A Word from London

 

Herbert London

 

      Herbert London is John M. Olin Professor of Humanities at N.Y.U., President of the Hudson Institute, author of Decade of Denial, published by Lexington Books, and publisher of American Outlook. He can be reached at: www.herblondon.org.

The Family and the Nation

      If there is fragmentation in America, and alas this condition is undeniable, it is related to a divorce rate 30 percent higher than 1970, a marriage rate that has dropped 40 percent since 1970 and an illegitimacy rate that has skyrocketed from 5 percent in 1960 to 33 percent today.

      As dramatic is the number of couples repudiating marriage in favor of non-marital cohabitation. In the last two decades this non-marital status number has increased three times. Similarly, the number of female-headed households with children has risen from 3 million in 1970 to 8 million today.

      During the same three-decade period (1970 to 2000) married couples with children declined from 25.5 million to 25 million despite a 30 percent increase in the total population. Among children who live with married parents, only a little over half live with both biological parents; the rest reside with a remarried biological parent or a step-parent.

      No matter where one stands politically, the retreat from marriage and traditional family life cannot be treated as some innocuous shift in lifestyle. This condition is having a profound effect on American life even though the effects are infrequently commented on.

      From a Tocqevillian standpoint the family was one of those mediating institutions essential in transmitting cultural traditions and the habits of mind that result in good citizenship. If America is disunited it is due in no small part to the breakdown in marriage and the surrogate parents tending to children when mom is in the workplace.

      Rather than serve as a center for repose and contentment, the family has emerged as a battleground where divorced parents fight over child care payments and visitation rights. “Leave It To Beaver” has been converted into “War of the Roses.”

      Unfortunately the internal family battles often have a disintegrating influence on the nation. For example, males born to unmarried mothers were 1.7 times more likely to be a criminal offender and 2.1 times more likely to become a chronic offender than males born to married mothers. It is instructive that 87 percent of those incarcerated in American prisons either don’t know who their fathers are or have not had any contact with fathers in years.

      Curiously as the family institution is threatened, gender politics has become more extreme. Many radical feminists contend marriage is unnecessary and left wing social critics define the family in increasingly latitudinarian ways. It is not surprising that divorced women tend to be more inclined to accept radical feminist views than married counterparts, a clear line in the political sand.

      The retreat from family life also has its manifestation in economic life. Family disintegration is the gorge between rich and poor with rich people more likely to emerge from stable families and poor people tending to be the products of female-headed families. The so-called haves and have-nots is less a function of wealth than family life.

      Family decay is unquestionably the number one social problem in America. Yet many deny that reality arguing that newly won rights give women freedom they never had before and society should not move backwards. Moreover, children do not have a political voice. The self-fulfillment sought by mom or dad might have a deleterious effect on their kids. But in an age of immediate gratification the children are often lost in the calculus.

      In the present zeitgeist even healthy, stable families are affected by the social detritus around them. It is not as if family disunity can be contained. Illegitimacy makes the schools less effective and the streets less safe. The freedom for easy divorce often leads to the rupture of friendship and neighborhood cohesion. And the specter of family disunity encourages an unwillingness to commit and a fear of marriage and children.

      Family disunity is the microcosm of national disunity. As families face unraveling so too do the bonds that hold America together. If we are to restore one nation indivisible, united by common threads, then we need families intact, stable and united as well. We have gone down a path of licentious self-absorption for decades and have paid the price with societal flotsam and jetsam. As I see it the time has come to restore the family as the center of American life and recognize its value in keeping us together.

 

Anti-Americanism

      If one were to rely on recent newspaper accounts anti-American sentiment is on the rise worldwide, even within the United States. While some of this sentiment is related to the war in Iraq and allegations of U.S. imperial ambition, this feeling has deep philosophical and empirical roots.

      It is clear, or at least should be clear, that utopians apply a standard to American behavior that is neither realistic nor consistent with national achievements. Rather than apply a standard of “seeing is believing,” the utopians rely on “believing is seeing,” creating a Potemkin Village of the mind, a vast area of artificial conditions that invariably put the United States in a disadvantageous position and the country of choice, viz. Cuba or the former Soviet Union, in a favorable light.

