Thursday 15 October 2020
Tuesday 13 October 2020
A DEFENSE OF ABORTION. JUDITH JARVIS THOMSON
Most opposition to abortion relies on the premise that the fetus is a human being, a person, from the moment of conception. The premise is argued for, but, as I think, not well. Take, for example, the most common argument. We are asked to notice that the development of a human being from conception through birth into childhood is continuous; then it is said that to draw a line, to choose a point in this development and say "before this point the thing is not a person, after this point it is a person" is to make an arbitrary choice, a choice for which in the nature of things no good reason can be given. It is concluded that the fetus is. or anyway that we had better say it is, a person from the moment of conception. But this conclusion does not follow. Similar things might be said about the development of an acorn into an oak trees, and it does not follow that acorns are oak trees, or that we had better say they are. Arguments of this form are sometimes called "slippery slope arguments"--the phrase is perhaps self-explanatory--and it is dismaying that opponents of abortion rely on them so heavily and uncritically.
I am inclined to agree, however, that the prospects for "drawing a line" in the development of the fetus look dim. I am inclined to think also that we shall probably have to agree that the fetus has already become a human person well before birth. Indeed, it comes as a surprise when one first learns how early in its life it begins to acquire human characteristics. By the tenth week, for example, it already has a face, arms and less, fingers and toes; it has internal organs, and brain activity is detectable. On the other hand, I think that the premise is false, that the fetus is not a person from the moment of conception. A newly fertilized ovum, a newly implanted clump of cells, is no more a person than an acorn is an oak tree. But I shall not discuss any of this. For it seems to me to be of great interest to ask what happens if, for the sake of argument, we allow the premise. How, precisely, are we supposed to get from there to the conclusion that abortion is morally impermissible? Opponents of abortion commonly spend most of their time establishing that the fetus is a person, and hardly anytime explaining the step from there to the impermissibility of abortion. Perhaps they think the step too simple and obvious to require much comment. Or perhaps instead they are simply being economical in argument. Many of those who defend abortion rely on the premise that the fetus is not a person, but only a bit of tissue that will become a person at birth; and why pay out more arguments than you have to? Whatever the explanation, I suggest that the step they take is neither easy nor obvious, that it calls for closer examination than it is commonly given, and that when we do give it this closer examination we shall feel inclined to reject it.
I propose, then, that we grant that the fetus is a person from the moment of conception. How does the argument go from here? Something like this, I take it. Every person has a right to life. So the fetus has a right to life. No doubt the mother has a right to decide what shall happen in and to her body; everyone would grant that. But surely a person's right to life is stronger and more stringent than the mother's right to decide what happens in and to her body, and so outweighs it. So the fetus may not be killed; an abortion may not be performed.
It sounds plausible. But now let me ask you to imagine this. You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinist's circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. The director of the hospital now tells you, "Look, we're sorry the Society of Music Lovers did this to you--we would never have permitted it if we had known. But still, they did it, and the violinist is now plugged into you. To unplug you would be to kill him. But never mind, it's only for nine months. By then he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you." Is it morally incumbent on you to accede to this situation? No doubt it would be very nice of you if you did, a great kindness. But do you have to accede to it? What if it were not nine months, but nine years? Or longer still? What if the director of the hospital says. "Tough luck. I agree. but now you've got to stay in bed, with the violinist plugged into you, for the rest of your life. Because remember this. All persons have a right to life, and violinists are persons. Granted you have a right to decide what happens in and to your body, but a person's right to life outweighs your right to decide what happens in and to your body. So you cannot ever be unplugged from him." I imagine you would regard this as outrageous, which suggests that something really is wrong with that plausible-sounding argument I mentioned a moment ago.
In this case, of course, you were kidnapped, you didn't volunteer for the operation that plugged the violinist into your kidneys. Can those who oppose abortion on the ground I mentioned make an exception for a pregnancy due to rape? Certainly. They can say that persons have a right to life only if they didn't come into existence because of rape; or they can say that all persons have a right to life, but that some have less of a right to life than others, in particular, that those who came into existence because of rape have less. But these statements have a rather unpleasant sound. Surely the question of whether you have a right to life at all, or how much of it you have, shouldn't turn on the question of whether or not you are a product of a rape. And in fact the people who oppose abortion on the ground I mentioned do not make this distinction, and hence do not make an exception in case of rape.
Nor do they make an exception for a case in which the mother has to spend the nine months of her pregnancy in bed. They would agree that would be a great pity, and hard on the mother; but all the same, all persons have a right to life, the fetus is a person, and so on. I suspect, in fact, that they would not make an exception for a case in which, miraculously enough, the pregnancy went on for nine years, or even the rest of the mother's life.
Some won't even make an exception for a case in which continuation of the pregnancy is likely to shorten the mother's life, they regard abortion as impermissible even to save the mother's life. Such cases are nowadays very rare, and many opponents of abortion do not accept this extreme view. All the same, it is a good place to begin: a number of points of interest come out in respect to it.
1.
Let us call the view that abortion is impermissible even to save the mother's life "the extreme view." I want to suggest first that it does not issue from the argument I mentioned earlier without the addition of some fairly powerful premises. Suppose a woman has become pregnant, and now learns that she has a cardiac condition such that she will die if she carries the baby to term. What may be done for her? The fetus, being to life, but as the mother is a person too, so has she a right to life. Presumably they have an equal right to life. How is it supposed to come out that an abortion may not be performed? If mother and child have an equal right to life, shouldn't we perhaps flip a coin? Or should we add to the mother's right to life her right to decide what happens in and to her body, which everybody seems to be ready to grant--the sum of her rights now outweighing the fetus's right to life?
The most familiar argument here is the following. We are told that performing the abortion would he directly killings the child, whereas doing nothing would not be killing the mother, but only letting her die. Moreover, in killing the child, one would be killing an innocent person, for the child has committed no crime, and is not aiming at his mother's death. And then there are a variety of ways in which this might be continued. (1) But as directly killing an innocent person is always and absolutely impermissible, an abortion may not be performed. Or, (2) as directly killing an innocent person is murder, and murder is always and absolutely impermissible, an abortion may not be performed. Or, (3) as one's duty to refrain from directly killing an innocent person is more stringent than one's duty to keep a person from dying, an abortion may not be performed. Or, (4) if one's only options are directly killing an innocent person or letting a person die, one must prefer letting the person die, and thus an abortion may not be performed.
Some people seem to have thought that these are not further premises which must be added if the conclusion is to be reached, but that they follow from the very fact that an innocent person has a right to life. But this seems to me to be a mistake, and perhaps the simplest way to show this is to bring out that while we must certainly grant that innocent persons have a right to life, the theses in (1) through (4) are all false. Take (2), for example. If directly killing an innocent person is murder, and thus is impermissible, then the mother's directly killing the innocent person inside her is murder, and thus is impermissible. But it cannot seriously be thought to be murder if the mother performs an abortion on herself to save her life. It cannot seriously be said that she must refrain, that she must sit passively by and wait for her death. Let us look again at the case of you and the violinist There you are, in bed with the violinist, and the director of the hospital says to you, "It's all most distressing, and I deeply sympathize, but you see this is putting an additional strain on your kidneys, and you'll be dead within the month. But you have to stay where you are all the same. because unplugging you would be directly killing an innocent violinist, and that's murder, and that's impermissible." If anything in the world is true, it is that you do not commit murder, you do not do what is impermissible, if you reach around to your back and unplug yourself from that violinist to save your life.
The main focus of attention in writings on abortion has been on what a third party may or may not do in answer to a request from a woman for an abortion. This is in a way understandable. Things being as they are, there isn't much a woman can safely do to abort herself. So the question asked is what a third party may do, and what the mother may do, if it is mentioned at all, if deduced, almost as an afterthought, from what it is concluded that third parties may do. But it seems to me that to treat the matter in this way is to refuse to grant to the mother that very status of person which is so firmly insisted on for the fetus. For we cannot simply read off what a person may do from what a third party may do. Suppose you filed yourself trapped in a tiny house with a growing child. I mean a very tiny house, and a rapidly growing child--you are already up against the wall of the house and in a few minutes you'll be crushed to death. The child on the other hand won't be crushed to death; if nothing is done to stop him from growing he'll be hurt, but in the end he'll simply burst open the house and walk out a free man. Now I could well understand it if a bystander were to say. "There's nothing we can do for you. We cannot choose between your life and his, we cannot be the ones to decide who is to live, we cannot intervene." But it cannot be concluded that you too can do nothing, that you cannot attack it to save your life. However innocent the child may be, you do not have to wait passively while it crushes you to death Perhaps a pregnant woman is vaguely felt to have the status of house, to which we don't allow the right of self-defense. But if the woman houses the child, it should be remembered that she is a person who houses it.
