Buried down at the bottom of the long post I put up here yesterday, “Sistani speaks” were some slightly derogatory comments on something my old buddy Tom Friedman put in his NYT column. I guess what had gotten me really upset was reading the part where he said:
- This war is the most important liberal, revolutionary U.S. democracy-building project since the Marshall Plan… It is one of the noblest things this country has ever attempted abroad and it is a moral and strategic imperative that we give it our best shot…
Anyway, nothing like a bit of emotion to get my writing juices flowing. Today I had to write a column for Al-Hayat. So, based on my reading of Tom’s statements as expressing a peculiarly American view of the US people’s “Manifest Destiny” to spread its system of government over ever greater and greater portions of God’s earth, I wrote a piece that explored the whole idea of “Manifest Destiny going global”, and the fact that Tom Friedman is just the latest in a long line of self-described “liberals” in western society who have put their liberal ideals into the service of imperial ventures.
I can’t say more about the content of that column here. (Hey, you’re supposed to go out and buy the newspaper once it comes out, and read it there. If you read Arabic, that is.)
But seeing as how I grew up in a rapidly and determinedly de-colonizing Britain– a place where the whole discourse of colonialism and imperialism was viewed as incredibly 19th-century, very distasteful, and embarrassing in the extreme– I never actually learned about the American “Manifest Destiny” thing in high school or college.
(I did ask Bill, the spouse, about his recollection of how it was taught to his generation– he went through a public high school in Southern California in the late 1950s. He said that there, similarly, the general impression was given of ‘Manifest Destiny’ as being something 19th-century and slightly embarrassing.)
But guess what, folks! Manifest Destiny, that same old ideology of expanding the lebensraum for “freedom” that in the 1840s sent the US Cavalry off to capture control of the whole area of the today’s continental United States, is now alive and kicking at a global level in the thinking of American “liberals” like Tom Friedman.
I did, of course, have to go into the web and do some quick online research into the history of the MD concept here in the US. I did a quick Google search and came up with some interesting results.
The University of Groningen in the Netherlands has a vast online resource-place dealing with US culture and history, which has its own special area on MD. I found that useful and informative.
The Public Broadcasting System here in the US has some good material on the US-Mexican war of the 1840s, the context in which the concept of MD was really pushed forward (or rather, in geographic terms, westward.)
I found a link to an 1839 screed written by John O’Sullivan, an avowedly ‘liberal’ journalist who just four years later would coin the term “Manifest Destiny”. In 1839 it was already prefigured in this piece:
- we are the nation of progress, of individual freedom, of universal enfranchisement. Equality of rights is the cynosure of our union of States, the grand exemplar of the correlative equality of individuals… We must onward to the fulfilment of our mission — to the entire development of the principle of our organization — freedom of conscience, freedom of person, freedom of trade and business pursuits, universality of freedom and equality. This is our high destiny, and in nature’s eternal, inevitable decree of cause and effect we must accomplish it. All this will be our future history, to establish on earth the moral dignity and salvation of man — the immutable truth and beneficence of God. For this blessed mission to the nations of the world, which are shut out from the life-giving light of truth, has America been chosen…
All that, at a time when many American states still supported slavery… As the British savant Samuel Johnson famously said at the time of the US Revolution: “There’s none yelp so loud for liberty as the holders of slaves.”
Finally, moving right along with Google, you can go to the home-page of a now-disbanded rock band called “Manifest Destiny”. Who knows what their music was like? But you can have fun checking out the poll they still have up there, charting the views of site visitors on Prez Bush’s performance. (He’s Great– 24%, He Sucks Ass– 37%, I Thought Clinton Was Still President?– 6%…)
After the British burnt down the Capitol Building and the White House in the War of 1812, in retaliation for the American invasion of British North America and the American burning of York – today’s Toronto, the Americans shut up about the North Pole part of their Manifest Destiny.
In Imperialism (1902), John A. Hobson discusses the concurrent development of chauvinism and imperialism [link is to a chapter of the book available online]. In subsequent chapters he explains this sociologically and economically, and I do think his views are still valid.
The US was not a superpower during the War of 1812 and certainly incapable of acting cohesively, even to the same degree that, say, the modern EU can. I am advised by a Canadian historian–name forgotten, sorry–that nearly all of the participants of that expedition came from Kentucky (long story why it was Kentucky, but the short answer is that the militia barely acknowledged US sovereignty and certainly didn’t worry about possible British retaliation against accessible American targets).
