“The mass-man has no attention to spare for reasoning; he learns only in his own flesh.”-Jose Ortega y’ Gassett, The Revolt of the Masses (1930)
The Growing Challenges of Anti-Reason
Nothing could be more obvious. In present-day American life, anti-reason is not merely in vogue. It also functions as a de facto national belief system. In uniquely retrograde instances, as we may witness in our daily politics, it can override entire centuries of intellectual progress.
All too quickly, it can become de rigeur.
There are pertinent facts and prominently grinding humiliations. Though many years have passed since the core scientific triumphs of Bacon, Galileo, Newton, Descartes and Einstein, conspiracy theories often still preempt established premises of logic, mathematics and science. For the most part, these theories are conspicuously imbecilic.
So what is going on?
It is, to begin, an absurd state of affairs. Credo quia absurdum, warned the ancient philosophers. “I believe because it is absurd.” What we are experiencing today is nothing less shameless than an institutionalized triumph of absurdity. This “victory” is not merely difficult to explain. It is manifestly pervasive, insufficiently challenged and unambiguously lethal.
There is more. There are assorted relevant chronologies. In America, the absurd triumph of “mass man” did not originate with the rabidly incoherent Trump presidency. Nonetheless, that presidential celebration of thoughtlessness functioned as a corrosive accelerant of irremediable national decline. And (plainly) a disjointed Trump presidency could happen once again.
The evidence is compelling. We Americans have already made witting peace with governance by unwisdom, conspiracy and cliché. Altogether unhidden, there reigns in sectors of all American states a once-unimaginable sovereignty of the unqualified. The only plausible outcome of such still-accumulating national defilements can be expanded belligerent nationalism, enlarged human sufferings and an authentically existential despair.
The core questions keep coming. How did we even manage to get to such a low point?[1] Where are we now likely heading?
There are plausible answers to these questions. Going forward, all questions should be considered as interrelated matters of chronology. That is, they should be considered “in time.”
The Revolt of the Masses and its Bitter Legacy
It has been almost one hundred years since Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y’ Gasset published The Revolt of the Masses (Le Rebelion de las Masas, 1930). A prescient indictment of anti-Reason, and an immediate forerunner of modern classical works by the German scholars Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers,[2] Ortega was especially concerned about Europe’s growing fragmentation of learning. Witnessing a world that was abandoning the traditional goal of broadly-educated or “whole” human beings, he worried about a worldwide future in which there would be more capable scientists than ever before, but where these scientists were otherwise unexceptional, without any wider embrace of erudition.
Though generally ignored, these observations were seminal. Among other things, the prophetic philosopher foresaw “educated” societies in which even the proud holders of impressive university degrees were “conscientiously ignorant” of everything outside their own vocational bailiwicks. Unwittingly, of course, Ortega had anticipated the present-day United States. Here, even in our oft-vaunted “advanced society,” the most exquisitely trained physicians, lawyers, accountants and engineers typically reason at the same limiting levels of analysis as technicians, carpenters, business owners or office workers.
It’s time for candor. “Professional” education in the United States has managed to supersede everything that does not ostentatiously focus on making money. The adverb here is vital in this description, because the overriding lure of wealth in America remains the presumed admiration it can elicit from others. As we ought already to have learned from Adam Smith in his Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759): “The rich man glories in his riches, because he feels that they naturally draw upon him the attention of the world….At the thought of this, his heart seems to swell and dilate itself within him, and he is fonder of his wealth, upon this account, than for all the other advantages it procures him.”[3]
The Pubic Mind and its Shapers
Almost by definition, any American concerns for intellectual or historical issues per se have become extraneous. This does not mean, however, that our strenuous national efforts at improving professional education have been successful or productive. On the contrary, as we witness the multiple daily technical failures of American democracy, our beleaguered polity is failing on multiple fronts.
For many reasons, many of them overlapping or even synergistic, this has been a lamentable retrogression. Above all, it has impaired this country’s capacity to sustain an enviable or even minimally credible democracy. Though Thomas Jefferson had already understood that proper human governance requires a purposeful acquaintance with historical and sociological learning, Americans now inhabit a country where the president could say unashamedly, “I love the poorly educated.” Significantly, this perverse preference of Donald J. Trump did not emerge ex nihilo, out of nothing. Moreover, it did nothing to inhibit the prospect of another run for the White House.
It is a portentous but credible echo of Third Reich Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels: “Intellect rots the brain.”[4]
Ortega y’Gasset had a specific name for this generally defiling intellectual deformation. More exactly, he called it “The Barbarism of ‘Specialisation.”[5] Earlier, and in somewhat similar fashion, Friedrich Nietzsche wrote about the “educated philistine.”[6] Both Ortega and Nietzsche recognized the irony that a society could become progressively better educated in various sub-fields of human knowledge and simultaneously become less and less cultured, less and less truly civilized.[7] In this regard, the German philosopher placed appropriate conceptual blame on what he preferred to call the “herd.”[8] For his part, the kindred Spanish thinker cast his particular indictment on the “mass.”
Whatever the terminological differences, both sets of ideas were centered on the same basic critique; that is, that individuals had been casting aside the necessary obligation to think for themselves, and had, thereby, surrendered indispensable analytic judgments to “crowds.”[9]
Barbarism in the Trump White House
Today, both ideas can shed some useful light on American democracy, a system of governance under increasing assault by former US President Donald J. Trump. To the extent that American education has become rampantly vocational – that is, oriented toward more and more “pragmatic” kinds of specialization – the wisdom of Ortega y’Gasset and others is worth probing with ever-increasing care. The “barbarous” impact of specialization foreseen earlier by philosophers is now magnified by the injurious effects of worldwide disease pandemic.
This unwelcome magnification will need to be countered if American democracy is merely able to survive.[10]
But analysis should begin at the beginning. Inter alia, it is a discomfiting beginning. Americans now inhabit a society so numbingly fragmented and rancorous that even their most sincere melancholy is contrived. Wallowing in the mutually-reinforcing twilights of submission and conformance, We the people have strayed dangerously far from any meaningful standards of serious learning. In consequence, though still a nation with extraordinary scientific, medical and commercial successes, the American public is plainly ill-equipped to judge candidates for high political office.[11]
As we have seen in the case of Donald J. Trump, utterly ill-equipped.
