Humility at Last
George Bush talked the talk of humility during his campaign, but has strutted triumphantly on the world stage ever since. Condi Rice and Barack Obama, on the other hand, have had a different experience of American history handed down to them, a story of fighting for liberty, democracy, and equality for two centuries after 1776. They know first-hand that American rhetoric is full of promises, but that those promises are not always kept. This is a far better message to preach to the world, one that recognizes not only that we have not always been an ideal role model but that, amazingly enough, we might actually have something to learn from other peoples as well as to teach.
This brings me back to American exceptionalism. A couple of weeks ago, when we were debating the Truman Project, many readers rejected even the idea of American exceptionalism; others argued about what precisely made us exceptional; still others pointed out that exceptionalism is all too often advanced as an excuse to duck rules that apply to everyone else -- what John Ruggie has identified as exemptionalism rather than exceptionalism in a new book called American Exceptionalism and Human Rights edited by Michael Ignatieff (full disclosure; I have a piece in the book challenging the idea that American judges are refusing to cite judges in other countries as yet another example of the bad variety of American exceptionalism).
In my view, Realish got it right when s/he pointed out the difference between believing that we as a people are exceptional and believing that our principles are exceptional. Our founders believed that we were no better than any other people as people; they put their faith in institutions to check and balance power and to secure us the best chance of advancing a set of principles they believed to be universal.
We believe that our country stands out in the world less because of specifically American qualities than because we stand for principles applicable to men and women of every country – that we speak for those who dare not or cannot speak for themselves. That is in fact exceptional, although not unique (France prides itself on a universal message as well – the Declaration of the Rights of Man versus the Declaration of Independence). But it is an exceptionalism that should breed respect for the countless and difficult national paths to realizing these values, just as Obama describes the ongoing process of America itself. It is an exceptionalism that should generate a very different posture on the world stage: “speak softly, listen carefully, and never think that strength is measured only by the size of our stick.”
Thank you for the great blog! I very much enjoyed your last statement, though it is the complete opposite of every thing that makes up Bush’s character. I also enjoyed the Obama link, what a great man. Obama seems to be saying we should remember what is important and valuable about our past and turn away from what is no longer useful. I have heard some say manufacturing will never come back and though they may be right, perhaps the optimism in Obama’s speech is more correct. Optimism in a way is the beginning of new ideas like Obama’s idea of making fuel from corn or what ever. If we sit around and repeat it is our fate to sink rather than look for new ways to compete in the world market then there will be no new ideas.
June 27, 2005 1:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
In my experience, one key manifestation of the bad exceptionalism, and a sore point between the rest of the world and the United States, is our lack of a clear stance on state sovereignty. We push for democracy and freedom and seem quite willing to overthrow other states to achieve those ends, clearly negating the concept of state sovereignty. Yet at the same time, we maintain our own sovereignty, refusing to submit to treaties, the ICC, etc.
Part of the reason that China is becoming increasingly popular with the rest of the world is that it advocates a coherent vision of state sovereignty -- that is, let states do as they please, internal workings be damned.
The U.S. alternative is that our exceptional values trump any state sovereignty, but we appear to fail in applying that principle to ourselves. Hence, our rhetoric of freedom and democracy appears hollow to the rest of the world. A "humble" foreign policy would mean that if we insisted on UN election monitors abroad, then we must be willing to have them here as well. But given domestic politics, I doubt that's feasible.
June 27, 2005 5:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
June 27, 2005 5:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, but the notion that Condi's speech marks an "historic turn" or that she was "speaking truth to power" is just ludicrous. And naive in the extreme. How many times does this administration have to demonstrate its capacity to say pretty words in public and then turn around and do the opposite? And Condi's been no less a player in this regard than anyone else in the regime.
Dean Slaughter, when you can come back and report that she "spoke truth" to Hosni Mubarak in private, and is ready to back up those words with actual policies, come back to us. Then I'll be impressed. Until then, the only impact I see of Condi's "different experience of American history" is that it makes her service of the Bush administration that much more deplorable.
June 27, 2005 7:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Dean Slaughter,
how on earth do you square your support for Humility in American foreign policy with the continued Hubris of the claim that America "stands for principles applicable to men and women of every country"? What authority backs up this claim, what power can make this decision? Is this really more than a self-proclaimed, indeed autistic glorification? Who do you think actually recognises this claim out there in the world? The Iranians, perhaps, who just voted for a conservative, anti-American President?
And what good is the pluralism of "countless ... national paths", if they have to converge on the values that America defines for them?
