So according to Franky Fuckyomama, the forward march of time stopped when the Wall came down; somehow little East Germany piloted the Federation Starship Planet Earth (LOL-1701-Z) into a temporal feedback loom; I guess it lurched forward a bit when Yeltsin faced down those tanks, uh, maybe? Anyway, then Osama bin Laden blasted some reverse-polaron technoplasma into the forward driverside warp nacelle and spun us free on Nineleven; Fuckyomama recanted; history jumped forward like a gun-shy beagle; the fourth dimension woke up, got out of bed, dragged a comb across its head. But now, according to my generation's own Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Bagel, it's stopped again, because Libya. Jeezus, history's gonna need some transmission work with all this rapid gearshifting. And by the way, what about Libya? Here is what Dr. Leo Strauss has to say:
How risible to see “the World’s Most Powerful Military Alliance” [sic] trumpet the accidental routing of a fourth rate tribal regime after months of literally pounding sand. Libya exposed NATO for what it is: a fig leaf on American Chinese-injected military steroids. Opening American bombardment aside, American logistics and C4ISR knitted together NATO’s random bombing of various tents, hovels and the odd tank or two while the Roadrunner Khaddaffi scampered away to release more Sheen-esque videos.Keep those boots in mind. So Yglesias sez history is done, curtains I tell ya, because whether you look at Libya, Iran, or Egypt, the main actors are all acting either through or toward the mechanisms of electoral democracy. No alternatives exist! Even Hamas claims legitimacy through victory in elections. Okay, then he says:
As we predicted, it took boots on the ground to change things. SAS from the UK et les autres rescued the disintegrating Western uprising, beginning with Misrata. Make no mistake. “NATO” airpower eventually proved capable (having exhausted its target set). But this overlong campaign is in Tripoli because of [unacknowledged] boots on the ground. Moreover, this direct insertion of troops to effect ‘regime change’ was and remains contrary to the humanitarian authorizing resolution. So today’s “triumph” is premised on a fiction.
The fact that China is a very large and important country still obscures the extent of the triumph to a degree, but it’s clear enough that there is no “Chinese model” to export, no Dengist movement in Libya or anywhere else proposing an alternative vision to liberalism.That's an interesting way to phrase it. It would be more accurate to say: the Chinese are not exporting their model. A distinction with a difference. Recall those unacknowledged boots on the ground. When you read that China is not "in Libya or anywhere else proposing an alternative vision to liberalism," what you should hear is that unlike Western liberalism China is not an aggressively expansionary military power. In other words, the "triumph" consists principally of a willingness to SUBVERT, INVADE, AND DEPOSE, to draw within the sphere of "democratic" influence all the forcibly-fledgling republics of the world, not at all unlike the other creaky old hegemon whose rattling demise supposedly brought history to end in that ancient era of 1989.
34 comments:
The argument could be made that only an expansionist ideology will ever be the one that "ends history". (Indeed, only a universalist ideology -- as liberal democracy is.) Because, as with China, if you don't export your system you fall behind.
Not that I believe that as such. I do think it is true in a sense: some ideology will eventually come to dominate human governance, and it will be expansionist as per above. But that ideology will not be liberal democracy, with its many evident failure modes. History's not over yet, Woodchuck.
Yet it’s noteworthy that neither Franco nor Stalin would steal an election.
uh, well, you know, I think maybe yggles misunderstands the context and nature of Soviet elections.
some ideology will eventually come to dominate human governance
Agreed.
"...because, as with China, if you don't export your system, you fall behind."
Behind what?
And, what the hell do you think the Chinese state is exporting, when it pays the US on the cheap to soften up future Chinese commodities markets?
But, in all seriousness, the Chinese state has traditionally relied on two successful models. Although neither relies on exportation.
The first being to absorb (Tibet, Xinjiang, Mongolia eventually), the second being to mercantilize (Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Sudan is on its way) into dependency.
The US has on the other hand traditionally preferred to duplicate itself in miniature, at least in theory.
Obligatory:
I don't know why you find him so outrageous. After all, you both want fewer Chinese models in Libya.
Jack, behind the other countries, that are. Proselytizing religions dominate the world for the obvious reason. All governmental systems are based on ideology, and ideology is always religious in character.
Good point, though, about China exporting capitalism. Ideological export doesn't have to be overt nor top-down.
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90780/7577801.html
Leonard,
I'm not sure I accept that "ideology is always religious in character."
Possible to spell that out in greater detail?
@Leonard, What about 'godless communism'?
