I had a letter published in The Economist magazine a few years ago. It was in response to what I thought was a negative article about the the West. This is how it went: I am bothered by your assessment that the West’s triumph might not endure in light of the astonishing ascent of Japan and its neighbors. On the contrary. Even if Asian economies overtake those of the West, the West will still have triumphed. The context and principles on which Asian economies are based have been devised and developed in the West.
That same year, 1999, The Economist had an article commemorating the 10th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall. That event marked the end of the Cold War and the triumph of the West and Democracy over Communism. This left Democracy the sole form of government in the world, an extraordinary outcome The Economist acknowledged.
However, I also was bothered by that article because it implied another failure with the West. It believed that the West, which espouses universality, hadn’t invented a new form of government to include those who have found it impossible to embrace Democracy. It felt that the West could have devised a gentler, more broadly based form of human governance. My feeling was that it wasn’t the West’s fault that there were those who had problems with Democracy. They would have to change and adapt to Democracy not the other way around.
By believing that a new form of government should have emerged, it’s obvious that The Economist didn’t subscribe to Francis Fukuyama’s argument that the triumph of Democracy marked an “end point” in human governance. He posited this idea in his book “The End of History. He couldn’t imagine any alternative to it since humankind already had tried every other form. Fukuyama made a pretty good case as to why Democracy could very well be the end point, because it essentially satisfied all the basic needs and aspirations of humankind. Here was the system, Fukuyama said, humankind had been striving for, a governance that was both universal in nature and mutually beneficial. In his view Democracy was the epitome in human governance. One couldn’t do better. Perhaps there were other alternatives, but not for this world.
The way The Economist made it sound, the West is in decline because it is being economically eclipsed by the East and because it hadn’t developed any new methods in human governance. If that’s true, which I don’t believe, one thing is certain, the West is leaving a lasting legacy that the rest of the world will benefit from. It is leaving a legacy like past civilizations have. The Greeks left the notion of democracy; the Romans, our legal system; the Arabs, mathematics and the means to quantify things; the Britons, a constitution and the work ethic. The great thing the West has done for the world is to bring together the best aspects of human ingenuity and molded them into a single coherent workable, humanistic force. The modern West improved on past contributions and has created the political and economic systems that sustains us today. The greatest legacy the West has pasted onto the rest of the world is one of general security and egalitarianism. Apart from inventing Democracy, the West invented the notions of progress, something I notice the rest of the world has not shunned but found appealing and irresistible
The West is not declining. Instead the rest of the world is rising to it. The world is leveling out. The West knew it had something unique in Democracy and has encouraged the rest of the world to partake in it. The rest of the world has heeded the West’s advice and is slowly becoming to resemble it and do as well or better than it. The Economist should celebrate this, not see it as a death knell for the West. What the West truly discovered is the holy grail of human government and now the rest of the world - China, India, etc. - are slowly moving towards it.
If the West has failed it’s because it has wrongly assumed that those who have never participated in Democracy would readily and naturally accept it. Nations that are full fledge democracies have taken centuries to become so. The Economist has not considered this and generally has misplaced its criticism of the West and its stewardship. Instead it should think of ways the West can improve on the selling and implementation of
Thursday, April 21, 2005
Friday, April 15, 2005
Adults asking childish questions
Isaiah Berlin said that philosophers are adults who persist in asking childish questions.
So does that mean that adults who asks childish questions are philosophers? Not necessarily. For one to be a philosopher childish questions should be followed by reflection and possible explanations. For example, Albert Einstein is considered a philosopher because he answered his own childish questions. One of the biggest childish questions he asked was, “Did God have any choice in how he created the world?” All his life Einstein developed thought experiments and theories that showed reasonably well that God did not have a choice if the world was to be the way it is.
I’ve asked childish questions. In my attempt to answer them I haven’t necessarily become a philosopher but I did turn to philosophy to answer them. What philosophy offers to an inquisitive person like myself is a toolkit of ideas and methods for understanding and explaining. One thing I know is that many of the childish questions asked don’t have simple answers. Sometimes they have contradictory answers. Philosophy helps put the contradictions into perspective and sort out the confusion that can arise from them. In the process philosophy helps develop a lucidity in one’s thinking and an ease of thought that never existed before. I have often said, if there was no contradiction in the world there would be no need for philosophy to help figure it out.
One of my big childish question was, “Why is the world the way it is?” I didn’t ask it in the wonderment of its physical nature as Einstein did, but in the wonderment of its social evolution. I was thinking about its political and economic development. I wanted to know why humankind organizes and governs itself the way it does. I saw a singular, standard system of human organization and governance emerging. I wanted to know why.
I say my question was a childish one because in a sense it was like asking why the sky is blue. The standard answer to that question usually is, “Because! that’s the way it is.” However, with me, as is often the case with children, that was followed by, “But why?”
