David Brooks on the Weakness of the Democracies

 

NYTIMES.COM

Opinion | The Dark Century

Why our era has grown so ugly.

This piece by David Brooks goes into the “must-read” category. I'm not sure that he nails it thoroughly, but it's an NYT editorial page piece, not a full-blown essay or book. I agree that he's on the right track or at least one of the right tracks. Here's the prime takeaway:

The events of the past few weeks have been fortifying. Joe Biden and the other world leaders have done an impressive job of rallying their collective resolve and pushing to keep Putin within his borders. But the problems of democracy and the liberal order can’t be solved from the top down. Today, across left and right, millions of Americans see U.S. efforts abroad as little more than imperialism, “endless wars” and domination. They don’t believe in the postwar project and refuse to provide popular support for it.

The real problem is in the seedbeds of democracy, the institutions that are supposed to mold a citizenry and make us qualified to practice democracy. To restore those seedbeds, we first have to relearn the wisdom of the founders: We are not as virtuous as we think we are. Americans are no better than anyone else. Democracy is not natural; it is an artificial accomplishment that takes enormous work.

Then we need to fortify the institutions that are supposed to teach the democratic skills: how to weigh evidence and commit to truth; how to correct for your own partisan blinders and learn to doubt your own opinions; how to respect people you disagree with; how to avoid catastrophism, conspiracy and apocalyptic thinking; how to avoid supporting demagogues; how to craft complex compromises.

Democrats are not born; they are made. If the 21st century is to get brighter as it goes along, we have to get a lot better at making them. We don’t only have to worry about the people tearing down democracy. We have to worry about who is building it up.

John Lewis Gaddis, George Kennan: An American Life

This is a complete and fascinating biography of a man who lived a full, one-hundred-year plus life. Others more qualified than me have reviewed and praised this book, so there's not a lot that I can add. However, I will add this: Kennan was a complex and difficult character. He was often elitist and pessimistic. He seems to have been ridden with one illness or another (yet he lives, with his wits about him, to over 100!). But the one question that Gaddis doesn't answer or address as fully as I would like in this book: where did Kennan get his seemingly unique perspective of containment as a way to draw the line on Soviet expansion? Roosevelt and American liberals seem quite naive about Stalin and the Soviet system. But Kennan, writing from bed (ill again), sends his "Long Telegram" (later transformed into "The Sources of Soviet Conduct" by "X"). He alone seems to have articulated this very successful and insightful perspective about Soviet conduct and how to check it. Where did this come from? Well, he learned Russian as a young American diplomat He spent a good deal of time in the Soviet Union (two stints by the time he wrote his fame-producing article in 1946). And he read Gibbon while on a vacation. Gibbon helped form his sense that the Soviets would not be able to "digest" their land grab in Eastern Europe, Kennan thereby proved himself a prophet by about 1989. No, it doesn't appear that Kennan had a "grand theory" (a course Gaddis helps teach). It appears that Kennan developed his insights through patient observation and reading history. (I've failed to mention that Kennan seriously considered writing a biography of Chekhov.) Of course, after establishing the idea of containment, Kennan spent the next 40 years trying to keep it from misapplication as simply a crude military doctrine.

Quite a good book indeed, and quite a fascinating subject. At 698 pages of text, it's not a quick read. If you want a quicker sense of Kennan, turn to two works by his friend John Lukacs, their letters edited by Lukacs and Lukacs's biography. Both are briefer but insightful (and of course, Lukacs appreciates Kennan as both an actor and as a historian.)

Now Reading: Wills on Shakespeare & Rome and Gaddis on Kennan

I've now embarked on these two very promising titles:

1. Garry Wills, Rome & Rhetoric: Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (2011).

2. John Lewis Gaddis, George F. Kennan: An American Life (2011)

Fun reading ahead!

