Beyond Neo-Con Culture?
Appreciate the comments on ‘cultural competence’.
A big problem is that the ‘community’ (Bunch? Herds??) of foreign policy professionals is split along all sorts of lines, as the commentaries here demonstrate. There are traditional conservatives, neo-cons, liberals, realists, etc. But one especially deep, far reaching and dangerous cleavage is the stark dividing line between those who inhabit the traditional national security culture, and those in the globalist culture. Each has its own journals, think tanks, conferences and watering holes; each has is own norms and lingo; each has its own foundation sugar daddies. Each has its own culture. Those drawn to and acculturated into the globalist culture concentrate on the environment, human rights, and maybe a little humanitarian intervention. And they mostly like the UN.
The folks in the national security culture prefer force structures and throw weights. They’re not crazy about the boys in blue helmets. Each culture thinks the other is deeply flawed, and often misguided. And as Huntington might predict, they rarely communicate directly with one another.
If you are interested in framing a sensible ‘progressive’ (yes, I know, as yet undefined) foreign policy, then there has to be a way to bridge these two cultures, and to do so consciously and deliberately. Alas, can’t be done just with words on the page or the digital post. Requires more active engagement and long difficult conversations over scotch and soda – and white wine. But don’t underestimate how difficult it will be to change institutional cultures.
ges asks if we should instill CC throughout the general population, or mainly train the foreign affairs elites to be more culturally competent. I think both. At the risk of sounding trite, America really is becoming more interdependent with the rest of the world, not less. CC really is, or should be, a growing priority for all Americans and taught in secondary schools everywhere. So far, it isn’t. At the same time, the service academies (Annapolis, etc.) NDU, the Foreign Service Institute, as well as professional schools like Woodrow Wilson, LBJ, JFK etc. need to rapidly expand their CC offerings.
Munguza is on track about the neo-cons cultural obtuseness, especially the crew now in control. They do seem to think the other guys are stupid. Not sure this is moral relativism, though. Mostly it's "my morals right or wrong. Your morals, wrong". They are pretty consistent on that note.
That's a great summary about how I feel about a majority of the field of "International Relations" as it exists now, not just neo-cons. As you describe the set up with think tanks, etc., earlier in your post, it's the ideological basis, stupid.
In most fields, scholarship requires some sense of "relativism." One observes with open mind, compare/contrast, instead of starting with a premise of beliefs about the world and cherry-picking to fit. Sometimes I think the International Relations speak I see is not so different from theology or philosophy.
(An aside: For some reason, nothing is so upsetting at times to me than reading a lecture from a lefty saying we've got to get some moral values back in this country or this world. Because convervatives are supposed to be the ones who want to "conserve" some kind of moral system, they are the ones that can't get their brains around the idea of the beautiful complexity of the world, evolution, the ecosystems and similar, the progressions, the neverending change. For me, looking for simple systems means you're afraid of all that, that you need some core "truths" to hang onto.)
Current I.R. oft seems no different than the 19th century Brits or the 16th century world of Richelieu, extremely out of touch, extremely old-fashioned, like from another world. The king of the world syndrome. The think tank themes seem like this: if we was king of the world, we would do this...countries are just figures on a chess board and all that matters is their leaders and diplomatic core. It's amost as if there is no sense that there are people in those countries! That is EXACTLY the problem:
To those outside the circles you describe, sometimes it seems there is virtually no recognition or understanding of culture or anthropology or sociology, or even caring about it. Diplomats and I.R. people and State Depts. may have fun and games changing this or that border, planning this or that in their big metaphorical chess board "grand strategy," but as Ma Joad at the end of the movie "Grapes of Wrath" says, you can't stop the people. They are still there. They'll get back at ya for what you did if they don't like it. It might take a generation or two, but sure as Newton's laws of physics.....What's it called nowadays: blowback, i.e., oops, well that didn't work out the way we expected, lets try some other ideology/theology/philosphy. Spinning wheels and kicking up lots and lots of terrible, choking dust.
Surprise, surprise, suprise. The U.N.mission is not an ideological one. It's about tolerance, trying to work things out, the complexities of inter-relationships of human cultures. "Globalism" doesn't sound like an ideology to me, it sounds like the reality of the 21st century. It also is not so different from what lots of Americans refer to as "common sense."
Ellen put two great quotes from a president at the end of a comment on your other thread. Sometimes maybe you learn things from being "weaned on a pickle." American cultural things. :-)
I don't think Americans want any "grand strategy" vision from Democrats in foreign policy. Domestic, yes, but not foreign policy. Handle terrorism, yes. But cut the ideology. They don't care, they never did, the majority has isolationist tendencies, even to the unfortunate point of many disliking too much foreign aid. Fundies are minorities here, and fundies over there are disliked by most people here. Do you see any rallies in support of Bush's Wilsonianism, do you see people getting all excited emailing and calling each other at the prospect of promoting democracy around the world? I think they want leadership that leads with what is normally called "common sense," issue by issue, and preferably by a president with some charisma to charm all the diplomats out of unnecessary meddling so we can all "get along." Want one example? Even back at the height of preparation for the Iraq invasion, when many were buying the lies about Iraq/alQaeda/WMD, look at what the polls said about Bush getting approval from the U.N.
Final thought: ever notice how as people as people reach "the golden years," everyone from foreign relations bigwigs to housewives, they get less ideological and less interested in pushing "morals" on others? I think that's not because they are tired out and have lost their zeal or sense of outrage; they've seen some things happen is all, they've observed some human nature and various cultures and the folly of individual humans who think they can easily foretell the reaction that comes from an action without indepth study and observation.
I myself would like to totally turn the tables and see what Margaret Mead would do with the small elite subcultures you describe. :-)
February 25, 2006 3:31 AM | Reply | Permalink