Mutual Incomprehension: A clash of civilizations.

National Review Online ^ | March 19, 2003 | John Derbyshire

[EternalHope]

Good article.

[CatoRenasci]

BTT

[liberallarry]

There's probably a genetic component to all this. A desire by the weaker to prevent the stronger from dominating all the breeding.

[BushMeister]

Kuwait is also strongly pro-war. And that makes it all possible.

[7 x 77]

In China a year and a half ago, I was talking to one of my Chinese relatives about the United States Constitution. He waved away the Constitution with a laugh. "Oh, that's all nonsense. it's just a piece of paper. Doesn't mean anything."

A Democrat.

[mad puppy]

Thanks for post.

[spodefly]

bttt

[ArrogantBustard]

If the war goes well, we shall be more of a giant than ever;

All the decades of deceit and cruelty have now reached an end. Saddam Hussein and his sons must leave Iraq within 48 hours. Their refusal to do so will result in military conflict, commenced at a time of our choosing. ...
Many Iraqis can hear me tonight in a translated radio broadcast, and I have a message for them. If we must begin a military campaign, it will be directed against the lawless men who rule your country and not against you. As our coalition takes away their power, we will deliver the food and medicine you need. We will tear down the apparatus of terror and we will help you to build a new Iraq that is prosperous and free. In a free Iraq, there will be no more wars of aggression against your neighbors, no more poison factories, no more executions of dissidents, no more torture chambers and rape rooms. The tyrant will soon be gone. The day of your liberation is near.
-George W. Bush

Coming from the leader of any nation other than America, that statement would seem outrageous braggadocio; the height of hubris. Coming from the President of the US, it's a reminder that it ain't bragging if you can back it up. This will not endear us to everyone. Handled rightly, it may endear us to enought Iraqis to win the peace.

[7 x 77]

One way and another, we passed through most of the great disillusioning experiences of the 20th century, from the Great War to the sexual revolution, with our illusions pretty much intact.

Unfortunately, the author is giving us too much credit here. Just look at the fact that:

• We're awash in divorces;

• We've killed something like 40 million of our unborn children;

• The societal air that our children and ourselves have to breath is base and hedonistic;

• We're more secular than religious;

• We elected Clinton twice and almost elected Algore;

• Should I go on?

I think a more accurate appraisal would be that our traditional values have been under great stress for over 4 decades, but that there are many who are still fighting.

[Cicero]

Excellent angle on the differences.

[A Navy Vet]

"How much they resent our wealth and power."

Uh, I think he meant envy.

[tom paine 2]

I think that quite a few of these cultures hate the Hollyweird-MTV-porn industry that for the most part started in our country. This cancer is debasing our culture also.

[MHGinTN]

Apply this precisely to the Islamic nations and you see how difficult it will be for these people to adjust to true freedom and self-governance:

We don't understand — The narrowness of viewpoint expressed in their media. Centuries of state-sanctioned priesthoods and despotic bureaucracy have left other nations with a deferential attitude to bookish pontificators that America just does not know.

Our foreign policy will be shifting from containment to pre-emptive deterrence and regime changes. The 'edumacation' of the people in predominantly Islamic countries will be a most daunting task. I'm not yet convinced it can be accomplished sufficiently to deter support for terrorists focusing on destroying America and Western Civilization. Islamism as a cancer within Islam is an insidiously primitive belief system that offers a sense of security yet obviates self governance in a system that tolerates other religions.

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

BBC, the world's largest news provider, is nicknamed the Baghdad Broadcasting Company, CNN is Commie News Network, AP is All Propaganda....newswires, 24/7 leftist, anti-Bush spin into most hometown papers, local and national news, magazines...over months and years and decades.

They don't just "report the news"...

The press has become the greatest power within the western countries,
more powerful than the legislative, the executive, and the judiciary.
One would then ask: By what law has it been elected
and to whom is it responsible?  -  Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

[7 x 77]

Is the following true about England, MadIvan:

"The narrowness of viewpoint expressed in their media. Centuries of state-sanctioned priesthoods and despotic bureaucracy have left other nations with a deferential attitude to bookish pontificators that America just does not know. As much as we complain of the leftist bias in our media, we can hardly imagine the situation in Britain, where the BBC — far the most important source of news and comment for most people — is staffed entirely by members of the hard-Left lumpen-intelligentsia, people who, to my certain knowledge (I am friends with some of them) were admirers of the Soviet Union down to the hour of its collapse. In France and Germany things are even worse. There is essentially no conservative movement in these countries, nor in any country but the U.S. There are no Second Amendment lobbies, no Club for Growth, no anti-abortion crusaders, no Christian Coalition, no Rush Limbaugh, no Sean Hannity. (I do not say these things don't exist in Britain, France, or Germany. I do say that they have no political influence whatsoever.)

"Because of the lack of alternative voices, the effect of political correctness on these countries has been far more dire than in the U.S. In England last November, a journalist was locked up in jail for telling a pro-fox-hunting rally that country people should have the same rights as black people, Muslims, and homosexuals.

"Unrestrained by any constitutional protection for free speech, the ruling elites in these countries are wielding p.c. as a club to smash all dissent from approved state doctrines, all resistance to state schemes of social engineering. No voices are heard in Europe now but the voices of the Leftist clerisy who control all the media outlets. These people are all anti-American. (In France and Italy, they are not infrequently actual Communist-party members — yes, Communism is alive and well in Europe.) It is not surprising that the ordinary people of these countries, bathed as they are in this flood of lies from morning till night, are suspicious of us. And this is only to speak of nations that have some decently long tradition of consensual democracy. Russia? China? Turkey? Fugeddaboutit."

[wastoute]

You forget, liberals don't have to do research. Their "feelings" are the only authority they need. I could reference the heck out of that statement, but it has been done.

[Bernard Marx]

A Democrat.

Yep. That's what they mean when they talk about a "living Constitution." When someone pulls that line on me I tell them "Yes, it's a 'living' document the same way your house mortgage agreement is -- it CAN be changed but it requires a whole lot of negotiating and effort to do it legally." Most people get the idea.

[Billthedrill]

The difference between the two types of "patriotism" the author mentions is that the instance that revolves around ethnicity isn't really patriotism at all, it's "nationalism." This is a profound difference, and explains why the Chinese gentleman referred to the Constitution as a mere piece of paper without meaning. It also explains why a federation may devolve into constituent, ethnicity-based groups - Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia are examples. It also explains why such domestic ethnocentric political movements such as Azatlan and black nationalism are profoundly anti-U.S.

It is also the central difficulty in forging a federation such as the European Union out of a number of such groups. The challenge will be to redirect political identity from ethnicity and geographic orientation to that of a more amorphous identity centered around a formal social contract.

The author is correct in the assertion that many Americans take for granted, and many non-Americans do not recognize the significance of, this veneration for that "meaningless" piece of paper. Those Europeans whose veneration for extranational entities such as the UN and the EU is a core belief do not recognize that much of the American distaste for these is a consequence of already having a strong political identity which is, technically, extranational in the technical sense. That is one reason a preference for internationalist, multilateral approaches so often falls afoul of the "patriotism" it ends up disdaining but not understanding.