Clash of Civilizations
A month ago I wrote Reassesing Western Democracy, Part 1. Since then, I've read a couple of books which shed further light on the subject:
The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, 1996 by Samuel P. Huntington
The Declassification Engine, What History Reveals About America's Top Secrets, 2023 by Matthew Connelly
These two books help immensely in consolidating my world view. Basically, I believe Western democracy has become dysfunctional and is ripe for extensive revision.
The Clash of Civilizations clarifies the nature of our world. There are approximately 10 major civilizations. Absent the apocalypse, these civilizations will endure and develop independently. Technology will spread, but the cultures and institutions will remain distinct for the foreseeable future. Civilizational leaders would be wise to respect the other civilizations to preserve order in the world.
The Ukraine War shows what happens when there is a lack of respect for other civilizations. Russia (historically Orthodox Slavic Christianity) is one of the world's major civilizations. Prominent leaders in the West (Lindsay Graham and John McCain) have dismissed Russia as "a gas station masquerading as a country". This has been a bipartisan affair in the West, with Democrat Adam Schiff calling for us to fight Russia in Ukraine so we don't have to fight them here. President Trump was impeached for hesitating in supplying weapons to Ukraine. The mainstream media in the West has been united with the political and cultural leadership in denigrating Russia and encouraging military confrontation on its historical territory.
Other civilizations are siding with Russia against the West.
Assessing the Alternatives
If Western civilization is failing, what about the alternatives? What do we know about Russia, China and east Asia, the Islamic World, Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa? I have been impressed with Putin. Russia under his leadership is providing a much needed intervention with regard to the dysfunctional West. China under Xi also seems like a credible alternative.
Thanks to Russia, in my view, no country need feel ashamed of its leadership. Almost every non-Western country has traditionally been seen, at least in the West, as being inferior to the Western democracies. Francis Fukuyama even posited the end-point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government. The 21st century has not been kind to this world view. From the Iraq War in 2003, to the great financial crisis of 2008, to the Trump presidency in 2016, to the Ukraine proxy war in 2022, Western democracy now appears weak. No one could admit this until Russia took on the West militarily.
The list of countries that have broken from the grip of the Western empire since Russia stood up to them, with the support of China, is impressive: Turkey, Saudi Arabia, India, Brazil, South Africa, and Pakistan have joined pariah nations such as Iran and Venezuela in asserting their independence and refusing to join the West in sanctioning Russia. Modi, Erdogan, bin Salman, Ramaphosa, and their brethren are no longer second class world leaders, shamed by the West as imperfect democracies. Rather it is the Western "democracies" that, in my view, stand out as unpopular and hypocritical. The Western intelligence agencies (chiefly U.S. and Britain) have longed subverted democracy at home and abroad. Nowhere is this clearer than in Ukraine, and suddenly people recognize that this has been happening around the world since WWII, including in their own countries.
So every country is now a potential alternative to our broken system of government. But I'm a believer in Huntington's view of civilizations and the legitimacy of different approaches to national / civilizational leadership. Obviously, the Saudi or Iranian styles would not work in the U.S. Likewise the Chinese or Russian systems. We need to go our own way, while recognizing the limitations of our current ideology.
The deep (permanent) state is powerful for a reason. No country can survive a complete set of policy turnovers every 4 years. Perhaps we shouldn't be so quick to dismiss the Russian and Chinese models where leaders lead for 20 years or more.
The dark (secret) state is powerful for a reason. No leader can lead effectively without a certain degree of control over the press.
Without a revolution, we can come terms with the limitations of our current system. The 2-party charade is just that. We have an establishment and it's not really up for election every 4 years, for better or worse. The First Amendment is one of our great strengths, but our system of manufacturing consent is no longer working (if it was ever a net positive). We need to tone down our bluster, while addressing our free speech deficiencies, in my opinion. In other words, we need to focus on what our real problems are and stop trying to scapegoat China, Russia, and other civilizations or factions within the West.
Constructive Ideas
Arms Control
Scott Ritter is my inspiration for this. See Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika: Arms Control and the End of the Soviet Union. It seems obvious to me that humankind will destroy itself if we don't learn to control our weaponry. The major powers would only benefit by a return to the days of arms control treaties. These worked well for decades, but seem (in my view and elsewhere) to have been undermined by the hegemonic impulses of the U.S. We the people should make this our number one priority.
The renewed Cold War and escalating arms race is abhorrent. The U.S. is driving this, in my view. Of course, Russia and China have their own deep, dark states and propaganda operations along with soaring military budgets. But the U.S. led West outspends these competitors by an order of magnitude (10 times). We are the leader in the arms race and are in the best position to bring it under control.
Multipolar United Nations
The United Nations has always been a Europe-centric institution. Of late, it has been compromised by the West and consequently unable to fulfill its mission. Its archaic and corrupt.
No institution is perfect, but a better United Nations can help with many of the world's problems -- from arms control to climate degradation. Jeffrey Sachs has a lot of good ideas in this regard.
Xi and Putin talk about this all the time. Perhaps we can engage constructively on this issue.
History Lab
One of the great things about the West is that freedom of speech is a core value. As discussed above, this right is not as absolute as we pretend. Classification of documents for national security purposes is pervasive, and selective leaks and enforcement of secrecy laws has been weaponized for imperial and partisan purposes. To some extent, this is unavoidable as there are tradeoffs between government efficiency and freedom.
But we can work to strengthen this great value of our culture. Leadership may need to come from the private sector, given the practical constraints our politicians face. The History Lab is a team of scholars, designers, scientists, and engineers building tools to preserve the fabric of the past and provide lessons for the future.
Election Reform
Approval Voting
Approval voting is a single-winner voting method that allows voters to choose any number of candidates. The candidate chosen the most wins. Benefits include:
Tends to elect more consensus winners. there will be incentives for candidates to cooperate in the sense of not bad mouthing other candidates. This is "gaming" the system in a positive sense.
Alternate candidates get a more accurate measure of support.
Simplicity:
Ballots look the same, except the rules indicate that you may vote for any number of candidates
Results are still easy to understand: a simple list of the candidates along with how many votes they received
Steve Randy Waldman is someone who has given specific changes a lot of thought and proposed constructive incremental changes. You can find his ideas at interfluidity.com and drafts.interfluidity.com.
Conclusion
Obviously, these constructive ideas just scratch the surface of what we can do if we stop fighting one another and cooperate to improve the world.
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