3aksser, being a good person, and the ideal Lebanese State

Note: this is the second blogpost in a series of 3 about approaches to practical life and inspired by what I'm seeing and hearing around me in Lebanon. Here's a link to the first one; it deals with the question of the "daww 3ale" (high beams) at night. I'm not sure exactly in what way, but I've benefited a lot from conversations with Michel about driving in Lebanon when it comes to these posts, so I'd like to thank him :)

If you've driven in Lebanon, you've probably had the experience of turning into a one-way street only to see another person coming towards you the wrong way - I'll call driving the wrong way 3aksesser from now on.

There are several attitudes I've seen adopted in this case, and I've been trying to figure out which one I should adopt if I want to be a good person:
- an understanding attitude: if everyone takes the mafra2 (the street you're going into) 3aksesser, and you're feeling magnanimous, you just back off or move your car to the right and let the person pass
- a principled attitude of attachment to the law: because the other person is breaking the law, you'll force them to back off until they can pass and throw in some mean looks while you're at it to show them how ashamed they should be of breaking the law
- an always right, always angry attitude: some people don't think of the question of who's right in a road disagreeement as one that depends on the facts. They only look at one variable: their position in the issue. If a "principled" person refuses to let them pass when they're driving 3aksesser, they'll be outraged. If someone who's driving aksesser comes their way, they'll be outraged. These people will get angry and force the other person to go back, maybe even getting out of their car and getting threatening if they sense resistance on the other person's part

For me, the angry attitude doesn't really qualify for what a good person is or should be - because, in the end, morality relies on our ability to be someone other than ourselves and see that someone sees - so the competition is between the understanding attitude and the principled one.

People who hold the principled attitude will tell you that if there was a proper, functioning Lebanese government, people would be punished for going against the traffic. While that's not happening, it's on us as citizens who care about the law to model lawful behavior and frown upon unlawful behavior. If we act like unlawful behavior is okay then we're part of what's making it okay.

I used to find these points compelling. However, there's something that makes me very uneasy with this sacralization of the ideal State that these points rely on. I don't like the idea that the only way for things to be right in this country is for the State to be in control of every inch of territory and for all laws to be perfectly enforced. Very often, what I see in the description of this ideal state we will have reached "lamma yezbat el balad" (when the country finally becomes functional, works out) is the imposition of an idealized European framework - even though even Europe doesn't function this way. Very often, that idealized State becomes an excuse to dismiss what we have before our eyes and blame whoever seems to be preventing that State from happening or who's acting like it's not there. We blame them instead of thinking about why exactly the problem at hand is a problem and what we can do to fix it. On that note, I suspect that it's once we let go of that framework of the sacred idealized State as the ultimate solution for all problems that we can start to work a solution out when it comes to Hezbollah's weapons and their current monopoly over decisions of war and peace.

Sorry I got a bit sidetracked. To come back to our topic, I think it might be useful to stop seeing 3aksesser as a backwards phenomenon that will be eradicated once our ideal perfect Lebanese State is in place. It's no wonder mentions of such a State (e.g., "kif beddo yezbat el balad" = how is the country gonna work out) often go hand in hand with terms like "bajam" and "tatar" that conjure up racist images of an undisciplined, barbarian people. We need to stop fitting every difference between our situation and the idealized State on the backwards/advanced axis - things are richer and more interesting than that.

After much thought, I decided that we should start seeing 3aksesser for what it is: something that can be helpful and save us a lot of time in many cases; but I still think it should be looked down upon when it's exaggerated or when it's (too) dangerous. I think I'm a better person when I let it be and maybe even engage in it when it makes sense. Compared to the crusade against 3aksesser in all its forms, the battle against unreasonable 3aksesser is one that is more just and that is more likely to be won.

Thoughts on "something needs to be done about Syria"

I have written a couple of posts against common arguments that are used in opposition to U.S. intervention in Syria. While that eventually seems to have been taken off the table thanks to Russia's savviness, I think that moment is still rich and very interesting. There is no doubted it shaped the current media and social media configuration around the Syria issue.

In this post, I want to focus on a  trend I see implicit in a lot of commentary/exhortation on Syria. I take a U.S.-centric perspective here because it makes the "we" I use (see below) more direct.

There as a trending argument that seems to go as follows: "The situation in Syria is so bad that we have a moral duty to do something." Variations are {horrible picture / video} and then "and the West doesn't do anything."

This argument is actually a disguise for two possible (incompatible) arguments:
(1) it is morally impermissible to stand idle when others are suffering this much. In other words, the existence of this intensity of suffering itself, on its own, means we need to do something. Not doing something is immoral because it entails a failure to fulfill a duty. That duty is precisely the duty to do something.

(2) if we don't do something it's going to continue and there are ways to make it stop. The war (at its current scale) stopping is a good thing, it's a better alternative than the war going on. That indicates there is a way to make things better. Not doing anything would mean not executing that particular alternative that could make the situation better, and failing to make things better when you can is bad.

The first kind of reasoning is not only very dangerous, it is also deeply flawed for the same reason: it can be used to justify any action in any circumstances. Instead of being a careful approach that tries to weigh options, it bases itself on the very dubious claim that any "something" is better than "nothing." We should be careful about that argument, and never forget the when you can. We need to know when we can and we need to know why we can and do it.

When things are bad, we have a moral duty to think about how we should relate to it and THEN act if there is something to be done. It's NOT about doing any action because, whatever it is, it's presumably better than no action.

Note: it's interesting that, despite their fundamental difference, both arguments rely on the fact that even if there is a moral distinction between action and omission, omission cannot be devoid of moral consequences or weight.