There’s an excerpt from Glenn Greenwald’s new book (A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency, to be published June 26) in Salon today. Here’s just a snip:
One of the principal dangers of vesting power in a leader who is convinced of his own righteousness — who believes that, by virtue of his ascension to political power, he has been called to a crusade against Evil — is that the moral imperative driving the mission will justify any and all means used to achieve it. …
… Intoxicated by his own righteousness and therefore immune from doubt, the Manichean warrior becomes capable of acts of moral monstrousness that would be unthinkable in the absence of such unquestionable moral conviction. One who believes himself to be leading a supreme war against Evil on behalf of Good will be incapable of understanding any claims that he himself is acting immorally.
Glenn’s point of view nicely tracks what’s been rattling around in my own head for the past few days. As I’ve mentioned I’m going to be part of a religion panel at the Yearly Kos convention in August. After I got the invitation I began to think about what I might say, and write it down, and I am up to about a three-hour sermon at this point. I suppose I might have to boil that down a little. But the primary point I hope to make is this: What the world needs now is doubt.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Philosophy
