Manichaean Manipulators Unmasked

I just uploaded this review to Amazon; more to come on this very insightful work.
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Taking as his subject the danger political and religious absolutism poses to democracy, Richard J. Bernstein, a professor at Philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York, seeks to show in THE ABUSE OF EVIL: The Corruption of Politics and Relgion Since 911 (Polity, 2005) how the Bush administration has used what he calls the absolutist mentality to choke off public discussion and criticism of the Iraqi invasion (and for that matter, everything else, too). Those who wish to understand how members of this and previous administrations have deployed the absolutist mentality against American democracy, and who wish to understand how they might counter its perniciousness will find this book extremely useful.

Bernstein begins his discussion with an explanation of a pair of related framing assumptions he calls the "grand Either/Or" and "the Cartesian Anxiety." This terminology may sound fairly esoteric, but the concepts are straightforward. They go a long way toward demystifying and elucidating how the Bush administration's strategy for stifling dissent works. The grand Either/Or grows out of "what [the philosopher Descartes] took to be the grand Either/Or that we confront: Either solid foundations and indubitable knowledge Or a swamp of unfounded and ungrounded opinion." (page 27). The Cartesian Anxiety is, according to Bernstein the "quest for some fixed ground, some stable rock upon which we can secure our lives against the vicissitudes that constantly threaten us." (page 27) He goes on to say "…that those today who claim religious or moral certainty for dividing the world into the forces of good and the forces of evil are shaped by this Cartesian Anxiety." (page 28).

Those who have read Shadia Drury's account of right wing political theorist Leo Strauss, LEO STRAUSS AND THE AMERICAN RIGHT will recognize this preference for the absolute in the anti-democratic analysis and program of the Straussians. Based on their exoteric/esoteric readings of Plato's Republic and other classical political texts, Straussians imagine themselves as an intellectual pastorate who must defend society against the depredations of Liberalism -- that socially disruptive idea which insists on equality of opportunity and justice. The grand Either/Or they posit based on their readings is between a beneficent plutocracy and anarchy. They see themselves as members of the plutocracy, of course. Not surprisingly, many members of and advisers to the Bush regime find congenial Strauss' anti-democratic theories.

Those who have read George Lakoff's MORAL POLITICS, will recognize the grand Either/Or as the "Strict Father" narrative which reinforces a right-wing program of top-down ideologically reinforced hierarchy -- a disciplinary program where punishment is more important than reward -- a program which believers are told flows out of the natural moral order established by God. The "Or" in the right's formulation in this case could be called the Weak Mother / Feminized Father, who, "liberal" to a fault, is characterized as ineffective, vacillating, a coddler of the undeserving, unable to make tough decisions and stick to them.

Bernstein believes that the best counter to absolutism is "pragmatic fallibilism," or as it is more commonly known, pragmatism, as espoused by Dewey, Peirce, James, Holmes and others. Quoting Louis Menand's THE METAPHYSICAL CLUB at some length, he agrees with Menand's premise that "these thinkers were reacting against the entrenched opposition [in the years before and during the Civil War], the absolute certainty by the opposing forces of the righteousness of their cause, the sheer intolerance toward those who held opposing convictions...." (page 22). Further, Bernstein says "Menand's thesis is that the pragmatic thinkers understook to develop a more flexible, open, experimental and fallible way of thinking that would avoid all forms of stark binary oppositions, and violent extremism." (Page 23)

Bernstein's readings of Hannah Arendt works in this context are particularly useful and illuminating. Arendt's view is that a democratic politics takes real personal and social commitment and is based on continuous engagement, discussion and disagreement, similar to the beliefs of the pragmatists, especially Dewey. Arendt's insights into the nature of totalitarian evil, which were based on her experience of resistance in Nazi Germany and her later reportage and thinking about the "banality of evil" as prompted by Eichmann's trial, is fruitfully contrasted against Carl Schmitt's anti-liberal theory of politics.

Schmitt, a German political theorist and enthusiastic supporter of Hitler believed, in Bernstein's words, that "Debate, deliberation, and persuasion obscure what is essential for politics -- firm sovereign decisions for dealing with political enemies" (page 91). Grounded on the familiar conservative judgment that man is evil, that enmity is the basic existential condition of mankind from which it follow that a strong sovereign must be in place to staunch chaos and enforce order, Schmitt, according to Bernstein, contends that "Sovereigns may pretend that they are making decisions in the name of some 'higher principle' or that they are following proper legal and political procedures, but this should not disguise the fact that such decisions are ungrounded; they are solely the sovereign's decision." (page 91).

Overall, Bernstein succinctly explains, examines, defends and endorses pragmatism, America's great contribution to world philosophy. Pragmatism, he shows, served the US well as the favored problem-solving approach to governance during the high tide of American liberalism in the first half of the 20th century. Bernstein shows why it is now the appropriate counter to the political and religious and political absolutism that the US has been subject to beginning with Cold War through to the latest "war" -- the so-called War on Terror. These absolutist wars and their Either/Or demagoguery have eroded the democratic spirit in America, he believes. Yet he also sees signs that Americans are beginning to reject the "my way or the highway," "love it or leave it" absolutist mentality, and instead are embracing resistance and dissent in the name of the revolutionary spirit of democracy.