When what the troublemakers wish to give offense about is Kiddie Krusadin’, they ought either to keep lots and lots of safe distance between caritas and themselves, or else plunge into the deep end of the pool, complete with citations from Augustinus and Ibn Hazy and N. Vincent Peale set forth at length in the original tongues. Makin’ "war" against the Jihád Fiends pretends to be a department of real belligerency and should therefore be held to the sternest intellectual standards of Mars and Bellona. Sophists have before now made out a case that one does evildoers a favor by killin’ ’em, and maimin’ ’em, and collaterally damagin’ folks in their immediate vicinity, and so forth and so on. To classify such behavior as charitable is a perfectly possible intellectual trick, undoubtedly, but it is not one to be played at idly and incidentally.
This morning's particular señorito is only makin’ "war" on alleged aiders and abetters of the Jihád Fiends, and he is doin’ so in a forum where only approved Big Management Party apologists are permitted to address the troops of Lord Mammon. Neither of these additional circumstances is propitious for a grown-up discussion of what is or ain’t "uncharitable."
Fortunately the Jingo's jester Pilate is thoroughly unserious. D. Henninger thinks, if he thinks at all as he scribbles such routine Party bilge, of uncharity as a sort of cousin to libel and slander. He cannot be convicted as long as what he vented seemed to him true at the time. Accordingly, to ask whether it is uncharitable to make doves and donkeys out as hopeful for the success and victory of Global Tourism -- this in the path of the greater glory of Boy and Dynasty and Party and Ideology, all hail! -- quickly turns into the question of whether there is any persuasive analogy between Tet in 1968 and the Second Muqtadan War forty years on. If there is, the WSJ señorito specimen can be as rude as it likes. If there is not, . . . . Well, I'm not quite sure what would happen in that case, because the specimen thinks its analogy is inexpugnable.
To put it in neocomradely fashion,
| Is it uncharitable to suggest that when the fighting erupted in Basra last week between Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army and the U.S.-trained Iraqi army, some opponents of the war hoped it would become George Bush's Tet Offensive? That is, a battle whose military details are largely irrelevant, but whose sudden violence "proves" to voters that a U.S. military commitment is unwinnable and should be abandoned? It was hard not to miss the antiwar spin coming off reports of the fighting, after a year of unmistakable gains from the Petraeus surge strategy. (...) The Democrats appear so invested in a failure that a half-week of violence erases a year of progress. What is the source of such instincts? |
The ellipsis is short, two sentences in which jestin’ Pilate swiftboats particular individuals who can take care of themselves. By my count, Mr. Bones, the final "instincts" is the 181st word of today's pro-Party scribble, and by the time we get to it, theology has sunk out of sight altogether -- unless, indeed, amateur Freudianity is to be so classified. D. Henninger moves on rapidly: the specimen itself can't legitimately be accused of uncharity because in fact its enemies and the enemies of the Jingo are "invested in a failure." That havin’ been solidly established, there remains five or six hundred words in which to explain the aetiology as well as the diagnosis. What started, not without a certain dignity, as pretended Superstition or Enthusiasm has degenerated into quack psychoanalysis over the course of four microparagraphs.
