Anthro on Logic
"Let's look at the logic of the "Hegelian compromise" vs. "Zero-sum" game - particularly it's history. In both cases, the point of diplomacy is to investigate the results of direct application of power (ultimately violence), and then come to that settlement without having to actually take the losses of violence. It's like rams butting heads - they can discover which one would win an all out fight while avoiding that fight. Now, in cultures derived primarily from imperial Rome, like the Eastern Christian world and the Muslim world, there's an assumption that the world is composed of a singular hierarchy, where equality is equality of submission to a higher entity. Negotiations would then obviously be negotiations of surrender once it was ascertained who would "naturally" win an all-out battle. This come from the experience of millenia under unified empires. In the West where centuries of competing hierarchies and anarchy held sway, the heathen Greek idea of Dike survived. A balance of power is understood to be a natural state, where equality is one of a dynamic tension between two parties which can not destroy the other without mutual annihilation. So diplomacy is often, but not always, "Hegelian" because both parties understand that neither can win, and no third party can dominate both of them. What does this mean about Cheney and his ilk? They are monotheists in a political sense. They assume that all fights have a winner and a loser - that stalemates only come about due to a lack of will. If that's true, democracy makes no sense: it's simply a utopian delusion with no grounding in the hard reality of power and war. At best, it's a useful tool to quiet the herd. Their approach to science reflects this, their approach to diplomacy reflects this, their approach to war reflects this. We're not so different - what differs is a lynch-pin understanding of how politics naturally settles out. History says that both understandings are stable, if a critical mass of players agree on the nature of reality. Sumeria survived for millenia as a "Heathen" system, and so did Rome as a "Monotheistic" system. We may be on the cusps of a change here. Cheney and his fellow travellers have created a zero-sum reality in American politics. They have played hard-ball with the civil service and the military. The opposition will have a difficult time not acting as if we are under a winner-takes-all system. If they fail to do that, the professional employees who have been completely replaced by ideological players will undermine them; but if they do clean house, the imperial pattern will become entrenched. Something similar may happen on the international front. Since we've abandoned the post-WWII idea of building up our defeated adversaries, it would be foolish for our adversaries, once they have us down, not to try to finish us off. The idea that international politics is multilateral will be sorely damaged if Cheney gets his chance to push his "advantage" to the hilt. Even Buchanan fears this in a recent op-ed piece!" Anthro
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