text:
Human Rights Imperialism: Leftist Satire or Moral Collapse?
The Guardian recently published a wicked satire of moral relativism, a Swiftian send-up entitled "End human rights imperialism now" with the classic sub-heading "Groups such as Human Rights Watch have lost their way by imposing western, 'universal' standards on developing countries." Brilliant! Hahahahaha! I didn't know the Guardian had branched out into humor.
But about five minutes after my laughter subsided, a horrible suspicion dawned on me: Could it be that the author was serious?
A quick re-read confirmed my fears. This was no joke. This was the modern left finally taking its last inevitable step into the abyss of moral oblivion.
A few quick quotes from this astonishing manifesto will introduce you to a disturbing new way of looking at the world:
Founded by idealists who wanted to make the world a better place, [the human rights movement] has in recent years become the vanguard of a new form of imperialism.
Want to depose the government of a poor country with resources? Want to bash Muslims? Want to build support for American military interventions around the world? Want to undermine governments that are raising their people up from poverty because they don't conform to the tastes of upper west side intellectuals? Use human rights as your excuse!
Human Rights Watch is hardly the only offender. There are a host of others, ranging from Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders to the Carr Centre for Human Rights at Harvard and the pitifully misled "anti-genocide" movement. All promote an absolutist view of human rights permeated by modern western ideas that westerners mistakenly call "universal".
Just as Human Rights Watch led the human rights community as it arose, it is now the poster child for a movement that has become a spear-carrier for the "exceptionalist" belief that the west has a providential right to intervene wherever in the world it wishes.
Those who have traditionally run Human Rights Watch and other western-based groups that pursue comparable goals come from societies where crucial group rights – the right not to be murdered on the street, the right not to be raped by soldiers, the right to go to school, the right to clean water, the right not to starve – have long since been guaranteed. In their societies, it makes sense to defend secondary rights, like the right to form a radical newspaper or an extremist political party. But in many countries, there is a stark choice between one set of rights and the other. Human rights groups, bathed in the light of self-admiration and cultural superiority, too often make the wrong choice.
Human rights need to be considered in a political context. The question should not be whether a particular leader or regime violates western-conceived standards of human rights. Instead, it should be whether a leader or regime, in totality, is making life better or worse for ordinary people.
It's not that the essay's author, former New York Times Bureau Chief and current anti-imperialist professor-activist Stephen Kinzer, is wrong about his facts: it's quite true that life under a totalitarian police state is often safer and more secure than living in lawless anarchy. That's why the war-torn masses throughout history sometimes clamor for peace even at the cost of their own freedom. Yet forgotten in Kinzer's approval of oppressive societies is that wannabe dictators always use this excuse to justify their crushing of human rights: We need to remove your freedom in order to guarantee your safety. Never mind that the new regime was usually one of combatants endangering the citizenry in the first place.
No, the issue is that Kinzer seems to have just now woken up to a phenomenon that many of us have known about for quite some time — that the human rights movement "has in recent years become the vanguard of a new form of imperialism."
The only error in that statement is the word "recent." The notion of "universal human rights" was formulated in the West and is the basis of Western civilization; and the the notion of bringing these "Western values" to oppressed and backward peoples has been the goal not just of the modern human rights movement but of missionaries, do-gooders and yes, even the American military for quite some time.
Kinzer has freshly arrived at the blinding and quite correct realization that the "human rights movement" and "Western imperialism" are one and the same. And having become aware of this, you'd think that as a human rights activist, he'd have a life-altering epiphany: Perhaps I've been wrong about what I call "imperialism" this whole time. Maybe it is a force for good after all.
But no. Standing on the brink of a psychological breakthrough, Kinzer turned the other way and instead had a breakdown. Pinioned by the idée fixe that America and imperialism and Western values are always and irrevocably wrong, when faced with the fact that human rights are a subset of Western values, Kinzer felt he had no choice but to discard his belief in human rights. Which must have been quite difficult for someone who formerly regarded himself as a human rights activist, but hey, ya gotta do what ya gotta do.
Moral relativism vs. cultural imperialism
What we see in this essay is moral relativism finally taken to its logical conclusion. No longer will the Left be able to claim credit for the "good" aspects of two fundamentally oppositional viewpoints. Either you are for respecting native cultures and native value systems, or you are for bringing "human rights" (i.e. "Western values") to Third World peoples. But you can't do both simultaneously. Yet that is exactly what the Left has been doing for decades — claiming credit as the world's humanitarians and advocates for universal human rights, while at the same time claiming credit as the defenders of native cultures and opponents of imperialism.
117 Comments, 60 Threads
1. mojo
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human
freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the
credo of slaves."
-William PittJanuary 21, 2011 - 1:34 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
JD Rose
And once freedom is gone, it is difficult to get back. The author is another self-hating liberal deconstructionist (and no doubt Edward Said lover) who doesn't even know how the pieces are supposed to fit together. He sees everything as the same. Good and evil.
As a brainwashed friend told me "Your truth is your truth and my truth is my truth". She lives 2 blocks from ground zero and doesn't care about the ground zero mosque because she can stay at her house in the Hamptons if things get too rough.
It takes money to live an inflated bubble of ignorance. This hilarious dead on animated satire exposes the insanity of the Progressives and shows them for the "head up the butt" people they are.
Adobe Walls
And yet the phenomenon of Manic Progressivism remains the least remarked on form of mental defect. The mind boggles.January 22, 2011 - 12:49 am Link to this Comment | Reply
stick it roseJanuary 22, 2011 - 3:21 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
2. David Kramer
You can lead a pseudo intellectual to the tree of knowledge but without common sense, they cannot reach the first branch.
I have taken numerous occasions and voluminous time attempting to break the perceived psychopathy of those on the left. I have taken their articles and broken them down, point by point and the only thing they come back with is vitriol.
I attempt to assuage their anger, their absolute cognitive dissonance and all I receive in return, is attack. They are insane, I first perceived it to be only a symptom of their learned past but it goes beyond that.
I do not know how others deal with having to listen to their disjointed beliefs, me I just start getting angry now. I just want to smack them up the backside of the head. What you bring up here about the moral relativism between imperialism and human rights always leads back to the core of the argument. The rights of the individual or the perceived rights of the collective. I am a dihard non interventionalist and define my political leaning as a Constitutional Libertarian. I believe in the rights of the individual with a very basic framework of Constitutional protections. These rights to be protected by courts of law with Intelligent and Knowledgeable juries of my peers.
This is the WHOLE problem. Lincoln wrote a speech and I will see if I can find it, that we have to vehemently teach our children individual rights and the Constitution. I believe he wrote this early in his life before he became a large figure and looked to enforce a larger federal government.
What I am getting at here is the imperialism these "liberals" (I hate it when they destroy a perfectly good word) push for themselves, is their sullied and perverse definitions of human rights. People do not have the right to other peoples labor. IMO, they are what they hate, tyrants. We should not attempt to push our beliefs on others. These other countries will either throw off the chains of their own oppression or will become barbaric and war torn nations.
My final argument on this is to ask, how goes the multiculturalism and push for these "human rights" in the countries around the world?
You cannot lead them to the tree of knowledge and force them to climb, they have to do it themselves. Otherwise you become what you detest.
Another great article Zombie.January 21, 2011 - 2:07 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
3. Ozzy
Pretty cool, Zom
but I doubt that slaves are any safer than free citizens.
I think it's just against the law to report crime.
Kinda like Hitler and the trains, How do we know they were on time? They lied about everything else….January 21, 2011 - 2:19 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
Actually, it was Mussolini who was credited with "getting the trains to run on time"- in Italy, where getting anything done on anything like a schedule was considered a major feat.
Germany's trains always ran on time. Hitler made full use of this, in moving Jews and other "inferior races" to Auschwitz, Birkenau, etc.
Moral; Never let an efficient infrastructure fall into the hands of tyrants. You probably won't like the results of their use of it.
clear ether
eonJanuary 21, 2011 - 7:27 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
M. Report
An admirer of Soviet communism who made the same argument was
'awakened' during a visit to Moscow by a cry in the night;
He discovered that he was afraid to go to the aid of the victim,
because he might have to face not a criminal, but a policeman.January 22, 2011 - 7:37 am Link to this Comment | Reply
Kinda like America where they run a warrant check if you report a crime?January 25, 2011 - 12:32 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
4. garrettc
We needen't go further than our nearest metropolitan center to find the same aspects of woolly-headed progressive thinkng and the massive destruction that it causes ( or allows to develop) in its wake.
5. Madeleine
This reminds me of a great article I read the other day on the Wall Street Journal:January 21, 2011 - 2:30 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
6. Andy
Cultural relativism……
This quote comes to mind:
"If all values are relative, then cannibalism is [just] a matter of taste."January 21, 2011 - 2:36 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
Sean Penn believes in Cultural Relativism; he goes to Haiti cuz he thinks they're string theorist's with a string of bad luck. Take away the bad luck, put 'em on their feet – Bam! – a Haitian lunar laboratory. Penn remarks, "Boys, I just knew you had me in you."January 22, 2011 - 2:44 am Link to this Comment | Reply
Penn goes to Haiti because he knows it is a place that will never iomprove as long as the aid keeps flowing. That's what he likes to see and talk about. These poor homeless people,whom,anywhere else on Earth would have to get up and make a house from wood and tim strewn along the road.Not these people,that have lived on aid for that long,they don't know what work is.They think all governments pay their people to do nothing.January 22, 2011 - 3:27 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
7. don
So, when a Pol Pot or Uncle Ho or Lenin or Mao forcefully imposed a Western based ideology, Marxism, on their non Western people at the point of an AK47 bayonet and RPG launcher, that wasn't imperialism: it's only Western imperialism when narrow minded Westerners like me tried to prevent the forceful imposition of those Western ideologies on non-Western people? Gee, the heroic altruism of Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda getting room service in Hanoi is now perfectly clear, while I was merely a selfish running dog capitalist pig, in between periodic bouts of groveling to dodge incoming in the Iron Triangle.
Don wrote: "… it's only Western imperialism when narrow minded Westerners like me tried to prevent the forceful imposition of those Western ideologies on non-Western people?"
