From Sullivan, I read in
From Sullivan, I read in the Observer that Ron Rosenbaum is as disturbed by the Harriets and Mr. Ngs of the world as I am, although his Harriets and Mr. Ngs are of a different order than mine. It's a good read. I like this bit about ill-considered anti-Americanism:
"The point is, all empires commit crimes; in the past century, ours were by far the lesser of evils. But this sedulous denial of even the possibility of misjudgment in the hierarchy of evils protects and insulates this wing of the Left from an inconvenient reconsideration of whether America actually is the worst force on the planet. This blind spot, this stunning lack of historical perspective, robs much of the American Left of intellectual credibility. And makes it easy for idiocies large and small to be uttered reflexively."
It's that reflexivity, so pervasive that I can't even buy a bottle of wine without encountering it, that bothers me the most. As I've written, my first impulse these days seems to be to retaliate: How dare you abuse the end-product of a million years' worth of neurological evolution by spouting such idiocy? Have at you!
However, as a regular reader and dear friend recently reminded me, "the larger cultural problem...[is] that people who have a desire to honor civilized moral values lack the essential tools needed to know how to do so."
I'll let the Rosenbaums and Sullivans and Hitchens of the country deal with the high-flying pundits and pop-academics who sail blithely onward, propelled by the hot gasses of their own stale, blinkered ideologies. As for me, and the others down here among the hoi polloi (which is simply Greek for "the Many;" no elitism intended...not much, anyway): what to do about the dunderheaded citizen who wants to engage morally with the world but has no idea how to do so in a way that is anything but comfortable? Whose interest is not so much in attempting to discover the truth of a thing as it is in feeling good about themselves? Who is, quite simply, asleep--and likes it that way?
None of which is to imply that all who disagree with me are comfortable idiots with too much self-esteem, mind you. However, I must say that a perusal of Harriet-minded websites and comments made by a multitude of readers seemingly opposed to the very idea that America just might be the best guarantor of liberty the world has ever known does not give me a great deal of confidence that such folks are doing the mental work required to truly adopt and examine their chosen positions.
Sigh. More on this later. Right now I have to go pick up some steroids.
For my ear, wise-ass.
