This article in today's NYTimes makes the point elequently where I cannot. I have tried in the past to tie our growth as a culture and our security to telling the truth about the various systems i.e. their strengths and weak points so that we can be wiser about them in the future.
Unfortunately the "war" metaphor used with the Soviet Union and now with the Moslems makes it unpatriotic to consider anything they do as good and treasonous if you suggest that their system works better at anything than ours. That to me is the way of idiocy and suicide. The Soviet Union did many things better than us and they had a terrible agricultural dilemma in their growing cycle and weather. China does not share that disadvantage. The Soviet Union also had extreme problems in holding together their disparate groups as do we in NATO. Groups that were widely divergent in their languages and cultures. Although the Soviet Union had some very fine potential resources like Oil, they also needed the expertise of the West that was unavailable under the embargoes of the Cold War to get it out. That is not the case with China. The Soviet System like Capitalism, believed that success meant you spread the Communist system evangelistically and therefore had a cultural connection to the evangelistic religions of the West who had often run ahead of the armies to quiet the countries before they were conquered by European countries. The Chinese do not share this belief either although they do have something that bodes much more ill for us and that is a sense of racial superiority that is deep and ancient in the Chinese culture. Their sole reason for taking over Hong Kong was the same reason that the Jews give for "ownership" of Israel. The population of Hong Kong didn't want to join Communism anymore than does the popualtion of Taiwan. But their racial loyalty was and is 100% Chinese and they would rather be a "Chinese" Communist than a culturally English Capitalist. Certain members of the Western community that push one view of Intelligence (IQ) actually support that Chinese view by limiting Intelligence testing to an area where the Chinese do well. I contend that the test is essentially a lie and that it is a lie that we can ill afford in the dangerous world that we have inhabited because it will make us incompetant. There is nothing that proves that MENSA members are more successful than others who cannot become MENSA members because of their IQ test. Practical vocational success is what will build the future, not some controlled experiment in cultural superiority that shapes our education and ruins large portions of our children. The success of the Conservatory of 100 in world musical composition does not prove that the Chinese race produces superior composers to the rest of the world. It only proves that extreme competition in a population of one billion people of the same nationality along with unlimited funding for education and travel will create the same thing that America created in the German Opera World ostensibly to defeat Soviet Cultural theories. It is also the system of 18th century Vienna where the Austrian Emperor did the same thing and produced Beethoven, Mozart, Salieri, Gluck, Schubert, Brahms and the whole 19th century bloom that convinced Hitler that he belonged to the superior world race and culture. Today these same policies by Americans in Germany and the Chinese Communists in China has created a world dominance by both of those groups in that area of work. So, as I said in the religion post. I think the West's Achilles Heel is twofold and both are cultural. 1. You should make a distinction between levels of accuracy along the lines of time i.e. facts are short term accuracy based upon mutual agreements while truth is long term accuracies that are system wide. 2. That you must not let either of these be effected by the psychology of Nationalism or the need to stimulate your population to rise against a security threat. We often think that telling the history of how something idiotic got that way is providing a solution. China is a future world problem for Capitalism in that their culture supports both private and cultural ownership of "things" and "processes" that the Capitalist West only considers private. A concept that the Capitalists consider essential to their system. It is also crucial that we not believe that Capitalism is the sole reason that we won the Cold War and the Soviet System collapsed. That we seriously examine the differences in their work structure and incorporate their successes if we are going to survive the collapse of the Industrial Era's old age and out of date answers to completely new situations that Capitalists never faced before. In short, taking advantage of a series of events that you only had partial effect on and claiming the whole credit is self serving to say the least. But like scientists who raise "facts" to the level of "truth", and then proceed accordingly, it is ultimately suicidal because accepting such propoganda flies in the face of both history and reality. (Remember the Capitalist's answer to the flawed Hubbel Telescope.) I would also say that Brad's observation about his friend in the post " The [mis]adventures of private property under capitalism (case study)" is just another example of such systemic confusion in Capitalism. Need I point out again that both the demise of the Native Peoples in America under the Capitalist government programs and the Capitalist answer to Artistic Freedom (limit it to the wealthy) has shown how outstanding Capitalism is when applied to your enemies. It makes both weaker and puts them under your thumb. There are a lot of lies that have been practiced here. Telling the Truth will bring a severe psychological storm but although storms do create violent change they also renew the system. That is my opinion. Enjoy the article. Ray Evans Harrell September 29, 2002 Contradictions of a Superpower By ROBERT WRIGHT Presumably President Bush is disappointed by the coverage given his landmark national security manifesto. Reporters, after wading through 13,000 words on his strategic vision, focused mainly on two controversial doctrines: preserving overwhelming American military superiority indefinitely; and pre-emptively attacking nations deemed threatening rather than relying on traditional deterrence. Less was said about the more high-minded stuff, like fostering peace, prosperity and democracy around the world. But the narrow