I should perhaps stop to say explicitly that I am not claiming that people have a right to do anything whatever to save their lives. I think, rather, that there are drastic limits to the right of self-defense. If someone threatens you with death unless you torture someone else to death, I think you have not the right, even to save your life, to do so. But the case under consideration here is very different. In our case there are only two people involved, one whose life is threatened, and one who threatens it. Both are innocent: the one who is threatened is not threatened because of any fault, the one who threatens does not threaten because of any fault. For this reason we may feel that we bystanders cannot interfere. But the person threatened can.
In sum, a woman surely can defend her life against the threat to it posed by the unborn child, even if doing so involves its death. And this shows not merely that the theses in (1) through (4) are false; it shows also that the extreme view of abortion is false, and so we need not canvass any other possible ways of arriving at it from the argument I mentioned at the outset.
2.
The extreme view could of course be weakened to say that while abortion is permissible to save the mother's life, it may not be performed by a third party, but only by the mother herself. But this cannot be right either. For what we have to keep in mind is that the mother and the unborn child are not like two tenants in a small house which has, by an unfortunate mistake, been rented to both: the mother owns the house. The fact that she does adds to the offensiveness of deducing that the mother can do nothing from the supposition that third parties can do nothing. But it does more than this: it casts a bright light on the supposition that third parties can do nothing. Certainly it lets us see that a third party who says "I cannot choose between you" is fooling himself if he thinks this is impartiality. If Jones has found and fastened on a certain coat, which he needs to keep him from freezing, but which Smith also needs to keep him from freezing, then it is not impartiality that says "I cannot choose between you" when Smith owns the coat. Women have said again and again "This body is my body!" and they have reason to feel angry, reason to feel that it has been like shouting into the wind. Smith, after all, is hardly likely to bless us if we say to him, "Of course it's your coat, anybody would grant that it is. But no one may choose between you and Jones who is to have it."
We should really ask what it is that says "no one may choose" in the face of the fact that the body that houses the child is the mother's body. It may be simply a failure to appreciate this fact. But it may be something more interesting, namely the sense that one has a right to refuse to lay hands on people, even where it would be just and fair to do so, even where justice seems to require that somebody do so. Thus justice might call for somebody to get Smith's coat back from Jones, and yet you have a right to refuse to be the one to lay hands on Jones, a right to refuse to do physical violence to him. This, I think, must be granted. But then what should be said is not "no one may choose," but only "I cannot choose," and indeed not even this, but "I will not act," leaving it open that somebody else can or should, and in particular that anyone in a position of authority, with the job of securing people's rights, both can and should. So this is no difficulty. I have not been arguing that any given third party must accede to the mother's request that he perform an abortion to save her life, but only that he may.
I suppose that in some views of human life the mother's body is only on loan to her, the loan not being one which gives her any prior claim to it. One who held this view might well think it impartiality to say "I cannot choose." But I shall simply ignore this possibility. My own view is that if a human being has any just, prior claim to anything at all, he has a just, prior claim to his own body. And perhaps this needn't be argued for here anyway, since, as I mentioned, the arguments against abortion we are looking at do grant that the woman has a right to decide what happens in and to her body. But although they do grant it, I have tried to show that they do not take seriously what is done in granting it. I suggest the same thing will reappear even more clearly when we turn away from cases in which the mother's life is at stake, and attend, as I propose we now do, to the vastly more common cases in which a woman wants an abortion for some less weighty reason than preserving her own life.
3.
Where the mother s life is not at stake, the argument I mentioned at the outset seems to have a much stronger pull. "Everyone has a right to life, so the unborn person has a right to life." And isn't the child's right to life weightier than anything other than the mother's own right to life, which she might put forward as ground for an abortion?
This argument treats the right to life as if it were unproblematic. It is not, and this seems to me to be precisely the source of the mistake.
For we should now, at long last, ask what it comes to, to have a right to life. In some views having a right to life includes having a right to be given at least the bare minimum one needs for continued life. But suppose that what in fact IS the bare minimum a man needs for continued life is something he has no right at all to be given? If I am sick unto death, and the only thing that will save my life is the touch of Henry Fonda's cool hand on my fevered brow. then all the same, I have no right to be given the touch of Henry Fonda's cool hand on my fevered brow. It would be frightfully nice of him to fly in from the West Coast to provide it. It would be less nice, though no doubt well meant, if my friends flew out to the West coast and brought Henry Fonda back with them. But I have no right at all against anybody that he should do this for me. Or again, to return to the story I told earlier, the fact that for continued life the violinist needs the continued use of your kidneys does not establish that he has a right to be given the continued use of your kidneys. He certainly has no right against you that you should give him continued use of your kidneys. For nobody has any right to use your kidneys unless you give him this right--if you do allow him to go on using your kidneys, this is a kindness on your part, and not something he can claim from you as his due. Nor has he any right against anybody else that they should give him continued use of your kidneys. Certainly he had no right against the Society of Music Lovers that they should plug him into you in the first place. And if you now start to unplug yourself, having learned that you will otherwise have to spend nine years in bed with him, there is nobody in the world who must try to prevent you, in order to see to it that he is given some thing he has a right to be given.
Some people are rather stricter about the right to life. In their view, it does not include the right to be given anything, but amounts to, and only to, the right not to be killed by anybody. But here a related difficulty arises. If everybody is to refrain from killing that violinist, then everybody must refrain from doing a great many different sorts of things. Everybody must refrain from slitting his throat, everybody must refrain from shooting him--and everybody must refrain from unplugging you from him. But does he have a right against everybody that they shall refrain from unplugging you frolic him? To refrain from doing this is to allow him to continue to use your kidneys. It could be argued that he has a right against us that we should allow him to continue to use your kidneys. That is, while he had no right against us that we should give him the use of your kidneys, it might be argued that he anyway has a right against us that we shall not now intervene and deprive him Of the use of your kidneys. I shall come back to third-party interventions later. But certainly the violinist has no right against you that you shall allow him to continue to use your kidneys. As I said, if you do allow him to use them, it is a kindness on your part, and not something you owe him.
The difficulty I point to here is not peculiar to the right of life. It reappears in connection with all the other natural rights, and it is something which an adequate account of rights must deal with. For present purposes it is enough just to draw attention to it. But I would stress that I am not arguing that people do not have a right to life--quite to the contrary, it seems to me that the primary control we must place on the acceptability of an account of rights is that it should turn out in that account to be a truth that all persons have a right to life. I am arguing only that having a right to life does not guarantee having either a right to be given the use of or a right to be allowed continued use of another person s body--even if one needs it for life itself. So the right to life will not serve the opponents of abortion in the very simple and clear way in which they seem to have thought it would.
4.
There is another way to bring out the difficulty. In the most ordinary sort of case, to deprive someone of what he has a right to is to treat him unjustly. Suppose a boy and his small brother are jointly given a box of chocolates for Christmas. If the older boy takes the box and refuses to give his brother any of the chocolates, he is unjust to him, for the brother has been given a right to half of them. But suppose that, having learned that otherwise it means nine years in bed with that violinist, you unplug yourself from him. You surely are not being unjust to him, for you gave him no right to use your kidneys, and no one else can have given him any such right. But we have to notice that in unplugging yourself, you are killing him; and violinists, like everybody else, have a right to life, and thus in the view we were considering just now, the right not to be killed. So here you do what he supposedly has a right you shall not do, but you do not act unjustly to him in doing it.
The emendation which may be made at this point is this: the right to life consists not in the right not to be killed, but rather in the right not to be killed unjustly. This runs a risk of circularity, but never mind: it would enable us to square the fact that the violinist has a right to life with the fact that you do not act unjustly toward him in unplugging yourself, thereby killing him. For if you do not kill him unjustly, you do not violate his right to life, and so it is no wonder you do him no injustice.
