Vincible Ignorance (and a lot of Spite)

Over the last year, I've had occasion to write a fair amount about the deleterious effects on American culture and foreign policy wrought by the Boomer generation. I'm a member of that benighted demographic group, albeit a late arrival. As the most affluent and privileged generation, to that point, in American history, we were handed opportunities our parents could only dream of, and for which they and their parents' generation were directly responsible. America was ascendant in the world, a fact that too many have come to take for granted or, among the literati and political class, condemn as a blight on an otherwise pristine planet.

I've long thought that many of my peers, and most particularly those who're ten to fifteen years my senior -- the immediate post-war Boomers -- came to despise the world of their parents and grandparents not because they were graced by better ideas or clearer vision, but because they never had to worry about what, historically, has been the lot of mankind: eking out a living from poor soil; feeding a family with too little food; protecting their belongings from marauding armies or tribes; burying one dead child after another; taking refuge in foreign and often hostile lands; knowing personally the boot heel of authoritarian or dictatorial regimes.

Which is to say, they (we) have escaped, by the extraordinary blessings heaped upon our country, and the hard work and sacrifice of those who preceded us, what was until recently the common fate of all peoples. For this, we should first of all give thanks, every day. But we should also understand, in our marrow, that none of this resulted from the "accidents of history" to which our self-proclaimed intellectual betters so often attribute our success.

No, our nation, and the freedoms and security we enjoy and take for granted, was built purposefully by men and women who strove for goals that were either in sight, just over the horizon, or but a hope, a desire that could some day become reality. That's not to say they were clairvoyant, or that none would be surprised if they could see us now. But it is to argue that their labors were done with a purpose in mind, within and supported by a system of laws, rights, and obligations that gave their striving greater meaning, and happier results, than any people had known before. They did not act blindly, and when they acted capriciously, as some of course did, their failures and shortcomings, even when unethical or sinful, were not sufficient to destroy what others were accomplishing.

An analogy to this can be drawn to producing a work of literature, poetry, or nonfiction. Back when I taught intellectual history in college, we read primary sources from antiquity to the modern era. Students schooled, too often poorly, by teachers who were themselves subjected to the methodological madness that substitutes for pedagogy in most colleges of education, attempted bizarre, ahistorical, or psychological readings of works produced by the greatest minds of the West. So each semester, I labored, usually with some success, to disabuse my charges of these simple-minded views that robbed art of its artistry, and individuals of their accomplishments.

Authors write with a purpose, I told them; the works assigned to you were not produced by accident. Long hours, sometimes years of labor, went into their production. To deny that is to reveal your own ignorance, not the author's; learn to read, and you'll learn to think. Skip this lesson, and your life will be poorer until the day you die.

Victor Davis Hanson knows this, and writes about it with more verve and skill, than just about anyone who covers current events. That's because he brings not just skill, smarts, and remarkable energy to the task, but because his own reading allows him to take the long view of our contemporary world. He does that again this morning in a remarkable exercise of imagination in a Washington Times op-ed titled "Critical Astigmatism."

It consists principally of what a speech delivered by President Bush on September 12, 2001, might have looked like had it included all of the historical events achieved since that time. And, as Hanson says, had anyone on that day dared to put forward a plan so ambitious, "most of us would have dismissed him as utterly unhinged. But that is precisely what has come to pass."

It's Hanson's way of illustrating that, in spite of the adolescent whining of the President's critics, it is they, and not the President himself, who today seem unhinged. To claim, as so many in the Moveon.org or even "mainstream" opposition do, that the overthrow of the Taliban, the defeat of Saddam, elections in both countries, the removal of Syrian troops from Lebanon, the reform efforts underway in Egypt and the Gulf States are all coincidental or the happy results of the bumbling efforts of a half-literate fool is to choose ignorance over knowledge, spite over composure. And this is true in spite of the horrendous deaths still occurring in Iraq, deaths caused by remnants of the old regime whose minions intend to destroy any hope of peace and prosperity; who grew used to and fond of killing and dismembering their opponents and who are loathe to give up such privileges.

Read VDH's fictional speech end to end, and ask what he asks: would anyone have believed any of this at the time? Clearly not, and for good reasons. Then ask, why do some still refuse to acknowledge the changes this administration has caused? I'd posit that it has more to do with intellectual dishonesty, a penchant for petulance, and a desire to embrace a worldview that knows little of struggle and sacrifice, but much of privilege and opportunity, and which takes all that for granted. And which is losing ground, day by day, in a post-9/11 world that has little patience with the eternal adolescence of its most self-important generation.