I can’t think of a childish question Berlin may have asked. I know that he was deeply against the idea of determinism, the philosophy that believes that there is a particular social determining force in the world. He saw that historically this philosophy often led to human subjugation. For instance, both Hitler and Stalin believed in social determinism which they formulated into totalitarianism and the subjugation of their people. The people who didn’t fit into their deterministic schemes were often imprisoned or completely eliminated. Perhaps the childish question Berlin might have asked is, Why has humankind been so brutal and insensitive to itself?
So does that mean that adults who asks childish questions are philosophers? Not necessarily. For one to be a philosopher childish questions should be followed by reflection and possible explanations. For example, Albert Einstein is considered a philosopher because he answered his own childish questions. One of the biggest childish questions he asked was, “Did God have any choice in how he created the world?” All his life Einstein developed thought experiments and theories that showed reasonably well that God did not have a choice if the world was to be the way it is.
I’ve asked childish questions. In my attempt to answer them I haven’t necessarily become a philosopher but I did turn to philosophy to answer them. What philosophy offers to an inquisitive person like myself is a toolkit of ideas and methods for understanding and explaining. One thing I know is that many of the childish questions asked don’t have simple answers. Sometimes they have contradictory answers. Philosophy helps put the contradictions into perspective and sort out the confusion that can arise from them. In the process philosophy helps develop a lucidity in one’s thinking and an ease of thought that never existed before. I have often said, if there was no contradiction in the world there would be no need for philosophy to help figure it out.
One of my big childish question was, “Why is the world the way it is?” I didn’t ask it in the wonderment of its physical nature as Einstein did, but in the wonderment of its social evolution. I was thinking about its political and economic development. I wanted to know why humankind organizes and governs itself the way it does. I saw a singular, standard system of human organization and governance emerging. I wanted to know why.
I say my question was a childish one because in a sense it was like asking why the sky is blue. The standard answer to that question usually is, “Because! that’s the way it is.” However, with me, as is often the case with children, that was followed by, “But why?”
I can’t think of a childish question Berlin may have asked. I know that he was deeply against the idea of determinism, the philosophy that believes that there is a particular social determining force in the world. He saw that historically this philosophy often led to human subjugation. For instance, both Hitler and Stalin believed in social determinism which they formulated into totalitarianism and the subjugation of their people. The people who didn’t fit into their deterministic schemes were often imprisoned or completely eliminated. Perhaps the childish question Berlin might have asked is, Why has humankind been so brutal and insensitive to itself?
Thursday, April 07, 2005
Why Hegel Matters
A friend said that she likes it when I write about topical issues, issues that are current and relevant to our times. She also said that she would like to learn more about Hegel from me. So I thought , maybe I can combine the two. I will write an essay on why Hegel is relevant and matters.
I got the idea for my essay from an article I read, “Why Ayn Rand Matters” by Elaine Sternberg. (It seems to be a trend, writing about why things that matter.) As I mention this I am thinking, what a extraordinary connection I have just made because Rand and Hegel are two thinkers whose ideas are diametrically opposed. This connection was inadvertent but no accident knowing my inclination for cultivating opposites. From this opposition I think I can show why Hegel matters.
Rand’s philosophy focuses on the individual. Hegel’s focuses on the collective of humanity. Imagine the conflict that can exists between the two, the rights of the individual butting heads with the rights of the group. This has been a point of friction in Democracy, whether the individual or the group comes first and which prevails. The answer is simple. Both do because both are determined to exist. Thus a compromise must be reached. Hegel’s philosophy allows for compromise whereas Rand’s doesn't. His philosophy makes a social interactive world possible. Rand’s philosophy is suited more for a frontier society of rugged individuals . Hegel’s philosophy acknowledges the interest of both parties. His philosophy realizes that both are necessary to have a vibrant social order. His philosophy bears the conduit for human interaction.
Hegel matters not because we follow his philosophy but because we live it naturally. He captured the metaphysical nature of human existence like no other philosopher. Generally he was right. For instance, he knew that the driving force of History is change. He also correctly pointed out that History is driven by the human struggle for freedom and recognition. And as the years have gone by we have seen how the world has changed as people have succeeded in that struggle. He was right in thinking that the world was uniting, driven by the common needs and aspirations of humanity. One of the most profound things he said is that humankind requires conflict, and its reflection, to remain alive and awake. He didn’t mean violent conflict. He meant the conflict of competing ideas as shown in the dialectic process. He was right about this because all systems of governments that didn’t engage in this type of conflict have collapsed. Remember Communism? It collapsed because it didn’t allow or engage in the conflict of ideas that could have prevented it from growing stale and atrophying. In comparison Democracy has flourished because in revels in the conflict of ideas.