      Many of the utopians are “red diaper children”—those raised by left wing parents or “red rebel children” —those who rejected the conventional ideas of their parents. In both instances, the United States is viewed as the embodiment of evil. Even virtues in America are converted into criticism. As one red rebel of the 1970s noted, “You don’t know what hell is like until you’ve live in Scarsdale.” The irony of this claim was lost on him.

      Similarly, another group of utopians as acolytes of Antonio Gramsci—the Italian Marxist philosopher—contend that individualism has created a nation of self-interested parties devoid of communitarian impulses. To a remarkable degree Gramscians marched through American institutions spreading a philosophy of group rights that resulted in the acceptance of affirmative action and other categorical ethnic and racial privilege. For Gramscians America is hopelessly flawed, a land of deep-seated, racial antipathy, despite concessions to racial groups in an effort to redress the wrongs of the past.

      Yet another group of utopians is composed of Pelagians who maintain a belief in innocence and a consequent faith in the perfectibility of man. These utopians cannot accept the Augustinian assumption of Original Sin which prompted a U.S. Constitution based on checks and balances and limits on possible acts of evil. For Pelagians, the United States promotes the worst in human behavior by assuming a belief in imperfectability. The gravamen of this argument is that the assumption of evil justifies evil institutions.

      Anti-Americanism, however, is not comprised only of idealists. Ramsey Clark and his army of bedraggled students are paid by foreign governments hostile to the United States to engage in rallies and demonstrations. It was hardly surprising that before the first U.S. bomb hit Baghdad, there were already hundreds of demonstrators in Union Square Park and the Washington Mall with placards denouncing the United States as the Evil Empire. Answer—Act Now to Stop War and End Racism—is merely one of several professional anti-American organizations poised to express its antipathy to national policies and the nation itself.

      Of course the major source of anti-American hostility can be found abroad. The last, best hope for mankind, the model for constitutional republics, has been converted into a caricature by west Europeans who reflexively detest any action taken by the United States. Remarkably the French accuse Americans of arrogance. But what these detractors appear to be saying is that they are dismayed by U.S. military superiority and the role history has granted it as the balance wheel in international affairs.

      When the German and French refer derisively to America’s Anglo-Saxon capitalism, they are criticizing free market decisions that they do not countenance. In many surveys Europeans are critical of U.S. labor practices because cradle-to-grave security is not provided. On the other hand, west European unemployment is routinely twice as high as the U.S. and unfunded pension liability of gargantuan proportions has already had a dampening effect on Europe’s economy.

      Perhaps the leading European gripe with the U.S. is its alleged unilateralism, a belief that the U.S. hasn’t regard for any policies but its own. The classic illustration is the U.S. rejection of the Kyoto Accord. What many European critics of the U.S. overlook is that this is a weak treaty that does not include the world’s two most populous nations, India and China, and was widely seen in many European capitals as an effort to stifle Western industrialization. But this reality doesn’t matter for those intent on using the U.S. position on the treaty as a manifestation of its unilateralism (read: selfishness and insularity).

      Needless to say, not all criticism of the U.S. is misdirected. In response to humanitarian concerns, American intervention may appear as overreaching. Anti-globalists voice concern about the spread and homogenization of multi-national corporations. And then there are those critics who see—often with justification—the spread of a degraded American culture in the form of Hollywood films and television programming. The promotion of sexual promiscuity is often a source of criticism in countries offended by this unwanted cultural invasion.

      While these critics have legitimate reasons for their position, they often overlook the fact that what they object to is merely one dimension of American life or, in many instances, the negative effect of a positive state. For example, pornography is undoubtedly reprehensible, but it is the irresponsible side of open expression. In some cases, the legitimate concern is emphasized without contextual explanation. After all, the U.S. is an imperfect nation, but the imperfections could well be offset by national achievements, of which there are many. That obvious point is often overlooked by some whose goal is undermining America’s stature.

      Clearly anti-Americanism exists, but it is glibly suggested by media mavens that it is “on the rise.” I’m not persuaded that is accurate either in the United States or in Europe.

      In the wake of 9/l1 patriotism within the United States appears to be at an unprecedentedly high level. Surely homegrown utopians haven’t disappeared as attendance at most American university lectures will confirm. But it is also the case that respect for military personnel, as representatives of the nation’s will, has reached a high point in this post-Vietnam War period, something the anti-war activists of the 1970s couldn’t have predicted.

