Poor old Harold Pinter gets a brutal ritualised kicking from the Samizdata commentariat here, and he’s not even a Muslim. This (and a dig from Perry) suggests I should amplify my comments on that article, which (as ever) have been willfully misunderstood.
I am with ‘Modesty Blaise’ in thinking Pinter overrated as a playwright, but can not help feeling that it is just a bit unreasonable to attack him for being Pinter even when what he says is pungently expressed fair comment. Fate has twisted the knife in the June 20th Group quite enough by landing them with Blair. Be careful what you wish for.
The occasion is this dictum in a letter of support for the anti-Bush group, The World Can’t Wait:
“The Bush administration is the most dangerous force that has ever existed. It is more dangerous than Nazi Germany because of the range and depth of its activities and intentions worldwide.”
He may be mad, but he is half right for half of the right reasons. It is just the reasons and conclusions don’t match up very much. He wants to hate Bush’s America by hook or crook. Rather as some of our commentariat want to love it and hate its opponents.
A pithy barb ought to make one think, not produce a spiteful reflex. American hegemony is not a bad thing in itself (pace Pinter). Capitalism is generally a force for good in human lives. But capitalism is full of discomforts (some of which Marxists hopefully identify as contradictions). And plenty of disastrous things have been done, and are being done, with American power in the world.
The Bush administration’s combination of complete lack of doubt in its righteousness and unrivalled global dominance does make it dangerous, in the sense of hazardous, whether or not this or that particular action is good-hearted or objectively a Good Thing. In that sense, it is much more dangerous than Nazism. Because it is powerful, and unrivalled, a determination to use that power unrestrained can dominate the world in a way that was impossible for the Nazis.
I am not equating Bushism with Nazism. I am saying that Bush has greater power for good or evil in its hands than Hitler ever had. There is nowhere to hide from evils promoted by America. A straightforward, and here uncontroversial, example is the War on Drugs. Where Pinter (and Chomsky, and the rest) go wrong is not in pointing out what they see as the bad things done by the US and by corporations. It is their drawing moral equivalence from the facts of power. Because US institutions are powerful and do bad things, they deduce that they are inherently evil and plan to do evil.
They are essentially materialists who cannot see that hyper-Americanism for all its vast reach, despite contingent horrors committed in its name, and despite even the AEI, is unsystematic and unprogrammatic at an ideological level. It is not necessarily destructive of humanity as Nazi racial theory was, as the communisms were, as the Salafist sects would be if they had their unlikely way. So what the “progressive critics” offer is a sort of well-presented, intellectually respectable, conspiracy theory.
But that does not mean they are wrong to criticize, or to point out the inconsistencies between rhetoric and practice of Americanism. It does not mean they can be dismissed or reviled simply because of who they are. It does not mean that a global monoculture in political economy, a particularistic imperial preference for Americans, enforced by the armed coercion of a single state is something that those who think of themselves as libertarians (even American ones) should welcome.
Adam Smith pointed out that businesses conspire against the free market, so why should we mock when Noreena Hertz or George Monbiot makes essentially the same point about modern corporations? We say want people to be treated as individuals, so why are the voices of those proclaiming a jihad more welcome than those saying that not all Muslims are the same? The diagnoses of The Left are often sound. It is the alternative medicine we should not swallow.
Besides, the juvenile disorder of leftism is not incurable. My old friend Jonathan Porritt shows that recovery is possible. They can learn some economics and appreciate that markets are merely a mechanism in the world, and that capitalists are just trying to make a living. Our side might too, one day.
If we want to live in a world where individualist politics and social variety are possible, then we should be listening carefully to the Pinters, welcoming them when they are right, and arguing against them when they are wrong. Criticism, not might, is the soul of liberty. We too should try to tell truth to power.
“It is their drawing moral equivalence from the facts of power. Because US institutions are powerful and do bad things, they deduce that they are inherently evil and plan to do evil.”
This deduction is unwarranted, as you point out – but is the left’s belief in it sustained despite some awareness of this?
On the related point of the dismissal of the left’s views; different people dismiss Pinter et al for different reasons not all of which are simply ‘spiteful reflexes’. The Bush administration has come in for plenty of criticism on these pages in recent times too – it’s just that our criticisms are differently directed from those coming from the left.
