Radical Critique
Late in life, George Kennan speculated that the United States had simply got too big to be a functioning democracy and a responsible international actor. To preserve the Republic, the Republic would have to be destroyed, broken up into ten to twelve smaller states. Suppose Bacevich became convinced of something similar – what on earth would he do with such knowledge? No one would call Kennan “anti-American” – he was profoundly patriotic, greatly in love with and greatly loyal to his country. But his was not, ultimately, a critique of this or that policy of the American government – it was a radical critique of America itself. And once you are critiquing the very nature of your country, what’s the practical difference between an argument from love and an argument from hate if both arguments end in a similar conclusion? ~Noah Millman
This mixes together a few things that should be kept distinct. If Kennan was profoundly patriotic, greatly in love with and greatly loyal to his country, does it follow that he should not embark on a radical critique of the polity that existed at the present time? Might it not be that profound patriotism, great love and great loyalty to country demand such a radical critique of polity? I said the other day that Kennan was something of an exile in his own country, a position with which I sympathize more and more all the time, and I have remarked before on the striking similarities between Kennan and Solzhenitsyn, who were ironically at odds over questions of policy by the time Solzhenitsyn had come to be an exile in this country. No one really doubted that Solzhenitsyn loved his country and desired something very different from those who hated his country, and indeed his witness against the evils of the Soviet regime stemmed from his love of country. There is a vast practical difference between those who desire renovation and devastation.
In a less extreme way, Kennan’s patriotism and his common-sense recognition of what Montesqieu and Antifederalists knew over two centuries ago–that an extended republic cannot survive as a genuine republic–required him to question the status quo of a continental nation-state that had grown too large for the kind of self-government that had once been ours. This is not a “critique of America itself,” but a critique of a kind of polity, one that is actually far removed from much of the American experience. “America itself” is different from and more than its polity. The nature of America is not in its government, or at least not entirely or primarily in its government. Indeed, “America itself” contains the elements of many different Americas that found greater expression in a more genuinely federalist system, and which might once again find full expression in a more decentralized political order. It is natural that regimes would want to define loyalty to country as disloyalty, because loyalty to country threatens the regime’s monopoly on loyalty, but it is not required that we go along with it.
I am doubful that no one would call Kennan anti-American. Had he not been an important public figure, had his name not been tied to containment doctrine, I am not so sure that Kennan would have been protected against such invective during his lifetime. Indeed, I am not absolutely certain that no one ever flung such a label at him on account of his opposition to Vietnam or other foreign adventures. The views Kennan professed over the course of his mature life would have assuredly qualified him for the label anti-American in the minds of a great many people. That would not have made it so, but it should cause us to think very seriously about the difference between loyalty to America and the idolatry that is Americanism.
I think you’re somewhat punting the question here, Daniel. If we accept that “patriotism,” as love-of-country, is something which can be separated from that country’s government, can’t that logic lead to treachery in the name of patriotism, and eventually the meaningless of the term itself?
Take the example of 20th-century Russia, which went through three different styles of government. A conservative Tsarist, an early democratic reformer, a communist revolutionary, a White guerrilla, a Great Patriotic War soldier turned gulag guard, a Great Patriotic War soldier turned gulag prisoner, a hardline communist, a demoncratic reformer, a Yeltsin supporting soldier who shells the Parliamentary building, the members of that Parliament, or the family that simply tried to survive all those things – all of these people may have been motivated by a love of Russia. And maybe they killed each other over it.
I suspect it has something to do with the desire to make “patriotic” into a significant virtue. But “patriotism” as a loyalty to ideals or geography or culture or demographics, without the necessity of government, seems odd.
But “patriotism†as a loyalty to ideals or geography or culture or demographics, without the necessity of government, seems odd.
Agreed. This “patriotism” that Larison describes here is more like regionalism or localism or whathaveyou; if I can call a love of ones immediate physical and cultural surroundings “localism.” I’m not saying that this a bad thing, but I do agree that the terminology here is getting confused. That Kennan belived in the insustainability of the US as a large, arguably multi-national state, and that the desirable response was Balkanization, is not “patriotism,” but rather a response to the question of how to best manage the situation. People that called for the dissolution of the USSR into its constituent republics were probably not patriots, but they definately had the(ir) countr(y’s|ies) best interests in mind.
While I can envision a “nationalism” which celebrates ideals, geography, culture and demographics sans government, such a nationalism would be unpleasant to say the least.
[...] is a compelling start of a conversation, I see, between Daniel Larison and Noah Millman. Noah began in reaction to Andrew Bacevich’s latest introduction to a book. [...]
