Was one of the errors of the West to believe that it could change the various states that existed in the world to make them democracies?

[Julie4]

Some people in the West thought that trade, for example, could open up certain countries to our ideals, or even sometimes that the overthrow of a regime by armed intervention would enable these countries to free themselves from their dictators, to see the emergence of democratic regimes and freedom like in the West.

I remember this interview with Régis Debray, in which he criticized French politicians for this.

He said in an interview

"The French will never understand this, and so they will continue, with Bernard-Henri Lévy, Bernard Kouchner, Nicolas Sarkozy, François Hollande, Emmanuel Macron, to send missiles and expeditionary forces to the antipodes to save universal human rights. All they want to do is liberate women, educate children and build a state. " State building "by Westerners on Afghan plateaus is a prodigious idea. It's such a state of zaniness, it makes your arms fall off. "

[nightdrot]

The question is a bit overgeneralized. To say it was one of the errors of "the West" is a overstating the matter. However, it would be fair to say that it was an error of several schools of political thought in the West. Oddly enough, some of these having their origins in a number of cases in the French Revolution.

To start, the premise of the Enlightenment was that just as there are laws of nature - gravity and the like - so there are laws of human nature. The premise was that man, when laws are made in conformance with those laws of human nature - laws discernible through the application of abstract reason - that peace and harmony follow and that, in effect, man was perfectible.

The argument was further that man was corrupted by the institutions and traditions of the past that had arisen in ignorance of the laws of human nature and thus distorted human nature. Thus, misery to follow and the idea arose that if the corrupt institutions of the past were torn down, the laws of nature would assert themselves and man would be perfected. The French Revolution - among others to follow,

Please note, that this is in contrast to the conservative argument was that man in the state of nature was a savage and that life in the state of nature is "nasty, brutish and short." Thus over time a complex network of customs, traditions, institutions and elites arose to restrain and human nature. In this premise, humanity is not perfectible, but the wisdom of history gives man the tools to produce a relatively just, secure and moral order.

One interesting offshoot of the Enlightenment argument would come to be, in time, that society could be consciously structured and engineered to perfect man. That, in effect, society is not so complex and that it is, a tinkertoy that can be pulled apart and reassembled at will to achieve predictable and intended outcomes.

Thus, the difference between the welfare state as advocated by conservatives - see also Bismarck and Disraeli - who saw it as an ameliorative tool to reconcile the masses to the dynamics of a free market economy. On the other hand the welfare state as practiced by the liberals and socialists, who saw the welfare state as a tool to engineer and perfect society. (The Communists would take this a step further and assume that the laws of history were inevitable and would produce predictable outcomes. It being the purpose of the state to steer society toward those inevitable outcomes.)

Long story short, those who believed that society could be engineered to intended outcomes tended to see foreign policy as but one tool in that project of social engineering. The complexities of foreign cultures were dismissed as essentially local and superficial distortions of the natural law - and the natural rights that come with it - and it was believed that it was a simple matter to engineer foreign societies in the same way as domestic societies were engineered. The net result to be to produce a harmonious global order of peace and prosperity.

This "liberal" view of foreign policy has had its' ups and downs. World War I began as a result of realpolitik - balance of power, spheres of influence, alliances and the like. However, the horrors of that war were so great, that the West reacted. Thus did the Russian Revolution and, ironically, the intervention of the USA turn it into an ideological contest where an effort was made - at Versailles - to remake the global social order.

Then came World War II and the Cold War. Two ideological conflicts rooted in ideas based, directly or indirectly, in the Enlightenment. Bloodshed, tyranny and the dangers of nuclear war to follow. Suffice to add that of necessity, this was an era of interventions on a grand scale.

However, the West emerging from the Cold War victorious is suffering from what might be called "Victory Disease." The West took it that its' vision of civilization was inevitable and thus - after a brief interval where the limits of human reason were understood and thus the goals of human conflict were limited (see also the Persian Gulf War of 1990-1991 when Iraq invaded Kuwait) - the West is back in the business of trying to bring democracy to all the world. The assumption being that a democratic world is, of its' nature, peaceful and prosperous.

Those called "classical conservatives" are skeptical of the promises of the Enlightenment and thus pursue foreign and domestic policies of limited goals and objectives. Those called liberal - with a strand of conservatives called "neoconservatives" - pursue a more "moral" foreign policy with more promethean ambitions.

