President Bush is now calling his war on terrorism a “struggle for civilisation”, rather than a struggle between civilisations.
He has a point. But he is as contradictory in this as when he calls his war on terrorism a fight for freedom, liberty and democracy.
The contradiction of fighting for liberty with the weapons of Guantanamo Bay, wiretaps, and taking suspects to foreign soil for torture has been pointed out frequently.
But his way of going about the “struggle for civilisation”, particularly the western brand, is equally contradictory.
What is western civilisation? The key elements of it arise out of the Enlightenment and the Age of Reason of the 17th and 18th centuries. Western civilisation came when society put away superstition and began to act on reason.
Perhaps the most important part of that was the scientific method. The scientific method means being initially skeptical, gathering observations and evidence, apply logic and reason to the observations, postulating a theory and retesting it against the evidence.
You do not accept things because an “authority”, either church or state leader, says it is so.
This is why science students repeat experiments – some as old as the 17th century. SO they can verify things with their own eyes.
The scientific method is perhaps one of the greatest contributors to human betterment in history. In western civilisation (which has spread throughout the world), along with the scientific method goes the rule of law – based on evidence (not prejudice); the study of history based on evidence; evidence-based medicine to replace quackery, and democracy to replace despotism.
Bush is right to say this civilisation is worth struggling for. It is worth fighting Muslim extremists (or any other extremists) for.
Alas, Bush’s own record on applying the scientific method is dismal.
Take global warming, for example.
In the week Bush spoke of his struggle for civilisation, his 2000 presidential rival Al Gore was in Australia to promote his film on the threat of global warming: An Inconvenient Truth.
Bush dismisses the science on global warming because it clashes with a belief in capitalism. Gore, on the other hand, starts from a position of skepticism, looks at the evidence, draws conclusions and works out a rational response. The evidence is that greenhouse gases are gong into the atmosphere and temperatures are rising. The conclusion is that calamity is likely (but not assured). The response must be to curb the gases because there is so little to lose compared to the avoidance of possible overwhelming catastrophe.
The contrast between Gore and Bush is enormous. The world would be an utterly different place if Gore had won the 2000 election.
Gore’s response to September 11 would have been to start from a position of skepticism, to look at the evidence, to draw conclusions and to act on those conclusions.
Bush started with conclusions that he based on raw belief, not evidence: Iraq was part of an “axis of evil”; Saddam Hussein was supporting al Qaeda and other terrorists; Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. His response was to invade Iraq.
If he had followed the scientific method and behaved rationally, none of this fiasco would have happened.
Bush similarly puts belief ahead of evidence and rationality when it comes to stem cell research and intelligent design.
Those are not as immediately dangerous as the irrational response to September 11, but they have long-term dangers because they will erode general education in the scientific method. That in turn allows people like Bush to become leaders.
This is why the teaching of history and science is so important: it is not to deliver jingoistic glorification on one’s own nation’s exploits and it is not to deliver technologists to drive the engines of capitalism.
Rather it is to produce better leaders, or perhaps more importantly in a democracy, voters who will not fall for jingoism, simple solutions and prejudice.
During much of the 45 years of the Cold War policies in many countries were profoundly influenced by ideology – by belief and by whose side you were on.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, ideology took more of a back seat. Political parties and their leaders concerned themselves more with what worked – action based on evidence.
Since September 11, 2001, dogma and belief have wielded more influence – witness the silly debate about “Australian values”. Isn’t it enough just to obey the law?
If we are to win this struggle for civilisation we will have to behave in a civilised way – that means not only adhering to its principles of the rule of law, but also behaving rationally, seeking truth based on evidence and not turning a blind eye to inconvenient truths which are based on evidence. Otherwise we will be mere crusaders in a violent clash of cultures – the very thing Bush is trying to say we are not.