stucco43
Long live Freedom of Speech
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Liberalism is a Mental Disorder
By Michael Savage
Nelson Current. 221 pages, 2005
Reviewed by Scott D. O'Reilly
Turning his liberal opponents into cartoonish characters and vastly distorting their positions, this conservative radio host then asks if liberals are crazy.
Michael Savage’s Liberalism is a Mental Disorder is to the field of psychology what “The Three Stooges” is to sophisticated entertainment. Of course, Larry, Curly, and Moe could actually evoke a laugh now and again, so their contribution to Western culture is not entirely nil. I’m not sure the same can be said for Savage’s diatribe against liberals, a relentless tirade that will convince many that the author is well named.
Savage, a conservative talk-radio host with ten million listeners, has wisely decided not to aim his outburst at scientists, academics, or even the educated general reader, which might insist on persnickety things like empirical evidence, rigorous definition of terms, and carefully reasoned argument, and has instead opted to make his appeal directly to the lowest common denominator using that wonderfully inscrutably method -- proof by assertion.
That isn’t to say there isn’t a grain of truth in the bushel of blarney Savage is shoveling. It’s reassuring that someone who describes himself as “to the right of Rush and the left of God” recognizes that Bush’s invasion of Iraq may be one of the greatest military miscalculations since General Custer blustered “bring em on” before biting the dust at the Battle of Little Big Horn. The problem, as Savage sees it, is twofold. First, handing power to the Shiites may end up supersizing Iran, inadvertently creating a fundamentalist theocracy encompassing both Iran and Iraq that is inimical to America’s interests. Second, Bush never had a plan to secure the streets of Iraq after the invasion, a mistake General Patton would never have made, implying that Bush is more a “Mr. Rogers in a helmet” than a real ‘blood and guts’ leader.
So far so good, it’s what comes later that gets a little scary. As Savage notes, Patton would have flattened pockets of resistance like Fallujah using air power, reserving the infantry to mop up what was left. When Bush sent the Marines into the Sunni Triangle to fight hand-to-hand, and mosque-to-mosque, he was waging a politically correct form of warfare, and halfway measures in war are invariably a recipe for failure. It’s a valid point, but it obscures the deeper dilemma posed by Bush’s invasion: at what stage does the process of uprooting and destroying terrorists simply end up creating more of them. It really is a problem for your strategy when your military tactics end up creating ten enemy insurgents for every one you kill.
Still, Savage admires President Bush, or at least favors him over the alternative, for recognizing that Islamofascism represent the central challenge of our age. Many historians believe the rise of China, global warming, and America’s slippage in terms of broadband and wireless connectivity relative to Europe and Asia will actually eclipse terrorism as the paramount challenges of our time. Yet most conservatives like Savage pay these issues scant attention. Be that as it may, most liberals are not, as Savage caricatures it, simply bent on appeasing, excusing, or avoiding the threat posed by militant Islam; we simply disagree on how to confront it.
For instance, there is a civil war taking place in the Muslim world at the moment with jihadists battling moderates to control the future of Islam. In large measure this is an informational war, with the fundamentalist fanatics using computers and video to spread an ideology that would take the Muslim world back to the 13th century. In this kind of battle, conquering men’s minds is more important than conquering territory, and that’s one reason occupying Iraq -- with the almost inevitable collateral damage and abuses -- was like pouring gasoline on smoldering embers; the fires of fanaticism may yet burn themselves out, but whether they do or not will also depend on a lot of uncontrollable factors, like luck, and which way the historical winds are blowing at any given moment.
Waging a more “sensitive war,” as Savage excoriates candidate John Kerry for suggesting, doesn’t mean rolling over and hoping for the best. Rather it means conserving energy as a national security imperative, expanding international institutions and alliances to isolate extremists, rather than allowing the Bush administration to isolate the United States, and engaging with moderates in the Muslim world in a much more sophisticated way to let them know we are on their side.
Here’s what is at stake: jihadists would like to provoke a clash of civilizations as a way of consolidating power in the Muslim world (and some would say Fundamentalist politicians in America are doing something similar). To this end they would like to exploit and exacerbate a pervasive fear among ordinary Muslims that the United States is afflicted by a “hideous schizophrenia” -- that America possesses fantastic technological powers but is lacking in humane and spiritual values. Think of the archetypal Arnold Schwarzenegger film, True Lies, for instance -- where Arnold single-handedly deploys an arsenal of high-tech weapons to obliterate an army of two-dimensional Arab terrorists -- and you will have an idea of what many ordinary Muslims fear about our country; that we’ll launch a high-tech crusade, killing countless Muslims, without even batting an eyelash.
