Al Qaeda may not be the only ones out there with a fantasy ideology (pace, Lee Harris), and another version of same may explain quite a bit about modern American politics and the decline of the Democratic Party. If you see activism as the default mode of politics, goes this thesis, you shouldn't be surprised when it leads to anti-intellectualism, tolerance of extremists, retreat into fantasy, and a self-defeating kind of partisanship designed to make people feel better about themselves rather than produce meaningful change.
At least, that's the thesis we get when we weave together a series of posts by Marc Cooper, then add follow-ups by Michael Totten, and Bravo Romeo Delta. It's an interesting thesis, and definitely worth a read. Since no one post really brought everything together in one coherent argument, I'm going to use links and excerpts and try to do that.
Let's start with lefty blogger Marc Cooper, who begins by noting an essay by Doug Henwood, Liza Featherstone and Christian Parenti, in Lip Magazine:
"WE CAN'T GET BOGGED DOWN IN ANALYSIS," one activist told us at an antiwar rally in New York a while back, spitting out that last word like a hairball. He could have relaxed his vigilance. This event deftly avoided such bogs, loudly opposing the US bombing in Afghanistan without offering any credible ideas about it (we're not counting the notion that the entire escapade was driven by Unocal and Lockheed Martin). But the moment called for doing something more than brandishing the exact same signs — Stop the Bombing and No War for Oil — that activists poked skyward during the first Gulf War. This latest war called for some thinking, and few were doing much of that.
So what is the ideology of the activist left (and by that we mean the global justice, peace, media democracy, community organizing, financial populist and green movements)? Is the activist left just an inchoate "post-ideological" mass of do-gooders, pragmatists and puppeteers? No. The young troublemakers of today do have an ideology and it is as deeply felt and intellectually totalizing as any of the great belief systems of yore. The cadres who populate those endless meetings, who bang the drum, who lead the "trainings" and paint the puppets, do indeed have a creed. They are activistists."
Marc then points to a left-wing book called "Nation of Rebels : Why Counterculture Became Consumer Culture" and notes:
"Both authors identify themselves as being on the left and, indeed, as being engaged in a battle to save the left from itself. They raise (and answer) the hard question: how much activism today is thought-out, strategic and effective? And how much of it is rather just a lifestyle option, a hobby that makes its participants feel better about themselves while accomplishing nothing?"
Over to Lee Harris for a moment, who thought back to his own anti-war days and nailed many modern activists' core belief system:
"My friend did not disagree with me as to the likely counterproductive effects of such a demonstration. Instead, he argued that this simply did not matter. His answer was that even if it was counterproductive, even if it turned people against war protesters, indeed even if it made them more likely to support the continuation of the war, he would still participate in the demonstration and he would do so for one simple reason — because it was, in his words, good for his soul."
Note that choice of words. There's a strongly religious quality to a lot of supposedly secular activism, in part due to the baby boomers' cultivated sense of grandisoity. This may help to explain why so many activists seem to confuse onanism with sainthood. Harris continues:
"What I saw as a political act was not, for my friend, any such thing. It was not aimed at altering the minds of other people or persuading them to act differently. Its whole point was what it did for him... Thus, when he lay down in front of hapless commuters on the bridges over the Potomac, he had no interest in changing the minds of these commuters, no concern over whether they became angry at the protesters or not. They were there merely as props, as so many supernumeraries in his private psychodrama. The protest for him was not politics, but theater; and the significance of his role lay not in the political ends his actions might achieve, but rather in their symbolic value as ritual. In short, he was acting out a fantasy."
Unsurprisingly, this approach won't accomplish much unless the decision-makers and influencers are complicit in the theatre, and use it as an excuse to enact controversial policies. That isn't true in the USA outside of its universities, which ties nicely back to Marc Cooper's question about the modern ideology of activism and whether it's really bettering the human condition - or even whether it's about bettering the human condition.
Bravo Romeo Delta sees the same connections:
"The third development is the birth of the modern protest movement. While public protest has had a long and fruitful history in the United States, the Vietnam War era protests have a different tone and culture. The protests of the late 60’s and early 70’s have been mythologized and given a place of primacy among activists. Unfortunately, quite often protests don’t actually convert the unconverted any more than a campaign rally woos supporters of other candidates.... Furthermore, this dichotomy has the effect of (at least in the short run) heightening the divide between the true believer and the rest of the populace – or the divide between the political fanatic and the more cynical centrist.
What makes modern protest even more problematic is that protests over the last few years have all but lost any sense of ideological consensus – or even coherency. One would not be terribly surprised to see a “Free Mumia” placard at an anti-WTO protest although the two subjects have absolutely no relation to each other. Today’s protests have made their tent so large that the only thing they have in common with each other (other than an innate dislike for the current President) is their fondness for chants, slogans and indignation. This embrace of dissonance means that it makes all the sense in the world to associate a whole raft of extremist causes. This has had the effect of creating some very odd cross-branding mechanisms. It’s been seen at any one of a number of mass rallies – protesters arguing about trade policy, environmental problems, human-rights, war, oil, unions without a single cohesive understanding of why they are out there, what they hope to achieve and where they think their going with all the chants, banners, street-performers and “Bush=Hitler” signs."
Yeah, we'd noticed that. Hence the coinage of the term "idiotarianism" to denote the merging of useless ideologies and overheated political crusades into one uber-force of global reaction. Michael Totten shares a few experiences of his own and points to Marc Cooper's words in his own comments section:
"It's extremely difficult to maintain normal personal relationships with hyper-activsists--- the atmosphere leaves little room for doubt or nuance. Perhaps someone should ask Josh what it was in his personal experience that generated so much hostiltity toward the Lefties he once worked with. And then after you ask, you might actually listen. Personally, I can’t think of anything worse than spending a Friday night in a dreary meeting with preachy self-righteous activists. About 20 years ago I ceased that practice. And then about 8 years ago I found it was TOO painful to even attend those meetings as the invited speaker (I would always regret having pissed away a perfectly good evening). And for the last 5 years I try to avoid those functions even as a reporter... I can only watch people twinkle with their fingers so many times before full nausea sets in.
I dunno..my wife is a Chilean Socialist and feels pretty much the same way about those sort of meetings. And my daughther, the infamous union organizer, was probably turned off for life by the BS she experienced as a member of small campus-based “Progressive Student Alliance" during the run-up to the Iraq War. Indeed, that's one reason she went into the unions-- to escape into the real world and flee from the sectarian grupuscle wanking off that dominates activist politics."
When you're even turing off these sorts of people, something is clearly wrong. Bravo Romeo Delta, posting over at Demosophia, works to tie it all together. The evolution of the Democratic Party since the 70s, the declining usefulness of "liberal" and "conservative" labels in modern-day America, and the consequences of "activistism".
You could argue that this is a partisan case, and you might be right. Then again, you can also read Marc Cooper's LA Weekly article about MoveOn and its post-election priorities, which lets the people they're all talking about confirm the thesis themselves.
