America's Self-Perception
I've been on holiday and have returned to a desk full of work but thought I would add another piece provided by the Financial Times to prove that I have not fallen off the face of the earth.
As someone who lived in the US for 17 years I find this piece quite accurate on America's self-perception. On a side note, I read more and more comparisons of the US to the USSR, that should be enough to sound the alarm.
America's creed leads to a clash of rhetoric and realityBy Anatol Lieven
Published: September 6 2006 03:00 | Last updated: September 6 2006 03:00
The Bush administration's ideological rhetoric concerning US policy in the Middle East has become separated from the policy itself to an extent almost reminiscent of the former Soviet Union. According to the rhetoric, the US has adopted democratisation as the core of its political strategy and made a clean break with its past strategy of propping up local dictatorships and playing one country and ethno-religious group against another.
In practice - especially since the latest conflict in Lebanon - US strategy relies entirely on the ability of pro-American authoritarian regimes in Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia to control the anger of their populations at US and Israeli policies. To help keep these Sunni regimes in line, Washington relies on their fear of an expansion of Iranian and Shia influence. This is precisely the dominant US strategy of the past generation, except for periods when Saddam Hussein's Iraq replaced Iran as the chief regional bogeyman. President George W. Bush's language of democracy is also accompanied by utter contempt for the views of potential voters in the region.
This glaring clash between rhetoric and reality is odd, but much odder is the degree to which it has gone un-remarked by the US political class and even most of the media. Of course, criticisms have been raised on both the left and right. But the Democratic party and the US media have not made nearly as much of this contradiction, and the dangers it embodies, as one might have expected.
One reason why so much of the US goes along unquestioningly with Mr Bush's rhetoric concerns the nature of American nationalism. The belief that it is the US's national right, duty and destiny to spread "democracy" and "freedom" in the world is ingrained in most Americans from early childhood. This belief stems from the faith in the constitution, law and democracy that forms the so-called "American creed", the foundation of America's collective national identity. In the words of the great American historian Richard -Hofstadter: "It has been our fate as a nation not to have ideologies, but to be one."
This American creed shares with Soviet communism the belief that it is applicable not just to its host nation, but to all mankind. Alexis de Tocqueville remarked that the Americans "are unanimous upon the general principles that ought to rule human society"; and this is no less true at the start of the 21st century than it was in the 1830s.
The nationalist myths attendant on the creed include a widespread belief that America is exceptional in its allegiance to democracy and freedom and that America is, therefore, exceptionally good. Because America is exceptionally good, it both deserves to be exceptionally powerful and by nature cannot use its power for evil ends. The creed is therefore also a foundation of belief in America's innate innocence. So, if as has often been said, Mr Bush occupies a kind of ideological bubble, it is a bubble made of steel and he shares it with tens or even hundreds of millions of other Americans.
Of course, much of the strengths of these beliefs about America's mission come from the fact that in the past they have proved true: in Germany and Japan after 1945 and eastern Europe in the 1990s. The creed also makes the US exercise of direct empire less likely, for it enforces at least a surface respect for democracy and self-determination.
But the core problem for American mainstream thinkers and voters is that because their perceptions are drawn from ingrained beliefs, not empirical study, they cannot easily learn from evidence, experience or the views of ordinary people elsewhere in the world. Nor can they easily distinguish one historical case from another: Poland from Ukraine, post-war Japan from the contemporary Middle East.
Americans' sense of national mission resembles, to an extent, the belief of the great European imperial nations of the past that they were spreading "civilisation" and "progress" to the rest of the world. Like those beliefs, it embodies elements of reality along with those of lies and hypocrisy. But neither evidence nor the views of the outside world count for much, given the depth of the nationalist belief itself. European nations in the 20th century had these nationalist faiths beaten out of them by repeated catastrophes. We can only hope that Americans will learn from their examples before it is too late.
The writer is a senior research fellow at the New America Foundation. His next book, Ethical Realism: A Vision for America's Role in the World, co-authored with John Hulsman, is published later this month by Pantheon
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006
As someone who lived in the US for 17 years I find this piece quite accurate on America's self-perception. On a side note, I read more and more comparisons of the US to the USSR, that should be enough to sound the alarm.
