I am linking to this issue because it provides an explanation for the irrationality of what is going on around us. What this country is doing appears irrational because it is irrational — it's based on sentimentalism. That's a helpful start in dealing with it, but my question is: How, as an apparent rationalist, do I reach sentimentalists? Rational arguments sure don't seem to cut it. Can rationalists convert their arguments to a sentimentalist narrative? Or do we just duck and cover and come out to pick up the pieces?

More linkage on sentimentalism. Liberal Arts Mafia added a big chunk (The warblogger narrative) to the discussion which ended:

It is not surprising in the wake of September 11th that most sentimentalists (which most Americans are) have sided with the President and have said things like "the first amendment goes too far." It is also not surprising that in the wake of September 11th that most rationalists have become wary. And this is because the sentimentalist narrative, as espoused by the warbloggers, is essentially a fascist narrative: all the nations of the world are against us, because there is a giant conspiracy to deny us our rightful place as masters of the world, but we shall prevail, in a state of perpetual warfare, and all of our enemies, those that are left at any rate, shall bow down before us (check Mein Kampf and others for similarities).

To most rationalists, the conclusion following September 11th was that we were being lied to. Rationalists may not necessarily have a handle on the truth, but to a one they know they aren’t being told it. Which has made rationalists much more wary of war, especially a war with no rational explanation, the war on Iraq.

Of course what is missing in the national "debate" is a counter-narrative. Because in a sentimentalist culture — and what culture isn’t? — political debate is largely a debate between narratives. Which is why, in large part, we continue to march, as a nation, to Baghdad. [read more]

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Joseph Deumer, who started the discussion on sentimentalism, had this to say, here, about the Michael Kinsley link below.

Michael Kinsley doesn't use the word sentimental, but his analysis of the way the right has been using the word evil over the last year takes up another aspect of the idea I've been worrying for the last week or so. Sentimentality always involves the denial of thought & the deadening of feeling.

Deliver Us From Evil
By Michael Kinsley

Of all the explanations for Sept. 11, 2001, and the subsequent alleged war on terrorism, the least illuminating is that it's all about evil. We didn't know or didn't appreciate that there is evil in the world. Now we do know, or ought to. In President Bush's "axis of evil" speech last January, the first item on his list of truths "we have come to know" after 9/11 is that "evil is real, and it must be opposed." [read more]

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My previous links to this subject are here and here.