When asked, about seven years ago, what he was reading, John McCain replied, "a biography of Napoleon."  McCain has the comportment, the pauses and spontaneous smiles, of a serious, not a desultory, reader.  There is that touch of madness about John, even suggestions of genius.  To me, this impression is confirmed, signed, sealed and delivered in the VP decision, a momentous choice if ever there was one. 

 

My first encounter with Palin occurred in some desultory bedtime reading about seven months ago:  an introduction to a phenomenon, so to speak, in one of the major magazines.  I wondered, finally fell to sleep and forgot about this marvel as the more humdrum"hype" and "buzz" proceeded to take over.  One of the major pundit/pollsters suggested over a month ago that Sarah Palin would be McCain's best choice for VP.  McCain had an open mind--a key requirement for a president--listened, and chose courageously and brilliantly.  Totally in character.  Predictable almost. 

 

Now comes the fun part.  Watching this woman take Joe Biden among many other old ideas apart.  Old ideas are not always a bad thing.  It's only when old ideas become status quo ideas, e.g., four and six cylinder cars, billions of them, using up scarce resources and ruining the earth and its citizens.  Old ideas in the best sense of the term are what we need to recall--precisely at this moment in time, this Kairos.  T. S. Eliot wrote an essay, "Tradition and the Individual Talent," that might well be appropriated at this hour.  The German philosopher, a student of the great Heidegger, wrote a book entitled, "Truth and Method."  What the book and the essay by Eliot have in common is the Aristotelian idea that the "status quo" will not stand on its own for long.  Aristotle teaches that the status quo--in things constitutional and educational, e.g., is a must.  But, according to this master, conventional or "that's the way we've always done it" mindsets can be a death sentence to a city-state or a nation-state.  For Eliot, the mere imitations of the masters soon lose their effectiveness at making sure language says what it means and means what it says.  Now, Eliot, obviously, being a poet, was not against appropriate Ambiguity; but he was definitely for a poetry, a writing and thinking--of freshness and force.  To compare him to Aristotle, tradition is to Convention (nomos) what the individual talent is to Nature (phusis).  Book Five, chapter seven (if memory serves) of the Nicomachean Ethics points up this tension, if you will, in terms of a dichotomy.  On one hand, we have conventional justice--the laws or the constitution; on the other hand we have "natural justice" (phusis, again), e.g., a case where Common Sense suggests an alternative to "the way we've always done it" or the conventional or "tried and true."  To use a cliche many have come to hate, Aristotle was Aristotle and not some forgotten disciple because he knew how to think "outside the box."  Sarah Palin I love because she has thrown away that old cardboard box. 

 

As for Hans-Georg Gadamer, who died a few years ago at age 100 or so, his remarkable book, while conventional next to Heidegger's stuff, yet points up something he learned well from Heidegger, who himself was a master of Aristotle, arguably his main teacher.  That "something" that Gadamer learned from his master, Heidegger, was "care."  The "truth" is clearly for those who care.  But when real Truth loses its correct perception and becomes pseudo-truth, caring folks need to respond quickly to remedy the situation--lest things get OUT OF CONTROL.  (In our country, at present, things are arguably getting out of control--our energy supply, our money supply, our creativity supply.)  Hans-Georg Gadamer (whom I had the honor of having dinner with in 1976) injected "method" into the worn out "truths" of the twentieth century.  If you read his "Truth and Method" you find that he speaks to the issue of our Constitution.  Gadamer shares with us his "hermeneutics" or art of interpretation.  Unlike Leo Strauss and his devotees, who say "understand the text as it understands itself," Gadamer, a true student of the classics, says "understand the texts in light of...THE SITUATION." 

 

Leo Strauss's subtext would probably agree:  The Situation one finds oneself in obviously colors one's reading of authors and their texts.  But that is not the Straussian Orthodoxy.  This (sometimes) mindless orthodoxy starts to remind one of a certain Russian general portrayed in Solzhenitsyn's "August 1914."  The dull-witted general, no matter the situation, would just bureaucratically command such and so--at the cost of needless loss of life. (And not a little cruelty to horses.)  Such utterly conventional minds are dangerous during wartime.  And right here, right now, we find ourselves at war, a very world-historical war.  A war in which the enemy could be our boss at Verizon.  We don't really know.   This is no time for a mindless bureaucrat running things.  This is no time for a Joe Biden or, in my opinion, anyone who thinks he is qualified to be POTUS.  The meek and mild-mannered Hans-Georg Gadamer knew what Joe Biden apparently will never know:  There is a time for all things.  (In Biden's case, a time for brevity and real thoughtfulness as opposed to diarrhea of the mouth and genuine idiocy.)  (My apologies for a lapse in Christian behavior, there.)

