Us!

It struck me as odd when I was first asked to write a chapter on coercion for this book about Dr. Seuss. But with just a little thought I realized how fitting this subject is. Children are rigorously and systematically coerced in every aspect of their lives. Who feels more viscerally the anguish of having their desires thwarted? Who suffers more acutely when their will is bent to that of another? When you are three years old and your life plan is to wear the cat as a hat, you have a sharp lesson to learn. Dr. Seuss feels your pain. When your deepest and most meaningful personal goal is to eat ice cream for dinner and Dad gives you broccoli, you are powerless. As a parent, I have goals and values and hopes for the lives of my children. Part of me wants them to do everything I say. The rest of me knows that children need the liberty to make mistakes, and suffer consequences, if they are to become autonomous and happy adults. It is a constant struggle to acknowledge that I may not know what is best, that even when I do know better, controlling people is bad for them and for me. Humility is a virtue that runs deep in Dr. Seuss. Coercion is a lack of humility.

It may also seem odd that I have chosen to use the ideas of F. A. Hayek (1899–1992) to bring out the depth of Seuss’s thought. Hayek, the libertarian philosopher and Nobel Prize–winning economist, is most famous for The Road to Serfdom, an occasionally paranoid diagnosis of Hitler’s rise to power. But few remember that Dr. Seuss was a biting editorial cartoonist in the 1940s; like Hayek, he aimed his most critical barbs at those who did not see the existential threat posed by Hitler. Hayek and Seuss both understand the risks posed by men with grand plans for a new world. If they are different, it is because Hayek lurches to extremes in finding subterranean threats to liberty, while Seuss imagines extremes of whimsy, silliness, and even catastrophe in the exercise of liberty. Hayek works at a societal level, advocating that the individual live free from state coercion. Seuss brings this message of liberty and experimentation to children. In all types of coercion, the coercer believes that he knows what is right or best; the coerced has different plans. Parents assume the child is less intellectually able to make the right choice. Hayek cautions us against a state that makes the same assumption of adults.

The two also share a worldview. Hayek describes a social world created by the spontaneous choices of millions of individuals. The result is a spontaneous order, wondrously efficient but totally bizarre. For Hayek, “every change creates a ‘problem’ for society” that is “gradually solved” by those who “have little idea why they are doing what they do and no way of predicting . . . an appropriate move . . . or suitable answer.”^[2] Civilization is the evolving result of choices made by people who do not know what they are doing. That is why it works. I suspect Seuss would agree. The real world, like the world of Dr. Seuss, is beautiful and complex, but not the product of rational design. This is why Hayek opposed coercion and promoted liberty. The best world is created through the trial and error of people who do not know everything.

Yertle Hatches a Plan

Yertle the Turtle, Seuss’s metaphorical Hitler, has a plan. He wants to build a huge stack of turtles so that, from the top, he can be king of all that he sees. It is his vision, and he forces Mack and the others to pile themselves up. Assuming that Yertle threatens punishment for noncompliance, his actions illustrate the basic elements of Hayek’s theory of coercion and coercive state power: “Coercion is when one man’s actions are meant to serve the other man’s will, not for his own, but for the other’s purpose.”^[3] Mack’s actions serve Yertle’s purpose, and he gets nothing from the deal. Coercion does not require force or restraint. Nor does coercion imply a lack of choice or free will. Coercion occurs when one person arranges the consequences of alternative choices to make them less preferable to another.^[4] Yertle coerces Mack by making other alternatives unacceptable. Mack may have free will in the metaphysical sense, but he is not choosing to go along with Yertle because it is part of his own rationally chosen plan. Yertle’s manipulation means that Mack cannot “use his own knowledge in authentic circumstances” to pursue the goals he desires for himself.^[5] This is bad for Mack, of course, but it is also bad for Yertle. “Power does not corrupt when it is the power to achieve our own aims. The power that corrupts is the power to bend the will of others to our own.”^[6]

This clear case of coercion can be contrasted with three others. When King Louis Katz employs a subordinate to hold his tail, the subordinate is not coerced. The tail holder in fact employs his own tail holder, who then employs his own tail holder, and so on, as each subsequent subordinate selects a supported tail. The first tail holder chooses to assist the king in his goal because he gets something that allows him to further his own goal: money. The scheme collapses when the ultimate tail holder can find no one to hold his tail. Tail holders must perform a service for another before they can follow their own plans. They may get nothing of personal value out of the job. Unlike Yertle, the king is not manipulating the circumstances to make a particular choice preferable. Nor is the worker who decides he does not want to hold tails. A worker who demands a higher wage than an employer will pay does not coerce the employer.^[7] Hayek sees greater risk of workers coercing employers, but the converse holds. An employer who offers less than an employee would like does not coerce the worker. This is just negotiation.

But the market can, without manipulation, create an opportunity for coercion. If it is “crucial to my existence or the preservation of what I most value” that I remain employed or purchase a service, I can easily be coerced.^[8] The coercer exploits the fact that under authentic circumstances I will suffer horribly without the job or the service. Hayek seems to acknowledge that threatening to kill and threatening to let die are morally equivalent when the threat is part of gaining cooperation in a voluntary transaction. Such organic conditions are “not impossible” but would be rare “in a prosperous competitive society.”^[9]

How about the North- and South-Going Zax? Each has a rational life plan: to walk in one direction without swerving. Their paths collide. They stand their ground, refusing to swerve one inch, while the world goes on around them. Hayek explicitly addresses this case: “A person who blocks my path on the street does not coerce me.”^[10] He does not cite Seuss, but he condones Seuss’s resolution. Although each Zax is an insuperable obstacle to the other, neither is coerced. The choice each makes to stand, waiting for the other to die, is simply commitment to their goals. The desires and goals of other people, and the actions they undertake in pursuit of these goals, are part of the authentic circumstances that we each must work in. We may be limited, or even constrained, by the actions of others, but this is not coercion.

My daughter thinks the Zax are stubborn fools who would be happier if they just moved around each other. She is full of the hubris that inspires coercion. She cannot know what will make the Zax happy. Yet she would force each to take one step to the right. This seems fair to her, but it coerces both Zax. They may proceed unabated, but neither would have achieved their goal. They would have been forced to do what she thinks is best. For a third party, the state, to step in and move one or both of them infringes on their liberty.

Controversially, under this definition of coercion, the animals forced to flee the Lorax’s forest are not coerced. The suffering of the Humming-Fish, Swomee-Swans, and the Brown Bar-ba-loots is a failure of institutions. They have no property rights that protect them against the incursions of the Once-ler. The Humming-Fish’s desire to swim conflicts with the Once-ler’s desire to manufacture thneeds. The pond is a resource that both want, only one can use, and neither owns. The Once-ler’s actions drive the fish away, but they are not coerced. The fish are not forced to work toward the Once-ler’s goal. Sure, his plan involves poisoning the water, but the Once-ler has no desires whatsoever concerning the activities of the Humming-Fish. His actions have made their home inhospitable, but this was incidental. This is obviously not a good result. But Hayek would oppose the bald assertion of state power to correct it. He is not insensible to the immediate suffering of the animals. Yet, having survived the rise and fall of National Socialism, he is genuinely more terrified of the consequences that follow from the exercise of state power in order to guide people’s actions or to protect the interests of a particular group.^[11]

Property rights are not absolute or natural, according to Hayek.^[12] He would not recognize a right of ownership just because the Humming-Fish were in the water first. Under an established system of property rights the Humming-Fish could have owned the pond. This recognition of property rights is the first step in the delimitation of a private sphere that protects us against coercion.^[13] Under the rule of law, the liberties protected in this private sphere allow a property owner to pursue their own chosen goals. So, had the fish owned the pond, they would have been at liberty to use and enjoy the pond as it fit their life plan. In this scenario, the Once-ler could offer to buy the pond. His plans will be thwarted, but he will not be coerced, if the fish refuse to sell. The institution of property rights under the rule of law is part of the authentic circumstances that shape everyone’s options.

Ideally, we would all be at liberty to pursue our own rationally chosen plans within the authentic circumstances we find ourselves in. Coercion is the manipulation of those circumstances to force a particular choice. A coercer may have their own plans, and no regard for the desires of others, or they may genuinely think they know what is best. Either way, they bend your will to their own by making you an offer you can’t refuse. The loss of liberty is bad enough for an individual. A society where people are routinely coerced into making particular choices loses the experimentation, vitality, and creativity that spawn all great human achievement.

Where Is a Lorax to Speak for the Poor?

But, you object, the powerless Humming-Fish are doomed from the outset. Hayek assumes equal power and bargaining positions. Seuss is not the only one describing a fantasy world. There are so many other examples. What about poor Gertrude McFuzz, hopelessly deficient in the natural endowment of feathers? Bartholomew Cubbins is not able to negotiate as an equal for his increasingly fabulous hats. Hayek is not totally unmoved by inequality. But inequality is quite low on his list of problems. Equality is correspondingly low on his list of values. Hayek plays the Once-ler to this Lorax for the poor. When inequality is the result of the legal structure, or when inequality can be addressed without infringing on liberty or coercing others, then it should be.^[14] But inequality is a necessary, and in many ways a good, feature of a free society. Hayek’s dismissive approach to inequality assumes we are talking about an affluent society where the depravations are relative, not absolute. But he is fully aware of the seriousness of relative inequality.^[15]

The Once-ler is rich. He has a world of opportunities the Humming-Fish do not. Their lower quantity of eligible life options is not the result of coercion by the Once-ler or anyone else. Liberty is not increased or decreased by the quantity of options one can choose from.^[16] If the Humming-Fish cannot afford the pond when it is put up for sale, they will have to leave. The fish are in an unenviable position relative to the Once-ler but are at liberty to use what resources they have to pursue whatever goals seem reasonable to them under the circumstances. “Though the alternatives before me may be distressingly few, and my new plans of a makeshift character, yet it is not someone else’s will that guides my actions.”^[17]

Gertrude McFuzz and Bartholomew Cubbins may be more favorable illustrations of Hayek’s view. Gertrude laments that she has only one tail feather. When she learns that eating a magic pill-berry will grow new feathers, she eats them all. This ends badly, but Seuss has little sympathy for Gertrude. The moral of her short tail^[18] is self-acceptance. We don’t have equal talents and abilities. Hayek would draw two lessons: First, efforts to address this kind of inequality are a slippery slope. When we have equality of tail feathers, we will still be unequal in something else. Once we are committed to equality as a goal, we can never stop.^[19] The more controversial lesson Hayek draws is that society is better off if the more talented are at liberty to pursue their wider range of options.^[20] The only equality we can hope to achieve is equality under the rule of law. We can establish general rules protecting each person’s liberty to pursue any of the options open to them by the circumstances the actual world presents. If we falsely equate equality before the law with the spurious notion of metaphysical equality, we run the risk of making “equality” meaningless, and of losing all the innovations that arise from the greater abilities possessed by the few.^[21]

Physically and intellectually, Bartholomew Cubbins may be superior to his king. He has an amazing talent, but he is economically disadvantaged. He can produce impressive hats; yet he seems to have no choice but to accept the king’s offer of five hundred gold pieces. This is pocket change for the king. Yet Bartholomew could live his greatest dreams for half that. The relative marginal value of money may make it seem that the much poorer Bartholomew is compelled to accept the king’s offer. This initial problem is easily handled. Bartholomew could charge more. Under the rule of law, he could refuse to sell altogether. Even the king could not compel him. And if the king did not manipulate those circumstances to make Bartholomew sell the hat, he would not be coerced. (We know very little about the political economy of Didd. Hayek warns us not to make a “fetish of democracy.” It is possible to have a monarchy that operates under the rule of law.^[22]) Hayek is fully aware that the poor have fewer eligible opportunities than the rich. But, as with the Humming-Fish, he does not think this is a limitation on their liberty, nor does he see this as an abuse of power by those with more resources and opportunity.

While we may feel for Bartholomew, Hayek sees a social advantage to the king and his class. From collecting hats, to walking on stilts, to having their tails held, the kings in Seuss’s worlds employ their resources on silly pursuits and decadent luxuries. They form an intellectual and cultural elite.^[23] For everything from ice cream to indoor plumbing, the luxuries of the rich quickly disseminate to the rest of society.^[24] Their ability to pursue decadent and absurd frivolities helps society advance. The misers and the greedy, the Once-lers, do not. “It is doubtful whether a wealthy class whose ethos requires that at least every male member prove his usefulness by making more money can adequately justify its existence.”^[25] Hayek notes that America “has produced a propertied class that lacks intellectual leadership and a coherent defensible philosophy of life.”^[26] America produces Once-lers. The problem is quite serious. The Once-ler’s shallow pursuit of profit does not make the world better. Nonetheless, rather than limit the liberty of the next Once-ler, Hayek would use him as a cautionary example. As individuals, we can learn a lesson from the Once-ler’s self-destruction and apply it to our own circumstances. But the lesson is only valuable if we are at liberty to learn from it on our own. The best we can hope for is a system of strong institutions that allow the Once-ler to hurt himself without damaging others too much.

Our natural talents and economic status are part of the authentic circumstances that can limit our options. We mostly have to work within those limitations. Yet even with fewer options available, we are not coerced into any one of these options. Sometimes our options are limited by the desires and actions of other people. This is a more difficult issue.

Horton: Coerced into Conformity

All his troubles start when Horton hears a Who. No one else hears anything. Horton listens and devotes himself to the protection of the dust ball that serves as Who-ville’s planet. Horton believes in a “reality” that others cannot perceive. This is weird, but in Thomas Jefferson’s (1743–1826) often-quoted formulation about religion, Horton’s devotion to Whos “neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”^[27] Nonetheless, he suffers social and state coercion for his devotion.

In a world without social coercion Horton would only suffer the opportunity costs of his devotion to the Whos: he would be unable to do other things with his time. Instead, he is ridiculed by judgmental kangaroos. The kangaroos’ behavior manipulates the circumstances to increase the penalty Horton suffers for his beliefs. John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) is deeply concerned by this form of moral coercion. He saw great problems with people punitively expressing their negative judgments of the harmless choices made by others. Hayek thinks Mill “overstated the case for liberty.” He balks at calling “the pressures that public approval or disapproval exerts to secure obedience to moral rules” coercion. The “milder forms of pressure society applies to non-conformists” play an “indispensable role” in establishing a “flexible background of more or less unconscious habits that serve as a guide to most people’s actions.” On balance, there is some small element of coercion in the kangaroos’ actions, but moderate enforcement of a clear social framework helps more people than it hinders in pursuing their goals.^[28]

Like all social systems, the norms and customs in the Jungle of Nool are the product of generations of people using the knowledge of their own desires and circumstances to negotiate the best outcomes for themselves. “Rules have grown from trial and error in which the experience of each successive generation has helped make them what they are.”^[29] When we follow these norms, we benefit from the cumulative application of knowledge that we could never possess. These traditional norms are not good in themselves. Hayek is a skeptic, not a conservative. Their continued general acceptance shows merely that they have met people’s needs in the past. We can never know enough to understand how and why. Norms need to continue evolving, but violating them should not be without consequences. Because social rules are voluntary—there is no state sanction for violating them—nonconformists like Horton are at liberty to decide whether breaking them is worth the social cost.^[30] Hayek tolerates judgmental kangaroos. They signal a presumption in favor of conformity. When the monkeys steal Horton’s dust ball, they have gone too far. The social coercion that Hayek chooses to ignore quickly metastasizes into state coercion.

