Steyn's straw man effort marks him as Frank Rich-lite (or is it Chuck Klosterman-heavy?)
Thursday, October 5, 2006 at 5:42AM Mark Steyn should shtick to the Chuck Klosterman-stuff. He's a very funny guy who comes to geopolitics from the the-ah-ter, just like Frank Rich. But where Frank's caustic with a purpose, I don't pick that up from Steyn, who seems more given to his inner Klosterman (whom I like a lot in Esquire; he just doesn't suffer the grand ambitions of Steyn to explain the world).ARTICLE: "Oh God, am I just being neurotic? An author with an end-of-the-world tome due out suddenly finds himself panicking," by Mark Steyn, Macleans.com, 5 October 2006
Plus, he's basically a one-note johnny with his decline-of-Europe-and-the-dark-hordes-from-Islam-threatening argument. Like most inclined to see Europe as the center of the universe, he believes its inability to deal with anything beyond their borders effectively marks the West's essential demise in the Long War. There is no East apparently worth mentioning in Steyn's world view, so my vision of Shrinking the Gap is cast aside as delusional. Why? We'll never talk Europe into it.
Poor Steyn thrusts without locating his target beforehand. If he had read beyond the clippings, he'd know I've never based my thinking regarding the SysAdmin force on winning over Europe--just the opposite. Hell, I've been calling on people to forget Europe and embrace the New Core going back to the spring of 2004 when PNM came out (my piece in WAPO). In BFA, I openly call for strategic alliance with China for exactly this purpose, pushing the argument in Esquire about as starkly as one can.
But Steyn misses all this in his apparent anger that I consider him a "racist buffoon." Racist, yes, but only in a sad, frightened sort of white-man way (What do these savages know of musical the-ah-ter?). I mean, as soon as I hear the "we're not having enough babies" argument, I just wince inside because I know where this line of reasoning is going. I guess if it's not French-on-French action, then you're technically running out of French. But then again, maybe Spanaird-on-French is still good, because then you're still cranking out baby Euros. But French-on-African (Or worse! African on top of French!), then I think you still must be losing the demographic battle right?
Feeling queasy yet? A bit titilated? Somewhat ashamed?
Relax. Steyn's delivery is much smoother and more seductive. It's racial solidarity designed to ennoble--hopefully to make you feel horny for the right kind of sexual partner.
"The seeds of our victory lie in the wombs of our mothers" ---Hamas.
So I guess all Steyn's doing is asking us white folk to go horizontal in order to get symmetrical with the threat.
Bring it on, mother-f--ker!
(Hey, that's not a bad slogan when you think of it: pithy and right to the point.)
Buffoon? Man, you gotta read him to make that call. I mean, Klosterman's not a buffoon because he's so in on the joke that he wears it like a skin, whereas Steyn has serious pretensions, as in, he wants to be taken very seriously but just can't bring himself to the point of staying serious. Perhaps that's just the show biz side he just can't shake.
I prefer to demonize demons, not entire races or religions (in Afghanistan, do you demonize just the Taliban, or do you recognize the thirst for knowledge and advancement as well?). Steyn's voice is important in that he plays nicely to European fears and the continent's preference for inaction. He so eloquently fatalizes every option, hence his new book is so very TEOTWAWKI (the end of the world as we know it)--seriously, he trots out that tired old phrase from the Y2K era!
I say, God bless the fear mongers and the racists. They give me a market niche.
Here's Steyn dagger-to-the-imagined-soft-underbelly of my argument.
