If the United States wants to be guided to a future where western concepts of the democratic republic, social democracy (an outgrowth of the concept of a democratic republic), international law, arms control, peace, and diplomacy are the norm, trade and foreign policy must be guided by the idea of civilization.
Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in violation of international law. There are worries about China, allied with Russia in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, invading Taiwan. Defense budgets are exploding around the world and nuclear weapons are proliferating. Russia and China are both authoritarian states and authoritarian movements are growing in the democratic world.
I will draw from the thinking of international relations thinker Samuel Huntington who penned the book “The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order.” Huntington said that conflict would occur in a post-Cold War world due to cultural rather than ideological reasons. The Soviet Union represented a form of civilization called rationalist, as stated by writer Michael Lind in his story “Which Civilization.” Rationalist thought originated in 17th and 18th century France. It’s a form of civilization that seeks to devise a method or running a society by the methods of natural science which will serve as a basis for a rational social order.
For a century after the modern international system in the Peace of Westphalia (1648), conflicts of the Western world were largely amongst princes, emperors, absolute monarchs, and constitutional monarchs attempting to expand their bureaucracies, their economic strength, and the territory they ruled, as stated by Huntington in his story “The Clash of Civilizations.” About a century after the Peace of Westphalia, nation states were created and starting with the French Revolution conflicts were between nations and not princes. This pattern of conflict continued until World War I. Then, because of the Russian Revolution (1917) and the opposition to it, the friction between nations yielded to the conflict of ideologies.
Lind identified Fascism as a romantic ideology, following the lead of romantic writers, philosophers, and poets in glorifying the irrational side of humanity. Hitler wanted to create the super race, Mussolini wanted to return the Italian people to the glory of the Roman Empire, and the Japanese Fascists wanted to return to the ways of the Samurai (in a time when the methods of killing had become much more lethal). All these movements fell short of their goals due to defeat in World War II and the romantic nature of the goals.
Lind stated in “Which Civilization” that the United States, and other democratic republics, represent a mode of civilization referred to as humanist. Humanist civilization emerged in the Greek and Roman republics and was reborn in Renaissance Italy and spread all over the western world. Lind said: “humanists seek to ameliorate the problems of social life with the guidance of practical wisdom, derived chiefly from history, literature and custom.”
World War II pitted a humanist US and United Kingdom and a rationalist Soviet Union against the Fascist powers. The Cold War pitted a rationalist Soviet Union against a humanist U.S. and its allies. The Soviet Union was contained until it mellowed and then exploded. The Islamic terrorists that target the US come from a religious civilization where divine law motivates civilization.
Huntington named different forms of civilizations - Western, Confucian, Japanese, Islamic, Hindu, Slavic-Orthodox, Latin American, and possibly African civilization. The fall of rationalist civilization (Soviet Union) brought the Orthodox civilization back to the fore again. Remember, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he is protecting Orthodox Christianity from a decadent west. Therefore, he’s sticking up for Slavic-Orthodox civilization that emerged when Christianity spilt between Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy. The rise of Narendra Modi in India represents a similar political moment. When “The Clash of Civilizations” (the story that preceded the book) was published in 1993, Huntington spoke of the end of Nehru’s India and the “Hinduization” of India (Modi). One can see something similar in Turkey with the rise of Recep Erdogan, a leader who promotes a less secular Turkey.
The world is becoming a smaller place, partially due to information technology. This brings civilizations into contact more than in the past, and this will mean more conflict between civilizations. Huntington stated that economic change and modernization (let’s include information technology) weakens the nation state in some respects as well as long standing local cultures. Religion has moved in to fill this gap in certain parts of the world and one can see that in Russia, Turkey, India, and in factions like Islamic State.
Authoritarianism does its part in current international relations. Social psychologist Erich Fromm spoke of it in his 1941 book “Escape from Freedom.” Fromm characterizes the authoritarian personality as containing both sadistic and masochistic elements. The authoritarian wishes to gain control over other people in a bid to impose order on the world but also wishes to submit to the control of some superior force which may come in the guise of a person or an abstract idea. The psychologist thought that Germany (a country that he fled during Nazism) needed a new order to restore its pride after its defeat in World War I. Adolf Hitler had an authoritarian personality structure that not only made him want to rule over Germany in the name of a higher authority (the romantic natural master race) but also made him an appealing prospect for an insecure middle class that needed some sense of pride and certainty.
The Donald Trump faction in American politics seeks to restore an American past with less racial and religious diversity that we have now. Authoritarianism teaches its adherents to turn inward and distrusts those on the outside, not the environment one needs for constructive diplomacy, arms control, and international law. Right now, it seems as if Russia will fail in its bid to take Ukraine, a win for law and order. However, we must be careful not to humiliate Russia. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who recommended a land for peace swap in Ukraine, stated that humiliation should not be a part of our strategy in Ukraine. The Treaty of Versailles was intended to humiliate Germany and force it to behave, and it provided a platform for the rise of the Nazis.
Hopefully, we can keep Russia locked inside its box at the end of this dreadful chapter in Russian history. We also need to think about building a democratic nation state (or humanist civilization) trading block. Feliks Koneczny, the writer who founded the comparative science of civilizations, and some say he influenced Huntington, felt that there is no true mixing of civilizations because one civilization wins out over the other when a mixing occurs. We don’t need to be making lawbreaker countries wealthier than they already are. If we can build our wealth and power within a democratic trading block, and can subdue authoritarianism and competing civilizations, then other nation states will be open to an era of arms control, diplomacy, and international law! Perhaps more countries will join humanist civilization!
Jason Sibert of St. Louis is the Lead Writer for the Peace Economy Project. Email jasonsibert@hotmail.com.
From The Progressive Populist, July 1-15, 2022
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