Immanuel Kant vs. Israel

by Daniel Pipes
National Review Online
August 17, 2010

http://www.danielpipes.org/8771/immanuel-kant-vs-israel

As someone who deeply appreciates what Western civilization, for all its faults, has achieved, I puzzle over the hostility many Westerners harbor toward their way of life. If democracy, free markets, and the rule of law have created an unprecedented stability, affluence, and decency; how come so many beneficiaries, fail to see this?

Why, for example, does the United States, which has done so much for human welfare, inspire such hostility? And tiny Israel, the symbol of rejuvenation for a perpetually oppressed people – why does it engender such passionate hatred that otherwise decent people desire to eliminate this state?

Yoram Hazony of the Shalem Center, Jerusalem.

Yoram Hazony of the Shalem Center in Jerusalem offers an explanation for this antagonism in a profound and implication-rich essay, "Israel Through European Eyes."

He begins with the notion of "paradigm shift" developed by Thomas Kuhn in his 1962 study, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. This influential concept holds that scientists see their subject from within a specific framework, a "paradigm." Paradigms are frameworks that underpin an understanding of reality. Facts that do not fit the paradigm are overlooked or dismissed. Kuhn reviews the history of science and shows how, in a series of scientific revolutions, paradigms shifted, as from Aristotelian to Newtonian to Einsteinian physics.

Paradigms also frame politics and Hazony applies this theory to Israel's delegitimization in the West. Israel's standing has deteriorated for decades, he argues, "not because of this or that set of facts, but because the paradigm through which educated Westerners are looking at Israel has shifted." Responding to the vilification of Israel by offering corrective facts – about Israel's military morality or its medical breakthroughs – "won't have any real impact on the overall trajectory of Israel's standing among educated people in the West." Instead, the latest paradigm must be recognized and fought.

The fading paradigm sees nation-states as legitimate and positive, a means of protecting peoples and allowing them to flourish. The treaty of Westphalia (1648) was the key moment in which the sovereignty of nations was recognized. John Stuart Mill and Woodrow Wilson endowed the nation-state ideal with global reach.

That paradigm, however, "has pretty much collapsed," Hazony asserts. The nation-state no longer appeals; many intellectuals and political figures in Europe see it "as a source of incalculable evil," a view that is fast spreading.

Immanuel Kant, the German philosopher, lived 1724-1804.

The new paradigm, based ultimately on Immanuel Kant's 1795 treatise Perpetual Peace, advocates the abolition of nation-states and the establishment of international government. Supra-national institutions such as the United Nations and the European Union represent its ideals and models.

Jews and the Holocaust play a strangely central role in the paradigm shift from nation-state to multinational state. The millennial persecution of Jews, culminating in the Nazi genocide, endowed Israel with special purpose and legitimacy according to the old paradigm. From the perspective of the new paradigm, however, the Holocaust represents the excesses of a nation-state, the German one, gone mad.

Under the old nation-state paradigm, the lesson of Auschwitz was "Never again," meaning that a strong Israel was needed to protect Jews. The new paradigm leads to a very different "Never again," one which insists that no government should have the means potentially to replicate the Nazi outrages. According to it, Israel isn't the answer to Auschwitz. The European Union is. That the old-style "Never again" inspires Israelis to pursue the Western world's most unabashed policy of self-defense makes their actions particularly appalling to New Paradigmers.

Need one point out the error of ascribing Nazi outrages to the nation-state? The Nazis wanted to eliminate nation-states. No less than Kant, they dreamed of a universal state,. New Paradigmers mangle history.

Israelis themselves are not immune to the new paradigm, as the case of Avraham Burg suggests. A former speaker of Israel's parliament and candidate for prime minister, he switched paradigms and wrote a book on the legacy of the Holocaust that compares Israel to Nazi Germany. He now wants Israelis to give up on Israel as defender of the Jewish people. No one, Burg's sad example suggests, is immune from the new paradigm disease.

Hazony's essay does not offer policy responses but in a letter to me he sketched three areas to address: building awareness of the new paradigm's existence, finding anomalies to invalidate it, and revitalizing the old paradigm by bringing it up to date.

His insights are profound and his counsel timely.

Mr. Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum and Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University. ©2010 by Daniel Pipes. All rights reserved.