I think “manifest destiny” is something of a false lead. First, there is a propensity in modern Europe to regard the USA as something of an overall anomaly–as it were, an extremely defective, wholly endogenous parody of an early 20th century European power. It was not always so, and it’s not a very helpful way of looking at the situation. One gets a much better understanding of the situation if one thinks of the USA as a “march” of the broader European project of expansion, much as Austria and Bohemia were marches of Swabian expansion in the time of the Babenburgs. The US has always been a part of this project, even when large swathes of European public opinion regarded America with undilluted hostility. For example, it’s difficult to deny that the prevailing interest among American elites is attracting overseas investment; and indeed, we seem to attract some 800 billion a year [net] in combined FDI and portfolio holdings, most of that channelled through the EU–and much through Canada. We had to do a lot of different things in order to induce that investment; being a superpower was neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition, and our trajectory of development “gelled” long before the US was worthy of any attention at all.
The problem with the “Manifest Destiny” reference is that it tends to ignore the obvious institutional motivations for US policy. Foreign critics are increasingly drawn to look at the US–including its population–as a cancer, an alien monster with no relation to the actions of their own states. In fact, a lot of alternative courses of action/development by the USG were decisively ruled out by the policies of other major powers, including EU member states. It’s a part of a very complex picture, of course, but if you really want to scrutinize how we reached such a state of affairs you could do a lot better than to focus on expansionism as a particularly American character flaw.
James R MacLean: I agree that expansionism is not unique to the United States: historically, Russia, Prussia and France have all indulged in this. (I am not talking about imperialism, which is another kettle of fish). If you go back far enough in history, you would include Castile, Leon, Aragon and Portugal.
However, none of the other countries made it part of the particularly US disease of an Ideology of Patriotism. In that sense it is a particularly US flaw. That is where the view of the US as a parody derives from. As well, your grade-inflated, Olympic-sized swimming pool / football stadium-loving educational system reinforces this notion. Bush is doing his best to reinforce this also.
The US is listened to only because of its massive military might and the capital it amassed while Europe and Asia were being destroyed in two World Wars. It is certainly not respected because of the quality of its actions in the world today or the morality of its leadership.
Your attitudes strike me as a form of fundamentalism. We could start with a belif system that says, American foreign policy is bad because its society is dysfunctional. This is not, by itself, an implausible thing to say. These are the things that make it fundamentalist
These two features of fundamentalism are linked. If you imagine there is only one causitive force for unhappiness in the universe, then it is not tolerable that that one causitive force is itself affected by other things. If I am stupid or evil because I am an American, it is not possible that I could be responding to some outside agency.
To me, nations are arbitrary groupings of people. Individuals may be morally culpable for their actions, but when addressing the actions of large groups of people, a certain amount of anthropological detachment is helpful. For example, on the one hand not all Americans have a meaningful participation in their system of government, while on the other hand a lot of non-American elites have decisive influence on the actions of our fed. state. Nor is this remotely unique to the USA.
For example, on another thread I mentioned the urgent need of business interests in the USA to attract foreign investment. The volume of capital flows through any developed economy of the world–Canada’s, the UK’s, Japan’s–is orders of magnitude greater than what occurred between 1914 and 1945. This is true in real terms (by the way, Argentina also sustained a huge amount of capital accumulation during that same period). Now, allow me to return to your original belief system–American foreign policy is bad because American society is dysfunctional. You don’t have to have a fundamentalist version of this, Advanced Calculus. You could observe that America’s federal government, stymied at home and incapable of enacting a sensible industrial policy–like other developed nations do–has instead led to irrepressible contradictions which it has tried to resolve by bullying the governments of other 3rd world countries. Or something else. I picked a Marxian analysis because everyone’s heard of it. But there are others.
James R MacLean: It is interesting what you reply. Nowhere do you deny the facts of what I say but you choose to attack me for my motivation and for bringing these facts to people’s attention. I don’t think the US is a unique source of evil – my opposition to the US stems from its need to impose its views on anything on the rest of the world. (It even wants the world when it laughs to laugh at US jokes!)
It is true that I have little respect for the US but that is because I have found little to respect about the US. Your educational system is “a joke” (from 1st grade through high school and university); your system of government and Constitution are flawed. Most Americans can’t speak English properly and most don’t know how to reason.
Nowhere do you deny the facts of what I say..
