I'd like to ask, to what degree is immoral state violence acceptable to produce social progress?[1] While I'm appalled by seems to be the assassination of a political opponent, Bin Salman's plans to move towards secularization, loosen the country's dependence on fossil fuels, etc. seem promising. If allowing certain freedoms means halting Saudi Arabia's progress towards these goals is it a worthwhile tradeoff?
Consider the US Civil war as an analogue. It wasn't an act of totalitarianism - forcibly subduing the south was legal, while totalitarianism has the connotation of extralegal use of force. And it wasn't undemocratic - Lincoln won the election. However it was certainly an instance of the government forcing its will on a segment of the population through immense violence. My belief is that immense violence was justified, to allow slavery (and slavery was the keystone reason for the Civil War) to be perpetuated would have been a greater evil. At face value many, including myself, would state that killing 2-2.5% of the total population in suppression of a rebellion is a bad thing. But ending slavery constitutes sufficient social progress to make it worth it.
A more morally gray area would be the overthrow of Egypt's elected government. I don't want to sign praises of the military junta, but some family relatives that are religious minorities (Coptic Christians) praised the military regime. And they made no premise of trying to portray their rule as democratic: they essentially said, "yes, it is a dictatorship. And in spite of that I fully believe it is better than rule by the Muslim Brotherhood. Similarly, while many (including myself) were optimistic about Syrian rebels fighting against Assad, it's tough to say that a peace under Assad would have been worse than the fate Syria got.
Another good example is Singapore's dictatorship. On one hand, silencing dissidents is something I consider bad. The fact that a party that receives ~60% of the vote gets to control ~90% of leadership roles is unjust. But by most other metrics of success, it's difficult to find fault in the country. High incomes, low rates of crime, and extensive services provided to the populace are the envy of most other countries. It's tempting to say that these could all be possible without dictatorial intervention, but the kind of long-term policy (and sometimes heavy-handed policies like relocating residents to eliminate de-facto racial segregation) that created Singapore's success are difficult to pull off in democracies.
I hope this doesn't come off as an attempt to justify Saudi Arabia's apparent actions, or read as an apologia of dictatorship. I still wouldn't choose any other countries' system over my own - at least none other than similar Western democracies. If it turns out Khashoggi was assassinated, it would definitely be a permanent mark against MBS (or whoever made this decision). Rather I just want to prompt reflection of what often seems to be the unqualified assumption that forceful governments results in a bad outcome, and democracy and liberty results in good ones. I certainly agree that assassinating a journalist, dismembering him, and subsequently denying it is unjustified even if it was eliminating a roadblock to social change in Saudi Arabia. But I do want to ask HN: where is that line?
[1] Judging by the responses, this was not an effective way to ask the question I want to ask. A better question is "to what degree does social progress made by foreign leaders offset their moral ills?"
Edit: I realize this was a potentially controversial question to pose, but it's something I've started to reflect on after talking to people that have experienced recent events in the Middle East. A lot of them expressed frustration with the tendency to view foreign policy through a simple, moralistic lens. The result of such a perspective often has negative consequences (e.g. the Iraq war. Hussein carried out atroc...
Ends do not justify the means. And it’s not just a moral faith: the savage way in which you grab power and silence dissidents creates an environment where bad ideas are allowed to not fail and fester until they destroy everything.
So was Egypt better under the Muslim Brotherhood than the military junta? The "means" of their overthrow were certainly bad (a military coup), so does that automatically mean it would have been better for Egypt to have continued to be ruled by the Muslim Brotherhood. Is Singapore a morally bad country? We don't know for sure if they would have achieved the same results with a democracy, but in our mental image of "shitty, immoral countires" does Singapore pop into mind?
It's easy to make moralistic claims like this, but to a certain extent we all agree that certain ends to justify certain means. Police shouldn't kill a criminal for stealing an orange. But they probably should kill a criminal if they're holding someone hostage at knifepoint (Purely speaking in terms of the morality of killing people in commission of a crime, I don't know if shooting at a someone holding a hostage is good policing)
It isn’t helpful to apply the same moral principles that you use in specific situations to generalize over the entire space of morality. We know for a fact that systems with unchecked political power have a way of devolving into autocracies/oligarchies, which I don’t believe is a system that most people would want to live under.
I think you're missing the point of the article (if your original comment was actually a comment on the content of the article in the first place).
