The Passions of the Left? Posted by Michael Signer

O.K.  It's always a little intimidating getting into a tangle with Suzanne, not only because she knows volumes more than I do about anything and everything relating to international affairs, but also because she can write volumes more, and so my feeble response here will probably be crushed by an avalanche of devastating prose.

It's also a scorching hot day here in Richmond, where the heat waves off the sidewalks were visible at 9:00 a.m., and the elms were wilting.  So the heat is on.

That said.

Here's my beef with Suzanne's last post, which responds to my previous one laying out six principles for a reinvigorated national security left. 

Suzanne's points are all typically well-considered and thoughtful and nuanced. 

But I think that in the case of thinking about the left and national security together, nuance is actually the last thing we need.  We need to start with bold propositions and strong passions, and work our way down to the details, not vice versa.

Here's what I mean.  The social scientists and rat-choice theorists have always talked a great deal about intensity of preferences as the independent variable driving the market.  If my preferences are stronger -- if I want the widget 10 times more than you do -- I will put 10 times more effort into getting it, and I get to drive the market.

It concerns me that too many progressives lack intense affirmative preferences on national security generally.  We're very good on negative preferences (like the Deaniacs' anger about the manner in which President Bush prosecuted the war in Iraq).  But in an era where conviction has become the sine qua non of successful national politics, we doom ourselves to irrelevance by lacking emotional roots on the positive principles that could drive American foreign policy generationally.

My pet theory about 9/11 and the politics that followed is that that 9/11 was an emotional wound for the country, a gash in our collective psyche.  Ever since, we have been looking for leaders with an emotional resonance, an affirmative provenance, large enough to fill the wound. 

For all of his faults, George W. Bush and the team around him appeared to feel as deeply as my friends who were working on Wall Street when the Twin Towers were hit the wound of 9/11.  His emotional response seemed proportionate to the injury, which helps explains why Americans have trusted his GWOT (rather than his GWOE), despite his mistakes.

Kerry was hammered for being a flip-flopper, but I think the real issue was not his sincerity (whether he believed) but his conviction (how much he believed) on matters of national security.  I remember thinking during the debates that the only issue that truly seemed to come straight from his soul was his passion, ironically enough, about the perils of certainty.  This is what he said in the September 30 debate:

"But this issue of certainty. It's one thing to be certain, but you can be certain and be wrong.

"It's another to be certain and be right, or to be certain and be moving in the right direction, or be certain about a principle and then learn new facts and take those new facts and put them to use in order to change and get your policy right.

"What I worry about with the president is that he's not acknowledging what's on the ground, he's not acknowledging the realities of North Korea, he's not acknowledging the truth of the science of stem-cell research or of global warming and other issues.

"And certainty sometimes can get you in trouble."

This hurts us in comparison with conservatives.  Just look at the figures on the right who are defined by their conviction:  Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, George Will, Pat Buchanan, John McCain, and, of course, George W. Bush and his hero, Ronald Reagan.

Now look at the left.  What was most discomfiting about the Democratic response to President Bush's State of the Union was not the thoughtfulness or facts of Senator Reid and Congresswoman Pelosi -- these were fine.  It was the relative colorlessness of their passion -- especially on national security.

This helps explain why Joe Biden is so head-and-shoulders above the field (and Hillary Clinton, not coincidentally the Senator from New York, a close second). 

I think all of this may go back at least in part to the academy.  Many of the left's political leaders have been schooled in an academy dominated by postmodern irony and the fetishes of deconstruction.  Many have been so thoroughly inculcated with radical skepticism of any deep claims that we've kind of husked over our more profound sentiments about America. 

That husk can be easily peeled away (just see the debate about Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo and our anguish about America's hard-earned moral reputation being tarnished).  But as a general matter we default to a highly tempered, balanced equipoise -- to thoughtfulness, not as a key to unlock action, but as an end in itself.

So, I ask whether we have what it takes.  What we learned in the 2004 election -- to our shock and chagrin -- was we won't win over the country just with better policies and positions, with superior statistics and by the President's self-delusion and self-destruction, and with more charismatic or experienced candidates. 

We will win it because the public trusts our conviction. 

So, given all of this:  in response to Suzanne, and many of the responses I got to my original post, I throw back the following questions on my first three principles: 

1)  American exceptionalism:  Do we really believe that America is unique, historically graced, and responsible for the world's greatest ideas?  (When Suzanne writes, "We recognize that by claiming exceptionalism, we risk undercutting values and norms whose broad acceptance would advance U.S. national interests," I fear this is an exception that swallows the rule.)

2)  The use of force:  Are we truly comfortable with the fundamental proposition that great ideas are worth dying for, and that great injustices are worth suffering and pain to rebuke?  (I think Suzanne's nuances here probably improve on my post -- she writes, "We are hard-headed about what force can and cannot accomplish, and we're committed to ensuring that force is used wisely in combination with other forms of power." -- but I still am concerned about what "wise use" ultimately means.)