Such a view, of course, is an erroneous and dehumanized view of the United States. But Americans, too often, have caricatured Muslims as well. Savage’s chapter on Islamofascism is an especially egregious example of generalizing from self-selected examples in order to reach a forgone conclusion, namely that Islam is not a religion of peace. Well, for most of the world’s 1.2 billion Muslim, Islam is a religion that preaches egalitarianism, toleration, pluralism, and yes peace. That’s why many religious scholars believe Islam is ultimately compatible with democracy.
Savage’s selective use of quotations from the Koran is meant to cast doubt on this. But one could just as easily unearth a plethora of violence-sanctioning passages from the Bible, but this would hardly constitute proof that Christianity was a warlike religion. Indeed, Savage seems to perpetually commit what psychologists call the self-confirming bias -- picking evidence that suits one’s purposes, but ignoring it when it contradicts it.
Melville has Captain Ahab say, “All of my means are rational, only my ends are insane.” It is a helpful way of looking at mental disorders, because most people with disturbed thought processes can sound quite reasonable much of the time; their individual reasoning steps are sound, it’s only when you step back and look at the implications of their arguments that they look pretty worrisome. I think this is a problem with Savage. He raises understandable concerns about: immigration, gay marriage, and tort reform, but then blames Liberals 100% for every modern predicament and then proposes solutions so half-baked and ill considered that they contradict principles he espoused moments before.
For instance, after tarnishing trial lawyers as bloodsucking leaches that suck the life out of our economic system, Savage presents his own perverse solution to dealing with organizations he doesn’t much like, such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Organization of Women: they should be subject to civil action and prosecution under the RICO (anti-Racketeering statutes). Well that ought to keep the trial lawyers busy! In one breath Savage blasts losers who spill hot coffee on themselves and sue McDonalds for millions (thereby raising the cost of an Egg McMuffin for all of us). And in the next breath he’ll suggest suing the ACLU for all the harm it has allegedly caused. I guess you could say that rather than eat his own words Savage is a guy who wants to have his contradiction and eat his Happy Meal too.
The central failure of Savage’s book lies in its self-certain obtuseness; it lacks any sense of deep empathy. Unable to understand any point of view outside his own Savage turns every other into a cartoon. But in so doing he turns himself into a caricature. And if that isn’t the essence of a mental disorder I don’t know what else is. A Savage solution, in other words, is far worse than the malady it purports to cure.
By Michael Savage
Nelson Current. 221 pages, 2005
Reviewed by Scott D. O'Reilly
Turning his liberal opponents into cartoonish characters and vastly distorting their positions, this conservative radio host then asks if liberals are crazy.
Savage, a conservative talk-radio host with ten million listeners, has wisely decided not to aim his outburst at scientists, academics, or even the educated general reader, which might insist on persnickety things like empirical evidence, rigorous definition of terms, and carefully reasoned argument, and has instead opted to make his appeal directly to the lowest common denominator using that wonderfully inscrutably method -- proof by assertion.
That isn’t to say there isn’t a grain of truth in the bushel of blarney Savage is shoveling. It’s reassuring that someone who describes himself as “to the right of Rush and the left of God” recognizes that Bush’s invasion of Iraq may be one of the greatest military miscalculations since General Custer blustered “bring em on” before biting the dust at the Battle of Little Big Horn. The problem, as Savage sees it, is twofold. First, handing power to the Shiites may end up supersizing Iran, inadvertently creating a fundamentalist theocracy encompassing both Iran and Iraq that is inimical to America’s interests. Second, Bush never had a plan to secure the streets of Iraq after the invasion, a mistake General Patton would never have made, implying that Bush is more a “Mr. Rogers in a helmet” than a real ‘blood and guts’ leader.
So far so good, it’s what comes later that gets a little scary. As Savage notes, Patton would have flattened pockets of resistance like Fallujah using air power, reserving the infantry to mop up what was left. When Bush sent the Marines into the Sunni Triangle to fight hand-to-hand, and mosque-to-mosque, he was waging a politically correct form of warfare, and halfway measures in war are invariably a recipe for failure. It’s a valid point, but it obscures the deeper dilemma posed by Bush’s invasion: at what stage does the process of uprooting and destroying terrorists simply end up creating more of them. It really is a problem for your strategy when your military tactics end up creating ten enemy insurgents for every one you kill.