The Arab world is in a dangerous place because you can be -dismembered- for your ideas. Not for holding someone hostage at knifepoint. If you allow no room for criticism, you're allowed free reign.
I think you're still missing the point I'm making. A world in which you can be dismembered for disseminating political ides is terrible. Of course. That's as obvious as calling the sky blue.
But is something like a military seizing power from a democratic government to prevent a sectarian crisis a bad thing? Where is the inflection point in these sorts of questions?
An example I think is valuable is the People's Republic of China. Of course I'm appalled by people getting disappeared, mass government surveillance, and gamifying totalitarianism through social credit. But in a sense, I can empathize with why a mainland Chinese person could view the PRC and CCP in a positive light. In spite of its evils it has drastically improved the well being of (most) its people - targeted minorities like Uyghurs not included. Crackdowns on dissent seem immoral to me from my western view of the world, but among many Chinese there's a sense that curbing dissent is necessary to prevent social collapse. There's this phrase that goes along the lines of "China is it's own worst enemy". Most of China's most destructive conflicts have been civil wars. The country is understandably skeptical of peaceful transition of power - something inherently necessary for a democracy. Is China capable of adopting a western-style democracy and extensive civil liberties without collapsing? I don't know, but I can see why many (most?) Chinese wouldn't want to gamble the future of their country on such a bet. In a similar vein, I'd like to see the thought process of someone who supports MBS and his allies in spite of this assassination.
> So was Egypt better under the Muslim Brotherhood than the military junta?
I don't see why not. Morsi only had one year but he followed some constitutional processes and made some attempts to moderate his Islamic party. Anything you can accuse Morsi of general el-Sisi has been much worse on.
The Egyptians I've spoken to had different opinions. As stated before, they were Coptic Christians (a religious minority) so their views are likely different from the average Egyptian. But they worried extensively of the possibility of sectarian rule, and regard el-Sisi with positive regard. El-Sisi met with the Coptic Pope, and from their point of view did a significantly better job of assuring religious minorities that they'd be protected. And regardless of the choice between el-Sisi and Morsi, almost all of them regard the overthrow of Mubarak as a mistake (albeit in retrospect).
Again, to reiterate it's worth mentioning that this is a specific perspective, and one that has a good chance of not being representative of the majority.
It's difficult to respect black and white statements like this. I get that it's always better to accomplish social goals peacefully, but plenty of social progress has been made by dictators that eliminate opponents.
Take Turkey, for instance. Mustafa Kemal ruled forcibly in many ways, and almost certainly had dissidents killed. He fought in the Turkish war of Independence so he has blood on his hands one way or another. But I'd seriously question the judgement of any who would claim that his rule was bad for Turkey. He drastically improved the country's institutions and brought is social policies more in line with Western ideals. In the coming years the military would repeatedly overthrow legally legitimate governments to keep the country secular. There's an honest discussion to be had over whether or not Turkey would be in a better person if Erdogan had been overthrown.
Of course in a liberal Western democracy, which I assume you live in, doesn't stand to benefit from regimes like that. But the blanket statement along the lines of "dictators bad, democracies good" is not productive, and sometimes feel like willful ignorance of history. This killing is a poor forecast, but time will tell whether history remembers MBS as Saudi Arabia as an Ataturk or a ineffective, bloody ruler (or, much more likely, as just another average Saudi monarch).
I'm not arguing against dictatorships as much as specific kinds of dictatorships. Singapore has been a one-party dictatorship for a while now, South Korea was under the military dictatorship of Park Chung Hee for a while too. But the Singaporean rule has persisted as long perhaps because the regime hasn't wielded its power as brazenly as the KSA just did, and probably continues to do on a more daily basis inside the kingdom itself.
The point I'm trying to make is that even dictators/absolute monarchs need to recognize the limits of their power and wield it accordingly. This completely unnecessary exercise of state power has exposed that MBS isn't really the savior of KSA that many had proclaimed: he is a thug, a mob leader who grabbed power from his relatives and initiated token reforms to appease the west while silencing his critics in brutal ways. Even if his "ultimate" intentions are good, his means of achieving them will hinder him from doing that.
Reality however is not formed this way. Do you think you would read this with a cup of coffee on ur fancy computer if our ancestors didn't colonize and strip resources from other nations.