America's creed leads to a clash of rhetoric and realityBy Anatol Lieven
Published: September 6 2006 03:00 | Last updated: September 6 2006 03:00
The Bush administration's ideological rhetoric concerning US policy in the Middle East has become separated from the policy itself to an extent almost reminiscent of the former Soviet Union. According to the rhetoric, the US has adopted democratisation as the core of its political strategy and made a clean break with its past strategy of propping up local dictatorships and playing one country and ethno-religious group against another.
In practice - especially since the latest conflict in Lebanon - US strategy relies entirely on the ability of pro-American authoritarian regimes in Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia to control the anger of their populations at US and Israeli policies. To help keep these Sunni regimes in line, Washington relies on their fear of an expansion of Iranian and Shia influence. This is precisely the dominant US strategy of the past generation, except for periods when Saddam Hussein's Iraq replaced Iran as the chief regional bogeyman. President George W. Bush's language of democracy is also accompanied by utter contempt for the views of potential voters in the region.
This glaring clash between rhetoric and reality is odd, but much odder is the degree to which it has gone un-remarked by the US political class and even most of the media. Of course, criticisms have been raised on both the left and right. But the Democratic party and the US media have not made nearly as much of this contradiction, and the dangers it embodies, as one might have expected.
One reason why so much of the US goes along unquestioningly with Mr Bush's rhetoric concerns the nature of American nationalism. The belief that it is the US's national right, duty and destiny to spread "democracy" and "freedom" in the world is ingrained in most Americans from early childhood. This belief stems from the faith in the constitution, law and democracy that forms the so-called "American creed", the foundation of America's collective national identity. In the words of the great American historian Richard -Hofstadter: "It has been our fate as a nation not to have ideologies, but to be one."
This American creed shares with Soviet communism the belief that it is applicable not just to its host nation, but to all mankind. Alexis de Tocqueville remarked that the Americans "are unanimous upon the general principles that ought to rule human society"; and this is no less true at the start of the 21st century than it was in the 1830s.
The nationalist myths attendant on the creed include a widespread belief that America is exceptional in its allegiance to democracy and freedom and that America is, therefore, exceptionally good. Because America is exceptionally good, it both deserves to be exceptionally powerful and by nature cannot use its power for evil ends. The creed is therefore also a foundation of belief in America's innate innocence. So, if as has often been said, Mr Bush occupies a kind of ideological bubble, it is a bubble made of steel and he shares it with tens or even hundreds of millions of other Americans.
Of course, much of the strengths of these beliefs about America's mission come from the fact that in the past they have proved true: in Germany and Japan after 1945 and eastern Europe in the 1990s. The creed also makes the US exercise of direct empire less likely, for it enforces at least a surface respect for democracy and self-determination.
But the core problem for American mainstream thinkers and voters is that because their perceptions are drawn from ingrained beliefs, not empirical study, they cannot easily learn from evidence, experience or the views of ordinary people elsewhere in the world. Nor can they easily distinguish one historical case from another: Poland from Ukraine, post-war Japan from the contemporary Middle East.
Americans' sense of national mission resembles, to an extent, the belief of the great European imperial nations of the past that they were spreading "civilisation" and "progress" to the rest of the world. Like those beliefs, it embodies elements of reality along with those of lies and hypocrisy. But neither evidence nor the views of the outside world count for much, given the depth of the nationalist belief itself. European nations in the 20th century had these nationalist faiths beaten out of them by repeated catastrophes. We can only hope that Americans will learn from their examples before it is too late.
The writer is a senior research fellow at the New America Foundation. His next book, Ethical Realism: A Vision for America's Role in the World, co-authored with John Hulsman, is published later this month by Pantheon
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006
posted by Germain at 21:54
5 Comments:
Well, as you might imagine, I'm more than a small bit dubious. The article represents surprisingly sloppy thinking from a reputedly competent scholar.
Let's take a look at a little of the sloppiness:
1. He says the administration's policy is "almost reminiscent," which is a way of insinuating what he knows he can't sustain. That is, saying it's "almost reminiscent" is the logical equivalent of saying it's "not reminiscent" and yet he still gets to juxtapose "US" and "Soviet Union." Clever rhetoric, but sloppy thinking.
