On March 8, 1999, I suggested in an opinion piece called A Culture War that the US culture war was heading for a fistfight.  I think you'll have to agree that I got at least one thing right.

March 8, 1999.  Remember those days?  Our country was finally responding to an international call for help in stopping a lopsided slaughter in the Balkans, for no apparent reasons other than humanitarian.  This may have been the first time in US history that we used our military for strictly humanitarian purposes, although half of the country didn't even notice.  Secure in our status as a good and capable nation with strong allies, we spent our time discussing the sex life of The Big Guy.  

March 8, 1999.  I felt a little cocky, and who could blame me?  Perhaps we would not win the coming fight, but we had better reasons, principles, motives.  We also had the US Constitution.  I did not ask for the fight, but I was ready for it, and in fact, wrote a phrase which has become politically loaded recently.  I said "bring it on".

Now the Constitution has been suspended, apparently for our lifetime.  Now fear is our reason, self-preservation our principle, cowardice our motive.  If I were today to write a review of my own article of 5 years ago, I would have only one thing to say:

Careful what you ask for.

For many years, if you clicked on this page, you did not find my autobiography, as one might expect.  Instead, I posted a quote from myself, and a quote from Hitler.  The quote from Hitler went like this:

"Intelligence is not conducive to building good character."

The reason I offered this quote is because it lies at the heart of our culture war.  It is the line which divides us.  It says everything that needs to be said.  It is also quite old.  'Good character' is an issue decided beforehand, by the culture in which one is raised, and is the product of belief systems which require faith.  Those who think good character should define the inquiry of intelligence, from the position of the planets hundreds of years ago to modern biology, archaeology, and psychology, have been opposed since the enlightenment by those who think intelligence thus defined is limited, and not good intelligence.

That Hitler's statement impugns intelligence, and that he is a notorious criminal, should tell you on which side I stand in this fight.  Those who stand on the side of 'good behavior', by the way, are not real authoritarians.  They, in fact, would not agree with Hitler's statement, because they define 'good' intelligence as that which flows from good character.  They are simply the true believers who make real authoritarian power possible.

Real authoritarians in Hitler's vein simply understand that intelligence (as currently pursued) and good character (as currently defined) are mutually exclusive.  Authoritarian governments are thus very interested in promoting religion or nationalism, while seeking to control information and education.  Such governments are often closed and secret, with tight controls on access, highly involved in the production of propaganda, and very disdainful of any academic study which is not related to the development of such beliefs.

So you see that I did give you an autobiography when you came here earlier.  I told you with one quote what I considered to be the crux of our culture war, defining at the same time the context within which all of my columns are set.  At the same time, I implied quite clearly on which side I stand.

That quote from myself, by the way, went like this:

"Thinking without experience leads to fantasy and idealism.  Experience without thinking leads to prejudice and self-absorption."

The world is filled with fantasy and self-absorption and idealism and prejudice, and if you think about it long enough  you may begin to see all four of those concepts as the same.  I consider it an air which I am forced to breath.  This, not an academic degree, is my qualification for writing on the culture wars.  I can hallucinate fear as well as you, and describe the cowardice which cripples our collective existence.

Sometimes I wish I couldn't.

Bones
February, 2004