Exactly! Just as Julian Assange only cares about war-makers who might be in some way on the side of America but won't spend half a second trying to get any "leaks" from Red China, North Korea, or Iran. It's not so much about peace as it is about being anti-American at all costs.January 23, 2011 - 2:05 am Link to this Comment | Reply
8. Angela
What a brilliant piece. It must be terrifying to a Progressive to discover that he is no different than his enemy – his enemy, of course, being the U.S. Military and Christian Missionaries. It also comes as no surprise that the author of The Guardian piece chooses to opt out of any humanitarian cause rather than co-op with these enemies to ensure his work has long term, beneficial effect.
It puts the final nail in the coffin that contains my former liberal/progressive/do-gooder self. I first began to understand a few years ago that the basic principle of the left in this country is to control each and every person and their purse under the pretenses of paternalism or of fairness. Now I understand that the mission of the left universally is no different.
9. Ray L. Texin
Bravo! Really beautiful. I am glad you came over. I am a "hispanic" American that has spent 20 years working in Latin America. My first hand experiences long ago informed me that all cultures are not equal.
The curse of the poorest people in the world is the acceptance of "multiculturalism" (relativism) by the worlds elites. It also leads to a posture of weakness in the face of real threats in the West.
There is an unbelievable amount of insight in this writing. What a tour de force! Again, bravo!
I will pay more attention to anything you write from here forward.January 21, 2011 - 3:08 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
10. MisterH
Outstanding Zombie. I really enjoy reading your pieces – keep it up.January 21, 2011 - 3:39 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
11. Beth just south of Berkeley and just east of San Francisco
"We have met the enemy and he is us." — Pogo
I'm so very sorry your cousin has just blown you off and not taken the time to think about what you showed her. I could say something about her a priori thinking, but you already did in this splendid essay.
I think people like her have so assimilated the idea that Western Civ=evil, stomping on the noble savages that getting wrapped up in their version of being righteous is the only defense they have against crippling guilt. Too bad it cripple their minds.
As for this piece being a tour de force … Zombie hits it high, Zombie hits it deep, Zombie hits it … OUTTA HERE!!!January 21, 2011 - 3:43 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
12. emmaliza
Dinesh D'Sousa has explored colonialism in depth, and also traces the roots of the concept of individual rights and later the realization that a nation could be founded upon God-given rights, of liberty, of life and the pursuit of happiness in his well-researched books.
Without Christianity and Judaism's code of right and wrong, where would any Westerner be now? Would any of us even exist? After all, each of our ancestors originated in some barbarian culture, if you retreat far enough back. Most Americans have some colonialist's genes in their DNA, even blacks and most Native Americans. In Sudan, the black slave trade has continued unabated through to the present. Aids is still killing Africans by the millions. Put into perspective, would black Westerners exist or still be in bondage in Africa, had it not been for colonialists needing labor for the colonies? The descendants of D'Sousa's and other Indians' ancestors are today freed of the horrors of a society so structured that the poorest had no chance for a better life. They were freed because of the long period of British colonialism, which introduced those concepts of individual freedom.
If you leave out God, what is your basis for judging good and bad? It appears you turn to the relativism that what you do is okay and what I do is okay, whether or not you are a mass murderer or just a liar and cheat. If you feel superior to Christians and Jews, do you always look upon their honest attempts to help other human beings as somehow bad, and that the priests of long ago who gave their lives in the Southwest and Mexico to bettering all humankind were bad? Does the desire to help others have no value? Have you read Enrique's history of Mexico?January 21, 2011 - 3:50 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
13. Thomas_L......
That's a keeper, oh walking dead one! Brilliant!January 21, 2011 - 4:01 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
14. Insufficiently Sensitive
It's very very difficult for modern progressives to wrap their minds around this concept. They have been inculcated since birth in the old peacenik canard that war is always wrong, that it's inherently evil, that it can never be used for "good" because the process of salvation is invariably worse than the status quo of oppression, as encapsulated by the famous (but probably fabricated) quote, "We had to destroy the village in order to save it."
They, the left, got around that one effortlessly. It just took some simple Orwellian semantics. Of course 'war' was despicable and inhuman. But, now, a righteous 'armed struggle'! That's how they could turn out in their Che Guevara t-shirts to burn cop cars at anti-'war' demonstrations, while siphoning off part of their allowance to surrogates who applied revolutionary justice as lethally as Che himself did.January 21, 2011 - 4:46 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
15. Rachel
Have you read Three Cups of Tea? Mortensen built schools in Pakistan, where he was welcomed by village leaders, who wanted their girls educated. They too felt threatened by the Taliban. There was no military threat to them from us.January 21, 2011 - 5:01 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
I have read it.
The scenario I was describing was someone who "walks into Taliban country." Where Mortensen built his schools, as you correctly pointed out, was in areas not so sympathetic to the Taliban, or in some cases openly oppositional to the Taliban. In a few cases the schools are in "marginal" territory. But those villagers who agreed to build schools with Mortensen's group were specifically the ones who were already predisposed to be open-minded. Both Mortensen and the open-minded villagers got Taliban fatwas against them.
Whenever the Taliban takes full control of an area, one of the first things they do is destroy girls' schools.
I'm sorry that passage in the essay was a little confusing. I was discussing situations in which Westerners enter into an area known to be hostile to our ideology.
Recently, Mortensen has ventured more into Afghanistan, where the situation is sketchier — which exactly explains why he's suddenly so chummy with the U.S. military.
I'm not putting down Mortensen's work — only pointing out that one couldn't pull off the same feat in hostile territory without the implicit backing of Western might.January 21, 2011 - 5:20 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
I believe that some of Mortensen's schools have actually been shut down by the Taliban and other fundamentalist groups, as well. Which also might explain why he's become so chummy with the US military.January 21, 2011 - 7:22 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
16. RKae
…real human beings will be compelled to live in these ethnographic exhibits, and must thereby endure real hardships for our intellectual amusement and to alleviate our Western guilt.
Good God! It's the Prime Directive in action!
I love the woman packing her bags, leaving New Guinea and giving up! I wish they'd do that with me: quit trying to shove progressiveness on me and let me live in my world in its pristine state.January 21, 2011 - 5:49 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
Jamie W.
But as every Star Trek fan knows, the Prime Directive was not just broken but shattered almost every time fresh contact was made. Point being, once the culture is observed, it is human nature to meddle with it in some way.
Thank God it's Western culture doing most of the meddling. What foreign culture would you like to have meddling with us? Perhaps the collective progressive head would explode if it were pointed out to them that the Japanese would have LOVED to share their culture with us about seventy years ago, as would the Germans. In most cases in America, we only meddle if meddled with first.January 23, 2011 - 1:34 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
17. Bugs
Interesting dilemma you bring up. Progressive implies progress which implies change. Yet many who consider themselves politically progressive also want to preserve other cultures – rain forest dwellers or old-school Muslims or what have you. As you point out, it's difficult to stimulate progress without meddling, yet if you refrain from meddling there is no progress.
I think normal, non-conflicted people simply understand that to achieve one goal you often have to sacrifice another. If you want progress, the cultures in question have to change. If you want to preserve cultures (or if you're dedicated to non-interference), then you have to accept that there won't be any progress.January 21, 2011 - 6:13 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
In my neck of the woods, the occasional federally-sanctioned buffalo hunt by Native Americans is just about enough cognitive dissonance to make progressive heads explode.January 21, 2011 - 8:21 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
18. Sam Parsons
Zombie, you have become one of my favorite authors. You do good analysis, you have a clear moral vision, and you write with panache and humor. In this case, your description of the Left's paradox and Kinzer's moment of awakening combine all three elements. I was rolling on the floor. Many people can learn a lot from your writing. Keep up the good work. (Is there any chance that I can distribute this article in my ethics class?)January 21, 2011 - 6:25 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
Yes, you may distribute the article to your ethics class. It's the least I could do for a devoted reader!January 21, 2011 - 7:11 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
Sam Parsons
Zombie, Thank You. My students will benefit greatly. I look forward to more great work from you.January 22, 2011 - 5:32 am Link to this Comment | Reply
19. proreason
Maybe to you they are cannibals who would just as soon eat your toddler as toast a marshmallow, but to their neighbors, they are fun folks who bring in their mail when the family is out pirating.
Will conservatives never realize that cultures are just different, not better or worse than any other.
After all, Charlie Manson was just a guy who got caught. It could happen to anyone.January 21, 2011 - 7:03 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
The commenter who wrote this clearly demonstrates the specious thought process of cultural relativism, of those whom the essay critiques. And he has chosen a magnificently ironic "handle" under which to flaunt his incomprehension.January 23, 2011 - 12:06 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
Hrm… I took it as pure sarcasm, nothing more.January 25, 2011 - 10:07 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
20. Dianna
The poor little activist met the enemy in the mirror, did he?
Silly man. Quite unable to think, consumed with self-hatred.
I think I shall continue to favor civil rights.January 21, 2011 - 7:28 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
What kind of "civil rights" and for…"___"?
21. Delia
This was most impressive, Zombie. I'm so glad you've held your own here on PJM! Kudos!January 21, 2011 - 8:12 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
22. Dana
Wonderful article. I was just explaining to my spousal unit that Pajamas Media was become quite the hotbed of conservative/libertarian thinking, and then to have the pleasure of logging on to find this!
Kinzer is just one step away from the more radical nihilists or radical environmentalists who find no value in human life, much less relative moral values (remember the horrifying 10:10 "No Pressure" video?). It's the inevitable result of having no reference point, no rock on which to stand. I personally believe that when society decides God is dead, then we, too become nothing. Most religions invest people with a little spark of the divine, and without that, we're no better than animals- actually we're worse because we consume so much of the natural world.
There is, of course, an extremely solid non-religious foundation for the belief in the existence of human rights and the betterment of mankind through reason and scientific progress. Obviously that description fits many of the fine folks right here on Pajamas Media. Secular humanism is a harder message to communicate to the masses, though, whereas the Ten Commandments do at least have the benefit of brevity and authority. I'm not sure how much the average person studies the great Greek and Enlightenment thinkers these days. Are students even taught that those concepts are great, or are they just a couple of popular historical philosophies among many?
