A Radical Challenge to the American Way
America has struggled with the cultural and political realities of diversity for centuries. What many identify as identity politics are more about the politics of liberation. The Civil Rights movement, suffrage and the emancipation of women, and recognition of the rights of LGBTQ people have shaped a new ethical constellation of principles within US civil society.
Global cooperation and the spirit of embracing diversity have come to encompass "The American Way" and have led to peace and growing prosperity. There have been also many lines of cleavage that cut across politics and culture. American civil society has been framed by a contest of ideas about the role of goverment, things like the best tax structure and environmental policy. These debates, along with social justice movements, have been the norms of politics and culture in America for at least the last three generations.
There have been, however, serious problems with the American postwar establishment. In the late 1970s, the US began to pursue an active strategy of free trade and economic liberalization abroad and what may be called austerity measures (anti-welfare) domestically. The resulting globalization has greatly benefited the economic elites and many developing countries, but the US has experienced a hollowing out of the center. These "neoliberal" policies that began with the Reagan Revolution have dampened prospects and reduced the quality of American life.
Growing problems in the heartland helped foster a growing populism on the right, best exemplified by the Tea Party. This movement has reordered American culture and politics. It has hardened to a position that rejects the last 70 years of human progress. What have largely been radical and fringe positions on the right, have become mainstream. The Trump movement has taken on the establishment. The postwar order is the target of much of the ire displayed by this movement.
The story of the 20th century is one of the creation of a new order, a new set of institutions and beliefs to guide a globalizing modern world. Humanity came out of WWII and centuries of colonialism bruised and battered, a real mess and somehow got it together. It took a while. The world organized around two competing superpowers locked in an existential Cold War.
The biggest story of the 20th century may well be that that global civilization moved past centuries of domination and a brutally terrible set of global wars. The hardships of early capitalism and industrialization, the madness of socialist totalitarianism, and global wars all threatened to undermine the course of human progress. It was a time of change that almost eradicated humanity itself.
After the end of the cold war, democracies have blossomed everywhere, wealth has greatly increased, the number of people dying from violence greatly decreased. Humanity eliminated scourges of devastating diseases and made famines a rarity. The world stands on the edge of amazing technological transformations.
This all came about because societies settled on a mixed form of government, capitalist but with a solid public sector, a base of regulations and civic institutions. There is a range, some countries more towards one direction than another. It isn't a perfect model, by any means and there are a great number of critics about the post WWII order. The critics have legitimate concerns, but so many go beyond that and are out to destroy the system. So many believe their own theories and visions would do better once this order is gone entirely. We now stand in a place where the biggest agent of change is retrenchment and rejection.
Previous conservative movements have squared against big government, high taxes, but not global integration and collaboration. Conservative intellectuals are some of the greatest advocates and champions of the postwar model. In the early post war period, the most powerful adversaries of the postwar models came from the left (Maoism as an example), but that is no longer the case. Around the world today, populist, right wing movements are the main players rejecting the post war model. In some countries they have cultivated the power to undermine the institutions and the structures of the post war world.
In the US, the current government is pulling back from the UN and from NATO, pulling back from global treaties. Most alarming of all, the right has rejected global efforts to collaborate on Climate Change Action and disrupted critical international institutions of peace and security.
The right seeks to reshape America and the world to something more like the past, more like nationalism of old than the globalism of today. They imagine it will be better for them. To get there they are now dismantling the postwar order, systematically taking apart the institutional base behind postwar civil society. Globalization has become tied to big government, social justice, and multiculturalism. The face of a globalized world is big bureaucracy, outsourcing jobs, unwelcomed refugees and immigrants. In the eyes of these populist movements it's all one package.
In this view, the post war progress itself is the enemy because it is based on government and modern liberalism. But once started, the enemies list seems to continue to grow. In the US, it becomes the women who accuse men of sexual crimes, skilless people coming in from poor countries, Muslims practicing Sharia Law, the "illegals," football players who silently protest, those seeking gay marriage and transgender rights. It is a rejection of this 70-year turn in the course of human progress.
The old world was horrible to the vast majority of humanity, to women and to people of color. Those on top, those who gained most by the pre WWII order, the Europeans almost destroyed themselves due to rising nationalism. Later the two biggest nations faced off with tens of thousands of nuclear missiles ready to annihilate our species at any moment. It is not world we want to return to.
In truth that past was far worse than the world today. To go back is a terribly dangerous idea. Our human problems today are global in scope, problems we must face together as one human family. Multiculturalism is not just an ethical or moral issue, it is a survival strategy. Going backwards to a more ethnically and culturally segregated world of atomized nation states will lead us all into oblivion.