Surveying still-mounting damages of the recent Trump presidency,[12] some of which are synergistic or “force multiplying,” could anything be more apparent?
The grievously baneful selection of Donald J. Trump in 2016 was anything but a cultural aberration. It was, rather, the plausible outcome of an electorate relentlessly driven and even defined by “mass.” Without any real or compelling reasons, voting Americans freely abandoned the once-residual elements of Jeffersonian good citizenship.
Together with the unceasing connivance of assorted criminals, charlatans and fools, many of them occupants of the previous US Government’s most senior positions, a lonely American mass now bears core responsibility for allowing the demise of a once- enviable democratic ethos. To expect any sudden improvements to emerge from among this homogenized mass (e.g., by continuously making the citizens more particularly aware of this former president’s manifold derelictions) would be to overestimate its inclinations. Though truth is always exculpatory, there are times when it yields to various tangible forms of self-delusion.
“What the mass once learned to believe without reasons,” queries Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, “who could ever overthrow with reasons?”
High Living or High Thinking?
There will be a heavy price to pay for America’s still-expanding ascendancy of mass. Any society so willing to abjure its rudimentary obligations toward dignified learning – toward what American Transcendentalist philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson had once called “high thinking” – is one that should never reasonably expect to survive.[13]
There is more. Treating formal education as a narrowly instrumental obligation (“one should get better educated in order to get a better paying job”), Americans now more easily accept flagrantly empty witticisms as profundities (“We will build a beautiful wall;” “Barbed wire can be beautiful;” “The moon is part of Mars;” “Testing for corona virus only increases disease;” “Just one percent of Covid19 victims have symptoms,” etc., etc), and consult genuinely challenging ideas only rarely.
Always, the dire result of anti-Reason is more-or-less predictable; that is, a finely trained work force that manages to get a particular “job” done, but displays (simultaneously) nary a hint of worthwhile learning, commendable human understanding or simple compassion. Concerning this last absence, lack of empathy is not directly related to the “barbarisms of specialization,” but it does generally exhibit some tangible nurturance from literature, art and/or “culture.” Incontestably, the Trump White House was not “only” indifferent to basic human rights and public welfare,[14] it quite literally elevated personal animus to highest possible significations.
This is especially marked where such animus is most thoroughly pedestrian.
Intentionally mispronouncing the Democrat vice-presidential candidate’s first name was a small but glaring example of Donald Trump’s selected level of competitive political discourse. By its very nature, this demeaning level is better suited to a first-grade elementary school classroom. It is anything but appropriate to presidential discourse.
There are even much wider ramifications of gratuitous rancor. When transposed to the vital arena of international relations, the former president’s elevation of belligerent nationalism has a long and persistently unsuccessful history as Realpolitik or power politics.[15] Thinking himself clever, Donald Trump champions “America First” (the phrase resonates with those, like the president himself, who have no knowledge of history),but fails to realize that this peculiarly shameful resurrection of “Deutschland uber alles” can lead only to massive defeat and unparalleled despair.
“I loathe, therefore I am,” could well become Donald J. Trump’s “revised” version of René Descartes “Cogito.”[16] Following Descartes, Sigmund Freud had understood that all human beings could somehow be motivated toward creating a “spontaneous sympathy of souls,” but America’s Donald Trump had quite expansively reversed this objective. Reinforced by the rampant vocationalism of this country’s education system, Trump consistently urged citizens to turn against one another, and for no dignified, defensible or science-based reasons. In absolutely all cases, these grotesque urgings had no meritorious or higher purpose.
None at all.
In the bitterly fractionated post-Trump-era United States, an authentic American individualhas become little more than a charming artifact. Among other things, the nation’s societal “mass,” more refractory than ever to intellect and learning, still displays no discernible intentions of ever taking itself seriously. To the contrary, an embittered American ‘mass” now marches in deferential lockstep, foolishly, without thought, toward even-greater patterns of imitation, unhappiness and starkly belligerent incivility.
All things considered, the American future is not hard to fathom. More than likely, whatever might be decided in upcoming politics and elections, Americans will continue to be carried forth not by any commendable nobilities of principle or purpose, but by steady eruptions of personal and collective agitation, by endlessly inane presidential repetitions and by the perpetually demeaning primacy of a duly “sanctified” public ignorance. At times, perhaps, We the people may still be able to slow down a bit and “smell the roses,” but this is doubtful.
Plainly, our visibly compromised and degraded country now imposes upon its increasingly exhausted people the breathless rhythms of a vast and omnivorous machine.
This machine has no objective other than to keep struggling without spawning any sudden breakdowns or prematurely inconvenient deaths.
Much as many might wish to deny it, the plausible end of this self-destroying machinery will be to prevent Americans from remembering who they are now and (far more importantly) who they might once still have become. At another reasonable level of concern, Americans remain threatened by nuclear war and nuclear terrorism, especially now, following the incoherent Trump-era. Significantly, although there exists a vast literature on law-based strategies of nuclear war avoidance, there is little parallel jurisprudential effort directed toward the prevention of nuclear terrorism.[17]
Arguably this is no longer a “nation of laws.” Rather, it is a nation of ad hoc, narrowly visceral response. Consider in this regard, that in August 2022, Donald Trump complained bitterly that he never had “the loyalty of Hitler’s generals.”
There is more. Americans inhabit the one society that could have been different. Once, we harbored a unique potential to nurture individuals, that is, to encourage Americans to become more than a smugly inert “mass,” “herd” or “crowd.” Then, Ralph Waldo Emerson (also fellow Transcendentalists Walt Whitman and Henry David Thoreau) described us optimistically as a people animated by industry and “self-reliance.”
Now, however, beyond any serious contestation, we are stymied by collective capitulations to political chicanery and a Kierkegaardian “fear and trembling.”
