"to secure the future?" maybe you should make it "14 words," just for laughs :D

Hurry back, Razib. GNXP is basically a political blog without your posts, and I enjoy reading it for info on cultural dynamics.

Razib wrote: "Perhaps one of the reasons is this: I am a Jew. By this, I mean I share many of the traits (streotypically) of Jews, I am bookish, argumentantive, often analytic in my thinking though it might lead to pedanticism, and yes, obscuranticism. The values that I prize most highly, sharpness of intellect, curiousity, mastery of word and symbol, and so forth, the Jewish people excell in in spades. A common phrase is, "but is it good for the Jews?" It might be re-termed "but is it good for me?" On some level, I suspect that if it's good for the Jews, it must be good for me, as a socially libertarian individual of Asiatic provenance"

This isn't really a response, but just something this paragraph made me think of. I think the accusation that many make that the Jews are primarily concerned with the well-being of their own in-group may be true under many circumstances, but in this regard they are not unique at all. Most people are not as universalistic as they proclaim (although an even greater number of people are honest, and don't proclaim to be universalistic at all). People care about those who are like them: those who share the same lifestyle, history, culture, and values. I care most about other educated, secular, socially liberal, reflective, cosmopolitan types -- that is my in-group. Average ordinary middle-class Americans care about other average ordinary middle-class Americans, Evangelical Christians care about other evangelical Christians, white trash care about other white trash, international businessmen care about other international businessment, Linux geeks care about other Linux geeks, and working-class Latinos care about other working-class Latinos. Loyalties aren't based upon "blood and soil" for all people anymore -- other factors come into play. However, moral universalism is typically a cover for special interests, and those who speak of their loyalty to "America" usually have a specific subdemographic in mind that motivates this loyalty (which isn't nearly as broadbased as some might believe). Maybe many Jews are tribal, but no more so than anybody else.

It would be refreshing to seek everybody cast the ideologies aside, and just come out and admit that they are merely seeking the benefit of their specific in-group. Nobody cares about "American culture" -- such a concept is a piece of fictional propaganda. People care about the specific subdemographic of which they are apart, while false conflating it with "American culture". Maybe if we admitted this, we could see that many problems could be solved if groups with irresolvable differences separated from each other's political space, so to speak. Maybe.

jaime wrote: "I do not think that Jewish people can escape from their Jewishness in any significant scale."

I know from experience that this is false. Being in my twenties, I've known a number of young people of Jewish background who aren't in anyway recognizably Jewish. My favorite co-worker, who had Jewish parents, is a good example. The guy almost has an allergic reaction to stereotypically Jewish behavior, and bashes Jewish culture on a regular basis. There are countless young people of jewish descent who aren't Jewish in any relevant sense, aside from the fact that their parents happened to be Jewish.

Don't forget that disease was used as a weapon, and wasn't merely a passive force that swept over the continent. Small-pox infected blankets were sent by the U.S. military to the Indians as a form of germ warfare:

http://www.college.ucla.edu/webproject/micro12/webpages/indianssmallpox.html

Yes, imperialism is not at all unique to western culture, but I don't think that it should be celebrated either. Settlement could have been conducted differently. Jefferson and Hamilton even discussed giving states to the Iroquois and the southeastern "Five Civilized Tribes", but others just didn't care.

Kudos to Europe for arriving at a more secular society, but I recommend that they adopt a more selective immigration policy if they'd like to keep it that way.

The United States, on the other had, is so religious that political leaders will actually base foreign policy decisions upon religion -- and will be praised for it! Lunatics like Falwell and Robertson had Regan's ear during the 80s, and advocated a cold war policy towards Russia that would ultimately lead to Armageddon. How comforting.

Those seeking to bring on the apocalypse haven't let up since, although the U.S.S.R. no longer plays a role in their plans. An eschatological doctrine known as pre-millenial dispensationalism is the main rationale behind evangelical participation in pro-Israel lobby groups. Rarely will they discuss their actual motives, as they realize that any sane person will consider them crazy -- which they are.

Check out this description of dispensationalism, if you're not aware of it. It is unreal: http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north188.html

Another article: http://www.alternet.org/print.html?StoryID=15221

Then of course, we have Bush who appears to be consulting God to inform his foreign policy decisions (although this is not confirmed).

Do you see why I sometimes wish that the west coast could just split off from the rest of the country? (Yes, I know it's not a very sound idea, and I do have a soft spot in my heart for certain metropolitan areas in the interior as well as certain liberal states like Minnesota. I wouldn't want to just leave them isolated in a country that would suddenly become much more conservative.)

