Penis Envy (Updated)
Courtesy of NobodySpecial in comments, I’m treated to Mark Steyn‘s latest bit of fascist tosspottery. It’s stunning; in the same vein as his last offering, but the general thesis is expanded. Last time he urged our government to act more like the Iranians’. Now he’s urging our society and culture to be more like that of militant Islam.
He sullenly recounts how Kathryn Jean Lopez was put in her place last week by an emailer who argued that practicing wingnut “journalism” was not at all the same thing as being in uniform and fighting on the ground. K-Lo, to her credit, took this rather better than Steyn, who is more sensitive to righteous deprecations of his self-regarding journalistic sacrifices:
What a bizarrely wrong-headed attitude. Aside from anything else, I wonder if the gentleman (if that’s the word) understands how freakish it would strike every previous generation of Americans (and, indeed, almost every other society in human history) to berate a blameless young lady for not grabbing a rifle and heading for the front. And, if the issue is “extraordinary disrespect” to the troops, it’s utterly self-defeating to argue that only active-duty servicemen get proprietorial rights in a war.
Feeling better that he’s defended K-Lo’s honor (and, much more importantly, that he’s parried Chickenhawk insinuations that grossly impugn his and his fellow wingnuts’ status as courageous and selfless martyrs), he then considers that, well, maybe there’s something to it after all! But not like liberals think, oh no!
In fact, the notion that “fighting” a war is the monopoly of those “in uniform” gets to the heart of why America and its allies are having such a difficult time in the present struggle. Nations go to war, not armies. Or, to be more precise, nations, not armies, win wars.[…]
[Snip]
No one can argue with U.S. military superiority. America has the most powerful armed forces on the planet. The Pentagon is responsible for 40 percent of the world’s military spending, and outspends the next 20 biggest militaries combined. It’s responsible for almost 80 percent of military research-and-development spending, which means the capability gap between it and everyone else widens every day.
So why doesn’t it feel like that?
[Snip]
We live in an age of inversely proportional deterrence: The more militarily powerful a civilized nation is, the less its enemies have to fear the full force of that power ever being unleashed. They know America and other Western powers fight under the most stringent self-imposed etiquette. Overwhelming force is one thing; overwhelming force behaving underwhelmingly as a matter of policy is quite another.
So even the most powerful military in the world is subject to broader cultural constraints. When Kathryn Lopez’s e-mailer sneers that “your contribution to this war is limited solely to your ability to exercise the skillset provided by your liberal arts education,” he’s accidentally put his finger on the great imponderable: whether the skill set provided by the typical American, British and European education these last 30 years is now one of the biggest obstacles to civilizational self-preservation. A nation that psychologically outsources war to a small career soldiery risks losing its ability even to grasp concepts like “the enemy”: The professionalization of war is also the ghettoization of war. As John Podhoretz wondered in the New York Post the other day: “What if liberal democracies have now evolved to a point where they can no longer wage war effectively because they have achieved a level of humanitarian concern for others that dwarfs any really cold-eyed pursuit of their own national interests?”
[Snip]
The American media have no problem being ferociously jingoistic when it comes to the two-man luge. Yet, when it’s a war, there is no “our” team, not on American TV. Like snotty French ice-dancing judges, the media watch the U.S. skate across the rink and then hand out a succession of snippy 4.3s — for lack of Miranda rights in Fallujah, insufficient menu options at Gitmo.
Our enemies understand “why we fight” and where the fight is. They know that in the greater scheme of things the mosques of Jakarta and Amsterdam and Toronto and Dearborn are more important territory than the Sunni Triangle. The U.S. military is the best-equipped and best-trained in the world. But it’s not enough, it never has been and it never will be.
Steyn’s gift is that he can reference, old skool Dennis Miller style, every wingnut trope no matter the topic at hand. Here he refers to the dolchstosslegende, recounts the alleged perfidity of the French, cites the purported shortcomings of Academe, sneers at Miranda rights, laughs at the idea of torture at Gitmo, and (that old jewel), warns of an enemy within.
Yet his main point is crystalized around the reference to John Podhoretz’s recent whine that the West may lack the stones to do what it really needs to do: commit genocide on the filthy wogs. Steyn agrees, head shaking and fists furiously pounding his desk, that it’s true! Liberals have ruined the West to the point that we don’t have the stones for it — our society just isn’t militaristic enough! Waaaaahhhhh. But our enemies, now they have a militaristic society! In spades. Plainly, they know how it should be done!
