Terms of Surrender (Mark Steyn)

Western Standard ^ | March 12, 2007 | Mark Steyn

[GMMAC]

Terms of Surrender
When 'freedom' and 'democracy' become sinister concepts,
we're lost for more than words

Mark Steyn
Western Standard
March 12, 2007

Frank Luntz, the eminent American pollster, has a new book out south of the border called Words That Work--i.e., words that resonate with the public. It's been a big theme of his for years: I remember seeing him back in the nineties advising Republicans to ease up on attacks on "teachers' unions" because Mr. and Mrs. America watching at home heard it as attacks on "teachers," which is one of those words people are in favour of.

I don't know if Luntz is planning a northern edition called Words That Work In Canada, but we could certainly use one. The other day, the Toronto Star, by one of those fortuitous strokes, came into the possession of an internal report commissioned by the Department of Foreign Affairs. Apparently, the department spent $76,000 on conducting focus groups to help the government under-stand"Canadian attitudes and feelings" toward the Afghanistan mission.

Or as Ambra Dickie, a spokesperson with Foreign Affairs, put it, "We tested a number of key themes and messages about the mission," which is apparently how civil servants talk about foreign policy these days. Anyway, the 76 grand went to the Strategic Counsel public opinion firm and they duly reported back that the government's public relations strategy was a bust.

Let's hold it there for a moment as we contemplate the postmodern nature of constitutional government in the early 21st century: the Foreign Affairs Ministry, which in days of yore would have been preoccupied with selling a nation's foreign policy to the foreigners, is instead figuring out how to sell it to its own citizens by hiring a polling firm to hold focus groups on why the government spin doesn't work. The polling firm proposes spin that might prove more effective. And, adding another layer to the spin about the spin, some friendly soul in a ministry full of careerists antipathetic to the government leaks it to an anti-government paper, spinning it as spin about why the department's spin would spin better than the government's spin.

But wait, things get even better. The Strategic Counsel wizards determined that, in Frank Luntz-speak, certain words don't work. Among the ones to avoid when talking about Canada's Afghan mission are "freedom, democracy, liberty--in combination this phrase comes across as sounding too American."

Or, as the report put it, "Participants associated this message with public relations positioning--it was seen as echoing the kind of messaging American officials have made regarding Iraq." Fortunately, Foreign Affairs had hired a public relations firm with a much sounder grasp of the kind of public relations positioning you need so that the citizenry won't suspect that it's a lot of public relations positioning. Among the "vocabulary/terms/phrases/concepts to reinforce" the Afghan policy, the Strategic Counsel recommended ditching discredited Bush neo-con cowboy fetishes like "freedom" and replacing them with the following: "hope," "opportunity," "enhancing the lives of women and children," "rebuilding," "restoring," "reconstruction," read 'em and weep. The Strategic Counsel also recommended to Foreign Affairs that they "avoid developing a line of argumentation too strongly based on values. While the value of human rights is strongly supported, there is a risk of appearing to be imposing Canadian values. Again, this is not seen to be the 'Canadian way.'"

I'll say. The chief Canadian value is that we don't accord our values any higher value than anybody else's values. Except the Americans' values, of course. And, if Bush and Cheney persist in talking up "freedom," "democracy" and "liberty," it's no wonder such words poll negatively in the Great White North, to the point where they've joined "motherhood" and "apple pie" on the list of sinister alien philosophies. If I were one of our boys out in the Hindu Kush, I think I'd find this a little disheartening. Shortly before his sudden departure last year, I had a conversation in Washington with Donald Rumsfeld about the variable quality of America's "allies"--the sort of thing I've mentioned here before: NATO members who agree to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Yanks in Afghanistan as long as they're not in a combat role and there are at least two provinces between their shoulders and the Yankee shoulders. Secretary Rumsfeld was careful to distinguish between these token allies prepared to man the photocopier back at barracks if you invest two years of diplomatic energy in sweet-talking them, and real allies doing tough and useful things, into which category he put the Canadians. How terribly disheartening that, at a time when our troops are doing grown-up work in Afghanistan, we're only prepared to support them if it can be passed off under weedy milquetoast generalities like "hope" and "opportunity."

If it's any consolation, I'd wager this isn't merely a Canadian problem. Since Bush started going around saying, "Freedom is the desire of every human heart" apropos Iraq and Afghanistan, blue-state America and the British left and assorted Continental intellectuals seem to have downgraded the word from a universal value to a strictly local phenomenon of no general application. Recently, in a somewhat mixed review of my book, Christopher Hitchens called for "an end to one-way multiculturalism and to the cultural masochism that goes with it . . . We should insist on reciprocity at all times. We should not allow a single Saudi dollar to pay for propaganda within the U.S., for example, until Saudi Arabia also permits Jewish and Christian and secular practices. No Wahhabi-printed Korans anywhere in our prison system. No Salafist imams in our armed forces."