I wrinkled my nose a little at your use of the term ‘dangerous’ (even if in the sense of ‘hazardous’) which connotes some potential negative value and is thus redolent of the fact-value confusion you charge Pinter and Chomsky et al of commiting. Better to stick with the term ‘power’ I think…
Pinter is a tiddly ripple in the deep rich well of modern literature. His inability to understand the complexity of what is going on in the world these days should be no surprise, the guy’s got form. Pinter, yawn, move on there’s nothing to see.
I agree with quite a bit of your article Guy, but where I think the above passage misses the point is that G.W. Bush does not have greater power for good or evil than Hitler ever had, the UNITED STATES does. Bush is far less powerful than Adolf Hitler was because, unlike Bush, Hilter eventually had absolute control of national power. If Hitler wanted to invade the Soviet Union/gas millions of people/wherever, he could bring the entire focused might of Nazi Germany to bear on making that happen without the vast institutional inconvenience of having to worry about national politics.
That Pinter cannot see that is why he is so utterly wrongheaded. All he can see is the power of the United States, not its nature.
Compared to Kofism’s unrivalled global dominance of corrupt and dangerous imperialism, I’ll take the Good Thing over Veiled Evil anyday.
That said, Bush does hold great power in his hand yet nowhere on this planet has such power been unleashed to its’ full capacity. With such military might, Bush could have easily pulvarized the Middle East in a matter of weeks, but instead choose the pain-staking approach of imperializing Liberty.
Actions speak louder than empty Progressive Leftist platitudes and Pinter is the most vacuous of all.
Perry made a point I missed, that being, Bush’s power is controlled by the American people.
As mike says, I don’t think the problem people have with Pinter is that he’s criticizing America or the Bush Administration, it’s the way he does it that triggers our allergies. It’s annoying for the same reasons it’s annoying when Michael Moore does it: we strongly suspect that these opinions are merely fashionable, that the person mouthing them isn’t trying to promote discussion or effect change so much as cultivate a certain image of himself.
In addition – in this particular instance (I know nothing of the character of Pinter’s general political commentary) he’s using one of Noam Chomsky’s more grating rhetorical tactics. He’s making a statement which is true enough in itself but failing to supply anything like proper context or perspective. He then allows his audience to draw rash conclusions on which he (presumably) builds.
To illustrate: it’s true enough that America today has more global reach than Nazi Germany did, but then, so do a lot of other countries. The world is in general vastly more integrated and efficient than it was in 1933. We have international regulation and communication on a scale scarcely imaginable 100 years ago. The character of American power is also quite different. Unlike in Nazi Germany, there is (as Guy Herbert points out) no central focus to US power – no dictator across whose desk all policy comes for line-item approval. And yet, Pinter wants to go from a single similarity on one level and conclude a more general resemblance. It’s classic false analogy, and I find it difficult to believe anyone is seriously suggesting there’s anything potentially valuable in this argument.
There is no shortage of people in the world willing to criticize the Bush Administration cogently (I like to consider myself one of them). We have ample opportunity to hear a list of Bush’s faults from people more informed than Pinter.
Since criticism is encouraged here lets fisk Guy Herbert a little:
I am not equating Bushism with Nazism.
Well, you just did.
I am saying that Bush has greater power for good or evil in its hands than Hitler ever had.
Wrong. Perry has corrected that.
The Bush administration’s combination of complete lack of doubt in its righteousness
That’s condescending nonesense.
I guess that the Bush administration acts like any other, they have doubts, delibarations, a process of decission reaching. It took them more than a year to decide to invade Iraq.
They are essentially materialists …
The usual critique is that they are religious nuts, and uber-idealists about bringing democracy to the ME. How is that materialistic ?
then we should be listening carefully to the Pinters
No, thnaks. You can find plenty of more balanced people on the left. Harold Pinter isn’t a good type to listen to, and nothing he said is of any use.
Perry is right on the money. The United States is fortunate enough to have a system where a given President’s amount of power is directly correlated to public opinion. In Bush’s case now, public opinion is not nearly as much an influence as it was 2 years ago, but that influence exists all the same. Two years ago, he had a direct interest in being re-elected. Today, Bush has an interest in the country staying in the hands of the neo-conservatives. Therefore, he must not step very far outside that which public opinion would approve. This is the check on the power of any given elected official. Perry, in saying that the UNITED STATES has this influence, you’re exactly right.