At any rate, the unwillingness to "impose" Western values on less-developed cultures isn't so much to preserve that culture as it is to take a stand against the West. It always comes down to that whenever the far left is involved- it's really just about the only consistent, unifying theme they have.
Micha Elyi
There is, of course, an extremely solid non-religious foundation for the belief in the existence of human rights and the betterment of mankind through reason and scientific progress.-Dana
Yeah, it's called Natural Law. Rather out of fashion it is. These days most of the folks who support the concept are Catholics. You may have heard of 'em, they're the Christians who also brought you Western Civilization and science. Their head guy's earthly vicar, an elderly, soft-spoken Bavarian professor who was of late relocated to someplace near Rome, has spent considerable time publicly denouncing neo-relativism and such.February 11, 2011 - 10:40 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
23. Delia
Dearest Zombie:
I'm just puttin' this out here as an idea for you to cover sometime because I haven't seen many political blogs (if any) tack the subject of white slavery and also blacks who were slave owners in America. Some random links to get you digging around:
I'm sure it would be controversial no matter what but it would be interesting to get to the bottom of it.January 21, 2011 - 8:20 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
Thanks — I'll look into the topic.
[Note -- if a commenter puts in too many links, the comment usually gets caught in the spam filter. I had to rescue this one, took out the links. In future, folks, limit links to two or three per comment at most.]January 21, 2011 - 11:09 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
Yup. The links I provided sent my whole post into moderation. lol
I included a link to a book on amazon.com which might have been considered spamming?
I'm not going to lie, I think the whole thing about white slavery is interesting to me because I'm part Irish and the Irish were treated horribly just about everywhere they went.
I will try and post my links below this reply one at a time…
Thanks for taking my idea into consideration, Zombie! You rock (as usual)!January 22, 2011 - 3:52 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
Link one:
http://americancivilwar.com/authors/black_slaveowners.htmJanuary 22, 2011 - 3:53 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
Link two:
http://www.revisionisthistory.org/forgottenslaves.htmlJanuary 22, 2011 - 3:54 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
Link 3:
http://www.africaresource.com/rasta/sesostris-the-great-the-egyptian-hercules/the-forgotten-white-slaves-part-ii-nehesy/January 22, 2011 - 3:55 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
24. Gork
Zombie, this is an excellent example of formal political criticism. Bravo!
However, I do not understand why Kinzer is being designated as a liberal leftist. This position is not classically liberal, and is not activist position at all. In fact, he is proposing something that seems to be almost ultra right wing to me: Do not support these people because that would be imperialistic. In other words, do not organize them. Let them fend for themselves.
I should point out that Kinzer's opinion seems like utter lunacy to me, no matter how it is labeled. I'm just curious why you chose those two labels.January 21, 2011 - 8:36 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
Yes, it is true that on the right there is an isolationist wing of Ron-Paulites who also basically say "Go jump in the lake!" when the world comes begging for favors from the US. And for many decades it was liberal democrats — FDR (WWII) Truman (Korea) Kennedy + LBJ (Vietnam) and Clinton (Serbia/Balkans) — who got us involved in most of our interventionist wars and police actions, while a certain portion of old-school Republicans preferred that we keep our powder dry. Things changed after 9/11 and the rise of the neo-cons, obviously, when the Democrats suddenly started pretending that they were the anti-war party (to which I hope the majority of Americans responded with a hearty "LOL").
Despite all that, the reason I chose to "label" Kinzer as a left-winger is simple enough: That's how he labels himself. He does not self-identify as a Ron Paul conservative, but rather as a left-winger very similar to Noam Chomsky in his views. He allows himself to be interviewed on Democracy Now! and other far-left outlets. His bio makes it pretty clear.
Yes, I know about "classical liberalism" — that's not what I'm talking about. Kinzer is a postmodern liberal, with all the absence of intellectual baggage that implies.January 21, 2011 - 11:48 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
I guess I shouldn't be surprised that he is so bereft of common sense and is so confused.
It is truly difficult to hold a conversation with those who use the same words to describe ideas that are truly contrary to popular definitions. File this under self-delusion.January 22, 2011 - 6:47 am Link to this Comment | Reply
25. Jefferson Davis
Vindicated at last! After lo these many years, someone finally identifies the moral corruption at the heart those Yankee imperialists.January 21, 2011 - 8:37 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
26. Matthew
Hmm. I think folks should read the article for themselves. This response goes a bit beyond what kinzer actually says, and doesn't even mention the examples he uses.
I don't know anything about this kinzer guy. Maybe he's an apologist for tyrants, I have no idea. I think he also needs to choose his words a bit better. Rather than leading with a grand claim about imperialism, he should have just come straight out and said that human rights groups and the press can be used as stooges. That seems to me to be what the article is actually about, whatever his philosophical claims. I agree that there are universally recognizable human rights, but I also accept that there can be consequences to meddling.
Does anyone here think that human rights organisations had a spotless record in relation to iraq? Or where they stooges? That's one of the things that kinzer asks.January 21, 2011 - 9:09 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
On the contrary, I think human rights groups are about as human and error prone as the military. The mistakes they make are every bit as deadly and horrible.
They serve as the flip side of the same coin as our military: they're there to effect political change. Neither could do as well without the other. Claiming that one is "better" shows a naivete that belies a lack of understanding of how the world works. Force without political goals is evil, pointless, and will lead to more uprisings in the future. Conversely, attempting to effect human rights in any place less than a full blown democracy without some backup of force to help it along is also a doomed effort. We have to be ready to back up our words with deeds. It probably won't take much, but it is every bit necessary.January 21, 2011 - 9:21 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
SJ Stier
I think what he is saying is pretty clear.
"By my standards, this authoritarian regime is the best thing that has happened to Rwanda since colonialists arrived a century ago. My own experience tells me that people in Rwanda are happy with it, thrilled at their future prospects, and not angry that there is not a wide enough range of newspapers or political parties. Human Rights Watch, however, portrays the Rwandan regime as brutally oppressive. Giving people jobs, electricity, and above all security is not considered a human rights achievement; limiting political speech and arresting violators is considered unpardonable."
You see, his own experience tells him that the people are "happy with it". I'm speechless.
His acceptance of a totalitarian regime for the sake of security IS unpardonable.January 22, 2011 - 8:05 am Link to this Comment | Reply
In principle I agree with you. But read what else he wrote:
Human Rights Watch wants Rwandans to be able to speak freely about their ethnic hatreds, and to allow political parties connected with the defeated genocide army to campaign freely for power. It has come to this: all that is necessary for another genocide to happen in Rwanda is for the Rwandan government to follow the path recommended by Human Rights Watch.
Dunno. Maybe he's onto something. I'd say a fair few basic human rights were trampled in the aftermath of the kosovo war, while peacekeepers tried to stitch together a workable settlement. I haven't personally been to rwanda, so I'm not in a position to say whether he's right or not – but let's at least be honest about what he's saying.January 22, 2011 - 4:12 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
27. RKae
So, when leftists discover that their philosophy has anything in common with right-wing philosophy… then they dump their philosophy!
How does this work with their promises to "get along" and "reach across the aisle"?January 21, 2011 - 10:31 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
28. DavidN
The fascinating Do-see-do of the 3rd-world dictator trying to cling to power is always the same:
1) Tell the Americans and the more prominent Europeans that your people are primitive, and anti-American. This is why you must shoot opposition leaders, ban opposition newspapers, TV, and radio, limit internet access, and generally be totalitiarian, to include rigging elections, suspending Parliament, or even just ruling without these formalities.
2) Tell (via rumor-mill and word of mouth) the locals that the Americans and prominent Europeans insist that you maintain a dictatorship, because the country is strategically valuable or has important minerals or resources that the west needs for something (fighter jet engines, cell phones innards, whatever). Let everyone know that the trappings of power that you arrogate to yourself, the limousine, the palaces, the villa on the Riviera, the yacht and the private plane, and of course the rent-controlled apartment in New York City so your wife can shop on 5th Avenue…these things are so that the Americans and their prominent allies take you seriously. You would eschew everything and live as a simple peasant, except that you must have all of these things so that the Americans listen to you as you speak for your people.
3) Make sure to finance the radicals in your country, but do it through surrogates and third parties, allies who can't be traced to you directly. Make sure that they denounce the Americans regularly, commit acts of terrorism against Americans and even kill some every once in a while, and also make sure they launch ineffective attacks against you also. A few citizens of your citizens dead in a terrorist attack is acceptable, if it convinces the Americans that you're seriously under threat and the terrorists are extremist enough. This will convince them that your dictatorship is a neccessary evil, which they will tolerate for a while further. This in turn brings you closer to your eventual goal, retirement to that villa on the Riviera while your replacement rails against you for "stealing" from the government. By the way, don't listen to him: he'll be stealing even more than you are, and telling the Americans that *he* needs to maintain a dictatorship not only to keep out the extremists, but to keep you from making a comeback, a return from exile.
These three simple steps keep many dictators oversees in power. Back in the 80′s and earlier, they happily emphasized that the opposition was connected, often very tenuously, to the Soviets. Now they're invariably radical Muslims. The three rules changed almost not at all in the interim, and as near as I can see will probably continue for the forseeable future. The useful idiot who wrote the article above can run interference for the dictators when some annoyance in America or Europe brings up things you'd like for people to ignore, like killing the opposition leaders or banning their media outlets. After all, you're just guaranteeing stability.January 21, 2011 - 11:20 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
29. Steve Skubinna
I'm certainly not going to object to leftists finally embracing the logical extreme of cultural relativism (while of course refusing to accept it myself). If all cultures and viewpoints are equally valid, then they are no longer able to pretend moral superiority over me. We merely represent two equally valid viewpoints.
Great! I look forward to the ending of the ceaseless hectoring, lecturing, and haranguing by sanctimonious leftists, as soon as they conclude that their opinions grant them no moral high ground whatever. Excellent news, Zombie! By all means spread this new revelation among the true believers of the left.January 22, 2011 - 12:09 am Link to this Comment | Reply
30. ExPat
The only thing in the Guardian worth reading is the football coverage which is very good. The rest is just leftist claptrap.January 22, 2011 - 12:25 am Link to this Comment | Reply
31. James May
A very bright article about the Orwellian elephant in the room.
