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IP: Damn hard reading and even stomaching -- The Ideological War Within The West by John Fonte
From: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 20:18:40 -0400
------ Forwarded Message From: "Howard Butcher, IV" <hbiv () netreach net> Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 17:52:27 -0400 To: "David Farber" <farber () cis upenn edu> Subject: Fw: The Ideological War Within The West by John Fonte Dear David, Here is a very interesting discussion that is certainly relevant to a lot of the things IP'rs have been posting recently. H. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Foreign Policy Research Institute" <fpri () fpri org> To: "Howard Butcher IV" <hbiv () netreach net> Sent: Saturday, May 25, 2002 3:22 AM Subject: The Ideological War Within The West by John Fonte
Foreign Policy Research Institute
WATCH ON THE WEST
www.fpri.org
THE IDEOLOGICAL WAR WITHIN THE WEST
by John Fonte
Volume 3, Number 6
May 2002
John Fonte is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. This
piece is adapted from his article, "Liberal Democracy vs.
Transnational Progressivism," which will appear in the
Summer 2002 issue of Orbis, and is based on a presentation
made last fall to FPRI's Study Group on America and the
West, chaired by James Kurth.
THE IDEOLOGICAL WAR WITHIN THE WEST
by John Fonte
Nearly a year before the September 11 attacks, news stories
provided a preview of the transnational politics of the
future. In October 2000, in preparation for the UN
Conference Against Racism, about fifty American
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) called on the UN "to
hold the United States accountable for the intractable and
persistent problem of discrimination."
The NGOs included Amnesty International-U.S.A. (AI-U.S.A.),
Human Rights Watch (HRW), the Arab-American Institute,
National Council of Churches, the NAACP, the Mexican-
American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and others.
Their spokesman stated that their demands "had been
repeatedly raised with federal and state officials [in the
U.S.] but to little effect. In frustration we now turn to
the United Nations." In other words, the NGOs, unable to
enact the policies they favored through the normal processes
of American constitutional democracy--the Congress, state
governments, even the federal courts--appealed to authority
outside of American democracy and its Constitution.
At the UN Conference against Racism, which was held in
Durban two weeks before September 11, American NGOs
supported "reparations" from Western nations for the
historic transatlantic slave trade and developed resolutions
that condemned only the West, without mentioning the larger
traffic in African slaves sent to Islamic lands. The NGOs
even endorsed a resolution denouncing free market capitalism
as a "fundamentally flawed system."
The NGOs also insisted that the U.S. ratify all major UN
human rights treaties and drop legal reservations to
treaties already ratified. For example, in 1994 the U.S.
ratified the UN Convention on the Elimination of Racial
Discrimination (CERD), but attached reservations on treaty
requirements restricting free speech that were "incompatible
with the Constitution." Yet leading NGOs demanded that the
U.S. drop all reservations and "comply" with the CERD treaty
by accepting UN definitions of "free speech" and eliminating
the "vast racial disparities_in every aspect of American
life" (housing, health, welfare, justice, etc.).
HRW complained that the U.S. offered "no remedies" for these
disparities but "simply supported equality of opportunity"
and indicated "no willingness to comply" with CERD. Of
course, to "comply" with the NGO interpretation of the CERD
treaty, the U.S. would have to abandon the Constitution's
free speech guarantees, bypass federalism, and ignore the
concept of majority rule--since practically nothing in the
NGO agenda is supported by the American electorate.
All of this suggests that we have not reached the final
triumph of liberal democracy proclaimed by Francis Fukuyama
in his groundbreaking 1989 essay.
POST-SEPTEMBER 11
In October 2001, Fukuyama stated that his "end of history"
thesis remained valid: that after the defeat of communism
and fascism, no serious ideological competitor to Western-
style liberal democracy was likely to emerge in the future.
Thus, in terms of political philosophy, liberal democracy is
the end of the evolutionary process. There will be wars and
terrorism, but no alternative ideology with a universal
appeal will seriously challenge the principles of Western
liberal democracy on a global scale.