As to the main argument – that the US has too much power in a unipolar world: if the alternative is having a bi-polar world, with a power like the late USSR for balance – then, again, no thanks. We need no new USSR.
It seems to me that what Pinter is lamenting is the demise of the USSR. He loved it, maybe.
As to some other power, the EU or China – providing the balance of power – not a good idea either.
And besides – I wish the US had MORE power. Lamentably it is too weak to handle effectively the terrible threats of a nuclear Iran and North Korea. It is weak in it’s military power, being unable to field enough troops to control Iraq. It is weak in it’s determination to use what force it has to free the world of mortal potentially nuclear threats.
Maybe??? This is a guy who wants Slobodan Milosovic released!
Re susan’s first comment of her two so far, I love the phrase “pain-staking”. Not fair I know, and in comments we all missspell (?) and mispunctuate. I mention it because it made me laugh.
Because they are not defending the free market against evil corporations, they are using the fact corporations do bad things as a reason to not have markets at all. That is why we should mock Noreena Hertz or George Monbiot. When they say something that is right, it is for the WRONG reasons 🙂 Even a stopped watch is correct twice a day.
I agree that just because someone we dislike says something, we should not always dismiss it out of hand if a bit of critical analysis indicates there is some truth to it, but we need to be very discriminating in how we support anything the say because agreeing with a statement of fact can sound like agreeing with a false conclusion they have derived from that fact.
guy herbert writes:
” I should amplify my comments on that article, which (as ever) have been willfully misunderstood.”
Willfully misunderstood, or written so densely as to beg incomprehension? I must say, that does sound rather self-pitying.
Either way, I’m not sure the case is any better for having been made twice.
Perry de Havilland has exposed the fundamental weakness in Pinter’s histrionic bleating: Bush will be gone be in a few years time and even in office, he has rather less power than Tony Blair, let alone the Fuhrer.
The comparison is both juvenile and absurd.
As for US hegemony, I suspect many here are well aware of it (the cultural and commercial bother me, rather a lot). Equally, many are critical of Bush – not least because he is, for many tastes, insufficiently Right wing.
But none of that has any bearing on the simple fact that Harold Pinter is a shrill, unreasoning figure, wildly overstating his case and, in so doing, damaging it beyond repair.
The Left may have a point – but Pinter hasn’t.
Guy writes that Harold Pinter gets a “brutal rittualised kicking” from many commenters on this blog. There is nothing very “ritual” or automatic about it, Guy. The man is, objectively speaking, a total waste of space as a sage on foreign affairs. He is a good playright, if not quite as good as the literary establishment would have us believe.
I think the reason we have all laid into Pinter, that despite the fact he is a nothing special playwrite, is the fact he compared Bush and the US to a regime that intricately planned the mass execution of every Jew (gypsy and handicapped) person in Europe. And succeeded in killing at least 6 million Jews and millions of others.
What sane person can come the two in such terms? There is no defence for such vicious idiocy. He is merely mouthing what the extreme-left tells him to do. It is intellectually and rhetorically inept. He is a moron and should be seen as a contemptible human being, not be lauded by Nobel or anyone else.
I’ve just noticed an editor has ‘improved’ my reference to Modesty Blaise. No; I wasn’t referring to one of Samizdata’s commentators. I did allude to the character of fiction, who (in, I think, Sabre Tooth–20 years since I read it and don’t have a copy to hand to check) argues the Pinter-is-pretentious-rot line against Willie Garvin’s support for his genius.
It was intended as a club sandwich irony (piled on O’Donnell’s in-joke), since Pinter wrote the utterly hopeless screenplay for Joseph Losey’s film version of Modesty Blaise.
Doubtless this is what GCooper means by my writing so densely as to beg incomprehension.
[editors note: duly dis-improved. heh.]
Joshua, I think Pinter is just bonkers enough to believe all the incoherent, baseless accusations he spouts, but you say, “it’s annoying for the same reason it’s annoying when Michael Moore does it”. Here, I differ with you. Michael Moore is an opportunist who speaks for calculated effect. Pinter is genuinely unhinged, barking at the incoming tide.
I disagree with all the other commenters here though in judging the quality of his work. I think he was an intriguing playwright and he has influenced all playwrights, to some extent, who came after him.
