The current debate over America’s declining reputation has focused on “public diplomacy,” a term coined in the 1960s by Edmund A. Gullion of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, and perhaps most fully articulated by the U.S. Information Agency in a statement recently quoted by William P. Kiehl, editor of an excellent new book from the Public Diplomacy Council called America’s Dialogue with the World:

Public diplomacy seeks to promote the national interest and the national security of the United States through understanding, informing, and influencing foreign publics and broadening dialogue between American citizens and institutions and their counterparts abroad.

Inherent in this definition is a tension between “informing,” in the sense of objective reporting, and “influencing,” in the sense of shaping a “message” to win foreign support for U.S. policies. The first is modeled on the journalistic ideal of truth-telling, the second on the need for propaganda--or, to use the preferred military term, “strategic communications.” Both of these aims are legitimate, but obviously they pull against each other. And the resulting tension is not likely to be resolved any time soon.

But this is not my topic. My topic is the cultural dimension of America’s image--or if you prefer, the image of American culture in the world.

How Not to Lose the Global Culture War

Thus far, our biggest deficit in waging the War on Terror has been a lack of ideas—the kind of reshaping ideas that Viner, Brodie, Schelling, and others developed to cope with the emergence of the nuclear threat during the Cold War. We must reconceptualize terrorism, warfare, and the aim of the war that we seek in victory before the notion of "winning a war against terror” can make any sense. We must understand that the struggle against terror is really three wars: there is the war against twenty-first-century terrorism—global, networked, outsourcing of operations—there is the effort to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction for the purposes of compelling rather than deterring, and finally there is the struggle to prevent genocide and ethnic cleansing. These separate wars exist in relation to one another in a very complex way. Progress in one dimension tends to exacerbate the difficulties in other dimensions. This imposes on the United States a kind of triage of terror: we must address the most acute problems first, knowing that doing so will make other problems worse off, and we must have the flexibility to attack those other problems when they themselves become acute, with the sure knowledge that doing so will make the initial problem addressed worse also.

The Wars on Terror

possibly noteworthy wrote:

I am not a fan of the latest Dawkins book.

flynn23 wrote:

Why not?

It has little to do with the subject argument of his book, and more to do with his attitude and approach. As the first and still current holder of the Charles Simonyi Chair in the Public Understanding of Science at the University of Oxford, I expect more of him.

The problem with his approach in The God Delusion (which continues to sit in large quantities on local bookshelves in spite of the sellers' offer of the steepest discounts in the store, outside the bargain bins) is that he has largely adopted the strategy of the most vocal and voluminous authors in the American professional political commentariat.

By this I mean that he has essentially given up on trying to change minds. Instead he has decided to content himself, and to proudly declare his campaign a rousing success, based simply on reinforcing the views of those who already agree with him.

I defy anyone to find a self-described religious person who, upon encountering and reading "Delusion", found himself "won over", his mind changed by the experience.

From 2004, I refer you to this P.J. O'Rourke piece in The Atlantic, wherein you'll find the question:

I wonder, when was the last time a talk show changed a mind?

I feel the same way about "Delusion."

Also from 2004, I refer you to Mr. President in West Virginia:

"You can't talk sense to them," Bush said, referring to terrorists.

"Nooooo!" the audience roared.

Finally, I'll refer you to someone who explains it well: Freeman Dyson. In an essay for The New York Review of Books, published in 2006, Dyson reviews Daniel Dennett's book of the same ilk, "Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon". In conclusion, Dyson wrote:

If we wish to understand the phenomenon of terrorism in the modern world, and if we wish to take effective measures to lessen its attraction to idealistic young people, the first and most necessary step is to understand our enemies. We must give respect to our enemies, as courageous and capable soldiers enlisted in an evil cause, before we can understand them.

I really appreciated that thought, and so that's what I quoted when I originally recommended the piece. (Alas, no one else recommended it.)

But now, in this context, I would draw attention to a different passage:

In the first section, Dennett defines scientific inquiry in a narrow way, restricting it to the collection of evidence that is reproducible and testable. He makes a sharp distinction betw... [ Read More (0.5k in body) ]

RE: A deadly certitude

adam wrote:

except Hitchens quotes Amis only the quote isn't in the articles pointed to by possible [sic] noteworthy and Google couldn't find it either

I even went to Lexis-Nexis in search of the Amis quote from the Hitchens piece. It's not there; not even approximately. Surely he didn't intentionally fabricate the quote ?!? Why is it so impossible to reproduce? Who knows.

adam wrote:

My friend Chet ... the one musical piece I wanted to refer you to ... -- The East African Gujarati Company ...

That one was interesting but I found it a bit inaccessible to me. I preferred the Bana Congo piece:

While I'm on the subject of African music, I'd like to recommend The Indestructible Beat of Soweto. An older album, circa 1985/1986, it's really quite excellent. Amazon had this to say:

This is possibly one of the most important collections of South African music to be released off the continent. Before Paul Simon, Sting, and Peter Gabriel started their explorations and exploitations of African music, this stunning set of music was already out there showing the world how it was done in South Africa's townships. Now well-known names like Ladysmith Black Mambazo (before they did candy commercials) and the growling Mahlathini were given their first international hearing. But the real gems are the sounds we never got to hear on Graceland: the raw mandolin and fiddle of Moses Mchunu, the wonderful jive vocals of Amaswazi Emvelo, the loping swing in the voice of Nancy Sedibe, and the fat guitar grooves of Johnson Mkhalali and his band. The collection is a gem, a representation of what was happening on the radio and in the dance clubs of Soweto in the late 1970s and early 1980s, as mbaqanga swept through the country and took everyone with it.

