Awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to President Barack Obama was met with scorn by many conservative pundits. I noted at the time that many Americans do not understand how the rest of the world sees America. Bono, he of shallow lyrics and cheery swagger, had an interesting op-ed in the New York Times:
And it is. The world wants to believe in America again because the world needs to believe in America again. We need your ideas — your idea — at a time when the rest of the world is running out of them.
I think that many Americans think that the piece of the fractious American political puzzle that they hold closest represents the whole or the majority of the American idea. The American idea is bigger than that. The rest of the world wants something, something that they perceive that we have. It isn’t clear that perceptions are reality.
During the Chinese revolt of 1989, many of the Chinese protesters said that they wanted ‘democracy’, but if you listened in greater depth, what they wanted was an end to endemic corruption and they saw democracy as a way to achieve that. I don’t think they really perceived the hazards and responsibilities of a full Jeffersonian styled democracy, but they wanted to end corruption.
Ending corruption and establishing justice are two of the stated goals of just about any political system. Justice is flexible concept. Hitler’s justice made it fair to de-state Jewish families who had lived in Germany for generations. Justice was central to the appeal of Marx. But justice is easily promised and poorly given.
Bono doesn’t address the desire for justice, but rather describes it in terms of poverty and hunger. He is right in that America does represent a dream for most of the world. Cynics may say that the rest of the world wants to live as we do, with enough fat off the land to wallow in, but I think not. America represents an attempt to establish justice without needing a strong man to do it.
The progression of government is from strong men, e.g., clan champion, to council of elders, to clientelism to democracy. It was distressing to hear people talk about President Bush as “he’s the commander in chief” as we we had reverted to a society ruled by a strong man. This expression was most often used by conservatives and Republicans to question the allegiance and fidelity of anyone who questioned the policies of the Bush cohort.
No, we are a representative democracy, with all of its failings, and our goal and our responsibility is to establish justice.
Just found your place via your comment at Cole’s site–where the answer is clearly, e) dinner theater, but I digress. Good stuff. Keep going. I’ll keep stopping by.