A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency

by Glenn Greenwald

  They all are, to varying degrees, outgrowths of the president’s core view that the world can be understood as an overarching conflict between the forces of Good and Evil, and that America is “called upon” to defend the former from the latter. That view finds a corresponding expression for the president on the personal level, where the moral and religious duty of the individual is to divine God’s will (the Good) and to act in accordance with it.

  By definition, this premise demands the identification of Evil, which is the enemy—an enemy that is pure in its Evil and that, by its very nature, cannot be engaged, offered compromises, negotiated with, understood, managed, contained, or ignored. It can only be attacked, hated, and destroyed.

  When expressed and implemented as a governing philosophy, this belief in the centrality of Good vs. Evil results not in an effort to limit government power, but rather to expand it drastically, both domestically and abroad, in order to accumulate power in service of the battle against (perceived) Evil and to impose (perceptions of) Good. Such a philosophy is centrally predicated on the certainty that government leaders can divine God’s will—not with regard to specific issues and policies but in a generalized moral sense—and can therefore confidently enlist and expand the awesome power of the American government in service to universal moral dictates. As a political philosophy, it is therefore far from “conservative.” Rather, it is messianic, evangelical, and Manichean.

  The term Manichean refers in its most literal sense to a religion founded in the third century by the Persian prophet Manes. The movement attracted large numbers of followers who were drawn to its simplicity and moral clarity. The religious movement spread throughout large parts of the Roman Empire and into China. Its central precept was that the entire world could be cleanly divided into two opposing spheres—God and Satan in the world of the eternal, and a corresponding dualistic battle of Good and Evil playing out on Earth. A stark dichotomy lies at the heart of the worldview, with God as father of goodness, and the Prince of Darkness as the ultimate author of all Evil.

  World events were all driven by, were all the by-product of, an ongoing, endless conflict between the forces of Good and the forces of Evil. One’s overarching moral duty was to maintain adherence to God’s will by siding with Good and battling against the forces of Evil.

  One of Christianity’s most influential moral philosophers, St. Augustine, was a devotee of Manicheanism in his youth. But ultimately, its doctrinal deviations from Christianity led to its being condemned as heretical by various Christian emperors. Nonetheless, the similarities between Manichean and Christian moralism are self-evident, and the influence of the former on the latter is beyond doubt.

  But the historical fate of the Manichees is of far less interest than is contemporary reliance on their religion’s central moral tenets. In the overwhelming majority of President Bush’s significant speeches and interviews throughout his political career—but particularly since the 9/11 attacks—he evinces a dualistic worldview lodged at the core of his belief system.

  Both the president’s deeds and, frequently, his own self-descriptions leave no doubt he holds that world events are driven by the forces of Good vs. Evil. And it is equally clear that the duty to side with Good and battle against Evil motivates the president—not merely in his private life but also as a leader, as the American president. The tools for fulfilling that duty are the powers and resources of the U.S. government.

  Many people, probably most, believe in the existence of Good and Evil—that is to say, they perceive certain isolated acts, perhaps even certain individuals, as composed not of a mixture of good and evil, but rather as pure Good or pure Evil. Indeed, wide agreement exists that certain actions can be understood only as pure Evil: Nazis devoting themselves to the extermination of targeted groups; whites treating blacks as property to be bought and sold; cold-blooded murders committed for no reason, or petty reasons, without mercy or remorse; theocracies putting to death heathens, infidels, homosexuals, rape victims, and others who deviate from mandated orthodoxies; and terrorists flying fuel-laden jets filled with innocent people into office buildings also filled with innocent people in order to slaughter as many as possible. One could compile a long list of acts that most would agree are Evil.

  Conversely, there are acts that seem accurately characterized as pure Good: one who risks his own life to save another or one who devotes his life to the well-being of those in need. It is true that plausible arguments can be advanced that such behavior is driven by mixed motives—the life-saver becomes a hero and receives adulation, Mother Teresa becomes famous and widely admired for her aid to the sick and destitute, etc. But it is difficult to dispute that, on an intuitive if not rational level, these acts seem to be propelled by a force for Good (whatever its origins), just as murderous or genocidal acts (even when there is a perceived justification for them) seem driven by Evil.

  But deeds that are pure Good or pure Evil—and, even more so, individuals who are pure Good or pure Evil—are rarities, the exception and not the norm. In truth, the vast, vast majority of individuals are capable of both Good and Evil, and even those who may commit an Evil act are capable of acts of great Good (and those who commit acts of Good are capable of Evil). Human beings and their psyches are complex and shaped by numerous, often conflicting influences.

  Moreover, most behaviors are not susceptible to moral judgment at all. They are morally neutral, purely pragmatic endeavors geared toward effecting a desired outcome rather than in the service of moral dictates. When one applies for a job or carries out one’s job duties or reads a book or eats a meal or chats with a friend or invents a new product or repairs a malfunctioning machine, pragmatic rather than moral considerations predominate. Routine decisions and actions such as these are not motivated by moral considerations, even if they have a moral component to them.