The 9/11 attacks notwithstanding, there is nothing beyond
liberal democracy "towards which we could expect to evolve."
Fukuyama concluded that there will be challenges from those
who resist progress, "but time and resources are on the side
of modernity."
Indeed, but is "modernity" on the side of liberal democracy?
Fukuyama is very likely right that the current crisis with
radical Islam will be overcome and that there will be no
serious ideological challenge originating outside of Western
civilization. However, the activities of the NGOs suggest
that there already is an alternative ideology to liberal
democracy within the West that has been steadily evolving
for years.
Thus, it is entirely possible that modernity--thirty or
forty years hence--will witness not the final triumph of
liberal democracy, but the emergence of a new transnational
hybrid regime that is post-liberal democratic, and in the
American context, post-Constitutional and post-American.
This alternative ideology, "transnational progressivism,"
constitutes a universal and modern worldview that challenges
both the liberal democratic nation-state in general and the
American regime in particular.
TRANSNATIONAL PROGRESSIVISM
The key concepts of transnational progressivism could be
described as follows:
The ascribed group over the individual citizen. The key
political unit is not the individual citizen, who forms
voluntary associations and works with fellow citizens
regardless of race, sex, or national origin, but the
ascriptive group (racial, ethnic, or gender) into which one
is born.
A dichotomy of groups: Oppressor vs. victim groups, with
immigrant groups designated as victims. Transnational
ideologists have incorporated the essentially Hegelian
Marxist "privileged vs. marginalized" dichotomy.
Group proportionalism as the goal of "fairness."
Transnational progressivism assumes that "victim" groups
should be represented in all professions roughly
proportionate to their percentage of the population. If not,
there is a problem of "underrepresentation."
The values of all dominant institutions to be changed to
reflect the perspectives of the victim groups. Transnational
progressives insist that it is not enough to have
proportional representation of minorities in major
institutions if these institutions continue to reflect the
worldview of the "dominant" culture. Instead, the distinct
worldviews of ethnic, gender, and linguistic minorities must
be represented within these institutions.
The "demographic imperative." The demographic imperative
tells us that major demographic changes are occurring in the
U.S. as millions of new immigrants from non-Western cultures
enter American life. The traditional paradigm based on the
assimilation of immigrants into an existing American civic
culture is obsolete and must be changed to a framework that
promotes "diversity," defined as group proportionalism.
The redefinition of democracy and "democratic ideals."
Transnational progressives have been altering the definition
of "democracy" from that of a system of majority rule among
equal citizens to one of power sharing among ethnic groups
composed of both citizens and non-citizens. James Banks, one
of American education's leading textbook writers, noted in
1994 that "to create an authentic democratic Unum with moral
authority and perceived legitimacy, the pluribus (diverse
peoples) must negotiate and share power." Hence, American
democracy is not authentic; real democracy will come when
the different "peoples" that live within America "share
power" as groups.
Deconstruction of national narratives and national symbols
of democratic nation-states in the West. In October 2000, a
UK government report denounced the concept of "Britishness"
and declared that British history needed to be "revised,
rethought, or jettisoned." In the U.S., the proposed
"National History Standards," recommended altering the
traditional historical narrative. Instead of emphasizing the
story of European settlers, American civilization would be
redefined as a multicultural "convergence" of three
civilizations-Amerindian, West African, and European. In
Israel, a "post-Zionist" intelligentsia has proposed that
Israel consider itself multicultural and deconstruct its
identity as a Jewish state. Even Israeli foreign minister
Shimon Peres sounded the post-Zionist trumpet in his 1993
book , in which he deemphasized "sovereignty" and called for
regional "elected central bodies," a type of Middle Eastern
EU.
Promotion of the concept of postnational citizenship. In an
important academic paper, Rutgers Law Professor Linda
Bosniak asks hopefully "Can advocates of postnational
citizenship ultimately succeed in decoupling the concept of
citizenship from the nation-state in prevailing political
thought?"
(9) The idea of transnationalism as a major conceptual tool.
