Intro: Why democrats are failing
Section: politics
This essay, written before the recent election, seems no less relevant now than then. Democrats can reach out to undecideds all they want -- but until we come clean, its all just so much bullshit.
THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS PARADIGM
ideology of both political parties
position paper presented to a weekly meeting of politically active colleagues
David Weiner
March, 2004
Introduction
Democrats claim to differ dramatically from Republicans. In one respect, however, the two parties are identical. Both continue to subscribe to a foreign policy rationale unsupported by any logic other than opportunistic imperialism. This rationale has taken the form of two paradigms, differing in form but not in substance.
Prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union, Containment of Communism's spread was the paradigm framing U.S. imperial foreign policy in most of Asia, Africa and the Southern Western hemisphere for more than half a century. In The Age of Extremes: A History of the World, 1914-1991 (London, Pelham, 1994) the esteemed historian Eric Hobsbawm (among other analysts) presented evidence that early in the cold war Western intelligence agencies began to realize that the Soviet Union, and the threat of world communism were paper tigers. Nevertheless, the illusion of a dire Soviet menace was sustained and enhanced. This policy provided John Le Carre with the plot for a best selling novel which became the box office hit of the same name: The Russia House. During the last decade articles acknowledging what was known, and when, have appeared in many major newspapers and magazines.
Eventually, Containment apparently lost credibility to such an extent that even its most conservative adherents were forced to abandon it as a rationale for U.S. foreign policy. The paradigm crafted to replace it did not, however, suggest that Western vigilance could be relaxed to any degree. On the contrary, it observed that non-Western civilizations emerging from colonial and iron-curtain bondage tend not, as hoped, to embrace Western values; rather, these still primitive cultures firmly reject Western democracy in favor of their own ancient tribal traditions and values. In addition, they view one another as hostile competitors and so prepare for battle on all fronts. In short: Third World tribal-civilizations are fanatical, obey only their own cultural imperatives, and appear incapable of achieving rapport with one another much less with the West. Without the rational controls provided by a powerful Western bloc led by the United States, not harmony but endless global warfare now face humanity. This paradigm, appropriately, was called The Clash of Civilizations.
In an essay titled "The Clash of Definitions," included in Reflections on Exile and Other Essays (2000, Berkely, U. of Ca. Press), Edward Said showed that the new paradigm, like its predecessor, rested insubstantially upon science and genuine scholarship in justifying a reaffirmation of aggressive U.S. imperialism. Other observers noted that The Clash of Civilizations far exceeded Containment in recommending radical modifications of U.S. democratic society in preparation for imminent global conflict. In particular, U.S. culture should be restructured along nineteenth century religio-ethnocentric lines, and the recent trend toward multi-culturalism in the United States should be discouraged. Government must do all possible to re-inculcate national identify values, and citizens must understand the importance of not interfering with Executive branch foreign policy decisions, no matter how Machiavellian these might appear.
The End of Ideology and History
The foundation for the new paradigm was laid down in 1960 by the sociologist Daniel Bell, during John F. Kennedy's administration. In The End of Ideology; on the exhaustion of political ideas in the fifties he argued that the bankruptcy of communism revealed enlightened Western pragmatism to be indisputably the superior developmental framework for modern civilization. If the West's modernizing strategies occasionally lacked grace, the ends justified the means. President Kennedy fully endorsed this analysis and mainstream social science signed off on it as well, turning a deaf ear to critical social scientists' reservations. Anthony Giddens (London School of Economics Professor and Trustee of the Public Policy Institute) and other mainstreamers perceived that the benefits of Western imperialism more than offset its evils; C.W. Mills predicted that the U.S. was headed for fascism.
In 1989, Francis Fukuyama (a Rand Corporation consultant with a doctorate in Public Policy from Harvard, and a member of Ronald Reagan's State Department Policy Planning staff) embellished upon Bell's analysis. In an article published in The National Interest titled "The End of History?" Fukuyama claimed that Westernization had ushered in the final and truly golden age of mankind. He rebuffed critics (far more aggressively than Bell, an ex-socialist, had done) who advocated for Third World victims of imperialism. These were the people Franz Fanon labeled The Wretched of the Earth; those Noam Chomsky, Walter Le Feber and other scholars and activists described as literal slaves to the very system claiming to liberate them. Fukuyama answered critics who expressed outrage at the hypocrisy of U.S. democratic rhetoric within the context of its imperial behavior, with the bald claim that Westernization constituted the best of all possible worlds -- accept it, live with it, embrace it. Conservatives sang his praises; liberals held their tongues.
Critics would not be silenced, however. Events seemed to support their view of a world moving toward crisis. As the 20th century wore on, Third World citizens resisted Western imperialism with increasing competence. Fukuyama's thesis that Western civilization had brought mankind to the brink of fulfillment required modification. His student, Samuel Huntington, Chairman of Harvard's Academy of International and Area Studies and former Security advisor to President Jimmy Carter rose to the challenge. By stressing the moral superiority of Westernism rather than its inevitability, Huntington was able to construct a new foreign policy rationale capable of justifying and strategizing Western domination of the planet even more adequately than Containment had done.
