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A. A Great Query from an Old Friend

I posted Anti-Reason in Our Time: The Renaissance of White Supremacy to a few social media sites. I got some nice feedback from folks; one that stood out was a comment on Facebook from an old friend who I had studied alongside:

FROM BENJAMIN D:

Hey Maggie thank you for sharing this! It seems like so many philosophers today (much like most democratic politicians) are content to sit or ride things out just when their voices are needed most. Without sounding too critical I wonder if the Jasperian solution or outlook will be sufficient. I would even go further and ask what obligations does one have to respond rationally to those who have embraced anti- reason? If the differences were merely ideological, playing the long game might be sufficient. But when people are being disappeared off the street, when people’s mere existence is threatened surely a more forceful and direct response is warranted? And when anti-reason as well as white supremacy becomes institutionalized, what then? What good are these institutions if they can so easily be co-opted?

I want to thank him for reading so closely and asking such an important set of questions. I totally agree with his concern. He is right to worry that philosophical faith and dialogue might seem hopelessly inadequate. “Playing the long game” can also feel inadequate when people are being threatened, disappeared, or killed. 

What I want to do here is at least outline why Jaspers was no fool about this. However, he was also wary of the dangers of fighting fire with fire. Such actions destroyed freedom in the name of defending it. If you look around, you will see that almost the entire establishment class—Republican, Democrat, Independent, etc.—use this tactic. Yes, some more than others. If you have been following the Democratic primary in the NYC Mayor race, you know what I am talking about. 

Anway, here’s my perspective on the tension. I believe a Jaspersian approach addresses it, although it won’t fully resolve it. 

B. Jaspers Did Not Reject Force Against Violence

Jaspers was not a pacifist in the absolute sense. He recognized that in the face of physical violence or totalitarian threats, force could be necessary and justified. When talking about Nazi Germany, he understood that defeating the National Socialist loyalists to Hitler required military resistance. He also accepted the need for new laws that might be enforced as punishment of crimes after the war. And if you read his text The Question of German Guilt), you will see this. This text excellently helps in understanding the different kinds of guilt at play in any authoritarian takeover. This is especially true when genocide is a factor. 

Thus, enacting a Jaspersian response must include:

1. Enforcing the law against violent hate groups
2. Protecting vulnerable people with real security
3. Using institutions to investigate, arrest, prosecute violent extremists

The state’s duty supposedly involves securing safety for all those living in a country. That remains foundational for any genuine public sphere of dialogue. 

Of course, as an AnarchoCynic, this would be one of the areas in which I have some disagreements with Jaspers. I believe local communities could do this acting as needed within the understanding of their own place and traditions. The nation-state model arose after the Napoleonic Wars in Europe. It was embraced throughout the Americas and anywhere European imperialism had a foothold. This model has many dehumanizing formations. It is hard to fully trust it would function properly. We are seeing this right now all around us.

C. The Ethical Dilemma of Means and Ends

But Jaspers also warns that anti-reason loves to seduce us into adopting its own logic. It encourages domination in return. It seeks to silence instead of persuade. It aims to demonize the other side as nonredeemable.

In this insight, he was an inspiration for Paulo Freire and other radical pedagogues. There remains a need to comprehend that while force can be necessary:

1. Do we use force only to stop violence? Or do we use it to destroy dissent itself?
2. Do we limit force with law and ethics? Or do we let ourselves slide into our own myths of purity and scapegoating?

Like Freire in Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Jaspers had fears about our actions. He worried that if we adopt the spirit of anti-reason to defeat it, we become what we fight. Since the 1990s while studying alongside diverse scholars like Richard Owsley and Pete Gunter—who had been youth in WWII and old enough to participate in the Civil Rights movement—this was made aware to me again and again: 

Adopting the strategies of ideological enemies was a great failure in America’s response to defeating fascism and totalitarianism. I studied with another professor, Ed Coomes. He taught a Nazi Germany history course. In that course, he made an excellent semester-long argument. He argued that Germany had won WWII simply because of what our leaders adopted as a counter-strategy. 

D. Institutions Can Be Co-Opted

The most important query from my friend involves the way so many of our structures contain pre-fabricated systems of control. That is, anti-reason institutionalized so that the state itself carries out or condones violence against marginalized people. In such a case, the “usual” institutional remedies look hollow.

Jaspers knew this too. He lived through Weimar’s failure. He suffered the Nazi state’s perversion of law. He watched in horror at the risk of postwar McCarthyism spreading from the USA into Europe and beyond.

His response was tragically sober:

1. Even flawed institutions need defending if they allow any space for truth and freedom.
2. But those institutions must be reformed to remain open.
3. Citizens have to watch, question, resist institutional capture.

Many people I interact with understand how cosmetic the “evolution” of the USA has been. The “transformation” over the last 200 years is largely superficial. Even some changes as crucial as the 13th, 14th, and 19th amendment were at best cosmetic surgeries. They changed the look a bit deeper into the surface. Nonetheless, it is still the same bones, cells, and basic DNA from 1776/1789. 

What Jaspers offers in such a case does not give an easy answer. He urged vigilance, civil courage, and moral resistance inside institutions, not blind loyalty to them. However, in many cases, it means recognizing when the attempt to reform will be useless. It may also require something a bit more radical. A revolutionary approach might be needed if the anti-rational enthusiasms of such moves can be kept at bay. 

E. What About Obligations to Respond Rationally to Anti-Reason?

So, do I believe that we even owe reason to people who have abandoned it?

