On Gilad Shallit

Rumors are swirling again about a deal for the release of Gilad Shallit. Indeed, by the time you read this column, he may already have been freed. Either way, The Shallit situation poses many interesting dilemmas. A purely rational analysis seems to point clearly against the proposed deal for his release. To save one soldier, Israel is willing to create conditions—by releasing avowed, trained terrorists, creating incentives for future kidnappings, and boosting Hamas’s power—likely to bring about many more Jewish (and Arab) deaths. At first glance, those who support the deal appear to be irrational. But there are several ways to frame human rationality.

Every human group, like every individual human being, has both instrumental and emotional needs—the business of matter and the business of spirit. To remain strong and functional, a group must tend to both. Right now in Israel, those who argue against the proposed Shallit deal are emphasizing the group’s instrumental needs—its political interests. Those who want him back at all cost are responding to the group’s emotional needs—the unifying myths and narratives of its identity.

A group that neglects its instrumental needs risks being overwhelmed from the outside. A group without joint emotional bonds risks rotting from within. Thus, both extreme notions—the instrumental, ‘no negotiation with terrorists’ and its emotional counterpart, ‘leave no soldier behind’--are counter-productive as guiding principles of national behavior. A healthy approach will be a balanced approach, sacrificing the posturing of perfection—be it instrumental or emotional---for the gray mix of frustration and gratification that marks actual human existence.

The Shalit issue also illuminates our curious entanglement with our moral impulse. Our moral impulse is an emergent property of our group nature. We are herd animals; we survive and thrive only in a group setting. As Freud knew, if we fail to internalize a set of shared abstract rules of moral conduct—a super ego--then we cannot trust each other, cannot cooperate effectively, and thus cannot survive.
But human morality has certain quirks, two of which are illuminated in the Shallit case.

First is the characteristic differentiation between ‘us’ and ‘them.’ We live in groups, and our strength depends on the strength of our group. In the process of strengthening our group, we tend to devalue other groups. We respond differently to the same thing based on whether it’s done by ‘us’ or by ‘them.’ Our cruelty in war, for example, is justified by the circumstances, while ‘their’ cruelty is barbaric, a part of ‘their’ villainous nature. The ‘civilized’ west that has created, perfected and used weapons of mass destruction to massacre millions still looks at the far less efficient machete killers of Africa as ‘barbarians.’

Moreover, ‘we’ can treat our own people badly, but ‘them’ had better not. Blacks can say ‘nigger,’ but whites had better not. All the people who care about Shallit could easily pull their energy and clout and effort together to save some poor, homeless, dying Israelis from unbearable misery right now, without any adverse consequences at all, but they will not do it. They would do it for Shallit, who’s in the grip of ‘them.’

Second is the moral differentiation we make between the abstract and the specific. In psychological studies, people are given a dilemma: a train is out of control and about to kill five people. You can divert it to another rail line on which it will kill one person. Will you pull the lever? 90% say yes. But then they’re asks: you’re on a bridge and you see a train heading toward the five people. You can stop it and save them by pushing one man off the bridge and onto the train’s path, killing him. Would you do it? Only 10% say yes.

There is something distasteful to most people about personally hurting others. That’s why wars must be made into a group project, where responsibility is defused; that’s also why enemies need to be reduced to a less-than-human status, lest it prove difficult to hurt our own mirror image.

Principled cruelty is more easily utilized in the abstract. In a famous study from the 30s--when institutional overt prejudice against minorities was the norm--a researcher travelled with his Chinese companions across the US noting how they were treated at hotels and restaurants. Of 250 or so establishments visited, only one refused service. Later, the researcher sent these institutions questionnaires inquiring if they would agree to serve a Chinese person. Of all the establishments surveyed, 90% said they would not serve Chinese guests.

In the Shallit case the desire to hold up an abstract instrumental group principle (do not negotiate with terrorists) collides not only with an abstract emotional principle (don’t leave our people behind), but also with the shattering power of the specific. A human face does a lot to make people forget their abstractions. When you walk down the street, you try to look away from the beggar in the corner, because making eye contact would turn an abstract problem of homelessness into a specific human encounter, which will make a refusal much harder, even if you are quite certain the money you give will be used for booze or drugs. Israelis have seen the face and name of Gilad Shallit, and it’s difficult for them to turn away.