidents. I insist upon recognizing boundaries by which to judge even terribly oppressed rebels as they struggle against repression. Acquiescing to a practice of no judgment when it involves oppressed people entails condoning a destructive sentimentality regarding the humanity of the deprived. It involves overlooking the all too obvious fact that oppressed people, too, can engage in conduct that is foolish, selfish, cruel, and otherwise reprehensible. It also involves overlooking strengths latent in people condemned to the most desperate, degraded circumstances.
Thinking back upon Nat Turner’s struggle against an absolute nullification of democracy, I insist upon holding him and his comrades accountable. I do not know precisely what the moral judgment should be, though I find it difficult to imagine an excuse for decapitating the infant. My main point, though, focuses not on the substance of any particular judgment but on the imperative that there be some judgment. The morality or immorality of figures caught up in struggles over democracy should not be overlooked either because of their downtrodden status or because of the desperate circumstances in which they find themselves. Decent struggle for democracy – the only sort of struggle that can produce decent democracy – requires that everyone’s conduct be subject to judgment – those on the bottom as well as those on top. No one should receive a pass insulating their conduct from moral assessment. The abject deprivations imposed upon Palestinians in Gaza does not free them and their allies to do anything they want in the name of resistance. Nor do the atrocities that gave rise to the State of Israel and that have been visited upon Israelis for decades free them and their allies to do anything they want in the name of self-defense. There must be limits that must be respected. Setting forth precisely the coordinates of those limits is beyond my ken, at least at this moment in this forum. For now, all I can manage is to urge those fighting for democracy to forswear the uninhibited ruthlessness connoted by boasts of being willing to use all means necessary to attain one’s aims.
Because proponents of democracy are constantly battling its enemies, the ethics of fighting should be an important subject for its champions.
Slavery constituted the most egregious nullification of democracy in America. Those reduced to the status of human property were denied any say in government and made vulnerable by law to the cruelest depredations. Under slavery, children could be taken from parents to be sold on the auction block. Husbands could be separated from wives at the whim of masters. In most states of the slavocracy there was no such crime as the rape of an enslaved woman. Any decent version of democracy required the abolition of slavery. That goal offered as apt a reason as anything imaginable for resorting to a wide gamut of means, including violence, to erase an evil regime. Should we believe, however, that slaves (or anyone) can justifiably use any means to fight enslavement?
Some observers see slavery as so intolerable that those seeking to depose it can rightly embrace any means to do so. They echo writer Loyle Hairston’s proposition that no one can commit a crime against slavery. They embrace the logic once articulated by Michael Walzer that “there is a sense in which oppression makes men free, the more radical the oppression the more radical the freedom. Thus slaves . . . are set loose from the normal restraints of social life . . .” Adoption of this view largely explains why, amongst students of the fight for racial democracy in America, Nat Turner’s slave rebellion is not only widely praised but fiercely defended against virtually any criticism. The most consequential slave uprising in United States history, the Turner rebellion erupted in 1831 in Southampton County, Virginia. Propelled by sixty to eighty enslaved and free blacks, the insurrection lasted about two days before it was brutally repressed, with Turner’s execution along with scores of fellow African Americans, some of whom had supported the rebellion and some who were killed arbitrarily in fits of racist vengeance. During the revolt, rebels killed fifty-five white men, women, and children – including a decapitated infant who had been sleeping in a cradle.
The arguments over the ethics of political struggle in which I have been involved have often taken place, figuratively or sometimes literally, under posters picturing a stern-looking Malcolm X alongside the slogan “By Any Means Necessary!” I object to that slogan if it means abjuring limits that morally bind dissidents. I insist upon recognizing boundaries by which to judge even terribly oppressed rebels as they struggle against repression. Acquiescing to a practice of no judgment when it involves oppressed people entails condoning a destructive sentimentality regarding the humanity of the deprived. It involves overlooking the all too obvious fact that oppressed people, too, can engage in conduct that is foolish, selfish, cruel, and otherwise reprehensible. It also involves overlooking strengths latent in people condemned to the most desperate, degraded circumstances.
