From a dialectical standpoint, this is a textbook thesis (Trump is fascist) and antithesis (Trump supported my cause) in search of a synthesis. The resulting synthesis is pretty obvious, and yet it's similarly obvious that the author of the tweet won't be putting two and two together anytime soon (lest you think I'm reading too much into a single tweet, her pinned tweet links to this article). It's apparent that in this instance, rigid adherence to dogma is preventing the revelation of what would otherwise be an obvious truth.
Of course one dumb tweet is not noteworthy in and of itself. But after briefly considering the faulty mechanism that led to her assertion, I started to see the same fallacy everywhere. Later that same day, I listened to TrueAnon's interview with the famed Palestinian advocate Norman Finkelstein. His description of his youthful adherence to Maoism was indicative of a similar myopia:
"Finkelstein’s tendency toward political fanaticism first emerged in his adolescent adoration of Chairman Mao’s China. He hung Communist propaganda posters on his bedroom wall, studied with the world’s leading Marxist scholars in Paris, and would espouse the virtues of the socialist paradise Mao was building to anyone who would listen. When his shoes were stolen while he was napping in the study lounge at university, he scolded his classmates that “this would never happen in China.”But when Mao’s political heirs, the Gang of Four, were overthrown to mass celebration in 1976, Finkelstein realized that he had been a willing dupe of Communist propaganda. Devastated, he spent three weeks in bed depressed. He was disillusioned by his own self-deception, a quality he thinks radical activists can be particularly susceptible to."
At the same time, I was reading Poisoner in Chief, an incisive telling of the story of MK-ULTRA head Stanley Gottlieb. How could such a mild-mannered man be responsible for so many atrocities? The author hints at his opinion on this matter throughout the book, but drives it home in the closing pages:
"Commitment to a cause provides the ultimate justification for immoral acts. Patriotism is among the most seductive of those causes. It posits the nation as a value so transcendent that anything done in its service is virtuous. This brings into sharp relief what the essayist Jan Kott called the "discrepancy between the moral order and the order of practical behavior.""He hears the voice of conscience," Kott wrote about a murderer, "but at the same time realizes that conscience cannot be reconciled with the laws and order of the world he lives in—that it is something superfluous, ridiculous and a nuisance."Gottlieb faced a question that cuts to the human heart: Are there limits to the amount of evil that can be done in a righteous cause before the evil outweighs the righteousness? Even if he believed that such limits might exist in theory, or in other cases, he never observed them in his own work. He persuaded himself that he was defending nothing less than the survival of the United States and human freedom on earth. That allowed him to justify grave assaults on human life and dignity. He assumed the role of God, freely destroying the lives of innocents for what he believed were good reasons. That sin was deep. Gottlieb lived with it uncomfortably in his later years."
And in more recent history, excerpts from Obama's latest memoir describe the dogmatic mindset that set his presidency up for failure:
"And yet the pride in being American, the notion that America was the greatest country on earth—that was always a given. As a young man, I chafed against books that dismissed the notion of American exceptionalism; got into long, drawn-out arguments with friends who insisted the American hegemon was the root of oppression worldwide. I had lived overseas; I knew too much. That America fell perpetually short of its ideals, I readily conceded. The version of American history taught in schools, with slavery glossed over and the slaughter of Native Americans all but omitted—that, I did not defend. The blundering exercise of military power, the rapaciousness of multinationals—yeah, yeah, I got all that.But the idea of America, the promise of America: this I clung to with a stubbornness that surprised even me. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created was my America."
To tie it all together and to prove that I'm not (completely) crazy is this passage from the book I'm reading right now from the great Adolph Reed, Jr.:
"Relying on formulaic social theory and slogans makes it difficult to connect with the experience of ordinary people. And desperation to form some kind of connection leads to the pursuit of any alliance, no matter how repugnant to progressive interests. Single-minded focus on an arcane objective makes it possible to rationalize anything."
The lessons from all of this seem clear. Dogma, especially one which carries existential implications for the believer, has no place in the dialectical mindset. An unyielding commitment to anything other than love for your fellow man, verifiable reality, and the first principles of your worldview is not compatible with the search for truth. I'm sure someone else (or many someone elses) have used superior evidence and/or eloquence to come to the same conclusion as me. But it's still noteworthy how easy it is to see this sort of thing everywhere if you're looking for it. Dogma or Synthesis - the choice is yours. Choose wisely.
