Seeking Solace in Understanding
At times, the sheer volume of lunacy oozing out of the Chávez Cult is almost more than I can bear. What can I say, it gets to me. It's things like Chávez's contention that the CIA and Colombian paramilitaries are behind the crime wave in Caracas slums, like ViveTV's report that the quake in Haiti was set off by a gringo military experiment gone heywire. These people are...unwell.
As chavismo detatches itself ever more decidedly from any kind of grasp of reality that's even marginally coherent to people outside the confines of the cult, I find myself going back to this essay by Lee Harris for solace.
The piece resists easy summarizing: there's just too much insight crammed into too little space for that. But this passage gives you a taste:
It is a common human weakness to wish to make more of our contribution to the world than the world is prepared to acknowledge, and it is our fantasy world that allows us to fill this gap. But normally, for most of us at least, this fantasy world stays relatively hidden. Indeed, a common criterion of our mental health is the extent to which we are able to keep our fantasies firmly under our watchful control.
Yet clearly there are individuals for whom this control is, at best, intermittent, resulting in behavior that ranges from the merely obnoxious to the clinically psychotic. The man who insists on being taken more seriously than his advantages warrant falls into the former category; the maniac who murders an utter stranger because God — or his neighbor’s dog — commanded him to do so belongs to the latter...
But what happens when it is not an individual who is caught up in his fantasy world, but an entire group — a sect, or a people, or even a nation? That such a thing can happen is obvious from a glance at history. The various chiliastic movements, such as those studied in Norman Cohn’s The Pursuit of the Millennium (Harper & Row, 1961), are splendid examples of collective fantasy; and there is no doubt that for most of history such large-scale collective fantasies appear on the world stage under the guise of religion.
But this changed with the French Revolution. From this event onward, there would be eruptions of a new kind of collective fantasy, one in which political ideology replaced religious mythology as the source of fantasy’s symbols and rituals. In this way it provided a new, and quite dangerous, outlet for the fantasy needs of large groups of men and women — a full-fledged fantasy ideology. For such a fantasy makes no sense outside of the ideological corpus in terms of which the fantasy has been constructed. It is from the ideology that the roles, the setting, the props are drawn, just as for the earlier pursuers of millennium, the relevant roles, setting, and props arose out of the biblical corpus of symbolism.
But the symbols by themselves do not create the fantasy. There must first be a preexisting collective need for this fantasy; this need comes from a conflict between a set of collective aspirations and desires, on one hand, and the stern dictates of brutal reality, on the other — a conflict in which a lack of realism is gradually transformed into a penchant for fantasy. History is replete with groups that seem to lack the capability of seeing themselves as others see them, differing in this respect much as individuals do.
A fantasy ideology is one that seizes the opportunity offered by such a lack of realism in a political group and makes the most of it. This it is able to do through symbols and rituals, all of which are designed to permit the members of the political group to indulge in a kind of fantasy role-playing. Classic examples of this are easy to find: the Jacobin fantasy of reviving the Roman Republic, Mussolini’s fantasy of reviving the Roman Empire, Hitler’s fantasy of reviving German paganism in the thousand-year Reich.
This theme of reviving ancient glory is an important key to understanding fantasy ideologies, for it suggests that fantasy ideologies tend to be the domain of those groups that history has passed by or rejected — groups that feel that they are under attack from forces which, while more powerful perhaps than they are, are nonetheless inferior in terms of true virtue. Such a fantasy ideology was current in the South before the Civil War and explained much of the conduct of the Confederacy. Instead of seeing themselves as an anachronism attempting to prolong the existence of a doomed institution, Southerners chose to see themselves as the bearer of true civilization. Imperial Germany had similar fantasies before and during the Great War. They are well expressed in Thomas Mann’s Notes of an Unpolitical Man: Germans possess true inwardness and culture, unlike the French and English — let alone those barbarous Americans. Indeed, Hitler’s even more extravagant fantasy ideology is incomprehensible unless one puts it in the context of this preexisting fantasy ideology.
