Sometimes it takes behemoth a long time to awaken, but when it does, if we’re all lucky, it will stay awake. This morning the New York Times editorial virtually endorses George W. Bush’s pro-active democracy policy.
Still, this has so far been a year of heartening surprises – each one remarkable in itself, and taken together truly astonishing. The Bush administration is entitled to claim a healthy share of the credit for many of these advances. It boldly proclaimed the cause of Middle East democracy at a time when few in the West thought it had any realistic chance. And for all the negative consequences that flowed from the American invasion of Iraq, there could have been no democratic elections there this January if Saddam Hussein had still been in power. Washington’s challenge now lies in finding ways to nurture and encourage these still fragile trends without smothering them in a triumphalist embrace.
Well, sure. But I think now Bush, whose triumphalism was never that great in the first place, has learned to be more subtle in that regard. Is this the beginning of a new trend for the Times? Who knows? Soon they may be sounding like Michael Ledeen.
BTW, this editorial in the Times could signal a sea change in the MSM, at least for a while. Look for it.
UPDATE: I wonder if the Times will now back Paul Wolfowitz for president of the World Bank. A few years ago their editor Bill Keller, while still a columnist, wrote an extremely positive profile of Wolfie for the NYT Magazine – ‘The Sunshine Warrior.’ (Sorry, link pay only… but trust me. It was positive.)
MORE: Austin Bay has a good tour d’horizon of the new back-tracking by legacy media.
AND: Thanks to Catherine Johnson, here is a free link to the aforementioned Keller article.
Oh, we’re off on the Road to Damascus, this camel is tough on the spine…
Gee . . . The Rock makes it look so easy to ride a camel . . . could he give us all a lesson?
After such a long slumber the Grey Lady still has got a lot of eye boogers to clear before it can see clearly!
The “Grey Lady” has for sometime now been a woman of ill repute. Let’s see if she has had a spiritual awakening or is just plying her trade on a new corner.
Washington’s challenge now lies in finding ways to nurture and encourage these still fragile trends without smothering them in a triumphalist embrace.
And thus the Grey Lady reasserts her moral superiority.
Sorry, I’m not seeing Godiva here, I’m seeing an Empress seriously short of appropriate attire.
But as figleaves go, at least this editorial was a start.
it is such a pleasure to read our comments, to join voices that proclaim hope for people weighted down with sorrow for so long. i’m glad to have the nyt take small notice of the possibility that freedom which americans from 1775 till now have fought for has merit and positive benefit for others. i’m tired of apologizing or staying quiet as naysayers have brayed their pessimism all over our communications systems. it is time they noticed that the ice age of brutal tyranny is breaking up and president bush has led that charge on behalf of our nation and others as well.
I wouldn’t count my chickens in re: the NY Times. While many committed liberals have shifted gears, the NYT ultimately reflects the positions of the New York elite and on the whole, the NY elite wants nothing to do with US success around the world. Assuming we see further progress in nations which appear to want to embrace democracy, I expect to see the NYT (and the mSM) spend more time on how Bush is trying to steal old folks SSI checks as he appoints judges to the bench who will overturn Roe v. Wade.
Its never been about the country or their fellow citizens- its been about them (them being the liberal elite) being “right”- that their “moral values” win out over “traditional values”.
I realize that many folks who are less liberal wish for the return of the Grey Lady to the Paper of Record- old habits die hard, I know. At the same time, I expect nothing less than a drastic shift in focus to something more contrversial and more damaging to the president in the near term.
All I can say is “wow” (well, actually, that’s not all I can say
). The NY Times’ admitting this means something has indeed reached critical mass–despite all the caveats (what Hitchens might call “throat-clearing”) in the editorial’s first paragraph.
What I find especially heartening is that the NY Times doesn’t seem to have pulled one of those, “It happened, but it’s an accident, and not related to anything Bush did” things like I seem to recall it doing vis a vis Reagan and the fall of the USSR. It actually seems to be giving Bush (and the neocons, by implication) a bit of credit!
Would that my friends were doing the same. But I have hope now for my friends–since, wherever the Times goes, they tend to follow.
Incredibly, for today’s MSNBC question of the day: “Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria: Is the Bush Doctrine working?” Sixty seven percent still say NO.
I’ve no doubt GWB believes liberty is superior to oppression. Certainly he believes life in a democracy is better than life under despotism. Does that make him a political triumphalist? Maybe it does.
I’ll embrace that sort of triumphalism every chance I get. Only the worst of humanity will be smothered in such an embrace. The NYT, late to the party, can’t gloat. So all gloating must be preempted. Calling for anti triumphalism makes it sound sophisticated.Silly NYT. For GWB it’s never about the gloating.
Neo,
At the risk of seeming to gloat, can we take stock of what’s gone down since the Bu$hitlerHaliburtonChimpPuppet decided that the the wonderous stability of the status quo wasn’t cuttin’ the mustard?
- Afghanistan is no longer run by the Taliban, is no longer the world’s largest terrorist training facility, and is no longer OBL’s personal playground
- Pakistan is no longer in the business of selling blueprints for the Islamic Bomb
- the Israeli security fence nearly complete and terrorist slaughter of innocent Israelis radically reduced
- one of the most hideous, perhaps the most hideous, dictators in the world no longer has a country and 20% of the world’s oil reserves to call his very own
- Libya is no longer trying to be the first on its block with and Islamic Bomb
- the Orange Revolution in the Ukraine
- Arafat’s belated demise followed by Pali’s making some noises about peace and democracy
- Egypt and Jordan cooperating to, perhaps, help figure out how to help bring peace to the West Bank and Gaza
- Lebanese marching in the streets to oust the Syrians and their puppet regime
- Iraq moving toward the possibility of a real democratic state
I’m sure I’m missing much but, heh, not bad for four years.
