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Four Sacred Cows of
Democracy
by Rabbi Haim Lifshitz
(NOTE: This article is Chapter 2, from an essay on Law.)
Introduction:
The Four Principles of Civil Liberty.
The most
supreme and sacrosanct value in western democratic society is freedom of
the individual. In order to ensure that this value would not be violated,
or deprived even by the bureaucratic mechanism of the democratic regime
itself, society has isolated four principles which promote the interests
of civil liberty. It has made of these a sort of fundamental legislature
of the human rights of a free society. These principles fall into the
category of "taboo." They may not be touched under any condition. To harm
them is to harm the very soul of democracy itself.
The four components of individual freedom, which have
acquired the status of sacred cows in every sense, are as follows: Art,
Scientific Research, Journalism, The Law. Plump and complacent, but also
cross and suspicious, these four cows graze by the eastern wall of our
secular-liberal society, and their worship is the principle yardstick by
which one's culture and enlightenment are measured.
These four – "the four primary categories of damage" if we
may borrow mishnaic terminology – share in common a status of immunity.
They are beyond the reach of human criticism, even on issues of morality
and fundamental values. Certainly, they need not consider national
loyalty. The cow must be allowed to go her own way. She may trample and to
destroy anything that happens across her path. You may not stop her, calm
her, or curb her.
It is paradoxical and grave indeed that the enemies of
democracy use these cows as Trojan horses. Out of their bellies, they spew
forth to destroy and to shake the pillars of democratic regime. They need
not fear that their conspiracy will be exposed for on the contrary, whom
more than they, shows such concern for and worship of the sacred cows.
This process is illustrated in Elias Kanti's great work, "Blinders." Kanti
illuminates a new dimension for us. He goes one level higher than the
Kafkaesque in describing the terror of the grotesque when law, separated
from its meaningful content, destroys both. The law is embodied in the
monstrous gatekeeper. Values, naked and forlorn, are embodied in Kin the
Sinologist, a pathetic image of the detached and defenseless scientist.
The following paragraphs will briefly detail the nature and scope of each
of these ritual bearers:
A. Art
Art is the freedom of the creator to give expression to his spirit and to
his senses in every manner and in every context that seems fit in his
eyes. He bears no obligation toward any values or conventions, hallowed as
they may be within the social tradition. His allegiance is to the value of
art alone. And you, little private citizen – commoner – have no authority
to judge the artistic creation except by the criteria of artistic value.
And if you are not proficient in such matters, base creature that you are,
be so good as to muzzle your mouth.
In truth, definition of the concept "artistic value"
entails a complex and comprehensive study in esthetics. Yet in the
democratic reality of our own day, it suffices for a work to have come
forth from the hand of one who considers himself an artist. It is then
considered a work of art, acquiring thereby, instantaneously, the
privileges reserved for the sacred cow.
Thus do license, vulgarity, primitive emotion and
ignorance, representing themselves as vital artistic expression, invade
the top echelons of society. We find that art, rather than serving as a
refining and broadening force, is turned into a source of spiritual
retardation. It has become infamous for its destructive effect upon an
entire society and upon its youth. It degrades values held by western
humanistic tradition to be basic to human existence. Every repulsive
behavior, every pathological perversion becomes justified and legitimate.
Through the intricate dialectics of stupidity, it becomes a respectable
expression – bearing existentialist tidings, as it were.
Depravity, the wallowing in the sewage and waste waters of
human experience, the debasing of the human image and the delight in its
shame, all of these have become not merely permissible. Under the
inspiration of art, they are imbued with an aura of superiority. Woe to
the one who points out naively that the emperor is naked. The bearers of
the banner of freedom, progress and enlightenment come forth immediately
and silence him. He is placed in the public stocks, to be shamed by all,
and the cow reaches great heights in her absurd and paradoxical existence.