Transnationalism is the next stage of multicultural
ideology. Like multiculturalism, transnationalism is a
concept that provides elites with both an empirical tool (a
plausible analysis of what is) and an ideological framework
(a vision of what should be). Transnational advocates argue
that globalization requires some form of "global governance"
because they believe that the nation-state and the idea of
national citizenship are ill suited to deal with the global
problems of the future.
The same scholars who touted multiculturalism now herald the
coming transnational age. Thus, Alejandro Portes of
Princeton University argues that transnationalism, combined
with large-scale immigration, will redefine the meaning of
American citizenship.
The promotion of transnationalism is an attempt to shape
this crucial intellectual struggle over globalization. Its
adherents imply that one is either in step with
globalization, and thus forward-looking, or one is a
backward antiglobalist. Liberal democrats (who are
internationalists and support free trade and market
economics) must reply that this is a false dichotomy--that
the critical argument is not between globalists and
antiglobalists, but instead over the form global engagement
should take in the coming decades: will it be
transnationalist or internationalist?
TRANSNATIONAL PROGRESSIVISM'S SOCIAL BASE: A POST-NATIONAL
INTELLIGENTSIA
The social base of transnational progressivism constitutes a
rising postnational intelligentsia (international law
professors, NGO activists, foundation officers, UN
bureaucrats, EU administrators, corporate executives, and
politicians.) When social movements such as
"transnationalism" and "global governance" are depicted as
the result of social forces or the movement of history, a
certain impersonal inevitability is implied. However, in the
twentieth century the Bolshevik Revolution, the National
Socialist revolution, the New Deal, the Reagan Revolution,
the Gaullist national reconstruction in France, and the
creation of the EU were not inevitable, but were the result
of the exercise of political will by elites.
Similarly, transnationalism, multiculturalism, and global
governance, like "diversity," are ideological tools
championed by activist elites, not impersonal forces of
history. The success or failure of these values-laden
concepts will ultimately depend upon the political will and
effectiveness of these elites.
HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS
A good part of the energy for transnational progressivism is
provided by human rights activists, who consistently evoke
"evolving norms of international law." The main legal
conflict between traditional American liberal democrats and
transnational progressives is ultimately the question of
whether the U.S. Constitution trumps international law or
vice versa.
Before the mid-twentieth century, traditional international
law referred to relations among nation-states. The "new
international law" has increasingly penetrated the
sovereignty of democratic nation-states. It is in reality
"transnational law." Human rights activists work to
establish norms for this "new international [i.e.
transnational] law" and then attempt to bring the U.S. into
conformity with a legal regime whose reach often extends
beyond democratic politics.
Transnational progressives excoriate American political and
legal practices in virulent language, as if the American
liberal democratic nation-state was an illegitimate
authoritarian regime. Thus, AI-U.S.A. charged the U.S. in a
1998 report with "a persistent and widespread pattern of
human rights violations," naming the U.S. the "world leader
in high tech repression." Meanwhile, HRW issued a 450-page
report excoriating the U.S. for all types of "human rights
violations," even complaining that "the U.S. Border Patrol
continued to grow at an alarming pace."
ANTI-ASSIMILATION ON THE HOME FRONT
Many of the same lawyers who advocate transnational legal
concepts are active in U.S. immigration law. Louis Henkin,
one of the most prominent scholars of international law,
calls for largely eliminating "the difference between a
citizen and a non-citizen permanent resident." Columbia
University international law professor Stephen Legomsky
argues that dual nationals holding influential positions in
the U.S. should not be required to give "greater weight to
U.S. interests, in the event of a conflict" between the U.S.
and the other country in which the American citizen is also
a dual national.
Two leading law professors (Peter Spiro from Hofstra and
Peter Schuck from Yale) complain that immigrants seeking
American citizenship are required to "renounce all
allegiance" to their old nations." Spiro and Schuck even
reject the concept of the hyphenated American and endorse
what they call the "ampersand" citizen. Thus, instead of
traditional "Mexican-Americans" who are loyal citizens but
proud of their ethnic roots, they prefer postnational
citizens, who are both "Mexican & American," who retain
"loyalties" to their "original homeland" and vote in both
countries.