Your reasoning here is indebted to metaphysics, not analytics, it therefore becomes, as the other posts have pointed out, naive and removed from politics. Moreover, at the end of the day, your stance is basically the same as the Bush administrations.
June 27, 2005 8:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
You'll know Egypt is a real democracy when they buy some nukes.
June 27, 2005 8:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
"she spoke truth to Arab power"
When leading officials of the world hyperpower give instruction to their client states, it should not be dressed in the romanticism of 'speaking truth to power' as if it were Gandhi meeting Churchill.
June 27, 2005 9:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
I have not yet read Dr. Rice's speech in Cairo, but instead of an expresssion of genuine humility, the part you quoted sounds to me more like a) a plea for patience directed at those who today are critical of the administration's policies in Iraq, or b) a cricisim of past US policies, such as those which tolerated dictatorships (as in Iraq) as the price for regional stability and US security.
Would not genuine humility have required that she agree: some of the adminstration's critics are making very valid points? And maybe an admission that Bush adminstration officials have made some very fundamental mistakes in Iraq? I will be curious to see if she said that.
June 27, 2005 9:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
N.B. Of course I meant 'criticism' in b) (above).
June 27, 2005 9:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
I have to agree with others and debunk this post.
The idea of Rice "channeling" Senator Obama is not just ludicrous - it is grotesque. To my mind, Senator Obama and Ms Rice personify polar opposites of today's political spectrum and for very good reasons. In trying to keep this reply short, I will elaborate on this in a different post. For now, I would simply suggest that conflating their arguments is patently absurd.
At a time when the White House, <a href="http://www.ronsuskind.com/newsite/articles/archives/00
0032.html">according to John DiIulio,</a> is run by "Mayberry Machiavellis" -- "without a policy apparatus" and when "everything - and I mean everything - is being run by the political arm" -- it might seem possible to easily mistake a particularly preposterous turn of the spin machine for a substantive, "historic shift in policy."
But to read "Humility at Last" into any message coming out of this adminstration is simply absurd. You might as well believe that Enron had the interests of its customers at heart.
You yourself point out that America is not alone in claiming authorship of a set of supposedly universal values. But to suggest that
<cite>"America..stands out in the world less because of specifically American qualities than because we stand for principles applicable to men and women of every country – that we speak for those who dare not or cannot speak for themselves"</cite> is highly misleading.
President Bush has always sought to pander to nationalist impulses. One of the reasons behind the world-wide condemnation of America's current foreign policy are precisely the administration's incessant claims of the superiorty of <b>specifically American qualities and values<b> as opposed to the propagation of a set of universal principles. The whole neo-conservative project is based on the idea of American supremacy, and not on any claim of moral absolutism.
June 27, 2005 10:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Even the idea that our principles are “exceptional” -- or that it is solely the rhetoric of the constitution that accounts for the remarkable stability of our political system -- is demonstrably false and pure nationalistic, liberal mythology.
As well intentioned as the post is, it also succumbs to the typical error of assuming that Americans are good for who we are as opposed to what we do. And it demonstrates the typical assumption inherent in the works of most US IR specialists that no matter what the US does we can always assume that the underlying intentions are good. Could Condi have been lying as part of a well-staged publicity event? And after everything this administration has done, after all the lies, how can anyone think that one speech signifies a turning point in history?
We’d never study another country’s politics this naively, of course. It is only the unexamined nationalistic bias of folks like Slaughter that make this romantic nationalistic claptrap possible.
With regards to Condi’s reading of history, those interested may wish to look up her speech at the 2000 Republican National Convention, where she argued that she was a Republican because Southern Democrats had denied her father the vote. Even someone with only a high-school knowledge of twentieth-century US history should recognize the intellectual dishonesty of that statement. To pu tit mildy, I'd take anything Ms. Rice says with a grain of salt.
June 27, 2005 12:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
No doubt it was humility that led Secretary Rice to decline to criticize the Saudi ban on women drivers during her recent visit to Arabia. She did speak up for women's electoral participation. Clap. Clap.
June 27, 2005 1:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Condi said in her speech that "We should all look to a future when every government respects the will of its citizens."
Hear, hear.
I'll believe she is sincere when she gives that speech at home (before a U.S. press corps), and when (more importantly) her bosses stop tampering with our elections.
June 27, 2005 1:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
There is a way I do believe in American exceptionalism, and I think this is a way that can be done with humility, which goes back to the point made in this posting about our founding fathers accepting human imperfection and irrationality when writing the constitution The exceptional part of "The American Project" is just this: provide a loose, mutable set of rules and laws for the three separate branches of government, and let time and experience dictate how our country should be governed. Granted this may have been done out of federalist distrust as much as noble humility, but it's the essence of what could be seen as American exceptionalism.