Thinking back upon Nat Turner’s struggle against an absolute nullification of democracy, I insist upon holding him and his comrades accountable. I do not know precisely what the moral judgment should be, though I find it difficult to imagine an excuse for decapitating the infant. My main point, though, focuses not on the substance of any particular judgment but on the imperative that there be some judgment. The morality or immorality of figures caught up in struggles over democracy should not be overlooked either because of their downtrodden status or because of the desperate circumstances in which they find themselves. Decent struggle for democracy – the only sort of struggle that can produce decent democracy – requires that everyone’s conduct be subject to judgment – those on the bottom as well as those on top. No one should receive a pass insulating their conduct from moral assessment. The abject deprivations imposed upon Palestinians in Gaza does not free them and their allies to do anything they want in the name of resistance. Nor do the atrocities that gave rise to the State of Israel and that have been visited upon Israelis for decades free them and their allies to do anything they want in the name of self-defense. There must be limits that must be respected. Setting forth precisely the coordinates of those limits is beyond my ken, at least at this moment in this forum. For now, all I can manage is to urge those fighting for democracy to forswear the uninhibited ruthlessness connoted by boasts of being willing to use all means necessary to attain one’s aims.
Because proponents of democracy are constantly battling its enemies, the ethics of fighting should be an important subject for its champions.
Slavery constituted the most egregious nullification of democracy in America. Those reduced to the status of human property were denied any say in government and made vulnerable by law to the cruelest depredations. Under slavery, children could be taken from parents to be sold on the auction block. Husbands could be separated from wives at the whim of masters. In most states of the slavocracy there was no such crime as the rape of an enslaved woman. Any decent version of democracy required the abolition of slavery. That goal offered as apt a reason as anything imaginable for resorting to a wide gamut of means, including violence, to erase an evil regime. Should we believe, however, that slaves (or anyone) can justifiably use any means to fight enslavement?
Some observers see slavery as so intolerable that those seeking to depose it can rightly embrace any means to do so. They echo writer Loyle Hairston’s proposition that no one can commit a crime against slavery. They embrace the logic once articulated by Michael Walzer that “there is a sense in which oppression makes men free, the more radical the oppression the more radical the freedom. Thus slaves . . . are set loose from the normal restraints of social life . . .” Adoption of this view largely explains why, amongst students of the fight for racial democracy in America, Nat Turner’s slave rebellion is not only widely praised but fiercely defended against virtually any criticism. The most consequential slave uprising in United States history, the Turner rebellion erupted in 1831 in Southampton County, Virginia. Propelled by sixty to eighty enslaved and free blacks, the insurrection lasted about two days before it was brutally repressed, with Turner’s execution along with scores of fellow African Americans, some of whom had supported the rebellion and some who were killed arbitrarily in fits of racist vengeance. During the revolt, rebels killed fifty-five white men, women, and children – including a decapitated infant who had been sleeping in a cradle.
The arguments over the ethics of political struggle in which I have been involved have often taken place, figuratively or sometimes literally, under posters picturing a stern-looking Malcolm X alongside the slogan “By Any Means Necessary!” I object to that slogan if it means abjuring limits that morally bind dissidents. I insist upon recognizing boundaries by which to judge even terribly oppressed rebels as they struggle against repression. Acquiescing to a practice of no judgment when it involves oppressed people entails condoning a destructive sentimentality regarding the humanity of the deprived. It involves overlooking the all too obvious fact that oppressed people, too, can engage in conduct that is foolish, selfish, cruel, and otherwise reprehensible. It also involves overlooking strengths latent in people condemned to the most desperate, degraded circumstances.
Thinking back upon Nat Turner’s struggle against an absolute nullification of democracy, I insist upon holding him and his comrades accountable. I do not know precisely what the moral judgment should be, though I find it difficult to imagine an excuse for decapitating the infant. My main point, though, focuses not on the substance of any particular judgment but on the imperative that there be some judgment. The morality or immorality of figures caught up in struggles over democracy should not be overlooked either because of their downtrodden status or because of the desperate circumstances in which they find themselves. Decent struggle for democracy – the only sort of struggle that can produce decent democracy – requires that everyone’s conduct be subject to judgment – those on the bottom as well as those on top. No one should receive a pass insulating their conduct from moral assessment. The abject deprivations imposed upon Palestinians in Gaza does not free them and their allies to do anything they want in the name of resistance. Nor do the atrocities that gave rise to the State of Israel and that have been visited upon Israelis for decades free them and their allies to do anything they want in the name of self-defense. There must be limits that must be respected. Setting forth precisely the coordinates of those limits is beyond my ken, at least at this moment in this forum. For now, all I can manage is to urge those fighting for democracy to forswear the uninhibited ruthlessness connoted by boasts of being willing to use all means necessary to attain one’s aims.
Because proponents of democracy are constantly battling its enemies, the ethics of fighting should be an important subject for its champions.
