European Tribune - Community, Politics & Progress.

Strong vs Cool

by Jerome a Paris
Thu May 31st, 2007 at 06:55:16 AM EST

Continuing on a theme that seems to obsess the WSJ Op-Ed pages (see my diary yesterday: We've repented enough - let's go to war again and, of course, the big ode to death by Norman Podhoretz - 'I pray that Bush bombs Iran'), we again have an article about the last throes of dying Europe:

Europe shows signs of life, but Walter Laqueur argues that it's still dying.
The failure of Europeans to reproduce makes it vulnerable to internal schism. Too often Europe has reacted to the growing threat posed by extremists among its minorities with a tolerance and self-criticism that has bordered on capitulation. Meanwhile, social tensions increase, not least because of high emigration to Europe from Muslim countries and high birth rates among Muslim populations. No one has yet found a good way of integrating those populations into mainstream European society.
Even as the challenge from fanatical Islam has intensified, at home and abroad, Europeans have found new ways to abase themselves before it.
(...)
Meanwhile unemployment remains brutally high and productivity stagnant. Mr. Laqueur notes that Europeans sometimes embrace their economic sluggishness as part of their "soft power" appeal: all those 35-hour weeks, long vacations and generous social benefits. But the long-term cost of their welfare states--and their confiscatory tax rates--may eventually make such luxuries unaffordable.

Unless...

Perhaps the pro-American sensibilities and the pro-growth nimbleness of Eastern European countries will drive the rest of the Continent out of the ditch of stagnation and pacifism. Perhaps.

Now you may wonder why I spend so much time and effort chronicling the mad (and all too predictable) ramblings of these people. Beyond the entertainment value of their claims, and the sheer enjoyment of the contradiction of these people thinking about, writing about, and obsessing about a supposedly irrelevant entity, I think there is a wider point.

Europe is a threat to them. It embodies democracy, shared prosperity and peace - and it does so a lot better, and increasingly so, than America does. This is slowly destroying their uniqueness as the self-designated "good guys", and their soft power - and thus their power, full stop. It must be frustrating that they cannot exclude Europe from 'the West', so they have to belittle it and its influence on the world. Thus their relentless focus on hard power as their last claim to domination of the world, something which Europe supposedly lacks, and the parallel demeaning of a continent unable to defend itself, to stand for anything (as if the only way to do so were to beat up people around us) and to let its (business, Englsih speaking) elites run it properly.

For them, real power is not about institutions, it's about manly men strutting around and dominating the rest. Others do not exist as people to talk to and live with; they are to be submissive, obedient and well-behaved (and cheap). Europe, which spends too much time and effort (however much we may think it's still too little) acknowledging them, is not behaving properly for a dominant power, and sends the wrong message.

Thus it needs to be discredited. As usual, the interesting thing is that the battlefront cuts right through European leaders: do they want to be part of the (rich) manly males of the gated West, or of the soft, disorderly, open and yet unexpectedly fun euroworld? Or put otherwise: do they want to be selfish cowards or responsible leaders?

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Strong vs Cool | 25 comments (25 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

Strangely related... (4.00 / 8)

This comment by techno in the Iran thread:

That was the most amazing thing I discovered when I visited Finland. Here are these people who didn't really have enough to eat in the 1950s because of the damage of a war with USSR that they had NOT started and the resulting demands for war reparations, yet what this reality meant was that any random cab driver or doorman knew more about USSR than any "Russia Expert" at the State Department in USA (Yes Condi, I am talking about you.)
And what THIS meant was that USSR eventually would buy enough Finnish goods to help propel Finland to near the front of OECD in living standards.
The Finns have created a very successful foreign policy based on the obvious model of attempting to turn the world into satisfied customers. This is why the looney right had to make "Finlandization" into a swear word.
Ghandi used to remind Christians that their doctrine was overwhelmingly a pacifist one. He would wonder what went wrong. And yet, probably since no one in Finland could be really called devout, they seemed to have employed those rarely-taught Christian virtues to create a successful society.
Finland could have used the post-war period to organize revenge. Lots of folks on earth act that way. Instead, they invented and organized and sold big-ticket items like turnkey hotels to a nation that had bombed their cities. And now, the idea of Russia invading Finland is so unlikely, even the Finnish Army is more about male bonding than defense.
"Finlandization" simply HAD to become a swear word. The last idea the warmongers want to see gain traction is that pacifism in an historically Christian country not only results is good relations with the rest of the world, it is a successful recipe for prosperity.

