What is it that elicits such different reactions to the 9/11-attack -- from liberals, as opposed to conservatives?
AM talk-radio host Dennis Prager has spoken of the natural human desire to hate the one who “takes on the bully”; thus, conservatives would say: since the terrorists are the bullies -- liberals hate Bush because Bush is fighting the bully. But those on the Left counter-claim that: America is the bully. The argument breaks down into charges and counter-charges.
A more benign, but probing, approach is taken by Arnold Kling in his 4/14/04 article “Hating the Solution” at the web-site Tech Central Station. He quotes Winston Churchill from 11/12/36 as follows:
"So they go on in strange paradox, decided only to be undecided, resolved to be irresolute, adamant for drift, solid for fluidity, all-powerful to be impotent."
The “strange paradox” is the observation that people will often oppose a proposed direct solution to a problem – favoring an alternative that seeks to “study” or “consider” or “analyze” the problem (for example: the sentiment behind the statement: “let’s have a meeting”). This is so because the attempt to directly solve a difficult problem means that there will be trouble, there will be a cost, things will become unsettled, people will have to leave their normal routines and engage in hardship and struggle; a period of stress will be necessary before a solution is forced/created out of the hard mess of reality.
It is often better not to enter the frightening prospect of exertion and battle, because this change – including within it always the possibility of failure -- upsets the progressive equilibrium of a peaceful, humanitarian life that has been acquired at such a great price over hundreds of years. Better to remain at rest, hopeful, and safe, even though worried.
Kling puts it this way:
“What Churchill found is that when a group of leaders is confronted with a problem that makes them uneasy, they take out their frustration on those who suggest ways of dealing with the problem. Discomfort with a problem leads many people to develop a passionate hatred for the solution….Today, it seems to me that the elites in this country and elsewhere are responding to terrorism by hating the solution.”
Kling goes on to quote Steven Hayward in an essay of December 2001 entitled “A Churchillian Perspective on September 11”:
“Churchill's central idea or insight was that the distinction between liberty and tyranny, between civilization and barbarism, is real and substantial.…The necessary ferocity of warfare represents a departure from the normal conditions and inclinations of democratic civilization, while it represents the normal condition of barbaric nations and peoples. Barbarism may be regarded, in a nutshell, as lacking in any reasoned principle of justice or progress or moderation.”
This would explain the Left’s view of America as the “bully”; the Left assumes there is no substantial difference – in terms of moral legitimacy -- between modern civilized societies and gang-based terrorist “societies” (or groups), or any other kind of society. Multiculturalism is based on this idea.
Liberals claim that the definition of the word “terrorism” must apply equally to al-Qaeda’s destructive acts as well as the “aggression” of America’s military strikes against terrorists and state dictatorships. Many media news agencies and newspapers refuse to use the word “terrorist.”
Kling has an earlier Tech Central Station article (of 3/19/04) – “Nurturance and Terrorism” -- that points to a recent book – Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002) -- by the liberal philosopher George Lakoff. (Lakoff’s 1995 essay “Metaphore, Morality, and Politics, Or, Why Conservatives Have Left Liberals In the Dust” was the basis for his book.)
Lakoff finds the distinction between liberals and conservatives to be derived from two different approaches to morality; as articulated by Kling: “Conservatives view morality in ‘strict father’ terms, as an issue of right vs. wrong, with the need for wrong to be punished. Liberals view morality in ‘nurturant parent’ terms, as an issue of giving people the material and emotional support necessary to enable them to grow and develop.”
While liberalism has a stronger emotional case to make for positions on domestic issues than conservatism does (conservative positions on social issues being derived from rationalist economic- and responsibility-reward considerations), liberalism has a major problem conceiving of an emotional response to terrorism that is oppositional and effective. Since liberalism is based on a “nurturant” model of interaction, the use of military force is problematic. Therefore, a liberal response to terrorism in the national debate is...missing.
Kling says there are two alternatives for US foreign policy in response to terrorism; he calls them “Fortress America” and the “Forward Strategy.”
“Fortress America” is a retreat of America to its borders. American involvement in foreign affairs will pretty much be kept minimal. The US must retract all of its military units overseas, and a great deal of its overseas diplomatic and economic presence. The country will only fight back if it is literally attacked on its soil; and then, only directly and briefly.
Kling says: “The alternative to Fortress America is a Forward Strategy, in which we try to re-shape the Muslim world away from the death cult of terrorism.”
But Fortress America is only a temporary solution; if the barbaric gang-based societies are not countered on their own terms (through the use of blatant force) they will increase their power, and at the late point at which they actually directly attack the US (probably with a nuclear device) -- the US will be at a disadvantage.
However, the Forward Strategy is not a “nurturant” liberal policy.
Therefore: liberals are going to be restricted in the coming Presidential campaign. They cannot offer an alternative vision for countering terrorism. What’s left is the anti-Bush hatred: attacking President Bush personally for his mistakes and errors, for not being trustworthy, for being "inadequate" to the task of “keeping the peace.” This puts Senator Kerry in a uniquely disadvantageous position.
On the other hand, if Kerry DOES win – because of the constant barrage of attacks on Bush’s personal character and ability, and because the American public becomes “tired” of supporting a war (with concomitant casualties on the evening TV news) – Kling says the result will inevitably be a return to Fortress America:
“What would a Democratic Party victory in November mean for our foreign policy? Senator Kerry himself writes, ‘Our country is committed to help the Iraqis build a stable, peaceful and pluralistic society. No matter who is elected president in November, we will persevere in that mission.’
“However, it seems to me that on the whole the Democratic Party would like to see victory interpreted as a vote of no confidence in the policies of President Bush. I believe that would in fact be the result. A Kerry win would have to be treated as a repudiation of the forward strategy, rather than as an endorsement for a more nuanced tactical execution. If the American people choose to question our involvement in the struggle to remake the Muslim world, it will not be out of conviction that the UN or other international institutions are better suited to the task.”
This would comprise one of the most important foreign policy reversals in American history – if not, in fact, the greatest. Consequences would be enormous.