To save time, the specimen asserts, without detectable evidence, that what we have here is specifically an instinct-based investment in a failure: doves and donkies have not actually worked all the details and contingencies out with EXCEL® and written their bottom line up with POWERPOINT®, they -- we -- evidently just "know in our hearts" after the B. Goldwater manner of 1964 that failure in Peaceful Freedumbia will be good for them/US. [1]
Eventually it does get around to presentin’ some evidence, though, Mr. Bones, and for a wonder, evidence that we do not happen to know: [2]
| One can rediscover that worldview by watching the Academy Award winning 1974 documentary about Vietnam, "Hearts & Minds." This film, by director Peter Davis and producer Bert Schneider, stands as a useful, explicit demarcation for an American political culture that broke in half during the 1960s and '70s. Toward the film's end, Daniel Ellsberg, of Pentagon Papers fame, casts off the preceding generation when he tells the camera that Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon all "lied." He adds: "We weren't on the wrong side" in Vietnam. "We are the wrong side." By this, the movie makes clear, is meant in part that America had become dangerously enamored with a culture rooted in martial values. The problem isn't the military, which is inevitable. The problem is militarism. "Hearts & Minds" makes associations between the war and a gung-ho high-school football team in Niles, Ohio; uniformed marching bands; young boys (Scouts) in formation in parades, and displays of tiny flag-waving. The father of an aviator killed in Vietnam is allowed to speak at length in admiration of his son's heroism in war and of military values generally. The viewer is clearly expected to be galvanized by this scene into a new truth: this father is sad, foolish and wrong. |
Any product of Hollywood may be safely referred to Instinct rather than Intellect, so one need not argue with the WSJ señorito about its implicit classification. But it should be asked whether its own reactions to the cinema are to count as acts of understandin’ rather than states of sentiment, and if so, why. It used the word "demarcation," which I take to be defining a border between those with an innate gust for geistige Militärismus and others who goldwaterise that militarism is a bad thing. The Henninger specimen is not to be allowed to insinuate that itself, and its Rupert Presslord Murdoch, and its V.D.H. Blimp , and all its other ideobuddies, distinguished or base-and-vile, are thinkin’ when they admire "military values generally," whereas the dupes of Daniel Ellsberg are merely wallowing in hormones when they cringe or laugh at MVG. The specimen should not be allowed to sneak that claim by unless it offers grounds, and here no foundational attempt of any sort is made. No more is to be granted on its present showin’ than that some folks happen to like the Leni Riefenstahler kind of spectacle and others detest it -- and some get bored with it rapidly, since uniforms do tend towards a certain uniformity. [3]
The specimen does not get as far as offerin’ any proper criticism of the film that he mentions, he only sets it up as a touchstone: Spiritual Militarists will naturally despise it, and so (presumably) will Archie Bunker. Master Danny H. is not formally authorised to speak for Mr. Bunker, however. If it forgets that point itself, nevertheless outsiders should remember.
The Jingo specimen cannot speak at first hand for the fort mauvais chunk of "an American political culture that broke in half" either. Because you and I, Mr. Bones, have not seen the movie, and even more because we thought Mr. Ellsberg a jerk in 1971 and think him one still in 2008, we have no business disputing the tastes of spiritually militarist young whippersnappers.[4] Still, the film was obtruded only exempli gratiâ, and it is plain enough what the specimen wants exemplified.
It is also more than a bit odd. Contrary to our previous speculation, Rear-Col. Blimp of AEI and GOP and Hoover does not stand alone, he actually has a chela! Who’ ’a thunk it?
Like the devil, the disciple is in serious danger of mind rot from the company it keeps. In particular, it imitates Blimp in abusin’ its enemies rather than expoundin’ the beauties of its own system. "Still a free country," no doubt, but it is a pity that neogentry with such weird and wonderful views as Blimp and Henninger should spend so much time and energy keyboardin’ the merest bilge for Party and Ideology, horsefeathers any malignant hack could churn out.
The closest the Jingo specimen can come to accentuatin’ the positive is to complain that the apologists for Jihád Fiendishness ought to adopt that plan:
| Rather than leaping on "failure," as with Basra, why can't one of these candidates or party leaders find examples of nobility, accomplishment or martial courage in what the troops have done in Iraq? |
The specimen itself probably does not often praise nobility, accomplishment and courage deployed towards policy ends that it happens to disapprove of. (Its views are not quite that weird and wonderful, though this maneuvre, too, is conceptually possible.) For that matter, I doubt it often decries, say "baseness, mismanagement and cowardice," when exhibited by its own Boy and Dynasty and Party and Ideology. J. Sidney McCain to some extent behaves like that, but D. Henninger is no Mugwump to follow in those footsteps.
Perhaps there exists a remote elective affinity between its and its Blimp's geistige Militärismus and the Mugwumpery or Courageous Profilism of JSM, who egregiously wants to star as noble and brave in a melodrama of his own concoction. Yet any such connection is not only remote but also potential rather than actual, at least for the moment.
