This essay has helped me understand the viewpoint of those of the Canadian public who regret our government’s decision to stay of out of the invasion of Iraq and who decry and lament that we are being ‘bad neighbours’.
I don’t agree with this particular point of view, mind you, but I don’t underestimate its power and its draw. In fact, it haunts me. I keep mulling over this letter to the editor in the April 2003 issue of Harper’s Magazine by Thomas A Glass of Baltimore.
Here’s the thing (to borrow the style of Zengorita’s essay): the fact that the vast majority of Americans base their views about Iraq on what’s under their own noses, and not on universal moral principals, has almost no relation to what post-modern thinkers have done to the credibility of universal humanism… The simple truth is that we are still five parts animal to three parts philosopher. We are hairless apes, and we are wired for tribalism. Progressive thinking has never found a place for this truth. The American right has. It’s a simple as that.
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