Might Makes Wrong?

 

This tweet by Elon Musk caught my attention:

“The axiomatic error undermining much of Western Civilization is ‘weak makes right’. 

If someone accepts, explicitly or implicitly, that the oppressed are always the good guys, then the natural conclusion is that the strong are the bad guys.”

This seems to explain how so many are currently supporting Hamas, and its terrorist tactics, against Israel. 

But given this example, it is not exactly “might makes wrong.” Israel is not that mighty: pitched against Hamas alone, it is more powerful, but the broader reality is that Israel is a small state surrounded by much larger enemies. Hamas sought to provoke a larger conflagration, and simply lost that gamble, so far.

So it is mot quite that Israel is more powerful. The precise formula seems rather “success makes wrong,” and “failure makes right.”

One persecutes the Jews, for example, not because they are powerful. They are still always and everywhere a vulnerable minority. It is because they are, individually, more successful. 

Such a formula is obviously destructive to the common good. If all success is condemned and punished, everything will fail in time.

There is a kernel of righteousness in the “weak makes right” argument. Those who crave power are more likely to achieve power. Those who crave wealth are more likely to achieve wealth. And these are vices. Accordingly, it stands to reason that the rich and powerful are more likely to be immoral, as a group, than the poor. Hence the Beatitudes: “blessed are the poor in spirit…”

However, assuming that someone is immoral because they are rich and powerful, or moral because they are poor and weak, is prejudice. As Musk goes on to say, this is no substitute for making moral judgements.

Cain killed Abel because he was more successful. God did not exempt the poor in Sodom and Gomorrah, or Nineveh, or Canaan. 

Those supporting without question the notion that “weak makes right” are simply possessed by the vice of envy.