Comments on The Rule of Empires

 

Comments on The Rule of Empires

Peter Schultz

 

                  Timothy H. Parsons has written an excellent book entitled The Rule of Empires: Those Who Built Them, Those Who Endured Them, and Why They Always Fail.

 

                  In his concluding chapter, Parsons comments on George Bush’s invasion of Iraq as part of his project to liberate Iraq by deposing Saddam Hussein and making Iraq democratic. Referring to critics of Bush, Parson’s wrote:

 

                  “The critics of Operation Iraqi Freedom often overlook [certain] realities. To be sure, scholars of empire such as Nicholas Dirks did their part by linking theorists, politicians, and military contractors that profited from the invasion of Iraq with the conquistadors, nabobs, and other specialist groups behind earlier imperial projects…. [Moreover], most opponents of President Bush’s preemptive war made the mistake of equating empire and imperialism solely with the unjust use of hard power…. Empires are indeed immoral, but it would have been more convincing to argue against the Iraq invasion by using historical precedents to show why it was doomed to fail. Instead, the Bush administration’s leftist critics assumed that empire was still practical; they just differed from the neoconservatives and imperial apologists in branding it a sin.” [426-27]

 

                  Parson’s view is that “it is simply no longer feasible to reorder another society through military force alone…. The central mistake running through much of the debate over the Iraqi occupation was the assumption that imperial methods were still effective and could be put to legitimate uses. The Bush administration … planners made the fundamental mistake of believing their own legitimizing rhetoric.” [427]

 

                  But it should be emphasized that the failure of empires or of imperialism is not merely a historical phenomenon. It is also a political phenomenon.  Empires and other imperialistic projects destroy themselves. They are, for various reasons, unmaintainable, even futile. And one of the reasons even the leftist critics of Bush’s imperial project assume that empire is practical is because they are still “believers;” that is, they don’t realize that ultimately, like empires, politics is futile. Failure is intrinsic to the political. Or as Socrates put it: Only when philosophers rule of rulers become philosophers will humankind be cured of its ills. And those, like George Bush, who think that they have a moral obligation to right the world’s wrongs will repeatedly subject the world to savagery, death, and destruction.

Connections: JFK, Vietnam, and the British Empire

 

Connections: JFK, Vietnam, and the British Empire

Peter Schultz

 

                  JFK said he would pull out of Vietnam after winning the 1964 presidential election. This means, among other things, that JFK was willing to wage war in Nam – and defend waging it – in order to win the 1964 election. Winning the election was more important than ending (or losing) the war. Winning re-election was more important than doing justice or ending the injustice of the war.

 

                  JFK did not take on the injustice of the war; that is, he did not take on American imperialism. He was, essentially, an imperialist.

 

                  JFK’s version of success: ending the Vietnam War without undermining American imperialism, dominance, hegemony. The war was “a mistake,” but American imperialism, hegemony was not.

 

                  What follows once you embrace imperialism/ hegemony? Don’t you end up with war(s)? Don’t you end up with Kenya, Malaysia, Nicaragua, Cuba, Ukraine, and Iraq?

 

                  Plus, you end up justifying imperialism. That is, you cannot see the injustice of empire, of imperialism. You can only see its justice, despite the appearance of great injustices like those committed by the British in Kenya and Malaysia or those committed by the United States in Vietnam. As a result, there is no way out.

 

                  Caroline Elkins’ title for her excellent history of the British Empire, Legacy of Violence, is misleading. It should have been “Legacy of Imperialism” because imperialism was/is the root issue, not violence. General Giap was correct: (1) Robert McNamara was an imperialist and (2) the Vietnam war occurred because he – and the United States – was imperialist. To catalogue “the mistakes” that allegedly led to the war obfuscates, “disappears” the root phenomenon, imperialism. McNamara’s alleged realism blinded him – and us – to reality.

Thoughts on Elkins "Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire"

 

Thoughts on Elkins’ Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire

Peter Schultz

 

Here are some thoughts that arose as I was reading Caroline Elkins very fine history of the British Empire, mainly pertaining to understanding the political.

 

#1

Which more accurately describes the political: Elkins’ “systematized violence” or “pathological violence?” The former carries with it justifications: it’s ordered violence created by rational persons and bureaucratized. The latter calls it what it actually is, “sickness.” 

Elkins tends to rationalize the Mau Mau: “It was a rational response of rural people seeking to understand the enormous socioeconomic and political changes taking place…while attempting to respond collectively to new and unjust realities.” (547) 
Sounds like the Kikuyu would be open to and would profit from seminars on their situation! 

Politics, given its injustices, produces rage; and did so both in the Brits in Kenya and in the Kikuyu. Both sides responded pathologically, which is to say they responded politically. The result: pathological violence. 

“Going postal:” pathological violence creating more pathological violence. Is telling people that they have a constitutionally guaranteed right to weapons a good idea? Kirk’s fate might be taken to indicate it isn’t. Oh, there’s that irony again!  

 

#2

What Elkins labels “legalized lawlessness” is more accurately called “pathological lawlessness.” This is similar to her “systematized violence,” which I think should be labeled “pathological violence.” Elkins has trouble getting to the point of recognizing that the political is the arena of the pathological. But I believe it is this recognition that is the gateway, so to speak, to political philosophy. The absence of this recognition is what characterizes “believers,” those who affirm the political like Carl Schmidt or Alexander Hamilton, et. al. The absence of this recognition is what distinguishes political thought from political philosophy. 

Insofar as the political is the arena of the pathological, is it wise to guarantee that people have a constitutional right to weaponize? Is it wise, generally, to militarize such an arena? And Aristotle’s description of the best location for a polis as one that requires only a minimal amount of militarization is a reflection that he too understood the political as pathologically violent and lawless, intrinsically so. ( Austen’s Wickham is a reflection that she understood this as well., as well as her joke about anal sex among the navy’s “rear admirals!”) 

Just sayin’. 

Politics: Normalizing the Abnormal

 

Politics: Normalizing the Abnormal

Peter Schultz

 

 

Oh, but it is normal; it's the normal continuation of normal politics by normal means. 

 

Remember 1963? 1968? Remember the Bay of Pigs, JFK/Dallas, RFK, MLK, Malcolm X, Chicago 1968, Kent State, Jackson State, George Wallace, Fred Hampton, My Lai, the Phoenix program, Watergate, Reagan shot, Ford shot at, 9/11, the War on Terror, ”MIssion Accomplished,” 20+ years in Afghanistan, 1/6? 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/07/opinion/trump-senate-democrats-shutdown.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Daydream Believers

 

Daydream Believers

Peter Schultz

 

                  A question occurred to me as I was reading Fred Kaplan’s very good book, Daydream Believers, where he was critiquing George W. Bush’s understanding of the world. Bush was not concerned about creating vacuums in other nations because “the natural forces of freedom would fill” the vacuum. “Gaza would become a democracy almost of its own accord.” [p. 164]

 

                  My question was: Are there vacuums politically speaking? Well, no, because we humans are, as Aristotle argued, “political animals.” Hence, not only is it necessary to cultivate democracies, or any other political order, it is a cultivation that requires some sophistication, to say the least. Not only can existence be arranged; it must be arranged and in that task politics is architectonic.  

 

                  Moreover, because we humans are not only political animals but while history might bend toward justice, politics, the political, bends toward extremism. Extremism is intrinsic to politics, to all regimes, and therefore constitutes the abiding issue for human societies, even for those labeled “civilized.” Hence, T.E. Lawrence’s take on daydream believers:

 

“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity. But the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible.” [Seven Pillars of Wisdom]