http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/11/opinion/11LEAR.html Interesting op-ed from Jackson Lears about the language of Providence and the belief that Iraq is part of a divine plan in the leadup to war. Argues that Bush is using the most self-righteous, self-assured version of Providence: "To those who worry about the frequent use of religious language, Mr. Bush's supporters insist that the rhetoric of Providence is as American as cherry pie. This is true, but it is crucial to understand that Providence can acquire various meanings depending on the circumstances. The belief that one is carrying out divine purpose can serve legitimate needs and sustain opposition to injustice, but it can also promote dangerous simplifications — especially if the believer has virtually unlimited power, as Mr. Bush does. The slide into self-righteousness is a constant threat. The great rhetoricians of Providence have resisted the temptation of self-righteousness. When the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote from a Birmingham jail that "we will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands," he was seeking common ground with white Southerners, not predicting perdition for satanic segregationists." Lears goes on to argue that self-assured Providence is most out of place in wartime when chance, more than anything, determines many outcomes: "Until now. The proposed war against and rebuilding of Iraq has brought the sentimental, self-satisfied sense of Providence back into fashion. One might have supposed that an attack on our country would have rendered utopian agendas unnecessary — as it did for most Americans during World War II. But while a war on terrorism may not need Providence to justify it, a war to transform the Middle East requires a rhetoric as grandiose as its aims. The providentialist outlook fills the bill: it promotes tunnel vision, discourages debate and reduces diplomacy to arm-twisting. Worst of all, it sanitizes the messy actualities of war and its aftermath. Like the strategists' faith in smart bombs, faith in Providence frees one from having to consider the role of chance in armed conflict, the least predictable of human affairs. Between divine will and American know-how, we have everything under control. So the White House and its backers can safely predict that the unpleasantness will be over in a few weeks, with low casualties on both sides. Combat veterans, from Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf down, reject these scenarios. We can be sure that the soldiers in the Persian Gulf region do, too. This should come as no surprise: there has always been a chasm between the war planners and the soldiers on the ground. The planners are convinced that they can control outcomes; the soldiers know the arbitrary cruelties of fate at first hand — maiming this one, leaving that one alone. They know the power of luck." Of course, Lears is also pimping his new book on the cultural history of chance and luck, but a good article nonetheless.