  But the Manichean mind-set does not admit to the merely isolated or occasional appearance of Good and Evil. Rather, in this view, the battle between Good and Evil is the ongoing dynamic at the epicenter of world events, and more so, acting in defense of the Good constitutes the overarching duty. It is that mind-set that has driven President Bush and his presidency. He lays the template of the glorious and all-consuming battle between Good and Evil over all significant matters, personal and public/political.

  Further, for the Manichean believer, the battle between Good and Evil is paramount. It subordinates all other considerations and never gives way to any conflicting or inconsistent goals. Measures intended to promote Good or undermine Evil are, by definition, necessary and just. They cannot be abandoned for pragmatic or prudential reasons, or because of growing opposition, or in response to evidence of failure. Insufficient progress when attacking Evil never justifies re-examination of the wisdom of the action, but instead compels a redoubling of one’s determination to succeed. In sum, complexities, pragmatic considerations, the restraints of reality are trumped by the imperative of the moral crusade.

  This Manichean paradigm unites and explains the president’s personal approach to all matters—his foreign policy decisions; his relations with other countries; his domestic programs; the terms he adopts when discussing, debating, and analyzing political matters; his attitude toward domestic political opponents (including his own former officials and allies who have become critical); and his treatment of the national media. For the president, there always exists a clear and identifiable enemy who is to be defeated by any means, means justified not only by the pureness of the enemy’s Evil but also by the core Goodness that he believes motivates him and his movement.

  Religious faith is but one path to a Manichean mind-set, but it is far from the only one. Many people come to view the world as an all-consuming Manichean battle due to a variety of factors having nothing to do with religion—including extreme nationalism (manifested as a belief that one’s own country is intrinsically Good and anyone who opposes it is pure Evil); ideological, racial, or ethnic supremacy; or even unrestrained fea
r (causing one to adopt a view of themselves as a “Good” victim with the sole priority being “protection” from the threat posed by forces of Evil). And while much of the support for President Bush’s Manichean crusades may be explained by some combination of those factors, it is George Bush’s religious faith—as he himself acknowledges—in which his personal Manichean worldview is rooted.

  A critically important caveat is in order here. In the hands of political leaders, Manichean moralism can operate on at least two different levels. For some, it serves as a sincerely held belief system, genuinely animating their actions and decisions. Government leaders authentically driven by Manicheanism believe that there is objective Evil in the world and deploy state resources to attack and defeat it. Even the most tyrannical and extremist religious leaders, for instance, or the most brutal tyrants presiding over empires, or the most repressive Communist dictators (such as Mao Tse-tung or even Fidel Castro) often come to believe that they are acting in pursuit of moral Good, and that their tyranny is justified—even compelled—by the threat of Evil which surrounds them. Whether the forces they attack are in fact Evil and/or whether they are acting in pursuit of the genuine Good is an independent question entirely. The salient point is that Manichean leaders, by definition, believe that they are acting in pursuit or defense of the Good and against Evil.

  Independently, political leaders can cynically adopt the template and language of Manichean moralism as a tool for persuading citizens of the necessity and justifiability of certain actions. Controversial actions that, in fact, have little or nothing to do with a concern for Good and Evil, and which political leaders know have little or nothing to do with either, can nonetheless be rhetorically justified via a dualistic appeal—that the action in question is necessary to fight for Good and defend against Evil. Thus, issues can be framed in Manichean terms by insincere leaders to manipulate public opinion, to cast morally neutral or even immoral policies as necessary for defense of the Good, and to thereby generate support for actions they wish to undertake.

  Bush supporter and Commentary magazine founder Irving Kristol—generally credited as the “Father of Neoconservatism” and the father of Bill Kristol, The Weekly Standard’s influential prowar editor—has expressly argued that society works best when a vanguard of elite leaders decide what is best and then disguise those conclusions in a Manichean package in order to induce what neoconservatism essentially regards as the idiot masses to accept and ingest those decisions. Kristol explained this approach in an interview, quoted by Reason magazine’s Brian Doherty in July 1997:

  There are different kinds of truths for different kinds of people. There are truths appropriate for children; truths that are appropriate for students; truths that are appropriate for educated adults; and truths that are appropriate for highly educated adults, and the notion that there should be one set of truths available to everyone is a modern democratic fallacy. It doesn’t work.

  Writing in Free Inquiry magazine, Shadia Drury, a professor of philosophy and political science at the University of Regina (Saskatchewan, Canada), documented that Manicheanism as a manipulative tool has deep roots in neoconservative theory:

  There is a certain irony in the fact that the chief guru of the neoconservatives is a thinker who regarded religion merely as a political tool intended for the masses but not for the superior few. Leo Strauss, the German Jewish émigré who taught at the University of Chicago almost until his death in 1973, did not dissent from Marx’s view that religion is the opium of the people; but he believed that the people need their opium. He therefore taught that those in power must invent noble lies and pious frauds to keep the people in the stupor for which they are supremely fit.

