Idealism in Action

To return to what I was saying in yesterday's post about the idea that Bush has taken democracy-promotion to a whole new level, another thing I point out in Heads in the Sand is that wrapping a foreign policy of aggressive militarism in the rhetoric of idealism isn't some awesome innovation of George W. Bush or Bill Kristol or Dick Cheney or anyone else. That's just what political leaders who want a foreign policy of aggressive militarism do.

Back during the days of Victorian imperialism, policies of conquest and subjugation were always justified in very high-minded terms. What Bush is doing is no different from that. Lately, some advocates of an imperial foreign policy for the United States have taken to admitting as much, writing admiringly about the high ideals and humanitarian aims of, e.g., the British Empire. I think all that's wrong as far as both the U.S. in Iraq and the British in India (or, back in the day, the U.S. in the Philippines) are concerned, but there's barely even any reason to doubt that it is or was insincere. It takes a certain kind of nationalistic hubris to think that a policy of domination is being undertaken for the good of the dominated, but hubris and egomania are hardly unknown traits in human psychology. Besides which, I think the evidence indicates that the kind of domination-oriented policies Bush is pursuing aren't even good for the would-be dominators. It's a huge screw-up.

What it's not, however, is a triumph of a new form of dreamy idealism -- "I should use my army to rule the world through fear and intimidation" is the oldest idea in the history of statecraft, it's just not a very good one.

Comments

"We don't want to fight
but by Jingo if we do,
We've got the ships,
we've got the men,

we've got the money too, "
-------
Pub song from a FORMER great power

Posted by Don Williams | March 14, 2008 9:33 AM

Think of it this way. In Britain and the US, Churchill is beloved (possibly more in the US than in Britain). In parts of Africa and Asia, it is considered a fitting joke that a CW is a toilet. Civilizing missions are what weirdos with gender identity issues take on to make themselves feel better. It's about ego, not anything real.

Posted by Reality Man | March 14, 2008 9:40 AM

And what happens when you fund imperialism by huge public debt?

Adam Smith answered that question in 1776:

"The practice of funding has gradually enfeebled every state which has adopted it. The Italian republics seem to have begun it. Genoa and Venice, the only two remaining which can pretend to an independent existence, have both been enfeebled by it. Spain seems to have learned the practice from the Italian republics, and (its taxes being probably less judicious than theirs) it has, in proportion to its natural strength, been still more enfeebled. The debts of Spain are of very old standing. It was deeply in debt before the end of the sixteenth century, about a hundred years before England owed a shilling. France, notwithstanding all its natural resources, languishes under an oppressive load of the same kind. The republic of the United Provinces is as much enfeebled by its debts as either Genoa or Venice. Is it likely that in Great Britain alone a practice which has brought either weakness or desolation into every other country should prove altogether innocent?"

Ref: http://www.adamsmith.org/smith/won/won-b5-c3-ss6.html

Again, Bush's actions make sense only because the profits of imperialism flow to a favored few while the huge costs --in blood and debt --are dumped onto the common citizens.

But those common citizens are fucking morons who think that George the Whore is on their side because he wears a cowboy hat and drives a pickup.

Posted by Don Williams | March 14, 2008 9:41 AM

Hey Matt, I hope that this Goldbergian promotion of your book does not attain the unseemly Luciannian levels.

Posted by gregor | March 14, 2008 9:43 AM

"I think all that's wrong..... but there's barely even any reason to doubt that it is or was insincere."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So, it's sincerity and idealism that's felt when letting out contracts for hundreds of billions of dollars in war zone wastage to various cronies, family, campaign contributors and assorted hangers-on? I know some WANT to believe our govenment's actions aren't the most depraved Machiavellian bullshit. The same people think there will be a pony in their Easter basket. WAKE THE FUCK UP!!!!

Posted by steve duncan | March 14, 2008 9:43 AM

In other policy news, Mexico & Cuba normalize relations.

http://es.noticias.yahoo.com/efe/20080314/twl-cuba-y-mexico-normalizan-relaciones-e1e34ad.html

It is interesting that there seems to have been no U.S. statement on the matter, given how closely U.S. policymakers have backed conservative Mexican President Felipe Calderon.

