How we see America,
and how the world sees us
I am told
that not too many years ago far less information filtered in each day from the
farther reaches of the globe, and the news that did arrive took longer to get
here. Speed is no longer an issue, waiting is no longer necessary, though now
the sheer volume of news quickly numbs us, especially since so much of reeks of
violence, conflict, suffering and disagreement.
Some of the
news that arrives is unpleasant not because it tells of death or disease or
devastation but because it tells us that people around the world do not see America
in the same benevolent terms with which we see our nation. It’s easy to filter
that part of the news out: there is too much to absorb anyway, and since we
simply want freedom and democracy for everyone much of the problem must be
ingratitude on their part. If we pause for a moment, and we should pause to
reflect on this, most of us will suspect that something is amiss.
In A Free People’s Suicide, Os Guinness
asks Americans to do just that: to pause a moment, to reflect deeply on who we
are as a people and to consider whether the democratic freedom we have
inherited will be sustained. Guinness’ prose is always clear, persuasive, and
accessible, and the danger will be to rush through the book instead of using it
as a chance to think and discuss whether we are now the sort of people that can
maintain the Founder’s grand experiment into the future.
“Can the
United States,” Os asks at one point, “be a superpower that is worthy of a free
people?” This question immediately brings us to our view of ourselves, the
reasons behind US foreign policy initiatives, and how the rest of the world
sees us.
Americans can claim that their
military, economic and cultural power still stands at an unprecedented and
unrivalled level. But only just. Presidential speeches notwithstanding,
America’s relationship to freedom and global diversity has grown far less clear
in the last decade. Attempts to assert America’s sole superpower strength
unilaterally have caused disquiet and anger around the world and called into
question what America means by freedom and more simply, what America means to
the world. To much of the world today, the United States is increasingly
unwanted or irrelevant.
Strikingly, America once spoke for
the world, over against European colonialism; but today Europe often speaks for
the world, over against American imperialism. Or the more modest America was
about her uniqueness, the more appealing America was; whereas the more America
presses her universality, the less universal is her appeal. Once an
extraordinary nation, the United States has behaved like an all too ordinary
empire.
It will not do to equate America and
freedom and then to assume that any and all American policies are automatically
justified in the name of freedom.
It will not do for Americans to
rehearse their good intentions, for in the age of side effects, unintended
consequences and unknown aftermaths, the best intentions may produce the worst
of results and pave the road to another manmade hell.
It will not do for Americans to keep
reciting their traditional anti-imperialism, for empires are the closest
historical parallel to America’s present dominance.
It will not do for Americans to resort
to euphemisms and speak of themselves as a “reluctant empire,” an “undeclared
empire,” a “de facto empire,” an “empire by any other name,” “an empire that
dare not name its name” or “an empire in denial.” An empire by any name at all
is still an empire.
It will not do for Americans to
compare apples with oranges and make false comparisons with other kinds of
empire. Americans often say with pride or in self-justification—most recently
in Afghanistan and Iraq—that they are not conquerors or occupiers, as if all
empires were conquered on the pattern of Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar…
Empires have never been all of one
kind. Their only common element is the spread of their dominance…
In 1916, President Wilson drafted the
speech in which he declared, “It shall not lie with the American people to
dictate to another what their government shall be.” His Secretary of State
Robert Lansing wrote in the margin: “Haiti, S Domingo, Nicaragua, Panama.” That
list could be greatly extended today. The slave’s voice in the victor’s ear and
the truth teller’s note in the president’s margin are more needed than ever to
remind Americans of their imperial reach and its consequences in the eyes of
others. [p. 174-176]
Neither
conservatives (or their libertarian compatriots) nor liberals are eager to
admit to an American empire. Our ideals, we insist, are far more democratic and
beneficent than that. The trouble is that insisting on this fantasy will not
only breed further antagonism around the world, it will, perversely, mean that
America is ceasing to be a superpower worthy of free people helping to undercut
the foundation on which that freedom depends.
We need to
take another look at ourselves. We need to listen more patiently to the angry
voices around the world. And we need to reflect on what it all means.
For further reading:
Why the Rest Hate the West: Understanding
the Roots of Global Rage by Meic Pearse (Downers Grove, IL: Inter Varsity
Press; 2004).
Source: A Free People’s Suicide: Sustainable Freedom
and the American Future by Os Guinness (Downers Grove, IL: Inter Varsity
Press; 2012).
Eight years ago today the United States was viciously attacked from within as the result of an international conspiracy. Part of our response was to reenergize a thread in American history that goes back to the founding of the country. A military response was launched not only for defense but also to try to destroy the root causes of the attack.
For most of our history we have assumed that we have the responsibility—even the obligation—to secure human and democratic rights for others. For those who see history this way the United States has succeeded Israel as God’s benighted, exceptional nation and we are required by our Creator to bring his and our civilizing message to the rest of the world.
Over the past 200 years, this peculiar form of connecting the divine to human history has melded into a powerful secular religion of the state. Over time, our secular religion has been the driving force behind much of American foreign policy, justifying and rationalizing our expansion to the Pacific Ocean and many of our overseas adventures and acquisitions.
Since the end of the Cold War and especially since 9/11, this idea of American exceptionalism, with its civilizing mission, has been manifest primarily in a determination to build Western-styled nations (i.e. states) where they have “failed” or have not previously existed. The underlying rationale is that a world of democratic states, supported by a free-enterprise system, will establish peace, because other democracies will not attack us or tolerate terrorists and will live at peace with each other.
Unfortunately, this has not worked. There are four major reasons for this. First, in the rapidly globalizing world, the state is becoming less important as the only vehicle of political and economic organization and success. Although still very important, the state is now merely one among several major global actors. Second, building a nation takes enormous resources and the US does not have the talent, resolve, or money to accomplish the task in regions of the world that we think need fixing. Third, it is the height of arrogance to assume that everyone wants our model, and this is demonstrated on a daily basis as various groups fight back. Finally, despite our claims, there is no necessary connection between terrorism and particular types of political community. Terrorism can grow in successful as well as in “failed” states.
Over the past two decades we have tried and failed (or are failing) in several critical places to achieve nation building. In the early 1990s, a state-building effort in Somalia collapsed and the effort has never recovered. Shortly thereafter, we tried to build a state in Bosnia and after 15 agonizing years Bosnia is on the verge of collapse. Despite the general reduction in violence in Iraq, the desired goal of a modern, unified, multiethnic, free-enterprise state is not taking hold and there are growing signs that the progress which has been made is likely to unravel once the US departs. Finally, like Somalia, Afghanistan has never been a state in the Western sense of the term and the sacrifice in human life and material resources is not worth the pursuit of a goal that cannot be reached.
While it is certainly legitimate to oppose those who would try to harm us, and while it is appropriate to offer advice and help to those who ask for it, it is a fool’s errand to try to build political communities in our image around the world. It would be much better to heed the advice of John Quincy Adams, offered in 1821: “America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.”
—Steven E. Meyer, Professor of Political Science, National Defense University
(The views expressed here are the author's alone.)
The Capital Commentary may be photocopied or retransmitted in its entirety but not otherwise reprinted or transmitted without permission. Commentaries do not necessarily represent an official position of the Center but are intended to help advance discussion.
Copyright Center for Public Justice 2009.
This piece was issued originally as the Capital Commentary for September 11, 2009.
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