Wednesday, February 16, 2005

New York state of mind

What’s a New York liberal to do in response to the free elections in Afghanistan and Iraq? Kurt Andersen discusses the ambivalence “When Good News Feels Bad”:

Like “radical chic,” a related New York specialty, “liberal guilt” once meant feeling discomfort over one’s good fortune in an unjust world. As this last U.S. election cycle began, however, a new subspecies of liberal guilt arose—over the pleasure liberals took in bad news from Iraq, which seemed sure to hurt the administration. But with Bush reelected, any shred of tacit moral rationale is gone. In other words, feel the guilt, and let it be a pang that leads to moral clarity.

Each of us has a Hobbesian choice concerning Iraq; either we hope for the vindication of Bush’s risky, very possibly reckless policy, or we are in a de facto alliance with the killers of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians. We can be angry with Bush for bringing us to this nasty ethical crossroads, but here we are nonetheless.
Or as Jon Stewart stuttered the day after the Iraqi elections: “I’ve watched this thing unfold from the start and here’s the great fear that I have: What if Bush, the president, ours, has been right about this all along? I feel like my world view will not sustain itself and I may, and again I don’t know if I can physically do this, implode.”

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

From Matt Taibbi's "I Spy a Sellout":
http://www.nypress.com/18/8/news&columns/taibbi.cfm

""Each of us has a Hobbesian choice concerning Iraq." This is horseshit on its face. Even the original Hobbesian choice was horseshit, especially in the eyes of the stereotypical New York liberal Andersen is addressing. We no more have to choose between chaos and authoritarianism than we do between rooting for Bush and rooting for the insurgents. There is a vast array of other outcomes and developments to root for.

We could root for Bush to admit he fucked up and appeal to the world for help in stabilizing Iraq. We could root for a similar admission and a similar appeal to the U.N., only coupled with an immediate American withdrawal. We could root for America to come out firmly against the Israeli occupation of Palestine, which would change the equation in Iraq. We could root for such things as the turning over of Iraqi oil contracts to the United Nations and an end to war profiteering—which, again, would change the equation in the war.

And that's just the beginning. It does not come down to rooting either for Bush or for the insurgents. Andersen thinks he can make this argument because he thinks he knows that in our hearts, many of us are rooting for the insurgents—and he is trying to tell us that renouncing this instinct automatically translates into unqualified support for Bush. But that is wrong, and totally dishonest."