In reviewing these fantasy ideologies, especially those associated with Nazism and Italian fascism, there is always the temptation for an outside observer to regard their promulgation as the cynical manipulation by a power-hungry leader of his gullible followers. This is a serious error, for the leader himself must be as much steeped in the fantasy as his followers: He can only make others believe because he believes so intensely himself.
Considering the political moment when the piece was written, not to mention the massive politico-ideological flamewar it set off, it's easy to understand why Harris's piece ended up being pigeonholed as some sort of wacky wingnut screed.
Personally, I think it's due a dispassionate re-evaluation. For once, it's not just a throw away phrase: do read the whole thing.
Kepler
Francisco Toro
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Que la liberto fue mi hermano Simon Bolivar?
Under great stress and fear it is easy for a powerful and narcissistic leader who believes in his own great destiny to activate the collective unconscious through archetypes and ancient legends, or through magnificent modern stories of super human endeavors,salvation, freedom and redemption, when heightened aesthetic,moral, and adventurous components lift us from our ordinary lives.A leader who can activate the level of the transcendent, or the level of the Gods, is very powerful.And yes, it is a mutual endeavor, the leader and his followers.
When Chavez took office he was the channel for Venezuelan freedom.The second liberator , the last hope.This was his grip on power.Chavez delved into our political history and seized the supposedly pure image of Simon Bolivar who had been idealized by Venezuelans in both stories and in music." VIVA VENEZUELA MI PATRIA QUERIDA QUE LA LIBERTO MI HERMANO FUE SIMON BOLIVAR
Never under estimate the needs of human souls to reach for transcending or transforming ordinary life into great ones of great meaning-But so important is for us to do this consciously and not unconsciously.
Does Chavez really believe in this manifest destiny,this sacred image of himself as the second coming of the liberator, or is he lying ?
That requires more thought, because within his level of personality disorder, the dividing line is not always so clear.Is it possible for him to believe in his larger than life persona and lie at the same time? I think so,but I am not sure of all the subtely because he is not conscious enough to always know the difference.
Up to his ass in aligators
This is a very interesting topic, and probably should be a subject for psychologists, one of which I am not. However, in reading this comment by Anonymous, I was reminded of a rather unique American expression:
"When you are up to your ass in alligators, it is hard to remember that you set out to drain the swamp."
I suspect that Chavez started out with some high ideals. However, his ideals were never very solid or self-consistent. After all, he wasn't highly educated, and did not have the critical thinking skills to recognize the inconsistencies in a purely theoretical setting. Once he tried to put his ideals into effect, those inconsistencies began to present themselves. So he keeps trying to change the ideals to get them to fit his experience. At the same time, his ego requires that he be in command and any evidence that he is personally having a negative effect is rejected as invalid data.
So, my guess is that he continues to simply make up the ideology as he goes along, while at the same time, daily trying to put out all the fires that he has inadvertently ignited. He knows that he is lying about the daily political shenanigans and crisis management, but justifies it (when he has time to reflect) by his certainty that when he finally finds the right ideological formula, all of that will be of no consequence and he will truly be "El Libertador".
I suspect that, in no particular order:
- He truly believes capitalism is the root of all evil. He came to that conclusion from his meager reading and because he knows he can't control a free-market. Anything he can't control is bad.
- He knows his government is inefficient and corrupt, but believes that will all stop once the capitalistic elements of the society have been purged.
- He is baffled by his inability to bend business and technology to his will.
- He is probably concluding that Venezuela (He) would be better off if technology is rejected and the country returns to a "pure" agrarian economy. However, he is frustrated because the technology is the source of the wealth that he needs to forge "Greater Colombia".
- The above internal conflict is the source of his hatred of the U.S., Venezuela's largest client and the source of a large portion of his foreign income. Again, anything he cannot control is bad.