Europe has finlandized (as in the interesting definition of "not pursuing revenge") on a large scale. And it works. and that's terribly threatening to some.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Thu May 31st, 2007 at 07:04:27 AM EST

Re: Strangely related... (4.00 / 2)

By Walter Laqueur:

The Political Psychology of Appeasement : Finlandization and Other Unpopular Essays
(1980)
As for his view of Europe, he's already had a go:

A Continent Astray : Europe, 1970-1978 (1979)

It seems we've been going wrong for a long time.

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Thu May 31st, 2007 at 07:14:39 AM EST
[ Parent ]

LOL (4.00 / 2)

Hey, maybe in 30 years, when I'll still be shouting "(peak oil)(the housing crash)(the dollar crash) is coming soon" from the then-august pages of the European Tribune, people will make fun of my early work on the same theme in the early 2000s...

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Thu May 31st, 2007 at 07:20:59 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: LOL (none / 1)

See, that would be nice.

(Considering that everyone a few years older than I knew the world would end when the US and the Soviet Union unleashed Global Thermonuclear War, I'm staying out of most of the prophecising.)

-----
sapere aude

by Number 6 on Thu May 31st, 2007 at 08:45:31 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Strangely related... (4.00 / 3)

And what Podhoretz seems to be ignoring in reaching for that analogy is that in lieu of "Finlandization" Finland would've probably been annexed outright by the Soviet Union. And that would've hardly been a walk in the park.

"The basis of optimism is sheer terror" - Oscar Wilde

by NordicStorm (michael<-at->sturmbaum.net) on Thu May 31st, 2007 at 09:11:31 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Strangely related... (4.00 / 3)

But now instead of a rich, peaceful and neutral country, it would be like Estonia. Which, for the neocons, would be preferable.

Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Thu May 31st, 2007 at 09:14:37 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Strangely related... (none / 1)

Absolutely, we'd essentially be the fourth Baltic state. Finland was even referred to as such in the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact.

"The basis of optimism is sheer terror" - Oscar Wilde

by NordicStorm (michael<-at->sturmbaum.net) on Thu May 31st, 2007 at 09:26:31 AM EST
[ Parent ]

My theory (4.00 / 2)

(proclaimed in a John Cleese voice) has always been that Finland missed the Industrial Revolution and all the social fragmentation that came with it. Finland stepped straight from agrarian village life into the global village (more or less, apart from a brief period in the Fifties of rapid industrialization to pay off war debts to the Soviet Union).

But as you know I think Finland is a very good place to live and work. ;-)

'Finlandization' was simply pragmatism. The WWII experience of being caught between Hitler and the Soviets (and fighting 3 short wars with the Soviets) trained the Finns in the games that have to be played to survive. Marshal Mannerheim's early military career was in the Russian Imperial Guard. Later he had to deal with the German High Command and Herr H. This was symbolic of Finland's unique geographical and cultural position between two powerful neighbours.

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Thu May 31st, 2007 at 11:37:49 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: My theory (4.00 / 3)

Absolutely

What really impresses me is the profound depth of understanding the Finns have for the Russians. When I read that Linus Torwald's father was an accredited news correspondent in Moscow, I could only say to myself, "no wonder he could create Linux at 19--he is the son of one of the most important intellectuals in the country."

I once had a guy in a Helsinki bar explain the critical importance Suslov held in Soviet Society. Ten years later, I was at a party of high level state department bureaucrats in Washington and ten days after Suslov's state funeral, I could find NO ONE who even knew who Suslov was much less what importance could be attached to his death.

