Neo-Neo-Hegelianism (yeah, I stole that idea)

We see Fukuyama's neo-neo-Hegelianism in which there is a natural end -- liberal democracy -- towards which all governments naturally move if only freed from tyranny. Create a power vacuum and provide some purple finger ink, et voila, instant democracy.

SteveG gives voice here to something that’s been brewing upstairs for me for a long time now…what the fuck makes us so special? I’m not saying that liberal democracy is bad. I love living under this system and can’t imagine living any other way. It allows for dissent, provides economic and social structure, as well as the whole “majority rule, minority rights” ideal. This doesn’t, though…at least in my eyes…give us the right to push our system on the entire world by force. What leads us to believe that it is objectively the best…and, in fact, only…way to govern justly?

To describe the neoconservative belief that we are in the right in using all means possible to spread “liberal” democracy around the globe as neo-neo-Hegelianism is very telling. Hegel saw the progression towards “freedom” as the natural state of societies. Giest drives us towards this end ideal. But he left the ideal largely undefined. The neo-Hegelians took up this cause but defined the end. Communism…yes, it would be struggle, but this is the direction in which dialectical materialism was leading us. The material restraints placed on individuals functioning as a society affect the dialectic progression (borrowed by Marx from Hegel) in such a way as to lead us to a proletariat revolution. We would need strong leaders, an authoritarian system at first…we’d have socialism. But eventually, we’d achieve the ideal. So the masses began to believe and so one of the great social experiments of history began…and then failed. But the point is this…they believed communism to be the end…the ultimate social/political/economic system. An unjustified belief?

Now we see neo-neo-Hegelianism. Communism failed and whatever defeated it must be the stronger system, the new ideal. The new ideal must be capitalism thriving in a liberal democratic socio-political environment. So then, it becomes not only our right, but our duty to spread democracy. We are obligated to give this gift of freedom to the world…are we not? Should we not use any means possible to deliver this gift?

Well, if we accept a dialectical progression of history in the form Hegel lays out, then we are obligated to assume that there is some system that in the end will bring about this ideal freedom. IF we accept that...but why are we to believe that there is one ideal for all the world? Islam, ingrained in the hearts, minds, and souls of its adherents, inherently sets up a wholly different and conflicted socio-political system than liberal democracy. Does this system grant individuals the same freedoms as our system does? No. But is their ideal freedom, their perfect life/perfect society the same as ours? I doubt it. They see the world differently than we do and experience freedom differently than the west.

In any case…let’s grant the assumption that there is one ideal freedom and move on with our argument. The next step must be to question how we know that liberal democracy is the ideal system to bring about “freedom.” We must think pretty damn highly of ourselves to truly believe this proposition. Just look to the past at “ideal” systems that have failed…why shouldn’t ours. It’s only doing a half-assed job at providing real freedom and quality of life in the nations that already practice it…why shouldn’t there be some yet unimagined system that is better than this?

But again…let’s grant that it is the best tool in the shed. We then arrive at the question of spreading liberal democracy. Are we obligated to do so…if it’s the best system and we believe it will truly bring about “freedom,” then, yes, we most certainly are…but at what cost? How many lives are to be lost, how many cities are to be destroyed, how many bombs are to be dropped before the ends no longer outweigh the means? If this is really part of the progression…the way things ought to go…why do we feel such a need to push and prod it along? Undue use of force will simply mire the progression. The esteemed one-time-neoconservative Fukuyama himself wrote that neoconservatives “...believed that history can be pushed along with the right application of power and will. Leninism was a tragedy in its Bolshevik version, and it has returned as farce when practiced by the United States. Neoconservatism, as both a political symbol and a body of thought, has evolved into something I can no longer support.” (thanks Wikipedia) In other words…war mongering is not the way to go about spreading liberal democracy if we do believe that it’s the best system. We must win over the “hearts and minds” of the world...bombs only incite terror and terror impedes true progress.

Also…along the same lines…check out this post over at Bitch PhD by NO_NYM.