>Douglas Wilson’s Letter From America

>Nobody Names Their Kid Jeshurun Anymore

Written by Douglas Wilson
March 2, 2010
First published in Blog and Mablog

I have been a subscriber to National Review since I was a junior in high school or thereabouts, and so that means I have been reading those guys for around 40 years. I think this should give me the right to say something. Well, first, I should say thanks. I owe them all a great deal.

Having said that, let me move on to the cover story in the current edition, a piece called Defend Her: Obama’s Threat to American Exceptionalism, written by Rich Lowry and Ramesh Ponnuru.

First, let me set the pieces on the board. American conservatism is not Toryism, fighting to protect long-established aristocratic privileges. This leads to an obvious question.

“What do we, as American conservatives, want to conserve? The answer is simple: the pillars of American exceptionalism. Our nation has always been exceptional. It is freer, more individualistic, more democratic, and more open and dynamic than any other nation on earth.”

And we begin to get gummed up almost immediately. Many of the things that Lowry and Ponnuru point out about the American personality are quite true (at least for the present), and on that level, I found myself agreeing with most of the article. But this language of exceptionalism grates — let us call it our American grateness.

Our nation is still freer (for the most part) than most other nations in the world. True enough. But not all. The 2010 Index of Economic Freedom puts us at #8, right after Canada. That’s not even in the medal round. We did better in hockey than we are doing in freedom. We are now ranked as “mostly free,” and for those just joining us that is not a good thing. Ahead of us are Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Switzerland, and Canada. So are those nations ahead of us allowed to begin speaking of “Irish exceptionalism,” or “Australian exceptionalism”? Would it grate on our ears if they started to do that? Would we suddenly see the difficulties with the expression?

On top of this, there is the small matter of history. True, we are freer now than the English are. But the Englishmen of several centuries ago were freer then than we are now. So why are we exceptional in this, and they aren’t? When they are freer, better, stronger militarily, and so on, is it to be chalked up as a fluke? And when we become the hegemon the credit goes to our own wonderful selves? The language of American exceptionalism doesn’t pass the smell test.

So what is the creed of American exceptionalism?

“Exact renderings of the creed differ, but the basic outlines are clear enough. The late Seymour Martin-Lipset defined it as liberty, equality (of opportunity and respect), individualism, populism, and laissez-faire economics. The creed combines with other aspects of the American character — especially our religiousness and our willingness to defend ourselves by force — to form the core of American exceptionalism.”

In their description of the American personality, I certainly recognize a lot of my own reactions and impulses in there. I see the same thing in my friends around me — even those who think they have transcended the whole business.

And I also know that by objecting in the way I am, I can just be pointed to as yet another textbook example of American cussedness — and I guess I would plead guilty. But having an ornery cussedness streak is not a creed. It is not Scripture. It is not a flaming torch to light up all those other benighted nations. It is not a gospel.

These things that we have (and we do have them) are blessings. They are gifts. Other nations have had them before we did, and they threw them away by offending Heaven, just as we are currently doing. There is nothing exceptional in this at all. Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked. Nobody names their kids Jeshurun anymore, but they sure could.

“The retreat from American exceptionalism” led by Obama (and lots of other Americans) is one that Lowry and Ponnuru lament, and are trying to stand against. I wish them well, but they really have misdiagnosed the problem from top to bottom. We will not be saved by our American “religiousness.” Religiousness didn’t bleed and die for us, and religiousness was not raised from the dead on the third day. Religiousness can go to blazes where it belongs.

The article concludes with this:

“But Americans are right not to want to become exceptional only in the 230-year path we took to reach the same lackluster destination as everyone else.”

Sir John Glubb once wrote a small booklet called The Fate of Empires, and I referred to his review of western history in my recent book Five Cities That Ruled the World.

“Cities, like the men and women who live in them, have life spans, and that life span is approximately 250 years. John Glubb pointed to this seemingly obvious truth, but one that is still routinely missed: ‘Any regime which attains great wealth and power seems with remarkable regularity to decay and fall apart in some ten generations'” (p. xviii).

