Abolishing the nuclear family, and fathers in particular, is also premised on the assumption that power corrupts (and should be decentralized). Both communists (regarding the family) and liberals (regarding the politician) assume that selfish exploitation is the default position for human beings. But the agent-centered ethics of Aristotle and Confucius see selfishness as the exceptional or pathological case, not the norm. Aristotle argues that the selfish man is like a spoiled child.21 Most fathers and mothers are benevolent power centers, not spoiled selfish exploiters. We should not use the exceptions (bad parents) to abolish the rule (parenthood). Since parents are probably the first and most devoted nepotists of all, it seems relevant to my argument to celebrate them as neither corrupt nor intrinsically exploitative. We should not use the abuses of nepotism to damn nepotism per se.22 Even at the governmental level, some autocrats use their concentrated power well and some badly.23 The jury is still out, but it’s relatively safe to say that Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe has practiced nepotism in unjust ways, but Rwanda’s Paul Kagame has a better track record. And historically speaking, Cyrus the Great (585–529 BC) had a relatively decent track record, as did Constantine the Great (c. 272–337 CE).24
Now, the other major reason why Westerners see nepotistic favoritism as corrupt is because they cannot envisage a scenario where the interests or benefits of a superior can coexist with the interests of her subordinates. A good ruler is supposed to be personally disinterested, otherwise she cannot help her subjects properly. This view has colored political theory from Plato’s philosopher kings, through Enlightenment egalitarianism, and down to John Rawls’s theory of fairness. The truly fair person, according to this tradition of disinterest, is the one who acts with a blind eye (or a “veil of ignorance”) toward her own advantage. A ruler, manager, or any policy-making moral agent must not be distracted by the wants and needs of her own family, because such distraction will compromise benefits for the wider population.
My own view is that this is sanctimonious twaddle. Not every beneficent action is a zero-sum game; in fact, many different kinds of gains are compatible with one another. We assume that all such cases are “conflicts of interest,” but frequently they are not. One person’s gain is not automatically a loss for another person. It is entirely possible for a ruler to benefit both his daughter and the wider population by appointing a capable daughter to a position of power. If you’re on the Left, for example, you might recognize that Senator Al Gore Sr. helped both his son, Al Gore, and the country by furthering Al’s political career. If you’re on the Right, you might say the same about George H. Bush and George W. Bush. My point is not to resolve which of these nepotistic events was better for the country, but to illustrate the compatibility between acting for the tribe and acting for the wider population.
A political philosopher who was perceptive enough, and honest enough, to drop the pretensions of disinterest was Machiavelli (1469–1527). The Italian philosopher is often misunderstood and demonized precisely because we assume, yet again, the false dichotomy between ethics and self-interest. Since Machiavelli frequently encourages the ruler to engage in manipulations (e.g., the ruler must be a fox as well as a lion), he is usually misinterpreted to be a self-centered, self-serving tyrant. In fact, even a cursory reading of The Prince reveals a ruler who is utterly devoted to his own people and willing to get into the gutter in order to serve them best. Yes, there are many power machinations recommended in The Prince, but they are for the benefit of the people as much as the prince and kin (e.g., the purpose of plundering foreign territories, he argues, is to create wealth and relieve tax burdens for your own people—not just for the coffers of the rulers). In realpolitik, personal and public advantage are not mutually exclusive.
But enough about princes, kings, and subjects. What about the nepotism down at my office, at my company, or in my trade or profession? Recent reports suggest that almost 90 percent of American businesses are family owned. Nepotism has also risen dramatically as women have filled the workplace—increasing the probability of romantic relationships, marriage, and partner favoritism at work. Researcher Bridgette Kaye Harder says that nepotism is extensive, but it is “one of the least studied and most poorly understood human resource practices in business today.”25
Anxiety about favoritism and the imminent threat of discrimination litigation led American businesses to enact “anti-nepotism policies” in the 1950s. But many of these anti-nepotism policies, aimed at greater equity, actually created new discrimination. When it was discovered that a married couple was working together, the more junior of the two was usually terminated (citing reasons of experience and seniority). This meant that married female employees were disproportionately harmed by anti-nepotism policies, and counter-litigation exploded in the 1980s. Companies generally responded to all this expensive litigation by relaxing their nepotism policies in the 1990s, and our contemporary business climate continues this laissez-faire approach.
