Dear [Reverend V],
You sense a “sickness” growing from within the “soul” of our “fragile” nation. You worry that the “disease” may overrun and destroy us before any outside enemy can do the same. To these words of concern and (not entirely solicited) counsel you want a willing “ear” from within the government. You have had it, but I regret you’ve found an ear whose mind within has done its own thinking about national moral health.
My thinking is this: governments that act in pursuit of the good govern badly; just as societies who believe good to be on their side will never discern evil. The strength of the former and the survival of the latter cannot be assured with an easy moral equilibrium. Yet neither is moral ambiguity a cure-all for moral conflict.
The atomic bomb, to offer the most operatic example, had evil components. Its elements coalesced in order to bring about devastation at a then-unthinkable scope. The resulting devastation upon Japan by the United States rewarded benefits for both, albeit in unequal distribution. Violence resulted in peace, and had to be wielded on the force of preexisting violent events. Had the bomb been made as a purely diversionary activity for its own sake and wielded in kind, the evil would be obvious. The addition of pragmatism momentarily deflects rather than excuses the evil. It does not make a “good” because good people have done it for good reasons. Neither “good” people nor “good” statesmen are exempted from seeking penance when there are reasonable grounds for seeking it.
Coercion looms dominant over every political evil. Yet politics being by their nature coercive, a government endangers its survival when it tries to work around it. Even a society that places no premium upon the individual conscience is not free of it. A mass conscience can be as much in need of hijacking by the State as that of an individual if it obstructs the implementation of sound, widely beneficial policy.
Just as with the atomic bomb, so too with political force. A whiff of the arbitrary stiffens resistance. Best in a time beset on all sides with demands can still further demands be made. In the right conditions, the mass conscience will not only surrender itself, but consent to do so, at least with the implication that some future benefit may be more certain in their consent and not a symptom of neglect by the state. They would agree to eat less, to restrict their movements, to ration existing material resources while abstaining from resupply. It is surprising even to the powerful how easily amenities like cultural flourishing and even happiness can be put on pause with a compelling enough incentive.
There is no higher form of political coercion than mandatory national service. In times of ease, proposing it is impossible. But in times of hardship, wherein abstaining from it would bring catastrophe, response to it is still acute. Even the most deferential among us seem to have a red line. The reasonable statesman knows the choice being faced is regrettable, and the responsibility in making it is as exacting as it is unrewarding, at least in the near term. So, too, is the choice of framing to persuade the citizens to accept it. A statesman must know the makeup of its state well and not be deluded away from the possible antagonisms of their citizens.
A society with a clear sense of itself, with an assured collective identity and a widely felt unity, can be persuaded effectively by the idea of sacrifice. Collective benefit carries far in a country suffused with self-confidence and a will to endure. Even if the statesman is personally unsure of its veracity, an appeal to broad sentiment—that everyone is a hero to everyone else—will give it force to citizens more ready to be moved by it.
The appeal of sacrifice depreciates in a less well-founded society, where the identity is half-formed and unity is fluid. It is difficult to coerce citizens into sacrifice when citizenship itself feels coerced. Yet without the bodies, identity will never complete and unity will never solidify. Something that places the participatory emphasis will be more effective than that of surrendering personal imperative. “National service” may become “social creation” without losing its central function. Participation is so often left out of mass projects that people will see themselves as six-legged drones even with the mandatory act is “fun.”
For a conscription to be effective in a situation rife with discontent and bordering on anarchy of a most precarious kind, sacrifice must give way to creation, and creation must give the impression of being fun. Coercing citizens between the ages of 18 and 30 (subject to adjustment) into a vibrant, hopeful mentality that they must somehow conjure into reality has its awful magic. But no parallel alchemy exists for deriving good out of being forced to be fun.
Such is the sum of how I see things. Not original by any means but informed by the common sense that tends to arise when tasked with reconciling a mass-scale vision with the realities of life.
Your concerns have been forwarded to the relevant departments. But you needn’t worry. What impact they have on events will be like tremors noticed in passing. For what it’s worth, at the end of each day of rubber-stamping ugly compromises I like to face my bathroom mirror and tell the reflection that “Today I did an evil thing. Light suffocates within me. Despair radiates without me. It hangs like a fog and burns like a toxin. Tomorrow, I will do a new evil thing. I am the abyss; the abyss is me.” That’s not healthy per se but it is candid. Unhealthy habits have their truth in the same way that evil acts have their rewards. When moral and emotional authorities seek to diagnose their society, they sometimes speak more accurately than they realize.
[Tiberius]