Thursday, January 15, 2009

Got to find a reason

Russia, I dare say, is a nightmarish caricature of the Left: an abortion addiction, few smiling faces, one of the world’s gauntest birth rates (must do wonders for their carbon footprint though), an AIDS epidemic, and such murderous suppression of free speech as to make the Fair Doctrine seem fair.

But the most fundamental similarity is that neither takes reason to be supreme. Just as Russia substitutes a Nietzschean power-drive for reason, The Left never bothered to harmonize its ideals with the logic of the universe and human nature.

The Enlightenment thinkers saw reason as nature's universal language. Baruch Spinoza’s determinism logically calculated that nature acted reasonably and in accordance with its laws. His “ethics” urged men to use reason to promote natural harmony (I regret that I’m the only deterministic disciple of Spinoza at Founder’s Porch, though I suspect the other two would be if they carried their respect for reason all the way to its logical conclusion).

John Locke endorsed reason’s natural appeal too:

The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges everyone; and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind who will but consult it that, being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions.

Thus, reason was a means of securing man’s natural rights, which is conservatives’ justification for government.

Reason reflected man’s natural equality, since anyone could access it. “Every man carries about him a touchstone, if he will make use of it,” wrote Locke, “to distinguish substantial gold from superficial glittering, truth from appearances. And indeed the use and benefit of this touchstone, which is natural reason, is spoiled and lost only by assuming prejudices, overweening presumption, and narrowing our minds.” Reason requires the “ceaseless effort to understand” that Spinoza pledged to it.

With this disproportionate preface, I want to commend a few instances of President Bush’s “ceaseless effort to understand” our enemies in the Middle East without assuming prejudices.

Bush rejected multiculturalism, a writ that prevents its patrons from spotting the “superficial glittering.” As Mark Steyn put it:

The great thing about multiculturalism is that it doesn’t involve knowing anything about other cultures – the capital of Bhutan, the principal exports of Malaysia, who cares? That’s the stuff the old imperialist wallahs used to be well up on. But multiculturalism just involves feeling warm and fluffy about everyone, making bliss out of ignorance. If the guy’s rich vibrant cultural tradition involves standing over you with a scimitar shouting “Allahu Akhbar!” well, you can’t complain you’re not getting your share of cultural diversity.

Bush differentiated between the “substantial gold” of western democracy and the “superficial glittering” – if we may use such a generous term – of the Sunni apartheid in Mesopotamia and the bigotry throughout Araby. Lebanese-born writer Fouad Ajami, one of the most articulate critics of the Arab status quo, was right: “An Arab world that could not keep its terrors, and its terrorists, at home could not claim full and absolute sovereignty.”

When Bush retires to Texas, we’ll expect elaborated acknowledgment of his Iraq mistakes, won’t we? The “with us or against us” bravado was a bit heavy, the “axis of evil” a bit childish,” the disbanding of the Iraqi army a bit foolish, we’ll say. But know your song well before you start singing: Arabs aren’t post-modernists – “us” versus “them” clicks! Believe it or not, there are places in the world where people still believe in terms like “good” and “evil,” and the Arab world is such a place. And I guess the only logic I’ll offer for the Bremer regency and the army disbandment is that Iraq’s national psyche was like that of a girl beaten her whole life and attracted only to aggressors. The US had to take charge.

This is not to deny the horrors of post-invasion Iraq, but to recall that Iraqis aren’t Americans. On the one hand they’re known for their sculpting and poetry. On the other for their savagery and paranoia. Some Iraqis say the ambulance sirens are their national anthem. In George Packer's "Assassin's Gate," Iraqis spoke of garbage collectors singing songs in the back of trucks: “They loved garbage.” Anothe Iraqi said, “I don’t know anything. There’s day and there’s night. I don’t even remember my own name.” Iraqis are not Joe-the-Plumbers. The multiculty writ spits on their terribly unique fears and sorrows.

General Petraeus matches Iraq’s poetic melancholy with his mantra “Tell me how this ends.” I don’t know. But something in Arab culture had to end indeed, and give Bush his due for understanding it enough to begin to change it.

2 comments:

Dan L said...

Great facesmash to multiculturalism Pat. What is God's greatest gift to us? Love, wait, no, Reason, no no no, Free Will.

Stephen said...

Obviously God's greatest gift is Rob. But any of Dan's listed will sit well as a close second.