Postmodernism shall save ye...
Britain's bridge across the Atlantic is fated to collapse, writes "former Foreign Office special adviser" David Clark in the Guardian.
I had intended to comment on this ridiculous article by David Clark (to which I was led by Peter Briffa) but Iain Murray beat me to it and really hit the nail on the head at that. It's yet another in a long series of op-eds arguing that Britain ought to change course, break with the US, and join forces with the EU as the last best hope of restraining American aggression and "unilateralism" and preventing "another American Century." There's nothing new about this: it seems as though some variation on the "ditch America" theme is published just about every week in some British paper or other. (And, for what it's worth, at least Clark doesn't go as far that other Clark-- Neil, I mean-- who recently came rather close to arguing that Britain's interests would best be served by forming an anti-American alliance with Iraq.) It's not the proposal, but rather the preposterous rationale for it, which breaks new ground. Clark, twisting Robert Cooper's recent call for a new imperialism almost beyond recognition, maintains that the world is divided into pre-Modern, Modern and post-Modern states. America is Modern, a throwback to the 19th century in its vigorous pursuit of its own interests, while Britain and Europe, having progressed to the post-Modern stage, "reject power politics in favour of integration and systems of mutual interference." (While "a system of mutual interference" is indeed Cooper's approving phrase for the EU, he clearly didn't include the US among its enemies-- quite the contrary.) The way Clark sees it, there can never be a community of interests or goals between sophisticated post-Modern states like Britain and backward Modern states like the US. "There is no third way," Clark writes, "between these competing visions of world order; one actively seeks what the other has resolved to avoid." And, as Murray summarizes: "if we're going to have any sort of progressive experience for the world, Britain has to throw in its lot with Europe."
Given Europe's track record, past and present, I'd take an American Century over an EU-esque "progressive experience for the world" any day. And I'm afraid I don't share Clark's confidence in and enthusiasm for the effectiveness of the EU's trademark attempts "to solve wider global problems by limiting their sovereignty through binding agreements and the development of strong institutions." Do you? Well, I am just a modern guy. And I'm still betting against "postmodernism" as the best defense when it comes to the "global problem" of people and groups who want to blow (more of) us up. "Postmodernism" didn't work out all that well in the debacle of the Bethlehem 13. When they finally figure out a way to sort out their condiment situation, maybe they can credibly move on to the more difficult stuff and assume their Clark-ordained role as sole guardians of world security and order. But not before.
Anyway, Iain Murray describes the article as "anti-Americanism dressed up in the language of artistic expression" and adds:
Be honest, Clark. You have an outdated ideology that thinks it's progressive when all its effects on the working class have been regressive. Certainly it's done well for the bourgeois middle class, who now have fat incomes guaranteed by the State by purloining the funds of wealth-creaters and artisans alike (a redistribution of wealth, indeed), but so-called progressive policies have wrecked communities by destroying their social order, introducing them to crime, drugs and depravity on a scale undreamed of only 50 years ago.Thinking this is a good thing is certainly postmodern, rejecting modern ideas like democracy, liberalism and personal responsibility. Only by consciously mixing your "new" ideas with pre-modern ideas like tyranny and the premise that the working class cannot think for itself can you get your philosophy to work. Your progressive Utopia will be a Dinotopia ("terrible place"). In the meantime, those of us who are trying to build a shining city on a hill will happily ignore you.