How utopian liberal criteria undermine valid, conservative goals

President Bush wages a war on Islamic terrorism and extremism, and his criterion of victory in that war is the spread of democracy, i.e., the establishment of popularly elected governments in Muslim countries. But such democracy means rule by Islamic sharia in Iraq, rule by the terrorist Hezbolah in Lebanon, and rule by the terrrorist Hamas in Gaza. The democracy that Bush proposes means the ascendancy of the Islamic extremism and terrorism that he opposes.

Similarly, conservative educational reformers such as Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom seek to raise black educational standards and performance, and their criterion of success in that effort, their Holy Grail, is that the gap between black and white achievement be eliminated. But in practice the only way to eliminate the gap between black and white academic achievement is to eliminate academic standards. The equality of outcome that the educational reformers seek requires the destruction of the higher standards that they also seek—and thus of the very possibility of higher achievement.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at September 25, 2005 02:27 PM | Send