* parkeren *
‘ Rabat is ook de naam van de hoofdstad van Marokko, dus de hoofdletter is cruciaal en luistert nauw. Terwijl ik dit schrijf, bedenk ik dat ont-luisteren ook spannende betekenissen heeft: ontluistert nauw, kan echter weer niet. Geloof ik. Rabiaat Rabat in Amsterdam kan weer wel, wanneer bijvoorbeeld het Marokkaanse foebalelftal heeft gewonnen of verloren. Eindeloos. Goed, daar gaan we niet verder op door. De admiraal.’
– ‘ Yes. De Britse admiraal. Naar mijn idee: de juiste man op de juiste plaats. Zeker in deze tijd.’
‘ Zeker, zeker. Hij waarschuwt de politici, op een uiterst diplomatieke manier. Desniettemin, niet mis te verstaan. Een klassieke democraat. Hoe noem je zo iemand in het Engeland van nu? Is dat een Conservatief (Tory) of een “progressieveling” (Labour)? Laten we het op “onbestemd” en “onzijdig” houden, want de Engelsen weten het zelf ook al lang niet meer.’
– ‘ Hear! Hear! ………… Toch hoorde ik iemand onlangs nog over politici sissen: “Tuig van de richel!” Ik ben maar snel doorgelopen, laf als ik ben.‘
‘ Wat !? Je bent niet pal gaan staan voor de Democratie?! ’
– ‘ Voor de Democratie wil ik desnoods nog wel een beetje pal gaan staan (mits met een institutionele referenda-cultuur, zoals in Zwitserland; een particratie zoals de Nederlandse, zonder ingebakken referendum-cultuur, beweegt, onherroepelijk en onvermijdelijk richting autoritair, illiberaal ….. laat ik het F-woord maar niet noemen), maar voor politici niet. Uiteraard niet. Wat heb ik, wat hebben wij, nou nog met politici te schaften? ’
‘ Als inleiding op het gesprek met de admiraal, deze videoclip van Alexander Mercouris, die contextuele en achtergrondinformatie verschaft over het vermogen van de Russen, onder andere om onuitputtelijk lang raketten en ammunitie te kunnen produceren (wat een zinloze verkwisting!) en hij geeft een inkijkje in de Britse politiek.’
– ‘ Die Britse politiek en de politici, dat is net zulke bagger als ze er bij “ons” van maken, misschien is dat een schrale troost? We zakken (met uitzondering van de leden van de politieke nomenklatoera’s natuurlijk) allemáál het murky moeras in.’
‘ Nou, de nomenklatoera’s vooralsnog niet, maar tenzij ze op een andere planeet gaan wonen, moeten ze vroeg of laat evengoed de gevolgen van hun “ “beleid” “ aan den lijve gaan ondervinden. Dat kan mij niet vroeg genoeg gebeuren.’
Alex. Mercouris: Ukraine Reels After Russian Missile Strike, Sends Reinforcements to Bakhmut; Putin Briefed by Surovikin on Offensive.
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* citaat *
What the Nation As Person metaphor hides are the real people and all the forms of well-being they individually require. The metaphor also hides all ecological values that do not translate into wealth and military strength.
For the purpose of foreign policy, the nation is conceptualized as a person in a world community, a community of nations. There are neighbor nations, friendly nations, hostile nations, client states, and competitor states. Some nations are seen as mature, grown-up states able to take care of themselves. Maturity for a nation is industrialization. The nonindustrialized nations are seen as immature or “backward,” unable to take care of themselves in a world economy.
They are “developing” nations. The goal of U.S. foreign policy is to maximize our national interest, that is, our national wealth and military strength. To make foreign policy rational, models of rational choice have been introduced. To make the world more rational, to bring more of world politics and the world economy under rational control, it has been regarded as important to spread the application of rational-choice models as far as possible by measures such as “free trade” treaties and by maximizing political stability.
The application of the rational-actor model to foreign policy is thus not merely an attempt to describe the world but to change it to conform to rational-actor models. After all, models of rational actors cannot apply generally unless as many actors as possible are using the same models of rationality. To this end, the United States has been training foreign policy scholars and military and economic leaders from around the world in the use of such models. International economic institutions such as the World Bank also make use of such models.
What is hidden in the international use of models in which the rational actors are nations or corporations? The answer again is the multiple forms of well-being required by individual people, indigenous cultures, and the environment.
As a case in point, consider the Gulf War. Rational-actor models were constructed and consulted (it is not publicly known how seriously) in the decision to invade Kuwait and Iraq. The congressional debate prior to the war was framed in terms of the question asked in all rational-actor models: Do the “gains” outweigh the “losses”? Is it “worth it” to go to war?
The principal nations involved, the United States and Iraq, were conceptualized in such models as rational actors, with the national interests seen in terms of economic health and military strength of the nations involved. In the congressional debate, the following were the main issues considered as possible gains or losses for the United States: The continued availability of plentiful, cheap Middle East oil; the balance of power in the region; political prestige at home and abroad; the lives and health of U.S. soldiers; and the cost of armaments used and of logistical support.
The lives and health of Iraqi civilians, both during and as a later result of the war, were not factored in as possible “costs” or “losses” to the United States; that is, they were left out of the stylized facts debated in Congress. Not to include the lives of noncombatant civilians in Iraq was a moral decision (implicit or explicit) that shaped the “stylization” of the situation.
A year after the war, the CIA estimated that more than one million Iraqis, mostly women, children, and the elderly, had died directly from the war or indirectly due to the destruction of the infrastructure of the country-sewage processing plants, hospitals, electric generators, and the like. Massive destruction occurred to the ecology of the Gulf. U.S. troops allowed Saddam Hussein’s elite troops to escape and did not unseat Saddam Hussein. Indeed, his brutal dictatorship has become even more brutal and more entrenched.
Yet the United States has considered the war a “success”; the New York Times even considered it a “bargain,” since the “losses” were so small. The million Iraqi lives lost did not count as “losses” or “costs” in such tallies.
* einde citaat *
George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (1999) Philosophy in the Flesh: the Embodied Mind & its Challenge to Western Thought ISBN 9 780 465 056743
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