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Wednesday, Nov 25, 2009
What makes the difference between a president with unacknowledged demons and Bush is that, if he has not been detailed in admitting them, he has at least alluded to them. I would argue that his vagueness has been nothing less than honorable discretion. Should he apologize for his lapses into anger? I don't see why.
As to how his recovery affects how he governs -- aside from the chance he might start drinking again (Jenna, drain that Longhorn and help me get George up these stairs!), I would expect it to profoundly influence how he sees the relationship between the individual and the state. Because the common experience among addicts is that nobody can help you if you don't help yourself.
It's that experience of utter hopelessness, or moments of clarity, or hitting bottom, at which some sufferers typically call out to a higher power for help and others seek the aid of psychiatrists, healers and scientists. The common paradox in all these experiences is that personal powerlessness is twinned with personal responsibility: You suddenly realize that while no one can cure you, neither can you cure yourself on your own. You need God, or friends, or an institution, or a belief system, or something -- anything -- not yourself. And thus begins, in myriad forms, the archetypal untangling of epistemological knots that results, ultimately, in an unaddicted ego that knows it is both profoundly free and profoundly interdependent. And that's the basis of a healthy society. For that reason, many recovered addicts view with suspicion systems of government aid that seem to prolong dependency and/or to shield sufferers from the fundamental hopelessness of their situation.
Thus we would expect Bush, not just as a political conservative, but as somebody who's experienced deep hopelessness, aloneness in the universe and the need for God, to view welfare and other government attempts to eliminate suffering as simply, and wrongly, shielding people from their true problems, the recognition of which alone could catalyze deep change.
Having for many years simply taken what his family gave him and failed to make a noteworthy contribution, Bush himself lived with a dependency that robbed him of his own dignity and power. Perhaps he came to understand how no one but himself could change that.
While it may be laughable to imagine Bush putting himself in the shoes of the nation's poor and concluding that what they really need is not government money but to hit bottom, it's quite possible that, in an unarticulated way, that is precisely the framework through which he views the welfare state.
Even if one grants that Bush may have good intentions, however, for the government to condition aid on a theory that says the creation of dependency is destructive unless the recipient has hit bottom first may be just as paternalistic a kind of social engineering as the liberal philosophy that says aid is a bridge to empowerment.
That same realization of powerlessness that informs his sense of individual vs. collective responsibility is also likely to inform Bush's thoughts on the usefulness of faith-based social programs. After all, apparently he got sober largely through the church. Basically, established religion saved his life. As the addict's condition compels him to turn to prayer, meditation and belief in a higher power, churches become a part of his life, but -- and this is crucial -- not necessarily in any orthodox way.
