Fareed Zarkaria says it best in his article the Rise of the Rest when he states that “for 60 years, the United States has pushed countries to open their markets, free up their politics, and embrace trade and technology.” America has been peddling globalization to the world since World War II. Now that countries are finally coming in the home stretch, America all of sudden feels threatened by these new powers. Indeed there is a rise of the rest going on throughout the world and America, who has been leading the world since the 19th century, feels threatened. The United States wants to have the cake and eat it as well; that’s something that just can’t happen in today’s world.
Just in the past 10 years, Zakaria shows us how America has fallen from the pedestal; no longer number one in anything except being obese. I disagree that America has fallen, the rest have just caught up with us. We are the ones who pushed globalization onto the rest of the world and now we are the same ones complaining about the consequences. The irony is almost laughable.
Now more than ever, American’s feel threatened by the outside world. Maybe it has to do with 9/11 or supposed increased terrorists activity but these fears should be allayed by the fact that this is the most peaceful time in mankind’s existence. The reason we are so scared is by the 24/7 media input we receive. Zakaria makes a good point here; all this fear is self-inflicted and like the great FDR said, “we have nothing to fear but fear itself.”
However, there was a point where good old Fareed seemed to contradict himself. He states that America is a country built on the “hunger and energy of immigrants” which is all well and true; America was built on the back of immigrants. A few paragraphs above this statement, Fareed discusses the ultra-nationalism he felt on his visit to China and the Middle East. If there is such a great amount of nationalism flowing through these up and coming countries, wouldn’t they prefer not to offer there talents to America and rather stay in their motherland? Sure, they might come to America to study since we are still number one in university education at least, but these foreign students would must likely return to their homeland. We cannot rely on immigrants to help us out. Other than that, Fareed made some good points that I found myself agreeing with and nodding my head. He offers a warning that the world is globalizing and America needs to do so as well. I couldn’t agree more.
On the other hand, we have the convincing Mr. Tony Judt. He argues that we effectively haven’t learned anything from the past. It’s true that America is quite a different place than what it was in 1989; yet we haven’t learned from our ancestor’s mistakes. For starters, we are practically the only country that still considers war as a viable option. When you look at the 19th century this makes sense; we emerged out of both World Wars relatively unscathed and had made huge gains. We are the “only advanced democracy where public figures glorify and exalt the military, a sentiment familiar in Europe before 1945 but quite unknown today.”
War is a dangerous thing. It allows us to demonize the enemy and make them lesser human beings, we deny them their basic rights. Torture is a prime example of this demonization. Tony tells us about the freedom and frequency with which America tortures prisoners. Most consider it ok to do so and Alan Dershowitz talks about “the simple cost-benefit analysis for employing such non-lethal torture.” Apparently, the ends justify the means in this case. I’d like to show Dershowitz the cost-benefit analysis of my fist punching his face. The logic is infallible!
In all seriousness, America should have learned the lessons of war yet it’s understandable how we’ve overlooked them. As Americans, we pride ourselves on “destroying evil empires” and tearing down walls and what not. But the reality is that if we’re not careful, we may slip into a dystopia straight out of a George Orwell novel. There is a fine line between dictatorship and democracy and an even thinner line between oligarchy and democracy.
America is on a decline, the rest is on a rise. However you want to phrase it, the fact of the matter is that the playing field is being leveled across the world, much to America’s dismay. No longer are we the sole superpower of the world, but we can still be leaders of this new order that is rising, that is, if we play our cards right.
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