The Last Modern President

"Sadly, Bush may have become the sad case in point of what happens when the worst of modernist philosophy is given significant power."

When considering at how George W Bush performs in his office, it may appear that he is the victim of the last vestiges of the Modern era. The enlightement period brought reason as the predominant interpreter of truth, and though it didn't happen overnight the proceeding centuries started locating truth within one's mind, or one's reasoning process. Go look at the Nominalism and then consider how Bush has reasoned himself (and attempting to do so with others) that the President gets to declare what is right or wrong for the President to do. The Law as it applies to him is subject only to his own interpretation, and not the counsel or authority of others. For him the constitution, congress, and the judicial system do not hold universal truths that he as president has to submit to as long as he reasons differently. Even his supposed accountability of God is a product of his reasoning, for there is no visible church authority that he submits to that shapes his discernment of truth.

Nominalism: It is what I declare
With nominalism, the law is not the law, a promise is not a promise as if they stand on their own merit... instead a nominalist sees things like laws and promises as only relative truths and subject to one's own constant reintepretation. In other words, the law or a promise is subject to what is in one's mind, and never the other way around. (One might ask why bother making a promise, if later you say you are not responsible for keeping or breaking it). With nominalism a young child could completely ignore and disobey his wise parent's instruction, because he or she chose to believe a different truth... of course with maturity we realize that we must be open to new information and respect that others may be providing us a truth (or a wake-up call to a reality outside of our little minds). And with maturity we recognize the grayness of accepting the decision of authorities even when we feel differently, or at least if we choose to disobey we recognize it is at our own peril and will take the penalty if we are finally judged wrong. Think of all the Greek Myths/Tradegies built upon this premise (Troll aid: the ancient Greeks were pre-modern, just in case you didn't know). Imagine a game where players and coaches independently judged whether he or she agrees with the refree (and even each other) and acted only on their view of the situation.

Modernism: Rationalizing Truth in Government
Modernism placed "truth" as the product of reason. At the time of the constitutional forefathers, modernism practice of truth reasoning placed such reasoning as the product of a group of people who reasoned together and not each individual. Therfore the forefathers created congress to carry out the bulk of the truth reasoning for the USA; and for practical purposes they gave the execution of the will (or truth) that was produced by this body to the the president. The final check on congress and the president withi their reasoning and executing, was the creation of the unilateral but limited power of the judicial branch (they can't create law and they can't enforce law, but the can make the final judgment). Individualism in the modern era has grown since the consitutional days, and now there is a distrust and even lack of submission to community 'truth' bodies whether they be congress, churches or the equivalent of the tribal elders at the gate of he city. Now each person with their own minds can legislate and justify their own truth and behavior, and even assert an innocence or accountability to the larger group. The philosopher Locke went so far to say that such community groups were only present to untangle conflicting individual wills and that community groups had no common will of their own.

An Ironic Antidote in Post Modernism
The irony is that while post-modernism is often criticized for not having absolute truths, it was the philosophies of the modern era taken to their extremes that got this to be the starting point of the post-modernism era. However, post-modernism is actually the realization that there are multiple sources of truth, that things like science, history, law, reason, are each incomplete on their own and cannot be the final authority on truth. Also, that community is a key part of truth reasoning, and accountability and participation within a community is as important as individual identity.

Sadly, Bush may have become the sad case in point of what happens when the worst of modernist philosophy is given significant power. It is time for a post-modern president.