The other day I was amused, and somewhat horrified, if not particularly surprised to read that I did not “simply engage in religion-bashing.” but that I was “outright hostile to religion.”  Where did this come from?  From a theological blog that, on the basis of thoughts and acts of one Van Albert, the protagonist of my novel, The Ethos Effect, declared that, “One can presume, however, that his [Modesitt’s] basis of ethics is a strictly humanistic one.”  I did contact the author, and he most graciously and kindly apologized and revised the blog to reflect the fact that my characters [and not me] took stances contrary to what he believed to be the proper religious acts and beliefs… and I have no problem with that.

This sort of thing, however, does raise an issue.  How often do readers jump to conclusions about what an author believes on the basis of a single novel? Or even a single series, when other characters in other books have acted differently and on different ethical bases?

Another author [Poul Anderson, I believe[except I was wrong, apparently, as noted below]]] said that there was a term for readers who equated the views of characters with the views of the author, and that term was “idiot.”  I’m not sure I’d go quite that far, because there’s no doubt that, no matter what we as authors claim, some [if not more] of what we believe seeps into what we write.  Some authors are almost opaque, in that it’s difficult to discern what they truly believe, and with others, their beliefs gush from every page.  But… with still others, while beliefs seem to gush from the page, those beliefs may not be those of the author, or only part of the beliefs of the author.

Human beings face ethical dilemmas all the time, and our actions spark ethical questions on a daily basis, and some of what we write comes close to real-life situations, such as in the recent case of the killing of Osama bin Laden.  One of the larger questions that faces any society is the issue of justice when that society is faced with the issue of preemptive action or reactive action.  What might have happened in Europe in the mid-to-late 1930s if the U.S. and European powers had moved against Hitler before millions of Jews and others were killed?  On the other hand, one could claim that the wars in Iraq or in Vietnam were largely preemptive and disastrous.  The overarching ethical problems in such cases are that preemptive action is arrogant and chancy and could result in more deaths than doing nothing, but often doing nothing leads to greater evils, as in so many cases in human history. 

As an author, I’ve written on both sides of this issue, because, from what I’ve seen, no “absolute” religious or ethical philosophy provides a satisfactory guideline in mitigating human misery.  Oh… philosophers and theologians can claim their positions are the “right” ones, but every “right” position still has times when it multiplies human misery.  So I’ve explored this issue and others… as have many, many other writers.

And, in my books, each character takes a stand.  Sometimes, the stands agree, and sometimes they don’t.  At times, ethically, everyone loses, even when they triumph materially… and, from what I’ve seen, that’s life.  That part – that I’ll admit – reflects what I’ve seen.  But to infer what a writer believes from a single novel… or series…that’s stretching. 

But… in a way, readers do it all the time… and that’s one of the perils of being an author.

Now that bin Laden is dead, commentators, agitators, and even people of conscience have raised the question of whether the means of his death was “justice.”  Before rushing to judgment on this question, I’d like to raise another question: What exactly is justice?

There are more than just a few definitions of justice, but here are the ones most commonly cited: (1) the quality of being fair, even-handed, and impartial; (2) the rendering of what is due or merited; (3) conformity with the law; (4) the administration of the law; (5) the means by which the law is administered; (6) a judge; (7) the abstract principle by which right and wrong are determined.

Setting aside the definitions for a moment, what are the facts, in brief?  Bin Laden was the mastermind behind the Twin Towers bombing, the Pentagon bombing, as well as who truly knows how many other terrorist acts.  In his various speeches and communications, he fully acknowledged that.  So… there was no question of his guilt. By his acts he caused the deaths of well over 3,000 civilians in the United States who were not in any way threatening him.  Over the years, he continued to agitate and plan other activities in which hundreds if not thousands of Muslims were also killed.

Now… from what I’ve seen so far, those who are questioning whether his death was an act of justice and who are suggesting it was murder, since it appears that he was not holding a firearm at the time he was shot, are saying that he should have been captured and held for trial, claiming that under the laws of the United States such a trial would constitute justice.

Such claims certainly have a certain appeal and, shall we say, technical legal merit, but they carry with them an assumption that justice can only be meted out in one way and in one form, i.e., through the U.S. court system.  As a former Naval officer who had to once serve as the presiding officer in a special courts martial, I can attest that, as a nation, we have at least two accepted forms legal jurisprudence, with very different presumptions behind some of the proceedings.  French jurisprudence dates from the Napoleonic Code and also has different presumptions, as do justice systems in other nations.

