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What’s Wrong with the World is dedicated to the defense of what remains of Christendom, the civilization made by the men of the Cross of Christ. Athwart two hostile Powers we stand: the Jihad and Liberalism...read more

The Strategy of Openness, Revisited

Via Glenn Greenwald, Tom Friedman ruminates on the strategic rationale for the Great Mesopotamian Quagmire Near Eastern War of Democratic Liberation:

Friedman's astonishingly puerile and uncouth exposition features a choice piece of verbal legerdemain, which begins with a mention of the Open Society and our willingness to defend it, and concludes with a vulgar peroration, which has American servicemen (and women, of course, for one mark of our civilizational superiority is that we send our women to bleed and die in our wars) going door to door between "Basra and Baghdad", telling anyone who might oppose the Open Society to "Suck on this." I mentioned a piece of legerdemain, by which I mean an unthinking attempt at esotericism. Friedman, of course, commences by discussing the Open Society, and then avers that no border controls, no clever INS officials - in summation, no declensions from the (utopian) conceit of the Open Society - could possibly suffice to protect us from further terrorist assaults, leaving as the inevitable conclusion the imperative of converting the recalcitrant of the world to our visions of global order. But, of course, this standard line is a farrago of nonsense. The firm proscription of certain Islamic doctrines, the cessation of Muslim immigration, beginning with the abolition of the Visa Express programme and student visas for nationals of countries which contribute disproportionately to the jihad, and rising to the encouragement of Muslim emigration from the West, would, over time, mitigate the threat of jihad, and all without the perceived imperative of wars of (democratic capitalist) imperial conquest. What, therefore, Friedman really means is that we cannot maintain simultaneously the Open Society and measures inhibiting the social and economic intercourse of the Western and Muslim worlds; we can undertake either, but not both, and, inasmuch as the latter is simply unthinkable - a form of apostasy, in reality - we must opt for the former by means of war. The exoteric rationale is that we cannot defeat "terror" save by waging wars of "liberation"; the esoteric reality is that our elites cannot preserve the politico-economic articulation of their class interests save by waging wars of "liberation".

Glenn Greenwald takes Friedman's utter self-delusion, his incomprehension at negative global perceptions of the U.S., and nails it to the wall:



If there were a powerful nation (besides the U.S.) that had a leading foreign policy analyst unapologetically justifying the brutal destruction of another country by explaining that its citizens needed to "Suck On This," and had a leading presidential candidate who sung songs about dropping bombs on the U.S. and who told jokes about killing Americans (while his leading ally demands that that country attack even more countries), we would be subjected to an endless array of Op-Eds from Fred Hiatt and Charles Krauthammer condemning them and demanding that "meaningful action" be taken against such a "rogue nation." And Tom Friedman would be righteously and darkly insisting that such a country be "compelled to change its behavior."

In light of that, just ponder the self-delusion required for Tom "Suck-On-This" Friedman and the political establishment he leads to express befuddlement -- confusion -- over our extreme unpopularity in the world over the last seven years. How would a rational person expect our country to be perceived when the face we present to the world is the face that appears on that grotesque You Tube clip -- the same face that, to this day, giddily boasts that "sometimes it takes a 2-by-4 across the side of the head" to get our message across and that we need high-ranking foreign policy officials "quietly pounding a baseball bat into his palm"? When it comes to violent behavior that is disruptive to the world order and threatening to people around the world, what has a two-bit dictator like Robert Mugabe done -- what could he ever do -- that can even compete with the savagery that George Bush has unleashed, that Tom Friedman has justified, and that John McCain jovially threatens?


Comments (15)

Jeff, your point about the mental prison we have constructed around the abstraction of the Open Society, a prison preventing even a serious contemplation of the possibility of measures like the Jihad-sedition law, etc., is very well made. I'm not sure if I accept "class interest" as its primary engine -- surely many of the proponents of the Open Society are moved not by interest but, alas, by firm conviction -- but I am in perfect agreement that the Open Society ideology cripples us.

However, something tells me that Mr. Greenwald, whatever the value of his polemics against a clown like Friedman, is hardly a worth ally in our escape from the Open Society Mental Penitentiary. On the contrary, he's one of its more earnest wardens. I'd wager that merely proposing, in his presence, a policy of "firm proscription of certain Islamic doctrines, the cessation of Muslim immigration, [up to] the encouragement of Muslim emigration from the West" would earn you anathemas quite a vigorous as the ones he reads against McCain, Bush, Lieberman, et al.

As to the first point, I believe that the class interests of our elites encompass their ideological commitments; one of the distinguishing characteristics of the American commitment to the Open Society is the perfect fusion of ideology, great-power politics, and economics. They believe; belief also happens to make them wealthy and powerful as well. They are usually perfectly sincere, which not only makes them dangerous, but self-deluded.

As to the latter point, I agree, for which reason I cite him with respect to specific points or arguments only. There is intellectual pleasure to be found in citing the left against itself.

Jeff,
I've rarely ever seen a more egregious mis-characterization of a view than yours of Friedman.

It makes me despair of discussion.

