Assault on Reason

I'm not going to hide the fact that I am a fan of Al Gore. Perhaps it's because he reminds me of my childhood hero Christopher Reeve, the superman. Or maybe it's his passionate crusade for the cause of global warming. I must admit that when an e-mail newsletter that I subscribe to recently pulled a prank for April fool's with the headline "Gore will run for president as independent", I was so delighted that I believed it for a full day, until I realized that no other media seemed to have caught on to the excitement!

Despite my biases, I was impressed with the latest book by the former Vice President (or, the President that should have been: after finishing the book, one cannot help but wonder what the world would have been like if Gore was the one currently in power, not Bush). This well-researched book presents a convincing case on what we all know: something is wrong with the United States and its president. It is a scathing attack full of well-presented arguments on how the current presidency has succeeded in assaulting reason and thereby democracy, which is based on it.

Gore identifies five enemies of reason and democracy: fear; blind faith; concentration of power to a few (i.e., the wealthy); dissemination of lies; and impinging on the right of the individual. They have all been used by Bush; Gore describes how the Bush administration has chosen to lead by inciting fear after 9/11, thereby "using the war against terrorism for partisan advantage and introducing far-reaching changes in social policy in order to consolidate its political power". The way in which the evolution of media--from the printing press to radio, then to television has succeeded in creating a one-way medium, which is now controlled (i.e., programming and distribution) by those with large amounts of wealth--is convincingly described.

While pointing out its problems, Gore touts the internet as the new medium which could allow multiple-way communication--and thus allow democracy--to flourish again. This is because unlike the radio and the television, internet can not only disseminate truth, but pursue it.

For me, it was quite frightening to learn about the amount of information and warnings that had been available to Bush prior to 9/11 and Katrina that could have been used to prevent the tragedies. It was just as horrifying to learn of the way the Bush administration has succeeded in actively ignoring the climate crisis by systematically dismantling environmental regulations and through public demeaning of scientists whose research results contradict the administration's stance against global warming.

Another man who is harshly critical of Bush and his policies is Kurt Vonnegut. In his memoir A man without a country, Vonnegut laments the fact that Amreicans are hated all over the world, for good reason: "our unelected leaders have dehumanized millions and millions of human beings simply because of their religion and race. We wound 'em and kill 'em and torture 'em and imprison 'em all we want... we also dehumanize our own soldiers, not because of their religion or race, but because of their low social class". He declares that "there is not a chance in hell of America becoming humane and reasonable. Because power corrupts us, and absolute power corrupts us absolutely. Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power". Although these two people habour completely different worldviews and beliefs--Vonnegut was an Honorary President of the American Humanist Association, and Gore does not forget to remind us throughout Assault on reason that he is a good Christian--they come to the same conclusion: they are both appallingly embarassed by the state of affairs in their country.

Throughout Assault on reason, Gore poses the question of what the Founders of the United States of America would think of the current administration--and concludes that "our Founders would be genuinely concerned about... recent developments in American democracy and... they would feel that we... are facing a clear and present danger with the potential to threaten the future of the American experiment". The problem with this American experiment is that the results affect not just those within the country but have monumental implications to all of us sharing the planet with them.