Surely, as all must eventually acknowledge, there must be more to this chanting country than inane rallies, tsunamis of hyper-adrenalized commerce or gargantuan waves of abundantly cheap entertainments: “I celebrate myself, and sing myself,” rhapsodized the poet Walt Whitman, but today, the American Selfhas devolved into a delicately thin shadow of any true national potential. Distressingly, this Self has already become a twisting reflection of a prior authenticity. Now it is under seemingly final assault by far-reaching societal tastelessness and by a literally epidemic gluttony.
Regarding this “gastronomic” debility, it’s not that Americans have become more and more hungry, but rather that we have lost any once residual appetites for real life.[18]
In the end, credulity is America’s worst enemy. The stubborn inclination to believe that wider social and personal redemption must lie somewhere in politics remains a potentially fatal disorder. To be fair, various social and economic issues do need to be coherently addressed by America’s political representatives, but so too must the nation’s deeper problems first be solved at the level of microcosm, as a matter for individuals.
In the end, American politics – like politics everywhere – must remain an uninspiring second-order activity, a faint reflection of what is truly important.[19] For now, this public sphere continues to thrive upon vast personal emptiness, on an infirmity that is the always-defiling reciprocal of genuine personal fulfillment. “Conscious of his emptiness,” warns the German philosopher Karl Jaspers in Reason and Anti-Reason in our Time (1952), “man (human) tries to make a faith for himself (or herself) in the political realm. In vain.”
Even in an authentic democracy, only a few can ever hope to redeem themselves and the wider American nation, but these self-effacing souls will generally remain silent, hidden in more-or-less “deep cover,” often even from themselves. In a democracy where education is oriented toward narrowly vocational forms of career preparation, an orientation toward “barbaric specialization,” these residual few can expect to be suffocated by the many. Unsurprisingly, such asphyxiation, in absolutely any of its conceivable particularities, would be a bad way to “die.”[20]
Donald J. Trump did not emerge on the political scene ex nihilo, out of nothing. His incoherent and disjointed presidency is the direct result of a society that has wittingly and barbarously abandoned all serious thought. When such a society no longer asks the “big philosophical questions” – for example, “What is the “good” in government and politics”? or “How do I lead a good life as person and citizen”? or “How can I best nurture the well-being of other human beings”? – the lamentable outcome is inevitable. It is a result that we are still living through in the United States, and one (if Donald Trump becomes president for a second time) that might have to be “died through.”
Going forward, what we ought to fear most of all is precisely this continuously self-defiling outcome, not any particular electoral result. Until recently, nothing could have proved more important for the United States than to rid itself of the intersecting pathologies of Covid19 and a recalcitrant Donald Trump, diseases that were mutually reinforcing and potentially synergistic. But even such indispensable victories could still prove only transient. More precisely, recalling philosopher Jose Ortega y’Gasset’s timeless warning about the “barbarism of specialisation,” this country must soon resurrect an earlier ethos of education in which learning benefits the whole human being, not just a work-related “corner of the universe.”
Also vital is the obligation to acknowledge the fundamental interrelatedness of all peoples and the binding universality of international law.[21]
To survive as a nation and as individuals, Americans need to become educated not merely as well-trained cogs in the vast industrial machine, but as empathetic and caring citizens. “Everyone is the other, and no one is just himself,” cautions Martin Heidegger in Being and Time (1932), but this elementary lesson once discoverable in myriad sacred texts is not easily operationalized. Indeed, it is in this single monumental failure of “operationalization” that human civilization has most plainly failed. To wit, in Trump-era American democracy, the former president’s core message is never about the co-responsibility of every human being for his or her fellows, but about “winners,” “losers,” and a presumptively rational citizen obligation to “Make America Great.”
In this context, “greatness” assumed a crudely Darwinian or zero-sum condition, not one in which each individual could favor harmonious cooperation over bitter inter-group hatreds.[22]
Making the Souls of the Citizens Better
How shall we finally change all this, or, recalling Plato’s wisdom in The Republic, how shall we “learn to make the souls of the citizens better?”[23] This is not a question that we can answer with any pertinent detail before the next presidential election. But it is still a question that we ought to put before the imperiled American polity sometime before it is too late.[24]
American democracy faces multiple hazards, including Ortega y’Gasset’s “barbarism of specialisation.” To be rescued in time, each hazard will have to be tackled carefully, by itself and in coordinated tandem with all other identifiable perils. Overall, the task will be daunting and overwhelming, but the alternatives are simply no longer tolerable.
Donald Trump’s removal from political life remains a sine qua non for all applicable remedies, but even such a needed first step could target only a catastrophic symptom of America’s national “pathology.” By itself, saving the United States from a crudely sinister president remains necessary, but it would leave unchanged the country’s most deeply underlying “disease.” In the end,[25] because Americans will need to bring a less “specialized” form of learning to their citizenship responsibilities, this nation will have to figure out practical yet commendable ways of restoring educational “wholeness.”
Though we certainly need a well-trained society, we also need one that has been suitably and seriously educated. Before this expectation can be fully understood and acted upon, however, there will need to take place a widened respect for learning and erudition. While Americans will certainly continue to value “practical learning,” they should also begin to value intellectual achievement for its own sake. We need gifted workers in every industry, but we also need reasoning persons and caring citizens.
It could never be practical for Americans to favor human learning based on “attitude” rather than on “preparation.”[26]
Always, “learning in their own flesh” would preclude any genuine citizen education.
[1]A generic explanation of such declensions is supplied by Thomas Mann. The German novelist and philosopher recalls the downfall of ancient civilizations, and faults gradual absorption of the educated classes by the masses, the “simplification” of all functions of political, social, economic and spiritual life. In short, the author of The Magic Mountain and Death in Venice blames “barbarization.” For an informed discussion of these assessments, see Stanley Corngold, The Mind in Exile: Thomas Mann in Princeton; Princeton University Press, 2022.