The reason I and so many others use Orwell in the context of the liberal Left in America is precisely because of things like the fact that the Left has unwittingly taken up the cause of the "White Man's Burden" – a thing they are entirely against. "Doublethink". The list of such cognitive dissonance on the Left is a very, very long one; the fascist, non-fascists. I read a warning once from someone I can't recall that fascism in America will come from the Left precisely because they are so unaware of this trait in themselves.
Instead of a more outright disdain for non-whites, the Left adopts a more nuanced and subtle yet nonetheless patronizingly racist "Nostalgie de la Boue", an adjunct to the "Noble Savage", in taking up the cause of Kerouac's "happy… negros". Degrading is as degrading does and it is as stupid to put a black man on a pedestal by skin color as to ask him to stand in a ditch.
Yes, let's take care of our "brothers" and put diapers on them and move them all from Mexico to America cuz they need to be sheltered from their own failed cultures and be made to see that they are after all Jeffersonians underneath that dark skin. The fact of the matter is that the political Left buys into "cultural relativism" and rejects it at the same time. No surprise the Democratic Party produced a racist like Obama mentored by a racist like Rev. Wright who are both emphatically not racist – just ask Bill Moyers. No surprise the Democratic Party sees laser cross hairs on Gifford's forehead in the shape of Sarah Palin's initials.
Why the author of this article needs to belabor the obvious is a tribute to the utter delusion of the liberal Left in America who pillory people by skin color without being the least aware of it. Congratulations to British rock and rollers and Robert Frank among others for helping to start this stupid trend in pop culture by portraying black folks as an "other" – a good "other" but still an other; racism by any other name and worthy of the best stereotype of a British colonialist in 1920 Africa sipping tea and remarking what a wonderful continent it would be without any black folks.
Rage Against the Machine has a website where they sell their "rage" t-shirts which are available for purchase with a credit card without the least sense of irony; read Joan Baez's autobiography where she gives away money to assuage her sense of morality without giving up the homes, cars and other ephemera of an aristocrat – good solution – not as neat as Charlie Chan would wrap up a case but very nice. The other irony in all this is that the liberal Left are the very victims of their shrunken dictionary that defines and puts all manner of things firmly into the camp of an imperialist America; the liberal Left is caught in the very semantic and intellectual net they have so widely cast to catch Conservatives. It's hard to imagine being more intellectually adrift than liberals. Next stop: peace as war and war as peace.
Instead of the political Right concocting their own version of a Bush assassination video, they need only make a film in the spirit of "Mr. Smith Goes To Washington" wherein President Obama sues himself for breaking his own oath of office. There could be a very moving scene where Obama is fitted with incontinence diapers by Keith Olbermann while filibustering against himself for 18 hours. You won't see that skit on Saturday Night Live, just the 19th version of Sarah Palin saying she can see her porch from an onion dome in Red Square. They should have Sarah Palin guest-host and do a skit of "30 Rock" as Fey where she doesn't have an expression on her face once.January 22, 2011 - 2:38 am Link to this Comment | Reply
Dang! I enjoyed this post almost as much as I enjoyed the article!
A+, James!January 22, 2011 - 3:33 am Link to this Comment | Reply
James I think you will find that FASCISM is a left wing phenomenon much as the moonbat left wish it wasn't and try to pretend otherwise. What was the Socialist Hitler if not a FASCIST and the Socialist Stalin and the Socialist Mao and the Socialist Khmer Rouge and Socialist Viet Cong. All of them MASS MURDERING left wing FASCISTS.January 22, 2011 - 11:15 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
Karen Eliot
"Fascism is corporatism" — Benito Mussolini
It makes absolutely no difference whether those instantiating a corporate state are left or right — the totalitarian impulse comes from greed and powerlust, not from any principled ideology. Any claimed ideology is just window dressing.
The reality today in America is that the reactionary right is getting by far the bulk of the corporate funding. They're also driving policy.January 24, 2011 - 10:32 am Link to this Comment | Reply
Edmund Burke
Read Witness by Whittaker Chambers where he talks about going into hiding after quitting Stalin's Spy Network pre-WW II. After being underground for Stalin in the US with little fear, WC was now underground from Stalin in the US with alot of fear. He was scouted out by another KGB Col. who told him he had quit the failed Comintern conspiracy as well, and could WC help him? To Trust or not To Trust, that was the question. Maybe he was a double agent, with a mission to find WC's family, so the thumbscrews could be turned. The defecting Col. soon to be executed in a locked room, was just as fearful, so it seems. One of the two, I forget which, figured out a way to establish trust. The question was: Had Stalin turned into a Fascist, the worst epithet one leftist could hurl at another. When they both agreed he was, the trust they needed was found.
Thus, the aha moment of any leftist is the realization the fascist = left and left = fascist. The Pure Right side of the equation, as we know, is anarchy, but Stalin had to paint the national socialists to the right of himself, the International Socialist, and for the left, that lie stuck.January 24, 2011 - 11:20 am Link to this Comment | Reply
32. Muscat Mike
Excellent piece Zombie!
I was afraid you may be pressured into writing "filler" here at PJM just to keep up with the flow (I read your ZomBlog very regularly) but I havent been dissapointed.January 22, 2011 - 5:43 am Link to this Comment | Reply
33. Sam W
This article is so outstandingly good, I just have to tell you so.January 22, 2011 - 5:49 am Link to this Comment | Reply
34. Layne S
In regard to your comment: "the Christians are ..doing the exact same thing: You both show up, deem the native culture deficient in some way, build a health clinic in order to 'help' them but which will only serve to disrupt native life, and ultimately use the clinic as a beachhead to impose your civilized notions on the heathen? At least the Christians are honest about their intent to Westernize the natives"
Zombie, you really show your ignorance of the intent of Christian missionaries. They don't want to Westernize the natives; they are sharing what they believe in the depth of their souls is the most important truth that everyone needs to hear. You're right that many missionaries have in past brought with them not only their message, but their culture, and tried to impose it on the natives. But that hardly met with success. Trying to share a message across language and cultural differences is quite a challenge. There are a number of examples, however, where missionaries tried to share the message and let that message change the culture where appropriate. Read "Peace Child", "Mission Possible", and "Bruchko" for examples.
The other thing it doesn't appear that you consider is that some natives actually WANT the advances of medicine, clean water, etc, that the "West" brings with them. Many times these advances makes life more convenient and enjoyable. They don't always disrupt their way of life.January 22, 2011 - 6:53 am Link to this Comment | Reply
Steve Skubinna
Zombie was not describing his current thinking, but what he said several years ago, when he was an admitted leftist. Further, he says that today he believes spreading Western values is good.
How did you manage to zero in on two paragraphs in the middle of the article without reading anything else in it?January 22, 2011 - 10:52 am Link to this Comment | Reply
Not a Fundy
peddling JESUS worship is indeed cultural arrogance
the very word missionary defines the agenda
you are not GIVING out of the idea that to be good is FOR YOURSELF
you seek to IMPOSE your religion on others
which implies that yor way is the best and of course to Jesus worshippers- the only way–
don't try to pretend it's for the sake of the people's health or feeding the poor etc
it is not
"they are sharing what they believe"
YES what THEY BELIEve
and you seek to make others believe as you do thinking ONLY your way is right
it is arrogant and condescending as the other do gooders– the point of the story told above- that whooshed right over yor head
the Spanish conqustadors demolished South American culture by "sharing Jesus"
IN Haiti Isarael responed with humanitarian care- no one was selling Judaism or out to make converts
If a Haitian was impressed and wished to know what makes people like that tick I am sure they will ask for it
the Muslims went there to build mosques
how are you differnt by bringing a foreign G-d??
Many of these cultures never saw a cigarette lighter – so saying you don;t affect ther culture is ridiculousJanuary 22, 2011 - 1:59 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
Rob Crawford
"the Spanish conqustadors demolished South American culture by "sharing Jesus""
No, they demolished the slaving, human sacrificing, murdering "cultures" of South and Central America by war and by the introduction of new diseases.January 26, 2011 - 5:20 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
35. M. Report
There are two sides to everything; The classic example here is
to compare the fates of the Colonies of England and France…
or Belgium.
On the Gripping Hand, those examples are valuable today mainly
to illustrate that Colonies are no longer profitable, but that
a world which has no refuges for terrorists is necessary; With
current, let alone future Tech, one success, by one group, is
an existential threat to our civilization.January 22, 2011 - 7:55 am Link to this Comment | Reply
"With current, let alone future Tech, one success, by one group, is an existential threat to our civilization."
No it isn't.
I've posted before that I think some sort nuclear terrorist attack is probably inevitable. Not necessarily soon, but at some point in the future … because the future is very, very large, and the access to knowledge and technology to build one is going to get easier with time. It won't destroy civilization. It won't even destroy a country. In fact, it's unlikely to even destroy a city. Nuclear weapons are obviously very big, but a single nuclear weapon isn't infinitely large – it can only do so much damage. While it would (or maybe even will) be a massive shock to the western world if it happened to one of ours, it would be one we'd cope with – and fairly easily, despite the inevitable media coverage claiming otherwise when it happens. And if or when it happens, all developed countries will stand together to rebuild whoever was hit. No country would face a think like that alone.
Don't undersell western civilization. We've been through a few pretty tough events before. We're just not that easily knocked over.January 22, 2011 - 8:54 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
36. Ivan_Ivanovich
But that Billy Mundy was such a cute kid.January 22, 2011 - 8:12 am Link to this Comment | Reply
I think you mean Billy Mumy. And yes, he was history's greatest child actor!January 22, 2011 - 10:33 am Link to this Comment | Reply
37. Charles R. Williams
If there is no natural law or nothing like the Torah or Sharia based on revelation from God, then there are no universal rights. Rights are granted by the culture or the state. But here's the contradiction. This leaves no basis to object to one group imposing it's arbitrary morality on another group. These people have climbed out on a limb and sawed it off.