Under the rule of law, Horton’s private sphere includes his dusty sphere. He may be laughed at, but he should be at liberty to continue listening to it unimpeded by angry monkeys. Horton’s actions are weird, but well within what ought to be the protected sphere of privacy. Unfortunately, the Jungle of Nool is not under the rule of law. Although he is the victim of theft, Horton is tried and imprisoned. The kangaroo, as judge, decrees that there is a proper use of dust balls and all other uses will be punished. Horton is not at liberty to pursue his own rational life plan with his dust ball. This is state coercion.

In Mill’s spirit, Hayek notes, “Religious beliefs seem to be almost the only ground on which general rules seriously restrictive of individual liberty have ever been universally enforced.”^[31] Religious groups more often find themselves in a majority, able to wield the coercive power of the state. But one lesson of The Road to Serfdom is that any ethnic, cultural, or political group may unite to use the coercive power of the state to implement its own values. Without checks on governmental power, any group might use the power of the state to coerce others into living out their preferred conception of the good. Such majorities have a tool for imposing their will on nonconformists: democracy.

Thidwick: Big-Hearted But Outvoted

There is a common misconception that if power is held by the people, liberty will be protected. There are many good reasons for power to be in the hands of the people. This is not one of them. “We can no longer be sure . . . that democracy is an important safeguard of individual liberty.”^[32] It is simply too easy for majorities to vote themselves privileges at the expense of minorities. Democracy is a good answer to the question: Who should wield state power? But this is the second question we should ask. The first question is: What is the scope of state power?^[33] Getting this answer right will protect liberty regardless of the form the government takes. As Thidwick discovers, it is dangerous to answer these questions in the wrong order.

Thidwick the moose invites a Bingle-Bug to ride on his antlers as he walks through the forest. This bug invites a friend, who invites a friend, who brings his family. Birds pluck hair from Thidwick’s head to build nests. Woodpeckers drill holes in his antlers. Squirrels hide nuts in the holes. Thidwick’s friends abandon him because he won’t evict his guests. When the food runs out and the other moose cross lake Winna-Bango for the winter, Thidwick’s guests do not want to go. The Bingle-Bug puts the question to a vote. Thidwick loses. The majority has decreed that Thidwick must starve.

Thidwick and his guests assume that a vote justifies any result. They have mistaken the means—democracy—with the end—legitimate state action. Thidwick has been coerced by a democratic majority because they forgot to answer Hayek’s first question. They have not established the scope of state power before attempting to govern. Hayek would suggest that the government respect individual liberty and the rule of law. In the first place there ought to be rights of the individual that are above state interference.^[34] Specifically, “the private citizen and his property should not be at the disposal of the government.”^[35] The guests should not be able to outvote Thidwick on the use of his body to promote their goals.

Thidwick has the right to vote. He has the right to speak. He has the full slate of political liberties. His guests have not tried to take these away. But Hayek notes, rightly, that inner freedom and the right to vote “will not make the slave free.”^[36] Thidwick needs more mundane economic freedoms: the liberty to use his property as he wants provided he follows the same general rules applicable to everyone else. “Freedom of action even in humble things is as important as freedom of thought.”^[37] The liberty to pursue our mundane day-to-day activities is how we pursue our goals and build meaningful lives. So how are we supposed to do this when everyone else is pursuing their own goals and building their own lives?

Who Speaks for the Fish?

The Cat in the Hat is a dark cautionary tale for our neoliberal age. Most readers miss this point. Sally and her brother share their moribund and stagnant home with a contented fish. Mother is a good libertarian governor operating under the rule of law: she is mostly absent. In sweeps the Cat in the Hat. Let the creative destruction begin!

The Cat is the unbridled force of liberty and creativity. His games are not much fun. This chapter opens with a quote from a game the Cat calls “Up, Up, Up, Up.” Brother finishes this sad tale: “That is what the Cat said. . . . Then he fell on his head. He came down with a bump from up there on the ball, and Sally and I, we saw all the things fall” (Cat). A more activist mother would have been there at the beginning to stop the Cat as soon as he thought of hoisting the fish on a rake. She would have kept Thing One and Thing Two in their box. So much senseless damage could have been avoided. At least it is flattering to human pride to think so.

As Hayek would have it, the advance of human civilization depends on the Cat’s liberty to stand on a ball with a book on his head. In the real world, Dr. Seuss is the Cat. After the relative lack of success of And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street, and Seuss’s other early books, a wise person might have told him to stick to editorial cartoons. But he was at liberty to try and fail. My copy of The Cat in the Hat has a blurb from a 1966 Detroit Free Press review praising the book as a “karate chop to the weary little world of Dick, Jane, and Spot.” This book was an assault on the simplistic and moralistic world of children’s literature. No one could have known beforehand that it would touch something so vital in our culture. Our world is a better place because Seuss was at liberty to pursue his questionable dreams.

Seuss’s behatted Cat is less successful, but still a good ambassador for neoliberal change. Unlike the Once-ler, the Cat cleaned up his own mess. This is how it should be, although it rarely happens with kids, cats, or failed capitalist ventures. Sure, Mother could have barred the Cat from the house and coerced the children into doing what she believed was best. But a lesson learned is more valuable than an order followed. And, as Hayek might say, mothers cannot have all the relevant knowledge necessary to enact a proactive plan that will distribute resources and make children happy.

Still, where is the Lorax to speak for the fish? The fish is content. His world is exactly as he would choose it to be. Yet as long as the Cat is at liberty, the fish cannot enjoy his world. The Cat’s first venture fails, but he comes back. Again, and again, and again. He has vision and ideas. As we have seen, Hayek is a supporter of tradition, but only insofar as tradition is the embodiment of practices that allow people to satisfy their desires, use resources adequately, and be happy. The Cat’s liberty to fly kites in the hall upsets everything the fish values. The children, however, are intrigued. Change is unavoidable. They will all approach the problem of redistributing resources and organizing their lives in a halting and haphazard way. They do not know what they are doing, but if they are to be happy on their own terms, they need the liberty to try.

The fish is suffering the dynamic upheavals of neoliberal social change. He illustrates perhaps the hardest problem for an individualist to face: no fish is an island. So why does Hayek side with the Cat? If the children choose to build a rational life plan around what the Cat offers, the fish is unable to live his preferred life plan but remains free to find a second-best option of his own choosing. However, for the fish to live his rational life plan, the children must be coerced into specific life choices they would not otherwise make. For the fish to prevent the children from playing with the Cat simply to protect his own way of life would be coercive. And according to Hayek, the children need not be bothered by the fact that their choices disrupt the life of the fish. They are under no obligation to advance the fish’s goals.^[38]

The simple fact is that most people desire comity as part of whatever else we desire. When change occurs, this comity will be realized through trial and error and complex social negotiations. These complex social negotiations cannot be rationally planned. Only the individuals involved can know their desires at any moment. Only they can decide on a compromise that is acceptable. One lesson from the Once-ler is to listen to the complaints of others if you hope to live well yourself.

On Zoos and Circuses

With Mack and Horton, and most alarmingly Thidwick, Dr. Seuss has shown the dangers of state coercion. With this background in mind, Seuss offers us two competing visions for the design of the state. If I Ran the Zoo is a dark tale of the dangers of coercive social planning. If I Ran the Circus is an optimistic story of voluntary collaboration.

The zoo is popular. The zookeeper too. But Gerald McGrew has a plan for the zoo: “I’d open each cage. I’d unlock every pen, let the animals go and start over again” (Zoo). His lion will have ten feet, not four. An elephant-cat will stand watch at the door. He will gather and hunt every new, bigger, better, and more gawkworthy creature to be found. The people will love it. The people will love him. He has a good plan. The impulse to organize the social world for the common good is a noble one. Gerald is not Yertle. Gerald wants what is good for everyone. But he is doing the same thing Yertle does, and his plans are doomed to failure.

The zoo, as an institution, like society, evolved. It was not rationally designed. The zoo is the result of generations of zookeepers trying things, compromising, and learning from their mistakes. Gerald has the benefit of all that accumulated knowledge. The knowledge is embedded in the cultural tools and institutions that we habitually follow without knowing why.^[39] We cannot improve on these cultural structures by imposing new and trendy ideas.^[40] “It is only our profound and comprehensive ignorance of the nature of culture that makes it possible for us to believe that we direct and control it.”^[41] Hayek is not building an argument for stultifying traditionalism. Imposing trendy ideas is very different from offering trendy ideas the way the Cat does. Gerald should organize an expedition to Hippo-no-Hungus and bring back a Bibbo-no-Bungus if he thinks people will prefer that to the bonobo exhibit.

But Gerald is foolishly confident that he knows what future zoo patrons will like. He sets all the animals free and starts over. It is too simplistic to point out that even a boring old four-footed lion might suddenly become much more exciting when set loose into the neighborhood. Hayek’s objection is much deeper than pointing out the potential for unintended consequences when you “improve” a system you don’t understand. Gerald claims to have knowledge of what people want. He claims to know what they will like, and what will make them happy. Such knowledge is impossible. The knowledge of each person’s marginal desire—how much they would prefer a ten-footed to a four-footed lion—is uniquely particular. Only the individual knows their own preference at a particular time. No social planner can know with any certainty beforehand exactly what another person will desire.^[42] Gerald is trying to improve a system that he does not understand in order to satisfy people’s future desires, which he cannot know. The situation calls for humility instead.

Gerald makes the same error as every legislator with a social vision. In addition to being incorrect, the imposition of a social vision by law is coercive. Gerald assumes a “common good.” In his case, he assumes it is simply a fact that ten-footed lions are better. Like all social planners, he assumes that his judgment of what is good is correct. When a social planner implements their vision for the distribution of goods or roles in a society, they assume there is a single scale of values that everyone will agree to and that can guide state action. In a diverse society, this is simply not the case. There is no agreed-on value system that a policymaker can appeal to when making the needed policy tradeoffs. There is no single scale ranking values and goods that everyone would agree to and that could guide state action. Quite simply, in a diverse society there is no “common good.”^[43]

The lesson Hayek draws from this skepticism about common values is that we must be at liberty to pursue our own values.

We cannot know how and why social structures and norms evolved. We cannot know the marginal desires of other people. There is no universal scale of values to guide our decision making. The case for individual liberty, warts and all, rests firmly on this recognition of our human ignorance.^[45]

What is Gerald McGrew with his vision to do? He should be more like Morris McGurk. McGurk sees a derelict lot behind Sneelock’s store. He envisions cleaning up the property and opening what he thinks would be an amazing circus. Gerald McGrew roamed the world himself collecting animals because he knows what people like. Gerald is a bit of a control freak. Morris McGurk considers employing others to utilize their own talents. In the beginning, McGurk hopes Sneelock “might like to help.” Sneelock jumps in with both feet. Billed as the Brave Colonel Sneelock, he wrestles the Spotted Atrocious and dives thousands of feet into a fish bowl. How does he manage this feat? “Don’t ask me how he’ll manage.” McGurk asserts, “That’s his job. Not mine” (Circus). When McGurk raises the circus tent, he has created a framework where Sneelock can pursue his own dreams. Far from having a grand plan, McGurk has no idea how Sneelock does it.

McGurk even shares Hayek’s overly optimistic view of the other circus workers: “My workers love work. They say ‘work us please work us!’” (Circus). Such is the delusion of Morris McGurk. The workers bring back the issue of inequality. They do not run the circus, and they are not the star. They are Bartholomew, Gertrude, and Mack. They follow McGurk’s direction, not their own plans. My daughter, a very skeptical reader of Seuss, doubts the authenticity of the workers’ enthusiasm. It is likely that the workers are inflating their eagerness so as to win the boss’s favor. This reflects their lower status in the social order. Lacking the resources of McGurk and the talent of Sneelock, they have to sell their labor to McGurk. Their situation is unenviable, but they are not coerced. It is worth noting that they have the opportunity to work at the circus because of McGurk and Sneelock.

The poor have fewer social and economic options. Do you have a plan for fixing this? Are you sure your plan will give people what they want? People need help. Other chapters in this book describe Seuss’s message of compassion or care. This discussion of Hayek may seem pinched, even mean, as he warns us to temper even our kindest ambitions. But humility is a virtue that should temper our ambitions.

The virtue of humility promoted in Seuss is the honest humility that comes from knowing our own ignorance. Yertle lacks humility. Other turtles are merely tools used to advance his own interests. But so does Gerald McGrew. Without consultation, Gerald does what he thinks is best for other people. Thidwick’s guests, the monkeys of Nool, and even the fish are all willing to force others into choices that will make themselves happy with little regard for Thidwick, or Horton, or Sally and her brother. They all overestimate their own knowledge and abilities and show little regard for the desires and plans of others.

Coercion grows out of the feeling that we know what other people want, need, and value, and we know how to give it to them. This is knowledge we could never have. Coercion assumes that our individual scale of values is universal. This is hubris. People at liberty will do dumb things. There will be conflict as they negotiate their various paths. The solutions they come up with may appear irrational to everyone else. Forcing people to choose what we think is best may prevent some spectacular accidents, but it precludes even more wondrous possibilities. Seuss wrote a book called Oh, the Places You’ll Go!, not Oh, the Places I’ll Take You!

Notes

F. A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011), 81.

Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 79.

Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 199.

Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 200.

Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 71.

Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 202.

Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 203.

Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 204.

10.

Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 200.

11.

F. A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom: Texts and Documents, the definitive edition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007), 134ff.

12.

Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 226.

13.

Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 207.

14.

Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 150.

15.

Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 148ff.

16.

Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 60.

17.

Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 204.

18.

Puns are an acquired taste. Enjoy!

19.

Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 341.

20.

Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 151.

21.

Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 149–50.

22.

Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, 110.

23.

Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 193.

24.

Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 151.

25.

Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 193.

26.

Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 195.

27.

Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia.

28.

Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 214.

29.

Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 225.

30.

Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 221.

31.

Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 223.

32.

Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 173.

33.

Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 167.

34.

Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 167.

35.

Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 323.

36.

Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 71.

37.

Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 87.

38.

Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 208n14.

39.

Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 78.

40.

Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 74.

41.

Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 75, quoting L. White.

42.

F. A. Hayek, “The Uses of Knowledge in Society,” American Economic Review XXXV, no. 4 (1945): 522.

43.

Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, 100ff.

44.

Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, 102.

45.

Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 80.

State Power and Individual Rights in Dr. Seuss

King Yertle of Sala-ma-Sond and King Derwin of Didd are quite different in many respects, but despite one being a turtle and the other a human, they are more alike than different: they are kings—and they are kings who think that the power of their office is absolute and unlimited and that their subjects have no rights.

The nature of political authority, and the relationship between the state and the individual, are perennial questions for political philosophy. Unsurprisingly, we can look to the works of Dr. Seuss for scenarios that, underneath their children’s-story appearance, illuminate some key aspects of these problems. As we shall see, some of the same issues that arise for monarchies also present problems for democratic institutions.

Yertle the Turtle Tyrant

King Yertle is a straightforward case, so we begin there. Yertle’s reign is initially benevolent—the turtles of Sala-ma-Sond are all happy and have everything they might need. Given this utopian arrangement, it’s not clear just what Yertle’s reign consists of, but in any case the other turtles accept his authority as monarch. When he commands them, they obey. The troubles begin when Yertle starts to crave greater majesty. Being the ruler of all that he sees is great, but it occurs to him that he doesn’t see very far. He orders nine turtles to form a stack, and when he sits on top of them, he can see much farther and is delighted that his kingdom now extends not just over the pond but approximately for a mile in circumference.

