January 29
Seven-Day Magic, Edward Eager (1962)

Once upon a time, when love was new, my wife and I used to like to read to one another. Among the books we set out to read in that way were Edward Eager's seven magic-themed books. The first couple we got through quickly. Then our pace slowed. The next few took quite a bit longer to finish. (They're reviewed here and here, though I didn't have a lot to say about them.) The last one took more than a year: we'd read a chapter, then neglect it for months, then read another. I sometimes wonder if we'd ever finish, but we finally did.

This book introduces a new batch of five kids as protagonists, with no obvious connection to the kids in the previous books. (But I did notice a passing reference to "Silvermine" somewhere, which at least suggests a geographical connection to the previous two books.)

Two of the children live with their mildly senile grandmother. In a passing reference we learn that said grandmother, in her early adulthood, was a schoolteacher somewhere out in the lonesome prairie. I want to say North Dakota, but I'm not sure if the book actually said that or if I'm just imagining it. I also want to say some time in the 1890s. The book was published in 1962; that would make the grandmother about 90 if she were contemporary, but she definitely doesn't seem 90. So maybe her schoolteacher days were more like 1910, or maybe the story Eager tells is already a decade or two old.

Not long after we learn this, sure enough, a magical accident whisks the kids back into the past where they find themselves in young Grannie's classroom in the little schoolhouse on the prairie. It is winter, and they get caught in a blizzard. For some reason I don't recall, they didn't just hole up in the schoolhouse for the night. Instead the whole class (not a very large class, I gather) bundled up and left, attempting to get to ... I'm not sure where. I suppose when they left they figured they could still make it home. But the blizzard got worse and they couldn't find their way. Then they stumbled into an abandoned shack where they took refuge. There's no electricity back then and there, but they find a lamp and light it.

And after a while, sure enough, someone comes along to save them. The someone turns out to be the young man who would marry Grannie become John and Susan's grandfather (whom they had never met before, he having died before they were born).

What fascinates me about this episode is the moral lesson. The punishment for taking school property is to be slapped on the hand. Barnaby took the bell, which is against the rules, and so he had to be punished. Everyone agrees that Barnaby did the right thing to take the bell. The teacher makes it clear that she is proud of his foresight and initiative ... and yet she slaps his hand all the same.

I don't think we have the same sense of morality today. If the teacher were a modern teacher, I would expect her to say, "You were right to do what you did, so you don't have to be punished." And if she didn't I would expect the kid to complain, "Hey, why are you punishing me? I was right, wasn't I?" And if neither of them did, I would still expect the modern reader to balk at seeing these events unfold.

But Barnaby doesn't balk. He takes his punishment and doesn't complain. He knows he did the right thing, but his thought process is not: "I was right, therefore I shouldn't be punished." Rather, he thinks: "Even though I got punished for this, it was worth it, because the alternative would have been worse. If I hadn't taken the bell we might have never been rescued and we might have frozen to death." Nobody in this scene questions the authority of the law. Because Barnaby took the bell, he had to have his hand slapped. Everyone agrees that it was worth it, but no one even considers that he should be spared the punishment.

And there is good reason for such a morality. As soon as you allow that the punishment can be suspended so long as the wrongdoer had right on his side, you have allowed that it's OK to break the rule so long as you're right. Some would-be bell-takers will think they are right when they're really not, either out of genuine misjudgment or selfish rationalization. And who is called upon to decide whether the punishment is to be meted? The teacher?

Better to enforce the rule strictly. That way, when Barnaby is contemplating taking the bell, his calculus is not, "Normally this would be wrong, but in this case I have good reason so it's OK"; rather, it is, "This is wrong and I will be punished for it, but I'm willing to accept that punishment in this case, because I am certain the alternative is worse."

Being slapped on the hand isn't so hard to accept, so let's raise the stakes. In fact, let's raise them a lot. Let's say that the punishment for taking school property is to be shot dead. (Set aside the quibble that if the teacher has a gun, maybe they don't need a bell to make themselves heard....) Assume that the moral code is such that, even with this extreme punishment, the teacher will still uphold the law. Let's further assume that Barnaby knows for a fact that they will all freeze to death if he doesn't take the bell.

