[lit-ideas] Re: Three Blind Mice (was: On the prospect of Wold Peace)
- From: Jack Spratt <dosflounder@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 4 Sep 2006 15:37:26 -0700 (PDT)
Lawrence,
I never mentioned America, I am not Niall Ferguson. Maybe my quotation marks
are not showing up on your computer, please let me know.
J.S.
Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Jack,
JS: I never mentioned America . . .
JS earlier: A like minded [to Barnett] writer Niall Ferguson, Herzog
Professor of History at the Stern School of Business, New York University,
wrote in his book Empire(2002): ?No one would dare use such politically
incorrect language today. The reality is nevertheless that the United States
has?whether it admits it or not? taken up some kind of global burden, just as
Kipling urged. It considers itself responsible not just for waging a war
against terrorism and rogue states, but also for spreading the benefits of
capitalism and democracy overseas. And just like the British Empire before it,
the American Empire unfailingly acts in the name of liberty, even when its own
self-interest is manifestly uppermost.?
Thus when you talk about Imperialism later it is easier to imagine the End of
History than to imagine you are including all Liberal Democracies in this
imperialism. How is that going to work if every nation is a Liberal Democracy?
There is no one left to dominate? Thus I took your use of Imperialism to be
the advance of your earlier statement about Ferguson. I?m afraid your
correction makes less sense than my earlier misreading. An assumption made by
both Fukuyama and Barnett is that Liberal Democracies do not war with Liberal
Democracies. Thus when the entire world is composed of Liberal Democracies
there will be no more war.
As to the desire for recognition, thymos, Fukuyama believes that has been
sublimated into peaceful expressions in Liberal Democracy. See for example
page 163, ?Indeed the project of taming the desire for recognition has been so
successful in the hands of modern political philosophy that we citizens of
modern egalitarian democracies often fail to see the desire for recognition in
ourselves for what it is.?
Lawrence
---------------------------------
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Jack Spratt
Sent: Monday, September 04, 2006 1:12 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Three Blind Mice (was: On the prospect of Wold Peace)
Lawrence,
Please tell me that you read books better than posts. I never mentioned
America nor did I say Fukuyama wanted America to take over the world. I stand
by my view that Barnett is espousing Social Darwinism in all its hateful
aspects. Look at his map.
Again, where in all of this does world peace fit in? Do you believe that
history is driven by the need for recognition, and does this sound peaceful?
Does German idealism explain our world and give us a guide to world peace?
J.S.
Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Jack,
Please tell me you just made that stuff up to see if I really read the books I
mentioned.
I read Fukuyama?s The End of History and the Last man twice (the second
time because someone claimed it to contain some things I didn?t recall -- they
weren?t there) and Barnett?s book once. I read Niall Ferguson?s Colossus, the
Price of America?s Empire and have another of his volumes partially read, maybe
it?s the one you refer to. I couldn?t find it just now.
No, Fukuyama doesn?t propose that America take over the world. He sees
Western Liberal Democracy as inevitably succeeding as the End of History. He
uses the Hegelian professor Kojeve to say that Hegel was right after all, i.e.,
that Capitalism (modern day Liberal Democracy) would comprise the end of
history.
Barnett is more muscular about things, but he doesn?t see anything like
what you describe. He urges that the non-integrating gap nations be brought
into the functioning core. The Functioning Core is made up of successful
nations. To bring a failed nation into the functioning core is to cause it to
become a success. That is not a racist proposition.
I?m not very impressed with Niall Ferguson. He keeps urging the US to
become an Empire, but that is unlikely in the extreme. I know he talks on and
on about it, but I?m not sure many in the US are still listening. Lots of
Americans are still isolationists at heart. The last thing we want is an
Empire. He talks of a global burden, but note that the Democrats want to bring
the troops home immediately -- no burden for them. Even the Bush project isn?t
an empirical one. It is more a Barnett one, bringing Iraq into the Functioning
Core. In the Functioning Core they become functioning members. They will not
be subservient to the US anymore than Europe has been as a result of our
bringing them into the Functioning Core after WWII. Also, Bush has taken so
much flack over trying to export Liberal Democracy to Iraq that I doubt anyone
else is going to try it any time soon. So much for Ferguson?s empire.
