Creating reality
Ever since Ron Suskind's remarkable article last October in the Sunday New York Times Magazine, I've been puzzling over the rather disturbing quote from an unnamed senior adviser to the President:
We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.
Although it struck my ear as uniquely ominous at the time (and in a sense, it was, given that it came from someone close to the President), it actually echoed similar comments by prominent neoconservatives.
For example, Charles Krauthammer wrote in a February 2001 Time article (n.b. prior to 9/11):
America is no mere international citizen. It is the dominant power in the world, more dominant than any since Rome. Accordingly, America is in a position to re-shape norms, alter expectations, and create new realities. How? By unapologetic and implacable demonstrations of will.
And Charles Fukuyama wote back in 1992:
America's 1991 war in the Persian Gulf indicates that a politician like George Bush, inconsistent and constrained on the domestic issues, can nonetheless create new realities on the world stage.
The notion of creating new realities expresses the underlying Nietzschean nihilism of neoconservatism -- something quite explicit in the writings of Fukuyama but not fully appreciated by the less intellectual supporters of the Bush administration and its neoconservative foreign policy. They don't really believe in moral principles ("good and evil") -- they are "beyond" them. When moral principles serve their interests, they adopt them. When they don't, they "re-shape" them or "create new realities" for which they are no longer an obstacle. At bottom, they believe only in the Will to Power.
In doing some Google searching on the idea, I also came across another interesting connection. Putting aside ties to New Age spiritualism, "creating new realities" has a remarkably high number of hits as a widely used turn of phrase in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Israel's strategy regarding the Occupied Territories has been described by both sides -- both Israeli leaders and their critics -- as an attempt to "create new realities" in the sense of establishing such a strong Israeli presence in the Occupied Territories that it no longer makes practical sense even to consider the possibility of withdrawal.
The idea even made it into President Bush's comments during Sharon's state visit last April:
"In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli population centers, it is unrealistic that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949," Mr. Bush said in a news conference with Mr. Sharon in the Cross Hall of the White House.
Mr. Sharon, who beamed at Mr. Bush's side throughout their 24-minute appearance, said his plan would create "a new and better reality" for Israel.
Perhaps the connection is accidental, but I wonder whether there is crosspollenation here between American neoconservatism and Israeli foreign policy (certainly not a surprising possibility). Using the Israeli policy as a guide, the idea of America "creating new realities" amounts to something like the following: the invasion of a certain country may violate international law and be rejected by the UN, allies and world opinion, but after we act, invade the country and occupy it, such that our presence is an undeniable and unchangeable fact, a new reality is created, and the UN, our allies and the world will adjust accordingly. They will come to accept our action, cooperate, and make the best of the situation. In the end, their original objections will be moot and eventually forgotten, and consequently, America will have effectively established new standards of foreign policy.
Putting moral qualms aside, you have to admit the idea does sound remarkably "reality-based."
2:09:14 AM 
|
|