Slavery constituted the most egregious nullification of democracy in America. Those reduced to the status of human property were denied any say in government and made vulnerable by law to the cruelest depredations. Under slavery, children could be taken from parents to be sold on the auction block. Husbands could be separated from wives at the whim of masters. In most states of the slavocracy there was no such crime as the rape of an enslaved woman. Any decent version of democracy required the abolition of slavery. That goal offered as apt a reason as anything imaginable for resorting to a wide gamut of means, including violence, to erase an evil regime. Should we believe, however, that slaves (or anyone) can justifiably use any means to fight enslavement?
Some observers see slavery as so intolerable that those seeking to depose it can rightly embrace any means to do so. They echo writer Loyle Hairston’s proposition that no one can commit a crime against slavery. They embrace the logic once articulated by Michael Walzer that “there is a sense in which oppression makes men free, the more radical the oppression the more radical the freedom. Thus slaves . . . are set loose from the normal restraints of social life . . .” Adoption of this view largely explains why, amongst students of the fight for racial democracy in America, Nat Turner’s slave rebellion is not only widely praised but fiercely defended against virtually any criticism. The most consequential slave uprising in United States history, the Turner rebellion erupted in 1831 in Southampton County, Virginia. Propelled by sixty to eighty enslaved and free blacks, the insurrection lasted about two days before it was brutally repressed, with Turner’s execution along with scores of fellow African Americans, some of whom had supported the rebellion and some who were killed arbitrarily in fits of racist vengeance. During the revolt, rebels killed fifty-five white men, women, and children – including a decapitated infant who had been sleeping in a cradle.
The arguments over the ethics of political struggle in which I have been involved have often taken place, figuratively or sometimes literally, under posters picturing a stern-looking Malcolm X alongside the slogan “By Any Means Necessary!” I object to that slogan if it means abjuring limits that morally bind dissidents. I insist upon recognizing boundaries by which to judge even terribly oppressed rebels as they struggle against repression. Acquiescing to a practice of no judgment when it involves oppressed people entails condoning a destructive sentimentality regarding the humanity of the deprived. It involves overlooking the all too obvious fact that oppressed people, too, can engage in conduct that is foolish, selfish, cruel, and otherwise reprehensible. It also involves overlooking strengths latent in people condemned to the most desperate, degraded circumstances.
Thinking back upon Nat Turner’s struggle against an absolute nullification of democracy, I insist upon holding him and his comrades accountable. I do not know precisely what the moral judgment should be, though I find it difficult to imagine an excuse for decapitating the infant. My main point, though, focuses not on the substance of any particular judgment but on the imperative that there be some judgment. The morality or immorality of figures caught up in struggles over democracy should not be overlooked either because of their downtrodden status or because of the desperate circumstances in which they find themselves. Decent struggle for democracy – the only sort of struggle that can produce decent democracy – requires that everyone’s conduct be subject to judgment – those on the bottom as well as those on top. No one should receive a pass insulating their conduct from moral assessment. The abject deprivations imposed upon Palestinians in Gaza does not free them and their allies to do anything they want in the name of resistance. Nor do the atrocities that gave rise to the State of Israel and that have been visited upon Israelis for decades free them and their allies to do anything they want in the name of self-defense. There must be limits that must be respected. Setting forth precisely the coordinates of those limits is beyond my ken, at least at this moment in this forum. For now, all I can manage is to urge those fighting for democracy to forswear the uninhibited ruthlessness connoted by boasts of being willing to use all means necessary to attain one’s aims.
Because proponents of democracy are constantly battling its enemies, the ethics of fighting should be an important subject for its champions.
Slavery constituted the most egregious nullification of democracy in America. Those reduced to the status of human property were denied any say in government and made vulnerable by law to the cruelest depredations. Under slavery, children could be taken from parents to be sold on the auction block. Husbands could be separated from wives at the whim of masters. In most states of the slavocracy there was no such crime as the rape of an enslaved woman. Any decent version of democracy required the abolition of slavery. That goal offered as apt a reason as anything imaginable for resorting to a wide gamut of means, including violence, to erase an evil regime. Should we believe, however, that slaves (or anyone) can justifiably use any means to fight enslavement?