      I have also observed that western European attitudes, which receive the most attention in the United States, are unlike the views of central Europeans in Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic where pro-American opinion dominates. In Asia, American prestige remains undiminished. The U.S. is still the model for many nation’s emerging from the throes of authoritarian regimes and America’s military strength is considered the only counterweight to potential Chinese adventurism.

      Paul Valery once noted, “the future isn’t what it used to be.” Indeed that is true in ways Valery could not have envisioned. The U.S. was, and in my opinion still is, the great hope for humanity, but that could change. U.S. self-confidence could decline; anti-American sentiment might engulf the globe. Should these conditions emerge the future would look different from its present posture.

      But if that were to occur, the world would be proscribed. Faith as the harbinger for change would evanesce and the efflorescence of human ambition would ultimately decline.

      As I see it the idea of America resides in the heart of mankind beating continuously with the spirit of hope and promise over the horizon. If the United States were ever to disappear, it would have to be reinvented as the best prospect for the expression of the human spirit.

Pax Americana vs. Pax Britannica

      In the 19th century British prime ministers used their influence to create a series of nation states in the Middle East and elsewhere. The designated tribal leaders became heads of state through guile, extortion, favoritism and British planning. In most instances the British governments asked who was most capable of ushering in stability in areas congenitally chaotic and secondly, who was best prepared to act in behalf of British interests.

      In retrospect some of these decisions seem arbitrary, even foolhardy. These states often ignored tribal differences, having been carved out of a geography only partially comprehended by British colonialists. The historian David Fromkin called this phenomenon “a line drawn on an empty map by a British civil servant.” In time these nation states took on a life of their own unified by history and experience. But their fragile nature didn’t evanesce.

      Pax Britannica meant finding and supporting local magistrates and political leaders, even tyrants, who would do the bidding of British governments. This wasn’t a bad deal for indigenous populations since the British rule of law introduced stability these areas rarely enjoyed. British realpolitik didn’t rule out democratic impulses; this condition was simply irrelevant in the search for control. Once the British dismantled their empire the fragility, kept in abeyance with their rule, came to the fore.

      While there are many who have compared British dominance in the 19th century to the role of the United States in international affairs today, the comparison is in many ways invalid. Pax Americana is a reluctant expression of national power based on an anti-terrorist campaign after 9/11. If there is an American imperium (a somewhat inaccurate proposition), it is based on voluntary acceptance of American principles, what I have called imperium by invitation.

      Those analysts who contend U.S. imperialism is like British imperialism, except that Americans are self-conscious about their global role, contend Americans should simply accept the role history has imposed on it. Yet is should be clear even though it isn’t that the U.S. hasn’t any desire to maintain a far-flung empire. Rather than support tyrants who could stabilize states in transition, President Bush has argued for democratic institutions and independence.

      In both Afghanistan and Iraq the American policy is designed to transfer authority to local governments representing the consent of the governed. The president has even expressed some impatience with the pace of transfer. One might contend that U.S. governmental impatience could have an adverse effect on local conditions; yet that is a trade-off the Bush administration is willing to accept.

      Moreover, rather than organize institutions in order to promote stability which, of course, remains a goal, the U.S. authority wants to promote elements of democracy, which can be messy and unsettling, particularly in nations without any experience in this form of government.

      The Bush strategic position is predicated on the belief that the establishment of democracies will have a spillover effect on the tyrannies that surround them. Bush strategists argue that democracy could serve as a model to be emulated, a domino effect that works in favor of American interests.

      Notwithstanding pockets of cynicism here and abroad over this strategic stance, it does not resemble Pax Britannica. Some detractors suggest democracy cannot be introduced in nation states without a democratic tradition, but the United States did introduce democracy in Japan immediately after World War II and many believe it is part of our national mission to cultivate this form of government in as many nations as possible.

      Historians wedded to realpolitik invariably regard the present stance of the Bush team as naïve. However, the U.S. is a nation of optimists. It was an optimist who told the Soviets to “tear down this Wall” and it was an optimist who said, “Damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead.” Now we have a president who has expressed faith in the power of the people’s will.

