Restoring Humility To Our National Psyche In The Face Of Nihilism

 

Victor Davis Hanson has a fine essay out today called "The Prison of the Present".

I rarely disagree with him and on his many brilliant insights, especially when put so expertly in historical context, as Hanson has again succeeded to do.

The question "..aren't choices usually between the bad and the far worse?.." leads to very relevant historical comparisons, which do not seek to "..excuse present mistakes by citing worse ones from the past--or to suggest that all wars are always the same. Much less should history's examples be used to stifle necessary contemporary criticism that alone leads to remedy."

Instead, Hanson believes that "..knowledge of the capricious nature of wars of the past can restore a little humility to our national psyche":

We need it. Ours is the first generation of Americans that thinks it can demand perfection in war. Our present leisure, wealth, and high technology fool us into thinking that we are demi-gods always be able to trump both human and natural disasters. Accordingly, we become frustrated that we cannot master every wartime obstacle, as we seem otherwise to be able to do with computers or cosmetic surgery. Then, without any benchmarks of comparison from the past, we despair that our actions are failed because they are not perfect.

The key question to me, one which is constantly on my mind these days, is the one concerning the level of the current collective "Confidence" in ourselves as a Nation and whether such confidence or the lack of it, if this is indeed the case, lies at the heart of the acrimonious divide which has beset our nation in the face on the war on terror.

Hanson certainly seems to think so and believes that we as a Nation are less confident than our fathers and forefathers were decades ago under far worse circumstances and he provides very compelling arguments to support his view:

But why did a poorer, less educated, and more illiberal United States in far bloodier and more error-ridden wars of the past still have greater confidence in itself? Was it that our ancestors, who died younger and far more tragically, did not expect their homeland to be without flaws, only to be considerably better than the enemy's?

Perhaps we have forgotten such modesty because we have ignored the study of history that alone offers us guidance from our forbearers. It now competes as an orphan discipline with social science, -ologies and -isms that entice us into thinking that the more money and education of the present can at last perfect the human condition and thus consign our flawed past to irrelevance.

The result is that while sensitive young Americans seem to know what correct words and ideas they must embrace, they derive neither direction nor solace from past events. After all, very few could identify Vicksburg or Verdun, much less have any idea where or what Iwo Jima was. In such a lonely prison of the present what are historically ignorant Americans to make of a Fallujah or an Iranian madman's threat of annihilation other than such things can't or shouldn't or must not happen to us?

So, of this present war, I think our war-torn forefathers would say to us that both messy Afghanistan and Iraq are better places without their dictators even if they never will resemble Carmel or Austin.

They would add that it is not unusual to be confronted with new crises even after such apparently easy victories. And they would shrug that however scary Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Iran now appears, it poses nothing new or insurmountable to a confident and strong United States that has dealt with far more serious enemies in the past with its accustomed wisdom and resolve.

Which begs the question, how would those opposed to the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, those opposed to the use of military force to depose dictators no matter how much blood they have on their hands and those who subscribe to the notion of an 'imperialistic' America respond to such history lessons. What would their reaction be, after they'd learned about the immense heroism on both the U.S. side and that of Japan during the Iwo Jima campaign? Would it make any difference?

I fear not. I rather suspect, it would be dismissed outright and all involved derided as 'fools' and 'idiots' at best and 'war criminals' at worst.

Which leaves me in doubt as to whether the lack of 'National Confidence', if indeed found to be true, is in fact an important reason for the opposition and divide. Furthermore, I am not at all sure whether we suffer from a lack of confidence; on the contrary, I believe we suffer from acute selfaggrandizement and individualistic hyperbole, which in the final analysis is nothing but ignorant arrogance as it is both hollow and superficial in all its aspects.

All the more reason why Hanson's call for humility is absolutely key. I just don't believe, that there is anything anyone can do or say that will instill a growing sense of humility other than a growing believe in the power of faith in God the Almighty. And that isn't exactly a convincing argument is it...

In many ways, the term 'Clash of Civilizations' contains the seeds of a most comprehensive truth. I am afraid though that we will have to come to terms with the fact, that the lines will prove to be much more blurred and drawn criss-cross throughout our society. Just when we reluctantly acknowledge the reality of a long-drawn-out conflict centering around religious beliefs; just when we thought that the factions could be limited to those of Judea-Christian beliefs versus Islamic ones, must we realize, that the scope is far wider: Faith versus Skepticism with all its variations such as cynicism, pessimism, disbelief, agnosticism, atheism, and anti-Semitism. In short, the rejection of all religious and moral principles, often in the belief that life is meaningless, otherwise called Nihilism.