[2] See especially Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time (Sein und Zeit;1953) and Karl Jaspers’ Reason and Anti-Reason in our Time (1952). “Is it an end that draws near,” inquires Jaspers, “or a beginning?” The answer will depend, in large part, on what Heidegger has to say about the Jungian or Freudian “mass.” In Being and Time (1953), the philosopher laments what he calls, in German, das Mann, or “The They.” Drawing fruitfully upon earlier core insights of Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Jung and Freud, Heidegger’s “The They” represents the ever-present and interchangeable herd, crowd, horde or mass. Each such conglomerate exhibits “untruth” (the term actually favored by Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard) because it can encourage the “barbarism of specialisation” and suffocate broadly humanistic kinds of learning.
[3]Smith published Theory seventeen years before his vastly more famous and oft-cited Wealth of Nations (1776).
[4]See, on commonalities between Third Reich and Trump-era American democracy, by Louis René Beres at Jurist: https://www.jurist.org/commentary/2020/05/louis-beres-america-rise-and-fall/
[5] Chapter 12 of The Revolt of the Masses (1930) is aptly titled “The Barbarism of ‘Specialisation.'”
[6]Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche coined an aptly specific term, one he hoped could eventually become universal. This German word was Bildungsphilister. When expressed in its most lucid and coherent English translation, it means “educated Philistine.” Bildungsphilister is a term that could shed useful light upon Donald Trump’s ongoing support from among America’s presumptively well-educated and well-to-do.
[7] On this irony, Kierkegaard says it best in The Sickness unto Death (1849): “Devoid of imagination, as the Philistine always is, he lives in a certain trivial province of experience, as to how things go, what is possible, what usually occurs. Philistinism thinks it is in control of possibility….it carries possibility around like a prisoner in the cage of the probable, and shows it off.”
[8]Sigmund Freud introduced his own particular version of Nietzsche’s “herd,” which was “horde.” Interestingly, Freud maintained a general antipathy to all things American. He most strenuously objected, according to Bruno Bettelheim, to this country’s “shallow optimism” and also its corollary commitment to the crudest forms of materialism. America, thought Freud, was grievously “lacking in soul.” See: Bruno Bettelheim, Freud and Man’s Soul (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1983), especially Chapter X.
[9] In essence, the “crowd” was Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard’s equivalent of Nietzsche’s “herd” and Ortega’s “mass.”[9] Earlier, in the 17th century, French philosopher Blaise Pascal remarked prophetically in Pensées: “All our dignity consists in thought….It is upon this that we must depend…Let us labor then to think well: this is the foundation of morality.” Similar reasoning characterizes the writings of Baruch Spinoza, Pascal’s 17th-century contemporary. In Book II of his Ethics Spinoza considers the human mind, or the intellectual attributes, and – drawing further from Descartes – strives to define an essential theory of learning and knowledge.
[10] The most ominous synergies of “barbarism” would concern the growing risks of a nuclear war. On irrational nuclear decision-making by an American president, see Louis René Beres, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: https://thebulletin.org/2016/08/what-if-you-dont-trust-the-judgment-of-the-president-whose-finger-is-over-the-nuclear-button/ See also, by Professor Beres, https://warroom.armywarcollege.edu/articles/nuclear-decision-making/ (Pentagon). For authoritative early accounts by Professor Beres of nuclear war expected effects, see: Louis René Beres, Apocalypse: Nuclear Catastrophe in World Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980); Louis René Beres, Mimicking Sisyphus: America’s Countervailing Nuclear Strategy (Lexington, Mass., Lexington Books, 1983); Louis René Beres, Reason and Realpolitik: U.S. Foreign Policy and World Order (Lexington, Mass., Lexington Books, 1984); and Louis René Beres, Security or Armageddon: Israel’s Nuclear Strategy (Lexington, Mass., Lexington Books, 1986). Most recently, by Professor Beres, see: Surviving Amid Chaos: Israel’s Nuclear Strategy (New York, Rowman & Littlefield, 2016; 2nd ed. 2018). https://paw.princeton.edu/new-books/surviving-amid-chaos-israel%E2%80%99s-nuclear-strategy
[11]In this regard, selected elements of the US public ought to be reminded of the explicit warning in Nietzsche’s Zarathustra: “Do not ever seek the higher man at the market place.” Moreover, it would not be unfair to Nietzsche’s core meaning here to expand “higher man” to mean “higher person.”
[12] Most egregious, in any assessment of these damages, is this president’s wilful subordination of national interest to his own presumed private interests. In this regard, one may suitably recall Sophocles’ cautionary speech of Creon in Antigone: “I hold despicable, and always have…anyone who puts his own popularity before his country.”
[13] Still the best treatments of America’s long-term disinterest in anything intellectual are Richard Hofstadter, Anti-intellectualism in American Life (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1964); and Jacques Barzun, The House of Intellect (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1959).
[14] See, by Louis René Beres: https://www.jurist.org/commentary/2020/04/the-trump-presidency-a-breathtaking-assault-on-law-justice-and-security/
[15] The classic statement of Realpolitik or power politics in western philosophy is the comment of Thrasymachus in Plato’s Republic: “Justice is nothing else than the interest of the stronger.” (See Plato, The Republic, 29, Benjamin Jowett, tr., World Publishing Company, 1946.) See also: Cicero’s oft-quoted query: “For what can be done against force without force?” Marcus Tullus Cicero, Cicero’s Letters to his Friends, 78 (D.R. Shackleton Baily tr., Scholars Press, 1988).
[16] “I think, therefore I am,” says René Descartes, in his Discourse on Method (1637). Reciprocally, in his modern classic essay on “Existentialism,” Jean-Paul Sartre observes that “…outside the Cartesian cogito, all views are only probable.”
[17] See, by Professor Louis René Beres: https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1410&context=gjicl
[18] An apt literary reference for this condition of “lost appetite” is Franz Kafka’s story, The Hunger Artist.
[19]See by this author, Louis René Beres, at Horasis (Zurich): https://horasis.org/looking-beyond-shadows-death-time-and-immortality/
[20] In more expressly concrete terms, average American life-expectancy, already unenviable for several decades, has now fallen behind most of the advanced industrialized world.
