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A Sermon by Dr.
Kenneth Hoover
A Sermon by Dr.
Kenneth Hoover
US and the World (Comments welcome at: krhoover@attbi.com) This is more a meditation than a sermon really, a meditation on US and the
World. This meditation was triggered by a meeting of Bellingham’s City Club to hear
Rick Steves, the travel entrepreneur. You can see him nightly on Channel 9, PBS,
at 7:00 with his Travels in Europe program, which is nationally syndicated. I asked Rick Steves to comment on changing perceptions of the U.S. over the
last few years. Reflecting on his more than thirty years of travel beginning in
Central America in the 70’s, he commented that: "It’s like the U.S. is at the top of the global pyramid, and the good thing
is that we’re willing to reach down to those below and help them get to the top
IF they’re willing to do things our way. If they’re not willing to do things our way, we’re prepared to kill them. " Rather harsh I thought, because there are many places we might have used our
power, but haven’t, and there are many people we have helped who are quite
different in the ways they do things….and that includes Muslims as well as
Christians. And sometimes when we do help, or try to, the same people who criticize us
for not helping, then criticize us for intervening and acting like imperialists. But it is
interesting that Rick Steves has made it his mission, and his highly successful
business, to run people-to-people oriented travel enterprise. Well we live in a newly dangerous world. Terrorism and new forms of militance
appear and there seems to be nothing to be done but respond with force. Few of
us will be called to the sharp end of these confrontations, and, given the way
information is managed these days, we will know little about what happens there.
Whatever force does accomplish, it’s well to recall the words of Talleyrand, the
foreign minister to the French emperor, Napoleon. He told the Emperor: "You can do everything with bayonets, sire, except sit on them!" Force works, but it’s very expensive, and it doesn’t hold up over time. We
are about to prove how expensive as Congress receives a military budget request
for an amount that exceeds the total defense spending of all of the rest of the
nations of the globe put together. But what can be done closer to home? A little over a decade ago, the wall
fell, and communism was vanquished. We haven’t as a nation really focussed on
what it means to be the dominant power in a uni-polar world. The history of such powers is not happy, for they become the target of the
world’s grievances, while their own citizens turn inward, glory in their
superiority, and forget the sacrifices that made it possible. Our leaders have perhaps been too pre-occupied to engage us in this
discussion, and maybe they think we wouldn’t have listened. It is a discussion
we need to have because, as Mark Twain said, "History doesn’t often repeat
itself, but it does rhyme." So 911 came as a rude awakening to one highly visible fact, namely the
potency of terrorism .... but there was another fact revealed when the smoke
cleared. Our credibility in the world has declined rather significantly over the
last couple of decades. We are envied, yes, but less admired. Feared I think, but not so respected.
The wealth of our nation is envied, but not the inequality that seems to go
with it. There was, to be sure, a worldwide wave of sympathy for the victims of
terrorism – and for those who were traveling abroad at the time, and Rick Steves
spoke about how touching and reassuring to feel that sympathy. But sympathy and respect aren’t the same, and a reading of the foreign press
will tell you that a great many people whom we would think would see things our
way didn’t really see them that way. While condemning the terrorism, on the one
hand, they were critical of the U.S.’s image in the world, on the other. What I want to speak about is this second front in this confrontation with
terrorism, the cultural and political front – and how we might respond. How can
we regain the faith and confidence of the world, or in a word, the respect? We don’t see ourselves having an empire, but much of the world does. The visible element of this new kind of empire is not the embassy, but the
franchise restaurant, the branch plant, the television show, the international
businessperson. Most countries of the world are nations as well as states, that is they are
far more ethnically and religiously homogeneous than we are. They think of
themselves not just as citizens, but as a people. They judge us as if we were a
people, and hold against us the bad behavior visible in the media. Its about respect. I’ve mentioned respect. Let me bring in to the picture a prophet of our
culture.... a secular prophet. One of the most perceptive, certainly the most
cited, and, I think, the least carefully read and understood, was a rather peculiar
Scotsman named Adam Smith. Often thought of as the advocate of greed and the invisible hand, he was in
fact a moralist with a very different message from the materialism that is
attributed to him. More than two hundred years ago, Adam Smith asked the
question, "What are the advantages which we propose by that great purpose of human life
which we call bettering our condition? And he answered his own question as scholars like to do. He said: "To be observed, to be attended to, to be taken notice of with sympathy,
complacency, and approbation, are all the advantages which we can propose to
derive from bettering our condition. "We desire both to be respectable and to be respected. We dread to be
contemptible and condemned." So how do we gain respect? Well Smith, now sounding a bit like Ecclesiastes,
concludes rather sorrowfully, "Upon coming into the world, we soon find that wisdom and virtue are by no means the sole objects of respect; nor vice and folly, of contempt.
