Dinesh D'Souza

Dinesh D'Souza's book sees to be causing quite a firestorm on both the left and right sides of the political spectrum. He has a column in today's Post that explains why he thinks the attacks have been so vicious. I haven't read his current book, although I really enjoyed "Letters to a Young Conservative" and "What's So Great About America." However, reading the column in today's Post I can't help thinking that he makes a fundamental flaw. And that's assuming that there's only one cause. A common historical fallacy is to argue over "the cause." But in reality decisions usually come about because of the convergence of several factors. Analysis becomes all the more complicated the more people you have to deal with.

Assuming that you extended family get-togethers are the same as mine, you might of heard an elderly relative ruminate on why he or she chose their (often now deceased) spouse. The last time I heard this, my great aunt said that she really like the fancy car her husband drove. Assuming that the reason she gives is in fact the foremost reason in her mind, is it fair to say that is THE reason she married her husband? Presumably there fancier cars owned in DC at that time. If her criteria were only, or even mostly fancy cars then why didn't she go with one of them? Implicit in her argument is a whole host of other criteria that she presumably had: they got along, he was single and interested in her, he was about her age, etc. Obviously if any of those things were missing they wouldn't have gotten married and stayed married.

I think the same thing goes for why Osama bin Laden decided to attack us. If we were an Islamically inspired religious society would he have attacked us? If we had an isolationist foreign policy such as that our government didn't meddle with Middle Eastern politics would he have attacked us? It seems unlikely on both counts. I'd have to read his book to examine the evidence he provides, but I think any search for "the one reason" they hate us is unlikely to produce much fruit.

Although as an aside, my experience is that when looking for "the one reason" the answer is reducible to either sin or grace. Perhaps that's why I don't get paid to write such books.

Comments

[Neil]

Once the catholic daughters had a table on the union discouraging people from using pornography, and a foriegn fellow passing by told me that internet pornography was the reason for the terrorism. He explained that kids pay pennies at internet cafes and look at the stuff. However, it seems that if that was such a big deal islamic countries could just pull a China and set up a filter. Perhaps there's more sources of western impurity anyway.

I think he makes a good point by the way, since he doesn't really identify one cause but says progressives have a measure of responsibility and mentions the foriegn policy of a few presidents. And the immorality point is one many would never have thought of.

[PeterTerp]

It didn't seem to me that he was arguing that there was a single factor that inspired terrorism. He makes that clear when he argues why Europe and Israel weren't bin Laden's targets on 9/11. It is that America represents a decadent culture AND that it exports that culture as something distinctly American: "Be American! It will teach your daughters to kill your grandchildren! Yay!"
And I think that the point of the column is ultimately to show that he is pointing out the elephant (or giant mutant donkey in the case) in the room: that the left is setting Bush up to be the fall guy so that they can have a political victory. In other words, the left is trying to create the political necessity for its own rise to power...just as it has been accusing the right of doing all along.
If he makes a fundamental flaw, it is that he usually is much more conciliatory towards his hostile audience. He is usually far more willing to give the left the benefit of the doubt and assume we all really do have America's best interests at heart (at least from what I've read of him).
This time, however, he is calling the left out on its bluff...and not only has it been shown to be empty handed, but a hidden ace has just fallen out of its left sleeve.