We've worked some of it out but it will still take a lot of time, generations really. With the issue of Climate Change Action and with the issue of weapon technology/peace we have no luxury. We need to cooperate with the world and devote ourselves to solutions now. Otherwise, none of the rest will matter.
Global cooperation and the spirit of embracing diversity have come to encompass "The American Way" and have led to peace and growing prosperity. There have been also many lines of cleavage that cut across politics and culture. American civil society has been framed by a contest of ideas about the role of goverment, things like the best tax structure and environmental policy. These debates, along with social justice movements, have been the norms of politics and culture in America for at least the last three generations.
There have been, however, serious problems with the American postwar establishment. In the late 1970s, the US began to pursue an active strategy of free trade and economic liberalization abroad and what may be called austerity measures (anti-welfare) domestically. The resulting globalization has greatly benefited the economic elites and many developing countries, but the US has experienced a hollowing out of the center. These "neoliberal" policies that began with the Reagan Revolution have dampened prospects and reduced the quality of American life.
Growing problems in the heartland helped foster a growing populism on the right, best exemplified by the Tea Party. This movement has reordered American culture and politics. It has hardened to a position that rejects the last 70 years of human progress. What have largely been radical and fringe positions on the right, have become mainstream. The Trump movement has taken on the establishment. The postwar order is the target of much of the ire displayed by this movement.
The story of the 20th century is one of the creation of a new order, a new set of institutions and beliefs to guide a globalizing modern world. Humanity came out of WWII and centuries of colonialism bruised and battered, a real mess and somehow got it together. It took a while. The world organized around two competing superpowers locked in an existential Cold War.The biggest story of the 20th century may well be that that global civilization moved past centuries of domination and a brutally terrible set of global wars. The hardships of early capitalism and industrialization, the madness of socialist totalitarianism, and global wars all threatened to undermine the course of human progress. It was a time of change that almost eradicated humanity itself.
After the end of the cold war, democracies have blossomed everywhere, wealth has greatly increased, the number of people dying from violence greatly decreased. Humanity eliminated scourges of devastating diseases and made famines a rarity. The world stands on the edge of amazing technological transformations.
This all came about because societies settled on a mixed form of government, capitalist but with a solid public sector, a base of regulations and civic institutions. There is a range, some countries more towards one direction than another. It isn't a perfect model, by any means and there are a great number of critics about the post WWII order. The critics have legitimate concerns, but so many go beyond that and are out to destroy the system. So many believe their own theories and visions would do better once this order is gone entirely. We now stand in a place where the biggest agent of change is retrenchment and rejection.
Previous conservative movements have squared against big government, high taxes, but not global integration and collaboration. Conservative intellectuals are some of the greatest advocates and champions of the postwar model. In the early post war period, the most powerful adversaries of the postwar models came from the left (Maoism as an example), but that is no longer the case. Around the world today, populist, right wing movements are the main players rejecting the post war model. In some countries they have cultivated the power to undermine the institutions and the structures of the post war world.
The right seeks to reshape America and the world to something more like the past, more like nationalism of old than the globalism of today. They imagine it will be better for them. To get there they are now dismantling the postwar order, systematically taking apart the institutional base behind postwar civil society. Globalization has become tied to big government, social justice, and multiculturalism. The face of a globalized world is big bureaucracy, outsourcing jobs, unwelcomed refugees and immigrants. In the eyes of these populist movements it's all one package.
In this view, the post war progress itself is the enemy because it is based on government and modern liberalism. But once started, the enemies list seems to continue to grow. In the US, it becomes the women who accuse men of sexual crimes, skilless people coming in from poor countries, Muslims practicing Sharia Law, the "illegals," football players who silently protest, those seeking gay marriage and transgender rights. It is a rejection of this 70-year turn in the course of human progress.
The old world was horrible to the vast majority of humanity, to women and to people of color. Those on top, those who gained most by the pre WWII order, the Europeans almost destroyed themselves due to rising nationalism. Later the two biggest nations faced off with tens of thousands of nuclear missiles ready to annihilate our species at any moment. It is not world we want to return to.
In truth that past was far worse than the world today. To go back is a terribly dangerous idea. Our human problems today are global in scope, problems we must face together as one human family. Multiculturalism is not just an ethical or moral issue, it is a survival strategy. Going backwards to a more ethnically and culturally segregated world of atomized nation states will lead us all into oblivion.
We've worked some of it out but it will still take a lot of time, generations really. With the issue of Climate Change Action and with the issue of weapon technology/peace we have no luxury. We need to cooperate with the world and devote ourselves to solutions now. Otherwise, none of the rest will matter.
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