If Barnaby knows all that, does he still take the bell? I think he does. After all, he knows he's going to die either way. This way, at least he saves his friends, his two sisters, and the rest of the class. The emotion is even more intense when the teacher says, "Taking school property without permission is against the rules and you must be punished," but she still shoots him dead.

Last October, presidential candidate Mitt Romney named Gen James "Spider" Marks as his campaign's national security advisor. Gen Marks, formerly an interrogation expert for U.S. Army Intelligence, achieved some notoriety for his enthusiastic statement that he would torture prisoners if he felt it would save American lives.

And yet he also asserted -- contrary to what many other Republicans have argued -- that torture should be illegal. In a widely misunderstood interview, he expressed both views:

Many commentators were baffled by this apparent contradiction. Greg Sargent, writing at Talking Points Memo, observes, "That would appear to be an explicit endorsement of illegal torture." Others picked up on this, showing renewed outrage, as if supporting illegal torture is even more barbaric than supporting legal torture.

I think they're missing the point. Gen Marks is making the same case I made about Barnaby in the snowstorm. If the stakes are high enough, you should be willing to break the rule and do something that you would normally consider wrong. But that does not justify corrupting the moral code by changing the law to say it's OK to do wrong so long as your ends justify your means. Wrong is still wrong, and the law should remain firm. Gen Marks is saying that torture should remain against the law, but there may be times when one -- he himself, for instance -- would be willing to break that law and take his punishment.

And why shouldn't he? I'll be honest: I don't really believe in the "ticking time bomb" scenario. I think the chances of a situation where torturing a person would actually succeed in preventing a major terrorist attack are vanishingly small. I think the possibility has been grossly exaggerated by certain groups who wish to have the freedom to torture, and much of the public has been inclined to believe it thanks in part to melodramatic action stories like those in the television show 24.

But for the sake of argument, let's suppose there really is a ticking time bomb scenario. Let's suppose that torturing some criminal suspect really will prevent the gory death of thousands of innocent Americans. Even so, that still doesn't justify making torture legal under certain circumstances. Let torture still be illegal, and what happens? Are the thousands of innocents condemned to death? No, they are not, because if the ticking time bomb is for real, and not simply the fantasy of an over-eager interrogator looking to skirt the rules, then the person holding the prisoner is faced with the same choice Barnaby faced. Maybe the immediate interrogator is unsure, so he refers the decision to his superior, and it goes up the chain, but at some point it reaches someone who steps up and takes responsibility. Someone like Gen Marks, perhaps. Someone who says to himself, "I know that if I do this I'm going to be court-martialed and may spend the rest of my life in prison; however, I also know that by making that sacrifice I will save thousands," and so he gives the order.

We ask soldiers to risk their lives, sometimes even sacrifice their lives outright, in order to protect others. They do it, and often gladly. Why shouldn't we ask the same of our interrogators? If it really is a matter of saving thousands of lives, I should think someone would be willing to make the sacrifice. Wouldn't you? And if it's not a matter of saving thousands of lives, then all the more reason that the law against torture should hold firm.

Just one word for my obligatory vocabulary section. This is in the same episode with the little classroom on the prairie, earlier in the day, before the snowstorm:

OK, I can figure this out. Misgave must be the past tense of misgive. If you feel, you have feelings. If you yearn, you have yearnings. So I suppose that if you misgive, you must have misgivings.

Merriam-Webster offers two definitions. The second one listed is a better fit with the common notion of having misgivings. It calls misgive an intransitive verb and says "to be fearful or apprehensive". But for that sort of misgiving, Susan would have to be the one who misgives, not her heart. The author here is using the first definition, a transitive verb meaning "to suggest doubt or fear to". Susan's heart suggested doubt to her. OK, that makes sense.

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