This does not mean that it is necessary or prudent in every case to impose an objective universal moral code by force on groups that do not accept it. Most of the injustice we encounter in this world has no practical remedy.
"… it's quite true that life under a totalitarian police state is often safer and more secure than living in lawless anarchy."
Just ask Solzhenitsyn. As often, or less, as not, I'd say. The fact of the matter is, a totalitarian police state IS a lawless anarchy – the laws apply to everybody except those-in-power.
39. Fred Beloit
Great piece, Zom. Its brilliance causes me to rather sheepishly add a minor note. This quote from Kinzer caught my attention: "Human rights need to be considered in a political context. The question should not be whether a particular leader or regime violates western-conceived standards of human rights. Instead, it should be whether a leader or regime, in totality, is making life better or worse for ordinary people."
In a totalitarian state propaganda is in the sole hands of the government. If a dictator of a third world country is unable or unwilling to provide pure water for drinking, thereby NOT "making life better…for ordinary people", that dictator could claim to his ordinary people that dirty water is more healthful for them because it contains more trace minerals and proteins than pure water. Someone just like Kinzer could then report to the world via the NYT that "in totality" said dictator has improved the health of his people.
In short, whereas there are at least some clearly understood human rights in Western culture, what people, and against whose standards, would be allowed to judge what makes "life better for ordinary people"?January 22, 2011 - 9:16 am Link to this Comment | Reply
40. teacher
I am a retired English As a Second Language teacher. About eight years ago, I was teaching in a midwest elementary school where, out of the 100 or so kids in the ESL program, about 75 were Somalis. The majority of these kids were the dirtiest, stinkiest, and most incorrigible group of kids I have ever taught in my many years of teaching. Most of these kids lived in one apartment building, where every tenant was a Somali. My principal and our school social worker made home visits to this building periodically. The halls were lined with garbage bags, feces was smeared on the walls, and the place wreaked to high heaven. Sometimes it was almost impossible to sit next to these kids in the classroom. They emitted a putrid odor of unwashed bodies and dirty, sweaty, and stale clothing. Add to this odorous mix the smell of unwashed girls and boys who were obviously entering puberty and you get the picture of how offputting this learning situation was for me and my colleagues. The thought that progressives would tell me that this culture is equivalent to mine is repugnant to me. A culture in which people cannot even take care of their own hygiene is not equivalent to my Western Civilization/European/American culture. Period.January 22, 2011 - 9:32 am Link to this Comment | Reply
I am a retired English As a Second Language teacher. [Emphasis added] About eight years ago, I was teaching in a midwest elementary school where, out of the 100 or so kids in the ESL program, about 75 were Somalis. The majority of these kids were the dirtiest, stinkiest, and most incorrigible group of kids I have ever taught in my many years of teaching. Most of these kids lived in one apartment building, where every tenant was a Somali. My principal and our school social worker made home visits to this building periodically. The halls were lined with garbage bags, feces was smeared on the walls, and the place wreaked[Sic; emphasis added] to high heaven.
When something smells bad, it reeks.
Someone, or something, wreaks something which has been wrought.
An English teacher—even, or perhaps especially, one who teaches English as a second language—should know the difference between homonyms.January 23, 2011 - 5:27 am Link to this Comment | Reply
Maybe English is HIS second language. That's why he used to teach it as a second language.January 23, 2011 - 8:44 am Link to this Comment | Reply
This sounds like a perfect training facility for novice multi-culturalists.
And one must 'ax' oneself, if their culture is equal to ours: why are they here, and not there?January 23, 2011 - 12:29 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
I think this was a well written article, I just wanted to point out that here:
"Yes, part of me still would like to see Potemkin Villages"
I'm pretty sure you used "Potemkin Villages" wrong. A Potemkin Village is a facade, referring to a Russian politician who told villages in an area being visited by the empress to build it up to make it look nice.
I don't understand why a part of you would like to see those.
The other thing is I'm a little confused about your conversation with your cousin. How is giving them better healthcare a bad thing? I mean the contraception education is over the top, but getting rid of simple diseases… Isn't the point of this article that altering the culture isn't necessarily a bad thing? I don't see how it makes her experience "cynicism and negativity"
Anyway, great articleJanuary 22, 2011 - 9:47 am Link to this Comment | Reply
By "Potemkin Villages" I meant that we could construct (or allow to exist) a series of "show villages" which only exist to impress us — similar to the original concept of the Potemkin Village, the dictionary definition of which is "a pretentiously showy or imposing façade intended to mask or divert attention from an embarrassing or shabby fact or condition." I realize however that this comparison was not exactly accurate, which is why I say "or perhaps "It's a Small World" living dioramas" as a preferable metaphor.
As for the cousin anecdote — it's not that her experience was "cynicism and negativity," but rather that my criticism of her was "cynicism and negativity," something she was unfamiliar with because up until that point in her life no one had ever criticized her.January 22, 2011 - 10:30 am Link to this Comment | Reply
42. PAthena
(1) "The bankrupt charade that all cultures are equal in value and equally worthy of respect and admiration." This is position is self-refuting. If "all cultures are equal in value and equally worthy of respect and admiration," then the culture which denies this is "equal in value and equally worthy of respect and admiration." It follows that NOT all cultures are equal in value and equally worthy of respect and admiration. So those who hold that all human beings deserve life, liberty, and the right to pursue happiness, are right. Perhaps Kinzer want to deny the Law of Non-Contradiction, saying that it is a "western standard." Then he contradicts himself and says nothing.
(2) Item 31: Fascism, invented by Benito Mussolini, is "left-wing." Mussolini, leader of the Italian Socialist Party, invented it to support Italy in World War I; it is nationalist socialism.January 22, 2011 - 10:36 am Link to this Comment | Reply
43. Sam Parsons
For the few who have criticized Zombie for accepting some standard of universal human rights, please note these words from Kinzer: "The question should not be whether a particular leader or regime violates western-conceived standards of human rights. Instead, it should be whether a leader or regime, in totality, is making life better or worse for ordinary people." Kinzer assumes that there is some universal standard of "Better Life" for humans. In other words, in criticism of universal standards of human rights Kinzer appeals to a universal standard of well-being. DUH! Apparently, Kinzer holds that human rights form no part of human well-being, but that makes his thesis true by definition.January 22, 2011 - 11:14 am Link to this Comment | Reply
That's another part of the conundrum. For some people, living in a mud hut in the desert, herding goats for a living, beating their illiterate wives, and praying to Mecca five times a day is the very definition of "the good life." All those books, vaccines, radios & stuff – don't need 'em. THIS is how people were meant to live, without all that sinful, tempting Western stuff.
And even if they knew about and wanted the Western lifestyle, how can their country support it for all or most of its citizens? Natural resources, trade, businesses, jobs, good government – where does a place like Afghanistan or Somalia get all these things? Can Westerners just parachute into a third-world country and somehow "set up" a Western-style political and economic structure?January 23, 2011 - 8:58 am Link to this Comment | Reply
44. Lori
Excellent article.
Indeed, cultural imperialism is as old as humans themselves. Nothing new.
The fact the the progressive left is just now catching on to it is mordantly funny.
And of course, they bring their usual sacks full of hypocritsy ie Christian missionaries are bad imperialism but forcing countries to accept UN 'family planning' (abortion) directives is good imperialisim.
BTW, I think (Three Cups of Tea) Mortenson has acknowledged that the military is necessary as a backup to his work. I will look for a reference to that.January 22, 2011 - 11:41 am Link to this Comment | Reply
45. Sarah Rolph
"Imagine what Kinzer's proposals would mean in practical terms. Can human rights activists be expected to ignore the plight of a woman being stoned in Iran for adultery or a journalist tortured in Mubarak's jails?"
*Would* mean? This is what they do mean. It is being illustrated daily in exactly the ways "expected." These issues are, for the most part, ignored by the left and the mainstream media. So-called human rights activists very much included, starting with the UN.January 22, 2011 - 1:34 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
Edmund Burke
China now has the Current Nobel Peace Prize winner in Jail for trying to bring Western legal rights to Asians still oppressed by Monopolistic Capitalism, er, I mean Communism. The last Nobel Prize Winner for Peace, Barak Obama, (aka, the Leader of the Free World) just hosted the Jailer of his Successor and, quite intentionally, chose to curry favor with the jailer, with no mention of the man his guest had recently condemned to the Darkness, or why he had done it. The "outcome that they do mean," Indeed!January 24, 2011 - 11:34 am Link to this Comment | Reply
46. Dan Miller
Back in the 1980s, soon after Baby Doc had taken over from his father Papa Doc, I spent ten days in Haiti and visited several places. One was a Baptist mission up in the hills near Port-au-Prince. It was my view that the missionaries had taught the natives (1) how to grow strawberries and (2) to realize how miserable their lives were; I considered the former wholesome and the latter unfortunate. They already had a pretty good idea how miserable they were and didn't need to be reminded of it by outsiders far more affluent than they could ever hope to be. Efforts since then to ameliorate their conditions have generally failed and in many respects things are worse now than then.
In 2002, while my wife and I were sailing around the Caribbean on our sailboat, we spent a month visiting a few of the San Blas Islands of Panamá. There are three hundred such islands, most of them uninhabited. On one substantial island of several hundred people, Mamitupu, we got to know at least slightly a Kuna Indian, Pablo, who had years before married an English woman and because of the Kuna taboo against marrying outside the tribe had been banished. He had then lived in Europe for a few years, divorced, and returned eventually to Mamitupu where he married a Kuna woman. Having seen parts of what we customarily refer to as civilization, he had decided to devote his life to preservation of the Kuna culture. It was difficult because although the Kuna Yala is an autonomous province of Panamá the central government provides the schools and the Kuna language and culture are not taught.
Pablo had kept a diary relating his thoughts on his youth. Several of the pages dealt with the coming of missionaries to his island. The saila (chief) had not wanted them, fearing that they would bring undesirable change. Pablo's parents had been impressed with the presents the missionaries had brought and with their good clothes and a fancy watch worn by one, a Kuna Indian, and agreed to send Pablo off to a missionary school on a neighboring island to learn to read and write English, as he did. He seemed to appreciate having learned to read and write in English but didn't much care for the other stuff and when we met him he very much wanted to see a revival of the Kuna culture.
