[lit-ideas] Re: Cosmopolitanism: Is the dream over?
- From: Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: Lit-Ideas <Lit-Ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 25 Feb 2007 14:44:45 -0800
Much has been written in recent years about
America being at odds with the rest of the
world. It is common knowledge that this is
so. Who could dispute it? In a review of two
books published in 2006 we learn that these
matters aren't quite so cut and dried and we
aren't at odds with as much of the world as we thought we were.
The books are Andre Kohut and Bruce Stokes,
America Against the World: How we are Different
and Why we are Disliked and Benjamin I. Page and
Marshall Bouton, The Foreign Policy Disconnect:
What Americans Want From Our Leaders but Don?t Get
The review, ?Mind the Gap,? is by Daniel W.
Drezner and appears in the Jan/Feb 2007 issue of The National Interest.
Those who are critical of us have two areas of
?concern about how ordinary Americans think about
the world. First, Americans are believed to hold
inconsistent, inattentive, irrational and
ill-considered opinions about how foreign policy
should be conducted. Because Americans are so
uninformed about foreign affairs, scholars and
policy makers have historically argued that the
public reacts to current events based on emotion
rather than reason. This leads to a public with
erratic mood swings about the foreign policy
issues of the day. Policymakers in all countries
fear the unpredictability of an electorate that
can switch from ?stay the course? to ?cut and
run? in response to a compelling news story.?
The second area of concern is that Americans hold
naive and idealistic convictions about how U.S.
foreign policy should operate, and . . . those
beliefs make many people uncomfortable. In
Politics Among the Nations, Hans Morgenthau
fretted that, ?The statesman must think in terms
of the national interest, conceived as power
among other powers. The popular mind, unaware of
the fine distinctions of the statesman?s
thinking, reasons more often than not in the
simple moralistic and legalistic terms of
absolute good and absolute evil.? Because
Americans operate on a moralistic system of
beliefs, they are judged to be incapable of
grasping the concept of a dispassionate, hard-headed national interest.?
Kohut and Stokes note that ?Americans are far
more individualistic and optimistic than most
other populations. On the role [of] government
in society, Americans were distinct among the
advanced industrialized states in valuing
personal freedom from government interference
over the provision of social safety nets. . . 65
percent of Americans disagreed with the statement
that ?success in life is determined by forces
outside our control? ? roughly thirty percentage
points hither than in Europe. Americans possess
a uniquely sunny faith in the wonders of
technological innovation. ?In some ways, then,
Americans are exceptional. However, Kohut and
Stokes point out two ways in which this
exceptionalism is overstated. First, the
differences in base attitudes do not translate
into differences on foreign policy issues. For
example, even though Americans are far more
religious than Europeans, there is no evidence
that this religiosity factors into American
attitudes about foreign policy. . . .?
?The surprise in America Against the World is
that Europeans and not Americans are the truly
exceptional public in the world. In contrast to
the rest of the world, Europeans are the outliers
when it comes to attitudes about nationalism and
religion ? they?re turned off by both kinds of
creeds. American levels of patriotism and
devotion to God look perfectly normal when
compared to the non-European parts of the
globe. Kohut and Stokes conclude, ?This pattern
recurs time and again: Americans are different
from Europeans, especially Western Europeans, but
they are closer to people in developing countries
on many key attitudes and values.?
[COMMENT: I guess I knew that in regard to
religion and should have known it in regard to
nationalism but had never put it together
before. I accepted the view that Europeans knew
better how to get along with the rest of the
world than we did. I was willing to set that
aside because National Interest in regard to
dealing with Militant Islam took precedence over
getting along, but we could be in a better
position in terms of the long haul than Europe is at getting along.
Bush seems demonized beyond retrieval, much as
Joseph McCarthy has been. So granting that and
moving on, it would be possible for some
subsequent administration to capitalize upon the
American religious and nationalistic
orientation. Many nations are afraid of us just
because we are so powerful, but if we could
downplay our willingness to use the military
power and cultivate the image of a benign Uncle
Sam , we could leaving Europe wherever it is that they are.
Lawrence
At 02:36 PM 2/25/2007, Lawrence Helm wrote:
At 01:35 PM 2/25/2007, you wrote:
Is this funny ... in a funny sort of way? Any truths regarding political
multiculturalism or moral cosmopolitanism being expressed here?
Walter O.
Memorial U.
Last month, a survey was conducted by the U.N. Worldwide. The only
question asked was:
"Would you please give your honest opinion about solutions to the food
shortage in the rest of the world?"
The survey was a HUGE failure.
In Africa they didn't know what "food" meant.
In Eastern Europe they didn't know what "honest" meant.
In Western Europe they didn't know what "shortage" meant.
In China they didn't know what "opinion" meant.
In the Middle East they didn't know what "solution" meant.
In South America they didn't know what "please" meant.
And in the USA they didn't know what "the rest of the world" meant.
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