How could I forget…
- the UN slowly but surely being outted for the criminal organization that it is
It’s nice, but most of the compliments are pretty left-handed. You also don’t note the last paragraph, where the Times has the gall to wonder why all of this has taken so long – as if their own obstruction can just be forgotten.
Long version here.
Given the fact that the effects of general paresis are considered irreversible, the choice of street corner by the ‘Grey Lady’ is a matter of little moment. I am unsure as to why a sentient being should care about what appears on its pages. I wouldn’t spend a dime to find out today and I probably never shall.
Michael Ledeen’s piece is an exemplar of the logical process necessary to express an informed opinion. He has stressed the necessity of supporting democracy throughout the ME for as long as I have been reading his work and the only fault that I have found has to do with his assessment of the probable cost. Within this piece he identifies “experts” within State, the CIA and the NSC as being agents for a policy of, if not stasis, at minimum, reluctance to act. I doubt that the President is giving much attention to those who have proven unerringly wrong in the past but I hope that some progress might be made in reassigning them to tasks more amenable to their capabilities. Say, tribal relations in Swaziland. It remains a matter of concern that people cashing US treasury checks should be an impediment to clearly stated policy goals. Let the opposition party lead the struggle against democracy.
Should the day come when the NYT gives evidence of a neural network capable of more than reaction to gross stimuli – say by appointing Mr. Ledeen to the editorial board – then it might be worth a dime. Barring that I consider it to be impolite to note its momentary choice of a new stroll. It won’t stay out of the gutter for very long and it really lacks the internal capacity for improvement.
Yes, things have gone wonderfully. Those few people I know who have been over there have sent mainly sober but optimistic e-mails. Plus everything in the recent news. Plenty to celebrate.
But the enemy is still very much alive. And Bastogne and Iwo Jima may still be ahead. Plenty of time for the MSM to revert to form, in other words, and with a vengeance, too. That is the next battle.
Roger:
I’m confused. I thought this was the wrong war at the wrong time. How can the NYT say that Bush might be right when the majority of our friends in europe know it is wrong. I thought that true democratic reform can never be jammed down the throat of people by force, that it had to be nurtured internally.The Times assured me that the UN process was working and that Bush went to war to help his oil buddies. 15,000 American soldiers dead! Surely there is nothing that justifies that attrocity. Abu Ghraib!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That holacaust alone should condemn Bush to historical hell forever. What about the fact that Bush’s war has created more terrorists, not eliminated them. What about all the hate that Bush’s rash actions have created in the worldwide Muslim population. Osama Bin Laden is still free! Unarmored humvees. The police state style Patriot Act! Our civil rights have been trampled on. Something is wrong. Surely Maureen Dowd will resign in protest over this pack of lies contained in this editorial. How did Rove get this neo-con trash printed.
…at a time when few in the West thought it had any realistic chance.
Hmmm, “few” would seem to include some 62,000,000 Americans alone, and I’m certain of millions of supporters in all the main Western countries as well. Perhaps they are confusing “the West” with “the editorial board of the NYT”. Is that what they mean by “hubris”?
Neo-neocon,
“What I find especially heartening is that the NY Times doesn’t seem to have pulled one of those, “It happened, but it’s an accident, and not related to anything Bush did” things like I seem to recall it doing vis a vis Reagan and the fall of the USSR. ”
Not overtly anyway; not yet. That they will is inevitable. And they set up for that nicely with the last sentence of the piece:
“The wonder is less that a new political restlessness is finally visible, but that it took so long to break through the ice.”
It’s not unlike the image of a mangled but alive Jason at the end of every “Friday the 13th” movie.
Rick Ballard: Like you, I don’t plan to be spending any dimes on the NY Times for the forseeable future. But I still care what it says, and very much so, for the simple reason that its influence remains so vast. There are still many people–and most of my friends are among them–to whom the Times is the paper of record. And that fact seems to be true around the world, also.
And please don’t tell me to get new friends!! I’m too old for that
Ice-Nine–I’m sure you’re correct that the Times is retaining the ability to reverse itself at any given moment and to blame Bush for whatever disappointments may lie ahead.
But I’m still happy about this editorial today. To me, it represents something I didn’t think would ever happen, the Times giving Bush credit for some pretty big and wonderful-seeming events. I wrote more on the subject here, if anyone cares to read any of it (I seem to be rather obsessed with this topic today!)
Just give it a couple more weeks/months, I’m sure the liberal intelligensia will figure out how this was all President Clintons doing, how he had laid the groundwork, etc…
The Sunshine Warrior by Bill Keller
published NYTIMES MAGAZINE, Sunday, September 22, 2002
Mark Steyn, on the other hand, is not afraid to gloat.
I read the TIMES editorial just an hour ago, and was blown away.
Blown away.
I never, ever thought I’d see such a thing.
Just now, when I was looking for “The Sunshine Warrior” online, I re-read the closing paragraphs of the article.
I’m posting them here, because lately I’ve been hearing, constantly, that George Bush only ‘started pushing democracy’ in the Middle East when ‘every other rationale’ for the war ‘fell apart.’ (I hear this a lot.)
Here is Paul Wolfowitz back in September 2002:
Catherine:
It seems to me that anyone paying attention [and that is a minority I am afraid] would know that Bush had several reasons for going to war, but democracy and human rights were always among them.
It can be argued that the Bushies stressed wmd for the sake of the realists but those same realists still can not say where Saddam’s stockpiles ended up nor can they say for sure that the regime would not have started all over again as soon as the world stopped looking. So it seems to me that Bush presented several reasons for the invasion but the people who did not trust him just chose to ignore them.
and rasta, please keep in mind that is msnbc. consider the source.
I like Bill Keller. I liked him from the moment I read “Sunshine Warrior” in 2002.
Bill Keller also wrote one of the best pieces I’ve seen on George Bush’s religion, which made me like him even more.
Lately, I like Bill Keller because of the way he’s stood up for Judy Miller. He’s taking the heat, and he’s not backing down.
