I certainly don't agree with everything Mr. Kaplan said here, but I must admit that I found this enlightening. It places the events we are currently witnessing in a different light.
I certainly don't agree with everything Mr. Kaplan said here, but I must admit that I found this enlightening. It places the events we are currently witnessing in a different light.
Churchill concludes that it’s through serving its self-interest that a country shapes and improves the world. Britain was pursing naked self-interest in the Sudan in the 1890s, and yet in doing so laid the groundwork for more than fifty years of civil administration thereafter that dramatically raised the Sudanese standard of living.
The idea that, in serving your self-interest, you improve the world is only true if your view of your self-interest is rooted in morality. Britain pursued its self interest and built a chain of colonies that were stable and relatively enlightened. That speaks volumes about who and what Britain is. Belgium and Germany pursued their self interest on the same continent and built charnel houses that had no equal in history until the Nazis took power.
Indeed, to him, without evil and intractability, there could be no good, no moral behavior, and no heroism.
Good does not depend on the existence of evil for its own existence, yin in fact can exist just fine without yang. Evil does force the fence-sitters to choose sides, but it is danger and devotion to the good that inspires heroism.
A nation without pride in its history will lack courage
But, again, this pride must be rooted in morality or it is ill-founded. There are countries whose history is not deserving of pride, and patriotism separated from morality degenerates easily into jingoism and fascism.
Machiavelli is guided by a definite morality— just not the Christian morality. Rather, his is the morality of the ancient polis, the values that secure a stable community.
The idea that the highest purpose of government is to preserve stability is Hobbesian. We hold to a different view, that the purpose of government is to preserve liberty. It is night and day's difference. Some of Machiavellis guidelines for taking and holding power are useful, just as some of Hobbes analysis is useful reading, as long as you remember that he is not looking to set you or anyone else free.
Thucydides wrote that only three things govern our intentions: fear, self-interest, and honor.
Actually, there is a fourth, and that is morality. That is what makes the difference between a person, or a country, whose actions based on the first three are good, or if they are monstrous.
This is all very Hobbesian: the highest morality will be the morality of keeping the system together, of moving toward more interlocking governments, and of international institutions to foster democracy.
It is all very Hobbesian indeed. For him, the highest morality is the morality of keeping the system together. But there are systems which are not moral, and should not be held together. This idea is the root of our determination to be sovereign. Independent, that is. Independence, sovereignty, are not in themselves the highest goals but wedded to a moral sense they are important tools toward important ends, one being to chart an independent course despite the designs of some world system.
But one cannot bring in a more universally democratic world situation without being periodically ruthless, using methods indefensible by universal or democratic morality, Mr. Kaplan concluded.
Perhaps this is a good time to remind oneself that democracy itself is not the highest good, in fact democracy separated from morality is a ticket to Hobbesville. Or Kaplanville. Democracy is only a means to an end, that end being liberty, and can only be a means to that end when it is rooted in morality. Democracy can just as easily be a battering ram which will break down liberty, and the barriers that make liberty possible, which are sovereignty, and law, and morality.
The Great Power organizing principle can work when we recognize the role of patriotic pride, a usable past, and methods that cannot be defended by the religious morality of public discourse but by an older, more limited pagan morality.
I'm inclined to think that Kaplan is confused, and should not be entrusted with power over anyone.