Politics

是什么让美国伟大

Nov 30, 2016 Ricardo Hausmann

坎布里奇—总统就职典礼和毕业典礼通常都是非常情绪性的事件。这类仪式既标志着一个国家或一个个体的一个段落的结束，也标志着新的开始。

作为哈佛肯尼迪政府学院教授，我每年都要参加毕业典礼。尽管毕业典礼对我来说如此平常，但当我看到学生完成了生命中的一个阶段、开始考虑他们的我来时，我都会感到十分激动。

在我们的典礼上，一个高光时刻是多名教授和公共人物逐字逐句朗读约翰·肯尼迪的就职演说。这是一份写于56年前的文件，它代表着一个不同的世界，一个冷战、核末日威胁以及大量新晋独立穷国所面临的挑战占据决策者关注焦点的世界。但是，在不到14分钟的时间里，这份就职演说每一次都能打动和鼓励观众席上的每一个人，包括来自世界各地的那一半毕业生和他们的家庭。

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 18 Comments on this article

Lowell Mainland Jan 8, 2017

John F Kennedy was one of my favorite presidents, and I devoured every book I could find about him. The words you cite are moving. I did not vote for Trump, but could not vote for the other main party candidate - the evidence suggests she would not have been a steward of the well being of the country as a whole: only a small faction.
As one of those people who agrees with what President Kennedy said, I also believe that a small cadre of "elites" derive much of the benefit from a free and open society you espouse: it has to stop.
President Kennedy has a brother who vigorously challenged and prosecuted corruption and organized crime - probably to his brothers detriment. To cite only the benefits that come from the actions sought by President Kennedy is to deceptively "leverage" the legacy of a man who could have been more transformational than any president since Roosevelt.
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E Aghdasi Dec 5, 2016

Well done Professor Hausman.
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Steven Hillyard Dec 5, 2016

In Kennedy's time, we had a relatively coherent, values based foreign policy. Today, I cannot identify a foreign "policy" or any American values that could drive one. We certainly do not encourage democracy by supporting Saudi Arabia's hereditary based government. We do not defend liberty by enabling Israel's domination of the Palestinians. We do not help the poor cast "off the chains of poverty" by begrudging China's rise. I could go on, but the point is that America's foreign activities denote a lack of values that could be the foundation of a foreign policy and Professor Haussmann comments demonstrate an astonishing lack of awareness by the academy of our Washington based hypocrisy.
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Yoshimichi Moriyama Dec 2, 2016

I was very deeply moved by President Kennedy's address. I was young then,

Most Japanese are grateful for the strong commitment of the United States to security and freedom in East Asia. But when the income gap is widening as in Japan, an increasing number of people are robbed of decent living as the middle-class or living freezing in the cold of the winter on the street as in Japan, how can a country defend universal values without material means?
And when reckless and blind "democracy promotion policy", arising from universal values, gives birth to chaos and turmoils instead of order and prosperity, let alone democracy, in many parts of the world, we must stop and muse.
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markets aurelius Dec 1, 2016

In JFK's day, a generation of men and women that literally fought fascism as soldiers, sailors and marines had set themselves to building a society that would allow their children to prosper. They wanted, more than anything, to know that their children would never have to go to war, but, God forbid, if they did, they would have the most powerful military the world had ever seen behind them. They restrained this military and made it the handmaiden of democracy, because that is what they believed in, and, critically, had fought for side by side. The politicians -- like JFK, much of Congress, and members of state and local governments -- all had shared the same torturous hell their buddies still in the service had endured. They were, moreso than today, looking out of each other and each other's kids. They paid their fair share of taxes, and did so with a sense of pride. If they ran companies, they did not do everything in their power to deny a decent living to those working for them -- they probably shared a foxhole or a burning deck with those same people, or people like them, just 20 years before. They took pride in their communities, and built their schools so that their kids could enjoy great lives. Critically, when they said they would defend their allies -- often nations that fought beside them against the fascists -- they meant it. They hated war as only those who had been thru war could, but knew they had to stand ready to fight for what they believed in. And that's what made them so potent.

Fast forward some 50 years. Few of the political leaders in the U.S. have served -- we've elected our second draft-dodging president (3 if you count G. w. Bush's failure to show up for duty while he was in the AFR as a dodge). Politicians everywhere do the bidding of corporations and financially powerful individuals who have formed cartels that dominate their respective industries and the U.S. government at every level. America has devolved into a plutocracy. There is no shared vision or shared sacrifice, except by the few -- less than 1% of the population -- that have stepped up and served. They are mostly dumbstruck looking at how this society's leaders conduct themselves. Corporate leaders will do anything to enrich themselves at a rate of compensation that is 100s of times that of the people who work in their companies. They readily ship jobs overseas, oblivious of the carnage left in the communities their parents worked so hard to build up. They stack boards with people who eagerly allow them to do so.

Trump is not an outlier. He is the personification of his generation -- greedy, bullying, self-satisfied and fawned upon by countless thousands of politicians, media personalities and academics, all of whom are supported by self-serving plutocrats like him.

The America of JFK's generation is dying off, leaving behind a spoiled offspring that is interested only in its own enrichment and aggrandizement. They don't serve. They do everything in their power to avoid paying taxes. They wall themselves off from the people working in jobs that provide less and less compensation to provide for their families.