  Drury notes that—beyond Irving Kristol—self-proclaimed followers of Strauss’s theory include some of the most influential figures in the shaping and selling of Bush’s foreign policy, such as Paul Wolfowitz, Bill Kristol, and various other Pentagon officials under former Secretary Rumsfeld. In his autobiographical essay, Irving Kristol specifically lauded the Straussian belief that the masses in a democracy need to be pacified with moral imperatives, and that “truth” was only for the elite leadership:

  What made [Strauss] so controversial within the academic community was his disbelief in the Enlightenment dogma that “the truth will make men free.”…Strauss was an intellectual aristocrat who thought that “the truth could make some minds free” [emphasis added], but he was convinced that there was an inherent conflict between philosophic truth and political order, and that the popularization and vulgarization of these truths might import unease, turmoil and the release of popular passions hitherto held in check by tradition and religion with utterly unpredictable, but mostly negative, consequences.

  Thus, in the eyes of neoconservatives, concepts of Manichean morality are but tools used to blind, rather than enlighten, the masses, to keep them loyally in line behind their leaders’ “superior” wisdom and insight. Leaders make decisions about complex matters and then package those decisions in simplistic moralistic terms in order to manipulate public support. Such packaging is how the neoconservatives’ long-standing, pre-9/11 desire to invade Iraq for all sorts of geopolitical reasons was transformed into what Bush chief of staff Andy Card called a “marketing product,” justifying that invasion based on the claims that 9/11 Changed Everything; that Saddam was connected to those attacks and he would give his Bad Weapons to the Terrorists; and that Freedom was On the March.

  One can debate endlessly (without much hope of a definitive resolution) the question of whether George Bush has followed this neoconservative stratagem of cynically wielding Manichean concepts in order to persuade Americans to support his international aggression or whether, instead, such techniques were first cynically wielded to persuade Bush himself of the wisdom and moral necessity of these policies. Either way, that George Bush has invoked Manichean moralism as the central justifying argument for his decisions is difficult to dispute, to put it mildly. The overriding theme in the president’s rhetorical arsenal, particularly with regard to his war and terrorism policies—but by no means only those—has been the purported need to fight against Evil and to defend the Good.

  Ultimately, whether moralistic dualism is in fact what motivates the president or whether he manipulatively adopts its rhetoric to justify his actions has no bearing on the need to examine and, where necessary, refute the framework he (and his political allies) invoke in order to persuade Americans of the rightness of their actions. Put another way, when assessing the Bush presidency (or any political movement or political leader), one can undertake two entirely separate and independent tasks: (1) examine the justifications and arguments proffered by the president to justify his policies (in the case of Bush, Manichean moralism) and engage and refute those arguments at face value, or (2) attempt to expose the genuine, underlying, concealed motives fueling those policies, motives clouded or outright concealed by the dualistic rhetoric.

  To engage, analyze, and refute the president’s proffered justifications for his actions is neither to accept nor reject that they are sincerely held. In either case, those Manichean appeals have powerfully shaped the perceptions of many Americans and have been a potent tool in inducing Americans to support many of the president’s most radical policies. And other influential political figures, including several who wish to succeed Bush, invoke the same worldview to advocate their own extremist policies, both domestically and abroad. That alone compels the need to examine the president’s Manichean moralism and its underlying premises on their own merits, independent of the question of whether he really embraces it.

  There is, of course, no shortage of theories as to the “true motives and objectives” of the Bush administration, particularly concerning matters of war and terrorism. And indeed, there is little doubt that the president is surrounded and heavily influenced by a constellation of aides, advisers, think tanks, supporters, and ideologues—many of whom have agendas and belief systems that are as far remo
ved as can be from concerns of Good vs. Evil, to put it generously. (Chapter 4 critiques the Bush administration’s conduct and thinking concerning Iran, and the potent influences and agendas that are brought to bear on the president’s decision-making are examined and documented there.)

  But independent of those matters, whether as a genuine belief system or cynical persuasive tool, Manichean theories play a vital role in American political discourse, and any meaningful assessment of the Bush presidency necessarily centers on those theories. Manichean moralism pervades our political dialogue.

  ENDLESS NEED FOR ENEMIES

  More policies have been justified, more government power expanded, more mischief enabled, and more perceptions manipulated by the Bush administration’s invoking concepts of the enemy—the pure Evil enemy—than by any other tactic. Dualistic rhetoric has not been confined to the president. Indeed, at the heart of most political arguments and tactics of the Bush-led “conservative” movement is the identification of an Evil enemy, and a rage-driven perceived need to crush it. Bush followers are frequently most excited and enlivened by designating the enemy, followed by swarming, rabid attacks on it.