 

Our Constitution, to get back to "Truth and Method," is not a text with just one interpretation.  If so, How do we get to the--let's say--appropriate interpretation?   It's been a while since I've studied the philosophers of Interpretation, but life also teaches this science and art.  What I've learned is that Prudence, real Aristotelian and Thomistic Prudence, is still possible and necessary in our time.  It's up to the Individual Talent, to get back to Eliot's metaphor, to decide.  How then, do we find Individual Talent--be it for poetry or science or politics or philosophy?  (In religion, we have it--in our Holy Father and in his friends, Karol and Hans Ur von Balthasaar.)  T.S. Eliot himself was the Individual Talent that he was talking about.  What were the qualifications he had that "certified" him as an Individual Talent?  Suffering, for one thing.  Read the life of T.S. Eliot.  More importantly, Eliot's training in World Literature (we need statesmen trained in it--and world history even more), I repeat, Eliot's training in and love for World Literature gave him his start.  Well, actually, his parents and society gave him his start--in St. Louis, no less.  But my point is this:  This tension between Tradition and Individual Talent is a creative one, a mysterious one.  Lincoln's kids did not turn out to be like Lincoln although his eldest son did very well for himself indeed.  Leaders in ancient history had sons who turned out far differently from their fathers.  It is a mystery how a Bill Clinton or a Barack Obama emerges.  What were the odds?  Who could have predicted?  In Clinton's case, there was a second grade teacher who in fact DID predict. 

 

But this example brings up an important point:  There are trainings and then there are trainings.  The education of Bill Clinton was quite different from the education of George W. Bush.  For Bill Clinton, Whitman's "Leaves of Grass" symbolizes his philosophy of politics, his political philosophy (Straussians would deny he HAS political philosophy, properly speaking).  For George W. Bush, the life of Winston Churchill symbolizes HIS political philosophy--and here we are dealing with a real philosophy, even according to the neocon Straussians.  (Reread Charles Krauthammer's famous essay on the Bush Doctrine which can be found in Bill Kristol's "The Weekly Standard," around 2003.)  The neocon political philosophy is part Machiavelli--help friends, harm enemies; part Winston Churchill and HIS training, which was vast and included Aristotle and Shakespeare; part the Constitution of the United States and the men, I repeat, men--who came up with it.  Our President, and especially our Vice President, came under the spell of real philosophy, real political philosophy.  President Bush's boldness, his courage, his creativity--results from his openness to creative ideas.  I'll never forget the year 1998, maybe even 1997.  The great teacher and scholar and pundit from the U. of Virginia, Larry Sabato, was asked on TV whom he thought might be a viable candidate for the Republicans.  I was shocked when he said, "George W. Bush, the Governor of the State of Texas."  Sabato not only had heard the inside buzz, he had seen for himself the talent, the Talent of George W. Bush.  What has made his Presidency so utterly world-historical is the sense in which his Talent has clashed with the Tradition, not of Literature, but of American History and Republican Policy.  American Foreign Policy, whether Dem or GOP.  The Bush Doctrine flies in the face of George Washington's wise advice not  to get entangled too much in foreign affairs.   The Bush Doctrine (over now, cf. brilliant article by James Pinkerton around 2004) flies in the face of Tradition, of International Law--you don't attack another country unless you have first been attacked!  But the talented Bush, and he is sharp, he is a politico, a real "player" as they say in athletics--Bush thought past certain conventions and bought in to certain other conventions.  He thought past the "realism" of Brent Scowcroft and Company.  He blew by the opinion of the European Community of Nations.  He completely disregarded the Popes.  He completely disregarded the serious conservative voices of our time--Pat Buchanan, Michael Scheuer, Tucker Carlson, Robert Novak and countless others.  

 

The jury is still out on this incredibly bold, creative, life-giving and perhaps reckless decision. 

 

What is for sure is that, using the Tradition-Individual Talent Model, the Bush Doctrine fits in on the side of both:  both Tradition and the Individual Talent were--and are still--at play. 

 

There is, first of all, in history, Western and World History, a Tradition of the surprise attack, so to speak.  On 9/11, we were at the receiving end of one such brilliant surprise attack.  And a very successful surprise attack it was.  Its purpose was, in part, to educate.  In this regard, it has succeeded.  Many of us who cared little for "foreign policy" are now alert, watchful, studious, intense, learning more every single day.  Thank you, Mr. bin Laden.

 

President Bush's response in Iraq was arguably another sort of tit-for-tat "surprise attack."  We had done nothing to Atta (but we had) and he attacked us; Saddam had done nothing to us (but he had) and we hit him in return.  Arguably, another surprise attack, even though it was partly on television around the world.  (And that brings up the decisive problem for our security here, now.)

 

The Creativity of the Bush Doctrine, like all creativity, has been dangerous in its abusive aspects.  Our own security here at home is at risk, arguably moreso than if we had focussed, really focussed, on getting Mr. bin Laden.  Today the certified experts on radical, extremist, suicide-murdering Islam disagree on just how safe we are here at home.   The next two months will be telling.  The question now is, Is Woodrow Wilson turning over in his grave?  Has the project of converting the Middle East to democracy failed?  Or how about Churchill himself?  Is he turning over in his grave? 

 

These are questions.  I hope they have been delightful and instructive if not creative?