Responding to Jordan's comment today:

There's rationality, and there's self-interest. Everybody has to integrate them both. But there's something else too: fellow-feeling, altruism, self-sacrifice for the greater good.

Isn't rationality, or enlightened self-interest, the ability to work beneficially for others as well as ourselves?

The past few weeks I've really begun to question my own capacity to think rationally, because I find myself tempted to take stands on the Iraq crisis which amaze me, which I can't believe I believe in, which I don't completely believe. That is, I'm tempted to argue FOR war (and marshall those arguments on my blog). Why?

1. For the hell of it. For the curiosity of it. Because Saddam has it coming.
2. Because all the poets seem to be marching lockstep, of one mind. I have a reflexive need to differ (learned in the Poetry Wars). I question some of the self-righteousness of those who are always ready to impugn the motives of the ones they disagree with (ie. perhaps it's not just "oil profiteering by Bush & Co.").
3. Because over the years, without even being aware of it, I've become complacent or conformist - I simply don't want to believe what's happening to my government & my country, I close my eyes.
4. Because I can't completely discount the arguments for attacking Saddam either. In the post-9/11 world, I can entertain serious justifications for a pre-emptive strike, if the claims being made about Saddam's aims & capabilities are really true.
5. Because I'm having a failure of imagination : failing to consider the real alternatives to attack; failing to reckon the carnage & suffering war will bring; being naive about the mentality of those promoting this war.

I'm having difficulty with this. . .