Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Book Review: God and Gold
Background
I knew very little about the author before I started reading this book. The decision to read it was based on a recommendation via Power Line and my own interest in the history of the British and American Empire(s). I later learned in an interview (Hugh Hewitt) that Mead is connected to Soros via the Council on Foreign Relations. The Board of Directors of this "nonpartisan membership organization" includes; Robert E. Rubin, Madeleine K. Albright, Tom Brokaw, and Fareed Zakaria (here is Fareed, an objective and "nonpartisan" journalist, on the Daily Show).
Mead is also a member of the Board of Directors of the New America Foundation. This group is also "post-partisan" just like the Council on Foreign Relations.
Summary
The book is ambitious and is significantly more than a re-telling of historical facts. Many of the philosophical and ecumenical sections require a careful reading (and in my case re-reading). The margins of this book are littered with notes and I started to deplete my supply of 3M Post-it® Small Flags. Mead sets out to explain what factors caused the ascendancy of the British and American Empire(s) as well as why it's created resentment (sometimes both here and abroad). He concludes with five points on how this dominance can be perpetuated and defends why it should.
Analysis
I suspect that if Mead wrote and published this book in the 30's he probably would have advocated appeasement in the face of German aggression. While he uses evidence to prove otherwise (i.e. referring to Kennan and Niebuhr) I doubt his throaty defense of force is authentic. The point is that Mead uses history as a shield to defend his own version of hyper-containment which seems to represent nothing more than appeasement and endless chatter (and nuance) from a cadre of intellectuals. He even writes at one point wistfully that the country has never demonstrated a respect for intellectuals [pg. 395]. He does this again, and even more pointedly, when he writes: "...the gap between the foreign policy elite (or the intellectual elite more generally in the United States) and the broader society appears to be widening. Whether on the left or on the right, Americans are increasingly skeptical of experts and establishments of all kinds."
Seen in this light, Madeleine Albright's friendliness to North Korea and Bill Richardson's fondness for China and Bill Clinton's indifference to Islamic terrorists makes sense. It may also shed some light on why Sandy Berger was stuffing documents down his socks from the National Archives.
In the end Mead constructs a paean to his god Reinhold Niebuhr in a kind of gross dichotomy. It is Niebuhr who warns us about the dangers of group identities but at the same time Mead is advancing some kind of antiseptic, GAP-like world based on international law via groups like the New America Foundation and the Council of Foreign Relations.
In one breath he argues that the balance between reason, revelation and tradition are necessary for the advancement of civilization and in the same he seems to sinisterly and subtly debase evangelicals (people of faith), patriots and capitalists.
In many ways, he's frustrated that Americans (the simple, non-intellectuals like myself) won't let go of religion, sovereignty and free-enterprise. He writes:
Where Mead has succeeded is in his sly befriending of the tenants of Adam Smith (and maybe St. Augustine) in an attempt to promote a new form of capitalism that really isn't (and I don't have a name for). This you can see and learn if you dissect the Ten Big Ideas promoted by New America. The real victims are the nimrods who see Zakaria on the Daily Show after picking up a copy of Newsweek and accepting it's news as gospel.
Afterword
How fortuitous! I found this quote in Mother Angelica's book and it seems apropos:
I knew very little about the author before I started reading this book. The decision to read it was based on a recommendation via Power Line and my own interest in the history of the British and American Empire(s). I later learned in an interview (Hugh Hewitt) that Mead is connected to Soros via the Council on Foreign Relations. The Board of Directors of this "nonpartisan membership organization" includes; Robert E. Rubin, Madeleine K. Albright, Tom Brokaw, and Fareed Zakaria (here is Fareed, an objective and "nonpartisan" journalist, on the Daily Show).
Mead is also a member of the Board of Directors of the New America Foundation. This group is also "post-partisan" just like the Council on Foreign Relations.
Summary
The book is ambitious and is significantly more than a re-telling of historical facts. Many of the philosophical and ecumenical sections require a careful reading (and in my case re-reading). The margins of this book are littered with notes and I started to deplete my supply of 3M Post-it® Small Flags. Mead sets out to explain what factors caused the ascendancy of the British and American Empire(s) as well as why it's created resentment (sometimes both here and abroad). He concludes with five points on how this dominance can be perpetuated and defends why it should.
Analysis
I suspect that if Mead wrote and published this book in the 30's he probably would have advocated appeasement in the face of German aggression. While he uses evidence to prove otherwise (i.e. referring to Kennan and Niebuhr) I doubt his throaty defense of force is authentic. The point is that Mead uses history as a shield to defend his own version of hyper-containment which seems to represent nothing more than appeasement and endless chatter (and nuance) from a cadre of intellectuals. He even writes at one point wistfully that the country has never demonstrated a respect for intellectuals [pg. 395]. He does this again, and even more pointedly, when he writes: "...the gap between the foreign policy elite (or the intellectual elite more generally in the United States) and the broader society appears to be widening. Whether on the left or on the right, Americans are increasingly skeptical of experts and establishments of all kinds."
Seen in this light, Madeleine Albright's friendliness to North Korea and Bill Richardson's fondness for China and Bill Clinton's indifference to Islamic terrorists makes sense. It may also shed some light on why Sandy Berger was stuffing documents down his socks from the National Archives.
In the end Mead constructs a paean to his god Reinhold Niebuhr in a kind of gross dichotomy. It is Niebuhr who warns us about the dangers of group identities but at the same time Mead is advancing some kind of antiseptic, GAP-like world based on international law via groups like the New America Foundation and the Council of Foreign Relations.
In one breath he argues that the balance between reason, revelation and tradition are necessary for the advancement of civilization and in the same he seems to sinisterly and subtly debase evangelicals (people of faith), patriots and capitalists.
In many ways, he's frustrated that Americans (the simple, non-intellectuals like myself) won't let go of religion, sovereignty and free-enterprise. He writes:
"The diplomacy of civilization is much larger than government policy and, in any case, in a country like the United States where even transient waves of public sentiment frequently have large consequences for foreign policy, Niebuhrian policies can only be sustained when they have wide and deep support. Conservatives as well as liberals need to internalize the Niebuhrian stance, and mass public opinion as well as elite debates should reflect these values. In particular, American populist nationalism, the Jacksonian school of foreign policy, must develop a more Niebuhrian understanding of its place in the world."And what is that place in the world? I think in the end Mead (and the Albright's of the world) believe that the best foreign policy is NO foreign policy at all. They see it as a distraction from advancing progressive causes here at home that will be disseminated globally through a process that occurs naturally (see chapter twenty-one, dancing with ghosts). If left alone, radical threats will disappear and we will get to the economic leveling and border-less world envisioned by believers of the New World Order.
Where Mead has succeeded is in his sly befriending of the tenants of Adam Smith (and maybe St. Augustine) in an attempt to promote a new form of capitalism that really isn't (and I don't have a name for). This you can see and learn if you dissect the Ten Big Ideas promoted by New America. The real victims are the nimrods who see Zakaria on the Daily Show after picking up a copy of Newsweek and accepting it's news as gospel.
Afterword
How fortuitous! I found this quote in Mother Angelica's book and it seems apropos:
The apostles were dodos, dummies. But all the smart people in the world at the time wouldn't take chances. That is the same problem we have today. The world is looking for intellectuals and the Lord is looking for dummies. That's why I'm here.
