"His Mind To Him An Empire Is"

By "empire" is meant a locus of postrealitybasing.

As to "postrealitybasing," PRB, punctuation fails: a mathematician could go ahead and write

[ post [reality basing] ]

and careful intonation could make the correct tree diagram clear in spoken English, but abandoned to print or keyboarding, one has to assume that nobody will suppose that there exists some shadowy entity named "postreality" for conspirators and conspiracy lovers to repose themselves upon. In the case at hand, the actual base goes like this:

. . . in point of fact the events in Gaza could just as well be seen as something (planned or unplanned) facilitating the implementation of a pre-existing plan.

What makes this an imperial example, imperial almost after the Crawford Dynasty's own manner, is "could just as well be seen." That's not quite 200-proof PRB of the sort Dr. Suskind first diagnosed: a true imperial perp would probably insist on "must rather be seen." I think. Yet perhaps not, perhaps the full triumph of Conceptual Empire consists in not giving a hoot how things are seen by anybody outside the Officers Mess? (There is some danger of Napoleon in Hamlet's nutshell off in that direction, however.)

Anyhow, we are graciously permitted to "just as well" see

... that the Gaza events are generally ... another catastrophic defeat for the Bush administration (followed by remedial plans such as these seat-of-the-pants economic projects) ....

Could we "just as well see" some third possibility altogether? Perhaps that the said events were completely unanticipated by the GOP geniuses and were also completely uncaused by them? A sadly subimperial point of view, to be sure, since it would leave nobody in particular in charge, or even anybody vigorously attempting to be in charge. ("Ick, 'shit happens!' -- who ordered that?")

Of course Mr. Bones and I don't mind if you "just as well see" Gaza as a proof of Dr. Velikovsky's new physics, or Prof. Toynbee's civilisation collecting, or even the Global Clashism™ of Huntington of Harvard. The more the merrier! And within limits, the dottier the merrier also. Perhaps Dr. V. is a bit too far-fetched, but wait, let's see, ... gimme a minute, ... how about this one? Why not "just as well see" that the Old Euros have deliberately engineered these latest complexities as part of their well known schemes to establish a less unipolar Weltordnung? (Notice to whom the startled elephants run first! Can this be a coincidence, I ask you? &c. &c.)

Doubtless PRB is not a tenth as much fun when you don't really believe in it and are just going through the mental motions to familiarize yourself with them and try to figure out what other folks see in this parlor game. A waste of time, no doubt, to go through such motions when one does not start with a certain attitude towards Reality in the first place. Not about the true facts of the Palestine Puzzle or which side one is on about the Crawfordites, but about all Reality simply as such. Aristotle and Mr. Bones and I will never get the hang of PRB, I fear, because we are so shallow and insensitive as not to mind a WYSIWYG universe. Presented with what purports to be an instance of Reality, we do not instantly assume that it must be only delusive Appearance, not Secret Truth.

To be sure, a devotee of "could just as well be seen as" is not completely enserfed to Parmenides and Plato, at least not as long as her "just as well" can itself be taken WYSIWYG and does not secretly mean something LeoStraussian like "ignorant dunces like you may take that other simplistic view if you like, sir, for we philosophers have learned that it is never any use to argue against vulgar misconceptions." Unfortunately the rhetoric of conspirators and conspiracy lovers is stacked against taking such a "just as well" at face value. What would you make of some kind new friend at the track who offers you a hot tip in utter contradiction of The Racing Form on the understanding that the two guesses are equally likely to be correct, that the fourth race is a perfect toss-up between, say, "Conventional Winner" and "Slowpoke Blues"?

I doubt you've ever been offered an opportunity to close with Secret Truth on precisely those terms, and I further doubt that it is an accident that you have not. The rhetoric of such a situation comes pre-stacked automatically: nobody offers insider tips, real or alleged, except as being superior to the consensus of outsiders. Since everybody takes this stacked rhetoric for granted, ""could just as well be seen as" does not come within miles of mendacity, it's only a conventional form of politeness, or at worst a venial -- because transparent -- attempt at manipulation. The most self-assured bigot in town can say "Well, I don't know for sure, of course, but it does seem to me that, despite what we have been told , . . ." in hopes of making a sale.

The sale-making context no doubt explains why it is only a two-pronged "could just as well be seen as." Why drag in anything other than what the mark believes already and what the salesman wants the mark to believe instead? Mr. Bones and I at once think of tertium quids galore, but that just goes to show that we've come to the intellectual marketplace to enjoy the show, or to dabble in amateur sociology à la Master David Brooks, not for personal shopping.