As we saw it, the Kuna culture was to some extent statist in that the saila had great power. The common areas – unpaved streets, etc. – were remarkably clean and without a speck of trash. The children were well mannered and the people were, for the most part, quite industrious. As "honorary citizens" for the time we were anchored there, we attended two of their congresos, the equivalent of town meetings. One dealt with the production of coconuts, the island's principal source of money, and the saila read off the names of all the islanders starting with the most productive and ending with the least. The former he praised and the latter he chastised, asking how they expected their children to become industrious if they were lazy. During a break, a Kuna man paraded around the large thatched hut carrying an oar he had found for a dugout canoe; if nobody claimed it after three congreso meetings, it would be his.
Some aspects of the Kuna culture seem to be conducive to happiness there, even though (or perhaps because) many things modern are missing. I agreed (and still do) with Pablo that the people, to the extent that they wish, should be encouraged to do their best to preserve as much of what they have as they can and to eschew the aspects of our modern culture they find distasteful. They should not be pressured to do otherwise. If that means little or no electricity and little medical care beyond native remedies, so be it. It is not our place, as aliens, to guide them or to mandate what we think they should want.January 22, 2011 - 2:00 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
Jamie W.
Pablo, however, had a choice; he made it. Good for him. His culture sounds admirable and stable. There are billions of people in the world less fortunate, and I include Americans in this – the poorer areas of Detroit and Chicago.
What Western civilization needs to do for the world is simply to offer them that choice. If they reject it, and each rejects it freely (which I think cannot be said for a woman condemned to stoning, or her daughter condemned to illiteracy and poverty) fine. If they choose to embrace it, we should help them.
The only other situation where we need intervene: when we are attacked by a stone-age mentality culture like the Taliban. At that point, it becomes them or us – and I'm always on the side of "us."January 23, 2011 - 5:00 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
It should be noted that the San Blas Islands now have cell phones, electric lights, and TV widely distributed among the residents (I've visited in the last year). Apparently the natives are quite willing to adapt the rigid, foreign external rules of Western technology while rejecting the humanitarian rules.
Zombie, this is one of the most insightful articles on this subject I have ever read. As I understand it, the essence of classic liberal thought has been that each person has the right to achieve his/her full potential as an individual. Usually this means restraining and/or killing the bad guys, in concert with education, medicine, nutrition, etc. It all comes as a package: if you have only one half, you have neither. And, yes, our efforts do not always achieve their intended result. But to think like Kinzer is to hope that the bubble of civility he lives in, that generations before him struggled and sacrificed to build, will last until his death with no unpleasant efforts on his part. Lazy and selfish thinking.January 27, 2011 - 1:24 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
47. RightGunner
Mr. Zombie has presented two choices for proceeding, however an important third choice is the "Example". Reagan's Example was the shining city on a hill. Making our country as good as it can get is doable. Anything more is unachievable because we don't have the funds, we don't have the ability and we don't have the long-term will to directly change the world or even a very small part. Especially since most don't want to be changed, as noted by Mr. Zombie.
Too many social workers paid for by taxpayers, or missionary types, paid for by parishioners, haven't fixed their own family or neighborhood, preferring instead to tamper with others who usually are less strong and able to resist. Fixing yourself and your own family is much harder than trying to fix someone you really have no responsibility for.
We have such a big job ahead in our own country we need all hands, and resources applied to that job. We need to recover control of our freedom and economy, while staying so strong as to discourage others who want to change us, for their benefit.January 22, 2011 - 4:51 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
@Rightgunner – credit to you for seeing the giant hole in Zombie's thinking. I'm glad not everyone gets caught in the trap of mutual congratulations.January 29, 2011 - 1:24 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
48. Bobs_Your_Uncle
Great analysis by Zombie. I went ahead and read the Kinzer article and have a few less erudite comments of my own to make:
From Kinzer: "…they can mobilise useful idiots around the world to take up their cause, and thereby win in the court of public opinion what they cannot win on the battlefield. The best way to do this is to provoke massacres by the other side…"
Provoke massacres by the other side? WTF?
"Those who have traditionally run Human Rights Watch and other western-based groups that pursue comparable goals come from societies where crucial group rights – the right not to be murdered on the street, the right not to be raped by soldiers…"
I guess being raped by non-soldiers is okay, then? Why only mention soldiers? Sorry, rhetorical question. Seems pretty obvious why this douchebag specifically mentions soldiers.
"The question should not be whether a particular leader or regime violates western-conceived standards of human rights. Instead, it should be whether a leader or regime, in totality, is making life better or worse for ordinary people."
So it's all okay as long as the trains run on time, then?January 22, 2011 - 5:55 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
49. buzzsawmonkey
The problem with "human rights" is that they are the opposite of liberty as that concept is enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
These two documents posit that human beings should be free to do as they will, except for the absolute minimum amount of government necessary to keep internal order and to protect the polity from outside threats. That is why our government is set up as a government of enumerated, limited powers, and the Constitution grants us civil rights, which are our rights against the government when it oversteps its bounds. In effect, our civil rights give us the rolled-up newspaper with which to smack the government on the nose when it messes on the carpet of our personal freedom.
President Obama is on record as disparaging these civil rights as "negative rights," because they "do not say what the government is required to do for you." In this, Obama has shown that he does not understand the American form of government, and is committed instead to a "human rights" form of government where "rights" are not limitations on government interference, but a litany of the largesses which the government grants the population. He does not see people as inherently free, limited in that personal freedom only by the bare minimum necessary to the social order, but rather the recipients of "freedoms" doled out at government whim to favored constituencies.
Look about you. "Human rights" are spoken of only when some entity such as an NGO is attempting to nag an oppressive government into granting some partial and provisional largesse to its people—e.g., a dictatorship permitting partial press freedom, or refraining provisionally from the regular practice of the worst forms of torture. They are invariably a simulation of freedom, not the genuine article.
"Human rights" first began creeping into the American political lexicon after the Civil Rights Movement had achieved its goal of civil rights with the passage of the Voting Rights Act. That objective achieved, the Civil Rights Movement was hijacked by the more overt Leftists, the separatists, and the domestic Islamists, who began seeking "human rights"; set-asides, quotas, affirmative action. These things were not civil rights—the right to vote, protection of freedom of association or the right to travel—but special largesse that went beyond the civil rights the movement initially sought.
"Human rights" took a step forward domestically when the gay-rights movement attempted to piggyback upon the successes of the Civil Rights Movement. The gay-rights movement could not claim its civil rights were being denied—there has never been, for example, any law denying gays the right to vote—nor was sexual "preference or orientation," as it was then called, a "suspect classification" in American Constitutional law which demanded strict scrutiny and a compelling state interest to justify legalized discrimination, as race was and is. So the gay-rights movement began demanding concessions based on "human rights"—the vague whine that "we're human too, and we want this." The gay-rights movement is not, and has never been, a civil rights movement; it has always been a human-rights movement demanding government concessions for its constituency, not protection of the equalities granted everyone.
After forty years of this, human-rights language has become often confused in conversation with the civil rights accorded everyone, which are what guarantee American liberty. But the special concessions which are the essence of "human rights" are by their nature antithetical to the American system of government.January 22, 2011 - 6:41 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
50. Deep Blue
Excellent article. Thank you.
I look forward to learning how Mr. Kinzer's message and reasoning is received by those advancing the global climate control agenda.January 22, 2011 - 7:35 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
51. lc
great post.
to quote a pair of sages: (bob dylan; much earlier mark twain said almost the exact same thing):
"the world owes us nothing, not one single thing."January 23, 2011 - 8:30 am Link to this Comment | Reply
52. angus
"Yet here's the part that the progressives don't like to admit: The good cop and the bad cop always have the same goal. The "routine" is just that — an act. In a police setting the goal is to get a confession using psychological trickery. On the world stage the goal is to bring human rights to oppressed peoples using humanitarian progressivism as the loving alternative to war. But the "good cop" is actually on the same team as the "bad cop," despite appearances."
Seems unlikely.
It would mean the USA/UK selling $600billion in arms to Saudi Arabia and being foresworn to protect that regime against all-comers is actually in pursuit of bringing human rights to the world.January 23, 2011 - 12:45 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
Saudi Arabia is not a third-world country, so it's not really part of this discussion. In fact, they're probably richer per capita than we are. We sell the Saudis arms for at least three reasons:
1. To make money off them.
2. To protect the oil industry without the direct use of American troops.
3. To help the Saudis fend off Al Qaeda and prevent the peninsula from becoming the new terrorist center of a burgeoning aggressive Caliphate.
Many would argue, and I agree, that reason three is backfiring, because the Saudis fund Islamic terror on the sly anyway. But for now at least, several American administrations in a row –dating back to Truman, actually — agree that the Saudi family of despots is better than the Obama Bin Ladens (and his ilk) leading the same country.
Not every aspect of US foreign policy is an aspect of this human rights dilemma. Many of our actions with wealthy countries are outside this purview.January 23, 2011 - 4:05 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
Again, Zombie—with reference to my #49 above—I would argue that our fundamental error, deeper than the seeming paradox of "human rights" activism being a form of cultural imperialism, is the widespread failure to recognize that "human rights" are themselves a fraud antithetical to liberty. One either has liberty, protected by civil rights under the rule of law, or one does not. The vast majority of countries do not have liberty, civil rights or the rule of law; they have "human rights" doled out to them by despotic regimes.
The United States was designed so that its citizens would have liberty, protected by a limited government and civil rights under the rule of law to further restrict that limited government. We have strayed far afield from that ideal, but we still have the clean lines of the original template beneath the gargoyles we have subsequently tacked onto the superstructure. But this original clean-lined template is different from the template of every other government in the world.January 23, 2011 - 4:44 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
Interesting, indeed. But one might argue — in fact, that's what I'm arguing right now — that the "cultural imperialism" we really ought to "give" to the world is the gift of how the American government is structured. I discuss "human rights" in the essay because that was the terminology used in Kinzer's original article. But yes, you are correct, there is a subtle but important distinction between "Western values" and "American values," in that American values are about the guarantee of personal freedom through civil rights, and not the later invention of "human rights," which was just something made up as a counterfeit substitute we westerners can use to placate third-worlders — or rather, our guilt about third-worlders. There are plenty of good things about "Western values" that are better than the "nasty, brutish and short" values of many other cultures; but "civil rights" and the fundamental restriction of governmental power is America's great creation, one not shared by all "Western" nations.
