Philosophy vs Ideology, excerpts from Bill Clinton ... and No Lie

Clinton: We believe in a politics as 'Common Good,' folks, dominated by evidence and argument. There is a big difference between a philosophy and an ideology, on the right or the left.

If you have a philosophy, it generally pushes you in a certain direction or another; but, like all philosophers, you want to engage in discussion, and argument. You are open to evidence, to new learning. And, you are certainly open to debate the practical applications of your philosophy. Therefore, you might wind up making a principled agreement with someone with a different philosophy.
[…]
The problem with ideology is, if you got an ideology, you already got your mind made up; you know all the answers. And, that makes evidence irrelevant and argument a waste of time. So, you [use] assertion and attack.

The problem with that is that discourages thinking and gives you bad results.
[…]
[I]t's important to point out that if you are an ideologue, denial is an essential part of your political being. Whichever side … [I]f you are an ideologue, you got your mind made up. So when an inconvenient fact crops up, you have to be in denial.
[…]
[T]he ideologues, within the current government refer to people, not just like me, although I am included, but even moderate Republicans like Colin Powell and Admiral Scowcroft, as somehow lesser political mortals, because we are trapped in, ‘The Reality-Based World.'
[…]
"And, and, what they mean by that, in fairness to them, what they mean by that is that we are an empire; we're the world's only military superpower, and that you can use power to change reality. And if you don't see that, then you'll always be condemning your country to a lesser status.

I, uh, when I was a kid, I grew up in an alcoholic home, I spent half my childhood trying to get into the ‘reality-based world' and I like it here."

SG: I find Clinton uplifting. I found Clinton's depictions of the (R)adical (R)epublican 'mind' accute, a disposition that is distinct from the conservative 'mind(s)'.

The (R) 'mind', which gave evidence of its shape when it engaged Radical Islamism with indifference, viewing it as something between a convenient excuse to enact a Neocon agenda, to a convenient target for Evil, again to use for their own political purposes, without ever engaing the 'actual' Radical Islamic 'mind' for anything of its intentions or designs - commonly referred to by the (R)z as 'an intelligence failure', but not in that order and not with themselves in mind.

Conversely, Clinton when talking of his Neocon opponents measures and gauges the heft of his quarry. His weapon, his mind, is well sited in. He understands the construct of the (R) mind as requiring a firm grasp of the known and hostile to discovery or even alternate possibilities. The plebian (R) mind when offered Rumsfeld's >known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns, seem content to park themselves with the first option. As Alchemists, they prefer lead.

Clinton describes the elite (R) mind as one drawn by Power and a machismo fixated on its ability to over-write 'Reality'. Rove's ability to 'render' the Democrats rhetorically bound and mute for years, was an example of this power to trump the rules of Reason and Evidence. For Karl, 'nothing was written, until he wrote it himself'.

The (R) mind's ability to 'Wag the Dog' was a remarkable historical event, but only made remarkable by the Democratic Party's impotence in the face of MSM willingness to leave Rovian fiction not only unchallenged, but to treated it as de rigueur - the required attire. Clinton though, does not see this triumph of propaganda in anything more than something to be played out in traditional political contest terms, it seems.

Moreover, Clinton does not mention the influence of Leo Strauss on the neocon mind. Strauss asserted that modern liberalism contains a structure flaw, a structurally induced disintegration, relativism and nihilism. In its place Strauss offered 'noble lies' (as opposed to 'deadly truths') as a way to create social unity, meaning and stability. The combination of 'noble lies' and the 'Power to alter Reality', created I think, America's early 21st century flirtation with Fascism. Again, Clinton seems willing to simply treat this as just one of the political options, democratically offered for electoral selection.

Furthermore, I have always felt it necessary to 'deconstruct' (i.e. dismantle) the (R) mind, to show the empo(R)e(R) has no clothes, by demonstrating the reality of their fascism - demonstrate the actual threat they pose. Clinton seems to believe in a more traditional approach - the contest of ideas. He believes in the triumph of the Enlightenment, a belief for him that may be grounded in the bredth and scope of his own brilliant political abilities, but it is not a capacity possessed by others on the left.

This is a glaring omission on the left, with the potential for ominous consequences in the future. Liberalism has yet to come to grips with extremist, and with extremism's ability to destroy the center in any debate. This I fear is THE THREAT facing western democracy in the 21st century.

By contrast to this fear though, in the '06 elections, by simply abandoning the political stage to the (R)z, (D)z provided them the 'freedom' to implode. However, in spite of this recent (D) success, their lack of political ability to confront the forces of the 'noble lie', still stands as a worrying weakness. Were it not for a random and lucky "Macacca" and a timely 'Foley', I am not certain that we would have had sufficient ground swell, sufficient political pressure, for a tectonic shift to create the tsunami that finally brought Katrina Goverance to the shores of the RNC.

I may be quite wrong here though, for pollsters have said that the result of '06 pretty much reflected polls that had remaind consistent for some time before the election. I hope they are correct, because the Democratic Party did not confront and did not defeat Fascism in the arena of political debate, as Clinton would have us do it. In fact, if the (D)z had mounted an opposition to the 'noble lie(s)', it would have impaired their electoral outcome.

Cronism's inherent incompetence may be Fascism's intrinsic structural weakness. The (R)z colapsed because of the 'fruits' of this internal rot. Inspite of being propped up by MSM, the public was having nothing of it. In the final analysis, maybe it was the public that took the leadership role here.

Even though victorious here, they are still saddled with representation that clearly abandon them, on whichever side and for whatever reason. We know the Fascists are wounded, but we don't no know if there is sufficient force in the democratic institutions of early 21st century USA capable of repelling them, if circumstances change ... And circumstances change.

Snerd