Good Night, and Good Luck: Idolatry and National Commitment

This review was published originally on cinekklesia on December 10, 2005.

Several years ago, I saw the political theorist Tom Palmer give a presentation at Duke University. He made a simple, yet telling, analogy between his vision of the good society and the act of driving. In most cases, driving is a relatively free, unstructured experience. Sure, there are some basic rules to follow regarding speed limits, stop lights, and the like; nevertheless, the millions of people on the road every day are relatively independent: they each have their own destinations, their own plans, their own preferences. In one sense, driving is a rather mesmerizing social experience: with just a few simple rules, millions go about their daily lives and largely leave their fellow travelers alone.

So it should be with the good society, Palmer believes. There is no need for a centralized bureaucracy telling people where to go, how to work, and with whom to interact. We just need a few basic rules and a method for holding accountable the rule breakers; otherwise, people can be left to their own devices. Theoretically, the United States was founded on such a thin, decentralized view of the good life. How, then, have things gone so horribly awry?

George Clooney's Good Night, and Good Luck (2005) doesn't tackle this question directly, but its snapshot of the anti-communist fervor of 1950s America sheds some light on how political movements so easily disrupt the live-and-let-live ethos that traditionally has served us well. Clooney documents Senator Joseph McCarthy's hunt for communists from the perspective of broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow (David Strathairn), who, while working for CBS, sought to expose the intimidation and thuggery that characterized McCarthy's crusade. On an aesthetic level, I found Clooney's movie largely enjoyable, especially since he chose to film in an exquisite black-and-white, which allowed for a play of shadow and contrast that is hard to achieve with color. Unfortunately, the movie's momentum slowed to a lackluster level near the end, and that proved disappointing (especially since I had heard good things about this film).

In terms of content and theme, Clooney's intent is clear. While communism and radical Islam are very different movements in very different epochs, they both managed to create a climate of fear and suspicion in these United States. Clooney is warning us not to fall into the trap of hysteria, which allows powerful members of any society to target "suspicious," unpopular segments. If the Soviet-backed communist was Public Enemy No. 1 during the Cold War, then the Islamic terrorist is the poster boy for the U.S.'s new raison d'etre, the new explanation for "why we fight."

What Clooney does not address is the root problem behind our response to both communism and radical Islam: the lingering desire to construct a "national purpose." In regards to both threats, we demonstrated an inability to treat them as mere security problems to be dealt with by the state (a state that we "hired," after all, through the ballot box). We moved beyond the utilitarian realm and began seeing both communism and radical Islam as infringements on our national identity, our "way of life." Once Americans began to perceive the threats in personal terms ("Why do they hate us?"), it then became easier for agents of the state—politicians, soldiers, bureaucrats—to portray themselves as our protectors. McCarthy was not merely the "Junior Senator from Wisconsin"; he wanted us to perceive him as a man on a mission, saving his American brethren from a threat that the urban elite failed to take seriously.

In the case of 9/11, we did not treat Al-Qaeda as a group to be fought with professionalism and cool precision. Rather, we allowed our emotions to get the better of us. We took the attacks on a personal, rather than ideological or geo-political, level, thus allowing the state to assume a paternalistic—as opposed to utilitarian—role. This partially explains the current expansion in the size and scope of government, both militarily and domestically. Rather than see 9/11 as a failure of the state—as a reason to fire some officials, eradicate some agencies, and overhaul our intelligence gathering—we have allowed our representatives to pour even more money down the same old drain.

Sometimes, I feel nostalgic for the 1990's, those halcyon days between the end of the Cold War and 9/11, when the Soviet Union was a fading memory and radical Islam did not dominate our political discourse, when the United States lacked a national purpose (other than allowing citizens to follow their own individual pursuits), when it seemed that we shared Tom Palmer's sentiments about what makes a good society. Sure, there were some who fretted America's lack of a rallying project; more importantly, however, there were also those who derided such fretting, who appreciated the benefits of living in a society that allowed people, for the most part, to go their own way.

So what's so bad about a "national purpose"? Simply put, it leads to idolatry. When we do not treat the state as simply a utilitarian device, when we identify too heavily with the nation-state on a personal level, when it becomes the entity "higher than the self" that gives us purpose and meaning, then we have blurred (nay, extinguished) the line between God and Caesar (Mt. 22:15-22), and our allegiance becomes corrupted.

While the Soviet Union was certainly a hegemonic threat and while radical Islam has proven deadly, Americans—Christian and otherwise—would do well to examine such global phenomena with care and nuance. Rather than jump on the bandwagon of those who promise to protect us (so long as we swear our allegiance to their cause), and rather than follow any project that promises to glorify the nation-state (at the expense of the One who truly deserves such glory), we would do well to step back, take a deep breath, and see where our commitments truly reside. After all, it is the Christian's responsibility to make sure that he/she never mistakes Caesar for God.