opinion

In defense of reason
by Raúl Leis --- raulleisr@hotmail.com

It's not just the arguments, but those who do battle with them. I'm talking about Al Gore, the American former vice president and presidential candidate, Nobel laureate and Oscar winner, who recently published a book whose title says a lot --- "The Assault on Reason: How the Politics of Fear, Secrecy, and Blind Faith Subvert Wise Decision Making, Degrade Our Democracy, and Put Our Country and Our World in Peril."

Gore says that truth, and reason, as the method to get to it, are two fundamental elements for the health of a democracy. His country finds itself confronting an authentic attack on reason, led by the Bush administration, characterized by fear, secrecy, partisanship and blind faith, combined with a degradation of public discourse that has created an environment that's hostile to reason, logic and truth.

The author alleges that Bush has followed policies thought up to benefit friends and members of his party, those who in their turn have given money and political support, and has distanced governmental policies from the public interest. This presidential team is composed in the first place of economic monarchists in search of lower taxes and the elimination of whatever obstacle to the increased wealth of large multinational corporations and of themselves. The second group is the foreign policy hawks who prefer military invasions and economic imperialism to increase American influence in the world to its maximum. The third faction Bush harbors is religious conservatives and fundamentalist extremists who oppose progressive social changes like women's rights, the social security net and social equity programs, among others.

Gore says that when wealth determines access to the public forum it distorts democracy, and addiction to TV becomes an influence. When a society limits itself to watching and listening without participation, he claims, the whole exercise becomes fraudulent. About secrecy, he charges that the perpetrators have assumed that they have nothing to fear from public indignation, that few people will say anything about their misdeeds, that the privatization of oversight has reached the point that "the private foxes have been placed in charge of the public henhouses."

The author says many things, including his proposals for a transformation, in the more than 300 page of his hard-hitting book, and the truth as seen from Panama and this region in general is evident in the visible effects of such US policies as economic vassalage, the free trade agreements and so on. Looking at it from our internal reality, there are similarities in the extreme socio-economic inequality, the crises of parties and institutions, a democracy ever more devalued by political patronage, electioneering and scant space for participation or transparency. We'll see how much they can change this in 2008.

The author is a sociologist, writer, and director of the Panamanian Center for Social Studies and Action (CEASPA). He has won the Miro Prize for playwriting more than any other living person.