This is from “God and George W. Bush”:
neo neocon
“It happened, but it’s an accident, and not related to anything Bush did” things like I seem to recall it doing vis a vis Reagan and the fall of the USSR
It’s worse than that!
There is a belief amongst serious historians that it was the nuclear freeze movement that ended the Cold War. (There’s a historian at SUNY, I think, who has a multi-volume history of the nuclear freeze movement out making this argument. He’s used the USSR archives; he’s got some evidence. I’ve forgotten the argument, but you can probably find articles about this on the History News Network.)
WichitaBoy
“few” would seem to include some 62,000,000 Americans alone
I love it!
I hear that precise formulation so often around here that I didn’t even notice it in the article.
Every five seconds my husband tells me things like, ‘People have found’ or ‘Everyone knows’ or ‘People say’—–and I’m standing there saying, “When was the exact moment that I stopped being people?”
This never gets me anywhere, but I always say it anyway.
We got in a dust-up Sunday night when I told him he should respect & trust me more than he respects and trusts Kenneth Pollack. Seriously. This is the kind of thing that passes for a marital dispute in my house.
Terrye
It can be argued that the Bushies stressed wmd for the sake of the realists but those same realists still can not say where Saddam’s stockpiles ended up nor can they say for sure that the regime would not have started all over again as soon as the world stopped looking.
Wow.
You’ve gotten even better.
Next time I get the WMD line from my husband, I’m gonna say exactly what you just said.
That’ll be fun.
Wolfowitz for World Bank? Can he sing?
(Apparently, the gray lady of the west, LA Times, wants Bono!)http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-ed-bono25feb25,1,3305816.story
neo-neocon,
If the NYT were as influential as you posit it would be reporting on President Kerrey’s plans for withdrawal from the ME. I would never suggest that anyone find new friends on the basis of political beliefs. I would suggest, however, that taking advice on matters of importance from anyone influenced by the NYT poses a rather substantial risk. Coin flipping or dart throwing would provide better results.
One might wonder if this editorial may have been influenced by a certain lack of access to administration officials. If so, I would certainly hope that the administration reinforces the concept that you can’t be stabbed in the back by someone you keep beyond arms reach to all officials who might be impressed enough to speak to a Times reporter.
If I were to read that Keller was replacing 40 editors in the right divisions it might have some impact on my views but a single editorial has the weight of a feather balanced against the tons of sludge published every week.
Fabulous Mark Steyn op-ed, Roger!
I love this passage:
This is exactly my own philosophy of life.
I have actually said, on more than one occasion, “I’m sick of these problems, I’m ready to move on to the next problems.”
I said that when I was sick of being single and wanted to get married; then I said it again when I was sick of being childless and wanted to have kids.
In both cases, I was right.
The old problems disappeared, and the new ones came roaring in!
And the new ones were better.
Here’s the rest of the paragraph for anyone who hasn’t read it yet:
Damn straight.
Rick B
Samuel says, and I’m interested to hear your take, that the TIMES routinely costs Bush 10 points. (Sorry-can’t remember if he said the TIMES, or the MSM.)
That’s 10 points too many, IMO.
Do you see things differently?
Catherine:
Well I try.
I believe in being bold and clear and brief.
In truth the war with Saddam was inevitable, because Saddam was not going to let the US walk away. Never mind us letting him walk away. Westerners in their arrogance tend to think of men like Saddam in terms of the brown skinned victim, but Saddam had his own ideas about his place in the world and those ideas required spitting in the eye of the Great Satan.
And if Americans are to live up to our rhetoric [and this includes progressives] we need to be on the right side of history. And we can see the right side in the faces of those young Lebanese. Even after the bombings in Baghdad and Hillah and Beirut and Tel Aviv.
God protect them.
Catherine:
I think Hollywood and the Times cost Bush that many points anyway.
Maureen Dowd and Chris Rock. If they mated what would they produce? Frightening to contemplate.
Not to mention the chronic lack of imagination of people who believe that anything that does not personally effect them is a waste of time and resources.
Like some lady said to me the other day “But we are still there”.
I said, “Well we are still in South Korea too.”
huh? she says
And if the NYT (and by extension the MSM) cost Bush 10 points this past election, then Kerry really did suck eggs…
Bush would have goteen 61% to Kerrys 38% in the election
And if we look at the electoral college with each states popular vote adjusted 10 percent towards Bush, Bush would have won 515 electoral votes vs Kerrys 22
Kerry would have gotten D.C., Vermont, Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
Sounds about right
Data courtesy of http://www.uselectionatlas.org/USPRESIDENT/data.php?&year=2004&datatype=national&def=1&f=0
Roger and Catherine:
The Wolfewitz story from 2002 was stunning. it makes me question your admonition not to gloat. I don’t know if it would do any good but I think the so called experts in the MSM and on the left need a little well intentioned shame to keep them from being so arrogant. Nothing like being reminded of your massive misjudgements to make you a little more humble the next time you opine. The historical amensia and the tendency towards revisionism of the MSM is astonishing so itemizing the long list of their errors and incorrect preconceptions would possibly take a little air out of their overinflated heads.
Catherine,
Thanks for the Heller God and George stuff. That basic description would match at least 90% of religious people I know. For some reason the rabid secularist can’t get it through their heads that religous people use religion as a guide to define their values and maintain integrity to those values.
I’m going to try a new tactic when I deal with the rabid secularists who start foaming and looking for their brownshirt and jackboots at the mention of religion. I’m going to ask them:
- do you have values? (of course)
- how did you arrive at you list of values? (blah blah blah)
- how do you periodically check your list against the sometimes shifting realities of your life and the world around you? (huh? whattaya mean?)
