9/11 and The People's Romance

[Hogeye]

I can understand and sympathize with most values, but there's one so alien that I can't relate to it at all - "The People's Romance." The People's Romance is defined by Daniel B. Klein as "the yearning for encompassing coordination of sentiment." It is a kind of joint ownership of everyone by everyone, where if anyone opts out of the group sentiment, they are damaging the value. It is perhaps the only value that cannot possibly be served by the libertarian value of freedom.

The People's Romance in its statist form was expressed quite clearly by Hegel:

It is false to maintain that the foundation of the state is something at the option of its members. It is nearer the truth to say that it is absolutely necessary for every individual to be a citizen. The great advance of the state in modern times is that nowadays all the citizens have one and the same end, an absolute and permanent end.

What made me think of The People's Romance was a recent article by Rick Baber on NWAPolitics.com about the 9/11 terrorist homicides. He writes:

The Left always blames the Right. The Right always blames the Left. No matter what.

Except for once.

September 11, 2001, when the second plane hit the World Trade Center, it never occurred to me to blame the Republicans. I would venture a guess that equally rabid Republicans didn’t blame the Democrats. There was a moment there – just a moment – when there was no Left or Right. No liberals. No conservatives. Only Americans.

I saw similar sentiment in letters to the editor and editorials - that there was some kind of spontaneous unity after the "attack", and this was allegedly a good thing.

Well, you know me - the perpetual iconoclast. I disagree with both points. First of all, there was no spontaneous unity. I for one, and no doubt many others, had quite a different reaction to 9/11 than a feeling on unity with fellow Americans. I had more of a feeling of disgust for the US foreign policy which brought on the mass murders. I had much the same feeling as one gets when hearing about a terrible auto accident: a tragedy, but only to be expected considering all the driving done. For 9/11, my feeling was that after all the murders and assassinations and bombings and funding of brutal rulers by the US State, it was inevitable that someone eventually hit back.

So I had no feeling of unity; on the contrary, for me the incident underlined the separateness of rulers and ruled, of State and society. And I was thankful of the recognition of that separateness in the minds of terrorists. They attacked mostly some military assholes in the Pentagon and some outfits who helped fund Israel based at the World Trade Center rather than normal people like you and me. Not that they did it morally, since they murdered non-combatants, but in the Newspeak of the media they "targeted" combatants rather than people in general.

This People's Romantic feeling of unity did not come to me, nor most anti-statists, as it apparently did to Baber and many editorial writers. That's not surprising, since I'm a statistically abnormal non-conformist. What worries me is the (generally implied) claim that such a unifying sentiment is a good thing. That's where The People's Romance comes in. The notion that in a modern society everyone in the tribe should dance in unison to the drumbeat is both disgusting and dangerous. It is the sentiment that makes war possible, that makes brutal occupations of foreign countries appear acceptable, that lets otherwise reasonable people be led by the nose into evil by neo-Jacobin rulers. As they did.

So Boobus Americanus bought the big lies, about WMDs, about a ragtag band of terrorists being equivalent to the Nazi superstate, about internationalist Muslim militancy equating to nation-worshipping fascism ("Islamo-fascism"), about a warmed over White Man's Burden to bring freedom and democracy to foreign wretches at bomb-point. And about the necessity to sacrifice liberty for that great cause, or else the foreign devils who hate liberty and all Americans will slit our throats in our sleep. Yes, 9/11 was a great day for The People's Romance, and the rulers milked it to the hilt. But that was not a good thing - for you, for me, or for liberty.

[RickBaber]

Thanks for the plug, Hogeye. That's an interesting perspective. While it would be foolish and futile for me to disagree with your opinion, I have to say that I disagree with the premise that "ordinary people" were not targeted on 9/11. I used to work for the father of one of the flight attendants on one of the planes that hit the towers. Needless to say, she didn't survive. She had nothing to do with politics, until that morning in NYC. Of course I realize that there are exceptions to every rule and, more often than not, you are one of those exceptions. Whether that is by your nature or by your design, I guess only you, if even you, understand. I do believe that the vast majority of Americans felt united, momentarily, after that event. Whether that feeling of unity is a good thing or a bad thing is, I guess, a subject to debate, but, either way, it is human nature. I admit, I considered that a "given" in the article. Perhaps I was wrong. But, the point of the piece was that it would be nice (for me, at least) to have one day out of the year when I didn't feel compelled to argue and fight with the political opposition. That's all. Every once in a while, I just get damn tired.

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

On 9/11 the tragedy was overshadowed for me by the sick conviction that W was going to use it to create a worse tragedy - a "splendid little war" in order to consolidate and increase his power. That I was right gives me no satisfaction. I would have preferred to be wrong. I dislike the political polarization current in this country, and totally believe we need to quit blaming and start finding middle ground.