The above is, to be sure, an abbreviated description of how the West got to its' present state. It is an error of some strands of Western thought, but not all. It being likely that as the West wearies of global conflicts that it will begin to limit its' ambitions. The irony being is that the West will overcompensate with a renewed isolationism - there are already symptoms of this in the USA - that will ignore the realities of brute power in the international arena and the human condition more generally.

[Julie4]

Excellent Response as usual.

I knew it was all our fault 😂

[nightdrot]

Mea culpa!!

Mea culpa!!!

Mea maxima culpa!!!

Hope you are well and best to your family!!!

[BaronReagan]

When the French start handling ideas, it becomes dangerous. Between the philosophers of the Enlightenment and philosophers like Sartre, Foucault...

It would be interesting for Julie to explain how it is that France has exerted such an influence on ideas.

[nightdrot]

@BaronReagan Well, France was - and in many ways still is - a major power. At the time of the French Revolution it had a considerable empire and French ideas were spread far and wide,

Further, in fairness, while my own sympathies are with the classical conservatives - see also Burke, Disraeli, Bismarck, Lincoln as examples - at the time of the Enlightenment the ideas of science and the Scientific Revolution were spreading worldwide. As science made for the modern economy, so the application of scientific "laws" to other areas of nature beyond nature itself made a certain amount of sense.

In any case, your statement about France is a bit of an overgeneralization. For example, the leaders at Versailles would have been well advised to listen more to Clemenceau and less to Wilson. The latter turned what had been a brutal but non-ideological conflict into a competition of global visions. Clemenceau, on the other hand, played a more limited realpolitik game and although his peace terms would have been harsh, he would have played the traditional balance of power and thus likely have precluded the ideological age and second World War and Cold War to follow.

[BaronReagan]

@nightdrot

You're absolutely right. But my sentence was meant to tease Julie lol

[nightdrot]

@BaronReagan Sorry. Sometimes I get too serious on this site. Although if France declares war on us tomorrow, you know you will have really ticked her off. She has influence, don't ya know!!

[BaronReagan]

@nightdrot

No problem, I appreciate your seriousness, and in your defense, it is difficult to guess by writing if what was said and said seriously or not.

Haha, Julie looks peaceful and love America, you're in sécurity.

[BaronReagan]

@nightdrot

Moreover, the United States would quickly destroy France in a war.

[nightdrot]

@BaronReagan On the latter, I'd rather we didn't - especially with people in it like @julie4.

[RavVid]

I agree entirely. It has worked twice in countries without a democratic tradition. In Germany and Japan but we rewrote their constitutions after WW2.

It has worked fairly well for (British) Commonwealth countries and in countries with strong US influence. I don't know well enough but I think less well in the French block of countries. I would need your assessment on that.

After WWI there was an intent to draw demographic borders but it was pretty difficult to have sensible borders to contain all germanic people, slavs, poles and various disparate others. It is just not so easy to group people so there is a sense of nationhood which you need for a cohesive state.

If it is country of tribes it is going to be hard because the tribes next to each other are likely to have historical grievances. Maybe a strongly federated system could work but I do think "State building by Westerners on Afghan plateaus is a prodigious idea" is correct

[ApplePie409]

More accurately, the error was giving a fuck.

[msc545]

The US does not care what sort of government you have so long as you do "business" with us and allow us to take economic advantage of you and consume your resources. The US uses a predatory Capitalist economic system that is like cancer in that it needs to keep growing, and if you allow it to it will consume you. "Democracy" is a red herring meant to give your people the illusion of control. There is nothing democratic about having a choice of 10 candidates for office, all paid by the same people with the same goals.

[NathanDavis]

no, it wasn't an error...

it's a calculated situation... the West doesn't really care about democracy... they just want to establish enough means on these territories

enough for the resources to get taken to the West at an exploitation price

"democracy" is just the story tell sell to the people who want to believe it, lol

[Anonymous]

Because the Arabs and Chinese totally haven’t done the exact same thing at one time in the past. 🙄 Taking over other nations to make their systems of government and commerce analogous to their own?

But I know, when the West does it it’s just so much worse.

🙄🤦‍♂️

[strateguy632]

that happened in germany and hungary and more. not error.

[loveslongnails]

That assumes Democracy was ever a real goal for the west, and something more than a display horse.

[KostasKouvalis]

America in a nutshell

[abc3643]

No...