I wrote about that evening--you can read it here
http://www.elegant-technology.com/TVAcolwr.html

"Remember the I35W bridge--who needs terrorists when there are Republicans"

by techno (reply@elegant-technology.com) on Thu May 31st, 2007 at 01:03:54 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: My theory (none / 1)

Papa Torvalds is currently a mover and shaker in the Swedish Folk Party - and it NEEDS shaking ;-). Never met him, but a good friend of mine is a party tyro and has only good things to say about him.

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Thu May 31st, 2007 at 02:28:18 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: My theory (none / 1)

Thanks for the link! The point made about Suslov/education is crucial. THAT is how you allow society to change itself - bottom up. It is the most important long term investment any society can make. But it has to be for everyone, and free or means-tested. And teachers have to be paid well enough to attract the very best - for all ages of learners.

Lappeenranta has a large selection of shops these days with bi-lingual signs - not Swedish, but Russian!

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Thu May 31st, 2007 at 02:38:19 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Central Europe and US NMD (4.00 / 4)

On similar note - Today's rambling by Czech prime minister Topolanek - Europe is losing willingness to defend itself, Czech PM says .His decidershipness Bush will be here next week to talk about the NMD radar, so the government seems to be increasingly desperate to find arguments to support it. Few days ago Vondra (vice-premier, former dissident and ambassador to the US) tried to scare people with "either radar or return of mandatory military service".

by jv (euro@junkie.cz) on Thu May 31st, 2007 at 07:21:58 AM EST

Re: Central Europe and US NMD (none / 1)

either radar or return of mandatory military service

Yeah, that will sit well with the Czech.

Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Thu May 31st, 2007 at 08:40:29 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Desperate neocons (4.00 / 7)

I agree with some posters of the different threads: I think these people are desperate. They are desperate because they see clearly that the failures of the Bush administration make the PNAC and the neocon agenda less likely to succeed and that the decline of the American Empire they had dreamt of has already started.

What makes them angrier is that they believed Europe was going to collapse after the failure of the Constitutional Treaty, and they now see the European project is much more resilient than they thought. One thing they can't stand is that Europe shows there is an alternative to the American way.

Alas, that doesn't mean they cannot be dangerous, at least for a while...

"Ce qui vient au monde pour ne rien troubler ne mérite ni égards ni patience." René Char

by Melanchthon on Thu May 31st, 2007 at 08:33:18 AM EST

Re: Desperate neocons (4.00 / 3)

I think it is more internal coherence repetition.. but you have good point.

After all, the great majority of Americans just do not know about Europe... so basically if once in a while they tune in... it is good to know that we are here but that we are not that threatening.

So it is true that those neo-nuts are angry and that they do propaganda.. but it is propaganda aimed at European elites.

America has lost an incredible amount of power in the last six years...inf ornt of Russia, infront of China.. in South-America... everywhere in the world.. and Europe does more or less whatever we want... this propaganda is a desperate way to recall europeans that America has propaganda leverage and that they'd better behave.

I think the strategy is doomed... except for the economic side of th equation where they could get some advances, the war/green/multilateral is almost a DNA myth(they would need a couple of decades to undo)... but given that the time scale of Empire decline in the US has accelerated I doubt it would be useful at all.

In other words.. I think that the US will have serious imperialistic problems much much earlier than the time it would take Europe to adopt the US social-economic model needed for an Empire.

A pleasure

I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude

by kcurie on Thu May 31st, 2007 at 09:35:43 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Desperate neocons (4.00 / 3)

What must enrages them (at least the most inteligent of them) is that they probably understand they were their own gravediggers. That they had the opportunity (Bush + 9/11) to implement their agenda so thoroughly was the main cause of the acceleration of the decline, hence their defeat.

"Ce qui vient au monde pour ne rien troubler ne mérite ni égards ni patience." René Char

by Melanchthon on Thu May 31st, 2007 at 11:36:52 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Desperate neocons (4.00 / 2)

That is a very good point.. it must really hurt.

