Screeds
Tuesday, August 24, 2004
“…And World Peace.”
October 9, 2003
This Curmudgeonly essay has a prerequisite. If you haven't yet seen and been delighted by Sandra Bullock's movie Miss Congeniality, go forth and secure it at once, sparing no expense. It's about an FBI agent who goes undercover as a contestant in a beauty pageant to track a serial killer. Along with Miss Bullock's seemingly inexhaustible charm, it features fine supporting performances by Michael Caine, Candace Bergen, and Benjamin Bratt. You'll laugh your slats off -- and you'll immediately grasp the significance of the title of this screed.
Abstractions command a great deal of our attention. That's inevitable. Our minds are built specifically to handle them. It's by the efficient manipulation and application of abstractions that we've achieved dominion over our world. Take away the capacity for abstraction, and Man would fall to any of a number of better-equipped predators. But as with all other powerful things, danger inheres in them as well.
Abstractions can be made infinitely attractive. "Peace," perhaps the most copiously blathered-about pleasant abstraction of our time, has a glow about it that blinds all but the most attentive and realistic students of human society. But try to match the abstract concept of it -- the complete absence of violence -- to even five minutes of life on Earth without provoking your neighborhood "peace activist" to disavow it.
Abstractions can also be made infinitely horrible. Consider "war." Is there anyone who's "for" war in the abstract? That is, is there anyone who'd argue that war is a thing desirable in itself? Yet, despite its bottom post on the abstraction totem pole, it's easy to list wars that were inarguably preferable to the "peaces" they "shattered." Operation Iraqi Freedom was one such; the regime of Saddam Hussein killed far more persons in any three-month period than our war to remove him cost in toto. Only the most dedicated anti-American would dare to suggest otherwise.
Abstractions can be tailored to fit the rhetorical needs of the polemicist. One striking example is "socialism." Devoted socialist flacksters have painted the virtues of this abstract scheme of political economy in the most glorious colors. Yet, they simultaneously deny that the practices of any socialist government on Earth these past hundred years constitute "real socialism." When a disinterested observer assesses the performance of socialist regimes and compares it to that of free markets, it becomes easy to see why.
Finally, abstractions can be used to conceal or distort concrete facts. If a demagogue can get his listeners sufficiently charged up about an abstraction, he can induce them not to examine the facts of the matter. If he's skillful enough in his characterization of his opponents and his attributions about their motives, he can make the simplest, most innocent of deeds look like the proof of limitless evil.
C. S. Lewis noted in The Screwtape Letters that many persons indulge in fancies of imagined benevolence toward others that are completely at odds with their behavior toward the real persons nearest to them. They go "from praying for the wife's or son's soul to beating the actual wife or son without a qualm." Surely we ought not to take this as the true virtue of charity, but rather as a foul perversion of it. Similarly, when rabble rousers rant about the "intolerance" of their chosen devil-figures, yet work specifically to punish dissent from their opinions -- to institutionalize intolerance -- we ought not to grant them any indulgence at all. An abstraction so completely decoupled from reality is a pure detriment to thought and action.
Now let's talk about "democracy."
"Democracy" is the focus of a certain amount of contention. Originally, it meant majority rule. As practiced in the United States, it's the mechanism by which some of those who will rule are chosen by the citizenry. Few would dispute that the election, as provided for by our laws, is the quintessential democratic institution.
Wherefor, then, the complaints -- all of them from "Democrats" -- that the California gubernatorial recall ballot held on October 7, entirely in keeping with the state's constitution, was "undemocratic"?
If we can trust the reportage, the turnout for the election was very high; about two-thirds of California's registered voters participated. Extensive efforts went into insuring the fairness of the proceedings and the accuracy of the tallies. There was even a surfeit of candidates. You'd have to be considerably crankier than your Curmudgeon to be unable to find someone on that monstrous ballot for whom you could vote in reasonable conscience.
If we go by the realities, this was one of the most impeccably conducted elections in American history, a case study in democracy in action.
However, it dethroned a sitting governor, whom "Democrats" had begun to measure for a national role. Worse, it indicated that a "Democrat" cannot necessarily rely upon his office to shield him from the consequences of his errors and misdeeds. Worse yet, as a trial of "Democrats'" new campaign tactic of the "late hit," it proved a colossal failure. Worst of all, California is a bellwether state, whose trends tend to prefigure the course of the rest of the country.
So, in keeping with the venerable practice of junking the facts when they clash with one's cherished illusions, the "Democrats" have turned against democracy.
It appears that the "Democrats" need a new abstraction, and quickly. Perhaps they could rename themselves the "Elite Party": "We know what's best for you, so sit down, shut up, and do as you're told." Or maybe the "Incumbent Party": "Dedicated to maintaining the tenure and perquisites of high office, sovereignly immune from citizen displeasure." Or maybe the "Diode Party": "Accusations and elections should only go one way!"
Don't get your Curmudgeon wrong. He stands with P. J. O'Rourke in his conviction that democracy is worth dying for -- a good thing, considering how often it can make you wish you were dead. And he really does want world peace. After we get harsher punishments for parole violators, of course.
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