Finally Understanding what "Propaganda of the Deed" Means
The Luigi Mangione situation forces us to do some serious thinking about what is right and what is wrong
Note: this work does not advocate for violence in any way shape or form, and condemns its use.
New World ‘Propaganda dei Fatti’
The “propaganda of the deed” is an idea that seems to go back to the Italian socialist thinker Carlo Pisacane who wrote about “propaganda dei fatti” in 1857. This idea was further elaborated on and made famous by Russian revolutionaries in the 19th Century. These thinkers were specifically referring to combative and violent deeds as a means of not just fighting for a specific political outcome in a completely instrumental manner, but also hoping that such deeds will promote a political ideology in a way that is greater than or equal to the written word.
In this regard “the propaganda of the deed” can almost be seen as a rejoinder to “the pen is mightier than the sword.”
As a Canadian, I thought I understood what “the propaganda of the deed” meant when I read about the idea in high school, but I didn’t truly understand this idea until the murder of Brian Thompson. This is because there is a certain type of violence that has long been endemic to Europe and Asia while remaining relatively absent from Canada and the United States; cold-blooded, calculating violence that is very much a part of the mainstream political economy.
In the aftermath of Brian Thompson’s death, there has been some discussion of the fact that politically motivated assassinations of CEOs have been attempted and carried out in Europe up until the 90s, but it’s hard to remember a single instance of this in the USA since the early 20th Century.
Although the killer has not been convicted yet, the balance of probabilities would seem to suggest it is Luigi Mangione. Regardless, the act of killing Brian Thompson forces us to think about many things. In this regard propaganda dei fatti is not merely an appeal to pathos, it is very much an appeal to the logos. Not just an appeal, but an act that forces the logos into motion.
Here are some things that I (and likely millions of people) have been forced to think about:
Upon seeing the overwhelmingly positive reaction to the killer on social media I have been forced to recognize that a completely legitimate mainstream occupation (CEO of a health insurance company) is potentially seen as criminal, and evil by a huge swath of the American population. It is not clear how sophisticated the public is being with regards to the question of whether or not Brian Thompson is a white-collar criminal (or close to it).
I have been forced to consider that an American citizen with seemingly everything going for them can become angry and disaffected enough to be a murderer, terrorist, revolutionary or vigilante (depending on your perspective). The killer was likely Luigi Mangione -an Ivey League-educated engineer, born into a wealthy family- or if not Luigi Mangione, someone intelligent enough to pull off that murder and evade capture. I am forced to consider that the problems in America are severe enough to force someone off the “straight and narrow” track and become a murderer.
Naturally, one is forced to consider the question: with all this discontent, do we continue on with the status quo? A path highly evocative of autocratic regimes, antithetical to American-style Republicanism. Or do we think about what policy changes need to be made? If one takes this path one is effectively allowing the murderer to accomplish their goal. Thus, one is forced to make a devasting political choice, that is the stuff of high drama.
On a much more ontological level -and this is important- one is forced to learn a few things about these health insurance companies. If you didn’t know that United Healthcare denies more claims than the industry average and their rate of denials of care for hospital stays doubled from 2020 to 2022 now you know. If you didn’t know that the company’s updated algorithm for determining if coverage should be provided had been deemed illegal in three states, now you know. If you didn’t know that the Hollywood Firefighters’ Pension Fund had filed a lawsuit against Thompson alleging insider trading, now you know.
The murder of Brian Thompson naturally sets the gears of thought in motion, for all but those who choose to remain, resolutely, stubbornly ignorant. Ontologically, one is forced to consider some new information, and one is also forced to consider what a normative path forward should look like from here. One should also consider that a killer is forcing you to undergo some consequential mental updating; remaining stubbornly ignorant may not be a good thing, but neither is this, so really, one is forced to grapple with a terrible choice. I do believe there are some important details and nuances to consider here in order to bring moral clarity to the situation, and I will address these in the sections that follow.
Whether or not Brian Thompson and United Healthcare Broke the Law is of Profound Moral Significance
In order to appropriately reckon with this situation one cannot gloss over the question of whether or not Brian Thompson was a white collar criminal. Clearly, a huge swath of people are celebrating his death. Some right-wingers have pushed back on this, and their rhetoric does not seem to adequately address the prospect that Brian Thompson may have been a criminal.
Shows helmed by left-wingers like Kyle Kulinski and Sam Seder seem to have responded only with criticism of Brian Thompson, UHC, and health insurance companies more broadly. These blanket criticisms are also misguided because they neglect to make a distinction between whether or not UHC was following the insurance policies it had entered into with its customers to the letter, and following relevant US laws to the letter, or not doing so. I can appreciate, as those lefties certainly do, that denying someone life-saving funds, even when the law and the agreement you entered into with that person absolutely says that you can, is not a morally trivial act.