We ourselves are certainly not going to buy any Gaza product at all, having long since abandoned the Palestine Puzzle as far beyond us to solve, vado in mirabilibus supra me. Thus we may more or less impartially notice that both obtruded prongs of the "could just as well be seen as" dichotomy agree tacitly on one point that might be considered problematical. Dame Conventional Wisdom assures everybody that the militant Republicans have suffered "another catastrophic defeat." No, rebuts Mr. Hot Tipster, "in point of fact the events in Gaza [are] something (planned or unplanned) facilitating the implementation of a pre-existing plan." Well, you're the one who's going to pay one or the other of them, if anybody is, Ms. Customer, so it is up to you to choose, but you might notice that both vendors seem to think they can read the mind of GOP extremism and discern its deep-laid plans. With Mr. Tipster the political mentalism act is obvious and explicit, but Lady Wisdom is really just the same, a medium too, for how can she tell a catastrophic defeat from a glorious victory unless she knows what was being attempted to be done?

We prescind from Gaza and Palestine, but when it comes to Rancho Crawford, it seems to us the WYSIWYG view would be that the cowpoker vigilantes simply don't know what they want in the Levant any more, and have not known since they finally abandoned all hope of discovering Mr. Anthony Blair's terror-tipped forty-five-minute specials in the former Iraq. Since then there has been nothing but Micawberism and stumblebumism as regards "Iraq," it's been all Karl Rove's War, so to speak, ever since, and Mr. Rove does not deal in plans: desperately seekin' anythin' at all (or its opposite) that can be spun as Success and Victory for Little Brother and the Big Management Party is not to be dignified with the name of "planning." Let's be serious, please, folks!

As regards the Middle East generally, GOP extremism seems (WYSIWYG fashion, once more, that "seems") to have started off with a non-plan to the effect that "Whatever Bill Clinton did was wrong." Since President Clinton rather notoriously had genuine and wonk-worthy plans for the Levant, just not havin' any plans at all was, and is, perhaps exactly what GOP genius requires. The consequences of planlessness have not been altogether satisfactory to Boy and Party, I suspect, especially insofar as the Tel Aviv statelet may have been expected to take over the Western Civistan Planning Department by Crawford's default, but these consequnces have not yet amounted to any mess comparable to that deliberately made in Peaceful Freedumbia.

Perhaps you think I'm trying to cheat about the Brave New Gaza? Well, OK, let's say "did not amount before last week to any mess comparable" &c. &c. No big deal. It will take a bit of time to make out how alarmed or rejoiced the elephants actually are about the very latest developments. I'm sure you can make out, Ms. Customer, that I expect them to be cluelessly flummoxed as usual, but you can have that opinion for free, ma'am, because I'm no more here to sell a Gaza product to you than to buy one from either Wisdom or Tipster.

___

The above treatment of PRB syndrome is a bit harsh. Mr. Hot Tipster and other Platonist insiders doubtless do not think of themselves as "post-realitybasers," but as "post-unmasking basers," wise builders upon the firm rock of Secret Truth rather than the shifting sands of deceptive appearances, that lure so many fools to ruin. Unlike the Crawford Empire boob that talked to Dr. Suskind, they do not typically consider that the unmasking process creates the thing unmasked, but that it was there all along waiting to be revealed to the wisdom of the wise. When it comes to human events, the second part of their Credo really won't quite do, for to buy a Gaza product from Mr. Hot Tipster is itself a human event, and thus a secondary cloud of Heisenberg uncertainty (as it were) is bound to arise all around Mount Parmenides, Olympus of the Unmaskers though it be. The obnubilation effect is subtle, for of course to agree with Tipster and his special sources that the (true, and therefore secret) GOP would dearly like to treat the Levant pretty much as the Mongols did -- and positively schemes in private to do just that! -- does not and can not directly inspire the (apparently existing or WYSIWYG) GOP to do so. Even to speak of indirect inspiration is far from easy. When Tipsterism, or something like it, does reach the ears of the Elephant People, I'd guess the usual upshot is something like "THEY have always hated Wunnerful US. THEY are always goin'ta hate Wunnerful US." So far, so bad, but there is no plunge straight into the ultimate abyss, no "So therefore WE must treat THEM according to the Mongol Plan."