"Empire as a Way of Life"

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Fri Jan 10 09:25:02 PST 2003


***** Imperialism Roundtable

"Global Realm With No Limit, Global Realm With No Name"

Bruce Cumings

...Today the United States straddles a globe that is bereft of alternative visions and programs, to a degree that would amaze "one-worlders" like Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt. Yet "naming the empire" is left to isolated socialist remnants like Kim Il Sung and Fidel Castro.

The greater part of the explanation for this phenomenon--global realm with no limit, global realm with no name--has to do with the popularity of America's role in the world at home, particularly among intellectuals....

...When the Stalinist regimes of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union proceeded to collapse, it seemed as if all was positively for the best in the best of all possible worlds, a celebratory moment from which few escaped. The modernization school proclaimed a belated triumph. Meanwhile Ronald Reagan and George Bush took advantage of a new, self-assertive nationalism to use American military power unilaterally to knock over a leftist regime in Grenada, quarantine the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua, invade Panama, and punish Saddam Hussein.

All this went forward as the arena of critical discourse shrank, whether measured by the constricted parameters of network television or the general silence of the universities; the willingness to "name" these imperial ventures as such, gave way to silence or positive participation in national celebrations of each pathetic "victory" over a small, essentially undefended Third World country. This is what William Appleman Williams meant by "empire as a way of life," what Louis Hartz meant by "liberal absolutism:" the legitimation of hegemony, ranging from grudging acceptance to patriotic celebration, imbedded in the national discourse, of the U.S. as (take your pick), "the last, best hope of mankind," the world power of last resort, land-of-the-free-and-home-of-the-brave. Global realm with no limit, intellectuals with no name. Perhaps this is the deep meaning of an imperial culture....

<http://chnm.gmu.edu/rhr/cumings.htm> ***** -- Yoshie

* Calendar of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://solidarity.igc.org/>



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