"My own association with the Commonwealth has taught me that the most important contact between nations is usually contact between its peoples. An organisation dedicated to certain values, the Commonwealth has flourished and grown by successfully promoting and protecting that contact. At home, Prince Philip and I will be visiting towns and cities up and down the land. It is my sincere hope that the Diamond Jubilee will be an opportunity for people to come together in a spirit of neighbourliness and celebration of their own communities. We also hope to celebrate the professional and voluntary service given by millions of people across the country who are working for the public good. They are a source of vital support to the welfare and well-being of others, often unseen or overlooked." [Emphasis mine]
- Queen Elizabeth II, Diamond Jubilee Speech, Westminster, March 2012
But before I say anything else:
I know it's been a good while since I've posted anything (assuming - again - anyone really cares). I also know that, lately, I seldom seem to do much of anything post-wise other than to pose what some may dislike as stupid, nitpicking, impertinent questions. Ones usually directed at, or about, our Globally Enlightened American Establishment. Who, as everyone knows, should rarely if ever be questioned about much of anything, under even the direst circumstances. Conditions like, for instance, our country's current frolicking on the brink of what may be an unprecedented abyss: that of a steadily escalating nuclear exchange between our globe's two indisputably foremost nuclear powers.
Not, mind you, that any of us need be prematurely alarmed just yet. Especially seeing we're in such capable hands. After all, what's the worst that could happen? Even if we should embrace the risk - or skirt the brink - of permanently enfeebling or eviscerating or dismembering vile old Russia, what's the worst we should expect by way of retaliation? I mean, surely old Vladdy's not mad enough (or else too much of a cowardly scoundrel) to do something really desperate?
But now - if you can - please try and put up and with me and my questions a bit longer. Because I've got a few more.
First off, notice how different were the late Queen's stated priorities from those of our present rulers. She spoke of contacts between not just nations, but those nations' peoples. Including presumably all sorts of everyday simple ordinary folk from all walks of life. In other words, "contacts" should not be confined to those ultra-sophisticated, influential, hyper-credentialed types - corporate, military-industrial, think-tank, NGO, etc - most eager to establish deep connection, if not outright collusion, with their opposite numbers in other countries. (Almost as if these latter together should constitute a kind of global "super-country" far above and beyond the needs, concerns or even the votes of the mere countries of their fellow-citizens.)
Indeed, she almost seemed to imply - again, taking her literally - that leaders within a nation exist for the sake of their people, and not the other way around. And that even contacts between nations should be assessed by more or less the same yardstick.
Whereas today it seems the great bulk of the world's leaders approach the same question - how best to ensure the well-being of every nation's citizens - from a rather different standpoint. Today it is widely believed that the most important contacts between nations are those which most reduce the risk of what is technically known as symmetrical war between the globe's major powers. And that the most reliable mechanism for the prevention of symmetrical war is a kind of solidarity of global leaders whose overwhelming power, wealth, prestige, command of technology, and access to private security tend to make them:
And all of it for their respective peoples' own good, of course. All so that they can view their own citizens' concerns with less emotion and prejudice - which is to say, more distantly, rationally, dispassionately. Nowadays what we've discovered is that you cannot view the hardships, fears, anxieties, etc, of your own nation with too much distance and dispassion. Whereas you can very easily become blinded by tribal sentiment and prejudice. But especially in what we've come to recognize as the really elemental, nitty-gritty, rubber-meets-road departments of life. As in, of course, matters of Global Aggregate Economic Growth. Along with its accompanying vital questions of profit-and-loss for the really big, vital players in the game.
Take, for instance, today's more or less Amazonized commercial and workplace culture in many of our Western countries. No doubt it's highly reassuring, for many of our globally-minded leaders, to be able to view even some of the most unpleasant (if not downright ugly) Economic Truths of our Time - e.g., truths about workplace regimentation, or worker motivation and morale - with a coolly dispassionate rationality. After all, that's just the way real, productive Life is.
Anyhow, my first question is:
Can our leaders' altogether rational and justifiable removal from the mundane concerns, fears, etc, of their ordinary constituents carry with it some unintended - or even disquieting and destabilizing - effects? And those upon pretty much everybody? In their zeal, say, to make the world safe for the freedom of our various (most rational and necessary) Amazonias, do our otherwise rational leaders run the risk of becoming themselves fanatical - i.e., losing all sense of proportion and restraint? And all the more so in the legitimate pursuit of something good? To the point, in fact, where their zeal takes on an almost religious or even apocalyptic coloration? (final paragraph only)
But in particular in trying to "bring to heel" certain recalcitrant, backward, reactionary or "fascistic" parts of the globe? Or even - dare I say it - certain countries that simply don't care to be Amazonized to the nth degree?
And so I come to my final set of questions for the world, as we enter, in the wake of the Queen's death, what may more and more prove to be a post-Commonwealth (if not an anti-Commonwealth) Age (paragraphs 6-7). And that not just for Britain but for the world at large.
Will it also be a more fiercely "convictioned" and ideological Age, at ever higher levels of global power, wealth, expertise and influence? Which is to say, even in our otherwise most rational/pragmatic citadels of real power?
Will it be an Age in which - in the effort to govern more uniformly and "globally" ever more diverse and disparate regions of the globe - there's less and less virtue to be seen in either patience or restraint? Or even nuance? An Age in which the humility, resilience and conciliation of Compromise are steadily replaced by the arrogance, fixity and intransigence of Principle? To the point where, say, even some of our most credentialed, wealthy, powerful and influential elites contemplate an escalating nuclear exchange as just one of several "unfortunate but necessary" calculated risks? Or policy options?
And not just elites in - obviously enough - Moscow or Beijing. But possibly (even more so) in Washington, or post-Commonwealth Westminster? Or Warsaw? Or righteous Kyiv?
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