The Emerging Paradoxes II

It is a sad fact that no society has ever been organized in such a way that everyone can succeed equally.  Despite multiple, usually deadly, experiments in the last century, societies structured to avoid inequality have brought terrible suffering to millions of people and failed in almost every way to make life better for its members.  By the end of the last century, during the 1990's vacation from history, a near universal concensus emerged that liberal democracy wedded with capitalism presented the greatest good for the greatest number, an idea that apparenlty still needs to be re-learned on a  regular basis. 

One essential reality recognized imlicitly by this formulation is that all societies will have members who fail to thrive.  Whether these people are doomed to failure because of personal constitutional qualities, characterological flaws, cultural or familial defects, there will always be some who cannot take part constructively in society.

Those who are unable to succeed by virtue of serious handicaps (physical and mental) deserve all the support and sympathy we can offer.  Those who fail by virtue of characterological flaws generally elicit much less support and sympathy.

The modern, globalized world offers rich rewards to those able and willing to become full participants (although sometimes the full benefits are only available to the future generation) and those who cannot or will not take advantage of globalism's opportunities face bleak prospects.

Jimmy J describes the preconditions necessary for a society to begin to move from the Gap to the Core and then poses a thoughtful question that approaches the heart of the problem:

Even more to the point.......how do we convince nations in Africa and the Middle East that they can become economically successful if they adopt these principles? We're trying to do it in Iraq and Afghanistan through force. Obviously it isn't being eagerly accepted. We imposed these ideas in West Germany and Japan through force, but there we totally subdued the populations and started from the ground up. In Iraq and Afghanistan we're trying to convince the people from the top down. To overcome Muslim resistance to the idea of free markets and capitalism maybe we have to first create unconditional victory so we can start at the bottom and build their economies from the bottom up as we did in Japan and Germany.

In retrospect, it is clear that Japan, despite its long history of semi-feudalism and militarism, combined with a racist ideology, was able to accept the principles and preconditions needed for entering the modern world.  There are almost certainly many reasons they had such readiness, including the cultural tendency to accept responsibility for poor outcomes, accepting that the source of one's shame lies within the individual, a prerequisite for correcting mistakes, and a willingness to accept personal deprivation for the benefit of future generations.  In all these areas, the culture reinforced these qualities and traits in the individual.  As a result, Japan could take the opportunity afforded by their loss in WWII to emulate, and in parts exceed, their victors, and are now one of the great engines of innovation and prosperity on the planet.

The German people, if anything, had an even more advantageous position from which to recover after WWII.  They already had some historical experience with democratic and liberal structures.  They had an educated and sophisticated populace and they had the wisdom to accept responsibility and guilt for the grievous horrors done in their name and with their acquiescence. 

For both Japan and Germany, the unpleasure of societal guilt and shame provided the motive force necessary for fundamental transformation.

Both Japan and Germany also had the extremely mixed blessing of being utterly defeated in WWII, with the loss of a large swath of their most robust young men; this allowed them to start de novo.  However, what is often forgotten in the need to maximize current anti-war sentiment is that the post-war in both nations was a terrible time for both the occupiers and the occupied.

The key question now is whether Africa and the Middle East are analogues to Japan and Germany or if they, in fact, are incapable of being transformed in similar fashion.

Through many of the discussions here and elsewhere there have been many who take President Bush's (and Jimmy J's) position.  The classical liberal position is that the Muslims desire freedom and are capable of developing their own unique brand of liberal democracy cum capitalism that has worked in so many other places.  I suspect they would also argue that once Africa is freed of poor governance, through the magical "Mystery of Capital" they will begin the process of evolving from the Gap to the Core. 

Others, from vantage points across the political spectrum, have argued that the Muslim world, because of cultural issues, child rearing, honor-shame dynamics, Islamic requirements of submission, etc is particularly ill equipped to tolerate the unpleasure of shame and perform the painful self examination that is a prerequisite for error correction; in this view, the Muslim world will prove to be incapable of joining the Modern globalized world. 

A similar argument, often made sotto voce, holds that Africa is doomed by poor governance, cultural defects and lack of innate abilities to remain in the Gap indefinitely. 

Whatever explanations are presented, the base line argument hinges on whether or not the Muslim world and the African continent can ever be expected to join the modern world. 

In terms of the Muslim World, the classical liberal would say that they have not yet been offered an adequate opportunity and that our presence in Iraq for the foreseeable future is an absolute necessity to allow them to take the test.  The modern liberal suggests that they cannot ever be held to civilized standards and are essentially hopeless.  Of course, they would never frame their arguments in such language, however, when they argue that Iraq is a hopeless quagmire, they are essentially making the argument that the Iraqi people are incapable of acting in their own best long term interest and that the only standards they can adhere to are the lowest common denominator of violence, thuggery, and rule of the most vicious.

There is a great deal of overlap between the positions implicit in the Iraq war arguments and the modern liberal arguments for continuing the failed policies of the West toward Africa, policies that have managed to make that continent an economic basket case.  Whether because of personal irresponsibility, cultural determinants, a shortage of intellectual capital or a host of other possibilities, the African people are seen in the most paternalistic light.  Thus, we cannot demand civilized behavior from Mugabe; we cannot even expect that the most important rulers of Africa would demand civilized behavior from Mugabe.  Again,. this is an argument that Africa is irredeemably lost for the foreseeable future.

And here is the crucial point that the short sighted miss with regularity: we are very rapidly reaching the point, in both Africa and in respect to the Muslim world, where their ability or lack of ability to join the modern world will no longer matter. 

Whether the next President is a Democrat or Republican, further major efforts to help transform these two vast parts of the Gap will be placed in abeyance.  The focus will be on building defenses, either forward defenses if a Republican wins or close in defenses if a Democrat wins.  Concerns with assisting those trapped in the Gap, whether in Iraq, Darfur, Zimbabwe, Palestine, Nigeria, et al, will be over for a generation.

The anti-globalization forces, allied with the far left, far right, and Islamic fascists, want to stop the process of enlarging the Core; their protests will soon be unnecessary.  We are fast approaching the moment when we will oblige.  The West is already turning its attention inward.  Most Americans are convinced that the Muslim world is hopeless and Africa too difficult and intractable; Americans want nothing more than to wash our hands of the lot of them.