Why the Question “Why” Is Necessary
In public disputes about war, violence, and politics, a shift often takes place: instead of analyzing causes, people discuss only methods for eliminating the “problem.” In this logic, the question “why is this happening?” is replaced with “how can this be suppressed more quickly?”
This creates an effect of simplicity but deprives us of an understanding of reality.
What Is Lost Without Causal Analysis
If “why” is excluded:
- complex political processes are reduced to the personal qualities of individual leaders;
- society is described as a homogeneous mass without internal structure;
- moral judgments begin to substitute for explanation;
- strategy is built around short-term efficiency rather than an understanding of consequences.
The result is rhetorical clarity accompanied by analytical blindness.
Typical Substitutions
1. Politics → Psychology
When a conflict is explained by the “madness” or “irrationality” of its actors, analysis is blocked of:
- historical context;
- institutional interests;
- the logic of mutual threats;
- material and symbolic factors.
2. Cause → Moral Label
An evaluation (“this is evil”) is not the same as an explanation (“why is this reproduced?”). A moral position may be correct, but without a causal model it provides no instrument for changing the situation.
3. Complex System → Linear Scheme
The scheme “remove the person at the top and the problem is solved” ignores systemic effects:
- struggles over succession to power;
- radicalization of the environment;
- the emergence of new, sometimes even harsher centers of power;
- the displacement of conflict into less manageable forms.
Why “Why” Is Not Justification
A question about causes is often mistakenly understood as an attempt to justify violence. This is wrong.
- Justification answers: “Is this permissible?”
- Explanation answers: “How does this arise, and why is it reproduced?”
Without explanation, neither prevention nor a sustained reduction in violence is possible.
Meaning Versus Bare Efficiency
Efficiency is an instrument. It shows what can be done. The question “why” shows what is actually happening and what an action will lead to within the system.
When meaning is replaced exclusively by efficiency, politics becomes a technical operation with no horizon of consequences.
A Practical Criterion of Mature Analysis
Mature analysis must answer three questions simultaneously:
- What happened? (fact)
- Why did it happen? (causes and mechanisms)
- What will happen next? (systemic consequences)
If the second point is absent, the third almost always becomes guesswork.
Conclusion
The question “why” is not an academic luxury. It is a minimal condition of intellectual honesty and strategic adequacy.
Where “why” disappears, the right of the strongest quickly appears, disguised as “rationality.” Where “why” is preserved, the possibility remains of understanding, responsibility, and a long-term solution.
Continuation: On Closed Rationality and the Denial of Another’s Causality
In developing this conversation, another layer matters: many public speakers do not deny causality altogether, but recognize only the causality that fits within their own framework.
Ontological Economy of Causes
If the picture of the world is closed in advance, the question “why?” becomes a formality. The causes seem to be known beforehand:
- “our side” acts rationally;
- “the others” act out of fanaticism, backwardness, or pathology.
In such a model, there is no need to investigate the other subject’s internal logic: it is declared illegitimate before analysis.
Substitution of a Method with a Marker of Belonging
Rationality ceases to be a method and becomes a sign of belonging to “our side.”
This means:
- the rational person is not the one who explains causes, but the one who belongs to the correct framework;
- disagreement is interpreted not as a different logic, but as a defect in thinking;
- moral judgment replaces causal analysis.
Leaping Over the Causal Level
Every action has an internal causality, even an erroneous, destructive, or morally unacceptable one.
Mature analysis first reconstructs that causality and only then evaluates it. If this step is skipped, analysis becomes ideological filtering.
Why This Is Dangerous
Denial of another’s causality leads to the illusion that eliminating its bearer automatically eliminates the causes.
But causes do not disappear along with the figure of a leader: they are often redistributed throughout the system and return in a new form.
Open Causality as an Intellectual Discipline
Open causality does not require agreeing with another person’s position. It requires something different:
- recognizing that another person’s action has its own internal logic;
- describing that logic in its own terms;
- separating explanation from justification;
- only then giving a moral and political evaluation.
This is precisely what prevents thinking from sliding into “closed rationality,” in which every difference is automatically declared unreasonable.
Continuation 2: The Subject as the One Who Chooses a Foundation, Not a Source of Chaos
Another fundamental thesis: when we say that a subject is the source of a cause, this does not mean that the subject produces randomness.
A subject is not a generator of chaos. A subject is the capacity to switch between different causal foundations and choose within which logic to act.
Subjectivity and the Non-Randomness of Action
Even in a conflictual, cruel, or mistaken action, there is a foundation:
- a worldview;
- a set of assumptions;
- a hierarchy of values;
- an assessment of threats;
- an understanding of what is permissible and impermissible.
Therefore, the formula “subject = source of a cause” is not the same as “subject = source of a random cause.”
Why “Absolute Irrationality” Is Logically Untenable
A person may:
- be mistaken in their premises;
- rely on incomplete information;
- think within a closed framework.
But they cannot act without any foundation whatsoever. Otherwise, the very causality of action disappears.
Therefore, the assertion “they are irrational” most often means not that another person has no logic, but that someone refuses to recognize the other person’s logic as legitimate.
Framework-Based Thinking and the Energy Minimum
Most people and institutions gravitate toward the least costly form of thinking:
- the dominant narrative;
- externally supported explanations;
- frameworks within which there is less environmental resistance.
This is not the defect of an individual person, but a basic mode of operation of complex systems.
Consequence for Analyzing Persistent Regimes
If a political regime exists for decades under the pressure of crises, sanctions, conflicts, and internal contradictions, that points not to randomness, but to a stable internal rationality within its own framework.
Such rationality can be evaluated as repressive, aggressive, or morally unacceptable. But it cannot properly be described as “chaotic.”
Key Ontological Conclusion
Causality does not disappear when we dislike its content.
Subjectivity is the capacity to choose between foundations of action, not the capacity to act without foundations. That is precisely why denying another’s causality destroys not only political analysis, but the very ontology of responsibility.