I also like to recommend The Éthiopiques Series, of which my favorite album is probably Volume 7. I also like the more uptempo, at times even manic, recording of "Mhla mhla" by Shyfu Yohannhs on Volume 1. Also worth a listen is "Enem Lefelefkugn Melageruw Sema" on Volume 18.

On Misquoting Amis, and African Music

Ms. Garner and Mr. Olyphant could pass as younger siblings of Julia Roberts and Johnny Depp, and you get the sense that the movie is a test of their romantic star magnetism.

If Ms. Garner blends spunk and eternal girlishness in about the same proportion as Ms. Roberts, her screen wattage is about 40 to Ms. Roberts’s 100.

Ouch.

NYT Review of 'Catch and Release'

As for the tax increases on those “gold plated” health policies, the White House is hoping to discourage people from using high-priced comprehensive health policies that cover everything from routine office visits to costly diagnostic procedures that are not always necessary.

The administration’s goal is to instead encourage people to take out policies that might reduce the use of medical services, like policies with high deductibles or co-payments, or managed care plans. But even “copper plated” policies can exceed $15,000 in cost if they are issued in areas where medical prices are high or to groups with high numbers of older or chronically ill workers.

The President’s Risky Health Plan

A president once said,
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”
Now it seems like we’re supposed to be afraid
It’s patriotic in fact and color coded
And what are we supposed to be afraid of?
Why, of being afraid
That’s what terror means, doesn’t it?
That’s what it used to mean

The end of an empire is messy at best
And this empire is ending
Like all the rest
Like the Spanish Armada adrift on the sea
We’re adrift in the land of the brave
And the home of the free
Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye.

State of the Union: Another Take

In many areas where U.S. forces are deployed, the use of military power must take place in close coordination and cooperation with non-military instruments of power and influence. There is a clear need for new approaches to this situation on the part of the U.S. government — both civilian and military — as well as the private-sector and nongovernmental organizations. To respond to that need, the RAND Corporation, in cooperation with the American Academy of Diplomacy (AAD), is conducting a 15-month project on Integrating Instruments of Power and Influence in National Security. As part of this project, on March 21, 2006, the AAD and the American University School of International Service, in partnership with RAND, convened a one-day conference devoted to a dialogue on this subject at which two panels of current and former senior military officials and diplomats offered their distinct perspectives. This report summarizes the main results of that conference.

Integrating Instruments of Power and Influence in National Security

"Coursework which is routine at MIT is considered onerous at Harvard," says Steven Pinker.

An interesting tidbit from the interview referenced earlier.

There's also an interesting tidbit here, which reminds me of the Bill Joy argument:

Pinker: Thanks to tenure, the people who can't tolerate biological insight into human affairs are still around in the universities.

Pinker: I've found that by and large today's generation of students are far less phobic of biology, and are baffled that anyone could find empirical hypotheses to be too dangerous to study.

Interviewer: I want to go back to "empirical hypotheses ... too dangerous to study." This was the topic of the Edge Annual Question. Your own offering was the possibility that the kind of research that we have just discussed may uncover a genetic and evolutionary basis for population differences in mental abilities, personality, and other psychological traits. What are your projections for the trajectory of this idea?

This question couples into the WSJ op-eds on education.

The major problem in psychology is its lack of focus on explanation as opposed to description.

That problem is not confined to psychology.

How Steven Pinker Works

This is typical WSJ material, but it's often interesting to see what people are thinking.

Half of all children are below average, and teachers can do only so much for them.

My point is just this: It is true that many social and economic problems are disproportionately found among people with little education, but the culprit for their educational deficit is often low intelligence. Refusing to come to grips with that reality has produced policies that have been ineffectual at best and damaging at worst.

Too many Americans are going to college.

Most students find college life to be lots of fun (apart from the boring classroom stuff), and that alone will keep the four-year institution overstocked for a long time. But, rightly understood, college is appropriate for a small minority of young adults--perhaps even a minority of the people who have IQs high enough that they could do college-level work if they wished. People who go to college are not better or worse people than anyone else; they are merely different in certain interests and abilities. That is the way college should be seen. There is reason to hope that eventually it will be.

Aztecs vs. Greeks: Those with superior intelligence need to learn to be wise.

The aim here is not to complete an argument but to begin a discussion; not to present policy prescriptions, but to plead for greater realism in our outlook on education. Accept that some children will be left behind other children because of intellectual limitations, and think about what kind of education will give them the greatest chance for a fulfilling life nonetheless. Stop telling children that they need to go to college to be successful, and take advantage of the other, often better ways in which people can develop their talents. Acknowledge the existence and importance of high intellectual ability, and think about how best to nurture the children who possess it.