This is not to say we're exceptional in being the only democracy in the world. We're exceptional in establishing the best kind of democracy in the world--one that allows for us to learn and adapt acordingly. Basically, we're the best since we're the most accepting of our imperfections. Of course one can debate this, but I believe it's a rather humble way of believing in American exceptionalism.
June 27, 2005 2:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
"We're exceptional in establishing the best kind of democracy in the world--one that allows for us to learn and adapt acordingly. Basically, we're the best since we're the most accepting of our imperfections."
Sounds like massively indulgent self-congratulation to me. Even my faults are virtues! If you had a college roommate who said that, you'd vomit.
June 27, 2005 2:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Anne-Marie writes:
that we speak for those who dare not or cannot speak for themselves
Do we speak for the opponents of Islam Karimov who're being dipped into vats of boiling oil?
The LA Times two weeks ago: "The United States has had few better friends than President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan ."
Bush is speaking for Karimov's victims. He's saying: "Come on, now, the oil isn't that hot! Karimov isn't nearly as bad as you think. I've got a war on terror to fight, you crybabies."
Yes, we surely speak for those who can't.
And often, I bet, they surely wish we would shut up!
June 27, 2005 2:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
ad hominems and nausea aside, I think you're missing my point here. I'm not saying "even my faults are virtues," I'm saying admitting we have flaws is a virtue. And most importantly, building that into the foundation of our democracy makes us, arguably, exceptional.
June 27, 2005 3:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
My acknowledgement of my flaws is my special virtue!
I stay nauseated.
June 27, 2005 3:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Can you think of anything they talk about more idealistically? Bush clearly believes that democracy is devine. This makes liberals mad because WE are the ones who are suppossed to be thinking about freedom while the nasty conservatives focus on oil, etc.
But what if we've finally convinced them? Sure we differ radically on means (they think freedom comes from invasion, we think that often accomplished precisely the opposite)--but maybe we've finally come together on ends. Maybe the Condi-Obama link isn't so crazy after all.
Liberals should celebrate the new Bush democracy rhetoric, and then hold them to their word. As other posters have mentioned, the gap between rhetoric and reality is always a problem for this administration. But getting agreement on ultimate goals makes our case a lot easier. Liberals should look at Condi's speech as an opportunity--and use it to go for the jugular!
June 27, 2005 5:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Pro-Slaughter (1); Anti-Slaughter (13); OTOHBOTOH (2)
It's Anti-Slaughter by a landslide.
Question: Is this result representative of the Cafe's view, or is there something about the "blog-comment" form that naturally tends to bring out the "jousting knights" among us?
June 27, 2005 6:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good question. I am "pro-Slaughter", at least in this case, but haven't commented yet because A) I haven't felt I had much to add to the debate and B) I've been too busy doing other things. There may be something to the fact that those opposed are going to be quicker to write than those who support.
June 27, 2005 7:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
It has nothing to do with the format, and everything with the particular blog and author. Judging by this and her previous posts, I can only conclude that Dean Slaughter obtained her position through vigorous and naive cheerleading of US imperialism, and pandering to the already excessive self-admiration of the US "international relations experts". The defense of exceptionalism, the insistence on a particularly American virtue, the refusal to call the Iraq invasion a blunder and war crime, in this post the stated belief in Condoleeza's cynical lies and posturing after a mountain of evidence that this administration lies just all the time, about everything - these strike me as shamefully unscientific, thoroughly biased attitudes. If sincere, she is far too naive to educate students; if not, she is is cynical propagandist. Either way, if that is the typical position of "liberals" in the US, then they are no better, and maybe even more insidious than the neo-cons.
Bottom line, Slaughter deserves all the bashing she got here, and then some.
June 27, 2005 8:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
And just how do you propose to hold them to their words, when they have already lied and broken promises time and again? You cannot shame the shameless .
I can well imagine the sort of contemptuous shrug with which this sort of rhethoric is greeted by its suppossed recipients outside the US. Rice and the whole administration have zero credibility in the middle East or anywhere else. All this rhetoric is strictly for home consumption, to provide fodder for people like Dean Slaughter.
June 27, 2005 9:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Melvin Udall
I really doubt hatred is the underlying reason behind most of the post here expressing dismay at the revision of Dr Rice. Her track record is quite sufficient.
I don't know about the Dean, but after someone lies through their teeth over and over and over again, I eventually refuse to give anything they say any credibility or consideration. I call this accountability. But I don't reserve such censure for liars only. I extend it to those who enable such liars with their naivety and malicious obfuscation.