Some observers see slavery as so intolerable that those seeking to depose it can rightly embrace any means to do so. They echo writer Loyle Hairston’s proposition that no one can commit a crime against slavery. They embrace the logic once articulated by Michael Walzer that “there is a sense in which oppression makes men free, the more radical the oppression the more radical the freedom. Thus slaves . . . are set loose from the normal restraints of social life . . .” Adoption of this view largely explains why, amongst students of the fight for racial democracy in America, Nat Turner’s slave rebellion is not only widely praised but fiercely defended against virtually any criticism. The most consequential slave uprising in United States history, the Turner rebellion erupted in 1831 in Southampton County, Virginia. Propelled by sixty to eighty enslaved and free blacks, the insurrection lasted about two days before it was brutally repressed, with Turner’s execution along with scores of fellow African Americans, some of whom had supported the rebellion and some who were killed arbitrarily in fits of racist vengeance. During the revolt, rebels killed fifty-five white men, women, and children – including a decapitated infant who had been sleeping in a cradle.
The arguments over the ethics of political struggle in which I have been involved have often taken place, figuratively or sometimes literally, under posters picturing a stern-looking Malcolm X alongside the slogan “By Any Means Necessary!” I object to that slogan if it means abjuring limits that morally bind dissidents. I insist upon recognizing boundaries by which to judge even terribly oppressed rebels as they struggle against repression. Acquiescing to a practice of no judgment when it involves oppressed people entails condoning a destructive sentimentality regarding the humanity of the deprived. It involves overlooking the all too obvious fact that oppressed people, too, can engage in conduct that is foolish, selfish, cruel, and otherwise reprehensible. It also involves overlooking strengths latent in people condemned to the most desperate, degraded circumstances.
Thinking back upon Nat Turner’s struggle against an absolute nullification of democracy, I insist upon holding him and his comrades accountable. I do not know precisely what the moral judgment should be, though I find it difficult to imagine an excuse for decapitating the infant. My main point, though, focuses not on the substance of any particular judgment but on the imperative that there be some judgment. The morality or immorality of figures caught up in struggles over democracy should not be overlooked either because of their downtrodden status or because of the desperate circumstances in which they find themselves. Decent struggle for democracy – the only sort of struggle that can produce decent democracy – requires that everyone’s conduct be subject to judgment – those on the bottom as well as those on top. No one should receive a pass insulating their conduct from moral assessment. The abject deprivations imposed upon Palestinians in Gaza does not free them and their allies to do anything they want in the name of resistance. Nor do the atrocities that gave rise to the State of Israel and that have been visited upon Israelis for decades free them and their allies to do anything they want in the name of self-defense. There must be limits that must be respected. Setting forth precisely the coordinates of those limits is beyond my ken, at least at this moment in this forum. For now, all I can manage is to urge those fighting for democracy to forswear the uninhibited ruthlessness connoted by boasts of being willing to use all means necessary to attain one’s aims.
Because proponents of democracy are constantly battling its enemies, the ethics of fighting should be an important subject for its champions.
Slavery constituted the most egregious nullification of democracy in America. Those reduced to the status of human property were denied any say in government and made vulnerable by law to the cruelest depredations. Under slavery, children could be taken from parents to be sold on the auction block. Husbands could be separated from wives at the whim of masters. In most states of the slavocracy there was no such crime as the rape of an enslaved woman. Any decent version of democracy required the abolition of slavery. That goal offered as apt a reason as anything imaginable for resorting to a wide gamut of means, including violence, to erase an evil regime. Should we believe, however, that slaves (or anyone) can justifiably use any means to fight enslavement?
Some observers see slavery as so intolerable that those seeking to depose it can rightly embrace any means to do so. They echo writer Loyle Hairston’s proposition that no one can commit a crime against slavery. They embrace the logic once articulated by Michael Walzer that “there is a sense in which oppression makes men free, the more radical the oppression the more radical the freedom. Thus slaves . . . are set loose from the normal restraints of social life . . .” Adoption of this view largely explains why, amongst students of the fight for racial democracy in America, Nat Turner’s slave rebellion is not only widely praised but fiercely defended against virtually any criticism. The most consequential slave uprising in United States history, the Turner rebellion erupted in 1831 in Southampton County, Virginia. Propelled by sixty to eighty enslaved and free blacks, the insurrection lasted about two days before it was brutally repressed, with Turner’s execution along with scores of fellow African Americans, some of whom had supported the rebellion and some who were killed arbitrarily in fits of racist vengeance. During the revolt, rebels killed fifty-five white men, women, and children – including a decapitated infant who had been sleeping in a cradle.
