Noble, Consoling, and Cloud-Covering Lies

I had been kicking around the idea of writing this post ever since our religion debate of a few weeks back, but I didn’t really want another round of blog-letting. But yesterday I was prompted to take up the issue again by something William Chait of TNR wrote about Bill Kristol and the Neoconservatives. Specifically Chait notes that Kristol "once explained his belief in the philosopher Leo Strauss to journalist Nina Easton thusly: 'One of the main teachings is that all politics are limited and none of them is really based on the truth.'"

BUT, before going further I want to say up front this post is not an ad hominem attack on TMcD or anyone else real or imagined. It's an attempt to respond to TMcD’s specific argument that

Gerson just denies that atheism, as a world view, can finally justify the better angels of our nature against untrammeled self-assertion. At best you're left with tragedy and uncertainty, at worst, nihilism. Although I consider the former option a respectable one, I'm not so sure that it can be the foundation of a just social order (as opposed to individual ethic). Religion, by contrast, provides institutional supports and public justifications for other-regarding behavior and beliefs.

Wilsondegreat already noted that, “I'm not totally comfortable basing my whole social order on falsehoods, for many reasons.” Perhaps TMcD may disagree with wilsondegreat’s reading of his position, but as TMcD’s post stands, wilsondegreat’s critique seems fair enough: TMcD is apparently suggesting that religious lies are necessary because they are the best bet in the long run for social justice.

I had it in mind to amplify degreat’s cautions against this assumption with a specific example: probably the single most influential and dominant political movement in the last two decades in America has been Neoconservatism, whose agenda of American global dominance was indirectly responsible for 9/11 and is directly responsible for the invasion and occupation of Iraq in response to 9/11. One of the significant intellectual fathers of that movement was the above-mentioned Leo Strauss. Strauss, of course, was a well-known professor of Classical Philosophy and Political Science at the University of Chicago. His list of students includes such Bush-Administration Neoconservatives and apologists as Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Stephen Cambone, Elliot Abrams, Adam Shulsky, Clarence Thomas, Robert Bork, Alan Keyes,William Bennett and John Podhoretz. His ideas are particularly embraced at Neoconservative think tanks, including The American Enterprise Institute, The Weekly Standard, and The Project for the New American Century (i.e., Bill Kristol's boys). Some have even taken to calling the Neocons the Leocons.

Strauss’ most influential idea that the Neocons have run with was his belief that the keys to the gates of true knowledge about society and history should be held by only a few elite, because the masses, to quote Jack Nicholson’s character in A Few Good Men, couldn’t “handle the truth”. Strauss firmly believed, therefore, that only a few good men need be educated with the real truth and it was perfectly fine for them to tell “consoling” or “noble” lies to the masses in order to have the necessary cover to carry out what they perceived to be necessary political actions. Strauss made no secret of the fact that mythos (i.e., religion) was the most effective and necessary arena in which to disseminate these noble lies.

Well, his students evidently learned well at the master’s feet (which is not to say that Strauss would have agreed with the specific political goals of the Neoconservatives or is to blame for them), for the Neoconservatives, in their pursuit to have America dominate geopolitics, have blatantly manipulated an entire set of Judeo-Christian nationalist and religious mythoi to push through their agenda. The particular lies that we invaded Iraq to promote democracy and fight Islamo-fascism rather than dominate the oil-rich Middle East (and thus the globe) are particularly ironic religious and nationalist fabrications, given that these “few good men”, who apparently consider themselves “good” mainly because they own a lot of “goods”, really despise democracy and are making radical Islam more palatable.

In light of the undeniable fact that groups like Neoconservatives throughout history have first and foremost been able to carry out their secret agendas by manipulating religious sentiment, TMcD’s point that “Religion, by contrast, provides institutional supports and public justifications for other-regarding behavior and beliefs” takes on a new and ominous meaning.

I’d also like to take issue with TMcD’s support of Gerson’s denial that “atheism, as a world view, can finally justify the better angels of our nature” (my italics). This seems to assume that religion, as opposed to Atheism, is better able to encourage good behavior in the long run. I disagree. Religious belief may be good to offset other mischievous religious belief, but usually only in the short run, which is to say that it is easier to combat a religious-based political lie more broadly and relatively quickly by telling another religious lie – in essence to fight fire with fire. The funny thing about public lies on a widespread scale is that while effective in the short run, in the long run they usually flame up into something terribly ignoble themselves. In fact, I think it fair to say that much of history is just one endless series of such ignoble religious fires.

Adding to the complexity of the problem, is that most of the Neoconservatives and their political ilk (like Karl Rove and Kristol) may really be Atheists or possibly Agnostics/Deists (i.e., the genuinely faithful religious leaders probably aren’t the worst bad apples on this cart). So who or what is to blame for this situation? The in-the-closet Atheists/Agnostics, the out-of-the closet Atheists, the religious leaders, or the faithful themselves? The fair answer is all have sinned and fallen short, but in the end one has to admit that religious belief is the easiest way to manipulate a culture on a massive scale. I rarely if ever see overtly out-of-the-closet Atheists cheer on groups like the Neocons.

I should add that I don't think any system of belief, including Atheism, will ever be a panacea for abolishing humanity’s selfish and self-destructive political behavior, but I think that taking the shortcut of telling more seemingly benign social lies to fight other less benign lies has been tried already, and while it has gone some way to improve humanity’s lot at specific times in specific circumstances, it certainly has not finally justified our better angels, nor is it likely ever to do so.

In the end I’d like to think that if the public were presented the real reasons why, say, we’re in Iraq and have our military bases spread everywhere around the world (untrammeled self-assertion over oil), they might be able to make a more informed decision as to whether these policies are actually in our self interest and worth killing a host of people for. Seems to me that the injection of religious propaganda or arguments into these issues ends up clouding them over so much that it becomes difficult to cut through the haze and have a real debate. And that's exactly what the Neocons and their set really want.