Political Magic Redux
Natalie Solent (libertarian, science fiction fan, sewing enthusiast and blogger extraordinaire) stumbled across my half-baked little disquisition on "the politics of magic," and had this comment:
I found this particularly interesting because I could criticize it quite strongly - there is nothing impossible about operations we perform on ourselves changing the world outside; it's only a posh way of saying that if you clean up your own act you will have more influence with others. Nor is "get rid of root causes" talk ridiculous of itself. (Even if I do scream, "Who attacked who here?" every time it is said. But that's just me.) Yet I, like Dr Frank, do indeed sniff a strong scent of magic in a lot of this talk of the West buying safety by self-transformation. As soon as I read the m-word, it was like finally being able to put a name to a flavour in a stew or remembering a word that had been on the tip of your tongue.
Of course, I agree that "cleaning up ones act" can be beneficial and can further ones influence and power. I'd even go as far as to say that, in certain instances, adjusting this or that sundry policy might even render us "safer," in the same way that a wino can marginally improve his health, if not his sense of well-being, if he protects his liver by allowing someone to snatch his bottle away-- though he still runs the risk of getting hit by a car if he doesn't also get out of the street, in which case his improved liver will be of little use to him. (I know that's a fractured analogy; but what I'm getting at is that there is something like a law of infinite regression when it comes to ensuring safety through a program of dealing with "root causes.")
My point was that mere righteousness rarely suffices as a defense against actual enemies: you need fortifications, armies, weapons, as well. And you need the will to use them when necessary. It's nice to occupy the moral high ground (or to be able to make a credible claim that you occupy it, at any rate.) But the idea that we can somehow render ourselves invulnerable to attack simply by maintaining a state of moral purity is flat-out delusional.
I've been trying to figure out why there has been such reluctance to acknowledge this simple truth on the part of some among us, and "magic" was the best I could come up with. No reasonable person, it might be objected, would really believe such a thing. Yes, no reasonable person would. Yet this belief does seem to animate Frater Chomsky (one of the highest-ranking hierophants of the Hermetic Order of Political Sorcery) whose grimoire maintains that our foreign policy problems will dissolve in a puff of smoke once we make the decision to refrain from engaging in foreign policy. And I sense a similar, if less "crackpot," spirit among the many well-meaning naifs whose pious dream is that we can control our attackers' activities merely by sorting out the contents of our own souls.
The problem certainly cries out for analysis from somebody with more wisdom and ability than I possess. I look forward to Natalie's promised quotes relating to the "magic" quality of some of the calls for self-transformation.
Posted by Dr. Frank at January 13, 2002 03:23 PM | TrackBack