1 00:00:00,060 --> 00:00:08,940 The CEO is a longstanding friend of the Change in Control program and is a prominent member of our steering committee, 2 00:00:09,360 --> 00:00:13,860 which obviously governs all my actions and prevents me from predicting errors. 3 00:00:15,390 --> 00:00:19,290 She is a professor of fiscal policy at Lincoln. 4 00:00:19,620 --> 00:00:27,450 The really important thing, if you don't know she's here, is to you must read her book on Cosmopolitan or Get Out in 2012. 5 00:00:27,810 --> 00:00:30,570 The first volume of the Teen Public Service with Washington, D.C. Press. 6 00:00:30,960 --> 00:00:39,570 We're wasting the second volume of Cosmopolitan piece, which is a sister volume, and I'm sure we'll be precise about that. 7 00:00:40,860 --> 00:00:46,689 She currently holds the British Columbia Mid-career Fellowship Grant, and that goes on through August this year. 8 00:00:46,690 --> 00:00:50,820 So we're not, she says. Online she is. August 2104. 9 00:00:51,240 --> 00:00:54,209 That's the longest British government grant I could probably ever consider. 10 00:00:54,210 --> 00:00:58,310 And I don't know how you got a hundred year grant, but I won't want to test it. 11 00:00:58,980 --> 00:01:03,030 She's clearly specialist on them on rights, democracy, 12 00:01:03,540 --> 00:01:11,810 ethics of war and distributive justice and year is a huge honour for us to have you giving some thanks. 13 00:01:11,820 --> 00:01:15,540 Thanks for having me. Does everyone have a handout? Good. 14 00:01:16,140 --> 00:01:19,500 Excellent. So thank you very much for inviting me to speak. 15 00:01:20,070 --> 00:01:28,680 Am I right? I should know the answer to that question. But is this the first broadly political philosophical talk, this term? 16 00:01:29,490 --> 00:01:37,110 This term, yes. So that's a bit of a shift in tone compared to what we've heard over the last over the last few weeks. 17 00:01:38,130 --> 00:01:40,170 So as Robert has just said, 18 00:01:40,170 --> 00:01:50,700 I'm currently writing a book which is called Cosmopolitan Peace is the sequel to the book that came out about 18 months ago, 19 00:01:50,730 --> 00:01:55,170 which was called Cosmopolitan Woo. I apologise for this. 20 00:01:55,170 --> 00:01:59,999 Some would call me nature of the title you control really over this. 21 00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:10,310 My editor does what I want to talk to you about today is a topic which matters to me, not just intellectually but personally as well. 22 00:02:10,320 --> 00:02:18,940 But it's the issue of whether we have moral reasons and if so, which kind of moral reasons to remember. 23 00:02:20,010 --> 00:02:29,410 The activities that people that we are going to discuss today will in fact be the very last chapter of the piece. 24 00:02:31,050 --> 00:02:36,890 Now, clearly, it's a very important time during which to tackle the issue. 25 00:02:38,050 --> 00:02:43,320 We have now more or less formally known until the centenary of the First World War. 26 00:02:43,320 --> 00:02:49,290 We have voiced ourselves for five years, more or less constant commemorative ceremonies, 27 00:02:49,350 --> 00:02:54,989 special commemorative ceremonies, practices, events, conferences, books. 28 00:02:54,990 --> 00:03:03,500 You can't walk into your bookshop in these days without being confronted by shelves and desks groaning under the weight of new books, 29 00:03:03,810 --> 00:03:13,010 edited books on the First World War. So it's partly faced with this commemorative onslaught that I decided fairly aptly 30 00:03:13,020 --> 00:03:19,590 for in the first week of November 2013 that I wanted to write something about that. 31 00:03:20,310 --> 00:03:28,070 And it is a topic more of a rich political philosophy, history, a moral philosophy, first of all, that much I hardly ever talk about, 32 00:03:28,260 --> 00:03:36,690 so that the question on the table, as it were, is this to repeat, what kind of reasons do we have moral reasons? 33 00:03:36,690 --> 00:03:39,720 Do we have to engage in those practices? 34 00:03:40,410 --> 00:03:44,640 But let me illustrate by way of an example. Suppose it's never going to happen. 35 00:03:45,090 --> 00:03:54,270 Just suppose, but we don't until the day. Would you say, look, this whole Remembrance Sunday ceremony at the War Memorial is just too expensive. 36 00:03:54,360 --> 00:03:57,510 Don't do it. Let's discuss with you. 37 00:03:57,840 --> 00:04:00,240 Let's use the money to do something else. 38 00:04:01,950 --> 00:04:10,800 Would there be anything wrong in some sense about what it is that we would lose in this country if indeed we would lose anything at all, 39 00:04:11,070 --> 00:04:14,070 morally speaking, about such a move? 40 00:04:15,120 --> 00:04:23,459 Now, when I say that political philosophers do not usually talk about the issue of war, the numbers, that's not entirely true. 41 00:04:23,460 --> 00:04:30,510 They are standard arguments in favour of the view that we ought really in some sense it's going to be this time. 42 00:04:30,930 --> 00:04:39,030 So resources thinking, remembering wars, those standard arguments go like this and I use them on your handout. 43 00:04:39,930 --> 00:04:45,180 Well, yes, we ought to do it as a way to take responsibility for the past. 44 00:04:45,990 --> 00:04:48,240 That's one first standard argument. 45 00:04:49,380 --> 00:04:59,370 The second standard argument says, well, yes, we should engage in those practices as a way to strengthen the bonds that unite us here today. 46 00:05:00,110 --> 00:05:08,690 Our fellow citizens know those arguments, justify remembrance of war and how we use food. 47 00:05:08,900 --> 00:05:12,080 From that, we would tend to use the word remembrance food for short. 