United States Should Lead, Not Dominate

December 19, 2002 8:22 AM

The United States should lead, not dominate.A piece by former U.S. President Bill Clinton. "From the dawn of human society up to the present time, we have been bedeviled by a persistent curse: the compulsion people feel to define the meaning of their lives in positive terms with reference to those who are like them racially, tribally, culturally, religiously, politically, and by negative reference to those who are different"
posted by four panels (36 comments total)

Bill must be writing his own stuff these days. Rhodes Scholar or not, this was poorly-written. Note to self: must remember to offer presidential speechwriter cushy job after leaving office.
posted by mrmcsurly at 8:53 AM on December 19, 2002

Every time I read the word "is" in his article, I wondered what definition Clinton intended. Just picturing him writing this was comical. Anyone under the desk? Was the redheaded kid from the E-Trade commercials egging him on?

As for the "persistent curse," I think it has merit; people like what is familiar and have trouble with things that are different.

Can that be changed? How do you change that? I don't know and Clinton offers no specific plan. Maybe if we bought the world a Coke and taught them to sing in perfect harmony...
posted by Frank Grimes at 9:03 AM on December 19, 2002

And to think we elected this man. Twice.
posted by alumshubby at 9:31 AM on December 19, 2002

Before critiquing his writing style, take a look at the last line in the article:

This comment has been adapted by the International Herald Tribune from a longer article distributed by Tribune Media Services International.

I think that's why his ideas are not developed well, and some passages like the following one feel awkward:

Does that mean it should never use it? When force is required to save massive numbers of lives? No. But it does mean that Americans should be humble enough to remember that there are rarely any final solutions in human affairs.

That said, the liberal in me likes what he has to say.
posted by astirling at 9:39 AM on December 19, 2002

Rhodes Scholar or not, this was poorly-written.

Did you read the entire article? This was at the end and explains why it didn't "sound" like a typical Clinton speech:


This comment has been adapted by the International Herald Tribune from a longer article distributed by Tribune Media Services International.

I understand your concern. Clinton is not the beneficiary of low expectations as some are. Can we repeal that bothersome amendment about 2 terms yet? The Big Dog Rocks! Here's another quote from last Saturday that holds to the subject (paraphrased):

"It's too bad we didn't elect Robert Kennedy in 1968. If we had there wouldn't be all these problems we've been having."

Great humor!
posted by nofundy at 9:48 AM on December 19, 2002

I think this is a pretty amazing statement, and it's not simply the idea that people "have trouble with things that are different."

When colonists here were building up to the Revolutionary War, the leaders weren't so confident in the ability of the people to self-govern. They insisted that people needed to follow a strict path of self-control (elevating mind over matter, in a sense), foregoing instinctual urges. One way they did this was to declare than Indians and blacks held the qualities that the colonists should avoid, with the result that the bad qualilties common to humanity were foisted onto blacks and Indians, who paid the price for it. Whites called them "savages" while using them as free labor and stealing their land. White men expressed fear that the black man wanted to rape the white woman, but it was the same white men having their way with slave women. They accused blacks and Indians of having uncontrollable urges only because they feared those urges within themselves.

It really comes down to psychology. One mode of repression (and republicanism is a form of repression) is projection, or attributing one's own feelings or desires to someone else. It is a defense mechanism; at first it was used out of fear that we could not control ourselves such that we could be governed without a central authority figure like a king; later it was used (and still is) to deny guilt for the undeniable inhumanity that led us to be the country we are today. (Our country would not be where wer are today without the existence of slavery at such a critical point in our growth, or without the very efficient process with which we screwed Indians out of lives and land.)

It's hard to put Clinton down for not having a specific plan--greater men have been unsuccessful. At least he's honestly expressing the root of many of the problems of social injustice we face, and that's a decent start.
posted by troybob at 9:52 AM on December 19, 2002

Wow. More vision expressed in that short snippet than has emerged from Bush in the entire time since he was appointed.
posted by rushmc at 9:53 AM on December 19, 2002

Nice comment, troybob.
posted by rushmc at 9:54 AM on December 19, 2002

As for the "persistent curse," I think it has merit; people like what is familiar and have trouble with things that are different.

I'd like to live in a world that views diversity as familiar and stagnant homogeneity as different.

Just because we're told race and class determine familiarity and difference doesn't mean we have to be believe it. And if by "have trouble with" you mean "don't like to leave their comfort zones," I'll agree with you, Frank. Problem is, I seem to learn the most and grow the most when I leave my comfort zone. It's not the easy road, or the cushy one, but it's a lot more fun, challenging, and invigorating.