Sorry bout the Melvin quote but Condi and Barak? That is as good as it gets.
June 27, 2005 9:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
<p>Thale </p><p>You state that Condi and the Bush adminstration are "hardcore" about the spread of democracy. It is sad that today many of the same people that spent a life time destroying post-colonial movements around the globe are now defining democracy. The democracy that the Condi and Ms. Slaughter speak of is highly conditional on who gets to define democracy and then how it is defined. What they offer is a hollowed out democracy that is reduced to a competition of elites and elite interests. The new status quo is no longer the statist authoritarian dictators that ruled countries around the world with the full consent and support of the U.S. After the fall of the USSR it was necessary to remake the global order. The new status quo is a highly managed, both internally and externally ie. by international institutions and global financal agreements, democracy that fits into the intregrated system of global capitalism and the American orbit. <br /> </p>
June 27, 2005 11:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
You've hit the nail on the head, abehnke11...
The key question is whether or not the rest of the world really wants to absorb our values. A lot of people on the streets of Cairo, for example, want political change, but it doesn't necessarily follow that that change would be in a direction which would be friendly to U.S. interests.
In fact, a lot of people in that part of the world see their own values (not their authoritarian governments) as something they need to defend against our attempts to change them.
Ultimately, U.S. foreign policy needs to deal with the world as it exists, not the world as we wish it could be.
June 28, 2005 10:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'd be more impressed with the words about freedom and democracy Dr. Rice delivered in Egypt if the U.S. was not simultaneously delivering prisoners to Egypt to be tortured.
June 28, 2005 1:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
<p>"I'd be more impressed with the words about freedom and democracy Dr. Rice delivered in Egypt if the U.S. was not simultaneously delivering prisoners to Egypt to be tortured."</p><p>In respect to torture, it can truly be said that the US might actually have something to learn from Egypt as well as to teach</p>
June 28, 2005 2:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
"I'd be more impressed with the words about freedom and democracy Dr. Rice delivered in Egypt if the U.S. was not simultaneously delivering prisoners to Egypt to be tortured."
In respect to torture, it can truly be said that the US might actually have something to learn from Egypt as well as to teach
June 28, 2005 2:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
As another commenter put it on a similar blog recently, just drop the exceptionalsm crap already. It makes you look ridiculous and arrogant outside your country, and dangerously complacent and deluded within.
June 28, 2005 10:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wake up!
June 30, 2005 5:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
The notion of any US politician-- let alone a punk pol who without the slightest sense of embarrassment compares himself and his achievements to Abe Lincoln's-- credibly displaying humility on a grand stage is laughable. Dem or Republican, they're all egotists.
Obama's not a bad guy but he's just as vain and ridiculous as the rest of our political elite. Here's what this buppie prince said recently about his own most excellent and phenomenal achievements:
"In Lincoln's rise from poverty, his ultimate mastery of language and law, his capacity to overcome personal loss and remain determined in the face of repeated defeat--in all this he reminded me not just of my own struggles."
I especially love the part about his "ultimate mastery of language and law"-- guess we can look forward to Obama as the next Dem pick for SCOTUS. But will that be before or after the American Library issues its three-volume series of Obama's essays and assorted other prose?
July 2, 2005 12:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
With regards to Condi’s reading of history, those interested may wish to look up her speech at the 2000 Republican National Convention, where she argued that she was a Republican because Southern Democrats had denied her father the vote. Even someone with only a high-school knowledge of twentieth-century US history should recognize the intellectual dishonesty of that statement.
You don't know what you're talking about. Many 1960's Republicans favored desegregation. In fact, northern Republicans like Edward Brooke, the african-american senator from Massachusetts; Nelson Rockefeller; John Lindsay, the NYC mayor, and plenty of others were far more liberal than any southern US Democrat of that era.
Condi is simply stating the obvious fact that the southern Democratic Party establishment during the 1950s and early 1960s was a hardcore segregationist, reactionary faction that stood squarely in the way of her people's progress.
If you still doubt her intentions, put yourself in the shoes of a young black person listening to a) George Wallace, Democratic mushmouth racist Governor of Alabama, and b) Edward Brooke, liberal, suave, well-educated african-american Republican Senator, and tell us which party would appear more favorable to you and your prospects.
July 2, 2005 12:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
U.S. foreign policy needs to deal with the world as it exists, not the world as we wish it could be
Well said, Dr. Kissinger.
But tell me again, what happened to the party of Wilson and Roosevelt and Truman and JFK that allows such a nakedly cynical realpolitik like the above to pass as proper Democratic wisdom?
July 2, 2005 12:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm afraid you missed my point entirely.