Comments

[therzal]

Possibly one of the most important articles you could ever read..
If you can swallow your partisan prejudices.
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0530-20.htm.

Still can't understand this "beautiful" blog and caring, fulfilled people typing about raining death and misery on others... Unless of course, the victims are not as "beautiful" as the happily engaged perpetrators??

[therzal]

I really do not count the blairting site as a forum of balanced intellectuals. It is amusing to tease the pseudo philosophers and thesaurus thumbers who habitually browse there.
The dreaded "banning" is the only real answer the "adminnazi" has to contributors who dare to disagree with their vile formulae of racist rightist rhetoric, who make inconvenient, irrefutable, persistent and factual points that show them up for what they are..

You have not actually responded to the points that I made in my above post.. The implication being that you know better?? That is a real pity because your (beautiful?!) but blinkered view of the entire world prevents you from seeing what the other 95% of the worlds population (and as polls suggest, over 60% of US populations polled) sees.

Thus blinded, you and people who share your tragic world view (Total lack there of..) can not see the only way forward.
That is the tragedy. You can't see after all this suffering.
After your country has started to terminally implode.
Truly unbelievable. Truly sad. Truly frightening
By the way, are you positioning yourself as a sort of sepia Ann Coulter?

[Alexandra]

Therzal,

I know that Australia is the world's smallest continent but is it really getting too small for you? I see that you have been banned by Tim Blair's blog, one of my favorites, and I can also see why. Peddling the same old stuff I see here, with the same old regurgitated arguments. I noticed you jumped right along into the nearest post dealing with anti-Semitism, where you feel right at home.

[Therzal]

Why do approx 95% of the rest of the world hate the US government so much??? Is this a serious question or a joke?
For a site that claims to be "intellectual" this is a joke, Yes??
There is little more odious than "an intellectual" trying to justify cruelty, evil and injustice in the name of democracy and kindly liberation. Its always all well and good, unless it actually affects them.

Perhaps you should ask some of the survivors of "American Liberation Largesse" in one or more of these countries..

Cuba, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Panama, Mexico, Chile, Granada, Colombia, Bolivia, Venezuela, Uruguay, Paraguay, Ecuador, Zaire, Namibia, Lebanon, Egypt, Greece, Cyprus, Bangladesh, Iran, IRAQ, South Africa, the Philippines, Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Iraq, Cambodia, Libya, Israel, Palestine, China, Afghanistan, Sudan, Indonesia, East Timor, Turkey, Angola, Mozambique, and Somalia.

Whilst you are doing that, review the history and activities of Fort Benning.

Perhaps you could ask George, if you can understand his "home town down-to-earth dumb-arse-ness" that is. Or anything else..
On the other hand, perhaps you could turn for the answer to that well known peace lover and intellectual Dick Cheney. After all, he knows..
"There are things that we know, and then there are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we now know that we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we do not know we don't know. . . . That is, the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. . . . Simply because you do not have evidence that something exists does not mean that you have evidence that it doesn't exist."
EErr.. What was the question again?

And these are the people who brought us "A walk in the Park In Iraq" and now want to give us "Another Run Under the (nuclear) Sun in Iran"

Nobody is safer, countless thousands ("We don't do body Counts.." Franks) of Iraqis and occupying forces are dead and the resistance against an increaingly unpopular (if possible) invasion is so fierce and determined that the numbers can only increase.
Fortunately more and more in your country are waking up to the truth of the people who currently run the country.
It is going to be very painful for many more as they eventually have to face the truth too. Many will carry their delusions to their graves, so engrained.
There are 5.7 billion other people out there on the same planet.
You can not treat the rest of the world as yours to do as you will. WTF makes you think you have any right to do so?? Force of arms, and Gods Fundementalist Mouth piece as a president??

You are ignorant of the many evils of your own governments.
You are a small percentage of the Human Race.
You do not understand your place in the world.
You overestimate your importance to us.
You are greedy and wasteful.
You are NOT Gods chosen.
(Neither are Zionists, by the way..)
Jeez, WAKE UP.
Join the rest of the Human race and work for the good of all instead of just yourselves for a change..

It is a tragedy of the most immense proportions that a nation that had such potential and wealth, was dragged down by people of such criminal cunning and deceit.

[The Ugly American]

Wow!

