One of the themes I write about on this Blog is the tension between our increasingly complex modern world and those cultures that resist entering into modernity. Two of the most complex and nuanced approaches to the conflict inherent in our increasingly globalized world are Tom Barnett and John Robb.
Tom Barnett brilliantly espouses the view that increased connectivity will inevitably lead to moderation and increased freedom; globalization demands transparency and economic freedom which ultimately requires personal and political freedom, though the shape of the political system will be uniquely suited to the cultures of the participants. In Barnett's terms, the allure of the Core must inevitably subvert the Gap.
John Robb equally brilliantly elucidates the dangers of globalization when hijacked by those who wish to use our increased connectivity to subvert and destroy the globalization that empowers them. Robb would propose that the Gap will subvert the Core, not only by enlarging the Gap in the third world, but by ultimately eroding the Core from within.
Between the two they have described the modern dialectic between our progressive and regressive tendencies.
At the same time the Democrats and Republicans enact their own dialectic that is related to Barnett and Robb.
With some allowance for exaggeration, and with the full awareness that these kinds of descriptions are of necessity schematic and almost never overtly admitted or expressed, I would suggest that the Democrats and Republican positions present very difficult problems for both parties, for policies, especially in the Gap, and for the future of globalization.
Democrats believe that people in the Gap, including those who live in the Gap within the Core (the overt subject of John Edward's "two Americas" and the subtext of Barak Obama's speech threatening that the "quiet riots" which apparently exist everyday will become overt violence if the needs and demands of the underclass are not adequately addressed) lack the ability to become productive and participatory agents of the Core and thus require a paternalistic government bureaucracy to take care of them in perpetuity.
Republicans, as expressed most clearly in President Bush's expressed belief that all people desire the freedoms that we enjoy in America, hold that government and bureaucracy must be trimmed if people are ever to find their own agency and autonomy. An excellent example of the problem is that two years post-Katrina, a recent survey showed that fully 70% of Americans living within the hurricane zone do not have a personal or family survival plan in place for th upcoming hurricane season. This suggests a level of trust in government and wishful thinking that is troubling.
There is little question that the developed world's elites, including the global Media, are strict adherents to the Democratic formulation. Watch any news reports from the Middle East or Africa and what is unspoken but readily apparent is that the people of these areas are never considered to be agents of their own misfortune. The most obvious are stories form Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine. Despite the years of violence and savagery by the Iraqi insurgents and the Palestinians, there is never more than the mildest suggestion that the brutality of the killers and torturers (real torturers, not Abu Graib) is unacceptable and that these people deserve shame and international condemnation. Rather, they are almost always excused as the understandable response of freedom fighters battling occupation and oppression. The idea that the vicious murderers should be held to any standards of civilized behavior is apparently unthinkable. A story about Afghanistan this morning on the BBC suggested that because these brutes are able to assassinate innocents and set off bombs the government and the coalition forces cannot win. This is the same template that supports the worst brutality in Iraq. However such a template is not restricted to the current conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Palestine.
[The absence of the same point of view on the Lebanese conflict, where the Lebanese army's shelling of a Palestinian refugee camp is barely mentioned, in contrast to the horror expressed when Israel uses carefully calibrated and targeted attacks to kill terrorists, supports the idea that fully civilized behavior cannot be expected or demanded of the "Other".]
A BBC report on forgiving debt in Africa describes trhe difficulty Zambia has been having even after 90% of their debt was forgiven. Once the money was freed up the Zambian governemtn offered free education and free health care to their people; immediately the system, barely able to function when people had to pay for their health care and education, collapsed. I think most of us would agree that education and good helath care can be the salvation of countries like Zambia but no where in the story was there more than the most cursory mention of corruption in government, failed governance, or the necessity of developing an economy that actually contributes to the rest of the world. If the problems described in the story were restricted to one small country in Africa, the developed world would easily be able to assist them via free education and health care as they emerged from the Gap into the Core, but unfortunately, the problems in Africa extend to the entire continet; without the Zambian government and people doing their part, they cannot expect the wealthy to support them indefinitely. Western guilt can only be sustained when the cost is low.
Tomorrow, I hope to be able to articulate the key question, a very uncomfortable and so far unanswerable question, that forms the heart of The Emerging Paradoxes.
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