Fear is the foundation of most governments.
-John Adams
Sunday, March 19, 2006
NEOCON REALITY TUNNEL
PNAC ATTACK
We would like to discuss two of the Ideal Fables that contribute to the core of most neocon reality tunnels:
1. The Golden Age - that at some point in the past (never quite specified) the world was in a fixed state which was so free from strife and trouble that to shift the culture back to such a time would result in a utopia, even though this did not, apparently, happen the first time around.
Hence, this Age is rarely described as an actual date. Instead, it seems to be an amalgamation of fundamentalist moral code mixed with Leave It To Beaver-style idyllic family life. Never mentioned, but certainly completely acceptable in this Return To Neocon Erewhon: segregation, overt racism, misogyny, women as submissive servants, children as property, purging of heretics.
2. The Volk - the typical appeal to the simple, hardworking nonexistent People that may be evident in any kind of nationalist movement. They are held up as heroes so long as they keep their fucking mouths shut and stay within their class. They become, in essence, a prop. When referenced in speeches, they are mythologized. This same strategy becomes applied to policemen, firefighters, military - again, unless a member of any of those groups should speak to the contrary.
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The Golden Age myth attracts religious fundamentalists and political conservatives alike. The siren song promises unity of the type that is deeply attractive to neocon values: a theocratic state is recognized, dissent is marginalized with use of force and society is deeply controlled such that any abnormality is punished. There is never any thought given toward failure to maintain control over such a culture or how to handle corruption in such a repressive system.
Like Marxism, historical events are seen as leading to such an Age, during which all people will naturally conform. Such a world view leads to eliminationist fantasies - the problem, according to the ideology, is that the Golden Age is blocked by various opposition forces. Removal of these forces will cleanse the body politic and nothing bad will ever happen again.
In other words, it's a fairy tale. Happily ever after. Neocons love this idea, they peddle it at the same time they sell neverending conflict, assuring nations that after a minor round of conflict "all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well."
Plato's legacy resides strongly in neocons. They view things like freedom as idealized forms that are untouched by gross materialism. Freedom-as-Ideal is too transcendent to be tainted even when Freedom-as-Practice becomes subverted.
In its most virulent form, this desire for a Golden Age becomes nearly eschatonic. The very shock of living in the world may produce an undiagnosed psychosis hidden beneath religious or political masks. The experiential world can no longer be addressed competently, so all actions flow from the desire of how things should be rather than any kind of professional judgment of an actual situation.
The Golden Age is a concept fit only for comicbooks. As an ideology it combines all the worst promises of inevitability with the contradiction of utilizing fascism in order to ensure the inevitability materializes, while at the same time discounting any resistance.
That's right, it's the stupidity of the self-fulfilling prophecy with the assurance that it will fail completely.
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The fantasy of the American Volk is not restricted to a common ethnic identity, though where it does manifest it typically bears light skin. Perfect little boxy communities of white people, all of them well-behaved and united in their beliefs.
There are other aspects rooted in just as much fantasy: our country was built by strapping, moral individualists, devout Christians, perfect gentlemen infused with pure bravery. Historical figures are divided up into camps of all-good or all-bad. Paranoid fantasies abound. Poor minorities deserve to be poor, while poor Volk are kept that way by the ruling elite in collusion with the lawless minorities.
Bunk.
Anybody reminiscing about the purity of small-town working-class America has either never been small-town or working-class, or has a seriously defective memory. Revising historical figures to match one's own deeply-held beliefs is the first sign of a Volk-praising wanker.
Xenophobia and racism, both overt and covert, are the hallmarks of Volk movements. They are easily exploited by those wishing to foment violence, often more than willing to escalate their frustration by lashing out. They sometimes borrow a stark, revolutionary anti-intellectualism (a la the Khmer Rouge or the Four Cleanups Movement) while praising ignorance as simplicity and authoritarian as traditional.
The most important thing to know about the Volk is that they have half the intelligence of His Majesty King Mob.
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The American Volk concept is deeply intertwined with the Golden Age myth:
In that pure past where nothing bad ever happened (because nobody would pay attention anyway) there were only good and bad people -- the good people only did good things, in fact, all good was done by these good people (hindsight) and the bad people only did bad things, which happen to be anything not fitting a very narrow morality. The bad people prevent that pure past from being realized again and thus must be eliminated.
The good people are good only so long as they go along with the plan to usher in the return to the Golden Age.
Whatever is done in service to the Golden Age is permissible; Morality-in-deed is thrown on the trash heap of expedience. Good intentions are put to work paving the road to Hell.
The bad people can only be redeemed by fully embracing the principles of the Volk and the drive toward the Golden Age; There is no such thing as a loyal opposition.
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The good-and-evil tool makes it far too easy to reject critical analysis and embrace self-serving revisionism. A dichotomy is the blunt instrument of the dictator: us and them, good and evil. It allows the most horrendous mental shortcuts, such as equating dissent with treason or pacifism with troop-hating.
The vast oversimplifications of neocons are nothing more than baffling delusions, Dark Age fatalism mixed with an imperialist-corporatist sense of entitlement.
America was built by individuals, and each of them represented many different thoughts and desires. It sounds banal and obvious to have to write such a qualification, but the right-wing seems particularly good at ignoring the reality of societies over their homogeneous wet dreams. America was built by strong and weak men and women, moral and immoral.
In fact, the idea of independent America itself started as the treasonous dream of a cabal of privileged intellectuals. The American makeup stands in direct contradiction to an idealized Volk.
Our strength resides in our differences; Our success depends on how inclusive we can become to all, not how holed-up in cliques we can remain.