I’m very sympathetic to much of what you say here, Daniel, but I think your critics have a point. Bill Kauffman, for instance, has written (or did he just tell me? No, I think he’s written it) that he finds himself much more sympathetic to split-state movements than to those who want to break up the US of A; I take it that part of what’s going on here is that those in the latter group will e.g. refuse to salute the flag, and so on, but surely we can’t dismiss the idea that breaking up the US would mean, well, breaking up the US – there wouldn’t be a decentralized political order, but rather a disparate set of them.
See what comes of adhering to a “proposition nation” rather than the community of those dead, living, and as yet unborn.
I love the rocks, rills, founding fathers, snake-oil salesmen, ad-men, banjo-pickers, poets, hobos, winos and the rest–the Seventeenth Amendment, say, not so much. And none of them uncritically.
Pour me a beer.
Obviously Daniel and some of hjis commenters are defining patriotism very differently. I’m no expert on the subject, but from what I’ve read it seems that Daniel’s use of the term is closer to the deepest historical usage of the term.
Though I suppose a cynic could say that, even divorced from our current government, and even the nation state, our current patris – land, culkture, people – is so far divorced from what it once was that even there Daniel’s loyalty is to a “country” that no longer exists.
By what logic does Kennan stop at “10 to 12″ states? Where does decentralization stop, and why?
“By what logic does Kennan stop at “10 to 12″ states? Where does decentralization stop, and why?”
Speaking for myself (not Kennan), because a lot of the arguments made by the Federalist 200+ years ago make sense for a 13 state confederation, but make much less sense for a 50 state confederation?
Most indivual states would not be viable* as independant nations. But one could certainly see 10-12 multi-state conglomerations as being viable.
*viable in the sense of thriving as independant polities.
One point that I don’t think Millman (and Daniel too) gives enough consideration for is the essential contingency of the American “Empire”. In particular, that the American “Empire” has very little formal control over territory but tremendous influence because the other nations, by their actions, grant the US that influence.
As a function of having a strong culture, economy and military, when various problems occur people ask and expect the US to intervene because other nations are not willing or able to act outside of their own parochial interest.
This IMO is the real cause of all the complaints wrt American “hegemony” etc., and this would not be solved by some sort of secession/breakup.
the essential contingency of the American “Empireâ€.
Reminds me of the old saw that Britain acquired its empire in a fit of absence of mind.
A solid argument for breaking up the U.S. is that the federal government can now amass enough resources to wage costly imperial adventures with little risk to the elite which runs the Empire.
Once upon a time, it was common for kings to die in battle. The U.S. elite doesn’t even risk their pensions when they commit others’
lives and resources to battle.
I think a much better notion than “breaking up the country” would be to simply do what we can to restore both political and economic control to local levels. This does not, in my mind, mean giving up on the federal government, only redefining its role. Nor does it mean undoing all big corporations, but it would require undoing some of the unfair anti-competitive practices those corporations and institutions now enjoy.
A radical critique does not always require radical measures. Nor does a vision of a more decentralized political order require a return to the past. It just requires creative thinking, and to some degree hammering out the compromise necessary to achieve both autonomy and, because we are a liberal society, equality. Autonomy will often result in higher equality, though there are certainly times when this is not the case – the corrupt local government; the local monopoly; the prejudiced local laws. So it becomes a matter of balance, I think, which is really not so radical at all.
The problem with Kennan’s analysis is that it looks too much like that of every old guy who sees the world of his youth crumbling before his eyes. He imagines that the world of his youth must somehow be made eternal, and he thinks the best outcome for the world is one that preserves that world. Hence, it makes a narrow kind of logic to break the US up into 10-12 states, in order to preserve that regional identity he so prized from his youth. The problem is, Kennan and his peers are all dead, and the rest of us grew up in a very different world, and we don’t have the same longing he does for the past (well, except for Daniel and a few others). Most of the country is quite fine with this megastate empire we call the modern US, and those who are rumbling for secession are mostly just loons overreacting to losing the last few elections, let’s be honest. If George Bush were still President, there’d be no talk of secession from these people, regardless of what his spending plans were.
In a science-fictiony, medieval nostalgic kind of way, I can understand the desire for the United States to break up into more human sized pieces. And maybe in a couple of hundred years it will. But in our lifetime, this is just a fantasy. The best we can probably hope for is a better regulated economic sphere, but this will only increase the role of the federal government, not decrease it. We are heading more and more towards the European social=democrat model, just more free-wheeling in our own American way.
Also, it’s important to recognize that American patriotism is more a kind of quasi-religion, in that it is patriotism not merely to a people, but to an idea, an ideal, of how all people should be, of how everyone could be, and maybe has to be. As I’ve said, it’s more similar to Christianity in that respect than ordinary “pagan” local patriotism. That doesn’t mean it can’t hold together. As you might notice, Christianity has held together quite will for a very long time, despite the fact that it is not a local, regional religion, but is devoted to a central universal symbol and source. Christianity is federalism as religion.