Unlike Hogeye, I have a profound respect for government, per se, and strongly support the ideals America was based on. I am well aware America seldom gets anywhere near those ideals, but most of the time - as least as far as the common folks are concerned - we keep trying. Government is both an ideal (an entity strong enough to permit us "non-Rambos" freedom from mega-corporation, thug, and warlord persecution) and an actuality made up of people. If people are always acting in self-interest, I prefer the self-interest of folks like Sam Rayburn and Theodore Roosevelt, who know that we're all in this together - that air pollution poisons the air I breathe, water pollution poisons the water I drink, and therefore, protecting them protects me, as well as the "poor" and wildlife, etc. Or Franklin Roosevelt and Bill Clinton, who knew that the rich can temporarily get richer by taking money from the poor, but that they will get even richer sustainably by employing and empowering the poor into the "consumer" class (It's the economy, stupid).

And, like Baber, I get damned tired of continually feeling compelled to argue and fight with the political opposition. I'd stop, if much of the neocon line didn't threaten my personal and family health and well-being.

[Hogeye]

I disagree with the premise that "ordinary people" were not targeted on 9/11. I used to work for the father of one of the flight attendants on one of the planes that hit the towers. Needless to say, she didn't survive.

Certainly you don't think that the hijackers' mission was to assassinate Ms. Smith the flight attendent! In the warmonger jargon, she was "collateral damage," not a target. All the flight personnel, passengers, and non-Israeli-lobby people at the WTC were collateral damage, every bit as much as all those innocents in Bosnia and Iraq bombed by the US military.

Good news - my article was verified by a local paper, so we should see it as a letter-to-the-editor sometime in the next couple of weeks. The LTE version is somewhat shortened; your plug is still there, Rick, but the long quote is omitted.

On 9/11 the tragedy was overshadowed for me by the sick conviction that W was going to use it to create a worse tragedy.

My sentiments exactly, if you take "W" to be "the War Party." But I suspect Barbara intended it to mean only the other faction of the War Party, ignoring Clinton's five interventions and the long history of intervention by both factions.

Unlike Hogeye, I have a profound respect for government, per se, and strongly support the ideals America was based on.

You are mistaken on both counts. I have a profound respect for voluntary government - but have only hate and disgust for the State. I know you like to evade that distinction.

New readers here may be confused by the terminology, so let me recap. The State is an effective monopoly of legitimate/legal force in a particular geographic area (Max Weber.) Government is normally used identically with "State," but occasionally (e.g. by Jefferson in the US Declaration of Independence and Albert Jay Nock in "Our Enemy the State") used to mean an organization for protecting rights. This latter sense is compatable with anarchism; indeed anarcho-capitalists like me see the ideal system as such "governments" competing for customers in a free market.

Barbara and I disagree on the solution to the problems of corporatism ("mega-corporations") and pollution. She thinks that the only solution is a more authoritarian State, while I think the solution is more freedom and better definition of property rights. E.g. I think mega-corporations are the creation of States through favoritism and monopoly privilege, and in a stateless society they would become extinct or innocuous.

Rick, what do you think of my suggestion for a new 9/11 tradition? Oh ... it got censored from NWAPolitics.com. Surprise, surprise. I'll start a new thread called "New 9/11 Tradition" here.

[RickBaber]

I'll check the new thread HE.
I dunno what's up with NWAP. It appears all comments are now to be "moderated", and apparantly that takes days to get done. That might be the final nail in the coffin for that blog. But, hey, my column is also on Arkansastonight.com, so you can go disagree with me there if you want.
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[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

I don't think the answer is "a more authoritarian state" - I think the state has enough authority right now to take care of the job. In fact, the state had enough authority 5 years ago to take care of the media monopoly, mega-corporation, and environmental issues I've repeatedly brought up. Unfortunately, the party in control of the Congress 5 years ago was the same as today - and they were unwilling to take any action that might upset the incomes of their campaign cash cows - even actions their cash cows have said they want (and yes, the Dems also have some of that problem, but to a much lesser extent - since the choice is between "so-so" and "bad", I back "so-so".)

Dems in power have worked on the problems. Clinton-Gore could only find one vote for the Kyoto treaty, so they didn't waste their "political capital" on trying to push it through, but they did make deals with industry to do the R & D on things like hybrid vehicles, if industry would then market the product - deals we were just beginning to see the benefit of in 2000 while Nadar was claiming they'd done nothing "green" in office (safe in the knowledge the MSM wouldn't challange him on it). The authority was already in place, for those who know how to use it, and desire to do so, to correct the ills I see in America.

[Hogeye]

My letter appeared in the NWA Times today, slightly shortened, expletive deleted. The Morning News called and verified my letter, but hasn't printed it yet.

Here are some other articles with similar theme available on the internet:

"Fear Mongering on the Anniversary of 9/11," by Ivan Eland
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1811

"Alarmismo en el aniversario del 11/09 "
http://www.elindependent.org/articulos/ ... sp?id=1811

"Losing the War of Ideas," by Paul Sullivan (9/8/06)
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1810

"Perdiendo la guerra de las ideas"
http://www.elindependent.org/articulos/ ... sp?id=1810

[Barbara Fitzpatrick]

Both the Eland and Sullivan articles are very good. The Sullivan one is provides more evidence of my contention that W is deliberately trying to start armageddon - oh, those endtimers! so very sure that they are the "elect" who will be raptured out of here as soon as they've trashed the planet thoroughly and started the "last" war. Such hubris would be pitiful if they didn't have the power to do what they think are the requirements for heaven.

[Hogeye]

My letter was in The Morning News today, so we may get more discussion.