- in moments of uncertainty, stress, confusion, or competing priorities when a difficult decision must be made, how do ensure that the decision you make is consistent to your values (i.e, that your integrity is intact)? (hummannahummanna…)
I assert that a healthy majority of people who describe themselves as “religious” have answered those questions to their own satisfaction. It may take some rephrasing of the questions to get at the answers, but I think they’ve got the answers. Religion provides a framework for considering those sorts of questions and some assistance at arriving at answers we find satisfactory. I think a much smaller prortion of My Fellow Atheists have answered those questions or have long since forgotten that they did and why. It is very easy, as an atheist, to lose track of the need for reconsidering such questions and refreshing one’s answers to them.
Oops, sorry, that was a tangent, wasn’t it.
Knucklehead – I’d be happy if the Democrats would stop talking about having values, and start talking about what those values are…
Catherine,
Retrospectively, I think the lower range of Ray Fair’s model (54%-55%) would have been a ‘natural’ outcome. I do believe that the MSM cost W between 4 & 5 percent. W’s ‘Q’ just isn’t high enough to put him in the 60% group. He’s just a tad too direct.
If you consider matters from the perspective of support rather than opposition to OIF it is of some interest to speculate how much American and Iraqi blood is on the hands of the MSM. The alphabet’s opinions weigh more in Europe than they do here and if they had shown a modicum of interest in the idea of a democratic ME perhaps Europe would have rented a backbone and Saddam might have been cowed – as Quadaffi, Assad, Mubharak, Abbas have been. I could forgive the MSM’s opposition to the Republican party’s leader because it has been a given for fifty years. I will never forgive for as long as I live the defeat, death and destruction that the MSM have supported for just as many years. Their general intentions may have been “good” in some “progressive” respect but those intentions have never embodied the ideals of freedom and liberty upon which this country was founded. Their belated recognition of today’s reality doesn’t get them out of the Dumber and Dumbest club in the least.
“Better late than never” is a sentiment that I reject completely with regard to the MSM. They have sown the wind and I will do my tiny bit to ensure they reap the full harvest.
Kieth_Indy,
Comeon now, they identify their values: Social Justice, Self-Esteem, Human Dignity, Environmental Protection, Fuzzy Math… (oh, wait, sorry, that last one just appeared somehow.)
Roger’s pegged them pretty solidly – reactionaries. They lost what they valued – “stability” of the world around them and now they’re bouncing off the walls trying to figure out how to recover some Golden Past.
Terrye
Like some lady said to me the other day “But we are still there”.
I said, “Well we are still in South Korea too.”
huh? she says
LOL!
Knucklehead
Yay!
Rick B
Interesting about W’s ‘Q.’
I could be misquoting Samuel (bad memory for numbers)—–but I’m sure I’m right when I say he thinks Bush would have had a landslide without the Iraq War. (That strikes me as correct.)
I’m basically with you on the cost in lives that results from countries refusing to join the coalition, and from a mass media that supports and in fact demands that refusal.
Shortly after the 3-week ‘short war’ my husband organized a conference on France & the U.S. One of the people he invited, who is a major figure on the liberal-left, sent him an email saying that his position was—and I think I’m quoting—’bomb France first.’
He felt that France, through its opposition, had guaranteed there would be a war.
I don’t know what to think about ‘counterfactuals’ like that, but it’s obvious that the ME understands triangulation, big-time.
If the West had taken a unified stand, I’m guessing things could have been different.
There really is such a thing as legitimacy; it affects people’s actions; it affects the private calculations of success or failure.
The Iraq War had precious little legitimacy in the ‘eyes of the world’ and of the MSM.
I do believe that Saddam himself was impervious to reason. But the rest of the Arab world recognizes a strong horse when it sees one as far as I can tell.
The entire Western world could have been the strong horse.
Instead it was left to America & our band of allies, and, within these countries, to the parties of the right alone.
That whittled our numbers down.
The Iraq War was a people’s war. Not the elites’.
First it was ‘our’ war; now it is the Iraqi people’s war (whether we are ‘still there’ or not); and it is becoming the war of the people in Lebanon and Egypt and beyond.
The MSM could have supported the people of the Arab world.
At a bare minimum they could have tried simply to perceive the people of the Arab world; they could have tried to discern whether Abu Ghraib was the whole story.
But they didn’t.
OT
Great news!!
John Tierney has been named an op-ed columnist at the TIMES!
I’m pretty sure Christopher Caldwell has also been hired as a NYTIMES MAGAZINE writer as well . . . .
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/01/business/media/01cnd-tier.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=
I love it.
Just found this headline at the TIMES:
Mideast Mix: New Promise of Democracy and Threat of Instability
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN
Published: March 1, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/01/politics/01assess.html
I’d say things are unstable, alright. In fact, I’d go so far as to say we are well past the point of facing the mere threat of instability.
Knucklehead
they identify their values: Social Justice, Self-Esteem, Human Dignity, Environmental Protection, Fuzzy Math
LOL!
Heh, Normblog has a word or two about the “stability” silliness. The, ummm…, ahhh… ‘portent fragment of text I’d like to point out (this free that and free this zone stuff is for the birds!)
Needless to say, read the whole thing
Catherine, you stopped being “people” when you seriously considered that Dubya might be correct. Get used to it. It will get worse before it gets better. Especially if 2008 presents you with a less clear choice, but the GOP gets the nod based on its recent track record. Right now, “people” are still cutting you some slack on the grounds that you might be temporarily delusional.
As for gloating, I don’t know that “people” ought to deliberately go that far. But there is a lot in the illiberal, reactionary, left-wing nuts (redundant, I know) that deserves to be mercilessly mocked. “People” that persistently foolish with any kind of power or platform cannot be reasoned with. But they can sometimes be mocked into self-improvement and reflection. It will be very hard to supply the amount of mocking needed and not occasionally stray into gloat territory.
“It will be very hard to supply the amount of mocking needed”
Steven,
Perhaps from a will and stamina viewpoint but never from a lack of mockable material. Anyone even thinking about gloating needs to remember that the stake hasn’t come close to piercing the heart of this darkness yet. We’ve miles and miles to go ere we rest.
Rick, Heh, actually I meant “hard” because of the amount of mocking needed. After awhile, a body does gets tired.