The Right is not immune to this kind of "activism as ritual worship," and various cultural-religious tendencies make the evangelical movement particularly vulnerable to this syndrome down the road. At the moment, however, the most virulent case is clearly on the left of the spectrum, and the steady erosion of its political influence in the United States during the same period is no coincidence.
As I said, it's a provocative thesis - and each of the bloggers and writers who have contributed to it deserve our thanks for advancing the discussion. I'd also like to talk about a few things that I think they've missed, but I'm going to be away for a while and this entry is future-posted. Instead, therefore, I'd invite readers to consider on their own:
- The role played by the larger political environment, from the effects of America's unique 2-party system, to attitudes to risk/entrepreneurship and how a country's political scene reflects that, to how politics is funded and practiced.
These variables changes how effective "activistism" tactics are, and how resistant the political system is to their employment in future. See this analysis of Canada to get an taste of the sort of thing I mean. It's a good example of "the 68s" managing to institutionalize themselves, creating a hermetically-sealed echo chamber that has maintained its integrity across multiple levels of media, politics, etc. "Activistism" is much more effective here (as it is in Europe), so if it's a phenomenon that concerns you, it's worth looking at those examples too. I'll add that "Activistists" themselves intuitively understand what it takes to make their approach politically self-reinforcing. Looking at examples where they've succeeded shows us what really maters, and what memes to promote and oppose if we want to break or avoid that cycle.
- Next, we have the complicating dimension of religion - and not just in the places you'd expect. Glenn Reynolds' article in The Guardian points out that American politics has two clashing religious traditions acting as undercurrents to political debate. Finally, we throw in...
- The narcisistic baby-boomer generation, and how the phenomenon of 'boomeritis' gave us this headache in the first place. (Boomer) Ken Wilber's book A Theory of Everything, notes that the boomers, as an "awakening generation," have their strengths and weaknesses:
"Boomer weaknesses, most critics agree, include an unusual dose of self-absorption and narcissism, so much so that most people, boomers included, simply nod their heads in acknowledgment when the phrase "the Me generation" is mentioned.
Thus, it seems that my generation is an extraordinary mixture of greatness and narcissism, and that strange amalgam has affected almost everything we do. We don't seem content to simply have a fine new idea, we must have the new paradigm that will herald one of the greatest transformations in the history of the world. We don't really want to just recycle bottles and paper; we need to see ourrselves dramatically saving the planet and saving Gaia and resurrecting the Goddess that previous generations had brutally repressed but we will finally liberate.... We need to see ourselves as the vanguard of something unprecedented in all history: the extraordinary wonder of being us.
Well, it can be pretty funny if you think about it, and I truly don't mean any of this in a harsh way.... But it's true that if you peruse books on cultural studies alternative spirituality, the new paradigm, and the great transformation that will occur if the world simply listens to the author and his revolutionary ideas, sooner or later this "heroic self-inflation" starts to get to you."
No kidding, and what if Wilber is right? if "activistism" is in fact linked to generational demographics, what could that mean as we think about both the mechanisms for change, and the phenomenon's resistance to that change?
If we want to build a politics that's truly about creating a better tomorrow, the points made by Cooper, Totten, Harris and BRD are worth pondering - and so are the additional factors noted above. Is their diagnosis correct? What's the root cause? How can politics be shifted to something better?
Worthy questions, all. "Activistism" doesn't just cost the left. In the end, it costs us all.
Additional Readings:
"Activistism" is only one part of a larger phenomenon, both fueling the phenomenon of "idiotarianism" and being fueled by it in turn.
- The Origins and Meaning of "Idiotarian" How did that word get started, anyway - and what does it really mean? Winds has answers.
- Why Idiotarianism? Why Now? looks at the common thread that brings the far left and Islamofascism together in more detail. Short version: their idols were broken, and they're united by the desire to shoot the same messenger. It schoes and deepens many of the ritual worship parallels in this post.
- Anti-Globalization, Anti-Semetic, Anti-American. Adds some chilling examples highlighting the reality of the sharing going on between Islamist theocrats, neo-Nazis, and neo-Marxists. The Democratic Party's Fred siegel has noticed, ditto James C. Bennett as he looks at the Anglosphere vs. continental Europe. Likewise, Michael Totten as he reads his AdBusters and is appalled. It all builds on the core thesis in "Hating America, Hating Israel" - ever hear the one about the 2 waiters...?
Hence the coinage of the term "idiotarianism" to denote the merging of useless ideologies and overheated political crusades into one uber-force of global reaction.
Useless ideologies? Overheated political crusades? Uber-force of global reaction?
Left-wing activists may be annoying, but they tend to be pretty innocuous. As far as bloodshed goes, though, remind us how many wars "idiotarians" have started in the last five years on specious grounds. Maybe we could revisit the atmosphere of rah-rah war fury in the early spring of 2003, when anyone who doubted the wisdom of invading Iraq was, by definition, a yellow-bellied traitor.
Here's one of your hard-headed realists, Paul Wolfowitz, in front of Congress in February 2003:
Mr. Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary, opened a two-front war of words on Capitol Hill, calling the recent estimate by Gen. Eric K. Shinseki of the Army that several hundred thousand troops would be needed in postwar Iraq, "wildly off the mark." Pentagon officials have put the figure closer to 100,000 troops. Mr. Wolfowitz then dismissed articles in several newspapers this week asserting that Pentagon budget specialists put the cost of war and reconstruction at $60 billion to $95 billion in this fiscal year. He said it was impossible to predict accurately a war's duration, its destruction and the extent of rebuilding afterward. [...] In his testimony, Mr. Wolfowitz ticked off several reasons why he believed a much smaller coalition peacekeeping force than General Shinseki envisioned would be sufficient to police and rebuild postwar Iraq. He said there was no history of ethnic strife in Iraq, as there was in Bosnia or Kosovo. He said Iraqi civilians would welcome an American-led liberation force that "stayed as long as necessary but left as soon as possible," but would oppose a long-term occupation force. [...] Mr. Wolfowitz spent much of the hearing knocking down published estimates of the costs of war and rebuilding, saying the upper range of $95 billion was too high, and that the estimates were almost meaningless because of the variables. Moreover, he said such estimates, and speculation that postwar reconstruction costs could climb even higher, ignored the fact that Iraq is a wealthy country, with annual oil exports worth $15 billion to $20 billion. "To assume we're going to pay for it all is just wrong," he said.
If opposing the invasion of Iraq made one an "idiotarian," then what is Wolfowitz?
Stickler --
Opposing the invasion of Iraq is not "idiotarianism" as long as there exists a workable alternative to Saddam's provocations post 9/11. None of that was offered, so the Left is left with ... the perfect being the enemy of the good. Which if this had been in play during 1943 there would have been NO invasion of Normandy. Around 12,000 AMERICANS died in the first day alone.
Recall what had happened. America on 9/11 had been brutally attacked without any reason and more than 3,000 of our citizens brutally murdered. The attack took place against a backdrop of unchallenged attacks and aggressions against us; including the 1993 WTC bombing, the 1993 Mogadishu "Black Hawk Down" attacks (directed by Al Qaeda) the 1994 attempted assasination of Bush 41; the 1996 Bojinka hijack plot; the 1998 Embassy attacks in Kenya and Tanzania; the 1998 kicking out of the Iraq Weapons Inspectors, and the 2000 attack on the Cole.