A pleasure

I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude

by kcurie on Thu May 31st, 2007 at 12:14:39 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Desperate neocons (4.00 / 4)

Remember all the snickers about the Euro being a stillbirth and doomed from the beginning. Wow, they must feel pretty bad, now that the Euro might more and more replace the $.

by Fran (fran at eurotrib dot com) on Thu May 31st, 2007 at 10:07:08 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Desperate neocons (4.00 / 2)

"I agree with some posters of the different threads: I think these people are desperate."

Yes, as I said:

"Yes, well guys, let's not get too depressed; the neocons got it all wrong and lost what credilibility they had

... This kind of opinion piece in the WSJ can be seen as hysterical bluster by desperate men."

And I later added this:

"Faisal grabbed the website http://shrillblog.blogspot.com/, after emailing "must. resist. temptation. to set up. shrill.org group weblog" and being answered "Why is this temptation to be resisted?
...
And the ranks of the shrill are now... impressive indeed. Even the truly cowardly are now shrill. Only the bought-and-paid-for have not joined the ranks of the highly critical who have been driven into shrill unholy madness by the mendacity, malevolence, incompetence, and disconnection from reality of George W. Bush and his administration.
..."
http://www.eurotrib.com/story/2007/5/30/9101/06512

Jerome says:

"Now you may wonder why I spend so much time and effort chronicling the mad (and all too predictable) ramblings of these people. Beyond the entertainment value of their claims, and the sheer enjoyment of the contradiction of these people thinking about, writing about, and obsessing about a supposedly irrelevant entity, I think there is a wider point.
Europe is a threat to them. It embodies democracy, shared prosperity and peace ..."

Well, I don't want to stop you enjoying yourself, but maybe you're in danger of being a bit misleading, as the media often are in concentrating on BAD news, which can make things seem unrealistically depressing.

Perhaps we need to focus less on the few desperate cranks still finding a home in the "comic-strip" (Chomsky) of the WSJ ed pages. We also need to look at and celebrate more positive developments (see the stuff I included at the link above); including the divisions amongst the Right in the US and people in the media more ready to be very critical of Bush and co, and this is what, for example, shrillblog does very well, e.g. as already cited but well worth repeating:

""Chris Matthews Is Shrill!

Don't be worried. Some viewers were shocked when you changed shape before their eyes and grabbed the Bush-defending guests with your suckers and rent them into shreds and gobbets with your parrot-like beak. But ratings are up:

Crooks and Liars » Matthews Gets Fired Up:

On yesterday's "Hardball" Chris Matthews was in rare form and fired up about Iraq, Immigration and fact-free Republican Presidential candidates. During his interview with Democratic Presidential candidate, Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) he slams President Bush for his Iraq rhetoric and playing the terror card when it suits him, but his main target was Republican Presidential candidate, Rudy Giuliani. Matthews questions why Giuliani has been allowed to spout off the wall , fact-free talking points and nobody has stepped up to challenge him. I think this quote to Biden after watching a clip of Giuliani says it all: Matthews: "Absolute B.S., Senator. Absolute B.S."

Posted by brad on 5/27/2007

http://shrillblog.blogspot.com/

Cf.:

"The New York Times Editorial Board Is Shrill!

NY Times:

"We Have Grown Accustomed to This President's Disconnect from Reality" -- The ITT List: From the NY Times editorial "War Without End":

Never mind how badly the war is going in Iraq. President Bush has been swaggering around like a victorious general because he cowed a wobbly coalition of Democrats into dropping their attempt to impose a time limit on his disastrous misadventure.
...
The really disturbing thing about Mr. Bush's comments is his painting of the war in Iraq as an obvious-to-everyone-but-the-wrongheaded fight between the United States and a young Iraqi democracy on one side, and Al Qaeda on the other. That fails to acknowledge that the Shiite-dominated government of Iraq is not a democracy and is at war with many of its own people. And it removes all pressure from the Iraqi leadership -- and Mr. Bush -- to halt the sectarian fighting and create a real democracy.

http://shrillblog.blogspot.com

Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner - that I moved to Nice. Blog - Nice Experience

by Ted Welch (tedwelch-at-mac-dot-com) on Thu May 31st, 2007 at 11:34:05 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Strong vs Cool (4.00 / 2)

CNN front page:

BUSINESS
CNNMoney.com Home PageVideo

Unstoppable Wall Street
Economic growth slowest since '02

... (...) ...

