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Journal of Commerce April 20, 1999 Guest Opinion: Reflections beneath the bombs BY SVETOZAR STOJANOVIC BELGRADE - Since the collapse of communism and the
Soviet Union, an ideology has been dominating the West,
primarily in the United States. It combines a triumphalist
self-evaluation about the end of history with a vulgarized
pragmatism toward the rest of the world. For example: Depending on whether the existence of a state suits dominant circles in the West or not, the West supports within that state either the civic principle of "one citizen, one vote" or the demand of ethnic groups for political-territorial autonomy, special status and even full secession. Many intellectuals use the category "international community" unreservedly. Any genuine community ought to be characterized by equality and solidarity instead of force and selfishness. But when intellectuals follow the power structure closely, including its obvious contradictions, caprices and hypocrisies, they lose their political, intellectual, and moral autonomy and credibility. Because there is currently no true counterweight to the power of the West -- and especially to that of the United States -- the West's own self-restraint should be of utmost importance. How realistic is it to expect this at the West's power climax? After all, as Karl Deutsch stated, "Power is the ability to afford not to learn." However, such power has, as a rule, historically led to moral decadence. Democratic competition for power and influence among individuals and elites unfortunately favors those who arrogantly impose Western views and interests onto the whole world rather than those who would be prepared for self-criticism, empathy, and cooperation on equal footing with others. Instead of acting as a check and balance of sorts, the overwhelming majority of Western mass media patriotically support and encourage their leaders in this. The body of human, civil and ethnic rights has been playing a big part in the humanization and democratization of capitalism, and in the criticism and destruction of communism. However, those rights have also been applied by the West to justify its own domination in the world. Western mass media are the main hothouse of pop ideology of such rights. Even more than their own governments, they suffer from a reckless superficiality in the name of those rights when dealing with other states. In the West, a sense of the present increasingly predominates as the basic disposition of prosperous capitalism and its mass culture. I am referring to the fixation on immediacy and a total disregard for the past, particularly that of other nations. Thence the irresistible temptation to extrapolate the future merely from a here-and-now without history. The domination of the electronic media over the print, of images over words, both reflects and strengthens this "presentistic" state of mind. They even attempt to create what from their standpoint is desired reality by means of informing -- or rather let us call it inform(cre)ation. The West has no valid justification when behaving arrogantly, since its tradition and identity are also contradictory. The West means not exclusively humanism, democracy, respect for human, civil and ethnic rights -- but also genocide, slave-owning, Nazism and holocaust. Unfortunately, the West is continuously elated with the "realism" of its new-vs.-old world order, comparing it with former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's naivete, his new thinking and the expectation that he would encounter humanist globalism. Can we hope for a Western Mr. Gorbachev to appear who would successfully resist mass egoism and triumphalism to help us all establish a new humanist world order? How could we expect that when the whole vision of politicians and statesmen in the West as a rule extends to cover a couple of election years? Rich democratic-capitalist countries are far more willing to dictate standards and ways of internal transformation to other countries than to commit any significant portion of their riches to help them. This is an attempt at social engineering from the outside, and at an extremely low cost. If things continue unfolding in this direction, neo-communist accusations are highly likely to arise against the West as a vast selfish empire -- an updated echo of its own 1980s charge against the Soviet Union. Svetozar Stojanovic is a professor at the University of Belgrade.
© Svetozar Stojanovic & Journal of Commerce |