Thank you for this post Alexandra. Not only did you hit a nerve. You have to have the smartest commenters in the blogosphere.

There are so many good points here I don't know where to start.

I think North by Northwest touched on one of the sad but true facts of the matter:

I think the tragedy is that only a cataclysmic event, costing tens if not hundreds, maybe even millions of lives seems to be the only chance for unification of minds and hearts.

Many of us during the attacks of 9/11 immediately understood the scope of the war that had just been started and resolved to fight it to the end. To punish the aggressors, and to prevent them or their allies from ever harming us again. Many of us knew this would be a long war that day.

Unfortunately many didn't see the threat then, or have since forgotten it.

Some are indeed stuck in self destructive navel gazing and refuse to believe our cause is just or that our enemies cause is belligerent.

You can ask them to instead view it in terms of US vs. THEM but they still can not see the nature of our enemies or that they intend to kill us all peaceniks included.

They need to be convinced and nothing we say will ever convince them. The only thing that will is when the true horror of the war we are facing finally confronts them. It may take a bomb in their city, or one of their loved ones being killed, and for some it will take a scale of death and misery greater than mankind has ever seen to finally be wake up to the reality of this war.

I almost regret posting this but if our enemies were truly brilliant they would cease all of their current aggression, and let the rest of us go back to sleep, until they were capable of dealing a death blow.

[epaminondas]

Michael Galen... the word is PRIORITY.
Winning the war is the PRIORITY - all else is secondary.
If we lose this war, your health care will be a major concern, but for entirely different reasons.

[gringoman]

A wonderfully revealing foto of George Bush is that classic showing him holding hands with Saudi Prince (Bandar or whoever.) Priceless, even in gold dinars. We see the MBA who "understands" that you have to do business with these people, and thank God they are "moderate" Wahabbis instead of Osamatons. Of course, the Ivy League elites don't even hesitate to take "donations" from them, as Harvard and Georgetown demonstrated again, recently. It reminded me, by contrast, of Mayor Giuliani (back when I had more problems with him than I do know.) In the wake of 9.11 this Saudi Prince wanted to make a contribution ($10 million, I think) to some related fund in New York. Giuliani, in effect, threw the money back in the Wahabbi face. I don't know of any other American pols---Dem or Pub---who have done likewise, while their media confreres now dread even to publish certain cartoons.

[Jeff Durkin]

I think some of the blame for what VDH identifies as an issue of confidence can be laid at the feet of the Administration. Some of the wars that VDH cites - the ACW, WWII - were wars of national survival. Even Korea and Vietnam were seen by many as integral parts of the struggle against Communism.

However, in this conflict, we have an Administration that has a mixed message. On the one hand, we are fighting a Long War against a threat to our civilization (usually referred to as "our way of life").

On the other hand, we have the President (and others) saying things lie:

"I have assured His Majesty that our war is against evil, not against Islam. There are thousands of Muslims who proudly call themselves Americans, and they know what I know -- that the Muslim faith is based upon peace and love and compassion. The exact opposite of the teachings of the al Qaeda organization, which is based upon evil and hate and destruction."

Remarks by President George W. Bush and His Majesty King Abdullah of Jordan
The Oval Office, Washington, D.C.
September 28, 2001

"Americans understand we fight not a religion; ours is not a campaign against the Muslim faith. Ours is a campaign against evil."

President George W. Bush Remarks by the President to Airline Employees
O'Hare International Airport, Chicago, Illinois
September 27, 2001

"The terrorists are traitors to their own faith, trying, in effect, to hijack Islam itself. The enemy of America is not our many Muslim friends; it is not our many Arab friends. Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists, and every government that supports them."

President George W. Bush's Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People
United States Capitol, Washington, D.C.
September 20, 2001

I took all of these from the White House (http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/ramadan/islam.html).

This is, obviously, both a mixed message and, equally obviously, wrong. We are in a fight against Islamic civilization and we are not just facing a handful of people who have "hijacked a great religion" (another constant message from the Administration).

If we want the American people to have the same level of commitment seen during WW2, for example, than the Administration needs to have a much more coherent message on the extent of the threat and what our end goal is. That goal can only be to radically change Islam, to make it compatible with the Western global system.