In Putin's words, weakness had invited attack, and "the weak got beaten."
Saddam refused to allow the weapons inspectors back in, and played coy about his weapons programs. Saddam had invited senior Al Qaeda members, including Zarqawi, to conduct operations at the Ansar-Al-Islam terrorist camp in northern Iraq. Saddam had bribed most allied nations into agreeing to lift the sanctions, to rebuild his military, including WMDs and other forbidden tech (missiles and the like).
Post 9/11, what did the Left offer to respond to Saddam's provocations (kicking the inspectors out, refusing them re-admittance, and allowing Al Qaeda to operate openly)? How did they offer policies or options that would allow the US to respond to this threat without appearing so weak and helpless as to invite further attacks. Recall that Bin Laden himself predicted that no more than a hundred casualties would send the Americans running from any conflict.
Had the Left offered Plan B: Raise the Army to a strength of 2 million men (volunteers), get to 25 carrier groups, increase the Air Force and Marines by 200%; put the country on a REAL war footing, with tax increases and war bonds and sacrifices ...
THEN make Saddam, Saudi, Pakistan, and Iran offers they can't refuse. Allow weapons inspectors in; turn over all bin Laden's buddies, and put a stop to Al Qaeda activities in your country, or be at war with the US ...
Well that's a realistic strategy. Do what you need to in order to fight to win; give the other guys one last chance to avoid the fight; then win and go home.
For far too long, all the way back to Nixon, Muslim terrorists have been able to attack the US without consequences. 9/11 showed the folly of that policy. I was hoping the Left thought this country worth defending. But I guess not.
I'm going to stray a bit and get back on topic.
I think this topic points to a deeper current.
Man is unable to live (in general) without a "meaning" to his life. If religion does not fill that void something else will.
Marx was wrong. Religion is not the opiate of the people. It is one of the deepest needs of the people.
It is one of the things tthat made Hitler popular. It is what made Marxism so popular.
Why should reason be expected to fill a need that reason cannot fill? The trappings of reason are just a cover for the need for spirituality.
Activism is so much fun the right is taking it up. US Flags, of course, but yellow ribbons and "Support the Troops" magnets, the "Protest Warriors" signs and banners, anti-abortion "mass-funerals" and mock graveyards, the Pink Pistol gay-gun coalition, the pro-traditional marriage Promise Keepers rallies ...
I compare it to college sports rivalries. Kansas University versus Kansas State, in my case -- but UT "Vols" and Notre Dame and all sorts of fanatics show up with signs and banners and slogans and chants to be part of the "movement". Not that the enthusiasm of the crowds has much impact on the outcome of the games -- but that as a show of support for EACH OTHER.
The Right has previously treated such issues as serious business and approached the contest in a business-like, market-driven sort of way. But the Right is waking to the fact that Show Business is still Big Business and there is money (and power) to be accumulated by attracting audiences to spectacular performances.
And so the contest may be "balanced". But not improved, I think.
"If opposing the invasion of Iraq made one an "idiotarian," then what is Wolfowitz?"
ditto to what Jim said.
Wolfowitz outlined a strategy based on lots of intelligence and number-crunching. However, in a complex situation like invading a secretive terrorist-supporting WMD-producing police state, there are lots of conflicting numbers and facts and lack of same. Everything is a guesstimate. Wolfowitz' guesstimate was at least as reasonable as all the dire predictions of the antiwar left that never happened: famines, Saddam using chemical weapons, huge numbers of refugees, protracted battle, etc.
All this is at a much more sophisticated level of analysis than giant puppets and die-ins.
I have mixed feelings about protest street theater. I participated in the Protest Warrior event on the last night of the RNC in NYC.
It was fun, meeting and hanging out with other political interesting folk.
It was satisfying to bait the lefties.
It got us publicity: several news articles which publicize our ideas.
It consisted of 3 hours of yelling slogans back and forth to infuriated lefties in the middle of the street, all brandishing signs. Which really felt stupid, ultimately.
It was useful for us since we were a novelty - it generated publicity. But i can already see PW becoming just one more flavor in the mix, at which point our effectiveness is gone, since PW has no more intellectual depth than any of the other street protest groups.
I think blogs have way more effect on public policy and publicizing new ideas than street theater.
"What are you rebelling against?"
"Whadya got?"
I dont think this is strictly a generational thing, although boomer hubris certainly kicks it into hyperdrive. Its largely a maturity thing, combined with an utter lack of historical perspective. Its easy for a 19 year old sheltered suburbanite to look around and see their rich, happy life contrasted against bums living in the street (of course not knowing their mental problems spurred by their acute alcoholism) and fighting overseas and quickly assume a terrible greedy cabal must be responsible. Certainly its not just a part of the human condition. People who havent experienced (or studied at least) evil first hand dont understand human nature, period. So the cop gets blamed instead of the robber, because the cop is the one they have direct experience with. Hopefully theyll grow up and have some kids which seems to be the best cure for amoral idiocy there is.
>>Saddam had invited senior Al Qaeda members, including Zarqawi, to conduct operations at the Ansar-Al-Islam terrorist camp in northern Iraq.
Back up. Wasn't this in Kurdish-controlled territory? This doesn't seem likely to be Saddam, though I might be wrong. Hasn't Mr. Darling said something about this here before? Hey Dan, ya listening?
Ha! Such pleasant excuses for Wolfowitz, which boil down to analyzing the difference between an "idiotarian" and a just plain "idiot".
You would scorn any dentist, plumber, or car mechanic whose analysis of a complex situation was as 100 percent off base as Wolfowitz's, and by extension all of the premises of the Iraq War. In no small part because of these utterly-failed prewar analyses (which were driven not so much by honest differences of opinion as by a need to justify a pre-existant desire to express American resolve and toughness through the introduction of armed forces into Iraq). I guess only election losers need to revisit their presumptions; no matter how utterly mistaken the Bush Administration's Iraq policy has been since the very beginning, it passed its Accountability Moment.
The more accurate we idiotarians were as the stench of failure begins to arise from George, Dick, and WoC's Excellent Iraq Adventure, the more you are angry at us, instead of at yourselves. Just how many elections do you think you can win on Iraq? In 2012, 2016, 2020?: "Stay the course in Iraq. Resolve. Victory is around the corner. Ignore all objective data. We have always been at war with Eurasia. War is Peace."
There could be something more to activistism than just narcissism and entertainment. For many people, the whole of idea of Enlightenment reasonableness is emotionally repugnant (see Occidentalism, by Buruma et al, or Rites of Spring, by Modris Eksteins). Could the whole movement really be a Dionysian reaction to our society, with its (mainly) Apollonian values? What all these protests have in common, beside a certain style of operation, is that they want to bring down the whole edifice of Enlightenment Western civilization. That's why they don't offer alternative strategies for avoiding a nuclear 9/11: they just don't care. Speaking as a Canadian, I think we need to remember: these people can be dangerous.
