Gleichschaltung im Morgenland

I find it impossible, Dr. Bones, to think of the Beirut statelet without recalling Patwell's First Social Law™, "The smaller the teacup, the fiercer the tempest."

That is a teacup insider viewpoint, naturally. Miss Alice and the dormouse and the mad hatter and everybody else at the spread are more like to yawn than to rave when some reveler mentions Lebanon: de minimis non curat grex, don’t you know? [1]

Teacup outsiders are far from models of good judgment, however. The infinitely remote superterrestrials at Planet Justworld have recommended the election analysis by M. Qifâ de Nabkí, which we will get to in a moment. Meanwhile, the superaliens and the local boy who went to H*rv*rd, between them, mention various noteworthy dottinesses from further-outsiders, like (1) Obama made them do it; (2) Joe Biden ("who?") made them do it; (3) "Christian animosity towards Hizbullah [&] Saudi money [&] the Maronite patriarch" made them do it; (4) The God Party not really wanting to win accounts for it . . . . And so on.

You can roll your own, Mr. Bones! Something about sunspots might do? Or how about Cedar Flu?

For its own part, Infinite Remoteness LLC appears to have been sadly disappointed in M. le général de ‘Ayoun:

Hizbullah's allies in the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) apparently lost in a major way to supporters of March 14 who are also members of extremely well-entrenched political "families" and ardent supporters of the present system of Christian political privilege.

Come to think of it, though, that is scarcely an explanation. Did the free patriots lose because of insufficient ardour, or merely because of insufficient entrenchment and not enough relatives and clients and retainers? Out at St. Helena galaxy in the immense inane, bias is freely admitted:

The FPM and its leader, General Michel Aoun, had offered a clear alternative to that system, as well as a strong political platform for this election. For those reasons, despite some other other misgivings I have about Aoun (and about Hizbullah), I wanted their alliance to win. Hizbullah, by the way, also supports a "de-confessionalized", one-person-one-vote system in Lebanon.

But thee know how those superterrestrial folks are, Dr. Bones: the Justworldings doubtless suppose that the only ‘bias’ they suffer from is disinterested zeal for good government, for un état libanais laïque [2] that the Vermont League of Women Voters would be proud to have caused.

Before we call on M. Q. de N., we might try an equal-but-opposite dottiness approach: how if the locals and natives took exactly the VLWV and Planet Justworld view of what was at state, but then arose in horror and protest, resolved as 54% of one man person that the very last thing in all the world that they want is "a 'de-confessionalized', one-person-one-vote system"?

Thee heard it here first, sir!

Was it worthy hearing? Probably not, if thee take it for Pol. Sci. and Comp. Gov., but taken as mere humble political criticism and philosophy, I think there is a little bit to it. The superterrestrials are, in a perhaps subliminal and slightly backhanded way, taking The Master's

side here: far out in the St. Helena Galaxy Cluster they pretend, conciously or unconsciously, to care about the Form of neo-Levantine politics. They accuse their opponents, implicitly, of not givin’ a hoot about forms, but of wallowin’ in mere matters.[3]

In the "One man? It depends which man!" mire do the forces of M-14 wallow like swine! And all because the existin’ LB racket gives them more votes per capita than it gives the God Party and their fellow-travelers! [4] Easy to see how that show might look displeasing at a distance of thirteen godzillion kilometers!

The "back-handed" part that I alluded to is this: infinitely remote supraterrestrials have a tendency to believe that their own pet natives and locals object to such disproportionalities entirely because they constitute injustice in the abstract, quite without reference to the fact that it just happens to be themselves who are getting shafted. A little of that brand of backhandedness goes a long way with the Muses and thee and me, Dr. Bones. After all, what could be in more flagrant violation of

travaillons donc à bien penser? But bear in mind, sir, that although this badly thought attitude makes the native plaintiffs and their alien patrons insufferable, it does not make them wrong about either facts or law. It does not oblige us to decide the case in somebody else's favor.






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[1] I only say "more likely." The next statelet south along the coast is not much bigger or much less peculiar, yet down there nobody's Social Rules apply, nobody from Emily Post to Mr. Huntin’ton of H*rv*rd legislates socially for that mob!


[2] Ars longa, vita brevis: Who can spare the time to work out the French for ‘deconfessionalised’? (And then only to talk about LB after one finds it!)


[3] Though I should not care to insist on the point, it occurs to me that precisely because the Beirut statelet is such a tiny and contemptible teacup, considered materially, it may be a very suitable jumping-off point for those who aspire to lift their minds to questions of Form. BGKB.


[4] It cannot be that St. Helena, patron saint of the extraterrestrial justworldly, does not admire her own high-mindedness, but I doubt that she conceives of it as an Aristotelian high-mindedness. The Master smacks too much of lowly Terra for that palate, I fear. Yet pretty clearly she wants to be praised for the tenderness of her sentiments rather than for the solidity of her arguments, which means that the Plato and Parmenides crowd cannot wish to be affiliated with her much more than we do.

Nevertheless suum cuique tribuere, Dr. Bones! Give credit where credit is deserved, even when the credit cannot be comprehended, much less reciprocated.