Without an external foe to rail against, the nation turns on itself
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One of the first battles in the American civil war took place near a Missouri town that it amused fate to name Carthage. Two millennia before, the Romans sacked the original, only to turn against themselves in the ensuing peace. Metus hostilis, fear of the enemy, had kept the republic together, wrote the historian Sallust, a favourite of the US founders. Without it, discord and corruption had licence to breed.
If the US is always recruiting for a Carthage (Gore Vidal referred to its “enemy of the month club”) it is not because of an innate militarism. It is just that peace can be a psychic ordeal. Without an ethnic basis, a nation can need something outside to define itself against. The civil war happened after the US trounced the closest thing it had to a local threat in Mexico. Urban strife grew between the world wars: it was armed mobilisation, not just the New Deal, that bound ethnic Italians, Poles and Irish into a civic whole. As for the cold war, note the surge in partisanship after its end. Unanimous confirmations of Supreme Court nominees are one proxy-measure of a co-operative Washington. There has not been one since 1988.
An unchallenged US is a divided US. It follows that America’s best hope of retaining some cohesion in the coming decades is a mighty China. What is disastrous for its relative power in the world might turn out to be a godsend for its internal cohesion. Decline has its uses.
None of the other answers to the nation’s disunity is even faintly adequate. Better-regulated social media, more competitive congressional districts: these reforms are sensible on their own terms. But the mismatch between the depth of the problem and the fiddliness of the solutions is the definition of bathos.
“Bring back weekly bipartisan Senate meetings” and “Bring back patriotic art” are other ideas that do the trivial rounds. Because they give up so much to acquire power, politicians tend to overrate how much policy can ever achieve against structural and historical forces. The US did not enter an age of discord because of some technical faults in its political system. It will not escape the mire by fixing them.
Only an external foe can do that. But not just any will do. The US requires two things of an enemy: vast scale (to induce fear) and a different model of government (for a sense of otherness). The absence of the first is why al- Qaeda turned out to be such a fleeting adhesive on US society after the September 11 2001 atrocities. As lethal as it is, terror — even the word is an abstract noun — is too diffuse and de-territorialised a thing. As to the second condition, boom-era Japan, a fellow democracy, lacked it and so never crossed from daunting commercial rival to nation-binding enemy.
China scores extravagantly well on both counts. Even Americans who do not mind the loss of world primacy can object to the usurper’s political model.
It is tempting to invert the causality here. Perhaps it is not a common enemy that unifies the nation. Rather, only a unified nation can agree on a common enemy.
But recent events suggest otherwise. In his first month as president, Joe Biden has undone almost every eye-catching tenet of Donald Trump’s foreign policy. The US is rejoining the UN Human Rights Council. It is open to a revival of the Iran nuclear pact, with conditions. Relations with Saudi Arabia are colder. In a virtual G7 summit on Friday, Biden will continue his rapprochement with familiar allies.
The one line of rough continuity is China. Beijing threatens to “eat our lunch”, says Biden. The US faces “extreme competition”. It is with China in mind that his administration is taking a protectionist line on federal procurement and mulling over a coalition of democracies. One of the few subjects of weight on which America has cross-party agreement is China. And this is after just a few years of great-power showdown (2021 is approximately 1948 in cold war terms). If and when the US is overtaken in economic size, the sense of unity in adversity is likelier to deepen than fade.
“We are going to do a terrible thing to you,” Georgi Arbatov, the Soviet adviser, is said to have told an American audience in the 1980s. “We are going to deprive you of an enemy.” What a neat but desperate line it must have seemed at the time. How chillingly prescient it now reads. If the deprivation is ending, the US stands to gain in togetherness what it loses in clout. It should not need saying which is more precious. https://www.ft.com/content/de6a5d8d-3745-4b07-96ff-0a0d59380f9e
没错， 整个一个裹脚布文章， 可以告诉写文章的这个记者， 美国没戏。 【 在 lambutton (lambutton) 的大作中提到: 】 : 文章我还真粗略的从头读到尾，但感觉有些不知所云。咬文嚼字的两句： : Perhaps it is not a common enemy that unifies the nation. Rather, only a : unified nation can agree on a common enemy. : 我想到了以前读的文章的一句文字游戏： : It is not that we can't knock China down. It is that we can't knock China : down : without ourselves being down. : 现在我也是糊涂了，到底啥是对的，啥是不对的。不管怎么说，老将们保重身体，未来 : 二十年到三十年会有初步答案, 而且过程会好戏不断。
Why do americans blame China for every problem they have in their country ?
When American families owning American companies publish american junk studies, bribe american FDA officials and sell American dangerous Opioids that kill them, is it the fault of CHINA ?
When American families, owning American companies, pay american politicians and american medias to deny climate change, is the fault of CHINA ?
