-Caveat Lector-
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35014-2001Dec12.html
The Conservative Take on John Walker . . .
By Richard Cohen
Thursday, December 13, 2001; Page A37
Every parent in the country should save the Newsweek cover of John
Walker, the young Californian who joined the Taliban. They could
refer to it when their kid comes home with purple hair, body
piercings and his lower lip stapled to his navel. It will remind them
that things could always be worse and that parenting, like farming
west of the 100th meridian, is as much luck as it is science.
No such sentiment occurred to Shelby Steele, a noted scholar
affiliated with the Hoover Institution. He gazed upon Walker and
recognized a product of Marin County, Calif., "where all the cliche
obsessions of shallow California -- wine, therapy and real estate --
flourish without irony." So, for that matter, does the Hoover
Institution in nearby Palo Alto, but it would be ironic of me to
dwell on that.
Amazingly, this young man John Walker, of whom we know so little -- a
brief interview with the parents, the remarks of some neighbors, the
observation of a mullah -- is on his way to becoming a generational
or ideological poster boy. Steele, who knows so many things, tells us
in fact that Walker is the product "of a certain cultural liberalism"
that "cleared the way for this strange odyssey of true belief."
Steele knows Walker was spoiled. He knows he was not disciplined. He knows he was not
taught right from wrong but instead was indulged with "fashionable relativism," which
led, as day follows night (or something like that
), to "a kind of white American guilt," which is, take it from me, the worst guilt of
all, if only because it is the only guilt I know.
Steele, who is not white, goes on. Pretty soon he has us in self-hate country, where
all American liberals live, and which accounts for what Walker became and what he did.
"I think Walker came out of a self-hating stream
of American life," Steele says. After all, if I may skip a paragraph, he adds that
"cultural liberalism serves up American self-hate to the young as idealism."
But wait. There were 3.629 million births the year John Walker was born and he is the
only one, so far as we know, who wound up joining the Taliban. There could be others,
I grant you, maybe even two or three, but I am wi
lling to wager that most of the kids born in 1981 (or any year, for that matter) are
still in America. In fact, there may be more of them with the U.S. armed forces than
with the Taliban. I am way out on a limb on that on
e, I know.
So it could be that cultural liberalism, white guilt and all that stuff do not account
for why John Walker turned out the way he did. Maybe he fell out of his highchair when
he was an infant. Whatever the case, it seems a
bit silly to load all this ideological and cultural freight on one person and turn
him into the personification of a vast, and dated, political movement. And it might
seem just as silly of me to cite the Steele article u
nless, of course, I tell you that it ran on the Wall Street Journal's op-ed page. This
is where the conservative movement meets.
I have secretly been attending these meetings, reading in this or that conservative
publication, and I have been surprised to learn, as you would be too, the vast number
of college professors, students, columnists and oth
ers of dubious character who are not supporting the war. Never mind that the polls say
otherwise or that even on the most politically active campuses, just about nothing is
happening. The political right needs its bogeyma
n, and even a manufactured one will do.
So, welcome John Walker. He will be tailored to suit preconceived notions. Never mind
that his antecedents, such figures as Tokyo Rose, Axis Sally and Ezra Pound, all took
the enemy side in World War II without benefit of
birth in Marin County or, for that matter, membership in a generation that could be
called "Me." Pound, whose treason was beyond doubt, was an Idaho native, born in 1885.
He was a great poet, a rotten human being and not
-- here I go again, out on another limb -- typical of Idaho.
Behind the beard and the filth, almost any parent recognizes John
Walker. He is the kid who is possible, not probable, who could be
yours but probably is someone else's, who would be loved but not
liked or understood. He is not the predictable consequence of
relativism, liberalism and balmy weather but an exception to almost
any rule you can think of -- except, of course, the tendency to
always fix blame no matter what.
� 2001 The Washington Post Company
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking
new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust
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"Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe
simply because it has been handed down for many generations. Do not
believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do
not believe in anything simply because it is written in Holy Scriptures. Do not
believe in anything merely on the authority of Teachers, elders or wise men.
Believe only after careful observation and analysis, when you find that it
agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all.
Then accept it and live up to it."
The Buddha on Belief, from the Kalama Sutta
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A merely fallen enemy may rise again, but the reconciled
one is truly vanquished. -Johann Christoph Schiller,
German Writer (1759-1805)
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It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that
prevents us from living freely and nobly. -Bertrand Russell
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"Everyone has the right...to seek, receive and impart
information and ideas through any media and regardless
of frontiers."
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
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"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will
teach you to keep your mouth shut."
--- Ernest Hemingway
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