"We frequently see the respectful attention of the world more strongly
directed towards the rich and the great, than towards the wise and the virtuous.
He goes on: "Two different roads are presented to us, equally leading to the attainment
of this so much desired object; the one, by the study of wisdom and the practice
of virtue; the other, by the acquisition of wealth and greatness. … " Smith is saying that not all stratagems contribute to the true wealth of a
nation, only those that do genuinely improve a people’s character and the
quality of relations in society. The market is a means of providing for the wise
and the foolish alike...as Enron and numerous dot coms would seem to illustrate. My theme today is that, of wealth and greatness, we have a great deal. But of wisdom and virtue, we are sorely in need of more. Now, there are
several views of how best to deal with this cultural and political front. One of the most influential among policy-makers comes from a political
scientist named Samuel Huntington at Harvard. Huntington has been involved as a
policy-maker off and on for the last 30 years. His argument is called the clash
of civilizations thesis – the idea is that world is dividing up into nine
civilizations, of which we are the most powerful, and the Islamic world is among
the most populous, impoverished, and belligerent. Why divide the world by civilizations, rather than, say, on political
grounds, between the democracies and the non-democracies? Or on economic grounds,
between the market societies, and the non-market societies. The reason for dividing it on the basis of civilizations, says Huntington,
is that civilizations provide reference points for identities. They are the broadest level of society with which people identify. Identity is about who we think we are. As Huntington points out, people will
fight and die for their identities.... even when it makes no economic sense
whatsoever. Huntington’s solution is to recommend a twofold course: He says that
on the international level, we should pursue a policy of multi-cultural
pluralism. We should just recognize that not everybody wants democracy and markets, and not everybody is going to agree about culture and
religion. That’s a matter of facing reality. He says that trying to re-make the world in our image is "false, immoral, and
dangerous." Civilizations and cultures differ intrinsically, so it is false to
think that every country can be a free market democracy on our model. To make
them become like us is immoral because it depends on imperialism. This leads to
wars which is dangerous. A multicultural world is unavoidable because global empire is impossible.
But, and here’s the second part of his argument, he says we need to gather our
forces at home. He thinks we should have a domestic program of mono-culturalism.
We should emphasize our roots in European civilization, and minimize the
claims of diversity and cultural pluralism at home. Huntington writes, and I
quote: "The principal responsibility of Western leaders, consequently, is not to
attempt to reshape other civilizations in the image of the West, which is beyond
their declining power, but to preserve, protect, and renew the unique qualities of Western civilization." But our identities are not only made up of our allegiance to our
civilization. When asked who we are, not many of us think of saying that we are
citizens of Western civilization, first off. In fact, I’ve spent the last 30 years or more studying the political
dimensions of identity formation. So what does the research show? The research
shows that someone who can tell you what they are competent to do, what
communities they are a part of, and who they are committed to has an identity.
