Ivy League professor of Religious Studies Cornell West believes in democracy. In his latest masterpiece, Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism, Dr. West takes on the cultural aspects of imperialism in America.
Ivy League professor of Religious Studies Cornel West believes in democracy. In his latest masterpiece, Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism, Dr. West takes on the cultural aspects of imperialism in America.
On page 61, the reader finds what is perhaps the most stunning gem contained within the whole work:
"Evangelical nihilists like President Bush and Karl Rove give us a raw and robust imperial vision of America as a lone sheriff unilaterally policing a world more and more dependent on foreign oil, trade, and investment while obscene wealth inequality escalates at home. IN short, to them genuine democracy matters little, plutocracy reigns, and empire rules. Paternalistic nihilists such as Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator John Kerry put forward a seductive yet weak technocratic vision of America as the economic engine of a global economy that uses soft (nonmilitary) power to ensure its hegemony while wealth inequality stabilizes (or slightly declines) at home. On this view, democracy matters somewhat, corporate elites reign tempered by some liberal conscience, and empire speaks softly and carries a big stick. Namely, the paternalistic nihilists have all too willingly accepted the script put out by the evangelical nihilists of the American empire, so we, as a mass public, have not engaged in the deep questioning that might have followed 9/11. Ironically, the sentimental nihilists of the media, who ought to have encouraged this questioning, instead all too happily accepted the Bush administration’s script about WMDs and Saddam’s links to Al Qaeda, and relished the media frenzy of war, even as they failed to spotlight the truth about Bush’s tax cuts or put their lens on the environmental and social travesties being inflicted by the administration. They are becoming mere parasites on their evangelical and paternalistic nihilist hosts."
With a tremendous literary flair, Dr. West outlines prevailing streams of consciousness within the dominant ideological structures. He also concisely summarizes "how we got into this mess."
The "evangelical nihilists" to which he refers are the neo-Reaganite/neo-conservatives who hold power in the Executive branch of American government and wield that power with an iron fist. They have demonstrated, at every turn, their contempt for international law, domestic opinion (meaning the will of the people), and human life. Their regime has systematically refused to behave like a servant government, and instead they have used the government to make servants of the people.
The "paternalistic nihilists" are those neoliberals who seek to rule with the "invisible hand" of economic manipulation. Under the rule of them and their predecessors, the so-called "free-market" capitalist system has instead become the mercantilism of old. Where private, tyrannical corporations use the protectionism once practiced by European states to increase capital resources while depriving the domestic population of the power to live up to their independent creative potential by practicing laissez-faire trade with their fellows for those goods for which they should "find occassion." This is what Adam Smith, the great champion of capitalism, condemned in his much lauded but seldom understood manifesto, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.
The "sentimental nihilists" of the mass media are nothing short of the world’s premier operatives in mind-control and ideological subversion. They have made a mockery of the rich (though hypocritical) intellectual traditions of American and infused the domestic population with a culture of apathy, cynicism, hedonism, and nihilism.
These are the sources of the culture of American imperialism. They represent the dominant institutions of our time, and they have presented the mass of humanity with grave threats for continued existence. I applaud Dr. West for his bravery in combating these institutions and perverse ideals, and I wish him much success.