PR, godless communism is a direct ideological descendent of Christianity. In the 19th century, Christians discarded the Trinity. Then in the 20th they discarded God, thus becoming a godless religion, but religion nonetheless. They kept selected bits of Christianity, basically, those that were advantageous within a democratic political context. Most particularly: the priesthood of the individual; the brotherhood of man (or now, perhaps, the siblinghood of humans); the necessity and virtue of building the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth; the insistence on equality ("social justice"); the belief in historical destination.
Are we really to believe that Marx, on his own, invented the idea that all men are brothers, despite living in a society dominated by a religion whose creed taught exactly that?
Jack, for "ideology", m-w is not very helpful ("a systematic body of concepts especially about human life or culture"), but the synonyms are suggestive: "credo, doctrine, dogma, gospel, creed, philosophy, testament"). Note that "religion" has many of the same synonyms: "credo, creed, cult, faith, persuasion".
I take a broad view of religion. I see no reason to limit it just assertions about the supernatural. I also include all morality and ethics, i.e. assertions about what is good and bad, or what man ought to do. So, when a Christian tells me I ought to love my neighbor, that's religion. It's the same when a progressive tells me I should care about "social justice", when a conservative tells me I should love America, or when I say that we should punish criminals. All of these statements are religious in character.
Would it be ironic that China could use the domino theory to justify helping Iran when the US finally sets its sights there?
the term religion should be used to refer to an ideology dependent on supernatural, transcendent forces or beings. Religion as a subset of ideology, perhaps?
Leonard is correct as to the Christian roots of Marxist ideology, yet similar ideals are not limited to Christian cultures. I would argue that empathy and the like is not a relgioous ideology but probably comes fout of our evolution as social animals in organized groups. As leonard is a Galtian Superman, he may not beleive this, but empathy and "brotherhood of man" are pretty broad tendencies in human cultures.
Leonard,
I think you are trying to span a chasm between an ought, or an exhortation, to a re ligio, a systematic belief with metaphysical assertions...without a bridge.
Or perhaps the notion of species-being derived from the Aristotelian notion [via Hegel] of a final cause... but of course, Leonard wouldn't know that, would he.
That and a good dose of the Greek Charities cult which lead Hegel to his notion of annerkenung.
Jack, I think you are looking at a crack and seeing a chasm.
The fact that mice demonstrate empathy for one another clearly proves that rodents are pernicious Christian-Marxists intent on the totalitarian subjugation of free-thinking supercapitalists everywhere.
Leonard,
I can spend two hours and two thousand words about the state and not make a single metaphysical claim.
You literally cannot refer to God without a metaphysics, not even if you're Vattimo in Nietzsche Means We Can Have God W/o Metaphysics mode.
If the Supercapitalists Move Their Cheese, those pernicious Marxist Mice will quickly starve!
senator rubio said the new deal made the u.s. a weaker nation
when i was a kid popsicles were a nickel
it's still not too late to have a worldwide nuclear war
the lifeguard said, "don't urinate in the pool, mr. smith" "but everybody does it" "not from the diving board"
Much shorter Leonard:
"Well, atheists believe there's no God." [feels smug]
Shorter Matty Ice: "I can't explain it so it must be real"
In the 19th century, Christians discarded the Trinity
That's news to the Pope.
I think you are looking at a crack and seeing a chasm.
Your Mom said the same thing last night. And your Dad.
Don't say I don't do gender equality.
Not all the Christians. Just the ones running the USA and Britain. Then they exported the revolution, or at least they overthrew all other Western governments by force of arms and imposed progressive regimes. (WWII was helpful in that regard.) Only after WWII was their domination complete enough that they could publicly discard God.
You are of course correct that some people do still believe in God, or even a triune God. These people do not rule anything. Rather they are the other that the ruling elite disdains and despises.
Leonard, I am digging your updated British Israelism.
Well, I dig what I think too. But I would hardly label it British Israelism, updated or no. That makes no sense at all. I'd label it Moldbuggery.
Whenever I hear about Fukuyama's "end of history" I imagine one of his revered ancestors saying something like, "Is the death of Ahkenaten the end of history? Oh sure, events will continue to happen, but with Akhenaten gone there are now no viable threats to the holy cult of Osiris".
Christopher,
I have your permission to quote that?
Somehow, I'm not buying WW2 as an atheist conspiracy.
I have your permission to quote that?
Sure.
As a wee lad in the 50s, I was pissed off that I had to re-learn the Pledge of Allegiance when the godless 20th-century Christians "running the USA" inserted the words "under God."
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