[21] Apropos of this universality, international law is generally part of the law of the United States. These legal systems are always interpenetrating. Declared Mr. Justice Gray, in delivering the judgment of the US Supreme Court in Paquete Habana (1900): “International law is part of our law, and must be ascertained and administered by the courts of justice of appropriate jurisdiction….” (175 U.S. 677(1900)) See also: Opinion in Tel-Oren vs. Libyan Arab Republic (726 F. 2d 774 (1984)). The specific incorporation of treaty law into US municipal law is expressly codified at Art. 6 of the US Constitution, the so-called “Supremacy Clause.”
[22] Here it could be helpful to recall the words of French Jesuit philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin in The Phenomenon of Man: “The egocentric ideal of a future reserved for those who have managed to attain egoistically the extremity of `everyone for himself’ is false and against nature.”
[23] Long after Plato, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung thought of “soul” (in German, Seele) as the very essence of a human being. Neither Freud nor Jung ever provides a precise definition of the term, but clearly it was not intended by either in any ordinary religious sense. For both, it was a still-recognizable and critical seat of both mind and passions in this life. Interesting, too, in the present context, is that Freud explained his already-predicted decline of America by various express references to “soul.” Freud was plainly disgusted by any civilization so apparently unmoved by considerations of true “consciousness” (e.g., awareness of intellect and literature), and even thought that the crude American commitment to perpetually shallow optimism and to material accomplishment at any cost would occasion sweeping psychological misery.
[24] “Sometimes,” says Swiss playwright Friedrich Durrenmatt, “the worst does happen.”
[25] “In the end,” says Goethe, “we are always creatures of our own making.”
[26] See, about Donald J. Trump: https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-kim-jong-un-965367
Should the West Assume Collective Responsibility for the Failure of Biden’s Visit to Saudi Arabia?
LOUIS RENÉ BERES (Ph.D., Princeton, 1971) is Emeritus Professor of International Law at Purdue. His twelfth and most recent book is Surviving Amid Chaos: Israel's Nuclear Strategy (2016) (2nd ed., 2018) https://paw.princeton.edu/new-books/surviving-amid-chaos-israel%E2%80%99s-nuclear-strategy Some of his principal strategic writings have appeared in Harvard National Security Journal (Harvard Law School); International Security (Harvard University); Yale Global Online (Yale University); Oxford University Press (Oxford University); Oxford Yearbook of International Law (Oxford University Press); Parameters: Journal of the US Army War College (Pentagon); Special Warfare (Pentagon); Modern War Institute (Pentagon); The War Room (Pentagon); World Politics (Princeton); INSS (The Institute for National Security Studies)(Tel Aviv); Israel Defense (Tel Aviv); BESA Perspectives (Israel); International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence; The Atlantic; The New York Times and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
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Anagha Rajesh – Founder of Yours Mindfully
Should the West Assume Collective Responsibility for the Failure of Biden’s Visit to Saudi Arabia?
The Changing Political Dynamics of the Middle East
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How Bolivia’s 2019 coup exemplified millennia of global history
In July of this year, Joe Biden visited Israel and Saudi Arabia for the first time as US president. It is well known that the primary goal of the trip was to persuade Saudi Arabia to increase oil production to alleviate the pressure caused by soaring global energy prices. Yet, it is worth remembering that when Biden punished Saudi Arabia for the murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2019, he described it as a “pariah” country, adding that he had no short-term plans to meet with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia. It is therefore unsurprising that Biden received fierce criticism, not only for failing to encourage Saudi Arabia to increase oil production, but also for fist bumping MBS. Nevertheless, some argue that the criticism is unwarranted. After all, it was the West as a whole that put Biden in such an awkward position.
Biden’s Recalibration of Saudi Policy Criticized by both Realists and Moralists
Simply put, political leaders often face the dilemma of either preserving their nation’s interests or upholding morality when handling international affairs. Realists tend to emphasize that political leaders inevitably need to negotiate with dictators in order to protect the interests of their citizens; human rights activists/moralists stress that political leaders must draw a clear line with dictators who have poor human rights records and should not betray the victims of said dictators for the sake of economic or geopolitical gains.
On one hand, the Biden administration disclosed a confidential CIA report which concluded that the Saudi crown prince was behind the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. On the other hand, the US did not sanction MBS himself, only others involved in the killing. This response triggered criticism from both realists and moralists. Realists argued that infuriating MBS would be detrimental to the US in the foreseeable future, while moralists condemned the failure to impose direct punitive measures on MBS as hypocritical.
In terms of Biden’s visit to Saudi Arabia, some realists feel that Biden was shooting himself in the foot, while other realists believe that Biden’s move may help US–Saudi relations in the long run, despite it being humiliating in the short term. From the perspective of prioritizing human rights, Biden’s meeting with MBS is seen as him going back on his word and surrendering to a dictator.
It is worth mentioning that Turkey played a significant part in putting Khashoggi’s murder under the spotlight; however, it is difficult to say if their motive for doing so was entirely altruistic. At the time, Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, was being heavily criticized by the US for his country’s human rights abuses, with Turkey itself being the subject of US sanctions. The disclosure of Khashoggi’s murder could have been a calculated attempt to embarrass the US: if the US decided to punish Saudi Arabia, it would suffer geopolitical losses, but if it tolerated Saudi Arabia’s actions, it would show the world that the US had a double standard in terms of its response to human rights.
Turkey had also hoped to use the case to undermine Saudi leadership in the Muslim Sunni bloc. However, given Turkey’s rapid economic deterioration in recent months, it urgently needs to ease relations with neighboring countries. This is partly why Turkey suspended Khashoggi’s murder trial, handed over the case to Saudi Arabia in April, and welcomed MBS to Ankara in June. These are just a few examples of Turkey’s abandonment of justice for its own politico-economic gain. As such, Biden’s visit was a little less dishonorable than Erdogan’s behavior because the US has not lifted its sanctions. That said, since the US proclaims itself to be the leader in defending global human rights, Biden’s compromising has led to severe criticism.
