NY Times/The Certainty of Doubt
[font size=5]The Certainty of Doubt[/font]
[font size=3]By CULLEN MURPHY
Published: February 11, 2012[/font]
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(Moral Certainty) sweeps objections aside and makes anything permissible if pursued with an appeal to a higher justification. That higher justification does not need to be God, though God remains serviceable. The higher justification can also be the forces of history. It can be rationalism and science. It can be some assertion of the common good. It can be national security.
The power of the great isms of the 20th century fascism, communism has dissipated, but moral certainty arises in other forms. Are certain facts and ideas deemed too dangerous? Then perhaps censorship is the answer. (Chinas Great Firewall is one example, but lets not forget that during the past decade, there have been some 4,600 challenges to books in schools and libraries in the United States.) Are certain religions and beliefs deemed intolerable? Then perhaps a few restrictions are in order. (Bills have been introduced in several states to ban recognition of Islamic Shariah law.) In a variety of guises, a conviction of certainty lurks within debates on marriage, on reproduction, on family values, on biotechnology. It peers from behind the question Is America a Christian nation?
An ism that retains its vitality terrorism is justified unapologetically by moral certainty. In a vastly different way, not always recognized, so have been some of the steps taken to combat it. Necessity overrides principle. The inventory of measures advanced in the name of homeland security during the past decade would fill a book. In the United States, the surveillance of citizens and noncitizens alike has become increasingly pervasive. The legal system has been under pressure to constrict protections for the accused. The National Defense Authorization Act, signed into law in December by President Obama despite his own reservations, gives the government enhanced powers to detain, interrogate and prosecute.
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The idea that some single course is right and necessary and, being right and necessary, must trump everything else, for all our sakes is a seductive one. Isaiah Berlin knew where this idea of an ultimate solution would lead indeed, had already led in the murderous century he witnessed: For, if one really believes that such a solution is possible, then surely no cost would be too high to obtain it: to make mankind just and happy and creative and harmonious forever what could be too high a price to pay for that? To make such an omelet, there is surely no limit to the number of eggs that should be broken. ... If your desire to save mankind is serious, you must harden your heart, and not reckon the cost. [/font]
Read full article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/opinion/sunday/the-certainty-of-doubt.html?pagewanted=1&ref=opinion