The nature of Yertle’s authority is at this point even less clear. As monarch of the turtles in the pond, he has authority largely because the other turtles accept this authority—he really is their ruler, inasmuch as he issues commands that are in fact obeyed. So when he says, “I am the ruler of all that I see” (Yertle), that’s correct. But it is a descriptive claim, which he erroneously takes as normative. He is in fact the ruler of the pond, and that’s all he can see, but it doesn’t follow that if he could see more, he’d be the ruler of more. When he gets on the nine-turtle stack, he can see a cow, a mule, and a cat, but there’s no evidence that he now commands them. He still claims to be the ruler of all that he sees, but it’s an empty claim. He can declare himself to be ruler of the cow, mule, and cat but does not in fact command them. However, since none of them challenge his “authority,” he thinks he has expanded his kingdom and calls for a two-hundred-turtle stack so that he can expand his realm yet again.

On the two-hundred-turtle stack, he can see over a forty-mile circumference, and he concludes he is also king over birds and bees. Again, though, there’s no reason to think he actually commands them. He is persisting in his mistaken inference that since all he could see in the pond was the pond, which was his realm, seeing more would expand the realm. Craving even more “power,” he commands a turtle stack of 5,607. He thinks this would give him control of the moon, which is obviously false.

Of course, Yertle’s plan doesn’t come to fruition anyway. Even if his fallacious theory of authority based on range of vision were correct, sitting higher requires that his subjects suffer the weight of the stack. (His rule is literally built on the backs of his subjects!) When Mack, the turtle on the bottom, protests, he is told that he has no right to complain. Indeed, his interests are assumed to be subordinate to the king’s. Yertle thinks that he has the right to command them to form a stack just to satisfy his desire for greater height and thus power. Mack’s insistence that all the turtles have rights doesn’t dissuade Yertle, but a simple act of rebelling—burping—will disrupt the stack and force Yertle back into the pond.

The relatively simple parable of Yertle contains several key points for political philosophy. The turtles acquiesce when the monarch’s reign is benevolent but may rebel when it becomes abusive. Monarchical power must be based on something other than empty claims. People (here represented by turtles) should have equal rights and be free. All of these principles play out in the works of influential philosophers. For example, the seventeenth-century philosopher John Locke (1632–1704) argued that, by nature, there is a fundamental moral equality of persons that entails that the only legitimate basis for authority is consent, and that one can only rationally consent to regimes that respect and preserve that natural equality in the form of rights.^[2] Locke’s argument was explicitly appealed to in the writing of the American colonists’ Declaration of Independence. As Jefferson put it, “Governments . . . [derive] their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, [and] that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it.”^[3] Sala-ma-Sond is a microcosm of the revolution, and just as the tea being dumped into the harbor was symbolically dumping the king’s authority, so, too, was Yertle dumped back into the pond.

King Derwin the Despot

The kingdom of Didd is a more advanced society than Yertle’s pond (and is actually populated by humans), though, like Yertle’s, it is a monarchy. The behavior of its King Derwin, about whom we have two stories, is also illustrative. In both stories, King Derwin is contrasted with the commoner Bartholomew Cubbins. Like Sala-ma-Sond, Didd seems to be a well-functioning society, although with greater class stratification. In Sala-ma-Sond, there was general equality between turtles other than the king, and Yertle’s “throne” was a rock in the pond. King Derwin of Didd lives in a mountaintop palace, from which he has a view of the full range of classes: “From his balcony, he looked down over the houses of all his subjects—first, over the spires of the noblemen’s castles, across the broad roofs of the rich men’s mansions, then over the little houses of the townsfolk, to the huts of the farmers far off in the fields” (Hats). Despite the wealth inequality, the people of Didd seem to acquiesce to monarchical authority much as the turtles of Sala-ma-Sond do. Derwin feels important, and the people of Didd all exhibit proper courtesy and respect.

Derwin first meets Bartholomew on a day when Bartholomew has come to town to sell his cranberries. He happens to get to town just as King Derwin is riding by. In Didd, the custom is to take off one’s hat before the king, and what catches Derwin’s attention about Bartholomew is that he has a hat on his head. When scolded for the breach in etiquette, Bartholomew notes that he has removed his hat. Mysteriously, though, whenever he removes his hat, a new one pops into place. Oblivious to the fact the Bartholomew keeps taking his hat off, King Derwin finds it infuriating that the boy persists in having a hat on his head, and he orders Bartholomew arrested.

While perhaps less megalomaniacal than Yertle, Derwin’s rage about what is at most a minor faux pas is indicative of a ruler who feels naturally entitled not only to power but to all the trappings of power. The breach in etiquette is seen as a threat to Derwin’s ability to rule. Yertle’s authority over the turtles was manifest in their obeying his commands and disintegrated when they refused. If Derwin cannot get the hat removed, perhaps this would be seen as a similar weakening of his authority. But every time Bartholomew removes his hat, another one pops into existence.

When they are back at the palace, King Derwin enlists everyone he can think of: the royal hatmaker, the wise man Nadd, Nadd’s father and grandfather, the Grand Duke Wilfred, the Yeoman of the Bowman—and none of them succeeds in getting the hats to stay off Bartholomew’s head. Recognizing that the hat’s continued reappearance must be magic, he summons his staff of magicians and orders them to cast a spell to remove the hat. We actually never learn whether this would’ve worked, for they tell Derwin that the spell will take ten years to work and Derwin is impatient to get the hat removed. Ultimately, King Derwin orders the palace executioner to remove Bartholomew’s head.

The scene with the executioner illustrates another principle political philosophers have found fascinating—the function of laws. It turns out that there is a rule in Didd that says that the executioner “can’t execute anyone with his hat on.” But of course, every time the executioner removes the hat, another one appears. So the executioner says, “I can’t execute you at all” (Hats), shakes Bartholomew’s hand, and sends him back to the king. When Bartholomew explains why he hasn’t been executed, the king doesn’t protest—he is exasperated with the situation but doesn’t order the executioner to proceed in contravention of the rule. Derwin acquiesces to the rule of law despite his status as monarch. The idea that even a king may be constrained by the laws goes back at least to Plato, who argued that this was one of the distinctions between a king and a tyrant.^[4] Interestingly, Derwin may have the authority to execute Bartholomew for the refusal to remove his hat, but he lacks the authority to command the executioner to violate the rules concerning the manner of executions.

Although the executioner cannot decapitate Bartholomew, Grand Duke Wilfred offers to push him off the high tower, which Derwin finds satisfactory. Fortunately for Bartholomew, as they scale the stairs to the tower, the hats begin changing each time they come off, getting fancier and more elaborate. By the time they reach the tower, the hat on Bartholomew’s head, the five hundredth hat, is “the most beautiful hat that had ever been seen in the Kingdom of Didd. It had a ruby larger than any the King himself had ever owned. It had ostrich plumes, and cockatoo plumes, and mockingbird plumes, and paradise plumes. Beside such a hat even the King’s Crown seemed like nothing” (Hats). Derwin is so taken with the hat that he stops the Grand Duke from killing Bartholomew and offers to buy the hat. Again, one is perhaps surprised that while the king has the authority to order the death of the boy for the breach of etiquette, he lacks the authority to take the hat. (Perhaps the kingdom of Didd, despite its social stratification, has stable property rights, as Locke suggested.) In fact, he offers five hundred pieces of gold for it, which Bartholomew agrees to. As it happens, this time the hat does not replace itself, and so the story resolves: Bartholomew has removed his hat before the king, the king has acquired a majestic new hat, and Bartholomew returns home with a lot more money than he would have received for the cranberries he had originally gone to town to sell. It is as if the magic of the hat was sensitive to the mutually beneficial effects of trade.^[5]

Kings Don’t Apologize

But King Derwin is not immune to the madness of power that we observed in King Yertle. Getting angry about a breach in etiquette is one thing, but the next time we meet King Derwin, he is upset about something more ridiculous: the sky. He decides that it’s boring to only receive snow, fog, sunshine, and rain, and he wants something new. “Every year the same four things! I’m mighty tired of those old things! I want something NEW to come down!” he complains to Bartholomew Cubbins, whom he has now apparently hired as a page. Bartholomew sensibly replies, “That’s impossible, Your Majesty. You just can’t have it.” Derwin finds this unacceptable—since he’s the king, he feels entitled to get what he wants. Bartholomew points out, “You rule all the land. And you rule all the people. But even kings can’t rule the sky” (Oobleck). Derwin swears to be the first king to make something new come down.

Several days later, King Derwin realizes he could order his magicians to make the sky do something new. Bartholomew counsels that Derwin may regret this, but the king summons the magicians nevertheless. The magicians tell Derwin that they can make oobleck. They don’t actually know what it will look like because they’ve never made it before. Bartholomew points out that this is not likely to end well and he implores the king not to do it, but Derwin orders it anyway. Sure enough, the oobleck starts falling the next day, and it’s a disaster: oobleck sticks like glue to everything and threatens to destroy the kingdom.

No one can stop the oobleck, and Bartholomew eventually loses his temper and tells the king, “This is all your fault! Now the least you can do is say the simple words, ‘I’m sorry.’” Derwin had previously been ready to execute Bartholomew for not removing his hat, and he takes this scolding the same way: “ME . . . ME say I’m sorry! Kings never say ‘I’m sorry!’ And I am the mightiest king in all the world!” Bartholomew replies, “You may be a mighty king, but you’re sitting in oobleck up to your chin. And so is everyone else in your land. And if you won’t even say you’re sorry, you’re no sort of king at all!” (Oobleck). Bartholomew here is representing the idea that the justification for the monarch’s authority is benevolence: the king’s “job” is to take care of his realm. The monarch exists to serve the realm. In the view of Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), the monarch fulfills this duty by maintaining social order, a guarantor of security.^[6] This is a much more minimalist standard of justification for authority than, say, that of Locke, but Derwin is failing to meet even this minimal standard. His stubbornness and vanity are about to destroy the kingdom.

Fortunately, Derwin realizes that Bartholomew was right, and he starts to cry and says that he is indeed sorry—“awfully, awfully sorry!” (Oobleck). And sure enough, the oobleck stops falling and melts away. Like the magic of the hats, the magic of the oobleck seems to have as its object the betterment of the monarchy. King Derwin has learned to be content with the sky being the way it is and also to accept responsibility for his actions, possibly realizing something about what it means to be a good king. One suspects he will be less stubborn and vain and listen to Bartholomew more. This is a different sort of problem with monarchy: Mack the turtle’s objection was that tyrannical rulers like Yertle ignore the rights of the individual. Derwin is an illustration of a different problem: even if you’re not trying to be a tyrant, being king doesn’t mean you have the wisdom to rule justly. If you have a wise and just monarch, the realm may be ruled wisely and justly, but if you have a stubborn, vain, and impetuous monarch, you get oobleck.

At the Bottom We, Too, Should Have Rights

Monarchies, then, might be a less desirable form of government. In both Athens and Rome, monarchies were replaced with democratic institutions, and in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, democratic reforms took hold in both Europe and North America. The Lockean narrative of the equality of persons, and its instantiation in America, seems to imply that everyone should have an equal say. No one person should have that kind of power over others. Power, again, requires the consent of the governed.

Unfortunately though, it turns out that democratic institutions are not effective guarantees against the problems of monarchy. Just as the monarch may act wrongly or stupidly, as in Derwin’s case, a democratic majority can act wrongly or stupidly as well. And just as a king can be a tyrant who ignores the rights of the individual, as in Yertle’s case, so, too, can a democratic majority ignore the rights of the individual. We see both outcomes in the case of Thidwick the moose. Thidwick allows several smaller creatures to sit on his antlers, who in turn bring in more creatures, and eventually they claim the right to tell Thidwick what to do since there are more of them and they have outvoted him.^[7] This arrangement manages to ignore Thidwick’s rights as an individual, as it will lead to him starving to death, and is stupid, as it leads to hunters getting all of the other creatures.

The trick, it seems, is to come up with institutions that facilitate social living, safeguard individual liberty, and promote peace and prosperity. Kings cannot be trusted, but democratic majorities can’t, either. A robust conception of rights might work better. When a society has a political/legal order that recognizes and protects individuals’ rights, then state power is checked, whether democratic or monarchical. A familiar example would be the Bill of Rights added on to the US Constitution, which specifies spheres of individual autonomy, such as freedom of speech or religion, which the government—even by majority rule—cannot override. Morally speaking, we can understand rights as rationally justifiable claims. If these are written into the political/legal order, then they serve as protections against unjustifiable power. A king commanding everyone to have the same religion is no different from a majority vote that everyone have the same religion, an infringement on personal autonomy. But the fact that one could make a moral argument against such a command doesn’t actually protect us. It has to be embedded in the social order somehow, typically by being codified into the structure of the legal system such that they block other commands. In Didd, there are rules built in that apparently even the king cannot override (for example, no chopping off heads unless the hat is removed). Even though King Derwin has ordered Bartholomew’s execution, the executioner says he cannot comply—and Derwin accepts this. In the United States, a ban on newspapers would be met with a legal (not just moral) challenge to the authority of the legislature. In principle, rights serve as protections of individuals against unjustified uses of state power and limitations on the state. This presupposes that the rights aren’t contingent on state power in the first place, of course. The Lockean approach is to suggest that our basic moral equality as persons is conceptually prior to any institutions of government, so governments (either democratic or monarchical) cannot legitimately violate that equality.

While the problems of state power, authority, and rights have vexed philosophers for generations, some of Dr. Seuss’s examples point in a helpful direction. As Mack the turtle noted, all turtles are morally equal, so the ones at the bottom have rights too. If we understand rights as rationally justifiable claims, then surely King Yertle has no legitimate claim to demand that Mack and the others suffer the weight of the turtle stack just because he says so. The inhabitants of Didd may have laws requiring hats off before the king, but they also have certain procedural safeguards and stable property rights. It would probably be even better if their king didn’t have unilateral power to declare executions or use sorcery to change the weather—the former to protect individual rights and the latter to limit the danger to the public of poor decision making. So steps in the right direction seem to include limits on state power (whether monarchical or democratic) and protections of individual rights predicated on the moral equality of persons. It’s true that a king who won’t say he’s sorry is no king at all, but it is even better to limit the range of things they might be sorry about.

Notes

John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, ed. C. B Macpherson (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1980), 14.

John Locke, Two Treatises of Government, ed. Peter Laslett (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960).

Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence (1776).

Plato, Statesman, trans. Christopher Rowe (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1999).

See, e.g., David Ricardo, On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, in The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, ed. Piero Sraffa and M. H. Dobb (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1951–1973).

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. Richard Tuck (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).

I discuss this at length in “Thidwick the Big-Hearted Bearer of Property Rights” in Dr. Seuss and Philosophy, ed. Jacob M. Held (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2011), 159–65.

