Bush as Poster Boy for the Humanities

March 6, 2006

A flood of material recently on Bush's incurious temperament. Today I read an article in the New York Review of Books (March 9, 2006) about L. Paul Bremer's year in charge of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. The writer, Peter Galbraith, notes:

Bremer says that Bush "was as vigilant and decisive in person as he appeared on television." But in fact he gives an account of a superficial and weak leader. He had lunch with the President before leaving for Baghdad—a meeting joined by the Vice President and the national security team—but no decision seems to have been made on any of the major issues concerning Iraq's future... The President's directions seem to have been limited to such slogans as "we're not going to fail" and "pace yourself, Jerry." In Bremer's account, the President was seriously interested in one issue: whether the leaders of the government that followed the CPA would publicly thank the United States... [28]

"Bush is a great leader"—that seems to be the line that anyone who is serious about keeping administration ties has to use, but it looks like that was always only a line. Every time we get a glimpse of the president he is disengaged, such as last week when the video of his silent and disinterested showing during a briefing on hurricane Katrina (see article by John Dickerson from Slate.

In fact, Bush makes a great poster boy for the need for strong training in the Humanities. It is not enough to be proficient in management, or simply to have mastered some nebulous art of leadership.. at least if your work is connected to anything public and important. The kind of knowledge provided by the traditional liberal arts brings about advantages even in day-to-day practical matters. Bush, were he to take stock, might regret not paying attention in all those useless courses they made him take back at Yale.

His “either with us or against us” and “axis of evil” catch phrases, as is often commented upon, set up our world as a place where good battles evil. In Bush’s mind this may be a case of standing for simple moral truth, but from the standpoint of American popular entertainment, he stands in a very predictable position. Despite his abjuring of so much in popular culture (we never see images of him with, say, a film director or musician, only victorious athletes), he stands as a man whose opinions are derived wholly from that popular entertainment.

Lesson 1: Watching a good movie or reading a good book is not just about entertainment, but about forming an ability to read real-life situations accurately. Read novels that traffic in caricatures, you will see real people as caricatures. Read novels that provide representations of complex characters interacting with a complex world, you will have a much more dynamic frame of reference for the actions around you. The point of a liberal arts education is not to stuff students with the "great books", but to give them the experience of interacting a few times with those who have reflected on life.

After Katrina, Bush made a stirring speech calling for the restoration of New Orleans. Before that he had bumbled and seemed unconcerned about the fate of this city, one of the few real cultural capitals in the United States. He caught flack for joking about the days when he came to New Orleans to party. This is a president who has little sense of New Orleans as a cultural symbol. His speeches may be peppered with keywords for his Christian constituency, but one hears nothing about jazz, Tennessee Williams, or Anne Rice in his speeches. He talks about New Orleans as if he were talking about the restoration of Disneyland.

Lesson 2: Knowing nothing about the cultural geography of America—the literary and musical and artistic resonances of its cities and places—can bring negative consequences. A minimal exposure to America’s cultural heritage should have enabled Bush to know what was at stake in the destruction of New Orleans. It is impossible to know exactly what knowledge will come in handy, so the hopeful leader ought to read widely until the resonances of this country and our world become audible. Nothing worse than being deaf to the meaning of an event.. ask Bush.

The neo-conservative assumptions that led to the invasion of Iraq are currently being repudiated—even by those who might have called themselves neo-cons in the past. The most striking example being the article by Francis Fukuyama in last week’s New York Times Magazine. Then about the same time that article by William F. Buckley came out, calling the Iraq war a mistake. This war seems to have been launched on the basis of some remarkably abstract assumptions about the universal human desire for democracy, and the positive ability of the United States to steer clear of entrenched cultural divides.

Lesson 3: Although it was not too long ago that people were attacking Middle Eastern Studies for failing to predict 9/11, the folks in Middle Eastern Studies program now look kind of prescient. What would be more central to Middle Eastern Studies than the belief that cultures must be approached on their own terms? that understanding the particularities of a culture—its language and religious values—is essential for constructive engagement? Those are exactly the lessons that can be learned in a liberal arts environment.

Something else that comes with a bit of intellectual curiosity is a sense of how deeply human beings can mislead themselves, and how necessary it is to question yourself and your own motives.. to be critical. That last word should perhaps be the goal of every liberal arts program.. not to make "critics", but to make critical students.