An odd argument for a conservative to make -- that history doesn't matter. But then I guess that doesn't apply to neo-conservatives, who believe we are at the "end" of history....

Nice catch.

At the moment when an armed robber breaks into your house and starts looting and pillaging your property, and pointing a gun at you, would you very much care that the robber was the illegitimate son of a teenaged, drug-addicted, unemployed welfare mother and an absent, incarcerated father, physically abused and raised 'on the streets'?

Maybe some people would feel compelled to ask the robber, "Why are you doing this? Why do you not respect my home, my life and my property? What did I do to you to make you this way? What did American society do or fail to do to make you this way?" Not me. Once they're in your house and threatening your life, the time for soul-searching is over.

I think you posted to the wrong article -
Ms Weiss does not ignore history, only the arguement that it is inevitable due to real or imagined wrongs buried within it.

She's not saying history doesn't matter--just that it can't be allowed to paralyze action.

She actually offered up history to support her view that action is necessary.

"Then along came Rudy, vain, bull-headed, pugnacious -- and blissfully indifferent to the Root Cause crowd. At once, he went to work, determined to reclaim his beloved city. And (despite dire predictions from The New York Times, which didn't like him nearly as much back then) reclaim it he did.

In surprisingly short order, the squeegee brigades had been vanquished, Times Square was thriving, crime rates were falling, tourists were rediscovering the joys of the Big Apple, and liberal columnists were reduced to grousing that New York had become "too clean." "

Irrelevant

Justin, she's talking about you.

Ok, I suppose this IS all pretty subtle.

There is a distinction between history and a fiction called "root causes". For the practice of history, see the brief review of the 60's in the preceding article (the one you just read.) The function of history, ably demonstrated here, is to identify past folly and past virtue in the interest of responsible living in the present. The function of root-cause-ology is to excuse folly, or evil -- the opposite of the discipline of history.

The "end of history" happens when a killer pulls a box-cutter on a historian and the historian takes a moment to analyze causes.

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Link to:

DIPLOMACY: KUMBAYA - Peace Vigil

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C'mon, Justin. Put your intellect to some constructive use. It's not denying history to insist that proximate causes trump "root causes." It's the individualist mantra, for Pete's sake! We are all held individually accountable for our actions.

The logical culmination of "root causes" hunts can be seen in many places around the globe. In the Balkans, particularly the region once called Yugoslavia, grievances are passed from generation to generation like family heirlooms. "What you did to my great-grandfather, you did to me," the saying goes. Here in the United States, "root causes" rhetoric has given rise to predatory behavior that Americans of two generations ago would not believe possible, and to claims that white Americans who never owned slaves should pay slavery reparations to black Americans who never were slaves!

In the matter of the Middle East, everyone has a different "root cause," and all of them justify (by the propounder's lights) the extermination of some hated group. Well, if there's a group out there that hates Americans and wants to see us all dead, I think we should give them the chance to try their strength with us -- and that's exactly what they're getting now. But after the contest is over, I doubt there will be anyone to natter about "root causes" anymore.

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It's not that there aren't such things as root causes. It's just that in the real world, when there's a job to be done, they don't much matter.

Maybe so. But I've got $1,000 that says no leader in the USA will examine the root and do something to prevent this type of catastrophie from happening in the future. And I am not talking about Homeland SS as a 'solution'. In fact, I think this is exactly what USA leaders want! In the minds of Bush Sr., there is no problem. This is what they were expecting. Now they are simply moving on to the next phase of the plan. Bush Jr. is being used.

Well, sort of...

There are root causes and then there are root causes... One of the root causes of OUR behavior is simply our own understanding that if you attack America, you must die... It is not inappropriate that this be a key element of our foreign policy, only because it is a root cause of our behavior that others can easily understand, which helps to avoid confusion which can lead to making mistakes.

I'll take your root cause and trump it with mine while shoving yours where the sun don't shine...

This makes the world a safer place for all of us.

"An odd argument for a conservative to make -- that history doesn't matter. "

Not really. When staring down the barrel of a shotgun, you don't much care about the biography of the man who built the thing.

"Root Causes," when they exist, are fine and proper things to worry about, absent any imminent threat. Just not now.

I see I have stirred up a hornet's nest. Speaking of hornets.....

When you stick your hand inside a hornet's nest, you are likely to get stung. That is a "root cause" anybody should be able to understand. But to point to this truism, these days, is to be accused of high treason, and worse, collaboration with terrorism. By pointing out that the bigger, and more sustained our intervention in the Middle East, the more we create a generation of Osamas, anti-interventionists (of the Right such as Robert Novak, Pat Buchanan, and others) are simply facing reality. It is a reality our troops will come up against if the "widen the war" faction led by Bill Kristol has its way -- and not just once, but again and again. Patriotism is a valid idea and a benevolent emotion: but when emotion begins to rule over reason, I fear for the national interest -- and the survival of our republic.

"When you stick your hand inside a hornet's nest, you are likely to get stung. That is a "root cause" anybody should be able to understand. "

Actually, that isn't a "root cause" per se, it is an incidental cause whose effect is dictated largely by complex, often preexisting motivations. It doesn't take into account the instincts of the hornets, why they sting, if they've built their nest on property you own, or the costs for not dealing with them. If being stung is the only possible outcome of dealing with hornets, this analogy might make sense as a warning against all interventionist policy. But again, it ignores the costs of inaction once the hornets have already been stirred to anger, and it legitimizes the hornets' sting as a moral response, based primarily on geography.

I'd be interested in reading your take on our involvement in World War II. Do you have a link handy?

It is no doubt true that our policy vis a vis Israel provides some fuel for the terrorist Islamic fundamentalist agenda. So what? You may wish our foreign policy to be constrained by terrorists. I prefer not to if the policy is otherwise right and just and in our interests. On that of course we also disagree, but that is another matter.

You crack about Neocons believing in the end of history is really quite ludicrous. I hope I don't make equally as silly comments about rather uni-dimensional isolationist libertarians. But I guess that also is in the eye of the beholder.

Pat Buchanan is facing reality? Now that would be a neat new trick for him.

The creature otherwise known as raimondo did an article not that long ago about Pearl Harbor. His basic theme was some polite Japanese tourists came to Hawaii and the evil American Navy falsely set them up to provide cover for American imperialism, etc.