File spoon-archives/heidegger.archive/heidegger_2003/heidegger.0304, message 240


Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2003 02:04:55 +0800
Subject: Re: new world order (hope and machination)
From: Malcolm Riddoch <m.riddoch-AT-ecu.edu.au>



On Saturday, April 12, 2003, at 10:32  PM, Michael Eldred wrote:

> Malcolm,
>
> After 11-Sep I'm not so sure that a Democratic administration in the 
> White
> House would not also have taken a much more aggressive stance 
> geopolitically.
> My point is that I think it is a mistake to get too fixated on Bush 
> and his
> team.

The Bush Doctrine outlined in the US National Security Strategy is a 
major departure from previous administrations, but who knows if Gore 
would have come up with the same and what does it matter now? This 
doctrine publicly sets up the new order that is being enacted in Iraq 
and that is causing such a massive human response all around the world. 
It's just a simple fact that it is the Bush administration that is 
carrying this out, I don't really care who the individuals involved 
are. Except it's kind of ironic that it's the cold war Reaganites who 
are back in power again but this time they seem to be going for broke.

> One has to distinguish between domination and hegemony

Yes, when I said 'domination' I meant 'domination'. Rather than 
internationalist leadership via the UN, the US administration has 
decided that since it is in the unique historical position of a 
complete and unchallenged global hegemony in economic and military 
affairs, it can now announce itself publicly as the world's enforcer 
for the global rule of law and order. This is akin to the enabling 
decree that uleashed Hitler on a national level except now it is a 
nation unleashing itself on an international level. Thank god these 
Bush people are democrats and somewhat constrained by the 'democratic 
ideals' of their constitution and constituency.

The US action is unilateral in the sense that the US has announced this 
doctrine and acted on it without regard to any ally or the UN as a 
whole. That Britain and Australia have actively participated doesn't 
change the fact that the US has decided on this path for itself. Here 
in Australia the federal government under Howard was obviously informed 
that this strike was going to happen no matter what anyone at the UN 
thought. Howard from the start just completely fell in line with the 
Bush administration because the strategic implications of what may go 
down are big to say the least and Australia has allied with the US to 
see us through, as has Britain. Howard is so blatant about all this he 
has regularly made headlines across SEAsia for advocating Australia as 
the US deputy in the region, with the action in East Timor as an 
example, and then lately for advocating the Bush Doctrine's notion of 
Australia's right to a preventive strike on terrorists located in our 
neighbours lands. This is mostly just outrageous stuff for talk back 
radio and domestic polls but it plays dreadfully well regionally. 
Howard is largely responsible for his shift away from asia in favour of 
closer ties with the US. Now he's also responsible for moving us away 
from the UN... international cooperation seems to be giving way to an 
acquiescence to US power.

> North Korea? Nothing will happen on that front without China, Japan 
> and South
> Korea having a decisive say.

If China, Russia, France and Germany don't have a decisive say in what 
has happened in Iraq what makes you so sure of the above? Do you think 
China and Russia will actually step in here and try to stop the US 
again? Or is the US under some sort of compulsion to fully cooperate 
with its Asian allies?

> I don't see the use of nuclear weapons as likely. If North Korea 
> presses
> ahead with nuclear armament, Japan will get the nod to do the same.

Agreed, not likely but who knows how regime change will happen in North 
Korea? It's the weapon of last resort and things would have to get 
extremely messy but the US administration has already directed the 
Pentagon to look into the possibilities of the use of nuclear weapons 
in strategic strikes. One would hope that this is just a political 
threat and that they don't intend to actually use them.

> Did you notice that last Wednesday, Russia and China vetoed a 
> resolution in
> the UN Security Council condemning North Korea?

No, I didn't. Sounds ominous though, what was the resolution?

> War is never a diplomatic means.

Actually it has been in the past and it is again now. It was just used 
to implement regime change in Iraq. The Bush Doctrine effectively 
returns international relations to the 19th century and the right of 
conquest. These are strange days don't you think?

> But there's no such thing as a treaty with a terrorist
> organization, and states hosting terrorism do so only surreptitiously, 
> so how
> is "attack" to be defined which would legitimize "self-defence"?

And more to the point how do you define a terrorist 'threat'? The 
attack on Afghanistan did not create such an international scandal as 
this strike on Iraq cos the threat was real and the Taliban clearly 
harboured it by default as a weapon of state policy. With Iraq a nation 
does not have to actually have any dealings with terrorists, in fact it 
can be mortally opposed to al Qaeda and any religious extremism in its 
own people, it just has to be non-democratic and unstable enough to be 
suspected of possibly sometime down the track allowing terrorists to 
acquire WMD's. This tenuous terrorism link is a long bow to draw and it 
opens up a hornets nest of regional insecurities, and not just in the 
middle east. Where does the defence of western civilization go next?

