Myth and the Politics of Fear

Thanks to the new Google Video service, I have been able to watch a BBC documentary from January 2005 called “The Power of Nightmares -The Rise of the Politics of Fear.”

This documentary cuts to the heart of the WoT and highlights the crucial part Myth has played in the inception, growth and subsequent power of neo-conservativism in the Globalised world, and how it has cast Islamism as the new mythical “evil” that the United States must vanquish to make the world safe.

Unlike myth, with its clear distinction between black and white, good and evil, right and wrong, this story is more “lifelike” -- a little complicated and open to interpretation -- and therefore the reason why a myth is needed to frame it for the “average person”.

The Power of Nightmares begins in the US back in the late 1940s when the Democrats where in ascendency. Two different people observed the new consumerism, Liberalism and moral relativism and saw it as sign of societal stagnation, even as a prelude to eventual disintegration.

One was a visiting Egyptian scholar Sayid Qutb who thought the liberal democratic emphasis on the individual bred selfishness that would ultimately destroy society. Upon returning to Egypt, he saw evidence of American influence spreading across the arab world and felt these values would destroy Islam.

The other was philosopher Leo Strauss.

Strauss taught that Liberalism, strictly speaking, contained within it an intrinsic tendency towards relativism, which in turn led to a sort of nihilism--a kind of decadence, value-free aimlessness, and hedonism which he believed he saw permeating through the very fabric of contemporary American society [4].

Both Qutb and Strauss wanted to reverse what they saw as the rot of Liberalism, but they had different ways of going about it.

Qutb, appalled by the spread of Jahiliyya within islamic society, became an activist within the “Muslim Brotherhood”. Qutb is seen by many as the philosophical root of contemporary Islamism, and much of the rhetoric used by individuals or groups purporting connection with al-Qaeda.

Strauss on the other hand, took a more secular approach. To counter the liberal tendency to relativism, and for the betterment of society, the political/philosophical elites needed to recreate moral certainty for the populace in order to counteract the spreading nihilism. “He believed that liberal societies needed simple, powerful myths to inspire the people”[1], to give meaning to their lives.

Many of the names we associate with neo-conservatism were students of, or influenced by, Straussian philosophy: Donald Rumsfled, Paul Wolfowitz, Francis Fukuyama, Richard Perle among them and by the 1980s, the neo-conservatives in the Ford and Reagan administrations had “set out to re-assert the myth of America as a unique country whose destiny was to struggle against evil throughout the world”[2].

In those days, the big “evil” was Communist Russia and when its political infrastructure collapsed in 1989, both the neo-conservatives in the Reagan government and the radical Islamists in Afghanistan, who had fought against the Soviet occupation there, believed they alone were responsible for the demise of Communism.

But with Russia now “on-side” the neo-conservatives needed a new agent of myth. First they sought out Saddam Hussein during the first Gulf War. But when George Bush senior refused to follow their urgings to push on to Baghdad and “finish him off”, the neo-conservatives needed someone else to cast in the mould of “evil.”

So during the mid-to-late 90s, when the neo-conservatives were out of government, they turned to Bill Clinton, casting him in the role, the embodiment of everything immoral, intent on destroying the American way of life. Monica Lewinsky notwithstanding, the allegations brought against Bill Clinton by the neo-conservative press turned out to be false: Whitewater, drug smuggling even conspiracy to murder[2].

Meanwhile, in the Islamic world, the precepts of Qutb were finding new adherents in the guise of Ayman al-Zawahiri, a former member of the Muslim Brotherhood and Osama bin Laden, who was fighting with the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan.

They too knew the power of myth and in 1998 al-Zawahiri and bin Laden issued a joint fatwa placing the United States squarely in the role of their own “evil” myth.

So the stage was set, and in the aftermath of 11 September 2001, the neo-conservatives had a name--al-Qaeda--and a new evil with which to inspire the American people:

the neo-conservative myth that still inspires them today: that through the aggressive use of American power they could transform the world and spread democracy.[2]

And it is this myth and its associated “War on Terror” that is driving the discourse of early 21st century politics, news and current affairs.

In the 20th century, politicians inspired people with ideologies that promised a better tomorrow. But as these ideologies worn thin--the fall of communism, the triumph of the free market--people stopped believing their politicians, who they now saw as mere “managers of public life”[3]. But post 11 September, politicians have discovered a new and powerful way to manage the public: fear. Now, politicians can frighten us into consent with bogeymen they do not have to prove exist, merely that they have “intelligence” of “probable” events. The new myth: that only politicians cam keep us secure in a world full of invisible threats.

And the media do their part too. Propelled by the credo that they are supplying what their consumers demand, the less ethical press feed on our fear, uncertainty and doubt. Even the denizens of Liberal press--New York Times, BBC, Guardian--are not beyond building their own counter-myths of political conspiracy that generate more fear and distrust.

Liberalism has done much for society, and to renounce it out of hand as either “selfish” or “nihilistic” is to throw the hard-fought baby out with the bath water. William Kristol, a neo-conservative lobbyist, says that Leo Strauss's philosophies offer society a way of “Creating admirable human beings”[2]. But these admirable people tend to be overwhelmingly, powerful males.

So perhaps the problem here is “man.” Both Qutb and Strauss are right as far as they go. Individual freedom without individual responsibility is dangerous. And maybe we do need myths to inspire us, though the State or elites cannot create visions that bring meaning to people lives. Only individuals can do that for themselves. Perhaps its time to lose the “man” out of “mankind”. Qutb and Strauss are both hobbled by a masculine mindset engendered by strict interpretations of Abrahamic beliefs, and all the patriarchal authority that entails. Perhaps a new myth is needed, a secular synthesis of Qutb and Strauss' critiques checked by feminist inclusivity:

A myth that excludes artificial divisions and includes everyone, fosters individual freedom meshed with a duty to all and will harness the creative aspect of the masculine competitive drive, while restraining its excesses.

A myth for all of us.




References




[1] The Power of Nightmares - The Rise of the Politics of Fear, Part 1
[2] The Power of Nightmares - The Rise of the Politics of Fear, Part 2
[3] The Power of Nightmares - The Rise of the Politics of Fear, Part 3
[4] Wikipedia: Leo Strauss