The Energy and Climate Crisis is Not Only Biden’s Fault
Of course, it is unfair to solely blame the Biden administration for creating the major crises which are currently faced by the West. For example, Russia was suppressing dissident journalists and human rights activists long before its invasion of Ukraine; however, neither Europe or the US imposed comprehensive sanctions on them or accelerated its efforts towards energy independence to reduce reliance on Russia. Furthermore, after Khashoggi was murdered, no European state vowed to boycott Saudi Arabian energy as did the US. Hence, it can be said that Western leaders did not show much determination to reduce their dependence on the energy of authoritarian regimes in recent years.
By this standard, Biden is not necessarily more hypocritical than any other political leader in the Western bloc. The recent energy crisis caused by the West’s imposition of sanctions on Russia is, in fact, a result of their lengthy practice of “dealing with devils.” The moral responsibility, therefore, should be shared by their leaders collectively.
It should be added that the West’s foreign policy is often not purely driven by either human rights or interests. Indeed, the US and the EU are signatories of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the so-called “Iran Nuclear Deal”), despite Iran’s notorious record of executing dissidents over the past 35 years. The original intention of the agreement was to use trade normalization as bait to lure Iran into gradually abandoning its development of nuclear weapons and improving its domestic human rights. However, the West did not make the deal on the premise that Iran’s human rights would improve significantly or overnight, it made compromises.
Shortly after Donald Trump became President, he unilaterally withdrew from the Iran Nuclear Deal because he claimed that it was full of loopholes that allowed Iran to continue developing nuclear weapons in secret. Subsequently, Iran has been actively refining the enriched uranium needed for nuclear weapons, while its domestic hardline conservatives have fully regained political power in recent years.
The question of whether the threat from Iran was caused by Obama’s relaxation of sanctions or Trump’s unilateral withdrawal from the nuclear deal has been a hotly debated topic. It is also worth mentioning that Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and his plan of “Peace to Prosperity: A Vision to Improve the Lives of the Palestinian and Israeli People,” which allows Israel to occupy most of the West Bank, are based on contempt for Palestine.
The Legacy of Trump’s Middle East Policy Constrains Biden’s Options
Biden showed his intention to revise Trump’s Middle East policy on both the US presidential campaign trail and at the start of his presidency. However, evidence suggests that Trump’s policy has gradually taken root. In addition, the geopolitical situation has changed drastically. Therefore, it is difficult for Biden to simply act as he wants, and even if he did, the results would not seem effective either.
Of course, some left-wing critics argue that the climate crisis is precisely the result of over-consumption of non-renewable energy. Hence, instead of begging dictators to increase energy production amidst the current energy crisis, the Biden administration should use this opportunity to promote clean energy and reduce global greenhouse gases emissions, despite the pain it will cause people in the short term. That said, the US mid-term elections are approaching, and forcing voters to reduce their energy usage at such a time will only make things more difficult for the Biden-affiliated Democratic Party. Therefore, whether such an approach is prudent is up for debate.
Last but not least, the claim that “The US would not face such a passive geopolitical situation if Trump was re-elected as the US President” is an assertion that cannot be proved. Trump is well-known for his unpredictability and capriciousness in handling US foreign affairs, despite his consistent tough stance against Iran and his partiality to Israel and Saudi Arabia. Based on his previous actions, Trump might backtrack on Ukraine’s accession to NATO, claiming to support Ukraine’s right to join NATO, but then echoing others’ position against NATO expansion. He might also recklessly respond to Russia’s military threats, which would make the global situation even more precarious. Ultimately, both Trump’s loyal supporters and his adversaries can find examples that support their respective arguments, while simultaneously turning a blind eye to inconvenient truths.
An earlier Chinese version of this article appeared in print on July 25, 2022 in Section B, Page 11 of Ming Pao Daily News.
Throughout thousands of years of human history, dictatorships have been the norm, not the exception, and all of them have been by the aristocracy, against the public. (Sometimes, the aristocrats are led by one person, a “monarch” or “Fuehrer” or etc.; but he or she then REPRESENTS the aristocracy, NOT the public.)
Aristocrats are the nation’s few super-rich; the public are everyone else.
Usually, the aristocracy ‘justifies’ its ‘superiority’ as being god-ordained, and they hire (donate to) some clergy to allege this in order to keep the public fighting for them and maybe dying for them, in their wars of conquest, against the aristocracies who control foreign lands. Another way to fool their publics is to declare that these conquests will ‘free’ those foreign publics by replacing their local aristocracy with the invading country’s aristocracy (a ‘better’ one; those others are instead being called “oligarchs”), and so creating an empire, which represents ‘us’ against the foreigners’ ‘them’, while also making those foreigners ‘free’ from their “oligarchs.” This is called ‘spreading democracy’.
Throughout thousands of years, aristocracies have operated this way, deceiving masses of people so as to create empires, which expand the local aristocracy’s thefts, from being merely thefts against their local public, to becoming thefts against an entire empire’s public (using those local “oligarchs” as their vassals).
Here is how this worked out recently in Bolivia:
On 11 November 2011, The U.S. White House issued this “Statement from President Donald J. Trump Regarding the Resignation of Bolivian President Evo Morales”:
The resignation yesterday of Bolivian President Evo Morales is a significant moment for democracy in the Western Hemisphere. After nearly 14 years and his recent attempt to override the Bolivian constitution and the will of the people, Morales’s departure preserves democracy and paves the way for the Bolivian people to have their voices heard. The United States applauds the Bolivian people for demanding freedom and the Bolivian military for abiding by its oath to protect not just a single person, but Bolivia’s constitution. These events send a strong signal to the illegitimate regimes in Venezuela and Nicaragua that democracy and the will of the people will always prevail. We are now one step closer to a completely democratic, prosperous, and free Western Hemisphere.
On 13 November 2019, the billionaire Rupert Murdoch’s Fox ‘News’ headlined “Bolivia interim president declares ‘Bible has returned to the palace’ amid growing uncertainty”, and reported
A day after brandishing a giant leather-bound Bible and declaring herself Bolivia’s interim president, Jeanine Añez set to the task of trying to steady a nation divided by bloody political disputes and create the stability necessary to organize national elections.