> The challenge is how those troubled
> areas of the world (the Balkans, Middle East, Africa) could find 
> peace. No
> peace without stable forms of government, rule of law, a level of 
> prosperity.
> Some few countries (e.g. Chile) have managed some sort of transition 
> from
> repression and corruption to a better way of life.

Agreed, I think we just differ on the road map to peace. As for South 
America the US does not have a particularly good record in supporting 
the democratic rule of law, hopefully they'll not repeat this elsewhere.

> I think the NATO works better than the UNO because the common interest 
> -- a
> defence alliance -- is more clearly defined.

Apparently NATO is all but dead although the Bush administration is 
still 'committed' to it. There's more talk of the US pulling out of the 
Balkans and letting the EU deal with it, although maybe it's still in 
US interests to maintain bases in Germany and eastern Europe, who 
knows? Maybe Jan?

> There is a depressingly large number of thoroughly corrupt states 
> among the
> so-called non-aligned countries. Nothing good can be expected of them.

I find both your pessimism about the vast non-aligned movement as well 
as Islam, the UN and international cooperation, and your optimism 
regarding US enforcement a bit troubling. I guess I'm just more for US 
leadership with an internationalist approach within international law 
rather than the US declaring itself the world's sheriff (and sherif?).

> The present call from governments and world public opinion for the UNO 
> to
> take on the lead role in setting up a government in post-Saddam Iraq 
> and in
> rebuilding the country I find totally perverse.

It would probably mean largely US forces under a UN mandate keeping the 
peace while a UN administration builds a viable democracy, you don't 
believe this would work I take it. It's obviously not going to happen 
and all the rebuilding contracts are now under tender from US companies 
only, although Britain and Australia may also have a share in the 
spoils. All oil contracts are up for grabs as well and I don't think 
the French and Russians will have much hope of renegotiating theirs. 
This rush for the spoils of war is also rather perverse.

>> As far as what the
>> UN stands for, the 'dream' for me is a democratic ideal that no actual
>> democratic institution can live up to, but I personally think it's
>> important to keep and develop these ideals as philosophical goals.
>
> That's too Platonic for my taste. I agree with Aristotle's criticisms 
> of this
> kind of ideal thinking.

Plato is still open to interpretation, as is neo-Platonism, but I 
prefer phenomenology so yes, if god is dead then what is an ideal? A 
commonly held belief? Or a philosophical notion? An existential 
principle of one's own existence? I think the notion of the 'good' is 
definitely an ideal for political thought but only because it is an 
inescapable fact of 'one's own' life. There is good and bad in life, as 
principles these are good and evil. It is for us humans to debate these 
ideals cos they belong to human existence. Or are you going to tell me 
that the good and evil in the phenomena of distress, joy, illness, 
love, sorrow, the horror of violence and so on are merely the 
subjective emotional and cognitive responses of a conditioned human 
animal? I'm waiting for Anthony to start telling me it's all 'ontical' 
cos he thinks Dasein is not inherently good or evil and therefore.... 
So yes, and in a phenomenological sense:

> There are no separate ideals; the phenomena are
> present only in the beings themselves. What we need to do as 
> philosophers is
> to bring the phenomena to light.

Agreed, but obviously we may not necessarily agree on the wording. I'm 
not suggesting we need to all plug in to a mainline to heaven or 
Heidegger, or that ideals exist anywhere else than in one's own life. 
It's the 'regularities' of one's own lived experience that I'm 
interested in debating with you here. Do you think the notion of the 
'good' is a regularity of your own existence? Would you agree that it's 
good to feel good and suffering is bad, and what causes suffering is in 
principle evil? Like Nazi violence and murder was evil.

> I think 'liberty', 'equality' and 'fraternity' as ideals are 
> worthless. If
> they are anything at all, they are phenomena which have to be thought 
> through
> as human possibilities for living.

Hmmmm... what then do you say of the ideal of the 'good' that the 
democratic ideals of human freedom are supposed to point towards? That 
it too is a phenomenon that has to be thought through as a human 
possibility? I agree, but I don't see how this makes the notions of 
freedom and equality worthless, on the contrary I think they are 
immeasurably valuable. I have no desire to live in the midst of 
anarchic or totalitarian violence, I much prefer a stable democracy 
like Australia where you can live relatively peacefully through to old 
age, gods willing. I just have way too much to do without worrying 
about collapsing infrastructure, non-stop murder and the spread of 
disease, lawlessness and poverty.

> A (Christian) civilization of love? I don't place any hope at all in 
> the
> Abrahamic religions.  I think the full gamut of human possibilities 
> from love
> to hate and the inevitably strifeful nature of truth have to be kept 
> in view.
> Political strife is an essential aspect of sharing the world.

