Another year brings another reminder: we are all human but we remain divided
We live in 195 countries that will never be “one world”
Current events in the Middle East and the reaction to them in the United States and elsewhere have driven home the lesson that “peace on earth” is as elusive as it ever was. The hatred of Hamas terrorists and their pro-Palestinian sympathizers are the most sinister and palpable example of “bad will toward men” as it is possible to contemplate, but Russia’s aggression against its European neighbors is hardly less vile and no less Communist China’s belligerence towards its Asian neighbors and Iran’s determination to wipe Israel off the map.
Of course, international relations are not all bad. Western Europe and North
America are at peace, as is most of Latin America and even some parts of Africa. That the world’s diplomats have a vested interest in promoting peace among nations is understandable, but rather than seeking to elevate internationalism over nationalism they should accept the division of mankind into multiple nation states as the natural order of things.
The reason for this state of affairs is a combination of human depravity on the one hand and prudent statesmanship on the other. I mean that some nations are governed by evil rulers whose overriding goal is the possession of complete power over their subjects, while others have been blessed with leaders with the moral and intellectual virtue to exercise power in accordance with the rule of law and the common good. The former, unfortunately, are more common than the latter, but where the opposite conditions prevailed there would be no reason to long for world government. Why? Because of mankind’s easy and frequent collapse into tyranny and injustice, as well as the rarity of just governments in the world.
The political philosopher Leo Strauss, a Jewish refugee from the Nazi regime, who subsequently taught in American universities for nearly four decades, warned against the passion for world government as the solution to mankind’s violence and other woes as worse than our persistent problems. The price of unity would be the unavoidable sacrifice of the world’s decent and peaceful nations to their opposites. Not world peace but world tyranny would be the result of abolishing nation states.
It is not only my own love of America but the plain truth that obliges me to write that the independence of the United States simultaneously showed both the path to what is sometimes possible and the reality of what is never attainable. By declaring independence, the founders asserted the reality of the nation’s “separate and equal station” rather than as a part of “one world,” underscoring that prudent understanding by showing “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind,” but notseeking their consent or agreement.
Ultimately, that momentous event set the new nation’s 13 states on the Atlantic coastline on the road to its expansion to the Pacific coastline and beyond. While war not surprisingly played a role in this remarkable process, diplomacy and consent did also. That is unprecedented in world history as aggressive empires were dominant in the ancient world, took something of a pause in the medieval world and resumed their belligerent role in modern times. For its part, the United States seeks no more territory, content to rule “from sea to shining sea.”
Even more remarkably, the now nearly two-and-a-quarter-centuries-old regime has exemplified moral and political improvement as it replaced monarchy and aristocracy with republican government, abolished chattel slavery through a bloody civil war and ended mandatory racial segregation after years of struggle. These historic changes for the better, combining greater national security with greater justice, are absolutely unprecedented.
What made this possible? If we would best understand this political wonder, we can do no better than to take seriously our founders’ goal and their means to attain it. This was independence not for the sake of glory and power but for the citizens’ equal and natural rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” This was grounded in the “laws of nature and of nature’s God,” which teaches the “self-evident” “truth” of human equality that no nation had ever acknowledged before 1776.
This rare moment of political and moral clarity, according to the Declaration, was “endowed by our Creator,” whose sacred gift stood alongside the scientific conclusion that there are no divisions among human beings as there are among animals, that some are born to rule and others to be ruled.
The horrific world wars that marked the twentieth century were painful lessons of the evils of empire, whether German, Italian, Japanese or Russian. These nations sought expansion not for reasons of national security but at the price of insecurity for nations that stood in their way. The cause of their aggression is not sensible nationalism but impassioned internationalism. They showed that imperialism did not die in the ancient world but remains an eternal temptation even in modern times.
The Bible tells the story of the Tower of Babel, from which the Babylonians sought glory through a massive structure “with its top in the heavens.” One interpretation holds that the project aimed at universalizing the Babylonian empire, God’s disapproval of which taught that a universal nation was beyond mankind’s capacities. God made that judgment plain by choosing one people alone to embrace and live by His Word. To this day, despite thousands of years of persecution and modern threats to its existence, Israel is a model and guide to other nations but not a replacement or an overlord to them.
Iran’s chant of “death to Israel” and “death to America” makes perfect sense if the object of government is forming nations consumed by hatred of other peoples. This bigotry is directed at those worthynations as they demonstrate the alternative to the despotism that is so widely to be found. Divine providence and human sagacity evidently make all the difference. Cherish the independence of free and just nations!
Very well said. I agree.