48 00:05:12,260 --> 00:05:17,370 By which we mean remembrance of practices such as Remembrance Sunday. 49 00:05:17,390 --> 00:05:28,430 In this country, Memorial Day, in the U.S., those arguments justify remembrance by appealing to a special relationship that unites actors in 50 00:05:28,430 --> 00:05:35,480 remembrance either the special relationship that unites current generations to past generations, 51 00:05:36,350 --> 00:05:42,200 or the special relationship that unites people here today in the present together. 52 00:05:42,650 --> 00:05:44,260 And usually, in fact, 53 00:05:44,420 --> 00:05:53,180 the very special relationships and special relationships which unfold and develop between members of the same political communities. 54 00:05:54,800 --> 00:06:01,820 Usually remembrance practices are justified, except for one set of practices uncomfortable in the second, 55 00:06:01,820 --> 00:06:08,270 but that seems to be justified by appealing to the value inherent in the bonds of citizenship. 56 00:06:08,780 --> 00:06:17,209 They are particularly risky. At the same time, however, it seems to me that at least in the West Wars, 57 00:06:17,210 --> 00:06:26,000 that we perhaps the most imperative to remember are the two world wars and events within wars that, again, 58 00:06:26,030 --> 00:06:31,730 perhaps feel the most important to remember are events which in the very atrocity, 59 00:06:32,270 --> 00:06:40,340 seem to speak to us as human beings and not so much as the French, as a British, as an American, as a German consequence. 60 00:06:41,630 --> 00:06:51,830 It seems to me, in other words, that although standard arguments for war remembrance partake of what I call here particular rustic morality, 61 00:06:51,830 --> 00:06:59,270 that is to say, belonging to those special obligations which we have as part of a certain relationship. 62 00:07:00,080 --> 00:07:07,100 Many of our commemorative practices, particularly around the two world wars or atrocities within wars, 63 00:07:07,580 --> 00:07:15,230 seem to make the most sense of peace intuitively through the lenses of more interesting mystic values. 64 00:07:15,320 --> 00:07:22,610 What I want to try to do in this afternoon is work out whether we could justify 65 00:07:22,610 --> 00:07:29,720 engaging in remembrance practices in a way that does not require assigning a deep, 66 00:07:29,870 --> 00:07:33,320 meaningful value to the bonds of citizenship. 67 00:07:34,760 --> 00:07:42,110 The books that have emerged from War Caucus were published in one of the pieces of cosmopolitan peace. 68 00:07:42,110 --> 00:07:50,569 For those of you who don't really know that cosmopolitanism is the view that individuals from the multitude of rights, 69 00:07:50,570 --> 00:07:58,250 entitlements and duties are given to them if one approves of national political borders. 70 00:07:58,850 --> 00:08:06,530 These are for all of us, for human beings, have certain rights against each other and certain obligations to one another. 71 00:08:06,530 --> 00:08:10,460 Again, quite human beings. I'm deeply committed to that view. 72 00:08:10,850 --> 00:08:15,860 It is the central principle on which my thinking about war and peace relies. 73 00:08:16,310 --> 00:08:24,020 So what I'm particularly interested in here is to see whether the broadly nationalist arguments in 74 00:08:24,020 --> 00:08:31,610 favour of remembrance are all that there is to say about remembrance or whether from a cosmopolitan, 75 00:08:31,730 --> 00:08:39,140 you know, stylistic view, we can in fact offer a justification as to why we should continue to support, 76 00:08:39,500 --> 00:08:45,920 for example, remembrance practices such as murder and Sunday in this country. 77 00:08:46,610 --> 00:08:51,460 So what I want to do, how long are you giving me? 40 minutes. 78 00:08:51,470 --> 00:09:00,799 Okay. So what I want to do first is to discuss the standard documents which we find in the literature, that section two, when you had. 79 00:09:00,800 --> 00:09:09,170 And then I will try to develop a more general statistic account of remembrance duties. 80 00:09:09,170 --> 00:09:15,470 And if there is time, because I predict that you know what I say with upsetting stories, if there is time, 81 00:09:15,740 --> 00:09:22,580 I'll try to pre-empt the objections by outlining some of the worries that historians might have. 82 00:09:23,870 --> 00:09:30,230 So let me begin then. Section two on your handout past and present two problematic arguments, 83 00:09:31,580 --> 00:09:41,240 beginning with the view that engaging in remembrance practices is something that we ought to do as a way to take responsibility for the past. 84 00:09:41,370 --> 00:09:47,209 Now, there are two ways in which we can construe the argument, and the first most obvious one, 85 00:09:47,210 --> 00:09:53,870 the consistent saying that we must take responsibility and commemorate past wrongs. 86 00:09:54,830 --> 00:09:59,870 Of course, the classic example you illustrate the argument is the example of the. 87 00:10:00,970 --> 00:10:06,400 Germany. So as applied to this specific example, the argument goes like this. 88 00:10:07,000 --> 00:10:17,440 Even if contemporary Germans did not themselves know, did their own parents of world powers themselves take part in the Holocaust? 89 00:10:17,440 --> 00:10:27,280 All of them are indeed for admission that crime was committed by their predecessors in this national community known as Germany. 90 00:10:28,510 --> 00:10:36,159 And so, according to the argument, contemporary Germans can reasonably be expected to experience feelings of 91 00:10:36,160 --> 00:10:42,400 shame vs of that collective past which is profoundly shaped by the Holocaust. 