Asking Questions To Keep from Finding Things Out

As I mentioned on Friday, I posted what I took to be a rather unremarkable reaffirmation of the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats over on the Book of Face about a month ago. What I did not mention was that, to my astonishment, that post (and a replica of it on Twitter generated, without any possible comparison, the biggest response I ever gotten to anything on either of those two sites (13K views on Twitter and 7K views on Facebook). Bazillions of comments. I quickly lost track of all the traffic and even more quickly lost the ability to respond to all the fractalling conversations from all over the globe.

One reason for that was my involvement in this particular conversation, which illustrated a point I have often made in the past.

You see, humorist Robert Benchley once observed that there are two kinds of people in the world: those who divide the world into two kinds of people and those who don’t. Relatedly, I have noticed that there are another two kinds of people in the world: those who ask questions to find things out and those who ask questions to keep from finding things out. This chronicles a conversation with somebody who transparently belonged to the latter group:

Just to refresh your memory, they were writing in response to this image, which I had simply captioned “Inasmuch as you did it to the least of these, you did it to me.”

Reader 1 responded by pretending to ask this:

Reader 1: So…how exactly should Israel destroy Hamas? All serious suggestions gratefully accepted.

Me: I can’t escape the sensation that what you are really asking is, “How can I rationalize the wholesale slaughter of innocent men, women, and children by the thousands and thousands and thousands?” and that you aren’t really asking about how to destroy Hamas without doing that.

Reader 1: I can’t escape the sensation that you can’t answer my question.

Me: Of course I can’t. I have no expertise at all in Israeli-Palestinians relations, military science, economics, sociology or any of the relevant fields necessary to tackle such an enormously complex problem. Why would you turn to me for such information? Ah, but then you weren’t looking for answers. You were looking to defend the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians by means of a Gotcha “question”. Meanwhile, the Catechism teaches what it teaches:

2312 The Church and human reason both assert the permanent validity of the moral law during armed conflict. “The mere fact that war has regrettably broken out does not mean that everything becomes licit between the warring parties.”109

2313 Non-combatants, wounded soldiers, and prisoners must be respected and treated humanely.

Actions deliberately contrary to the law of nations and to its universal principles are crimes, as are the orders that command such actions. Blind obedience does not suffice to excuse those who carry them out. Thus the extermination of a people, nation, or ethnic minority must be condemned as a mortal sin. One is morally bound to resist orders that command genocide.

2314 “Every act of war directed to the indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants is a crime against God and man, which merits firm and unequivocal condemnation.” A danger of modern warfare is that it provides the opportunity to those who possess modern scientific weapons especially atomic, biological, or chemical weapons – to commit such crimes.

Reader 1: And how would you apply these rules in this instance? The poor fellows at the sharp end can’t just throw up their hands. They must act, against an enemy who in the days after October 7 promised to do the same thing to the Jews again and again and again, till they were all dead or exiled. So in the face of that, exactly what would you have Israel do?

Me: Don’t deliberately kill innocent people and don’t waste your life defending the slaughter of innocents.

Reader1: Speaking of the Catechism:

2265 Legitimate defense can be not only a right but a grave duty for one who is responsible for the lives of others. The defense of the common good requires that an unjust aggressor be rendered unable to cause harm. For this reason, those who legitimately hold authority also have the right to use arms to repel aggressors against the civil community entrusted to their responsibility.

Hamas struck first. It has vowed the utter annihilation of Israel. It violated the most recent cease-fire. And of course, Hamas has quite deliberately set up shop in heavily populated areas, actively seeking to maximize civilian casualties. Still, Catholic doctrine leaves no doubt that those responsible for Israeli lives have a grave duty to defend these lives against Hamas. How exactly would you have the Israelis carry out this duty?

At this point in the conversation, Reader 2 asked Reader 1 a question that made Reader 1 tip her hand about the real rhetorical goal of their “question”: 

Reader 2: “The point is that any ‘solution’ to the Hamas problem that involves the commission of war crimes, genocide and the wholesale slaughter of civilians, including children, medical personnel and journalists isn’t a solution. To put it another way- you can’t carpet bomb a densely populated area full of civilians.”

Reader 1: Much as I hate to say it, carpet bombing can actually solve the problem quite decisively, if you’re prepared to do enough of it. It’s all bloody awful and I’m as disgusted by the prospect as you are. But I don’t see much choice.

Me: “Hamas struck first” is not a 007 for war crimes, which is what your line of Gotcha Questioning is trying to establish. I repeat:

2312 The Church and human reason both assert the permanent validity of the moral law during armed conflict. “The mere fact that war has regrettably broken out does not mean that everything becomes licit between the warring parties.”