Posted by El Cid | March 14, 2008 9:51 AM

Matt,

Perhaps you could write a post about the shift in conservative ideology over the last 10 years from Jeffersonian isolationist to colonial imperialist. Really the only isolationist left in the Republican Party is Ron Paul.

Posted by freddiemac | March 14, 2008 9:57 AM

And what happens when you fund imperialism by huge public debt?

Adam Smith answered that question in 1776:

Smith was prescient in noting the French debt. That debt in 1776, augmented substantially by the debt ithe monarchy undertook to support the American cause in our revolution, is what provided the impetus for the French Revolution. The calling of the Estates General, a conservative step to rein in the monarchy, was necessitated by the monarchy's need for funds to cover that debt and eventually led to ... well, you know. Poor Louis XVI, if only he'd listened to Smith.

Posted by David in NY | March 14, 2008 9:58 AM

"Back during the days of Victorian imperialism..."

Is it necessary to go back that far to find an interventionist foreign policy advocated for partly idealistic reasons? Not if you remember some 20th Century Democrats: Kennedy, FDR, Truman, and Wilson. If anything, Bush's foreign policy is more Wilsonian than Victorian (not that Victorian is necessarily a bad thing -- that was a period of great progress).

Posted by Fred | March 14, 2008 9:59 AM

Oderint dum metuant. -- Let them hate so long as they fear.

Supposedly a favorite saying of Caligula.

Another nice Roman one (OK so this one's attributed to a german on the receiving end): Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant. -- Where they create a wasteland they call it peace.

Posted by bubba | March 14, 2008 10:43 AM

But those common citizens are fucking morons who think that George the Whore is on their side because he wears a cowboy hat and drives a pickup.
Posted by Don Williams | March 14, 2008 9:41 AM

It is amazing how the US imperial drive has intensified since 1989. Pathetic really. And so self destructive.

Not if you remember some 20th Century Democrats: Kennedy, FDR, Truman, and Wilson. If anything,
Posted by Fred | March 14, 2008 9:59 AM

So eager to relativize the imperial error. See See they're all like that, not just my chosen party. HA! I love that - FDR an imperial president. When did fighting Naziism become an imperial project? Truman; yeah Korea was an American imperial adventure. Kennedy; didn't he end up trying to get America away from the imperial path and was killed for his pains.
The differences outway the similarities my friend. Wilson I will grant you was an idealistic nutter and in this he and Bush share a similar rhetorical trait. But while Wilson was sincere and deluded Bush is antimonian and indifferent.

Posted by Northern Observer | March 14, 2008 10:53 AM

People talk about the fall of the British Empire. But it didn't fall. They just moved the capital from London to Washington.

Posted by Gary Sugar | March 14, 2008 11:17 AM

Somewhat related: Human Smoke is awesome.

Posted by Gary Sugar | March 14, 2008 11:28 AM

Am I lost in the triple negative (no reason) (to doubt) (insincerity) or did Matt mean to say sincere? I could be misreading, it's late here.

Posted by aleks | March 14, 2008 11:37 AM

Back during the days of Victorian imperialism, policies of conquest and subjugation were always justified in very high-minded terms... Lately, some advocates of an imperial foreign policy for the United States have taken to admitting as much...

History provides comparative tales about the relative success, or lunacy, of decisions made by others. One thing that comparison can't do is recapture the complex net of perception, the world-view, of people living in the past.

When Europeans (and eventually we Americans) were busy subjugating parts of the world, a large majority of their educated populations accepted and truly believed the moral and political rhetoric that accompanied their country's actions.

To some of us, the pro-imperalistic sentiment, the strenuous advocacy of an aggresive foreign policy before and after the Spanish-American War, sounds like tinny and threadbare self-justification in 2008. It strains credulity to accept it as genuine sentiment -- not because we're cynical, and unable to envision a rebirth of America's power, a glorious New American Century ... but because our perspective of reality contains all the historical change we've learned or been witness to.

Describing America's foreign policy in rhetoric designed to invoke our uniqueness and a glorious past; to describe our relations with the world in paternalistic terms and suggest that America has a manifest destiny, may have seemed rational and natural to the average American living 116 years ago.

