[lit-ideas] Re: A Political Thought
- From: Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 29 Apr 2004 09:09:05 -0700 (PDT)
--- John McCreery <mccreery@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> <Just posted on BestoftheBlogs>
>
> The December edition of Harpers contains a review of
> Raymond Aron's
> Dawn of Universal History: Selected Essays from a
> Witness to the
> Twentieth Century. The review is by Mark Lilla. The
> following
> paragraphs on page 92 leap out at me.
>
> > Responsibility was the key term in Aron's
> political lexicon. What
> > disturbed him about the popular example set by
> Sartre was that it
> > romanticized a posture of commitment and bred
> contempt for those who
> > actuallyhave to exercise power and make decisions.
> For Aron, placing
> > oneself imaginatively in the position of those in
> power was the sine
> > qua non of responsibiliity. "For a half-century,"
> he noted in his
> > memories, "I have restricted my own criticisms by
> posing this
> > question-'what would I do in their place?'"
> Answering that question
> > demands not only a change in perspective, one very
> difficult for
> > intellectuals who treat every issue as if it were
> as unambiguous as
> > the Dreyfus case. It also requires mastery of the
> material that the
> > statesman himself must master, whether that is
> diplomatic istory,
> > strategy, basic economics, law, and the rest. In
> Sartre's fantasy
> > world, it was the intellectual's independence from
> such compromising
> > data that gave him the moral perspective needed to
> pass judgment on
> > history; in Aron's world, which is ours, those who
> pronounce on
> > politics in democratic societies are obliged to do
> their homework."
>
> Would that it were true....would that it were
> true....Is there a
> statesman in the house?
That what were true ? That we need to familiarize
ourselves with the facts, to the extent we can, I
agree. That we have a moral obligation to consider the
issues by: "placing oneself imaginatively in the
position of those in power," I am not sure. In order
to fully place myself in their position, I would need
to imagine having their personal history, their
dubious personal and political commitments, their
beliefs and ambitions, in other words to become them.
But if I were George W. Bush, surely I would be doing
what George W. Bush is doing. What is gained by such
an approach ? Why is the perspective of George W. Bush
considered more important for an intellectual to place
herself in than, say, the perspective of Iraqis who
are without jobs, electricity etc ?
O.K.
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