Looking back to the squalor of the 10th century, to the near-universal poverty of ancient Greece and Rome, it is astounding to see the prosperity of the modern world. In this context, the poverty of Africa or Latin America is hardly shocking. By historical standards, poverty is normal. Wealth and freedom are abnormal - the unique achievement of certain European peoples. But West European culture is under assault. The culture of freedom is giving way to a despotic multiculturalism. The desire for universal equality promises to put an end to freedom. With our own hands we destroy our civilization's root identity. To preserve a delicate and impossible peace between the tribes and sects of mankind, we embrace a series of fabrications. All tribes, we say, can live together in peace. All sects can live together in harmony. What has happened to previous generations won't happen to us. Economic decline and destructive war cannot happen here. And so, realistic policies are shelved. Wishful thinking takes the helm, and sails off the edge of Thomas Friedman's flat earth.
The cultural historian Jacob Burckhardt once wrote: "Lasting peace not only leads to enervation; it permits the rise of a mass of precarious, fear-ridden, distressful lives which would not have survived without it and which nevertheless clamor for their 'rights'...." Shakespeare wrote, "Plenty and peace breed cowards." Peace has been called the "nurse of drones." If a healthy economy requires recession as a corrective, then perhaps man's spirit craves a greater correction. Admittedly, peace is good. It signifies reconciliation. And yet, universal reconciliation isn't in the nature of things. A sheep may come to terms with a wolf, but the wolf's nature cannot be changed.
The United States finds itself in a difficult situation. The West's great experiment in political liberty, in economic freedom, has fallen into confusion. We have mistaken peace as the final goal of history. In 1856 John Ruskin wrote, "No nation ever yet enjoyed a protracted and triumphant peace without receiving in its own bosom ineradicable seeds of future decline." Ruskin also wrote: "You may either win your peace or buy it - win it, by resistance to evil; buy it, by compromise with evil." The United States is simultaneously applying both methods. It is resisting the evil of al Qaeda while buying peace with China. Such is only a temporary peace, won at the expense of the future. As Woodrow Wilson once explained: "A steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by a partnership of democratic nations. No autocratic government could be trusted to keep faith ... or observe its covenants."
Consider the following, written by Colin Ellis in 1932:
"To kill its enemies and cheat its friends,
"Each nation its prerogative defends;
"Yet some their efforts for goodwill maintain,
"In hope, in faith, in patience, and in vain."
The utopian perspective that animates the anti-war movement is, therefore, bankrupt. The fact of tribal enmity, between man and man, must be acknowledged. Believing in peace doesn't make it so. One might believe in cloud busting with the power of positive thinking. But clear skies are not so easily achieved. The problem with President Bush's policy is not that he invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. After all, the Taliban and Saddam Hussein were already U.S. enemies (deserving of elimination). The problem with Bush's policy is found in the strategic and tactical errors that hinder success. Aside from the confusion and ignorance born of poor intelligence, these errors are due to wishful thinking and utopian expectations. The impatience and immaturity of the American people should've been taken into account. The selfishness of Europe should have been reckoned. The hidden enmity of Russia and China should have been revealed and understood at the outset.
There is an economic side to this, as well. For many years the United States has not adjusted its ends to its means. We have borrowed trillions of dollars to advance utopian projects, and the War Against Terror is proving to be one more utopian project among so many that will soon be shut down. The madness that animates utopianism can be seen in America's damaged timber and fishing industries. The dream of cheap universal health care has turned into the nightmare of a dying industry - plagued as it is by greedy lawyers, accountants, drug addicts, illegal immigrants and other freeloaders. America's education system continues to sink, despite new tests and new slogans. Sector by sector, industry by industry, the U.S. is heading over a cliff. Free trade has stripped the country's industrial base. The border with Mexico is not enforced, while illegal immigration has turned identity theft into a thriving industry.
"Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad." And we are madmen indeed.