Well, this comment wasn't very well structured, but I hope I made my point. Chavez is one very messed up personality!
semiprivate message to Roy on funny as hell reply
I love your comment Roy.
I thought that saying about alligators was by Werner Erhard-The one about the alligators in the swamp.NO matter who said it, it is as funny as all get out.
Werner Erhardt observed the myth: that after transformation,all our problems will diminish.Now Chavez has all those alligators biting his ass.
I knew you would have something good to say.
You were replying to my anonymous comment
Firepigette
Quote Source
Hi Firepig,
I googled that quote to look for the original source. The most common reference was connected to "product support employees". Well, that can't be the original source, because that job description didn't exist the first time I ever heard it. It also appears in various lists of aphorisms such as Murphy's Law and such. In any case, I learned it as a very young man in the construction business.
If anyone knows or can find the real origin of the quote, I would be happy to know it.
Different context, similar argument
A surprisingly similar argument from a Chilean former marxist:
http://www.revistasculturales.com/articulos/103/cuadernos-de-pensamiento...
That's a very good
That's a very good article.
Thanks gomezcal
Wonderful article from Mauricio Rojas
Thanks gomezcal for the excellent reference. I was moved by the lucid and candid testimonial of Mauricio Rojas. I think it is very opportune in these times of division when both sides see the other as pure evil. There’s no such thing. Ignorance is our main opponent, not ideology.
Left, Right, Open
As a follow up to virtok's comment, and somewhat in keeping with the Rojas essay, let me offer two very wise quotes from people with whose positions I often strongly disagree:
"The crucial distinction in politics is not between Left and Right, as I had once tribally thought, but between the defenders and the enemies of an open society." Oliver Kamm
"It was slowly revealed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not between states, not between classes, not between parties, but passes right through each human heart and through all human hearts. This line is a shifting one and through the years it fluctuates within us. Even a heart filled with evil holds a small beachhead of good. Even the kindest of hearts has a small corner of evil that failed to be uprooted." Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
The differences between left and right
"The crucial distinction in politics is not between Left and Right, as I had once tribally thought, but between the defenders and the enemies of an open society." Oliver Kamm
I read somewhere on the internet that the differences between The Left and The Right can be easily summarized as follows:
The Left: Equality is more important than freedom
The Right: Freedom is more important than equality
I initially dismissed it as laughably simple-minded. While it's true that The Left's disdain for freedom is as obvious as The Right's hatred for any attempt at forcing equality, The Left's concern for equality only exists in political speeches and The Right's love for freedom only applies to their freedom to oppress others.
However, there are two unavoidable truths contained in that simple-minded differentiation between The Left and The Right: (a) equality and freedom are mutually exclusive (complete equality cannot exist in a completely free society and vice versa), and (b) it's all about values.
The problems in the real world, unlike mathematical equations, don't have a neat little solution that everyone can agree upon, which is the reason why "The end justifies the means" quickly becomes the unavoidable mantra of every political doctrine in the world. Not only do people disagree in which ends are more valuable, but more importantly, they disagree on which means are justified to reach those ends. Even when people agree that some goal is worth pursuing (e.g., the elimination of poverty), they'll invariably disagree on the best way to accomplish that end (e.g., stealing money from the rich to give to the poor vs killing all the poor), and due to their difference in values, each side will invariably argue that their solution is the most moral one and that their opponents are clearly evil because their values are different.
Great Mauricio Rojas article
Yep, I agree. Great article. Thanks for the link gomezcal.
great excerpt, but when I read the ending...
... I felt revolted. Substitute "evildoers" with "chavistas" and tell me what you think: "You do not make treaties with evildoers or try to adjust your conduct to make them like you. You do not try to see the world from the evildoers’ point of view. You do not try to appease them, or persuade them, or reason with them. You try, on the contrary, to outwit them, to vanquish them, to kill them. You behave with them in the same manner that you would deal with a fatal epidemic — you try to wipe it out." Wrong wrong wrong! You attack the disease's symptoms, true, but mostly the CAUSE of the disease. "Wipe 'em out" sounds like a Rumsfeld / Cheney (and indeed Chavez / Fidel) recipe.
