Sovereignty and self-determination as a democratic principle

Robert Carlin and John Lewis, two North Korean experts, make the general argument that I made in my review of Joe Nye's article on North Korea's nuclear ambitions.

What North Korea Really Wants

What North Korea really wants, argue Carlin and Lewis, is respect for its national sovereignty and a more constructive diplomatic relationship with the United States, to stave off efforts by China, Russia, and Japan to control and influence it, argue Carlin and Lewis, as much as anything else.

I didn't make the argument that North Korea, as with Iran, I believe, want their national sovereignty respected because I have any specific North Korean expertise.

I made the argument because it only makes sense if you take the democratic principles of sovereignty and self-determination seriously and the argument that even unfree and undemocratic peoples and governments want those principles respected, when it comes to themselves, at least.

Which country want other countries dictating its defense policies? Aren't defense policies, by their nature, the most fundamental issues off national sovereignty and self-determination? Which country would the United States and China or Russia or Japan trust to defend them for them or to determine their defense policies?

The trick is that when liberal democracies are all rationalizing force as the most effective and inspired form of governance, they do exactly what Kim Jong Il does in his own hypocritical expectations of the those trying to dissuade his nuclear ambitions: they value their own freedom, without any expectation of respecting the self-determination of others.

Where Iran and North Korea really have a strong argument is that in our haste and stubborn resolve to bully our way through both of these situations, we ignore the very democratic principles of sovereignty and self-determination, constructive debate, discussion, and diplomacy that we otherwise say is the basis for our right to make these kinds of demands in the first place.

How much failure will finally dissuade us of the current policy, I wonder?

The why of liberal, secular, free and democratic values

I'm realizing over the last few days of reflection that the why of freedom and liberal democratic values is so that we can see ourselves, and the world, better, for who we really are and how the world really is.

The reasons for secular thinking about the world are obvious really, after many years of thinking and writing and sacrafice dedicated to the subject by secular and more liberal thinkers: to understand the world better for what it really is.

Galileo and Descartes study science and philosophy, respectively, to help us all see the world, better, as it really is, and not just according to our romantic ideas of how we believe it should be.

The reason for secular and liberal democratic thought in understanding ourselves and one another is exactly the same: to help us see ourselves, each other, and the world, better as we really are, and not just according to our romantic ideas of how we believe we should be. But it has always been in tension with more traditional and romantic moral and theological notions of what makes for a good life. More traditional and romantic moral and theological notions tell us that doing good involves committing ourselves to a particular theology - Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, etc. - doing good and not doing bad, and being subject to punishment, with varying degree of harshness in different historical periods and in different cultures - more in the past, progressively less in the present - when we do bad.

But secular and liberal democratic values take freedom and free will more seriously than does more traditional theology. Those values entail freedom to think about, question, challenge, and make choices around our values. And as Maslow wrote eloquently, it is in that freedom and in those choices that we learn about what values serve us and what values do not. Such a commitment does not, at all, assume a final stance on questions of value, by individuals or by a culture, except that they are always subject to questioning, challenging, debate, and discussion, even as it might acknowledge universal truthes. Universal truthes may exist, and it is the challenge of secular and liberal thought to uncover them, but they are uncovered and our ideas constructed, as is the term used in education circles, by individuals and cultures, and are always subject to challenge and questioning, never being taken for granted.

Ancient Greek writers and philosophers conceived of Gods as so in control of their lives because it reflected their own lack of freedom and the helplessness they felt - learned helplessness, as psychologists refer to it - in the face of the substantial control that existed over their lives in Ancient Greek, culture, I believe. They yearned for freedom that they needed to develop their thinking and their cultures, but which they lacked because of these very backward and backward-looking fears. The same kinds of fears that still dominate contemporary liberal democratic cultures.

The problem of contemporary liberal democratic cultures is that they embrace the benefits of liberal democratic life while being perpetually wary of the risks that come with such freedom.

And so they perpetually curb the freedom that make those benefits possible.

It is ever recurrently tragic and irrational, with those cultures perpetually looking back with regret at those curbs on freedom and the ways that it undermines their values, which were only made possible by that freedom.

We are liberal democratic peoples embracing secular thought and the freedom that makes them possible, but only when we are not perpetually afraid of the risks that come with that freedom, as well.

And it is that fear, of course, which has rationalized all curbs on freedom since the dawn of humanity.

Our rationalizations are only different from those of the Catholic church, various dictators, and more repressive cultures of yesterday and today in degrees and for what cause.

But the result is always the same.

Repression and control that undermines the very values that make our better quality lives possible.

It's a very tragic irony of history. That humanity has spent more than 2000 years trying to escape its inhumanity and propensity for control on the basis of fear. And yet, 200 years into the triumph of our liberal, secular, free and democratic values over our inhumanity and values of control and brutality, our fears still so dominate our own lives and have us dominating our neighbors.

For those who love liberal, secular, democratic values, societies, and their virtues, as I do, it is, perhaps, the most tragic irony of history.

Love,
Ben