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 --- from list heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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