Must the West dominate the world?

(Note: See below where Maureen C. thinks I’ve gone wobbly by opposing Western domination of the world, and I reply.)

John Savage quotes me on Conservative Swede’s sad abandonment of the West and adds some observations of his own. Savage remains troubled by the challenges to Western survival that Conservative Swede brought up. He asks: “How do we rationalize Western dominance over the world, when there are billions of Third-Worlders complaining (rightly or wrongly) of the injustice of it all?”

But does the West dominate the world? Has it dominated the world (since the end of colonialism)? And does it need to dominate the world in order to be strong and healthy? The two largest countries in the world are China and India, and the U.S. at the peak of its own influence (say from 1945 to 1990) had very little influence on the internal affairs of those two countries.

It seems to me that the very thing that weakens America is the assumption that we live in One World and that America must dominate this One World, a strategy that dissipates America’s own energies as a distinct, sovereign nation, a nation under God as many of us would have it. I am not arguing for a “Little America,” a George McGovern America. We are a great nation and will continue to play a large role in world affairs. It is the assumption of global oneness under a single liberal democratic capitalist ideology led by America that undoes us. The answer lies in the direction of Samuel Huntington’s traditionalist vision of a world consisting of distinct and sometimes mutually incompatible civilizations. In this “subsidiarity”-based view of humanity, nations naturally have closer relationships with nations that are fellow members of their own civilization, and more distant relationships with nations belonging to other civilizations, just as we tend to have more in common with people living in our own city than we have with people living in another state, and have more in common with people living in another state than we have with Canadians.

When it comes to the sui generis problem of Islam, we must, as I have argued, externally dominate Islam, i.e., roll it back, contain it and quarantine it, in order to prevent it from spreading itself into and dominating the non-Islamic world. But we should do this, not on the basis of some assumed Western right to rule humanity and make it conform to ourselves, but on the basis of the natural right of self-defense.

The traditionalist structure of the world I’ve just outlined is inconceivable to today’s mainstream conservatives—because they are liberals. As liberals, they can only imagine a choice between an America that rules, and merges itself with, the whole world through a single democratic ideology, and an “isolationist” America, whether in McGovernite or Buchananite mode, that fails to defend itself from enemies and allows global chaos to reign.

- end of initial entry -

Maureen writes:

“Must the West dominate the world?” What an odd question. The question is evidence of the West’s neurosis. It should not even be a question for a healthy culture. From time immemorial in all cultures, it’s been either we do it to them, or they do it to us. Only in the West is fair play—an outgrowth of our legalistic, Christian-based view of the world—extended to the Other (who refuse to play by our rules). I still know what side I’m on, and in this era of the West’s guilt-ridden, liberal decline, I’m not worrying about whether I have been, am currently, or will be dominating “them” or not. Let “them” worry about it.

LA replies:

Does Maureen feel the West must dominate the entire world, must impose its ways on Iraq and Saudi Arabia, must tell people in Bangladesh and Singapore how to live? That’s what Bush thinks.

However, as the original blogger, John Savage, explained, by “dominate” he means “primarily that the West is the richest part of the world, which possesses the pull factors’ that tend to draw immigrants from elsewhere. I agree that our ability to influence many countries militarily is fairly slim.”

If what John Savage and Maureen mean by “dominate” is that the West be the most powerful and preeminent, then of course I want that. I want our civilization to be the strongest and most influential and most prestigious presence in the world, not China or Islam. I want our country and civilization to be able to prevent the emergence of any power that can push us around.

I was taking “dominate” in a different sense, in the sense of literally controlling the entire world, as in President Bush’s 2005 inaugural when he said that tyranny anywhere is a threat to us, meaning that we must literally dictate the internal political system of every country on earth. If that is what is meant by “dominate,” then I oppose it.

Maureen replies:

Yes, I define dominance in your second sense—not in Bush’s apparent sense of imposing American notions of nationbuilding in the tribal quaqmire of the Medieval Mideast—or in the sense of becoming the world’s cop in preventing genocides in, say, Darfur, etc.

I’m saying that as a nation, we should refuse to respond to the perceptions of the rest of the world but confine ourselves to relentlessly pursuing our national interest. This is achieved through a strong economy, impermeable borders and “one” united culture. I don’t care what other nations think. I have one question: Are our actions within the framework of our Christian cultural heritage and in our national interest? Who cares what the rest of the world thinks, especially when they themselves are pursuing their own national or tribal interests—at our expense.

LA replies:

Maureen, I agree entirely.

The confusion was created by my misunderstanding what John Savage meant, or maybe by his not initially defining what he meant.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 08, 2007 07:51 AM | Send