Friday, June 19, 2009

The Character of Nations


By Thomas Sowell


http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | In an age that values cleverness over wisdom, it is not surprising that many superficial but clever books get more attention than a wise book like "The Character of Nations" by Angelo Codevilla, even though the latter has far more serious implications for the changing character of our own nation.


The recently published second edition of Professor Codevilla's book is remarkable just for its subject, quite aside from the impressive breadth of its scope and the depth of its insights. But clever people among today's intelligentsia disdain the very idea that there is such a thing as "national character."


Everything from punctuality to alcohol consumption may vary greatly from one country to another, but the "one world" ideology and the "multicultural" dogma make it obligatory for many among the intelligentsia to act as if none of this has anything to do with the poverty, corruption and violence of much of the Third World or with the low standard of living in the Soviet Union, one of the most richly endowed nations on earth, when it came to natural resources.


"The Character of Nations" is about far more than the fact that there are different behavior patterns in different countries — that, for example, "it is unimaginable to do business in China without paying bribes" but "to offer one in Japan is the greatest of faux pas."



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The real point is to show what kinds of behaviors produce what kinds of consequences — in the economy, in the family, in the government and in other aspects of human life. Nor do the repercussions stop there. Government policies are not only affected by the culture of the country but can in turn have a major impact on that culture, for good or ill.


Written in plain and sometimes blunt words, "The Character of Nations" is nevertheless the product of a man whose knowledge and experience span the globe, extending into economics, philosophy and other fields, as well as encompassing the wisdom of the ancients and the follies of the moderns.


The book is an education in itself, more of an education than many students are likely to get at an Ivy League college. However, its purpose is not academic but to clarify the issues facing us all today when "the character of the American way of life is up for grabs perhaps more than ever before," as the author puts it.


While nations differ, particular kinds of behavior produce particular kinds of results in country after country. Moreover, American society in recent years has been imitating behavior patterns that have produced negative — and sometimes catastrophic — consequences in many other countries around the world.


Among these patterns have been a concentration of decision-making power in government officials, an undermining of the role of the family, a "non-judgmental" attitude toward behavior and a dissolution of the common bonds that hold a society together, leading to atomistic self-indulgences and group-identity politics that increasingly pits different segments of society against each other.


Those among the intelligentsia who say that we should "learn from other countries" almost invariably mean that we should imitate what other countries have done. Angelo Codevilla argues that we should learn from other countries' mistakes, especially when those same mistakes have repeatedly produced bad results in many countries and among many very different peoples, living under very different political systems.


Putting ever more economic decisions in the hands of those with political power is just one of those mistakes with a track record of painful repercussions in many countries around the world. These repercussions have included not only serious economic losses but, even more important, a loss of personal freedom and self-respect, as ever wider segments of the population become supplicants and sycophants of those with the power to dispense largess or to make one's life miserable with legalistic or bureaucratic harassment.


We in America have taken large steps in that direction in recent years, and are accelerating our moves in that direction this year. Getting some clearer sense of what this risks is just one of many reasons to read "The Character of Nations".

Your Silence is Deafening, Mr. President

Donald Lambro :: Townhall.com Columnist
by Donald Lambro




WASHINGTON -- President Obama, known for his soaring oratory, has been having a hard time finding the right words to respond to the Iranians' struggle for political change and freedom in a repressive society.


The reason: He has so much invested in his let-us-sit-down-and-settle-our-differences diplomatic approach to Iran that it has all but turned into a "see no evil, hear no evil" policy toward that nation.



The headline in the Washington Post late last week seemed to capture Obama's inability to fully respond to the massive protests in the wake of Iran's apparently rigged elections that have disenfranchised millions of Iranians. It read: "U.S. Struggling for Right Response to Iran," with a subhead that said, "Obama Seeks Way to Acknowledge Protesters Without Alienating Ayatollah." One week after the Iranian elections, Obama and other administration officials were still engaged in opaque verbal gymnastics to avoid offending the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, while all but dismissing what has become -- let's face it -- the denial of basic human rights.


At the beginning of last week, Vice President Joe Biden responded weakly for the White House, saying the administration was taking a "wait and see" position. Then, even as the protests mounted into a sea of anger, the administration still seemed incapable of identifying with the pro-democracy demonstrators.


By Tuesday, Obama was stuck in the same benign position of his earlier statements that this was a dispute that was "ultimately for the Iranian people to decide."


But there was no direct sympathy for the Iranian people, who believed that opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi had been denied the election by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government -- only this generic bromide: "But I stand strongly with the universal principle that people's voices should be heard and not suppressed," Obama said.


"A reporter shouted a question about whether he stood with the people of Iran, but Mr. Obama had already turned and left the stage," White House correspondent Jon Ward reported in The Washington Times.


Everyone in the room got the point.


As thousands of demonstrators packed the streets of Tehran to protest the election amid wide charges of vote fraud, the pictures of repression and state retaliation were flashed around the world. Basij paramilitary gangs, allied with the Iranian regime, were seen beating and harassing protesters. As many as eight or more were shot by government security forces. Others were rounded up and jailed.


Eventually, the communication networks were shut down by the government, and the foreign and Iranian press were barred by the Ministry of Islamic Guidance from covering, recording or photographing the street protests. Earlier, there was an attempt to shut down access to Web sites such as Facebook and Twitter.


But the White House wasn't budging from its pro-engagement position toward Iran's militant regime. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton summed up that position by midweek: "We are obviously waiting to see the outcome of the internal Iranian processes, but our intent is to pursue whatever opportunities might exist in the future with Iran."