The Allegory:
I think of nations as cats…
Civilization does to nations what domestication does to cats. It makes them want the same thing: a rug by the fireplace, where they can lie and purr. To all, but their owners, cats kind of look alike and purr alike, yet it would be a terrible mistake to think that’s all they want, which seems to be the basic tenet of Globalism. Unique and feral, inside each cat there is a tiger. Among the nations this is called their national spirit. One cannot ignore this tiger, one cannot kill this tiger, and, the trickiest of all, one cannot tame this tiger: by the definition only cats are open to domestication. The only way to deal with our tiger is to make him like his life as a cat. And one more thing: To understand the world, we must understand the tiger inside us (teipse nosce!), and not misunderstand him inside others.
Definitions:
One of my articles opens with the following lines: “Democracy to the Middle East? What is ‘democracy’? How often do we engage ourselves in a passionate debate, marveling at the complexity of issues involved, yet hardly realizing that all this complexity proceeds from the simple fact that we don’t know what we are talking about.” Elsewhere I put it more scientifically: “We need to define concepts before we apply them.”
Now, what is Global Security? One answer is obvious: It is not what we are having today.
Should I go further to suggest that we have probably failed to come up with a meaningful definition so far; otherwise, we would have been in a better position to understand what is going on? The key word here is meaningful, which means that the correct diagnosis must always contain in itself the promise of a cure.
Perhaps, we can start with the specific before moving to the generic? For instance, what is Global Energy Security? So far, I can come up with only one definition: in real political terms it means being nice to the Russians. Somehow, I do not feel that such a definition is totally adequate…
Returning to the general definition of Global Security, sometimes a metaphor works better than scientific prose. So, let me here again return to my unabashed allegorical definition:
--Global security is an international arrangement that allows each tiger to like his life as a cat.
...To be continued...
I think of nations as cats…
Civilization does to nations what domestication does to cats. It makes them want the same thing: a rug by the fireplace, where they can lie and purr. To all, but their owners, cats kind of look alike and purr alike, yet it would be a terrible mistake to think that’s all they want, which seems to be the basic tenet of Globalism. Unique and feral, inside each cat there is a tiger. Among the nations this is called their national spirit. One cannot ignore this tiger, one cannot kill this tiger, and, the trickiest of all, one cannot tame this tiger: by the definition only cats are open to domestication. The only way to deal with our tiger is to make him like his life as a cat. And one more thing: To understand the world, we must understand the tiger inside us (teipse nosce!), and not misunderstand him inside others.
Definitions:
One of my articles opens with the following lines: “Democracy to the Middle East? What is ‘democracy’? How often do we engage ourselves in a passionate debate, marveling at the complexity of issues involved, yet hardly realizing that all this complexity proceeds from the simple fact that we don’t know what we are talking about.” Elsewhere I put it more scientifically: “We need to define concepts before we apply them.”
Now, what is Global Security? One answer is obvious: It is not what we are having today.
Should I go further to suggest that we have probably failed to come up with a meaningful definition so far; otherwise, we would have been in a better position to understand what is going on? The key word here is meaningful, which means that the correct diagnosis must always contain in itself the promise of a cure.
Perhaps, we can start with the specific before moving to the generic? For instance, what is Global Energy Security? So far, I can come up with only one definition: in real political terms it means being nice to the Russians. Somehow, I do not feel that such a definition is totally adequate…
Returning to the general definition of Global Security, sometimes a metaphor works better than scientific prose. So, let me here again return to my unabashed allegorical definition:
--Global security is an international arrangement that allows each tiger to like his life as a cat.
...To be continued...
No comments:
Post a Comment