H.L. Mencken, much like Lord Acton, was convinced that those in government were irredeemably corrupt. As someone who studies and understands the necessity of governing power (and is more sympathetic to its necessity than Mencken, even as I share most of his concerns about its perpetual abuse), I have always thought of Mencken's position as cynical and unfair to government and the officials who are responsible for it.
I'm beginning to understand why he thought the way he did.
Michael Green and Derrick Mitchell write this somewhat bizarre and far too simplistic lead article on Myanmar for the upcoming November/December issue of Foreign Affairs.
Asia's Forgotten Crisis
Even the title is strange. Burma is a forgotten crisis? Apparently these two policy scholars have been avoiding the press in the lead up to writing their article about this very serious international policy issue leading the coverage of most major newspapers and news organizations.
Green and Mitchell articulate the thought that I am perpetually perplexed can be argued without even a tinge of skepticism, self-reflection, or even an attempted accounting for its failures in Iran, North Korea, Iraq, not to mention at least two decades of policy towards Myanmar.
They argue that what is wrong in dealing with Burma is that the international community has just not gained enough control over the situation and can do so with adequate and consistent sanctions and incentives. Now, ignoring the fact that such a simplistic notion of power is the notion that has animated almost all governing regimes and virtually all notions of power since the beginning of humanity, for all of the cases of failed power as much as for power that has sustained itself, the real problem with this argument is that it assumes that what is missing in Burma is enough external control of Burmese affairs by benevolent democracy promoters. It's a similar theory to President Bush's notion that if those who favor democracy in Iraq could only gain substantial control over the situation with enough military power, then democracy would be easily ushered in.
In both cases, there is undoubtedly bad and dictatorial regimes in need of being removed in some fashion. And, in both cases, there is substantial need for democratic reform.
But what is escaping most international political players, right now, is that genuine democratic reform must be nurtured internally and only supported externally insofar as either leaders can be removed (as in the case of Saddam Hussein) and with the consent of its citizens (the substantial split of support for which in Iraq is responsible for the chaos that reigns there) or insofar as they can be persuaded to disengage from power or to provide for more democratic norms (elections, democratic instititutions, free speech, free press, etc.)
There is this foolish and unworkable assumption by too many international observers and players, especially in the U.S., that somehow perpetually greater assertions of power will remove or undermine those who abuse power.
It's an interesting theory.
It is exactly the kind of behavior that Lord Acton and H.L. Mencken were concerned with: the propensity of powerful people to assert their need for more and more more threatening and overwhelming power for the sake of whatever cause they favor.
And my concern as I read yet another tiresome article making the same arguments, no matter how much they have failed to resolve the situation in Iran, how they perpetually undermined the situation in North Korea, until a combination of diplomacy and incentives created breakthroughs, no matter how such a theory is fundamentally undermined by the realities in Iraq today, and no matter how long international crises go unresolved amidst the fetish with greater assertions of power...
Noone ever wants to admit the failures.
That is why power corrupts. Because people who fetishize its use begin to assert its necessity no matter how much it fails. And they chase the tails of its circular logic without end, because it has just never occurred to them, apparently, that perhaps ever accelerating assertions of power, just as they did at the beginning of the 20th century, and just as they have since the beginning of civilization and humanity, really, rationalize ever escalating counter-assertions that leave the world less safe, not more so, and without resolution of any of the serious issues that democratic or undemocratic nations face.
Peace between Israel and Palestine. The nuclear ambitions of Iran. The chaos that has enveloped Iraq. The worsening situation in Afghanistan. The brutal response of the Burmese government to calls for democratic reform. The frenzy of repression that has animated the democratic and non-democratic world in the last 6 or 7 years. The spike in crime rates, terrorism, nuclear proliferation, and so many important indicators of presence or absence of international security.
No matter how bad things get, all of the proponents of the very policies that are responsible for the escalation of aggression and insecurity just stick to the same message - with almost literally no open questioning or consideration that their's might be a flawed approach or that alternatives might be taken seriously - and do so without second thoughts and without end.
Maybe Mencken was right. Maybe it's not just absolute power that is the problem. Maybe it's all power. Maybe human beings are just too subject to the temptations of power - namely to its every rationalized acquisition and acceleration of its assertion no matter its consequences - to ever really be trusted with it.
Sadly, for all of us, there is still need for someone to wield power. It's just clear that humanity will forever have to fail until the load of tragedy is so great and serious that they cannot avoid facing the consequences of their failed policies.
