Fresh Air

 

Upon watching Shakespeare's play, A Winter's Tale, for the first time, I felt stories about Kings and Queens were strangely irrelevant. This play is not one of Shakespeare's best, as its details are muddled in a number of ways, but that is not what motivated my feeling. When I was a young man - 50 years ago - such characters seemed more natural. We were much nearer the aristocrats and social relations Shakespeare represents in the immediate post World War II period than we are today. I am impressed with the degree to which all of us - even the most insightful - are persons of our time.

I found it difficult to feel the impact of Shakespeare's play, not because of bad acting, but because the situation seemed too strange. I understood the plot and the nature of the characters, but I did not feel with them. I think my lack of empathy signifies a movement beyond the sort of society in which those conditions are meaningful. It is a bit of an exaggeration, but suggests my alienation, that I looked upon the plight of Shakespeare's characters as I would the antics of pets.

I am impressed by the degree to which the Ancien Regime was finally swept away in the convulsions of the early 20^th century. I asked myself this question: how does one imagine social relations truly different from those of our everyday experience? I don't have the answer, as it does seem a difficult task. We come closest to it in anthropology, when we study other cultures and societies dispassionately. The same problem is at the heart of the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI), for we must assume how ETs relate to others in order to find them. This shows we are deeply buried in our own programming.

On the way home, we were treated by NPR to yet another of the recent spate of interviews of Prof. Francis Fukuyama. He has written another book with another long title in which he seems to retract his previous thesis, that the end of History is "liberal democracy" (as he defines it). The End of History and The Last Man was taken as a fundamental statement of American Neo-Conservativism. More importantly, Prof. Fukuyama was an enthusiastic supporter of Bandit policies and the Conquest of Iraq. Sometime in the last year or two, Prof. Fukuyama had a change of heart, and now thinks the Conquest a mistake. That revised opinion was certainly not welcomed by Conservatives, who have since  lambasted Fukuyama. It was not welcomed by Liberals, who detect either insincerity or stupidity, for who could not foresee what was coming in Iraq? Prof. Fukuyama defends himself against the latter charge, saying it was a good thing to have overthrown Saddam Hussein. Moreover, the Conquest would have been justified had there been Weapons of Mass Destruction. 'How could anyone have known the Bandit Administration was misleading the people?' he asks. Anyway, all that is water under the bridge, for, he said, the American people are not Imperialists, so are unable to sustain a lengthy foreign campaign.

This last statement - that Americans are not Imperialists - came as a total surprise to me, since I think the dominant culture is otherwise. It was particularly wrenching, having just watched (the night before) the History Channel's recounting of the English settlers' attempted (nearly successful) genocide of the Pequot Indians in New England. A living representative of the Pequot tribe said relations between the white men and Indians might have been better, had the English not brought with them their Racism and Tribalism, their peculiar need to dominate everyone else, their drive to own property exclusively, and their willingness to exterminate all those who actively or passively oppose them. That latter day Indian thought that most European settlers in America have been racists and Imperialists since Jamestown and Plymouth Rock, an accusation I support. I am at a loss to explain the occurrence of Iraq, and Vietnam before that, if Americans are not Imperialists. As one caller (to the Fukuyama interview) said, American troops are in 120 countries and have been stationed almost everywhere at one time or another since World War II.

To measure Americans by the Duck Comparison Test, we have to form a reference group. Suppose we put Alexander's Macedonians, Caesar's Romans and Britannia's subjects in the reference group. Do Americans "look like" the reference or not? If they do, they're Imperialists.

At the end of the day, founding neo-con and fmr. Defense Dep't advisor Richard Perle appeared on PBS' News Hour.  He declared the latest neo-con Party Line: The Administration has no plans to attack Iran.

This morning, Sec. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld declared media reports of U.S. preparations to attack Iran were lunacy. Sec. Rumsfeld blamed the press for creating rumors of U.S. plans. He ignored the fact that the Bandit had repeatedly said the U.S. would not let Iran obtain nuclear weapons. The Bandit said many times the U.S. would use military force against Iran, if required.

Both Perle and Rumsfeld aver the Administration is fully engaged with Iran diplomatically. The nuclear proliferation problems associated with the Iranian nuclear program will be resolved peacefully, they say. Neither mention the fact that a long term neo-con goal, to which they have at times openly subscribed, has been the overthrow of the Syrian Assad dictatorship and the Iranian Islamic government.

We have their words on it. This word, that word, the other word ...