      This isn’t a British view. Whatever success Pax Britannica had, it doesn’t resemble the American ethos. Many Europeans don’t comprehend our outlook. And even some Americans are perplexed; but in reality Pax Americana is consistent with United States history.

      What we don’t know is how successful this strategy will prove to be. Time will tell, but I, for one, think the president has engaged the future in a gamble of historic majesty that might be the most telling strategic development of the new century.

Sharon Defines New Israeli-Palestinian Relations

      I sat at the Herzliya conference on December 18 transfixed by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s speech about the future of Israel. The speech had a level of intentional ambiguity, but there wasn’t any question about the prime minister’s commitment to the Bush promoted roadmap. What was most notable about the statement was Sharon’s contention that Israel will move unilaterally to separate Jewish and Arab populations in the West Bank whether or not the negotiations move forward.

      This is unquestionably a new stance for Israel. Prime Minister Sharon is saying in effect that since he does not have a Palestinian partner with whom to negotiate he will take whatever unilateral steps are necessary to provide security for his people. If the Palestinian leadership, i.e. Arafat, is sincere about negotiating, he will be flexible. But if it will not negotiate, he will protect Israel behind a wall and disengage from areas too difficult and too expensive to defend.

      As a first gesture of good will, Sharon agreed to reduce curfews and roadblocks that impede Palestinians’ everyday movement. Even more significant is his willingness to dismantle the illegal settlements that have sprung up on the hillsides of the West Bank in recent years.

      There is little doubt Sharon is sending a message to both Arafat and President Bush. He is telling Arafat that this may be his last opportunity to engage in serious negotiation that leads to a fully recognized Palestinian state. Should negotiations be rejected, Israel will simply impose the conditions of a settlement on the Palestinians. In essence, Sharon is saying let us get some business done or let us separate permanently.

      To President Bush, Sharon is saying that Israel is attempting confidence-building measures which the roadmap stages encourage. Sharon is telling the U.S. administration that he will remain committed to the roadmap as long as reciprocal measures are realized. If, however, reciprocation doesn’t occur and negotiations falter, he has a plan which will be introduced whether the Palestinians like it or not.

      My companion at the dinner where Sharon spoke, the president of Bar Ilan University, said “Sharon never makes a statement he doesn’t believe.” The fact that he is willing to dismantle some settlements is more noteworthy than many analysts think. First, it is notable because this will be a unilateral gesture unrelated to negotiations. And second, it is notable because Sharon is considered the catalyst for settlement building in the first place.

 

      Those at the Herzliya conference were generally impressed with the Sharon speech. Very few conference respondents believe Ahmed Qurei, the new Palestinian prime minister, will last. He is a mere puppet to the ventriloquist Arafat and Sharon will not accept Arafat as a negotiating partner. As a consequence, Israel needs a plan for unilateral action and Sharon offered the contours of this plan.

      From the Palestinian perspective, the speech offers one concession that is continually demanded: the withdrawal of the Israeli army to new security zones. Presumably, Arafat would not countenance negotiations until Israeli forces withdrew from “occupied territory.” Well at least part of this demand has been or will soon be realized.

      Should the Palestinian leadership remain committed to terror as a threat, Sharon intends to draw the border between Israel and Palestinian territory on his terms, terms that do not include a Palestinian state.

      It is instructive that the audience for this speech surely included Bush and Arafat, but it also included a portion of the Israeli population inclined to support the Geneva Accords. Sharon made specific reference to those who are impatient with formal diplomacy. He could have, but didn’t, make reference to those who arrogate to themselves negotiating authority even though they are not representatives of the government or even elected officials.

      In a nation where consensus is not easily achieved, the Sharon speech was masterful. It struck all the right chords and left his detractors guessing about the next steps. Here is the value of strategic ambiguity.

      Of course, the next steps are dependent on what the Palestinian leadership decides to do. Those who contend that Sharon is intractable will be obliged to reconsider their stance. Those who wonder what Israel will do should terrorism persist, must now consider a fortress state that will offer security for Israelis. Keep in mind that the wall in Israel is designed to keep terrorists out; it is not a Berlin Wall designed to keep people from fleeing the embrace of Communism.