Oh, and when Alexandra wrote "Faith versus Skepticism with all its variations such as cynicism, pessimism, disbelief, agnosticism, atheism, and anti-Semitism" I was left a bit confused. Is not anti-Semitism a feature of not only modern Islamic faith, but also classical Christianity? And, a key part of any one faith is disbelief in all other faiths and the problems that leads to; Crusades, jihads, pogroms, etc. As to pessimism, most religions are pretty pessimistic, leaving salvation in the hands of often incomprehensible gods; I don't consider the image of humanity as powerless to control his fate as particularly optimistic.

And, finally, as an atheist, I do not see a lack of belief in god as leading to a "rejection of all religious and moral principles." Religion fulfills important social functions, providing a framework for personal conduct and inter-personal interactions. Further, how does a lack of faith lead to a lack of morals? Religions certainly do not agree on which moral structure is correct (human sacrifice in Mesoamerica, suicide bombs in Islam, "Thou Shalt not kill" unless Yahweh tells you to ethnically cleanse Canaan; as compared to turning the other cheek, loving your neighbors, not harming your fellow man, etc).

If you wish to have a more comprehensive definition of the clash of civilizations with reference to religion, it is between the West - in which we have, more of less, segregated religious and secular areas of responsibility - and Islam, in which such a line does not exist. Turning this into "Faith vs Skepticism" hopelessly muddies the waters and can only serve to turn Western society against itself.

In my humble opinion, of course.

[gringoman]

The "humility" of Bush? All right.

The imperious (if not imperialist) boldness of Bush, willing to risk much to gain much for world stability? All right.

Even the mistakes in Iraq war management (whether inevitable or not) have not made the rear-view critic-weasels more attractive? Granted.

He's got a "vision thing" despite shortcomings in the ability to voice and articulate it? All right.

But does he have too much "globo-vision" to understand what America Without Borders will really mean, especially as more and more of his constituency come to see him as "Our First Mexican President"?

In brief, what profiteth it a man and his people, even should he win a war, and increaseth poll ratings, and understandeth The Long War, and yet lose a Nation?

[Michael Galien]

Improvement in health care costs are critical, but not as important as WINNING THE WAR AGAINST this enemy.

See, and that is where you are wrong. It is of course important to win this 'war', but some people make it almost the sole policy. Can screw everything else up, as long as you don't screw that up. That is not how it works.

There are, as always, several key issues for most people. If you're 'good' at one, but neglect the other 3 or 4, you will loose.

[epaminondas]

Given this AM's poll about the 'bleak outlook' of the nation :

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/05/09/opinion/polls/main1604495.shtml

the war is apparently taking place in our heads.
People are more worried about gas prices than Ahmadinejad? More concerned with immigration (note that neither the CBS News art. nor the NYT says ILLEGAL)? Fine. Bush Sucks on this issue, but that's because the populace is to the right of him, not the left.

Is Hassan Abbasi correct?

What will it take for the priorites of true need to become apparent in this nation.
Improvement in health care costs are critical, but not as important as WINNING THE WAR AGAINST this enemy.
Bringing gas prices down is not a separate issue from Iran, or salafi freaks preaching to open and innocent minds all over the mid east, AND EUROPE.
I am disgusted with Bush, but recognize that TODAY the dems are on this issue, WORSE. This issue IS the priority. Why has this administration failed at this message?
What's it gonna take?

That the problem with the national psyche.
Tra -la -la let's just keep skipping along as if we can just head down the road with our East Bay catalogs and Eddie Bauer orders ... Aesop - the Lion uses all its might to kill the rabbit
Only it's no rabbit.
Bush owed this nation the the truth about what it's going to take. I see no democrat who is MORE ready to do that than Bush either (unless it's Lieberman who is fighting for his political life against the REAL democratic party identity)

[Stefan]

This is a great post Alexandra. It reminded me of a book written in 1982 by Joseph Amato called “Guilt and Gratitude”. Roughly speaking, it explores the clash between the traditional value of societal gratitude and the modern focus of societal guilt. He writes:

“Gratitude is among the first human measures of the good. What has been given, which need not have been given, is always appreciated. … Like chastity, prudence, and patience, gratitude seems to echo the human spirit from an earlier period”

This sense of gratitude is what animates the founding mythology of the United States which stood on the shoulders of a greater Western, Christian tradition. The sacrifice and struggle of the Revolution and the Civil War, World Wars I and II, the great effort to stand for freedom in the face of Communism all reflect a sense of the inheritance that we have been given as free people and a sense of dutiful reverence to those who sacrificed for our highest ideals. He also speaks of the modern shift away from that understanding to one of despair and disillusionment:

“In abstract terms, humanity can be understood to have made itself God in the nineteenth century, and then in the twentieth century suffered the guilt of not only being God but also that of being a failed God. This diffuse guilt, born of great presumption and great failure, was immense. Every societal flaw, fault in justice, political error, historical tragedy, missed opportunity, expression of potential left undeveloped---everything less than perfect---was one of a thousand glaring indications that humanity had failed its responsibility. Humanity was God of its own defective universe.”