I'll read the whole piece soon though - the paragraphs you quoted are indeed very sharp.
And what about substituting "evildoers" by "escualidos"?...
...I hope you will also feel revolted...
And I believe Chavizmo made that substitution long ago, judging from former declarations ("the rich is not a human being", for instance).
"Evildoers", "chavistas", "escualidos", "christians", "marxists", "conservatives", "liberals", "We", "Them",,.. damn them all!!!...
...what Venezuela needs is a government that governs for "citizens", period!.
question to Mendozam
"You attack the disease's symptoms, true, but mostly the CAUSE of the disease."
Can you summarize a description of the disease and how the cause can be attacked?
A very though-provoking article, indeed. However...
Being that it's from the Hoover Institution, that's not going to generally get play with the more left-leaning individuals. This would never appear at HuffPo, for example.
Automatic Aversion to Harris
Well, this is sort of my point at the end: the essay was published in a context of extreme ideological polarization in the US, which led a lot of people to take sides "automatically", as it were, before bothering to quite read it and digest it. The whole idea of fantasy ideology got sucked into the never-ending shout-fest between pro- and ant-bushistas...and the essay itself just sort of faded from view. Which is why I think it deserves a bit of a re-read, and posted to it now.
Quico's statement on automatic vs conscious action
Forgot to say that I think this is one of the most important statements made so far, because as long as we have so many self imposed filters in place, then we live in extreme denial and prone to unconscious myth"
"which led a lot of people to take sides "automatically", as it were, before bothering to quite read it and digest it."
fantastic Roy I just googled the 'get out of the swamp free card
Roy I just googled Werner Erhard and found his comment on the expression about draining the swamp of alligators and am still laughing.
"Transformation isn't a magic get out of the swamp free card. It's not a magic get saved from the alligators card either. Whatever they are, whatever form they take, you have to take on alligators if your objective is to drain the swamp. You can listen them. You can learn a lot from them even if they do want to bite your ass. You could allow them to train you, for example, to take on a much bigger game - such as reinventing yourself as an alligator whisperer. "
Lunacy Overflow
And if you want an overflow of lunacy, I just posted in the devil's on the theory by official media that the US Navy provoked the earthquake in Haiti.
Need I say more?
Not a theory
There's clear evidence from the East Anglia Earthquake Resurch Union that Haliburtons skunkworks went rogue. The 3 hands of Karl Rove are clearly behind this, aided and abetted by big-oil, little oil, General Motors and the kidnappers of Ambrose Bierce and Judge Crater (blessed be their name).
It's all to keep the Phish Carbuerator out of the public eye and destroy Pacific Gas and Electric.
Trust me.
The Forest or the Tree
This essay by Lee Harris supports my comment on “The pardon is all there is
by Juan Cristobal on Mon, 12/28/2009”, quote:
“How can people be so naïve to think that a single man (Caldera) can change history before the adequate grounds and conditions have been set up ?. History and life are not Hollywood movies. For example, Hitler’s rising to power was possible just only because the socio-economical conditions of Germany after the first World War, because the German people was enchanted by his ideas of grandeur, and many other reasons. Otherwise, he had probably lived and died as a mediocre landscape painter in Austria.
I would like people to watch the Forest and not the Tree ”
I am glad to know that the “Forest” begin to be seen, not only the “Tree”.
Gomezcal thanks.When will the pendulum slow down ?
Thanks for the link Gomezcal
The theme is very related but not identical , but in any case nicely illustrative of how political movements often make up our lack of consciousness but also our needs for transcending our baser instincts.This is what evolution is all about.It also speaks of the human need for denial( or fantasy)
What he emphasized in this article are the unfortunate consequences of our not recognizing our shadow sides.When we see ourselves as all good or all bad we are not seeing ourselves as we really are.Then we join a movement that reinforces this lack of honest seeing and well..... we know the rest of the story.