He's right, of course. But, in reality, "one-way multiculturalism" is the only form there is. Whether or not it was conceived as such, in practice multiculturalism is a unicultural phenomenon. Canadians have internalized it to such a degree that we take it as read that if, say, 10 Syrians move to Moose Jaw Canada is bound to be culturally sensitive to Syrian sensibilities, but if ten Canadians move to Damascus Syria will stay just as Syrian as ever. So, if the Princess Pats happen to find themselves in Afghanistan, it's hardly surprising we have a tough time figuring out what they're there for. In the old days, they'd have been fighting for Queen and country. But, needless to say, the Strategic Counsel wouldn't even bother running the numbers on words like those: they'd poll somewhere between George W. Bush and the Ebola virus. Yet, if "freedom" and "democracy" are no longer acceptable and even "Canadian values" like "human rights" are believed to be an "imposition," what's left? What words do work?

Canada is thus a useful example of the thesis propounded by Thomas P.M. Barnett, author of The Pentagon's New Map and Blueprint For Action. Dr Barnett is what might be called an optimistic technocrat: he believes that the collapsed fringes of the map can be brought within the functioning core. And that is certainly possible: the U.S. and other countries undoubtedly have the wealth and expertise to do what needs to be done. Pessimists such as yours truly think the movement is just as likely to go the other way--that countries will slip from the functioning column into the dysfunctional, as Bosnia did 15 years ago. I'm gloomy because of what I regard as a kind of psychological ennui among the peoples of the West: Afghanistan is not Iraq, it's supposedly "the good war." Yet, as valiantly as our troops battle the Taliban, so the government must battle public apathy and hostility at home. Which makes meaningful overseas commitments hard for a democracy to sustain over the long haul. Which means that, when it comes to the ambitious agenda foreseen by the likes of Dr. Barnett, most advanced nations will do too little or too late.

This psychological ennui is harder to measure than GDP or military capability, but nonetheless there are indicators, and they're not encouraging. If you think Canadians are unduly sheepish about promoting "Canadian values" in Afghanistan, the British seem to be resigning themselves to the impossibility of imposing British values in Britain. "Pressing Muslims to integrate may actually make the struggle against terrorism more difficult," wrote the philosopher John Gray in The Spectator the other day. "Britain is not a notably cohesive society and there is no prospect of it becoming one. Rather than trying to secure a consensus on values--even liberal values--we would be better off framing terms that allow us to co-exist in peace." And so he commends an atomized society in which "the best we can hope for is tolerance."

Given that large numbers of the folks we're hoping will tolerate us are notably intolerant, that seems something of a long shot. If those focus groups are right, and "democracy" and "liberty" are concepts in which the Muslim world has no interest, on present demographic trends that's a problem not for Afghanistan and Iraq but for France and Belgium and Denmark, and one day Canada. If "freedom" is now a word that doesn't work, very little else will.

[GMMAC]

[GMMAC]

Can hardly believe this doesn't appear to have been posted earlier ???

PING!

[tet68]

Steyn Bump.

adding another layer to the spin about the spin, some friendly soul in a ministry full of careerists antipathetic to the government leaks it to an anti-government paper, spinning it as spin about why the department's spin would spin better than the government's spin.

the term , "Dizzy with success." comes to mind.

[kellynla]

Bump for later

[SE Mom]

bookmark for later- thanks for posting

[brothers4thID]

mark for later read. thanks

[NonValueAdded]

Steyn alert

[OldPossum]

Good Steyn column, but then again, most of them are.

[fso301]

Steyn bump

[sourcery]

What words do work?

"We're fighting so that you and your family can safely fly to Paris on vacation, and so that your grandchildren won't be forced to live under Sharia law against their will."

[Blind Eye Jones]

Instead of promoting cultural diversity Canadian leaders should promote what Canadians have in common with other peoples. Multiculturalism has fragmented much of Canadian society and is forced on people through the semi Marxist educational system. According to Steyn's take on multiculturalism, freedom and democracy are just values -- usually associated with the uncool GW Bush. What Steyn doesn't say is the spin bastards really want is to be very cool. They live such dreary lives and they know that their "safe" high is to ratchet up the rat shit because their ass will never be on the line in Afghanistan or Iraq... where spin about "care" don't cut it with bullets flying around one's head. Here in North America there are reputations to be made, money to be made, BS to be made... and it's all very hip for those bastards.

[Earthdweller]

"Christopher Hitchens called for "an end to one-way multiculturalism and to the cultural masochism that goes with it . . ."

Brilliant and catchy.

[exg]

Great article !

[GMMAC]

Thanks.
Here's a copy of the ribbon above on its own if you can use same for its intended purpose:

God bless & keep safe your hubby & his comrades in Afghanistan!

[fanfan]

Bump!!!

[goldstategop]

If the West thinks its own values are no longer worth fighting for - and dying for - it will perish from history. As Mark Steyn would note - as the West retreats from imposing its own values at home, the enemy is confident theirs is the wave of the future. The post-modern West is entering its twilight years.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[stephenjohnbanker]

Good point, and all too true.

[Gritty]

[UltraKonservativen]

Defining a Democratic Congress = "They live such dreary lives and they know that their "safe" high is to ratchet up the rat shit because their ass will never be on the line in Afghanistan or Iraq "....honorable men will die instead.

The COWARDS OF VIETNAM are now THE COWARDS OF IRAQ. No matter how they spin the "support the troops" rat shit, the truth is that these are scared little boys and girls that want a safe kindergarten world, pretending evil doesn't exist.
Many will die because we have let these cowards take control of our country.