But if this emendation is accepted, the gap in the argument against abortion stares us plainly in the face: it is by no means enough to show that the fetus is a person, and to remind us that all persons have a right to life--we need to be shown also that killing the fetus violates its right to life, i.e., that abortion is unjust killing. And is it?
I suppose we may take it as a datum that in a case of pregnancy due to rape the mother has not given the unborn person a right to the use of her body for food and shelter. Indeed, in what pregnancy could it be supposed that the mother has given the unborn person such a right? It is not as if there are unborn persons drifting about the world, to whom a woman who wants a child says I invite you in."
But it might be argued that there are other ways one can have acquired a right to the use of another person's body than by having been invited to use it by that person. Suppose a woman voluntarily indulges in intercourse, knowing of the chance it will issue in pregnancy, and then she does become pregnant; is she not in part responsible for the presence, in fact the very existence, of the unborn person inside? No doubt she did not invite it in. But doesn't her partial responsibility for its being there itself give it a right to the use of her body? If so, then her aborting it would be more like the boys taking away the chocolates, and less like your unplugging yourself from the violinist--doing so would be depriving it of what it does have a right to, and thus would be doing it an injustice.
And then, too, it might be asked whether or not she can kill it even to save her own life: If she voluntarily called it into existence, how can she now kill it, even in self-defense?
The first thing to be said about this is that it is something new. Opponents of abortion have been so concerned to make out the independence of the fetus, in order to establish that it has a right to life, just as its mother does, that they have tended to overlook the possible support they might gain from making out that the fetus is dependent on the mother, in order to establish that she has a special kind of responsibility for it, a responsibility that gives it rights against her which are not possessed by any independent person--such as an ailing violinist who is a stranger to her.
On the other hand, this argument would give the unborn person a right to its mother's body only if her pregnancy resulted from a voluntary act, undertaken in full knowledge of the chance a pregnancy might result from it. It would leave out entirely the unborn person whose existence is due to rape. Pending the availability of some further argument, then, we would be left with the conclusion that unborn persons whose existence is due to rape have no right to the use of their mothers' bodies, and thus that aborting them is not depriving them of anything they have ~ right to and hence is not unjust killing.
And we should also notice that it is not at all plain that this argument really does go even as far as it purports to. For there are cases and cases, and the details make a difference. If the room is stuffy, and I therefore open a window to air it, and a burglar climbs in, it would be absurd to say, "Ah, now he can stay, she's given him a right to the use of her house--for she is partially responsible for his presence there, having voluntarily done what enabled him to get in, in full knowledge that there are such things as burglars, and that burglars burgle.'' It would be still more absurd to say this if I had had bars installed outside my windows, precisely to prevent burglars from getting in, and a burglar got in only because of a defect in the bars. It remains equally absurd if we imagine it is not a burglar who climbs in, but an innocent person who blunders or falls in. Again, suppose it were like this: people-seeds drift about in the air like pollen, and if you open your windows, one may drift in and take root in your carpets or upholstery. You don't want children, so you fix up your windows with fine mesh screens, the very best you can buy. As can happen, however, and on very, very rare occasions does happen, one of the screens is defective, and a seed drifts in and takes root. Does the person-plant who now develops have a right to the use of your house? Surely not--despite the fact that you voluntarily opened your windows, you knowingly kept carpets and upholstered furniture, and you knew that screens were sometimes defective. Someone may argue that you are responsible for its rooting, that it does have a right to your house, because after all you could have lived out your life with bare floors and furniture, or with sealed windows and doors. But this won't do--for by the same token anyone can avoid a pregnancy due to rape by having a hysterectomy, or anyway by never leaving home without a (reliable!) army.
It seems to me that the argument we are looking at can establish at most that there are some cases in which the unborn person has a right to the use of its mother's body, and therefore some cases in which abortion is unjust killing. There is room for much discussion and argument as to precisely which, if any. But I think we should sidestep this issue and leave it open, for at any rate the argument certainly does not establish that all abortion is unjust killing.
5.
There is room for yet another argument here, however. We surely must all grant that there may be cases in which it would be morally indecent to detach a person from your body at the cost of his life. Suppose you learn that what the violinist needs is not nine years of your life, but only one hour: all you need do to save his life is to spend one hour in that bed with him. Suppose also that letting him use your kidneys for that one hour would not affect your health in the slightest. Admittedly you were kidnapped. Admittedly you did not give anyone permission to plug him into you. Nevertheless it seems to me plain you ought to allow him to use your kidneys for that hour--it would be indecent to refuse.
Again, suppose pregnancy lasted only an hour, and constituted no threat to life or health. And suppose that a woman becomes pregnant as a result of rape. Admittedly she did not voluntarily do anything to bring about the existence of a child. Admittedly she did nothing at all which would give the unborn person a right to the use of her body. All the same it might well be said, as in the newly amended violinist story, that she ought to allow it to remain for that hour--that it would be indecent of her to refuse.
Now some people are inclined to use the term "right" in such a way that it follows from the fact that you ought to allow a person to use your body for the hour he needs, that he has a right to use your body for the hour he needs, even though he has not been given that right by any person or act. They may say that it follows also that if you refuse, you act unjustly toward him. This use of the term is perhaps so common that it cannot be called wrong; nevertheless it seems to me to be an unfortunate loosening of what we would do better to keep a tight rein on. Suppose that box of chocolates I mentioned earlier had not been given to both boys jointly, but was given only to the older boy. There he sits stolidly eating his way through the box. his small brother watching enviously. Here we are likely to say, "You ought not to be so mean. You ought to give your brother some of those chocolates." My own view is that it just does not follow from the truth of this that the brother has any right to any of the chocolates. If the boy refuses to give his brother any he is greedy stingy. callous--but not unjust. I suppose that the people I have in mind will say it does follow that the brother has a right to some of the chocolates, and thus that the boy does act unjustly if he refuses to give his brother any. But the effect of saying, this is to obscure what we should keep distinct, namely the difference between the boy's refusal in this case and the boy's refusal in the earlier case, in which the box was given to both boys jointly, and in which the small brother thus had what was from any point of view clear title to half.
A further objection to so using the term "right" that from the fact that A ought to do a thing for B it follows that R has a right against A that A do it for him, is that it is going to make the question of whether or not a man has a right to a thing turn on how easy it is to provide him with it; and this seems not merely unfortunate, but morally unacceptable. Take the case of Henry Fonda again. I said earlier that I had no right to the touch of his cool hand on my fevered brow even though I needed it to save my life. I said it would be frightfully nice of him to fly in from the West Coast to provide me with it, but that I had no right against him that he should do so. But suppose he isn't on the West Coast. Suppose he has only to walk across the room, place a hand briefly on my brow--and lo, my life is saved. Then surely he ought to do it-it would be indecent to refuse. Is it to be said, "Ah, well, it follows that in this case she has a right to the touch of his hand on her brow, and so it would be an injustice in him to refuse"? So that I have a right to it when it is easy for him to provide it, though no right when it's hard? It's rather a shocking idea that anyone's rights should fade away and disappear as it gets harder and harder to accord them to him.
So my own view is that even though you ought to let the violinist use your kidneys for the one hour he needs, we should not conclude that he has a right to do so--we should say that if you refuse, you are, like the boy who owns all the chocolates and will give none away, self-centered and callous, indecent in fact, but not unjust. And similarly, that even supposing a case in which a woman pregnant due to rape ought to allow the unborn person to use her body for the hour he needs, we should not conclude that he has a right to do so; we should say that she is self-centered, callous, indecent, but not unjust, if she refuses. The complaints are no less grave; they are just different. However, there is no need to insist on this point. If anyone does wish to deduce "he has a right" from "you ought," then all the same he must surely grant that there are cases in which it is not morally required of you that you allow that violinist to use your kidneys, and in which he does not have a right to use them, and in which you do not do him an injustice if you refuse. And so also for mother and unborn child. Except in such cases as the unborn person has a right to demand it--and we were leaving open the possibility that there may be such cases--nobody is morally required to make large sacrifices, of health, of all other interests and concerns, of all other duties and commitments, for nine years, or even for nine months, in order to keep another person alive.