In the end he refers to liberalism as being an improvement and it most certainly is.However remember that the pendulum swings from side to side whether we like or not, and in the meantime Rojas warns:
"Nevertheless, Rojas warns us that liberalism is neither a safe-conduct for good, nor does it exclude from liberticidal temptations."
Well worth discussing in my opinion
Hugo Chavez Conducts 'Military Communism Reforms' To Kill Venezu
http://english.pravda.ru/world/americas/20-01-2010/111736-chavez_communi...
The link above is to an article about the ongoing expropriations of Venezuelan businesses in the on-line version of the newspaper, Pravda, one of the iconic symbols of Communism from the ex-USSR. Pravda now has a whole new face and is as anti-communist as Globovision is anti-Chavista.
For someone like myself, who grew up in the context of the Cold War, the juxtaposition of this headline next to the "Pravda" logo was jarring. My how the world has changed...
equal and opposite forces
Roy, I too remember the cold war well, and agree that observing events and changes over time is sometimes bizarre.
For every force there is eventually (in time) an equal and opposite force.
Firepigette
Quote by Rojas
"We ended up being the victims, because they stopped us from being the executioners". That's a powerful admission. I've never heard anyone put it that way.
Victims and executioners
That is indeed a very powerful comment. It reminded me of something I once heard a leading member of Patria Para Todos (PPT) say to a journalist who questioned the party's commitment to democracy: 'We ARE democrats. We're so democratic that for years we were the anvil. And now it's our turn to be the hammer'.
Cultural Myths (or Fantasies)
Every culture has its collection of myths. These collective stories help define the ideals of that culture and bind the individuals within that culture to to each other. These shared myths help us define who is "us" and who is "them".
These myths may be based on truth (even if inevitably exaggerated) or they may be completely false. The only important manner in which to judge such myths is whether they serve their culture positively or negatively. In the case of radical Islamic their mythology includes a past "Golden Age". The past glories are so revered, and the future for their culture, so bleak, it leads individuals to self-destructive and psychotic behaviors. Moderate and progressive Muslim culture needs to work on a more positive set of myths, if that culture is to survive. Personally, I see the current wave of radical Islamic fundamentalism as the death throes of a dying culture. Eventually, the fervor of the culture for Jihad will simply die out like the smoldering embers of last night's fire. The culture that emerges from that death will be something different and changed.
The Achilles Heel of Western Culture is the myth of equality. That myth says that ANYONE can achieve or have whatever they want to, if they just try hard enough. This myth started with the proposition that "All men are created equal in the eyes of the law.", but has been elevated beyond its original intent. The proposition "All men (and women) are equal" is not scientifically accurate and, although inspiring, it also is a continual source of internal social and political conflict. A comment by an "Anonymous" above discussed the Left/Right Freedom/Equality paradigm. Western culture's continued lurching about to discover the magic formula to assure that all are equal, while at the same time, allowing everyone to be free to achieve their potential is also a schizophrenic behavior. Most other cultures when exposed to this myth chuckle to themselves at our naivete. So far, this defect in our cultural mythology has not been fatal. That may not be true in the future.
Interesting, but define your statement men are NOT equal
In what respect?
Obviously we have different IQs, heights, eye colour, etc.
Still: IQ is incredibly relative (won't go into the whole discussion here, there were some interesting comments in one of Dienekes's latest posts
http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2010/01/height-iq-gender-interplay.html
The problem is, Roy, that many people underestimate the huge role that upbringing/initial environment brings.
Many people claim: "I made it", but in reality it is more "my parents made it and gave me the basic education/upbringing to make it"
Perceived equality vs objective equality
When you objectively analyze doctrines that propose the inherent superiority of a group over another, you realize that the fatal flaw in their reasoning is not the assumption of inequality, but the assumption of equality.
