The New York Times Magazine from last week did something I just love: look at historical precedent to explain a contemporary predicament. Today's troubles have their roots in the past, though to hear our politicians speak about it, these are unprecedented problems which require radical, sometimes unlawful, actions at the expense of everything else.
The article postulates that liberals (Democrats) need to look to their 20th century history to see how they can create a compelling, coherent foreign policy to rival the conservatives in this election year and beyond. Undoubtedly, the Democrats are impotent because they are beset by extraordinary problems and have a diverse (ideological, economic) base to appeal to. The legacy Democrats should turn to? That of Reinhold Niebuhr. I made some mention of his ideas before because I too see them as a way of understanding the predicament American now finds itself, one that is hubristic and radical.
Niebuhr said the atrocities of early 20th century in terms of humanity's move away from a doctrine of fallibility to one of extreme idolization of the individual. In the United States’ policies during the cold war he, along with George Kennan, cautioned that Americans cannot lose sight of their own wickedness and injustice and regard themselves as “morally pure” in contrast to their communist enemies. Even democracies are capable of bring great tyranny on their people and others.
Peter Beinhart, author of the Times pieces concurs: "in the first years of the cold war, Niebuhr's emphasis on moral fallibility underlay America's remarkable willingness to restrain its power." The danger, Beinhart writes, of these current times, is America's movement away from this restraint but calling itself a "benign empire" and having grand ambitions of "exporting" democracy to everyone, whether they want it or not. "In other words," Beinhart writes, "the United States would rid itself of external impediments but nonetheless act in the global good, uncorrupted by the temptations of unrestrained power."
Beinhart continues with what I think is a good encapsulation of the problem: "On global warming, an American liberated from international restraint has acted irresponsibly; in our antiterrorist prisons, we have acted inhumanely." Liberals, it seems, have not been able to come up with viable solutions because they have been able to explain this hubris in a way that provides any glimmer of hope for change or convinces people that they would do any different if they were in power. They haven't been able to explain, to a national audience, how the current conservative administration has focused on foreign affairs at the expense of domestic ones. Beinhart provides a good example: "That is the hidden backdrop to the great popular revolt against the Dubai ports deal earlier this year - an isolationist, nationalist spasm by a public that feels the government is more concerned with the interests of foreigners that with its own."
So what is to be done? Liberals have to embrace promoting democracy abroad but like how it was done after WWII: by providing economic opportunity with it as well and accepting that democracy in this country is an experiments and its health is dependent on our belief in the system. They can also talk about bringing the focus back to domestic front because, as Beinhart points out, "America is not a fixed model for a benighted world. It is the democratic struggle here at home, against evil in our society, that offers a beacon to people in other national struggling against the evil in theirs."
Filed under Current Events, History, Politics
