Ideology and Ira Chernus

“Ideology - that is what gives evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. . . . That was how the agents of the Inquisition fortified their wills: by invoking Christianity; the conquerors of foreign lands, by extolling the grandeur of their Motherland; the colonizers, by civilization; the Nazis, by race; and the Jacobins (early and late), by equality, brotherhood, and the happiness of future generations.”
Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn The Gulag Archipelago

I am an American, and I make no apologies for that. I love my country and what it stands for. I love freedom, and seek to do those things which will increase the freedom and opportunities of all Americans.

Because of that I am suspicious of Ideology of any kind. Ideology is a form of shutting off the mind--closing yourself off from possibilities and truths.

It should be said that the prevalent ideology of the 21st century (at least so far, and I hope it changes) is cynicism. It is so easy to believe the worst of our public officials, of religious leaders, of media representatives, of ourselves. Easy, but lazy ultimately. The truth is that our public officials are no different from we ourselves. I don’t know about you but I find in myself a mixture of passions. Some of them are exceedingly noble, some are terribly base and mean spirited, and most are just selfish. I would assume our public officials are animated by the same mixture of passions. They do have noble impulses and on occasion they give reign to those impulses.

With those thoughts in mind, and believe me I will return to them often, I turn to Ira Chernus’ recent article, entitled The National Insecurity State. In it he makes some interesting points on the origins of the cold war and then proceeds to cite a recent Bush administration document, entitled "The National Security Strategy of the United States.” In commenting on the document he provocatively suggests that the document states that we the United States is “threatened by any nation that might resist the spread of free trade or seek military strength equal to our own.”

That would be terrible if true. Not so much the second part, but the United States is threatened by any nation that resists free trade? What does resisting free trade mean? Allowing trade unions? Levying taxes?

Unfortunately Chernus does not provide a link to the document in question; one quality of many commentators that I do not share is the desire to shield my audience from the source documents. However, a review of the document does state the Bush Administrations hardly remarkable affinity for Free Trade, but does not commit the United States to intervene militarily in any way, assuming I didn’t miss anything.

Why read a document stating that the United States is in favor of free trade and automatically jump to the assumption that the President is in favor of military action in those situations? Because it’s an easy assumption to jump to, if you are facing that direction ideologically. It’s no more noble to reflexively attack President Bush than it is for Rush Limbaugh to reflexively defend him.