Hail, Ceaser!
Gardner, John S.
Hail, Ceaser! A Profound Effort at Reconstructing America By John S. Gardner The idea that America is a cultural and philosophical wasteland might seem merely a byproduct of this American century....
...America, then, as a country of the Enlightenment, is seen as a symbol of oppression...
...Further, Ceaser writes that "this new multicultural historical narrative has striking parallels to the positive image of America as depicted in classical racialist discourse"—each reflecting the dominance of white Anglo-Saxons...
...And, of course, America is a threat also because of its very attractiveness—its economic power, democratization, and the pursuit of riches...
...In short, America has long been perceived by European intellectuals as a threat to order, to culture, even to philosophy and science...
...America symbolizes the modern—a dynamic nation less tied to notions of the past than Europe...
...we are, in the words of Alexandre Kojeve, unthinking "automata...
...All this bounty supposedly leads to cultural banality or, in Heidegger's view, alienation from Being...
...the effort to determine what makes a good regime and how to propagate it elsewhere is literally a matter of life and death...
...Reconstructing America is, at its core, an apologia for political science—"the inquiry, guided by political philosophy, into the factors that preserve and destroy different regimes...
...the point, however, is to play with it...
...But on the Continent, the notion long predates "Coca-colonization," McDonald's, and EuroDisney...
...Ceaser on postmodernism: "Until now, philosophers have only changed the world...
...Ceaser outlines the direct connections between racialist thought beginning with Arthur de Gobineau and much of the modern "politics of difference"—what has come to be known as multicultural-ism...
...Hein-rich Heine declared that "this-world-ly utility is the American's true religion, and money is his only God" (a point made earlier by Washington Irving, who coined the phrase "the almighty dollar" and decamped for Europe at the earliest opportunity...
...We Americans supposedly so confuse the real and the artificial that we no longer desire the real...
...James Ceaser, professor of government at the University of Virginia, has written an important book, Reconstructing America, about the European image of the United States, showing the ways in John S. Gardner is a research analyst in Washington, D.C...
...As Ceaser puts it, in words evocative of Tocqueville: The American experiment interests the world not just because it may humble the European and cast doubt on the idea of a hierarchy of human varieties, but also because it offers an alternative account of the primary source of differentiation in human affairs...
...Ceaser's goal is explicit: "In seeking to free the real America from the symbolic America, I am also hoping to restore political science to its rightful place in our way of thinking" and carve out a distinctive place for American political science...
...However great its failings, America has recovered the idea of political science and preserved and expanded liberty for its citizens...
...Ceaser criticizes those who would use a sociological approach to politics, whether it is Jefferson in Notes on the State of Virginia or contemporary postmodernists...
...Ceaser has a broader purpose than the examination of philosophical anti-Americanism...
...From one perspective, this is curious: If one is, say, Heidegger, and is not sure about democracy in any event, then why bother with America at all...
...The most important differences derive not from distinctions among biological varieties of man, but from differences caused by moral and political factors...
...It's really too bad Tocqueville never actually wrote that "America is great only because she is good," because the ersatz quotation is a perfect expression of Ceaser's wise approach...
...Surely part of the anger against America is the European frustration at rejection of the old ways...
...If Ceaser defends America, it is not out of patriotism but from bitter experience...
...Ceaser makes a profound case that the task of political science is a noble one—not least because true political science eliminates race as a factor in political thought...
...In Ceaser's view, this inquiry depends on the "humanitarian" outlook that made the American experiment possible...
...In this century especially, we have seen the kinds of wreckage that can ensue when bad regimes take center stage...
...which philosophers of both left and right have constructed a symbolic America often bearing little resemblance to the place itself...
...Nor can the bacillus be contained: Because America represents the end of history, symbolic America for the philosophers is the frightful destiny of Europe...
...America, as Ceaser demonstrates, has occupied a prominent place in European intellectual history...
...And Ceaser illustrates Kojeve's idea that America represents the end of history with reference to its application in the movie Star Trek VI...
...What of today's multiculturalism...
...All peoples could take heart in an American success, because it would show what is possible for them to accomplish by political action...
...Ceaser notes the surprising extent to which supporters of multicultural theory believe that Enlightenment-inspired ideas such as liberalism and rationalism are responsible for oppression in modern society...
...These he places in sharp contrast to the "humanitarian" ideas of the American experiment and its vision of the unity of mankind, beginning with Publius in The Federalist, who held the humanistic view...
...The European philosophers whom Ceaser discusses "looked for something deeper than political activity as the main factor controlling human destiny"— racialist, or nationalist, or tribalist identity...
...Unaware of Being, we produce bad movies and Disneyland...
...This book is a timely corrective to loose thought in the academy and a candid appeal to reason—even though many of Ceaser's opponents are, in their opposition to Enlightenment categories of thought, literally un-reasonable...
...The political regime can be decisive...
...Reconstructing America is wryly written, even fun...
...Ceaser suggests that these and other European thinkers are members of what he calls the "school of difference," which stresses the primacy of cultural groups...
Vol. 3 • October 1997 • No. 4