Well, yes, in the sense that I tried to explain that the capital accumulation that ges on today far exceeds anything that went on between the World Wars. But principally because I’m trying to turn the subject to something more constructive. Instead of debating whether or not Americans are a loathsome species, I’m trying to go beyond a world view where nationality is all-important.
…but you choose to attack me for my motivation and for bringing these facts to people’s attention.
I don’t know what your motives are and I certainly haven’t attacked you.
I don’t think the US is a unique source of evil…
I’ve paid your site a visit, and it would indeed seem to me that your views of this country are captured well in an analogy to fundamentalist religion. Let me draw upon this analogy further: fundamentalist “Christianity” identifies Satan as the source of evil. Satan is not a group of people, although John Milton poetically wrote of a host of demons residing in Pandaemoneum (=”all devils”). But these devils are highly disciplined and cooperative; they deliberate with, but subsequently obey the judgement of, their master Lucifer.
Theologians of the early Church, or fundamentalists of today, do not delve too deeply into why Satan is wicked. Satan is regarded as a unique personality, someone with whom you could converse. When I was a lad I wondered sometimes that perhaps Satan was merely occupying his assigned role in a complex universe. And indeed, years later I was delighted to notice this role developed in greater detail in Mikhail Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita (the quote from Goethe’s Faust—
explores actual malice of any sort of demon in finer grain). At the same time, while the will to evil came from this unique Satan, sinners were still held culpable for their sins and punished for eternity in Hell.
Similarly, you say that you do not see the USA as a unique source of evil. Possibly lesser, subordinate sinners might be named, but it seems to me you do this merely because it’s impossible to ignore that fact that many countries of the world have undertaken colonial projects, and within their empire they do not maintain a pretense of equality between the core hegemon and the provinces.
Yet this is only a grudging acknowledgement of the existence of some petty offenders aside from the Great Satan. Jonathan Edwards did no less. Instead of quibbling over foibles–like our bad educational system or the War of 1812 (Ever seen Fawlty Towers? “Try not to mention the War”), I’m more keen to get at the underlying premise–that shortcomings or preferences make us worthy of unrestricted loathing or sweeping scorn.
(Just curious: my Grandfather immigrated from Canada to California in 1920. Should I be regarded as the cowardly, simpering American bully you alluded to? Or the stouthearted Anglo-Canadian stoic, grimly fending off Manifest Destiny? Or since my three other grandparents trace their lineages to different US states c.1812, am I 75% of the former and 25% of the latter?)
Part of the reason I don’t want to get into a pissing contest is that it would be very lopsided–I admire Canada very deeply and the changes I would like to make in our society would obviously “Canadianize” the USA. I have a website where I do almost nothing but criticize the policies of the US government.* But I certainly don’t hate my country and no one I know would accuse me of doing so.
———————-
*Okay, I post cartoons too. But they make fun of Americans.
James R MacLean: May be I have sounded unconstructive but my point is if the US wants to rule the world and be respected by it (similar to ancient Rome – an analogy that Americans are fond of), the US has to:
1. reform its educational system to have a knowledgeable citizenry and capable leaders,
2. tackle the roots of its poverty and eliminate capital punishment,
3. get a decent government-financed health-care system,
4. reform your government to increase accountability at all levels.
The first point is essential: until the US cleans up its education and starts to produce an educated citizenry, the rest of the world will not respect the US. Right now, when the US speaks, the world listens
Well, fair enough.
My own view is that my country should seek to retire as a superpower. It doesn’t make for a snappy slogan, granted, but I’ve become an enthusiastic admirer of J.A. Hobson (1858-1940), an economist who stuggled his entire life to make the case to his fellow Britons that the Empire was a colossal scam. He explained the inherently self-defeating character of imperialism, whether to create and defend liquid markets abroad, or else to relieve social tensions at home, etc. It will be noted that Hobson identified the rise of imperialism with the dereliction of the state in ddomestic services.
For example, you often cite the atrocious state of American schools. Needless to say, your views are not unusual, certainly not in America. The deterioration of American schools has gone hand in hand with our elites’ growing obsession with projection of power abroad. The project of superpouvoir, as you understand quite well, does not require anything like cultural awareness or even a crude grasp of geography. But a country in a perpetual state of war–much like, for example, the UK during Hobson’s lifetime–was perpetually postponing the business of fixing the drains and repairing the schools.
(BTW, the real shame is the spottiness of the educational system. Some schools do very well. Even if you don’t care for their educational mission, our better schools are very competitive.)
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