6.
We have in fact to distinguish between two kinds of Samaritan: the Good Samaritan and what we might call the Minimally Decent Samaritan. The story of the Good Samaritan, you will remember, goes like this:
A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.
And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.
And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side.
But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was, and when he saw him he had compassion on him.
And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him.
And on the morrow, when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, "Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee." (Luke 10:30-35)
The Good Samaritan went out of his way, at some cost to himself, to help one in need of it. We are not told what the options were, that is, whether or not the priest and the Levite could have helped by doing less than the Good Samaritan did, but assuming they could have, then the fact they did nothing at all shows they were not even Minimally Decent Samaritans, not because they were not Samaritans, but because they were not even minimally decent.
These things are a matter of degree, of course, but there is a difference, and it comes out perhaps most clearly in the story of Kitty Genovese, who, as you will remember, was murdered while thirty-eight people watched or listened, and did nothing at all to help her. A Good Samaritan would have rushed out to give direct assistance against the murderer. Or perhaps we had better allow that it would have been a Splendid Samaritan who did this, on the ground that it would have involved a risk of death for himself. But the thirty-eight not only did not do this, they did not even trouble to pick up a phone to call the police. Minimally Decent Samaritanism would call for doing at least that, and their not having done it was monstrous.
After telling the story of the Good Samaritan, Jesus said, "Go, and do thou likewise." Perhaps he meant that we are morally required to act as the Good Samaritan did. Perhaps he was urging people to do more than is morally required of them. At all events it seems plain that it was not morally required of any of the thirty-eight that he rush out to give direct assistance at the risk of his own life, and that it is not morally required of anyone that he give long stretches of his life--nine years or nine months--to sustaining the life of a person who has no special right (we were leaving open the possibility of this) to demand it.
Indeed, with one rather striking class of exceptions, no one in any country in the world is legally required to do anywhere near as much as this for anyone else. The class of exceptions is obvious. My main concern here is not the state of the law in respect to abortion, but it is worth drawing attention to the fact that in no state in this country is any man compelled by law to be even a Minimally Recent Samaritan to any person; there is no law under which charges could be brought against the thirty eight who stood by while Kitty Genovese died. By contrast, in most states in this country women are compelled by law to be not merely Minimally Decent Samaritans, but Good Samaritans to unborn persons inside them. This doesn't by itself settle anything one way or the other, because it may well be argued that there should be laws in this country as there are in many European countries--compelling at least Minimally Decent Samaritanism. But it does show that there is a gross injustice in the existing state of the law. And it shows also that the groups currently working against liberalization of abortion laws, in fact working toward having it declared unconstitutional for a state to permit abortion, had better start working for the adoption of Good Samaritan laws generally, or earn the charge that they are acting in bad faith.
I should think, myself, that Minimally Decent Samaritan laws would be one thing, Good Samaritan laws quite another, and in fact highly improper. But we are not here concerned with the law. What we should ask is not whether anybody should be compelled by law to be a Good Samaritan, but whether we must accede to a situation in which somebody is being compelled--by nature, perhaps--to be a Good Samaritan. We have, in other words, to look now at third-party interventions. I have been arguing that no person is morally required to make large sacrifices to sustain the life of another who has no right to demand them, and this even where the sacrifices do not include life itself; we are not morally required to be Good Samaritans or anyway Very Good Samaritans to one another. But what if a man cannot extricate himself from such a situation? What if he appeals to us to extricate him? It seems to me plain that there are cases in which we can, cases in which a Good Samaritan would extricate him. There you are, you were kidnapped, and nine years in bed with that violinist lie ahead of you. You have your own life to lead. You are sorry, but you simply cannot see giving up so much of your life to the sustaining of his. You cannot extricate yourself, and ask us to do so. I should have thought that--in light of his having no right to the use of your body--it was obvious that we do not have to accede to your being forced to give up so much. We can do what you ask. There is no injustice to the violinist in our doing so.
7.
Following the lead of the opponents of abortion, I have throughout been speaking of the fetus merely as a person, and what I have been asking is whether or not the argument we began with, which proceeds only from the fetus's being a person, really does establish its conclusion. I have argued that it does not.
But of course there are arguments and arguments, and it may be said that I have simply fastened on the wrong one. It may be said that what is important is not merely the fact that the fetus is a person, but that it is a person for whom the woman has a special kind of responsibility issuing from the fact that she is its mother. And it might be argued that all my analogies are therefore irrelevant--for you do not have that special kind of responsibility for that violinist; Henry Fonda does not have that special kind of responsibility for me. And our attention might be drawn to the fact that men and women both are compelled by law to provide support for their children
I have in effect dealt (briefly) with this argument in section 4 above; but a (still briefer) recapitulation now may be in order. Surely we do not have any such "special responsibility" for a person unless we have assumed it, explicitly or implicitly. If a set of parents do not try to prevent pregnancy, do not obtain an abortion, but rather take it home with them, then they have assumed responsibility for it, they have given it rights, and they cannot now withdraw support from it at the cost of its life because they now find it difficult to go on providing for it. But if they have taken all reasonable precautions against having a child, they do not simply by virtue of their biological relationship to the child who comes into existence have a special responsibility for it. They may wish to assume responsibility for it, or they may not wish to. And I am suggesting that if assuming responsibility for it would require large sacrifices, then they may refuse. A Good Samaritan would not refuse--or anyway, a Splendid Samaritan, if the sacrifices that had to be made were enormous. But then so would a Good Samaritan assume responsibility for that violinist; so would Henry Fonda, if he is a Good Samaritan, fly in from the West Coast and assume responsibility for me.
8.
My argument will be found unsatisfactory on two counts by many of those who want to regard abortion as morally permissible. First, while I do argue that abortion is not impermissible, I do not argue that it is always permissible. There may well be cases in which carrying the child to term requires only Minimally Decent Samaritanism of the mother, and this is a standard we must not fall below. I am inclined to think it a merit of my account precisely that it does not give a general yes or a general no. It allows for and supports our sense that, for example, a sick and desperately frightened fourteen-year-old schoolgirl, pregnant due to rape, may of course choose abortion, and that any law which rules this out is an insane law. And it also allows for and supports our sense that in other cases resort to abortion is even positively indecent. It would be indecent in the woman to request an abortion, and indecent in a doctor to perform it, if she is in her seventh month, and wants the abortion just to avoid the nuisance of postponing a trip abroad. The very fact that the arguments I have been drawing attention to treat all cases of abortion, or even all cases of abortion in which the mother's life is not at stake, as morally on a par ought to have made them suspect at the outset.
Second, while I am arguing for the permissibility of abortion in some cases, I am not arguing for the right to secure the death of the unborn child. It is easy to confuse these two things in that up to a certain point in the life of the fetus it is not able to survive outside the mother's body; hence removing it from her body guarantees its death. But they are importantly different. I have argued that you are not morally required to spend nine months in bed, sustaining the life of that violinist, but to say this is by no means to say that if, when you unplug yourself, there is a miracle and he survives, you then have a right to turn round and slit his throat. You may detach yourself even if this costs him his life; you have no right to be guaranteed his death, by some other means, if unplugging yourself does not kill him. There are some people who will feel dissatisfied by this feature of my argument. A woman may be utterly devastated by the thought of a child, a bit of herself, put out for adoption and never seen or heard of again. She may therefore want not merely that the child be detached from her, but more, that it die. Some opponents of abortion are inclined to regard this as beneath contempt--thereby showing insensitivity to what is surely a powerful source of despair. All the same, I agree that the desire for the child's death is not one which anybody may gratify, should it turn out to be possible to detach the child alive.
At this place, however, it should be remembered that we have only been pretending throughout that the fetus is a human being from the moment of conception. A very early abortion is surely not the killing of a person, and so is not dealt with by anything I have said here.
Monday 12 October 2020
URFASCISMO. UMBERTO ECO
En 1942, a la edad de diez años, gané el primer premio en los Ludi Juveniles (un concurso de libre participación forzosa para jóvenes fascistas italianos - es decir, para todos los jóvenes italianos). Había escrito con virtuosismo retórico sobre el tema "¿Debemos morir por la gloria de Mussolini y por el destino inmortal de Italia?". Mi respuesta había sido afirmativa. Era un chico listo.
