How “democracy” became the be-all and the end-all here, upon this bank and shoal of time

Alex K. writes:

Reading the excerpt from your article on Midge Decter and the neocons—which I wish I had read at the time—I was reminded of the Buckley (I think it was him) observation that the neocons brought social science to the conservative movement. That is, the Right started arguing in the data-crunching style of the Left, whereas before it had been leaning on principles and philosophy. Others have noted how useful a contribution that data-crunching social science style was during last few decades of the Cold War and in response to Great Society programs.

Reading the inane declarations of Decter (We can turn any country into an advanced democracy because “[T]he world is everywhere full of ordinary people who want exactly what we want, though they may not even dare to dream of it”) it occurred to me that the neocons had spent decades getting skilled at the data-crunching style, but were not used to the abstract principle style. And so now that they have taken a crack at it with regards to remaking the Middle East, they are amazingly poor at it.

LA replies:

Oh, I think they’ve had plenty of practice in the “abstract principle” style—they are the founders of the Propositionalist Nation, after all. No. What happened was that they simply went over the edge from a wrong and dangerous but not completely nutty idea (“America is an idea”) into the blatant escapism and irrationality of claiming that Muslim countries could be converted into liberal democracies. How did this happen? It happened in three steps:

1. The 9/11 attack happened. The discovery of an entire churning Muslim world seeking to do us maximum harm happened. Something had to be done.

2. The notion set in that the former policy of getting along with Arab dictators had not stopped Muslim extremism from developing. Therefore a different approach was needed. A clue was found in the Arab-Israel conflict. For years, there had been the notion that the Arabs would not accept Israel until they had become democratic. Netanyahu had been a promoter of this. After 9/11 the notion of democracy as the key to change in the Muslim world was applied on a much grander scale than previously imagined: Democracy was the answer. Democracy would drain the repression, the poisons, the hatred. Of course, this was never anything more than a wish, a fantasy. But the people who subscribed to it treated it as a profound revelation.

3. Once they had settled on Muslim democracy as the answer, Muslim democracy had to seem possible and plausible. So they began coming up with staggeringly inane arguments such as, “The world is everywhere full of ordinary people who want exactly what we want, though they may not even dare to dream of it…” In an instant, an entire sub population of pro-Bush “conservative” opinionators was echoing the same idea, using the same phrases, making the same assured comment that democracy was just around the corner.

In history and politics, the worst mistakes always come from the desperate conviction that something must be done. (Think Pickett’s Charge.) That’s what happened here. Something had to be done to deal with Muslim extremism. “Democracy” seemed like the best bet. So the Bushites and the neocons and many gencons (generic conservatives) started selling Muslim “democracy” for all it was worth. They didn’t think about whether this made sense, whether it was true.

And this is why, as I have said, America must be de-neoconified. Not because—as the neocon-haters at Scott McConnell’s magazine The Anti-American Leftist insist—the neocons are traitors who tricked America into fighting a war that supposedly was for national defense but was really for Israel. No, but because the neocons promote the most flamboyantly false ideas with relentless energy, and never take responsibility for the falseness of their ideas or the damage they have caused. They are irresponsible political actors who in a well-ordered political society would be closed out of participation in public debate until they abjured and renounced their neoconservatism.

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David H. writes:

Your reply to the topic is perhaps the best article I have yet read on your website. Colleagues have berated me when I tell them that I have absolutely no confidence in the pipe-dream democratic goals in the Middle East. It’s not that democracy won’t “work” there; it’s that we’ll inevitably end up with Hamas, al-Sadr, bin-Ladens (in power!) and Taliban clones. In many ways democracy in the Middle East will give rise to ultra-fanatical Islamists who take advantage of hundreds of years of Mahommedan indoctrination.

I believe that the reason so many neocons label the opposition racist (“What, are you saying the ‘brown people’ of Iraq can’t understand democracy?!” Problem is, fanatics understand democracy too well.) is the fact that they have placed so much on the altar of “democracy” that a great deal of their credibility, especially in foreign affairs, will shatter if the idea is successfully challenged. Like good liberals (a fact that you pointed out and I now embrace), they react with slander.

Again, great response.

PS: For many years I have loathed the idea that we go to war with a “government” and not a nation/people, who we only “want to liberate” from their oppressive governments (this assumes they don’t support said government—often a stupid assumption). What happens then if a nation or terrorist group uses a real weapon of mass destruction (nuclear, viral) in one of our civilian centers? How can the US use nuclear weapons with legitimacy if we only want to “liberate” and “democratize” nations??? The liberate-rebuild the world attitude is making me nauseous.

LA replies:

Thank you. I was really just trying to sum up in a concise way what I’ve seen saying in bits and pieces for years.

LA writes:

I think in my initial response to Alex above I may have missed his point. He’s saying that the neocons were so accustomed to a social-science approach that they lacked practice in true political/moral reasoning, so, when they needed to think in larger political terms, especially after 9/11, they went for idiotically simplified abstractions. Thus their reliance on abstractions was not the original cause of their distorted view of man and society; it was the result of a prior “professional deformation” stemming from their social-science approach to politics.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 26, 2006 01:09 AM | Send