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Sunday, Jul 12, 2009
Is America a sociopathic child? Readers respond to Ann Marlowe's review of "Civilization and Its Enemies" by proclaiming "get stuffed!" and encouraging a New Zealand empire.
Feb 27, 2004 | [Read "Why America Must Rule the World," by Ann Marlowe.]
From a Third World girl: Get real! Or better yet, get stuffed!
American rule doesn't work simply because the U.S. is too arrogant to acknowledge its own failings (see the Philippines, American commonwealth). Instead of working with the rest of the world on equal terms, you would propose to lead it. But what sort of leadership can you offer if you merely suggest that the whole world become as you are?
The very title of the book is couched in adversary and arrogance. Do people really believe that the U.S. has a premium on "civilization"? Why must everyone who is different be viewed as an "enemy"?
Moral authority? Leadership? Please! When the U.S. wakes up from this consensual delusion that it can solve the world's problems, let me know, because it seems to me that most of the conflict in the last century was a direct result of this "white man's burden" frame of mind.
-- Lee-Yan Marquez
Lee Harris' contention that the U.S. must lead the world seems to spring from a vein of American thought that's not acknowledged in the article -- the unfortunate streak of insularity which makes some Americans believe that the rest of the world is inherently dangerous and culturally inferior.
But who am I to criticize? If the USA would like to count me among its citizens, feel free. Just give me the right to vote the current incumbent out of the White House.
-- Felicity Carter
While I accept Harris' point that the U.S. represents the biggest nation with a focus on diversity, if he wishes the world to be run by one nation with genuine moral authority, might I suggest New Zealand?
Certainly they have mostly sheep, but they also have a history of inclusion, from treaties with their indigenous people to equitable and workable immigration policies today. With a multicultural society, a democratically elected government that actually won the election, and a social contract with citizens that includes healthcare and personal accident insurance, I think they are the morally superior nation.
Admittedly they do not have much in the way of armed forces, but they are very, very persuasive people. They also do not have a small number of multinationals running their policy, nor an over-reliance on fossil fuels and bad agriculture that the Pentagon would consider worthy of a paper warning of impending doom.
-- DY Harrison
Starting with the perhaps obvious problems with the exasperating claim that "only the United States has the moral credibility to lead" the world, given the United States' often deplorable history of illegal intervention and realpolitik, I found Marlowe's review to be among the most uncritical and inaccurate things I have ever read, and am frankly shocked that Salon, which I generally greatly enjoy reading, would publish this kind of inaccurate tosh.
I'll restrict myself to a few examples. Marlowe describes as "common sense" Harris' view that "if the Palestinian people were indeed a genuine state fighting a genuine war" they would have been entirely eradicated by the military force of the Israeli state. This view, of course, implies that any of World War II Germany or Japan, World War I Germany or Austro-Hungary, and many others fail to be a "genuine state." I can think of almost no examples in which a state has been "genuinely eradicated" following an armed conflict, except perhaps Carthage following the last Punic war, with the famous incident of salt being plowed into agricultural land. Presumably Harris' definition of a state is intended to imply that only the U.S. is a genuine state, but his definition can surely not be described as "common sense."
Another slight craziness is likening the United States' rather debased politics as something of a similar nature to the world's response to recent American politics. This is precisely the kind of blinkered response to other people's culture that has probably led to the acceptability of such doctrines as "democratizing" the Middle East.
-- James Cotton
Hmm, so the mark of "fierce independence" is to assert the U.S. really is better than everyone else and they just want to be like us? I find it very revealing that Marlowe praises Harris for his isolated working as a glazier, and also claims that it is we, the West, who know about the East. Why, even our glaziers are experts!
Nowhere does she make the obvious point that our admirable diversity is a byproduct of our ravaging of the world through our foreign policy, not a sign of our moral authority.
-- Jesse Bacon
Although I agree with most of Ann Marlowe's criticisms of Lee Harris' book, I would like to point out that his argument might be original in its clothing, but hardly in its core: 19th century America was literally littered with pamphlets arguing the "moral superiority" of the United States (to Native Americans, to the Western Hemisphere, then to Cuba and the Philippines, to China...)
I would also like to point out that Harris' definition of "legitimate authority" is murky, to say the least. If legitimacy, as the Constitution states, stems from the people and for the people, where does the legitimacy of the United States over the world come from? It seems that Harris has more faith in American power than the democratic ideals at the core of American values.
-- Nick Bodin