Whatever you might want to say about it, it is not an exceptional achievement to die right when your insurance company predicted you would.

>Douglas Wilson’s Letter From America

>Americanitas

Written by Douglas Wilson
Wednesday, February 24, 2010

There are a number of things that are circulated on the foxnewsright that do to my soul what an Athens full of idols did to the apostle Paul. One of the central ones, as readers of this space well know, is that I think there is enough sadness in the world without Republicans going around talking about American exceptionalism. The most recent sampling of a near cousin to this kind of thing was a comment by Jeb Bush when he said that Obama’s policies were “not American.” Obama’s policies are idiotic, sure, but last time I checked, we weren’t having to import any of that. We generate enough in a month or two — just in my part of the country — to keep New York lit up for a couple years.

There was an old ethos, that of Americanitas, that was a real part of the first Christendom, and those who held it knew that one’s nationality should no more be a basis for praise or blame than the possession of ten toes should be. But Americanism, a false religion designed to appeal to people who are not especially clever, has banished this older Christian confession in its peculiar American form. In other words, faithful Americanitas was chased to the border, largely by Americans. Not by Russians, not by Chinese, nor by any other furriners.

If you see folks talking about these things on the teevee, or you read what they write about it, and they all seem extremely clever, please remember that nobody seems to understand that you can’t float between Heaven and Hell unless you know how to fly. And if you can’t fly there is only one way to go, and that is where we are going, at an approximate rate of 9.8m/s2. Satan, Chesterton observed, fell by the force of gravity.

So however earnest they may be in their opposition to Obamaman, whenever somebody trots out this exceptionalism business, thinking Christians need to fall upon that claim with merry shouts. However sound they may be on how a health care system should work, any given advocate of this bizarre doctrine of exceptionalism seems to me to be, in the immortal words of Wodehouse, “nature’s final word on cloth-headed guffins.”

This exceptionalism talk really needs to expire with a low gurgle.

>A Follow Up to the Previous Post

>A New Form of American Imperialism

A couple of articles have appeared on the conservative Townhall site critically analysing Obama’s appearance on Al Arabiya, and his “two faces” on the Middle East. They provide more colour and background to yesterday’s post on Obama as a case study of the Liberal Mind.

The first, Two Obamas and Two Middle Easts, points out the contradiction between Obama’s environmentalist face, and his Middle East peace making face.

First is Obama the Environmentalist:

Obama the Environmentalist hit the campaign trail last summer, giving speeches on energy policy. Obama the Man of Peace appeared this week on Al Arabiya TV.

Obama the Environmentalist spoke to a domestic audience whom he understood to be angry about the price of gas. Obama the Man of Peace spoke to a foreign audience whom he understood to be angry about U.S. anti-terrorism policies.

“One of the most dangerous weapons in the world today is the price of oil,” Obama the Environmentalist said in a July campaign speech. “We ship nearly $700 million a day to unstable or hostile nations for their oil. It pays for terrorist bombs going off from Baghdad to Beirut. It funds petro-diplomacy in Caracas and radical madrassas from Karachi to Khartoum. It takes leverage away from America and shifts it to dictators.”

In another July speech, Obama the Environmentalist envisioned a Middle East that would be populated by tyrants for at least another 20 years. That, together with the threat of climatic apocalypse, he argued, makes it necessary for the United States to mount a massive effort to curtail petroleum use.

“If we stay on our current course, the rapid growth of nations like China and India will rise about one-third by 2030,” he said. “In that same year, Middle Eastern regimes will be sitting on 83 percent of our global oil reserves. Imagine that — the very source of energy that fuels nearly all of our transportation, controlled almost entirely by some of the world’s most unstable and undemocratic governments.”

“We are not a country that places our fate in the hands of dictators and tyrants — we are a nation that controls our own destiny,” he said. “And it’s why we must end the tyranny of oil in our time.”

Then there is Obama, the Middle East Peacemaker:

This Environmentalist did not appear on Al Arabiya this week. The Man of Peace did.