>>That's why they don't offer alternative strategies for avoiding a nuclear 9/11: they just don't care.
I've offered my strategy. Here it is again:
Step 1: Secure the Russian nuclear arsenal and upgrade their early warning system.
Step 2: Offer to buy up stray nuclear material for a fixed (high) price, no questions asked. Send the CIA guys with suitcases full of cash out there to buy up all the nukage.
Neither of these things are being done, likely because they would be too cheap and too effective to justify the existence of the current military bureaucracy.
Wasn't this in Kurdish-controlled territory?
Correct. Saddam had no control over the part of Iraq where Ansar al-Islam was training. It would seem that the accuracy of pro-war argumentation has not improved with the passage of time.
Standing athwart comments threat yelling "STOP!"
Instead of debating the pre-war arguments, think we could stick to the topic?
Pouncer's right that the Right may succumb to this sort of thing, too, although I find some of his examples a tad odd.
But so far, the Promise Keepers haven't felt in necessary to block traffic to make their point.
"Correct. Saddam had no control over the part of Iraq where Ansar al-Islam was training. It would seem that the accuracy of pro-war argumentation has not improved with the passage of time."
Wellll, lets not get carried away here. Ansar al-Islam was originally a Kurdish group that broke off (most Kurdish political groups are secular, even communist) and was in fact at war with 'our' Kurds. My enemies enemy and all.
To claim their camps were in 'kurdish' territory is a bit disingenous, the camps were in Ansar al-Islam territory, adjacent to Iran. As stated they were fighting the main Kurd forces and said to be supported by the Iraq secret police.
Zarqawi himself needs to be seperated from this equation. Zarqawi is a Jordanian who fought in Afghanistan and was sheltered in Baghdad after a war wound. His presence with Ansar Al-Islam cant be so simply explained away. The two facts we know are that AAI was fighting Saddams enemies and an AQ operative that Hussein sheltered ended up being a wheel there. Strange coincidence? The whole argument smacks of those who wish to pigeon hole Al Qaeda as 'the enemy' and some specific, concrete entity. The truth is the connections and allegances are far more murky and mutable. The one thing Hussein, AAI, Zarqawi, Al Qaeda, and Iran all had in common was the deepest of hatreds for the United States. The US was and is each of their most dangerous foes. To make the vapid assumption that these forces would never work together do to other idiological differences is simplistic. If Stalin and Hitler found common ground, AAI, Zaeqawi, and Hussein certainly could.
I attended an event of theirs in the Twin Cities back in 1996 (my born-again roommate was working there and thought his objectivism roommate would find it englightening). The theme was “breaking down the walls” specifically of the “walls” of racism and denominationalism. I didn’t hear anything that could be construed as political more about improving your own life through Christ’s teachings and becoming a better husband to your wife and father to your children.
While I don’t share their religious views, I think it is fair to characterize it as being on the political “right” in the sense that the political Left is about encouraging destructive libertine mores and the dependency on government that is often the result whereas the political Right is more about personal responsibility for both your actions and the welfare of yourself and your families. A group like PK that encourages men to become better fathers and husbands is a group that promotes values that leads to more stable families and less dependency on government.
No wonder so many on the Left hate them.
Activism can certainly have a place in a healthy, open society. There will always be people at different points on the political spectrum. But two things worry me about the recent batch of activists.
1. The end justifies pretty much any means in their minds.(I am including anti-war and extreme anti-abortion protesters in this group.)
2. There is no end-game compromise that will satisfy them. Many of these protests have become pointless, but their members will carry on indefinitely.
If a group is willing to do anything to promote their cause and they will never be satisfied, then how is a country or other political unit going to be able to address their concerns? At that point the only response is to ignore them, which only serves to incite them further.
I am a conservative with pro-environmental leanings. I don't want to see us needlessly trash this planet anymore than the most die-hard liberal. But I want to do it by seeking compromise on the most important issues, and let the less important issues bow to economic concerns.
But I don't see any effort to compromise from most of these groups and that is why I think they have become irrelevant as forces for change.
Hi, ho, hum, where do I start?
Jim Rockford:
Saddam refused to allow the weapons inspectors back in, and played coy about his weapons programs. Saddam had invited senior Al Qaeda members, including Zarqawi, to conduct operations at the Ansar-Al-Islam terrorist camp in northern Iraq. Saddam had bribed most allied nations into agreeing to lift the sanctions, to rebuild his military, including WMDs and other forbidden tech (missiles and the like).
Actually, Saddam did allow UNMOVIC back into Iraq, whatever one might think of its effectiveness (do recall that UNMOVIC's chief Hans Blix was among those horrid counter-factual warmongers who before the war who told ABC News that he was quite certain that the Iraqis had chemical weapons). Ansar al-Islam, though located outside of Baathist control, was supported by the former Iraqi regime (a point even the sainted 9/11 commission report concedes) and Zarqawi was present in Baghdad prior to the war, with Saddam Hussein intervening personally to see to the release of several of his associates who got stopped at the Iranian border by the Iraqi authorities.
TJ Madison:
Back up. Wasn't this in Kurdish-controlled territory? This doesn't seem likely to be Saddam, though I might be wrong. Hasn't Mr. Darling said something about this here before? Hey Dan, ya listening?
Yes. Ansar al-Islam was outside of Baathist controlled territory, but the SSIC report says that the Mukhabarat didn't make any moves against it (implying they could have had they desired to) and provided it with both weapons and support, including allowing Sunni Arabs from Mosul to leave the city to go join the group back when it was Jund al-Islam. The #3 guy in Ansar al-Islam is one of Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri's relatives and a known Mukhabarat agent of the Iraqi regime. A number of interrogated Ansar leaders (Aso Hawleri and Qods, for example) have also acknowledged ties between the former Iraqi government and the group.
AJL:
It would seem that the accuracy of pro-war argumentation has not improved with the passage of time.
Nice to see that we're all one big monolithic group. If you want to regard us as such, that's fine, but then it kind of takes away your right to bitch when pro-war types conflate sensible opponents of the war like yourself with the likes of the kook brigades in ANSWER or Michael Moore's romanticization of the insurgents.
Mark Buehner:
To claim their camps were in 'kurdish' territory is a bit disingenous, the camps were in Ansar al-Islam territory, adjacent to Iran. As stated they were fighting the main Kurd forces and said to be supported by the Iraq secret police.
They were in Iraqi Kurdistan and supported by the Mukhabarat special operations directorate, not the domestic security forces. As far as the apparent convergence of Iraqi, Iranian, and al-Qaeda support for its spawn Ansar, it was far more a conflation of interests acting independently of one another than any kind of grand plan against the US, sort of like the way that Western, Israeli, Palestinian, and Iranian activity in Lebanon in the 1980s all occurred simultaneously but independent of one another.
