The classics are the subjects that you learn in the
classroom. The classicists are the people who practice these subjects or more
likely teach them. Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist who does both. He
practices the classics by writing books and articles, and he teaches the
classics at the university level. But there is one more thing that Victor
Hanson does which he may not be aware of. It is that from time to time, he
makes the classic mistake of setting a trap and falling into it.
He did it this time in an article he wrote under the title:
“America
as Pill Bug” and the subtitle: “Closing our embassies was prudent in the short
term. But what message does it send?” It was published on August 8, 2013 in
National Review Online. As can be seen from the title, he has set up a metaphor
which is very much the natural thing to do. In fact, most people speak and
write in metaphors even when they do not mean to. And this is because we are
visual beings who like to see things in our mind's eye even if we cannot see
them in reality.
But where we set-up a trap for ourselves and fall into it is
when we adopt someone else's metaphor, engage in it wholeheartedly and
participate in developing it to the extent that it will go, then discover that
the metaphor does not apply. But instead of blaming the failure on ourselves
who created the mythology around a subject we chattered about without
consulting, we blame the failure on the subject itself for not living up to the
myth we have created around it.
And this is the classic trap that the classicist Victor
Hanson falls into once in a while as he did this time. But be careful now
because “America
as pill bug” is his own metaphor, and there is nothing wrong with it or with
the way he is handling it. This is not the trap in which he fell. The trap is
this: “Do we still call that, the Arab Spring?” The truth is that the Arabs did
not view their movement as a Spring or any season of the calendar. That
metaphor was created by people in America . Many engaged in it
wholeheartedly and participated in developing it without asking the Arabs what
they thought of it. But when the Americans discovered that the metaphor may not
apply, they blamed the failure on the Arabs, or they took the more generous
attitude of questioning it as did Hanson.
Well, you may be tempted to say: No harm done so, what the
heck! But you would be wrong because much of the decisions that we take depend
on the image that was created in our mind by the metaphors we adopt – whether
they are ours or they are someone else's. When the image is false, the decision
can only be erroneous. In this sense, we are like the adage that was coined at
the dawn of the computer age: “garbage in, garbage out.” By the same token, we
have here a situation that can be stated as: “garbage metaphor in, garbage
decision out.”
This is what often happens with the popular metaphors that
everyone adopts and maintains even after they are proven false. On the other
hand, when someone creates his own metaphor, it means that he thought it
through. In this case, the chances are that the moment he feels it no longer
corresponds to reality; he modifies it or discards it. Where Hanson went wrong
and fell into a trap is when he adopted the popular myth that people who are
willing to die for their cause can be deterred with threats. Look at this
passage: “the terrorists … interpret our magnanimity as weakness. They do not
seem to fear U.S.
retaliation.” Does he really believe that?
But how can a garbage metaphor lead to a garbage decision?
Well, we are lucky there is an example here we can discuss not because it
happened but because it did not happen. Hanson asks: “Was it wise that America took a
subordinate role in removing Qaddafi – contingent on approval from the UN and
the Arab League but not the U.S. Congress?” Well, my dear reader, Hanson would
not have asked this question if he were not so blinded by his metaphors that he
cannot fathom the other side having formulated metaphors of their own about
what goes on in America .
The truth is that America lost the respect of the
world not because President Obama decided to project the image of a
kinder-gentler superpower but because the people see him as being constantly
undermined by a Congress made not of American human beings, but made of
obedient dogs licking Jewish and Israeli boots non-stop. The image the world
has of America
is that of a charismatic American President standing on a pedestal near a
platform where hundreds of congressional dogs are biting each other trying to
get to the boots of a Netanyahu-like character so as to lick them and be patted
on the back.
The world respects Obama and gets disgusted by the Congress.
Fix the Congress and the world will go back to respecting America .