This Obama, speaking to the Arab world, lauded the peace plan put forward by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia — the Middle East’s premier autocratic oil peddler — as an act that “took great courage.”

This Obama did not see a region that more than 20 years from now will still bristle with “dictators and tyrants.” He saw a region brimming with nations ready to work with him and Secretary of State Clinton as respected partners.

“I do think that it is impossible for us to think only in terms of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and not think in terms of what’s happening with Syria or Iran or Lebanon or Afghanistan and Pakistan,” he said. “And what I’ve said, and I think Hillary Clinton has expressed this in her confirmation, is that if we are looking at the region as a whole and communicating a message to the Arab world and the Muslim world, that we are ready to initiate a new partnership based on mutual respect and mutual interest, then I think that we can make significant progress.”

The second article focuses more upon the Al Arabiya interview. We quote:

Most sickeningly, Obama openly jettisoned his constitutional role as the caretaker for America’s national interest. Instead, Obama posed himself as an honest broker between America and the Muslim world. “(T)he United States has a stake in the well-being of the Muslim world, that the language we use has to be a language of respect,” he said. “I have Muslim members of my family. I have lived in Muslim countries.” Obama didn’t stop there. He stated that his job is to speak for the Muslim world, defending them from Americans’ negative perceptions: “And my job is to communicate to the American people that the Muslim world is filled with extraordinary people who simply want to live their lives and see their children live better lives.”

No, Mr. President. Your job is not to communicate to the American people that the Muslim world harbors us no ill will. That is their job. The Muslim world must demonstrate with its words and actions that they do not wish America replaced with an Islamic state. They must demonstrate that they do not support terrorism against America and our allies.

Your job is to protect and defend the United States of America. That is your sworn duty.

Then, in conclusion:

On Nov. 4, 2008, Americans elected their first international president. They elected a man who does not seek to preserve American values. Leftists perceived George W. Bush as an imperialist for American interests; by the same token, Obama is an imperialist for “global interests.” In a war to save America from implacable foes, Obama’s Global Interest Imperialism dooms American exceptionalism to the ash heap of history. With it may go the last, best hope of Earth.

So, both George Bush and Barack Obama are imperialistic. Both alike believe in American manifest destiny. For Bush, it was making the world safe for democracy and defeating the forces of terror. For Obama, it is treating the world decently so world-wide peace will break out.

Oh, and one final demurral: American manifest destiny should make every Christian want to vomit–whether the variant is the Bush or neocon one, or the Obama liberal academic complex version. Let us be clear: American never was, nor ever will be the “last, best hope of Earth.” That honour, that title, and that prerogative belongs to One and One only–the Risen Ruling Lord Jesus Christ. He alone is Lord: Caesar has been reduced to shards in the dustbin of history long, long ago. This, too, will be the fate of the United States unless she humbles herself before the King.

Hat Tip: No Minister.

>In Memoriam

>The Significance of Samuel Huntingdon

On the 24th of December, 2008 Samuel P Huntingdon died. He served as one of the great political theorists of our generation. It is impossible to sum up adequately the contribution of such an intellectual in a few short lines so we will restrict ourselves to commenting upon some aspects of his work that have made a profound impression and for which we will remain thankful and indebted.

Huntingdon’s theories stirred great controversy in modern liberal academic Athens. True, he was one of them—but he was like another branch of the family that no-one really wants to talk about. A great deal of modern Athenian thinking is deterministic in some way or other. Men are seen as behaving in a certain way because they have been shaped or conditioned to behave that way. External factors are seen as governing human behaviour. Huntingdon was clearly a determinist: but his particular take on what determined human action and behaviour was offensive to most of his generation.

The most pervasive deterministic theory in Athens today is marxism and its socialist derivatives. Here, human action is shaped and conditioned by economic forces and conditions. Crudely put, marxism asserts that if someone is well fed and clothed relatively comfortably he will be a happy chappie. The solution of all the world’s problems, then, lies in ensuring that everyone is fed, watered, and clothed. Socialism sees that all the wars of the world, all the crime in the world, is over material goods and their ownership: if we ensure that everyone has an adequate and a “just” distribution of material goods, nirvana will break out.