The New Paradigm
"The Clash of Civilizations" appeared first as an article in Foreign Affairs, in 1993, near the end of George Bush I's administration, and a few years later as the basis for a book: The clash of Civilizations and the remaking of world order (NY: Simon and Schuster, 1996). Huntington agreed with Fukuyama that Westernization had modernized the world, but disagreed that the terms westernization and modernization were synonymous. Huntington observed that Non-Westerners equipped themselves with modern Western technology as they achieved independence, but not with Western values. On the contrary: armed to the teeth, they reverted to ancient tribalism on a grand scale. What this portended was
"... a world in anarchy. ... the breakdown of governmental authority; the breakup of states; the intensification of tribal, ethnic, and religious conflict; the emergence of international criminal mafia ..." p. 209
Huntington cited two polemical works published in 1993 by prominent neo-liberal conservatives as "scholarship" in support of his thesis: Out of Control, by Zbigniew Brzesinski and Pandaemonium by Daniel P.Moynihan (p. 35). Neither these "studies" nor Huntington's tested their basic, highly controversial proposition that civilizations typically behave like small tribes warring over scarce resources. The sociological and anthropological literatures bore extensive witness not only to societal conflict but also to societal cooperation. Throughout history, cultures had modified their language, religion and ideology in pursuit of functional bonding with others --even under less than ideal conditions.* However, Huntington's contention was not presented as hypothesis, but as fact. Huntington simply asserted the impossibility of genuine cooperation among cultures, therefore the impossibility of societal adaptivity through cooperation. Only Western civilization could be defined as rational. If it failed to prevail, all of humanity would surely decline.
To prevent such a catastrophe, Huntington urged the West and especially the United States to place its own tribal house in order. This was essential if the West hoped to regain the cohesiveness, drive and stamina required of it in order to compete effectively in an ever more Hobbsian world. Domestic trends toward multiculturalism and secularism must be halted and reversed.
"... The erosion of Christianity among Westerners is likely to be at worst only a very long term threat to the health of Western civilization." p. 305
"The futures of the United States and the West depend upon Americans reaffirming their commitment to Western civilization. Domestically this means rejecting the divisive siren calls of multiculturalism." p. 307
In the final analysis
" Whatever economic connections may exist between them, the fundamental cultural gap between Asian and American societies precludes their joining together in a common home." p. 307
The Clash of Civilizations as foreign policy
While Huntington was formalizing the Clash of Civilizations paradigm, his Harvard colleague, Zbigniew Brzezinski, was already applying its basic concepts to the design of foreign policy during his tenure as President Carter's key security advisor (As mentioned above, Huntington was another of Carter's advisors). Brzezinski later became a trustee and founder of the Trilateral Commission, a member of President Reagan's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and Co-chairman of President Bush I's National Security Advisory Task Force. In 1997, during W. Clinton's administration, Brzezinski published The Grand Chessboard - American Primacy And It's Geostrategic Imperatives (NY: Basic Books, 1997). This book, describing the rationale for Asian strategies he had introduced more than two decades earlier, was entirely consistent with Huntington's Clash of Civilizations paradigm. Two Democractic presidents, Carter and Clinton, and two Republican presidents, Reagan and Bush I, fully embraced these recommendations.
Brzezinski's primary objective was to prevent Eurasia from controlling its own destiny. Undermining Arabic independence movements was essential to this end.
"...how America 'manages' Eurasia is critical....." p.31
"... the three grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy are to prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the barbarians from coming together." p.40
"... an Islamic revival - already abetted from the outside not only by Iran but also by Saudi Arabia....is likely to become the mobilizing impulse for the increasingly pervasive new nationalisms ..." p. 133.
Like Huntington, Brzezinski foresaw a world un-controlled by the United States to be a world in chaos.
"In the long run, global politics are bound to become increasingly uncongenial to the concentration of hegemonic power in the hands of a single state. Hence, America is not only the first, as well as the only, truly global superpower, but it is also likely to be the very last." p.209
The Clash of Civilizations as domestic policy
When Democrats claim that the Bush II administration dramatically transforms traditional foreign policy they stand upon quicksand. No recent U.S. president, Democrat or Republican rejected Containment even when this paradigm became logically unsupportable. No president, Democrat or Republican questioned the rationality of the Clash of Civilizations paradigm which seamlessly replaced Containment. No evidence, only conjecture, supports the assumption that the decline of Western control would produce a world of chaos and disaster -- unless that was the West's intention to begin with. On the contrary, a wealth of evidence reveals that most of the world's citizens wish fervently to benefit from Western technology and knowledge and much of Western culture -- and that they would vastly prefer this to the destruction of Western society.
Certainly no data supports the hypothesis that young Asian, Hispanic, or African Americans are culturally less American than European American teenagers, according to any reasonable criterion, however this is clearly a component of Huntington's thesis. In this and other respects the Clash of Civilizations paradigm includes U.S. domestic policy imperatives that Containment did not include (McCarthism notwithstanding). It calls upon government to create a U.S. society of sufficient ethnic and religious purity to compete in a world of fanatical tribal-civilizations. How such a transformation could be accomplished within the framework of traditional Jeffersonian democracy is inconceivable.
Democrats cannot dissociate themselves from this aspect of the Clash of Civilizations paradigm while claiming reluctantly to accept its foreign policy implications -- as President Clinton attempted to do. When they make such an attempt they are seen to be dishonest as well as no less venal than those they criticize. As the 2004 Democratic nominee for President, John Kerry may decide that addressing this dilemma is more important than remaining loyal to traditions that have become unfeasible as well as pathological. If not, he will very likely lose the election, and the challenge will fall to others. Unless some movement emerges capable of rejecting Huntington's paradigm, however, the end of traditional U.S. history may well be at hand.
* In addition to Said's essay mentioned above, a new work subjecting Huntington and others to scholarly review has been published in 2005: Why America's Top Pundits are Wrong, ed. By Catherine Besgterman and Hugh Gusterson, Berkeley, University of California Press.