Asian-Americans are becoming "more white" by converting to Christianity while I -- a white American -- am becoming "more Asian". My favorite food is Thai, Chinese, Vietnamese and Japanese, and I cannot stand typical American cuisine. I look at all those disgusting meatloafs, t-bone steaks, macaroni salads, and bologna sandwiches that people in the "red states" eat, and I just don't understand the appeal. As far as movies go, I love anime and hate Hollywood. An good anime series presents a likeable cast of characters who I become easily attached to combine with a compelling plot that sometimes plores philosophical themes, while Hollywood cranks out mindless bile featuring idiotic characters and trite plots. Also, I find Buddhism to be a more rational religion than Christianity (although I don't subscribe to it as a religion).

However, contrary to certain white American Japanophiles, these preferences of mine are not due to an irrational deification of Asian culture. I don't harbor any obsessions with authenticity -- I just happen to think that phad thai or curry taste better and are more healthy than Denver omelets and fried chicken. And certainly, I don't regard Asia as more enlightened than the west in any respect. I would never dream of embracing any of their social institutions, conventions or customs for myself.

These lifestyle preferences don't make me any less of an American, although the term American is becoming increasingly devoid of cultural connotations at this point. I fall into one of Weisse's "clusters" of low-to-middle income secular lay intellectual-types with cosmopolitan tastes and liberal values who typically live in either Portland, the Bay Area, Los Angeles, Seattle, Denver, Minneapolis, Austin (the one southern bastion), New York or Philadephia, and find themselves fairly alienated from the rest of the country.

The fact is that most Americans are junkies who are addicted to one or more drugs that may be either legal or illegal. And if they don't do drugs, they go on sugar and fat binges on a regular basis. Even the most ardent anti-drug conservatives tend to be addicted to alcohol, caffiene, nicotine, various pills of questional legality, and crap food. None of this is going to change in the near future, regardless of the prevailing drug policies.

A good post. I wonder how many recognize that America is lacking a national identity, and that people are instead identifying as members of broader communities that transcend national borders.

As I said in a previous post, I feel a greater sense of identification with London than I do with San Antonio or Oklahoma City because I know that in London, there are a greater number of people who are like me: Educated secularists with cosmopolitan tastes. I think my primary loyalty lies with an extended community of secular cosmopolitans, extending from here to Europe to Russia to Japan to Australia, and that I value the U.S. as a nation only insofar as it makes our lifestyle possible.

The same can be said for Christian evangelicals, goths, punks, computer geeks, libertarians, environmentalists, and so forth. However, there do remain groups whose identity doesn't span multiple nations, such as the white and black underclass which hasn't succeeded in developing a set of values based upon abstractions in the same way that supernational communities have.

I think there might still be conservative middle-class core whose values and way of life everybody immediately thinks of when they hear the term "ordinary American". However, I'm not sure that such "ordinary Americans" constitute a majority at at this point.

Jason Soon: "This is a classic leftist prophecy that has been going on for years if not decades yet i'm not aware of the middle class shrinking substantially in america and its cultural satellites."

Check out: http://www.census.gov/hhes/income/histinc/h02.html

The poorest three fifths of America's population have seen their share of the nation's wealth decline. The richest two fifths have seen their's increase. This has been a consistent trend since 1967, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's tables.

Also, it is common knowledge in America that it is *much* more difficult to support a family now than in 1950-1970, given that in those two decades, only one parent had to work to satisfy the basic needs of a family. Now, both parents must work full time just to pay bills and to purchase food, and the credit card is used for luxuries (like home electronics, which are more of a necessity given that average people need them to decompress after their draining workdays). One need only interact with people without graduate degrees to understand the bind that most most lower to middle income Americans with children are in, and how their lives consist of little more than work, work and more work. Maybe they'll put up with it for ever, but I wouldn't count on it.

In some countries, this condition causes working people to embrace socialism. In ours, it causes them to oppose immigration, free trade, environmental regulations and gun control -- hence, the popularity of right-wing demagogues like Michael Savage. Given that immigration and international trade are not likely to take place according to a rational basis anytime soon, nor are social welfare programs likely to be expanded, I don't expect the situation of the underclass or the middle class to improve. I have yet to see what type of political movement will take advantage of the discontentedness that will result, but given the mob mentality of average Americans and the cultural fragmentation that exists, it is not likely to be pretty.

I know you're in Australia, but one has to be completely oblivious to those around them not to realize that most lower and middle income Americans feel they are being screwed (even if their perceptions differ).

Also, I think the perception that the high presence low-income Hispanic immigration is the primary causal factor for an increasing disparity of wealth is pure ideology. I won't deny that it is *a* cause of of many possible causes, but some people are engaging in dogmatic reductionism.

Godless: Another reason for declining incomes might be due to a wrong-headed approach to international trade.