Henry Kissinger on George Kennan

Yesterday I posted an entry about Henry Kissinger, and in doing so I noted that he, along with George Kennan, are probably the two most important figures in American foreign policy outside of some presidents (and more important than some presidents). In the New York Times today, Kissinger reviews the new biography of George Kennan by John Lewis Gaddis. Kissinger's review is lengthy and thorough. Kennan is a complex figure, and Kissinger argues that Kennan would offer both realist and idealist visions that often contradicted each other. This trait limited Kennan's work as a policymaker, but it contributed to the deep insights that he could provide to those in power. As John Lukacs also notes, Kissinger remarks that Kennan is a superb prose stylist.

This new book is going to near the top of my reading list. As readers of this blog may recall, Lukacs has written about his friend can in a short biography and Lukacs published a selection of the letters that they exchanged over the course of around 40 years. It will be interesting to compare perspectives of the authorized biographer Gaddis with those of the friend Lukacs.

Kennan is an intriguing figure, who, like many number of great persons, he is at once contradictory, vexing, and inspiring. Full of very human foibles, but full of striking insights and accomplishments as well, I'm sure that this book will prove worthwhile. I look forward reporting on further in the future blog post.

Through the History of the Cold War: The Correspondence of George F. Kennan & John Lukacs

Through the History of the Cold War: The Correspondence of George F. Kennan & John Lukacs (2010, 276p.) proved a delight to read. The relationship began when Lukacs, then a nobody, wrote to Kennan, then ambassador to the Soviet Union and author of the "X" article, was a definite somebody (but soon to fall from favor). Their relationship grew over the years from a mutual interest in 19th and 20th century diplomatic history to a genuine affection for one another. In addition, we begin to get comments on some current events, different peoples, and insights into their writing projects (after leaving the Foreign Service, Kennan established a second career as a historian of diplomacy). Kennan, for instance, shares my concern that sometimes Lukacs allows his prose to become too dense, while at the same time, each sees in the other examples of fine writing and highly developed descriptive powers that enhances the work of both men. In sum, reading their letters to one another is like listening in to a very urbane and frank discussion between two highly literate and articulate men, who, because of their knowledge of history, have acute sensibilities of times and places that most of us don't perceive. From the quotidian to the grand, we get glimpses over a course of many years. As this is raw history, some of their judgments may seem harsh or ill-considered, but part of the charm of letters like this comes from their frankness and intimacy.

Of course, I think that the best testament that I can provide comes from quoting here and there, as I have in a couple of posts already, from their own words. Quite a joy, I must say. So I offer two quote for today, one on the more profound side, one on the lighter side:

Kennan:

We know that we cannot look at the sun with direct and naked eyes. It blinds us if we try it. Just so, there are things about the nature of God which we should not, and cannot, attempt to envisage and understand. To suppose that we would be capable of such a thing would resemble in itself a form of blasphemy. (253 11 February 2002)

Lukacs:

This president's (George W. Bush's) mind (and character) is that of a 15 year old American teenager who wants to remain the class president, a position the had got through mere luck. Commentators are wrong when they speculate that he wants to revenge what Saddam H. had planned for his father. No: George W. never liked is father; he wants to show that he can do even better then his father. We know the immortal warning of John Quincy Adams: "we do not go abroad in search for monsters to destroy." This puerile president is worse than that: he proclaims and pinpoints one monster for the sake of consolidating his and his party's popularity . . . ." (260, 5 March 2003).

Kennan on Life as Tragedy

Tragedy lies in the unavoidable conflict between man's animalistic, instinctive, primitively emotional and partially subconscious nature, on the one hand, and his capacity, on the other, for higher, more generous, less self-serving motives and impulses: for true love and friendship and charity--for a real nobility of spirit, in short. In this--in man's endlessly torn, self-conflicting nature, which the monastic orders have tried (but rarely succeeded, I suspect) to overcome, lies the first and probably the greatest sources of the tragedy. But another lies in the abundant injustice and frustration with which man is confronted at the hands of his natural environment, of the laws of chance, and of his own physical vulnerability, helplessness, and mortality. I am thinking here for example of the fact of bereavement--the fact that we do not normally die when those we love die, so that either we are left to mourn for them or they, as we know in advance, are left to struggle along without whatever help and support we might, if permitted to live, have given them. There is, again, the fact of our own mortality: not only the sadness and sometimes the agony of dying, but also the recognition that life, however successful, has never been more than partially fulfilled. And finally, if one has seen much of the human affairs, and particularly if one has been a historian, there is the recognition of the fleetingness, the impermanence, of all human undertakings and achievements.