Yup – we’re going to goose-march everyone at gunpoint into jeans, Micky- D’s and guzzle coke until you die………………
We’re better than the alternatives.
Niall Ferguson from a WSJ article 2004 —
We’ve got 4 options, folks.
US
Chinese Communism
Islamofascism
Armed camps.
I love asking other people why they would prefer to live under 1 of the other 3 instead of what really is the most benign hegemon in the history of the world.
Leaving the vapid nonsense of Pinter and of Bush=Hitler etc behind, perhaps it’s worth asking what ‘point’ it is that the left have, exactly? I mean OK they might criticise the American administration somewhat (with or without comprehension), but having emptied that particular dustbin, what is worth listening to among the ranks of the left (assuming we can be serious for a moment)?
Political questions often contain a mixture of pragmatically understood issues, on which there exists consensus, and related or intersecting issues of principle on which priorities diverge. A chief example is the climate change issue, with the interfering matter of world government.
Surely then, listening to the left must involve investigative criticism to decouple their pragmatic, factual points from any interfering issues of political principle. Listening to the likes of Pinter rattling on about how ‘Bush is worse than Hitler’ is just political sado-masochism at best, and a completely boring non-event at worst.
–They are essentially materialists —
You’d better hope we continue to be, bud, if we stop spending, the world stops making.
As a libertarian: each and every time I discuss the American Federal Government and the neoconservatives “crusades” and “wars” with a leftist, I draw blank stares, and uncomfortable silences.
Why? I concur with them, the U.S. Federal Government is too big and too powerful. It can turn into a monster if not checked. Not only for the world, for the Americans first of all. It should be reduced to pre Depression size and even more. Most taxes should be abolished. The power of the government over the citizens should be reduced. The military should be made smaller.
The “crusades” and “wars” (drugs, pornography, even terrorism, to some extent) should be abolished or reduced. And they should never ever infringe personal freedoms, nor dictate morals to anyone. Just prevent real crimes. Those crimes against the rights of others. But I am looked at as if I were nuts. I am proposing that the U.S. renounce the means to take unilateral action in the world and they do not seem to like it!
What if the U.S. were comunist and were using its inmense power to impose, by force, marxism and a marxist world view? Well, some time ago, this “reverse” U.S. existed and was called the U.R.S.S., with its diverse state clients. It drew not a complaint from the marxists.
The last thing a leftist (especially a marxist) wants to hear, is about the reduction of government’s interference in life, and of citizens managing their own affairs. I do think that they are only chagrined that the force and the coertion of the Fed does not serve their aims but those of others.
I am for one, against forcing others to do things against their will. Bottom line: There are persons that speak as if they were against that. Whereas they are only sad that it is not their side that is giving the blows.
Pinter is wrong because he takes the neocon warfare/welfare state at its own valuation, instead of recognising that its danger to the world is that of a dinosaur thrashing around in its death throes. Neoconnerie is the ideological twilight of Manifest Destiny.
The USA’s summit of wealth and power relative to other states was in 1945: an accidental precipitate of the slow suicide of European powers in 1914-45. For six decades America has been steadily losing its share of Gross World Product, channelling its economic and scientific vigour into the cul-de-sac of over-technologised warfare against defunct or imaginary enemies. It has drawn or lost nearly every military engagement it has undertaken, and has made itself the cynosure of diplomatic contempt. And it has diluted its Anglo-Saxon heritage with endless influxes of burdensome non-European immigrants or emancipated Africans, so that the fabric of national unity lies irreparably asunder. New Orleans was a preview of America’s balkanised tomorrow, not unfinished business from the Jim Crow era.
However the USA will not be brought down by black criminal gangs, nor by ‘Islamofascists’, nor by the good half of its own population which disbelieves in its messianic imperialism, nor even by dried-up, foul-mouthed lefty playwrights… but by the commonplace nemeses of overstretch and bankruptcy. The dollar exchange rate tells us more about the USA’s condition than any political utterance. It already has its Romulus Augustulus in office. It will have lasted a shorter time and accomplished less for civilisation than most empires.
— and has made itself the cynosure of diplomatic contempt. And it has diluted its Anglo-Saxon heritage with endless influxes of burdensome non-European immigrants or emancipated Africans, so that the fabric of national unity lies irreparably asunder. New Orleans was a preview of America’s balkanised tomorrow, not unfinished business from the Jim Crow era.–
Wow – 2 bagger.
