I've sometimes wondered about the value of a classical education. Other than knowing the Latin names for common things, or peppering conversations with choice quotes from European literature, does it do any good in everyday life? This article might provide part of an answer. The main argument is nothing special -- just a laundry list of Bush policy offenses that any liberal blogger could enumerate without much thought. Her confusion about the difference between Daedalus and Icarus in Greek mythology is annoying but can be dismissed as not central to her point (although the father/son angle could have been useful). At the end, however, she gives us this:
Now most Americans, including many who voted for Bush, don't like the direction the country has been going in. We won't say we told you so. That would be hubris, and it could lead to another tragedy -- like Democrats losing the next election.
Ah, the genius of Democratic political strategists -- shut up, be polite, don't attack, keep it positive. The brilliant non-threatening approach that has won so many of the recent elections. It's the flinching policy of a party that has been battered time and again by hot-button issues, so they are finally too afraid of inadvertently giving people reasons to vote against them that they forget to give them any reason to vote for them.
There's no need to be nice. We weren't right about Bush by accident. We could see through the patriotic good-old-boy smokescreen and observe the callous, corrupt, elitist GOP machine underneath. We called foul and were called traitors for our keen perception. If Bush had been a one-time mistake I could see letting it slide. But he's just the most recent product of a culture of divisiveness and reactionary corporatism, and there will be more coming after him in the same mold.
Opinion is turning, but the resistance is amazingly strong. At least 1/4 of the country is still perfectly happy with their choice of Bush. Of those that are not, many cannot acknowledge that their decisions and attitudes made this problem what it is today. Even among those who recognize their own shame in the affair will wallow in despair and not consider voting Democratic (see Resigned). When people with the W'04 stickers on their bumpers start peeling them off and stomping on them, then I'll be polite. Not before. Until then we have to say I told you so. We have to rub conservative noses in the mess they've made because if we don't, they'll end up blaming it on us.
Perhaps if she really understood the meaning of tragedy, in the classic sense, she wouldn't make this obvious mistake. Tragedy is not just a story that ends sadly, and it isn't a simple morality tale where people get what they deserve. Real tragedy pits fallible men against situations they cannot control, ones which are by their nature destined to spin out of control. It often entails a choice that is no choice -- a no-win scenario. Defend your country or kill your friend? Sacrifice your child or defy your god? Lose your honor or kill your wife?
There are many more tragic flaws than just hubris, pride and arrogance. Timidity or passiveness, for example. Shakespeare's Hamlet, that great play among the lesser tragedies, informs us about the failure of triangulation. The Danish prince, given a choice that is no choice (avenge your father or kill a king?) steadfastly demurs. He charts the third way, preferring resolute indecision to picking either of the unacceptable alternatives. Courting madness, like Resigned's author and the DLC, he commits his too too solid flesh to melt into his death, the death of his family and line and anyone who crossed his path.
Tragedy, that most neglected of dramatic forms, has many lessons for us today. Democrats, attend. Had you been put on, you may have proved most royally. But to the third way lies madness and death. Chose now. And may history your audience, applaud your efforts.
- jack*
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