What we talk about when we talk about Democracy.
I had another paragraph left over from what I wrote about Paul Wolfowitz's reaction to the implict grandueur of Titus Livius' historical fishing expedition. I get an inkling of the mind set of these characters considering this: a romantic streak. One favoring historic spectacle, outside of the lives of actual people. One of the most puzzling aspects of the bush administrations post 11 September, 2001 policies was the apparent willingness with which they believed they were going to get transforming results out of a few paroxisms of destructive military action, and minimum of resources or true attention. Or at least their constant refrain was, that Iraq and Afghanistan would take a smaller investment in money and arms that anyone else suggested it might. But if your mode is grand gestures of the military and empire building variety then details are beside the point. Many of the Bush adminstrations top ranks have spent their careers in close association with the Defense Department and they view it as an institution capable of almost anything. I expect they believe that if the army ever took it upon themselves to get up on their tiptoes and dance; they could sell more tickets than the Bolshoi.
Chalk it up to the New Institutionalism.
The problem with figuring out what the neo-conservative believe is that their thinking isn't as cohesive as they themselves are (Drew, Neocons in power. NYRB). They seem to believe a lot of different things. Consider the recent review Robert Kagon gave Fareed Zarkia's book ( Why Democracy must remain America's goal abroad, the TNR 07Jul03 see also a review of the review in Slate). At first look it's hard to tell which of these two reflects a more proper Straussian outlook. Or which is more self aware.
They seem to believe most loudly, that things have fundamently changed since the attacks on New York and Washington. They believe we won the Cold War and exist in a de facto unilateral world. They believe that technological advances in weapons allow mass destruction to be visited on our interests without any state sovereign power obviously massing forces on a frontier. Further they believe that this destruction can be weilded by an assortment of non-state, sub-state, and trans-state interests. This set of affairs, the rapidity and invisibilty with which these rogue factions can bring the death of thousands perhaps hundreds of thousands, requires a preemptive national security strategey. More directly: we have aggragated to ourselves the right to wage war on any nation, anyone we believe or declare threatens us. The Roman's too, led their progression with a famously untenable, brittle sense of honor and security.
It is our Principles, Democracy, and Free Markets, the neo-conservatives mandate, that prevailed in the ideological battles of the last 150 years. We have a moral duty, they believe, to spread these values. Moreover, the dynamics of the single-superpower world require that we take a robust compelling leadership position. Free trade is a benefit to all - we will extend it, and our markets globally. Hostility toward the free trade market system must be corrected. Above all, it is envy of our wealth and freedom that is the cause of anarchistic, and outlaw state terrorism. The conclusions for action they draw from this don't just lead to a slippery slope of war mongering, but begins life half down this precipitous cliff face. The Neo-conservative contingent array themselvs on this slope varied by the strength of their convinctions and what all else they have brought to the game.
I suspect that neo-conservatism is at heart a brittle phenomenon. I fear that it may shatter in the heat of its revolutionary zeal and re-crystallize an intensely xenophobic and reactionary movement. Externally, in extranational affairs, its willingness to engage may reflect no more than an interest to co-opt and disrupt populist movements in the developing world. It may desire - or come to comfort with - the existence of chaos in regions deemed not suitable for market expansion. As well they may be preoccupied with the possible narrowness of the window of pre-eminence for the American nation. They may be seeking long term strategys designed to indefinitely prolong and extend it. Leveraging our solo superpower status at the expense of others. An undercurrent of pure unapologetic nationalism permeates this view, think of the first Athenian response to the complaints made against them in Sparta.
So it is with us. We have done nothing extraordinary, nothing contrary to human nature in accepting an empire when it was offered to us and then in refusing to give it up. Three very powerful motives prevent us from doing so - security, honor and self-interest. And we were not the first to act in this way (Thuc., I 76).
This last line of thinking comes to me partly from a short speech Norman Mailer gave in Los Angeles back in Febuary. Partly it centers on unresolved issues over education that go back to the heart of the cold war: the role of the university focus on maintaining American stewardship, ownership, of technology. It resonated with me and thoughts I already had at the time I read it. In December I had been assisting a transfer of low use material from the libraries at terrapin land, to permanent off site storage. At one turn this placed me in front of a collection of yellowing published documents assessing our capacity for technological development, production, training, and staffing - against that of our enemies. This from our engineering library. Hundreds of linear feet of such stretching 10 feet up and to either side. The grunt work of Industrial Policy. And across so many administrations I admired, how economically commanding of them.
Mailer suspects that the Neo-cons, have lost faith in American ability, perhaps because it does not reflect their idea of culture and right ordered society. Democracy correctly understood. The culture wars were lost, the American mind shut for the carnival. Two generations of conservatives mark the distance from the Great Society to today and wait to ravel and cut the twine and if not there - why stop there. Taft-Hartley left Wagner still on its feet; there is so much to be done. The other day at 15 years remove, I took up a professors recommendation to find and read an article he had written defending Allen Bloom (Butterworth. On misunderstanding Allen Bloom. Academic Questions 21 n.4 Fall89 56) I may come back to this another day. The point to make here, is that the problems conservatives have with modern society can run very deep. I had another teacher, once, who held that there was no more problematic state of the human mind than that of a disappointed romantic.
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