The Failures of Kings Derwin and Yertle

Throughout his career, Dr. Seuss dealt with tyrants. Most famous is Yertle the turtle king. But before Yertle, there was King Derwin of the kingdom of Didd. King Derwin isn’t as memorable as Yertle. Perhaps because he is human, perhaps because the stories about him don’t rhyme, or perhaps stacking turtles is just more entertaining and memorable than oobleck or threatening to behead a young boy for refusing to remove his hat. Regardless, Seuss often dealt with failed kings—that is, tyrants. And considering tyrants, like Derwin and Yertle, can shed light on issues such as the nature and role of law, power and authority, and civil disobedience.

Whenever Seuss deals with kings, whether they be human or chelonian, he inevitably deals with abuses of power, with tyrannical kings imposing their wills, cruelly or thoughtlessly, on their citizens. For example, King Derwin in The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins goes so far as to condone Bartholomew’s beheading merely for his failure, through extraordinary circumstances, to remove his hat. Clearly, pursuing the death of one’s subject for a simple breach of etiquette is harsh. We see King Derwin again, as well as Bartholomew, in Bartholomew and the Oobleck. In this tale, King Derwin, bored with the weather, charges his magicians with making something “new” fall from the sky. They create oobleck. King Derwin’s shortsightedness and his stubborn, self-interest almost leads to the devastation of his entire kingdom. King Derwin wields great amounts of power, perhaps too much, and he too often, from what we’re told, wields his power thoughtlessly or even cruelly. And then there is Yertle the turtle king. Yertle causes great suffering among his subjects, demanding that they stack themselves merely so he can satisfy his desire for conquest. It’s only through a simple act of civil disobedience that Mack spares his comrades and puts Yertle in his proper place.

What these instances of kingly excess demonstrate is that great power lies in the hands of those who administer our governments, but also that there are and must be limits to that power. There are limits to what ought to be decreed, limits to authority, and there are limits to what can be expected of the citizenry. These kings thus serve as helpful guides in understanding some fundamental issues surrounding the idea of the law and the rule of law.

Maybe I’m One King Who Can! (Authority)

Let’s begin by talking about authority. Now obviously King Derwin is the authority in the kingdom of Didd; he’s the king. When Derwin gives an order it is law, it is to be followed, and if it is not, there are consequences. So if the king says to remove your hat, you had better remove your hat, and the next one, and the next one, and so forth: “Hats off to the king!” (Hats). And if you don’t or can’t, then it’s off to the executioner with you. But is this all we mean when we say somebody has authority—that they can behead you if you fail to obey? Is authority simply a threat backed by force? No. That’s not what we mean by authority. When we speak of authority, more often than not what we mean is legitimate authority; that is, it is a person or institution in charge that ought to be in charge. So a decree from this authority is reason enough to do whatsoever is decreed merely because it was so decreed by the authority. Legitimate authority is different from simple power. “To have power is to have influence, to be able to influence people’s actions and their fortunes. A person has effective authority if he is powerful, if he can influence people. . . . Legitimate authority can be defined as justified effective authority.”^[1]

Consider King Derwin and Bartholomew. King Derwin is powerful; he can affect Bartholomew’s future, his fortune. When Bartholomew is unable to remove his hat—or rather, whenever his removed hat is immediately replaced by another—the “impudent trickster” is put entirely under the king’s power. He is brought to the throne room. He subsequently has arrows shot at him, is nearly beheaded, and is almost pushed off the castle tower by the Grand Duke Wilfred. King Derwin exercises power over Bartholomew. He has effective authority. But is he justified? That is, should we do as he says merely because he says so? Do we have a good reason to obey King Derwin? Given his record, his propensity to rage, his short-sighted and ill-fated plans motivated by pure self-interest or even boredom, probably not. The people of Didd would do well to have some checks and balances in place. They can’t always rely on luck or a particularly vocal pageboy. And this is how we ought to think of authority.

To paraphrase Joseph Raz, quoted above, one has justified authority if his decreeing that one ought to perform some action has normative force; that is, it is a reason for us to do that very thing.^[2] This appeal to reason indicates something important about how we, as humans (or rational chelonians in the case of Sala-ma-Sond), view authority and practical activity generally. We are motivated by reasons. As rational creatures we want an explanation for why we do what we do, or why you want us to do what you decree we ought to do. Force alone may compel, but it is far from compelling in a normative sense. Sure King Derwin can behead Bartholomew, but that fails to address him as a rational being, so it fails to convince Bartholomew to do as he is told. And Bartholomew knows he’s done nothing wrong; that’s why he’s so calm as Derwin rages. “Still . . . the King can do nothing dreadful to punish me, because I really haven’t done anything wrong” (Hats). Bartholomew is right in a sense. The king can’t justly punish him, but he can still have his head removed from his body, justified or not. Derwin is powerful, but he is not authoritative, or at least he is not a justified effective authority. Insofar as we are guided by reason and motivated by reasons, authority must rest to some extent on its ability to appeal to our reason, to be a reason for us to do what it demands we ought to do. What is needful is a legitimate authority, one that is in charge and so effective, but also justified such that its command for us to do something is a reason for us to do that thing.

Magic in Those Simple Words (The Role of Law)

An important point to note, however, is that authority is necessary. We may disagree with or dislike King Derwin, and Yertle is downright despicable; yet somebody has to be in charge, has to be the authoritative voice when it comes to law. Law is a fundamental social institution necessary for regulating social life.^[3] The law, or the king’s decree, instills order. “A legal system is a coercive order of public rules addressed to rational persons for the purpose of regulating their conduct and providing the framework for social cooperation.”^[4] The law provides the necessary, basic structure of our social life, but not everybody will always conform to the law, and the stability of the system needs to be maintained in the face of occasional breaches. “For this reason alone, a coercive sovereign is presumably always necessary, even though in a well-ordered society sanctions are not severe and may never need to be imposed.”^[5] Some authoritative figure or body is necessary in order to administer the legal system.

Now we don’t know how King Derwin ascended to the throne, how he became the one in charge of running Didd. Was he elected? Did the religious authorities or his magicians proclaim him king as God’s representative on earth? Did he slaughter his rivals and lay waste to their lands? Did he club King Bertram of Binn to death with his own stilts in trial by combat? It really doesn’t matter too much. As John Finnis notes, “The tendency of political thinkers to utter legalistic fictions about the original location of authority has its . . . occasion. . . . It remains true that the sheer fact that virtually everyone will acquiesce in somebody’s say-so is the presumptively necessary and defeasibly sufficient condition for the normative judgment that that person has . . . authority in that community.”^[6] Political philosophers may speak of social contracts, original positions, ratifications, or any other genesis event whereby an authority is first acknowledged. But such stories or histories are ultimately irrelevant. What is relevant is that at some point the authority has been and still currently is accepted as the authority, and tradition and time has solidified this practice.

Consider a constitution. It can’t give itself legitimacy. A constitution can’t prove itself constitutional. Yet all our legal systems in constitutional forms of government rely on the constitution’s legitimacy, its authority. What grants a constitution its privileged place, its authority, is that a bunch of people, the “right” people, said it would be authoritative in some symbolic act, and we still accept that and act accordingly, as if it has authority, and so it in fact has it. Well, what gave those people the right to make such a declaration; when did they become authoritative? Why should we care? We can digress infinitely. But the fact is that the constitution is accepted as the authority, and so it is. Thus, the people of Didd have King Derwin. He is king. The fiction surrounding his kingly status notwithstanding, he is authoritative for the kingdom of Didd. But with this status comes responsibility. After all, people will only accept your authority for so long if you fail to do what, as an authority, you’re supposed to do.

We noted above that authority is necessary to coordinate social activities and order social life. Without a stopping point, without a place where the buck stops, there would be no decisive action, clear and intentional policies, or the ability to coordinate the complex operations that constitute a community. So there needs to be an authority. But as an authority, whose purpose is coordination, there are certain criteria that need to be met if one is to be legitimately authoritative—that is, justified in adopting the position of head coordinator, head honcho, or king. Finnis continues, “The authority of rulers derives from their opportunity to foster the common good.”^[7] We seek authority to assist in coordinating our social endeavors, but our social endeavors are oriented toward a singular goal: the good of the community of which we are a part. We seek authority, we justify it, as necessary to organize our collective projects toward the good of all. King Derwin seems to be a decent king in this regard. His people seem to be doing just fine—that is, until a young boy wearing a hat at an inopportune time upsets his little ego, or his boredom leads him to put his own entertainment ahead of the welfare of his subjects. In such cases, even though he wields power and may be the “mightiest man that ever lived!” Bartholomew is right when he says King Derwin is in fact “no sort of a king at all!” (Oobleck). Legitimate authority must be oriented toward the common good if it is to remain legitimate. With the common good as the goal, and social coordination as the means to achieve that end, authority must be exercised in a particular way. There must be a rule of law.

Anything You Say, Sire (The Rule of Law)

People often speak about the “rule of law,” or the notion that we, as Americans, are a nation of laws, not of men. But very few actually contemplate what the rule of law is, what it means, and why it’s valuable—that is, until your leader calls down oobleck, tries to behead a young boy for a minor breach in etiquette, or insists on stacking you and your fellow citizens 5,607 high in order to be higher than the moon. When these things happen we say, “There ought to be a law.” Or “He can’t do this!” Or “I have rights!” All such declarations are implicit references to the rule of law. We’ve seen above that kings, and law, need to be justified, and part of law being justified is that law must take the right form. Laws need to tell us the right way to do the proper thing. “The great aim of the movement against arbitrary power was, from the beginning, the establishment of the rule of law.”^[8]

The point of law is to guide behavior. “Therefore, if the law is to be obeyed it must be capable of guiding the behavior of its subjects. It must be such that they can find out what it is and act on it.”^[9] And when it comes to acting on it, our actions should promote our good and the common good. We don’t simply want rules to follow, but rules that make sense in terms of coordinating our social lives both to our benefit and the benefit of the community. Thus, the point of a rule of law is also “to secure to the subjects of authority the dignity of self-direction and freedom from certain forms of manipulation. The Rule of Law is thus among the requirements of justice.”^[10] The rule of law thus binds governmental administration, even kings, in a way that allows those under the authority of the law to predict the uses of coercive power, plan their lives accordingly, and thus direct the courses of their lives as they see fit. “The rule of law entails, in other words, an unequal struggle between officialdom and the rest of us. It places burdens on the law and on its officials that it does not place on ordinary folk.”^[11] The rule of law binds kings (officials) so that we may live as dignified, autonomous adults. King Derwin is simply mistaken when he scolds Bartholomew, saying, “Boy, don’t you dare tell me what I can or cannot have! Remember, Bartholomew, I am King!” (Oobleck). He is king. He has great effective authority. But, as we’ll see, the very nature of law sets limits to what he can legitimately have. The rule of law is thus a necessary feature of any legal system if we desire to respect people as self-directing, mature beings worthy of leading their own lives: “Legality ‘maximizes individual freedom within the coercive framework of law.’”^[12]

If the goal of the rule of law is to maximize self-direction (or liberty, for lack of a better term), then we should spend some time considering the structure of law. How does law need to be formulated in order to maintain order while respecting those subject to it as self-directed beings? John Finnis states:

His definition is consistent with most articulations of the rule of law. And we can see why these requirements would apply to the necessary structure of any legal system if a legal system is about guiding the behavior of rational human beings. The law, as rules for guiding behavior, needs to be able to be followed by those to whom it applies; thus laws can’t be secret or convoluted. Laws must be public and easily understandable by the people to whom they apply. And they have to be stable, in place, and constant so as rational beings we can plan our lives according to them, expecting them to remain the same so as to provide a modicum of guidance and predictability.

Lon Fuller offers an allegory to demonstrate the problem with failures in the law; he offers the allegory of Rex, a king who believes he can do better than the current legal system under which he operates. Rex is King Derwin, with even worse judgment. Believing he can do better and fix the problems within the legal system, Rex dismantles it and tries to rebuild it from scratch.^[14] Fuller thus describes the ways in which a legal system can fail insofar as it fails to align with the rule of law. He outlines his “eight routes to disaster.”

When law fails in these ways, the individual is unable to guide his behavior according to the law. As a consequence, the subject, the person, is open to arbitrary or excessive coercive activities of the state, his liberty is significantly impacted or curtailed, and thus the good of the populace as rational agents fails to be promoted. The law thus fails in its purpose. In many ways Dr. Seuss’s kings emulate these failures.

Consider, again, King Derwin in The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins. The rule that one remove one’s hat when the king passes by is not in any way problematic in itself. It seems perfectly reasonable. A simple show of respect for the office of the crown, and easy enough, under normal circumstances, to obey. Clearly, it is also a well-known rule. Everybody knows the expectation, and everybody obeys. But then there’s Bartholomew. He tries to remove his hat. He knows the rule. But he can’t. He tries and tries, and he fails (or succeeds each time depending on your perspective). Yet Derwin, still seeing a hat on Bartholomew’s head, sees this as a failure to abide by the rule and is incensed. Cubbins will remove his hat! But in this case, given the unique circumstances, Derwin is requiring the impossible. Bartholomew can’t remove his hat; yet he is ordered to under threat of beheading. Here we have a problem. A rule is imposed that cannot be followed. How can it guide Bartholomew’s behavior? He can’t obey it. Given the circumstances, the rule must cease to bind poor Bartholomew; it must be altered to accommodate the new circumstances, for to hold young Cubbins to the order is to demand of him the impossible and thus to force upon him obedience to an ill-formed law. Yet Derwin persists.

In dealing with Bartholomew’s “disobedience” to the law, King Derwin has become the worst kind of tyrant—a capricious, brutal bully. In the end, Bartholomew is saved only by luck. After removing 499 hats under duress, the five hundredth hat comes off, and he sells it to the king for a pretty profit. So no harm, no foul. Right? Well, we did see something about King Derwin—he is a petty dictator, a small man wielding great power. The only constraint on his power would be the rule of law. And in fact we see a bit of this in Bartholomew’s interactions with the executioner. When he is sent down to be beheaded, the executioner informs him, “First you’ve got to take off your hat . . . it’s one of the rules.” When he realizes that Bartholomew is always wearing a hat even if his current one is removed, he declares, “Fiddlesticks! . . . I can’t execute you at all.” Bartholomew informs the king that “my head can’t come off with my hat on. . . . It’s against the rules.” To which the king responds, “So it can’t” (Hats). Oddly enough, King Derwin does seem to recognize that the rule of law is necessary and that even he can’t go against extant laws or rules. His power does have some limits. And this highlights an important point: “If one is going to have a legal system, it had better be a rule-of-law legal system.”^[16] Yet, additionally, “The rule of law . . . requires that all laws conform to certain principles.”^[17] We don’t just need rules; we need rules that conform to certain principles. So what might those principles be?