Our identities are grounded in our competencies, our communities, and our
personal commitments. After studying the research on identity formation, I find identity relations
to be captured best by the image of a three-legged stool. To be firmly seated,
and grounded, in relations of competence, community, and personal commitments,
is to have an identity. Folks who have no answers to those questions of competency, community, and
commitment are often in trouble. A broken leg on this three-legged stool
requires leaning harder on the remaining two pins, or even one. We have displaced workers from the fields, factories, and forests whose
competencies are no longer needed. In this unforgiving world, that means they
haven’t the wherewithal to meet their personal commitments. So they have a community of militia-styled well-armed brothers who are very
sure of one thing – that they, and their kind, are better than them, and their
kind. They don’t have much use for democracy. Often that’s the story with militias and fanatics around the world. It
doesn’t excuse what they do to see them this way...there’s no excuse for
savagery and barbarism .... but it does help us understand what to try to do
about it. So if we open up the question of identity, and ask how we can gain respect
for our identities as Americans, I answer that we have to make known to the
world not just that we are part of a distinctive civilization, but that we are
people who work, as other people work, and who have personal commitments, as
other people have commitments, and who belong to communities of belief and
affiliation that take care of their own while looking out for others too. On the common ground of all three elements of identity, we can find some
international understanding. Indeed, when we have been well thought of in the
world, after the second World War, and again in the early 1960’s, it was when we
conveyed to the world that we are a deeply human culture, concerned to save the
victims of tyranny, to aid those in trouble, to fight against oppression, and to honor human rights. When people respect America, it is precisely because they see here a place
where people of differing communities can come together ...they can work
together and be friends and family together, and do so non-violently and
productively. As it is now, peoples in other parts of the world don’t see this picture so
often. What they do see is not so pretty. To take an example, the media carries
images of sex and violence to the world that lead people to regard us as
cultural barbarians. It isn’t always our own folks who bear the responsibility. The kind of sex
and violence that comes out of Rupert Murdoch’s Fox networks is perhaps the most
egregious, and he’s an Australian. The political cover for what Murdoch sells as
entertainment is provided by Fox News that puts out a steady stream of
nationalist opinion, but, to this observer, people who are proud of America
would not sell sex and violence on the public airwaves. To take another example of what the world sees, we perceive ourselves as
generous with foreign aid, what they see is that we give the lowest % of GDP for
foreign aid of any developed country in the world...just one-tenth of one
percent of our Gross Domestic Product. Denmark, the leader on this, gives ten
times that amount. And our contribution by that measure has dwindled to half of
what it was a decade ago. And a final example. We pride ourselves as advocates of free markets for the
world. Yet what others see is that, under this guise, their markets are opened
to us with our huge efficiencies of production, but our markets are closed to
them because of U.S. trade restrictions on textiles and agricultural products. We can address these issues of public credibility by doing something positive
on foreign aid, on debt relief for the poorest countries, by an honest effort on
global warming, and by re-building our relationship with the United Nations and
its key agencies. In the last month or so the Bush administration has proposed
the first significant increase in foreign aid in more than a decade, but even
with the increase, the U.S. will offer only .15% of GDP in foreign aid, far
behind the 1% that many feel is required to make a serious impact on world
problems. We have lost respect on these issues because our efforts have been seen as
obstructive, self-centered, and poorly informed. But the problems of securing
respect in the Islamic world is much tougher. When we turn to engaging the Islamic world, we have to
realize that there is a great range of governments in Islamic countries – from
democracies to theocracies to military dictatorships. The essence of the problem was stated by Thomas Friedman of the New York
Times: "Where Islam is imbedded in authoritarian societies it tends to become the
vehicle of angry protest, because religion and the mosque are the only places
people can organize against autocratic leaders. "And when those leaders are seen
as being propped up by America, America also becomes the target of Muslim rage" This is the story of Osama Bin Laden, the middle child of a huge and wealthy
Saudi family who, for his own reasons, was disturbed by the excesses of the
Saudi regime, and decided to make war against it – but realized that it was
invulnerable with the backing of the United States, and so declared war on us
instead. It’s the age-old story of a uni-polar world. The grievances of
protesters come to roost where the power is, and we are seen to have the power
whether we do or not. So how can we regain this respect? How can we reclaim the good opinion of
those great masses of public opinion around the world – because they constitute
the seas that terrorists swim in. Well, I think Huntington is dangerously in
error. We need to tell the same story at home as we tell abroad. Huntington’s
two stories program about mono-culturalism at home and multi-culturalism abroad
is a recipe for losing credibility yet further, and manifests itself in setting
up offices of strategic information in the Pentagon in order to lie to foreign
media. President Bush has wisely canceled that program. The fact is that America is not the Europe of the fatherlands, it is and
always has been something new, a nation of immigrants and natives alike. To say otherwise is to deny history. The American experience can be seen as
the path of the future, or perhaps the Canadian experience is even more so.
