Tuesday, March 16, 2004
(9:31 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
Spain: Home of the Brave
Today in empire class, Herr Doktor Jennings brought up the contrast between the Spanish response to their terrorist attacks and the American response to 9/11. In America, people had to be told to go back to work and normal life; they were stocking up on duct tape and plastic sheeting; they were utterly paralyzed. In Spain, nearly a quarter of the nation's population took to the streets. He wasn't sure what that contrast meant, but he was sure of one thing -- that's not how a nation behaves when its people are afraid of terrorism. That's not how they behave when they lack resolve.
There have been many sins against language perpetrated by our current administration -- and let's not let ourselves believe that such sins are inconsequential; as Kant tells us, every lie breaks down the trust that allows any communication to take place at all, and how much more the lies that lead directly to war? Perhaps the worst sin they have committed is to have hijacked nearly all moral terms, nearly all terms referring to desirable characteristics -- courage, resolve, goodness, justice, etc., etc. -- in such a way that direct analysis of their position is impossible. Every argument with a particular position taken by the Bush administration has to start five steps back and prove that, in essence, it is possible to be a decent, moral person and disagree with the Bush administration. That is where our national debate is. That's what it looks like for one side to have a stranglehold on the terms of the debate.
The Spanish people do not lack resolve. They know what they want, and they knew what they wanted a year and a half ago, when they took to the streets in protest -- they want to choose their own course. They want to opt out of the project of American imperialism. They showed that in their recent election by holding their president accountable for lying to them and by choosing a leftist party to lead them, a party that will at least stand a fair chance of being in touch with the needs of common people.
They wanted to live their lives without letting the fear of terrorism control every decision they made -- do the American people even remember how to want that? Do the American people understand the sheer idiocy of basing one's vote for president on the long-shot fear of another terrorist attack? I knew that American history has been driven by greed from the very beginning -- but has it always been this driven by fear?