The arguments over the ethics of political struggle in which I have been involved have often taken place, figuratively or sometimes literally, under posters picturing a stern-looking Malcolm X alongside the slogan “By Any Means Necessary!” I object to that slogan if it means abjuring limits that morally bind dissidents. I insist upon recognizing boundaries by which to judge even terribly oppressed rebels as they struggle against repression. Acquiescing to a practice of no judgment when it involves oppressed people entails condoning a destructive sentimentality regarding the humanity of the deprived. It involves overlooking the all too obvious fact that oppressed people, too, can engage in conduct that is foolish, selfish, cruel, and otherwise reprehensible. It also involves overlooking strengths latent in people condemned to the most desperate, degraded circumstances.
Thinking back upon Nat Turner’s struggle against an absolute nullification of democracy, I insist upon holding him and his comrades accountable. I do not know precisely what the moral judgment should be, though I find it difficult to imagine an excuse for decapitating the infant. My main point, though, focuses not on the substance of any particular judgment but on the imperative that there be some judgment. The morality or immorality of figures caught up in struggles over democracy should not be overlooked either because of their downtrodden status or because of the desperate circumstances in which they find themselves. Decent struggle for democracy – the only sort of struggle that can produce decent democracy – requires that everyone’s conduct be subject to judgment – those on the bottom as well as those on top. No one should receive a pass insulating their conduct from moral assessment. The abject deprivations imposed upon Palestinians in Gaza does not free them and their allies to do anything they want in the name of resistance. Nor do the atrocities that gave rise to the State of Israel and that have been visited upon Israelis for decades free them and their allies to do anything they want in the name of self-defense. There must be limits that must be respected. Setting forth precisely the coordinates of those limits is beyond my ken, at least at this moment in this forum. For now, all I can manage is to urge those fighting for democracy to forswear the uninhibited ruthlessness connoted by boasts of being willing to use all means necessary to attain one’s aims.
About the Author
Randall Kennedy
Kennedy is the Michael R. Klein Professor at Harvard Law School where he teaches courses on contracts, criminal law, and the regulation of race relations. He served as a law clerk for Judge J. Skelly Wright of the United States Court of Appeals and for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the United States Supreme Court. Awarded the 1998 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award for Race, Crime, and the Law, Kennedy writes for a wide range of scholarly and general interest publications. His other books are For Discrimination: Race, Affirmative Action, and the Law (2013), The Persistence of the Color Line: Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency (2011), Sellout: The Politics of Racial Betrayal (2008), Interracial Intimacies: Sex, Marriage, Identity, and Adoption (2003), and Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word (2002).
About the Author
Randall Kennedy
Kennedy is the Michael R. Klein Professor at Harvard Law School where he teaches courses on contracts, criminal law, and the regulation of race relations. He served as a law clerk for Judge J. Skelly Wright of the United States Court of Appeals and for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the United States Supreme Court. Awarded the 1998 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award for Race, Crime, and the Law, Kennedy writes for a wide range of scholarly and general interest publications. His other books are For Discrimination: Race, Affirmative Action, and the Law (2013), The Persistence of the Color Line: Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency (2011), Sellout: The Politics of Racial Betrayal (2008), Interracial Intimacies: Sex, Marriage, Identity, and Adoption (2003), and Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word (2002).
About the Author
Randall Kennedy
Kennedy is the Michael R. Klein Professor at Harvard Law School where he teaches courses on contracts, criminal law, and the regulation of race relations. He served as a law clerk for Judge J. Skelly Wright of the United States Court of Appeals and for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the United States Supreme Court. Awarded the 1998 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award for Race, Crime, and the Law, Kennedy writes for a wide range of scholarly and general interest publications. His other books are For Discrimination: Race, Affirmative Action, and the Law (2013), The Persistence of the Color Line: Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency (2011), Sellout: The Politics of Racial Betrayal (2008), Interracial Intimacies: Sex, Marriage, Identity, and Adoption (2003), and Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word (2002).
About the Author
Randall Kennedy
Kennedy is the Michael R. Klein Professor at Harvard Law School where he teaches courses on contracts, criminal law, and the regulation of race relations. He served as a law clerk for Judge J. Skelly Wright of the United States Court of Appeals and for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the United States Supreme Court. Awarded the 1998 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award for Race, Crime, and the Law, Kennedy writes for a wide range of scholarly and general interest publications. His other books are For Discrimination: Race, Affirmative Action, and the Law (2013), The Persistence of the Color Line: Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency (2011), Sellout: The Politics of Racial Betrayal (2008), Interracial Intimacies: Sex, Marriage, Identity, and Adoption (2003), and Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word (2002).
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