10/12/2004 09:27:10 PM|||Chris|||POLITICS, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage.

FAITH, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.
---Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

Phyl, a very insightful Canadian blogger, has two entries taking apart the fundamentalism of modern politics, in all its different varieties: political, patriotic, and economic. She uses Ayn Rand as a starting point, giving Rand credit for her focus on human reason, but showing how she blew it in assigning the role of the anti-intellectuals to the Left. My one quibble is that I think she gives Rand a little bit too much credit; the things that she got right about the value of human reason had been said before and better by other people, and all the rest is babble.

Part 1
Part 2

But quibbles about the choice of political philosopher aside, Phyl's piece is important because it very intelligently and neatly says something that we need to remember: the struggle that we face today is not one of East vs. West, or Jews/Christians vs. Muslims, but of fundamentalism against the legacies of the Enlightenment. That's why it's so important to get Bush out of office: because the people backing him have too much in common with those who flew two planes into the World Trade Center. Because modern politics is a string of fundamentalist policies, made of nothing but spit and fairydust, and we're supposed to stand by and deny the obvious, even when it defies all reason. I don't like Kerry, and as soon as we get him into office, I'll be preparing a sharp tongue for him, but if I can say nothing else for him, it's that he seems reasonable.

|||109763083421603985|||Ayn Rand Got it Right, but Got it Wrong