2. The metaphorical language at the end of the first paragraph allows him to elide with sprezzatura the issue of agency. Entailed in his comment is the premise that the U.S. can manipulate other countries at will. If nothing else, the goings-on in the Middle East would seem to vitiate thoroughly such an idea.
3. The second paragraph further robs the leaders of these countries of any agency whatsoever; I'd be insulted if I were Egyptian -- apparently, the "population" is of one mind, are dupes controlled by authoritarian dictatorships, and have given allegiance to dictatorships that are but hollow proxies for the U.S.
4. The last sentence of paragraph two is a conclusion for which I cannot locate premises that would entail it.
5. Paragraph three is also extravagent. It can't be that the "contradiction" (which contradiction?) has gone "un-remarked" because the sense attached to that word isn't susceptible of qualification. What he's saying is that the "contradiction" has not been remarked upon enough to satisfy his preferences. The paragraph boils down to a gradiose claim that the media and Democrats don't promulgate his opinion loud enough or often enough. That's the kind of presumption few outside the academy can muster.
6. Paragraph four is a bit odd considering that the support he musters for his conclusion is the same support mustered for a majority of American history for the country's isolationism. And still done by Pat Buchanan types.
7. Paragraph five is a non sequitur; if an argument that Americans agree on general principles that ought to rule human society could be sustained, it would still be a very long way indeed from asserting that those principles should be imposed and further still from an imposition by the American military.
8. Paragraph six is just rank assertion.
9. Paragraph eight makes more logical errors. Perceptions, as a matter of fact, cannot be drawn from beliefs -- the sentence is absurd. Further, he's offered no evidence that American thinkers do the heinous things of which he accuses them. Would he say that his conclusion is true for, say, Noam Chomsky?
10. He continues to refer to America's "national mission" and offers no train of reasoning and evidence for believing any such unanimously agreed-upon thing exists. I'd be rather shocked if 300 million Americans agreed on much of anything.
11. Finally, he closes with the plea that America must "learn" from Europe. Is there anything more redolent of reflexive academic conformity than that particular sentiment? Those are precisely the words I would have put in his mouth if I were creating a caricature of the condescending, well educated imbecilic academic.
Well I think it's quite a good article. It would be too long and painful to go through your 11 points, Kev, but I would criticise his use of "almost reminiscent" in paragraph 1 for the opposite reason: I think he wants to say "is reminiscent" but he either a) thinks it would piss too many people off before they got to the point of the article or b) failed to notice that the "almost" is in fact redundant. "Reminiscent" doesn't imply sameness, it implies likeness, which is what he's actually trying to say: the insistence of the US that democracy and freedom are its objectives while its policies are anti-democratic and conducive to repression could remind us of the gap that existed between Soviet rhetoric and policy.
Come now, let's not be naive. If the only point of the statement was to point up a gap between rhetoric and policy, he could have said nearly any country. He could have said the UK; he could have said France (especially during the imperial stuff in Africa). But it's not only about that point; it's about smuggling in by association all of the many negative thoughts people have at the ready about the Soviet Union. And that's a cheap shot and argument by insinuation.
As you notice, he's too chicken to make the comparison straightforwardly; he has to thrown in the cowardly "almost". THIS is what passes for scholarly or good?? Come on, this just is dreck.
I agree. This is the depressing thing about foreign policy: governments' actual motives are all too often obscured from populations. This can only be because it really wouldn't look good to be honest.
The other sad fact is, however, that comparisons to the UK and France are insufficient because they just aren't that powerful. The correct analogy is to other powers that had global reach at one time or another, i.e. France and especially Britain during the colonial period, and the Soviet Union. It's a tough call to go comparing America to the Soviets, but would have been far more controversial in an American publication than in the FT. There's not the same strength of feeling over here.
I also imagine had the comparison read "almost reminiscent of the former British Empire" then the response by almost everyone would have been "ho hum." That is, sap the argument of the nasty insinuations attendant on any comparison to the Soviets and you sap the argument of its force.
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