When American billionaires, living in America, complain about paying too much taxes, despite they have everything they could ever want, is it the fault of CHINA ?
When American Presidents and the American Congress decide to vote and sign trade deal to offshore jobs to China in order to enrich american executives and american shareholders, is it the fault of CHINA?
When American University costs are out of control because American university leaders decided to pay themselves multimillion dollars salaries, is it the fault of CHINA ? When American Politicians refuse to create a 1 to 20 maximum salary ratio in the American university sector, is the fault of China ?
When american infrastructure is collapsing, when major cities lack metros and high speed trains, and americans are investing in Financial Derivatives and Bitcoin, is it the fault of China ?
When Americans have an obesity problem because the American Congress refuse to ban American Soda advertising, is it the fault of CHINA ?
When American Politicians like Hillary Clinton try to cheat during the Democratic Primary against other American Politicians (Sanders), is it the fault of CHINA ?
Huge financial crisis, population is suffering. Almost everyone on the political spectrum is corrupt and has a responsability in this mess but they all scapegoat the Chinese to avoid taking any responsability for ruining the country. People from Chinese descents are suspects in universities, in the workplace, there are calls to boycott them because they are "foreign agents".
Asians get regularly beaten up on the streets. Violent attacks on East Asians have increased by over 2000% since the pandemic, but it receives no coverage in MSM.
哈哈哈
Without an external foe to rail against, the nation turns on itself
Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or
side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.
com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email [email protected] to buy additional
rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the
gift article service. More information can be found at https://www.ft.com/
tour. https://www.ft.com/content/de6a5d8d-3745-4b07-96ff-0a0d59380f9e
One of the first battles in the American civil war took place near a
Missouri town that it amused fate to name Carthage. Two millennia before,
the Romans sacked the original, only to turn against themselves in the
ensuing peace. Metus hostilis, fear of the enemy, had kept the republic
together, wrote the historian Sallust, a favourite of the US founders.
Without it, discord and corruption had licence to breed.
If the US is always recruiting for a Carthage (Gore Vidal referred to its “enemy of the month club”) it is not because of an innate militarism. It is just that peace can be a psychic ordeal. Without an ethnic basis, a nation
can need something outside to define itself against. The civil war happened after the US trounced the closest thing it had to a local threat in Mexico. Urban strife grew between the world wars: it was armed mobilisation, not
just the New Deal, that bound ethnic Italians, Poles and Irish into a civic whole. As for the cold war, note the surge in partisanship after its end.
Unanimous confirmations of Supreme Court nominees are one proxy-measure of a co-operative Washington. There has not been one since 1988.
An unchallenged US is a divided US. It follows that America’s best hope of retaining some cohesion in the coming decades is a mighty China. What is
disastrous for its relative power in the world might turn out to be a
godsend for its internal cohesion. Decline has its uses.
None of the other answers to the nation’s disunity is even faintly adequate. Better-regulated social media, more competitive congressional districts:
these reforms are sensible on their own terms. But the mismatch between the depth of the problem and the fiddliness of the solutions is the definition
of bathos.
“Bring back weekly bipartisan Senate meetings” and “Bring back patriotic art” are other ideas that do the trivial rounds. Because they give up so
much to acquire power, politicians tend to overrate how much policy can ever achieve against structural and historical forces. The US did not enter an
age of discord because of some technical faults in its political system. It will not escape the mire by fixing them.
Only an external foe can do that. But not just any will do. The US requires two things of an enemy: vast scale (to induce fear) and a different model of government (for a sense of otherness). The absence of the first is why al-
Qaeda turned out to be such a fleeting adhesive on US society after the
September 11 2001 atrocities. As lethal as it is, terror — even the word is an abstract noun — is too diffuse and de-territorialised a thing. As to
the second condition, boom-era Japan, a fellow democracy, lacked it and so
never crossed from daunting commercial rival to nation-binding enemy.
China scores extravagantly well on both counts. Even Americans who do not
mind the loss of world primacy can object to the usurper’s political model.
It is tempting to invert the causality here. Perhaps it is not a common
enemy that unifies the nation. Rather, only a unified nation can agree on a common enemy.
But recent events suggest otherwise. In his first month as president, Joe
Biden has undone almost every eye-catching tenet of Donald Trump’s foreign policy. The US is rejoining the UN Human Rights Council. It is open to a
revival of the Iran nuclear pact, with conditions. Relations with Saudi
Arabia are colder. In a virtual G7 summit on Friday, Biden will continue his rapprochement with familiar allies.
The one line of rough continuity is China. Beijing threatens to “eat our
lunch”, says Biden. The US faces “extreme competition”. It is with China in mind that his administration is taking a protectionist line on federal
procurement and mulling over a coalition of democracies. One of the few
subjects of weight on which America has cross-party agreement is China. And this is after just a few years of great-power showdown (2021 is
approximately 1948 in cold war terms). If and when the US is overtaken in
economic size, the sense of unity in adversity is likelier to deepen than
fade.
