War in the Age of
War in the Age of Therapy
"If we could instill in our citizens a tragic rather than therapeutic sense of the world, they would understand that utopia is not possible on this earth, but that the Constitution and institutions of the United States are man's best hope for eradicating the evil and ignorance that plague us all."
-Victor Hanson
"Gee Officer Krupke we're really upset/ We never got the lovin' any child oughtta get."
-Leonard Bernstein
The bloody history of the twentieth century should have taught us that violent utopians--Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, et.al-. were not to be reasoned with. As the evacuation of Dunkirk began, Lord Halifax, the establishment leader of the Conservative Party advised Churchill that a negotiated peace was the only logical course, and was quoted by UPI as inviting "Chancellor Hitler to make a new and more generous offer."
Even then, Halifax assumed that Hitler would behave reasonably if spoken to in an understanding and forgiving way. Fortunately for Western Civilization, Winston Churchill had a deeper understanding of the nature of the fanatic utopian mind. Instead of following the 'reasonable' advice of his diplomats he told Hitler England would fight until victory was achieved: ".....a long night of barbarism will descend, unbroken even by a star of hope, unless we conquer, as conquer we must, as conquer we shall..." How politically incorrect!! How crude and shocking to assert the need for military victory rather than diplomatic initiatives! One would hope we have learned that the behavior of diplomats who call for peace can be a benign form of utopianism that weakens us and unconsciously colludes with the violent utopians, like the Islamo-Fascists bent on our destruction. Since the days of Halifax and Churchill a new element, the psychotherapeutic perspective, has emerged. Our culture is suffused with the language of therapy, but it is a bowdlerized version of the tragic Freudian view of human nature, limited and forever in conflict, never able to attain perfection. Gurus and self help books urge the utopian notion that each of us can, with a few easy exercises discover our inner child, achieve peak experiences, find self-transcendence, become sexy, wealthy and happy. As with all forms of utopianism, this one is doomed to failure so scapegoats must be sought. Unsurprisingly it must be the adults who failed to understand or who traumatized and abused us when we were young, who failed to recognize and meet our deepest needs. This constellation of therapeutic assumptions now meshes well with the assumption of diplomats that even the most barbarous foes can be reasoned with, and when reason seems to fail it is due to our inability to fully grasp the unhappinesses of our enemies, or to give them what they truly need. A paradox then emerges: the more horribly our enemies behave, the more effort we must make to understand and empathize with their grievances. They so-called Palestinians are so unhappy at not having another Arab state they are forced to express their anger by killing innocent Israelis. Thus following the barbarous and cowardly bombing of the Hebrew University where a number of American citizens were killed our State Dept. announced that Sec'y Powell was expecting to meet shortly with Palestinian officials to discuss steps towards creating a Palestinian state. The very notion that people who jubilantly celebrate the murders of innocents should be given a state is bizarre. However this bizarreness becomes understandable if one adopts a psychotherapeutic 'explanation' for such killings. Namely, the Palestinians feel frustrated, deprived, unhappy and therefore we must address that by giving them a state of their own. Further we must perform counseling, persuade the Israelis--as one might a partner in couples therapy---to look at things from their opponents perspective, and then meet violence with empathic understanding rather than tanks. Then, the therapeutic reasoning goes, they will in turn cease to be so irrationally angry and will become reasonable people. After all, isn't it irrational of us to think they may simply want to destroy us out of utopian hatred of the infidels who block the way to perfection? Ironically, therapeutic utopianism and diplomatic appeasement merge in a fantasy that empathic understanding will bring peaceful resolution of differences. It is self flattering because those who believe the fantasy feel morally superior to those who assert the need to kill people who wish to destroy us. We are all shocked when confronted with what Bat Yeor calls an "absolute culture of hate". It is natural to want to turn away to dreams of reason, but at this time in our history, when the haters have access to weapons of mass destruction it is more than foolish, it is delusional foolishness. This is not a time to take up diplomatic therapy. It is a time to take up arms.