There’s is a multi-cultural society as well, and a notably peaceable one. The
difference with the U.S. is, as one sociologist put it, Canada is more of a
mosaic than a melting pot. Ethnic communities in Canada are more likely to have retained their cultural
cohesion because they developed from immigration directly to locations in Canada
from the old country. You can find relatively intact communities across Canada
from every nation in Europe, and much of the rest of the world as well. In America, more often the pattern was a flow that began at Ellis Island and
moved west with intersecting streams of differing ethnic origins meeting and
sometimes merging, and pushing aside the people who were already here. What the social science of identity tells you is that the most tolerant
people are paradoxically those who are secure about who they are. What this
means is that by denying the validity or the importance of someone’s cultural or
ethnic community, we often make them less tolerant rather than more tolerant.
The paradox is that a universal identity, that of, say, the citizen, seems to
depend upon a secure identity in some kind of particular community. The faith we
profess is a case in point. Christianity has brought together an enormous
variety of ethnicities, races, genders, and classes in a broad and, at its best,
a universalizing identity. When our church has been most successful, it has
preserved elements of people’s particular cultures and drawn upon them to enrich
the message of Christianity. When Christianity has committed its greatest sins is when it has been used to
put down and subjugate nations, races, and genders. Christianity has been used
to enforce the particular against the universal – a tension that can readily be
seen in the Bible itself. Jesus was the particular son of God, a Jew from
Gallilee, but he was also the universal savior of all who would be blessed. On the other hand, a Christianity that dissolves all of our particular
attributes of culture, race, gender, and class loses force and defies the
realities we all live with. So we should indeed sing America the beautiful. The answer is a Christianity that searches the meaning of each life, "one by
one by one" in the words of this church’s belief statement, to find those
elements of community, competence, and commitment that help us find
self-respect, and respect in the eyes of the world. So What Is To Be Done? 1. To paraphrase James Carville’s maxim in the 1992 Presidential campaign, its about respect, stupid. Respect is not
coerced, it is earned. In the scripture today from the book of John, you see
Jesus working to establish his entirely unique identity among his doubting
followers. Words were not enough, deeds were required. 2. Stop the government bashing – and focus on making it work. A country that has no confidence in its government is in poor shape to
organize its efforts to deal with a changing world. The market does many things,
but it does not organize a people, and cause them to deliberate together, and
work out their differences. 3. Let’s do real globalization. Globalization helps the developed world, but the poorest nations it may or may not help. We will be judged in the
world not by the quantity of new products we bring to the market, but by the ways that we improve the choices for the least favored
peoples....choices not just of commodities, but choices in education, in health
care, and in the elements that make for secure identities, because identity is the key to respect. Reaching down that pyramid to improve
choices is what we must do. And here I recommend, as Professors must do, a book
by a recent Nobel Prize Winner in Economics, Amartya Sen, entitled Development
as Freedom. We have to get serious about AIDS which has now killed 22 million people
worldwide....even Senator Jesse Helms now admits that doing nothing about was a
great mistake. Similarly health and education. 4. Multiply international contacts. An Arab diplomat who came to the US a few years ago took his family and
traveled around the country, and, upon returning, he was asked what surprised
him...He said, the number of churches. He didn’t know we were such a religious
people. If I could, I would bring the peoples of the world to Bellingham and show
them our churches, show them the good works of the Interfaith Coalition, show
them the vibrant civic life, and let them sample the variety of arts, styles,
cultures, ethnicities, and races that make this community so interesting and
distinctive. We should take the international contact programs that work, from
the smallest to the largest, and multiply the efforts at least as
enthusiastically as we build up the military. In the dark days of 1940, Winston Churchill held out a vision for the world.
He said, "The day will come when the joy-bells will ring again throughout
Europe, and when victorious nations, masters not only of their foes, but of
themselves, will plan and build in justice, in tradition and in freedom, a house
of many mansions where there shall be room for all." His generation did that. We need to continue that mission in our way in a new
millennium. Thank you. |