The second most pervasive deterministic theory in Athens is the liberal-democratic theory. This particular form of determinism is the darling of the right-wing, of the neo-conservatives, of the libertarians, and their fellow-travelers. The idea is that if you just give people a taste of political liberty and freedom, it will result in significant improvements in their society, growing prosperity, respect for law and order, reduction in crime, and so forth. Here, a political order of liberty and freedom to be and do determines the well-being of man and society.

It was “neocon” determinism that helped persuade the US to invade Iraq. If Saddam were to be toppled and the Iraqi people given a taste of political freedom, the transformation of that country into a modern western liberal democracy complete with economic prosperity would be the eventual result.

Huntingdon was a more profound deterministic thinker than most of his generation. He rejected the reductionism of his “economic man” opponents and argued instead that human action is determined by cultures and that cultures are very complex, deeply rooted, visceral—and above all, shaped by religion. It is his insistence upon the power of religion that was so offensive to modern materialists–whether marxists or neocons. He argued that the clashes and wars to come would be fought not between communism and capitalism, nor between the tyrants and the democrats, but between opposed civilisations—in particular, the clash between Christianity and Islam.

He wrote:

It is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation-states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future.

And again:

In Eurasia the great historic fault lines between civilizations are once more aflame. This is particularly true along the boundaries of the crescent-shaped Islamic bloc of nations, from the bulge of Africa to central Asia. Violence also occurs between Muslims, on the one hand, and Orthodox Serbs in the Balkans, Jews in Israel, Hindus in India, Buddhists in Burma and Catholics in the Philippines. Islam has bloody borders.

Islam’s borders are bloody and so are its innards. The fundamental problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilisation whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power.

Huntingdon was writing this in the 1990’s, long before 9/11, in his famous “Clash o f Civilisations” paper in Foreign Affairs, later expanded into a book. After 9/11 he achieved for a time the status of a prophet.

One of the distinctive features of his work is Huntingdon’s rejection of meta-history, or the idea that mankind is part of a cosmic plan of some kind. He refused to see in the United States a manifest destiny for the whole world; he argued instead that the US was a the product of a unique set of historical circumstances, unlikely to be replicated elsewhere. Attempts to “export” the US as a political and economic system were therefore doomed to failure.

He argued, and was hated for it by the liberal Left, that immigration should be restricted in the United States. A nation cannot cohere, he reasoned, without a common culture. It is culture that is the fundamental determiner of human society. Without a common culture, a nation will break apart. When the New York Times argued that the US historically had been built upon immigration, he replied that US immigration up to the mid-twentieth century had been predominantly Christian, and therefore shared the same attributes of US culture itself.

Huntingdon was wrong in rejecting meta-history; but he was right in rejecting any possibility of a coherent meta-history from within humanity itself. Had he understood the Christian faith better, he would have discerned that indeed the human race has a meta-history, but that it belongs not to man but to the Man, Christ Jesus, our Lord to Whom the Father has granted all authority and power.

Huntingdon was wrong in asserting the determinism of culture, but was right in stressing that mankind is powerfully conditioned and shaped by deeply held cultural beliefs, manifested in particular religions—whether truthful or idolatrous—and that these influences are far more powerful in shaping nations and society than a western liberal education or food in the belly. However, culture is deeply powerful but not ultimately deterministic, since when the light of the glory of God shines upon a people, they come from darkness to light.

Cultures are ultimately religious—yes, Huntingdon was right in this—but by the power of the Spirit of God, people can and do change from Unbelief (whether of the Islamic or modern secular Athenian liberal stripe). When their religion changes, their culture changes. But the change must come from God, not from men. Men are weak and their hearts are deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Only God can change the hearts of men through the Gospel, which is the power of God unto salvation.

We mark the passing of an Athenian giant. He was an embarrassment to many in that City. He was not liked amongst the effete liberals nor the gung-ho neocons. But his estrangement from parts of that City tells us more about Athens than it does about Huntingdon. We salute you and mark your passing from the sight of mortal men, with respect.