Here's something that's been troubling me. If I'm correct, that the "silver lining" in this whole Abu Ghraib mess is that it casts the behavior of totalitarians and terrorists in higher relief, then there's an obvious motivation on the part of the totalitarians to make more and more outrageous allegations. It distracts attention from their own shortcomings, and even confers tactical, if not strategic, advantage. And the issue is then no longer how to deal with real problems of abuse, but how to deal with the appetites of belief, the attractions of paranoia. If totalitarianism succeeds in finding allies on the left willing to promote outrageous allegations (and there's now one floating around the British Isles that the Americans torture children, and all too many willing to believe it) then they will have won a major victory, the cost of which is inestimable.
If it turns out to be one of the weaknesses of the human psyche that the more outlandish the claim, the more credibility it has, then we're in for quite a rough ride. Our efforts to uncover the "truth" about events at Abu Ghraib may actually be a little quaint and naive.
But the Jews have been on the receiving end of this sort of malign for generations, where no accusation was too harsh, and where the sum total of belief seemed to justify genocide.
Except that most of the tools of genocide are in the hands of the target of the rumors. Can our enemies think this through?
This was, in fact, my nightmare scenario about the Middle East. That the tide of anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism would be the key that unlocks the political paranoia of the entire region, and sweeps the harbingers of lies to power. It's the worst of all possible worlds for us, and the worst of all possible worlds for the Arab Middle East.
So the next time you hear the hyperbole of Seymour Hersh, et al, consider what we ought to do if truth is no longer an issue... if the only issue is what people are willing to believe, and the more foul smelling the muck, the better.
Plato, in Republic, asked a telling question that later became the theme of the "Passion of the Christ" (not the movie, but the real thing). Paraphrasing, it went something like: "Who is truly happy, a good man who is taken for evil and tortured and killed on the rack, or the evil man who all the world takes to be good, and who lives his life in luxury and adulation?"
What is our motivation, in other words, to play the naive game of discovering the truth about our own shortcomings, rather than the game of exploiting belief, and power, especially if our enemies find an edge in playing the latter game? I am not yet certain that the exploiters of paranoia have the advantage, but it keeps me awake at night. It's beginning to worry me quite a lot.
Posted by Demosophist at May 8, 2004 03:54 AM | TrackBack