At the other end of the spectrum is a hard-headed strategist like Thomas P. M. Barnett, author of The Pentagon's New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century and Blueprint for Action: A Future Worth Creating. Mr. Barnett divides the world into a functioning "Core" and a "Non-Integrating Gap" and favours using a "SysAdmin" force -- a "pistol-packin' Peace Corps" -- to transform the "Gap" countries and bring them within the "Core." He doesn't have a high opinion of yours truly -- he regards me as a racist buffoon -- and one is naturally tempted to respond in similar fashion. But, in fact, he talks a lot of sense -- up to a point. The trouble is, like many chaps who swan about dispensing high-end advice to international A-listers, he views the world's problems as something to be sorted out by more effective elites -- better armed forces, international agencies, that sort of thing. The common herd are noticeable by their absence in his pages. If he did give them any thought, he'd realize that his vision of a "SysAdmin" force -- European allies that would go into countries after American hard power has liberated them -- is simply deluded. Whatever the defects of the Continent's elites, the real problem isn't the lack of leaders but the lack of followers. The demographic reality is that Europe is running out of Europeans -- the deathbed fertility rates of the French, Italians, Germans, Spaniards, etc. is a continent-wide suicide bomb, a kind of auto-genocide in which one population is gradually yielding to a successor population unlikely to share American foreign policy goals in any parts of the world likely to catch Washington's eye in the next decade or three. Rather than the Continent's leadership class helping move countries from the Non-Integrating Gap to the Core, it's more likely that parts of Europe will be doing a Bosnia and moving from the Core to the Non-Integrating Gap.Much like Bill Lind's lighting into me way back when, I keep wondering when these guys are actually going to read the books they reference. If Steyn did, he'd be embarrassed that his perceived critique of my concepts WRT to a reliance on European allies actually simply mimics the very same arguments I've made for years now on why we need to look to Asia and not to Europe for help in shrinking the Gap.
A possible explanation for the cultural blinders? Steyn is apparently Canadian, and like many Canadians, his world outlook begins with Europe and ends with those crazy Americans.
A forgivable but utterly irrelevant mindset for someone wading into geopolitics from the the-ah-ter, although I love Steyn's "everyman" references. It's such a short journey from "Broadway Babies" to blue collar, and he manages it with such un-self-conscious aplomb. Most proles I know didn't grow up on Jule Styne. Then again, I hail from the thriving metropolis of Boscobel WI, where Farmer's Day was the cultural highlight of the summer (tractor pulls are the NASCAR of the Midwest), so I should know better than go toe-to-toe with a master of the American songbook.
I guess we just have to blame Reagan for this sort of stuff. Once he turned politics into showbiz, it was inevitable that showbiz types invaded politics--even geopolitics.
Don't get me wrong. I don't advocate not reading the man, any more than I'd say never eat candy under any circumstances. Indulging in empty calories is fine in modest amounts. Just remember to get some real food in your diet now and then.
On a less snarky note: I would advocate reading David Brooks if you're looking for someone with that ability to explain culture and society plus a very realistic take on what this Long War is all about. Brooks is just as funny without being jokey. To me, he's the best broadband columnist out there right now--meaning most clippable.
Reader Comments (11)
While reading PNM, my thoughts also kept going back to how European population-decline will affect our(US) partnerships regarding military affairs...as well as the demographics of the immigration they are experiencing. I agree that this is just one more reason to make our relationships with new core members a much higher priority.
Does this suggest that we should be doing more to quell/mediate the relationships between the eastern big boys - namely India/Pakistan?
I find it so hard to wrap my brain around a future scenario where they play sysadmin behind a US leviathan liberation. Will this be easier once their middle-class becomes much larger and more connected?
I think that Steyn was out of line for his comments about the absence of “the common herd” in your book. It was a personal jab that he didn’t do a good job of supporting. No matter what the demographic of a future Europe, they’ll be on board when a system-peturbation such as kim jong-ill wanting to test his nukes – or further out – threatening to use them.
Also, there is nothing more entertaining than a truck pulling an eliminator down a dirt track only to end up shredding a rear-differential or roasting a tranny. (Hometown: Loyal, WI).
Thomas P: is it easier to wrap your head around a Russian/Chinese/Indian/Pakistani consolidated SysAdmin when you include Tom's dictum that the US has to seed the force and make it viable and that the seed would include Marines?
if only we'd had 100,000 each of Americans, Russians, Indians, and Chinese in Iraq...
I was just thinking: ask yourself at what other times in history you've heard polemicists and political leaders in Europe call for racial solidarity and "more babies" (or the right sort--natch)?
Then tell me whose face you see ...
