What's So Funny 'Bout Peace, Love, and Imperialism?

Paul's previous post evokes a question: why are we so hesitant to simply call America what it is--an "empire"? We bandy about terms that are more or less equivalent, such as "superpower" or "hegemony." What is it that frightens us so much about the possibility that we might, in fact, be an imperialist power?

You might respond to my query, as Stephanie does below, with denial. Either (a) we don't have comparable power to the ancient Athenians, Romans, or early modern British, or (b) we don't behave as badly with world power as they did, so we can't really be an empire. I don't find this very convincing: (a) strikes me as clearly wrong--has any nation ever had more power and influence over world affairs than we have had over the last 60 years?--and (b) seems largely irrelevant. After all, an empire isn't an "empire" because it's eeevil; the value judgment must come after the classification and independent of it, and as I indicated below, there's a lot to be said for at least certain eras of imperial hegemony, this despite the hubris that seemed almost inevitably to follow.

In my response to some of Stephanie's comments, I suggested that part of the answer to this question may be the desire to maintain the myth of American innocence. We like to think of ourselves as the little guy, the colonial David who slew the Brit goliath, the "natural man" born into freedom and equality, neither master nor slave (to draw on Locke and Rousseau). As Tocqueville, Huntington, and others have argued, the American creed is to a large extent an anti-power ethic, an ideal that exists uncomfortably with our practical reality. So the idea that we might, in fact, be a sort of empire, would create a cognitive dissonance. I'm reminded here of some reflections by George Orwell in The Lion and the Unicorn (1941), his great rhetorical celebration of the British spirit in the face of Nazi menace. What distinguished the Brits from the Nazis? Both sought world power. Orwell writes:

The reason why the English anti-militarism disgusts foreign observers is that it ignores the existence of the British Empire. It looks like sheer hypocrisy. After all, the English have absorbed a quarter of the earth and held onto it by means of a huge navy. How dare they turn around and say that war is wicked? It is quite true that the English are hypocritical about their Empire. In the working class this hypocrisy takes the form of not knowing that the Empire exists.

Orwell was a persistent critic of imperialism, but he recognized that not all imperialism was the same or equally bad, and the Brit hypocrisy at least served as a partial cultural check on the excesses of militarism. I suspect that American culture, which has always been closely related to the Brit, has the same tendencies. But this doesn't mean we're not an empire. It just means that we have trouble grappling with the meaning of our being an empire, and as a result often become oblivious to its consequences and dangers.

Iraq is a good case in point. To me, it is a classic example of hubristic imperialism. Was there another country on the entire planet that wanted us to invade? I don't think so, although you could make a good case that Osama did. Take the Brits as the best proof. They've been our closest friend throughout, and yet not even they thought this was a good idea. Tony Blair just made a deal with Bush he didn't think he could back away from. After 9/11, Bush wanted to invade Iraq immediately, but Blair told him no: if you invade Afghanistan first and go after al Qaeda, we'll stick by you later if you want to go to Iraq. Bush, pampered princess that he is, threw a hissy, but Blair played the good big brother (this had been Clinton's exiting advice to Blair). Once Afghanistan was done, Blair felt obliged to back up his little sis, but it's clear that they never really embraced the idea on its own terms. Similarly, many countries around the world backed our play, not because they thought it needed doing, but because we "asked." That's how imperial power works.

To bring this all together, I'd say that we're definitely an empire, but that we a strikingly un-self-conscious one. In some ways this has advantages, insofar as it makes us uncomfortable with brute displays of unilateral force. But the downside is that it also makes us deny to ourselves that we're doing what it is obvious to the entire world that we're doing: bullying smaller countries, violating international norms, and engaging in systematic abuses of human rights (torture, surveillance, etc.). A final thought: wheraeas "nations" may seem eternal (e.g., Albion), empires always seem mortal. They have lifespans and deaths. To think about America as an "empire" is to contemplate our eventual decay. In a society built upon the myth of unending progress, this is a deeply disquieting notion. Will George W one day be looked at as the pivotal figure of our fall? It pains me to think about it.