Friday, April 7, 2006

Deepak Chopra: The Seduction of Apocalypse | The Huffington Post

The Blog | Deepak Chopra: The Seduction of Apocalypse | The Huffington Post: "Only time will tell how far the American people will go in tolerating a government run by irrational metaphysics, or at least deeply influenced by them."

It may seem odd to recommend reading Deepak Chopra, warning against irrational metaphysics, but here's an article worth reading. Kevin Phillips has put the topic front and center, with his book, American Theocracy.

A good deal of right-wing politics is deeply irrational, and has been for a long time. It was not always so, but at least since Ronald Reagan, there has always been an irrational thread. "Cutting taxes will increase revenues" was secular irrationalism. Republicans have built a whole political machine out of a false political theatre: a patriotism, which admires and elects cowards and draft dodgers, like Reagan, Bush and Cheney, while rejecting those, like Carter and Gore and Kerry, who have served honorably; a politics, which emphasizes "moral character", but ignores the pathological fantasizing of Reagan and the lying and deception of Bush; a politics of "life", which makes the foremost practitioner of the death penalty, President, and never protests, even when he "authorizes" torture and indefinite detention. The electoral base for all of this irrationality: ignoramuses and self-righteous fools, who can not stomach their own anxiety or reason their way from the front yard to the supermarket. Their solution: waiting for the apocalypse.

No comments:

Post a Comment