MysteriousFaith

Rod Dreher & Political Faith

Rod Dreher, author of Crunchy Con, recently posted a list of five things he has learned from the trust he placed in the leadership which led us into Iraq. It is an honest and illuminating moment of insight into the mind of a counter-cultural evangelical (Dreher converted to Eastern Orthodoxy in 2006). His list follows:

1. Having been absolutely certain that the war was the right thing to have done, and that we would prevail easily, I am no longer confident that I can discern when emotion is affecting my judgment unduly.
2. I no longer implicitly trust governmental institutions, including the military — neither in their honesty nor their competence.
3. I no longer believe the Republican Party is superior in foreign policy judgment to the Democrats.
4. I no longer have confidence in the ability of our military, or any military, to solve deep cultural and civilizational problems through force alone. I mean, I thought nothing could stand in the way of the strongest military fielded since the days of ancient Rome. No more.
5. I have a far greater appreciation for how rare and fragile liberal democracy is, and a corresponding revulsion at the American assumption that it’s the natural state of mankind. Which is to say, the war has made me rethink my ideas about human nature, and I’m far more pessimistic now than I ever was.

These comments provide an opportunity to discuss how the role of religious faith can bleed into our ability to think rationally about more temporal matters, and the need to develop an integral form of thinking which is flexible enough to be used in all fields. I also think Dreher’s comments illustrate the need to introduce certain critical thinking faculties back into popular culture. My own list, in response to his, follows:

1. None of us knows precisely where the line between emotion and rationalism lies; hence the need to introduce disciplined rational thinking to seek out tests by which those things we find appealing not be mistaken for those which are actually right and good.

2. To say that you no longer “implicitly trust” any human body is to suggest that at one time you did so. No human institution is worthy of this type of trust, and people of faith struggle with discerning between what bodies of belief (church or political affiliation as two examples) should be “implicitly trusted” and which must rise to meet a fixed standard of proof. At this point, if you are scratching your head at an editor who admits that he does not know where his judgment is tainted by emotion and who implicitly trusts certain agencies, you are not alone.

3. It is too bad Dreher feels the need to cede foreign policy to Democrats. I am not sure the Democrats have earned their this readjustment, or whether the Republicans have simply so badly managed the war that their upcoming electoral losses are a natural reaction. Instead, I think what Dreher should comment on is how easy it was to get Republicans to abdicate their core conservative principle – that government can not do for others what others are not capable of doing for themselves – when justifying the imposition of democracy within Iraq. The aftermath of 9/11 showed that neither party was capable of applying its principles to the management of a crisis, which should again urge cautious cynicism when we are next confronted with having to respond to another terrorist attack. Authoritarian systems evolve quite naturally, and the popular support for a badly ill-conceived war should remind us of the need to never reject our core principles without a fight.

4. It is an epiphany to Dreher that force alone could not solve deep cultural problems? The man needs a gift box of Plato, starting with The Republic, and a deeper appreciation of his supposedly conservative roots: again we see a fundamental misunderstanding of what it means to be a conservative. At one time conservatives understood that societies evolve with careful and judicious prodding by government, the last choice when it comes to changing society, the preferred choice being citizens engaging their community and the market. The development of neoconservative thinking, really a masculine version of Wilsonian liberalism, is a disconnect one still hears echoes of in the soul searching comments from people like Dreher.

5. On this point I wholly agree, and wonder whether Dreher will connect the fragile nature of liberal democracy with the threats inherent to the current status of conservative thinking. The rejection of scientific rationalism, the willingness to sacrifice the principles of personal liberty at the hands of a potential threat, these all still lie with Dreher unless and until faith as a means of thinking is divorced from that which this world is ready to tell us, no matter how frustratingly little it may leave us with the ability to change.

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• July 24, 2007

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