I think that international trade is beneficial to the nations involved *if* certain conditions are met. If the countries that we trade with have a stable utilities and transportation infrustructure, a functional legal system, a low level of corruption, a social safety net, strong environmental protections, moderate capital controls and a good educational system, then it can be of great benefit for us to integrate our economies to a certain extent so as not to unnecessarily duplicate each other's efforts. Such countries include Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, and the various European nations, and few would argue that trade has not improved the standard of living of both us and them.

However, trade with Latin America, Africa, and Central Asia hasn't really benefited anybody except for a handful of investors and specialists. Countries in the above-mentioned continents do not have a stable national infrustructure (and in certain poor parts of Latin America, were discontinued due to unprofitabity following IMF-imposed privitizations), do not have a legal system that sufficiently protects people's rights, have massive levels of corruption, have little to no social safety net, have few environmental protections, and due to IMF austerity measures have eliminated most capital controls that help protect fledgling industries. Following free-trade agreements, U.S.-based businesses have closed domestic production sites to relocate them to these low-cost nations. The new jobs that have been created for lower to middle income Americans (like Wal-Mart) pay much less and rarely offer benefits.

Given that the governments in countries in Latin America are not sucessfully creating or maintaining an infrustrure that protects people's rights or provides them with the tools to effectively participate in a market economy, globalization is not improving people's lives there either. Check out these GDP growth (1975-2000) stats for Latin America from Nationmaster (http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/eco_gdp_gro_197&id=SAM):

1. Chile 4.1% 2. Colombia 1.6% 3. Uruguay 1.4% 4. Brazil 0.8% 5. Paraguay 0.7% 6. Argentina 0.4% 7. Guyana 0.3% 8. Ecuador 0.2% 9. Suriname -0.1% 10. Bolivia -0.5% 11. Peru -0.7% 12. Venezuela -0.9%

Chile is the only South American country that modernization and trade have been kind to, but that is no accident, given that Chile hasn't embraced the IMF-mandated absolutist policies that Argentina and Bolivia have. (I've read that Bolivia, with its negative 0.5% growth rate followed IMF mandates very closely over the last ten years.)

Competition between American workers and workers in the above-mentioned countries has a similar effect to a competition between free labor and slave labor. The wages of the former are bid down if they don't l
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Godless,

Yes, I've heard of the Chicago Boys, but the claim that their policies benefited Chile is hotly disputed:

http://www.lakota.clara.net/myths/economy.html http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,324875,00.html http://www.parallelo-distance.net/shared/The_Chicago_boys.html

you also wrote: "ANyway, more on the rest later. The basic point I'm going to make is that they would all be equal in those countries without international trade...just equally *poor*. Better that some get rich than *none* getting rich, yes?"

Why? If one out of a thousand becomes rich, but the remaining 999 are no better off than before, why is this situation preferable? Why would regular people, either here or abroad, regard growth of a foreign capitalist class as positive if it doesn't cause all boats to rise? You have to understand that I'm a low income worker, and after I get a Master's degree, I'll have a lower-middle income (although much of it will be spent on paying off debts). I care nothing about the well-being of capitalists unless their well-being benefits me and others like me. I'm not a socialist -- I hold that a well-regulated form of capitalism will be the only way to improve the general standard of living until we develop the technology that could jumpstart a post-scarcity economy. However, insufficiently regulated forms of capitalism benefit only the rich, and neither I nor any other person of low to middle income cares about their well-being as an end in itself.

And as I said before, I'm not opposed to international trade, but don't think that it is sufficient by itself to benefit a country. The fact that African countries have opened their borders to western mining interests has not improved their standard of living. In some cases, it has simply exacerbatted current problems.

"Why would regular people, either here or abroad, regard growth of a foreign capitalist class as positive if it doesn't cause all boats to rise?"

And if it causes our incomes to decline, not only wouldn't we regard it as positive, but we would completely oppose it. And this is in fact happening.

Godless, are you insinuating that we should just let the fundies go ahead with their plan to allow the posting of the ten commandments all over public buildings? I don't think so. Give 'em an inch, and they'll take a mile.

"Chris, Zizka, when rabid froth spews from the mouth it's difficult to tell leftist from far right zealot - neither shows much sense or reason. Send me your addresses - I'll ship you some Bounty to help with that. It's the quicker picker upper, you know, even on rabid froth."

Uh....what?

Wow, two sentences that I typed spawned this paranoid rant?

"Hmmm... No rabid nothin' here, just a bit of amusement at people who drive for tolerance by stereotyping and then demonizing an entire group of people."

Who said anything about tolerance? FYI, I'm *intolerant* of people who oppose the part of the First Ammendment that states that "Congress shall make no law establishing any institution of religion". My post was to get Godless to clarify his position on the Ten Commandments being mandated in public places.