92 00:10:43,270 --> 00:10:46,270 And experiencing those feelings of collective shame, 93 00:10:46,270 --> 00:10:54,549 in turn gives them a particularly compelling reason to make reparations to victims of the Holocaust. 94 00:10:54,550 --> 00:11:03,980 And one way in which to make those reparations is to commemorate the Holocaust with the appropriate moral and emotional attitude. 95 00:11:05,590 --> 00:11:13,930 This latter clause I should have said this before. This clause with appropriate, moral, unusual attitude is, it seems to me, 96 00:11:13,930 --> 00:11:19,490 crucial to understanding remembrance practices, whether from this article or indeed historical. 97 00:11:20,290 --> 00:11:23,940 And here is what I mean by phase two. 98 00:11:24,040 --> 00:11:32,439 It seems to me that when we talk of remembrance in general, the realities of war in particular, we are not simply thinking. 99 00:11:32,440 --> 00:11:39,190 It seems to me that it is important to call into online facts about wars of the past. 100 00:11:40,690 --> 00:11:49,569 We tend to take with you because I think to think of you, I must say these are fairly common views from the view that we should remember those events, 101 00:11:49,570 --> 00:11:56,290 those wars in a way that is appropriate to the subject matter morally or emotionally, 102 00:11:56,290 --> 00:12:04,570 by which I mean that if there is a sense in which the war or indeed the atrocities within the war and the remembrance is morally wrong. 103 00:12:05,200 --> 00:12:10,660 Well, in remembering this that we should do so, bearing in mind, 104 00:12:10,680 --> 00:12:19,470 at least in awareness of the moral dimension of these accounts, and likewise remembrance in that particular context. 105 00:12:19,480 --> 00:12:26,550 And it specifically is a second to moving and there is a sense in which reference of what you mentioned, you know, 106 00:12:26,590 --> 00:12:34,710 how you would feel if during the Remembrance Sunday ceremony, you know, the entire cabinet decided to burst out laughing. 107 00:12:35,440 --> 00:12:39,850 But we say there's something inappropriate about that as well. 108 00:12:40,240 --> 00:12:49,720 So what is clear is that when I speak of moral reasons to remember, I mean moral reasons not just to recall the facts to your own mind, 109 00:12:50,200 --> 00:12:58,480 but to do so in a way that is morally and emotionally sensitive and appropriate to what this divisive action was. 110 00:12:59,440 --> 00:13:00,849 So the argument, therefore, 111 00:13:00,850 --> 00:13:09,550 is that contemporary Germans want citizens of this particular country have an especially compelling reason to remember the Holocaust, 112 00:13:10,000 --> 00:13:18,240 which, for example, members of other nations who were themselves complicit in the Holocaust do not have, 113 00:13:18,620 --> 00:13:23,559 in virtue of the proper feelings of shame that they should have about the Holocaust, 114 00:13:23,560 --> 00:13:30,490 even if you could defend themselves by not in any way contemporary Germans implicated in the Holocaust. 115 00:13:31,630 --> 00:13:34,690 Now I can see the force of this argument. 116 00:13:35,110 --> 00:13:43,179 I think that it would not at all when I knew of one of at least one German citizen who there might be others. 117 00:13:43,180 --> 00:13:51,910 But in my view, for what it's worth, is that it would not be irrational for contemporary Germans to feel ashamed of this particular past. 118 00:13:52,510 --> 00:14:01,450 But I do find the view that there therefore has a compelling more reason to remember the Holocaust, which other people don't have. 119 00:14:01,450 --> 00:14:11,760 I find that view somewhat problematic, and the reason why I find that view somewhat problematic is precisely that they were not implicated themselves. 120 00:14:11,770 --> 00:14:24,129 Excuse Herzog in the Holocaust. It seems to me that generally individuals are liable to reparative duties only if 121 00:14:24,130 --> 00:14:30,030 they themselves were causally implicated in the wrong doing or is derived from them. 122 00:14:30,040 --> 00:14:37,779 Jews benefit from their own doing if and to the extent that contemporary Germans are by our procedures, 123 00:14:37,780 --> 00:14:45,820 neither causally implicated in the wound nor do not derive an interest benefit from the occurrence of the Holocaust. 124 00:14:46,270 --> 00:14:52,989 Then it's not funny to me that you mean why they more than anyone else here today, 125 00:14:52,990 --> 00:14:59,560 several decades after the fact and especially compelling reason to remember the Holocaust. 126 00:14:59,880 --> 00:15:09,300 Which we do not have as well. Now, you know, my argument is not that none of us have a compelling reason to remember the Holocaust. 127 00:15:09,330 --> 00:15:12,510 In fact, I shall try to make an argument to the effect that we do. 128 00:15:12,630 --> 00:15:27,900 All of us have such good reason. My worry is about seeking out Germans as bearers of, and especially waiting for reasons to do so. 129 00:15:29,350 --> 00:15:37,200 I use the example of the Holocaust as a means to illustrate the general point that I made here, 130 00:15:37,650 --> 00:15:47,730 which is that the longer the time has elapsed between the occurrence of a war on the one hand and the point at which we deem some Jews to be, 131 00:15:47,880 --> 00:15:55,860 and the second reasons to commemorate that event, the less reason there is to single out a particular group of people, 132 00:15:55,860 --> 00:16:03,659 just on account of the fact that their predecessors a long time ago to where of course it is repeated or derived from Jews, 133 00:16:03,660 --> 00:16:05,970 benefit from their own doing. 