From: Michael M. Butler (mmb@spies.com)
Date: Wed Mar 12 2003 - 21:32:10 MST
Long but may be of interest to some.
I hope the URL isn't too mangled.
MMB
>
> http://www.techcentralstation.com/1051/defensewrapper.jsp?PID=1051-
> 350&CID=1051-031103A
>
> Here is the intro:
>
> Our World-Historical Gamble
>
> By Lee Harris
>
>
>
> 1: THE PROBLEM
>
> Of the many words written for and against the coming war with Iraq, none
> has
> been more perceptive than Paul Johnson's observation in his essay
> "Leviathan
> to the Rescue" that such a war "has no precedent in history" and that "in
> terms of presidential power and national sovereignty, Mr. Bush is walking
> into unknown territory. By comparison, the Gulf War of the 1990's was a
> straightforward, conventional case of unprovoked aggression, like
> Germany's
> invasion of Belgium in 1914 and Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor."
>
> The implications of this remark - like the implications of the war with
> Iraq
> - are profound. The war with Iraq will constitute one of those momentous
> turning points of history in which one nation under the guidance of a
> strong-willed, self-confident leader undertakes to alter the fundamental
> state of the world. It is, to use the language of Hegel, an event that is
> world-historical in its significance and scope. And it will be
> world-historical, no matter what the outcome may be.
>
> Such world-historical events, according to Hegel, are inherently sui
> generis
> - they break the mold and shatter tradition.
>
> But this is precisely the problem with trying to grasp such events - they
> are utterly without precedent, and this means that it is impossible to
> evaluate them prior to their actual accomplishment in historical
> actuality.
> Or, more precisely, it is impossible to evaluate them adequately, because
> the proper concepts for even describing the new situation have yet to be
> constructed. Such world-historical innovations transcend the conceptual
> categories of the old world, call into existence an entirely novel set of
> categories.
>
> To see the truth of this remark, one need only reflect back to any
> previous
> world-historical transformation. How could one hope to explain nineteenth
> century nationalism to Voltaire? Or the French Revolution to St. Thomas
> Aquinas? You could try explaining by analogy, but any analogy would be
> apt
> to mislead as much, if not more, than to illuminate. But this is no less
> true in dealing with the world-historical changes that have not yet given
> birth to the new order of possibilities.
>
> It is this fact that explains why all world-historical undertakings are
> inherently and irreducibly fraught with risk and uncertainty. Each one of
> them, by its very nature, is a crossing of the Rubicon, from which there
> is
> no turning back, but only a going forward - and a going forward into the
> unknown.
>
> But it would be a terrible mistake to conclude that such gambles are
> reckless ventures. In fact, the whole point of a world-historical gamble
> is
> that it offers the only possible escape from the kind of historical
> impasse
> or deadlock in which the human race presently finds itself. It emerges
> out
> of a situation where mankind cannot simply stay put, where the counsels
> of
> caution and conservatism are no longer of any value, and where to do
> nothing
> at all is in fact to take an even greater risk than that contemplated by
> the
> world-historical gamble.
>
> It is because this historical deadlock must be broken that the
> unavoidable
> conflict arises between the old order caught up in its impasse and the
> new
> order erupting through it. And, as Hegel observes, "It is precisely at
> this
> point that we encounter those great collisions between established and
> acknowledged duties, laws, and right, on the one hand, and new
> possibilities
> which conflict with the existing system and violate it or even destroy
> its
> very foundations and continued existence, on the otherŠ." This fact
> explains
> why the old concepts and categories are of so little use in guiding us to
> an
> understanding of such transformative events, because the essence of the
> world-historical is the disclosure of new and hitherto unsuspected
> historical possibilities - it is their absolute novelty, their quality as
> epiphanies, that accounts for their inevitable collision with, and
> transcendence of, the old categories of understanding.
>
> Today we are in the midst of this collision. It is the central fact of
> our
> historical epoch. It is this we must grasp. Unless we are prepared to
> look
> seriously at the true stakes involved in the Bush administration's coming
> world-historical gamble, we will grossly distort the significance of what
> is
> occurring by trying to make it fit into our own pre-fabricated and often
> grotesquely obsolete set of concepts. We will be like children trying to
> understand the world of adults with our own childish ideas, and we will
> miss
> the point of everything we see. This means that we must take a hard look
> at
> even our most basic vocabulary - and think twice before we rush to apply
> words like "empire" or "national self-interest" or "multi-lateralism" or
> "sovereignty" to a world in which they are no longer relevant. The only
> rule
> of thumb that can be unfailingly applied to world-historical
> transformations
> is this: None of our currently existing ideas and principles, concepts
> and
> categories, will fit the new historical state of affairs that will emerge
> out of the crisis. We can only be certain of our uncertainty.
>
>
>
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