04 May 2006
Democratic or Liberal?
In his essay in the April 30, 2006, New York Times Magazine, Peter Beinart makes a common mistake by characterizing the struggle against terrorism or totalitarianism as a democratic one. Civility, after all, is not a democratic value. It is really a liberal value; and I don’t mean liberal vs. conservative. I mean liberal vs. uncritical, unconsidered, unthinking, dogmatic. It is civility that demands economic opportunity – a chance to achieve material happiness – not democracy.
Globalization has made opportunity a prerequisite of order, because the lack of material happiness virtually anywhere generates chaos that is felt worldwide. It happens that owing to the location of oil wealth, Islamic societies have been quick to foster terrorist disrupters of world peace and personal security. There is nothing unique to Islamic fundamentalism that is inimical to material well-being. Religious fundamentalism in any other culture with the same extreme polarity of deprivation and wealth can produce the type of nihilist anomie that created 9/11.
When truth is a certainty, as most fundamentalist faiths preach, knowledge often suffers, not to mention civil order. What is needed for a more rational world is not a democratic victory over evil, but a liberal victory over dogmatism.
In his essay in the April 30, 2006, New York Times Magazine, Peter Beinart makes a common mistake by characterizing the struggle against terrorism or totalitarianism as a democratic one. Civility, after all, is not a democratic value. It is really a liberal value; and I don’t mean liberal vs. conservative. I mean liberal vs. uncritical, unconsidered, unthinking, dogmatic. It is civility that demands economic opportunity – a chance to achieve material happiness – not democracy.
Globalization has made opportunity a prerequisite of order, because the lack of material happiness virtually anywhere generates chaos that is felt worldwide. It happens that owing to the location of oil wealth, Islamic societies have been quick to foster terrorist disrupters of world peace and personal security. There is nothing unique to Islamic fundamentalism that is inimical to material well-being. Religious fundamentalism in any other culture with the same extreme polarity of deprivation and wealth can produce the type of nihilist anomie that created 9/11.
When truth is a certainty, as most fundamentalist faiths preach, knowledge often suffers, not to mention civil order. What is needed for a more rational world is not a democratic victory over evil, but a liberal victory over dogmatism.
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