It could be that the American experiment will only be viable in a few lucky countries; elsewhere, the best we can do is dole out "human rights" to oppressed peoples, get them back into a zone in which they can flourish philosophically, and perhaps at some distant point in the future they will eventually see the genius in the U.S. Constitution and adopt something similar in their own countries.
However, that will probably never happen for all those countries (i.e. most countries in the world) that are based on ethnic group identity, rather than based on an idea (like the U.S.).January 23, 2011 - 6:20 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
Zombie, having granted buzzsawmonkey's point that American values are not equivalent–and are in fact antithetical–to the Western values you champion, how do you defend the premise that American lives should be shed to spread your values over the unwilling? Moreover, what's the point of instituting the "American structure" of government without the moorings in the American principles that made that structure desirable?January 24, 2011 - 1:26 am Link to this Comment
I agree, Zombie, with the ever-so-slight cavil that many countries which would seem to be based primarily on an ethnic identity, or which we are used to regarding as being so based, actually often have significant religious ethnic minorities. That is to say, the superior civil rights model is, or should be, more widely applicable than it would appear at first glance—were countries that appear to be based on ethnic or religious identity willing to adopt it.
Unfortunately, by going the "human rights" route, these nations are guaranteeing that their minorities will remain marginalized, seeking piecemeal alleviation of the discriminations they experience—and are thereby ensuring continued oppression and unrest.January 24, 2011 - 6:20 am Link to this Comment
Of course Saudi Arabia is a Third World country. Having a giant ATM machine in the ground ain't exactly the The Age of Enlightenment/Industrial Revolution.
200 yrs. from now Saudi Arabia will be a seedy backwater making a living from donations by pilgrims visiting Mecca. The new Saudi's are in Venezuela, a country that will be wined and dined and who's population will be socially engineered into the ground with petro dollars.January 23, 2011 - 7:02 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
"Many would argue, and I agree, that reason three is backfiring, because the Saudis fund Islamic terror on the sly anyway."
I have a conspiracy-free theory about Saudi terrorism you might appreciate. Warning: It has a depressing conclusion.
They're not funding Islamic terror.
Nothing "on the sly", they are just not doing it. This could explain why they haven't been caught.
Perhaps the Saudis merely practice "cultural imperialism" in mostly the terms you put forward for the "good cop" in your piece, no militaristic action required on their part. They expound the positive religious ideals of Wahhabi Islam through the sponsorship of local religious schools and imams.
"…the "good cop/bad cop" dynamic doesn't work if you have only a "good cop." Without the threat of a more dire outcome, the subject has little motivation to consent to the smiley-face cultural imperialism of the do-gooders."
So when the local recipients of all the Saudi cultural imperialistic largesse realise this essential point, they instigate a "bad cop". That "bad cop" is local and deniable.
I think the Taliban plays this role in Afghanistan. I disagree with your contention that they are a "traditional" culture, but see the Taliban as a fairly recent addition to Afghani culture springing from the importation of Sunni extremism. This means that the war in Afghanistan is indeed "called Imperialism", but it is occuring in 2 directions. America does not solely dictate the terms. And the conflict will continue until one or both sides gives up.
Now for the depressing bit:
"Saudi Arabia is not a third-world country,…[] In fact, they're probably richer per capita than we are."
They are not going to give up and America (for the reasons you point out) cannot stop supporting them – so they will probably last till the oil runs out. Guesstimated to be in 2070 or so.
How long till America gives up?January 24, 2011 - 2:57 am Link to this Comment | Reply
Mike Giles
in reference to your points above about Saudi Arabia; I think we really need to get away from the idea that the choice is always between good and bad. Far too often, the choice is between bad and worse.February 8, 2011 - 10:08 am Link to this Comment | Reply
53. Margaret
Compare this quote Zombie uses by Sohrab Ahmari,
"And consider, too, the impact of this brand of relativism on the moral imagination of the left, which, at its very best, stood firm on the principle that people divided by geography, culture and language can empathise with and express solidarity with each other,"
with's Obama's speech last week in Arizona:
"Let us use this occasion to expand our moral imaginations, to listen to each other more carefully, to sharpen our instincts for empathy, and remind ourselves of all the ways our hopes and dreams are bound together."
While targeting Kinzer for his "moral relativism," Zombie highlights the neocon/left's answer to bring about world harmony, rooted in the Enlightenment, "moral imagination", which hearkens back to Rousseau's sentiments. Yet many political philosophers recognize that this is precisely the point at which the modern intelligentsia took a fatal turn, the turn that drove the West straight toward the abyss. It was the replacement of objective morality with internal feelings–e.g., empathy, that decoupled the West from its classical thought and Christian moral traditions.
So what happens in the abyss? Moral relativism, of course. So while people applaud the exportation of Western "values," –at the barrel of a gun, no less–it's important to pay attention to whether those values are little more than a modern global program of secular hegemony, or whether they more resemble the God-given truths self-evident to our own Founders.January 23, 2011 - 11:33 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
54. call me Roy
Author Unknown
With the Left there is only anger and hatred ….Not quite.
First there is the underlying envy, the only one of the 'Seven Deadlies' that has no instant 'reward' and that guarantees its owner's consequential anger, rage, hatred, scorn, derision and loathing — and about every other negative emotion, those imaginable and those impossible to imagine.
"The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails America. Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The Republic can survive a Barack Obama, who is, after all, merely a fool. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their presidentJanuary 24, 2011 - 5:36 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
55. call me Roy
Why Liberals Hate the Constitution
No matter how much liberals try to mystify the Constitution and obscure its meaning, hearing the actual text of the document quickly destroys that fiction.
January 13, 2011 – by Frank J. Fleming
Since there are many more conservatives than liberals, and conservatives have so many guns, people often wonder why conservatives don't just round up all the liberals and ship them to Antarctica to be forced to mine for jewels and gold. Well, there is a very good reason for that: by a strict constructionist interpretation of the American Constitution, there is no support for being able to deport liberals to a mining camp.
Now, if conservatives were a bit more flexible with their view of the Constitution, they would say things like, "Well, we have to remember it's a living document, and the Founding Fathers hadn't even thought of the threat of hippies running around free when they wrote it." And then they'd look to the Commerce Clause and say, "Well, keeping liberals from meddling in America and forcing them do something useful like mining sure would help the economy, so it's within the government's power." And then it'd just be a manner of scheduling all the boats to get liberals to Antarctica.
But that would violate the spirit of the Constitution since, by plain English interpretations of the government's powers, we can't forcefully ship liberals to Antarctica no matter how much people may think that would help the country. And that's the point of the Constitution: people are constantly changing their ideas of what is good and bad, but the Constitution is much harder to change. It puts limits on what the government can do, and those limits can only be changed when huge majorities agree to it through the amendment process. And even after ObamaCare, there inexplicably isn't enough support for a "Liberals Are to Be Sent to Mines in Antarctica" amendment.
After the hysterical way liberals reacted to the reading of the Constitution by Republicans to open Congress, with Democrats objecting to it, left-wing newspaper editorials denouncing it, and liberals online freaking out over it, no reasonable person would argue that liberals don't hate the Constitution, but the reasons why aren't as obvious. So the question becomes, why do liberals hate the Constitution so much — especially when it's the only thing protecting them from freezing to death with pickaxes in their hands?
We are all aware that liberals want the Constitution to be a living document, like if Geppetto wanted Pinocchio to become a real boy so it would be easier to strangle him to death. They want it living so they can render its words meaningless. To them, the Constitution is this cryptic document only the most educated Ivy Leaguers are able to interpret. Recently, the Washington Post's Ezra Klein even stated that "the text is confusing because it was written more than 100 years ago." And then we have all these court decisions — much longer than the document itself – that find all these hidden rights not mentioned in the Constitution and explain away the ones that are clearly stated. And don't argue with liberals on the subject, because they're really smart and the only ones able to understand what they're talking about.
Thus the freakout over the Constitution being read aloud. No matter how much liberals try to mystify the Constitution and obscure its meaning, hearing the actual text of the document quickly destroys that fiction. It almost reads like a direct condemnation of all the government expansion and power grabs liberals have been up to lately. You can't hear its words without imagining the ghost of George Washington punching hippies. So you can see why they'd rather it not be brought to the public's attention.
A big way gun rights proponents won their war was by putting the text of the 2nd Amendment everywhere. While "scholars" liked to pretend there was some debate on whether there is an individual right to bear arms, there wasn't among the general public because anyone literate could read the amendment and quickly identify that the only operative part is "the right to bear arms shall not be infringed." Words mean things to most people, so asking the average American whether there is a right to bear arms is like asking what two plus two equals. Ask a liberal judge, though, and he'll say, "Two and two of what? And 'equals' can mean so many things. It's a very complicated question." So when people see the long, rambling reasons from someone like Justice Breyer on why the 2nd Amendment doesn't mean what it says versus the simple language of the Constitution, they start to realize they'd be much better served by having a twelve-year-old with basic reading comprehension as a justice.
The Constitution meaning what it says is only part of the problem liberals have with it, though. In the Constitution are the means to change the Constitution, and liberals are perfectly capable of proposing amendments to force people to buy health care or to get haters like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck off the air. Of course, they'd need to get a huge majority of the country to go along with them. And there is the problem. If the Constitution puts strict limits on government power and the only way for liberals to increase that power is to get a huge majority of the public to agree with them, then liberals would have to govern with the consent of the governed! Think of the indecency; liberals could barely do anything unless those nasty Tea Party people and fans of Sarah Palin said it was okay!
