G'day Tom,
Henry Kissinger once told the Davos people that, yeah, Unca Sam was
imperialist but, no, they don't realise that's what they are, so they'll run
the world badly. Americans are generally awful at understanding the rest of
the world (I see US news bulletins every day, and it's only getting worse).
To see oneself as the natural leader to all things virtuous, to presume all
either do or will recognise that goal as humanity's natural telos, and to
see one's own road in that direction as a strict trajectory for all others
to follow, regardless of cultural and economic locus (evident from Rostow to
the IMF), well, it's a recipe for arma-bloody-geddon, for mine. And, whilst
some suits see all this and just keep doing what is rational in light of
their demonstrable clout and their apparent interests, I think we have to
face the fact that, on balance, we have here the most naive 800-lb gorilla
the world has ever seen. The Roman consular system and the British
imperialists' habit of 'going native' both indicate to me a greater capacity
for local understanding and flexibility (albeit not necessarily any other
virtues, as the original Australians remind us) than I discern in the mode
of our haphazard rule. That part of our future which is not committed to
the crashing chaos, chronic short-termism and gross power distortions of
'the hidden hand' ('shareholder value') is prey to an hegemonic ideology
much less suited to the role of world-leader than those preceding it.
In other words, I disagree a tad with Carrol (again). I think our betters
believe shit that is plain wrong. You can see it in their shining eyes and
fevered brows, alas. They know not what they do. And they'll keep making
terrible trouble for themselves as a consequence - but everyone else'll cop
it first.
Hope Olasky eventually gets to that bit of bible-based free market economics
where his idol tips over the merchants' trading tables, or even that bit
where he alludes to camels and eyes of needles ...
Cheers,
Rob.
>Carrol Cox wrote,
>
>>One must assume, rather, that they know what they are doing, and
>>that they are doing it competently. Identify their motives with their
>>actions.
>
>I take this as axiomatic. But it then raises another question: HOW DO they
>know what they are doing? Could they be ever so successful at managing
>IMPERIALISM without an explicit concept and analysis of what they were
>managing AS imperialism? My hunch is that the "anti-communist ideology"
>provides them with a pretty good approximation of a negative traditional
>Marxism. A couple of points about anti-communist ideology: 1. it is the
>intellectual product of people well versed in traditional Marxism, many of
>them ex-Marxists and 2. it has only become more aggressive in the wake
>of the collapse of the Soviet Union. The naive expectation would be that
>anti-communism would dry up and blow away without the focus of the Evil
>Empire.
>
>If the left is ever going to have a chance against the hegemon, we're
>going to have to look inside weird critters like Marvin Olasky and David
>Horowitz and see what makes them tic. Anti-communism is like one of those
>Russion nesting dolls, inside the last doll is an *interpretation* of
>historical materialism.
>
>Tom Walker
>Sandwichman and Deconsultant
>Bowen Island
>(604) 947-2213
>
>