Después, en 1943, descubrí el significado de la palabra libertad. Contaré esa historia al final del artículo. En aquel momento libertad aún no significaba liberación. Pasé dos de mis primeros años entre SS, fascistas y partisanos que se disparaban, y aprendí a evitar las balas. No estuvo mal como ejercicio.
En abril de 1945 los partisanos tomaron Milán. Dos días después llegaron a la pequeña ciudad donde yo vivía. Fue un momento muy alegre. La plaza mayor estaba atestada de gente que cantaba y agitaba banderas, invocando a grandes voces a Mimo, el jefe partisano de la zona. Mimo, ex sargento de carabinieri, se había unido a los de Badoglio y había perdido una pierna en uno de los primeros enfrentamientos. Salió al balcón del ayuntamiento apoyado en sus muletas, pálido; intentó calmar a la multitud con una mano. Yo estaba allí esperando su discurso, en vista de que toda mi primera infancia había estado marcada por los grandes discursos de Mussolini, cuyos pasajes más significativos aprendíamos de memoria en la escuela. Silencio. Mimo habló con voz ronca, casi ni se le oía. Dijo: "Ciudadanos, amigos. Tras tantos dolorosos sacrificios... aquí nos tenéis... ¡Gloria a los caídos por la libertad!" Fue todo. Y se metió dentro. La muchedumbre gritaba, los partisanos alzaron sus armas y dispararon festivamente al aire. Los niños nos abalanzamos a recoger los casquillos, valiosos objetos de colección, pero yo había aprendido también que la libertad de expresión significa libertad de la retórica.
Unos días después vi a los primeros soldados americanos. Eran afroamericanos. El primer Yanqui al que traté fue un negro, Joseph, quien me dio a conocer las maravillas de Dick Tracy y Li´l Abner: sus tebeos eran de colores y olían muy bien.
Uno de los oficiales (el mayor o capitán Muddy) se hospedaba en el chalet de la familia de dos compañeras de escuela. Yo andaba como por mi casa por aquel jardín donde algunas señoras hacían corro alrededor del capitán Muddy, hablando un francés bastante detestable. El capitán Muddy había ido a la universidad, quizás tenía un título, y sabía un poco de francés. Y así, mi primera imagen de los libertadores americanos, tras tantos rostros pálidos con camisas negras, fue la de un negro culto con un uniforme amarillo verdoso que decía: "Oui, merci beaucoup, Madame, moi aussi j´aime le champagne". Desgraciadamente no había champán, pero recibí del capitán Muddy mi primer chicle y empecé a mascarlo todo el día. De noche metía la bolita en un vaso de agua para mantenerla fresca hasta el día siguiente.
En mayo oímos decir que la guerra había acabado. La paz me produjo una curiosa sensación. Me habían dicho que la guerra permanente era la condición normal para un joven italiano. En los meses siguientes descubrí que la Resistencia no era sólo un fenómeno local, sino Europeo. Aprendí nuevas y excitantes palabras como réseau, maquis, armée secrète, Rote Kapelle, gueto de Varsovia. Vi las primeras fotografías del Holocausto y comprendí así su significado antes aún de conocer la palabra. Me di cuenta de qué nos habían liberado.
Hoy en Italia algunos se preguntan si la Resistencia tuvo un real impacto militar en el curso de la guerra. Para mi generación la cuestión es irrelevante: comprendimos inmediatamente el significado moral y psicológico de la Resistencia. Era un motivo de orgullo saber que nosotros, los europeos, no habíamos esperado pasivamente la liberación. Pienso que tampoco para los jóvenes americanos que derramaban su tributo de sangre por nuestra libertad era irrelevante saber que detrás de las líneas había europeos que estaban ya pagando su deuda. Hoy en Italia hay quien dice que el mito de la Resistencia era una mentira comunista. Es cierto que los comunistas explotaron la Resistencia como una propiedad particular, dado que tuvieron en ella un papel primordial; pero yo recuerdo partisanos con pañuelos de diversos colores. Pegado a la radio, me pasaba las noches - con la ventana cerrada y las luces apagadas que convertían al reducido espacio en torno al aparato en el único halo luminoso- escuchando los mensajes que Radio Londres transmitía a los partisanos. Eran a un tiempo oscuros y poéticos (El sol sigue saliendo, Las rosas florecerán) y en su mayoría y eran "mensajes para la Franchi". Alguien me susurró que Franchi era el jefe de uno de los más poderosos grupos clandestinos de la Italia del Norte, un hombre de legendario valor. Franchi se convirtió en mi héroe. Franchi (cuyo verdadero nombre era Edgardo Sogno) era monárquico, tan anticomunista que después de la guerra se unió a grupos de extrema derecha y hasta fue acusado de colaborar en un intento de golpe de Estado reaccionario. Pero, ¡eso que importa! Sogno sigue siendo el Sueño de mi infancia. La Liberación no fue una empresa común de distinto color.
Hoy en Italia hay quien dice que la guerra de Liberación fue un período de división y que ahora necesitamos una reconciliación nacional. El recuerdo de aquellos años terribles debería ser reprimido, refoulée, verdrängt. Pero la Verdrängung provoca neurosis. Si reconciliación significa compasión y respeto hacia cuántos combatieron de buena fe en la guerra, perdón no significa olvido. Puedo admitir incluso que Eichmann creyera sinceramente en su misión, pero me siento incapaz de decir "okey, vuelve a hacerlo". Estamos aquí para recordar lo que ocurrió y para declarar solemnemente que Ellos no deben volver a hacerlo. Pero ¿quiénes son Ellos?
Si pensamos aún en los gobiernos totalitarios que dominaron Europa antes de la Segunda Guerra Mundial podemos decir con toda tranquilidad que será difícil verlos retornar de la misma forma en circunstancias históricas diversas. Si el fascismo de Mussolini se basaba en la idea de un jefe carismático, en el corporativismo, en la utopía del Destino Fatal de Roma, en una voluntad imperialista de conquistar nuevas tierras, en un nacionalismo exacerbado, en el ideal de toda una nación militarizada de camisas negras, en el rechazo de la democracia parlamentaria, en el antisemitismo, entonces no hay dificultad en admitir que la Alianza Nacional, nacida del MSI, es ciertamente un partido de derechas pero tiene poco que ver con el viejo Fascismo. Por las mismas razones, y aunque me preocupe la actuación de diversos movimientos filonazis aquí y allá en Europa, incluida Rusia, no pienso que el nazismo, en su forma original, esté a punto de reaparecer como movimiento que afecte a una nación entera.
No obstante, aunque los regímenes políticos puedan ser derribados, y las ideologías criticadas y deslegitimadas, tras un régimen y su ideología hay siempre un modo de pensar y de sentir, una serie de hábitos culturales, una nebulosa de instintos oscuros e insondables pulsiones. ¿Hay, pues, de nuevo otro fantasma que recorre Europa (por no hablar de otras partes del mundo)?
Ionesco dijo una vez que "sólo las palabras cuentan, el resto son chácharas". Los hábitos lingüísticos constituyen a menudo importantes síntomas de disentimientos inexpresados.
Permítanme, pues, preguntar por qué no sólo la Resistencia sino toda la Segunda Guerra Mundial han sido definidas en todo el mundo como una lucha contra el fascismo. Si releen ustedes Por quien doblan las campanas de Hemingway descubrirán que Robert Jordan identifica a sus enemigos con los fascistas, aún cuando piensa en los Falangistas españoles.
Permítanme dar la palabra a F. D. Roosevelt: “La victoria del pueblo americano y de sus aliados será una victoria contra el fascismo y el callejón sin salida del despotismo que éste representa" (23 de septiembre de 1944).
Durante los años del maccarthismo a los americanos que tomaron parte en la guerra civil española se les llamaba antifascistas prematuros, dando a entender con ello que luchar contra Hitler en los años cuarenta era un deber moral de todo buen americano, pero que luchar contra Franco demasiado pronto, en los años treinta, olía a podrido… ¿Por qué los radicales americanos usaban una expresión como Fascist Pig incluso para indicar a un policía que no aprobaba sus preferencias a la hora de fumar? ¿Por qué no decían cerdo Cagoulard, cerdo Falangista, cerdo Ustachi, cerdo Quisling, cerdo Ante Pavelic o cerdo Nazi?
