The BBC's "The Power of Nightmares"

I have just watched the first two hours of the BBC program "The Power of Nightmares." Very powerful, just as Thom Hartman recently wrote on Common Dreams. Originally broadcast in England in October, it is, in fact, a much stronger and more useful analysis of the Neocon/Radical Islamist movements, opposite sides of the same bad penny, than Fahrenheit 911. The Power of Nightmares does an excellent job of tracking the two germs seeds as they emerged from just two individuals in the 1940s. Would that The Power of Nightmares were as widely distributed and as easily available for study as F/911.

We will only be able to defeat the NeoCons when we are able to destroy their foundations. Attacking their lies and myths will not do the trick. That is only to attack the symptoms. To destroy the foundations and structures of the NeoCon movement will require, however, that we debunk and expose all of the faults and inconsistencies in Leo Strauss' political theory and its derivative critiques of modern life, religion and politics. "The Power of Nightmares" makes an excellent start on this. Why has it not been broadcast in the US?

Does the Christian Right Political party, for example, have any idea how cynically they have been manipulated by the Neocon elite? If they watched the 3 hours of analysis in "The Power of Nightmares" they might get a glimmer of how badly they have been duped and used.

Strauss, the theorist behind the NeoCons, has it right that the all societies must be wary of internal contradictions. I would suggest, however, that he got the problem wrong. He thought individualism in a "liberal" society was the root of the problem. I think this is not the case at all. There is the counter model of the individual who leads a life of inquiry. Thoreau and the American trancendentalists? Buddhists? Monks? etc.

Strauss is in fact trapped inside the dominant economic organizing principles and architectures of his time - the mid 20th century. So it is not possible for him to stand on some other architecture at a remove and use this new perspective to make a more useful and more accurate analysis. The result is that he attacks the individual, rather than criticize the dominant, centralized power model that creates the context and myths that surround and define the individuals he is so quick to criticize. Domestic advertising, for example, represents billions of dollars in myth creation and in-country propaganda generally promoting all of the values that BOTH Strauss and the Radical Islamists so passionately detest.

Net net, Strauss comes up with a model that is: anti democratic, elitist, based upon supreme central authority of the elites, and that abandons the rule of law for an "ends justifies the means" policy. Further, Strauss actively demands that myths be created and that truth be subverted to the myths and their purposes. Only the elites may cynically know the truth, if they can remember what it is, as only the elites are capable of being pure enough to know what the truth is.

I suggest the internal contradiction that is at the root of the cultural dissatisfaction we seem to be facing is the broadcast economic model, evolved from both the possibilities and the limits of industrial mass production and distribution, legitimatized by Keynsian economics. It appears to be the case that this model devolves in its later stages into simple consumerism, celebrity and entertainment. This is the real issue. We have now created a consumer society that feeds upon its self. 60%+ of the economy is now basic consumerism. It is hard to imagine that this is sustainable from any point of view.

If we do not like this, then we need to look for an alternative perspective from which to get a clearer view. I suggest that the philosophy and the architecture of the internet may offer just that new perspective. The answer is more democracy with more power in the hands of the people while at the same time disinter-mediating as much of the hierarchy in the center as possible. The answer is more of what we fought the Revolutionary War for. This answer is in direct conflict with the world view of the Straussian NeoCons now in power in DC.

Lastly, we need to remember that McNamara gave an speech in 1966 which outlined a powerful alternative vision: Security in the Contemporary World. Nobody seems to remember this. It is truly a road not taken.

Posted by Jock Gill at December 9, 2004 12:29 PM | TrackBack