Saturday, February 15, 2003

MEANWHILE, the NY Times interviews some Euro intellectuals wondering whatever happenned to that good ol' American freedom-loving, individualistic spirit.

posted by clark 10:20 AM

FOR THOSE OF YOU considering getting up from comfortable nihilism and going to the big marches today, here's some encouragement-of-sorts from Robert Byrd, one of the few US Senators who currently dares to show a backbone:

"To engage in war is always to pick a wild card. And war must always be a last resort, not a first choice. I truly must question the judgment of any President who can say that a massive unprovoked military attack on a nation which is over 50% children is "in the highest moral traditions of our country". This war is not necessary at this time. Pressure appears to be having a good result in Iraq. Our mistake was to put ourselves in a corner so quickly. Our challenge is to now find a graceful way out of a box of our own making. Perhaps there is still a way if we allow more time."

posted by clark 10:09 AM

Wednesday, February 12, 2003

THE RIGHT-WING GOON SQUAD has been spending the past year and a half denouncing "pluralism" and "diversity" as ideologies that breed terrorists. I've been looking for the proper way to say "bah" to that particular malarkey.

I found it in this essay by the late philosopher and historian Isaiah Berlin.

Berlin (1909-97) believed, as I do, that dogmatic ideology (any dogmatic ideology) is the eternal ruin of the human race, and that the only way out of that trap is to acknowledge we're a complex species in a complex world, to resist the temptation of too-easy answers, and to expose oneself to highly divergent points of view. But Berlin also distinguishes this pluralism from "relativism," the unquestioning acceptance of other viewpoints (or the tolerance of intolerance):

I do not say "I like my coffee with milk and you like it without; I am in favor of kindness and you prefer concentration camps"—each of us with his own values, which cannot be overcome or integrated. This I believe to be false. But I do believe that there is a plurality of values which men can and do seek, and that these values differ... And the difference it makes is that if a man pursues one of these values, I, who do not, am able to understand why he pursues it or what it would be like, in his circumstances, for me to be induced to pursue it. Hence the possibility of human understanding....

"The enemy of pluralism is monism—the ancient belief that there is a single harmony of truths into which everything, if it is genuine, in the end must fit... that those who know should command those who do not. Those who know the answers to some of the great problems of mankind must be obeyed, for they alone know how society should be organized, how individual lives should be lived, how culture should be developed.

"This is the old Platonic belief in the philosopher-kings, who were entitled to give orders to others. There have always been thinkers who hold that if only scientists, or scientifically trained persons, could be put in charge of things, the world would be vastly improved. To this I have to say that no better excuse, or even reason, has ever been propounded for unlimited despotism on the part of an elite which robs the majority of its essential liberties.

"Someone once remarked that in the old days men and women were brought as sacrifices to a variety of gods; for these, the modern age has substituted the new idols: isms. To cause pain, to kill, to torture are in general rightly condemned; but if these things are done not for my personal benefit but for an ism—socialism, nationalism, fascism, communism, fanatically held religious belief, or progress, or the fulfillment of the laws of history—then they are in order.

"Most revolutionaries believe, covertly or overtly, that in order to create the ideal world eggs must be broken, otherwise one cannot obtain an omelette. Eggs are certainly broken—never more violently than in our times—but the omelette is far to seek, it recedes into an infinite distance. That is one of the corollaries of unbridled monism, as I call it—some call it fanaticism, but monism is at the root of every extremism."

The election-stealers and the demagogues in DC now tell us we have to fall into line with their brand of intolerant monism, or risk being accused of supporting an overseas gang's brand of intolerant monism. This situation blantantly stinks. We must demand better, and millions of us are doing so.

But while you protest, ask yourself what type of "regime change" you'd like to see in the US. I've read a lot of "radical" political schemes and utopian dreams over the years. Most of them would require a "benevolent dictator" or philosopher-king, or a ruling caste of philosopher-kings. Even some of the Eugene anarchists of WTO infamy want to make everybody conform to a single way of life (even down to what clothes we'd be allowed to wear and which foods we'd be allowed to eat).

I wish I knew who first wrote the old cliché, "One man's utopia is another man's dystopia" (or reign or terror, or just plain hell). We've gotta get the country out of its current, ultra-stupid situation. But there's a larger task beyond that—helping build a nation, and a world, that's more friendly toward real pluralism, real diversity, real debate, and real complexities.

A lot will have to change to make that happen. And it's the kind of change that can't be accomplished just by putting somebody in charge to order changes.

posted by clark 11:29 PM

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