Are these really, as Walter Russell Mead contends, the three core values of the Western establishment:
There are three subjects on which virtually everybody in the Western policy and intellectual establishments agree: think of them as the core values of the Davoisie: The first is that the rise of a liberal capitalist and more or less democratic and law-based international order is both inevitable and irreversible. The second is that the Davos elite—the financiers, politicians, intellectuals, haute journalists and technocrats who mange the great enterprises, institutions and polities of the contemporary world—know what they are doing and are competent to manage the system they represent. The third is that no serious alternative perspective to the Davos perspective really exists; our establishment believes in its gut that even those who contend with the Davos world order know in their hearts that Davos has and always will have both might and right on its side.
Dr. Mead goes on to point out that neither V. Putin nor DAESH holds those core values but I’m pretty certain that he doesn’t, either. I think that, like me, he’s a Jeffersonian and believes that liberal democracy is fragile and embattled, not only not inevitable or irreversible but always in danger of being reversed. You need only to look at the rise of the security state to recognize that it’s at least a possibility. You might also recognize the believe as that of “Whig history” which I described earlier.
I also don’t believe that the so-called elite “know what they are doing and are competent to manage the system they represent”. It’s just too complicated and changes too quickly for anyone to “manage” the system.
Finally, there are at least three competitors to the “Davos world order”: Chinese oligarchy, Putin’s irredentism, and DAESH’s barbarism. All three are gaining ground.
My exposure to Mead makes me think he’s a weird sort of bigot who has invented a creature–PUTIN–encompassing everything he hates about the liberals who make him write for The American Interest while blacklisting him from Davos.
The world is far more complicated than the fever dreams of an overlooked pundit, the boring people at Davos, or Vladimir Putin.
“I think that, like me, he’s a Jeffersonian and believes that liberal democracy is fragile and embattled, not only not inevitable or irreversible but always in danger of being reversed. ”
What a long strange trip it’s been. The enemy is not always outside, but often from within as the security state example illustrates.
(With all caveats made to the problems of generalizations and labels.). It would probably surprise most here but my core values and beliefs probably best approximate what might be called a Jeffersonian evolved into Jacksonian Democrat, with a pinch of raw pragmatism an dollop of libertarianism. Just evolve the agrarian advocacy to modern day entrepreneurialism.
But to the point of fragility, today’s Democrats are clearly a party of central, federal control by elites arrogant enough to believe in administration of the affairs of the masses through the three formal branches, the executive bureaucracy and the controlling messaging device – the press. All the better if you went to Yale or Harvard. From where I sit they are slowly winning the battle and the “both parties suck” or “RINO” phenomenon is just a reflection of an attempt by today’s Jeffersonian Democrats, er, economic conservatives, to get a seat at the table.
Democrats, especially Progressives, are now Whigs. What a long, strange trip it’s been.
Guarneri,
Right–the masses. Otherwise known as citizens, or human beings. I’m seem to remember you commenting here about property restrictions for voting, or something. Which makes sense: Jefferson’s agrarian society rested on slavery’s back. What you favor is an informal feudal society. So be it.
What’s funny is that you seem to resent the world for not taking you up on your offer.
This points to the larger problem for Dave. I’m pretty certain Dave doesn’t favor property restrictions for voting. But it’s hard to imagine any kind of credible opposition emerging to the technocratic elite when it’s stuffed with people who want to be the elite but can’t get anyone to vote for them.
Since everybody is a racist, let’s try bigot for a while. When that fails, I suggest poopy-head. Children should should sound like children, and they should leave the thinking to the adults.
Through the first sentence of the fifth paragraph Walter Mead is on solid ground, but after that, he has invented a creature called-PUTIN, but I do find any hatred. Instead, he pours into his PUTIN everything he thinks is wrong with the opposition policies.