I generally prefer free market mechanisms and federalism to command-and-control policies. I prefer private ownership of property (so long as you do not infringe on the rights of others) to public ownership as those who have a stake in something are more likely to take care of it. I generally prefer local control to central planning on most but not all things (in some cases it may make more sense to deal with some issues on a regional basis). I believe that government has a legitimate role in dealing with negative externalities like pollution as they infringe on the rights of others, but it does not have the right to force individuals to provide positive externalities (e.g. preserving an endangered species or wetlands on their property) without compensation and if such things are public goods, then the public or a private group ought to purchase them rather than forcing the individual to provide a benefit to society at their own expense. When the public or government owns property (not my preference), I generally support multiple-use including allowing grazing, logging, mineral exploration, etc. so long as the users pay the market-rate and reasonably preserve the property. I’m a strong believer in the laws of unintended consequences, diminishing returns, and cost-benefit analysis and that they ought to guide which issues we deal with and the policies with which we use to deal with them. While I wouldn’t say I believe in bowing to economic concerns, I do believe that more economic growth and technological improvements fix many (but not all problems) and a wealthier society is usually better able to afford fixing some problems.
Kind of funny. And far too appropriate for words.
A marked characteristic of the activistist (in my mind) is a certain shrillness and tendency to "suck the air out of the room." I usually find that people with such uncompromising views and the reflexive need to take whatever the current topic is and relate it to their pet cause indicative of a lack of analytical depth, intellectual seriousness, and just plain dogmatic bankruptcy.
So, in a post about the relative validity of the activisist thesis, at the time of this post, half (9 of 18 by my count) develoved into bickering about the War on Terror and Iraq. Without actually touching on the thesis described above other than to note that whoever is on the other side of the aisle is a simple-minded, malicious idiot, devoid of any spark of humanity.
While this may have not advanced the discussion overmuch, there is something to be said for experimental data just walking into your lab for analysis.
Modern activism reminds me of P.J. O'Rourke's theory of revolution: Revolution is a great cure for boredom. Who wants to follow a stinking water buffalo around a rice paddy, when you could be running around in the jungle with a gun?
My theory is that activists are actually all of the things that they claim to despise. Greedy, status-hungry, conformist, reactionary, and brainwashed by consumerism. So much so that they can't see any adequate source of happiness in ordinary life. No opportunity is good enough for them, so they wind up on C-SPAN praising Castro's Cuba without the slightest sense of embarrassment.
I actually agree with Joe that "activist ideology" is a problem. However, one, this problem exists on both sides of the political spectrum, and two, and this is to the point that others bring up - the activist ideologies that actually have power in the United States are right-leaning, and not left-leaning.
Christian Fundamentalists ideology and activism, ala the Rapture folk.
I would argue that these rapture folk actually have a greater effect on the political dialogue and reins of power than do the far left wingers - and are actually more dangerous. For example, General Boykin
But again, the broader philosophical point of Joe's, is true - my opinion is that it his true thesis applies even more so to people on his side, or, as stickler suggests with his example of Wolfowitz, to "neo-conservatist" ideological activism.
JC:
I'm a bit confused by your last linked example.
Regardless of what one might think of General Boykin or his theology, 90% of the criticism I've seen of the man has come from the center-left side of the political spectrum rather from the Arab/Islamic press, which I read regularly. Or as one pundit said, "If Boykin's remarks were such an extreme offense to the Islamic world, why can't I find anything about them on MEMRI?" In general, Arab/Islamic denunciations of the US have more to do with specific US policies (a point frequently made by critics of the administration) than with the religious character of our leaders. I'd wager the Abu Ghraib 24/7 feeding frenzy by the US media last spring did far more to put American lives in jeopardy than anything General Boykin had to say.
So if you want to cite Boykin's ideology (religion actually, but let's not quibble) as being dangerous you at least have to give an example why that is, unless you think that being an outspoken Evangelical Christian is a self-evident danger to the common good in of itself. And if you want to claim that his religious beliefs have prevented him from fullfilling his duties, you at least need explain how.
I swear, there are times I think that far too many people in the US would be quite comfortable amending the Constitution's ban on a religious test for public office to exclude Christian fundamentalists or evangelicals ...
Hmmm.
Well, I took it as a given, that such public comments by a usa military leader, can give the impression that the U.S. is leading a war on Islam, rather than a War on Terrorism.
Doing a quick google:
So Dahr Al Hayat: "U.S. General Boykin's racial obscenity towards Islam and Muslims has instigated a wave of solidarity with Malaysian Prime Minister Mahatir. The solidarity has spread out amongst politicians, officials, writers and journalists throughout the Islamic world." The Gulf News in Dubai which is normally a very pro-Western newspaper: "General Boykin's remarks stand as glaring proof that the U.S.-led war against terrorism is in reality a war against Islam as a whole. The speech by General Boykin highlights the West's double standards. Today's state of the world demands the practice of peace, friendship, brotherhood and tolerance, especially between the West and the Islamic world. So inciting and confrontational comments such as those given by General Boykin is a guarantee that extremism will survive and indeed flourish."
From here.
Now as to the straw man you raise re: someone who is an evangelical being banned from public office - not my belief. Though personally, I might be a little queasy with a Catholic priest, or an imam, or a Shankarcharya, as, say, governor, or president.
My concern would be the fundamentalism, not the religion.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but is it not the case, that the only "ordained" people of a religion in the United States that can (practically) run for office are pretty much ministers?
There may be a few examples of Jewish rabbis, I don't know. Again, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
This may be a prejudice in me, I'm not sure. I'm only slightly uncomfortable with an ordained Baptist minister or Protestant minister holding political office - but I am slightly uncomfortable.
But I am much more uncomfortable with a rabbi, or imam, or catholic priest holding the title of presidency, say.
I guess this is something I have to work on in myself? Who else would be comfortable/uncomfortable with someone "ordained" in any particular, or any old, religious tradition, holding the office of president? Am I the only one?
Some above got why I mentioned Wolfowitz on this thread; he's got the President's ear and the ANSWER crowd is shouting at Toyotas in the rain.
But JC only hints at reasons why another activist with authority, Gen. Boykin, is far more dangerous than the most aggressively-pierced anarchist. First of all, not only does Boykin hold some pretty odd ideas about Islam (not irrelevant to his job nowadays, one might think), he expressed them in front of a Pentecostal congregation, during church services while wearing the uniform of the US Army. For this he was not punished. Instead he was promoted.
And, gosh, why wouldn't such a thing appear in the Arab press as translated by MEMRI? It's not like MEMRI has its own reputation for, ah, selective treatment of the Arab press, is it? Couldn't be.
JC
_This may be a prejudice in me, I'm not sure. I'm only slightly uncomfortable with an ordained Baptist minister or Protestant minister holding political office - but I am slightly uncomfortable.
But I am much more uncomfortable with a rabbi, or imam, or catholic priest holding the title of presidency, say.
I guess this is something I have to work on in myself? Who else would be comfortable/uncomfortable with someone "ordained" in any particular, or any old, religious tradition, holding the office of president? Am I the only one?_
JC, that would be prejudice. By implication, if your gripe is with fundamentalism, and your array of discomforts is as you describe, then you imply that ordained ministers are not going to be fundamentalists, while rabbis, imams, and Catholics are going to be fundamentalist. As it happens, the fundamentalist groups in America tend to be offshoots of Protestantism.
