The (old) Licquia Family Blog
This is the old blog site, powered by a simple blogging system called Blosxom. It's here to keep old links from breaking, and for whatever historic interest might remain.
Here's the current site.
This is the old blog site, powered by a simple blogging system called Blosxom. It's here to keep old links from breaking, and for whatever historic interest might remain.
Here's the current site.
On Christopher Lydon's blog (found via Doc Searls):
I am searching of course for Other perspectives on Us. But I am also trying to get a better sense of what feels like a collision since September 11 of Post-Colonialism and Neo-Imperialism.
Even before September 11, and with alarm since then, I've had the feeling that the Bush dream is to recapitulate the British and Spanish empires. Didn't the Azores summit make it almost too obvious?
The mission that comes naturally to George W. Bush in the circumstances is to re-otherize the world. The global thrust behind so much else--in markets and culture, Internet technology, environmental salvation, medicine (and, yes, our own radio adventure) is to de-otherize the world.
An extreme repolarization of peoples is underway as American bombs rain down on the Cradle of Civilization. What do we suppose the world sees? Will this damage ever be undone?
Note his choice for "other". This part, for Lydon, is played by the President, as is evidenced by his "feeling" that Bush is hell-bent on empire, made "obvious" by the Azores summit. (Because of the mere presence of Britain and Spain at the podium? Guilt by association? Lydon doesn't say.) One wonders how Bush would go about disproving such feelings and epiphanies to Lydon, should he be so inclined.
Irrational anti-Bush sentiment isn't hard to find, and much of it is laughable. What resonates with me about this post is the fundamental dichotomy that underlies the quote: the rejection of "otherness" regarding the world (including the Cradle of Civilization and -- ostensibly -- its current ruler) and the embrace of "otherness" regarding the political leadership of one's own country.
Not that I think it bad to disagree with Bush; he and his administration have certainly done some things to be concerned about. But must we demonize our opponents? Is it impossible to consider that Bush, wrong though he is on some things, might be right on others?
This is what bothers me so much about the current war debate. If the war is bad, it is bad regardless of who prosecutes it; conversely, if the war is the right thing to do, it does not cease to be the right thing to do because George W. Bush is the one doing it. Certainly, if the war is bad, one can muse about the motives behind prosecuting it anyway. But I, for one, am not at that point. Even as I deplore the need for war and remain deeply skeptical of its necessity, I do not put the full blame for the failure of diplomacy at Bush's feet, nor do I see a way out of that failure that does not involve war.
Of course, rational people may disagree, and do. When they impute impure motives to their opponents, however, are they being rational? And is it possible to have rational disagreement in the world we live in, or are we destined to have the Rush and anti-Rush rant against each other, locked in perpetual struggle with no possible resolution?
UPDATE: Fixed missing quote in HTML.
Mar 30, 2003 | Comments are no longer available