When someone says "whites are better than blacks" or "men are better than women", he's assuming that the words "whites," "blacks," "men," and "women" refer to some sort of homogeneous group of individuals where all have exactly the same characteristics and capacities, which is wrong. The claim that X is better than Y is meaningless when the only characteristics all members or X and Y have in common with the other members of the group is that they all can be described as being members of the group.
A sexist man, for instance, might argue about the inherent physical superiority of men by pointing out that the record time for the 100-meter dash for men is over a second faster than that of women. What he neglects to consider is that the fastest woman in the world can easily outrun 99.99999999% of all men that have ever lived. Sure, the fastest man on the planet is faster than the fastest woman, and while he might have something to brag about, you don't.
The problem is that whenever the term "different" enters a discussion, people assume that the terms "superior" and "inferior" will invariably follow. If X is different from Y, the reasoning goes, then clearly one should be superior to the other, right? And once the term "superior" enters the fray, all sorts of nasty terms (oppression, subjugation, slavery) will soon follow.
All these problems are the result of two design flaws in the human mind: (a) we have the irresistible intellectual urge to group things into abstract concepts, and (b) we judge ourselves primarily in relation to what others can or cannot do better than us, rather than based on what we can do.
I run the 100-meter dash in about 16 seconds. Does it matter in any conceivable way how many men, women, whites, blacks, dogs, or kangaroos can run it faster or slower than me? If I somehow turn out to be the fastest member of my group or the slowest, would that in any way alter how fast I can run? I am just me. I am not a "latino". I am not a "man". I am not a "human". I am me. That's all I am and that's all I'll ever be. How good I am now and how much better (or worse) I can become has absolutely nothing to do with how much better or worse someone else is when compared to me, and no amount of trying to group myself with others is going to change that.
No man is an island
The difficulty with this view of humankind is that we are not just individuals. Humans are social animals. Together, we are more than the sum of our parts. As evidenced by the fact that you are participating in this blog, you are a part of a society composed of other human beings. Who you are within the context of society is subjective.
The entire history of human cultural development has been the development of ever larger and more complex social structures. It is in the context of our society that we become greater than ourselves.
Uh oh... Didn't mean to open that can of worms.
Kepler,
When I wrote that comment, I wasn't even thinking about race/gender issues. In retrospect, I suppose it was inevitable that it might be interpreted in those terms. It wasn't my intention.
The discussion you linked in "Dienekes" was a good one, and I found it fascinating, but it is not relevant to my point. Regardless of the reasons (nature or nurture, or both), adult humans have differing abilities and potentials. The net sum of these capacities determine the individual's ability to prosper. It is logical and inevitable that some will prosper better than others. Yes, we can alter the rules such that particular persons with particular abilities enjoy an advantage. Or we can handicap the gifted and subsidize those who are wanting in abilities. Certainly, our basic humanity leads us to try to alleviate the suffering of those less fortunate than ourselves. Yet, our western cultural myth leads us to seek to eliminate (not alleviate) poverty, defined as anyone living below a certain standard. However, the standard is continually revised upward such that people currently considered "poor", live better than the kings of medieval Europe. The very idea that we can eliminate human poverty is a cultural myth or "fantasy" that leads us to implement ineffective or even disastrous public policy. At its most logical extreme, it is this cultural myth of equality that leads us, time and time again, down the path toward Marxism and Communism. Every time, we try to eliminate the extremes of the bell curve, it doesn't work, and we end up reducing the overall average instead, leading toward social and economic collapse. Chavez represents a classic (even if clumsy) laboratory example of this phenomenon.
For this reason, I think we need a better myth, if we are to advance our society farther than we have to date. Or, maybe it is time for us to grow up and learn how to live without fantasies and fairytales.
I did not meant go much into the race issue or gender
although they also appear sooner or later in the discussion. In the case of Venezuela (and some other places lately) it is more often than not those who claim they are prosperous because "they made it" and the others were just lazy.
