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American Declinism has been a popular meme since the 50s, some day it will be true I guess [1]: >Twenty-two years ago, in a refreshingly clear-sighted article
by IBM 9y ago
American Declinism has been a popular meme since the 50s, some day it will be true I guess [1]:
>Twenty-two years ago, in a refreshingly clear-sighted article for Foreign Affairs, Harvard’s Samuel P. Huntington noted that the theme of "America’s decline" had in fact been a constant in American culture and politics since at least the late 1950s. It had come, he wrote, in several distinct waves: in reaction to the Soviet Union’s launch of Sputnik; to the Vietnam War; to the oil shock of 1973; to Soviet aggression in the late 1970s; and to the general unease that accompanied the end of the Cold War. Since Huntington wrote, we can add at least two more waves: in reaction to 9/11, and to the current "Great Recession."….
>What the long history of American "declinism" — as opposed to America’s actual possible decline — suggests is that these anxieties have an existence of their own that is quite distinct from the actual geopolitical position of our country; that they arise as much from something deeply rooted in the collective psyche of our chattering classes as from sober political and economic analyses.
>For whatever reason, it is clear that for more than half a century, many of America’s leading commentators have had a powerful impulse consistently to see the United States as a weak, "bred out" basket case that will fall to stronger rivals as inevitably as Rome fell to the barbarians, or France to Henry V at Agincourt.
[1] https://newrepublic.com/article/78216/america-in-decline-thomas-friedman https://newrepublic.com/article/78216/america-in-decline-tho...
- nihonde 9y agoThanks for trivializing my analysis, but I don’t see myself as a chronic doomsayer. In fact, I’m bullish on Asia and know from firsthand experience that Americans are, as a culture, increasingly moving out of the game at hand. I don’t expect any accolades for being right, but you could at least not puke some lukewarm theory about how America can never be wrong at my feet.
- nl 9y agoThis is true, and I'm old enough to just remember the "inevitability" of Japan taking over the world at the end of the 1980s and start of the 1990s. Ooops. But this time.. .hmm. When the former (conservative) deputy prime minster of Australia says: THE 16-month delay in the United States posting an ambassador to Canberra is a sign that Australia has been “downgraded”, says former deputy prime minister Tim Fischer.[1] and The United States has been without an ambassador in Australia since September 2016 and Mr Fischer said the long wait was now "beyond acceptable" and bordering on a "diplomatic insult".[2] it's hard not to think that the US is withdrawing from the world. Plus, of course the US President explicitly says that. One might argue about the word "decline", but the US isn't the leader it once was. [1] http://www.news.com.au/national/politics/tim-fischer-says-us-has-downgraded-australia-by-not-appointing-american-ambassador/news-story/1962de55e09b7da82be7254128a2ffb2 http://www.news.com.au/national/politics/tim-fischer-says-us... [2] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-03/tim-fischer-criticises-trump-administration/9300920 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-03/tim-fischer-criticises...
- tonmoy 9y agoThat just may be the current administration’s specific policies, the next one could very well be different.
- astronautjones 9y agowhat this administration is doing is going to be impossible to undo
- DrScump 9y agoThis vacancy stems from the prior administration.
- CobrastanJorji 9y agoI think not a new ambassador when there are only 3 months left in your term as President and all of your appointees are being stonewalled in Congress is fairly reasonable. Not appointing an ambassador at all in your first year of office is less reasonable.
- Spooky23 9y agoThose kind of appointments are rarely made in lame duck administrations. Usually interim professional staff fill in. That too is problematic because basically everyone eligible to retire has done so at State.
- nl 9y agoThis is true. But countries like Australia can't wait - especially with China very happy to step in and fill the role the US used to.
- DomreiRoam 9y agofrom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Ambassador_to_the_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Ambassador_to_th... , No ambassador to the EU since January 20, 2017.
- Godel_unicode 9y ago