Not only not understanding we’re back to status quo in the world – it’s history, but a racist comment thrown in!
Luniversal, I am interested in where you post from, simply because 99.99% of Americans would not be able to figure out what country you are writing about, and the other .01% are Chomskyite fantasists anyway, so they matter not, except for providing the same amusement as used to be gotten by touring the asylums.
But as I re-read, I think I do see the country in mind…
“France’s summit of wealth and power relative to other states was in the 19th and early 20th centuries: an accidental precipitate of the division of the other European powers of the time. Ever since, France has been steadily losing its share of Gross World Product, channelling its economic and scientific vigour into the cul-de-sac of over-socialized economies and raging against defunct or imaginary ideologocal enemies (of the left). It has drawn or lost nearly every military engagement it has undertaken, and has made itself the cynosure of diplomatic contempt (i.e., “other Euro powers ‘missed an opportunity to shut up”, apologizing for it’s enemies, treating it’s friends with contempt, now finding itself virtually alone and powerless…) And it has diluted its French heritage with endless influxes of burdensome non-European immigrants, Muslim and African, so that the fabric of national unity lies irreparably asunder. Paris )plus 299 other towns) is a preview of France’s balkanised tomorrow, not unfinished business from an imperial past.”
Wow. That IS rather clever, and even correct. It pretty much boils down to “which country will be better off in, say, 2015”? That will answer which of these two analyses are correct, and which are not. I’m pretty confident in my bets. How ’bout you?
Since criticism is encouraged here lets fisk Guy Herbert a little:
Uh – oh that word again..
I am not equating Bushism with Nazism.
Well, you just did.
Hmmm, no, he didn’t. Quoting an assertion and denying it is not argument. What he said is that because Bush is powerful he is dangerous. In much the same way that a warehouse full of TNT is dangerous – not because the TNT has evil intent, but simply because of its inate potential. This is blindingly obvious, and your unsupported assertion that Guy was equating Bush with Hitler is either wishful thinking or a cheap shot, presumably the later.
I am saying that Bush has greater power for good or evil in its hands than Hitler ever had.
Wrong. Perry has corrected that.
Again, asserting that something is untrue is not argument. Good that you could provide a reference to someone doing your arguing for you in this case, however.
The Bush administration’s combination of complete lack of doubt in its righteousness
That’s condescending nonesense.
I guess that the Bush administration acts like any other, they have doubts, delibarations, a process of decission reaching. It took them more than a year to decide to invade Iraq.
Yay! Here you are technically right, as Guy made the fatal error of using an ‘all’ word – in this case ‘complete’ lack of doubt. Obviously the Bush administration has doubts about something, sometime, as you point out.
They are essentially materialists …
The usual critique is that they are religious nuts, and uber-idealists about bringing democracy to the ME. How is that materialistic ?
Gee, I dunno. How could one democratic nation find material benefit in having another nation also be democratic? I can’t imagine! And what if, in the process of bringing democracy to them, you had to station several thousand troops in the middle of a strategically important area – I wonder how that could possibly be of material benefit? Nope, no idea. Personally, FWIW, I have no problem with Bush’s materialism. I just wish he’d stop lying about it, and do it with more competence, but hey.
And so to bed.
I too thought about fisking Jacob’s comment, but frankly just couldn’t be bothered. But now that I see you’ve done it J – and seconded his most glaring error I might add, that I now feel I’ve just got to point it out…
Jacob quotes Guy as refering (“they are materialists”) to members of the Bush administration – since those are the people he then defends from the ‘usual’ charge of being ‘religous nuts uber-idealistic about democracy’.
Actually reading Guy’s article however, reveals Jacob’s mistake – the ‘they are materialists’ reference was to Pinter et al, not to members of the Bush administration…
“They are essentially materialists who cannot see that hyper-Americanism for all its vast reach, despite contingent horrors committed in its name, and despite even the AEI, is unsystematic and unprogrammatic at an ideological level.
It is lazy, half-arsed mistakes like this (I mean clearly, Jacob just couldn’t be arsed to actually read the article before commenting) that make me wonder what company we keep by commenting in this place sometimes.
Andrew: “Wow. That IS rather clever, and even correct. It pretty much boils down to “which country will be better off in, say, 2015″? That will answer which of these two analyses are correct, and which are not. I’m pretty confident in my bets. How ’bout you?”