For that matter we have the Romans and the church to thank for streets and other infrastructure and most relevant the means to write here (the english language unified through dominance of old), and they didn't swoop over Europe with flowers and treats I can assure you.
It's easy to say the end does not justify the means, when you have been enjoying western luxury all your life gained through (spoils of) war
There are other people in the Royal Family that also have progressive views and that would also make fine leaders. We don't need another Saddam Hussein in the middle east.
I'm not trying to ask "was Bin Salman right in ordering the assassination?" or "is Bin Salman the best person to lead Saudi Arabia?". Rather, I'm more asking "do you think history will be kind to MBS?"
I think he's going to get replaced and forgotten in history. Most of the other princes are western educated and known Saudi has to modernize their economy which means women have to work and looking beyond oil.
It is now clear Khashoggi was assassinated. Only in an authoritarian system, can dissent be permanently disabled by killing a human. In a democratic society, there is a well-defined process to determine the outcome of any event, including dissent.
Never will I trade a humanitarian crisis for development. What's development for? It is for humans.
Is the widespread disenfranchisement of women and dependence on an economy that has disastrous effects on the environment not also a humanitarian crisis? If you were at the helm of a trolley-problem scenario, and you had to choose between equal rights for Saudi women and Khashoggi's death what would you choose? Personally, I wouldn't alter the lever either way. Both outcomes have a huge negative effect (disenfranchisement of millions on one end, murder on the other).
Of course, this isn't the situation we're in. There's no certainty that Bin Salman will follow through on his promises; there's no guarantee that it wouldn't have been possible without this killing. Again, the goal here isn't to try and justify any action - assassination of a journalist is barbaric, full stop. As I've spoken to people that have lived under governments often considered immoral (Middle Eastern countries as mentioned earlier, China is another example) I've reflected on how moralistic one should be when viewing the world outside of liberal democracies, and I want to share that reflection with others.
Solving the problem at scale requires a process change. It is driven by a conscious effort, and it is a slow outcome (think 100s of years). The process requires drafting and following the rule of law, and never side-stepping, or short-circuiting for personal gains.
This killing of Jamal was a short-circuit with no positive consequence. It is barbaric, and regression due to extremists in USA, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. I cannot equate a trolly problem to this scenario.
This is an interesting question, but I don’t see its relevance here. In what way is Khashoggi’s murder connected to societal progress? If a heinous murder somehow moves society forward, that’s an interesting dilemma, but this was just a political murder for no benefit other than to soothe the egos of some powerful people.
I see. “...to produce social progress” made me think you were asking about violence that produces progress, not merely violence that happens at the same time.
> I see. “...to produce social progress” made me think you were asking about violence that produces progress, not merely violence that happens at the same time.
I was originally thinking of "to what degree does social progress vindicate use of violence". Of course it's better to give women the right to drive and vote and not dismember people. A lot of violence doesn't result in social progress, and lots of social progress is achieved without violence. But if someone makes social progress on one hand and uses force immorally on the other, to what degree does the latter need to outweigh the former to be considered a good person.
Basically, 20 or 30 years from know, do you think Bin Salman will be considered a villain or a hero? Plenty of people that had done unsavory things in the past have become seen as heroes. One easy example is the late Thai King Bhumibol (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhumibol_Adulyadej). I don't know if he ever had anyone killed, but he did give tacit (or more than tacit) nods to the military to conduct their coups.
Ultimately, I have no dog in this fight. I have no relatives or friends in Saudi Arabia and I have no intention of going there myself. But I am interested in looking back on this thread years from know and seeing what the prevailing opinion is then.
I think he’ll be seen as a hero, if he actually delivers. That’s a gigantic if, though. I’m not at all sure that he’s sincere, or that he’s capable even if he’s sincere.
Khashoggi himself warned about MBS's use of progressive reforms to distract from his rapid and often brutal consolidation of power. Progressive reform happens piecemeal because policy makers, activists, the public, etc have limited time, attention span, and emotional energy, but there must be an underlying cultural shift for it to last. Otherwise, it's just pandering that carries a great risk of hiding worsening atrocities - like KSA's war in Yemen or, as Khashoggi wrote in the posthumous WaPo article, MBS's crackdown on the press in general.