But in the 21st Century, when anything similar comes sputtering from the mouths of Cheney / Bush or Rice, or in the whinings of Richard Perle, or a Kristol or a Friedman ... it sounds exactly like what it is -- the language of people far out of touch with reality.

Posted by Jemand von Niemand | March 14, 2008 11:42 AM

1) The real question is: Why doesn't any Democrat stand up and tell the US people that George Bush is a lying shithead. After all, there's plenty of evidence to cite.

Posted by Don Williams | March 14, 2008 12:02 PM

Matt, I hear you might be publishing a book soon? Is there any truth to this unsubstantiated rumor?

Posted by Brent | March 14, 2008 12:07 PM

"If anything, Bush's foreign policy is more Wilsonian than Victorian (not that Victorian is necessarily a bad thing -- that was a period of great progress).

Posted by Fred | March 14, 2008 9:59 AM"

As someone whose ancestors were subjects of the British Empire who suffered at the hands of white racism: fuck you and burn in hell, maggot. When you consider that patriotic Americans like me whose ancestors were imperial subject and who have family in the US military still hate the British Empire's legacy and memory with a burning passion, you should think twice about the logic of trying to emulate it. Fuck Ugly Americans. You make the rest of us look bad.

The neocons, including IIRC Wolfowitz, explicitly draw on the example of the British Empire as part of their ideological foundation. Meanwhile, FDR actually tried to get Churchill to grant India independence during WWII and part of our post-war policy was to dismantle the British Empire, partly for ideological reasons (the FDR-Truman style politicians hated the BE for ideological reasons) and to create a vacuum into which we could move.

Posted by Reality Man | March 14, 2008 12:10 PM

Niall Ferguson has made a pretty good case that the British Empire wasn't all bad, but I tend towards the view that imperialism in general is such a bad idea overall that the positive aspects can't redeem it. I don't think we need empires to keep the trade lanes open and maintain reasonable norms of international behavior.

But it's not "dreamy idealism" to recognize that someone has to do it. It's extremely foolish not to.

Posted by Robert Powell | March 14, 2008 12:47 PM

"Niall Ferguson has made a pretty good case that the British Empire wasn't all bad, but I tend towards the view that imperialism in general is such a bad idea overall that the positive aspects can't redeem it. I don't think we need empires to keep the trade lanes open and maintain reasonable norms of international behavior.

But it's not "dreamy idealism" to recognize that someone has to do it. It's extremely foolish not to.

Posted by Robert Powell | March 14, 2008 12:47 PM"

Ferguson also fails to mention that during the last 100 years of British imperialism in India, economic growth year-by-year was essentially zero. At best, it was 1% a year throughout British imperialism, thus failing to keep up with population growth. That's how you go from being one of the richest nations in the world to one of the poorest. He's just another white man's burden glib fucker who would get his ass kicked if he went around Bombay, Karachi, Nairobi, etc. telling people how being fucked over by white imperialists was good for their ignorant ancestors.

Posted by Reality Man | March 14, 2008 12:58 PM

Niall Ferguson has made a pretty good case that the British Empire wasn't all bad, but I tend towards the view that imperialism in general is such a bad idea overall that the positive aspects can't redeem it.

Frederick Douglass once made an observation that Lincoln, from the perspective of African-Americans, was slow to act to end their suffering as the chattel of other human beings -- but to white Americans, he appeared swift and resolute.

Since experience tends to be subjective, how good or bad Empire is depends on where you are in it. If you were British (that's to say, white), and possessed an income or were a representative of the Raj abroad, Empire wasn't bad at all. The average resident of Baghdad experiences Herr Bush's foreign policy much differently than I do.

Context counts for a great deal.

Posted by Jemand von Niemand | March 14, 2008 1:18 PM

>during the last 100 years of British imperialism in India, economic growth year-by-year was essentially zero. At best, it was 1% a year throughout British imperialism, thus failing to keep up with population growth

what was the economic/population growth rate before the British arrived?

Posted by amaretti biscuits | March 14, 2008 3:00 PM

>so this one's attributed to a german on the receiving end)Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.

