[lit-ideas] Re: Bush the Sphinx
- From: Michael Chase <goya@xxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2005 10:08:20 -0700
To me he's unknown...can't get a handle on him at all.
M.C. I doubt that Bush is really all that complex. He's deeply stupid
and morally base, and he's been (so far) politically successful
precisely because he appeals to the lowest common denominator in the
electorate : that is, what is morally base and stupid in them.
Bush is still the frat-boy campus bully, who intimidates not because
he himself is physically impressive but because he's got a very rich
daddy and lots of friends who are linebackers. Those of us who are what
Spiro Agnew used to call "effete individuals" despise him, of course
(often with just a hint of furstrated envy): but then we despised
Nixon, too, and he got elected by a landslide.
Is Bush evil? That, of course, depends of your definition of evil. He
is far too stupid to be able to devise any Machiavellian plans, of
course, but then he's got lots of advisors who are very, very, clever,
absolutely unscrupulous, and utterly fanatical in their desire to
impose extremist fundamentalist Christianity at home and U.S. global
hegemony abroad. Perhaps it might be claimed that it is these advisors
who are truly evil, while Bush is a mere conduit without much of a
personality at all.
On the other hand, perhaps evil *just is* stupidity. There is, after
all, such a thing as moral, as well as intellectual, stupidity, and
Bush is without doubt the most morally stupid individual in modern
history. When I watch him talk, I get the same feeling as when I look
straight into the eye of a chicken : there's nothing there, and that's
what's terrifying.
Michael Chase
(goya@xxxxxxxxxxx)
CNRS UPR 76
7, rue Guy Moquet
Villejuif 94801
France
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