America the Virtuous: The Crisis of Democracy and the Quest for EmpireTransaction Publishers, 01.01.2003 - 221 Seiten Urged on by a powerful ideological and political movement, George W. Bush committed the United States to a quest for empire. American values and principles were universal, he asserted, and should guide the transformation of the world. Claes Ryn sees this drive for virtuous empire as the triumph of forces that in the last several decades acquired decisive influence in both the American parties, the foreign policy establishment, and the media. Public intellectuals like William Bennett, Charles Krauthammer, William Kristol, Michael Novak, Richard Perle, and Norman Podhoretz argued that the United States was an exceptional nation and should bring â democracy,â â freedom,â and â capitalismâ to countries not yet enjoying them. Ryn finds the ideology of American empire strongly reminiscent of the French Jacobinism of the eighteenth century. He describes the drive for armed world hegemony as part of a larger ideological whole that both expresses and aggravates a crisis of democracy and, more generally, of American and Western civilization. America the Virtuous sees the new Jacobinism as symptomatic of America shedding an older sense of the need for restraints on power. Checks provided by the U.S. Constitution have been greatly weakened with the erosion of traditional moral and other culture. |
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... moral , cultural , and political decline , including an erosion of constitutionalism . The ideology is about far more than America's role in the world : it en- compasses a view of human nature and society and sets forth its own notion ...
... moral and cultural trends within Western civili- zation produced and gave prominence to the idea that societies ought to be radically remade and that those who know what needs to be done should dominate others for their benefit ...
... moral and political demeanor of that admired by earlier Americans . Politics al- ways involves an element of assertiveness and pursuit of power , but Americans used to idolize persons whose conduct showed not only political skill and ...
... moral superiority and right to take charge of the needed changes . On what it considers moral grounds , this ideology mandates worldwide adoption of " democracy , " " freedom , " " equality , " and " capitalism . " This mandate provides ...
... moral and cultural foundations of Western civi- lization continue to crumble . To some , these are merely imaginary risks ; to some , they seem an acceptable cost for advancing the glo- bal cause of political virtue . This book will ...
Inhalt
The Crisis of Western Civilization and the Rise of Jacobinism | 15 |
The New Jacobinism | 25 |
Creative Traditionalism or Radicalism? | 43 |
Democracy Plebiscitary or Constitutional? | 49 |
Contrasting Forms of Morality and Society | 55 |
Aristocratic and AntiAristocratic Democracy | 59 |
The Father of Democratism | 71 |
Love of Ones Own and Love of the Common | 77 |
Democracy in Peril | 97 |
The New Jacobins and American Democracy | 111 |
Democracy for the World | 123 |
Jacobin Capitalism | 145 |
Equality | 155 |
A Center that Cannot Hold | 165 |
Responsible Nationhood | 177 |
Needed A New Moral Realism | 189 |
Moral Universality A Philosophical Interlude | 83 |
Pluralistic Political Morality | 89 |
Andere Ausgaben - Alle anzeigen
America the Virtuous: The Crisis of Democracy and the Quest for Empire Claes G. Ryn Eingeschränkte Leseprobe - 2017 |
America the Virtuous: The Crisis of Democracy and the Quest for Empire Claes G. Ryn Eingeschränkte Leseprobe - 2017 |
America the Virtuous: The Crisis of Democracy and the Quest for Empire Claes G. Ryn Eingeschränkte Leseprobe - 2011 |