I watch LinkTV via satellite every once in awhile, and it's just brimming with these authentic looking and rather exotic documentaries. I saw one today that stars a double amputee in Kampuchea, who invented some special wheelchair that he teaches people to use. Almost as an afterthought to this humanitarian presentation the filmmakers present the US bombing in the '70s and the land-mining of Cambodia that resulted in most of the amputees. And after mentioning that fact they more or less state flatly that the unconscionable bombing and mining left a disorder that "led to" the rise of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. So if I were watching this program and wasn't aware of the details, and perhaps had an innate revulsion for war, I'd just assume that this was all presented honestly. The unavoidable inference is that the US = Khmer Rouge = genocide.
But what has always amazed me is that otherwise intelligent people who swallow this perspective also believe that they're "independent" in spirit, when they do so. It never occurs to them that they're being spoon fed a point of view, and that there are flaws in the tapestry that really ought to be questioned by an intelligent and independent spirit. Like, yeah there are power vacuums created by lots of circmustances that are negative, indifferent, or even positive... but they aren't always filled by genocidal murderers. Like the fact that if the families of the amputees are economically devastated, left to prostitution and begging, might not the ideology and legacy of socialism be partly to blame for the dearth of opportunities? Like the fact that if the aftermath of the bombing left a power vacuum in Cambodia, what about the overnight exit of American forces from Indochina at the behest of the "peace movement?" And this raises the question that if we suddenly pulled out of Iraq at the urging of the current peace movement (the more war, but later movement) would the role of that pullout in the resulting internecine turmoil be forgotten, and the consequences simply ascribed to US aggression again? You bet it would. The 'peace movement" stands around with wide eyes and hands displayed, palms forward, saying "We din't do nuthin'," and we wonder, are they just stupid? Or is something else going on.
I really wouldn't mind supporting an exotic and humanitarian mission if it weren't infused with the sort of mind poison these folks are sewing like seeds of change.
Lloyd Cohen, a law professor at George Mason University, wrote a paper recently about the "Palestinian Problem" that has a novel thesis. He says that the problem is really the consequence of Israeli lust. He's basically building a case that for cultural and circumstantial reasons Israelis have been swept up by the dream that they could trade land for peace, without noticing that the Arab populations and leadership in the region aren't motivated by a desire for peace, but by a desire for revenge. The "lust for peace" has distorted Israeli thinking and policy and led to the development of a cancer. So, I'm thinking that if this thesis applies to Israel, perhaps it has broader implications?
A theme of a book I feel is one of the seminal works of the young 21st Century, Paul Berman's Terror and Liberalism, is that the peace movements of the last 150 years have been animated by "wishful thinking," which helps to explain their often self-destructive behavior. But my friend's thesis takes a step beyond that, to say that it's not merely a wish for, but a lust for peace that's the root of this evil. It makes sense because the tendency of lust to cloud the mind and induce a kind of tunnel vision, obscures causal chains that aren't part of the unnaturally narrowed focus of extreme desire. The concept explains not only the behavior of a few aging bell-bottom-wearing nostalgic ex-hippies or their modern deconstructionist emulators, but also the single-minded obsession of a Paul Krugman, or the lapse in professional judgment of a Dan Rather. And it's also something that could well have animated a Kerry administration had he won, in spite of what he claimed about his resolve to throttle the terrorists with his own bare hands.
I think it's time we begin to look beyond mere ideology, and to consider the role that lust may be playing at the heart of liberalism.
(Cross-posted by Demosophist to Anticipatory Retaliation and The Jawa Report)
Posted by Demosophist at November 20, 2004 10:23 AM | TrackBack