Political Passivity Undermines US

When I wrote this article back in 2006 I tried to make parallels between the internal cultural and institutional decay in the United States and what had taken place in China at the end of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). Although I later came to the conclusion that comparison with the decline of the Ming Dynasty was far closer, I feel that such historical analogies are valuable-especially as Americans are so poorly informed about Asian history and culture.

May 3, 2006

A distinguished historian wrote thus about a world power that had slipped into irreversible decline as a result of its citizens turning inward and its elite refusing to concern themselves with the fate of the nation:

“When intellectual irresponsibility and moral degradation fell to this level, it meant that scholars had become oblivious to their duties to the society and had lost track of the importance of the unity of knowledge and action. The society was deprived of real leadership. That the general decline of morality in the government was due in part to this very intellectual delinquency is an unavoidable conclusion.”

Although Professor Immanuel Hsu was referring to China in the late nineteenth century in this passage, the description has a chilling resonance for those who observe the inaction of the establishment in the United States, as a small group slowly drags the U.S. towards a reckless war with Iran.

Just as China, once the great power of the known world, found itself fettered by the indifference of its own best and brightest at the moment that opium and European economic predation posed a threat in the early nineteenth century, those Americans who could make the greatest difference in our own time are oddly silent as the nation drifts into dangerous straits. The United States faces an erosion of its social, civic, and community institutions that allows cynical politicians to manipulate at will the course of events. Any assumption that a mere change of characters on the political stage would change this state of affairs overnight is naive.

Civil Society in Crisis

At the end of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), educated Chinese hid themselves away behind their red-walled mansions, devoting themselves to family with little sense of a larger purpose in their lives. As a result, they allowed the opium trade to flourish and Beijing to face devastating trade deficits that drained its wealth. Rather than trying to learn about the Western powers, Chinese officials humiliated foreign diplomats in a pointless effort to assure themselves that China remained a great power. The action was interpreted elsewhere as a sign of Chinese weakness and decadence.

Today we see educated Americans sequestering themselves in affluent neighborhoods or gated communities in an attempt to keep hoi polloi at a distance. The fact that everyone within a controlled social unit treats each other as an equal makes it possible for Americans who do not wish to see the radical class fragmentation to ignore it.

The efforts of Ambassador John Bolton to dismiss the United Nations as “irrelevant,” or Vice President Richard Cheney to humiliate other nations and remind them that they are lesser powers, is painfully reminiscent of Chinese demands that British and American envoys kowtow before the emperor in submission, as if that action would reduce their power. American conduct at the United Nations has more to do with reassuring those in power, and the folks watching at home, of imagined American predominance than with any meaningful strategy.

Similarly, the multitude of insults inflicted on Chinese President Hu Jintao during his visit to Washington resembled a juvenile prank sprung by a petulant America. Like the Chinese insults to British diplomats almost 200 years earlier, the jibes were perceived as a sign of American decline. So also U.S. criticism of human rights abuses in China are an effort of the Bush Administration to deflect criticism regarding its own disregard for human rights.

The ugly and shameful truth is that Americans have neglected their longstanding traditions in terms of political commitment and citizenship. Although one might expect that just about now Americans would start organizing themselves in response to a looming national crisis, we find that those with the political and economic power to make a difference in America bury themselves in the trivia of the “This Week in Arts” section of The New York Times or chat about their recent trips to Tuscany. They resemble the mandarins of late imperial China who spent their days playing chess as the empire came unglued. On the rare occasions that the sad state of the nation intrudes on such idyllic lives, they blame politicians for the rampant corruption, rather than confront their own complicity in the fortunes of the nation.

American government continues to function because the institutions of the Founding Fathers have endured for so long, and have such a momentum behind them, that they are highly resistant to change. Nevertheless, the vast array of agencies that make up the federal government increasingly are run for the benefit of narrow private interests with little sense of the greater good. The laws that govern the United States remain for the most part intact, but the Federal government’s enforcement of and compliance with the law has deteriorated.

As an example, retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra O’Connor recently warned of the threat to judicial independence resulting from the vindictive verbal and physical attacks on judges for their rulings. In her March 10, 2006 speech at Georgetown University, O’Connor noted that “statutes and constitutions do not protect judicial independence; people do.” The implication is that such institutions cannot survive if they are taken for granted and therefore neglected.

China also had sophisticated institutions that continued to operate even after intellectuals turned their backs on public affairs. As government service ceased to be a goal for the educated, the accumulation of personal wealth took precedence over a contribution to the weal of the nation in late imperial China. That trend has an exact parallel in the decline of government as a desired career for Ivy League graduates.

To understand what has gone wrong in America, we must consider the delicate tug of war that gave balance to American society for the last seventy years. Since the 1930’s, the overwhelming power of corporations and the super-rich was effectively countered by educated, financially secure, and politically active doctors, lawyers, professors, accountants, and civil servants. Whether Democrats or Republicans, these citizens assured that government was responsible to local concerns and to the general needs of the community.

Read the Whole Article