I mean, in a twist of macabre irony, many of the activists who led the push for reforms like letting women drive are now in prison. That doesn't sound like a government genuinely interested in reform.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 59.9 ms ] threadConsider the US Civil war as an analogue. It wasn't an act of totalitarianism - forcibly subduing the south was legal, while totalitarianism has the connotation of extralegal use of force. And it wasn't undemocratic - Lincoln won the election. However it was certainly an instance of the government forcing its will on a segment of the population through immense violence. My belief is that immense violence was justified, to allow slavery (and slavery was the keystone reason for the Civil War) to be perpetuated would have been a greater evil. At face value many, including myself, would state that killing 2-2.5% of the total population in suppression of a rebellion is a bad thing. But ending slavery constitutes sufficient social progress to make it worth it.
A more morally gray area would be the overthrow of Egypt's elected government. I don't want to sign praises of the military junta, but some family relatives that are religious minorities (Coptic Christians) praised the military regime. And they made no premise of trying to portray their rule as democratic: they essentially said, "yes, it is a dictatorship. And in spite of that I fully believe it is better than rule by the Muslim Brotherhood. Similarly, while many (including myself) were optimistic about Syrian rebels fighting against Assad, it's tough to say that a peace under Assad would have been worse than the fate Syria got.
Another good example is Singapore's dictatorship. On one hand, silencing dissidents is something I consider bad. The fact that a party that receives ~60% of the vote gets to control ~90% of leadership roles is unjust. But by most other metrics of success, it's difficult to find fault in the country. High incomes, low rates of crime, and extensive services provided to the populace are the envy of most other countries. It's tempting to say that these could all be possible without dictatorial intervention, but the kind of long-term policy (and sometimes heavy-handed policies like relocating residents to eliminate de-facto racial segregation) that created Singapore's success are difficult to pull off in democracies.
I hope this doesn't come off as an attempt to justify Saudi Arabia's apparent actions, or read as an apologia of dictatorship. I still wouldn't choose any other countries' system over my own - at least none other than similar Western democracies. If it turns out Khashoggi was assassinated, it would definitely be a permanent mark against MBS (or whoever made this decision). Rather I just want to prompt reflection of what often seems to be the unqualified assumption that forceful governments results in a bad outcome, and democracy and liberty results in good ones. I certainly agree that assassinating a journalist, dismembering him, and subsequently denying it is unjustified even if it was eliminating a roadblock to social change in Saudi Arabia. But I do want to ask HN: where is that line?
[1] Judging by the responses, this was not an effective way to ask the question I want to ask. A better question is "to what degree does social progress made by foreign leaders offset their moral ills?"
Edit: I realize this was a potentially controversial question to pose, but it's something I've started to reflect on after talking to people that have experienced recent events in the Middle East. A lot of them expressed frustration with the tendency to view foreign policy through a simple, moralistic lens. The result of such a perspective often has negative consequences (e.g. the Iraq war. Hussein carried out atroc...
So was Egypt better under the Muslim Brotherhood than the military junta? The "means" of their overthrow were certainly bad (a military coup), so does that automatically mean it would have been better for Egypt to have continued to be ruled by the Muslim Brotherhood. Is Singapore a morally bad country? We don't know for sure if they would have achieved the same results with a democracy, but in our mental image of "shitty, immoral countires" does Singapore pop into mind?
It's easy to make moralistic claims like this, but to a certain extent we all agree that certain ends to justify certain means. Police shouldn't kill a criminal for stealing an orange. But they probably should kill a criminal if they're holding someone hostage at knifepoint (Purely speaking in terms of the morality of killing people in commission of a crime, I don't know if shooting at a someone holding a hostage is good policing)
The Arab world is in a dangerous place because you can be -dismembered- for your ideas. Not for holding someone hostage at knifepoint. If you allow no room for criticism, you're allowed free reign.
But is something like a military seizing power from a democratic government to prevent a sectarian crisis a bad thing? Where is the inflection point in these sorts of questions?
An example I think is valuable is the People's Republic of China. Of course I'm appalled by people getting disappeared, mass government surveillance, and gamifying totalitarianism through social credit. But in a sense, I can empathize with why a mainland Chinese person could view the PRC and CCP in a positive light. In spite of its evils it has drastically improved the well being of (most) its people - targeted minorities like Uyghurs not included. Crackdowns on dissent seem immoral to me from my western view of the world, but among many Chinese there's a sense that curbing dissent is necessary to prevent social collapse. There's this phrase that goes along the lines of "China is it's own worst enemy". Most of China's most destructive conflicts have been civil wars. The country is understandably skeptical of peaceful transition of power - something inherently necessary for a democracy. Is China capable of adopting a western-style democracy and extensive civil liberties without collapsing? I don't know, but I can see why many (most?) Chinese wouldn't want to gamble the future of their country on such a bet. In a similar vein, I'd like to see the thought process of someone who supports MBS and his allies in spite of this assassination.