Clinton never said he would offer a specific plan in this piece; you pissed the point entirely. He's telling the current administration we need to stop trying to tell the rest of the world how to act, behave, and think, and instead use our own strengths, abilities, and resources to be a leader by example.
posted by gramcracker at 10:07 AM on December 19, 2002

Indeed, the whole course of human history can be seen as a constant struggle to expand the definition of who is "us" and shrink the definition of who is "them."

Poorly written? Junior could never write a line like that. He spends one month a year locked up at his thousand-acre ranch in Crawford, ignoring his own ignorance of the world, economics, history, collective security....
posted by skimble at 10:25 AM on December 19, 2002

skimble: You know those annoying Republican debate club kids who post "Clinton was worse" everytime Bush gets criticized here? Are you sure you want to be the other side of that coin?
posted by liam at 11:17 AM on December 19, 2002

The United States should lead, not dominate.

Yeah, but we're better at dominating. I mean, if we don't, who will? Canada? Please.
posted by Skot at 11:22 AM on December 19, 2002

can you believe a guy that had an affair is trying to tell us how to run the country? HAH.

Yeah, but we're better at dominating. I mean, if we don't, who will? Canada? Please.

does anyone know the exact moment Canada became the whipping boy?
posted by mcsweetie at 11:52 AM on December 19, 2002

mcsweetie: does anyone know the exact moment Canada became the whipping boy?
"Blame Canada," song from the South Park movie, a favorite of South Park Republicans.

liam: Are you sure you want to be the other side of that coin?
Occasionally, why not. Someone has to respond to nonsense. I wouldn't have brought Bush up except for the "poorly written" remark that kicked off this thread, which prompted this mental process: Poorly written? Compared to who? The current president? Hmm! Old president, smart! New president, not!

Etc.
posted by skimble at 12:01 PM on December 19, 2002

does anyone know the exact moment Canada became the whipping boy?

It was an (evidently unsuccessful) attempt at a snarky kind of backhanded compliment, actually. That it's not generally in their national character to throw their weight around. Or something.
posted by Skot at 12:11 PM on December 19, 2002

I mean, if we don't, who will?

No one. That's what I believe Bill Clinton was also trying to say: it is impossible to dominate, and if you think that US sells freedom more than any country in the world, it's not only impossible, but incoherent and unsustainable. Clinton is looking ahead in a very clarified (and more pacific) way, I think. Although those are just words.
posted by nandop at 12:16 PM on December 19, 2002

We have the biggest economy in the world, a large majority of the world effectively relies on us as peacekeepers (let's face it, would you expect NATO or the UN to accomplish much of anything without US military logistics enabling the effort?) and as the winner of the Cold War, we're currently the sole superpower. What would BC have us do -- become completely internally focused, self-sufficient, and isolasionist, and then expect every other country to follow our moral and political examples? Gee, it's an interesting idea, but it's not going to work very well.

In eight years of residence in the Oval Orifice, all I can say is, the man had his chance to show what leadership without domination ought to be like, and he was too busy getting an intern to play skin flute.
posted by alumshubby at 12:26 PM on December 19, 2002

What would BC have us do -- become completely internally focused, self-sufficient, and isolasionist, and then expect every other country to follow our moral and political examples? Gee, it's an interesting idea, but it's not going to work very well.

Maybe you'd find out if you read the article you'd find out what Clinton would have us do:

America must support the institutions of global community, beginning with the United Nations... it must have our full support in building an integrated global community. ...
We have no choice but to learn to live together, to choose cooperation over conflict, to give expression to our common humanity by following simple rules: Everyone deserves a chance, everyone has a role to play, we all do better when we work together, we're not as different as we think.

posted by astirling at 12:45 PM on December 19, 2002

In eight years of residence in the Oval Orifice, all I can say is, the man had his chance to show what leadership without domination ought to be like, and he was too busy getting an intern to play skin flute.

Umm, yea, that's all that pretty much happened from '92 to '00...
posted by jalexei at 1:16 PM on December 19, 2002

[troybob - fascinating post. thank you]

There is the concept of 'knowledgable ignorance': knowing people, ideas, civilisations, religions and histories as something they are not, and could not possibly be, and maintaining those ideas even when the means exist to know them differently. It is a principle that has a considerable history and is a general feature of Western civilisation, particularly in the way the West perceives Islam and Muslims.

It seems to be particularly strongly developed in America, which has a unique (and admirable) view of itself and its identity as a nation. Because of this, the only yardstick for the USA for what is reasonable, normal and proper is its own ideas and history. America doesn't observe the world so much as construct that knowledge out of the binary opposition of 'like' and 'not like', based on its own yardstick.