In 2003 a series of research studies, together with Adam Bellow’s In Praise of Nepotism, argued that nepotism had real advantages in the business world.26 More kin at work increases the transfer of knowledge and contacts, increases communication generally, and also increases employee satisfaction and commitment. In summary, then, there is good reason—both logical and empirical—for rejecting the assumption that favoritism is tantamount to corruption.
Disentangling Tribalism and Tragedy
In the West, one often finds a facile equation of tribalism and violence. Some versions of liberalism seek to eliminate all tribal tendencies, arguing that tribalism separates rather than unifies us. Violence in the Middle East and Africa, for example, is often chalked up to an inevitable consequence of tribal societies. Adding to this general viewpoint is the common assumption that tribalism is an evolutionary fossil—a form of social organization that helped us on the Pleistocene plains of Africa but lingers now like a vestigial organ. Tribalism, it is often assumed, is the outmoded “appendix” or “wisdom tooth” of the social organism. I agree with the claims of when and why tribalism first evolved, but I do not share the condescension about its contemporary value.
General skepticism about tribalism has become almost dogmatic. It oversimplifies the real causes of violence and social unrest, shedding little light on unique sociohistorical complexities. It also pretends at moral superiority, all the while denying our own tribal affiliations.
Still, there is indeed a bloody catalog of horror stories that seem instigated, or at least fueled, by tribal differences. Mongols, Native Americans, Aztecs, Catholics, Protestants, Crusaders, Amazonian Yanomami, and New Zealand Maori—just to name a few—all seemed fueled by what Freud called the “narcissism of minor differences.” One of the most horrific tribal slaughters in recent memory occurred in Rwanda, between the Tutsi and the Hutu. But was tribalism per se to blame, or was tribalism simply one of the avenues of aggression and exploitation?
I spent time in Rwanda in 2010 and was astounded (as I had been in Cambodia) by the resilience, dignity, and genuine warmth of the people. It is humbling when you get to know people who have suffered so dramatically. It inspires you to overcome your own relatively minor problems and to appreciate the heroism and grace that emerges spontaneously under such pressure. But make no mistake, Rwanda is still a land of nightmares—terrible dreams and memories, haunting almost everyone you encounter. A visit to the Kigali Memorial Centre will give you a few souvenir nightmares of your own.
Fig. 17. The 1994 Rwandan genocide involved Hutu and Tutsi and led to the mass killing of approximately 800,000 people in one hundred days. Skulls are tragically displayed at the Kigali Memorial Centre. Drawing by Stephen Asma.
I became friends with a Rwandan man named John, who had lost most of his family during the genocide. He had gone to study in Uganda in the early 1990s and became trapped there during the complex civil war. Eventually, he was forced to fight in the Ugandan army and saw many horrors of his own. When he returned home after th
e genocide, he found his parents and siblings had been killed. His old rival neighbors were living in his childhood home. With the help of his military connections, he retook his own property and slowly rebuilt a life for himself—eventually marrying and starting a family.
When I asked him, one day, if he was Tutsi or Hutu, he laughed and said, “I cannot tell you that, my friend. It is against the law to reveal my ethnicity to you.” Eventually, I could discern his tribe from other things he told me about his history, but the lesson is that one’s tribal affiliation is not written on the body by obvious physical traits. Why is it now forbidden to broadcast one’s tribe in Rwanda?
Between April and July 1994, an estimated 800,000 Rwandans brutally murdered each other, often cutting each other down with machetes. The UN failed to give its own commander the manpower and approval to mitigate the disaster, and the wider world stood by while the slaughter took place. Majority Hutu were attacking minority Tutsi—trying to wipe them off the earth. The violence targeted Tutsi, but Hutu killed many other Hutu as well. American pundits chalked up the disaster to inevitable tribal warfare.