Kings Can’t Rule the Sky (Natural Law)

Before we begin, it’s necessary to discuss legal positivism. Some legal scholars, positivists, maintain that the law is merely a social technique; it’s about ordered living, and so it is neutral in terms of content. What makes a law a valid law, or a law in a legal system, is simply whether it was generated in the proper way—its source, not its moral content or merit.^[18] In evaluating a law to determine whether it is valid, positivists merely ask about how a law was written, instantiated, and enforced, not its content. And to their credit, a law formed in the proper way will be a law in the sense of a command or an order backed by sanctions. But that’s kind of an uninteresting point to make. When we ask about valid law, we are asking about meritorious law, laws that ought to be laws, laws that are justified in being laws as holding authority over us and guiding our conduct. As Cicero notes, “The most stupid thing of all, moreover, is to consider all things just which have been ratified by a people’s institutions of laws. What about the laws of tyrants?” He continues, “If justice were determined by popular vote or by the decrees of princes or the decisions of judges, then it would be just to commit highway robbery . . . if such things were approved by popular vote.” His conclusion: “We can divide good laws from bad by no other standard than nature.”^[19] We ask about law because we want to evaluate it. Thus, positivists don’t ask questions pertinent to our topic. So, we’ll consider the natural law tradition.^[20]

We can begin simply enough: law is a rule or measure that guides our action, necessary for coordinated social activity. And the first principle of our action is to promote our good and avoid that which is harmful. As Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) put it, “The first principle in practical matters . . . is the last end, and the last end of human life is bliss or happiness. . . . Consequently, the law must needs regard principally the relationship to happiness.”^[21] Happiness here indicates our greatest good, not simple joy or contentment. Rather, it is about what is good for us, as the kind of thing that we are. In addition, given that we are one among many, this good is defined in terms of our social nature, with reference to community and respecting the same good for all. So if we want to know what the law ought to say, we need to consider what is good for human beings as human beings, and then how to best realize this in community.

Finnis opens his discussion of natural law by considering basic values, basic goods common to all humans and universal in application. He takes these values to be self-evident, objective, and foundational. They are self-evident insofar as they do not need demonstration but are obviously valid; ideas such as “knowledge is a good.” In addition, they are objective insofar as the denial of them is straightforwardly unreasonable, and they are foundational in that any discussion presupposes them. As he notes, “In every field there is and must be, at some point or points, an end of derivation and inference.”^[22] One cannot question ad infinitum. At some point one must stop at foundational truths, as Aristotle noted with logic and the principle of noncontradiction. Some things need to be accepted before further discussion is possible. Finnis continues, “I am contending only (i) that if one attends carefully and honestly to the relevant human possibilities one can understand, without reasoning from any other judgment, that the realization of those possibilities is, as such, good and desirable for the human person; and (ii) that one’s understanding needs no further justification.”^[23]

Perhaps this is a leap of faith necessary for law to function as law. We need to believe in the law for the law to be authoritative and effective, but this leap of faith only makes sense if the law is worth having faith in. A law that appeals to us as humans, that speaks to our good, is a law worth believing in. When the law speaks to us, when the law appeals to the best in us, then it is worth supporting, even if the support we give the law is the only thing supporting the law itself. The law will only exist as an effective authority so long as we act as though it is a justified legitimate authority, and to do so it needs to be worthy of our support.^[24] Faith in the law puts it in a position to be the rule, to be law, but its content determines whether it is worthy of such belief and support. If King Derwin routinely acted as we see him in his dealings with Bartholomew or the oobleck, at some point support for him would erode among the people of Didd. If that lack of support reached a critical mass and turned into outright resistance, he’d cease to be king from the point of view of legitimacy. He’d be left only with force to maintain his rule, and, historically, that leads to tenuous rule at best. So what are these goods, these possibilities that are self-evident, or foundational, or undeniably good? What are these basic values that should orient and define the law?

First, there is a common good for humanity, an objective “better than,” self-evident through human experience. There is a common good “inasmuch as life, knowledge, play, aesthetic experience, friendship, religion [or metaphysical orientation/meaning], and freedom in practical reasonableness are good for any and every person.” In addition, “There is a common good of the political community, and it is definite enough to exclude a considerable number of types of political arrangements, laws, etc.”^[25] Once we know what is good for humans, while recognizing that humans are necessarily social creatures—having to achieve their ends within community whether in collaboration with or in spite of other humans—certain laws and political systems will be ruled out of hand. This is the basis of natural law. “The principle concern of a theory of natural law is to explore the requirements of practical reasonableness in relation to the good of human beings who, because they live in community with one another, are confronted by problems of justice and rights, of authority, law, and obligation.”^[26] What specific principles a society should adopt and how it will pursue the common good in a way consistent with each person’s human good is variable. It will depend on resources, traditions, and myriad other contingent stipulations, but the overriding guiding criterion is the objective human good for each and all within a community.

King Derwin’s major failing in Bartholomew and the Oobleck is his failure to respect nature. He is tired of the four things that fall from the sky and wants something new. He goes against the natural order, the nature of things, to impose his will via his magicians and call down oobleck. But Bartholomew is right: “Kings can’t rule the sky” (Oobleck). And when he tries, when he goes against the natural order, he disrupts it and causes great pain and suffering. The only way to stop the oobleck is through words, not magic words, but “plain, simple words.” As Bartholomew tells the king, “This is all your fault! Now, the least you can do is say the simple words, ‘I’m sorry.’” And he closes, “And if you won’t even say you’re sorry, you’re no sort of a king at all!” (Oobleck). King Derwin relents and says “sorry.” The oobleck subsides, and we are told that King Derwin created a holiday in honor of the “four perfect things that come down from the sky” (Oobleck). King Derwin tried to make law by ignoring the nature of the world around him. He thus went against the grain and caused great suffering. The only solution was for him to say the right words, to undo his foolish decree, to realign himself with nature, with the four perfect things that fall from the sky, and thus bring his decrees in line with the nature of the world around him. He learned that true law, proper law, is reasonable and in accord with nature, as noted by Cicero in one of the quotes that opens this chapter.

Fuller notes, “These natural laws have nothing to do with any ‘brooding omnipresence in the skies’ . . . They remain entirely terrestrial in origin . . . like the natural laws of carpentry.”^[27] Natural law isn’t about God’s law. It’s about the structure of reality. What is good for people is good for people because of the kind of thing people are. “To embark on the enterprise of subjecting human conduct to the governance of rules involves of necessity commitment to the view that man is, or can become, a responsible agent, capable of understanding and following rules, and answerable for his defaults.”^[28] Human beings are amenable to, and in fact guided by, practical reasonableness, seeking their good. We commit to values, to an ideal of humankind. We aspire to greatness, or at least to betterment, and this ideal gives us purpose, a reason to act. But “to live the good life requires something more than good intentions, even if they are generally shared; it requires the support of a firm base line for human interaction, something that—in modern society at least—only a sound legal system can supply.”^[29] Thus, a few simple demands are clear—for example, the demands of duty (that we give one what they are owed^[30]) and equality (that all be treated with equal concern). We commit to these values as necessary and foundational; we use them as the first check against the content of laws to evaluate them as fitting or flawed. Thus, we ask whether law is befitting our shared humanity. In assessing political arrangements and rulers, “the ultimate basis of rulers’ authority is the fact that they have the opportunity, and thus the responsibility, of furthering the common good by stipulating solutions to a community’s coordination problems.”^[31] In so doing, often we find the law or our leaders lacking, as we saw with Bartholomew’s assessment of Derwin as being “no sort of a king at all!” But what if Bartholomew isn’t there to save us or to speak truth to power? What if those in positions of authority are deaf to our cries?

Plain Little Lads Get a Little Bit Mad
(Civil Disobedience)

If the goal of law is to promote the common good, what happens when law goes amiss? Natural law theory is known for the misattributed quote, “An unjust law is no law.” This claim seems to indicate that an unjust, or otherwise deficient, law is not proper law. And this claim is misleading, for if it means that an unjust law is not law insofar as it is not enforceable, then it is clearly wrong.^[32] History bears witness to the use and abuse of unjust laws. What is truly meant by the natural law tradition’s denial of status to an unjust law is that an unjust law is seriously defective. Finnis notes how Aquinas, quoting Augustine, states, “Unjust laws . . . are ‘more outrages than laws,’ ‘not law but a corruption of law’ . . . More precisely, he says that such a law is ‘not a law simpliciter [i.e., straightforwardly or, in the focal sense], but rather a sort of perversion of law.’”^[33] And insofar as law gains its legitimate authority from promoting the common good, such defective laws lose their authority, and in this sense, although they may be enforceable, they fail to be laudable or to compel or deserve a subject’s loyalty or obedience.

If a law truly is unjust, then it is immoral; that is, it affronts the objective morality underlying the very intention of law—to promote the common good through the promotion of the individual’s good. And it is this good that directs all human action insofar as we are practically minded creatures. Thus, an unjust law may be a decree from an effective authority, but insofar as it contradicts the good, it is an affront to our human nature and the functioning of our community. Hence, it is immoral and not a demand of practical reasonableness. In fact, one could go so far as to say it is irrational. To obey it would be to actively harm oneself in direct contradiction to the purpose of our practical reason, which is to guide us toward the good. Such laws are unworthy of us as human beings; they are perversions of law. Such laws ought not to be followed and cannot rationally or coherently be obeyed or respected.

So what might such an unjust law look like? There are some basic guidelines given the purpose of law, the role of the lawgiver or executive, and the constraints of human nature. Laws may be unjust if they use the full authority of the king or sovereign without aiming at the common good or, in fact, are detrimental to it. Consider Yertle the turtle king.

Yertle is king of all the turtles of Sala-ma-Sond. And his authority seems to be clearly recognized and respected. After all, when he calls, the turtles come. They stack themselves at his behest and remain as his throne. In fact, it takes quite a bit before anyone (in this case Mack) questions that authority. So Yertle has great effective authority. He calls nine turtles, stacks them and sits. They remain. It’s not until noon that Mack sighs and wonders, “How long must we stand here, Your Majesty, please?” (Yertle). Mack is rebuffed, and he remains. Then Yertle stacks more: “’bout two hundred!” Again Mack utters his discontent, a bit more forcefully this time: “We turtles can’t stand it. Our shells will all crack!” (Yertle). But he stays when he is again scolded for his impudence. As the stack grows toward the moon, it’s too much, and Mack resists. He burps. “And his burp shook the throne of the king!” And Yertle “fell off his high Throne and fell Plunk! In the pond!” (Yertle). Left to be merely king of the mud.

Yertle’s rule is marked by injustice. His laws, his rule, is not aimed at the common good of the turtles. He is not stacking them for their benefit. He is not considering their good at all. In fact, he ignores their plight. Every time Mack raises a legitimate grievance about cracked shells or starving, his claim is rejected out of hand. Yertle cares nothing for his subjects.

In addition, laws may be unjust if they fail to meet the minimum criteria of the rule of law, as outlined above. Here, as noted above, we see King Derwin as he enforces his rule about doffing one’s hat in the presence of the king. That law, in the case of Bartholomew, fails to meet the minimal criteria of the rule of law insofar as it is unfollowable. To punish him for failing to do what it is not in his power to do is to unjustly punish him, to abuse one’s position of authority.

Finally, laws may be unjust if they place undue burdens on the citizens or subjects of the law. If the role of law is to promote the common good, then imposing undue burdens, burdens out of proportion in terms of the cost they require to the benefit they bestow, are poorly formed laws.^[34] Here we see Yertle again. His command that the turtles stack themselves at the expense of great pain and potentially cracked shells places a ridiculous burden on his subjects, and for no reasonable benefit other than to placate his gigantic ego. Yet kings are to promote the common good. “His power . . . is limited, in that in relation to the free men subject to him . . . he can do only such things as promote the common utility . . . the emperor possesses no power that is perilous to the common good.”^[35] Or, to bring it back to Yertle, “And the turtles, of course . . . all the turtles are free. As turtles and, maybe, all creatures should be” (Yertle). Yertle forgets (or, rather, never acknowledges) this fact. Although he does have power in the sense that he can resort to force, he lacks power if by power we mean legitimate, or moral, authority.

If an unjust law is a perversion of law, if it fails in a significant and specific way, then it follows that it would also fail to compel us to obey it.

Hence we get back to the misattributed “an unjust law is no law” claim. Or, as Bartholomew might say, a ruler that can’t look out for the common good, or a foolish king, is “no sort of a king at all!” In such instances it might be incumbent on the subjects of these unjust laws to resist them, to refuse to obey. Thus, subjects may find it necessary to engage in acts of civil disobedience.

John Rawls (1921–2002), offering a standard account of civil disobedience, notes that such acts are probably morally justified if certain conditions are met. If one is in the presence of injustice, one may rebel, or civilly disobey, if (1) all other appeals have been made in a good-faith effort to otherwise reform the unjust practice. Disobedience should be a last resort. (2) These actions should be limited to clear and substantial violations of justice. You don’t systematically disobey the law and thus contest its authority merely because you don’t like the speed limit or because a singular instance of an injustice has occurred. It must be significant and pervasive, a real civil rights issue, like systematic chelonian abuse. (3) You have to be willing to affirm others’ rights to do likewise when they see grave injustice. And, finally, (4) you need to consider tactics and the pragmatic possibility that your actions will be effective.^[37] Law breaking with no chance of success is mere anarchy, and that does not promote justice.

Mack from Yertle the Turtle is a perfect illustration of this idea. Mack believes a grave injustice is being done to him and his fellow denizens of Sala-ma-Sond. In the face of grave pain and maltreatment he appeals to the king, Yertle. He asks for consideration and presents the case of the turtles in the stack, but he is rebuffed. There is severe and pervasive injustice being done, and it is being ignored. Yertle is in clear violation of basic principles of justice, and gravely so. His unjust reign affects all turtles in drastically harmful ways. There’s no bias here: Mack is concerned with the general welfare of his fellow citizens, and he would offer all of them the same right to resist if they were in his place on the bottom. In fact, he’s protesting for their own good. And his tactic, a well-placed burp, will surely shake the throne, which can’t be that stable. Turtles aren’t built for stacking. An effective act of civil disobedience, such as a well-placed burp, strong and sure enough to shake the throne of the king and expel him, is justified, and needful. Such an act would promote and restore the common good and is thus morally justified. In such cases one is right to get a little bit mad, and one must do what morality demands.

Law is necessary. It provides order and security for our collective social life. It is also necessary that somebody have authority to interpret and implement the law as a guide for our individual and collective endeavors. But when the law is flawed, when rulers act unjustly, then it is up to all of us to be a check on power. We need to be diligent and make sure that our laws speak to the best of us, all of us, or else we might find ourselves in oobleck up to our ears.

Notes

Joseph Raz, The Authority of Law: Essays on Law and Morality, second edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 7.

Raz, The Authority of Law, 12.

See Raz, The Authority of Law, 52.

John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, revised edition (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1999), 207.

Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 211.

John Finnis, Natural Law & Natural Rights, second edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 250.

Finnis, Natural Law & Natural Rights, 263.

F. A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, the definitive edition, ed. Ronald Hamowy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011), 288.

Raz, The Authority of Law, 214.

10.

Finnis, Natural Law & Natural Rights, 273.

11.

John Gardner, Law as Leap of Faith: Essays on Law in General (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 213.

12.

H. L. A. Hart as quoted in Gardner, Law as Leap of Faith: Essays on Law in General, 231.

13.

Finnis, Natural Law & Natural Rights, 270–71.

14.

For the full account, see Lon L. Fuller, The Morality of Law, revised edition (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1969), chapter 2.

15.

Fuller, The Morality of Law, 39.

16.

Gardner, Law as Leap of Faith: Essays on Law in General, 215.

17.

Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty, 310.

18.

See Gardner, Law as Leap of Faith: Essays on Law in General, chapter 2.

19.

Cicero, “On the Laws,” in On the Commonwealth and On the Laws, ed. James E. G. Zetzel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 120–21.

20.

I’m wary of using classifications such as these since they often obscure subtleties among thinkers and within traditions. But they can be useful shorthand for quickly orienting a reader.

21.