Still, Savage admires President Bush, or at least favors him over the alternative, for recognizing that Islamofascism represent the central challenge of our age. Many historians believe the rise of China, global warming, and America’s slippage in terms of broadband and wireless connectivity relative to Europe and Asia will actually eclipse terrorism as the paramount challenges of our time. Yet most conservatives like Savage pay these issues scant attention. Be that as it may, most liberals are not, as Savage caricatures it, simply bent on appeasing, excusing, or avoiding the threat posed by militant Islam; we simply disagree on how to confront it.
For instance, there is a civil war taking place in the Muslim world at the moment with jihadists battling moderates to control the future of Islam. In large measure this is an informational war, with the fundamentalist fanatics using computers and video to spread an ideology that would take the Muslim world back to the 13th century. In this kind of battle, conquering men’s minds is more important than conquering territory, and that’s one reason occupying Iraq -- with the almost inevitable collateral damage and abuses -- was like pouring gasoline on smoldering embers; the fires of fanaticism may yet burn themselves out, but whether they do or not will also depend on a lot of uncontrollable factors, like luck, and which way the historical winds are blowing at any given moment.
Waging a more “sensitive war,” as Savage excoriates candidate John Kerry for suggesting, doesn’t mean rolling over and hoping for the best. Rather it means conserving energy as a national security imperative, expanding international institutions and alliances to isolate extremists, rather than allowing the Bush administration to isolate the United States, and engaging with moderates in the Muslim world in a much more sophisticated way to let them know we are on their side.
Here’s what is at stake: jihadists would like to provoke a clash of civilizations as a way of consolidating power in the Muslim world (and some would say Fundamentalist politicians in America are doing something similar). To this end they would like to exploit and exacerbate a pervasive fear among ordinary Muslims that the United States is afflicted by a “hideous schizophrenia” -- that America possesses fantastic technological powers but is lacking in humane and spiritual values. Think of the archetypal Arnold Schwarzenegger film, True Lies, for instance -- where Arnold single-handedly deploys an arsenal of high-tech weapons to obliterate an army of two-dimensional Arab terrorists -- and you will have an idea of what many ordinary Muslims fear about our country; that we’ll launch a high-tech crusade, killing countless Muslims, without even batting an eyelash.
Such a view, of course, is an erroneous and dehumanized view of the United States. But Americans, too often, have caricatured Muslims as well. Savage’s chapter on Islamofascism is an especially egregious example of generalizing from self-selected examples in order to reach a forgone conclusion, namely that Islam is not a religion of peace. Well, for most of the world’s 1.2 billion Muslim, Islam is a religion that preaches egalitarianism, toleration, pluralism, and yes peace. That’s why many religious scholars believe Islam is ultimately compatible with democracy.
Savage’s selective use of quotations from the Koran is meant to cast doubt on this. But one could just as easily unearth a plethora of violence-sanctioning passages from the Bible, but this would hardly constitute proof that Christianity was a warlike religion. Indeed, Savage seems to perpetually commit what psychologists call the self-confirming bias -- picking evidence that suits one’s purposes, but ignoring it when it contradicts it.
Melville has Captain Ahab say, “All of my means are rational, only my ends are insane.” It is a helpful way of looking at mental disorders, because most people with disturbed thought processes can sound quite reasonable much of the time; their individual reasoning steps are sound, it’s only when you step back and look at the implications of their arguments that they look pretty worrisome. I think this is a problem with Savage. He raises understandable concerns about: immigration, gay marriage, and tort reform, but then blames Liberals 100% for every modern predicament and then proposes solutions so half-baked and ill considered that they contradict principles he espoused moments before.
For instance, after tarnishing trial lawyers as bloodsucking leaches that suck the life out of our economic system, Savage presents his own perverse solution to dealing with organizations he doesn’t much like, such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Organization of Women: they should be subject to civil action and prosecution under the RICO (anti-Racketeering statutes). Well that ought to keep the trial lawyers busy! In one breath Savage blasts losers who spill hot coffee on themselves and sue McDonalds for millions (thereby raising the cost of an Egg McMuffin for all of us). And in the next breath he’ll suggest suing the ACLU for all the harm it has allegedly caused. I guess you could say that rather than eat his own words Savage is a guy who wants to have his contradiction and eat his Happy Meal too.
The central failure of Savage’s book lies in its self-certain obtuseness; it lacks any sense of deep empathy. Unable to understand any point of view outside his own Savage turns every other into a cartoon. But in so doing he turns himself into a caricature. And if that isn’t the essence of a mental disorder I don’t know what else is. A Savage solution, in other words, is far worse than the malady it purports to cure.
~RG