The idea underlying all such systems is that “justice” is determined under a set of laws and proceedings meant to determine guilt or innocence and to mete out an appropriate punishment, under the authority of law, in the case of those found guilty. But such legal systems are only a mechanism for assuring that “justice” is done, and when the focus is placed strictly on the means, rather than the outcome of the process, as many Americans already know, often “justice” is not achieved.  If the “means” are always supreme, then justice is often unserved; but if the end is the only goal, any means can be justified.  How then does one determine exactly what is justice?

In the case of Osama bin Laden, there is absolutely no doubt that he was guilty of causing thousands of deaths.  The penalty for such scope of murders is usually death.  Bin Laden’s death was accomplished, either advertently or inadvertently, by Navy SEALS under the orders of the President of the United States, dutifully elected, and thus was accomplished by an authorized government agency, in general accord with the punishments meted out for murderers and serial killers by U.S. courts or military tribunal or courts martial.

Was this an “ideal” solution? No, it wasn’t.  But there are times when an emphasis on process and procedure are not necessarily possible. In this case, no one is hiding what was done, or generally how it was done, and the President has acknowledged that it was done under his orders. 

So… was bin Laden’s death justice?  Or does justice only occur when an exact set of procedures and processes are followed, regardless of the outcome?

One of the commenters on this blog actually raised this question, if not quite so bluntly, and the more I thought about it, the more it made sense, although there’s far more to the issue than mere labeling.

But I’ll start with politics and the question of why there are so few women in the U.S. Congress.  As I’ve noted in several earlier blogs, men, as do virtually all male primates, are more inclined and, in general, more interested and more skilled in political networking.  I suspect this has to do with genetics and natural selection, in that men operate in a constantly changing socio-political structure for single-minded goals, usually power and sex.  And if you don’t think political power isn’t related to sex for men, you have no idea of how politics operates.  Henry Kissinger once observed that power was the greatest aphrodisiac of all, and the exploits of more than a few U.S. Presidents tend to confirm that.  The American two-party system, in turn, is geared to simplify both networking and power-seeking; that wasn’t its original design or purpose, but its evolution from that design which tended to reflect early American society.

Women, on the other hand, tend to operate on two entirely different net-working styles, one a shallow communications network predominantly with other women and the other a far smaller and deeper network, primarily with women who are relatives and close friends.  Neither networking “style” is suited to the changing alliances and power plays of the kind of networking politics employed and enjoyed by the majority of men.  Women, once they’re mature, also tend to have a longer focus, most likely in part because child-rearing has historically and genetically been their role for almost all of human history, and politics, particularly at present, is incompatible with a longer focus.  It’s all about immediate gain, which is representative of male sexuality as well – get as many women as possible as much and as quickly as possible.

Female-oriented institutions, such as the nuclear family [and there is more than one variety of nuclear family], are “designed” for longer term stability, which is necessary if one wants children to survive, especially under optimal conditions.

Now… I’m not preaching here, or advocating, merely expanding the issue and question, and asking if there is a democratic/representative political structure that would be less structurally biased toward either gender.  I’m certainly not the first to make such a suggestion or observation.  Both Ursula K. LeGuin, in The Left Hand of Darkness, and Sherri Tepper, in a number of her books, have made similar observations, both directly and indirectly.  I will say that, outside of some feminist rhetoric, I haven’t seen anything that approaches a scholarly analysis of the issue [not that such may not exist, but if it does, I doubt if it’s been widely circulated].

Any thoughts?

Last week a poll revealed that 75% of the American people are dissatisfied with the U.S. Congress, and that’s one of the lowest figures for Congressional popularity in some time, if ever.  On the surface, one might conclude that, to improve its standing, all Congress has to do is to reverse course.  Alas, that would result in close to the same figures, I suspect.

Why?  Because, if you’ve been reading about all the Congressional shenanigans, you know that the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and Republican senators aren’t happy with the Democrat-controlled Senate or the President, and the Democrat-controlled Senate and Democratic representatives are close to furious with the Republican-controlled House. 

For all these ideological differences, there’s one absolute similarity between both sides in Congress.  Neither they, nor their supporters, really want to deal with the facts of the situation they face.  In reality, if they did, most of them feel they’d soon be voted out of office.  Both sides are wrong, and neither side can afford to admit it… or to compromise.

Everyone agrees in principle that the U.S. government can’t keep spending more than we collect in various tax revenues.  What they’re vigorously opposed on is where to make up the difference, either through spending cuts or increasing revenues.