The specimen can certainly not be accused of goin’ into raptures over J. Sidney:
| John McCain? Hard to say if he's seen "Hearts & Minds." If not, he should. Yes, the economy may be the top voting issue this fall. An historic line, however, runs from South Vietnam to Baghdad. The debate about that heritage will define for a generation the elements of American power that lie behind this country's commitments. Let's get to it. |
If the WSJ specimen is not just lettin’ its hormones have their say, if that sentence is taken as serious political commentary that one might usefully venture to dispute, I’d guess it mostly unreality-based, an inhistoric boo-boo, so to britspeak. Doubtless there exist a certain number of Holy Homelanders who are still distressed about how the McNamara-Kissinger countersurgency of 1963-1975 ended, but it is impossible to believe that they matter a great deal after thirty-three years and the evaporation of everything that Anticommunism was against. Even the present specimen is not such a total doctriaire ding-a-ling as to fancy that anybody wants to reopen that front -- that is, to re-invasionize the Vietnam of Century XXI. (Unless the indigs of Indochina should suddenly convert to Global Tourism and/or Jihád Religionism, that is -- developments which seem a bit unlikely to this observer.)
Sufferers from ERHDS, "embassy roof helicopter depression syndrome," have had a whole generation to slit their throats in despair that their Uncle Sam should ever lose a round, so it is unlikely that there is much additional damage to be feared on their account. The past remains as immutable as ever, unfortunately, although Rovean postreality-basin’ attempt the feat. The neocomradely Niederdümmung and wombscholarship can make sure that what happened in 1963-1975 gets hushed up as well as possible so as not to make the sweet puppies of Wingnut City and Rio Limbaugh feel bad about what happened unnecessarily.
But why go on about it? With or without ERHDS, J. Sidney McCain is not goin’ta pick up a whole lot of new support in conjunction with the March 2003 aggression, no matter what happens in the boondocks of Peaceful Freedumbia between now and Election Day. The Henninger specimen may think JSM would be in like Flynn if every voter were required to sit through a screenin’ of "Hearts and Minds." I think that's silly, but it isn't important in any case, since the thing will certainly not happen.
BGKB. Happy days.
_____
[1] The specimen may well assume in its heart ("goldwaterise") that a zero-sum game is in progress between the Aggression Faction and America’s party. Alternatively, it may assume that Speaker Pelosi and Senator Reid and Mizz Hillary and B. Hussein O’Bama (&c. &c.) assume that -- provided, of course, that such an assumption can itself be instinctual rather than rational.
[2] We are in good company, Mr. Bones, at least if the WSJ specimen is a good guesser: "Barack Obama, one guesses, has not seen "Hearts & Minds."
[3] This is by no means a new discrimen rerum. The impression that one gets from historians that everybody before about W. E. Gladstone was a rabid fan of organised violence is an illusion resulting from the circumstance that only information about the upper reaches of the Second and First Estates has survived. Thug-friendly señoritos are to be controverted if they maintain that back in the good olde days literacy and jingoism showed a strong statistical correlation. More exactly, the señorito element are to be controverted if they attempt to deploy that genuine correlation to agitate for the proposition that jingoism is the considered opinion (or just taste, or correct conditioned reflex) of the whole human race.
[4] The Henninger specimen seems to have been manufactured in about 1950; the Baní Rupert do not supply an exact date. It will therefore have commenced its tertiary education (at Georgetown of the Jesuits) circa 1967, and been an underclassperson during the annus horribilis. That would be quite enough to freudianise with after the specimen's own example, were I inclined to such tomfoolery. In the real world, however, it may have been seventy-nine at age six or sixteen; conversely, the late Buckley Minor died in his eighty-third year as adolescent as ever.
"Señorito" and "whippersnapper" and the like are terms of art chez nous and often not chronologically warrantable.
[5] "Or how about Sieg des Willens?," jested Pilate.
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