MS:
If the social history of the West has ended, what were the September 11 attacks, a blast from the past?
At present, the fashionable social model to be emulated is liberal democracy, but that is only because western military and financial might are superior. In the 1930′s, many “intellectuals” were undecided whether fascism or international socialism would rule the world; it was obvious to them that liberal democracy’s days were numbered. If the United States is truly the undisputed model for political and economic progress, there are those from the Middle East who have not noticed. Worse than that, Dubai is riding on a bubble as it seeks to supplant New York as the world’s financial hub.
Many people seek to emulate the American model of politics, but not everybody does. Liberal democracy has become more fashionable, but that hardly means our ways have triumphed. Royalism and theocracy have not gone away, certainly not with the wave of a Beltway philosopher’s hand.
Liberal democracy has its advantages. Still, let’s not indulge in the solipsistic narcissism of assuming that everybody else wants to be like us. They don’t and they won’t. Moreover, if the appeal of liberal democracy is pinned upon the sugar water of material prosperity, those who embrace our way of life because they like the money will leave once the money is gone. Was the establishment of the Weimar Republic truly a triumph for American ideals of freedom? Not really. There must be something about liberty in and of itself that people like, for the appeal of liberal democracy must endure even in the face of Nazi soup kitchens, Taliban schools, and Hamas hospitals.
Even within the philosophies of liberal democracy itself, there are differences. Isn’t it interesting how Ambassador Bremer imposed the Israeli/Italian model of democracy with its proportional representation onto Iraq, not American federal republicanism? And now, Iraqi democracy has effectively imported the flaws of the Israeli/Italian system. By the standards of western Europe, America’s federal system with its electoral college, activist judiciary, and first-past-the-post gerrymandering comes across as ancient. Meanwhile, many aspects of European society come across as antiquated on this side of the Atlantic. For example, German public schools are segregated according to religious confession.
When America is perceived with awe, I get worried. This is because the more America gets worshipped by foreigners, the more foreigners dehumanize Americans – and eventually demonize us. America is danger of getting trapped into an impossible ideal that can never be lived up to, where American actions can never measure up, and where liberal democracy must always come up short of expectation. America is not God, never mind how anti-American bigots seem to think it is. The problem with making the mistake of thinking that the world revolves around America is that it encourages every hater in the world to turn America into an object of their hatred and Americans into their victims.
