Rational Philosophy

(24 little hours…)

Kevin Rudd, just sworn in as Australia’s new prime minister, wasted no time in further isolating the United States position on global warming and the Kyoto agreement, reversing in the space of one day twelve years of steadfast opposition to Kyoto by his conservative predecessor John Howard.

Yesterday a National Intelligence Estimate (who coined that marvellous name?) tentatively declared that Iran’s nuclear weapons program (if it had one) was brought to a halt in 2003, immediately creating a new set of political parameters for the election year.  The looming hawk of military action against Iran seemed to have been suddenly caught in a downdraft.

Apart from being good news for the world in general, I’m not yet sure who this favors politically. The Democrats seem to be the winners initially, by being able to point to the administration’s overzealousness. But in the longer run, it may favor the Repulblican candidates since they won’t get drawn in to making unpopular commitments to counter the threat in Iran with force as we did in Iraq.

And the vote that upset Hugo Chavez’s plans for a socialist Venezuela led by himself for an indefinite period of time (the Castro-model) surely shifted Venezuela’s political and social course in ways almost too dramatic to imagine. The referendum was, officially at least, quite close — 49% for, 51% against. If the numbers had come out just a little more in favor, the course toward a socialist dictatorship would have been set.

With such large scale political shifts the world itself becomes a different place from one day to the next. But if we think about our own lives, we too can experience dramatic shifts from one day to the next.

My wife commented recently that the concept that everyone else has a life and experience as rich as one’s own, as important to them as our own life is to us, is a continuously amazing thought. (We were on our way for a sonogram, a check up on the progress of our baby (21 weeks). What more fitting example of a life-changing event? One day you’re not pregnant, the next day you are, and your life will never be the same again.)

Our perception of the world around us, if we choose to think of it like this, creates that world. So, as a thought or impulse becomes action, we change the world. Some actions produce unremarkable results, others have a profound and lasting impact.

There is a connection here between the personal and the public, what matters to us and what matters globally. If Rudd as a person didn’t act to sign on to the Kyoto agreement, the Australia would remain a non-signatory. If Chavez’s opposers in Venezuela didn’t personally go to the polling booths to vote, his referendum wouldn’t have been defeated.

And if the Iranian leadership had acted differently, or if the members of the 16 U.S. intelligence organizations that reviewed the intelligence had assessed it differently, the NIE issued yesterday may have been less optimistic about the past and future impact of international pressure and sanctions on Iran’s nuclear capability. The current administration and a possible future Republican administration may have been headed toward another invasion like the invasion of Iraq, an invasion orchestrated by individuals with the leverage of another NIE, and with the cummulative support of fearful and fight-happy citizens across the country.

The importance of hindsight, of course, is to use it to avoid making the same mistake again. But first one has to acknowledge that one made a mistake. And we all know who that one is…

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