Joan Didion: Political Fictions

I'm reading Joan Didion's Political Fictions while all this shit [see Feb. 21, 2003 notebook entry for context] is coming down, where she writes (p. 271):

[Robert H.] Bork is worth some study, since it is to him that we owe the most forthright statements of what might be required to effect "a moral and spiritual regeneration," the necessity for which has since entered the talk-show and op-ed ether. Such a regeneration could be produced, Bork speculated in Slouching Towards Gomorrah, by one of four events: "a religious revival; the revival of public discourse about morality; a cataclysmic war; or a deep economic depression."

As this discussion was about Monica Lewinsky and the Clinton impeachment, we now know that Bork's first two options didn't go far enough to satisfy the right. So is "cataclysmic war" really the next card up the right's sleeve? ("Deep economic depression" would surely follow from such war, but there are other dynamics working on that front as well. Most immediately, someone should look into what would happen if the Saudis move their investments from the US to Europe, etc.; I suspect that the US is more dependent on Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf states for capital returns than for oil.)

I think we really have to start calling into question the putative morality of people who would throw us into war and depression just to make a point about religion.

posted 2003-02-21