The 52-year-old second-vice president of the Senate claimed the presidency on Tuesday following the ousting of socialist leader Evo Morales due to alleged election fraud and resignations from several high-ranking successors that left a power void in the country.
“The Bible has returned to the government palace,” Añez declared as part of an effort to separate herself from Morales, who had banned the Bible from the site after he reformed the constitution and recognized an Andean earth deity instead of the Roman Catholic Church.
Then, two days later, on November 15th, Anti-War dot com bannered “Finally Got Him: The Bolivian Coup”, and reported:
The U.S. says it wasn’t a coup.
Trump’s official statement “applauds” the Bolivian regime change for preserving democracy. Trump identifies the event as “a significant moment in democracy” because it stymied Bolivian President Evo Morales’ attempt “to override the Bolivian constitution and the will of the people. …”
But all three White House claims are false: Morales didn’t go against the constitution, he didn’t override the will of the people and it was a coup.
If it wasn’t a coup, why was Morales forced from office by the military? Why was he driven out of office in Bolivia and into asylum in Mexico for the sake of his safety, while a coup leader announced that the police and military were hunting Morales down and putting Bolivia into lockdown? Why as he fled and sought asylum was his house ransacked, his sister’s house set on fire, and the families of his cabinet ministers kidnapped and held hostage until the ministers resigned? Though reported in the mainstream media as abandoning Morales, Victor Borda resigned as president of the Bolivian congress and resigned his position as MP because his brother was kidnapped to force him to do so.
If it wasn’t a coup, why did the opposition assume power before the legislature voted on approving Morales’ resignation as the constitution demands? Why did Jeanine Añez declare herself interim president in the absence of the quorum that is legally required to make that decision after meeting with the military high command for over an hour? And why did the opposition force Morales out and assume power before Morales’ term in office would end in January?
If it wasn’t a coup, why did Morales’ opponent, Carlos Mesa, begin his claims of fraud before the voting began, before he could know there had been any fraud? Why did Mesa insist, according to Mark Weisbrot, that he would not accept the election results if Morales wins long before the votes were even counted?
And why, perhaps most damningly, did a cabal of coup plotters discuss between October 8th and 10th – days ahead of the October 20th election – a plan for social disturbance that would prevent Morales from staying in power, as revealed by leaked audio of their conversations?
Then, on 24 July 2020, the Twitter site of an American centi-billionaire, Elon Musk, received a tweet from an “Armani” saying, “You know what wasnt in the best interest of people? the U.S. government organizing a coup against Evo Morales in Bolivia so you could obtain the lithium there.” Later that day, Musk replied:
“We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.”
Why, then, was the Bible being presented, on 13 November 2019, as the coup’s justification?
Not enough suckers would have been fooled to support this fascist coup as having been a fascist coup — a coup by an aristocracy. It was actually even a racist-fascist coup, a “nazi” coup (a coup by a racist aristocracy), which aimed to steal from the native-Indian masses in Bolivia, for the benefit of the supremacist-White aristocracy there, who were subordinates, or vassals, of America’s own overwhelmingly White aristocracy, its billionaires, such as the racist-fascist Elon Musk. Fox ‘News’ had broadcast that biblical display to its own overwhelmingly White Christian audience so as to portray that theft against Bolivians as having been in service to their god and consequently ‘justifiable’. It’s simply the way that aristocracies have functioned, for thousands of years.
Then, on 14 July 2022, the “Declassified UK” investigative-news site headlined “EVO MORALES: ‘WE LAMENT THE ENGLISH WERE CELEBRATING THE SIGHT OF DEAD PEOPLE’”, and delivered from Matt Kennard a terrific, linked-to-sources, extensive interview with the U.S.-UK-Bolivian aristocracy-overthrown former Bolivian President, who explained, as Kennard’s summary at its front stated:
• THE COUP: ‘The UK participated in it – all for lithium’
• THE BRITISH: ‘Superiority is so important to them, the ability to dominate’
• THE US: ‘Any relationship with them is always subject to conditions’
• NEW MODEL: ‘We no longer submit to transnational corporations’
• JULIAN ASSANGE: ‘The detention of our friend is an intimidation’
• NATO: ‘We need a global campaign to eliminate it’
• BOLIVIA: ‘We are putting anti-imperialism into practice’
Morales, while he had held power in Bolivia, had produced, for the Bolivian people, results that publics elsewhere could only dream of.
Of course, the U.S./UK regime will be trying to reconquer Bolivia.
History teaches lots of lessons, to whomever in the public is open-minded to it and who is lucky enough to become exposed to its truths (despite the aristocracy’s overwhelming censorship against those truths — which are historical truths).
When news of President Joe Biden’s long-stalled domestic agenda broke out of Washington, it was the middle of the night in Saudi Arabia. Again. The offender was well known. The enormous plan for the environment, taxes, and social safety net raised concerns from Sen. Joe Manchin, a moderate Democrat from West Virginia. The news was received with annoyance and outrage in Jeddah, where Biden was holding tense meetings with Saudi leaders, but not astonishment.
Fortunes have changed after 13 days, two Covid infections, and a few acrimonious arguments. Manchin and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer stunned the majority of Washington on Wednesday when they revealed that they had reached an agreement on a version of Biden’s protracted climate, energy, and tax agenda after restarting their negotiations in secret four days after they had broken down.
Manchin was sure to underline that the bill’s previous name, Build Back Better, had been dropped. It is less than half the size of Biden’s original bill. The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 is anything but a done deal because Republicans are uniformly opposed and several Democrats in the Senate and House have not yet signed on.
But the accord gave ambitions that many Democrats had mostly set aside fresh life after appearing dormant for months. The President’s legislative prospects are improving after a bill to increase US computer chip manufacture was passed on Thursday. On Wednesday, after mostly giving up on formal meetings with Manchin after witnessing the senator repeatedly thwart his agenda, Biden spoke to the senator, who is spending time alone in the West Virginia highlands with Covid. Since December, they had not made a formal call on the Democratic agenda.