The pundits on both sides of the political spectrum need to know that they argue from a very, very weak place when they are unwilling to break this situation down into the different relevant cases that could apply here, and consider them separately. As I see it the relevant cases are as follows:
UHC and Brian Thompson were/are Engaged in Bonefied Illegal Practices
UHC and Brian Thompson were/are Engaged in Practices that a Court or Litigation would deem to be Illegal upon a Review of the Facts
UHC and Brian Thompson were/are Following the Law and their own Insurance Policies to the Letter
The second case deserves special consideration. Bad faith insurance practices would fall under the second case because they are difficult to prove in court, but if an insurance company is found to be engaged in those practices, then it has broken the law.
I will outline a scenario that I think most reasonable people would consider to be under case 2:
There unfortunately isn’t a straight line from an insurance policy to a given course of action by the insurance company, because insurance policies are open to interpretation to some degree or another. This means that the insurer and the insured are well within their rights to challenge any given decision, or choose to interpret something that is pretty clear-cut however they want. Insurance companies could also intentionally write policies that are open to interpretation. An insurance company could choose to not provide coverage when most reasonable people would think that the policy should support a payout for a given claim. But, seeing as the insurer and the insured are entitled to their own interpretation and a defense of that interpretation in court they can of course opt to take that route. Indeed, even when a court would most likely rule against the insurance company and compel them to make a payout on a given claim, there still may be some value in them refusing to pay, and instead taking it to litigation. If they have their own in-house legal team (which I believe most of them do) then they shouldn’t incur too many costs above their normal operating expenses. If a certain percentage of claimants give up, lose in court anyway (even at a low probability), or frankly die before litigation commences, there may be some strategic value in denying claims that are rightly owed to the claimant. This forms a good part of the thesis of the book Delay, Deny Defend.
Obviously, such practices are abhorrent and if they are found to fall under bad faith insurance practices, then they are illegal, but delaying, denying, and defending may not be found to fall under bad faith, and businesses absolutely do adopt such practices that make sense on the balance sheet, but not from the point of view of a non-psychopath. It’s important to note that it is easy to imagine judicial or legislative action in the near future strengthening existing laws or passing new laws against such practices.
I would argue that bad faith insurance practices are equivalent to theft, and they may be equivalent to manslaughter, and they should be covered under criminal law and not just civil law.
If Brian Thompsons actions fall under Case 1 or Case 2, then the implication is that because of the shooter, future unjust and illegal acts may not take place, that otherwise would have taken place. And in this case, these would be unjust acts from the point of view of any given reasonable person and the law. Crucially now, it may be an ontological fact, that people are alive -or will be alive in the near future- who otherwise would have been dead, if not for the shooter’s actions. This is in no way meant to be advocacy for the shooter or his actions; it is simply the acknowledgment of things that would necessarily follow from a certain set of premises if those premises are true.
If Brian Thompson’s actions fall under Case 3, then the implication is that because of the shooter, future acts may have been prevented that would be considered unjust only from the point of view of a certain ideology. In this case, the shooter is cast in a much less sympathetic light. This is because in case 3, UHC’s actions would be more in line with a refusal to be altruistic rather than being more actively rapacious and criminal in their actions.
That doesn’t mean I am saying that “nothing is wrong” if we are in Case 3. If we are in Case 3, I am comfortable with the statement that UHC and Brian Thompson didn’t do anything wrong, but there is something wrong with the system. I think that any health care system whether public or private has to be measured by utilitarian benchmarks. Utilitarianism isn’t appropriate everywhere, but in healthcare it is. The value of a healthcare system is tied to its ability to save and improve lives more so than its adherence to abstract principles.
Considering the totality of the evidence I think it is unlikely that we are in Case 3 here. The controversies surrounding UHC since Brian Thompson took over, are serious. That is mere speculation though, and not meant to be any sort of advocacy for anything. The truth of the matter should be investigated with a proper fact-finding mission.
In the next section, I will outline some responses that hopefully bring moral clarity to a complex situation.
Where to go when Faced with a Brutal Dilemma
Case 3 is the most morally clear-cut case to consider. Under Case 3, the shooter can unambiguously be interpreted as a criminal and likely a terrorist, and it is highly suspect the extent to which he is a vigilante in the style of Dexter Morgan. In this case, the appropriate course of action is to prosecute and convict the shooter (with the terrorism charge), while at the same time acknowledging that there is a long overdue conversation to be had about improving healthcare on that utilitarian level. American citizens are not living as long as their peers in the developed world and that needs to change.