Neither Fukuyama nor Barnett proposes anything remotely like Imperialism.
The End of History comprises all the nations of the world functioning together
as Liberal Democracies. Barnett?s Functioning Core is also all the nations of
the world functioning together as Liberal Democracies.
Lawrence
---------------------------------
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jack Spratt
Sent: Monday, September 04, 2006 11:45 AM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Three Blind Mice (was: On the prospect of Wold Peace)
Carnegie / Barnett / Fukuyama, a nice group.
First of all, Carnegie was a 19th century industrialist who kept his
workers in poverty and responded to their protests with violence and eventually
replaced them with immigrants who would work for pennies. He then threw the
money he made from this at problems like ending war and building public baths
in his hometown in Scotland. Probably both were given the same amount of
thought. (His still surviving deli however makes a great pastrami sandwich.)
Second is Barnett, the map, rules-set guy who is dragging his power point
presentation all over Washington. He does have something in common with
Carnegie: he thinks like a 19th century imperialist. He disregards the racist
elements of his plan, but the concept of Kipling?s The White Man?s Burden is
obvious. A like minded writer Niall Ferguson, Herzog Professor of History at
the Stern School of Business, New York University, wrote in his book
Empire(2002): ?No one would dare use such politically incorrect language today.
The reality is nevertheless that the United States has?whether it admits it or
not? taken up some kind of global burden, just as Kipling urged. It considers
itself responsible not just for waging a war against terrorism and rogue
states, but also for spreading the benefits of capitalism and democracy
overseas. And just like the British Empire before it, the American Empire
unfailingly acts in the name of liberty, even when its own self-interest is
manifestly uppermost.?
While Barnett extends Fukuyama?s thesis to its ultimate conclusion of
world domination by liberal democracy, Fukuyama draws his ideas from a 19th
century philosopher, Hegel, and Plato. Fukuyama identifies the desire for
recognition, Plato?s thymos, as the driver of history and the source of liberal
democracy. Here from the introduction to his book is a quote that is in essence
the origin of the power point blitz.
?The struggle for recognition provides us with insight into the nature of
international politics. The desire for recognition that led to the original
bloody battle for prestige between two individual combatants leads logically to
imperialism and world empire. The relationship of lordship and bondage on a
domestic level is naturally replicated on the level of states, where nations as
a whole seek recognition and enter into bloody battles for supremacy.
Nationalism, a modern yet not-fully-rational form of recognition, has been the
vehicle for the struggle for recognition over the past hundred years, and the
source of this century?s most intense conflicts.?
Yet, he also says: ? For democracy to work, citizens need to develop an
irrational pride in their own democratic institutions, and must also develop
what Tocqueville called the ?art of associating,? which rests on prideful
attachment to small communities."
Fukuyama?s readers must on the one hand yield to the inevitable
imperialism of liberal democracy and on the other hand cultivate a prideful
attachment to small communities and an irrational pride in democratic
institutions. Where does world peace fit into this picture? I have no quarrel
with using the past as a guide, but to choose the worst elements of the past to
emulate is irrational. Barnett extends Fukuyama?s Hegelian thesis to its
ultimate conclusion of world domination by liberal democracy and extends
Carnegie?s capitalism to globalism. The result is racist imperialism with some
undefined trickle down economics. I do not see a formula for world peace but
rather a mix of old discredited and dangerous ideas dusted off and presented as
new.
There is one other 19th century figure that embodies this analysis,
Leopold II of Belgium. Driven by the need for recognition he created a hell on
earth in the Congo, and reaped fantastic sums of money from the raw materials.
Is this a mind set we want to follow?
J.S.
The one thing we lack is a handy utopia.
J.S.
The one thing we lack is a handy utopia.
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J.S.
The one thing we lack is a handy utopia.
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