I can feel myself getting in touch with my inner Steyn!
I happen to be a fan of both Mr. Steyn and Mr. Barnett. So sue me. Anyhow, the thing about China's role in world policing that I find a boggle is the following: Open societies, like ours, seem far more subject to outside dangers, imported threats, insidious clandestine plans, terrorism, etc. than more or less closed ones, like China. Therefore it is in an Open Society's interests to police the world. Whereas for China, that's a take it or leave it proposition. There's much less downside for them if the world is awash in blood and poverty and exporting rage because they can teinneman square the circle on decree in their own house. We certainly can't. Add to the equation that China is in competition (yes, as well as in partnership) with us, and you realize that a good way to, simultaneously, make cash and make us waste cash, is to proliferate weapons willy-nilly, to rogue, failed states, wanna bes, backwaters, come one come all, and thus destablize parts of the world, which, intentionally or not, forces us to act in some fashion. Or at least worry, which in political-governmental terms also spells cash. As long as they can make money from instability and in the process burn holes in our pockets, why should China change?
Just wondering, keep up the good work!
Kevin Schnaper
Mark Steyn's argument is not that Europeans are not having enough babies. His argument is that Europeans are not having babies, the Muslim immigrant population is booming and is having lots of babies, and there is little pressure on immigrants or their children to conform to the current culture.
This would normally only be a problem for a generation or two before integration occured. However, the other part of Steyn's argument is that the children of Muslim immigrants are much more radical and more likely to identify with their countries of origin than their parents are. If this is true, then the likely result in the long term is that the countries will end up looking more like the Muslim countries of origin than Europe as we know it. Not in racial mix, but in culture and ideology.
Is this racist? I don't think so. Certainly Steyn commits a cardinal sin against multiculturalism, when he dares to say that one culture is preferable to another. However, this would only be racist if "culture" was a code word for "race." As far as I can tell, Steyn is not very interested in what people look like, but he is very interested in what they believe. If immigrants into Europe were being succesfully integrated, then I don't think he would be writing on this subject at all.
Mr. Barnett: I've been following your blog for quite a while, and have read (and thoroughly enjoyed) BFA. I've also been following Steyn for years. I count the two of you amongst my favorite geopolitical commentors. Indeed, you're near perfect foils: Steyn the pessimistic doom-sayer, gleefully calling attention to the problems polite society would prefer not to discuss, and Barnett the steady, optimistic voice of reason, showing the path out of the current synergistic mess. At any rate, as a fan of both your works, I feel I should step into this spat the two of you are having.
I think it's a little harsh to be calling Mr. Steyn racist. First, Islam is not a race, it's a religion, one distributed across a great number of ethnic groups. This is obvious enough it shouldn't have to be pointed out; sadly, in the present climate it usually is. Second, he's said on a few occasions that the racial makeup of a country is irrelevant; all that matters is that everyone agrees on certain basic ground rules (democracy, markets, free speech, mututal tolerance, etc.) As a practical matter, however, where Muslims (not 'Arabs', not 'Persians', not 'Indonesians', but 'Muslims') make up a majority of the population, those basic ground rules either fail to appear or get chucked in short order. Most of the Gap is, I believe (and please correct me if I'm wrong), made up of Muslim majority states. I doubt this is accidental: too many of the strictures of their faith are too deeply incompatible with the modern world.
Steyn's inaccurate, of course, to say that the likely collapse of Europe over the next generation or so will invalidate the SysAdmin idea. Obviously, the SysAdmin force would be primarily manned by Indians, Chinese, and Brazilians (though thanks to the one-child policy, China faces its own long-range demographic crisis) and you've made that clear on numerous occasions; when Steyn implies it would rely on European manpower, he's being uncharacteristically lazy. Still, if Europe does collapse, that will be one hell of a system perturbation. Europe may not be the center of the world, but it is one of it's richest and most influential parts. To name just one piece of fallout, while I shrug at a nuclear France, the idea of a nuclear France in the hands of Islamic revolutionaries is terrifying.