I try to save my mocking for those cases where I think it might actually get through. I am mindful, however, of what a very good professer and great human being told me about persuasion. If a teacher is lucky, he might actually see the “click” as the student finally understands–a mere 1 out of 20 times. The rest of the “clicks” he gets are because of the hard work of someone else. Sometimes that hard work was mocking by someone that could have never reaped the reward, but set the student up for, shall we say, a “less confrontational” approach.
Having thought long and hard lately on “why they hate us,” (no, not the world versus Americans, rather leftwing versus “liberty” minded Americans), I’m beginning to entertain the idea that a certain stripe of the left *really* does believe certain things: That anyone against affirmative action is a hardboiled racist; that waving the flag is only to scratch the jingo itch; that the only reason a Republican would support democracy in the ME was to get oil. And of course that list of examples goes on considerably longer than that. That sounds crazy, I know. But even after discounting for partisanship, stupidity, utter foolishness, intellectual dishonesty, that crass “what’s in it for me” that Terrye discussed, and even moral depravity–still, some behavior is left unexplained.
I bring it up, because I think some of those in the unexplained category might be the more teachable. The folks at the NYT *knew* better when they wrote all that crap. No facts, however relentless and earth shattering, will change their innermost thoughts. Those facts will only change their tactics. Some of the people that bought the crap, however, didn’t know better. They believed in the wizard. So pulling down the curtain can change them.
Yes, as Rick says, let em reap the whirlwind; it’s perhaps the only way they can get back in touch with their human/divine origins, which is what many on the left need right now.
But let’s not forget that we still need and should encourage a decent left. If we don’t have established, respectable, positions for people to oppose aspects of the system, or intelligently to question US hegemony, it is only a vacuum that will be filled by the more ruthless extortionists: we will get more terrorists and, e.g., Ward Churchills instead of real professors.
So our game should be to demand high standards of the left and to shame them relentlessly when they give in to their constant temptation to sleep with terrorists and tyrannies. But at times the shame must be lifted to help get them from weak, foolish, and manipulable to strong and moral, while not letting them forget that you are asking for an endless dose of humiliation if you accept to be used by the ruthless and uncivilized.
truepeers
A decent something. Not a left in the classical sense. Too much blindness and bloody history – the bloodiest mankind has ever seen. And still they idolize these murderers. Mao. Che. Even now.
What kind of “something” is the challenge. It can’t be the academics or the MSM or the other remnants of the Left who define it, either. The rest of us have to define it.
Stephen Mitchell
Catherine, you stopped being “people” when you seriously considered that Dubya might be correct.
Unfortunately, in my case it occurred a good three years before that, back when I was feverishly reading books by the likes of Ambrose Evans-Pritchard.
That pretty much pulled the plug on peoplehood for me.
knucklehead
Thanks for the normblog link.
This says it for me:
oblivious or conveniently silent
and in may cases, both
If the NYT et al, want to regain any credibility, they’re gonna have to do better than paraphrasing the punchline to Bill Cosby’s “Noah” routine… “You and me, George, right?”
truepeers,
I have never seen any evidence that those who embrace the materialist/determinist viewpoint have the capacity to seriously examine their faith system in the light of over 150 years of abysmal failure on all fronts. Hitchens and Geras are quite possibly the most honest intellectuals on the left and even they hold firmly to articles of faith which experience has proven to be unworkable.
As for the run of the mill leftist, they appear to be able to define themselves only in oppositional terms having little to do with anything that could be considered logical in nature. How can one hold someone who is unable to distinguish good from evil “responsible”? The materialist shell game specializes in rule changes at such a dizzying rate that even situational ethics appear to be determined by day of the week or phase of the moon. Is Chomsky any more a “real” professor than Churchill? To me, both are worthy of infinite ridicule Deprive them of sophistry and casuistry and their most memorable line would consist of “Would you like to supersize that?”.
The left has been intellectually bankrupt for many years yet the tenured twits keep indoctrinating the impressionable. I do not believe that they are capable of change and I do not see how they can stopped from filling tenure track positions with prattling parrots of their own very peculiar persuasion. It might be wiser to focus on educating parents as to which particular departments are chock full o’ nuts in the hope that they will refuse to fund very expensive non-educations.
Skookumchuck, youíre right to say no more of the classical left, but weíve got to leave the definition of new movements to those willing to stake their lives/careers on them.
Defining the left-right thing fascinates me, so a short comment if itís not too pedantic. The coinage, as I understand it, originates with one of the early French Republicís parliaments where people sat on either side of the chair according to their politics. But the symmetry of left and right was not simply architectural, but reflected how both parties were variously opposed to (resisting/participating in by resisting) the actions of the free marketplace that was the de facto middle (if not center). The left was the voice of the romantic (bourgeois) outsider and would be defender of the common people; the right was the defender of the old regime, of aristocratic clubbishness and liberties.
Today, the left is still romantic but the ìrightî is much less definable, since it includes the neocons who embrace the marketplace and so are not at all like the old aristo conservatives. I am often inclined to say that the left is the party of equality, the right of liberty, but I think this is too simple as we all respect and need both in some ways. But maybe what we need in future is a ìleftî version of neocons (tending to equality?) and a ìrightî version (to freedom). In other words, now the two sides are defined not by their historical struggles against the free market but by accepting it for better and worse.
The advent of the suicide bomber is actually a sign that such a new age is becoming established because the suicide bomber represents the last gasp of those seeking a pure and indubitable way to oppose the market system. The bomber demonstrates his desire to oppose without anticipating ñ like the hypocritical leftists and rightists of the past ñ that oneís opposition will be redeemed and rewarded in the marketplace ñi.e. the victim card, or what have you.