A day later, when news of the unexpected events was being announced in the State Dining Room of the White House, Biden observed, “The job of the government may be slow, frustrating, and sometimes even aggravating.” “For those who don’t give up, the hours, days, and months of arduous work eventually pay off. It is accomplished. Life is altered.”
The agreement on taxes and climate change was nearly entirely negotiated in secrecy, so when it was revealed on Wednesday in the late afternoon, many people were caught off guard. Sen. Tina Smith of Minnesota tweeted, “Holy shit.” “Stunned—in a good way, nonetheless.”
That mindset was a far cry from the Democratic Party’s attitude on July 14, when Manchin publicly undermined the energy and climate policies that had been the cornerstone of the Biden administration’s commitment to drastically cut carbon emissions.
The President’s domestic agenda suffered a setback two weeks ago, but the White House was hardly surprised given how frequently it had been dying during the previous year. By that time, senior administration officials had developed a highly dubious perspective on the discussions between Manchin and Schumer about restarting the President’s plans.
Biden had been largely exempted from the conversations, as he was quick to note himself.
When a reporter questioned whether Joe Manchin was negotiating in good faith on July 15 inside the Waldorf Astoria hotel in Jeddah, he responded, “I didn’t bargain with Joe Manchin.”
“I don’t know.” Concerns were raised regarding the most recent inflation statistics by the Senate’s most conservative Democrat. According to a report on July 14, inflation reached a 40-year high in June, rising 9.1 percent over the previous year.
Manchin recalled the meeting he had with Schumer after the two had been in secret discussions about renewing Biden’s climate agenda for three months: “When that 9.1 came in, I said, ‘I can’t, I just can’t do it.'” At that point, Chuck became irate.
It wasn’t always a cool, collected conversation. Manchin admitted that occasionally his temper gets the better of him and that certain people had “let the dogs out” on him because he allegedly walked away from the agreement. But by the next week, the two senators had cooled things down. On July 18, Manchin asked Schumer if he was still furious as they passed one another in a hallway of the Capitol. “This is ludicrous,” I responded,” Manchin spoken. “Check our calibration and see if there is anything we can do. To his credit, he responds, “OK.”
Manchin approached Schumer that day with an offer: “Can we work together and attempt to put together a bill?” Schumer said at a news conference on Thursday. But even then, the timetable was hazy. Manchin had previously stated that he would wait until he saw the inflation data for August before taking any action on the climate until September. Manchin was told unequivocally by Schumer that a climate agreement needed to be completed before then. I told them, “We’re not waiting for September as long as we finish it in August,” Schumer said. Despite Manchin’s initial opposition, Schumer persisted with proposals that the West Virginian could back. The aide claimed that the senator eventually returned and expressed his willingness to proceed with an August deadline.
He made a few promises and gave some concessions that helped win his support. Tax increases on Americans with high incomes, which were supported by Biden and other Democrats, were excluded from the final bill. And Manchin has made it clear that he would not have joined the effort unless Democratic leaders made a commitment to pass legislation dealing with energy infrastructure permitting, which might make it easier for a shale gas pipeline in West Virginia.
Meanwhile, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers privately contacted Manchin to explain that the agreement would not increase inflation but would instead be deflationary. Summers had already offered early inflation warnings last year, frequently to the chagrin of the Biden administration.
In a CNN interview, Summers refrained from commenting on his private chats but provided reassurance in response to concerns that the law might increase inflation. He added on “New Day” that the bill “fights inflation and has a whole series of collateral advantages as well.”
Summers wasn’t the only one working behind the scenes for Manchin. Sen. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat from Colorado, informed reporters that the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania was providing analysis of the tax and climate pact to him and his staff.
Hickenlooper told reporters, “We knew that (Manchin) trusted Wharton and that he’d utilized that for modeling before. “So we asked them to act out this. After doing that, we received modeling indicating that this is not at all inflationary, and we submitted that to Joe.”
Hickenlooper claimed he was seeking to add to the chorus of voices persuading Manchin that the agreement will lower inflation. Similar arguments were being made by other senators, such as Chris Coons of Delaware, Brian Schatz of Hawaii, and Smith, according to Hickenlooper.
Hickenlooper said, “I was listening to whatever Joe indicated he had a problem with, and I was trying to fix it. I believed him when he said that inflation was the issue and that the rest could be resolved.
Senior officials at the White House were purposefully kept out of direct discussions despite being aware that important ones were taking place, according to administration aides. People close to Biden have been reluctant to involve him in yet another round of political battle for fear that talks would again break down.
In a radio appearance on Thursday, Manchin stated that “President Biden was not involved.” “I wasn’t going to let the President in because I didn’t think it was fair, and this situation very possibly could have been avoided. It had every chance of going wrong. I had to check to see if this was doable.”
It wasn’t until the very end of the deal that White House officials received a thorough reading of its contents. One insider told CNN that it was “extremely well-kept secret.”
Biden and Manchin both contracted Covid over the past few days as the deal was coming together. Manchin was alone in his home state’s mountains while Biden worked from the White House.
By Wednesday, Manchin and Schumer had reached an understanding; they made the announcement just after the Senate passed the legislation pertaining to computer chips. Since Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell had pledged to reject the microchip measure if Democrats introduced a package containing Biden’s agenda, several people considered the timing to be less than fortuitous.
According to Senate Republican Whip John Thune, “I think everyone got startled, definitely by claims that had been made by Democrats about this arrangement, and I believe there was some level of folks getting ambushed — not only on our side but on the Democrats’ side.”
You’ll have to speak with McConnell about that, he responded when asked if he handled the transaction well.
Democrats face what is likely still an uphill battle in gaining enough support for the package, even among members of their own party, despite their celebrations on Thursday. Schumer assured Democrats Thursday in a speech delivered behind closed doors that they were ready to enact measures they had been discussing for years. The next 10 days will require us to stick together and put in long days and nights, he stated. “We must maintain focus and discipline in our messaging. It’ll be difficult.”
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