Do you ever notice, Americans never seem to ask "why"?

[primavera]

So I'm going to: why don't Americans ever ask why al Qaeda attacked us? Why don't we ever question why so much of the Middle East hates us? Why aren't we interested to know why Iraqis continue to resist US occupation?

Invariably, we seem to be willing to content ourselves with the dismissive response of "oh, well, they're just evil" or "they hate freedom," as if that somehow explained anything at all. We don't behave like such idiots in other aspects of our lives. When poor employee morale affects a company's performance, we don't just dismiss it as merely a reflection of evil, rather we try to figure out why that might be the case and what we could do to remedy the problem. When a faucet breaks and water is spewing all over our kitchen, we don't conclude that it's manifestly evil and start bashing at it with a hammer, we try to figure out what the problem is. If our doctors tell us that our blood pressure is dangerously high and imperling our health, we don't just ascribe it to evil, rather we want to know why our blood pressure is high so that we can take steps to lower it.

Yet, in policy matters, we don't seem to care at all, it's enough that anyone who doesn't agree with us is somehow viscerally evil and thus irretrievably predetermined to hate us. Why do we do that?

[skooooo]

1. It's unpatriotic to ask "why"...

That's what the right wing has told us. Trying to understand anything that's going on is tantamount to "making excuses" or "trying to justify" something.

It goes to the root of anti-intellectualism, the hatred for critical thinking, and the goal of keeping the public stupid.

[primavera]

5. Anti-intellectualism - good point

I once remember engaging a freeper in a discussion in which he accused me of being brainwashed by universities, since I'd identified myself as a graduate student in political science. Plainly he felt that formal education did me more harm than good.

I've often marvelled at that sentiment, because it seems so totally insane to me, and yet so suggestive of the dynamic of American politics. How else does one explain presidents like the shrub, Reagan, and most recently, Governor Gropenführer? We seem to go out of our way to find the least qualified candidates available.

Yet again, in other areas, we don't do that at all. If these same guys who feel that education is such an evil require surgery for a medical condition, do they immediately rush down to their local high school and request the aid of the slowest, most inattentive dunce they can find to solve their problem for them? Hell no, then they want the guy with 27 degrees from Harvard. If they need an accountant to manage their books, do they embark upon a quest to find somebody who can't even perform basic addition? If they need a contractor to work on their homes, do they adamantly insist upon having the least qualified worker available perform the task? Of course not, everyone who needs services wants the person with the greatest number of years of specialized training and experience that they can find to perform the services.

Yet in policy, the rule seems to be that the more a person has devoted themselves to the study and practice of politics, economics, and international relations, the more brainwashed they must be and therefore the less qualified they are. What the hell is it about policy matters that inspires in us this perception of education as a negative thing?

[eurolefty]

10. conservative views on education

It's been a long time since I lived in America, but I remember the conservative views on education as being somewhat mixed. The freepers I met split the education into "good education" and "bad education" in their thinking. This split was not always explicitly voiced, but it was still obvious.

Good wholesome education would be engineering, medicine, or anything that might directly benefit business. Questionable education would include anything that might put impressionable students near dangerous "liberal agenda". Liberal conspiracies could basically be found anywhere, but some places of education would be especially dangerous. Careful parents should at least steer their children away from social sciences and arts, maybe also biology.

Many conservatives don't want any questions asked. They are afraid of education that encourages people to think and question the status quo. All the answers can be found in the Bible, no need to go looking any further.

All American consevatives that I have met have been poor, uneducated and from the South, so my view of the conservative thinking is somewhat skewed. Well educated conservatives might have different views, but I have not personally met them.

[Southpaw Bookworm]

9. Unpatriotic and unfundie

That's the other issue to consider here: the increasing role that Christian fundamentalists in the U.S. are playing in determining domestic and foreign policy. Their faith exists mainly because it quashes any questioning of doctrine; the people who are supporting Bush, who are believing the junta's LIES, who never wonder about the veracity of the media are the same ones who have had it pounded into their heads over and over that you don't question the bible (at least the KJV) or your religious leaders.

