I think you’re correct to question Forster’s claim in the abstract. Perhaps I’m being overly simplistic but I can’t detect the conflict of interest here.
If your country requires you to betray someone you love and respect to maintain your allegiance, it’s likely not worth defending - at least not in terms of the specific law or cultural practice that requires betrayal.
Conversely, if your friend requires you to betray a country you love and respect to maintain the friendship, it’s likely that person is not really your friend and therefore not worth defending.
Did Brutus do the right thing in killing Caesar? Yes - because the idea of Rome was more important to him than his friendship with Caesar.
Did Socrates do the right thing by respecting Greek laws? No - because any law that requires you to do what you know is morally wrong, is by extension, morally wrong. A country that requires you to uphold an immoral law is not worth defending.
Another, more extreme and more complicated example along these lines is Benjamin Franklin. During the Revolution, Franklin chose to cut ties with not merely a friend but *his own son* when that son chose to fight alongside the British.
In this scenario, if you used my earlier “rules”, you’d likely go in circles for a while but I think you’d end by concluding that both were right to do what they did if they truly loved and respected their countries (America and Britain, respectively).
Whether or not a person or a country truly deserves respect is an entirely different question.
My goodness, thank you for the comment. It has been so long since I published this that I've forgotten what I was thinking when I wrote it. I'm glad some of the older stuff is still finding intelligent readers!
Yes, you've nicely expressed the problem with Forster's maxim -- it simply can't be a rule because it depends on the country and the friend. I think St Augustine is a better guide when he wrote "love, and do what you will."
Socrates does produce some interesting arguments in the Crito about why he should respect the Athenian laws -- but broadly I agree with you.
My apologies. You included a link to this essay in a more recent piece. As I’m the type who believes it a sin to bypass footnotes and embedded links, I ended up here. But I am glad I did! I remember reading that Forester quote a long time ago and thinking there was something not quite right about it but I hadn’t actually taken the time to puzzle out what it was. Thank you!
While you absolutely make some good points, could there be a devil's advocate argument to be made that Forster at least identified and critiques something very real and very pernicious, something we know in the 21st century as "the personal is political," "dismantle the nuclear family," etc.? There are people who are unironically calling for the family to be abolished because it's an obstacle in the way of causes like equity and socialism.
And, of course in the Russian invasion of Ukraine we're seeing the literal breaking up of families and relocation of children as essentially a military tactic, as an exercise of state power over personal relationships.
In other words, I guess I read Forster's statement as principled opposition to totalitarianism, IE essentially the idea that there is no personal or private part life out of view of the panopticon or uncontrolled by state power.
Thanks for the comment! Yes, I do see your point. If that indeed was his argument, then I suppose there's nothing objectionable about it. As I say: If Forster were defending the importance of personal bonds against impersonal governments and bureaucracies, then fair enough. But he called for more: a “creed of personal relationships” requiring “guts.”
This seems to exclude the nuance and tragedy that we find in literature and life.
I think you’re correct to question Forster’s claim in the abstract. Perhaps I’m being overly simplistic but I can’t detect the conflict of interest here.
If your country requires you to betray someone you love and respect to maintain your allegiance, it’s likely not worth defending - at least not in terms of the specific law or cultural practice that requires betrayal.
Conversely, if your friend requires you to betray a country you love and respect to maintain the friendship, it’s likely that person is not really your friend and therefore not worth defending.
Did Brutus do the right thing in killing Caesar? Yes - because the idea of Rome was more important to him than his friendship with Caesar.
Did Socrates do the right thing by respecting Greek laws? No - because any law that requires you to do what you know is morally wrong, is by extension, morally wrong. A country that requires you to uphold an immoral law is not worth defending.
Another, more extreme and more complicated example along these lines is Benjamin Franklin. During the Revolution, Franklin chose to cut ties with not merely a friend but *his own son* when that son chose to fight alongside the British.
In this scenario, if you used my earlier “rules”, you’d likely go in circles for a while but I think you’d end by concluding that both were right to do what they did if they truly loved and respected their countries (America and Britain, respectively).
Whether or not a person or a country truly deserves respect is an entirely different question.
My goodness, thank you for the comment. It has been so long since I published this that I've forgotten what I was thinking when I wrote it. I'm glad some of the older stuff is still finding intelligent readers!
Yes, you've nicely expressed the problem with Forster's maxim -- it simply can't be a rule because it depends on the country and the friend. I think St Augustine is a better guide when he wrote "love, and do what you will."
Socrates does produce some interesting arguments in the Crito about why he should respect the Athenian laws -- but broadly I agree with you.
My apologies. You included a link to this essay in a more recent piece. As I’m the type who believes it a sin to bypass footnotes and embedded links, I ended up here. But I am glad I did! I remember reading that Forester quote a long time ago and thinking there was something not quite right about it but I hadn’t actually taken the time to puzzle out what it was. Thank you!
While you absolutely make some good points, could there be a devil's advocate argument to be made that Forster at least identified and critiques something very real and very pernicious, something we know in the 21st century as "the personal is political," "dismantle the nuclear family," etc.? There are people who are unironically calling for the family to be abolished because it's an obstacle in the way of causes like equity and socialism.
https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2022/09/why-we-should-abolish-the-family
https://www.versobooks.com/products/2890-abolish-the-family
And, of course in the Russian invasion of Ukraine we're seeing the literal breaking up of families and relocation of children as essentially a military tactic, as an exercise of state power over personal relationships.
In other words, I guess I read Forster's statement as principled opposition to totalitarianism, IE essentially the idea that there is no personal or private part life out of view of the panopticon or uncontrolled by state power.
Thanks for the comment! Yes, I do see your point. If that indeed was his argument, then I suppose there's nothing objectionable about it. As I say: If Forster were defending the importance of personal bonds against impersonal governments and bureaucracies, then fair enough. But he called for more: a “creed of personal relationships” requiring “guts.”
This seems to exclude the nuance and tragedy that we find in literature and life.