The Arrogance of Power

Rating:
Summary: written in 1966, valid today
Review: This book should be required reading for all Americans, written by a man who, as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during the VietNam War period, can write with some authority about international affairs. Fulbright's thesis is that Americans have two sides, one that is humanitarian and one that is puritanical.

While we may want to see others enjoy the virtues of democracy and freedom (our humanitarianism) we tend to approach them with an air of superiority and an inability to see that there are many cultures in the world and that of the U.S. is only one.

How accurate Fulbright is when he says that unilateral aid, either military or economic, can evoke anger and resentment by those who, Americans feel, should be grateful and eager to receive what we have to give.

Fulbright asks Americans to reflect on the fact that ours is a profoundly conservative society which abhors radical change. Others in the world are impatient with the lack of change and can go to extremes that would never be considered in the United States. Fulbright sees this in the discomfort Americans have with revolutions, being good only if they follow the path of our own. Any route that differs from American experience is suspect.

Fulbright rightly sees the strength of American society in the freedom to dissent and laments the fear and approbrium that dissent often receives. Humility is definitely in order instead of loud boasting and self-righteous denunciations (heard any of that lately???)

Tocqueville said of American democracy..."the smallest reproach irritates its sensibility and the slightest joke that has any foundation in truth renders it indignant; from the forms of its language up to the solid virtues of its character, everything must be made the subject of encomium. No writer, whatever be his eminence, can escape paying this tribute of adulation to his fellow citizens."

This book is Fulbright's effort to speak the truth. It's good to read at a time when we daily hear from powerful politicians who are never wrong and who seem to feel the amount of truth in a statement comes from the number of times it is repeated.

Fulbright's description of the use of fear to drum up support for foreign intervention is exactly to the point in the 21st century with talk of unilateral interventions. Having members of the United States Congress with the author's courage to speak out would simultaneously benefit the prospects for democracy and the image of the United States worldwide.