By: Vanessa Locicero
Us versus them, good versus evil, conservatives versus liberals: these dichotomies manipulate the policies of the United States of America. The American government has carried out both domestic and foreign policy directly influenced by political elites who vehemently believe in the propagation of ‘necessary illusions’ to their own citizens – lies, as we would call them. These ‘necessary illusions’ are fabricated and disseminated by the government to invoke fear from its citizens so their thoughts and values can be more easily controlled.
Are you worried yet? This is the power of the Neo-Conservative movement in the United States of America that in recent years has exercised an alarming amount of power in American politics and global affairs.
History has taught us that dichotomous moral judgments fabricated in the name of ‘necessary illusions’ and ‘perpetual deception’ have led only to ignorance and violence perpetrated in the fight against “evil”. This is not an article about the Iraq war, nor critical philosophy. Instead, it is about the many examples of Neo-Conservative influence on American domestic and foreign policy.
An article such as this does not possess the space to list countless examples of the illusions and myths that American society has at this very moment in history. Social scientists know the power of history can be both phenomenally exciting and frightening. Why are the conflicting understandings of “us versus them” and “good versus evil” being perpetuated? Who is creating these dichotomies and who are they hurting?
The United States of America has experienced regimes of conservatism that make proponents of liberal democracy shudder. Over the last half-century, the Republican party of the United States has been the perfect breeding ground for individuals bent on preserving dangerous dichotomies in order to further the political goals of what is known as the Neo-Conservative movement. As much as the Neo-Cons would like us to believe these ideas didn’t come from “the Communists” or “Islamic radicals”, they came from within America.
The Neo-Conservative movement was inspired by Leo Strauss in the 1960s and 1970s. He was a political philosopher (German born but emigrated to the United States) who believed that liberal society spawned the seeds of its own destruction by accepting moral pluralism and individuals. Strauss believed that in order to stop this destruction of society, elites had a responsibility to promote ‘necessary illusions’, myths about society that would enforce a moral dichotomy of right and wrong, good and evil. According to the interpretations of Strauss, "perpetual deception of the citizens by those in power is critical because they need to be led, and they need strong rulers to tell them what's good for them." That is a pretty dangerous idea when those in power represent the smallest minority of society as oppose to the “people”, as it should be in a democracy.
Neo-Cons, as this vein of the Republican Party has been labelled, were the reason the world was introduced to Sarah Palin. Since being selected as John McCain’s running mate for the 2008 presidential election, The New American Magazine explains, “Sarah Palin has been a project of the neoconservative movement in Washington that continues to promote what George W. Bush described as a “global democratic revolution.”” From the get go, Neo-Cons sunk their teeth into the project of manipulating and creating Sarah Palin to be the connecting force between their own hawkish movement and the grassroots Tea Party movement. The recent mid-term elections in the United States witnessed the power of grassroots political movements motivated and inspired by dichotomous thinking and an influx of Neo-Conservative influence with the Republican Party winning several seats from the Democrats.
Not to be confused with one another, the Neo-Cons and the Tea Party are two different veins of this expansive Republican Party with different policy objectives. The Tea Party is a populist, grassroots movement with no “real” central leadership, and is composed of national and local groups who determine their own policy objectives based on regional concerns, often with a domestic platform focus. As stated in an article from the BBC, the Neo-Cons are more focused on American foreign policy with a “tendency to see the world in binary good/evil terms, readiness to use military force, emphasis on US unilateral action, [and] disdain for multilateral organizations” .
The Neo-Cons have always been led by a tight knit group of academic and political elites. Accordingly, the populist nature and lack of singular leadership in the Tea Party has led critics to question its amiability towards the Neo-Cons. The Neo-Cons found a way to bring the power of this populist movement under its own banner by invoking the Sarah Palin card and playing up her average, modest, every-day-American characteristics.
Myths perpetuated by Straussians seeped into American political administrations by way of his students and indirectly through media outlets and academic circles. Paul Wolfowitz, who served as George W. Bush’s Deputy Secretary of Defense, was a student of Strauss at the University of Chicago and was said by The New Yorker to have been “a major architect of President Bush’s Iraq policy”. Donald Rumsfeld, who served as Secretary of Defence under George W. Bush, is a devout Neo-Con whose influences during the Bush administration significantly affected the American invasion of Iraq and subsequent military decisions. Even the Vice President under George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, provided primary justification for entering into a war with Iraq following 9/11 and shaped the administration’s approach to the “War on Terror” through ideology steeped in Neo-Conservatism.
The relevance of this looming force stands not simply in examples of recent election results or political puppeteering, but in the historical dangers of the Neo-Conservative influence on American foreign policy.
As much as I’ve questioned the Neo-Conservative motivations in this piece, I would hope that as a result you will question the political movements you see happening around you, at a local, national and global level. What is going on under the surface of media coverage that we see on CNN, Fox News, or the BBC, for example. Who is telling me my news?
As students, young adults and Canadians we are asked by society to be engaged and involved in our globalized world. That involves asking the question: What is my government doing for me?
Peter J. Boyer, "The Believer: Paul Wolfowitz Defends His War", online posting, The New Yorker, November 1, 2004
No comments:
Post a Comment