focus of the press may have done the president a favor. The more broadly you view the new national security strategy, the clearer its contradictions become. Mr. Bush is right to champion free trade and global prosperity, since an economically integrated world will be a more stable one. And he is right to hope that China in particular stays on the free-market path. But if China, with its 1.2 billion people, does keep up its brisk economic growth, won't the day come when it can match America's defense budget without breaking a sweat? How can America then afford to keep its military so potent as to "dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in hopes of surpassing, or equaling, the power of the United States"? Apparently the administration is counting on China to undergo a kind of spiritual transformation. "In pursuing advanced military capabilities that can threaten its neighbors in the Asia-Pacific region, China is following an outdated path that, in the end, will hamper its own pursuit of national greatness. In time, China will find that social and political freedom is the only source of that greatness." Meanwhile, the United States will somehow escape this particular epiphany, and will follow the outdated path of pursuing advanced military capabilities that can threaten its neighbors and, for that matter, all polities in the known universe. The Bush report doesn't explain why China won't find this trend alarming and rush to counter it. Unfortunately for any strategy premised on enduring American hegemony, the decline of great economic and military powers is a perennial of history. So is one major reason for it: the secrets of a superpower's success seep beyond its borders, empowering others. Just ask the Romans who were beset by barbarians using Roman military techniques. Or ask the Chinese who were subdued by Mongols using Chinese weapons technology. Similarly, as America's free-market philosophy spreads prosperity abroad, and the microelectronic revolution that America started goes global, the American advantage in, for example, precision-guided weaponry will likely fade. The Bush report cheerily observes that free trade "fosters the diffusion of technologies and ideas that increase productivity and opportunity." Indeed. America has one advantage over the ancient Romans and the 13th-century Chinese. The world is now much closer to being a community of interdependent, law-abiding states, a place where military pre-eminence is not a prerequisite for national security. There are those who think that a superpower facing eventual decline but for now possessing unprecedented influence would be wise to sustain this trend, encouraging respect for international law and the evolution of international policing structures. President Bush isn't one of these people. In dramatically lowering the threshold for pre-emptive attack, he undermines the civilized world's consensus against unprovoked transborder aggression, a principle central to international law (and to his father's rationale for the Persian Gulf war). And as for international policing structures: the Bush manifesto says nothing about, say, adding an enforcement mechanism, complete with tough inspections, to the toothless Biological Weapons Convention. Nor does it mention the Chemical Weapons Convention or the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the world's other two major attempts to police weapons of mass destruction. This omission is striking, given that the Bush vision purports to be organized around the threat of such weapons getting into the hands of rogue states or terrorists. "The gravest danger our Nation faces lies at the crossroads of radicalism and technology," President Bush writes in the introduction to the report. But the report's biggest failing may lie in ignoring radicalism's intersection with another kind of technology. It is information technology - satellite TV, Web sites, e-mail, cell phones - that with growing efficiency will convert amorphous hatred of the United States into the organized radicalism that can employ weapons of mass destruction. Thus the global diffusion of technology means American policies that generate hatred "on the street" abroad will be more and more likely to lead to terrorism. For that matter, the willingness of foreign governments to join in the fight against such terrorism will itself depend more on public attitudes toward America, thanks to the wave of technologically abetted democratization that the Bush report rightly celebrates and encourages. This rapidly strengthening link between popular sentiment abroad and America's national security is of epic importance, and the national security report's failure to mention it does not inspire confidence. One thing that creates hatred of America is resentment of its wealth, so the Bush strategy's emphasis on spreading prosperity is welcome. But another big source of hatred is resentment of American power. So the president's insistence that America remain unchallenged global hegemon, and his willingness to attack nations unilaterally even in the absence of clear provocation, is a stance peculiarly ill-suited to the global technological environment that is taking shape. Defenders of this stance may credit it with a kind of nobility. Mr. Bush seems sincere in wanting to use American power on behalf not just of America but of peace and freedom everywhere. Notwithstanding boilerplate references to coalitions and multilateral institutions, the president's national security strategy puts the burden of saving the world squarely on American shoulders. Nobility is a nice feature in a president, but not as nice as wisdom. Declaring yourself global sheriff would in any age be generous, since you're bearing a burden that should be shared by all who benefit from global civilization. But in an age when hatred abroad morphs easily into mass murder on your own soil, the line between generosity and martyrdom begins to blur. And if you do insist on being chief law enforcer in such an age, you should at least try to make sure that the world believes the laws are fair and fairly enforced. Yet the Bush administration, with its limited regard for both international law and world opinion, is making America not just sheriff, but judge, jury and executioner. This strategy could lead to a number of outcomes, but national security isn't among the more likely. Robert Wright, author of ``Nonzero'' and ``The Moral Animal,'' is a columnist for Slate.