It is this willful aspect of the US's refusal to engage with other cultures on terms other than the US's that I think is central to Clinton's piece. Mutual understanding can never emerge while knowledgeable ignorance acts as the gatekeeper of what is relevant and necessary to know about other civilisations. I think the starting point has to be listening to - and sometimes deferring to - what other people have to say for themselves.

[Here is the truly baffling thing for me, though. Some of the most intelligent, perceptive, sensitive people I know are Americans. There is a huge amount of wisdom and exactly the kind of understanding I think he calls for. I just can't understand why so little of the diversity of American opinion is reflected in the political discourse of governance, in Congress and in the media. Fix that and I think you would be well on the way to delivering Clinton's vision.]
posted by RichLyon at 1:40 PM on December 19, 2002

Lead through domination, I say!
posted by troutfishing at 2:12 PM on December 19, 2002

not
posted by troutfishing at 2:13 PM on December 19, 2002

It's too bad we didn't elect Robert Kennedy in 1968. If we had there wouldn't be all these problems we've been having.

If only he had lived. If only Martin Luther King had lived.
1968 was the saddest year...
posted by y2karl at 2:13 PM on December 19, 2002

Umm, yea, that's all that pretty much happened from '92 to '00...

fo shizzle my nizzle!

re troybob's post: isn't that kinda like conrad's heart of darkness or said's orientalism?

re clinton's post :D i always liked his speeches (and it's possible to separate the man from the message :) like if you do a search for "our common humanity" it's always in there as an underlying theme that i think informs his approach to all issues, domestic and international. and to his credit i think it's a powerful message! what i like about this piece is his almost explicit statement of (or thinly veiled approval fro) the project of cosmopolitanism.

"We have no choice but to learn to live together, to choose cooperation over conflict, to give expression to our common humanity by following simple rules: Everyone deserves a chance, everyone has a role to play, we all do better when we work together, we're not as different as we think."

obviously, not everyone agrees! but like astirling, i like the sentiment, cuz that's what clinton's all about! pain and empathy, my friends :D
posted by kliuless at 2:22 PM on December 19, 2002

Talk Talk Talk. Give it up Bill. As you yourself once said to the nation : "Now it is time -- in fact, it is past time -- to move on". It's a little too late now to be into this vision thing. If only you had worked as hard as President - when deeds really spoke louder than words.
posted by Voyageman at 3:04 PM on December 19, 2002

Umm, yea, that's all that pretty much happened from '92 to '00...

Well, actually, yes, there was an awful lot more, but most of it will not reflect well on Slick Willie when posterity has had its say. Let's revisit this thread in about fifty years or so when the winds of revisionism have had a chance to...well...blow.
posted by alumshubby at 3:50 PM on December 19, 2002

There is a huge amount of wisdom and exactly the kind of understanding I think he calls for. I just can't understand why so little of the diversity of American opinion is reflected in the political discourse of governance, in Congress and in the media.

It's largely because the political process in the U.S. has become a great deal less nuanced and more (shockingly) immature in recent times, encouraged by the profit-driven media and the self-serving narrowness of modern politicans. Real dissent is not tolerated; every issues is polarized to such an extreme that simple policy strategies are viewed (and in turn, sold) as "wars;" and its deemed more important to toe a party line and make a show of unity than to thoroughly and genuinely debate an issue before acting on it. Everything is either a) for show or b) for profit. No other considerations are deemed serious.

As you yourself once said to the nation : "Now it is time -- in fact, it is past time -- to move on". It's a little too late now to be into this vision thing.

And there's another flaw in American's callow thinking. It is foolish in the extreme to believe that a country's statesmen and political thinkers are somehow "used up" after 4 to 8 years and must be discarded and ignored until they have the grace to die. Rather than finding ways to utilize an irreplacable pool of knowledge and experience, we try to reinvent the wheel from scratch over and over again, eschewing continuity and cooperation so that we can keep playing our juvenile game of "us vs. them." It's more entertaining to pick favorites to pit against others, a la the WWE, than to concede that they're all "us."
posted by rushmc at 4:19 PM on December 19, 2002

Well, actually, yes, there was an awful lot more, but most of it will not reflect well on Slick Willie when posterity has had its say.

Perhaps - I'm not even a particularly rabid Clinton fan, but I'd argue the opposite. We shall see.
posted by jalexei at 7:33 PM on December 19, 2002

It is foolish in the extreme to believe that a country's statesmen and political thinkers are somehow "used up" after 4 to 8 years and must be discarded and ignored until they have the grace to die.

It seems to depend upon how demonized they have been. It's always funny to see someone whining about the Bush bashing here, then just foaming at the mouth while demonizing Clinton in the next sentence and never getting the irony of it all.

