The Feudal Presidency Revisited
Last year at this time, I wrote a piece called "The Feudal Presidency" which attempted to show how Bush's faith-based outlook and temperament led to a style of governance more suited to the Middle Ages than to a modern democracy (in Sunday’s LA Times, Neal Gabler has picked up this thread in a piece called “George W. Bush’s Medieval Presidency” – thanks Neal!). This was my first attempt to articulate an idea which I have since elaborated on in various ways (scroll down to second post) – namely, the close connection between the freedom and prosperity we enjoy as citizens of a modern state and the secular humanist ideology of reason and open inquiry.
Forces today within our society are actively and explicitly opposed to secular humanism – which is to say, against the entire intellectual framework of the modern world. Bush and his crew are proud to align themselves with that side of the argument. This also means rejecting the analytical methods of inquiry and discovery that accompanied the Enlightenment revolution. When faith supplants reason, there is no need for inquiry: all answers are provided by dogma and ideology, and inquiry is a pernicious, wicked exercise whose only purpose is to challenge proper authority.
To preserve this world-view intact, there can be no independent platform from which a legitimate question can be posed to those in power. Anyone making claims to principle, logic, patriotism, common decency, and even alternative interpretations of the leadership’s own creed must all be attacked and de-legitimated if the effect of their arguments is to challenge the Truth of those in power.
We’ve seen those methods at work since Election Day 2000. As a tactic, they are offensive in spirit to the whole notion of democracy and open society. But as a means for making policy, they are utterly destructive and bankrupt. Four hundred years’ experience has taught us to challenge our beliefs and face hard truths in order to come to a greater understanding of the world – not just for understandings’ sake, but to get a better handle on the strategies necessary to achieve our goals. The truth of the world is all around you, in all its messy complexity. To find it, look to the world, not to a dusty book of ancient scripture, or to a pre-baked set of ideological answers and talking points.
Supporters of Bush like to point to his “moral clarity” as the benefit of his simplistic, fact-free view of the world, and wonder why this concept makes so little sense to liberals. Well, here’s why: making claims about the moral condition of the world is easy. Ayatollah Komeini had some very strong, clear views on morality. So did Hitler. So did Torquemada the inquisitor. Almost every “evil” character in history believed themselves to be doing good, and so strong was their faith that they did not let small matters like human rights, decency, dignity or reason deter them from their great moral crusades.
This isn’t an argument for moral relativism. You don’t have to believe that there’s no such thing as right and wrong to agree that it can be very difficult for human beings to know with certainty, ahead of time, which is which. Those with brittle and inflexible minds, insecure in their ability to reason through complicated problems or to convince others by articulate appeals to their interests and sentiments, find it more convenient to seize on simple answers and pat ideologies rather than puzzling through the complexities of situations to find the right way to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number. Then they make their intellectual shortcomings into a virtue by valorizing whatever set of ideas they’ve fixated on into a universal morality – not only answers for themselves, but answers for everyone.
People with experience in life know this is the habit of lazy, foolish people and it often leads to trouble. There’s a reason that our literature and theatre are pervaded with the theme of the stiff-necked proponent of moral clarity who is brought to ruin when his assumptions are proven false by the world. The arts aren’t there as decoration: they are a warning against repeating these kinds of mistakes in our choice of leaders.
There’s nothing simple about nature, human passions, large dependent systems or any of the other building blocks of the world around us, and sometimes the complexity can seem overwhelming. The appeal of simplicity and clarity is compelling. Wise people among us cultivate these ideas in the construction of their personal lives, using morality as a guidepost for their own actions rather than insisting that one set of "truths" is a rough, error-prone template for a fine-grained world.
See also: Daily Kos.
8:28:49 AM 
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