3)  American hegemony:  Do we truly believe that America is great and good enough to be in a single leadership position over the world?  Especially when China -- which would surely manage the world in a much different (and worse) fashion than us, looms?  (Suzanne writes, "But we don't think even a hegemon (even one that has "earned" its status) can rule by fiat."  But I believe this drains the concept of hegemony of its core value.  In many cases, the ability and threat of fiat is what starts and pulls along cooperation, right?)

We've got to have conviction on these three ideas.  The exceptions can't swallow the rules.  Then we can get down to details and nuances, and to specifics on hard cases. 

But we need to work on the big ideas first.

Comments

[travis]

1) What in the world does "historically graced" mean? With point 1, are you trying to say that American values are universal values not because they are American, but because they are universal? That is, does this point shade from "exceptionalism" to "exemplarism," which may be a more idealistically progressive principle?

On 3), is it really a progressive principle that America should be in a "leadership position" that reduces to the power to command the world? Doesn't the progressive critique of rightist ideology drive on the concept that legitimate leadership derives from persuasion and consent rather than control? If we cannot disclaim the power of fiat as an objective without draining hegemony of useful content, then maybe hegemony isn't the best description of what we're aiming for.

[Mike Signer]

Travis: I appreciate both of these points a great deal, especially the first. I'm going to do some hard thinking on the exemplarism idea. Not sure yet if it's a distinction with exceptionalism or just a finer point on it, but in any event I think it's a great line of thought to pursue, so thanks.

[Chris in Boston]

Please, please, please... can we stop blaming deconstruction for everything? As someone in the academy and in a discipline that's ground zero for applying poststructuralism to every topic under the sun, I can say that half the time humanities scholars talk of postmodern irony, it's an attempt to diagnose something, not to champion it. And outside of the humanities (even inside, as a look at philosophy departments will show), few scholars share a penchant for deconstruction, poststurturalism, postmodernism, whatever straw man you want to tear down.

What's more the timing is off - I'd like to hear named one likely candidate schooled in poststructuralist thought. If anything, it's the assorted philosophies of the New Left, even in popularized form, which might be the cause of the attitudes you lay out. Marcuese, not Derrida, may be the culprit.

[David Billington]

Michael,

Suzanne seems to me to be warning against bad ideas rather than arguing in favor of passionless ones, but you are certainly right that there need to be ideas that inspire more passion on the progressive side.

One note. I don't think the problem comes from the academic world. There is plenty of unintended irony in American public life but I would be surprised if any elected officials see irony as a virtue.

Your first two points really subtend the third, hegemony, and the real question about hegemony is not a choice between American dominance or no dominance. It is between unilateral or multilateral dominance.

In the twenty-first century, it is very doubtful that the present level of weak international governance can continue. The United States right now is trying in a haphazard way to meet a need that is real and growing. Progressives can develop a position that recognizes the need instead of defaulting to the present or the past or some combination of the two.

To move the debate, however, may require shifting emphasis from means to ends. Nearly everyone on the progressive side, for example, regards missile defense with the deepest suspicion. A missile shield directed by one bloc against another would indeed be problematical. But what if a missile umbrella was open to all of the great powers after a long period (two decades) in which it might develop? I have tried to lay out a case for such a thing here:

http://members.aol.com/davidpb4/strategy1.html

Needless to say, my idea is debatable. But my point in raising it here is to argue that military systems might serve a progressive purpose. Their status as military means does not imply only one military end.

What troubles the American people more than anything else about their security is uncertainty over where we are going in the longer-run. The opportunity for Democrats and progressives is to answer this concern with a vision that offers something new.

[emptywheel]

As someone who commented on precisely these issues, I appreciate your questions. As I said in my post, I don't think we will be able to be hegemonic anymore short of some really violent imperialism that will undercut any claim we have to exceptionalism. But I do think we can embrace (or reclaim) the principles that have long been associated with the US; although at this point, they are more often defended by some in Europe than they are here. That shouldn't stop us from being loud advocates for them, though.

I'd differ with your characterization that this need for passion is something totally attributable to 9/11. Rather, I think a real sense of insecurity set in the in 1970s--the period when developing nations gave lie to our claims to invincibility, both economically and militarily and also the time when the real economic well-being of most Americans started to decline. I think the passion around 9/11 fed on that insecurity rather than invent it. Which means we need to address the underlying issues that were there all along.

Which brings me to my proposition. At the risk of sounding too much like the academic deconstructionist I used to be, framing our foreign policy in terms that mirror the neocons this closely will only reinforce their frame; it will never make Democrats look like the leaders by contrast.

I'd offer an alternative, a completely new (and IMO more viable) frame for foriegn policy: sustainability. Obviously, I'm talking about sustainability in economic and environmental terms (which implies that we'd be looking for ways to sustain the American middle class lifestyle even while offering sustainable development to developing countries; this would require an entirely new structure of world trade and significant energy placed to solving energy issues). But it also approaches diplomacy and covert ops with a recognition that the world is effectively a closed system. If you set off a chain of events, even if it's in 1953 in Iran, those events will continue to develop. Ditto the chain of events you let loose in 1979. So you'd better think carefully about the repurcussions your actions will have in the future, because aggrieved peoples aren't going to go away, certainly not in a 4th generation world.

