My good friend Jay takes issue with aspects of my post rejecting establishment universalism. I think I need to better describe what it means to reject “universalism.” I do not mean that people from other nations and regions can’t embrace western values, but I do mean that these values aren’t hidden within all human hearts and that other values and other cultures often have stronger appeal.
In this regard, I take serious issue with the optimism about human nature expressed by politicians like George W. Bush, President Obama, and even Ronald Reagan. Here’s what I wrote:
Yes the experience of immigrants (and a select few allied democracies across the globe) shows that men and women from every tongue, tribe, and nation can embrace and build societies dedicated to constitutional governance and that also protect individual liberty. At the same time, millennia of human experience shows that entire societies and cultures have rejected those values and actively work to suppress human freedom. How do we deal with these twin realities?
The realistic response is that while the “longing for freedom” is the product of particular ideas from a particular place, it is of course not inherently limited to that place or the residents of that place. If, however, you want that culture and those ideas to persevere and even to spread, you have to protect those ideas and the place from whence they came. You cannot, for example, import en masse people from other cultures and simply assume that the fictional universal “longing for freedom” will take hold. You cannot, for example, denigrate the source of these ideas — the “dead white male” Founders, Judeo-Christian civilization more broadly — and assume that these ideas will endure.
So, who was I referring to when I discussed “allied democracies across the globe”? Jay mentions a few — stalwart friends like South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. But let’s take a closer look at these vital nations.
Democracy took root in South Korea after we defended it from murderous Communists, saturated it with American soldiers for decades, and waited out decades of strongman rule.
Japan became a democracy after an apocalyptic war and American occupation. The Allies killed the troops of the previous regime by the millions. Douglas MacArthur’s staff wrote its constitution, and there’s been a strong American presence on the ground since 1945.
Taiwan was long run by the losers of the Chinese Civil War. America’s highly imperfect allies were pushed from the mainland, and the now-capitalist Communists rule the vast bulk of the Chinese. I’m thankful for Taiwan’s democracy, but it has similarly benefited from decades of American engagement.
Detect a pattern? Time and again, constitutional governance abroad springs from the West and is defended and sustained by the West. How would the fledgling (by historical standards) democracies of Southeast Asia manage without us? With each passing year, they grow stronger in their own constitutional traditions, but their democracies still live and thrive under the American security umbrella.
In the Middle East, no one doubts that there exist courageous democrats, but let’s not forget that the Muslim Brotherhood won its vote in Egypt, Hamas won its vote in Gaza, and democrats are very, very thin on the ground in Syria.
Thus, it remains vital that we defend the source of Western values and never, ever take their appeal for granted. People from any nation can be attracted to those values, but we often see them decisively rejected. Just ask a Marine platoon in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, or an Army civil affairs team in Diyala Province, Iraq.
One final note on the word “universal.” I agree that the words of the Declaration of Independence — that are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights — are universally true. I do not agree that they are universally appealing. I do not agree that the desire for freedom beats in every human heart. Some hearts beat with much darker desires. The fight for western values means a fight against human nature, a fight to find the “better angels of our nature” — angels that are often crowded out by the inner demons that have always beset mankind.