Useful Distinctions: Understanding Monomania

Here's some useful distinctions made by Richard Bernstein in THE ABUSE OF EVIL, which I review below. Keep them in mind the next time the Bush administration tries to scare the nation into submission.

"There is a difference between intelligent fear and unintelligent fear," wrote Sidney Hook, student of John Dewey and noted pragmatist philosopher. (cited on page 60)

I attended a panel discussion at the Brooklyn Public Library a panel this year on September 11. After the panel discussion toward the end of the Q&A a woman in the audience who identified herself as a visitor from Colorado, said "you people in New York seem to have gotten over 9/11 more than people where I'm from." This, I think, is a great example of how the Bush fear machine works. We who actually were in NYC that day have gotten on with our lives as best we can. Others Americans, less conntected with the actual event, more with the propoganda event, are prey to the distortion of its meaning.

Liberty is always liberation from something, whether from poverty , or from oppressive rulers, tyrants and dictators. Liberty is a necessary condition for freedom, but not a sufficient condition for freedom. Freedom is a positive political achievement of individuals acting together. And this tangible worldly freedom exists only as long as citizens deliberate, debate, and act together." (Bernstein, page 74).

Bernstein notes that liberty, freedom, and democracy are used interchangeably in Bush's speeches, and this confusion exemplifies the administration's confusion about what would happen in the wake of the invasion of Iraq. The neo-con absolutists who talked him into the invasion had equated liberty with freedom with democracy, thinking that by liberating the Iraqi people from Saddam that freedom and democracy would immediately kick in and something like the United States would appear.