      Prime Minister Sharon delivered his speech with total confidence. He seemed to be a man possessed by the righteousness of his strategy. As I watched him and listened intently, there is little doubt this is a defining moment in Israeli and Palestinian relations. I await the “next steps” with great anticipation.

The Ghost in Israel

      There is a ghost that haunts Israel. It is a ghost that first appeared 55 years ago when this new nation was founded, but it still speaks to the present generation. It speaks with the voice of social democracy and it utters sibilant sounds of kibbutzim, egalitarianism, communitarianism and social solidarity. This is the voice of a utopianism that gave birth to Israel.

      Yet despite its influential role in the past—a matter of some dispute I might add the social democratic ghost is now a significant impediment to an Israel that desperately needs economic growth to survive.

      Here is the rub: So wedded to entrenched welfare and union policies is this remarkable nation that it spends more than it can afford keeping taxes high, government large and economic incentives in abeyance.

      At the conference in Herzliya I attended recently this policy schism quickly came to the fore. Bibi Netanyahu, the Minister of Finance, issued a policy statement in which he referred to the need to lower taxes and reduce regulations so that a congenial environment for business might flourish. While this statement struck me as incontrovertible, he was criticized by the leader of the social workers’ association who said under this plan benefits to the elderly will be reduced and unemployment assistance would evanesce.

      Mr. Netanyahu noted that a “rising tide would lift all boats” with more wealth available for the poor and needy. It was a statement that Jack Kemp might well have embraced. But it did not resonate with this audience.

      That evening the eminent scholar Shlomo Avineri proceeded to criticize Netanyahu as well. “Should we engage in an experiment that severs the social contract?” he asked plaintively. Professor Avineri took this audience for a trip down memory lane recounting the dreams of Ben Gurion and the founders with favorable reference to the ties that bound Jews to this homeland. “We have lost what we had in the past,” he lamented. His is the quintessential voice of the social democrat rising, with dreams of communal unity and omitting economic realities.

      However, this vision—whatever one thinks of this romanticized memory—is not consistent with the dictates of a free market and financial incentives. It holds back Israel like Gulliver bound and tethered. It is the ghost in the nation, a form of soft bolshevism now filtered over time into romantic history. Remarkably, a sizable portion of the country cannot let go of it.

      Israel, notwithstanding its small size and only 6 million people, can be a technical and scientific superpower. It already has its own version of Silicon Valley in the outskirts of Tel Aviv. It has a host of Nobel Prize winners. The Weitzman Institute is one of the great scientific centers in the world. Jews excel in technical, medical and legal issues. And considering its limited size, it has more pharmaceutical patents per capita than any nation in the world.

      Having said this, it is also true that Histadrut—the labor council—is ensconced in government affairs. The welfare system is widely exploited. In fact, a common joke in Israel involves a migrant who meets his friend in Jerusalem and asks “How are you doing?” “Not so well,” he replies, “I’m still working.” No wonder the system is straining at the seams.

      Take this anachronistic socialist system and add to it security demands in Israel’s constant fight against terrorism; what you get is a nation deeply in debt. Israel must consider alternatives. To his credit, this is precisely what Mr. Netanyahu has in mind. The question is whether the Minister has the persistence to finally bury the ghost.

      Perhaps he should demystify the past. The conditions for building a nation are different from the conditions that will sustain it. If Israel could unleash its creative energy from the shackles of socialist institutions, it would unquestionably be one of the economic miracles on earth. But this is a big “if.”

      At the moment the fog of nostalgia holds the public’s attention. There is widespread dissatisfaction with the economic environment, but most conventional polls call for high taxes and even more stringent regulations. Israel has not yet imbibed the Laffer Curve or come to the realization that lower taxes might generate higher government revenue.

      Rene Descartes once described “the ghost in the machine,” that mystical force that gives machines an anthropomorphic quality. Alas, the Israeli ghost has the same quality. It speaks through politicians; it mesmerizes the public and it dominates the history of the founding. As I see it, the time has come to send the ghost away. Many will weep with his departure, but they will be living better and earning more without him.

Dumb, Dumber and “Dumberest”

      America is going through a revolution in “dumbing down.” There is scarcely an idiocy that doesn’t get public attention. Paris Hilton puts her marginal I.Q. on display for public delectation. Anna Nicole Smith displays her physical endowments and mental deficiency for television audiences who expect her to express incoherent commentary.