Then, by all means, give free rein to despair. What Islam has been, Islam shall remain, and the notion that Islam can be integrated into any sort of global order that conservatives and traditionalists would approbate is idle fantasy, yet idle fantasy entailed by the multifarious aspects of globalization and American geostrategy - whence the petulent, codpiece swagger of Thomas "Suck On This" Friedman, or the psychopathological narcissism of Rumsfeld, who once said, "We have a choice, either to change the way we live, which is unacceptable, or to change the way that they live; and we chose the latter." Yes, yes, better to wage unjust wars than to interrogate one's cherished illusions.

We cannot enjoy both globalization, the free international movement of goods, services, capital, and persons, and freedom from what threats of terror and jihad obtain. The choice is binary.

Maximos: "…this standard line is a farrago of nonsense."

Flinging here and there great Farragos of Nonsense are what our Ruling Elites unflinchingly do.

But I wonder. In better times in the past, would Friedman have been merely laughed at, or tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail?

Mr. Bauman:

How this -- "What, therefore, Friedman really means is that we cannot maintain simultaneously the Open Society and measures inhibiting the social and economic intercourse of the Western and Muslim worlds; we can undertake either, but not both, and, inasmuch as the latter is simply unthinkable - a form of apostasy, in reality - we must opt for the former by means of war" -- qualifies as egregious mischaracterization of Friedman's statement is rather obscure to me.

The assumption is that the Open Society must remain unexamined; and that war is preferable to such an examination. Pray tell, how this is a mischaracterization?

Mr. Martin, jihad you have always with you, soon to be armed with weapons of domestic mass murder. It can't be sealed off by the measures you advocate. Bernard Lewis has it right: "We free them or they destroy us." Woe 'tis so.

Wow. Assertion masquerading as argument: it simply isn't possible to do anything other than force them to be free.

This is in keeping with the ethos of the present administration, for which things are so not because they are so, rationally, but because they are said to be so.

Paul - it's certainly possible that Friedman really *thinks* something along the lines of Maximos' attempted paraphrase. But *as* a paraphrase of what Friedman actually *says* in this clip, I'm afraid I have to agree (as usual) with Prof. Baumann. It just won't do.

"[M]easures inhibiting the social and economic intercourse of the Western and Muslim worlds" simply aren't on Friedman's radar screen. Maybe they should be, but they're not.

Thanks, by the way, for pointing out that Glenn Greenwald is no friend of ours.

Friedman's Life Coach thought the vulgarity would leaven his unrelieved pomposity and act as a bridge to the younger residents of the Upper West-Side. The man is incapable of uttering an original thought and if his gig is to continue, he will either have to imporve his content, or alter his style. He appears to have opted for the latter. And given the rubble crashing down on his conceited and parochial world-view, the language may merely be an Oracle's understandable frustration at an uncooperative and ungrateful world.

But *as* a paraphrase of what Friedman actually *says* in this clip, I'm afraid I have to agree (as usual) with Prof. Baumann. It just won't do.

The trouble in all of this is that what Friedman actually says makes absolutely no sense whatsoever; what he actually says is merely a marginally less cretinous version of, "We're fighting them over there so that they don't cut our heads off over here." There obtains no logical relation whatsoever between "fighting them over there" and them "not cutting our heads off over here", except upon the presupposition of, at a minimum, globalization, and, more expansively (though not necessarily), the democratization thesis. He never argues for the proposition that, say, restricting immigration and criminalizing solicitation to jihad, which is what Islamic orthodoxy is, will prove unavailing; he merely asserts it, waves away the objection to his chosen policy destination. The only way to render Friedman's position cogent is to insert the tacit premises: that globalization is unquestionable, that Islam qua Islam is not the cause of jihadist activity, but that some deformation external to the religion is, and that killing a bunch of Muslims, and replacing their institutions with semi-neoliberal economic regimes and semi-democratic political structures will remove the deformations. And because the premises are fallacious, the position as a totality is a load of twaddle. Islam is as Islam has been; what Islam has been, Islam will remain.

Friedman may as well smite a rock, in the expectation that it will yield a flowing stream of pure water.

In better times in the past, would Friedman have been merely laughed at, or tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail?

The rot is deep and inveterate. At any time during the previous century-and-a-quarter, Friedman's paeans to the flat earth would have been regarded respectfully, assuming that his prose style were not so proletarian.

I've forgotten the other thing which is world-historically stupid in Friedman's exposition: the Iraq war as response to.... 9/11.

Um, Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Nothing.

But it does have everything to do with Friedman's argument, as it demonstrates that the Open Society and the Democratization Thesis are the silent premises in his argument.

"[M]easures inhibiting the social and economic intercourse of the Western and Muslim worlds" simply aren't on Friedman's radar screen. Maybe they should be, but they're not.

Then he is an extraordinarily naive or unthinking proponent of the Open Society. The whole point of said Society is that inhibiting social and economic intercourse is, like crossing the streams, baaad. And it seems to me fair to perceive Open Society Liberalism as the superstructure of Friedman's celebration of globalization, which is by and large the core of his political philosophy and program.

Don't forget that Popper meant by Open Society an open-ENDED one, which had not closed off its options with a rigid theory like Marxist historical determinism. Friedman means just openness as a value which can't be questioned, and which may be forced on other nations as well as on the loyal citizenry here. Valuing openness to aggression and the spread of evils, and flattening resistance would be his implicit ideal. Openness to the bad is not good, no amount of manipulation of fakey ideals like openness can change that. Such an openness-valuing conscience then must be open to every evil, and flattened as flat can be.

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