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Traditionalist Conservatism Forum > Other > More on the WTC attack |
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JimKalb  ezOP (10/4/01 11:58 am) Reply 
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More on the WTC attack More thoughts on the effects of the WTC attack and the likely consequences of war, again put forward for the sake of discussion: Almost everyone can agree that the attack calls for forceful action against those who planned and supported it, and preventative measures to make future attacks much less likely. What immediate action is possible and appropriate depends on circumstances. How much do we know, and how close a connection do various groups and governments have to the attack? What possible demands could be made or sanctions imposed on whom? It is hard for someone far removed from the seat of power to say much about such issues. What to do for the future is a different matter. Preventative measures could be of various kinds, and their implications don't depend on anything secret. For example, we could arm pilots and otherwise make it easier for people to defend themselves. We could accept "racial profiling" as plain good sense in dealing with a threat from within the Arab and Muslim world. We could tighten our borders, end mass immigration, restrict visas, and expel illegals. We could worry less about controlling the international order and disengage from the Arab and Muslim world. We could accept that there is genuine diversity in the world, that a single universal system is unworkable, as well as destructive of the actual order that exists, and that good fences make good neighbors. It is unlikely we will do any such thing. The war that will actually be fought will reflect the nature of the American regime and of what have become its permanent overriding goals, which are those of universalistic managerial liberalism. The regime will make use of this war to advance its overall goals. War advances the pervasive and comprehensive system of control over social life that managerial liberalism demands. Consider the consequences of the First and Second World Wars, and of the Cold War. It requires "national unity," which can be interpreted as inclusiveness, definition of war aims, which can be understood as a worldwide system of peace, justice and development as managerial liberalism understands those things, and popular allegiance to "what we are fighting for," which can be said to be managerial liberalism. On the other hand, managerial liberalism creates problems in dealing with war or other national emergency since it makes men weak. It destroys their ties to each other and the coherence of their character for the sake of making them manageable. It destroys demanding virtues like steadiness, courage and self-sacrifice, and makes men emotional, short-sighted and easily manipulable. That affects the kind of war that will be fought and preventative measures that will be taken. The war will therefore be made a technical matter that requires no participation on the part of the people other than doing what they're told, supporting the government, feeling and thinking what is expected of them, and watching the spectacle that's presented. The government cannot demand individual risk, hardship or effort. Military strategy must therefore eliminate the possibility of U.S. casualties. Nor can the way the war is carried on permit national or religious rivalries to enter the matter. It must therefore be purely ideological, based on excluding our opponents from human society as insane or evil. It must be a war against ways of thinking, a continuation worldwide of the struggle at home that demands further intensification of that struggle on all fronts. Nor can people be permitted to defend themselves or otherwise take action on their own. To arm flight crews would be the first step in depriving government of its role as custodian of the people, so it can't be permitted regardless of advantages. Many questions are open of course. Will it matter that George W. Bush rather than Clinton, Gore or Tony Blair is in charge of the effort? Possibly. By nature, W. is a traditionalist and centrist rather than an ideologue like the others. How he directs the war will therefore reveal a great deal about the forces now at work, whether the West is hopelessly locked into managerial liberalism and can escape from it only by some terminal crisis, or whether there is still room for maneuver and resources that permit development in a better direction. It is also unclear whether the war will be successful on its own terms. Will it manage to contain the threat of terrorism without compromising basic principles of the managerial liberal regime? The neoconservatives have always wanted to compromise certain aspects of managerial liberalism with the principles needed for a basically imperial order to govern effectively, extend its sway, and defend itself. Will they win? Or is it possible that a war against terrorism or against Islam and the Arabs will lead to a crisis of the regime, to a final collapse of its project of creating universal order on its own peculiar principles? We shall see. Jim Kalb |
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William Wleklinski Registered User (10/7/01 9:50 pm) Reply |
Re: More on the WTC attack Very much agree with your list of "preventative measures". Also agree about the unlikelihood of their adoption, and more generally, what you have to say about the implications of the reigning managerial liberalism for war policy and enhanced domestic security. Correct me if I'm wrong, but your ideas on the prevailing regime seem similar to Paul Gottfried's (in, for example, "After Liberalism"). What I have never understood is how the Administrative State can in any sense be a root cause for our cultural/social/moral decadence. If the regime of managerial liberalism were to end, why would anyone think that the American populace would return to an order of republican and traditional virtue? I realize you don't say that they would, but that's the unanswered question which nags me when I read some paleoconsersative argument of this kind. WW |
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JimKalb ezOP (10/8/01 5:20 am) Reply
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Re: More on the WTC attack I think of the liberal managerial state as an aspect of an overall process that works out of the implications of Ockham's Razor. That sounds weird I know, and you won't find the view in Gottfried, but if you're interested there's a talk I gave on the topic at counterrevolution.net/kalb_texts/telos-liberalism.html. It does seem to me that if the liberal managerial state were somehow made to disappear its social and moral correlates would disappear too. If there were no welfare, social security or public education then family values and particularistic connections would be much more necessary in day-to-day life and would make a comeback. Charles Murray has some interesting and relevant discussions in his Pursuit of Happiness. That's not going to happen though, at least not until the liberal state stops working because of its self-contradictions or whatever. The basic point is that it arose through an overall process in which the various aspects, institutional, cultural, philosophical, etc., promote and depend on each other. Jim Kalb at: 10/8/01 5:26:59 am |
JasonEubanks  Registered User (10/22/01 1:04 am) Reply 
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Re: More on the WTC attack Your description of liberalism as Ockham's razor applied to human social life is insightful. In other words, since sex roles, ethnicity, religious conviction, morals, etc. are not absolutely essential for human life to continue then they need to go. The problem is that by eliminating these you undermine the conditions for meaningful human existence. I'd like to propose yet another model for the explaination of liberalism: The reduction of human life to a mathmatical equation. If you give a person x inputs then you can reasonably predict that that person will be y. The key is controlled inputs which explains their need to control various aspects of life via government interference. |
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JimKalb ezOP (10/22/01 8:26 am) Reply |
Re: More on the WTC attack The two descriptions (Ockham's razor and the attempt to create a technological system of society) go together. If you start with what is immediately present and with methods of measurement and verification - aversions, preferences, sensations, mathematics, experimental method - and stick to those things then what you end up with is a system for controlling events to achieve human ends. With regard to the natural world that system is technology and with regard to the human world it is liberalism. |
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