作為一個對西方文明所取得的成就深為讚賞的人——儘管它有許多的缺陷，我對許多西方人對自己的生活方式心懷敵意感到迷惑不解。 如果民主、自由市場和法治已經創造了史無前例的穩定、影響力和文明，為何如此多的受益者卻看不到呢？

比如，為什麼美國有如此好的人類福利，卻激起如此多的敵意呢? 而作為一貫受壓迫、卻重新復興民族代表的小小的以色列，為什麼卻招致如此強烈的仇恨，以至於體面的人們希望消滅這個國家呢？

在具有真知灼見並意義深遠的文章《歐洲人眼中的以色列》一文中，耶路撒冷舍拉姆中心的Yoram Hazony對此敵對狀態提供了一個解釋。

他以庫恩（Thomas Kuhn）在1962年的研究論文《 科技革命的構架》中提出的"範式轉換"概念開篇。這一具有影響力的概念主張，科學家們是從一個具體的框架體系，也就是"範式"來看待他們的研究物件的。范式是支撐和理解現實的基礎框架。那些與範式不符的事實都被忽略或者否定了。庫恩回顧了科學的歷史，並用一系列的科學革命展示了範式轉移，正如亞里斯多德、到牛頓，再到愛因斯坦的物理學。

範式也規範了政治，Hazony將這一理論應用到以色列在西方的祛合法化現象。他主張，過去幾十年中以色列的地位已經逐漸衰弱，"不是因為這些或那些事實，而是因為受過良好教育的西方人對以色列的範式性看法已經發生轉換。通過"提供糾正性的事實（關於以色列軍事道德或者它的醫療突破）對以色列的誹謗進行反擊"，"並不會對以色列在體面的西方人的總體軌道中的位置有什麼影響。"相反，我們必須承認最新的範式並與之鬥爭。

正在衰退的範式視民族國家是合法的，也是積極的，是保護各民族並讓他們不斷繁榮的手段。《威斯特伐利亞和約》（1648年）是國家的主權獲得認可的里程碑。彌勒（John Stuart Mill）和威爾遜（Woodrow Wilson）將民族國家的理想散播到全球各個角落。

然而，Hazony 認為，這一範式"幾乎已經崩潰了"。民族國家已經不再有吸引力了；歐洲的許多知識份子和政治人物視之為"不可估量的邪惡來源"，這個觀念正在迅速蔓延。

新的範式最終以康得1975年的《永久和平論》為基礎，它支持廢除民族國家，建立國際政府。類似聯合國和歐盟的超國家組織是其理想和典範的代表。

猶太人和大屠殺在從民族國家到超國家的範式轉移中起到了奇怪的核心作用。對猶太人上千年的迫害在納粹大屠殺時到達了最高點，根據舊範式，這賦予了以色列特殊的目的和合法性。然而，從新範式的角度來看，大屠殺代表了民族國家的過度發展，即德國瘋掉了。

在舊的民族國家範式中，奧斯威辛的教訓"永遠不會再發生"，意味著需要一個強大的以色列國家來保護猶太人。新的範式卻帶來了一個截然不同的"永遠不會再發生"，因其堅持任何政府不應該擁有潛在的可以讓納粹暴行重現的手段。據此，以色列並不是奧斯威辛的答案。歐盟才是答案所在。舊范式的"永遠不會再發生"激勵以色列人追求西方世界最理直氣壯的自衛政策，他們的行為卻使新範式論者大為驚駭。

要不要指出將納粹的暴行歸因於民族國家這一思維的錯誤所在呢？納粹希望消滅民族國家。他們和康得一樣，夢想建立一個全球性的國家。新範式論者混淆了歷史。

以色列人並未能免於這一新範式的影響，正如在Avraham Burg 一事中所暗示的。以色列議會的前任發言人和總理候選人Avraham Burg轉換了範式，寫了一本關於大屠殺遺產的書，將以色列和納粹德國相提並論。他現在希望以色列人放棄以色列，不再成為猶太民族的保衛者。Burg令人悲哀的例子暗示出，沒有人可以擺脫新範式疾病的蔓延。

Hazony的文章沒有提供政策性的回應，但是他在寫給我的一封信中卻大概闡述了三個領域的回應：不斷提醒人們注意新範式的存在，找到要害證明其錯誤，並且通過與時俱進賦予舊範式以活力。

他的見解實是深邃，他的建議也恰逢其時。