I don't see why not. Morsi only had one year but he followed some constitutional processes and made some attempts to moderate his Islamic party. Anything you can accuse Morsi of general el-Sisi has been much worse on.
Again, to reiterate it's worth mentioning that this is a specific perspective, and one that has a good chance of not being representative of the majority.
Take Turkey, for instance. Mustafa Kemal ruled forcibly in many ways, and almost certainly had dissidents killed. He fought in the Turkish war of Independence so he has blood on his hands one way or another. But I'd seriously question the judgement of any who would claim that his rule was bad for Turkey. He drastically improved the country's institutions and brought is social policies more in line with Western ideals. In the coming years the military would repeatedly overthrow legally legitimate governments to keep the country secular. There's an honest discussion to be had over whether or not Turkey would be in a better person if Erdogan had been overthrown.
Of course in a liberal Western democracy, which I assume you live in, doesn't stand to benefit from regimes like that. But the blanket statement along the lines of "dictators bad, democracies good" is not productive, and sometimes feel like willful ignorance of history. This killing is a poor forecast, but time will tell whether history remembers MBS as Saudi Arabia as an Ataturk or a ineffective, bloody ruler (or, much more likely, as just another average Saudi monarch).
The point I'm trying to make is that even dictators/absolute monarchs need to recognize the limits of their power and wield it accordingly. This completely unnecessary exercise of state power has exposed that MBS isn't really the savior of KSA that many had proclaimed: he is a thug, a mob leader who grabbed power from his relatives and initiated token reforms to appease the west while silencing his critics in brutal ways. Even if his "ultimate" intentions are good, his means of achieving them will hinder him from doing that.
For that matter we have the Romans and the church to thank for streets and other infrastructure and most relevant the means to write here (the english language unified through dominance of old), and they didn't swoop over Europe with flowers and treats I can assure you.
It's easy to say the end does not justify the means, when you have been enjoying western luxury all your life gained through (spoils of) war
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Waleed_bin_Talal
Never will I trade a humanitarian crisis for development. What's development for? It is for humans.
Of course, this isn't the situation we're in. There's no certainty that Bin Salman will follow through on his promises; there's no guarantee that it wouldn't have been possible without this killing. Again, the goal here isn't to try and justify any action - assassination of a journalist is barbaric, full stop. As I've spoken to people that have lived under governments often considered immoral (Middle Eastern countries as mentioned earlier, China is another example) I've reflected on how moralistic one should be when viewing the world outside of liberal democracies, and I want to share that reflection with others.
This killing of Jamal was a short-circuit with no positive consequence. It is barbaric, and regression due to extremists in USA, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. I cannot equate a trolly problem to this scenario.
I'm not asking "was assassinating Jamal Khashoggi worth it?"
What I am asking is "If MBS fulfills his promises, do you think history will be kind to him? And should it?"
I was originally thinking of "to what degree does social progress vindicate use of violence". Of course it's better to give women the right to drive and vote and not dismember people. A lot of violence doesn't result in social progress, and lots of social progress is achieved without violence. But if someone makes social progress on one hand and uses force immorally on the other, to what degree does the latter need to outweigh the former to be considered a good person.
Basically, 20 or 30 years from know, do you think Bin Salman will be considered a villain or a hero? Plenty of people that had done unsavory things in the past have become seen as heroes. One easy example is the late Thai King Bhumibol (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhumibol_Adulyadej). I don't know if he ever had anyone killed, but he did give tacit (or more than tacit) nods to the military to conduct their coups.
Ultimately, I have no dog in this fight. I have no relatives or friends in Saudi Arabia and I have no intention of going there myself. But I am interested in looking back on this thread years from know and seeing what the prevailing opinion is then.
I mean, in a twist of macabre irony, many of the activists who led the push for reforms like letting women drive are now in prison. That doesn't sound like a government genuinely interested in reform.
RIP, Jamal Khashoggi.