As a super power we must avoid setting ourselves up for a similar fall. This sense of failure derives from an over-abundance of misplaced self confidence. As a nation we must be aware that we are not God. Why doesn’t Iraq look like Middle America already? Why are there setbacks? Why are there casualties? Even those in the Middle East who have been fed the line about the “Great Satan” think that we have super-national powers. We have been so built up that when we don’t have all the lights on in Iraq in 24 hours people assume that we are withholding our magic. As citizens we have been so impressed with our war making technology that we seem to have imagined that the era of sacrifice was over forever. We are also living in the intellectual shadow of the New Left era of the 1960’s which has since been institutionalized by the media and the worst elements of the Democratic Party. They are poised to pounce on every “misstep” in order to call the whole endeavor a failure because to see the US succeed and to see others validate American idealism is to them a validation of our founding ideals and history. Amato writes of the mindset of the student Vietnam era student protestors (which is still with us today):

“Youth inherited an entire repertoire of criticisms of modern life—all of which had already been part of the interwar European culture. Youth, to be critical of American society, only needed to repeat existentialism’s indictment of the superficiality of contemporary existence. They merely had to recite the standard left-wing sociology’s indictment of the suburbs, the bureaucracy, and the factory system; reissue 1920 Surrealist attacks against the conventions of middle-class life; and paraphrase all the 19th and 20th century, conservative and radical, social, economic, and political and aesthetic criticisms of the bourgeoisie and its mass, urban, industrial life. In other words, whole traditions of criticism converged then. Criticizing everything about the United States became commonplace.”

This attitude comes at the price of demonizing and rejecting all the good that this country was founded on and fought for since its inception. It slanders and mocks the sacrifices that have been made as being in vain or, rather in the misguided service of an unjust empire. This is not only a paralyzing and self-righteous obsession with national guilt but truly a lack of humility and gratitude.

[rich]

The best is the enemy of the good. We have become accustomed to the best.

Our forefathers lived in a much less forgiving world. Before WW II America was a great power but not dominant. (Remember Japan attacked us, and then Germany and Italy declared war on us.)

Before the Spanish American war America had a small but effective Navy and a robust economy, but was not considered a threat to major powers.

In the years before the Spanish American war some Americans in the lower 48 were not safe in their homes and had to be ready to defend themselves.

No one today expects that they could be put in the position that they have to defend themselves. (Other than the passengers of United 93 and persons living along our porous borders.)

Our universities and media are trying to erase our memories of these harsher times. They demonize those threatened at our borders.

They do it to make us more malleable. Making the country weaker is an acceptable price to the left.

Just as we are beginning to recognize that in the Vietnam war is that we gave up a cause that was close to being won, so in the future people will recognize how dangerous the left and our media have become.

[Assistant Village Idiot]

I think this river runs deeper than their hatred of Bush, but to the reasons why they hate him. While they hate American exceptionalism, they desire it for the future: an America which risks all to forswear any collateral damage, which so refuses to be torturers that we will handcuff the innocent to prevent them from approaching crime against another nation, an America which refuses to consider its own self interest. At bottom, they believe that being a shining example will amaze the world and hasten the advancement of man.

This requires a callousness toward actual people and their suffering, in favor of the theoretical future people who will be enlightened, that is stunning and appalling.

Yes, humility in one sense is what we need: a humility that recognizes that a 51-49 advantage in morality is also worth dying for. I believe our moral advantage over our enemies is much greater than that, but even if it were not, the small advantage is also worthy. To wait until the perfect nation with the perfect cause fights against an entirely evil nation in the throes of madness is to defer all battles forever. It is an arrogance of its own on the left, which states that however good our cause, it is not good enough for them.

[Jeremayakovka]

One of my favorite (sincere as well as snappy) comebacks to those who attack the president ad hominem is that, for someone who's the elected head, during wartime, of the most powerful, and divided, country in the free world, I think he's really an incredibly modest individual.

I don't raise my voice or line up examples to back it up, I just state it with humility. Works almost every time.

