The uses of scare quotes

One of the charges often made by us supporters of the war on Islamist terrorism is that the peace movement is guilty of drawing a spurious moral equivalence between the perpetrators of terror and those who respond defensively to it. Sometimes I wonder how far our argument holds.

Leon Wieseltier, the literary editor of The New Republic, wrote an apt and moving commentary for the magazine a few weeks ago in which he lamented what he termed the foul actions of the Israeli Defence Forces in opening fire on a demonstration that included children. I believe he was right to use such language, even though I find it inconceivable that the resulting deaths were intended: it was culpably irresponsible to deploy tanks in such an area, close to civilians. Wieseltier argued that sometimes it's necessary for responsible moral agents to try to draw parallels within their experience and observation. He gave the particular example of the Israeli Cabinet Minister Tommy Lapid's invocation of the memory of his grandmother, a Holocaust victim, when recounting the televison image of an elderly Palestinian woman. Lapid was not comparing the plight of the Palestinians to that of pre-war European Jewry - a conceit that would be grotesque and historically false - but was focusing simply on the characteristics of those who suffer.

It was a difficult argument, and I'm glad Wieseltier made it. He is a committed supporter of Israel, writing in a magazine that ranks among Israel's strongest allies in the Western media. I too am a friend and supporter of Israel, and I consider that standing by Israel in her struggle against terrorism is a cause as axiomatic for liberals as was opposition to apartheid or support for Soviet dissidents in an earlier generation. Wieseltier's point made me think and reflect about the moral compromises that support for even a just war necessarily involves us in.

Yet then again, I run across something like this. It's a letter in today's Independent from one Debra Hart, writing from France:

Sir: A US airstrike kills 20 in Falluja and provokes no condemnation. One American hostage is beheaded and the "murderers" are denounced worldwide. Would someone please tell me why Mr Johnson's death is worth so many more column inches than the un-named, and un-cared-about Iraqis.

You read it correctly. Those who cut the head off an American engineer, a civilian trying to make a living for himself, are not murderers: they are "murderers". The writer is so concerned to advance a tendentious political argument about moral equivalence that she declines to use straightforwardly and unexceptionably the only word that is adequate to her context. So far from being a vehicle for encouraging empathy, her use of language is evidence of the atrophy of moral reflection. There has been a lot of that in the last 21 months, much of it in this country in the columns of the supposedly liberal press.

Comments

[Ben Keen]

I'm not convinced that cranky letters to the editor provide a terribly good counterpoise. Perhaps alpha trimming is in order when considering these sorts of moral decisions -- about what is appropriate, and what is not, and under what circumstances -- and the opinion landscape concerning them.

[Matthew]

She isn't saying they aren't murderers, she is saying that the press automatically call them murderers though they don't call US pilots who bomb civilians thus and they should. That is, she is quoting, not scare-quoting. It's not a good argument, but it's not quite as bad as one you think it is.

[Twn]

Yes. Of course, she also has to believe that U.S. Pilots intentionally bombed civilians for the sake of bombing civilians. And, she must believe that the people recently bombed in Fallujah were actually civilians. Maybe they were, maybe not.

Sometimes I wonder whether newspapers should even feature "letters to the editor" -- so often they're completely worthless, except for showing how silly some people can be. But maybe it's the editors of "letters to the editor" that are at fault. . . .

[Chris Lightfoot]

Errm. The bombing of civilians doesn't have to be intentional for it to be murder; the killings could have been reckless.

(One purpose of "letters to the editor" is to expose views anathematic to the editorial stance of the newspaper, in order to keep the custom of people who buy the paper while not agreeing with its editors or proprietors. It doesn't sound like this letter fell into that category, though.)

[Sebastian]

Matthew: of course they automatically call them murderers. They are. Accidentally killing civilians (that the Iraqis were civilians is assumed by the author) is not murder and isn't in the same moral or legal category as deliberate planned murder of civilians.
You seem to be defending someone who implies that murderers aren't murderers by implying that people who aren't murderers are. Or perhaps you're just saying that she's saying that.

[jim]

Sebastian writes:
"Accidentally killing civilians... is not murder"

Well Sebastian; to my mind, to kill under the cloak of war is not a whit better than to commit ordinary murder.

So whilst it may not "technically" be murder, i suspect that's not much consolation to the families of those killed. And i don't see how it absolves the perpetrator of the moral responsibility of having ended a human life.

[Tim Newman]

So whilst it may not "technically" be murder, i suspect that's not much consolation to the families of those killed.

This is one of the fallacies that is wheeled out time and again during dicsussions of this kind. Two actions are not automatically the same by virtue of the outcome of the actions being the same. We are talking here about the intentions of those that committed two separate actions - and you are in effect saying that the actions are the same because both caused families to grieve. It is this line of thinking which I believe Oliver is attacking in his original post.

[Matthew]

No Sebastian I'm saying that she thinks they are murderers but also thinks that the US pilots are murderers. I also said I don't agree with it, but it's not an unarguable point, particularly whilst the facts are murky.

[Mike Wood]

Chris,

Surely there would have needed to have been an intention to have at least seriously hurt someone, in order for the bombings to be classed as murders. Otherwise they are reckless killings.
Whilst this will not bring any comfort to the families of those killed, it makes a big difference in terms of moral culpability.

[Chris Lightfoot]

Hmm. I think it depends on jurisdiction; in English law, reckless killing can be involuntary manslaughter but not, I think, murder. The situation in the US differs, I think. In any case the pilot who drops a bomb from his aircraft presumably intends to or at least should be aware of the risk of hurting someone; the question is whether they were obeying a lawful order (or acting in reasonable self-defence) and whether they took the proper precautions to ensure that their bomb hit only a legitimate targets.

[maor]

'So whilst it may not "technically" be murder, i suspect that's not much consolation to the families of those killed. And i don't see how it absolves the perpetrator of the moral responsibility of having ended a human life.'

If that's your argument, I will suggest this one:

'So whilst it may not "technically" be blood-thirsty Nazism, i suspect that's not much consolation to the families of those killed. And i don't see how it absolves the perpetrator of the moral responsibility of having ended a human life.'

[MIchaelP]

You would agree then, Maor that the indiscrimante slaughter of civilians by deranged suicidal killers and the butchering of non-combatants by blood crazed savages would also be murder. Does that mean we can dispense with the euphemism "militant" in these cases?

[maor]

Oh, absolutely.
I might even agree to "blood-thirsty Nazi" for some of these guys.

You can tell I'm not a journalist.

[maor]

I meant to criticize the logic of implying that US forces are similar to murderers.

[Frank]

'Single quotes' when the words >>so-called<< are being implied, "double quotes" when quoting somebody directly. That is the style in most UK publications.

This difference is significant: when you're quoting someone with double quotes you are emphasising that THEY used that term - and it doesn't imply that you disagree with them. When you're using single quotes you are emphasising that this is a label not agreed upon by everyone - and probably not by yourself.