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A Theory of Everything
Not bad for a Tom Friedman editorial. EFLDuring the 1990's, America became exponentially more powerful â economically, militarily and technologically â than any other country in the world, if not in history. Broadly speaking, this was because the collapse of the Soviet empire, and the alternative to free-market capitalism, coincided with the Internet-technology revolution in America. The net effect was that U.S. power, culture and economic ideas about how society should be organized became so dominant (a dominance magnified through globalization) that America began to touch people's lives around the planet â "more than their own governments," as a Pakistani diplomat once said to me. Yes, we began to touch people's lives â directly or indirectly â more than their own governments. As Joe Stalin once said, "Historical analogies limp." However, I believe that the last time that such a situation existed was during the Roman Empire. I've been doing a lot of reading of Josephus lately, especially the Jewish War. There are a lot of good "lessons learned" there for any student of the current conflict. As people realized this, they began to organize against it in a very inchoate manner. The first manifestation of that was the 1999 Seattle protest, which triggered a global movement. Seattle had its idiot side, but what the serious protesters there were saying was: "You, America, are now touching my life more than my own government. You are touching it by how your culture seeps into mine, by how your technologies are speeding up change in all aspects of my life, and by how your economic rules have been `imposed' on me. I want to have a vote on how your power is exercised, because it's a force now shaping my life." I'm less charitable than Friedman. I think that it has less to do with "votes" than with power. America's culture and values undermine the Islamists' power over his women and kinfolk. Nothing scares the French elites more than the sheep of the French underclass one day waking up and asking why their society has so little choice and upward mobility. Indian bramins and Latino criollos tremble at the thought of mestizos and dalits sitting next to them at the bargaining table. America is the greatest fear of every tyrant, petty or otherwise. Why didn't nations organize militarily against the U.S.? ...because the world basically understands that America is a benign hegemon, the ganging up does not take the shape of warfare. Instead, it is an effort to Gulliverize America, an attempt to tie it down, using the rules of the World Trade Organization or U.N. â and in so doing demanding a vote on how American power is used." I'm even less charitable here. Europe has lost the will to fight. Hell, they've lost the will to reproduce (birthrates at about 1.3 non-Muslim births per woman -- well below the replacement rate). The Arabs have been fighting us through terror-proxies since 1967. The Chinese are just biding their time. "Where we are now," says Nayan Chanda, publications director at the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization (whose Web site yaleglobal .yale.edu is full of valuable nuggets), "is that you have this sullen anger out in the world at America. Because people realize they are not going to get a vote over American power, they cannot do anything about it, but they will be affected by it." Supposedly, some Nazi once said, "When I hear the word 'culture,' I reach for my pistol." Likewise, I start reaching for mine when I hear a member of any third world power elite start talking about votes or democracy. Finding a stable way to manage this situation will be critical to managing America's relations with the rest of the globe. Any ideas? Let's hear 'em: thfrie@nytimes.com. I was tempted to send Tom the link to Rantburg. Posted by: 11A5S 2003-06-01 |
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