University professor Robert Bach authored a major Ford
Foundation report on new and "established residents" (the
word "citizen" was assiduously avoided) that advocated the
"maintenance" of ethnic immigrant identities and attacked
assimilation as the "problem in America." Bach later became
deputy director for policy at the INS in the Clinton
administration.
The financial backing for this anti-assimilationist campaign
has come primarily from the Ford Foundation, which made a
conscious decision to fund a Latino rights movement based on
advocacy-litigation and group rights. The global
progressives have been aided--if not always consciously,
certainly in objective terms--by a "transnational right." It
was a determined Right-Left coalition led by libertarian
Stuart Anderson, who currently holds Bach's old position at
the INS, that killed a high-tech tracking system for foreign
students that might have saved lives on September 11.
Whatever their ideological or commercial motives, the demand
for "open borders" (not simply free trade, which is a
different matter altogether) by the libertarian right has
strengthened the Left's anti-assimilationist agenda.
THE EU AS A STRONGHOLD OF TRANSNATIONAL PROGRESSIVISM
The EU is a large supranational macro-organization that
embodies transnational progressivism. Its governmental
structure is post-democratic. Power in the EU principally
resides in the European Commission (EC) and to a lesser
extent the European Court of Justice (ECJ). The EC, the EU's
executive body, initiates legislative action, implements
common policy, and controls a large bureaucracy. It is
composed of a rotating presidency and nineteen commissioners
chosen by the member-states and approved by the European
Parliament. It is unelected and, for the most part,
unaccountable.
A white paper issued by the EC suggests that this
unaccountability is one reason for its success:"[the]
"essential source of the success of European integration is
that [it] is_independent from national, sectoral, or other
influences." This "democracy deficit" represents a moral
challenge to EU legitimacy.
The substantive polices advanced by EU leaders on issues
such as "hate speech," "hate crimes," "comparable worth" for
women's pay, and group preferences are considerably more
"progressive" in the EU than in the U.S.. The ECJ has
overruled national parliaments and public opinion in nation-
states by ordering the British to incorporate gays and the
Germans to incorporate women in combat units in their
respective military services. The ECJ even struck down a
British law on corporal punishment, declaring that parental
spanking is internationally recognized as an abuse of human
rights
Two Washington lawyers, Lee Casey and David Rivkin, have
argued that the EU ideology that "denies the ultimate
authority of the nation-state" and transfers policy making
from elected representatives to bureaucrats "suggests a
dramatic divergence" with "basic principles of popular
sovereignty once shared by both Europe's democracies and the
United States."
In international politics, in the period immediately prior
to 9/11, the EU opposed the U.S. on some of the most
important global issues, including the ICC, the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the Land Mine Treaty, the
Kyoto Global Warming Treaty, and policy towards missile
defense, Iran, Iraq, Israel, China, Cuba, North Korea, and
the death penalty. On most of these issues, transnational
progressives in the U.S.--including politicians--supported
the EU position and attempted to leverage this transnational
influence in the domestic debate. At the same, the Bush
administration on some of these issues has support in
Europe, particularly from parts of the British political
class and public, and elements of European popular opinion
(e.g., on the death penalty.)
After 9/11, while some European nation-states sent forces to
support the U.S. in Afganhistan, many European leaders have
continued to snipe at American policies and hamper American
interests in the war on terrorism. In December 2001 the
European Parliament condemned the U.S. Patriot Act (the
bipartisan antiterrorist legislation that passed the U.S.
Congress overwhelmingly) as "contrary to the principles" of
human rights because the legislation "discriminates" against
non-citizens. Leading European politicians have opposed
extraditing terrorist suspects to the U.S. if those
terrorists would be subjected to the death penalty. Even a
long-time Atlanticist, like the Berlin Aspin Institute's
Jeffrey Gedmin, questions the "basis for a functioning
alliance" between the U.S. and Western Europe.