Of course Steyn is self-evidently insane and fascist. And he’s also channeling something very old, a ghost of wingnut past that has never really left the ghouls of wingnut present. Here’s pre-Sith Christopher Hitchens in an essay called “How Neoconservatives Perish”:
…James Burnham, the real intellectual founder of the neo-conservative movement and the original proselytizer, in America, of the theory of ‘totalitarianism’. Burnham was the first important Marxist to defect all the way over to the right… He was the first to generalize the symmetry between Nazism and Communism, appropriating the anti-fascist term fifth column, for instance, and applying it adroitly to real or supposed Communist fellow-travellers in the United States…
…Burnham never shrank dishonestly from using the word [American] ’empire’. He was always explicitly in favour of it…
Two further distinctive emphases were necessary to the all-enclosing world-view. It was proposed, first, that ‘totalitarian’ dictatorships were different from the tyrranies of, say, the banana-republic sort because they were marked by a terrifying acquiescence, if not complicity, among their subjects. There was no such thing as private life in the ‘totalitarian’ universe; every citizen was a member of a regiment, and every element in life a reinforcement of the conscription. It was argued, thus, that this very ruthlessness gave the ‘totalitarians’ a definite advantage in the global contest. While the decadent West pursued its democratic, self-critical, hedonistic path, fraught with emasculating influences such as homosexuality and investigative journalism, the tyrants were breeding a Spartan, manly phalanx, rejoicing in power and unanimity and force. How often were we told that the Red Army had a free hand in Afghanistan because ‘there is no public opinion in the Soviet Union’, while the United States had been undone in Indochina by snooping reporters, carping liberals, and gnawing, self-destructive introspection? Jean-Francois Revel, in How Democracies Perish, asserted that democracy gravely hampered the West, tying its hands an limiting its reach. Writers in the same key, from Michael Ledeen to Charles Krauthammer, moaned and whined about ‘the imperial Congress’, with its alleged habit of stymieing and miring the bold, heterosexual initiatives of a Henry Kissinger or an Oliver North. Our neo-con intellectuals, pace Burnham, time and again have flirted with the idea that there was an essential incompatibility between democracy and survival.
…[I]t may be worth noting that George Orwell had Burnham’s number from the start… [H]e shrewdly pointed out Burnham’s guilty secret — namely, that he was envious of the ‘totalitarian’ precept and had a strong, vicarious admiration for it. Orwell stressed Burnham’s adoration for the full panoply of strength and cruelty, saying that his real desire was not to combat dictatorship and oppression but to emulate them. The same tone is easy to discern in the neo-conservative voice….
And in Steyn’s. From his latest turn with P-ugh Hewitt:
HH: Mark Steyn, it’s always a pleasure. Last question. Is Israel getting serious? They’ve called up 30,000 reservists. Do you think they’re girding up the loins at this point?
MS: Well, I have a few concerns. When they said they weren’t going to take any action against Syria, in a strange way, toppling Assad would be a lot easier to do than finishing off Hezbollah. And it would be…and in a sense, it would be very comforting if they would just do that, just to shake things up a bit.
Italics mine, but crazy, probing, warmongering-on-whim in the original. Steyn, like so many wingnuts, hates our “lack of unity”, seeing in the accoutrements of democracy a terrible tendency to weakness, to a lack of resolve, to a self-sabotaging disinterest. He, like Burnham, would rather America emulate the societal and cultural structures of the enemy, which he sees as a wise constructor of a unified, virile people bent on annihilating their foes.
As the whole Middle East goes to hell in a handcart and the wingnuts look for someone to blame for a great clusterfuck-up that they own entirely, essays like Steyn’s will be more common. Meanwhile, Pantload is halfway there:
I understand we need to take a principled pro-democracy stand. But we shouldn’t blind ourselves to the fact that undemocratic instiutions [sic] are often on the side of the angels.
***
Update: Glenn Greenwald kindly links to this post; he’s been exploring a very similar theme for a while now: see here, here and especially here for just the most recent examples.
With regard to Steyn’s stated wish on HH’s radio show that Israel directly attack Syria, it’s a reminder that Josh Marshall is right to worry — Steyn’s just saying openly what Marshall says a great many are lobbying-for privately.
…undemocratic instiutions are often on the side of the angels.
