George W. Bush offer[s] a false, and ideological, philosophy of freedom. Let it be called democratism. Democratism makes popular plebiscite the standard of freedom. It viturally equates the vox populi with God's will. And it expresses a faith in the progress of democracy and freedom that imitates biblical notions of divine providence. 'There is only one force in history,' the president declared [in his sencond inaugural], 'that can break the reign of hatred and resentment, and expose the pretensions of tyrants, and reward the hopes of the decent and tolerant, and that is the force of freedom.' Democratism is the 'religion' that preaches the global spread of freedom through the adoption of democratic political mechanisms, and this freedom is supposed to bring universal peace to all humankind. Whereas in his joint speech to Congress the president failed to render a discrete narrative of American freedom, in his inaugural he left his listeners to infer, since he told no such story, that there is a narrative of universal human freedom.
There isn't a global narrative of freedom, however. To suggest that there is and, correlatively, to make the abstract claim that there is an unqualified - unqualified by either human sin or history - universal human desire of freedom, is a serious error at best and a false religion at worst. To use this ideology to justify the use of American power is to dance dangerously with demons. For, as with all ideologies, it will be (consciously or unconsciously) used to disguise other motives, both good and bad. - Vigen Guroian, Rallying the Really Human Things, pg. 199.
Monday, December 19, 2005
a false, and ideological, philosophy of freedom
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6 comments:
Amen!
"If you want a glimpse of how I think about foreign policy read Natan Sharansky's book, The Case for Democracy. . . . For government, particularly--for opinion makers, I would put it on your recommended reading list. It's short and it's good. This guy is a heroic figure, as you know. It's a great book."
Bush is certainly not the most eloquent of endorsers, but I think if one wanted to know what he thinks about freedom, heed his recommendation. Sharansky himself spent 9 years in a Soviet gulag -- I'd wager he knows a little something about the value of freedom as well.
Likewise the thousands of Iraqis flashing "purple fingers of victory" who turned out to vote this past week.
I much prefer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's thought on liberalism and democracy whom Vigen Guroian engages in this book as well.
To me, the most troublesome aspect of President Bush's speech Sunday evening came at the end where he used the beautiful language of John 1 to describe the U.S.'s mission as one of shining light into the darkness. It was a rhetorical flourish that could mean nothing else other than equating the mission of the US in Iraq with the mission of the Church.
The Bush Administration frequently does this borrowing evangelical hymns and phrases and substituting the United States in for Jesus and/or the Church. In the evangelical church, we already lack the ecclesiology to understand that the church is not an extension of the nation-state.
I find democratization, even at its best, to be a parody of catholicity. It may be that in the time of secular dominance that democratization may be the best the world can offer, but we as Christians must not allow our language to be hijacked and our Church to be coopted for the sake of something that ultimately cannot deliver the goods it promises. I am hopeful that democracy will come to Iraq. I am glad that Saddam has been toppled. However, I know how quickly former reformers themselves turn into tyrants. My hope is that we will not confuse democracy with Christianity. The mixing of language for political support domestically risks just such an outcome.
Peace,
Scott
I refer people to the below Spengler article.
[From the Spengler article]: That is why Iran's President Mahmud Ahmadinejad is the Islamic world's pre-eminent democrat, telling the Islamic masses what they want to hear while the tyrants and autocrats of neighboring lands growl indistinctly through their American-made muzzles.
Functional democracy itself is not an avenue to peace; as 'Spengler' said, even tyrants can be elected through democratic means. I suppose one question is whether Islamic and non-Western cultures can find within themselves the resources to support democracy. (Michael Novak makes such an argument for Islam in the first part of Universal Hunger for Liberty).
Related excerpt from one of Fr. Neuhaus' reflections on democracy:
. . . A fourth proposition is this: Democracy is and always will be unsatisfactory. Winston Churchill is often quoted as saying that "democracy is the worst system of government known to man, except for all the others that have been tried." That is not everything that can be said for democracy, but it is a not unimportant thing to be said. For the Christian, and indeed for every human being who aspires to live in the truth, the only satisfactory order is the Kingdom of God promised in the eschatological consummation of history. All our politics, including democratic politics, is, at most, penultimate. The state functions in the sphere of the penultimate. The church points to and anticipates the ultimate, the Kingdom of God. Christians live in both spheres and therefore are, in the words of the second century Letter to Diognetus, "resident aliens" in any earthly city.
Although all are unsatisfactory, all orderings of the earthly city are not equal. Democracy is a relative good, but it is superior to other orders because: 1) it is the form of government that, under the conditions of modernity, best accommodates the Christian understanding of human dignity; 2) it best fosters and protects the exercise of basic human rights; 3) it provides an enlarged sphere for the exercise of personal responsibility and the pursuit of the common good; 4) in its economic dimension, it best accords with human creativity and approximate justice; and, most important, 5) it is institutionally open to the future, including the ultimate future that is the Kingdom of God. On the last point, there is a great advantage in a political system that is transparently conducted by, and held accountable to, distinctly ungodlike human beings who freely avail themselves of their freedom to air their discontents with the system. This is a valuable prophylactic against the temptation to deify democracy or mistake it for the Kingdom of God.
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