It can be said - and I am saying it here - that one of the most significant - in the long run - conflicts of our time is that between those who bow down to the God of Certainty and those who embrace the ambiguities of the real world.
Call it a conflict between Plato and Socrates.
Plato proposed that the real world was an imperfect reflection of a perfect world of ideal forms, and that the job of the philosopher was to discover those ideal forms by introspection. This idea can be closely linked to the idea of
maya in Hindu philosophy.
Socrates' claim was that you need to question all knowledge. He was, he said, wiser than others, but only because he recognized that he didn't know anything.
Thus they stand, Plato the icon of Certainty and Determinism, and Socrates the champion of Doubt and Ambiguity. It is my thesis that Plato leads to Fascism - the theme of Karl Popper's seminal work, The Future and Its Enemies - and Socrates leads to liberal democracy, free enterprise, prosperity, and the growth of knowledge.
After all, if you already know everything for certain, what's the point in investigating, learning, or inventing new things? A clear sign of the Platonic type is lack of curiosity (that bring anyone to mind?).
Now, it is possible to be a person of sincere religious belief and still recognize the wonders and advantages of the realist world view: that ambiguity is necessary to understanding the universe, a real aspect of the world, and an advantage to a fulfilling life. But, truth be told, it is more often the case in the U.S. these days that religion is on the side of the Platonists, and hostile to a life of Socratic doubt.
Doubt is a good thing. No one has ever been killed by someone who is not that sure of the rightness of his beliefs. Lots of people have been killed - and are every day - by those who hold their beliefs to be an absolute certainty. Doubt leads to questioning, investigation, discovery, invention, and progress. A fanatic's Certainty and unquestioning acceptance of written, received wisdom resists change, accepts disaster, and stays the course.
So we are in a conflict, even a war if we still want to call it that, against those who venerate certain knowledge. Simply because they are so certain of the correctness of their beliefs, they will kill all who do not agree.
And the irony is that our side, the side of the Socratics, is being led by someone whose personal beliefs are not that far from bin Ladin's.
George Bush is also a man of certainty. He is certain of the rightness of his cause, and of the evil of all who disagree with him or stand against him in any way. He is certain of what he knows, and no amount of factual, empirical evidence will ever impact on his certainty. This has been proven time and again. In a struggle against the heirs of Plato, we are led by a follower of Plato (though, of course, his exposure to any works of philosophy is rather doubtful, itself).
He is certain that tax cuts for the rich are the one single panacea for curing all the ills of the American economy, and no evidence to the contrary will ever be accepted. He is certain that bin Ladin and "the terrorists" are "evildoers," and that's all there is to it. Thus, the War on Terror is simply a matter of killing people. Countering their ideas is not necessary, since Bush knows no ideas to counter them with, and those who don't automatically accept Bush's certainties are simply evil and deserve death (again an echo of bin Ladin's fatwas). Kill all the terrorist, we win. Easy. The idea that people become terrorists because of the conditions of their lives, and in part because of what Bush's policies bring to their lives, never occurs to the great leader/decider.
Thus his attack dogs accused the man who will ran against him, John Kerry, of waffling and uncertainty. These, they say, are the characteristics of a poor leader. Bush is never uncertain, even when he's wrong and killing hundreds of people every day with his mistakes. Kerry and his handlers, unfortunately, were afraid to embrace complexity and ambiguity and learning and adjusting to circumstances and adapting to changing conditions. It's just too hard to explain in a thirty-second sound bite. Especially when the person doing the explaining is John Kerry.
There are lots of examples of other areas in which the conflict between the Socratics and the Platonists is being played out, with neither side all that introspectively aware of the basis for their disagreement.
But this does give some idea (as if we needed it) of how dangerous it is to have Bush in the White House. His limited, myopic world view is actively interfering in the real work of countering those who want to kill us in service to their idea of the divine on the one truly effective level that will actually increase our security - that of ideas. His disdain for honest disagreement, the workings of real democracy, and the rule of law give aid and comfort to the enemy far more than do those whose only crime is honest disagreement with the lies and cover-ups of the administration. His reliance on the one tool he understands in the war - guns - will prolong this conflict and cost the lives of hundreds if not thousands of good, loyal, innocent Americans and allies.
For all our sakes, the war against Platonics has to be led by a genuine Socratic. If it's too intellectual and confusing to call him or her such a name, at least let it be someone who comes within miles of understanding the basics of democracy, law, liberalism, and economics.
The question is, who out there can even think thoughts like these, much less express them in language that the American people will accept, breaking through the lies and preconceptions of the Republican lackeys in the MSM?