Puts me in mind of the Patti Smith song Ask The Angels
Ask the angels who they’re calling,
Go ask the angels if they’re calling to thee…
Everybody got the feelin’
You know the feeling and it’s stronger each day
Everybody wants to be reelin’
And baby baby I’ll show you the way
And I know it’s hard sometimes,
You got a piece and hit across the sky
And I know it’s hard sometimes
And world war is the battle cry
And it’s wild wild wild wild
Across the country through the fields
You know I see it written ‘cross the sky
People rising from the highway
And war war is the battle cry
And it’s wild wild wild wild.
Armageddon, it’s gotten
No savior jailer can take it from me
World ending, it’s just beginning…
Pantload, J-Pod, and Steyn. Luke – your failure is complete. It’s the Dark Side’s movie now.
A viable working definition of defeat in this current conflict:
If you win all the battles, defeat the enemy and raise your flag over his capitol, and yet, in the process, you become your enemy, you have lost, not just the day, not just the war, but your very humanity
mikey
A nation that psychologically outsources war to a small career soldiery risks losing its ability even to grasp concepts like “the enemy�.
Oh, Sadly No!, who will teach our children how to hate? The Liberal education machine has failed our great nation yet again. Because not “teaching tolerance” just isn’t good enough.
Bring on the home schoolin’!
They know that in the greater scheme of things the mosques of Jakarta and Amsterdam and Toronto and Dearborn are more important territory than the Sunni Triangle. The U.S. military is the best-equipped and best-trained in the world. But it’s not enough, it never has been and it never will be.
Steyn seems to be arguing that in a healthy, virile society, angry street mobs would show their support for the armed forces by rousing themselves from their apathy and destroying mosques in Toronto etc. instead of leaving it to the professionals.
Anyone else read it that way?
“Anyone else read it that way?”
I read that as he wants a draft but he wants it to spontaneously appear without any war supporters having to propose it or vote for it.
fraught with emasculating influences such as homosexuality and investigative journalism
How *dare* he compare my love of my fellow men to those….those….investigative journalists! [rcoils in horror]
I love how homosexuality is always the benchmark for for weakness and eeeevvvvviiiiilllllll. Nope, there’s no queer US soldiers in Eye-rack, no siree.
pre-Sith Christopher Hitchens
What a lovely phrase.
Love your writing, Retardo. When are you gonna do more of your irreverent biographies of US Presidents?
When are you gonna do more of your irreverent biographies of US Presidents?
Well, thanks, and I’m glad you liked them (they were fun to write), but I dunno if I’ll do anything like that again for a while. I just have so many irons in the fire. Main ambition is working on wingnut all-stars series, which are incredibly hard to write because there is just so much material to arrange.
he’s accidentally put his finger on the great imponderable: whether the skill set provided by the typical American, British and European education these last 30 years is now one of the biggest obstacles to civilizational self-preservation.
As opposed to the skill set provided by sitting on Conrad Black’s knee like Ganymede for the past decade.
Cripes! Leave it to Jonah to make the st00pidest statement on any subject. I’d like to see him list *one* example! Just. One. Really, and taker yer time, Jonah, baybee–I have all the time in the world.
No one can argue with U.S. military superiority. America has the most powerful armed forces on the planet. The Pentagon is responsible for 40 percent of the world’s military spending, and outspends the next 20 biggest militaries combined.
I grow tired of how these idiots assume massive military spending is synonymous with a powerful military. Never mind that most of that spending is Keynsian pump-priming thrown away on high-tech boondoggles that fail to improve – and often erode – fighting ability. With a defence sector as corrupted by crony capitalism as America’s, lacking zee vill to fight is not the problem. Competency would be more useful. Wars of conquest can’t be won with super-expensive missiles while your ground troops have to buy their own armor and your leaders try to run an occupation with National Freakin’ Guardsmen.
Which is a good thing.
Note how the neocons ascribe a variety of super-human “virtues” to our enemies, which, if we fail to emulate them, will mean our certain destruction.
Our “enemy” is evil, cunning, intelligent, strong, disciplined, amoral, structured, united, and intent on a single, all-consuming goal: our total destruction.
This is laughable.
Neocons do believe that our society is decadent, and can be purified and redeemed only through a consuming war (or wars). This is one of their fundamental, esoteric beliefs, which they don’t share often with the general public. Their typical strategy is to glorify American “exceptionalism,” its “universal values,” and its “mission” to the world. Sometimes, though, their absolute contempt for America shines through.
I can assure the neocons that there is an enemy within — me, and people like me. The asshole neocons are a far bigger threat to America than terrorists could ever be. I intend to fight them with money, pen, and snark (especially snark). As Nietzsche said, “Not by wrath does one kill, but by laughter. Come! Let us kill the spirit of gravity!” The neocons are absolutely the spirit of gravity, and they are dragging us down.
