The contribution Errol Morris made to visual politics earlier this summer, in explaining his Abu Ghraib film, was to emphasize how much the elements of a highly controversial image tend to get missed or "looked past" in the strong emotional and ideological reactions to the overall image.
The apparent defeat of al-Qaida in Iraq, if it is followed up with unrelenting pressure, may trigger the same type of ideological chain reaction that doomed the Soviet Union by undermining the self confidence of the terrorists and the coherence of their alternative world.
Ideological movements arise in reaction to the perceived abuses and excesses of the incumbents, and then those movements recede when "their" side takes power.
His elusiveness is a matter of anti-ideological principle, formed in reaction to his childhood in the Third Reich, as the son of a Nazi Party member, and to his youth and training as a Socialist Realist painter, in East Germany.
"It was a reaction to the ideological extremism of the Bush administration, replacing it with someone who didn't fit a traditionally liberal space but who represented a more pragmatic approach".
But those ideas had been more or less top-down, militaristic, and largely ideological -- a regional chauvinistic reaction to a colonial past, and a need to assert a newfound prowess against Western influences.
But while social issues inspire passionate reactions along the ideological wings of the two parties, they tend not to be seen as priorities among the vast pool of voters in the middle – especially at a time when the economy remains far and away their main concern.
It's frightening to consider the implications of Simpson's reaction - the fierceness, the ideological drive, and the closed-mindedness.