Let's clarify. The point isn't that there weren't Republicans in favor of civil rights. Indeed, if you reed Caro's Mater of the Senate you can see how close the Republicans, and not the Democrats, came to being the party of civil rights.
But Condi wasn't talking about this. She said I vote Republican because Democrats denied my father the right to vote. Yes, and many of those Democrats (think Strom Thurmond) became Republicans. More importantly, the Republicans capitalized on discontent over civil rights to win the south (the Southern Strategy).
Condi's speech was an obvious simplification of history for political purposes; it was pure hackery. Of course, we have her more recent record in office with which to judge her mendacity.
And by the way, what's up with you ranking my post a 2? I take it the ranking reflects your disagreement, but that is an abuse of the ranking system. You're entitled to do as you please, but I never rank anyone below a 3 unless they use obscenity or engage in ad hominem attacks.
July 2, 2005 5:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Reality -- it has a way of imposing itself on you whether you like it or not. Given the reality of what's going on in Iraq, people are beginning to realize that maybe the folks in that part of the world have a value system just a tad different than ours.
As for comparisons between my views and others -- I'd much prefer Brzezinski to Kissinger. The linked article in the Financial Times is well worth reading, and right on the mark. I also agree in large part with the article by Clifford Kupchan on a foreign policy agenda for Democrats.
It's a good thing that this debate has begun within our party. I respect your right to your views, but I also think they are way too similar to those of the neoconservatives in some of the ways that allowed people to buy into the delusion that we'd be "welcomed with flowers" in Baghdad, hand over to "Iraqi democrats," and have our troop presence down below two divisions by the end of 2003.
Democrats need a foreign policy vision which will lead us away from similar folly in the future.
July 2, 2005 6:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
She said I vote Republican because Democrats denied my father the right to vote. Yes, and many of those Democrats (think Strom Thurmond) became Republicans. More importantly, the Republicans capitalized on discontent over civil rights to win the south
Cranky, with all due respect, it's you who are hacking away. Those Dems became Republicans many years after the fact. Throughout Condi's youth, the face of Southern Democrats was the face of vicious racism. That is a fact. Condi spoke to the decision she made as a young person based on a profound and personal experience.
On this one we should give partisanship a rest. Neither you nor I has any right whatsoever to second-guess any african-american's reaction to the wickedness hurled in their faces during that era.
It's a cheap shot to suggest that this woman, who isn't very conservative to begin with, has any sympathy for Lott or Thurmond or the "southern strategy". Were this otherwise she would never have been invited by Albright to serve in Clinton's admin. In any case, her logic is no less legitimate than similar, highly emotional and subjective decisions made by intelligent and sensistive people at that formative age. For ex, Bobby Kennedy was the son a millionaire, and deeply religious and conservative, yet he chose at a young age to become a Democrat. Gordon Brown was a Trotskyite who then moved toward Labour.
You're just annoyed that she refused to give our party a second chance many years later after the Dixiecrats finally left. For that we should blame the Dixiecrats, not Condi. She's obviously an extraordinarily brave woman, and deserves our admiration.
respectfully,
thibaud
July 3, 2005 9:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
I’m not second-guessing her. I’m taking a potshot at her speech, and a legitimate one at that. Rice’s speech was a gross simplification of a complex historical trend and a complete whitewashing of the Republicans obvious appeals to racism to capture the south. Context is important here -- you’ll recall that the Republicans went out of their way to present an image of themselves as an inclusive and heterogeneous party (Joe Lieberman had the greatest line when he said he hadn’t seen that much acting in Philadelphia since Tom Hanks won an Oscar). Rice had a role to play in projecting that image, and she played it well.
To suggest that Condi isn’t a conservative is only to reveal how far right the political center in this country has moved. In terms of foreign policy she represents everything that is wrong with this administration. Imperial ambitions, incompetent handling of intelligence, and eagerness to lie in the pursuit of power.
I’ve said my peace, so thibaud can have the last word here. But may I suggest we move the debate back to where it started -- it was about this administrations foreign policy and Rice’s role in promoting and selling it. Slaughter seemed to think that her speech represented a “historic turn.” I suggested that we should take anything Rice, or anyone else in this administration, says with more than just a little skepticism.
If thiebaud would like to make a principled, nuanced, and informed defense of this administration’s foreign policy and of Rice's role in it, then let’s hear it. I’m not annoyed that a second-rate academic doesn’t want to be a Democrat (often, I’m not sure if I want to be one). But lying in defense of amoral foreign adventures that result in the deaths of misguided Americans and innocent civilians, well that gets my goat.
July 3, 2005 10:35 PM | Reply | Permalink