      Of course idiocy is not new; even public idiocy had its place, as the Three Stooges demonstrate. What sets this current dumbness craze apart from the past is that it is now a regular feature of television viewing. Being dumb is a television staple.

      Jay Leno invites idiots to offer statements on current events. When asked about arms control treaties, these dumb and dumber candidates say things such as “people should be restrained from swinging their arms in public.” Recently Leno asked two people to travel to an unknown destination. When they arrived in Seattle, they were asked to describe where they might be. Upon seeing the Needle from the World’s Fair, they said “this is a place where rockets are launched.”

      After being told they were in Washington, the young lady wanted to know where the Capitol was located. Her companion seemed mystified about the experience. He maintained that the state was named Washington because this is “where George cut down the apple tree.” When told Washington cut down a cherry tree, he wanted to know if that tree was also cut down in Washington.

      There was simply no way to extricate these brainless characters from their mental fog. Every answer led to new excursions in silliness. Mercifully, these dupes didn’t have any idea they were the butt of Leno’s routine. My guess is they were probably happy to be on television. One might call it ten minutes of infamy.

      Clearly smart folks occasionally appear on “Jeopardy” and infrequently some commentator makes an illuminating point on cable TV. But these examples are increasingly the exception. It might well be asked why this should be the case. Whatever happened to the “Quiz Kids” who in my youth were widely admired? And when did “dumb” become chic?

      As I see it radical egalitarianism fostered the view that every opinion has validity. To even suggest that some opinions are stupid is to be charged with elitism, a searing condemnation. Opinions are not dumb; they are simply different. In fact, the word “dumb” has entered a condition of desuetude.

      It is also true that in an affluent society there is room for everything, even idiocy. Leno’s useful dupes now populate university campuses mouthing clichés about freedom in Third World governments that would never countenance any form of disagreement.

      From scientists at MIT who speak an arcane language of quarks to Valley Girls who speak in the shorthand of breathless fools, evidence for degradation as well as elevation exist. America is a nation of every paradox the mind can conjure.

      However, it is also true that dumb and dumber are gaining ground; one might even say dumb is chic. There were always eggheads and nerds who were the source of ridicule. But at the same time, idiocy was generally not admired. Surely one wasn’t given television time for being dumb; one was given a program for acting dumb.

      Reality TV and the excesses of mass entertainment have converted semiserious programming into nonsense. The more nonsensical the better. Rather than act, the actors are obliged to be themselves. If you can find a candidate whose brain has been fried by drugs (pace: Ozzy Osbourne) put a camera and mike in his face and have him rant.

      It is hard to know exactly when this trend began, but I’m confident we are now in its full efflorescence. Jay Leno has his own version of the Quiz Kids. Three contestants see who can offer the most stupid answers for simple questions. The winner, of course, is the one with the fewest correct responses.

      Even the Miss America contest has gone down this path. Finalists are asked questions about history and current affairs. Clearly they strive to get the right answers and are disappointed when they are wrong; yet remarkably this supposedly intelligent group invariably knows very little. Is this designed to make viewers who know very little feel better about themselves?

      Spoiled kids of the Paris Hilton variety who have money to burn know Versace, but not Descartes. “Oh, isn’t that a dessert?” This rich society can live with them, I guess. Whether we prosper with them is another question. These moral vacuums spread chaos wherever they go, albeit unbeknownst to them. Life is a bowl of cherries for Paris, but ask the folks in Altus, Arkansas (where her program “The Simple Life” was made) what they think and the locals will tell you this airhead left a literal and figurative mess behind her.

      As I see it, dumb and dumber TV is leaving a mess behind as well. If the brain needs exercise to avoid atrophying, this latest television fare is on its way to producing a generation of mental paralytics. How I yearn for the days of “The Answer Man.”

      Just as one needs to pass a drivers’ test to get a license, I propose that people who appear on TV should pass a knowledge test. I realize some will describe this proposal as hopelessly elitist, but it sure beats mindless and stupid television programming—at least that’s one man’s opinion.     Ω

      “Remember democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” —John Adams, in a letter to John Taylor, April 15, 1814.