 Kennan letter to Lukacs, July 8, 1984, from Through the Cold War.

For Teachers: Kennan to Lukacs

"The real rewards of the teacher always lie in the developments remote from the present and confused with a host of other origins, but that should not detract from the dignity of the profession or the satisfaction to be gained from it."

George Kennan to John Lukacs, November 18, 1953

I'm currently reading Through the History of the Cold War: The Correspondence of George F. Kennan and John Lukacs, ed. by John Lukacs (2010). The quote above comes from Kennan to Lukacs, as Lukacs, an immigrant to America from Hungary, seeks guidance from Kennan about his career choice. Expect more quotes from this wonderful book to appear in the near future.

John Lukacs on George Kennan

I just posted a three-way celebration of Kennan, Lukacs, and Jacques Barzun; however, I want to devote a bit more to Lukac's George Kennan: A Study in Character (2004, 277 p.). Lukacs's admiration of Kennan (although not entirely uncritical) is manifest. While this is not a full-fledged biography of Kennan (one remains to be written; apparently John Lewis Gaddis has received "official biographer designation), Lukacs's work covers all 101 years of Kennan's life.

Rather than go on further with details from the book, let me offer some quotes that will provide a better insight into Kennan and give us some reason to consider in light of some present issues before our nation:

Lukacs quotes from a speech that Kennan delivered at the University of Notre Dame in 1953:

    There are forces at large in our society today. . . . The all march, in one way or another, under the banner of an alarmed and exercised anti-communism. . . . I have the deepest misgivings about the direction and effects of their efforts. . . . They impel us—in the name of our salvation from the dangers of communism—to many of the habits of the thought and action [of our Soviet adversaries]. . . . I tremble when I see this attempt to make a semi-religious cult our of emotional-political currents of the moment . . . designed to appeal only to men's capacity for hatred and fear, never to their capacity for forgiveness and charity and understanding. . . . Remember that the ultimate judgments of the good and evil are not ours to make: that the wrath of man against his fellow man must always be tempered by the recollection of his weakness and fallibility and by the example of forgiveness and redemption which is the essence of his Christian heritage.

p. 130 (Lukacs appends the entire speech at the end of the book).

This quote, still important to consider today, should give you a good sense of the man and his sensibilities.

Three Wise Men: Kennan, Barzun, & Lukacs

I just re-read John Lukacs's George Kennan: A Study in Character. More about this particular work in a later post. In re-reading this book, I reflected on these two men, who were friends and correspondents for over fifty years, and how they both intrigue me. I add to them the person of Jacques Barzun to complete a trio for my pantheon. What do they share and why do I find them so worthy of attention and admiration?

