Is the US bent on Empire? Newsmagazine US News and World Report provides a balanced overview of informed opinion, although some may object (or complain) that radical critiques are missing. http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/030113/misc/13empire.htm --Orson
"Zelikow explains that a special vocabulary of empire be- gan to develop around the time of the Boer War at the turn of the last century. It was adapted by the defeated nations of World War I to describe the victors....'Over the last generation,' Zelikow says, 'people have come to describe any nation with influence over another as an em-pire. It doesn't tell you anything, but it brings a lot of bag- gage with it.'" ----- The latter describes a hegemon--the US today, for instance. But Zelikow misleads in only saying (or only in being quoted as saying) that such a definition is empty. It's more of a contemporary confusion rooted in loose usage. --Orson
Interesting article. I think the BC Sociologist has it right....the majority of Americans wouldn't support expansionism, because we simply don't care about the rest of the world. My personal opinion is that the United States should never get involved in the affairs of other countries, unless it directly affects the United States. BUT.....any country that receives foreign aid from the United States automatically qualifies as directly affecting us. Refuse the foreign aid, and I'd be happy the leave them alone, providing nothing else about their government is a threat to us. Bruce
If it's a radical view of the concept of "empire" as it exists in todays world then I suggest you check out a book by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri entitled, strangely enough, EMPIRE (Harvard University Press, 2000). It might be a difficult read for those who are unfamiliar with the convoluted language of postmodernism but it essentially describes "empire" as a process that transcends traditional political boundaries. While it is frequently seen as being an economic process, it incorporates a diverse range of methods by which influence is brought to bear at certain places, at certain times. It's a "must read" for those keen on globilization. Jack
If it's a must read, then... one must also read Alan Wolfe's devastating review of "Empire" from The New Republic, "The Snake" (Oct 1, 2001 http://www.tnr.com/100101/wolfe100101_print.html --Orson
Re: If it's a must read, then... Yes, well, I wouldn't expect TNR, which is only slightly left of center, to give a great reception to a book written by a couple of Marxists. When you said "radical," I thought you meant RADICAL not radical. Jack
That's funny, Jack. (Thank you.) However, I'd point to the soundness of Wolf's rationales therin, and the peculiar defensiveness of the notions deployed in "Empire." At least I found him compelling enough to forego the infatuation with the tome for "maybe someday." It's said that marxism never dies--only Marxists do. The fundamental issue is really human nature--it simply doesn't bend to the will of economic determinists! As Christianity found out half a mellenium before Adam Smith heirs, people are going to be selfish. the only question is whether we see that egoism harnessed, or else stamped out in more rediculous/pathetic/genocidal/ (pick your favorite adjective) crusade. In a related note, a report from the 2003 convention of the American Historical Association (which is ALL historians in America, not simply US historians) says" "Most Exciting Concept Advanced at the Convention: Paul Schroeder's thesis that imperial power is deplorable but hegemony is not. Schroeder captured the imagination of the audience with a subtle explanation of the differences between empire and hegemony, providing a hopeful vision of a world in which the United States could operate as "first among equals" in league with other countries rather than simply as a bully. He noted that one of the greatest causes of disorder in history has been the choice of large powers to attempt to build an empire rather than merely obtain hegemony." http://hnn.us/articles/1200.html More from Schroeder is likely to appear in some forum or another. --Orson Look for followups if others are interested
Adam Smith and sefishness Orson: 'As Christianity found out half a mellenium before Adam Smith heirs, people are going to be selfish. the only question is whether we see that egoism harnessed, or else stamped out in more rediculous/pathetic/genocidal/ (pick your favorite adjective) crusade.' I am not sure who Adam Smith's 'heirs' are but ti certainly was never a position of Adam Slmith that people were 'selfish' in ant dominant sense. My reading of Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759, and 6th edition, 1790) does not support this description of his philosophy - nor in fact of his economics in the Wealth of Nations (1776). That there are selfish people goes without dispute, but that we are imbued with a dominating selfishness is disputable. Smith spoke of all behaviours being subject to the 'impartial spectator' resident 'in the breast', like a conscience that modified our actions to be conducive with living in society. That some unnamed Christians apparently discovered this in 1259 I am intrigued to discover who they were and what they wrote or believed. It might make a contribution to my book on Adam Smith, currently appoaching completeion.
Re: Adam Smith and sefishness VERY good of you, Prof Kennedy, to remember Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments and his articulation of the role of conscience in --to often neglected and forgotten. Likely, I ought not to have used the term "selfish" in describing the point I'm driving at to describe political and economic, indeed, social realism. (It's too elastic, too emotionally charged, and too subject to mal-interpretation.) Rather I mean egocentrism--the natural human tendency to regard the self--however "developed" or defined--as the locus of whatever is deemed significant, whether material or spiritual. (People's own self-regard protects a multitude of sins) I believe this was the upshot of Mandeville's Fable, and is the central insight that nurtured Ben Franklin's acceptance of the naturalness of the human clay this genius saw surrounding him. The Scottish Enlightenment's contribution to the social epistemology of human nature is routinely neglected by those who wish Human Nature be, or become, different from what it, in fact, is. (Some recent scholarship on this subject, available online may be found here:http://www.bama.ua.edu/~jotteson/scholarship.htm Very few Enlightenment intellectuals embraced the romatic social idealism of a Marx (and his heirs), and thus rejecting it, are not tempted as subsequent Romantics were and still are, to impose it! (These are Smith's "heir's" I'm referring to above--social realists, in contrast to social idealists who reject Smith's fundamental insights and his fellow Scots, if not explicitly, then implicitly.) The portion of Church history I'm referring to is what Prostestants regard as the corruption or falling away of the Church, ie., that long period of history from the time of the Albigensian (sp?) Crusades to until the Counter-Reformation where its naive idealism was lost, "compromised," even coddled in the face of human corruptibility. I believe Lord Acton referred to it as the Church's embrace of human "selfishness" as its saving Grace. And Christians generally abjure the notion of the perfectability of man (in this life, at least)--a realism, again, rejected by Marxs' hiers. In short, my brief is simply against ideologies that bypass human nature and all the stark evidence of that nature and instead embrace wooly notions of the Perfectability of Humankind that would sweep away human egocentrism. Rudely put, I'm calling the descendants of Rouseau's notion of human nature, which seculaized a strain of Protestant thought, nuts! Which is not the same thing as believing that human improvement is nutty: only those that neglect ordinary human egocentrism and attempt to stamp it out! (For example, the extented Soviet effort to stamp out markets, trade, and the private property these fundamental activities of human nature depend upon--it failed.) --Orson
Converging agreement Orson I am most obliged for your explanation and in a hurried read through, including the web site - I have just returned this hour from France and have other pressing business to attend to - I will explore with greater attention tomorrow (Friday). At first sight we have an overlap. En passant on Rouseau, be careful not to lump in with the widespread urban myth that he was on about "noble savages". He was wrong, I agree on the corrupting influence of society - human nature has ever been the safe and there were no "golden ages" and no prospect of "perfectability" - but I am inclined to believe that all attempts to improve the world, ultimately make it worse, or at least no better. Let me read your reference site and get back to you.
To Orson's original question, I reply: http://www.realsms.be/view.php?id=3246&last=3248&type=jpg (a superb piece of art entitled "Frodo Has Failed")
