An Ideology of Incompetence

Conventional wisdom has it that the deterioration of the popularity of George W. Bush was due to the gradual dawning on the general public that he had mislead the country into invading Iraq, thereby casting doubt on the purity of his motives. But, the colder fact of the matter was that it was his incompetence that the country turned its back on; his duplicity might have been overlooked or forgiven if control of Iraq had been secured as quickly and painlessly as promised. Accordingly, apologists have since attempted to argue that what was an essentially well-intended, sound plan fell victim to unforeseen circumstances. But, his failures were not due to quirks of fate--his political philosophy is the expression of a doctine that unabashedly places a low value on competence, as can also be seen in its disdain for Science. That doctrine has its roots in the theorizing of the likes of Leo Strauss, whose thinking was based on the premise of the inviolability and incontrovertibility of private experience, a position sometimes known as 'Phenomenalism'. Easily derivable from such a principle is the privileging of the few who do in fact possess such 'certitude' of beliefs. Competence, in contrast, is publicly demonstrable, subject to challenge by objective criteria in the democratic arena of trial-and-error. So, Bush's failures stem from his ideology, which none of its partisans yet seem willing to admit. But, at least they are ideologically consistent.