Nixon was hated. Nobody has it in for Gerald Ford, some people have it in for Carter, there's no there there in Reagan anymore so he gets a pass and then there's a huge number of people who just hate Clinton. As for Bush, well, we shall see.
posted by y2karl at 8:40 PM on December 19, 2002

And yet, one sees a very different progression in some other countries, where, surely, citizens are subject to the same passionate feelings for their politicians (sometimes even more so). Perhaps a good question is, why do we allow (encourage? insist upon?) our politicians to be demonized in the first place? Is it because they are generally rather small, insignificant people in this day and age and we have been conditioned to expect larger-than-life figures to act as our proxies?
posted by rushmc at 10:00 PM on December 19, 2002

Clinton Gore 2004
posted by password at 10:50 PM on December 19, 2002

Perhaps a good question is, why do we allow (encourage? insist upon?) our politicians to be demonized in the first place? Is it because they are generally rather small, insignificant people in this day and age and we have been conditioned to expect larger-than-life figures to act as our proxies?

I was just thinking out loud about this elsewhere in reference to the blind spot. in the macula of the eye, that point where the cells are packed tightest, the vision finest. And near that center is that spot where things disappear. It's so much easier to see the shortcuts and hypocrisy in the other person than it is to see the ways one fudges, cheats or just goes instantaneously wide awake unconscious--like those times you drive home and then can't remember.

But it got mean. I was thinking about the essay by Monica Crowley in New Yorker about Nixon's relationship with Clinton, and I quote an interview derived synopsis:

"Nixon's relationship with Clinton was very complex. Nixon first saw him as a lightweight who was only being considered because Cuomo had decided not to run. He didn't like Clinton because he saw those kind of people - the kind who had evaded the draft and protested the Vietnam War - as people who had made it hard for him to end the war. Yet he did admire Clinton's high intelligence," she said.

Crowley noted in her book how Nixon was surprised when Clinton first called him after his inauguration, especially considering that his wife, Hillary, had served on the Watergate impeachment committee. He was also surprised that Clinton wanted his advice on domestic as well as foreign issues. Clinton called him every couple of weeks, while previous presidents like Ronald Reagan and George Bush had ignored him.

Despite his contact with Clinton, Nixon thought the Republicans could challenge in the 1996 presidential election and had then been talking to Senator Bob Dole helping coordinate his campaign. "Nixon and Dole came from the same generation and background," Crowley said. "Nixon liked Dole. He thought Dole was more qualified and responsible and would do right by America."

The relationship between Nixon and Clinton fizzled when neither Bill nor Hillary nor any member of the Cabinet came to Pat Nixon's funeral in June of 1993.

"Nixon was not only an employer and mentor to me but also a friend. I was very hurt by this act and saw it as a personal affront, especially since Nixon had been talking to Clinton for months. The relationship had a marked change from there," she said.

And boy, blowing it with Nixon by not going to his wife's funeral: that's Bill Clinton--so smart and yet so stupid.

On the other hand--and I'm not even mentioning the thousand headed hydra of draft eluding chickenhawks currently writing the script--where does Nixon get off blaming Clinton for prolonging the war? I don't remember any North Vietnamese flying airliners into skyscrapers back then. That was the most wasteful war we ever fought. It did nothing good for this country. Clinton didn't prolong it--Nixon did.

So, how many times do you think George W. Bush or anyone around him gives Clinton such a call? Ha! No love lost there. The Bushies despise him. They know everything already,successful businessmen that they are. Oh, the vanity.
posted by y2karl at 12:04 AM on December 20, 2002

"The United States should lead, not dominate"

The US is the lead, by example. Doesn't everyone have the right to bear their own arms? If the amount of American weapons abroad is a good sign - Bush should support international armament.
posted by lightweight at 1:15 AM on December 20, 2002

And yet, one sees a very different progression in some other countries

Where?
posted by Summer at 3:43 AM on December 20, 2002

he was too busy getting an intern to play skin flute.

Eight years and one tiny mistake. Wow! Compared to two years and thousands of mistakes. Better a bj for one guy from a 22 year old gold digger intern that getting it up the butt for millions without permission on a regular basis from Gdub. I call you out for hypocrisy.

Yeah, yeah, it was about the lying, right? Hmmm...guess massive lying and covering up things of critical importance haven't been happening under the Duhbya cabal?
posted by nofundy at 5:15 AM on December 20, 2002

He was the PRESIDENT of basically the entire free world...

It should have been a problem if the man WASN'T getting a blowjob every now and then.

Alot easier to think about your country when your... umm... satisfied... hehe...
posted by LoopSouth at 7:51 AM on December 20, 2002