You yourself define this conflict as a race between connectivity and disconnectedness. I'd largely agree. However, the forces of disconnectedness are acting out of self-preservation. Between air travel and the internet, the mere existence of the pluralistic, global civilization that has grown out of what used to be called the West is deeply corrosive to the Islamosphere. Coexistence is simply not possible, which is why the Long War will continue until one of the two is an historical memory. I'd put my money on those history books being written by the West, but Steyn reminds us that getting there won't be easy, that there will be setbacks and even losses along the way, and that some of them will be very large.
I like your work, and think your ideas would make the world a better place.
However, I think you've mischarcterized Mr. Steyn's arguments. He isn't calling for more babies, as that won't happen. He is saying that Europe is doomed deomographically and that America should be prepared for that. By his reasoning it is too late to save Europe. He does not think America is directly threatened, but indirectly through the loss of Europe as part of Western Civilization.
That may be incorrect, but if so should be refutable. Since you make a point out of his lack of expertise, it should be easy to demolish his central thesis that demography equals destiny. I can think of a few- for example, that there is no reason to believe that Muslim birthrates in Europe will continue at the current level, or that policy changes (limiting immigration, limiting welfare benefits) would not lower it. Also, there is the possibility that more Muslims will not be a major problem for Europe in the long run. All these can be debated on the merits.
If Steyn is bigoted it is in regards to religion not race. Whether the Islamic faith is a threat in and of itself is widely debated. I think Bernard Lewis is right, but more and more people are moving towards Steyn's point of view. This is unfortunate whether it is true or not. If true, we have a very large problem, and if not our options will be further limited.
I would also not like to invite sarcasm from Mr. Steyn as that is his area of expertise, whatever his academic and professional shortcomings.
Tom,
You must recognize that while Steyn may be a jerk, he's onto something with his one-note song. However, there's room enough, indeed, for the two of you; you wrote a great book that will prove to be right, and Steyn's yapping about something that will also prove to be right.
Why don't you enjoy the linked piece by Spengler and move onto something more productive (like informing Steyn's readers that they can buy his new book at a 35% discount from Amazon).
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/HE16Aa01.html
Mr. Barnett,
You do yourself little credit when you stoop to ad hominem swipes implying boorish racism or pretentiously disdaining the the-AH-ter. A better tack would have been to address Steyn's points with contrarian facts. There is plenty of room for both your arguments, but Steyn's will come to pass wether you recognize it or not, just a matter of time as he says.
Also, I like your point about eurocentrism, but the reality is that a lot of the world's power still sits in europe. Witness europe's ability to hinder the US diplomatically for one. Another example lies in the setting of various religous and political organizations such as the churhes, who operate worldwide but ultimately belong to europe.
Steyn doesn't give a damn about whether the French are having children with Frenchmen, Spaniards, Africans, or anyone else, and nobody serious does either. What is important isn't ancestry, it's ideology. I know devout Muslims born in the Middle East who are gung-ho supporters of the War on Terror, and I know middle-class white kids who ramble on about overthrowing the government and how Stalin was really jut misunderstood.
The problem with Europe is, quite simply, that it is a continent with one set of(very liberal) social norms, whose population is rapidly switching over to one with a polar opposite viewpoint. The reason for this is the demographic collapse of whitey, but that would be totally irrelevant were it not for the fact that the Muslim immigrant population is, by and large, not assimilating to the European culture and the liberal-democratic viewpoint that underpins it. If the assimilation problem could be solved, then the demographic one wouldn't need to be. Steyn's made this point before, he just happens to think that it's not bloody likely, and sadly, I have to agree with him. So, he talks about the demography, because the problem of culture is a lost cause. It's not racism, it's simply fact that happens to divide lagely on the basis of ancstry. Sad, but true.
Hardly. Steyn's world outlook is resolutely either American or English (depending on who he's attempting to curry favour with at the moment).
It should come as no surprise to you that Steyn is exceedingly unpopular on his home turf; indeed, most Canadians find his beliefs alien and his views rather tedious.
Otherwise, brilliant piece. No serious thinker in Canada can be bothered paying attention to Steyn anymore.