The Duty to Win


If we believe our goals are just, we have a duty to achieve them. But it seems that good people handicap themselves by their own morality. Immoral people can do whatever is most effective, but aren’t moral people constantly constrained in what they can do, and doesn’t this make them less effective?
(Tenth in a series that starts here, and how did this get so out of hand anyway?)
Since the start of Obama’s presidency, for example, the Left has been in a conversation about whether we’re more committed to winning—getting legislation through Congress—or to maintaining the norms and procedures that have kept the country going until now—such as the filibuster in the Senate. We, at this point in time anyway, like to see ourselves as defending democratic traditions against those philistines on the other side. Isn’t there merit to this position?
No, says Sri Krishna. I read the Mahabharata not long ago, and this not only comes up, it turns out to be one of the well-known puzzles of the epic. In the Mahabharata, Krishna is the Supreme Personage of the universe, whose titles include Vrishaparvaa, Lord of Dharma, and Jagadguru, Preceptor of the Universe. Yet when it comes to applying the dharma to actual situations, he is surprisingly flexible.
For example, he promises not to fight actively in the war between the Kurus and the Pandevas. (That’s why he’s Arjuna’s chariot driver.) But Arjuna has a hard time killing Bhishma, his elder and teacher, who has taken the other side. Krishna gets totally fed up and finally jumps off the chariot, grabs a chariot wheel lying about, and charges Bhishma, intending to kill him himself. Krishna is willing to break his own vow to ensure victory when he sees no other way. (Arjuna tackles him and gets him to stop by promising to do the deed himself… later.)
Or again, Drona is another elder who has taken the Kuru’s side and has to be killed to win the war. To break his spirit, Krishna urges Yudhishthira to tell him his son is dead. His son is named Ashwatthama, and a war-elephant by that name has just been killed on the field. Drona asks Yudhishthira if Ashwatthama is dead, meaning his son, because he knows Yudhishthira is honorable and will not lie to him. Yudhishitra tells him “Yes, he is dead” and then, under his breath adds, “…the elephant Ashwatthama.”
Or again, Arjuna and Yudhishthira get into a fight because Yudhishthira suggests Arjuna give someone else his bow if he’s not going to use it against the elders on the Kuru side. Arjuna has taken a vow to kill anyone who tries to take his bow, and decides this is an attempt to do just that. The brothers are about to come to blows when Krishna shows up, rolls his eyes, and gives them an out: the vedas say he who utters harsh words to his brother as good as kills him, so it will be fine if Arjuna just yells a bit.
Krishna’s justification in these cases and others is that victory is not possible if they adhere strictly to the moral rules of the dharma, and since their cause is just they have a duty to win. They are not allowed to use their own moral purity as an excuse to be less effective in their cause.
I think that’s a good lesson for us today. We must use all the tools we have in fighting for our cause. Not only are we to blame if we don’t, our opponents will use our restraint against us anyway.
A friend (who repeats too many right-wing talking points) told me recently Democrats don’t really care about the immigration issue, that if we did we would have dealt with it when we controlled Congress. I pointed out we only controlled Congress for about 6 months and used that time to pass Obamacare. He said that’s wrong, I said we needed 60 votes in the Senate to pass anything, and he said, “No you don’t. Read the Constitution.”
So his argument, and the argument on the Right, is that because we weren’t willing to abolish the filibuster, that proves we don’t really care about immigration. Not only do we get no credit for maintaining norms, we are attacked for it and our restraint is used against us as proof that we are hypocrites.
And are we not hypocrites? Both my right-wing friend and Krishna might agree that our restraint in pursuing worthy goals isn’t noble, it’s just stupid, and casts doubt on our commitment to those goals.
We have a duty to win. We have a duty to fight whole-heartedly for what we believe in. And we have a duty not to allow our own sense of moral purity to handicap us.
(I think this is the end of this series. I might do a wrap-up post but that’s all.)

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