There is a concern that we are allowing ourselves to be influenced by a terrorist in this case, and so we still end up with a brutal dilemma. Do we willfully delay an important conversation about an important topic, along with policy changes that could improve people’s lives, all just to spite a terrorist and prove something to him and his supporters? I believe the most important steps to be taken in order to not sink in this moral quagmire are as follows:
There needs to be harsher sentences in the case of such politically motivated violence in order to counteract the fact, that the perpetrators may “obtain a reward” after the crime has been committed. In order to maintain the principle of proportionality, politically motivated violence should come with longer and/or tougher sentences. This does indeed tend to be the case in America for terrorism charges and the like.
Elected officials should be free to respond how they want, since they have an inherent accountability mechanism in place. If Liz Warren wants to use this moment to talk about inequities in the system, then she has that right and her constituents will hold her accountable. If other politicians wish to do the opposite, that is their right.
Unelected officials on the other hand should have express instructions to carry on with their duties as normal in such a situation. If unelected bureaucrats pivot on healthcare policy after such an event, not only is there a concern that they may be “rewarding” a terrorist, but such acts of terrorism could frankly be “noise” rather than “signal.” In other words, such an event may not even contain useful information about the state of the world. The fact that militant individuals and groups prioritized a particular issue at a particular place and time, doesn’t mean that issue is objectively as pressing a priority as they think it is.
Cases 1 and 2 on the other hand present a far more difficult moral dilemma. In these cases, the shooter would be more analogous to a Dexter Morgan-style vigilante. There is a way forward though for individuals and society to navigate such dangerous ethical waters. My recommendations are as follows:
I believe that in these cases the perpetrator should be prosecuted as normal for someone guilty of murder, and the terrorism charge shouldn’t apply. The perpetrator wasn’t facing any clear and present danger from the victim, so it would not be possible to consider this self-defense, or in any way morally “better” than the average murder. However, if it can be demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt that the victim was causing egregious damage to society through clearly illegal acts, or acts that would be found to be illegal in court or litigation, then the perpetrator should not be considered a terrorist. With that being said, they should not be treated as “worse” than the average murderer. The implication is that the defense should be able to submit evidence of the victim's wrong-doings in order to argue that the accused is a vigilante and not a terrorist.
The average citizen has a lot to think about regarding how they should respond in such a situation. In such a situation the perpetrator’s actions may broadly line up with what Buddhist thinkers have called the “life-giving sword;” deadly actions that save lives. I am not an advocate of lying for the sake of whatever noble cause, and I don’t think it is useful to lie to oneself about the ontological fact that the perpetrator’s actions may have saved lives. My approach to such a situation is to acknowledge that the perpetrator’s actions may have saved lives, and that is not morally trivial at all, however, it is also a fact that we are trying to have a civilization here, not savagery, and thus the perpetrator must do the normal amount of time for any murderer. These two facts can co-exist without any contradiction 1) vigilante justice sometimes saves lives and 2) vigilantes must do the normal amount of time for their crimes if we wish to live in a decent society. Acknowledging fact 1 alone evokes savagery, and acknowledging fact 2 alone evokes authoritarianism, but admitting to both of those facts together we arrive at a resolution that civilization can live with.
Again, I would say that it is on elected officials to respond however they wish in situations of vigilante justice, and in this case, I would say that the same should apply to unelected bureaucrats as well. Crucially in this case, we are not dealing with terrorism, so there is no fear of allowing oneself to be influenced by a terrorist. However, I would say that the same guidelines should always apply to unelected officials: focus on signal, and not noise.
In summary, much of the proceeding discussion can be distilled into a simple point: there is a profound moral distinction between a terrorist and a vigilante, and our judicial system and society at large need to take that distinction seriously.
One is then led to ask, “what is this distinction?”
I would say that the relevant distinction is that a vigilante is taking action against someone or something that is in contravention of the law of the land, whereas a terrorist is taking action against someone or something that is bad from the point of view of a specific group or ideology with the explicit intention of promoting that group or ideology. However, the promotional or advocacy aspect isn’t the relevant piece. The universality of the underlying ethics is the piece that matters here. Suppose a vigilante, under the definition, is trying to evoke some propaganda de fatti, then they are advocating for something that everyone already believes (e.g., robbery and fraud are bad) and it is a moot point.
Also, note the potentially controversial implication of this framework; vigilantism and terrorism are mutually exclusive.
Where does the New World go from here?
One thing is for sure; we cannot allow North America to become like Europe and Asia where there is a symbiosis between polite society and brutal violence; Turtle Island is better than that.
For the Mangione trial, it is of utmost importance that a fact-finding mission take place, to establish whether or not Brian Thompson had broken the law and if so, then in what ways. It needs to be determined on the balance of probabilities whether or not UHC was engaged in bad faith insurance practices, trying to avoid making payouts on claims that were rightly owed to the claimants. If Brian Thompson is implicated in such egregious illegal actions then the terrorism charge should be dropped and only the murder charge should apply.