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December 20, 2004
Absorbing Heresy
Today, after I finish my annual Christmas update letter, I'm going to read Kishore Mahbubani's 'Can Asians Think'. The preface is already rather intriguing in that it takes a target's take on questioning the legitimacy of democracy.
I've long argued that what makes America special, among other things, is the fact that we're a hugely literate society. Even though we have many different literacies, multicultural literacy is indeed a fact here, 95% of our adults call out and respond to a literate society. In Iraq, they don't read maps. They don't drive cars. They don't send their kids to school. And we expect such societies to absorb democracy?
No matter how many free and fair elections can be engineered in an illiterate nation, there is no way to expect that population to be critical consumers of intellectual productions. It's not only because we Americans are free to curse out Bill O'Reilly that we enjoy democracy, it's because we know how. And so anywhere there are large portraits of the national leader with no words because even billboard texts are the equivalent of fine print legalese, we ought to think longer and harder about the prospects for robust democracy.
This is one tangent Mahbubani evokes in speaking about Western intellectual arrogance in the post-Cold War world. Maybe we truly are more evolved and need to let the rest of the world catch up before we go formulating policy which expects Thirds to enjoy democracy. Asians are his focus, and I'll read up to understand the divide between East and West.
I have a feeling this will step on the toes of the PNAC's neoconservative ambitions, or rather I should say the libertarian impulse which leavens America's military ability in our foreign affairs. Ukraine didn't need America or the UN. In Iraq, both might not be enough. That's a hell of a set of facts to deal with.
Posted by mbowen at December 20, 2004 02:17 PM
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I've long argued that what makes America special, among other things, is the fact that we're a hugely literate society. Even though we have many different literacies, multicultural literacy is indeed a fact here, 95% of our adults call out and respond to a literate society.
Through much of our history, the U.S. was not what can be called a literate socieity. That is, historically, a recent event. Right now, literacy is higher in Cuba than in the U.S.
Posted by: DarkStar at December 20, 2004 05:50 PM
No we were not, and in those days were no world power. But it is the work of societies capable of sustaining a highly educated workforce that dominates now. That is the state of civilization.
Posted by: Cobb at December 20, 2004 08:15 PM