Sunday, February 20, 2005
Out of Gas
I was interested to watch the recent debate between Richard Perle and Howard Dean, which took place on February 17 and was aired on C-Span on February 19. The debate made the local evening news as a result of the shoe that was thrown at Perle by an audience member. (Click here to see video of the shoe throwing. Click here for my post about this on Friday.)
Perle, in his opening remarks, was articulate, matter-of-fact, and respectful of the overtly hostile audience. Dean, in rendering the liberal-Democratic case against the War in Iraq, really sounded quite sophomoric. His delivery was urgent, his voice was raised in the manner of a rant, and he gave the impression that he is still campaigning. But the remarkable thing about his comments was what they revealed about current liberal thinking on foreign policy; how shallow and incoherent is their understanding of the forces at work in the world, at least as articulated by the Democratic party's new chairman. Who, afterall, could be persuaded by the notion, as propounded by Dean, that our (war time) foreign policy, in order to earn the respect of the world community, must be respectful of the environment.
The idea that liberalism is out of gas has been a subject of discussion since at least the November election. It is taken up again by a highly respected writer of the left, Martin Peretz, in the current issue of The New Republic magazine. In an essay called 'Not Much Left', Peretz surveys the field of liberal ideas and finds mostly ruins. As TNR is a subscription-only site, we are indebted to Wretchard at The Belmont Club for his citations from the Peretz essay and, as usual, his own excellent comments.
One senses in Peretz the momentary triumph of intelligence over loyalty. He understands the symptoms of the Liberal disease, but his uncertainty over the location of the tumor makes him hesitate to press down on the scalpel. But this does not stop him from denouncing the fake cures offered up by others.
Paradoxically, the only hope for Liberalism is to reject Liberalism itself. It must regain the idea that the truth is discoverable and not a matter of political correctness; and then a whole succession of insights will follow: who the enemy is; how he may be beaten; what the sound of children playing in the yard really means.
Perle, in his opening remarks, was articulate, matter-of-fact, and respectful of the overtly hostile audience. Dean, in rendering the liberal-Democratic case against the War in Iraq, really sounded quite sophomoric. His delivery was urgent, his voice was raised in the manner of a rant, and he gave the impression that he is still campaigning. But the remarkable thing about his comments was what they revealed about current liberal thinking on foreign policy; how shallow and incoherent is their understanding of the forces at work in the world, at least as articulated by the Democratic party's new chairman. Who, afterall, could be persuaded by the notion, as propounded by Dean, that our (war time) foreign policy, in order to earn the respect of the world community, must be respectful of the environment.
The idea that liberalism is out of gas has been a subject of discussion since at least the November election. It is taken up again by a highly respected writer of the left, Martin Peretz, in the current issue of The New Republic magazine. In an essay called 'Not Much Left', Peretz surveys the field of liberal ideas and finds mostly ruins. As TNR is a subscription-only site, we are indebted to Wretchard at The Belmont Club for his citations from the Peretz essay and, as usual, his own excellent comments.
Paradoxically, dogmatism is rooted in relativism more than in the belief that real truth is discoverable. For as long as the truth is believed to be "out there"; it will be sought. When its existence is doubted none will venture into the dark. Under those conditions, we get exactly what Peretz describes: an illogical attachment to old formulations of the 1960s, which can be uttered only because they are hallowed.It's much easier, more comfortable, to do the old refrains. You can easily rouse a crowd when you get it to sing, "We Shall Overcome." One of the tropes that trips off the tongues of American liberals is the civil rights theme of the '60s. Another is that U.S. power is dangerous to others and dangerous to us. This is also a reprise from the '60s, the late '60s. Virtue returns, it seems, merely by mouthing the words.
But when the world changes -- and it is no longer the 1960s -- Liberalism finds it that cannot, dares not utter anything new; and that is dangerous because it means inaction. Peretz scathingly describes how Liberals attitudes have buried themselves in a time capsule where blacks are forever to be maintained as objects of pity to be defended from Bull Connors. And where no real black Americans can be found to fit the bill, a mountebank will be produced.The biggest insult to our black fellow citizens was the deference paid to Al Sharpton during the campaign. ... To him can be debited the fraudulent and dehumanizing scandal around Tawana Brawley (conflating scatology and sex), the Crown Heights violence between Jews and blacks, a fire in Harlem, the protests around a Korean grocery store in Brooklyn, and on and on. Yet the liberal press treats Sharpton as a genuine leader, even a moral one, the trickster as party statesman. ...
It is typologically the same people who wanted the United States to let communism triumph--in postwar Italy and Greece, in mid-cold war France and late-cold war Portugal--who object to U.S. efforts right now in the Middle East. You hear the schadenfreude in their voices--you read it in their words--at our troubles in Iraq. For months, liberals have been peddling one disaster scenario after another, one contradictory fact somehow reinforcing another, hoping now against hope that their gloomy visions will come true. I happen to believe that they won't.
One senses in Peretz the momentary triumph of intelligence over loyalty. He understands the symptoms of the Liberal disease, but his uncertainty over the location of the tumor makes him hesitate to press down on the scalpel. But this does not stop him from denouncing the fake cures offered up by others.
And it is a condition related to the desperate hopes liberals have vested in the United Nations. That is their lodestone. But the lodestone does not perform. It is not a magnet for the good. It performs the magic of the wicked. It is corrupt, it is pompous, it is shackled to tyrants and cynics.
Paradoxically, the only hope for Liberalism is to reject Liberalism itself. It must regain the idea that the truth is discoverable and not a matter of political correctness; and then a whole succession of insights will follow: who the enemy is; how he may be beaten; what the sound of children playing in the yard really means.
# posted by mds : 9:30 PM
