To the West and Avalon

The World According to Richard Perle - The Danger Room

"The great tragedy of Perle is that like the Hollywood leftists who defended communism -- ignoring brutalities and crimes committed against the innocent -- Perle, too, glosses over the destruction wrought from a misguided theory that now equates "Islamo-fascism" with Soviet communism. Yes, Perle's nemeses, the Hollywood elite of the 1950s, were wrong about the Soviet Union, but that doesn't make Perle right about the Middle East."

This is what happens when you have someone still attached to the grand narrative of the West. Perle still believes in a sort of teleological history of the West that will see ever increasing progress and prosperity. The West becomes something of an end to itself in this narrative, from the Greeks to today's post-Cold War world. Everything was meant to happen in Perle's mind because we were meant to show the world how things were done. It's a little like the 'shining city on the hill' metaphor in that while it can inspire people to do great things it can also create the false assumption that we need not improve ourselves and any improvement that does happen is an act of God, not man. You can see it in the neo-conservative reaction to the failures in Iraq, the blaming of the Iraqis for being 'uncivilized' and 'incapable' of enjoying democracy. Of course, the West shares no blame for such failures because the West is ever-perfect, ever-perfecting.