Sadly, sustainability is probably a mantra Kerry would and could and should be really passionate about. He's got the environmental and foreign policy credentials, as well as a somewhat healthy skepticism of unfettered trade. Perhaps the next time...

[manoppello]

"This hurts us in comparison with conservatives. Just look at the figures on the right who are defined by their conviction: Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, George Will, Pat Buchanan, John McCain, and, of course, George W. Bush and his hero, Ronald Reagan."

You broach Andrew Sullivan's point. That most people on the left are divided by many disparate and divergent issues and philosophies. Right or wrong, insane or not, the right currently gives voice to a stronger, more cogent and consistent message... even in within the more moderate areas of conservatism that Andrew Sullivan represents. Even if that message and the underlying philosophy is unrealistic and extreme and as a result is never really followed.

The left needs consistent, strong, morally grounded guiding principles. I again suggest those should be built from the philosophies and theories of Logotherapy contrived by Dr. Viktor Frankl. His is without a doubt the best spiritual or ontological response to the current rise of religious extremism and parochialism. (My religion and its dogma is God's word and you are going to hell.)

[Paul Siegel]

American exceptionalism is OK if it is used to keep our citizens optimistic about the future. It is bad when it is used, as we currently do, to boast to the world how wonderful, how rich, how smart, how good, and now how religious, we are. Just build a democracy like ours and you will have a life almost as good as ours, we tell the world.

Democrats should be not for boasting, but for helping the poor and ravished countries in the world.

As for the use of force, we must insist that force be a last resort. Sure, militarism is rife in the land. It is up to Democrats to tone down this militarism. We will fight if attacked. But we will not do any preemption as Bush did in Iraq.

We believe in fighting terrorism by trying to make the world a better place. Even Bush is coming around to this when he talks about democracy. Let's increase our foreign aid to .7% GDP as we have been asked in order to get rid of poverty in Africa and Latin America.

Through multilateralism we can seek community with other nations and build harmony and peace, big weapons in the fight against terrorism.

Hegemony I don't go for at all. I can't see any liberal seeking American hegemony. It's great to be on top. But we all know it will not last. It can't last without brutal force.

[emptywheel]

One more minor point.

Democrats should demand that American only use force of a certain size (say, $20 million) after getting Congressional approval.

We have given our executive way too much power to fight illegal wars by claiming war powers. It needs to end.

[rosignol]

I'd offer an alternative, a completely new (and IMO more viable) frame for foriegn policy: sustainability. Obviously, I'm talking about sustainability in economic and environmental terms (which implies that we'd be looking for ways to sustain the American middle class lifestyle even while offering sustainable development to developing countries; this would require an entirely new structure of world trade and significant energy placed to solving energy issues). But it also approaches diplomacy and covert ops with a recognition that the world is effectively a closed system. If you set off a chain of events, even if it's in 1953 in Iran, those events will continue to develop. Ditto the chain of events you let loose in 1979. So you'd better think carefully about the repurcussions your actions will have in the future, because aggrieved peoples aren't going to go away, certainly not in a 4th generation world.

-----

Two small points for you to consider:

1) The idea that the world is a closed system, zero-sum game, or anything similar is rather questionable, as the advance of technology has resulted in humans being able to do more with less. The proponents of 'sustainability' usually come across as ideological desendents of the Malthusians.

2) "Thinking carefully about the repurcussions of our actions" is too often used to justify inaction, which leads to the bad guys succeeding because the good guys don't show up. Consider Cambodia, Rawanda, Yugoslavia, Darfur.

[Ben P]

I've said this elsewhere, and I'll say it again here.

Dump the hegemony crap. Aspiring to hegemony is completely illiberal. I have no problem with exceptionalism. Sure its in many ways a myth, but the US does have great values and a remarkable history. What the US should do in its foreign policy is live up to the best of itself. Be a shining city on the hill. Clearly, then, force can and should be used. But not as a part of some kind of hegemonic think tank exercise like the Iraq War was. To me, interventionn in Sudan should - without thinking - be a more serious proposition for liberals than intervention in Iraq.

Otherwise, you're on the right track. I can get behind - yes, with conviction - your other five points. But liberals aren't imperialists, and that is what hegemony means.

As emptywheel states, the fact the US was allowed to play hegemon and democracy exporter simultaneously was basically a historical fluke, and was mainly possible because the US's culture, history, relative level of development as well as its national interests coincided so well with those of Europe's, and to a lesser extent, Japan's, after WWII. Are even *any* of these four conditions present in today's Middle East? Really, if you want an analog to how democracy promotion and hegemony play together simultaneously in the global south, its not a pretty picture, whether your point of reference is 20th century US or 19th century Britain.