B. Science
The business of science, claim the disciples of this sacred cow, is the
investigation of ultimate and uncontestable truth. Therefore, no
limitation or restraint may be imposed upon it by any party or outside
interest, for what power can remotely resemble or compare to absolute
truth? Therefore the man of science has the divine right of kings. (We
will not pause here to delve into the character of the true man of
science. We will only mention that he bears no resemblance to the priest
of the sacred cow.) He may violate the rights of others, he may trifle
with the beliefs and proprieties of entire societies because they are not
considered members of the scientific community. He may deliberately and
arrogantly desecrate the values and traditions that generations have held
sacred. It is characteristic that every apprentice researcher sees himself
as the new Galileo, and every minor lecturer, utterly devoid of culture,
is by his own perception at least Voltaire.
Matters are particularly grave in the science of medicine,
for here the practitioners of medicine adopt for themselves the right to
determine the fate of a human life by weighing considerations such as its
advantages to science. Medical experiments are practiced upon human
beings. These are dubious and reckless from a scientific perspective, and
criminal from a moral perspective. Many and various are the ethical
philosophers who have exhorted against this peril yet it continues; it is
a routine practice. What makes medical research particularly deadly, aside
from the fact that most people lack the professional capacity to criticize
these matters, is the fact that one can apparently justify any
experimental procedure, as repugnant as it may be. One need merely evoke
the virtuous and morally illogical claim of the “good to mankind” which
eventually will grow out of this research in the course of time. A simple
reference to its contribution toward saving human life in the future will
suffice. It is a sort of standard abstract life saving of the human race.
Indeed the very fact that science’s relationship to values has become a
subject of philosophical inquiry, gravely examined from every aspect,
offers a hundred testimonies to the sense of Olympian separatism, of the
arrogant hubris which characterizes scientific research.
By the power of this sense of superiority, the sacrosanct
academic brotherhood insists upon immunity to all criticism or
restriction. Who is the one so worthy as to come and to teach them? Who
can enlighten them, the possessors of truth, in the manners and norms of
decency? The academic community will not tolerate any meddling in its
affairs or any examination of its linen; rather the world must lend an ear
to its song, and honor its greater wisdom.
Thus is the academic community exempted from critical
evaluation, bountifully endowed by society with every means at its
disposal, and pampered and coddled like those infant children who delight
us by the very fact that they exist and enrich our world. Gradually,
university campuses in the western world have grown to become the ideal
hothouse: Law breaking, anti-democratic elements are grown and cultivated
there, to expand without limit.
Out of the midst of the campus population of lecturers and
students come forth the leaders and members of unscrupulous and inhuman
terror gangs. Bearing the banner of this revolution or that one, they cast
their dread over the entire civilized world. Their only objective: the
eradication of the democratic society itself, to its very foundations.
Their hatred knows no bound toward that society whose reverent awe of
academic freedom permitted them to flourish undisturbed.
C. Media
The media embodies another element of civil liberty: The public’s right to
know. In principle, a free press serves one of the vital interests of the
democratic way of life, because it acts as an alert and efficient
supervisor, overseeing the procedures and actions of the ruling bodies
lest they betray their trust. There is no doubt that the watchful eye of
the media and its swift reporting ability serve as a deterrent to
established government, and force it to follow democratic norms.
Yet the difficulty lies precisely here: Media reporters
have hallowed “the right to know” which, from their perspective refers to
“the right to report.” They have turned it into an autonomous value which
may not be subjected to criticism of any sort. This right is not
supervised in any way, and one may not set any boundaries to it.
Information must flow to the public without inhibition and without delay.
The newsman reporting from the scene may ignore all secondary issues, so
to speak, such as morality, politics, or national security. He may invade
an individual’s private space, and he may be cavalier with the well-being
of an entire country. Only the news must flow and the public must know.
