The Perspective Problem

Sometimes, enlightenment comes from mysterious places. Most know that I tend to read publication that span the entire spectrum of ideology. I do this primarily to attempt to cut through some of the spin and propaganda by reading multiple sides. For instance, it has become blatantly obvious that National Review and The Weekly Standard are nothing more than Republican megaphones - Kristol and Goldberg have nothing to say that doesn't resemble "four legs good, two legs bad!". Therefore, finding decent commentary on the conservative side has led me to other sources, including The American Conservative. I would not have expected a Pat Buchanan enterprise to interest me much, but it has turned out to have some excellent analysis and commentary on a wide variety of issues. I had an interesting time of reading Moscow Hangover. It is a long, rambling piece by Peter Hitchens, who apparently lived in Moscow in the 1990's. He talks about the evils of "totalitarian Socialism" - an ideological oxymoron if ever there was one. However, I have noted before that a term comes to mean something different than the initial definition, if it is implemented in a poor manner. "Communist" regimes in China and the USSR would certainly qualify under the term "totalitarian Socialism". So, I decided to continue reading the piece. Hitchens thinks that the US, and western democracy in general, missed a golden opportunity during the fall of the USSR: My own view, formed in Moscow during the final months of Gorbachev, is that the U.S. and its allies missed a great opportunity in Russia. We continued to be absurdly suspicious, and needlessly triumphalist, as Gorbachev dismantled his country. We forced Russia back to the humiliating borders imposed on her by Kaiser Wilhelm II at the Carthaginian Peace of Brest-Litovsk in 1917. We brought the NATO alliance up to Russia’s front door. We meddled in the Caucasus and Central Asia. But we had neither the military power nor the long-term commitment to these places to sustain these actions. Russia, sadly for the people of Georgia, Ukraine, and the Baltic Republics, will still be there waiting, long after Washington has lost interest in their fate. And while we engaged in this maddening hubris, we thronged Moscow with experts on the free market and the outward forms of democracy but none on liberty or the rule of law. Many Russians to this day sneer at the very idea of democracy, associating it with the Yeltsin years of suppurating corruption combined with bankruptcy, when their savings were wiped out and their wages and pensions went unpaid, while oligarchs prospered. Instead of saying “demokratiya,” the normal Russian word for “democracy,” they say, with a twist of the mouth, “dermokratiya,” which translates politely as “the rule of excrement.” It is hard to blame them. I found one point especially poignant, and telling: ...we thronged Moscow with experts on the free market and the outward forms of democracy but none on liberty or the rule of law. Experts on the free market. Hmmm... No liberty, no rule of law, just economics. No wonder Russians think democracy is a joke. As I continued to read the article, I slowly began to doubt my wisdom in reading it. Hitchens was scathing in his rebuke of the USSR, but many of his examples seemed a little too close to home. But though the new rulers are the products of Marxism, they lack its driving purpose—or any real purpose except the gaining and keeping of wealth and power. "Free market" economics, anyone? The draft is breaking down as young men bribe their way out of service or sign up for dubious academic courses... I think our current president did this too, didn't he? I remembered the horrible little nurseries, baby farms where Moscow mothers would park their children while they went off to spend their days at compulsory jobs. Life was arranged so that families needed two Soviet salaries to pay for the necessities of life... This is just like living in the US, according to this: In 2002, only 7 percent of all U.S. households consisted of married couples with children in which only the husband worked. Dual-income families with children made up more than two times as many households. Even families with two incomes and no children outnumbered the traditional family by almost two to one... Very few "traditional families" here. I remembered the way that almost every adult I met was divorced. According to this site, the US has the highest divorce rate of any country on analyzed, almost 35% higher than Russia's. This site also has the US essentially tied for the worst rate in the world. Conventional wisdom regarding religion and divorce rates is brought into serious doubt at this site: Barna released the results of their poll about divorce on 1999-DEC-21. 1 They had interviewed 3,854 adults from the 48 contiguous states. The margin of error is ±2 percentage points. The survey found: -11% of the adult population is currently divorced. -25% of adults have had at least one divorce during their lifetime. -Divorce rates among conservative Christians were significantly higher than for other faith groups, and much higher than Atheists and Agnostics experience. George Barna, president and founder of Barna Research Group, commented: "While it may be alarming to discover that born again Christians are more likely than others to experience a divorce, that pattern has been in place for quite some time. Even more disturbing, perhaps, is that when those individuals experience a divorce many of them feel their community of faith provides rejection rather than support and healing. But the research also raises questions regarding the effectiveness of how churches minister to families. The ultimate responsibility for a marriage belongs to the husband and wife, but the high incidence of divorce within the Christian community challenges the idea that churches provide truly practical and life-changing support for marriages." Interesting... I noted all of these things, and was thinking that Hitchens must really be daft for not recognizing it. I was therefore very interested when I reached this paragraph: And I remembered coming back to the West, full of optimism, in 1992. And then I remembered seeing, year by year, in my own country and the U.S., new versions of all these subtle horrors: the “children’s rights” movement that encourages denunciation and sets children against their parents, the shoving of infants into daycare from an incredibly early age, the need for two salaries to pay the basic bills, the epidemic of divorce, the pandemic of abortion, the growing spiteful rage against faith. I saw all around me the construction of a system of thought that dismissed conservative, individualist points of view as intolerable and pathological. I saw public servants, academics, and broadcasters having their careers ruined—and in Britain being questioned by the police—for expressing incorrect opinions. Private life, in the modern West, is now becoming significantly less free than it is in post-ideological Moscow. And then I realized that he was blaming all of this on the "Left". It is an interesting lesson in real power to see how much mightier left-wing ideas and movements have become since they lost the support of all those Russian tanks. It is amazing how different people can see the same set of facts, and draw entirely different conclusions from them. to review, the evils I cited are: But though the new rulers are the products of Marxism, they lack its driving purpose—or any real purpose except the gaining and keeping of wealth and power. The draft is breaking down as young men bribe their way out of service or sign up for dubious academic courses... I remembered the horrible little nurseries, baby farms where Moscow mothers would park their children while they went off to spend their days at compulsory jobs. Life was arranged so that families needed two Soviet salaries to pay for the necessities of life... I remembered the way that almost every adult I met was divorced. My analysis is this: -Gaining and keeping wealth and power is a product of western economics, which is a tenant of Conservative ideology. How is that "Left"? -Are we to assume that this service dodging is only done and supported by Leftists? How many "conservative" elites have family serving in Iraq? I wonder why... -Daycare and the need for dual-income families is again related to the economic system. I will again need someone to explain how this is "Left". -Divorce rates are higher among Christians, and support for divorce in the Christian community is frowned upon. If there is "Leftist" influence here, I am missing it. Hitchens obviously disagrees. He says this at the end: I have begun to suspect that the bacillus of revolution, once confined inside the borders of the USSR, did not die with Communism. On the contrary, it adapted itself and escaped in a new form. Now it rages busily in a world where, instead of storming the Winter Palace, the post office, and the railroad station, the enemies of freedom infiltrate the TV studio, the college campus, and the school. The fact that an attack on freedom "rages busily" is agreed upon by both Hitchens and myself. We disagree, not on whether there are enemies of freedom in our midst, but who those enemies are - and in what form they choose to present themselves.