Summer 1994
American Purpose
Issue 3, Volume 8

Publication Date: August 1, 1994
Posted: Monday, August 8, 1994

This issue includes 'Not Decadent Beyond Repair'; 'The Critique'; 'Social Rot'; 'Political Paralysis'; 'Back to Square One'; 'Demythologizing the Demythologizers'; 'Authoritarianism and Its Discontents'; 'Fragile Stability'; and 'Pluralism and Universality'.


In This Issue :

Not Decadent Beyond Repair
A Response to the East Asian Critique of American Democracy
In the aftermath of the Cold War and what was prematurely assumed to be the final triumph of democracy and the market, ideological challenges to Western-style liberal democracy have been chiefly confined to the worlds-within-worlds of Islam, and to various eastern European ethnic and ethno-religious movements (of which the madcap Russian neo-fascism of Vladimir Zhirinovsky is perhaps the most potentially lethal). But now a more intellectually serious challenge has arisen, one that is all the more compelling because it presents itself, not as an atavistic return to a traditional past, but as an alternative form of organizing a prosperous society under the conditions of modernity.  [More]

The Critique
The most developed expression of the East Asian critique with which I'm familiar can be found in the Spring 1994 issue of The Washington Quarterly, in a lengthy essay by Kishore Mahbubani entitled "The United States: 'Go East, Young Man.'" Several years ago, TWQ editor Brad Roberts launched a regular section in his journal entitled "Provocations," and it is under that rubric, appropriately enough, that Ambassador Mahbubani's article appeared.  [More]

Social Rot
In Ambassador Mahbubani's considered opinion, it is time for the West to rethink its basic notions of human freedom and social responsibility, its devotion to human rights (especially civil rights and political freedoms) and broadly participatory democracy. And why should the West in general, and the United States in particular, undertake this "critical self-analysis"? Because the United States is, in a word, decadent. And a decadent nation is on its way "off a cliff."  [More]

Political Paralysis
The social rot of American life, as Mahbubani perceives it, has had enormous political consequences, which are intensified by the harsh reality of an irresponsible press and pusillanimous politicians:  [More]

Back to Square One
Thus it is time for America to return to the philosophical drawing board. When citizens, even in suburbs, live in "little fortresses and leave their homes at night with some fear," then surely the time has come to think again:  [More]

Demythologizing the Demythologizers
No doubt that's true. A well-ordered society not only can be good for individual citizens; it is the prerequisite both to a civilized public life and to the kind of prosperity that Americans have long enjoyed—a prosperity that the new East Asian "tigers" are now justifiably proud of having achieved. But an exploration of what "well-ordered" means in Singapore helps us to grasp more precisely what the stakes are in the East Asian critique of the decadent West.  [More]

Authoritarianism and Its Discontents
Stripped to its essentials, the claim of the Singapore School is that authoritarianism works (economically and socially), and that it works because it better coheres with human nature than does Western democratic theory and practice. In that respect, the East Asian critique is a fascinating Confucian variant on Dostoevsky's "Legend of the Grand Inquisitor," with Lee Kuan Yew in the role of the cardinal who argues that "man has no more tormenting care than to find someone to whom he can hand over as quickly as possible that gift of freedom with which the miserable creature is born."  [More]

Fragile Stability
The political risks of Singapore-style authoritarianism are also serious; left unaddressed, they could well jeopardize the East Asian miracle. As Jones observes, authoritarians "almost by definition" cannot provide a satisfactory answer to the ancient Roman question Quis custodiet ipsos custodes—who will monitor and discipline the monitors and disciplinarians? How will the East Asian tigers deal with the unavoidable question of political accountability, which concerns not simply "when?" (thirty years from now? a hundred years from now?) but "how?" Suppose, for the sake of argument, that Lee Kuan Yew is right, and that a time will come when the "authoritarian task" (as Jones nicely puts it) is completed. How will the transformation beyond authoritarianism be effected? And between now and then, what is to prevent serious excesses, even corruption? As Jones notes, an authoritarian regime would no longer be authoritarian if it acknowledged any constraints on its behavior. But absent such constraints (constitutional, legal, or moral-cultural), what, beyond a fideistic belief in the wisdom of a succession of philosopher-kings, keeps the rulers in line?  [More]

Pluralism and Universality
There are numerous other problems with Kishore Mahbubani's account of contemporary American life. His imprisonment statistics are quite misleading; the rise in incarceration over the past fifteen years has far more to do with tougher sentencing laws than with a dramatic increase in violent crime (in fact, for years the rate of violent crime has, been dropping in sectors of the population other than the African-American). Nor does Mahbubani's analysis take sufficient account of the special challenges that immigration and ethnic/racial diversity pose in the United States. To imagine that what is possible in relatively homogeneous East Asian societies is possible, or even desirable, in the United States is to commit a category mistake of some magnitude.  [More]