Saint Thomas Aquinas, “Selections from On Law, Morality, and Politics,” in Philosophy of Law, eighth edition, ed. Joel Feinberg and Jules Coleman (Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2008), 10. Aquinas covers this topic in Summa Theologiae I–II. Q 90. A 2.

22.

Finnis, Natural Law & Natural Rights, 69–70.

23.

Finnis, Natural Law & Natural Rights, 73.

24.

Consider for a moment the practice of judicial review and the power/authority of the Supreme Court of the United States.

25.

Finnis, Natural Law & Natural Rights, 155.

26.

Finnis, Natural Law & Natural Rights, 351.

27.

Fuller, The Morality of Law, 96.

28.

Fuller, The Morality of Law, 162.

29.

Fuller, The Morality of Law, 205.

30.

Noted in both Finnis, Natural Law & Natural Rights, chapter 7, and Fuller, The Morality of Law, chapter 1.

31.

Finnis, Natural Law & Natural Rights, 351.

32.

See David A. Reidy, On the Philosophy of Law (Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2007), chapter 6.

33.

Finnis, Natural Law & Natural Rights, 363.

34.

For a discussion see Finnis, Natural Law & Natural Rights, chapter 12, section 2.

35.

William of Ockham, “An Excerpt from Eight Questions on The Power of the Pope,” in Readings in Medieval Philosophy, ed. Andrew B. Schoedinger (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 420–21.

36.

Finnis, Natural Law & Natural Rights, 359–60.

37.

See John Rawls, “The Justification of Civil Disobedience,” in Collected Papers, ed. Samuel Freeman (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 183–86.

The Sneetches, the Zax, and Too Many Daves

Dr. Seuss is clearly concerned about the problem of diversity. Saying that diversity is a problem is not to say that diversity is bad, or that diversity is something that we should not want. But it is a problem. Diversity is a problem in a practical sense because differences between people sometimes make it difficult for them to relate to each other. Diversity is a problem in a philosophical sense because the essence of community is that which is in common, and the reality of differences challenges the idea that we belong to the same group of people. Diversity presents questions, then, for both politics and political philosophy: whether it is possible to live in a society with differences, and whether these differences are good things. In his stories, Dr. Seuss suggests that the answer is “yes” to both of these questions.

In the short Dr. Seuss story The Sneetches, the Sneetches have a diversity problem. Some Sneetches have a star, and others do not. The fact of this difference causes problems, particularly for those without the stars. But then their apparent savior arrives. Sylvester McMonkey McBean has heard that they are unhappy and promises that he can be the Fix-It-Up Chappie. What he promises, however, is to cure the town of diversity. In this story, diversity is the source of conflict, and the reason that some are left out of the privileges of society. To the dismay of Sylvester McMonkey McBean, we learn that the apparent solution of eliminating diversity is not a viable one for the Sneetches. As in many of Seuss’s stories, The Sneetches demonstrates why diversity can be a challenge, but also why it produces a good society.

In several of his works, Seuss takes a position on diversity and difference that is close to the position taken by political philosopher Iris Marion Young in her writings on diversity in a democratic society. Diversity is not only possible within a community, Young argues, but also necessary for it to be successful. Young is critical of the viewpoint that a democracy requires us to ignore our differences; instead, she argues that our unique identities are central to our understanding of ourselves and our relationships with others.^[1] Young’s arguments about diversity and difference read alongside Seuss’s writings help us understand why it is that diversity is not simply a problem to overcome but also an essential feature of life in a democratic society.

The Sneetches and the Problem of Difference

One of the problems with diversity is that it tends to create a society in which people believe that they might be better than others. As the story of The Sneetches begins, we learn that the Sneetches with stars on their bellies would brag that they are the best kind of Sneetches. Not only would the Star-Belly Sneetches brag and talk themselves up as special and superior, but they also tied their differences to discriminatory practices. Star-Belly children would play among themselves, not allowing Plain-Belly children to join their games. The adult Star-Bellies would hold parties and gatherings and lock out Plain-Bellies, and they were especially exclusive when it came to sitting on beaches. The physical difference of the star thus became a salient difference on which to form an in-group/out-group relationship.

Though the Sneetches’ star is a seemingly absurd basis for exclusion, we are all too familiar with the type of discrimination that occurs among the Sneetches. Even further, the attempts of the Plain-Belly Sneetches to buy alternatives to change their appearance evokes the image of real-life examples of those who might attempt to appear different to fit in with a dominant group. It is common for members of an oppressed group to internalize oppression by lightening their skin, changing their hair, using lenses to alter their eye color, and engaging in other practices of masking identity. The beauty standards of dominant groups are often the easiest norms of a society to reinforce.

Just as Seuss reminds us that we should not get caught assuming differences are what essentially characterize us, Young argues that no one difference or set of differences essentially characterize the self. She further recommends that group differences not be taken for granted or assumed to be indispensable. Because differences are constantly undergoing changes and challenges for the individual and within the group, like we see in Seuss, no assumptions should be made about these differences prior to any interactions. Young writes that “in complex, highly differentiated societies like our own, all persons have multiple group identifications . . . thus individual persons, as constituted partly by their group affinities and relations, cannot be unified, themselves are heterogeneous and not necessarily coherent.”^[2] There is a wide range of differences among people and between groups, and individuals should not be understood as representing a single characteristic or association. Even further, differences should not be the basis for excluding others because they are unstable and based on other social factors.

In the society of The Sneetches, differences among identities are not as complex as those we find in our society, but we see that these differences are just as unstable. Because the belly stars can be removed and put back on, they do not represent a meaningful way to make judgments about who should be included or excluded from the benefits of society. Seuss’s analogy shows the absurdity of creating classes of people based on superficial or incoherent differences.

Denying Diversity with “Too Many Daves”

In his short poem, “Too Many Daves,” Dr. Seuss provides an indication of the problem of denying difference among individuals. Poor Mrs. McCave created all sorts of problems for herself and her entire family by eliminating the recognition of difference through naming all twenty-three of her sons “Dave.” The simple call of “Yoo-Hoo! Come into the house, Dave!” led to all twenty-three rushing the house at once, and an inability to correct for the problem later in life. The lesson of “Too Many Daves” is the importance of recognizing and appreciating difference as a critical element of individuality and uniqueness. Distinctiveness is as important for Sir Michael Carmichael Zutt as it is for the one named Oliver Boliver Butt.

As Seuss demonstrates in this story, dealing with difference means recognizing that diversity is not merely inconvenient or dispensable, but it is valuable for both individuals and society. Diversity sometimes requires that we treat people differently. Therefore, practices that deny or repress difference must be reconsidered. Mrs. McCave’s problems occur due to her misguided attempt at a universal standard for her children. In the pursuit of equality and universal treatment she sacrifices an appreciation of the basic characteristic that distinguishes one person from another, that of a name.

The power and oppression of universalizing standards linked to naming, although humorous in Seuss’s example, is one that is often seen among immigrant communities. In attempting to fit into the dominant culture, many immigrants will either alter their names to make them more easily pronounceable or take on nicknames that are assigned to them by dominant groups for their own convenience. In extreme cases, individuals who refuse to adopt or adapt their culturally rooted name find themselves discriminated against in job, loan, or housing applications. Similar to the aforementioned examples of cosmetic efforts to fit into the dominant standards of physical beauty, the denial of heritage that comes from eliminating differences in something as basic as one’s own name is symptomatic of buying into, or internalizing, oppressive standards. Internalized oppression takes on many forms, distorting one’s perception of oneself and leading to psychological distress ranging from withdrawal and self-loathing to harmful and even deadly behavior such as suicide. Having simplistic notions of equality as being captured in a “melting pot” standard where difference is denied can often lead to a standard of out groups needing to conform to dominant culture, thereby leading to the problems of difference taking on a negative connotation.

Like Seuss, Iris Marion Young argues against seeking a universal or simplistic notion of equality. Rather than seeking a simple universal standpoint, Young instead suggests that equality be “an achievement of democratic communication” that can only come about as difference is allowed to flourish. Not only does a lack of diversity make it difficult to distinguish one from another (not to mention that doing so makes life less interesting), but it also makes it difficult to make judgments about social and political life. Young argues that “objectivity in political judgment [occurs through] accounts and judgments people construct for themselves from a critical, reflective, and persuasive interaction among their diverse experiences and opinions.”^[3] We need diversity because it is only in conversation with those different from us that we come to make decisions about the kind of world in which we want to live. Seeking a better society means making it possible to interact with others different from ourselves. This does not mean, of course, that treating people differently is always acceptable. As Seuss taught us with the Sneetches, it is possible for differences in society to produce relationships of privilege. How can we avoid some people getting to go to the beach while others do not?

Young’s solution is similar to Seuss’s: impartiality is about finding an alternative moral standpoint to egoism. The problem is that sometimes the establishment of an impartial ideal produces a misguided attempt at superficial equality. Young explains that “the theory of impartial reason wrongly identifies partiality with selfishness, and constructs its counterfactual universalist abstraction in order to move the subject beyond egoism.” Of course, in order to have a moral approach to any situation we must move beyond egoism, but impartiality is not the only way that this can occur. The alternative, as Young describes it, is “another way the subject moves beyond egoism: the encounter with other people. A ‘moral point of view’ arises not from a lonely self-legislating reason, but from the concrete encounter with others, who demand that their needs, desires, and perspectives be recognized.”^[4] Sensitivity to others only comes about when we interact with them, even more when we interact with those different from ourselves. For Young, as for Seuss, judgment cannot be concentrated with certainty in any one body or group of people. It also recommends that when made, judgments not become so self-assured that they are beyond reproach.

Avoiding the Zax Problem: An Alternative Approach to Political Communication

As we have seen, appreciating diversity means a willingness to interact with others who have different opinions, but this is not enough. We could interact with others with whom we disagree, but if we refuse to listen, compromise, or move, we might be in a worse position than when we started. Like the unnamed character in Green Eggs and Ham who refused to even hear Sam-I-Am’s numerous and varied offers for considering the viridescent dish, when we refuse to engage the perspective or position of others, we may be denying ourselves growth, opportunity, and even a qualitatively better life.

The Seuss short poem “The Zax” presents just such a problem. A North-Going Zax encounters a South-Going Zax, and each refuses to move. Stuck as they are, “foot to foot, face to face,” neither is willing to compromise. They argue because neither is willing to move or allow the other to pass. The Zax not only disagree about their directional impasse but also fight over which is more stubborn than the other. The South-Going Zax proclaims:

The result, of course, is that neither one moves, and a highway is built around the Zax. In this poem, Seuss depicts both the absurdity of a failure to compromise and the degree to which accommodating others is a key element to accomplishing our own goals. We must be willing to talk to others, and we need to be open to learning from them.

The Zax are certainly willing to talk to each other, but only to proclaim how and why they are not willing to budge. The problem here, as both Dr. Seuss and Iris Marion Young would see it, is that being open to discussion with others is not enough if we refuse to be changed by the interaction. The Zax present well-reasoned arguments, but in these arguments we see a fundamental failure in understanding what the purpose of the discussion should be. In most theories of democracy, participation is predicated upon one’s ability to communicate through well-constructed arguments and reasons. These arguments must accompany other commitments, however, if we are going to get the most out of our discussions with others. We should move beyond the expectation that we are simply responsible for expressing ourselves, Young argues, so that we are also “acknowledging social differentiations and divisions and encouraging differently situated groups to give voice to their needs, interests, and perspectives on the society in ways that meet conditions of reasonableness and publicity.” Young goes on to say that moving past the argument stage of public discussion also “highlights the importance of valuing diverse models of communication in democratic discussion.”^[5]

Young recommends expanding our view of meaningful communication to include things like greetings, rhetoric, and stories as politically useful forms of communication. Each in its own way can “aid in the making of arguments” and “enable understanding and interaction in ways that argument alone cannot.”^[6] Accepting these forms of communication as politically legitimate would not only open political discussion to more people but also recognize different kinds of contributions as useful for a deeper understanding of issues. Perhaps the Zax would have fared better had they greeted each other more politely or been willing to share and listen to stories of their Zax pasts.

The simple act of greeting, for example, may not appear on the surface to be a significant act in the scheme of political deliberation. As Young points out, however, there are many who engage in political interaction who feel ignored or unrecognized in the process of deliberation. As a public action to prevent this, in the act of greeting participants explicitly acknowledge each other and therefore increase the likelihood that they will treat each other with respect. This public act of recognition, even if it is only obligatory or symbolic, sets the stage for an ensuing discourse that will most likely foster improved interaction between those who have already been recognized. The way Young describes it, “Recognition is best thought of as a condition rather than a goal of political communication that aims to solve problems justly.”^[7]

The Zax might also have learned that a more open rhetorical mode would have led to a more productive discussion. Young includes “rhetoric” as a mode of political communication in order to move away from the presupposition that dispassionate linear argumentation is the only way to effectively communicate meaning in political discourse. In her definition, the term rhetoric identifies not so much what is said but how it is said. It includes the moral tone of the discourse, the use of figures of speech, and different attitudes through which speech can be communicated. The Zax, for example, begin their interaction with the North-Going Zax saying, “Look here, now! I say! You are blocking my path. You are right in my way” (Zax). The moral tone of this discourse and greeting already sets the stage for the nature of the interaction.

Rhetoric is important because it can bring a tone and terms to political communication that in some cases cannot be brought by mere reasoning. Young also points out that rhetoric can serve an important function in deliberation by motivating the move from reason to judgment. She suggests that “to make judgments with pragmatic consequences, political publics must not only believe and accept claims and arguments, but also care about and commit their will to the outcomes.”^[8] This commitment of the will often comes about because someone uses the right language and moral tone to cultivate and motivate it. Would the Zax have made different judgments if their rhetoric had been different?

Another important mode of speech, according to Young, is that of storytelling. The method of communication through storytelling is not usually considered to be on the same level as reasoned justification, but it is often the best way to communicate ideas. Narrative, for example, may in some cases be the only response that an excluded group has when no other communicative resources are available. Narrative is also the way that many groups express their collective affinities and desires. In addition, the recollection of a narrative might offer the only way to fully understand the experiences of others. Young states that narrative “not only exhibits experience and values from the point of view of the subjects that have and hold them. It also reveals a total social knowledge from particular points of view.”^[9] This “total social knowledge” offers precisely the information that can lead to more just outcomes from political deliberations.

Here, Seuss’s own work proves the point that Young makes. It is through storytelling that he illustrates moral dilemmas and arguments. It is through the experience of the Zax that we learn that compromise is the best way to deal with disagreement. We also learn that uncompromising attitudes will lead to no one accomplishing their goals. The Zax should have followed Seuss’s lead and offered stories of their own. Seuss and Young propose that communication can become truly inclusive only by considering other forms of communication to be acceptable political discourse. Perhaps the Zax would have moved if they had been taught to follow Young’s advice.

Why We Need Diversity: What We Learn from Sneetches, Zax, and Daves

Both Dr. Seuss and Iris Marion Young maintain that only through coming to terms with difference, as an unalterable condition of human relationships, will politics be able to more completely pursue social justice. Young argues:

The more diverse the community, the more important it is to be inclusive to get a fuller picture of the social landscape. We recognize with the Sneetches that differences should not mean exclusion. We discover with Mrs. McCave that too many Daves can be a bad thing. We learn from the Zax that we need to expand our idea of proper communication. Combined, in these stories Seuss is telling us that diversity can strengthen our relationships with others if we approach it with the right strategies and mindsets.