In terms of working on, folks can argue about what level of religious committment is acceptable in a public official, but you probabbly want to drill down a little bit more on this concept of asserting that some religions are fundamental in their entirety, while others are magically fundamentalism-free.
Of course, I could be completely misreading your post, but that's my take on what I think you said.
JC: Wolfowitz, to "neo-conservatist" ideological activism.
So everybody who believes anything is an "activist"? Or anyone who criticizes ANSWER is a hypocrite unless they denounce Wolfowitz, too?
In that case, I will no longer criticize activists. Let them run riot, say I. In fact, make one of them the DNC chairman - better yet, make 150 of them the DNC chairman, and have a Democratic National Anarchist-Syndicalist Commune. There, are you happy now?
Mark Childerson: Could the whole movement really be a Dionysian reaction to our society, with its (mainly) Apollonian values?
That's an interesting question, but I think the answer is no. I just can't picture those joyless, puritanical, self-righteous squares as Dionysians. Besides. the Dionysians did their thing privately, out in the woods. Not in the middle of downtown traffic.
Glen,
I'm more talking about "fantasy ideology" - most likely "activism" was a poor choice of words. My apologies. I'm simply speaking about the difference between having a passionate set of ideas or activism, and a fantasy ideology - a set series of ideas that a person holds on to in direct contravention to the set of facts available.
In the case of Wolfowitz, almost all the relevant literature and experience avaiable in early 2003, (from Bosnia, etc) showed that there was a certain level of troop requirements per population base (I don't have the numbers available to me now), and that Shinseki's estimate was right on the mark for the troops required for an orderly occupation.
So Wolfowitz was either believing in an ideology of "greetings us with flowers", or was simply lying to Congress, to further his cause.
Now, Wolfowitz seems to stick to his guns - I saw the story recently about how he has a couple of Prius's, is ordering them for everyone in his office - he is walking the walk to do ANYTHING that limits what he perceives as the danger from the Middle East - which in this case, means starting to wean the U.S. from oil.
So I think he's a true believer, not a liar. But in his estimates before congress, ideology trumped reliable analysis. And yes, this is DANGEROUS, as bad analysis leads to wars that have 1418 U.S. soldiers dead, $300 billion in U.S. Treasure, and at least 2 more years of the same, with no end in sight.
Glen,
Off-topic, but I finally took a look at "Canis Iratus".
Man, you have a good sense of humor!
On Winds of Change, this sense of humor (for me at least) gets buried in all the "liberals are the spawn of Satan and Mordeth" fallback position, you tend to advocate...
Bravo Romeo Delta,
You make good points. Separate fundamentalism (fantasy ideology) from the type of religion.
I was describing more my initial emotional reactions, what I'm comfortable and uncomfortable with - unflectively, as it were. Not a statement of policy.
I certainly don't believe that Protestantism is magically fundamentalism-free - but I can see how it may seem I said that.
I'm not sure there can be any type of policy for this, though. Hopefully the democratic process will weed out "fundamentalists", but how can one insure this?
I think I headed down a similar path when I replied earlier to one comment on a blog:
"You, and people of the same persuasion, are the issue.
"Left and Right views are "true" but artificial distinctions. The real tussle is between those who can think about thinking, and those who either can't or won't. Whether intended or not, Bush's Inaugural address reframed the discussion about Iraq to accentuate the distinction between the combatants as a war between those fighting for raw control and those fighting for a process of government.
"Bush's [inaugural] address sweeps away the persiflage that has encumbered the issue since U.N. Resolution 1441 was first passed.
"Well, it sweeps it away for those willing to consider what he said. If you look back at your litany of messages, you marshall all the arguments to avoid considering whether you want to throw your support behind those who just want control or those who want a functional process of government.
"Yes. This is about you. This is about how you think about world issues. Bush's inaugural address dared you to look in the mirror."
The key text here is the observation that "people who cease believing in God don't start believing in nothing, they start believing absolutely anything."
It's a short step from a willingness to believe anything to embracing whatever flatters your ego the most. I say this as an atheist (who believes that most peoples' minds are not strong enough to entertain real atheism for more than five minutes).
just a quick comment: you're confusing "activistists" with "partisan Clinton/Gore Democrats". Two very different types of people, two different types of amateur sociology required for each group. I can identify a lot of "partisan Clinton/Gore Democrats" in the blogosphere ( and a few non-partisan Democrats, like Yglesias, Kevin Drum, etc.) Offhand, I can't name any "activistists". I guess the blogosphere isn't their natural home.
The Democratic Party isn't on the decline at all. That's an absurd statement when you look at the numbers of local, county, and state democrats elected in November. The 56 million people who voted for John Kerry would disagree as well.
The Democratic Party is alive and well, thanks. Health Care, Morality, Education, Labor, Environment, Security. These are Democratic Party issues.
Y'all just keep tilting towards facsism and perpetual war and see how the declining Democrats regain power.
Screwy Hoolie,
One of these things is not like the others...
"The Democratic Party is alive and well, thanks. Health Care, Morality, Education, Labor, Environment, Security. These are Democratic Party issues."
I think you have been reading too many pundits after the last election. Of course, it is a stretch for mean to even give you 'Security' on your list.
"Health Care, Morality, Education, Labor, Environment, Security. These are Democratic Party issues."
Democratic issues...yes. Democratic strengths...no.
Over the last 10 years, the Democratic Party has been more about making issues out of problems rather than solving them. That is because the Democratic Party is unable to talk about the real sacrifices (i.e., other than "let's raise taxes on the rich") needed to address these issues.
Gosh, Joe, what a good thread-- someone had to say this.
M. Simon is right, we all have our own "religion". There is a strong biological basis for belief. And it is not neccessarily logical. Research in cognitive neuroscience shows that we are actually more likely to remember and believe things that are "tipped off" from normal. I like Mormonism as an example, since it is a young enough religion that contradictions and implausabilities can be found in recent history. Explaining these anomalies to practioners does nothing to shake their faith.
You can see what an advantage belief systems would be in the EEA (Environment of Evolutionary Advantage).
Religion and politics both have its fundamentalist fringes. Unfortunately, fundamentalists tend to discount opposing views not on the basis of fact, but on the basis of their "beliefs" - i.e. less intellectual discourse, more emotional validation. I'm not saying fundamentalists are necessarily stupid, it's just that on some issues they consciously allow themselves to be guided by their emotions, rather than rational thought.
No reasonable person will argue that political freedom is a pre-condition for lasting peace. Many rational leftists believed that freedom in Iraq could have been attained through dialogue, and therefore opposed the war. That's fine with me (although I disagree with their assessment, it's still a reasonable and valid argument). Now that war has occurred, these guys still hope that democracy will prevail, despite their opposition to "war" as the means to attain it.
However, some leftists seem to have taken a different tact, and are openly hoping for failure in Iraq. They use their opposition to the war as a justification for this stance, but it is obvious that their desire to see Iraq fail is mostly driven by their desire to see Bush fail. These are the fundamentalists, and they can go and screw themselves IMHO. Sadly, some in the media fall into this category.