"Do any of you actually know personally someone who could be called a "fundie"?"

Yeah, every one of them was a complete loony. You don't seem to be an exception to the rule.

"If not, let's do lunch next time you're in town"

Um, let's not.

" - because I'm one. I'm politically to the right of Rush Limbaugh,and religiously to the right of Billy Graham. I'm your worst nightmare, apparently, which is also amusing. Boo!"

Strange conclusions you're drawing upon the basis of two sentences. But no, I don't consider you to be powerful enough to be my worst nightmare. Granted, I'm not a huge fan of people who seek to compromise our national security by lobbying the Federal government to support Israel due to a desire to experience Rapture without death after 2/3rds of the Jews are killed, based on a questionable reading of an ambiguous passage in Revelations. However, I wouldn't say they are my "worst enemy".

I'm actually far more concerned about the threat that Muslims pose than I am about the comparitively minor annoyance that politicized evangelicals are.

Really, I don't wish to tell you all how to live your lives. In fact, the evangelicals can take the Bible Belt and do whatever they want with it, as far as I'm concerned. That backward region is dead weight that the North is better off without, IMO. Take it -- I don't want it. I have no problem with you establishing a Dixieland Theocracy, provided that you take all cohorts from the North along with you. If the Feds try to stop you, tell 'em I said it was okay.

"For the record, I don't even listen to Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson, so I can't follow them. And anyone who doesn't think Noam Chomsky and his ilk aren't "extraordinarily retrograde elements" obviously is quite ideologically blinkered."

Hearing voices in your head? Who said anything about liking Chomsky? I don't despise him, but I'm not a huge fan of his either.

"My point with the Bounty remark wasn't just that Ziz and Chris (and I guess now Liberal Lurker) are sounding hysterical, but that people on both ends of the ideological spectrum lose all reason past a certain point."

So many assumptions being pulled out of thin air. Who said that I was on the far side of the political spectrum? I support the separation of church and state, and you assume that I must necessarily be a socialist or an ana
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"You're inane assumptions about me are providing evidence that I'm missing out on anything important."

I mean that they're *not* providing evidence.

I wrote: "Addittionally, I'm not opposed to regional separatism, which would allow culturally different parts of the country go their separate ways."

Actually, I don't think this is very practical given certain national security concerns, nor do I think it is likely to happen. However, I do wish it sometimes, given how little I identify with many "fellow Americans". I identify more with the populations of London, Moscow, Vancouver and Sydney than the populations fo certain U.S. cities like Birmingham, San Antonio, Nashville, and Indianapolis. It's not really possible to draw borders around nations anymore, if "nations" are to be construed as communities based upon shared culture. You have the Nation of Secular Cosmopolitans, the Nation of Christian Evangelicals, the Nation of Catholics, the Nation of Muslims, the Nation of Chicanos, the Nation of Ravers, the Nation of Metalheads, the Nation of Punks, and so forth...

A quick note: Lest we all forget, even though Martin Luther was a reformer, he was still a strongly ideological religious fanatic. Further, he was not a liberal, but a dissenter. Luther and many other schismatics did not advocate relgious toleration, but simply a change of the official creed (which wouldn't necessarily be any more liberal than than Roman Catholicism). He also didn't advocate a religious reformation at the expense of political order. He supported the massacre of revolting Protestants in Germany at the hands of a Catholic army, arguing that God would claim his own.

If an Islamic equivalent of Martin Luther is is a relgious leader who attempts to restore a relgious tradition to its roots in response to mounting decadence, then one has already existed: Muhammed Ibn Al-Wahhab. The world doesn't need another -- at least not any world that I would want to live in.

I'll also say that because I was raised Protestant, I usually think of Protestantism specifically when the myriad negative qualities of Christianity spring to mind. The only benefit to civilization that I credit to Protestantism is that it allowed much of northern and western Europe to break with the Catholic church. (And England's Anglican church wasn't inspired by Lutheran Protestantism anyway.) Most political liberal thinkers were not pious Protestants, but secular deists who broke with the religious traditions of the day. Locke was a notable exception, but his plea for relgious tolerance was in response to *in*tolerance that was far more prevalent among the devout. Contrary to what relgious conservatives say, Protestantism doesn't possess any essential qualities that requires it to be "liberal" in the classical sense of the term. It is especially ironic that many of those same religious conservatives advocate political measures that would collectively constitute a softcore theocracy if passed.

It just so happens that the European countries I admire most are the "Protestant" ones: Great Britain, Denmark, Iceland, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Holland. With the exception of Britain, all of these are officially "Lutheran" countries, but they are probably the most secular countries on the planet once you subtract the Muslim newcomers.