134 00:16:07,890 --> 00:16:18,540 So the reparative argument for remembrance does not strike me as particularly strong, particularly to repeat when we study remembrance, 135 00:16:18,540 --> 00:16:28,350 the morality of remembrance practices, when the wars and the remembrance, as it were, for wars of the move or atrocities within the more distant past. 136 00:16:30,030 --> 00:16:39,660 Now. The other way in which we can think of remembrance as a way to take responsibility for the past consists in commemorating past benefactors. 137 00:16:40,140 --> 00:16:47,940 I find that argument from your handouts. The argument goes like this Our soldiers make the highest possible sacrifice for us, 138 00:16:47,940 --> 00:16:58,920 and so we are under a duty of gratitude to them for what they did for us, which we discharge through acts of remembrance and commemoration. 139 00:17:01,140 --> 00:17:05,900 Again, I think that there is a lot of intrusive force, you know, argument. 140 00:17:06,540 --> 00:17:09,960 But I do find it worrisome for two reasons. 141 00:17:11,340 --> 00:17:17,390 The first one is this The argument presupposes that there is such a thing as a free community. 142 00:17:17,580 --> 00:17:23,090 It comes from a national political community which endures over time and of which it 143 00:17:23,100 --> 00:17:31,050 makes sense to say it today has benefited from what its members in the past did. 144 00:17:31,770 --> 00:17:38,010 But of course, the longer time lapse is the less recognisable the polity is that policy. 145 00:17:38,250 --> 00:17:49,130 On his behalf, the move was flawed. So as I write on the handout, it's not entirely clear who were those two American citizens or Mexican. 146 00:17:49,140 --> 00:17:59,130 Such have a particularly compelling reason to remember American veterans in gratitude to those veterans who died in the First World War. 147 00:18:01,680 --> 00:18:07,740 Now, the obvious rejoinder to that worry is that the USA here and now would not be what they are. 148 00:18:08,250 --> 00:18:17,280 I did nothing for the fact that I entered that war in 1917 so that if the USA would not be what they are now, 149 00:18:17,400 --> 00:18:27,900 but for the fact that it entered the war in 1917, then you can see why my recently naturalised American citizen could be heard on the register. 150 00:18:27,990 --> 00:18:31,020 Gratitude to veterans of the First World War. 151 00:18:32,280 --> 00:18:43,080 But of course, we don't know. We don't know what would have happened to the United States in 2014 had the United States entered the war in 1917. 152 00:18:45,490 --> 00:18:51,320 And you might not find that objection compelling. So let me move to the second war that I have. 153 00:18:51,340 --> 00:19:00,540 But the argument that says you recall that we owe it in gratitude to soldiers who fought for us in 154 00:19:00,540 --> 00:19:08,010 the past to remember what they did for us to the extent that we benefited from what they did for us. 155 00:19:08,640 --> 00:19:11,030 Now, here's my second question. Now, that's a correction. 156 00:19:11,060 --> 00:19:20,070 I know that there are members of the armed forces in the room, so I'm going to articulate my worry as delicately and sensitively as I can. 157 00:19:21,570 --> 00:19:28,140 My worry is this, though it seems to me that benefiting from our predecessor's deeds and sacrifices 158 00:19:28,560 --> 00:19:34,530 is not enough to generate a duty of gratitude to them for what they did. 159 00:19:35,190 --> 00:19:44,400 It must be the case that the deeds and sacrifices which they committed and incurred were themselves morally justified. 160 00:19:46,870 --> 00:19:53,500 Otherwise we would be under a duty to remember in gratitude soldiers who died for the sake of our community. 161 00:19:53,650 --> 00:19:58,240 Even if the war in which they were engaged was profoundly unjust. 162 00:19:58,730 --> 00:20:06,460 And I find that to worrisome. The view that when we benefit from the commission of a grievously, unjust, 163 00:20:06,880 --> 00:20:14,120 unjust war and by an unjust war rule which involved in much thought and response 164 00:20:14,170 --> 00:20:18,490 with killing the view that when we benefit from that war having been fought, 165 00:20:18,910 --> 00:20:29,290 even if the benefit was wrongly obtained, we have a duty of gratitude to the soldiers who actually did that for us. 166 00:20:31,580 --> 00:20:35,770 Now we've produced lots of historical examples, 167 00:20:35,780 --> 00:20:44,809 but the bottom line is this that before we rush to the conclusion that we have a duty of gratitude, these soldiers who fought for us in the past, 168 00:20:44,810 --> 00:20:50,969 a duty which we discharge by remembering them before we rush to the conclusion that we must attend, 169 00:20:50,970 --> 00:20:56,510 it seems to me to the moral features of that which they did for us. 170 00:20:58,820 --> 00:21:02,600 Now, you might think that it's. I'm being too quick. 171 00:21:02,950 --> 00:21:05,780 Yes, you might say, well, hold on. 172 00:21:06,080 --> 00:21:15,030 More often than not, in the past, soldiers were not aware that they were getting wrongfully if indeed they were for me. 173 00:21:16,100 --> 00:21:25,520 They were not aware of this. They did nevertheless incur absolutely enormous physical and psychological and moral burdens for our sake. 174 00:21:26,330 --> 00:21:30,260 I'm not alone used as a compelling reason to be grateful. 175 00:21:31,070 --> 00:21:33,020 Even if there were in fact, wrong. 176 00:21:34,010 --> 00:21:41,750 And that alone brings us a compelling reason to stand in front of the War Memorial in Whitehall on Remembrance Sunday. 