So if the suicidal terrorist is the apocalyptic clarification of the hypocritical game the western left (especially) has been playing for some time, the ìnew leftî (and weíll need a better term) will have to define themselves, on the one hand, in opposition to the ruthlessness of such extreme opponents and all the political conditions that foster terrorism and tyranny. Itís the ìon the other handî that is harder to define: what should they be opposed to on the right hand side? So itís the new right as much as the left that we donít yet know how to define.
Rick,
you forget about all the neocons – liberals who have been bugged my reality ñ maybe because I spoke of making good leftists. It is not impossible for people to change when they have to, when they stop being rewarded for following bad habits. There are a lot of ex-academics (like myself) who have to learn how to face up to reality. Itís not easy when you have been a long time morally adrift in a system that is morally adrift ñ there is literally a certain amount of rewiring that must go on in your mental habits and that takes a lot of time – but certainly it is not impossible or even uncommon. We tend to forget the many who lose out in the academic game and only see the winners who keep getting the rewards in the winner takes all logic of the system. We see a lack of change when there are likely a lot of people changing themselves.
Having said that, you are quite right to question whether many of the academic leftists are teaching anything morally responsible. Chomsky is a nightmare, not anyone I would want teaching my kids, not even linguistics. I know just enough about language to know I think he is as wrong in his own field as he is in politics (in fact I think the two are logically connected). I’m not sure how widely he is followed; there are conflicting opinions on this. But I think he is more appealing to the young academic than the hardened players of their disciplinary games.
I donít have the answers for reforming the system. But I think we can expect more pressure for changes as people become more aware that the romantic left is an anachronism, that its present craziness, its PC authoritarianism, is suggestive of a death spiral. I read about students fighting their professors for free speech rights, about parents now suggesting their kids consider education in trades, etc. Eventually I expect market forces will force new directions to become more firmly established. The human desire for freedom is stronger than the impetus to enforce equality.
truepeers:
Sometimes my impression is that the left is a strange amalgam of Romantic nihilism and the beliefs of the old aristocratic conservatives. Clerical, too, in that distrust of the marketplace often found in traditional Catholic thought.
No question. It is disintegrating all around us.
Yes. If I ever had a blog, and the time, it would be devoted to the exploration of this. (for me, and about three readers . . .) My thoughts often lead to this dilemma and unfortunately I keep drawing a blank. We all need to overcome this somehow and Roger’s place is a good one in which to discuss it.
truepeers,
I never forget the neo-cons. I imagine that very few of them will ever reach the paradisical Burkean shore (I expect most of them them to wind up on a Benthamite/Millsian isle where they will be forced to struggle with the definition of “the greater good” until called home for a final lesson) but I have never classified them as being of the left. I would never mock them and I agree with you that being adrift with neither pole star nor sun (nor Son) to steer by will make for a rather arduous voyage. Pragmatism coupled with moral uncertainty is a mixture that will lead to a very interesting if rather complicated life. Sort of like a “Perils of Pauline” serial without end.
I tend to think in generational rather than current terms regarding matters of this sort and I believe that my great-grandchildren may see a resolution to this situation. I know that I will not.
It doesn’t seem complicated to me. There have been several arguments going on for centuries–only the alignments and relative numbers have changed. For example, you have:
- civilization versus barbarism
- Tory conservatism versus classical liberalism
- market versus command economy
- statist versus individual liberty
- moral relativist versus moral absolutist
- despair (culminating in nihilism) versus hope
When the virtue of civilization over barbarism was unquestioned by the vast majority of those who were civilized, then, say, the conservatives and liberals could argue about the best kind of civilization. When hope is preferred to despair, people argue about the best way to spread that hope. When the existence of good and evil is accepted, then the nature of good and evil can be discussed. All of these discussion can get heated, but they can be conducted in good faith.
Even the Roman stoics and the pre-Christian Norse at their most dour didn’t despair. They walked right up to the edge of the abyss and spit in it. If extreme fatalism defined them, still they would do good as they saw it.
On the other hand, once someone crosses that line into nihilism, all that express some hope are seen as hopelessly naive. The person that accepts the existence of evil can still treat man as man. Saddam is a very *evil* man, but still a man. He is a cautionary tale of what any man could become, if he isn’t careful. The complete moral relativist doesn’t have this option, thus you see Saddam as “subhuman.” It’s hard to even discuss this kind of thing, because a lot of the words that used to mean crossing some line into evil, like “monster” have taken on the “subhuman” aspect. The modern views the relativist as more caring than the absolutist, but it is the relativism that is dehumanizing.
Anyway, with statism and command economy on the run (or at least seeing the start of a long decline), it’s not surprising that they would see some despair. And the secular humanists long ago got ousted by the materialistic, complete moral relativists in that movement. Having glorified the savage, it’s not surprising that they find common cause with the barbaric.
This is both the great flaw of Hitchens and also his strength. His atheism is too thoughtful to lapse into mere relativism, much less nihilism. He is too clear on the virtues of civilization to become romantic about barbarians. He just doesn’t understand the positive aspects of religion enough to understand why so many believers are in the foxhole with him.
And to a lesser extent, you see the same thing in those commenting here. I doubt many of us are in agreement on classical liberalism versus community liberalism versus various brands of conservatism. But we are in the same foxhole. And we are aware that we are in that foxhole, why we need to be, and why we can put off heated debate on lesser issues until that need has passed.
Hi, Roger,
Just testing the typekey logon function. Delete as desired.
Bill Quick
The Daily Pundit
Terrific comments, Steven Mitchell. Would like to read more from you and others about how the “new” conservatism might differ from and converge with classical liberalism.
–truepeers
But let’s not forget that we still need and should encourage a decent left.–
Ain’t gonna happen, watch what happens when Castro dies. They have too much invested in him to toss him – the myth – overboard.
Remember the revisionism of the last 15 years, it’s not the ideology that’s wrong, it’s just that the right people weren’t in place.
Castro was wrong, one should ask do you think Hugo has a chance to be the right man?