The three men share some surface attributes. Each is (or was) long-lived: Kennan, who died in 2003, lived to 101 years of age; Barzun is now 102, and Lukacs, the kid among the three, is now 86, and still writing. Kennan remained an active writer and traveler up to his 100^th year. Barzun published a tome on Western Civ well into his nineties. (I don't know about his current state of health). Lukacs, in the mean time, is still actively publishing; in fact, I just learned that he's published his correspondence with Kennan (Through the History of the Cold War: The Correspondence of George F. Kennan and John Lukacs (2010) (this moved up immediately to the top of my buy list). In addition, each of these individuals is an American; however, Kennan is the only native-born American, having grown up in Wisconsin and having gone to college at Princeton. Barzun and Lukacs, on the other hand, grew-up in France and Hungary, respectively, and emigrated to the U.S. as young men. So while all three are Americans, they are also quite cosmopolitan (and multi-lingual). All three are historians; Barzun and Lukacs as academics, while Kennan became a historian after a distinguished career as a U.S. Foreign Service officer. Each brings a wide-ranging and very literate sensibility to history. Barzun, in addition to writing on cultural history, also published on the topics of mysteries, baseball, musicology, writing style, research, and education, and he worked with Lionel Trilling on literary projects. Lukacs describes himself as a "writer" as much as a historian. His vignettes in A Thread of Years show the eye and ear of a novelist, while his style in almost all of his writings carries a distinctive mastery of his adopted tongue. Kennan, meanwhile, gained his fame as the author of the Long Telegram of 1946 and his Foreign Policy article "The Sources of Soviet Conduct" (1947) signed as "X" (an attempt to shield his identity given his State Department rank). After leaving the Foreign Service, Kennan moved the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton where he published histories of diplomacy and foreign relations, as well as commentary on current events. How well did he write? Lukacs praises his writing, which I consider an extremely high compliment.

The final attribute that I would attribute to the three wise men arises from the difficulty one would have attempting to pigeonhole any of them politically. Kennan receives credit for launching the Cold War strategy of containment, but he came to resist the militarization of U.S. foreign policy, over reliance on nuclear weapons, the U.S. war in Viet Nam, among other positions that could alienate partisans in American politics. Lukacs and Barzun, while not writing much on contemporary U.S. politics, certainly provide historical and cultural perspectives that challenge facile distinctions of liberals and conservatives. Lukacs, especially, emphasizes the distinction between patriotism and nationalism.

The more I read by and about these three individuals, the more I appreciate them. Flawless? No, of course not, but in the face of difficult issues and popular sentiments, these men stake out positions that demand our consideration and respect, and quite often, our emulation. Finally, for individuals who are growing older (like me), they represent a model of engaged and engaging thinkers who refused to go gently into that goodnight.

Obama’s Nobel Speech

If you have not done so, I highly recommend reading or viewing President Obama's acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize. While reading Doonesbury that last couple of days, I get the sense that some found it shockingly bellicose, a paean in favor war and not a song of peace. (Of course, I suspect that Doonesbury mocks those thoughts, but in any event, some must hold them.) Didn't anyone pay attention to Obama during the campaign when he reported that Reinhold Niebuhr was a favorite "philosopher"? (BTW, John McCain said the same thing; however, having heard McCain, I have some doubt that he actually read Niebuhr, and certainly he did not grasp Niebuhr's message.) Obama obviously had read his Niebuhr, perhaps even some of the fountainhead of Niebuhr's Christian realism, St. Augustine. In any event, what Obama set forth seems very Niebuhr-esque to me.

To get a further sense of Obama's thinking, read David Brooks on Obama and Niebuhr. As usual, he has insightful things to say about the two. His most recent column on this subjec calls Obama's speech the most important of Obama's life. In an earlier column (in 2007), Brooks asked Obama if Obama had read Niebuhr, and Obama enthusiastically replied that Niebuhr "was one of his favorite philosophers." Brooks goes on to report that Obama provided a succinct summary of Niebuhr's thought that Brooks identified as pretty much the thesis of Niebuhr's The Irony of American History (1952). This sent me back to read this book, as I've owned it for years but I had never read it. Shame on me! It proved vintage Niebuhr, and given that Moral Man and Immoral Society (1932)is one of my favorites, this should not surprise me. I highly recommend both, and more to come on Irony.

Two quick points while doing some of the research for this post:

1. Brooks, and others, often mention George Kennan when discussing Niebuhr, and I see a strong connection. I also consider Kennan a hero.
   
2. The late John Patrick Diggins, one of my favorite historians, nearly had completed a work on Niebuhr before his death. I hope it gets published, as Diggins would prove as good a commentator on Niebuhr as anyone that I can imagine.