Fortunately, everyone with half a brain finally realizes what batshit insane morons they are. Unfortunately, about 30% of the country appears to not have half a brain, and a neocon still has his finger on the button, at least for another couple years. The only question now is whether they will succeed destroying everything and everyone in their Gotterdammerung, or whether it will just be themselves they destroy.
Cripes! Leave it to Jonah to make the st00pidest statement on any subject. I’d like to see him list *one* example! Just. One. Really, and taker yer time, Jonah, baybee–I have all the time in the world.
Note he said “undemocratic institutions“, not “undemocratic governments.” Most religious institutions are undemocratic, and they are, by self-definition, on the side of the angels. Q.E.D.
No, you are completely wrong. Ruthlessness in the extirpation of terrorism is a good thing. It is like cancer surgery. In order to remove the malignancy, the surgeon needs to excise the surrounding benign tissue as well. Being sqeamish about this is misguided and will lead to the patient’s eventual demise. Israel’s bombing of Qana should be viewed in this light. The “civilians” who were bombed at Qana were the wives and children of Hezbollah terrorists who were caught red-handed firing rockets indiscriminately at Israeli civilian targets. There was no way to excise these terrorists without killing their dependents as well. As Israel UN Ambassador Danny Gillerman said, if you sleep with rockets in your bedroom there is a good chance that some day you might not wake up alive. This is a fact of life, regretable though it might be. In the long run, Israel’s antiterror campaign will save lives, not only Israeli and American but also Arab.
he’s accidentally put his finger on the great imponderable: whether the skill set provided by the typical American, British and European education these last 30 years is now one of the biggest obstacles to civilizational self-preservation.
LOL Spartans. All I gotta say.
What the hell is he advocating? Military school for all kids? Does he think that boys in the 50s were handed a rifle at birth or something?
The “civilians� who were bombed at Qana were the wives and children of Hezbollah terrorists who were caught red-handed firing rockets indiscriminately at Israeli civilian targets.
Keep telling yourself thatm if it helps you sleep at night, but don’t bring that bullshit here.
Anyone, by any name, that wishes to push external goals via foreign policy, is tipping their hand, as they wish the same would be turned internally, towards the American people.
We can not have peace throughout, before we have peace within.
Again, how laughable is it that homosexuals are in anyway to blame? There are homosexuals in every corner of the world, get over it already. One might as well propose left handed people are the devil, circa 600 B.C. -ish.
Speaking of penises, what’s Count Cockula been up to lately?
Actually, in this the NEOCONS mirror the very “supporters of terrorism” they hate. Both romaticise the “other” while viewing our own society as a decadent den of consumerism and other indulgences that make its citizens weak.
True. One problem we have is that our military is TOO trained – every combat outfit in the US army would qualiify as ‘Elite’ in any other army of the world and our doctrine is based on the assumption that our soldiers can be capable of undertaking tasks (like combined arms offensives that require tight coordination between different units and types of “arms”) that cannot never be trusted to draftees. Only 10% of the troops in uniform are part of units that train full-time for combat (as opposed to logistic, engineering, etc. duties), and it takes approx. 2 years of training before a new soldier is really up to speed. This means we cant afford to take too many losses – because we cant replace them in time and our doctrine is not built around using them.
The Pantload will always be halfway there. He’s the master of the qualifier, unwilling to ever take that final stand. Steyn is an fascist pig, but at least you know where he stands. Must have been that emasculating Goucher education.
Um, that would depend on my buying their nauseatingly self-serving self-descriptions, which I do not. In fact, I tend to lump people who self-describe as “being on the side of angels” in with serial killers, genocidal maniacs, necrophiles, and
Catholic Priestspedophiles. Only difference is, they’re lying about who and what they are, so they bear even closer scrutiny than those other groups.can anyone put a link here to Retardo’s presidential biographies? I missed that!
As John Podhoretz wondered in the New York Post the other day: “What if liberal democracies have now evolved to a point where they can no longer wage war effectively because they have achieved a level of humanitarian concern for others that dwarfs any really cold-eyed pursuit of their own national interests?�
“cold-eyed pursuit”. that means being a warmongering, innocent-destroying fascist asshole who wants to ‘glass’ the entire MidEast. Since violence has always been the last refuge of the uh, insane.
“last resort”?!?1?
[…] most important — reason for an endless rightwing agitation for perpetual wars. More or less openly, wingnuts envy authoritarian regimes — specifically, the power the elite wields in such […]