A tiny violent minority’s actions justify a vast national security state
Evidence
These are ethical ends or commitments in signaling not so much what ethics has come to be for – it is for itself and no other, Kant would have it – as who it is for and who not, for whom and where the ethical begins and ends. The figure of the Muslim seems to have conjured the transformation of the ethical from the in-itself, from self-sustaining and self-promoting reason, to the personalization of pure instrumentality. Self-regarding reason, whether in the collectivization of ends or in absolute individualization of religious commitment, has elevated instrumentalization above all else. No limit to terror or torture, death and destruction, incarceration and interrogation, restriction and repatriation so long as they service security of the Chosen People. The one reproduces the other, in a vicious upward spiral. Here we see the link, as much in the logic as in the great chain of being, between historical Europe – “old Europe,” to twist the Rumsfeldian turn – and born again American foreign adventure, the “new world,” in Bush braggadocio. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 912 (
#corroborates, via linked claim)
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Instrumental ethics tied to security justify unlimited violence against designated groups — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 912; State violence operating outside its own rules constitutes informal sovereignty; Imperialism newly made power and violence themselves the conscious aim of the state — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 373 (+14 more)
Broader Connections
- Anti-terror practices produce a fortress nation-state and a besieged national subject
#corroborates(0.98) - Instrumental ethics tied to security justify unlimited violence against designated groups
#corroborates(0.95) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 912 - State violence operating outside its own rules constitutes informal sovereignty
#complicates(0.85) - Imperialism newly made power and violence themselves the conscious aim of the state
#complicates(0.80) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 373 - Racial states are inherently violent, not merely exercises of power
#complicates(0.80) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1741 - Civility veils rather than ends sanctioned state violence
#complicates(0.75) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 250 - A small armed population draws its strength from a worldwide revolutionary movement
#complicates(0.75) — Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, 51 - Postindependence Middle East states framed ethnic minorities as threats to national integrity
#complicates(0.75) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 3464 - Strategic essentialism is germane only where it defends against state violence
#complicates(0.75) - Perceiving a group as powerful and malevolent rationalizes extreme violence as self-defense
#complicates(0.75) - Shared state violence can create fellow feeling across ethnic lines.
#complicates(0.75) — Luke de Noronha, The conviviality of the overpoliced,…, 46 - Separatist terrorism offers positive identity within a minority community, not just negative rejection
#complicates(0.75) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4127 - A dominant minority can hold power through threats and enforced coordination costs
#complicates(0.75) — Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict, 287 - Monopoly of violence within precise borders is distinctive to the modern state
#complicates(0.70) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 155