France and America will both be a mess in 2015. This is not a zero sum game.
By 2050 the USA will most likely have dissolved into racially stratified polities, possibly loosely federated, possibly not, or it will be embroiled in a race war. The current USA is only 140 years old, and manmade; there is no guarantee of this lawyer-ridden contraption’s survival. It no longer has any credible external enemy that its globalist government can invoke to keep the overtaxed, overstrained citizenry in line. Whites, Japanese and Jews are growing tired of subsidising Latinos and blacks. Immigration control will be a bigger issue than terrorism soon.
I have no idea how France will solve its malaise, but I know how to get rid of immigration problems– get rid of immigrants.
Multiracialism is a suicidal cul de sac. Shipping quantities of unassimilable cheap-labour folks from continent to continent is a hangover from 19th century notions of competitive advantage– no longer necessary economically and very myopic if you are interested in preserving the distinct characteristics of different types of humanity. Of course, the ‘transhumanists’ on this site will be flying off to other planets in private sector spaceships to build their libertarian utopias by 2050, so it won’t concern them;-)
L’une, I guess I asked where you are posting from because it would be very difficult for me to beleive that you are either a citizen/resident of the US, or that you have spent any significant time here. Your analysis just smacks of Left Bank pontificating under the assumption that “it is capitalist, of COURSE it will collapse, and that being established, here’s how I think it will happen, etc.” The fact is, the US has been doing pretty darn good for the last twenty years, 9/11 nonwithstanding. Unemployment has rarely gotten above 5%, legal and student immigration, which dipped post 9/11 for reasons we all are familiar with, is back to year 2000 levels, deficits, state and federal, are falling right now, international patents and Nobel prizes are being scooped up by the US at levels as high as ever, etc etc.
We heard the same “Sun is rising and will swamp us” talk about Japan 20 years ago.
You are absolutely right about uncontrolled immigration, and, like 80% of my countrymen, I think it’s time for my govt to get off its collective ass and do something, but I do not believe, as you do, that that will never happen. (It may take a bad event to happen, though) But LEGAL, controlled immigration from multiple places around the world has always and will always be a huge benifit to us, culturally and economically.
Your racial predictions, however, I do not buy, and they smack of ‘Le Pen’-ism or the like, and that is why I don’t think you write from these shores… it’s just alien thinking to 95% of us. I won’t even judge you on it, I will just say that it’s absurd in a nation that every day grows more inter-racially mixed and inter-married (a la Tiger Woods).
As for “there is no guarantee of this lawyer-ridden contraption’s survival”, well, you are not the first outsider to just not “get” the US, to understand how deeply we believe in and will fight for that “contraption”, and to thus underestimate us. Segragated blacks have fought for it in every war, voluntarily. Japanese Americans died for it while their parents were in camps in California. Ponder that one.
Multi-cuturalism IS a cul-de-sac, if you are of the “blood and soil” mentality, or of the “we all need to listen to big brother and do what he says” mentality, both of which Americans have fled from. If you reject both of those, rely on self-governement and self-reliance, and EXPECT THE SAME from others even if they are a different color, it can create a society of extraordinary vibrancy, and it has.
Given that the left is trying to destroy that, I think you and I might agree that if they suceed, yes, your scenario begins to come into view over the horizon.
Hence, why I fight.
“What he said is that because Bush is powerful he is dangerous. In….the same way that a warehouse full of TNT is dangerous…because of its innate potential.”
Either President Bush is dangerous, or he is not dangerous; he is not dangerous because he is powerful – even if he is as powerful as you assume. To claim that he is dangerous because he is powerful is to slide from a claim about his power to a claim about the way in which he may use his power.
To assert that Bush is more dangerous than Hitler is to presuppose that Bush may use his power in the same way that Hitler used his power [i.e. in the service of evil] on the grounds, presumably, that he has, in your opinion, a complete lack of doubt about his moral righteousness – as if a complete lack about doubt about moral belief x [pick your own Bush moral conviction] is equivalent to [what is taken to be] the complete lack of doubt Hitler had in his convictions.
In short claiming that President Bush is more dangerous than Hitler DOES rely upon the assumption that there is a moral equivalence between them. Not only is this [all too familiar Leftist bigotry] inaccurate it is also morally repugnant.
