It is the same with the world order. The American and French Revolutions and the Napoleonic Wars created a global arrangement which was defined in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna. It endured for almost 100 years with only minor adjustments – such as the rise of two major nation states — Germany and Italy and the reduction of power of France and Austria.
However, the order was gradually fraying around the edges,driven by the emergence of new nationalisms. World War I may have grown out of a conflict between old-style “Great Powers” but the new world taking shape once the three continental empires in Europe crumbled was defined by smaller nation-states.
It took a while for this new order to solidify. The Nazi Germany fought a war that was at least partly an attempt to destroy those new nation-states. Not surprisingly, it began with the partition of Poland between Hitler and Stalin – which came after the Anschluss and the destruction of Czechoslovakia.
New nations continued to emerge in the 1950s and the 1960s, when European nations lost most of their overseas colonial possessions.
George Bush Sr. was dead wrong when he declared the arrival ofthe New World Order after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of communism and the disintegration of the Soviet Union. In retrospect, it was another major piece of the existing world order falling into place, as another batch of independent nations were built on the ruins of the Soviet Empire.
The process that began 1917-18 was finally completed and for another 25 years we came close to enjoying world peace – with some notable exceptions, of course.
But now this world order is crumbling once again. This time, it is driven by an extraordinary rebellion against ratio, or reason, in which our civilization, technological and scientific progress and economic prosperity have been rooted since the Age of Enlightenment.
It is something that Friedrich Nietzsche wrote about – or,using Sigmund Freud’s words, it’s discontent with civilization.
The drift toward the irrational is happening most starkly inthe Muslim world. Taking the Quran for unquestioning guidance, radicalIslamists are rejecting education and destroying historic and cultural monuments. They do not recognize in principle the sanctity of human life, whichis the foundation of any civilized society.
Curiously, reason is being rejected also in the United States,the global leader in science and technology and the cultural capital of the modern world. The Republican presidential campaign currently offers a study inthe irrational.
We have among its leading participants Dr. Ben Carson who, like so many Americans, both educated and not, interprets the Scriptures literally and rejects Darwin’s theory of evolution. None of the sizable Republican field accepts the scientific evidence of climate change and the human impact on climate, and none is prepared to believe that there is a direct connectionbetween the broadest possible interpretation of the Second Amendment, allowing private ownership of firearms, and the number of gun deaths and mass shootings in America by deranged individuals.
Whether or not the politicians themselves are irrational – or are merely doing the bidding of their Big Oil and gun manufacturing paymasters- is open to question. The irrational response to them on the part of theirelectorate, on the other hand, is beyond doubt. The rise of a narcissistic buffoon like Donald Trump, who offers no solutions to any of the complex problems facing the United States beyond his trademark “trust me, I’m rich,I’ve got rich friends, I’m gonna fix it” is Exhibit One of this escape from what for a couple of centuries has been considered sanity.
And then there is Russia.
Some people have even suggested that its President Vladimir Putin has gone mad. He is certainly living in an alternative reality and has become unpredictable. However, Putin is an interesting case. On the one hand,he is the last of the Great Power imperialists. Having started with expressingregret about the demise of the Soviet Union, he graduated to direct military actions in order to gather at least some chunks of the old Russian Empire.
But he is also a prophet of the irrational. He is going about it not as a modern mainstream politician, rationally calculating his steps and linking cause and effect. He acts first and thinks later – if at all.
Such was his annexation of Crimea and aggression in Donbas, and he has acted in the same manner when he imposed anti-Western counter-sanctions and, most recently, sanctions against Turkey. Putin’smilitary action in Syria is another irrational act, a dangerous and costly gamble whose consequences had not been thought through before the bombs started falling.
Even stranger than his irrational acts is the fact that they meet with instant, unconditional approval of the Russian people. Sure, they are willing to tolerate a major decline of their living standards, poor quality offood and consumer goods, lack of modern medical care and inability to travel abroad: many nations tighten their belts when they are under attack. What is amazing is that Russia is not under attack and all of these privations are entirely self-imposed. The strangest thing is that they see helpless foundering of their leader as brilliant strategy and they regard Putin, who is plunderingand squandering their country’s wealth and destroying its institutions as agreat patriot of Russia.
It’s as though the story of the king’s new clothes were rewritten:when the boy declares that the king is naked, he’s stoned by the enraged mob asa liar – because they can see their sovereign wearing splendid vestments.
It is not only the Russians attitude toward Putin that is irrational. Look at the “Obama Is a Moron” bumper stickers bedecking their German cars. In an exercise of insanity they blame the current U.S. president for all their troubles.
Or take the widespread worship in the Victory in the Great Patriotic War which took place nearly three quarters of a century ago and which many Russians are convinced the West wants to steal from them.
It’s ironic that Russians have all of a sudden joined Islamists and radical right wing Americans in leading the world from reason. In a way,it’s a revenge of history. The Bolsheviks proposed to remodel the natural orderalong highly rational lines, and to replace messy nature with orderly human mind. Instead, they created a bloody mess and had to resort to a pack of liesfor seventy years to cover up their failures. It is perhaps to be expected thatRussia now wants to go the irrational route.
Perhaps this backlash against reason and assault on our civilization will play itself out. History is always cyclical. But there may be a darker future ahead. In 1914, Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip pulled at an ultranationalist corner of Europe and the entire world order tumbled. The adepts of irrationality may do something similar some time soon – which is a troubling thing to contemplate even as Jews around the world celebrate Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights.