177 00:21:45,210 --> 00:21:56,190 By way of reply, I should like to suggest and insist that whatever we ought to experience and express gratitude to them for what they did, 178 00:21:57,390 --> 00:22:03,360 irrespective of the more features of their will, is doubtful. Even if we benefited from it. 179 00:22:03,630 --> 00:22:09,660 Now I emphasise what they did for this is the crucial food issue. 180 00:22:11,100 --> 00:22:17,920 Perhaps we should be grateful to soldiers of the past for the fact that they meant to benefit us, 181 00:22:17,970 --> 00:22:22,920 that they were willing to incur great sacrifices for us. 182 00:22:23,430 --> 00:22:31,649 Their successes. But to be grateful for that is not the same as to be grateful for what they did. 183 00:22:31,650 --> 00:22:37,680 And I want to maintain that in order for us to be appropriate and grateful for what they did for us, 184 00:22:38,280 --> 00:22:43,050 what they did for us cannot be grievously, morally wrong. 185 00:22:44,130 --> 00:22:50,050 Now, in the face of the enormous suffering which soldiers have endured and do more often than not. 186 00:22:50,070 --> 00:22:55,530 This might seem like an acceptably harsh conclusion to endorse. 187 00:22:55,950 --> 00:23:06,960 My point, and this is important. My point is not that we have no compelling more reason to remember with the appropriate emotional, moral attitude. 188 00:23:07,620 --> 00:23:12,009 What soldiers did did when they behaved unjustly. 189 00:23:12,010 --> 00:23:17,910 In fact, we have very strong reasons to remember them, to remember them in sorrow. 190 00:23:18,720 --> 00:23:25,200 My point here is that gratitude is not going to do the work that needs to be done in 191 00:23:25,200 --> 00:23:32,070 order to explain why we should engage and support those important remembrance practices. 192 00:23:33,540 --> 00:23:37,470 So appealing to the past is not going to help a lot. 193 00:23:37,500 --> 00:23:47,100 It seems to me, in justifying those practices. What about if you didn't take the prisoners who turned your back and preach to. 194 00:23:50,570 --> 00:23:56,990 The argument here is like this in promoting wars of the past 13 years. 195 00:23:57,320 --> 00:24:03,379 We acknowledge that the bond that unites us to our compatriots is rooted in our history, 196 00:24:03,380 --> 00:24:11,120 which we share with them, like the bonds of friendship and kinship, which are linked and strengthened over time. 197 00:24:12,600 --> 00:24:20,390 And so in just the same way as remembering now that relatives can strengthen our relationships with current family members, 198 00:24:21,830 --> 00:24:32,420 likewise with fellow community members, remembering what our fellow community members did for us is constitutive both of our relationship to 199 00:24:32,420 --> 00:24:38,840 them as true generation or fellow community members and of our relationship with our contemporaries. 200 00:24:39,110 --> 00:24:42,919 So the story is very simple. You know, again, to illustrate, you know, 201 00:24:42,920 --> 00:24:52,760 when we gather or when our leaders gather on behalf again on this stick with example around one Sunday in Britain when they gather on our behalf. 202 00:24:52,970 --> 00:25:05,060 Mm hmm. Morning of Remembrance Sunday. And we do what they do, you know, at the memorial, they are not just doing something for soldiers of the past. 203 00:25:05,240 --> 00:25:08,420 They are trying to do something for us here and now in the present. 204 00:25:09,080 --> 00:25:12,049 At least you say they are communicating. 205 00:25:12,050 --> 00:25:21,080 It seems to me the sort that in remembering what soldiers who fought in Britain and the Commonwealth in the First World War, 206 00:25:21,350 --> 00:25:25,730 we are strengthening the criminal bonds that unite British citizens. 207 00:25:26,140 --> 00:25:34,010 Yes. And now I'm very aware of my French accent as I'm portraying the sentence and of the fact that I use the pronoun we. 208 00:25:34,010 --> 00:25:37,550 But of course I do so entirely, you know, advisedly. 209 00:25:38,210 --> 00:25:45,080 One of the difficulties with this argument is, of course, that it presupposes an enduring, 210 00:25:45,080 --> 00:25:50,360 relatively homogenous national community that we do, you know, over time. 211 00:25:50,360 --> 00:26:00,629 And you might find that new worrisome. But there are some of the objections which was raising worries, which was raising the argument. 212 00:26:00,630 --> 00:26:08,810 And the first objection, again, it's specifically about is this, that the argument will work only if the career relationships, 213 00:26:08,810 --> 00:26:13,670 which are strengthened in the present sort of acts of remembrance, are more relevant. 214 00:26:14,750 --> 00:26:25,070 And that's not always the case. So the example that night is that of Soviet commemorations of the Great Patriotic War. 215 00:26:25,640 --> 00:26:33,530 I mean, studied on his successors for decades, engaged ground ceremonies in Moscow in particular, 216 00:26:33,980 --> 00:26:38,809 to commemorate what really is in many ways the resounding success for the Soviet Union. 217 00:26:38,810 --> 00:26:46,280 In fact, some historians just have to say that's the only success that you can chalk up to that particular in the regime. 218 00:26:46,850 --> 00:26:52,940 And that culminated culminated with the erection of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Moscow in 1965. 219 00:26:53,330 --> 00:27:03,860 But of course, they did so largely as a way to support and probe one of the most grotesque abusive regimes that ever existed. 