AMERICAN WORLD HEGEMONY: GOOD OR BAD
<<<I keep up an email correspondence with people of different political and sociological worldviews. The following is an email I sent to a delightful, intelligent, woman of Mexican-American heritage. Her worldview is one of the conventional, politically correct American "left", what I call neo-socialist. (I reserve the epithet "Liberal" for myself.)
The real interest in the email is the weltanschauung: my own and my correspondent.>>>>
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Linda,
To summarize, after you responded to the Krauthammer article "Decline is a Choice", I had asked you 2 questions: 1. Whether American world hegemony over the past 60 years had been beneficial to the world; and 2. Whether you believed in American "exceptionalism." You answered with emphatic "NOs" to both questions. A week has gone by and now you are complaining that I did not comment/respond.
Frankly, I have feared that any truthful response would burn bridges - would make you mad. This response may still, but in a round-about manner, here goes.
There was a poll ( and I can give you the cite if you want) taken after the 2004 election which asked voters those very questions. 51% of John Kerry voters answered as you did, that there is nothing special about America and it has not been beneficial to others. But...80% of American voters overall, Republican and Democratic, disagreed. As do I.
You might correctly answer that this does not make the majority "right;" nor does this deny that "informed" opinion over time might change.
I have a daughter-in-law who was born in Mexico City. She came to this country at a very young age. She is a beautiful person, speaks perfect English, has a college degree. She married my only son and is the mother of my only grandchild.
She considers herself an "intellectual," although on what substantive basis, other than that she is a political "liberal," I have no idea. She reads no history, let alone the many excellent biographies written in the past 20 years on Franklin, Washington, John Adams, Jefferson, Jackson and Hamilton, etc. And when I give my annual Thanksgiving homilies this next week on the Puritans and their continuing influence on the development of present-day Americans (huge IMO) I can visibly see that it has no reasonance with her.
Historian Samuel Harrington in his book, "Who We Are", the last before he died, argued that all emmigrant waves to America, before the most recent, had come to accept the "English/Protestant" worldview (diluted, and less intense, of course, from the original) of these 17th century Puritians, even if they (the immigrants) could not/did not become Protestant or English. In other words, they all became "Yankees."
My daughter-in-law will have none of this, even if she cannot articulate reasons. And, of course, she would fully agree with you in answering negatively the above questions.
Karl Marx wrote that "The tradition of past generations weighs like an Alps upon the brain of the living."
Does your Mexican-American heritage influence your answers to these questions? A year ago, in Los Angeles, a largely Mexican-American crowd booed the American soccer team. I don't think you would have done this...But do you understand it? Sympathize with it? Do you think of the United States as the "colossus of the North"? Have you yourself read the aforementioned biographies? Or are these just 'old dead gringos'?
I think historically speaking, your answer to the first question, the benefit to the world of American hegemony, is hardest to justify. Isn't the world a much better place economically, politically and socially than it was 60 years ago? There is an awful lot of statistical data that I could cite to you. Do you feel that America had nothing to do with this change?
A hundred years ago, an Italian historian came up with the concept of the "Energizing Myth." What he meant was that a nation's positive myths or beliefs about themselves have a way of becoming fact. He was referring specifically to the 14th century Italians (e.g. Florence, Sienna, Venice etc.) who came to believe they were different and special from earlier generations and because they believed it, it became reality. Historians have argued that this was true also of Americans and their "manifest destiny" that was almost universal in the popular mind even 50 years ago. And you could argue that this "myth" had an effect 70 years ago on Germans and their war-making abilities.
What is going to be the effect on Americans when the majority feels there is nothing special about the country and that it IS in serious decline? A self-fulfillimg de-energizing myth?
According to Aristotle, man is a "political animal"; he is passionately concerned with his communitiy/society because he can only be "actualized"/ reach his full potential in his community. He is the only being concerned with self-respect; he can respect himself because he can despise himself; he is the "beast with red cheeks" (Nietzsche), the only being possessing a sense of shame.
I did start to reply to you. Along with the 2 questions, I sent you the essay by David Brooks. Did you study it long and hard like I asked?
"<<<We're all born late. We're born into history that is well under way. We're born into cultures, nations and languages that we didn't choose. ... . Often, we react in ways we regret even while we're doing them.
But unlike the other animals, people do have a drive to seek coherence and meaning. We have a need to tell ourselves stories that explain it all. We use these stories to supply the metaphysics, without which life seems pointless and empty.">>>
I'm beginning to believe, Linda, that it is impossible for you and me to discuss politics and geo-politics in anything like a constructive fashion; it would be like Dick Cheney trying to argue with Major Nidal Malik Hasan; their metaphysical narratives are just too different.
There may be some topics which we can still discuss. You might be interested to know that I have been doing further research on the negative effects of legalizing homosexual marriage - with you specifically in mind!! I know that at present you have all the politically correct views of your ideological allies, but I know further that you have some "conservative" views relative to sex, marriage and the family. I know that because of our shared admiration for Wallace Stegner.
So if you are willing, you might soon be receiving a long essay on this topic.
Warmest regards,
Bruce
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