Actually from a Celt rather than a German. The battle of Mons Graupius was in northern Scotland.

Posted by amaretti biscuits | March 14, 2008 3:06 PM

The introduction of modern medicine by the Brits probably had some impact on the fact that population growth swallowed economic growth in India.

Anyway, the fact that nearly every miserable trouble spot on the planet today was once part of the British Empire doesn't say much for its long-term utility.

Posted by Robert Powell | March 14, 2008 3:18 PM

>Anyway, the fact that nearly every miserable trouble spot on the planet today was once part of the British Empire doesn't say much for its long-term utility.

What does it say that America, Canada, Australia, NZ, Ireland, Hong Kong, Singapore, Botswana are doing OK? And again, were Sudan, Iraq, the NWFP all idyllic havens before the BE arrived?

Also, if we're talking evil empires, I'm continually astounded at what a free pass the Mongols get.

Posted by amaretti biscuits | March 14, 2008 3:25 PM

As you rightly point out the vast majority of imperialists in history have told themselves that what they are doing is for the general good, including the welfare of their victims, but this is probably especially true where the British are concerned who I think excel in high-minded hypocrisy.

In the UK we had an even sharper sincerity issue with Tony Blair, who hung the whole policy on his sincerity and used it to push his government, party, parliament and country into the war.

We have an incredible modern naivete where ethics and intentions are concerned (dating from Rousseau) taking surfaces at face value. Jane Austen's writings were critiquing this idea (especially Sense and Sensibility), that because someone has a particular sentiment, a belief in their own sincere benevolence for example, that this can be trusted at face value. This makes as much sense as believing that pole part-immersed in water is bent because it appears so. It is an incoherent idea that can't possibly stand up as we can see in the state of the Middle east today. Would these people have behaved in this way if their families and friends were living in Iraq. To ask the question is to answer it. They may have fooled themselves that their intentions were sincere but there is no reason for us to allow ourselves to be fooled.

Posted by Chris Dornan | March 14, 2008 3:55 PM

"To live outside the law, you must be honest" (one of Dylan's 2 or 3 good lines.) Bush wants to have his "idealism" and the gov't teat for his friends (and his torture and executions), too. It's an odd psychic/moral combo.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | March 14, 2008 4:26 PM

Questions about sincerity are beside the point: both the words and the behavior are the same whether the politician really believes what he says or whether he doesn't. In any event, someone can always be found to say these things, and there appears to be no shortage of believers.

In examining belief systems, we should set aside the idea that the belief has any relationship whatsoever to 'objective' reality, and instead look at the practical consequences of the system for an explanation. Here, ideas about 'humanitarian intervention' or 'spreading Democracy' etc. are enabling mechanisms for violence.

We don't get wars just because some are prepared to accept such ideas, or because others are prepared to promulgate them. Quite apart from whatever junk is floating around in the 'minds' of the participants, there is always a real issue of power at stake.

Posted by RLaing | March 14, 2008 6:56 PM

I'm with Chris Dornan all the way up to "Would these people have behaved in this way if their family and friends were living in Iraq?" For lots of us whose family and/or friends WERE living in Iraq in 2002, the obvious answer is "of course!"

I like your Jane Austen reference. I use "Howard's End" in trying to make this point. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, etc. Lot's of domestic policy implications too.

Posted by Robert Powell | March 15, 2008 7:03 AM

RLaing is dead right about the irrelevance of sincerity and the relevance of "a real issue of power". It was not Tony Blair's sincerity but his essential correctness on the power issues involved that made him convincing to me.

Iraq had become a defining issue in the evolution of a post-Cold War international security architecture. If it wasn't possible to assert the authority of the international community to act effectively against a state with a track record like that of Iraq, particularly with the number of Chapter VII Resolutions already being defied, there would in fact be no such architecture at all beyond the law of the jungle.

I think we need a functional UN, but if it's "illegal" for Security Council members to enforce that body's most serious sanctions, it is simply The League of Nations II. I would like to see a functional UN, and think it's an important US interest that we have one. But in the final analysis the US is much more likely to be able to do without one than any other state.

Posted by Robert Powell | March 15, 2008 9:30 AM