Rick, itís funny but I didnít think to associate the neocons with faithlessness. This may well be my mistake – my ignorance about what is common to those so labelled – but nonetheless instructive, perhaps, of shifting understandings of the term. Your association, I am guessing, is due to the fact that Strauss and some of the other early adopters of the neocon label were interested in Nietzsche and I don’t know what else.
In my mind, however, a neocon is simply one who looks to market solutions to a range of problems, and one who tends to question the old foreign policy dichotomy between idealists and ìrealistsî because he has more faith in the universal human desire for liberty. Any individual neocon may or may not have a strong religious faith. There is also another kind of faith, which is not to be discounted, and that may be common among ìneoconsî ñ the faith that comes from someone thinking a lot about religion rather than from thinking religiously.
Thinking about religion can, if one uses a faulty science, have nothing to do with faith; but when one finds a science appropriate to religion, the difference between thinking religion and religious thinking can become infinitesimally small. This requires, among other things, seeing that religions are not all the same, that their power is in the historical specificity of their revelations, and so one should respect and continue a part of these historical traditions. The result may be secularizing but with a powerful faith nonetheless. A secular Jew, for example, can put a lot faith in things and thoughts Jewish, without being interested in religion as ritual.
Hmm? Maybe, they want to sell the paper? You know. Like when fresh paint goes up on a house, people ring the doorbell to find out if it’s for sale. Meanwhile, I’m not impressed. Since nothing will ever make me subscribe to that rag, again. And, how sad it would be, if this “change of face” had anything to do with trying to pump back up their circulation figures? Anyway, once off the edge of the cliff, nothing stops the progress of gravity. Too much news, today, too, from the Quartet also seemed like Europe is trying to STOP the momentum of success that Arabs in various countries are feeling, now that democracy seems obtainable. (Or as Mark Steyn said, even a change in “for life despots,” the new ones know what shook the old ones off of their perches.) Bush has the patience of a saint. Sometimes, I just wish our military can do “whack a mole.” Is Assad in Paris, now? Can another dose of SHOCK AND AWE be stopped by the french? Assad’s not the type to buy white under to wave when he surrenders. HOPE AND PRAY. There’s a feeling of anxiety and anticipation for what lies ahead. Am I the only one?
This thread is a good example of why this blog ranks up there among the elites. So many good thoughts cogently expressed, my head almost hurts.
Regarding the left-right discussion, one of the things that currently gets a chuckle out of me every time I see a reference is the increasing use of the term “progressive.” Progressing towards what? Progressives’ core values are firmly rooted in a failed past. If liberals think that their label has been tainted so badly that they need a new one, I’m not too sure going for “progressive” is a prudent choice.
truepeers,
I need to exercise more care in expressing my thoughts. I don’t believe that neo-caon suffer from lack of faith, I think they lack a codification of beliefs. There is no credo, that I am aware of anyway, from which one might enumerate a set of principles that would constitute the inalterable foundation of neo-conservatism. Strauss himself was a bit enigmatic concerning pragmatism and his writing (and ideas) evolved considerably over time – much like Hayek in that respect.
I do concur with you regarding secular Jews ability to adopt a Jewish ethical praxis without embracing the ritual. The same can be said for Christians without a church. It is a difficult thing to do without the reinforcement of the faith community but it is not impossible.
I think that Steven got closer to where I wished to go than I did. I’ll swap one Roman stoic for a legion of nihilists any day of the week.
Rastajenk,
This comment is not worthy of the ongoing discussion but I have pondered what it is the “progressives” want to progress towards. My initial examinations suggest that what they want to achieve, what they view as progress, is movement toward getting the US closer to the European model of the welfare state. I may be way off base but I judge the progressives to be the “Third Way”, Clintonist wing of the “left”.
I believe it was Socalgal in another thread who noted that “some people just want to be taken care of.” Those are the progressives. They just want economic anxiety and uncertainy removed from their lives – they view the purpose of government as guaranteeing their jobs, mortgage or rent, payment of medical and tuition bills, and retirement income; no more, no less.
Perhaps a more incisive way to frame the old right vs. left debate is the way that Hayek does so convincingly: as the struggle between individualists and collectivists of all stripes. Norm Geras, certainly on the left, is compelling to those on the right and in the center because he has a belief in the inherent dignity and importance of individuals and thier experience. He never forgets the victims of Saddam and their suffering, nor does he excuse those who would whitewash that reality in the interest of making ideological points. Collectivism encourages groupthink, drives motivations down to the lowest common denominator, and its detrimental effects can be see in left-wing (universities) and right-wing echo chambers alike–namely, the corrosive substition of ideology for reality-based thinking and interpretation.
I really don’t care about someone’s ideological slant–I’ve known menschs and ghouls on both sides of the aisle. More impressive, to me anyway, are things like fairness, subtlety, the willingness to express doubts and second thoughts, integrity, and willingness to listen to unpopular or out-of-fashion points of view–what used to be called character.
Times of great stress tend to bring the baying ideologues to the ramparts in large numbers–as in Yeats’s great lines, “The best lack all conviction / While the worst are full of passionate intensity.” God save us all from the ill effects of passionate intensity unconstrained by reason or a sense of the inherent value of the individual.
I don’t think individualist versus collectivist quite does it, either. There are plenty of collectivist on the sides of the angels here, Tony Blair being exhibit A. In fact, I don’t think any single, thoughtful mapping works.
I trailed off before I completed my thoughts in that previous post, never giving the “simple” conclusion: The breakdown is between “losers” and “not losers”–where a person fits into camp not so much on their actual achievement or merit but on their desires. If you really want to be in the “not losers” camp and wish the same for others, then you are. If you believe in “malaise” or the inability of any Arab to pursue democracy or that the “West” is in inevitable decline or that America can isolate itself, ad nauseum–then you might be a “loser”.
It is frequently stated in the negative way. For example, Jimmy Carter and bin Laden are defacto allies on some fronts, however much it may annoy both of them that it is so. The positives tend to get stated only one direction. For example, the Iraqis want a free Iraq, we want a free U.S., and the U.S. wants a free Iraq. What is seldom said is that the Iraqs want a free U.S. It is this last bit, as much as their own self interest, that puts the Iraq people in the “not loser” camp.