I have as much faith in the Abrahamic religions as I do in democracy or 
US hegemony. I'm generally ambivalent with regards to systems, but the 
concept of love is a philosophical concern and I think it's very much 
open to interpretation. But I don't understand what you're saying here, 
is truth a strife? Or is life essentially 'strifeful'? Political strife 
of course is strife, but are you suggesting that the politics of hate 
are as valid as any other? That may be a fait accompli in the rule of 
machination, but where would that leave you with respect to the 'good'?

>  When money and political power mix, that is
> the most detrimental form of machination: e.g. cronyism, vote-buying. 
> That's
> why the notion of separation of powers is important in the democratic
> conception of government: power for the sake of the universal is 
> always in
> danger of slipping into power for the sake of particular interests, and
> therefore has to be watched and controlled by independent instances.
>
> It is no accident that Nazi thinkers like Carl Schmitt attacked the 
> liberal
> conception of separation of powers. For them, such a separation 
> weakened the
> unity of the state, which had to be total in its reach.

Again I'm not sure what you're getting at here, the Nazi's were 
definitely pro-capitalist as well as totalitarian. And US politics is 
all about cronyism, vote-buying and the power of entrenched wealthy 
elites like it is in every other western democracy. I'd personally say 
that the 'most detrimental form of machination' is the total 
mobilisation of industrial nations in a war of annihilation, which was 
what happened in WW1 and 2 and which threatened nuclear extinction 
during the cold war. I don't think we're quite at that level yet.

>> But do you think
>> it's possibly in the US strategic interest to destabilise the region
>> further in order to push certain regimes to the brink of collapse?
>
> No, I don't. The US have to be interested in political stability and in
> kick-starting some better, more prosperous way of living. The building 
> of a
> democratic, prosperous Iraq with international co-operation will, over 
> time,
> set a good example in the whole Middle East region.

I agree that this would be a good outcome, but can you rule out the 
destabilising one? You are certainly more optimistic about the US 
conservatives than I am, but what if this destabilisation was 
strategically necessary before taking on Assad in Syria for instance? 
If his destabilised regime spontaneously falls in a velvet revolution 
that welcomes democracy and global capital without a shot being fired 
then you save money and everyone's happy as the Islamic wall collapses 
across the middle east. You know, all you gotta do is hitch that little 
red wagon to your star... Or do you think Assad's rule will be weakened 
if Iraq suddenly becomes a stabilising democratic influence for the 
good of the region? Makes for a nice game of chequers either way, crown 
Iraq and you surround Syria and Iran.

> A shortcoming (e.g. the mix of the two media of sociation, political 
> power
> and money) is detrimental to living.

Agreed, and what is detrimental to life is bad thus we need to 
determine:

> what is good for living and what is bad for living and undertake 
> action to get rid of what is detrimental.

In a utilitarian sense we could also interpret this as what is 
profitable and unprofitable for life. But what is profitable is still 
good, and what is unprofitable should be done away with, which is 
rather difficult in practice since there is so much evil in this world. 
Do you just not like the word 'evil' for some reason? I don't intend it 
in a religious sense, but I also don't think the amoral distinction 
between good and bad in will to power is a fundamental one. The 
genealogy of morals works for machination yet beyond absolute ideals 
what is good for a victorious will to power, as in the initial collapse 
of Soviet resistance to operation Barbarossa, is still most certainly a 
phenomenal evil to those caught up in the exterminations. And this evil 
was visited in the form of the wholesale slaughter of untold millions 
of innocents, in terror, pain and suffering.

> The Aristotelean conception of a successful, flourishing life 
> (_eudaimonia_)
> is a working of the soul in accordance with its abilities and 
> excellences. It
> requires practice, work, discipline, habituation and insight. I.e. 
> happiness
> is not just the absence of suffering, which is a Christian conception.

Yes, eudaemonia is not simply hedonism nor is it the mere absence of 
suffering but a life well lived for the good of one and all, logically 
that good will extends to the global community and to the earth as its 
home. I disagree with your notion of a christian concept of happiness 
as merely the absence of suffering, philosophically it is much more 
Aristotelean although in a mundane sense you might see Catholic dogma 
in this way.

> The struggle is part of their existence, because they are always
> politically contestable. Such continual struggle is a form of movement 
> of
> democratic society.

Again I agree, but I think that movement and struggle is an expression 
of a eudaemonic tendency founded in the care structure of Dasein. With 
Nietzsche you can view the entirety of human history as a struggle for 
the good between competing powers, and what else is wealth and its 
technology for but the constant struggle for a good life against the 
evils of war, famine and pestilence? That would seem to me to be as 
relevant to the life of a mediaeval serf as it is to one of todays 
elites or aspiring muslims. Without this self-reflexive desire for the 
good in becoming we probably wouldn't have the beginnings of a global 
civilisation.

Cheers,

Malcolm



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