The Paranoid Style, 1964 and 2009

From Richard Hofstadter's The Paranoid Style in American Politics:

What distinguishes the paranoid style is not, then, the absence of verifiable facts (though it is occasionally true that in his extravagant passion for facts the paranoid occasionally manufactures them), but rather the curious leap in imagination that is always made at some critical point in the recital of events. John Robinson's tract on the Illuminati followed a pattern that has been repeated for over a century and a half. For page after page he patiently records the details he has been able to accumulate about the history of the Illuminati. Then, suddenly, the French Revolution has taken place, and the Illuminati have brought it about. What is missing is not veracious information about the organization, but sensible judgment about what can cause a revolution.

and ...

L.B. Namier once said that “the crowning attainment of historical study” is to achieve “an intuitive sense of how things do not happen.” It is precisely this kind of awareness that the paranoid fails to develop.

This was written in 1964, but while Hofstadter has been criticized for being condescending, his criticism of "pseudo-conservatism" -- pseudo, because it lacks the moderating preservationist quality of 'true' conservatism -- read as if they had been written in 2009 (other than the emphasis on Barry Goldwater and Robert Welch, that is). For an exhibition of the paranoid style, try this response to a previously-obscure thesis written at the US Army's School of Advanced Military Studies, entitled Strategic Implications of American Millennialism.

The author reaches some rather obvious conclusions: people who think in absolutes may be ill-equipped to make subtle judgments; people who attend too closely to Israel's interests may mistake America's; people who long for Armageddon might be poor keepers of the peace. Really, nothing exceptionable there, except that he actually names premillennial dispensationalist Christians as the baleful influence.

To the paranoids at the Worldview Times, this is cause to declare an Emergency! "This report blames all the world evils on believers!" claims John McTernan, although it doesn't really blame all the world's ills on anyone at all. McTernan got himself so worked up that he called the officer listed on the Monograph Approval page and, apparently, barraged him with so much nuttery that the poor Colonel began to lose his patience:

He refused to tell me what this study was used for and who within the military was sent copies. I believe that it represents an official military view of Bible believers as Col Banack said there was no study or article refuting this one. This is directly from a Hard Left reprobate mind set.

THIS MUST BE CHALLENGED ON ALL LEVELS. I am contacting all the influential people that I know within our circles to sound the alarm. I am going to contact my elected officials to have this report refuted and stricken.

I am not exaggerating that after reading this report you will see that the next step for us is concentration camps to stop our evil influence on society and the world.

Someone thinks we shouldn't be allowed to influence foreign policy; we're obviously just a short step from the prison camps. Suddenly, the French Revolution. Mere rationality cannot make such leaps.

I tried to post a comment to that effect at the site, but it didn't pass moderation. Characteristically, the people at Worldview Times don't tolerate contrary opinions very gracefully. Or maybe they just didn't appreciate my kind reassurance that "if anyone ever locks you in a room, I promise you it will have comfy padded walls."


[PS. I notice now that a few critical comments have indeed made it past the moderator, so I'll have to be a little kinder to Worldview Times and take more blame myself. They can tolerate a little dissent, but no snark at all.]

Freedom demands censorship

I just noticed that one of my friends from high school has joined a Facebook group called "Petition to remove 'Soldiers are not heroes' from facebook." It turns out there is a group called "Soldiers are not heroes," whose description contains statements like this:

This group is intended to point out the absurdity of the many groups on Facebook that portray all soldiers to be heroes and shower the armed forces with unconditional praise.

Putting on a soldiers uniform does not make you a hero.

Supporters of the group generally agree that the wars that our armed forces are participating in at the present time and in recent years are unnecessary and unjust. Therefore we don't feel that we should be pressured into offering "support" to people fighting and killing innocent people for causes that we don't believe in.

I agree, at least as far as that goes (there is also some sentiment that soldiers are always positive villains, which I don't necessarily endorse). Not everyone who is in the military deserves to be called a hero, and there's a straight path between loving soldiery and loving war, a path that too many Americans have rushed down without a glance to either side.

Now, some pro-military people have decided this is "hate speech" and they want Facebook to ban the group. You can probably guess the argument: you shouldn't be allowed to criticize soldiers because they're defending your right to speak freely. Or, as one punctuationally-challenged caps-locker put it:

WHY WOULD SOMEONE SAY SOLDIERS ARE NOT HEROES. RESPECT THEM OR YOU FORGOT THAT IF IT WASN'T FOR SOLDIERS RIGHT NOW WE WOULD BE UNDER NAZI OR JAPANESE OR COMUNIST RULE?

I call bullshit. No soldier since the American Revolution has fought to keep this country from being occupied by a foreign power (technically, not even then). No soldier has fought against anyone who had the power to curtail my civil liberties. Not now, not ever in the last 200 years.

Even Nazi Germany, certainly the worst enemy we've ever fought, was no threat to occupy the US and establish a dictatorship here. It would have hurt us to have Europe so enslaved, but the Germans could not have imposed their system on us. Only Americans have or had the power to do it.

Keeping a large nuclear arsenal and a powerful army in Europe did much to deter Communist expansion, but Communism wasn't defeated by warfare. Korea was a draw and we lost in Vietnam. If remaining free depended on our soldiers winning wars - well, let's thank God it didn't.

Saddam Hussein posed no threat to American liberties. Neither does Osama bin Laden. The latter had the ability to very occasionally kill some of us, but his most spectacular success killed fewer Americans than our own actions in Afghanistan and Iraq have. If defending freedom is the goal, we needn't do anything; if saving lives is the goal, we'd have done better just hunkering down.

Do we need soldiers? Sure, we need a few. But we don't need as many as we have, all over the world, killing tens of thousands in foreign countries that pose only modest threats to ourselves. We would be just as free today, without a huge omnipresent military, as Switzerland. If we keep censoring unpopular opinion, we'll be as free as Iran.


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PS. Favorite quote from the rant discussion board:

A true soldier is one that seeks to serve their country, not to destroy others.