The power which the western media has acquired in the
course of these last few decades by virtue of the value that it upholds -
the great sanctity of which it has managed to instill into the civil
consciousness - has long since deviated from the framework which placed
the role of the press as government critic. It has become – and this is
especially true of television – the most absolute ruling power in the
western democratic world. Practically speaking, it is correct to describe
the modern media as a superpower. This superpower is not born of
democratic processes. Yet it wields its far reaching influence upon
western governments. It is a power that intervenes, directs and determines
the outcome of events, even if they are of a crucial nature. International
wars are waged in conformity with the agenda of those who rule the media.
Indeed, television is a near-perfect realization of Orwell’s Big Brother,
the all powerful tyrant that manipulates his citizens in their own homes.
Because he brainwashes them within their own private space, outside
manipulation can never be detected.
Again, as in the academic world, it is precisely the
anti-democratic elements that exploit the sacred cow. Their extraction is
from other cultures. They are bred of traditions devoid of the concept of
individual freedom. Their goal is simple: They would like to undermine
western democracy and eventually to take control of it. These elements
capitalize on the bias of the media. They proclaim loudly “the right of
the (western) public to know.” They take cynical and shrewd advantage of
this “value” that they “cherish” in order to further their influence over
western governments and over public opinion in the free world.
D. Law
The manner in which the legal system is embedded in the social
consciousness as an independent value is an issue, which we discuss
extensively in various sections of our work. Nevertheless, we shall remark
here that this process of the consecration of the law, and of society’s
submission to it, has the most absurd aspect of all of those processes
that beget the sacred offspring, which we have enumerated here.
For the prevailing law, by the very nature if its creation
and origins, is heir to its power and to its very existence only by virtue
of the consent of human beings to create it and to uphold it. Common
secular law has no resources for its existence beyond the consent of
mortals who have organized themselves into a social framework. They have
agreed to live according to a law that will regulate the course of their
lives for their benefit. As to humanistic myths regarding “natural law,”
we do not address them here for obvious reasons.
To relate to the law as to a value that stands on its own
authority, to turn this into the ultimate measure of public and political
life, can be classified as an absolute reversal of orders. It is a
fulfillment of the prophecy “when the slave shall reign…” Law, designated
from its very conception to serve man, becomes an independent entity. It
becomes man’s master. Rather than judging a law by its suitability and its
competency in arranging human affairs in the manner most positive and
beneficial to human development, rather than measuring a law by its
tendency to reflect human meaningful content faithfully, a human being is
judged and evaluated by the extent to which he cleaves to and embraces the
law. He is measured by the measure of faith that he puts in the legal
system. This is the nightmare described in Kafka’s great work.
It appears that the vital lessons concealed in Kafka’s work have not been
learned. The legal mechanism is attaining increasingly powerful status in
democratic regimes. It has acquired the status of an autonomous system. It
is a self-sustaining sentient being that operates only out of its own
motives and needs. It is heedless, this Frankenstein, of anything that
lies outside the narrow confines of the law.
The State of Israel was established at a moment of profound moral crisis
for the Jewish people. During this period, its citizens were undergoing a
process of dissociation from the existential meanings of Jewish tradition.
The State of Israel adopted the law as a substitute for its abandoned
values. Glorification of the law was turned into an educational goal. The
administrative regime cultivated among the people an absolute faith in the
law, a reverent nearly mystical awe of its institutions and its
attendants. These were represented as the oracle, of perfect character and
integrity, from which no secret of the ways of truth and of justice in any
area or subject could ever be hidden. Courthouses and especially the
Supreme Court were, in the eyes of the people and of their instructors,
miniature temples. The verdict of the judges of Israel was the word of the
oracle - which splits asunder and rises forth from the temple. Any word of
criticism or inquiry concerning a verdict, or any aspersion cast upon the
absolute wisdom of the judges was perceived to be utter sacrilege.