On the other side we have the ones who said that the ones who "made it" just "stole it" or "were lucky".
Neither extreme is right.
The more I try to learn about the history and conditions of Venezuela as opposed to those of other nations, the more I say, one side: "no wonder we have such a mess" and on the other "but if more of us knew about it we can actually get out of it".
There are moments when I think: "jo...venezolanos pendejos, es que les gusta cagarla" and some others when a part of me retorts: well, what do you expect?
Overwhelmingly Bolivarian
Roy
I agree to some extent with what you say.We need positive myths to inspire us and not negative ones.Others wonder how can we view myths as ever positive?I think many of us have seen people transcending overwhelming odds to accomplish greatness within themselves and for society, based on what others would call myths.
The differences between positive and negative myths lie in the myth itself( where the myth will logically lead us ( toward death or towards life ?), and part of the answer lies in whether or not the myth is used consciously or is it part of a negative aspect of the collective unconscious ?
One other factor might be the DEGREE to which the myth takes hold of society.
In the United States, no figure commands the same kind of reverence as Bolivar does in Venezuela.
The Venezuelan currency, plazas and universities carry Bolivar's name. His maxims are taught in schools, broadcast on radio and emblazoned on government buildings
This in itself could mean that the myth could well likely consume the entire society which will inevitably lead to mass hysteria.The more ' individual' a society is the less likely for this kind of sweeping movement to overcome an entire society, though it is possible anywhere.
Bolivarian Mythology
Good comment. Thank you for recognizing what I was getting at. Ultimately, the value of any cultural myth should be viewed in Darwinian terms. Does it work? Does it compete successfully with other competing cultural myths? Does that myth lead to sound decision making?
I suppose we might compare these cultural myths to scientific theory. The closer the myth comes to defining or representing the real world, the more effective it should be.
I wrote something about it
Under risk of being denounced: I created a map where all municipalities named after Venezuelan military from the Independence period appear in one colour, the rest in others. Around one third of Venezuela's municipalities are called after those milicos. Obviously, more than a dozen regions are called Libertador or Simon Bolivar. That is completely sick. I never thought so when I was a child, but in reality Venezuela is one of the countries in South America where the military have such a pathetic mythical aura.
It is harming us a lot.
I am not very fascinated by military, but I own up most people need to have some heroes among the military. But Venezuela, as you guys very well mentioned, is way way way over the top. After Hugo is gone we will need to work on that. There is no need to be iconoclastic, but a wee bit more of distance towards such figures as Bolivar and the like is needed.
to roy about the sweetly swinging pendulum
You're welcome Roy.
About your other excellent comment i want to say:
It might be positive to pursue equality of opportunity but not equality of results.We can't guarantee equality of results without completely eliminating any freedom at all.Extreme equality and extreme freedom cancel out each other.
We can hope that equal opportunity or relative equality can be created in a context of relative freedom.
It is in this relative /middle space,often elusively passed by in the swing of the pendulum, that we can see the point or space where real freedom and real equality are simultaneously the same thing.If one extreme is yes, and the other extreme is no, the exact middle point is yes AND no.
FP
Article by Lee Harris
Quico, in commenting about the Mauricio Rojas interesting essay, I forgot to mention the main article of the post: the Lee Harris piece. A very interesting and thought provoking read. Thank you.
And although it was mostly on the mentality of Islamic radicals, one can easily see the nefarious effects that fantasy ideology had on Chavez and his minions.
Harris:
"In reviewing these fantasy ideologies ... there is always the temptation for an outside observer to regard their promulgation as the cynical manipulation by a power-hungry leader of his gullible followers. This is a serious error, for the leader himself must be as much steeped in the fantasy as his followers: He can only make others believe because he believes so intensely himself."
This by no means absolves leaders such as Chavez, since there is plenty of willfulness in their make-believe image of the world.