There were indeed old tensions between the tribes. Minority Tutsi had ruled over majority Hutu for centuries before German and then Belgian colonialism. During the colonial period (1890s–1950s), Tutsi remained in power, both facilitating and benefiting from colonial interests. As independence unfolded, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Hutu power grew and eventually replaced the traditional Tutsi monarchy with a Hutu republic—which straightaway began persecuting Tutsi.
In the 1970s Hutu general Juvénal Habyarimana seized power and increased the campaign of abuse and degradation toward the Tutsi, fearmongering the majority into paranoia about Tutsi plans to enslave Hutu. None of this typical strongman political manipulation would have been possible if the Belgians had not previously dramatized and exacerbated tribal differences—forcing everyone to carry separate tribal ID cards.
Divide-and-conquer techniques proved so effective during colonial rule, that Habyarimana and his allies continued the practice, introducing mass-media publications and radio broadcasts that demonized Tutsi as “cockroaches.”27 In the early 1990s, the government began stockpiling weapons and training killing militias to wipe out the “scheming” Tutsi “threat” walking among them. Neighbors eyed neighbors suspiciously, and Hutu listened to unfounded radio conspiracy theories about Tutsi torturing and killing the Hutu president of Burundi. Then, when distrust was at a fever pitch, Habyarimana’s plane was mysteriously shot down in April 1994, and violence exploded around the country—setting off a hundred days of horrifying genocidal bloodshed. When I asked my friend John how neighbors could so viciously kill neighbors, often raping and torturing them, he said, “The people were brainwashed. The people could not see the humanity in their enemies—they saw them as monsters or demons.”28
Tribal tension is not the only explanation for the genocide. When I stayed at the Sabyinyo Silverback Lodge, I had dinner with the manager Bernard De Wetter, whose life in the Rwanda jungles coils all the way back to his days as a researcher in Dian Fossey’s Karisoke Research Center. “The underlying problem in Rwanda is overpopulation,” Bernard explained. “I doubt that you’ll ever a see a genocide in Botswana, for example, where there is plenty of space. You hate your neighbor? Fine, no problem—just move. There’s plenty of land and resources in Botswana. But not in Rwanda.” Bernard added ominously, “This may become a problem again soon, because 70 percent of Rwanda is under twenty-five years old and trying to make their way in a low-resource situation.”
Anthropologist Jared Diamond’s Malthusian interpretation of the Rwandan genocide takes its start from the fact that population growth increased more rapidly than food production in the post-colonial era.29 From the 1960s to the late 1980s, populations spiked, as did short-term agricultural practices that ultimately eroded topsoil and compromised irrigation. This led to famines in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Larger farms had off-farm incomes that allowed them to buy up smaller farms, thereby radically increasing the divide between the haves and the have-nots. All this led to a social context of hunger, suspicion, and desperation—perfect chaos into which old ethnic differences could be introduced as simplistic subterfuges for more complex economic ecological problems. When the genocide broke out in 1994, many killings failed to fit into the ethnic interpretation of the conflict but did conform to the economic interpretation. Professor Diamond quotes sociologists C. Andre and J. Platteau as saying, “The 1994 events provided a unique opportunity to settle scores, or to reshuffle land properties, even among Hutu villagers… . It is not rare, even today, to hear Rwandans argue that a war is necessary to wipe out an excess of population and bring numbers into line with the available resources.”30
My goal in introducing this Malthusian interpretation is not to suggest some form of Darwinian determinism (i.e., populations that outstrip their resources must engage in warfare). The Rwandan genocide is a multi-caused phenomenon, with many intersecting variables. But I introduce this ecological interpretation to complicate and throw skepticism on the purely ethnic interpretation of the violence. Economics and ecology played a bigger role than tribalism in the conditions that led up to the genocide. Moreover, tribal hostility itself was exacerbated by colonial powers that sought to destabilize the region for easier exploitation of Rwandan resources.