And while liberals do like certain freedoms, in their hearts they don't really like this whole democracy thing. If liberals were only voting amongst each other, that would be great, but you can't actually let everyone — some who only went to community college — have a say in what the government can and can't do. Much better to have only the elites deciding themselves what they can do, based on their best intentions. It's like what now ex-Representative Phil Hare said when questioned on the constitutionality of ObamaCare: He didn't worry about the Constitution. If liberals are trying to change things for the better, why should there be any limits on them… especially ones enforced by the ignorant masses?
And so liberals hope that no one reads the Constitution and that everyone leaves all the questions of what the government can do to left-wing judges who will make decisions based on what they feel is right. Then liberals will be freed from having to get the consent of the unenlightened American public who give their kids Happy Meals and eat trans-fats. They will then have the ability to force people to do what's best and give the government all the power it needs for a better, more ordered, peaceful society.
Until they're shipped off to the mines.January 24, 2011 - 5:38 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
56. call me Roy
Beyond Politics: Removing the Progressive Drag on America
This fight requires much more than a few moments in a voting booth.
September 11, 2010 – by Jeff Perren
Fighting the soul-killing, wealth-destroying acts of progressives over the long term is going to take much more than winning an election or two. It will require neutralizing their influence throughout the culture. That's much harder, of course, but essential if we're to have to a country that does more than seesaw between two power-hungry parties while spiraling ever downward.
The reasons that wider change is a must are not hard to find. Even where their relative numbers are low, progressives have come to dominate much more than just the Democratic Party and the major news outlets.
They control curricula for public K-12 education almost everywhere, despite the presence of a great many teachers who disagree with their views. Progressive educators' numbers are bolstered by the roughly 70-85% of college educators and administrators who identify as liberals. They dominate credential-required education courses, and strongly influence textbook selection.
Clearly, postmoderns have long been the decision-makers and creators for most mainstream film and television, even while they make up a minority of total participants. Major films and television programs are made by many thousands of writers, actors, technicians, and so forth, who line the bell curve of viewpoints. Yet it's a rare movie that doesn't blithely depict entrepreneurs as rapacious, or anti-pharmaceutical crusaders as saintly.
Even TV advertising often shows the influence of John Muir's grandchildren. One Ad Council commercial asks: "What do forests mean to you?" The question spurs absurd answers like "sparkling clean water" and Native American tree worship. Fairy-tale "green" commercials extend even to truck ads these days, as if a half-ton Dodge Ram pickup could — or should — be "eco-friendly."
Magazines like Scientific American, once upon a time offering real science for the layman, have become organs for anthropogenic global warming propaganda. Smithsonian runs features on the alleged superiority of primitive cultures. National Geographic touts how negligibly modern humans are in advance of apes. That would've been unthinkable as recently as three generations ago, yet for today's followers of Rousseau, it's so obvious as to be beyond debate.
As these examples show, the influence on American culture of progressive ideas goes far beyond and far beneath politics. They represent a full-scale assault on all classical liberal values: reason, objective ethics, natural rights, capitalism, and their products — freedom and industrial production. Cleaning up Washington will be the barest beginning to reversing a century-long slide in America, one that has accelerated in the last four decades.
Ending bailouts, lowering federal spending, and tinkering with Social Security will give everyone some economic breathing room. But these actions won't right a country that's been increasingly tilting left for the past 40 years. And without fundamental change even those victories will be too small, and woefully short-lived.
What to Do, and How?
It goes without saying that changing the culture wholesale is a tall order, given the ubiquitous and deeply entrenched nature of progressive ideas in modern life. And, with the real and significant differences between factions in the pro-freedom, pro-America camp, it's an even taller order.
Cooperation between the very different types of people that make it up was always dicey and will remain so. No one will ever convince an Objectivist that the Christian deity exists or that Jesus' Gospels are the proper guide to living or basis for society. Likewise, no libertarian will ever persuade an Evangelical Christian that abortion is not murder.
But there was a time in American history when such things, as important as they were in personal terms, were not make-or-break issues on a social level, much less in politics. A hundred years ago progressives were a tiny minority, and their views very sparsely infected the law. As a result, most Americans of very different viewpoints could live and let live, disapproving as they may have been of those who thought and chose differently.
But with the intrusion of the federal government into every aspect of life, everything has become political. Amit Ghate made the point well in a recent PJM article, "Ideas and the State." Getting the government out of those thousands of intimate personal decisions, and limiting it to constitutionally enumerated powers, will create a large penumbra around the individual.
Fortunately, returning America to a land of individualism and freedom with a Constitution-limited government does not require complete agreement on every thorny topic. Reducing government involvement lets each person try to peacefully persuade his neighbor without it becoming a matter of life and death, prosperity or poverty, freedom or parasitism, all or nothing.
First, Take Back Education
Pushing back against progressives in the public school system on the way to privatizing it entirely is one of the most important things freedom-loving individuals can do. When you're fighting a serious outbreak of virus, the first priority is to stop spreading it. That means never being indifferent to what's taught there. It means challenging school boards on textbook selection, teachers on essay topics, and more.
That will also have the most long-term impact, since the progressive views pumped into children there each year generate new vectors for the disease. Every year, millions of schoolchildren become new unwitting inductees into the progressive camp. Protecting kids there inoculates them against college professors who later inject more of the same, in more concentrated form.
At the same time, drain the swamp. That can be accomplished through more homeschooling when feasible. Parents can pool funds and expertise to start more private schools. That will decrease the cost, and help depopulate the public schools. Taxpayers can form ad hoc committees to push for returning curricula to the basics, insisting on mind-developing education in mathematics, reading, and writing. At minimum, an absence of progressive propaganda is a must.
Even public school boards are not always hopeless. Insisting on a broad body of historical and scientific facts, with real-life examples showing biased teachers and textbooks, can actually impact school officials. A calmly delivered, well-reasoned case that children need certain hard-won basic thinking skills — not automatic passing grades, self-esteem boosting exercises, or "green living" projects — can influence semi-reasonable administrators.
Dealing With Debate
There will be disagreements about how to shape the culture in a better direction, of course. To define "better" necessarily means adopting a certain set of values. It will help reduce the friction among the different demographics of the pro-liberty coalition if everyone kept in mind a few historical facts and some key agreed-upon goals.
One is: religious conservatives might consider that Christianity played an important role a hundred years ago in the creation and growth of the progressive movement. That fact alone is enough to show that the contemporary secularism they detect and decry has little to do with our current problems. They might also consider that there are literally millions of Hindus, Buddhists, atheists, and the merely indifferent or confused who also want the blessings of liberty for themselves and their families.
Similarly, the libertarian-minded should give serious thought to whether "anything goes" (provided only that no one initiates coercion) is the alpha and omega of a sound program for a free, just society. That subjectivism was, after all, the rallying cry of the 1960s, which midwifed so much of what we currently ail from. There's no escaping the fact that all political decisions are ultimately moral choices, selections among competing values, and some really are objectively better than others.
Restoring America to a free country, one where the dominant ethos is respect for the individual's rights and free exercise of judgment, won't be easy. But despite the Pandora's box of horrors visited on citizens by Washington the past three generations, the odds have never been better for a renaissance. The latest progressive heating of the melting pot so fast, so far has millions waking up to the hot water and looking for the knobs. Let's turn more than just the one that registers a vote.January 24, 2011 - 5:40 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
@Call me Roy – I very rarely read such accurate and knowledgeable reasoning. Any chance you could take Zombie's place?January 29, 2011 - 1:45 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
Micha Elyi
Likewise, no libertarian will ever persuade an Evangelical Christian that abortion is not murder.-call me Roy
That's because abortion is murder. Ask anyone from Libertarians for Life.
Now how can I trust your reasoning if you've got false premises mixed in?February 11, 2011 - 11:06 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
57. call me Roy
The Progressives' Transformation of the 10 Commandments
President Barack Obama promised during his campaign and inaugural speeches that we would witness a fundamental transformation of America. To be sure, his idea of a transformation is more akin to Karl Marx or Hugo Chavez than to Jesus Christ and the Holy Trinity.
Perhaps we should be grateful that, so far, President Obama and his progressive cabal are fixated on health care, cap & trade, climate change and other big government projects. With so much on his plate, Obama hasn't had time to fundamentally charge the very basis of our legal system — the 10 Commandments, as given to the prophet Moses by Yahweh on Mount Sinai.
But rest assured, there will be many — gay activists, atheists, hard-core leftists, etc. — who will eventually get around to fundamentally transforming God's 10 Commandments.
I. I am your leader, Obama. When I and my minions are around, who needs God?
II. Obama, Pelosi and Reid must be exalted with carved images throughout the nation.
III. Prayer will be banned in public, but praise, song and poetry honoring Obama will be constant.
IV. Remember the Sabbath Day. Don't observe it, simply remember it.
V. Honor thy mother and thy father if they love Obama; otherwise, call child protection services and claim they've abused you.
VI. Thou shall not kill or abuse terrorists or criminals, but unborn babies may be killed right up to the moment of their birth.
VII. Thou shall marry anyone or any creature you wish with the full protection of Obama.
VIII. Thou shall steal from those who work and save and give such bounty to those who are slothful, irresponsible and non-productive.
IX. Thou shall not bear false witness against your neighbor, unless they refuse to accept Obama as their god and their leader.
X. You shall covet your neighbor's house. When Obama is done transforming America you will have it.January 24, 2011 - 5:43 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
58. angus
Egyptians are right now on the streets protesting for democracry, freedom and human rights. America supplies a lot of year on year military support to the Mubarak regime. 3rd world country of Egypt is about to experience the full might of American Imperialism.January 27, 2011 - 10:16 pm Link to this Comment | Reply
59. Mike Giles
Egyptians are right now on the streets protesting for democracry, freedom and human rights.
Really, I thought their protests were mainly about food prices, which they feel are too high. And Mubarak, who they feel has been around too long. Considering Egypt's history I would be surprised if the majority of the people out in the streets had any idea what democracy, freedom and human rights were.February 8, 2011 - 10:14 am Link to this Comment | Reply
Sasha, you must have been there right before I got there. I started fall of '99. Saber was gone by that time. SFAI was a crazy party school back then. So much funSeptember 24, 2011 - 1:54 am Link to this Comment | Reply
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subset: commoncrawl