Gadfly: What happened?
IM: Quite frankly, I am recovering
from an illness. My doctor has since medicated me for high blood pressure. But
I must say that I took a triple dose of my medicine while watching the 60
Minutes interview of President Obama tonight, September 23, 2012. Steve Kroft
acted as though he were interviewing God, Himself, and grateful for not being
turned into stone for asking even softball questions.
Gadfly: Your dream and the Kroft
interview caused your blood pressure to rise?
IM: Yes, for what they symbolized.
Gadfly: In our last conversation, you
said the dream was in black and white and that President Obama’s white toothy
smile was bounded by dry, parched lips.
IM: I’ll get to the meaning of the
black and white later. For now, I want to focus on the dry, parched lips.
Gadfly: You have my attention.
IM: I wanted to know the meaning of
Obama’s dry, parched lips. I thought long and hard about why this image caught
my attention. Then, I remembered a book by Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers
Karamazov.
Gadfly: Dostoevsky? Are you
referring to the author of Crime and
Punishment?
IM: Yes.
Gadfly: Dostoevsky wrote in the late
1800s.
IM: You are well-read, Gadfly. What
is your recollection of how to characterize Dostoevsky’s Russia in the late
1800s?
Gadfly: As I recall, Russia was
still pretty much a feudal state. Peasants were at the mercy of royalty. And
Dostoevsky was imprisoned for views contrary to the political elite.
IM: This is true. He even faced a
firing squad for his political dissent. Later, he wrote The Brothers
Karamazov, which was considered a biographical sketch of his family within
the context of a harsh Russian culture.
Gadfly: How does this relate to
President Obama?
IM: I’m getting there. In Chapter 5
of Brothers Karamazov, there is a
parable about the Grand Inquisitor.
Gadfly: Do you mean as in the
Spanish Inquisition?
IM: Yes. As most of us know, the
Spanish Inquisition took place between the 1400s and early 1800s.
Gadfly: Are you trying to indict the
Catholic Church?
IM: Absolutely not. The history and
role of the Catholic Church has been terribly misrepresented and misunderstood,
even within the context of the Spanish Inquisition—a story for another day.
Yet, the inquisition, as reported in The
Brothers Karamazov, is a story that
must be told and understood within today’s context.
Gadfly: I want to hear more.
IM: In Dostoevsky’s parable, an old
Spanish Cardinal observed a man healing people within a crowd and also
recognized the man as Jesus Christ. So, the Cardinal had Him arrested and sent
to the dungeons. Later in the day, the Grand Inquisitor visited Jesus,
relishing the opportunity to admonish Him for not giving in to the three
temptations. The Inquisitor went on to explain to Jesus all the good things the
church had done for the people. He provided example after example with no
response from Jesus. The Grand Inquisitor then emphasized that people want the
church to provide for their personal safety and security. Expecting some
response from Jesus, the Inquisitor said, “I have given you evidence of all the
things I have done for the people, yet you give no affirmation to the good
things I have done for them.” Jesus continued to listen with no response. The
Inquisitor continued, “I know your purpose for dying on the cross was to give
people freedom to choose how to live their lives. I know you had faith in their
capacity to make good choices.” Jesus continued to listen with no response. The
Inquisitor further pressed Jesus: “Unlike you, I know people don’t know how to
make good decisions. This is why they need people like me, who know much better
how they should live their lives.” Jesus continued to listen with no response.
Exasperated, the Inquisitor finished with a confession: “I also know that
people like me have aligned themselves with the devil to satisfy earthly needs
and desires.” At that moment, Jesus gently leaned forward, kissed the Grand
Inquisitor on his dry, parched lips, and walked away.
Gadfly: Powerful! Who is today’s Grand Inquisitor?
IM: I know what I am about to
suggest is not politically correct; yet, I choose to be a man with a chest (Note:
men without chests represent the consequences of political correctness in C.S.
Lewis’s The Abolition of Man). President Obama is a modern Grand
Inquisitor, and members of the progressive movement represent the modern
secular church.
Gadfly: IM, the comparison seems
bold and harsh at the same time. And the
implications of the parable are disconcerting. How do you explain the symbolism
of black and white in your dream?
IM: Black and white symbolize a
previous era. President Obama and his collaborators want to shape America in
ways similar to a previous era—an era where political elite moved entire nations
in the direction of a collective utopia. Many intellectuals attempted to bring
such thinking to the United States in the early 1930s. Amity Shlaes described
these efforts (with significant evidence) in Chapter 2 of The Forgotten Man. By the way, unlike some comparisons to Abraham Lincoln, Obama seems
closer to Vladimir I. Lenin. Both were trained as lawyers
and both were community organizers, agitating and organizing for social justice
and collective freedom. The Center for American Progress is Obama’s (and the
progressive movement’s) epicenter for today's public narrative. What more do
non-Copernican drones (see Cogito Ergo Sum, August 9, 2012) need for evidence
that the United States of America is under ideological assault?
Gadfly: Surely, other people feel
differently.
IM: Absolutely. Some of my own
friends disagree with me.
Gadfly: This must trouble you.
IM: Yes, it does. However, I just
remind myself of Hannah Arendt’s discovery about wide-spread comfort with mendacity
in her book, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A
Report on the Banality of Evil.
Gadfly: Are you serious? People
actually find refuge in untruthfulness?
IM: For some, yes. Now, I don't
think most people deliberately embrace mendacity. The condition may be what
Benedict Spinoza calls "human bondage" in his book, Ethics,
Demonstrated in Geometric Order. Human bondage is a condition where
passions or emotions trump reason. Nearly 500 years later, Leon Festinger
published his seminal theory of cognitive dissonance. The theory
explains the same dynamic that Spinoza called human bondage. Human bondage has
occurred throughout the history of humankind. Even the Book of Proverbs 26:11 claims, “As the dog returns to his vomit, so the fool
repeats his folly.”
Gadfly: Very powerful, IM. You
obviously believe that President Obama is a modern Grand Inquisitor, similar to
the guardian concept we already discussed (see “The Art of Economy Surfing,”
September 7, 2012). Grand Inquisitors or guardians determine how the rest of us
will live our lives, which sounds familiar (e.g., Mao's China, Lenin's Soviet
Union, Hitler's Germany, Mussolini's Italy, Castro's Cuba, Chavez's Venezuela,
and so forth). But, what if these guardians can truly make life better for
everyone? After all, my progressive friends believe this is a noble thing to
do.
IM: We have recorded history to be
the judge of these "noble" intentions. Collective freedom is not
sustainable; and, political systems based on collective freedom devolve into
totalitarianism. To avoid a similar fate, our nation needs a balance of liberal
and conservative values, facilitated by character-based leaders in the public
and private sectors.
Gadfly: Your assessment sounds like
the classical liberalism that characterized America during its founding as a
nation.
IM: Yes, Gadfly. But there are
forces working hard to prevent a balance of values. In our next conversation I
want to describe one of these powerful forces: engineering public sentiment.
Gadfly: Thank you, IM. I look forward to our
next conversation.
Brilliant.
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