I am not sure where in history to find a comparable leader. There are no Russian Czars. Alexander, Augustus Caesar, Genghis (historical), Napoleon, one of the Pharaohs, King David, a few others are possibilities, but at best, it would be difficult defending them.
Putin is cunning, and he understands power. He understands that the US is an elephant and that he is a lion. He might be able to take on sick, weak, young elephants, but he is not taking on the US. He also understands the Russian people, and he knows they will endure hardships that are unfathomable to the West.
He probably has advisors who have a better understanding of geopolitical and geoeconomic events, but he is not studying the spot price of oil vs. futures contracts. He does not understand the inner workings of the European financial system.
Putin is trying to restore Russia to its “former glory”, and that means the Russian Empire. The Russian Empire requires buffer states, and he is also trying to establish some economic independence or non-dependence upon Europe and the US.
Somebody should inform Mr. Mead that to Putin and people like him, Mr. Mead is one of the eggheads. Mr. Mead thinks that his big brain is better than the other big brains. Big brains mean big heads, and to some of us, that means bigger skulls to smash.
Mr.Mead lives in the same glass house as the Davos crowd. It would be wise of him to consider carefully whom he invites inside to begin throwing stones. I could live in a Putin-based world. Could Mr. Mead?
Right, Mead is the real adult…Putin, the shirtless warrior-mystic inscrutable to the technocratic minds of the west…liberals, a uniform block of obedient managers, heretic hunters and climate-change hysterics…and of course serious people, about to–just you wait–get their day in the sun again.
It’s a total cartoon. That one would come to this neutrally rather than out of resentment and fury is a far greater smear than calling its origins bigotry.
Why hold back? Walter Mead is an old white guy who hates the fact that there is an elegant black man as US president. Why not use racist. It is such a useful word. Well, it has become useless, but bigot does not do the job. So, poopy-head is just as good.
The days of using name calling smears are drawing to a close, and the names are becoming a joke. Enjoy them while you can, and relish the consequences.
Using Putin makes Mr. Mead foolish, but because Mr. Mead probably believes it, it makes him an idiot. I have no doubt he dislikes the Davos crowd, but I am not sure where he has displayed any intolerance for them.
As to his specific views on the Davos crowd, I probably agree with many of them, but I am not a fan of his. In the article, I was focused on his version of Putin, and with each sentence, I was more astounded. I usually do The Hunting of the Snark references, but this was Alice in Wonderland in a Through the Looking Glass universe.
I have no idea what you are talking about, MM. Or would that be, you have no idea.
Got it somewhat wrong, or there’s another quote out there, which I’m too lazy to look for. This took me five minutes to find:
From Guarneri on 10/13/14:
What to do? I don’t know. A rules based ( like a fed with a price objective) system? Voting qualification rules? I do know this. I’m not generally prone to the conceit that we live in unique times when issues come to an existential head like the end of oil/too many people/global boiling/not enough food or the end of growth.
My point is not to bust you and your entertainment of voting qualification rules, whatever those might be, but to highlight the poverty of going on about the elites while you yourself hold views that are just as elitist, if not more. This problem seems to be endemic to anti-elite populism: the anti-elite populists are neither anti-elite nor populist.
Some of Mead’s stuff is good, but IMO he spends too much time writing and not enough thinking about what to write. He churns out an immense amount of repetitive material daily and I stopped trying to slog through it a while ago.
What’s interesting about Putin is how he has become part of the partisan debate here is the US – the arguments about him by the usual suspects boil down to tired and useless partisan coup-counting. Everyone seems to be a Putin expert, judged through the lens of domestic American politics. Well, to understand Putin one needs to understand Russian politics and history and few do.
Thank you. That’s a concise way of stating something I’ve been trying to explain for a long time. Putin isn’t particularly exceptional. He’s just giving voice to what most Russians think and believe.
Putin isn’t particularly exceptional. He’s just giving voice to what most Russians think and believe.
Is he acting in a way that is consistent with what most Russians think & believe, or is he simply using that as cover?