2313 Non-combatants, wounded soldiers, and prisoners must be respected and treated humanely.

If you were serious, you would simply accept “No war crimes” as a baseline and then ask, not me (who has no expertise in the relevant fields), but somebody with such expertise, “How can Israel fight while avoiding war crimes and not engaging in the wholesale slaughter and wounding of innocents?” Instead, your entire rhetorical strategy is clearly aimed at defending such crimes. You should rethink your approach in light of the Church’s whole teaching and not simply cherrypick a few lines from the Catechism. You establish ius ad bellum by showing that Hamas’ attack on October 7 was just cause for war on Hamas. But you utterly ignore ius in bello by striving to claim that just cause for war means there is just cause for war crimes against innocents.

Reader 1: Nope. You’re engaged in mind reading, only without success. I’ve written in sincere hope that you can provide a worthwhile answer to the exact question you just posed: “How can Israel fight while avoiding war crimes and not engaging in the wholesale slaughter and wounding of innocents?”

I’d love to hear a plausible answer and I can’t think of any. Please go for it.

Me: No. I’ve engaged in word reading. Your gotcha strategy is plainly and obviously intended to suggest that the sole way to defeat Hamas is the indiscriminate slaughter and wounding of civilians. Your clear and obvious goal is to say that if somebody with no expertise who knows nothing about how to fight cannot supply a detailed plan to prevent war crimes, then there *is* no way to achieve the goal and I should shut up. But, of course, the reality is that one can affirm the Church’s teaching about not committing war crimes without having any clear idea of how that goal should be achieved. That is my situation. Your situation, if you are serious about getting your question answered, is to go and talk to somebody with the relevent competence in the relevant fields about how to achieve that goal instead trying to muzzle somebody like me for saying that the goal exists.

Reader 1: I think what you’re feeling is the uncomfortable realization–certainly it’s uncomfortable for me–that there’s no way to get at the murderers of Hamas without going through civilians, precisely because Hamas would have it so. An earlier contributor to the thread has said “you go in with a ground invasion with soldiers who can discriminate between civilians and militants.” Of course, this is a fantasy. House-to-house infantry fighting is famously merciless. It would still be virtually impossible to spare the lives of civilians in the combat zone.

But the excerpt from the Catechism I posted earlier makes it clear that the Israeli government has an affirmative moral obligation to destroy Hamas. It would be immoral to allow this organization to survive and plan further attacks on the citizens of Israel.

And so you see there’s a genuine moral dilemma here. Either an Israeli capitulation or an all-out assault on Gaza forces Israel to do terrible things.

While I share your horror at the sufferings of the Gazans, I’m not prepared to despise the Israelis for the choice they’ve made. Certainly not when my nation has all too often made similar choices to horrible but ultimately good effect. Was it strictly necessary to burn Atlanta? Perhaps not, but it certainly helped secure my liberty. Words can’t express my horror over the firebombing of Tokyo, but actions like that were needed to put an end to the war in the Pacific.

I’d love it if there were some nice, tidy method whereby we could destroy only the bad guys. But that’s not the world we live in.

There are several things notable about the dishonesty of this closing statement.

The first, of course, is the “I’m just being a tough-minded realist” posturing of the last line. As ever, what it showcases is the remarkable consistency of the fact that advocates of grave evil always tend to lie that their commitment to grave evil as an act of courage. Reader 1 wants to tell people who refuse to countenance carpet bombing civilians or committing the wholesale slaughter of innocent children (and remember, half the population of Gaza is children) that they lack the guts to do what is “necessary”.

What that spiritually lazy choice to opt for the slaughter of innocents rather than do the hard work of finding some way to avoid it makes clear is that Reader 1 believes, at the end of the day, that only mortal sin is salvific. It is a deeply blasphemous conviction, but one that countless “tough-minded” advocates of grave evil have made over the ages.

And the commitment to spiritual laziness is evident in the transparently false dichotomy Reader 1 tries to force us into buying: “Either an Israeli capitulation or an all-out assault on Gaza”. No other alternative is so much as considered. And never once does Reader 1 turn to any actual expert who might show them such an alternative. Instead, they keep demanding that a schlub with no expertise supply them with the answers they lie that they seek. That’s because Reader 1’s relentless rhetorical goal is not and never was to ask a question to find out some way to avoid what they they claim “disgusts” them, but to ram through a justification for war crimes and to shout down the teaching of the Church when it got in their way and cherrypick those bits of Church teaching that accessorize a conclusion they were determined to arrive at come hell or high water.

If you believe that, at the end of the day, only mortal sin can save you, not obedience to the absolute minimum the gospel requires–don’t commit mass murder of innocents–then at least have the grace to not scandalize the world by claiming to be a disciple of Christ. Murdering souls by your scandalous lies does not mend your eager defense of the murder of bodies. Look yourself in the eye in the mirror and either repent and return to Christ or say very clearly to the One you are crucifying, “I reject you to your face” and own what you are doing.

And may God help you if you choose the latter path.