— I can’t imagine! And what if, in the process of bringing democracy to them, you had to station several thousand troops in the middle of a strategically important area – I wonder how that could possibly be of material benefit? Nope, no idea.–
And exactly what material benefit have we gotten from having more than several thousand troops in
Germany (1945) and until recently 37K troops in SorK (1953), J?
Cos from my end, we got the short end of the deal.
Hm.
Perry’s usually unimpressed by democratic controls on government, but I take his point.
I’d hope it were obvious I’m much more interested in the proposition that America is very dangerous than any detailed comparison of its governance with the mechanisms of Nazi Germany, ladies and gentlemen. In the external aspect: “Does not play well with others. Throws his weight around.” There is plenty of scope for comparison.
One can compare things in some aspects without saying they are the same thing. It need not even be analogy… This ton of feathers is heavier than this lead ingot…
Andrew Dodge (others less coherent, too) argues that a comparison of the US state with the Nazi state is mad and indefensible because the Nazis were very bad in ways that the US is not. I think it is entirely legitimate to make shocking comparisons, and whether they are mad depends on the validity of the comparisons, not how shocking they are.
(Sad to say Nazism was not an unique aberration, though it is comforting/convenient for many to imagine/claim that it was. National Socialism in one form or another remains a widespread and successful model of government.)
My article’s main point is that we should not make the mistake of assuming that all of an argument is invalid because its conclusions are wrongheaded or we don’t generally like the people who make it. (As in Jonathan’s: The man is, objectively speaking, a total waste of space as a sage on foreign affairs.)
I fear I was right the first time about “willfully misunderstood”. Thank-you, mike, for actually following my pronouns.
Susan,
Compared to Kofism’s unrivalled global dominance of corrupt and dangerous imperialism, I’ll take the Good Thing over Veiled Evil anyday.
Which pretty much makes my point. The UN is a classic example of the unintended bad consequences of the application of American power, being a Wilson-Roosevelt imposition out of a desire to impose a moral order on the world. The pernicious idea of international law as a global régime rather than the custom of the consort of nations is an American one. When it is applied to further US policy, then the cheerleaders of the imperium have little problem with it.
I’d hope it were obvious I’m much more interested in the proposition that America is very dangerous
Are you being willfully obtuse?
That America is dangerous- even very dangerous- is such a blindingly banal observation that I am astonished that anyone needs to state it.
America is dangerous because it has to be dangerous. Surely you don’t think that the reason Europe has been at peace for half a century is because of an outbreak of good sense and feelings of brotherhood among Europeans? Surely you don’t think that the reason China, Japan, and the Koreas aren’t at each other’s throats is because they’ve forgiven and forgotten the numerous occasions over the last several millenia where one decided to slaughter the other(s)? Surely you don’t think that the various other bastards on this planet- some of whom command nations- wouldn’t be interested in adding a bit of real estate to their domains if they could get away with it?
Yes, America is dangerous. You should be glad it’s dangerous, because what is keeping the peace in a lot of the world is that those who might be inclined to go to war are compelled to calculate how the war is likely to end if the United States picks a side and joins in- and the various bastards have just recently gotten a reminder of what happens when you lose that bet.
Remember this point, because it’s important: it is very unusual for the US to start a war. What usually happens is that the US becomes a belligerent in a war that is already in progress.
Compare and contrast that with the history of Germany- and I don’t just mean the relatively short period when one Adolf H. was running the place.
than any detailed comparison of its governance with the mechanisms of Nazi Germany, ladies and gentlemen.
Of course not. The mechanisms by which America is governed are far more constraining than anything Adolf had to deal with, and getting into the details of that rather severely undermines the point you’re trying to make.
That something doesn’t support your point does not make it irrelevant to the discussion.
In the external aspect: “Does not play well with others. Throws his weight around.” There is plenty of scope for comparison.
…you know, that description applies quite well to every great power in human history, be it France, Imperial Britain, the USSR, ancient (or even not-so-ancient) China, Imperial Japan, Spain a few centuries back, ditto Portugal, and who can forget the ‘original’ empire, the Romans?
Why bring the Nazis into it? All that accomplishes is to offend and inflame. Unless, of course, your intention is to offend and inflame.
Oh, and just for the record, every nation with more than a couple dozen nukes has more destructive power than old Adolf ever commanded. Methinks he is a rather poor benchmark in that regard.
