History Forum / General / British History / May 2008

Still Thoughtful & Provocative....

Particularly On Memorial Day.

DSH
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OPINION JOURNAL FEDERATION

Moral Purification
Why intellectuals love defeat.

BY JOSH MANCHESTER
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
The Wall Street Journal

TCSDaily -- Technology, Commerce, Society

James Carroll, recently writing in the Boston Globe, wondered if America
could finally accept defeat in Iraq, and be the better for it, comparing it
to Vietnam:

"But what about the moral question?  For all of the anguish felt over the
loss of American lives, can we acknowledge that there is something proper in
the way that hubristic American power has been thwarted?  Can we admit that
the loss of honor will not come with how the war ends, because we lost our
honor when we began it?  This time, can we accept defeat?"

To be frank, no.  In Mr. Carroll's fantasyland, the United States is
deserving of defeat, and through some sort of mental gymnastics, that defeat
is honorable, because it smacked of hubris to ever have fought in the first
place.

I contend instead that the ultimate dishonor will be to leave hundreds of
thousands, and perhaps millions, of Iraqis to violent deaths; and that this
is far too large a price to pay for Mr. Carroll to feel better.

In his book "The Culture of Defeat," the German scholar Wolfgang
Schivelbusch described the stages of defeat through which nations pass upon
losing a large war.  He examined the South's loss of the Confederacy, the
French loss in the Franco-Prussian War, and the German loss in World War I.

He saw similar patterns in how their national cultures dealt with defeat: a
"dreamland"-like state; then an awakening to the magnitude of the loss; then
a call that the winning side used "unsoldierly" techniques or equipment; and
next the stage of seeing the nation as being a loser in battle, but a winner
in spirit. Schivelbusch expanded upon this last as such:

"To see victory as a curse and defeat as moral purification and salvation
is to combine the ancient idea of hubris with the Christian virtue of
humility, catharsis with apocalypse.  That such a concept should have its
greatest resonance among the intelligentsia can be explained in part by the
intellectual's classical training but also by his inherently ambivalent
stance toward power."

Bingo!  Intellectuals love to see those with power humiliated and brought
down. They see it as delightful validation of their "superior intelligence
and understanding."  In high school and college, these folks loved to see
their own basketball/football team defeated for the same reasons --  
humiliation of the jocks.  On the other hand, they want to be ADVISORS and
CONFIDANTES to the powerful. so they can "SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER" -- DSH

Who knows whether Mr. Carroll has had classical training, but should
Schivelbusch meet him today, would he not recognize this idea of defeat as
moral purification?

The only problem for those such as Mr. Carroll is that we have not yet lost.

It is difficult not to conclude that there is a class of well-intentioned
individuals in the United States like him who don't merely feel as they do
upon witnessing a defeat, but instead think this way all the time.

Like it or not, this mentality of permanent defeat plays a large part in the
Democratic Party.  It is now up to President Bush and the new Democratic
congressional leadership to see that it does not become dominant.

How to do so? A charm offensive is not quite what is necessary. Instead,
perhaps a combination of sobering events that will impress upon Nancy Pelosi
and Harry Reid the gravity of our current situation would do the trick.

Why not invite both Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to the White House every
morning until the new Congress is sworn in -- and ask them to listen with
the president to his Presidential Daily Brief, describing what al Qaeda has
cooked up of late?

Not a bad idea.  -- DSH

Or, why not invite them along with the president to one
of his private sessions with the families of those who have paid the
ultimate price overseas? Speaking of those overseas whose lives hang upon
American policy, Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Reid could be participants in the next
conference call that President Bush has with Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki.

The point of all of this would be to create a true bipartisan consensus on
Iraq that does not leave the Iraqis and U.S. credibility to disaster.

The Iraqi blogger "Sooni," who describes himself as a "free man" living in
Baghdad, recently was asked what would happen if the U.S. partitioned Iraq.

"Just imagine it this way [sic] partitioning Iraq will create a small Iran
in the south of Iraq and a small Afghanistan in the middle of it!"

Bingo!  -- DSH

Leaving Iraq will be worse than leaving Vietnam, not necessarily in terms of
bloodshed, though that will be no comfort to those who will be slaughtered,
but because the jihadist threat today is more dangerous than the Soviet
threat then.

Despite lacking -- so far -- in similar capabilities to the Communists, our
enemies more than make up for it with an insatiable bloodthirsty
ruthlessness.

The honor that Mr. Carroll sees in defeat will soon be forgotten should al
Qaeda establish a caliphate in Anbar Province and begin a healthy trade in
the export of mayhem throughout the West.  The Furies that will visit us
from such a redoubt will engender much more than a little longing that we
had stayed.

Josh Manchester is a TCSDaily contributing writer.  His blog is _The
Adventures of Chester_.