We can’t keep increasing the amount the federal government spends on health care unless we increase taxes, and if we cut federal health care expenditures to avoid raising taxes, the cuts will be so deep that the poor, the lower middle class and working classes will suffer when they reach retirement age, if not before. The same problem exists in dealing with Social Security – unless future retirement ages are increased, but that will likely result in effective benefit cuts because, for a variety of reasons, many older workers retire before they’re eligible for full benefits.

There are other funding sources, of course, but one or another entrenched interest opposes them, and thus, so do the legislators beholden to those interests.  We’ve all seen the disasters, for example, created by the speculation in all sorts of financial transactions.  So what about a federal tax on securities and stock market transactions?  Not just on capital gains, but on the transaction itself, paid not by the investor but by the entity handling the trade.  Do you really think Goldman-Sachs would let Congress anywhere near that? Most agriculture subsidies go to corporate farmers?  Do we really need them?  Especially when the ethanol tax credit raises food prices?  Just try to cut those subsidies and revenue losses.

Over forty percent of all Americans pay no federal income taxes.  Just see what happens if any legislator suggests that they should.  What about getting rid of mortgage interest payment deductions for second homes?  Not first homes, but second homes, vacation homes, etc.?  Why should taxpayers get a tax deduction for a vacation home?  Suggest this, and the realtors and the bankers will be after any Congressman who does.

The list of possible fixes is long, and many of them would indeed work, but one thing is clear.  Everyone knows the system needs fixing, and no one wants to pay for it.  Each interest wants someone else to pay for it, and because that’s so, Congress can’t come up with a solution… and everyone’s mad at Congress, because each representative and Senator is indeed representing the interests of those who either elected them or contributed the funds that elected them.  But, for all the talk about reaching a solution, woe betide any representative who thinks about compromising with the other side.

Just ask former Senator Bob Bennett what a single vote toward a compromise does to a senator’s career.

Let me say from the onset that I am not the biggest fan or supporter of Barack Obama, and I certainly think he’s made more than his share of mistakes, both in leadership and in the tactics he’s used or failed to use in attempting to set and carry out his policies.  That said, I am absolutely and totally appalled by the continuing furor over whether he is a U.S. citizen and the fact that he felt compelled to use his own discretionary funds to send an attorney to Hawaii to obtain an official birth certificate from the state government there. 

Copies of his birth certification have been available online for years.  There are newspaper stories in the original Honolulu papers from fifty years ago announcing his birth in Hawaii.  Come on… those couldn’t have been planted fifty years ago.  Who back then even knew that the son of an 18 year old Kansas girl and a black Kenyan graduate student would be president of the United States? 

Now, I realize that such rational arguments will not suffice against the blind fanaticism of the most rabid “birther” types, because nothing penetrates fanaticism, whether that fanaticism is of the far right or the far left, or of Islamic fundamentalists or of hard-core IRA members or of the extreme Northern Ireland protestants.

But why do the rest of us buy into this “debate”?  Why do the supposedly “reputable” members of the press keep fanning the issue to keep it alive?  Why do theoretically intelligent politicians and candidates harp on it?  Because there’s nothing too low and base they won’t do to garner votes from the most ignorant and prejudiced of Americans?  And why is it even being discussed when the United States is involved in two or more wars, when the financial and economic future of the United States is on the line, and when the Congress will have to decide the future of what our government will be like in what it funds and what it does not, and who gets taxed how much and who doesn’t? 

Is it because no one wants to face the hard issues, including the issue of global warming, which was certainly a factor in the formation of the terrible tornadoes that just devastated Alabama?  Is it because all too many Americans don’t understand much of anything beyond their daily focus… or that they just don’t care? Because the press is incompetent in conveying what is at stake?  Or because most Americans don’t want to know that they can’t keep having all the programs that now exist without raising taxes and that they and their elected representatives must choose between fewer and less comprehensive programs and comparatively lower taxation [but likely some more taxes] and continuing all current programs with much  higher taxes, particularly on the middle class [since, as I’ve pointed out time and time again, taxing just the richest of the rich won’t raise the necessary revenue]?

Both the Republicans and the Democrats are effectively avoiding dealing with these issues and threatening, implicitly, if not explicitly, to shut down government and to destroy the credit-worthiness of the United States rather than back down – and the lead item in the news is that the president has been forced by media and popular pressure to provide – once again – an “official” copy of his birth certificate?  And now some of Obama’s black supporters are outraged that he did provide the certificate, while our “bread and circus” media hypes the whole situation.

If we aren’t the laughing stock of the world over this “birther” nonsense… we deserve to be.