But back to the original quote- let’s skip the first sentence because it’s been fairly thouroughly dealt with, and focus on the second-
“[…] It is more dangerous than Nazi Germany because of the range and depth of its activities and intentions worldwide.”
America is dangerous because of it’s intentions?
What does Mr. Pinter imagine America intends to
do? Exactly what is he objecting to?
“Get rid of immigrants” writes Luniversal. Care to spell out how you are going to do that in the USA, France etc? At bayonet point? Does this include legal immigrants and descendants of said?
It is not democracy per se that I have a problem with, but rather the notion that democracy alone is either an adequate check on state power or a legitimisation for state power. Repression by popular consent is still repression. Making things more democratic does not generally make them less repressive unless the entire scope of politics itself is constrained (i.e. via an effective power limiting constitution).
Guy: so would you be in favour of abolishing that Wilsonian institution the WTO – as a dangerous impediment to free trade?
The point is that, Pinter is not an intellectual nor is he very intelligent,he is simply a story teller…end of capability.
For some strange reason those in the Arts have been ascribed intellectual status.
Quite so.
There are plenty of intelligent, informed people out there who do their political homework and have gripes about the Bush Administration. There is no reason we need to get this opinion from Pinter – better, in fact, that we don’t get it from him.
You joke, mike, but in some respects it is. I think free trade can readily be adopted unilaterally.
I don’t necessarily have a problem with international organisations, per se. They can do useful things in a consensual manner. Think ITPU. While we have states we’re going to need diplomacy, so even the general council could be said to have its uses.
But they do very readily become cartels for the promotion of state interests, instruments of patronage and jobbery, and channels for regulatory capture of one sort or another. The most important thing is they don’t get any actual power.
Johnathan: I’d love to tell you about non-coercive ways of reducing immigrant populations, but I got banned for the ultimate Samizdata crime: pointing out mistakes in Perry’s spelling and punctuation.
guy herbert writes:
“I think it is entirely legitimate to make shocking comparisons, and whether they are mad depends on the validity of the comparisons, not how shocking they are.”
True, but their validity is something you have completely failed to establish.
The reaction to Pinter’s outrageous comparison, which you seem to have characterised as being due solely to its provenance rather than its nature, was perfectly reasonable on the grounds of the latter alone. There was no need to emphasise the former in an attempt to bypass the substance of that objection.
That America is a powerful nation is beyond dispute. That it does Bad Things at times is similarly beyond dispute. To assert, however, that Bush’s America is in any meaningful sense morally comparable with Hitler’s Germany – which was Pinter’s claim – is such arrant, sophomoric nonsense that I can hardly believe we are wasting time discussing it.
You go on to say:
“My article’s main point is that we should not make the mistake of assuming that all of an argument is invalid because its conclusions are wrongheaded or we don’t generally like the people who make it”
People were responding both to what Pinter said and to Pinter – not an unreasonable reaction.
If you are complaining that people chose not to excavate Pinter’s subtext and mine it for some lesser sense in which he may have a point (had he chosen to make it), then I suggest it might simply have been better to have posted along the lines of ‘America is big and powerful and does bad things’.
So, no, you weren’t “willfully misunderstood”. You just tried to make a point that missed its mark by being allied to the ravings of a moonbat, the “validity of whose comparisons” exists solely in the realms of his personal lunar landscape.
Luniversal, why don’t you share your profound insight on how to carry out ethnic cleansing in a manner consistent with the teachings of Murray Rothbard? I am dying to find out.
You’re comments were deleted because you were pointlessly rude. Simple, old chap.
Guy: my question was intended (the tinge of ironic jest notwithstanding) to smoke out whatever it is that prompted you to write your article – whether there was any real point you wanted to make. Perhaps my tactic was not so good.
That said, if all you wanted to write about was the simple Bush = Hitler stuff from Pinter, then I’m not interested and I’m afraid I agree with everything GCooper just said.
I liked Peter’s comment. The soubriquet of intellectual is a mantle Pinter donned for himself. No one awarded it to him. He is not an intellectual. He’s not a deep, complex thinker. He is a provider of rather intriguing entertainment. His milieu is the theatre – the world of make-belief and trickery with lighting and sound effects. The wonder is not that he has elevated himself to “intellectual” – the pubs are full of these types – but that the world took him seriously.