Only enough reason to assess how their abandonment of reason may endangers us, others, and/or themselves. Jaspers, like Simone de Beauvoir, did not believe that we owe anyone the chance for debate. This is especially true when they are attacking us or others nearby. Rather, we must stop them. All we owe to family, friends, acquaintances, and fellow citizens we encounter is truth. Even hard, uncomfortable truths must be reiterated again and again in public. As Gandhi said, “Even if you are a majority of one, the truth is still the truth.” We owe an invitation to rational dialog and debate only to those who show they can still hear uncomfortable truth. They must also demonstrate an ability to consider strong facts and valid data that counter their assumptions. As do we.

In other words, the obligation to “respond rationally” is situational:

1. Against immediate violence: Stop it. Jaspers did this once when a youth was being harassed by Nazi’s outside his doorstep. He went out to say something. He realized that one of the Brownshirt’s was in fact a former student of his. He used his moral authority to shame the harassers into letting the youth go. 
2. Against propaganda: Expose it. Jaspers did this in his classes, thus he was relieved of his duties. But also, he often played the BBC loudly from his window to dispel the “official stories” out of Berlin. 
3. To those wavering or deluded: Invite them back to reality. Jaspers did this again and again with Heidegger. But ultimately, this never got anywhere. After the war, he wrote a letter to the French authorities in charge of Freiburg. He stated that Heidegger should never be allowed to teach again. 
4. For ourselves: Refuse to become dogmatic in turn. Jaspers exampled this in how he exhorted people to openness in the face of evolving information from changing circumstances. 

F. Jaspersian Strategy is Both Defensive and Restorative

Finally, Jaspers’ philosophy suggests a dual strategy:

1. Defensive: Protect people in your community. Uphold due process even in a wobbly legal system. Resist domination howsoever it manifests.
2. Restorative: Rebuild the conditions for truth, dialogue, and freedom by seeking justice that upholds community harmony and belonging. 

This goes with what I mentioned in “C” above.

Force alone can only stop symptoms. It doesn’t heal the disease. We turn to our “capitalist pharmakon” as an example. Most medications are a forceful attack on symptoms. They do very little to rid a person of the underlying disease. 

G. When Anti-Reason Has Won Power

I believe that we already find ourselves in the thankless quagmire where our institutions show themselves as utterly co-opted. During my walking meditations on July 4th, I realized that the techno-oligarchic authoritarians aimed to capture the courts. Their goal was not just to incapacitate the legislature or pervert the executive. Post WWII, SCOTUS and the federal judiciary issued a challenge. Neoliberal white patriarchal, heteronormative Christian nationalism was eager to accept it. Over three generations, they took control of the presidency. Then, they undermined Congress. Finally, they filled the Judiciary with their own kind of “originalism.” It is a fait acommpli.

In such a dire situation, we must work within our own souls. We need to keep alive a queer hope. We must also sustain a weird faith. I mean by this that the normal forms of organizing our communities must be queered-up. This will reawaken hope for mutual liberation in them. And that the old customs of interaction must be weirded-out to reactivate from them faith in shared humanity. Here, what I’m saying probably tastes a bit saccharine. It definitely suffers from being repeated ad nauseam in every marginalized community. These communities see no substantial change in American politics and culture. Jaspers’ answer—like Arendt’s, Ortega’s, de Beauvoir’s, etc et al among the rarely heeded Existentialists—basically is this:

1. Don’t give up.
2. Guard personal integrity.
3. Bear witness—even in exile, even underground.
4. Organize independent spaces of truth and witness.

Jaspers doesn’t deny the need for struggle. However, he insists it remain human and ethical. He refuses the “easy” answers of hate, dogma, and myth—even on our own side. In these terms, Ben, sometimes force is necessary. This happens when a militant few have captured the institutions on which everyone depends. We must use force to stop violence. But we must limit it ethically, so we don’t reproduce domination ourselves. Institutions are products of human effort and can fail. We must resist their capture from within as much as possible. Nonetheless, we invigorate the safe spaces we have created if necessary. This will give birth to alternatives that keep truth and freedom alive.

H. Keeping Hope Alive and Faith Vigorous

Your questions got me to advance my thinkering. There is an ethical danger in overemphasizing patience. This includes the risk of ignoring or dismissing the urgency of those most threatened by anti-reason. Marginalized groups often do not have the luxury of patient dialogue when facing immediate violence or state-sanctioned discrimination. A Jaspersian ethics that claims to stand for freedom must recognize this asymmetry. True solidarity requires listening to those under threat. It means respecting their need for safety and justice. It also involves supporting more direct forms of resistance when necessary.

In sum, the limits of Jaspersian patience are real and serious. While Jaspers offers a profound account of how anti-reason works, he also examines how to overcome moral disengagement through dialogue. Truth-seeking and philosophical faith are essential. Nonetheless, he leaves space for a forceful defense of human dignity. A mature Jaspersian response must balance these imperatives. It must refuse the seductions of hatred and myth. Simultaneously, it must meet anti-reason’s violence with the resolve to protect the vulnerable. It should defend freedom and renew the ethical function of reason in public life.

This summarizes a key notion from Jaspers: Loving struggle. I have proposed it to every person with whom I mind-walk. I have spread the idea in every class I have taught for over a decade. Life is struggle but it is not Hobbes’ view of life or Hitler’s. It is not the struggle “of each against all” that sanctifies violence and holocaust. It is the struggle to see in each person the possibility for self-actualization. And the effort to find in real community the possibility for mutual-care.