scubadiver
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Joined: 26 Apr 2006
Posts: 1850
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 Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2008 9:39 am Post subject: 'The Character Myth' by Renana Brooks |
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I have been looking up information on novel writing and the hero's journey and I have come across this article that appeared in 2003. It mentions Leo Strauss and the PNAC
here are some excerpts
| Quote: | Strauss feared the mediocrity that he believed was inherent in democratic societies. He argued that when a strong political leader explains his policies he should develop a mythology for the consumption of the general public that hides his true motivations, because the people will not accept the boldness of the leader's initiatives if they are presented in an unvarnished fashion. This mythology should use the language of morality to mask the candidate's real interests, which are his own survival in power and his ability to continue to exert dominance over the populace.
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Bush's leadership style and use of language essentially have created cognitive dissonance in the electorate. The more that Americans observe the Bush presidency pushing policies they do not support, and would normally question, the more they confront the choice of whether to oppose him actively or rationalize away their discomfort. Many Americans have chosen the latter because the President has convinced them that the situation is desperate and that only he can handle the continuing crisis. The more they depend upon Bush, the more they rationalize away any objections they may have to his specific ideas and policies. In this manner, Bush has forged an emotional, visceral relationship with the nation, successfully bypassing conscious resistance and stripping away any sense that he needs to answer to a higher legal or constitutional authority beyond his personal moral force.
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But Bush's team knows how to exploit the Great Person myth. Bush's deliberately constructed image as a moral leader who knows what is right for America takes the place of rational analysis, and his insistence that we are in an ongoing state of crisis in our war against terror helps to perpetuate this dynamic. Bush and his supporters often silence opposition and dissent by encoding in their arguments a worldview that implies that even to challenge Bush's ideas is immoral and damaging to the social order, and even to the survival of the nation and of Western civilization. Linguists call this device the lost performative.
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Joan Didion captured this well in her book Fixed Ideas: America Since 9.11. She writes: "We had seen the general acquiescence in whatever was presented as imperative by the administration. We had seen the persistent suggestions that anyone who expressed reservations about detentions, say, or military tribunals, was at some level 'against' America. (As in the presidential formulation 'you're either with us or you're with the terrorists.') We had seen, most importantly, the insistent use of September 11 to justify the reconception of America's correct role in the world as one of initiating and waging virtually perpetual war." As Didion suggests, absolutist language overloads people with information and leaves them confused and unable to judge for themselves. They crave simplicity and fall back on the character myth.
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http://www.thenation.com/doc/20031229/brooks
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