220 00:27:03,890 --> 00:27:10,190 Now, I don't think there is any value, you know, to be had in strengthening that kind of regime. 221 00:27:10,850 --> 00:27:18,530 And so it's hard to see how we can justify remembering the practices in this particular context, 222 00:27:18,920 --> 00:27:23,749 not appealing to the values of sustaining that particular kind of relationship, 223 00:27:23,750 --> 00:27:29,510 the relationship that the united in the Soviet citizens to Stalinist totalitarianism. 224 00:27:30,800 --> 00:27:37,220 That's my first objection. My second objection is that continues to inaction. 225 00:27:37,820 --> 00:27:48,410 Search has a national transgenerational community don't be exclusionary act only that will only justify remembrance of history or 226 00:27:48,410 --> 00:27:57,170 communal predecessors contributions to who we are know and now remember the argument says what it should be about the family. 227 00:27:57,830 --> 00:28:08,540 So when you are now in a family together, you know, remember your ancestors, you are strengthening the bonds that unite you here and that. 228 00:28:09,380 --> 00:28:15,010 So if we apply it to the case of war, by implication it means that as a French, 229 00:28:15,560 --> 00:28:20,480 I have a particularly compelling more reason to stand up with the French did during the Second World War, 230 00:28:20,480 --> 00:28:29,720 which, frankly, to put it entirely in non-academic language, is small potatoes compared to what the Americans, the Canadians and the British did. 231 00:28:30,480 --> 00:28:34,340 And that strikes me as entirely counter intuitive. 232 00:28:34,850 --> 00:28:40,460 There is one word for fighters, a Japanese to you used to remember. 233 00:28:41,120 --> 00:28:47,180 Again, with your appropriate moral, you were surprised to actually I would have to be something my gratitude. 234 00:28:47,750 --> 00:28:53,090 It is the French is certainly by comparison with Turkey, the Americans, the Canadians and the British. 235 00:28:55,950 --> 00:29:04,320 And you don't want to be opposed to the notion of a national constitutional convention are extraordinary as well, 236 00:29:05,370 --> 00:29:14,400 because to justify remembrance practices in this way is largely to exclude marginalised communities within the broader national communities, 237 00:29:15,270 --> 00:29:22,650 marginalised communities which cannot be expected to identify with the dominant narrative. 238 00:29:23,800 --> 00:29:31,110 So the example of having one here is the example of the way in which the 4th of July is commemorated in the United States. 239 00:29:31,590 --> 00:29:43,500 The argument that I'm scrutinising here would be like this The American citizens here now will strengthen the bonds that you not them here and now. 240 00:29:43,800 --> 00:29:50,940 If they together commemorate one of the founding moments in the history of the American nation, 241 00:29:50,940 --> 00:29:53,870 the Declaration of Independence on the 4th of July 2017. 242 00:29:55,050 --> 00:30:01,080 But, of course, that particular way of understanding and rendering the past, in this case the creeds, 243 00:30:02,130 --> 00:30:09,000 the relentless wars which were waged before the destruction of independence and afterwards against Native Americans. 244 00:30:09,210 --> 00:30:11,320 And in fact, I did a bit of research on this. 245 00:30:11,340 --> 00:30:21,180 Now, to my knowledge, there is no federal day of commemoration of the wars against African-Americans in the US. 246 00:30:21,210 --> 00:30:27,750 Some states, South Dakota, use Columbus Day as a way to engage in those practices. 247 00:30:28,050 --> 00:30:34,890 But there is no federal symbolic mnemonic in the acknowledgement of these wars, 248 00:30:34,890 --> 00:30:43,640 and it seems to me that appealing to a national narrative runs the risk of to repeat, 249 00:30:43,650 --> 00:30:53,910 you know, including some of the less savoury events of our collective past, which in fact we should put into our mind. 250 00:30:57,800 --> 00:31:07,040 So I'm trying to show that the standard justifications for immigrants practices have some problems. 251 00:31:07,520 --> 00:31:12,770 And one of the key points that I have made, one of the recurrent criticism of late, 252 00:31:13,430 --> 00:31:21,250 is that this standard argument seems to me to be sufficiently insensitive to how rich or 253 00:31:21,260 --> 00:31:28,040 generous national communities are whose members are called upon to remember wars of the past. 254 00:31:29,150 --> 00:31:36,320 But the other difficulty with many of those arguments is that they are sufficiently insensitive to the moral 255 00:31:36,320 --> 00:31:45,290 futures of some of the most salient moral features of the wars or acts within those wars under remembrance. 256 00:31:46,890 --> 00:31:53,210 So let me now move on with those two worries you had to section three on your handout. 257 00:31:54,140 --> 00:31:59,900 What I think might be a genuinely, universally safe way of just if I remember was due to its. 258 00:32:04,260 --> 00:32:05,400 Here's the key argument. 259 00:32:06,540 --> 00:32:18,360 We are very different from a communal ancestors from one another culturally, because it's all in the forms of gender, sexuality, religion, etc., etc. 260 00:32:18,390 --> 00:32:21,840 But we do have one thing in common. We are just human beings. 261 00:32:21,840 --> 00:32:26,400 We have the capacity for moral and rational agency, 262 00:32:27,360 --> 00:32:37,620 and that in turn supports universal requirements not to harm one another and more rigidly as well as a universal requirement to bring about peace. 