Somewhere in cyberspace, the ghost of de Chardin is smiling.

by budr on Thu May 31st, 2007 at 09:01:42 AM EST

Re: Strong vs Cool (4.00 / 2)

Have you seen al gores interview about his new book "The Assault on Reason."?
It's here:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/jan-june07/gore_05-30.html

it's about what has happened to our democracy. I'm deeply concerned that the role of reason, and facts, and logic in the way we make our decisions in America has been diminished significantly, to the point where we could make a decision to invade a country that didn't attack us, at a time when 70 percent of the American people genuinely had the impression and belief that Saddam Hussein was responsible for the attacks of 9/11.
In the same way that the truth about 9/11 was ignored in the rush to war, the truth about the climate crisis has been ignored in the shaping of policies that basically do nothing to stop the most serious crisis our civilization has ever faced. And there is a long list of serious policy mistakes that our country has been making in the last several years that are added to the war and the climate crisis and these others.

by vbo on Thu May 31st, 2007 at 10:24:36 AM EST

Re: Strong vs Cool (4.00 / 6)

I can't argue with the points he makes, but I think his framing is off.

The real problem seems to be that at some point America the country became Captain America the comic. (I don't think it's a coincidence that comic characters have superpowers, while the US believes it still is one.)

Current administration mythology is straight out of the pages of a Marvel special, where the rugged hero and his bulging radioactive underpants take on a range of sneering but ultimately cowardly ultra-villains. Much ink is expended, most of it in caps that say things like 'Zap!', 'Pow!' and 'Take that!' Meanwhile the heroine, who looks somewhat Iraqi, is supposed to be adoring and grateful once she overcomes her natural feminine aloofness. She may fight back to start with, but she'll soon come around with a bit of manly arm twisting. Because hey - that's what chicks are like.

And so on.

It's government by storyboard. Reason doesn't even come into it. And this is the pasteboard world which rather too much of the population seems to live in, at all levels of notoriety and accomplishment.

So I think Al is making a mistake if he thinks he can do the traditional Left-ish thing of scolding people and telling them to pull their socks up. You can't tell irrational people to start being rational. The best you can hope for is that something or someone will snap them out of their trance and they start looking for some new stories to live in.

One way or another, that'll probably happen whether Al is the next pres or not.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Thu May 31st, 2007 at 11:47:28 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Strong vs Cool (none / 1)

Yes, you are right! Al's book is for thinking people...all though they probably already came to same conclusion. For others it's exactly as you said ...comic book...

by vbo on Thu May 31st, 2007 at 08:13:21 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Funny (none / 1)

.. just today on the washington post...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/31/AR2007053100561.html?hpid=topnews

U.S. economic growth came to a near standstill in the first three months of the year, as the housing market and a decline in exports and federal spending choked an already sputtering economy.
Revised estimates from the first quarter of 2007 show the economy expanded at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 0.6 percent from January through March, less than half of the 1.3 percent rate of growth originally estimated for the period by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude

by kcurie on Thu May 31st, 2007 at 12:22:08 PM EST

Re: Funny (none / 0)

A pleasure pleasure

Although it may sound like I rejoice.. not really.. actually I think it is excellent news for the US and the world.

the US economy should stay above recession but still feeling some pain.. that could help the next president to improve the US stature some time more if they can balance the unbalances...improve thesituation with some soft pain that doe snot affect the other economies.

A pleasure

I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude

by kcurie on Thu May 31st, 2007 at 12:24:21 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Strong vs Cool | 25 comments (25 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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