Politically speaking, these rules mean that the boundaries of political discussion themselves must be democratized. We cannot achieve a just society without having interactions with others to negotiate this society. Finally, the transformative nature of political interaction itself needs to be appreciated. If we are situated, constituted, and different from each other, then what can be learned from others is just as important as the decisions that are made as a result of our discussions with them.

The consequence of Seuss’s and Young’s justice framework is that everyone must be able to determine their life for themselves, and to develop the capacity to realize their goals and communicate them with others. Also, just as important is the application of considerations of equality in the processes of social decision making as much as in their outcomes. That is, according to the principle of justice, as opposed to domination, inclusion in decision-making processes becomes as important as the equitable outcome of these processes. In stories like The Lorax and Horton Hears a Who! we find characters who recognize that as people who hold positions of power they have an obligation to advocate for, and empower when possible, those who may find themselves locked out of social discourse or are otherwise marginalized. While the ultimate goal is not to continue to entrench the power dynamic of one person or group offering a voice for others, but rather to empower all to have a legitimized spot at the table, the importance of seeing obligations based on power dynamics is critical for changing democratic processes and structures to move society toward inclusion.

According to this ideal, inclusion becomes a necessary proposition of justice. Conceived this way, democratic institutions should be more concerned with inclusion than with the parameters for predictable or determined outcomes. Just as important, inclusion should not be understood as simple acceptance through ignoring—or worse whitewashing—difference. Unlike the Sneetches, who just saw themselves as all the same in the end, the cultural particularities that are tied to racial, ethnic, gender, sexual, religious, class, and other differences should be recognized and substantively included within the broader social discourse. Likewise, if identities themselves rely on politics for both articulation and formation, our communication practices and judgments are as vital in the process of democracy as they are in evaluating the outcomes of our interactions with others. Seuss teaches us we can achieve this vibrant diversity within our society. We just have to be more like the Sneetches and less like the Zax, proving Fix-It-Up Chappies wrong by learning through our interactions with others.

Notes

Iris Marion Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), 227.

Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference, 48.

Iris Marion Young, Inclusion and Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 114.

Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference, 106.

Young, Inclusion and Democracy, 119.

Young, Inclusion and Democracy, 57.

Young, Inclusion and Democracy, 61.

Young, Inclusion and Democracy, 69.

Young, Inclusion and Democracy, 76.

10.

Young, Inclusion and Democracy, 117.

Yooks and Zooks

Let’s begin with the obvious: The Butter Battle Book is an allegory about the Cold War. The whole premise, Zooks versus Yooks and an arms race leading to the brink of nuclear (or, in this case, Boomeroo) annihilation, is a not-so-subtle condemnation of the United States’ and former Soviet Union’s global struggle and nuclear arms race. A chapter on The Butter Battle Book could tread that ground. We could look at nuclear proliferation and the policy of MAD, or mutually assured destruction. And that’s an interesting topic insofar as it relies on game theoretical approaches to warfare and concludes that rational agents wouldn’t engage in actions to defeat their enemies if it also assured their own destruction. We tend to love ourselves just a little bit more than we hate even our worst enemies. This is an interesting idea, but I’m not interested in it for this chapter. I don’t wish to revisit theories of nuclear deterrence. Instead, I want to look at The Butter Battle Book and think more broadly about war, about the use of mass violence by nations to promote national interests, from human rights and self-defense to proper butter application.

Underneath the conflict between the Yooks and Zooks as presented in The Butter Battle Book is the presumption that preparing for war, and planning to use force against another nation, is, under some circumstances, justified. That’s wherein my interest lies. When is it permissible to unleash the dogs of war, to obliterate towns and lay waste to the Zook countryside, and what (if any) rules govern our conduct in war?

It’s High Time That You Know

The Butter Battle Book has a simple story line. Two peoples, the Yooks and the Zooks, are separated by a wall and an irresolvable disagreement: how ought one to butter and subsequently eat one’s bread. The Yooks see the Zooks as profligate, flawed and with “kinks” in their souls, for they eat their bread with the butter side down. The Zooks seem perfectly content with the practice, but the Yooks see it as worrisome. So anxious does the practice make them that they erect a wall and patrol it, keeping a watchful eye on the Zooks. And as the story unfolds it is the Yooks who are more often than not the aggressors, instigating conflict with the Zooks in an attempt to eradicate them and their wicked way of life. So we have an irresolvable conflict between two nations, each maintaining steadfastly that their way is best. It’s the global, political equivalent of the Zax. Only in the case of the North-Going Zax and South-Going Zax, they simply refused to budge and so merely stood still. They didn’t murder each other, or even threaten to. But the Yooks and Zooks allow their petty disagreement to escalate. Their concern over the other’s buttering practices has led to each adopting a war footing—in the case of the Yooks, leading to them preparing to invade Zook territory with the intention of committing genocide. As for the Zooks, they simply prepare for retaliation should the Yooks invade. But this is only butter! Who cares how you eat your bread! Do they really need to resort to force? Could the Yooks or Zooks make a case for war, for mass murder and destruction, all in the name of their proclivities for buttering bread?

Blow All the Zooks Clear
to Sala-ma-goo: Realism

Let’s begin with a simple fact: war is an undeniable evil. War kills and maims thousands and even millions of people, combatants and noncombatants, soldiers and citizens, warriors and children, and inflicts injuries both physical and mental, short and long term. The human toll of war is profound and profoundly disconcerting. If the Yooks and Zooks ever use their Big Boy Boomeroos, there will be many killed, wounded, and forever damaged. The numbers of killed and injured will include children, mothers, and all others caught in the wake of war. There is also the economic impact of war, resources that might have otherwise been spent on education, public works, or other social services go to building bombs, tanks, and guns. As the Yooks and Zooks spend resources and time creating newer and bigger slingshots, triple-sling jiggers, and all their other contraptions, they are not building schools, hospitals, roads, infrastructure, and so on. In addition, war destroys infrastructure such as buildings and roads. Refugees in war-torn lands are driven from their homes. When the fighting begins, where will the Zooks go as the Yooks rain Blue-goo down upon them? So how does one begin to justify the enormity of war?

At its most basic war is mass killing, and it seems to be a result of morality breaking down. So it might seem odd to apply moral thinking to war. Obviously, we don’t fight because reason and diplomacy worked, because we’ve found shared values and are working constructively toward resolving our conflicts. War happens because someone thought force was the only or the most justifiable or the easiest way to resolve the conflict at hand. In the case of The Butter Battle Book, it is the Yooks who are the consistent aggressors. After the Zook VanItch uses a slingshot to break Grandpa’s poor Snick-Berry Switch, it’s the Yooks who continuously invent and deploy greater and greater weapons of war. But at no point is an emissary or ambassador sent to talk peace. Violence is the first and only response considered. With such a breakdown of reason, it’s hard to see how moral thinking might apply to war.

Morality and law apply to civilization, and war is a breakdown of this order. One might recollect General William Tecumseh Sherman’s (1820–1891) famous dictum, “War is Hell.” Or his statement in a letter to the mayor and council of Atlanta: “War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it.” One interpretation of these claims is that “war is hell, because as in hell, the horrors know no bounds.”^[2] And the Chief Yookeroo seems to agree. He declares, “In their new great machine you’ll fly over the Wall and clobber those Butter-Down Zooks one and all” (Butter). Grandpa’s job is to destroy all the Zooks, every one of them. If the idea that “war is hell” is taken to mean that war is beyond moral assessment, or that moral concepts don’t apply to the conditions of war due to its extreme nature, then it is traditionally tagged Realism. Realists hold that war isn’t nor can it be governed by morality or law, and so at root war merely is about promoting one’s interests and however one must do so is justified. Yooks are clearly Realists. Yooks eat bread butter side up, and they want to promote this convention at all costs. If Zooks wish to flout the proper moral order of buttering bread, if they do so publicly while decrying the Yook method, then the only way to shut them up is to blow them to smithereens. The Yooks will promote their superior way of life through the annihilation of the Zooks, one and all. Or so the Yook Realists would have it.

Here we find the mass killing of war justified not with reference to some overarching good or moral value such as human rights or protection of the innocent, but an expedient way to promote some other interest, an arbitrary, questionable, egotistical good, like eating bread butter side up. Such a dismissal of morality as quaint or irrelevant is troubling. One can’t avoid moral reasoning, especially when dealing with a moral tragedy such as war. “[T]he truth is that one of the things most of us want, even in war, is to act or to seem to act morally. And we want that, most simply, because we know what morality means.”^[3] War is a human activity. Like any human endeavor, it too is amenable to reason and moral assessment. “If morality applies at all, it applies to all of our actions.”^[4] So if we must apply moral reasoning to war, how ought we to do it?

A Very Rude Zook: Jus ad Bellum

Justifying war is a two-part process: one must justify the right to go to war, and then one must justify how to fight. One must provide “an account of just cause and an account of just means.”^[5] The common nomenclature used to indicate the just cause part of the account is jus ad bellum, Latin for the “right to go to war.” Jus in bello is used to indicate the just means part of the account and means “rights in war.”

Jus ad bellum is about a nation’s right to go to war. It’s the justification for using lethal force on a massive scale. The standard account goes something like this: war is a necessary evil, so the presumption is always against it. You have to have a really, really, really good reason to overcome this presumption and justify the mass killing and serious evil you are about to inflict on the world. There are many formulations of the criteria one must meet in order to successfully plead for the use of military force, but most boil down to the following: there must be a just cause for the use of force such as self-defense or the defense of others, protection of rights, or maintenance of order. Resorting to force must be a last resort after all reasonable, nonbelligerent means of resolution have been exhausted. And, finally, the means you intend to use must be proportionate to the evil being staved off through your war action. That is, war has to be worth it.^[6]

The special pleadings used to justify war are fairly straightforward and follow traditional rationales for the use of violence. For example, with just cause, self-defense is an obvious legitimate reason for using violence. After all, if you have a right to life, then you should have the right to protect that right. Likewise, if nations have a right to exist, then they should be allowed to protect that right as well as the well-being of the citizens entrusted to their care. Perhaps this is what frightened the Yooks so much after VanItch sling-shotted Grandpa’s switch. It was an act of aggression that could’ve been seen as a first strike against the Yooks. The Yooks have the right to defend themselves. But there are limits to self-defense. The threat must be immediate, and your response should be proportionate.^[7] If the threat isn’t lethal, lethal force is an exaggerated response, and if nonlethal or diplomatic means would resolve the matter just as well as war, then they should be used. The Yooks probably overreacted. We only get a small snapshot of the international relations between the Yooks and the Zooks, but from where we stand, it doesn’t appear that the Zooks are threatening the very existence of the Yooks. Instead, the Yooks take it upon themselves to initiate hostilities, going so far as to stage incursions into Zook territory, threatening to goo all the Zooks, men, women, and children. In this case, following the idea of self-defense, the Zooks might have a case for war. Yet even if one can find a just cause for war, one also needs to consider proportion and last resort.

In terms of proportion, a nation must undergo a bona fide cost-benefit analysis to see whether war is worth it. Would a war with the Zooks bring total annihilation? If so, it is probably best to avoid war. Would it be fairly cheap and quick? Would it cost a relatively small portion of your gross domestic product, and a minimal loss of life, both Yook and Zook? If so, then it might be justified if you otherwise had a just cause. But this type of assessment needs to be done in good faith, truthfully calculating the costs and weighing the benefits. It might seem cold to calculate in this way, but we’re talking about death and destruction. We need to keep track, take notice, and make a wise decision. Finally, we need to make sure that war is only used as a last resort. Given its severity, war should only be used if all other reasonable means have been tried and exhausted. If all of this has been done in good faith, and war is the answer, then so be it. But please, tread lightly.

The Chief Yookeroo’s Grim
Commands: Jus in Bello

The usual nomenclature for the moral principles guiding behavior during war is jus in bello, or one’s rights in war. Even war initiated for a just cause does not allow for the use of any means to wage it. After all, part of jus ad bellum is making sure the destruction required to wage the war is proportionate; once in war, this requirement still holds. War is a balancing act of weighing evils against each other. And the principles traditionally held to restrict our actions in war are the principles of proportion and discrimination. With respect to proportion, we assess our proposed actions and ask whether they are necessary, and only what is necessary, to achieve a legitimate military objective. Anything more is overkill, superfluous or unnecessary suffering, and so unjustified. In addition, the principle of discrimination secures protection for noncombatants by declaring them off limits. You can’t intentionally attack noncombatants for the simple reason that they are noncombatants; they are not a threat, and, unlike soldiers, they have not entered into an arrangement where they willfully put themselves at risk of being killed.

With respect to the principle of discrimination, its moral foundation is fairly clear. One scholar notes that historically this idea stems from the idea that war is a response to a wrong done, and noncombatants have done no wrong.^[8] This is the idea of noncombatant immunity.^[9] Noncombatants must be shown due care and their interests acknowledged and respected, although their foreseeable deaths are excusable if they are the unintended result of necessary and proportionate military actions. You can’t wage modern war without using a lot of things that make really big explosions in areas often populated by noncombatants, and since you can’t evacuate everybody from all potential war zones, you’ll have to either find a way to morally justify their deaths or not fight. And since fighting seems necessary at times, one must find a moral justification for the regrettable loss of innocent life.^[10]

But the prohibition against intentionally targeting noncombatants is crucial. We are not barbarians. We are not bullies. One does not seek to harm or maim the innocent, even if doing so may be an undesirable and unfortunate result of otherwise justified fighting. So should you ever find yourself in the position of having to drop a massive incendiary device on a heavily populated Zook town, you have to ask yourself whether the military advantage of doing so is significant. Are your intentions pure and the innocent deaths merely an unfortunate, even if foreseeable, consequence of waging a just war? “The deaths [need to] be . . . foreseen but not intended—wanted neither as a means nor as an end to the result aimed at.”^[11] The Yooks are clearly at fault here. First, they have no just cause, since another person eating buttered bread offensively at you isn’t a reason for war. But on top of having no just cause, their goal is genocide: they seek to wipe out all of the Zooks. Thus, the Yooks are beginning from a rejection of the principle of discrimination. They are intentionally aiming at the death of all Zooks. The Zooks, however, probably have cause to prepare for war against the Yooks. After all, the Yooks are a genocidal rogue state set on total annihilation of the Zooks.

