Here we see Laura walking Barney while supporting the Iraq policy; or, perhaps the Whore of Babylon with her beast. It's confusing...Or, the same thing!
Ok, this is probably a stretch, although I do not think so. But Michael Ignatieff's article in Sunday's NY Times Magazine is worth considering from several points of view. Ignatieff left academe where he was kind of a neo-conservative at Harvard, pushing the Iraq war as the answer, as an Iraqi exile put it to him:
"hat it was the only chance the members of his generation would have to
live in freedom in their own country. How distant a dream that now
seems." Well, if one thinks of liberty as Hobbes thought of liberty, I guess you're right. Othewise, not so much... Iggy cites Isiah Berlin who was a philosopher of the pithy thought, as saying the the trouble with academics and commentators is that they care more about wheter Ideas are interesting as opposed to whether they are true. Assume motion is a state equivalent to rest, and you have the start of Newtonian physics...which is becoming as overtaken by reality as the Ptolemic universe. You can have fun with what ifs and outright silliness if no one is going to die because of it. In politics, Iggy points out that " n political life, false ideas can ruin the lives of millions and
useless ones can waste precious resources. An intellectual’s
responsibility for his ideas is to follow their consequences wherever
they may lead. A politician’s responsibility is to master those
consequences and prevent them from doing harm." He goes on to cite Berlin again, as follows:
"The attribute that underpins good judgment in politicians is a sense of
reality. “What is called wisdom in statesmen,” Berlin wrote, referring
to figures like Roosevelt and Churchill, “is understanding rather than
knowledge — some kind of acquaintance with relevant facts of such a
kind that it enables those who have it to tell what fits with what;
what can be done in given circumstances and what cannot, what means
will work in what situations and how far, without necessarily being
able to explain how they know this or even what they know.” Politicians
cannot afford to cocoon themselves in the inner world of their own
imaginings. They must not confuse the world as it is with the world as
they wish it to be. They must see Iraq — or anywhere else — as it is." Later in the article, he cites Kant, preferred philosopher of the Great IOZ, after bitch-slapping Edmund Burke. "Fixed principle matters. There are some goods that cannot be traded,
some lines that cannot be crossed, some people who must never be
betrayed. But fixed ideas of a dogmatic kind are usually the enemy of
good judgment. It is an obstacle to clear thinking to believe that
America’s foreign policy serves God’s plan to expand human freedom.
Ideological thinking of this sort bends what Kant called “the crooked
timber of humanity” to fit an abstract illusion. Politicians with good
judgment bend the policy to fit the human timber. Not all good things,
after all, can be had together, whether in life or in politics."
His conclusion is worth citing as a whole. So, I'll skip to through to the best parts...
Good judgment in politics, it turns out, depends on being a critical judge of yourself. It was not merely that the president did not take the care to understand Iraq. He also did not take the care to understand himself. The sense of reality that might have saved him from catastrophe would have taken the form of some warning bell sounding inside, alerting him that he did not know what he was doing. But then, it is doubtful that warning bells had ever sounded in him before. He had led a charmed life, and in charmed lives warning bells do not sound...Prudent leaders force themselves to listen equally to advocates and opponents of the course of action they are thinking of pursuing. They do not suppose that their own good intentions will guarantee good results. They do not suppose they know all they need to know. If power corrupts, it corrupts this sixth sense of personal limitation on which prudence relies. A prudent leader will save democracies from the worst, but prudent leaders will not inspire a democracy to give its best... Daring leaders can be trusted as long as they give some inkling of knowing what it is to fail. They must be men of sorrow acquainted with grief, as the prophet Isaiah says, men and women who have not led charmed lives, who understand us as we really are, who have never given up hope and who know they are in politics to make their country better. (Italics added, because I can...)
Ok, AXE, Iggy writes good stuff but what the hell does this have to do with Christianity. Well, I just started "The closing of the Western Mind " by Charles Freeman, with some trepidation I must admit. Laundry lists of heresies -- Arians, Donatists, Dualpnaturists, phelobomists, philatelists and so on with a discussion of the obscure nonsense that led to the whole mess and the ultimate result which was usually murder by imperial or ecclesiastical fiat can get boring, frustrating and ultimately as illuminating as the Boise White Pages. However, his thesis is that the way Christianity developed starting in the Fourth Century buried the Greco-Roman intellectual traditions of empiricism and rational idealism. In the introduction, he cites Pythagoras who had quite a bit more to say than "Τακτοποιημένη συν το β που τακτοποιείται είναι ίση με το γ που
τακτοποιείται." (Thank you, Babelfish!) Pythagoras contends, according to Freeman, that nothing of certainty can be said about the Gods because "the problem is too complex and life is too short." Rather than running out of steam, Freeman contends that the Greek
tradition of rational inquiry using both deductive and inductive reasoning was subverted by Christianity thanks to the authoritarian power of the late Roman empire. Constantine didn't want any Marcus Aurelius springing up. Julian the Apostate got hosed; the temples got closed; the books got burned; and Tertullian became their Leo Strauss. Thus, the parallel between Bush-thought, the blithering idiot-imperator decreeing and the masses stumbling along behind, waving palm fronds... Thus, one can wave flags and hold up banners about cutting and running and show PowerPoint slides with slogans and claim rational discourse. I've read some interesting discussions of the way the early church councils went down, and a session of Hannity and Colmes resembles Nicea to a great extent as the true believer (who morphs into Santa Claus, go figure....) boxes Arius' ears. And then colludes with Athanasius and Constantine to have him smothered in the public latrines . Ah, good times...still to come.
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