Hegel matters because he had the right idea. No matter how much people deny that his metaphysical world exists, they reside in it. It’s unavoidable. I realized this after reading an article in an American journal entitled “Philosophical Enemies of a Free Society”. In it Hegel was portrayed as the destroyers of the free society principles America was founded on, the ideas of individualism and liberty that people like Rand believed in. It even suggested he was a communist because he extolled socialist ideas. Well, socialism exists in America. The fact that people rely on each other for their wellbeing is socialism. The existence of community based amenities like public transit, water treatment plants, hospitals and democratic institutions is socialism. Ironically, the idea of liberty is also Hegelian because it wouldn’t exist without the human struggle for it. Liberty has never been offered on a platter. Why, without really knowing it Rand was a Hegelian because she wrote about that very struggle and the conflict of ideas. Deep down we are all Hegelians.
Perhaps Hegel was wrong about his “end of history” theory. But Francis Fukuyama didn’t think so in his book “The End Of History”. Hegel said that History would end when the struggle for human freedom and recognition was complete. That struggle is not complete. But Fukuyama believed that with the collapse of Communism, the last great obstacle to universal freedom and recognition, that struggle was virtually over. Democracy and its liberating ways had triumphed. Fukuyama believed that though the struggle wasn’t over, Democracy would eventually bring this struggle to its conclusion. Hegel’s theory may yet come to fruition because with the triumph of Democracy the mechanisms to achieve his “end of history” are now in place.
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I got the idea for my essay from an article I read, “Why Ayn Rand Matters” by Elaine Sternberg. (It seems to be a trend, writing about why things that matter.) As I mention this I am thinking, what a extraordinary connection I have just made because Rand and Hegel are two thinkers whose ideas are diametrically opposed. This connection was inadvertent but no accident knowing my inclination for cultivating opposites. From this opposition I think I can show why Hegel matters.
Rand’s philosophy focuses on the individual. Hegel’s focuses on the collective of humanity. Imagine the conflict that can exists between the two, the rights of the individual butting heads with the rights of the group. This has been a point of friction in Democracy, whether the individual or the group comes first and which prevails. The answer is simple. Both do because both are determined to exist. Thus a compromise must be reached. Hegel’s philosophy allows for compromise whereas Rand’s doesn't. His philosophy makes a social interactive world possible. Rand’s philosophy is suited more for a frontier society of rugged individuals . Hegel’s philosophy acknowledges the interest of both parties. His philosophy realizes that both are necessary to have a vibrant social order. His philosophy bears the conduit for human interaction.
Hegel matters not because we follow his philosophy but because we live it naturally. He captured the metaphysical nature of human existence like no other philosopher. Generally he was right. For instance, he knew that the driving force of History is change. He also correctly pointed out that History is driven by the human struggle for freedom and recognition. And as the years have gone by we have seen how the world has changed as people have succeeded in that struggle. He was right in thinking that the world was uniting, driven by the common needs and aspirations of humanity. One of the most profound things he said is that humankind requires conflict, and its reflection, to remain alive and awake. He didn’t mean violent conflict. He meant the conflict of competing ideas as shown in the dialectic process. He was right about this because all systems of governments that didn’t engage in this type of conflict have collapsed. Remember Communism? It collapsed because it didn’t allow or engage in the conflict of ideas that could have prevented it from growing stale and atrophying. In comparison Democracy has flourished because in revels in the conflict of ideas.
Hegel matters because he had the right idea. No matter how much people deny that his metaphysical world exists, they reside in it. It’s unavoidable. I realized this after reading an article in an American journal entitled “Philosophical Enemies of a Free Society”. In it Hegel was portrayed as the destroyers of the free society principles America was founded on, the ideas of individualism and liberty that people like Rand believed in. It even suggested he was a communist because he extolled socialist ideas. Well, socialism exists in America. The fact that people rely on each other for their wellbeing is socialism. The existence of community based amenities like public transit, water treatment plants, hospitals and democratic institutions is socialism. Ironically, the idea of liberty is also Hegelian because it wouldn’t exist without the human struggle for it. Liberty has never been offered on a platter. Why, without really knowing it Rand was a Hegelian because she wrote about that very struggle and the conflict of ideas. Deep down we are all Hegelians.
Perhaps Hegel was wrong about his “end of history” theory. But Francis Fukuyama didn’t think so in his book “The End Of History”. Hegel said that History would end when the struggle for human freedom and recognition was complete. That struggle is not complete. But Fukuyama believed that with the collapse of Communism, the last great obstacle to universal freedom and recognition, that struggle was virtually over. Democracy and its liberating ways had triumphed. Fukuyama believed that though the struggle wasn’t over, Democracy would eventually bring this struggle to its conclusion. Hegel’s theory may yet come to fruition because with the triumph of Democracy the mechanisms to achieve his “end of history” are now in place.
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