“We are going to do a terrible thing to you,” Georgi Arbatov, the Soviet
adviser, is said to have told an American audience in the 1980s. “We are
going to deprive you of an enemy.” What a neat but desperate line it must
have seemed at the time. How chillingly prescient it now reads. If the
deprivation is ending, the US stands to gain in togetherness what it loses
in clout. It should not need saying which is more precious.
https://www.ft.com/content/de6a5d8d-3745-4b07-96ff-0a0d59380f9e
很有道理。以前有苏联的时候，美国真的是美国，科技经济文化样样生机勃勃，民主共和两党不会像现在左右互搏。苏联没了，美国就开始走下坡路。。。
中国想强大，没有一块磨刀石也不行。
共和党反智是从里根开始的，到川普登峰造极
【 在 GoogIe (Google) 的大作中提到: 】
: 很有道理。以前有苏联的时候，美国真的是美国，科技经济文化样样生机勃勃，民主共
: 和两党不会像现在左右互搏。苏联没了，美国就开始走下坡路。。。
: 中国想强大，没有一块磨刀石也不行。
出则无敌国外患者,国恒亡
孟子（公元前372年－公元前289年）
【 在 gunchulai (一次一枪) 的大作中提到: 】
: 出则无敌国外患者,国恒亡
文章我还真粗略的从头读到尾，但感觉有些不知所云。咬文嚼字的两句：
Perhaps it is not a common enemy that unifies the nation. Rather, only a
unified nation can agree on a common enemy.
我想到了以前读的文章的一句文字游戏：
It is not that we can't knock China down. It is that we can't knock China
down
without ourselves being down.
现在我也是糊涂了，到底啥是对的，啥是不对的。不管怎么说，老将们保重身体，未来二十年到三十年会有初步答案, 而且过程会好戏不断。
没错， 整个一个裹脚布文章， 可以告诉写文章的这个记者， 美国没戏。
【 在 lambutton (lambutton) 的大作中提到: 】
: 文章我还真粗略的从头读到尾，但感觉有些不知所云。咬文嚼字的两句：
: Perhaps it is not a common enemy that unifies the nation. Rather, only a
: unified nation can agree on a common enemy.
: 我想到了以前读的文章的一句文字游戏：
: It is not that we can't knock China down. It is that we can't knock China : down
: without ourselves being down.
: 现在我也是糊涂了，到底啥是对的，啥是不对的。不管怎么说，老将们保重身体，未来
: 二十年到三十年会有初步答案, 而且过程会好戏不断。
如果一个国家发展到要靠树立一个强大的敌人才能统一自己，是对是错，是正义是邪恶，健康与否，大家评判。
也许有人会说运动员或一个队在有强大对手时候会团结和精神，从而发挥好，但体育是建立在和平和公平的基础上的竞争，是提高自己而打败对方。对方是竞争对手，不是敌人，用使坏的方法暗中或明面破坏攻击是不被允许和接受的。
Why do americans blame China for every problem they have in their country ?
When American families owning American companies publish american junk
studies, bribe american FDA officials and sell American dangerous Opioids
that kill them, is it the fault of CHINA ?
When American families, owning American companies, pay american politicians and american medias to deny climate change, is the fault of CHINA ?
When American billionaires, living in America, complain about paying too
much taxes, despite they have everything they could ever want, is it the
fault of CHINA ?
When American Presidents and the American Congress decide to vote and sign
trade deal to offshore jobs to China in order to enrich american executives and american shareholders, is it the fault of CHINA?
When American University costs are out of control because American
university leaders decided to pay themselves multimillion dollars salaries, is it the fault of CHINA ? When American Politicians refuse to create a 1 to 20 maximum salary ratio in the American university sector, is the fault of China ?
When american infrastructure is collapsing, when major cities lack metros
and high speed trains, and americans are investing in Financial Derivatives and Bitcoin, is it the fault of China ?
When Americans have an obesity problem because the American Congress refuse to ban American Soda advertising, is it the fault of CHINA ?
When American Politicians like Hillary Clinton try to cheat during the
Democratic Primary against other American Politicians (Sanders), is it the
fault of CHINA ?
Huge financial crisis, population is suffering. Almost everyone on the
political spectrum is corrupt and has a responsability in this mess but they all scapegoat the Chinese to avoid taking any responsability for ruining
the country. People from Chinese descents are suspects in universities, in
the workplace, there are calls to boycott them because they are "foreign
agents".
Asians get regularly beaten up on the streets. Violent attacks on East
Asians have increased by over 2000% since the pandemic, but it receives no
coverage in MSM.
【 在 hsh (磕头川。毛国锋) 的大作中提到: 】
: 共和党反智是从里根开始的，到川普登峰造极