Over 90 million people died in both World Wars of the 20th century before imperialist nations could face the consequences of their unquenchable thirst for power and dominance in a world left more insecure for their pursuit of power rather than safer, even though every imperial effort was engaged for the presumable purpose of greater security for the countries engaging in such efforts.
And, at the beginning of the 21st century, we are left with a power-hungry democratic world whose major players and students have convinced themselves that what was missing at the beginning of the 20th century was not a commitment to limiting the use of power, as much as possible, and engaging others to do the same, and only using force when all other options are expended, but rather the lack of commitment to maximum democratic power being brought to bear on a recalcitrant world unaware of the wisdom and benevolence of those who seek to wield it in the world's major democracies. It's an almost identical rationalization to imperial powers who argued that their benevolence excused their exertions of control, except that democracy rather than imperialism is used, today, to excuse the exertions.
Such assertions listen to no dissent. They ignore any argument that does not support their original conclusions. They entertain no other thoughts or ideas. They are single-minded in their pursuit of sufficient power to achieve their ends.
And that is why and how power corrupts.
And I think I understand, today, Mencken's pessimism that it might be otherwise. Because its proponents, much like the leaders of Myanmar's brutal military junta, are so convinced of the right-mindedness of their assertions of power. In their minds, it could not possibly be otherwise. And to question otherwise is to be a threat to that power.
I know that Mencken's cynicism could never animate the unavoidable workings of government power that is needed even as those who seek to wield it perpetually abuse it and get lost in their own ego-driven rationalizations of their benevolence and right-mindedness in its use.
But every time I read an newspaper column or listen to a radio or TV interview or read a blog post or, most disappointing, read a scholarly journal article, like this article, where political folks reason this way, I share Mencken's despair that perhaps the only thing that can be done is to allow those who think this way to impose so much tragedy that their failures become inescapable.
It took 70 years for the people of Russia and Eastern Europe to face up to the similar failures of the Soviet Union.
I can only hope that democratic peoples can do slightly better.
In the meantime, the arrogance of the power-hungry in democratic nations, today, is a bit overwhelming for me, some days, and I cannot ever fathom being so sure of my own good intentions or right-mindedness to ever assert with such unqualified certainty the clear and unquestionable application of as much power as is necessary to achieve whatever ends I seek, especially when my efforts consistently fail.
I would think twice about those kinds of assertions.
But, then again, I do not hold any similar fetish for power. I am rightly, and appropriate for any democratic citizen, skeptical of power and its assertion and use. It is a humility that is far too infrequent, these days.
And, as with the two Great Wars, the question is not whether we will finally face our failures. The question is how much tragedy and failure must accumulate before we will face them.
And for all of the talk about forgiveness as a luxury that so many people claim that they cannot afford, these days, how much forgiveness will we all need for the aggressive foolishness that masquerades as serious policy thought and leadership decisions, these days.
Power corrupts because its stubborn proponents hold onto its failed and tragic logic long after its failures become clear.
And that is why history, as Mencken assures us, tends to move in a liberalizing direction. Because the failures of power become clearer to those it is wielded over long before it becomes clear enough to those who wield it. And the insecure world that the obsession with ever increasing assertions of power creates must be made more secure by someone. Citizens pave the path to freedom long before governments allow for it. And that is true, today, as much as it has ever been true in the long and liberalizing history of free and democratic societies.
My faith has been seriously weakened that those who wield power can ever be persuaded to look honestly at their own failures. I suppose they will all have to abuse their power or advocate its overreach long before either they will be removed from office or we will learn the lessons we need to learn. We do seem to learn, over time. But only after long periods of advocating and being responsible for its abuse and failures. Which is why I and most people should be skeptical of its use, not fetishizing it and escalating it to a point where it is uncertain when again greater security and not less might become our more likely future.
I think most people care. I just don't think they care enough to consider if they might be wrong about how to address our common concerns. I think, as many advocates would tell you, they are more interested in action than any serious and rigorous questioning of their assumptions.
And that is how power corrupts. And, sadly, as it turns out, that means all of us.
Like Mencken, it makes me want to laugh if it wasn't so goddamn tragic.
And my only faith that it gets better is that things continue getting pretty goddamn bad until we face up.
Ninety million deaths is a lot of tragedy.
Perhaps we can do better, this time around.
Love,
Ben