In taking on this “worst-case scenario” of Rwandan genocide, I’m arguing two things. One, the tribal distinctions between the Hutu and Tutsi were not destined to result in genocidal violence. History shows that the ethnic tribalism was not overly pugilistic until colonial powers intensified hostilities and mass media invented hysteria. Why bother making this argument? Because my own view is that human distinctions of “us and them” are probably inevitable, but hostility is not. Trying to get rid of the latter by eliminating the former is a common liberal mistake. I share the desire to eliminate intergroup hostility, but I don’t think it will come from a denial or rejection of our group biases. We should remember, after all, that egalitarianism (i.e., communism and democracy) did far more bloodletting in the twentieth century than tribalism.
Second, by disentangling tribalism and tragedy, I’m making room for a middle way—one that preserves favoritism and group bias, but diminishes intergroup violence and hostility. One of the main reasons why ethnic cleansing takes on such ferocity in cases like Rwanda, Bosnia, or even Hitler’s Germany is because tribal differences (ethnic or cultural) become spiritualized or divinized. Metaphysics sneaks into the picture and renders minor differences into melodramatic schisms. You’re not one of us, the ideology proclaims, and the entire cosmos has decreed it!
My view is that metaphysical tribalism is dangerous nonsense. There is a big difference between saying, “I was accidentally born into this quirky family, so they’re my inner tribe” and “My Brahmin descendants flowed from the sacrificed head of the cosmic being Purusha, so Brahmins are my tribe.” The social behaviors, and forms of favoritism, that flow from these two views are quite different. Racial forms of tribalism are also dangerous, but thankfully not inevitable.31
Group solidarity is highly malleable. Humans may come with some preset or default ingroup loyalties (i.e., the nuclear family), but they can rebrand their own group identities with relative ease. This malleability, especially strong in cosmopolitan cultures, demonstrates the artificial rigidity of metaphysical and racial forms of tribalism. So, part of my middle-way position is to call for better tribes, not the inflexible, metaphysical kind. Since I don’t think tribes inevitably end in tragedy, I need some criteria for distinguishing good ones from bad ones. One such criterion is ready to hand: whenever tribes assign themselves supernatural merit, we’re probably in for big trouble.
It’s important to close this section by drawing together several strands of international practices and attitudes to offer another case of “ethical favoritism.” Since most Western philosophers see “ethical favoritism” as an oxymoron, I have bee
n at pains throughout this book to point out cases to the contrary, like family loyalty, beneficent nepotism, or friendship. Now I want to briefly describe a common practice in developing continents like Asia and Africa. It is the practice of “sponsorship” or “patronage.”
When my Rwandan friend John and I traveled near his home village, he stopped the car at the sight of a small elderly man who was sitting by the side of the road. John leaped out of the car, and the two greeted each other warmly and spoke for a while before John returned and explained that this was his pygmy friend Habimana. John was Habimana’s sponsor, he explained. John had encountered him a few years ago—he discovered the pygmy broke, hungry, and begging to support himself and his daughter. Over time he and old Habimana became friends, and John—a man of very little means himself—took on the role of sponsor.
“It is customary,” John explained, “for us to sponsor a kinsmen or a friend, if they are in need and we have a little extra to give. When I returned home to find my family dead and my house invaded by adversaries, my sponsor—an army general, who assisted me in Uganda—helped me to get back on my feet. Now that I am surviving okay, I have become Habimana’s sponsor. I told the store owner that I am Habimana’s sponsor, and if he comes into the store for food or supplies, the owner can just keep a record of his purchases and I will pay when I come back from my work travels. My little bit of generosity,” John said proudly, “has even helped his daughter go to school.”
This is just a small, but illustrative, example of a philanthropy model that I have seen in many developing countries. Unlike Western philanthropy toward strangers (usually aimed at social or environmental “causes”), some Africans and Asians engage in favoritism philanthropy. In Asia I have seen many cases of prosperous or middle-class men and women acting as sponsors or mentors to favorite protégés—smoothing their way in life, with proper introductions, money, skills education, sometimes housing, and general aid.
Against Fairness Page 13
