Bush the Modernist

As liberals clamor to find explanations for last week’s defeat by George W. Bush, many have consoled themselves with the thought that Bush is an anachronism that will ultimately run its course. The president and his evangelical base want to take us back to a pre-modern world in which basic declarations of faith and traditional values have replaced the hedonism and self-indulgence of the modern world.

There is enough truth in that view to make any liberal shudder. Articles published during the campaign season detailed the president’s strong religious faith and his myopic decision-making style. He was portrayed as a man disinterested in details, preferring to govern ‘from the gut’ rather than carefully considering the facts. Keeping faith with the principles of the Inquisition, Bush silenced dissent within his own cabinet, and relied to a frightening degree on a small inner circle valued more for their loyalty than the salience of their ideas. Bush preferred to evaluate his dealings with foreign leaders by looking into their souls rather than at their policies.

Such an approach to governance, we are told, amounts to the wholesale rejection of the Enlightenment, a reversion to a thinking based on superstition and faith instead of cold empiricism. But Bush’s victory represents not a rejection of modernity, but of postmodernity, and more plainly of the view, held to be self-evident by the liberal establishment, that no one has a monopoly on truth. Bush hasn’t rejected Enlightenment principles so much as he has reasserted them in a world that seems less susceptible to their power.

The Enlightenment was that period in Western thought that began in the 17^th century in Europe and brought the scientific and social developments that gave us the industrial age, the liberal democratic state, and the vast improvements in economic well-being, public health and the common welfare. The Enlightenment entailed a rejection of dogma and high-handed faith in favor of the scientific method and the powers of human reason. One of its principal features was the dialectic, the notion that a particular contention (thesis) engenders its opposite (antithesis), and the two then duel it out until a new truth emerges (synthesis). This in turn brings a new antithesis and the process continues in a linear evolution that we have come to think of as progress.

The notion of dialectic is inherently opposed to the possibility that there may be two right answers. In the political sphere, this was apparent in the conflict between democracy and monarchy, between capitalism and communism, between equality and privilege. In each case, we are taught that one side won because it was inherently superior. Liberal democracies triumphed over their communist and fascist enemies because they are just better. Now a new contender is on the horizon in the form of Islamic fundamentalism, and once again, the better ideology will emerge victorious.

Postmodernity rejects this dichotomization of the world (“You’re either with us or with the terrorists”). Truth resides in many domains and it would be catastrophic to insist on reducing complex thinking to a series of yes/no statements. The contemporary world bears countless examples of the limits of dialectic. America’s vigorous confronting of terrorists abroad eliminates potential enemies, but it also creates new ones. Exporting manufacturing jobs to low-wage countries reduces prices at home, but creates a band of unemployed workers whose pressure for welfare benefits offset increases in economic efficiency. Implementing universal healthcare is a clear moral imperative, but it is almost certain to reduce the overall quality of care.

John Kerry’s singular failure during the campaign was his inability to buttress his critique of the Bush administration with a compelling alternative. Kerry was frequently criticized for his vagueness, for his lack of an overarching vision to unify many disparate policies. Much ink has been spilled suggesting that the Democrats failed to tell the public a story to counteract the one that Rove and Limbaugh were peddling, of a peaceful nation and its gentle leader forced to abandon its mercantile habits in order to repel the barbarians at the gates.

To the electorate, Kerry appeared irresolute, or in Bush’s favored term, a ‘flip-flopper’. In contrast, Bush’s unwavering fidelity to first principles appeared firm and reassuring. In a world offering up so many complicated alternatives, a man who speaks simple words is irresistibly seductive.

But the world is not as Manichean as Bush would like it to be. And Kerry’s failure to tell an all-encompassing story, while a political liability, is also a practical impossibility. Ours is a world in which overarching visions are increasingly hard to articulate. Take the war on terrorism. We want to cut off funding to terrorist groups, but in the short term we need the help of the Saudis and the Pakistanis, both countries that continue to funnel money to questionable enterprises around the Arab world. We claim to believe the spread of democratic values is inherent to the fight against Islamic radicalism, and yet we are compelled to make deals with unsavory regimes to advance more immediate interests. We need to more fully inspect shipments at our ports, but to do so would be expensive and hinder the economic growth that is vital to supporting military operations abroad. The more the media seek to probe the failures of the administration, the more they appear like mouthpieces for the spinmeisters.

The examples are manifold, and come from virtually every field of human endeavor. No matter how clear, unambiguous and unimpeachable the principle, its implementation seems to entail consequences that are the very opposite of what was intended. The lesson is not that we need to abandon our principles, but only that their advance depends on making thousands of complicated decisions, on judging each case on its own merits, and above all, on placing pragmatism above ideology.

How the countless failures of Bush’s dialectical style failed to bring him down is the big story of this campaign. To all informed observers, Iraq is a mess and getting worse. Bush’s vaunted promise to bring democracy to the Middle East has made little headway. The president has presided over a net loss of jobs, a degradation of environmental protection legislation, and a huge transfer of the tax burden downwards. The way Bush’s handlers glossed over these failures while presenting their leader as a capable defender of America will be studied by aspiring propagandists for generations.

But at some point, one must believe, reality will reassert itself, and with a vengeance. If anti-Americanism is truly on the rise, it will eventually manifest itself. If Bush’s tax cuts are so disastrous for the economy, there will be a financial meltdown. If Bush’s policies on abortion and gay marriage are so reprehensible, there should be a fundamental unraveling of the tolerant social fabric from which America has traditionally drawn its strength.

The real fear is, of course, that further catastrophes on the scale of (or greater than) September 11^th will make the masses more hungry for simple solutions, not less. It is entirely understandable for people confronted by the prospect of a dangerous, uncertain future to long for a more certain, more secure past. Should any of the nightmare scenarios now being conjured up by the left come to pass, there is every reason to believe that the American heartland will, in the face of all contrary evidence, be even more supportive of a president of the Bush archetype.