Don Quixote, George Bush, and the Triumph of Doctrine

I recommend that you read Edith Grossman’s recent translation of Don Quixote, by Miguel de Cervantes. The book has just hit its 400th anniversary, and it still has many things to tell us. One of the more politically relevant themes in the adventures of the elderly madman is the concept of triumph of doctrine.

Don Quixote believes that he is a noble and mighty knight in a world of princesses, giants, evil sorcerers, and epic quests, but he keeps running into hard reality. Sometimes literally, in the case of the famous windmills. When the appearance and behavior of those around him fail to follow the rules laid out in books of chivalry, or the consequences of his actions don’t correspond to his noble intent, the coherence of his fantasy world is threatened. Whenever this happens, he obsesses on the sorcerers who place enchantments on the people and things around him. These enchanters make the giants look like windmills, the princesses look like peasant girls, and two contending armies look like flocks of sheep. His belief system is right – it is the world that is wrong.

This is an old theme in politics and religion. Shaking the rattle brings the rain. If the rain doesn’t arrive, then you didn’t shake the rattle hard enough. You didn’t shake it with sincerity. You violated another law and must do penance. You yourself are unworthy of rain. Pick your excuse. Shaking the rattle brings rain, dammit! Doctrine always triumphs.

This brings us to the Bush administration, the Republican dominated congress, and the various economists and political theoreticians who feed them ideas.

Supply side economics, also known as trickle-down economics, has failed, and failed repeatedly. Giving tax breaks to wealthy people and corporations is supposed to promote investment, stimulate the economy, increase the income of working people, and eventually increase tax revenue because of the increased economic activity. In reality, when Reagan and Bush I tried it, the deficit tripled, the economy went down, and ordinary folks watched their total tax bite go up and their paychecks lag behind their productivity. Now Bush II is trying it, with the same results. But the economy is great. The country produced 75,000 jobs last month, half the number needed to even keep up with new people coming into the job market, but it’s great. The deficit is rocketing up, but this will turn around if we make the tax cuts for millionaires permanent. Wages are stagnant, but the economy is great.

(Topical Note: The yearly deficit dropped slightly, as of the most recent calculation, and the Bush Administration is passing out the cigars. At the present, temporarily diminished rate of $300 billion, you and I and every infant and grandmother in this country are going deeper into debt by roughly $1,000 a year. That’s on top of the existing $27,000 per capita.)

Likewise, Iraq. Every justification for invading has been shown to be false. The expression “turning point” has become a grim joke. The bodies are piling up – ours killed by them, theirs killed by us, theirs killed by them. The vast majority of Iraqis want our army to leave. But we’re doing great. If only the enchanters, er, press would stop focusing on the negative.

Likewise, global warming. The Arctic is melting. The Antarctic is melting. Glaciers that have been around for 10,000 years are melting. 99.99% of the climatologists in the world agree that global warming is happening, we are causing it, it is dangerous, and that we only have a decade or so before it is too late to prevent disaster. But it’s just a theory that needs more study. We’re doing great, really.

There is such a thing as ideologically induced stupidity. The more narrow and fixed a person’s belief set, the less able they are to respond intelligently to reality. The neocons who run our country right now are prime examples of this. To them, all dissenting voices have become Quixote’s evil enchanters, trying to make success look like failure. Having a high office, a Ph.D. or a book deal doesn’t make any of these people smarter in a pragmatic sense. It just gives them better tools with which to justify the products of their imaginations.

The unflinching dedication of the character Don Quixote to his fantasy world harmed no one but himself, his horse Rocinante, his faithful squire Sancho Panza, and a few bewildered passers by. It is part of the charm and humor of the book. The refusal of Bush and his ilk to recognize the failure of their doctrine threatens us all.

The misadventures of both Don Quixote and George Bush should motivate each one of us to examine some personally cherished theory. Sacred doctrine comes in more flavors than Ben and Jerry’s. Socrates said that the unexamined life is not worth living. I would paraphrase that great heretic and say that the unexamined belief is not worth having. Or, to quote the 19th century scientist Thomas H. Huxley, “Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every conceived notion, follow humbly wherever and whatever abysses nature leads, or you will learn nothing.”