Freedom’s Underside, Pt. III
by JL Wall
E.D. Kain, on Iraq:
But that should call in to question why we are so dependent on oil to begin with, and beyond that, why we as a culture have shifted so many of our priorities to a belief in unending growth that can and should be enforced by an omnipotent military.
The problem with “the American Way Of Life is not on the table” “is not up for compromise” or some other such better phrasing that’s escaping me this morning doesn’t lie in a devotion to liberty. But we haven’t defined The American Way Of Life as involving, to a primary degree, devotion to liberty, but to growth, the clearing of the economic elbow room in which we will then practice our liberty. But when “growth” and “expansion” are viewed as at least as essential as liberty, when reconsidering “unending growth” is a reconsideration of The American Way Of Life even if such growth is not sustainable (except, perhaps, by force — eh, what I mean is anangkê, not bîos or hybris), then we ourselves are compelled to do the compelling.
Which is to say: anangkê esmen — we are compelled — we are required — we are constrained to this course by our choice of this course. We clear space, ostensibly in which to grow and expand a liberty, but in reality because the past and present benefits have grown comfortable: we haven’t seen the cost, the underside; or if we have, we are less terrified by them than the the unknown nature of a different life.
And we see liberties more essential to liberty constrained, restricted, deemed inessential because they interfere with the growth which is supposed to to allow them to flourish. Though meant as a force to expand liberty, unrestrained and unending growth (or at least the philosophy thereof) are forces of constraint on our ability to live in liberty. Yesterday there was a girl on campus shouting very loudly that she had free copies of the Constitution for anyone who wanted them — presumably (I could be wrong) as part of those tea-party-things I’ve heard about. I was tempted to tell her it was better late than never she’d discovered the document.
Filed under: civil liberties, economics, government/law, philosophy, war
I take the traditionalist critique of unbridled capitalism pretty seriously, but it doesn’t follow that economic growth (always and inevitably) = counterproductive foreign interventions. Some laissez-faire ideologues also support aggressive war; others, however, are much less enthusiastic. Positing a causal relationship between two things takes more than a vague connection between acquiring resources and invading foreign countries.
I’m not dismissing your argument out of hand (Bacevich’s recent book, for example, does a pretty thorough job of teasing out a few similar parallels), but I think there’s more to Iraq than a growth-oriented mindset.
A big part of the problem with American foreign policy, looking into the future, is that such a small percentage of Americans are directly involved in our various war efforts. A staggering 40% of Americans were directly involved in the war effort for World War II. For the war in Iraq, it’s less than one half of one percent. That’s even more important when considering the family and friends and communities; it simply wasn’t possible to directly feel the effects of World War II, as an American. It is disturbingly easy for that to be the case in the Iraq war.
Now, as someone who would like to shrink our military and dramatically scale back our foreign commitments, I’m not interested in expanding the number of people with a personal stake in military conflict. But when so many Americans don’t have anything beyond a notional investment in our military entanglements, an aggressive and expansionistic foreign policy is easier and easier to leverage.
Exactly, Freddie, and not just the American people’s involvement but our representative involvement in the government has shrunk essentially to the office of the Executive. The Congress just let’s the President have his way.