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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lazarus_Long who wrote (8131)	9/15/2003 7:11:06 PM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793822

SULLIVAN: LEFT IS RIGHT: A great email addendum to the Buruma essay. Some of you may know Albert Hirschman's classic book, "The Rhetoric of Reaction," in which he parses the tropes of conservative argumentation in Western culture. A reader reminds me: Hirschman lays out 3 aspects of this rhetoric: 1. The Perversity Thesis: "any purposive action to improve some feature of the political, social, or economic order only serves to exacerbate the condition one wishes to remedy." Opponents of the war on terror claim that fighting this war will only lead to more terrorism. Toppling Saddam Hussein has only worsened the condition of the Iraqi people, etc. etc. 2. The Futility Thesis: "attempts at social transformation will be unavailing." Iraq can't possibly become a democracy. 3. The Jeopardy Thesis: "the cost of the proposed change or reform is too high as it endangers some previous, precious accomplishment." Fighting the war on terror will lead to the destruction of democracy at home. Actually, I think this only covers the reasonable side of the anti-war crowd. The unreasonable side of conservativsm that is now in full flourish on the anti-war "left" includes anti-Semitism, isolationism, nativism and paranoia. I think that just about covers Gore Vidal and Pat Buchanan. - 12:40:4