Steven,
What do you think about nihilists vs. barbarians? If they are both losers, then can losers vs. not losers be the bottom or base line for our analysis, even if it remains acceptable for our not losers faith? (I’m not sure if you have a bottom line…)
Many western sympathizers with the terrorists are aptly called nihilist. But the terrorists themselves have a more certain faith in restoring the world to some kind of medieval umma ruled by sharia. The terrorists want us all to join the umma, hence become in their minds “not losers”. Sooner or later they will have to come to terms with their nihilist bed partners. It is just my perverse curiosity, but how do we read their differences?
“Sooner or later they will have to come to terms with their nihilist bed partners.”
Are you sure? That is one thing that started me thinking along “loser” lines. One of the things that makes a “loser” is that they don’t see where all of this is headed. (Or do see it, but think they can avert it later.) Even when their side has some success, most of them get cut out. Thus they lose even when they win. If that doesn’t describe the left-wing in the West, I’m not sure what does. They realy do think that Ashcroft is a bigger threat to their liberty than bin Laden. And in an alternate reality where they had power, wouldn’t they be surprised?
And a “loser” is a non-rigourous definition precisely because exactly when you cross that bottom line can’t be explained solely by these other opposite pairs we have been throwing around. Earlier, I used the example of stoics and pre-Christian Norse as a people that were very much well into a loser camp, but not ultimately losers themselves. It’s hard to be that fatalistic and still will to accomplish something. Yet they did. And of course some did fail and despair. But many had enough positive aspects *in other ways* to carry on.
In like manner, you can have people pretty firmly in the barbaric camp or so “civilized” that they long ago became decadent. Yet, something positive about them refuses to sink any lower. Same thing is true of any of the pairs. It’s not that left/right is no longer relevant. Rather, left/right, like all these categories, simply is a way to identify the losers.
So I think there is a bottom line, but it varies by individual. We all know Jimmy Carter is a loser now, but when did it happen? I don’t know. Perhaps “malaise” was the moment. At what point did he care more about wallowing in his loser status than crossing that line back into sanity? (People being what they are, he still might cross back. Stranger things have happened.)
I think the idea that political thought is a circle instead of a line, where the wackos wrap around and meet, explains a lots. But I also think it obscures this idea that some people simply drop off the line altogether.
Hmm, that’s not really correct, either. I’m struggling for the image here. Think of the circle idea as a globe instead. It’s possible to navigate to the south pole (extreme wacko, for our purposes) in a lot of different ways. It’s also possible to get extremely lost on the way. And in the moral universe, gravity works a bit differently. So lost possibilities are even more numerous than sinking or freezing to death.
And I guess my idea has the defect that it is not really possible for all those in the “loser” camp to be losers. They need a few with enough positive mojo to drive the others. Losers are hard to motivate, after all. What distinguishes the loser camp from our side however are the theoretical possibilities for winners. It’s possible for *all* on our side to win. It’s theoretically possible that bin Laden or the French or the left could have an outcome that they prefer. It’s not even theoretically possible that more than a handful of them could share a win.
Not sure if anyone is still reading here, but I couldn’t post this yesterday with the site down. So here were my quick thoughts, for what they’re worth, to Steven’s reply to my question:
Steven,
Thanks for that. But I wonder, are losers really hard(er) to motivate? In business for sure. But in politics? Isnít it always easier to focus (if not literally organize many feet on the ground) the resentments of those who are against the system in one form or another, or against whatever conspirators they think are in power? But for those on ìthe rightî who support the free market system, it is always difficult to find political ground on which to stand (you have to oppose one or another aspect of the market as it works at present), while it is easy to organize with winners in business. Thus the tendency towards irresponsible ìcriticismî among our MSM and academics. Itís the easier political path.
On another note, since you see the importance of moments when we shift from being winners to losers, or vice versa, if we are historicizing westerners, we are going to tend to keep looking further back in the past for those moment when things first got started on this winning/losing direction of ours. Some will eventually want to hypothesize a first scene or event of human consciousness to understand the basis, in the first place, for charting winners and losers in human consciousness. And then, instead of simply charting the world of losers and winners on a straight line or circle, we will tend to see our struggles as simply the latest level in a house of cards, where todayís winners and losers are defined by countless games played underneath.
Are winners simply those who forget all that while losers dwell on the past? Or is optimism best served by a sense of tradition, of faith in the human struggle?
It’s not hard to motivate a loser to agitate and gripe. They take to that like ducks to water. If they can party and feel superior at the same time, so much the better (from their point of view). See eco demonstrators, for example. If you actually want them to accomplish something though, you have a lot of work. “Well, I agree with this tree hugging business, but you know those lumberjacks are serious guys. And isn’t laying in front of bulldozers, well, dangerous. Yes, yes, I know that one time I did, but that was my second cousin, once removed driving. I knew he wouldn’t run over me.”
People that think like that are truly surprised by the bin Ladens, but even more so by Taliban John. Slackers are always surprised when someone actually does something.
It is hard to organize against “losers”, if you want to unite reasonable conservatives and classical liberals and anyone else in the “not too far gone towards loserdom” camp. They quite rightly have more important things to do. Let the “losers” act, though, and the situation changes. As I said in another topic (speaking for only myself then), reasonable people don’t mind someone playing the fool, but we do mind them acting as a serious fool.
My reaction against the individualistic versus collectivist pair as being a single explanation does not mean that I don’t think that pair has meaning. It very much does. For one thing, I think crossing into loserdom is mainly an individual decision. The collective nature of the society you find yourself in can certainly make it easier or harder to cross that line. But when push comes to shove, it is a choice.
Optimist are less likely to be losers. But they can be. Pessimists are more likely to be losers, but many are not. Depends on what else you believe.