263 00:32:39,970 --> 00:32:46,960 That requirement is universal in the sense that we all want to live, but it's irrespective of who we are, 264 00:32:47,470 --> 00:32:52,570 irrespective of our membership in this or that national straight political community. 265 00:32:54,190 --> 00:33:01,450 This is really not a particularly profound claim. I mean, it's standard really to contemporary contemporary Brits. 266 00:33:01,690 --> 00:33:10,750 It is standard to many use of certainly the Western moral, political, philosophical canon. 267 00:33:12,370 --> 00:33:16,360 But where does that leave us? With respect to war, remembrance. 268 00:33:18,840 --> 00:33:24,830 Some people who hold that view about the strength of that Universe Universalist take 269 00:33:24,870 --> 00:33:30,420 in a requirement not to harm one another and wanted to make and to bring about peace, 270 00:33:31,980 --> 00:33:38,340 saying that there's nothing inherently valuable to national relationships. 271 00:33:39,480 --> 00:33:44,400 Some people who have that view that you a requirement say, for example, 272 00:33:44,790 --> 00:33:49,739 that the fact that you are British and the father time French and the fact that other people are German, 273 00:33:49,740 --> 00:33:59,730 American, Russian or Chinese is completely irrelevant to what is really the most generally valuable about our lives. 274 00:34:00,810 --> 00:34:09,690 Even if you take that view, you can still accept that a relationship you feel in nationals and compatriots is tremendously valuable 275 00:34:11,250 --> 00:34:19,460 in that it can it can help us abide by the moral imperative not to harm one another unjustly, 276 00:34:19,470 --> 00:34:23,430 and indeed the more imperative for peace. 277 00:34:25,220 --> 00:34:32,120 For example, you can sometimes hear people say, we, the British, don't come do acts of torture. 278 00:34:33,050 --> 00:34:38,660 We, the Americans, try to always be very aware of the morality of what we are doing. 279 00:34:39,230 --> 00:34:47,629 So the first thought that I want to give to you is that if commemorating those wars, 280 00:34:47,630 --> 00:34:56,690 the legacy of which is an enduring part of a political culture, enables us as members of that political culture. 281 00:34:59,180 --> 00:35:02,570 To be better equipped to meet the university operative. 282 00:35:03,500 --> 00:35:08,210 Then we have strong, compelling moral reasons to remember fools. 283 00:35:10,970 --> 00:35:22,860 But also. And this is the more important point. If the argument of peace ultimately provides justification, refers to calls for war remembrance. 284 00:35:23,880 --> 00:35:28,470 Then we have very compelling more reasons, it seems to me, to remember those wars, 285 00:35:28,470 --> 00:35:36,360 not insofar and because they have historical significance for us in a given political culture, 286 00:35:37,890 --> 00:35:47,640 but insofar as they have to be supported, you have the deepest and most universal moral significance to us human beings. 287 00:35:49,470 --> 00:35:56,490 I think we have similarly strong reasons for human beings to remember those wars which had universal 288 00:35:56,490 --> 00:36:03,390 significance to us and to which we are not connected as participants or descendants of participants. 289 00:36:03,900 --> 00:36:12,180 And so this is why it seems to me that all of us, irrespective of who we are, we have very strong moral reasons to ensure, 290 00:36:12,180 --> 00:36:19,200 as far as we can, that unjust wars in which millions of people died and more to do it should not take place. 291 00:36:20,160 --> 00:36:24,900 We have very strong moral reasons to remember generous support for those reasons as a means 292 00:36:25,230 --> 00:36:31,590 to ensure that they are not committed again and certainly not committed against our behalf. 293 00:36:32,550 --> 00:36:41,040 Likewise with remembering atrocities which fighters, whether regular or even combatants, have committed against civilians. 294 00:36:43,260 --> 00:36:50,280 And so if, for example, commemorating the First World War, which is an important part of the national legacy, is French, British, 295 00:36:50,280 --> 00:36:58,290 American, German, Austrian, Russian is commemorating the First World War, serves as a reminder of the horrors of war in general. 296 00:36:58,710 --> 00:37:08,280 And if it helps us to keep in view the moral imperative not to senselessly sacrifice lives, then of course we should do so. 297 00:37:08,370 --> 00:37:18,140 It seems to me. And this is why, in fact, I think it's some time you appropriate to remember we're sorry. 298 00:37:18,920 --> 00:37:22,760 Even those who took part in unjust wars. 299 00:37:24,170 --> 00:37:27,590 There is always something bad about killing. 300 00:37:29,210 --> 00:37:38,390 There's always something to be regretted about. And that gives us a strong reasons to remember people we fought in those wars. 301 00:37:38,780 --> 00:37:52,780 With so much. This argument since June provides more reasons to commemorate the two global wars taken tied to its legacy concerns national borders. 302 00:37:53,200 --> 00:37:59,230 But it also provides us with more reasons to remember specific events within those wars, 303 00:38:00,220 --> 00:38:04,959 as well as more global particular wars which display the very worst and the very 304 00:38:04,960 --> 00:38:10,330 best know which human beings are capable towards one another as human beings. 305 00:38:12,550 --> 00:38:17,530 We all have compatible reasons as human beings to support and take part in the 306 00:38:17,530 --> 00:38:22,540 coalition of atrocities wherever and against whomever they have been committed. 