Mein Kampf es el manifiesto completo de un programa político. El nazismo tenía una teoría del racismo y del arianismo, una noción concreta del entartete Kunst, el arte corrupto, una filosofía de la voluntad de poder y del Übermensch. El nazismo era decididamente anticristiano y neopagano, del mismo modo en que el Diamat (la versión oficial del marxismo soviético) de Stalin era claramente materialista y ateo. Si por totalitarismo se entiende un régimen que subordina todo acto individual al Estado y a su ideología, entonces nazismo y estalinismo eran regímenes totalitarios.
El fascismo fue ciertamente una dictadura, pero no era cumplidamente totalitario, no tanto por su blandura cuanto por la endeblez filosófica de su ideología. Al contrario de lo que suele pensarse, el Fascismo italiano carecía de filosofía propia. El artículo sobre el fascismo firmado por Mussolini para la Enciclopedia Treccani lo escribió o lo inspiró fundamentalmente Giovanni Gentile, pero reflejaba una noción tardohegeliana del Estado Ético y Absoluto que Mussolini nunca realizó por entero. Mussolini no tenía ninguna filosofía: tenía sólo una retórica. Empezó como ateo militante para después firmar el concordato con la Iglesia y dar la bienvenida a los obispos que bendecían los gallardetes fascistas. En sus primeros años anticlericales, según una leyenda muy verosímil, pidió una vez a Dios que un rayo lo fulminara allí mismo, para probar Su existencia. Dios estaba distraído, evidentemente. En años posteriores, Mussolini citaba siempre en sus discursos el nombre de Dios y no desdeñaba hacerse llamar el Hombre Providencial. Puede decirse que el fascismo italiano fue la primera dictadura de derechas que dominó un país europeo y que todos los movimientos análogos encontraron luego una especie de arquetipo común en el régimen mussoliniano. El fascismo italiano fue el primero en crear una liturgia militar, un folklore y hasta un modo de vestir –obteniendo en el extranjero más éxitos que Armani, Benetton o Versace. Hasta los años treinta no hicieron su aparición los movimientos fascistas en Inglaterra con Mosley, y en Letonia, Estonia, Lituania, Polonia, Hungría, Rumania, Bulgaria, Grecia, Yugoslavia, España, Portugal, Noruega y hasta en América del Sur, por no hablar de Alemania. Fue el fascismo italiano el que convenció a muchos dirigentes liberales europeos de que un nuevo régimen estaba llevando a cabo interesantes reformas sociales capaces de suministrar una alternativa moderadamente revolucionaria a la amenaza comunista. No obstante, la prioridad histórica no me parece razón suficiente para explicar porqué la palabra Fascismo se convirtió en una sinécdoque, una denominación pars pro toto para movimientos totalitarios diferentes. No vale responder que el fascismo encerraba en sí todos los elementos de los totalitarismos posteriores en estado quintaesencial, por así decirlo. Muy por el contrario, el fascismo no poseía ninguna quintaesencia, y ni siquiera una esencia particular. El fascismo era un totalitarismo fuzzy.
El fascismo no era una ideología monolítica, sino más bien un collage de diversas ideas políticas y filosóficas, un cúmulo de contradicciones. ¿Cabe acaso concebir un movimiento totalitario que consiga unir monarquía y revolución, Ejército Real y la milicia personal de Mussolini, los privilegios concedidos a la Iglesia y una educación estatal que ensalzaba la violencia, el control estatal absoluto y el libre mercado? El partido fascista había nacido proclamando su nuevo orden revolucionario, pero estaba financiado por los terratenientes más conservadores que se esperaban una contrarrevolución; el fascismo de los inicios era republicano y sobrevivió veinte años proclamando su lealtad a la Familia Real, permitiendo a un Duce (el indudable Líder Máximo) arrastrar del brazo a un Rey al que brindó también el título de Emperador. Pero cuando en 1943 el Rey despidió a Mussolini, el partido reapareció dos meses después, con ayuda de los alemanes, bajo la bandera de una república “Social”, reciclando su vieja partitura revolucionaria enriquecida con acentos casi jacobinos.
Hubo una sola arquitectura y un solo arte nazis. Si el arquitecto nazi era Albert Speer, no había sitio para Mies van der Rohe. Del mismo modo, bajo Stalin, si Lamarck tenía razón no había sitio para Darwin. Por el contrario, hubo ciertamente arquitectos fascistas, pero al lado de sus pseudocoliseos surgieron asimismo edificios inspirados en el moderno racionalismo de Gropius.
No hubo un Zdanov fascista, pero en Italia hubo dos importantes premios artísticos: el Premio Cremona, controlado por un fascista inculto y fanático como Farinacci, que impulsaba un arte propagandístico (me acuerdo de un Escuchando en la radio un discurso del Duce, o Estados mentales creados por el Fascismo); y el Premio Bérgamo, patrocinado por un fascista culto y razonablemente tolerante como Bottai, que protegía el arte por el arte y los nuevos experimentos del arte de vanguardia proscritos en Alemania como corruptos y criptocomunistas, contrarios al kitsch nibelungo, el único admitido. El poeta nacional era D´Annunzio, un dandy que en Alemania o en Rusia hubiera acabado ante un pelotón de fusilamiento. Fue ascendido al rango de Vate del régimen por su nacionalismo y su culto al heroísmo –con el añadido de fuertes dosis de Decadentismo francés.
Tomemos el Futurismo. Habría debido ser considerado un ejemplo de entartete Kunst, al igual que el expresionismo, el cubismo y el surrealismo. Pero los primeros Futuristas italianos eran nacionalistas, defendieron por razones estéticas la participación italiana en la primera guerra mundial, ensalzaron la velocidad, la violencia, el riesgo, y en cierto modo estos aspectos parecieron cercanos al culto fascista de la juventud. Cuando el fascismo se identificó con el Imperio Romano y redescubrió las tradiciones rurales, Marinetti (que proclamaba que un automóvil era más bello que la Victoria de Samotracia y hasta quería matar al claro de luna), fue elegido miembro de la Academia de Italia, que trataba al claro de luna con gran respeto.
Muchos de los futuros partisanos, y de los futuros intelectuales del Partido Comunista, fueron educados por el GUF, la asociación fascista de los estudiantes universitarios, que debía ser la cuna de la nueva cultura fascista. Estos clubes se convirtieron en una especie de gran crisol intelectual en el cual las nuevas ideas circulaban sin el menor control ideológico real, no tanto porque los hombres del partido fuesen tolerantes cuanto porque pocos de entre ellos poseían los instrumentos culturales para controlarlos.
En el curso de aquel ventenio, la poesía de los Herméticos representó una reacción contra el estilo pomposo del régimen; a estos poetas se les permitió elaborar una protesta literaria desde el interior de las torres de marfil. El sentir del Hermetismo era exactamente lo contrario del culto fascista al optimismo y al heroísmo. El régimen toleraba este palmario aunque socialmente imperceptible disenso porque no prestaba atención a jerga tan arcana.
Lo cual no significa que el Fascismo italiano fuera tolerante. Gramsci fue encarcelado y murió en prisión. A Matteotti y a los hermanos Rosselli los asesinaron, la prensa libre fue suprimida, los sindicatos desmantelados, a los disidentes políticos se los confinó en islas remotas, el poder legislativo se convirtió en una mera ficción e el ejecutivo (que controlaba al judicial, así como a los mass media) promulgaba directamente las nuevas leyes, entre las cuales estuvieron también las de defensa de la raza (el apoyo formal italiano al Holocausto). La incoherente imagen que acabo de describir no era fruto de la tolerancia, sino un ejemplo de desquiciamiento político e ideológico. Pero era un ejemplo de desquiciamiento ordenado, una confusión estructurada. El Fascismo estaba filosóficamente desquiciado pero desde el punto de vista político sus goznes se hallaban firmemente anclados en algunos arquetipos.