[Michael Galien]

I don't think America is insecure at all. Instead I would venture to say that Americans as a people are among the most confident and self-aware peoples in the world.

[David Steinman]

Hanson has also recognized the need for restraint
of dominant power and the need to retain collaboration
and interaction with powers that be." We want to renounce
preemption..."

Here he is being interviewed by Hugh Hewitt yesterday on Radioblogger...

H.H
What is to be done about a nuclear Iran? Give us a succinct summary if you would, Professor Hanson, your prescription.

VDH: Well, in the time that they reach their nuclear potential, I think we've about a year, a year and a half. And I think that we want to exhaust the U.N. We want to exhaust the Europeans. We want to show how cynical the Chinese and Russians are, in either buying oil or selling them weapons. We want the American left to praise multilateralism. We want to renounce preemption. We want to renounce unilateralism. But then in the back of our mind, we have to say to ourselves, when we get the exact information we need at the 11th hour, we've got to take these things out. But in the meantime, let's go through all of these different routes. Maybe the Iraqi experiment will prove more destabilizing to the Iranians than the Iranians are to the Iraqi democrats. Maybe their dissident, this mythical dissident group might rise up. Let's let him keep talking, scare people, let the whole process go out until people who see no alternative will finally shrug their shoulders and say you know, when it's all said and done, the only...the power and the resolve of the United States is the thing that keeps us away from nuclear disaster in that region.

D.S.

[North by Northwest]

JMK,

You're tapping into a vital, deep-running theme here, an underground river of the national psyche.

Absolutely - Alexandra, what you highlight is a big deal. Analyzing and understanding that "underground river of the national psyche" is of paramount importance. If we don't, we are wasting our energy in fruitless attempts to reason and debate; we'd be missing the bigger picture and get nowhere.

rhamning,

I would question the premise that the litany of criticism is sincere criticism

Again, spot on. It is not. Far from it. It is a question of 'opposition' no matter what. It's become a principal, which makes it so divisive. I think the tragedy is that only a cataclysmic event, costing tens if not hundreds, maybe even millions of lives seems to be the only chance for unification of minds and hearts. Bringing all of us down to earth, as it were, focusing on the essential things in life. Taking away all creature comforts on a large scale. Hurricane Katrina didn't do that, because the victims by and large had nothing much to loose and were already accustomed to suffering on a existential level.

These are harsh words and surely open to equally harsh criticism, but nevertheless represent my honest belief, but are very much contrary to my sincere wish for a 'soft-landing'!

[rhamning]

Like you, I seldom disagree with Hanson's analyses. However, in this case I would question the premise that the litany of criticism is sincere criticism, or simply a part of the broader strategy of the left to undermine the Bush Administration at any cost. That segments of the public have been taken in and persuaded to believe some or much of the criticism is less indicative of our "national confidence" and more indicative of the power of repeating the same message over and over. Nevertheless, his call, and your's, for humility is precisely what we need more than anything. And, to "fix" that will require nothing less than a renewed appreciation for, understanding of, and reverence towards what Rudolph Otto so brilliantly described as the "awe-fullness" of God (in "The Idea of the Holy"). To remember that ALL fall short of the glory of God and that any notion we have that we even come close to approaching God's goodness, righteousness and wisdom is folly.

[igout]

Spengler over at Asia Times reminds us about 1914, but counsels a preventative war nonetheless. I'm not certain he's drawing the correct lessons here, but he is looking at the bigger picture.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HE02Ak03.html
If we were talking about taking out a big wasp's nest in the garage, 'humility' would be an indirect way of describing the proper stance. Be f-ing careful is more valuable.

[Jeremayakovka]

You're tapping into a vital, deep-running theme here, an underground river of the national psyche. Off the top of my head I chalk up our forebears' humble fortitude to (in no particular order) many things: faith, firearms, and pride.

Faith, which in its proper proportions makes true humility possible. (If you gotta ask, you'll never know.)

Firearms... G. Gordon Liddy said, while interviewing Richard Poe on September 10, 2001, about our mores 50+ years ago: I was fifteen when the Second World War ended, and all my older friends came marching back home. They came back with Lugers, P35 Brownings, Walther P38s, Schmeisser submachine guns, everything in the world, and nobody said boo. A good lesson for people with frontiers to protect as well as expand.

Pride, a confidence in our ability and right (and obligation) to carry out our civic purposes.

Some thoughts shaken loose by this post.

-JMK