307 00:38:23,080 --> 00:38:29,410 Likewise with the promotion of the soldiers whose lives were committed in vain, 308 00:38:29,770 --> 00:38:36,820 but also saying that we are similarly compelled morally human beings to remember the acts of heroism, 309 00:38:37,240 --> 00:38:42,010 kindness and compassion which soldiers and civilians carried out in war, 310 00:38:42,340 --> 00:38:49,300 precisely because those acts displayed the very best of which we are capable as human beings. 311 00:38:51,040 --> 00:38:58,719 So what I want to do is show that you do not need to be wedded to the importance of the very 312 00:38:58,720 --> 00:39:06,820 notion of national unity in order to find a justification for engaging in remembrance practices. 313 00:39:06,820 --> 00:39:16,960 Even when those remembrance practices, as a matter of fact, seem to be very tied to the national culture of those which take part in them. 314 00:39:17,230 --> 00:39:22,540 Do you have time to appease the historians? I feel that we probably should. 315 00:39:23,020 --> 00:39:26,410 Okay. So so here is what I think some historians. 316 00:39:26,440 --> 00:39:30,100 I used to be a historian myself. I got so worried when I was watching this. 317 00:39:30,550 --> 00:39:36,850 So here's what I think some historians will say, that we grumble, that we say it's ridiculous. 318 00:39:36,850 --> 00:39:48,069 I mean, that we count on him his wars as objects of remembrance from the war, the context in which they are moved frequently, 319 00:39:48,070 --> 00:39:53,410 that in my view, we have no greater reason and no reason to cheer on the differently. 320 00:39:53,410 --> 00:39:57,790 The First World War, for example, from the Second World War. 321 00:39:58,030 --> 00:40:02,799 It would seem that, in my view, what I said earlier is that we all, according to these, 322 00:40:02,800 --> 00:40:07,300 have very strong, compelling, more reasons to remember genocides or even to my view, 323 00:40:07,700 --> 00:40:16,900 there is no reason why we should focus on Auschwitz in advance of the Rwandan genocide, because with any genocide, you know, we do. 324 00:40:17,080 --> 00:40:25,180 And that would seem to be very problematic to pick out some wars and some events is particularly expressive of, 325 00:40:25,180 --> 00:40:29,499 to repeat the very worst than the very best of which was being told in the capable. 326 00:40:29,500 --> 00:40:32,890 So that remembrance becomes completely historical. 327 00:40:34,000 --> 00:40:36,960 And I can see why one would have that war. 328 00:40:36,990 --> 00:40:45,399 And so I'm going to try and, you know, lay at least the lead on sufficient that you might in mind that I'm no longer a historian. 329 00:40:45,400 --> 00:40:50,410 So maybe, you know, what I'm about to say will not be enough to appease the historians. 330 00:40:50,590 --> 00:40:57,489 I'm very worried about Hugh, because I remember reading the interview between The Economist three years ago where you were, 331 00:40:57,490 --> 00:41:07,950 in effect, making that comment that remember, you know, the First World War without paying attention Pacific and I the stories. 332 00:41:08,770 --> 00:41:15,909 So I'm certainly not claiming that the one we remember together collectively, the First World War, 333 00:41:15,910 --> 00:41:21,140 when we said we should support student conferences, we should support commemorative events. 334 00:41:21,170 --> 00:41:31,450 I'm not claiming that we should say, Oh, let's remember the Battle of the Somme, just as a token of the horrors of trench warfare when we do remember, 335 00:41:31,450 --> 00:41:36,670 and that is a thing we need to happen in two years from now when we do collectively, 336 00:41:36,940 --> 00:41:42,889 you know, remember the Battle of the Somme, we should do it in full awareness of what that word was, what its meaning, 337 00:41:42,890 --> 00:41:50,830 the importance of a place where, you know, in the First World War that, if you will, is a duty of basic scholarship. 338 00:41:51,670 --> 00:41:57,580 When we think about events of the past, we should think about the need for the zero in the lack of the best knowledge that we have. 339 00:42:00,090 --> 00:42:09,459 No argument here is that we have reasons to remember wars of the past which are not tied to a particular national culture. 340 00:42:09,460 --> 00:42:10,780 And that argument, it seems to me, 341 00:42:10,780 --> 00:42:19,180 is entirely compatible with treating the Battle of the Somme example again in its proper, you know, accurate context. 342 00:42:20,200 --> 00:42:26,110 There is a deeper worry that we've seen in the results, which is that on my own, my view, 343 00:42:27,190 --> 00:42:38,350 it's quite possible that if another appalling genocide of the magnitude of the Holocaust occurred in the next 50 years, 344 00:42:38,890 --> 00:42:45,580 then in my view it's of course quite possible that in 500 years from now we would have no greater reason 345 00:42:45,580 --> 00:42:54,310 to remember the Holocaust than to remember that putative genocide happening in 15 years from now. 346 00:42:54,580 --> 00:43:00,040 And you might worried about this. I'm not sure that I should be worried about this. 347 00:43:00,070 --> 00:43:06,400 I mean, I'm not really ready to see some of the soldiers who died in the Battle of Waterloo for fear that perhaps it's a moral failure. 348 00:43:06,880 --> 00:43:10,780 You know, for part I mean, I'm interested in it, but I'm not thinking. 349 00:43:11,480 --> 00:43:21,469 I would be remiss if I didn't somehow feel some sense of combining sense of mourning for those particular soldiers as opposed to, 350 00:43:21,470 --> 00:43:27,830 for example, who died in the siege of Sebastopol 40 years later. 351 00:43:28,040 --> 00:43:31,170 So I think I'll leave it at that. I think that the approach was is.