How very many public and national misfortunes have befallen
the State of Israel because of the attitude of undiscriminating adoration
of the law that had been cultivated among her people. Matters becomes
especially grave, they actually take on a grotesque aspect when hostile
elements actively seeking Israel’s downfall learn how easily this attitude
can be turned to their advantage. Among the Arabs, sensitivity to the
value of the legal regime and to the authority of consensual law is a
foreign concept. It is unheard of in their native culture, but they may
use it for their own purposes. They have learned that it is possible to
make use of the legal terminology of the Israeli court system in order to
inflict injury upon the “Legal State” of the Jews.
E. The War of the Gods.
As mentioned, that which endows the sacred cow with its status is the fact
that in the public eye it appears to embody a value of civil liberty. It
is entrusted with the duty of protecting the individual from the arbitrary
limitation and inhibition of his freedom of movement by the authorities
and by established government. However, the sacred cow itself needs to be
protected from harm by hostile elements. It must be fully enabled to stand
its guard, and to faithfully carry out its task. Therefore, society has
granted it immunity that is, for all intents and purposes, absolute.
From a logical perspective, it could not be otherwise. If
the value that the sacred cow represents is not immune and exempt from
every existing limitation, then it is no longer a supreme ideal. The cow
is then deprived of her power to serve democracy in the manner that she
was instructed to serve it. At best she can be considered a desirable
social consensus. If there is any power, before which the cow is compelled
to bow her head and moo submissively, then her sacredness will
automatically expire. All of her sublime power will be exposed as mere
illusion.
For this reason it has never occurred to society to
consider the nature of the relations that must obtain between the four
sacred cows, among one another. It has not defined the status of one cow
vis a` vis another cow. Rather, all are sacred, all are supreme, and all
enjoy unlimited immunity.
Thus it can happen that a war of the gods will break out.
One cow battles another, or all the cows fight among themselves, as
certain conflicts of interest exist between them. Since society has not
determined the protocols of priority, or of mutuality that are to prevail
among the sacred ones, these wars can escalate. The law that governs the
battle of the titans is the same law that governs the “natural condition”
described by Hobbes: “The more violent one prevails.” The cow who is
heftier, whose priests are more aggressive, and whose artillery is more
lethal, subdues her weaker enemy. Exactly like in Pharaoh’s dream, one cow
swallows another. But not quite – Pharaoh’s dream reflects a more
democratic vision, for after all, the thin cow swallows the fat one.
Whereas in the reality of the western democracies, violence reigns supreme
when speaking of the war of the gods, in their most brutal manifestations,
and results are only natural and predictable: The stronger cow subdues the
weaker.
Thus it comes about that the news media and the law reach a
point of confrontation. Certain requirements of the law may impinge upon
the sacrosanct privileges of the news media, and may deprive the newsman’s
“freedom of reportage.” For example: The legal system may demand of a
journalist that he reveal the source of certain information that he has
obtained. The journalist refuses, for he reasons that this constitutes
intervention in his sublime task and a setting of limitation upon him that
is unthinkable. In a case of this sort, the law will not consider the
status of the media, or to the fact that it is charged with actualizing
civil liberty. It will not be overly critical of the means that it employs
in order to compel the defiant journalist to obey its demands. It will
exert its superior power (which the law grants it) against him, and it
will put him – all of his sacredness notwithstanding – on trial.
For the most part the law must have recourse to aggressive
imposition of its authority, being frequently incapable of acquiring
information by professional methods such as police expertise, when
investigating some legal issue or other. In order to conceal its own
ineffectuality and to justify its own good name, the law will not hesitate
to violate the sanctity of another democratic value - the citizen’s right
to know.
A similar adversarial relationship is encountered
frequently between art and the law. Civil censorship is an official and
established institution for the critique of art by the democratic regime.