The principle of proportion, by contrast, doesn’t ask about who you’re killing or what you’re destroying, but whether you are doing so excessively. The principle of proportion speaks about minimal force, only using what is necessary to disable the enemy. The goal is cessation of hostilities, of a resolution as quickly and painlessly as possible. If war is evil, at least we can minimize the amount of it inflicted on the world. The Yooks and Zooks continually increase their capacity for destruction, perhaps as a deterrent to the other, hoping that the other won’t strike first if they see that they’ll be eradicated in retaliation. But each weapon, as it increases its capacity for death and destruction, increases the number of Yooks or Zooks it will kill or maim, combatant and noncombatant alike. Weapons of mass destruction don’t discriminate. The Big Boy Boomeroo, just like any chemical, nuclear, or biological weapon, is especially problematic. Even if the Zooks had cause to use it in self-defense, “the collateral damage caused even by a ‘legitimate’ use of nuclear weapons is so great that it would violate . . . the proportionality limits fixed by the theory of war.”^[12] Similar arguments have been made to decry the Allied fire bombings of Germany and Japan during World War II, as well as the use of atomic weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As one scholar notes, “The legitimate concerns about killing the innocent in war cannot be taken lightly, and proportionality forces us to take those innocent lives quite seriously indeed.”^[13] Nuking the Zooks or the Yooks will kill indiscriminately so many thousands and hundreds of thousands of the other that one would need a significantly serious reason to justify it. Such destruction is almost unconscionable. The orientation at which one eats their buttered bread, top-side or bottom-side butter, is surely no justification for this amount of carnage. Beyond nuclear warfare, modern warfare, conducted using high explosives from great distances in densely populated areas—such as drone strikes, missile attacks, and so forth—doesn’t fare much better under careful consideration. How many innocents have been killed unintentionally, yet foreseeably, by drone strikes? If these principles are to pose moral limits to warfare, then we need to give them the weight they are owed and seriously reevaluate the way in which we kill in wartime.

So the principles of proportion and discrimination are, theoretically, if not in actuality, moral checks on how we wage war. One scholar notes that if a war can’t be fought justly (that is, while respecting the principles of proportion and discrimination), then it can’t be justified in the first place, implying just cause is bound by just conduct. He asks, “Why should we think that a war that cannot, or is unlikely to, be waged with just tactics should ever be considered a just war from the outset?”^[14] Here, we find the Yooks and Zooks, unable to wage war without indiscriminately killing many, and to what end? The fundamental problem with the Yooks is that their goal is annihilation of the Zooks—that is, genocide. This goal can’t be a just cause, and so all of their actions in pursuit of it will be unnecessary and so disproportionate. In addition, since all their actions are aimed at all Zooks, they fail to adequately discriminate between combatants and noncombatants. Since a great deal of killing in war is indiscriminate in this way, some go so far as to maintain that no wars can be justified since the way in which war is waged is necessarily disproportionate to any potential threat and always disrespectful of the principle of discrimination. These critics are pacifists.

No Blood for Butter: Pacifism

The general sentiment of the pacifist is that the cost of war is unjustifiable. No good seemingly can justify the loss of life and resources necessary to wage war. And we see this with The Butter Battle Book. After all, it’s an allegory for the Cold War, for the threat of global nuclear war. And what could possibly justify the annihilation of the planet and the extinction of humanity? Surely not what side we butter bread on. At least the United States and Soviet Union had good reasons, such as disagreements about who owns the means of production, how social resources are distributed, and which superpower gets to control what third-world nation for its own benefit.^[15] But wars on the scale in which they historically have been fought result in hundreds of thousands and even millions of deaths, mass exoduses, refugee crises, billions and billions of dollars of damage, and long-term social and economic problems. It is easy to see how one could find the enormity of war unjustifiable.

If one begins from a simple proportionality calculation where we assess the benefits war may produce against the evil it causes, pacifism may seem obvious. Rarely has war led to fewer deaths than surrender arguably would have. One scholar illustrates this through the example of World War II. Estimating that the Allied share of deaths, both combatant and noncombatant, was around 6.5 million, he states, “No one denies that a Nazi victory in World War II would have had morally frightful results. But, according to anti-war pacifism, killing six and one-half million people is also morally frightful, and preventing one moral wrong does not obviously outweigh committing another.”^[16] If we take proportionality to simply be about total number of deaths or amount of destruction, Douglas Lackey seems to indicate that war is incredibly difficult to justify. Surrender would probably lead to less pain and suffering than fighting. But is war and the value of a nation’s sovereignty quantifiable in terms of loss of property and life, or is there a further value being fought for when one thinks about justifying war? Isn’t sovereignty or self-determination valuable? Wouldn’t rule by a Nazi regime be undesirable?

Both the Yooks and the Zooks seem to think their ways of life are worth protecting. The Yooks want to promote theirs over and against the Zooks’ way of life, which to them indicates “kinks” in one’s soul. And who knows what elements of Zook culture and identity hinge on eating bread butter side down, but surely those values matter to them, just as anybody’s identity is tied to their foundational values. But Lackey doesn’t think these types of values merit the cost of war. In fact, he notes that citizens of Russia and China didn’t live in bastions of freedom before or after World War II, so who ruled them was kind of irrelevant. In fact, he equates the desire to not be ruled against one’s own will by Germans to be nothing more than xenophobia, a fear of or dislike for foreigners.^[17] Ideas of sovereignty, for him, are simply masks for unattractive attitudes about foreigners. He concludes that our prejudices against rule from the outside can’t justify the millions of deaths war results in. Note that the Yooks and Zooks prepare for war and are ready to destroy each other merely so they don’t have to butter bread the way their adversaries do, or even tolerate their existence. This is a clear case of prejudice, of irrational tribalism at its worst. What side you butter bread on doesn’t matter, especially since you can flip it over with minimal effort. It doesn’t affect the taste. At the most eating it butter-side down is probably a bit messier than eating it butter-side up, but that’s the Zooks’ problem. The simple reason the Yooks hate the Zooks is because they are different; they are Zooks. And “you can’t trust a Zook who spreads bread underneath!” (Butter). But buttering bread underneath is merely a convenient excuse. The Yooks are motivated by xenophobia, plain and simple. They hate Zooks because they are not Yooks, and whatever reason they give for why Yooks are better is going to be arbitrary, an after-the-fact rationalization of an irrational hatred, that when left to fester leads to what we have in the story—perpetual war and attempted genocide. So maybe pacifism makes sense, once we weigh all the pros and cons.

In addition, Lackey claims self-defense is no justification for war, since the people of the invaded country would survive conquest, even if the old form of government did not. If the Zooks surrendered, if they acquiesced to the Yooks’ demands, they’d survive, and all they’d have to give up is eating bread buttered underneath. They’d live for top-side butter, but they’d live. For Lackey, what’s most important when trying to justify war is minimizing pain and suffering, and war can’t stand up to scrutiny. It always fails the proportionality test.

This type of pacifism makes many assumptions about the value of sovereignty, justified killing, and so forth. A full account and appropriate response is beyond this short chapter, but we can ponder a few ideas. Perhaps self-defense isn’t a justification for war in some cases. Perhaps losing a small, inconsequential island is not worth millions of lives. Maybe sometimes it is more cost effective, more humane, to accept defeat rather than fight.^[18] But even acknowledging this doesn’t deny that there might be some cases that pass a threshold of intolerable evil. Nazis probably pass this threshold. If they don’t, who could? Consider the insidious Yooks. They are hellbent on genocide! Why would the Zooks ever consider surrendering to them? They’d be annihilated, or their way of life so transformed that they wouldn’t even recognize themselves afterward. Self-determination and rights may hold no value for Lackey, but some see them as constitutive of the value of human life.^[19] How you live is as important as the fact that you live, so to dismiss sovereignty as a value is to dismiss something considerable to many reasonable and thoughtful people. Beyond this one could rightfully claim that the threat Nazis posed was significant and uniquely grave. As Thomas Hurka notes, “Proportionality and necessity are not always impossible to judge; sometimes there are clear cases. For example, most believe that, despite the massive destruction that resulted, the Allies were right to fight World War II.”^[20] One might justify this claim with reference to what’s called a “supreme emergency”—that sometimes something so uniquely horrible arises that it momentarily justifies what had been previously unjustifiable. But such a threat has to be beyond any doubt. Sometimes you wager the wickedness of war against an immeasurable evil, like Nazi rule. In such a case, you go with the more palatable devil you know as opposed to the looming, terrifying devil you don’t; war is better than Nazi rule. And so the Zooks must consider all relevant factors, and if top-side butter is as unpalatable as National Socialism, and if the Yooks seem poised systemically to murder them after conquest, then they’re right to prepare for war. But appealing to a supreme emergency must be a last resort and only referenced in the direst circumstances. We should be wary of those who see all threats as apocalyptic and so all scenarios as supreme emergencies. Those like the Chief Yookeroo are simply too enthusiastic about war.

But we shouldn’t be dismissive of the pacifist’s position. After all, what some might term war crimes and what are surely horrendous acts of brutality, such as the terror bombings of Germany in World War II and the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, have been justified within a traditional just war framework. We should be wary of those who see nuclear war as a viable option. Pacifism does serve as an important moral check on our rationales for war.

We Will See . . .

Clearly, the Yooks and Zooks can’t justify their actions according to any reasonable interpretation of just war theory. Their disagreements are insignificant. If the Yooks and Zooks would simply return to their respective sides of the wall and continue going about their own business, ignoring the other, neither would ever have to concern itself with what was happening, or how bread was being eaten, on the other side. There’d be no threats to each other’s existence. And since neither the Yooks nor the Zooks are engaged in any sort of human rights violations, there’d be no justification for humanitarian intervention. So there is simply no reason for them to be where they are in terms of hostilities, nor is there any foreseeable reason why they’d ever have to be.

But this is the problem with war thinking. If the old truism that to the man with a hammer everything looks like a nail holds true, then perhaps to the nation prepared for war everything looks like a threat. If war is an option, and the most expedient or preferable one to those who make such decisions, then diplomacy will not be tried. Why waste time with a bunch of words and compromises, or strive to live in peace (even if fragile), with those with whom we disagree when we can just bomb them to smithereens? Perhaps this is why pacifism plays an important role in war theory, and ought to play a role in our thinking. Pacifism is a check on just war theory. If we take morality’s demands to heart, then we should stop and think, and think seriously, about war before we start dropping bombs. Do we have a really, really, really good reason for considering war as an option? Is it necessary, and in response to an unacceptable and grave evil? Can it be done justly, and with minimal harm? If not, perhaps we go back to the drawing board, or just stop worrying about on what side someone else butters his bread.

Notes

Cited in The Ethics of War: Classic and Contemporary Readings, ed. Gregory M. Reichberg, Henrik Syse, and Endre Begby (Malden, MA: Wiley Publishing, 2006), 339.

David Luban, “War Crimes: The Law of Hell,” in War: Essays in Political Philosophy, ed. Larry May with the assistance of Emily Crookston (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 268.

Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations, fourth edition (New York: Basic Books, 2006), 20.

See David Fisher, Morality and War: Can War Be Just in the Twenty-first Century? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 27.

James P. Sterba, “Reconciling Pacifists and Just War Theorists,” in Doing Ethics: Moral Reasoning and Contemporary Issues, second edition, ed. Lewis Vaughn (New York: W. W. Norton, 2010), 629.

For a good, succinct, standard account of jus ad bellum and jus in bello, see William V. O’Brien, The Conduct of Just and Limited War (New York: Praeger, 1981), especially chapters 2 and 3.

For a good account of defensive wars, see Gregory M. Reichberg, “Jus ad Bellum,” in War: Essays in Political Philosophy, ed. Larry May with the assistance of Emily Crookston (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).

Nicholas Rengger, “Jus in Bello in Historical and Philosophical Perspective,” in War: Essays in Political Philosophy, ed. Larry May with the assistance of Emily Crookston (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 38.

In response to modern, asymmetrical conflicts, such as the “war on terror,” some now talk about degrees of participation and liability instead of simple classifications like combatant and noncombatant. See Michael Gross, Moral Dilemmas of Modern War: Torture, Assassination, and Blackmail in an Age of Asymmetric Conflict (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), especially chapter 2.

10.

This idea is known in the literature as the principle or doctrine of double effect.

11.

Fisher, Morality and War, 87.

12.

Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, 276.

13.

Larry May, “The Principle of Just Cause,” in War: Essays in Political Philosophy, ed. Larry May with the assistance of Emily Crookston (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 61.

14.

May, “The Principle of Just Cause,” in War: Essays in Political Philosophy, 65.

15.

Sarcasm doesn’t always translate well on a page. I’m being sarcastic.

16.

Douglas P. Lackey, “Pacifism,” in Social and Personal Ethics, seventh edition, ed. William H. Shaw (Boston: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2011), 322.

17.

Lackey, “Pacifism,” 322.

18.

For a discussion of this idea, see Larry May, “The Principle of Just Cause,” in War: Essays in Political Philosophy.

19.

For an expression of this idea, see Thomas Hurka, “Proportionality and Necessity,” in War: Essays in Political Philosophy, ed. Larry May with the assistance of Emily Crookston (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 142.

20.

Hurka, “Proportionality and Necessity,” 143.

Us!

Oh, the Mistakes You’ll Make When You’re Free

Yertle Hatches a Plan

Where Is a Lorax to Speak for the Poor?

Horton: Coerced into Conformity

Thidwick: Big-Hearted But Outvoted

Who Speaks for the Fish?

On Zoos and Circuses

Notes

State Power and Individual Rights in Dr. Seuss

Yertle the Turtle Tyrant

King Derwin the Despot

Kings Don’t Apologize

At the Bottom We, Too, Should Have Rights

Notes

The Failures of Kings Derwin and Yertle

Maybe I’m One King Who Can! (Authority)

Magic in Those Simple Words (The Role of Law)

Anything You Say, Sire (The Rule of Law)

Kings Can’t Rule the Sky (Natural Law)

Plain Little Lads Get a Little Bit Mad
(Civil Disobedience)

Notes

The Sneetches, the Zax, and Too Many Daves

The Sneetches and the Problem of Difference

Denying Diversity with “Too Many Daves”

Avoiding the Zax Problem: An Alternative Approach to Political Communication

Why We Need Diversity: What We Learn from Sneetches, Zax, and Daves

Notes

Yooks and Zooks

It’s High Time That You Know

Blow All the Zooks Clear
to Sala-ma-goo: Realism

A Very Rude Zook: Jus ad Bellum

The Chief Yookeroo’s Grim
Commands: Jus in Bello

No Blood for Butter: Pacifism

We Will See . . .

Notes

Us!

Oh, the Mistakes You’ll Make When You’re Free

Yertle Hatches a Plan

Where Is a Lorax to Speak for the Poor?

Horton: Coerced into Conformity

Thidwick: Big-Hearted But Outvoted

Who Speaks for the Fish?

On Zoos and Circuses

Notes

State Power and Individual Rights in Dr. Seuss

Yertle the Turtle Tyrant

King Derwin the Despot

Kings Don’t Apologize

At the Bottom We, Too, Should Have Rights

Notes

The Failures of Kings Derwin and Yertle

Maybe I’m One King Who Can! (Authority)

Magic in Those Simple Words (The Role of Law)

Anything You Say, Sire (The Rule of Law)

Kings Can’t Rule the Sky (Natural Law)

Plain Little Lads Get a Little Bit Mad (Civil Disobedience)

Notes

The Sneetches, the Zax, and Too Many Daves

The Sneetches and the Problem of Difference

Denying Diversity with “Too Many Daves”

Avoiding the Zax Problem: An Alternative Approach to Political Communication

Why We Need Diversity: What We Learn from Sneetches, Zax, and Daves

Notes

Yooks and Zooks

It’s High Time That You Know

Blow All the Zooks Clear to Sala-ma-goo: Realism

A Very Rude Zook: Jus ad Bellum

The Chief Yookeroo’s Grim Commands: Jus in Bello

No Blood for Butter: Pacifism

We Will See . . .

Notes

Plain Little Lads Get a Little Bit Mad
(Civil Disobedience)

Blow All the Zooks Clear
to Sala-ma-goo: Realism

The Chief Yookeroo’s Grim
Commands: Jus in Bello