Just go ahead and drink the Kool-Aid, kids!

[Not Me]

2. EXACTLY!!

In the aftermath of 9/11 it was considered outright treasonous by the neocon administation to ask that question. To this day, it seems no one is interested.

We will never have peace in the world unless we understand the reasons why our enemies hate us and address them.

[primavera]

6. Willful myopia?

One of my international relations professors this semester is a Syrian who specializes in Middle Eastern politics and, as you can imagine, his area of expertise has been particularly topical of late. He related to me how he'd been called in to consult with the Pentagon regarding how to interact with Syria on the topic of the war in Iraq and the war on terror. My professor tried to explain that a course of negotiations was probably the most likely to achieve the results they were looking for, yet they kept interrupting him to ask how the use or threat of coercive military pressure might be broguht into play. So he replied that, as a Syrian national himself and one who had spent his life studying the country, he could say with confidence that the threat of coercive force would only galvanize resistance against the US and its policies. Sure, the US is big enough and powerful enough to squash Syria like a bug anytime they felt like it, but doing so would engender so much resentment, we'd only succeed in inspiring people to go underground and join the ranks of al Qaeda and other such organizations. In other words, threatening them would only cause our problems to proliferate. Once it became clear to his audience that he wasn't going to give them carte blanche to just shoot everything in sight, they immediately stopped listening and couldn't get him out the door fast enough.

Evidently, for whatever reason, we really don't want to hear the truth, even if it means that we're dooming ourselves to self-destructive policies. I think you're absolutely right, this kind of myopic approach is not going to help us achieve peace and stability in the Middle East or anywhere else for that matter.

[A HERETIC I AM]

8. This reminds me of the Aesop's fable about the argument between ....

the Sun and the Wind. They were arguing who was more powerful.

they decided on a test to determine the winner. A man was walking along with a long coat and the wind said he could get that coat of the man. The wind began to blow and blow and the harder it blew the more tightly the man clutched his coat to his body. Then it was the Suns turn. The clouds parted and the sun began to shine. Gently, slowly he warmed the man to the point where he gladly removed his coat thus making the Sun the winner of the contest.

The Moral?

Gently, slowly and with kindness is the path to coercive success.

[achtung_circus]

3. It's partly expectations

I've been paying more attention to American politics than I have in years (evidenced by my presence here, in part). I have wondered why the Administration/Media interfaces are so closely stage managed.

In Ottawa there is a rite of passage for politicos called the scrum. Politicians walk to the House and back to their offices/ committee rooms through a pack of ravenous journalists. It is instructive to see anyone, from the Prime Minister on down, backed into a corner of the House of Commons with questions coming from all directions, no punches pulled. Hiding is "not done". A PM who hid in his house, speaking to the Press (and therefore the public) would suffer the consequences.

It's a blood sport, and the smell of blood in the water gets the journalists frenzied.

[shance]

4. What a great point.

I heard a woman talk on this subject with regards to Americans and our education system, and the lack of teaching kids to think critically and like you mentioned, the lack of teaching kids to question and explore, versus the conformist thinking/blind acceptance that is taught to Americans at such an early age.

A balance of learning to be a team player so to speak is important. However, the degradation of a Democratic society stems from a lack of independent, creative thought. We need to promote and enhance creative, independent thought now. The Civil Rights movement and so-called Age of Aquarius seemed like it was essential in combatting an overzealous capitalistic surge and seemingly helped to swing us back closer to our hearts versus a detached conciousness. When profit begins to override our conscience we need to be reminded of whats really important.

There is no doubt in my mind that both the opportunity and responsibility to return to good will towards men is staring us in the face right now and blaring in Dolby sound.

Thanks for the great points.

[peacetalksforall]

7. LIVING A LIE LAND

Excuses and statements made for the opinions and actions of the world against us are arrogant and cocky propaganda. Just like the USSR.

Another name for the U.S. is - LIVING A LIE LAND.