Both, realists and neoconservatives have argued that some
EU, UN, and NGO thinking threatens to limit both American
democracy at home and American power overseas. As Jeanne
Kirkpatrick puts it, "foreign governments and their leaders,
and more than a few activists here at home, seek to
constrain and control American power by means of elaborate
multilateral processes, global arrangements, and UN treaties
that limit both our capacity to govern ourselves and act
abroad."
CONCLUSION
Talk in the West of a "culture war" is somewhat misleading,
because the arguments over transnational vs. national
citizenship, multiculturalism vs. assimilation, and global
governance vs. national sovereignty are not simply cultural,
but ideological and philosophical. They pose Aristotle's
question: "What kind of government is best?"
In America, there is an elemental argument about whether to
preserve, improve, and transmit the American regime to
future generations or to transform it into a new and
different type of polity. We are arguing about "regime
maintenance" vs. "regime transformation."
The challenge from transnational progressivism to
traditional American concepts of citizenship, patriotism,
assimilation, and the meaning of democracy itself is
fundamental. If our system is based not on individual rights
(as defined by the U.S. Constitution) but on group
consciousness (as defined by international law); not on
equality of citizenship but on group preferences for non-
citizens (including illegal immigrants) and for certain
categories of citizens; not on majority rule within
constitutional limits but on power-sharing by different
ethnic, racial, gender, and linguistic groups; not on
constitutional law, but on transnational law; not on
immigrants becoming Americans, but on migrants linked
between transnational communities; then the regime will
cease to be "constitutional," "liberal," "democratic," and
"American," in the understood sense of those terms, but will
become in reality a new hybrid system that is "post-
constitutional," "post-liberal," "post-democratic," and
"post-American."
This intracivilizational Western conflict between liberal
democracy and transnational progressivism accelerated after
the Cold War and should continue well into the twenty-first
century. Indeed, from the fall of the Berlin Wall until the
attacks of September 11, the transnational progressives were
on the offensive.
Since September 11, however, the forces supporting the
liberal-democratic nation state have rallied throughout the
West. In the post-9/11 milieu there is a window of
opportunity for those who favor a reaffirmation of the
traditional norms of liberal-democratic patriotism. It is
unclear whether that segment of the American intelligentsia
committed to liberal democracy as it has been practiced on
these shores has the political will to seize this
opportunity. In Europe, given elite opinion, the case for
liberal democracy will be harder to make. Key areas to watch
in both the U.S. and Europe include immigration-assimilation
policy; arguments over international law; and the influence
of a civic-patriotic narrative in public schools and popular
culture.
FOURTH DIMENSION?
I suggest that we add a fourth dimension to a conceptual
framework of international politics. Three dimensions are
currently recognizable. First, there is traditional
realpolitik, the competition and conflict among nation-
states (and supranational states such as the EU). Second is
the competition of civilizations, conceptualized by Samuel
Huntington. Third, there is the conflict between the
democratic world and the undemocratic world. My suggested
fourth dimension is the conflict within the democratic world
between the forces of liberal democracy and the forces of
transnational progressivism, between democrats and post-
democrats.
The conflicts and tensions within each of these four
dimensions of international politics are unfolding
simultaneously and affected by each other, and so they all
belong in a comprehensive understanding of the world of the
twenty-first century. In hindsight, Fukuyama is wrong to
suggest that liberal democracy is inevitably the final form
of political governance, the evolutionary endpoint of
political philosophy, because it has become unclear that
liberal democracy will defeat transnational progressivism.
During the twentieth century, Western liberal democracy
finally triumphed militarily and ideologically over National
Socialism and communism, powerful anti-democratic forces,
that were, in a sense, Western ideological heresies. After
defeating its current antidemocratic, non-Western enemy in
what will essentially be a material-physical struggle, it
will continue to face an ideological-metaphysical challenge
from powerful post-liberal democratic forces, whose origins
are Western, but, which could be in the words of James
Kurth, called "post-Western."
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