Hemos llegado ahora al segundo punto de mi tesis. Hubo un solo Nazismo, y no podemos llamar Nazismo al Falangismo hipercatólico de Franco, pues el Nazismo es fundamentalmente pagano, politeísta y anticristiano, o no es Nazismo. En cambio, es posible jugar al Fascismo de muchos modos sin que cambie el nombre del juego. Con la noción de Fascismo ocurre lo que, según Wittgestein, ocurre con la noción de juego. Un juego puede ser o no ser competitivo, pueden jugarlo una o más personas, puede requerir cierta especial habilidad o ninguna, puede tener o no premios en metálico. Los juegos son una serie de actividades diversas que muestran sólo cierto parecido de familia.
1 abc
2 bcd
3 cde
4def
Supongamos que exista una serie de grupos políticos. El grupo Uno se caracteriza por los aspectos abc, el grupo Dos por los bcd, y así sucesivamente. Dos se parece a Uno en que tienen dos aspectos en común. Tres se parece a Dos y Cuatro se parece a Tres por la misma razón. Obsérvese que Tres se parece asimismo a Uno (tienen en común el aspecto c). El caso más curioso lo constituye Cuatro, obviamente parecido a Tres y a Dos, pero sin ninguna característica común con Uno. Y sin embargo, a causa de la ininterrumpida serie de similaridades decrecientes entre Uno y Cuatro, perdura, por una especie de transitividad ilusoria, un aire de familia entre Cuatro y Uno.
El Fascismo se ha convertido en un término que se adapta a todo porque de un régimen fascista es posible eliminar uno o más aspectos sin que deje de ser reconocible como fascista. Quítenle al Fascismo el imperialismo y tendrán Franco y Salazar; quítenle el colonialismo y tendrán el Fascismo balcánico. Añádanle al Fascismo italiano un anticapitalismo radical (que nunca fascinó a Mussolini) y tendrán a Ezra Pound. Añádanle el culto a la mitología céltica y el misticismo del Grial (totalmente ajenos al Fascismo oficial) y tendrán a uno de los más respetados gurús fascistas, Julius Evola.
A despecho de esta confusión, creo que es posible indicar una lista de características típicas de lo que me gustaría llamar Urfascismo, o Fascismo Eterno. Dichas características no pueden ser ordenadas en un sistema; muchas se contradicen entre sí y son típicas de otras formas de despotismo o de fanatismo. Pero basta con que una de ellas esté presente para que cuaje una nebulosa fascista.
Uno. La primera característica de un Urfascismo es el culto a la tradición. El tradicionalismo es más viejo que el fascismo. No sólo fue típico del pensamiento contrarrevolucionario católico posterior a la Revolución Francesa sino que nació en la tardía época helenística, como reacción contra el racionalismo clásico griego.
En la cuenca del Mediterráneo, los pueblos de religiones diversas (aceptadas todas con indulgencia por el Panteón romano) empezaron a soñar con una revelación recibida en el alba de la historia humana. Esta revelación había permanecido largo tiempo oculta bajo el velo de lenguas ya olvidadas. Estaba confiada a los jeroglíficos egipcios, a las runas de los celtas, a los textos sagrados, aún desconocidos, de las religiones asiáticas.
Esta nueva cultura debía ser sincrética. Sincretismo no es sólo, como indican los diccionarios, la combinación de diversas creencias y prácticas. Tal combinación debe tolerar las contradicciones. Todos los mensajes originarios contienen un germen de sabiduría y cuando semejan decir cosas distintas o incompatibles es sólo porque todos aluden, alegóricamente, a alguna verdad primitiva.
Como consecuencia, no puede haber avance del saber. La verdad ha sido ya anunciada de una vez para siempre y sólo podemos continuar interpretando su oscuro mensaje. Basta mirar el sílabo de cualquier movimiento fascista para hallar a los principales pensadores tradicionalistas. La gnosis nazi se nutría de elementos tradicionalistas, sincréticos, ocultos. La más importante fuente teorética de la nueva derecha italiana, Julius Evola, mezclaba el grial con los Protocolos de los Sabios de Sión, la alquimia con el Sacro Imperio Romano Germánico. El propio hecho de que para demostrar su apertura mental una parte de la derecha italiana haya ampliado recientemente su sílabo metiendo en la misma bola a De Maistre, Guenon y Gramsci es una prueba palmaria de sincretismo.
Si ustedes curiosean en los estantes que en las librerías americanas llevan la indicación “New Age” se encontrarán incluso con San Agustín, el cual, por lo que yo sé, no era fascista. Pero el mismo hecho de juntar a San Agustín con Stonehenge es un síntoma de Urfascismo.
Dos. El tradicionalismo implica el rechazo del Modernismo. Tanto los Fascistas como los Nazis adoraban la tecnología, mientras que los pensadores tradicionalistas suelen rechazarla como negación de los valores espirituales tradicionales. No obstante, aunque el Nazismo estuviera orgullosos de sus éxitos industriales, su alabanza de la modernidad era sólo el aspecto superficial de una ideología basada en la Sangre y la Tierra (Blut und Boden). El rechazo del mundo moderno se camuflaba como condena del modo de vida capitalista, pero abarcaba igualmente la repulsa del Espíritu de 1789 (o de 1776, obviamente). La Ilustración, la Edad de la Razón, se ven como el inicio de la depravación moderna. En esto el Urfascismo puede ser definido como irracionalismo.
Tres. El irracionalismo depende también del culto a la acción por la acción. La acción es bella en sí, y por ende debe ser llevada a cabo antes de cualquier reflexión, y sin esta. Pensar es una forma de castración. Por ello la cultura es sospechosa, en la medida en que se identifica con actitudes críticas. De la declaración atribuida a Goebbels (“cuando oigo la palabra cultura, saco la pistola”) al uso frecuente de expresiones como cerdos intelectuales, cabezas de huevo, snobs radicales, las universidades son un nido de comunistas, la sospecha hacia el mundo intelectual siempre ha sido un síntoma de Urfascismo. Los intelectuales oficiales fascistas se dedicaban principalmente a acusar a la cultura moderna y a la intelligentsia liberal de haber abandonado los valores tradicionales.
Cuatro. Ninguna forma de sincretismo puede aceptar la crítica. El espíritu crítico opera distinciones y distinguir es señal de modernidad. En la cultura moderna, la comunidad científica entiende el desacuerdo como instrumento de avance de los conocimientos. Para el Urfascismo, el desacuerdo es traición.
Cinco. El desacuerdo es además una señal de diversidad. El Urfascismo crece y busca el consenso explotando y exacerbando el natural miedo a la diferencia. El primer llamamiento de un movimiento fascista o prematuramente fascista es contra los intrusos. El Urfascismo es, pues, racista por definición.
Seis. El Urfascismo brota de la frustración individual o social. Lo cual explica que una de las características típicas del fascismo haya sido el llamamiento a las clases medias frustradas, incómodas por alguna crisis económica o humillación política y espantadas por la presión de los grupos sociales subalternos. En nuestro tiempo en que los viejos “proletarios” se están convirtiendo en pequeña burguesía (y los lumpen se autoexcluyen de la escena política), el fascismo encontrará en esa nueva mayoría su auditorio.
Siete. A quienes carecen de toda identidad social, el Urfascismo les dice que su único privilegio es el más común de todos, haber nacido en el mismo país. Este es el origen del nacionalismo. Además, los únicos que pueden proporcionar una identidad a la nación son los enemigos. Y así, en la raíz de la psicología Urfascista está la obsesión de la conspiración, de ser posible internacional. Los partidarios deben sentirse sitiados. La forma más sencilla de hacer emerger una conspiración consiste en apelar a la xenofobia. Pero la conspiración debe venir también de adentro: los judíos suelen ser el mejor objetivo, ya que presentan la ventaja de estar al mismo tiempo dentro y fuera. En los Estados Unidos, el último ejemplo de la obsesión de la conspiración está representado por el libro The New World Order de Pat Robertson.
Ocho. Los partidarios deben sentirse humillados por la ostensible riqueza y la fuerza de sus enemigos. Cuando era niño me enseñaban que los ingleses eran “el pueblo de las cinco comidas”: comían más a menudo que el pobre y sobrio italiano. Los judíos son ricos y se ayudan entre sí gracias a una red secreta de asistencia mutua. Los partidarios deben sin embargo estar convencidos de que pueden derrotar a sus enemigos. Y así, gracias a un contínuo desplazamiento de registro retórico, los enemigos son al mismo tiempo demasiado fuertes y demasiado débiles. Los fascistas están condenados a perder sus guerras porque son constitucionalmente incapaces de valorar objetivamente la fuerza del enemigo.