It has the legal authority to disqualify any artistic creation, according
to its own principles and criteria – for example, it can declare that it
is illegal to stage a particular play or to show a particular film. In
such cases, the world of art usually responds with a show of deep offense
and unforgivable insult. Its wrath burns within it, its fury is
all-consuming. It arms for battle to the bitter end, for the law has
attempted to circumscribe its territory. If the government is not
aggressive enough to stand upon enforcement of the law, the offended
titans of the art world “daringly defy” the law. They rebel in the name of
artistic freedom, and stage the illegal play in spite of all. The right of
the artist to express himself freely, however his heart may desire, is, in
their eyes, a supreme value that cancels out every other value.
Thus we find a situation of inherent and intrinsic
contradiction. The assurance of liberty and of the basic rights of society
and of the individual is dependent upon the invulnerability and the
immunity of the sacred cows. However, their own immunity is broken down by
the sacred cows’ own aggression against one another. There is no
principle, no supreme value that protects the sacred cows from assault and
injury by one another. It is obvious that there could be no such value. It
could never be found in a secular humanistic society. The whole actuality
and definition of the sacred cow lies in the fact that it is not dependent
upon any human consent and consensus. Rather, it is an absolute value.
The Root of All Evil: Separation in Principle
The phenomena described above demand investigation. It behooves us to
attempt to expose their root and cause. It seems clear that there exists a
certain primary cause, embedded in modern society’s most basic
assumptions, that is directing the entire mechanism behind these
phenomena. We do not presume to encompass this complex problem. Social,
psychological, economic and political factors all most likely play their
role. Nevertheless, we would like to pause and examine the one primary
factor that seems to be at the root of it. One principle seems to turn the
wheels for all the many forms and variations that this problem takes.
It would appear that the root of this evil is the principle
of separation, an assumption that is rooted in modern social
consciousness. The sacred cows have hastened to exploit this principle in
order to grant themselves absolute autonomy as far as their hearts may
desire. An independence that stands beyond the reach of any criteria for
criticism whatsoever, that the sacred cows have taken for themselves,
justifies itself through a pragmatic approach, in which reality is divided
into separate segments. Reality becomes a series of patches and pieces. In
terms of practical application, this requires separate systems of
activity, separate spheres with no common aspect between them. There is no
meta-structure of values to unite them into one organic system. There is
nothing to compensate for the inadequacy inherent in every separate
sphere. Segmentation creates a situation whereby every sphere of activity
recognizes only its own reality. It is inevitable that conflict and
competition for supremacy will rage among them. One pushes and attempts to
crowd out the other, ignoring quite deliberately its right to exist. It
must reject every meaning or worth that the other attributes to itself.
General principles that serve as hallowed beliefs and as
fundamental criteria in one sphere, are not even recognized – they have no
place in another sphere. The pristine logic that serves as science’s
guiding light is rejected within the borders of art and of the law, as
though it belonged to a separate reality distinct unto itself. Justice,
which serves as the law’s guiding light, is not recognized in the private
territory of science or in any of the other territories. It is as though
this justice, to which the law is subject, is not necessarily relevant in
relation to “the public’s right to know.” It seems as though it is not
appropriate for one moral value to be equally incumbent upon all the
separate spheres.
Within this reality, of the zealously guarded separation of
territories, a paradoxical situation is created. It is as fascinating as
it is fraught with disaster. Because the separate systems are hostile to
one another, they become reverse companions in misery. The trouble of one
is the liberation of the other, who strives to limit the first or to
annihilate her entirely. It is the nature of the sacred cow to be
incapable of recognizing her fellow cows' right to liberty.
In conclusion, we will consider the Jewish approach to this
question. In a society that is organized and operates according to Jewish
belief, a war of the gods can never be declared. Because God is the only
supreme value recognized in Judaism, this value serves as a controlling
and mediating factor among the other values that are its derivatives. Thus
historically, royalty was subservient to prophet or priest, who
represented the godly value, and these two in turn were subservient to the
rule of the Torah.
The fact that an entire system addresses one absolute value
provides a balancing and stabilizing effect. It ascertains that the
various value systems operating within it are reconciled with one another.
They must operate under conditions of mutual dependency, yet one may not
deprive another of its unique status.
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