As an example of an anti-war activist I can respect, I hold forth Romeo Dallaire, the Canadian General who was in charge of the UN peace-keeping mission in Rwanda. He was a vehement opponent of the Iraq war, but once the war started, he contends that Canada (or even better, the UN) should have joined. His argument is that ultimately what matters MOST is what's best for the Iraqi people, not for the anti-war or pro-war factions outside of Iraq. While you can't change the past, you can influence the future.
Great post, Joe. As Eric Hoffer notes so lucidly, what's most important to activistists is not the Cause they believe in, but the enthusiasm they feel for whatever their current cause is. It's no coincidence that, in East Germany, the most enthusiastic Nazis morphed easily into the most loyal Communists after the end of WWII. Being a member of an ideologically-pure mob is a profoundly theraputic experience for some people -- and thus many protest just for the sake of the protest, and as a result put very little thought into any effective means of persuasion and more into the theater and self-expression that is the essence of protest culture "community-building." No different, at the psychological level, from the experience of holding hands in prayer at a church or engaging in a week-long Hate in Oceania.
I opposed the Iraq war. A few friends and I went to several antiwar protests in early 2003 on our own, not as part of a "group." I was exceedingly disillusioned. It was clear that the well-meaning balding hippie dinosaurs with "Give the Inspectors More Time" signs were clearly at odds with the "No Justice, No Peace" African-American militants, who marched out of step with Palestinians decrying the Israeli practice of stealing internal organs from Arab infants (one of the more bizarre sights), while one group of calling (in rhyme, of course) for Peace was actually viciously shouted down by another group shouting for Justice, all the while amidst stoned PETA activists handing out vegan recipes and cute, rich, abortion-rights chicks from Smith College who looked vaguely out of place. So what, exactly, did the crowd believe in? What connects them all, to where they all felt they were part of the same endeavor? Nothing...except the protest itself. By simply being there, you were identifying yourself not with this political cause or that ideological movement, but simply that you are there, you get to call yourself a "dissident," and enjoy the notions of bravery, dignity, and integrity that it implies.
I happen to be a big fan of Ken Wilbur, and I think he offers a quite sophisticated prescription for this moral/spiritual crisis of postmodernity that leads so many to seek solace in the wisdom of mindless angry crowds. You mention his focus on the boomer generation; well, he actually wrote a novel (of sorts) about what he calls "Boomeritis," the "postmodern cultural condition whereby highly developed cognitive pluralism becomes infected with poorly developed emotional narcissism." That is, when really well-meaning and magnanimous people get drunk with the sense of their own illimitable Goodness and Righteousness:
"Symptoms include (but are not limited to): rampant deconstructive tendencies; fits of nihilism and romanticism; self-serving victimhood; aperspectival madness; idiot compassion and reckless egalitarianism; frequent outbreaks of hypocrisy and performative contradiction; earth-shaking delusions of grandeur." [taken from the Integral Institute website www.integralnaked.org] Thus, those with Boomeritis do not have to make sense (protesting the Taliban in 2000, protesting the war to remove the Taliban in 2001), they do not have to justify themselves to anyone ("F911 may have been mostly inaccurate, but that doesn't matter, because these things needed to be said"), and they have no sense of perspective (comparing Bush to Hitler). What matters is not the cause, but the act of protest itself.
Therefore, I do not much worry about the majority of the protesters. The protest itself is their salve. I do worry, however, about those for whom "protest" means "anarchy," and they attach the self-righteousness of the Protest to acts of violence and destruction, as if it were virtuous to smash people's windows and start fires. And I worry about the thoroughly cynical way in which Stalinist and Maoist front groups like ANSWER manipulate and deceive the big-hearted rich American kids that make up the majority of their volume on the streets.
A tour de force of a post--it hits on a topic I've been ruminating about for a long time, i.e, the psychological motivations of blind utopianism/idealism. It has always seemed to me that the people like Lee Harris's friend, who layed down in the street and stopped traffic admittedly only because "it was good for [his] soul", are just projecting their own personal issues onto the national political scene. How does one begin a rational debate with someone who equates Bush to Hitler, or who believes that the media is controlled by Karl Rove, or who thinks SpongeBob is going to turn children gay? It's clear that larger, more internalized and irrational forces are at work in such beliefs, and Joe has done a superb job of synthesizing a valuable post from from diverse sources.
One comment about not minding ministers but not liking imams, priests or rabbis...
Catholic priests are the only ones, to my knowledge, to be completely barred from running for public office, or even for participating in partisan politics or endorsing a particular candidate (although sometimes these rules are broken).
If you are afraid of fundamentalism, then you have little to fear from priests. In protestantism, the leaders are as likely to be fundamentalist as are the flock, but the same is not true of Catholicism. Because of the screening process and the years of training, priests tend to be moderate, compared to the rest of the Catholic universe. Yes there are some Catholic fundamentalists, and even some priests, but far fewer than other Christian denominations. And the fact is the only candidates who have run recently who have been ministers are (black) protestants: Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rev. Al Sharpton.
the political Left is about encouraging destructive libertine mores
I'm on the right (at least nominally) and I support constructive libertine mores.
You know Sex, Drugs, Rock 'n Roll.
Western Tantrism if you will.
Endorphin management if you are of a technological bent.
Going to protests and actively participating makes you high. At least that was the effect on me when I marched in the 60s.
Too many here are treating what goes on as rational discourse (semi rational any way). The rational is the smallest and least effective part of the human brain.
Brain chemistry designed for animal survival has more to do with human nature than reason. Reason is hard (just try to get the average person interested - let alone capable - in partial differential calculus or quantum mechanics or Maxwell's theories or cross products in vector algebra) feeling good in the company of celebrating (whatever) humans is easier. We were tribal way before the invention of the steam engine.
I wonder if you can dance to reason? Or hum the tune?
Sentimentality: The enjoyment of emotion for its own sake, without regard to the true character of its object. The fundamental feature of sentimental emotion is that it is founded, not in a belief about and desire to understand its object, but rather in a belief about and admiration for the subject, as a vehicle of heroic, dignified or tender responses. Hence it accompanies and necessitates a lack of real interest in its object, a preference for fantasy over reality, and a disposition not to observe but to falsify the world . . . . The thought of the true lover is "This deserves my love," that of the sentimental lover, "I am admirable, loving this" . . . . In politics sentimentality is an important motive, since it is a public and recognition-seeking state of mind. Thus there is sentimental grief, such as the frequent conservative regret over the nation and its lost traditions, and also sentimental anger, which searches the world for supposed injustices in order to say, "I am admirable, being angry at this." --Roger Scruton, A Dictionary of Political Thought
Contemporary left-wing activism is a tactic, not an ideology. It is a tactic that is based on the concepts and objectives of Gramscian Marxism:
http://www.policyreview.org/dec00/Fonte.html
I can't recommend the linked article enough. It explains the ideological glue that binds all the seemingly disparate leftist groups together. Furthermore, once you understand the ideological characteristics driving them, you will see that the activists are not just a fringe, but have in fact hijacked anc corrupted the Democratic party.