I'm sure JFK would not recognize the America he left behind. It more resembles the Venezuela Prof. Hausmann left behind, before its descent into hell -- a plutocracy on a self-destructive course that will leave everyone wondering: How could this have happended here? This is not Trump's fault. He's the vanguard of a powerful force that's evolved over decades. This is what you get when a plutocracy emerges and takes the reins of government and society. We're converging onto the Russia/China model of command capitalism. Not to worry if you're a prof at Harvard, though. You're safe and secure in such a world, since you are a key element of the feeder system sustaining this new America, just as you've always been.
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Michael Public Dec 1, 2016

Obama started with ideals but once he found himself elected he was powerless as neither GOP or DEMs cared much for his idealism. He was stranded as an outsider in Washington and did not have the practical ability to horse trade for what he wanted. But you cannot condemn something on the grounds it did not work in one particular circumstance.

The general criticism that words are meaningless if not put into action is a weak one because thoughts (and their outer expression words) always precede action.

Consider the rise of the USSR - what created it? Words. Words influencing the minds of millions of people. Marx's words. Lenin' words. Words of the general population as they discuss things among themselves. Words on television broadcasts. A case could be made that there is nothing more powerful than words.
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Zsolt Hermann Nov 30, 2016

What if "American Greatness" has nothing to do with global leadership?

I think by now we can all conclude that the much feted "Global Leadership" wasn't based on "universal values", it was simply business.
America did everything possible to increase its markets, maximize its profits, even when it meant leaving quite sizeable "collateral damage" behind.
But every empire runs out of steam at the end, especially the hedonistic, self-serving ones.
Moreover today in a globally integrated and interdependent world a "single global leader", "global policeman", "peace broker" or "exporter of democracy" has not only become obsolete, but it has become outright destructive.

Still America can become great again, there is still a chance to show a very important positive example to the rest of the world. In this global, integral world nobody can survive without mutually complementing collaboration, integrating very different people into a well functioning collective.
America was supposed to be the gold standard of a "melting pot", facilitating such working, mutually complementing society.

Let's hope Donald Trump had this type of greatness in mind.
- Michael Public Dec 1, 2016
  
  There is something called the fundamental attribution error where we judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their actions.
  
  I contend (as a non-American) that America was indeed great because it had great ideals (listen to the Kennedy speech again). Now those ideals are gone so is their greatness.
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Steve Hurst Nov 30, 2016

The American Dream did not morph into the American Nightmare overnight. It occurred in a decades long sleep lead by politicians who were only interested in securing a majority at the ballot box and no more, funded by business who lobbied for deregulation. For example the domestic airlines who lobbied for lax security and walk-on walk-off with flights that lead directly to 911

Half a dozen more may be trying to join the EU but so what, exactly what are they bringing other than a begging bowl and sometimes very dubious ethics which is what the last lot of aspirants turned up with. If you have not noticed those with their bowls have a propensity to get belligerent if they do not get their handouts and rapidly move to threats

So I suggest Ricardo that you stand on the corner with your pay in cash i a bucket offering it to all that turn up and see if there is not enthusiasm amongst those who pass by. It is a meaningless measurement

With all this stuff about ethics I almost forgot about IBM and its place in 1930s and 1940s Germany data processing of citizens demographics
- Michael Public Dec 1, 2016
  
  Your general point is correct but I am not sure I can agree that 911 lies totally at the feet of lax airport security.
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Curtis Carpenter Nov 30, 2016

Sadly, a great many of our fellow Americans have voted to allow Donald Trump to represent this country and its democracy to the world. No speech now, however carefully crafted, can erase that stain, or rectify this puerile and vulgar man's lack of character.

We have to face the fact, to paraphrase de Maistre, that our country may well have elected the president it deserves.
- Michael Public Dec 1, 2016
  
  I think even those who voted for Trump do not deserve him. They are essentially acting out of anger. Think back on your life of the dumbest thing you did while angry and if you are like me you are sure to regret it.
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John Landrum Nov 30, 2016

"We were the children of the 1950s and John F. Kennedy's young stalwarts of the 1960s. He told the world that Americans would "pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship" in defense of freedom. We were the down payment on that costly contract, but the man who signed it was not there when we fulfilled his promise. John F. Kennedy waited for us on a hill in Arlington National Cemetery, and in time we came by the thousands to fill those slopes with our white marble markers and to ask on the murmur of the wind if that was truly the future he had envisioned for us."

Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore
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Michael Public Nov 30, 2016

Yet another spot on article from the author.

Yes. The ideals of America have fallen to the floor. How did it happen though?

I would say it happened the moment business captured government - round about the time of Reagan. By the time Clinton was president (Bill, not Hillary) the American ideals had all been replaced by one slogan - "It's the economy, stupid". Well, most people don't give the last word in that saying enough attention - because it is simply stupidity to think that if you just grow the economy everything will be fine. It won't - you will become hated (see Islam and America), distrusted (see Russia and America), at odds with your population (see NSA spying and inequality, unfree (see the press in America) and eventually poor (see standard of living for those who work blue collar type work).

Unfortunately Trump is not the man for the job. Quite clearly he is the devil incarnate in world of liberty (for Mexicans) , equality (drop corporate taxes) and fraternity (everything out of his mouth). But I think we would do well to consider that is the symptom of the thinking that dominated American thinking since Reagan - that if GDP grows 10% in the next four years everything else does not matter.
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Armin Schmidt Nov 30, 2016

Thanks, Prof. Hausmann for this exceptional piece, even for PS standards. From my point of view this comes very close to a best approach.
My thinking on this issue has similarities and extensions. It can be found in my account's biography.
A difference I see, is that today's leadership should pursue mostly subgroup liberation. Kennedy aimed at best-for-all, but this trend is currently weak, according to some theory and observation.
Subgroup liberation is done, but so far bare the explicit rule of thumb: "Subgroup liberation demands fairness and mutual compensation," making it a risky endeavour.
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