Why Can't We Be Friends II

A propos of this post from yesterday, there was an interesting article in the NYT Magazine today on the The Perils of Soft Power. It makes somewhat the same point I was trying to make in the previous post, except that it talks not about the Arab world but about Europe:

In recent years, a number of American thinkers, led by Joseph S. Nye Jr. of Harvard, have argued that the United States should rely more on what he calls its "soft power" -- the contagious appeal of its ideas, its culture and its way of life -- and so rely less on the "hard power" of its stealth bombers and aircraft carriers. There is one problem with this argument: soft power does not necessarily increase the world's love for America. It is still power, and it can still make enemies.

. . .

In the affairs of nations, too much hard power ends up breeding not submission but resistance. Likewise, great soft power does not bend hearts; it twists minds in resentment and rage. And the target of Europe's cultural guardians is not just America, the Great Seductress. It is also all those "little people," [who] . . . [b]y yielding to America-the-beguiling, . . . commit[] cultural treason -- and worse: they ignore[] the stern verdict of their own priesthood. So America's soft power is not only seductive but also subversive.

. . . .

Europe, mourning the loss of its centuries-old supremacy, either resorts to insulation (by quotas and "cultural exception" clauses) or seeks solace in the disparagement of American culture as vulgar, inauthentic or stolen. If we could consult Dr. Freud, he would take a deep drag on his cigar and pontificate about inferiority feelings being compensated by hauteur and denigration.

Two points:

First, there is an undertone of resentment in the Times piece that is every bit as tempting a target for Freudian analysis as is the European "compensation" to which that resentment is directed. The Euorpean inferiority is that of the Ancien Regime fallen on hard times. The American inferiority is that of the nouveau riche not getting the respect it thinks it deserves. The root of the resentments are the same: injured pride.

Second, as Billy Bob points out, it is easy to exaggerate the importance of these sorts of mewlings. Billy Bob is "not so sure" about my claim that "they hate our way of life." Depending on to whom "they" are, this is a point well taken. The Arab world and Europe are every bit as diverse as the United States in their attitudes, and just as it would be a mistake for an Iranian to think Pat Robertson speaks for America, it is a mistake to think that those excoriating America speak for their countires. In this regard we would do well to develop a little bit thicker skin.

But to me, Iran is different in one all important regard. Just as there are in Europe, there are "cultural guardians" in many countries -- perhaps every country -- for whom "America [is] the Great Seductress," who consider the millions of "little people" who yield to "America-the-beguiling" as "cultural traitors," and who resent most of all that these little people are "ignor[ing] the stern verdict of their own priesthood." In almost every case, probably even in Iran, these "cultural guardians" are no more representative of their countries than Pat Robertson is of ours. But in Iran, these cultural guardians are in power. They control the government. And it is this fact that makes Iran a unique threat. Think of the threat the United States would pose under Pat Robertson or worse yet, Fred Phelps

I do not for a minute believe that all or even most Iranians or Iraqis or Arabs hate they way we live or what we believe in. Quite to the contrary, I think many, perhaps most, would like nothing better than to walk in our shoes. But the Ahmadinejads and Zarqawis and bin Ladens are not among those. Those people truly do hate us and everything we stand for and they hate us all the more becuase our way of life is so alluring to their own people. It is this fact -- and I think it is a fact -- that to me makes the idea of controlling their nuclear aspirations through rapproachment so chimerical. Our choices really are between deterrence and preventative war. Which brings me back to this.