Nueve. Para el Urfascismo no existe lucha por la vida, sino más bien vida para la lucha. El pacifismo es, pues, colusión con el enemigo; el pacifismo es malo porque la vida es una guerra permanente. Esto, empero, entraña un complejo de Armageddón: desde el momento en que los enemigos pueden y deben ser derrotados, deberá haber una batalla final tras la cual el movimiento controlará al mundo. Tal solución final implica una posterior era de paz, una Edad de Oro que contradice el principio de la guerra permanente. Ningún líder fascista ha conseguido nunca resolver esta contradicción.
Diez. El elitismo es un aspecto típico de toda ideología reaccionaria, por cuanto fundamentalmente aristocrático. En el curso de la historia, todos los elitismos aristocráticos o militaristas han implicado el desprecio por los débiles. El Urfascismo no puede por menos de predicar un elitismo popular. Todo ciudadano pertenece al mejor pueblo del mundo, los miembros del partido son los mejores ciudadanos, todo ciudadano puede (o debería) llegar a ser miembro del partido. Pero no puede haber patricios sin plebeyos. El líder, que sabe perfectamente que su poder no le viene por delegación, sino que ha sido conquistado por la fuerza, sabe también que su fuerza se basa en la debilidad de las masas, tan débiles que necesitan y merecen un Dominador. Desde el momento en que el grupo está organizado jerárquicamente (según un modelo militar), todo líder subordinado desprecia a sus subalternos, y cada uno de estos desprecia a sus inferiores. Todo ello refuerza el sentido del elitismo de masas.
Once. Con esta perspectiva, a cada cual se lo educa para ser un Héroe. En todas las mitologías el Héroe es un ser excepcional, pero en la ideología Urfascista el heroísmo es la norma. Este culto al heroísmo está estrechamente ligado al culto de la muerte: no en vano el lema de los Falangistas era Viva la Muerte. A las personas normales se les dice que la muerte es desagradable pero que hay que afrontarla con dignidad; a los creyentes se les dice que es un modo doloroso de alcanzar una felicidad sobrenatural. El héroe urfascista, en cambio, aspira a la muerte, anunciada como la mejor recompensa de una vida heroica. En su impaciencia, agreguemos, resulta más frecuente que lleve a los demás a morir.
Doce. Dado que tanto la guerra permanente como el heroísmo son juegos difíciles de jugar, el Urfascista transfiere su voluntad de poder a cuestiones sexuales. Este es el origen del machismo (que implica desdén a las mujeres y una condena intolerante de los hábitos sexuales no conformistas, desde la castidad a la homosexualidad). Y dado que también el sexo es un juego difícil de jugar, el héroe urfascista juega con las armas, que son su Ersatz fálico: sus juegos de guerra se deben a una permanente Invidia Penis.
Trece. El Urfascismo se basa en un populismo cualitativo. En una democracia los individuos gozan de derechos individuales, pero el conjunto de los ciudadanos sólo está dotado de un impacto político desde el punto de vista cuantitativo (se siguen las decisiones de la mayoría). Para el Urfascismo los individuos en cuanto tales carecen de derechos y el pueblo está concebido como una cualidad, un ente monolítico que expresa la Voluntad Común. Dado que ninguna cantidad de seres humanos puede poseer una voluntad común, el Líder pretende ser su intérprete. Habiendo perdido su poder de delegación, los ciudadanos no actúan, sólo son llamados, pars pro toto, a representar el papel del Pueblo. El Pueblo es, así, sólo una ficción teatral. Para tener un buen ejemplo de populismo cualitativo ya no necesitamos la Piazza Venezia o el Estadio de Nuremberg. En nuestro futuro se perfila un populismo cualitativo Vos o Internet, en el cual la respuesta emotiva de un grupo seleccionado de ciudadanos puede ser presentada o aceptada como la Voz del Pueblo. En razón de su populismo cualitativo, el Urfascismo debe oponerse a los “podridos” gobiernos parlamentarios. Una de las primeras frases pronunciada por Mussolini en el parlamento italiano fue: “Hubiera podido transformar esta sala sorda y gris en un vivac para mis escuadrones”. En realidad encontró de inmediato un alojamiento mejor para sus soldados, pero poco después liquidó el Parlamento. Siempre que un político siembra dudas sobre la legitimidad del Parlamento porque ya no representa la Voz del Pueblo, podemos sentir el olor a Urfascismo.
Catorce. El Urfascismo habla la Neolengua. La Neolengua fue inventada por Orwell en su novela 1984 como lengua oficial del INGSOC, el Socialismo Inglés, pero elementos de Urfascismo son comunes a formas distintas de dictadura. Todos los textos escolares nazis o fascistas estaban basados en un léxico pobre y una sintaxis elemental con el fin de limitar los instrumentos para un razonamiento complejo y crítico. Pero hemos de estar preparados para identificar otras formas de Neolengua, incluso cuando adoptan la “inocente” forma de un talk-show de televisión.
Tras haber indicado los posibles arquetipos del Urfascismo permítaseme llegar a una conclusión. La mañana del 27 de Julio de 1943 me dijeron que, según las informaciones leídas por radio, el Fascismo se había derrumbado y habían detenido a Mussolini. Mi madre me mandó a comprar el periódico. Fui al kiosco más cercano y vi qué periódicos había, pero los nombres eran distintos. Además, tras una breve ojeada a los titulares, me di cuenta de que cada periódico decía cosas diferentes. Compré uno al azar y leí un mensaje impreso en primera plana, firmado por cinco o seis partidos políticos, como Democracia Cristiana, Partido Comunista, Partido de Acción, Partido Socialista, Partido Liberal. Hasta ese momento yo había creído que en todos los países había un solo partido, y que en Italia este era el Partido Nacional Fascista. Estaba descubriendo que en mi país podían existir distintos partidos al mismo tiempo. Y no sólo eso: dado que era un chico avispado, me di cuenta enseguida de que era imposible que tantos partidos hubieran nacido de la noche a la mañana. Comprendí así que existían antes como organizaciones clandestinas.
El mensaje celebraba el final de la dictadura y el retorno de la libertad: libertad de expresión, de imprenta y de asociación política. Era la primera vez en mi vida que leía estas palabras, libertad, dictadura, -¡Dios mío!-. Y en virtud de estas nuevas palabras había renacido como hombre occidental y libre.
Hemos de procurar que el sentido de estas palabras nunca se olvide. El Urfascismo está aún a nuestro alrededor, a veces vestido de paisano. Resultaría muy cómodo, para nosotros, que alguien apareciese en la escena del mundo y dijese: “Quiero volver a abrir Auschwitz, quiero que los camisas negras desfilen de nuevo en las plazas italianas”. La vida no es tan simple, ¡ay! El Urfascismo puede aún regresar bajo los disfraces más inocentes; nuestro deber es desenmascararlo y apuntar con el índice a cada una de sus nuevas formas –todos los días, en cualquier parte del mundo. Doy de nuevo la palabra a Roosevelt: “Me atrevo a decir que si la democracia en Estados Unidos cesase de avanzar como una fuerza viva, tratando día y noche, por medios pacíficos, de mejorar las condiciones de nuestros ciudadanos, la fuerza del Fascismo crecerá en nuestro país” (4 de Noviembre de 1938). Libertad y Liberación son una tarea que no acaba nunca. Sea este nuestro lema: No Olvidemos. Permítaseme terminar con una poesía de Franco Fortini:
En el pretil del puente,
Cabezas de ahorcados,
En el agua de la fuente,
Las babas de los ahorcados.
En las losas del mercado,
Uñas de fusilados,
Entre el heno del prado,
Dientes de fusilados.
Morder el aire, morder las piedras,
Nuestra carne no es ya de hombres,
Morder el aire, morder las piedras,
Nuestro corazón no es ya de hombres.
Mas lo hemos leído en los ojos de los muertos
Y a la tierra traeremos libertad.
Mas los puños de los muertos la aferraron
Y la justicia llegará.