I was browsing in a second-hand bookstore recently, brooding as I browsed on the current state of society. My eye fell on a volume of essays by George Orwell titled, “In Front of Your Nose.” It seemed liked such a deliberate response to my thoughts that I bought it.
In an October 1945 essay called “You and the Atom Bomb,” Orwell coins the term “cold war” to describe a heavily armed nation that, while it cannot be conquered, is also permanently hostile to other countries. Sound familiar?
In another essay, Orwell exhibits his sharp eye for linguistic trends by stating that we cannot “put everything right by watching our navels in California.” The name of that essay is “Catastrophic Gradualism.”
“According to this theory,” Orwell writes, “nothing is ever achieved without bloodshed, lies, tyranny and injustice, but on the other hand, no considerable change for the better is to be expected as the result of even the greatest upheaval.”
“One must not protest against purges, deportations, secret police forces and so forth, because these are the price that has to be paid for progress: but on the other hand ‘human nature’ will always see to it that progress is slow or even imperceptible.”
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales may as well have read those lines to the Senate Judiciary Committee Monday instead of the testimony he gave. Defending the Bush administration’s program of illegal wiretaps, Mr. Gonzales defended breaches of civil liberties and citied precedents by presidents Washington, Lincoln, Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt, bizarrely claiming that they all approved “electronic surveillance.”
Just because half of Mt. Rushmore did something, doesn’t make it right and none of the presidents cited by Mr. Gonzales violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which Congress passed in 1978 to specifically forbid illegal wiretaps of Americans citizens, the same wiretaps George Bush has ordered. The FISA law was passed in response to the excesses of Richard Nixon, who, rather than the men cited by Mr. Gonzales, is Mr. Bush’s true predecessor in these matters. Both were guided by Mr. Nixon’s belief that, “When the president does it, it’s not illegal.”
Mr. Bush, Mr. Gonzales and the rest of their merry crew would have us accept their catastrophic deeds of their regime in exchange for what they claim is a gradual increase in democracy, here and abroad. “If each epoch is as a matter of course better than the last,” Orwell writes, “then any crime or folly that pushes the historical process forward can be justified.”
Orwell was, of course, arguing against catastrophic gradualism. He cited the atomic bomb, then so new in the world, as a symptom of catastrophic gradualism. The bomb presented society with a choice. “Either we renounce it, or it destroys us,” he said. “But renouncing it is both a moral effort and a political effort.”
For a few years, a decade ago, we had the luxurious fantasy that we had escaped the bomb. Now the potential for an Iranian bomb is in every edition of the news, the real North Korean bomb lurks in the background, with possible terrorist atomic attacks. Even if these “rogues” got their bomb technology from our Pakistani allies, Mr. Bush will use the threat of those catastrophic bombs to impose catastrophe on the Constitution.
All these catastrophes are symptoms, continuing symptoms of our insistence on satisfying our national desires with force. “Bush Calls for End to Violent Protests,” the headlines read yesterday. His pre-emptive invasion is OK; the firebombs of an angry Muslim crowd are over the line. In fact, neither is OK, both must be renounced, democracy cannot be advanced on the back of catastrophe.
The justification, whether mouthed by Mr. Gonzales or Mr. Bush is: “You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.”
Catastrophic Gradualism
I was browsing in a second-hand bookstore recently, brooding as I browsed on the current state of society. My eye fell on a volume of essays by George Orwell titled, “In Front of Your Nose.” It seemed liked such a deliberate response to my thoughts that I bought it.
In an October 1945 essay called “You and the Atom Bomb,” Orwell coins the term “cold war” to describe a heavily armed nation that, while it cannot be conquered, is also permanently hostile to other countries. Sound familiar?
In another essay, Orwell exhibits his sharp eye for linguistic trends by stating that we cannot “put everything right by watching our navels in California.” The name of that essay is “Catastrophic Gradualism.”
“According to this theory,” Orwell writes, “nothing is ever achieved without bloodshed, lies, tyranny and injustice, but on the other hand, no considerable change for the better is to be expected as the result of even the greatest upheaval.”
“One must not protest against purges, deportations, secret police forces and so forth, because these are the price that has to be paid for progress: but on the other hand ‘human nature’ will always see to it that progress is slow or even imperceptible.”
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales may as well have read those lines to the Senate Judiciary Committee Monday instead of the testimony he gave. Defending the Bush administration’s program of illegal wiretaps, Mr. Gonzales defended breaches of civil liberties and citied precedents by presidents Washington, Lincoln, Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt, bizarrely claiming that they all approved “electronic surveillance.”
Just because half of Mt. Rushmore did something, doesn’t make it right and none of the presidents cited by Mr. Gonzales violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which Congress passed in 1978 to specifically forbid illegal wiretaps of Americans citizens, the same wiretaps George Bush has ordered. The FISA law was passed in response to the excesses of Richard Nixon, who, rather than the men cited by Mr. Gonzales, is Mr. Bush’s true predecessor in these matters. Both were guided by Mr. Nixon’s belief that, “When the president does it, it’s not illegal.”
Mr. Bush, Mr. Gonzales and the rest of their merry crew would have us accept their catastrophic deeds of their regime in exchange for what they claim is a gradual increase in democracy, here and abroad. “If each epoch is as a matter of course better than the last,” Orwell writes, “then any crime or folly that pushes the historical process forward can be justified.”
Orwell was, of course, arguing against catastrophic gradualism. He cited the atomic bomb, then so new in the world, as a symptom of catastrophic gradualism. The bomb presented society with a choice. “Either we renounce it, or it destroys us,” he said. “But renouncing it is both a moral effort and a political effort.”
For a few years, a decade ago, we had the luxurious fantasy that we had escaped the bomb. Now the potential for an Iranian bomb is in every edition of the news, the real North Korean bomb lurks in the background, with possible terrorist atomic attacks. Even if these “rogues” got their bomb technology from our Pakistani allies, Mr. Bush will use the threat of those catastrophic bombs to impose catastrophe on the Constitution.
All these catastrophes are symptoms, continuing symptoms of our insistence on satisfying our national desires with force. “Bush Calls for End to Violent Protests,” the headlines read yesterday. His pre-emptive invasion is OK; the firebombs of an angry Muslim crowd are over the line. In fact, neither is OK, both must be renounced, democracy cannot be advanced on the back of catastrophe.
The justification, whether mouthed by Mr. Gonzales or Mr. Bush is: “You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.”
We’ve broken the eggs – where’s the omelet?
© Mark Floegel, 2006