M. Simon,
of course you are exactly right.
bq. Going to protests and actively participating makes you high
Well sure. Dance preceeded language, it is pretty primitive. Interestingly, sex,opiate abuse and revenge all map to the same small cortical area. Perhaps leftist protestors are revenge junkies. It is fairly obvious to me that there is a biological basis for belief. But what does one do about it?
Is there some sort of IQ gradient above which reason can operate? Or is it the kind of intelligence, qualitative as opposed to quantitative that allows logic to override belief?
#46 from jinnderella,
I can't tell you what to do about it. I can tell you what I did about it.
Shamanism (A Yaqui Way of Knowledge), living alone in the woods for several years. Working day and night to integrate my personality. Thinking about advanced electronics while visiting other worlds.
Copious study of Aleister Crowley.
Having an intense sense of the extatic while focusing intenty on subjects only amenable to rationality.
Crowley liked to have sex while calling out moves in a chess game - now there is a strange way to have sex. A strange way to play chess.
I was talking day before yesterday (Tuesday) to a gentleman I had met for the first time. He pointed out to me without prompting that I was right brain / left brain integrated. I think that is the key.
Gurdjieff says that the prerequisite is a rigorous education in rationality followed by a re-connection to dance, music etc. The initial education must be in logical subjects with only enough music, dance, etc. to keep that section of the brain minimally active.
So there is sort of an outline there. Unfortunately we have given up the rigor for the feel good stuff. So what you get out of that is the lefty half-men we see about us today. The shame is that if the rationalitty is not done early enough it is very hard to do later.
I might add that efforts at classical music are very important to get started before age 13. They seem critical to the development of mathematical reasoning. Einstein played the violin. I do not think that was a mistake. Condi Rice is an accomplished classical pianists. I think that is a good sign.
The best rock musicians (in general) have been clasically trained. The best mathematicians have a musical avocation.
My boys tell me that "Star Wars" was a great help to their moral understanding.
Our modern day military men (American, Brits, Ozzies) seem to me to be pretty well integrated. They can do the physical stuff at the same time they make rational calculations. Our enemies seem to be less well put together, depending on exhuberance and emotion to make up for lack of technical ability. Ghost Dancers if you will.
So how is that for thinking aloud?
The very best among us still get the required education (gifted programs). It is the average student that is being short changed by the "self esteem" crowd.
Self esteem is build by suceeding in the face of difficulty not by the practice of watering down the course material so that almost all difficulty is gone.
Of course in America the rot runs deep. The only reason we do so well is that it is much worse every where else.
Bush's NCLB is an attempt to bring rigor back to the schools.
The more I look into Bush's programs the more I see true genius at work. He is an order of politician we haven't seen since Jefferson. I think he has the Jeffersonian spirtit if lacking in Jefferson's articulateness.
As part of training my children I did a lot of punning. i.e. mixing subjects and forcing a kind of cross thinking. My father did that with me.
In my family we call it "stupid Dad jokes".
The English language is particularly rich in that area.
It forces a way of thinking of two (or more) disparate subjects at once.
Zen koans are very good here. The Sufis seem to do something similar (thanks Joe for your weeklys on the subject). Of course in huge parts of the Muslim world the Sufis are considered heretics.
A lot of it is the breaking of orthodoxies.
The Jewish emphasis on book learning seems to accomplish what is required. A lot could be learned from that culture. Part of that is the questioning of every thing. And the requirement to be able to make persuasive arguments on any side of a given subject. One must be able to argue not just for God but also the Devil. And the arguments must be equally well done.
The current Moslem trend is to demand orthodoxy which stunts thinking.
Unquestioning belief stunts the mind. It also stunts the moral sense.
Although Einstein did not observe Jewish rituals, he strongly identified with Jewish tradition: "The pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, an almost fanatical love of justice, and the desire for personal independence—these are features of the Jewish tradition which make me thank my lucky stars that I belong to it." Einstein's strong support for Jewish welfare emerged when he faced anti-Semitism in Germany. Throughout his life, the man whose work the Nazis and German scientists dismissed as "Jewish physics" worked tirelessly against anti-Semitism.
Einstein's Jewish idenity
#45 from HA:
HA is dead on target with this recommendation. John Fonte's article is truly a must-read for anyone for whom the culture war is a concern. Even our most perceptive and well-informed conservative thinkers are mostly unaware of the pervasiveness of cultural Marxism in the liberal arts academy. It appears to me that people are generally clueless that the word "studies" in Cultural Studies courses--Women's Studies, African-American Studies, Peace studies--indicates a common foundation of rigorous dogma.
And not only does Gramscian Marxism infest the academy, it leaches down to the education schools as well. I have a book entitled "Critical Pedagogy" and I've seen online references to conferences discussing the critical theory aspects of the whole language method of reading instruction. Gramsci's influence is indeed still strong. I think a case could be made that Gramsci's cultural relativism has provided a necessary condition for the outbreak of "onanastic fantasy activism."
Wow this has been one of the most informative threads I've read in a long time. Thank you all for educating me.
I wanted to make a point about Boomeritis as it was mentioned earlier. While it might be called boomeritis it definitly is affected my generation(I'm 21) to a far greater extent than my parents, who are actually the boomers. When I read the line about
"rampant deconstructive tendencies; fits of nihilism and romanticism; self-serving victimhood; aperspectival madness; idiot compassion and reckless egalitarianism; frequent outbreaks of hypocrisy and performative contradiction; earth-shaking delusions of grandeur."
I was completely blown away by how accurately that described many of my peers. Or maybe I notice it a lot more because we have the perfect forum in which to vent all of those things mentioned above. For a look into what kids these days are thinking all that has to be done is to go to livejournal.com and spend sometime looking around there. skimming through the journals you will find all those things listed above often posted within hours of one another. Do a search on "marxism" or "socialism" and you'll more than likely come to a upper middle class suburbanite kid who think that everyone else has been brainwashed by the establishedment and sees it as their duty to bring the man down. Really interesting to see these characters write, but can also be very depressing to the extent at which they believe they're educated and well informed WITHOUT EVER WATCHING THE NEWs OR READING A PAPER because those are just puppets for the Bush administration and even if they're not they just tell people what they want to hear. I once had a friend in all seriously tell me that if I really wanted to know what was going on in the world that I should go to moveon.org, aclu.org, and michaelmoore.com. Sometimes my generation scares even me, and I grew up with these nutters.
Mike,
If it makes you feel any better, I think most intelligent people go through some kind of "radical" phase when they're in their teens and/or early twenties. Most outgrow it. I did. It would be interesting to talk to your moveon.org friend in ten or twelve years and see if he's still out to bring down the man. Once people get out in the real world, get jobs, and especially have kids, they tend to moderate pretty quickly.
Well, maybe not most, but many.
I have a co-worker who's a member of the spittle-flecked, anti-Bush left.
What strikes me most about him is his commitment to the notion that as a Democrat, he's part of a disenfranchised, put-upon minority.
He protests, not because it's good for his soul, but because every protest is another Selma, another Montgomery. A chance to protest against his self-imposed notion that he's part of a disenfranchised, put-upon minority.
Nothing less, nothing more.
He's not driven by ideology. He's driven by non-existent grievance.