3MTA3
Same Tired Monkey
Registered: Apr 2003
Location: I cant say I buy this completely,
Posts: 2538 |
I have no personal stake in Barnetts work and from what Ive read of him and seen of him I think that article falls way short of really shooting him down. It takes more issue with his tone than his points. Also, it is frustrating to read 'criticisms' like this:quote:
This is good stuff. Barnett is scaring stuffy old bourgeois aldermen into funding midnight basketball so the ghetto won’t get them. He foretells “the Gap’s progression [from] Hobbes to Locke to Kant, or from conflict to rule sets to peace….” Three philosophers for the price of one, and it will work wonderfully, provided the absurd assumptions of the currently popular “Democratic Peace” theory are true.
Honestly, it started reading like a fucking idie rock music review about 1/5 way through.
This:quote:
If the courts, among others, constantly “revise” our “rule sets” for us, then the laws are not very stable, are they? So why obey the ever-shifting laws? Because they are right. Why are they right? Because they’re the law…. and so on in a never-ending circular argument.
however is a good point. I actually think that this circular argument is exactly what needs to be accepted. Without going off on too much of a tangent, democracy is an illusion. I will accept that. I actually dont think things that work(in terms of structuring and maintaining social order) have to be logical...they only have to work.quote:
What Barnett has done, and done rather well, is to create the mirage of a single, horrific threat to the civilized world: the Gap. He does so by throwing an array of differing societies, states (“failed” or not), cultures, and even religions, into a residual category that gives things a false appearance of unity. Our prospective enemies are united, apparently, by their very disunity, disorganization, failure, “loserhood,” attachment to the past, and so on. Hurricanes and fire ants, too, come from the Gap, but Barnett has not mentioned them.
But there exists a much more economical explanation for what little “unity” does exist across the so-called Gap. That explanation very simply is that, for various reasons, the United States messes with these places. That these peoples do not take to being messed with is, for some, proof of their evil. It seems only human.
Thats the best part of that long write up and its pretty much correct...however, Barnetts book is still looking from primarily the well-removed-grand-strategy angle and I dont know how fair it is to fault him for not diving into the specific challenges present in each nation within his core.
Anyways, thanks for the link.
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12-27-2004 06:18 PM
