The Brooklyn Rail

“Do not judge me by my successes, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.”— Nelson Mandela

“In a rebellion, as in a novel, the most difficult part to invent is the end.”— Alexis de Tocqueville

“The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.”— Hannah Arendt

“Both teachers and learners go to sleep at their post as soon as there is no enemy in the field.”— John Stuart Mill

Since World War II there have been two main approaches to American foreign policy. In 1946, George L. Kennan (in his famous “Long Telegram” to the State Department on how to counter the rise of the Soviet Union) recommended a policy of containment, which became known as the Truman Doctrine. In 1993, Bill Clinton’s National Security Advisor Anthony Lake signaled a shift in that policy in a speech (written by our current secretary of state Antony Blinken) that proclaimed, “throughout the cold war, we contained a global threat to market democracies: now we seek to enlarge their reach.” This policy of enlargement, based to some degree on economic interests, came to be known as the Clinton Doctrine. Although the policy of containment was successful in blocking the expansion of the Soviet Union’s power and sphere of influence during the Cold War, Clinton’s post-Cold War policy of enlargement encouraged an expanded economic prosperity in much of the world.

But now, things are different. The way that both Russia and China are flexing their muscles of aggression has encouraged the rise of authoritarian regimes elsewhere in our world, leading me to think that we should rethink certain aspects of containment that could once again be beneficial to where we are in a different era of a new Cold War, which has been emerging since Russia’s unprovoked war against Ukraine: first the invasion of Crimea in 2014, and in an even more extreme incursion in 2022. In the face of Russia’s aggressiveness, it seems wise for us to contain their global reach through such policies as economic embargoes for example. Perhaps we should revisit the idea of the “new world order,” which was characterized by a dramatic change in political thinking and the global balance of power after WWII, and which coincided with the paradoxical tension between one-worldism on the one hand and invention of the West on other hand. One-worldism is an imperfect framework, operating as it does under the supervision of the UN, with its somewhat outdated concept of a Security Council that has five permanent somewhat unequal members that all have equal veto powers: the US, UK, France, Russia, and China. The West is not so much a geographical entity as an understanding about democratic institutions and values. This is to say, for example, Russia is European but not Western; Japan is an Asian culture, but its institutions and values are Western, as are those of South Korea, India, Taiwan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Australia, and even Vietnam. In other words, despite endless critical issues concerning the erosion of democratic freedoms in countries like Thailand, the Philippines, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka, Asia remains freer and more democratic now than it was throughout the Cold War.

Thinking back, many of us feel that the Clinton Doctrine, which was rooted in notions about the collapse of the Soviet Union and the disintegration of communism, now seems somewhat complacent in its presumption that one-worldism would lead to the global spread of Western institutions and values. Now, however, on our home front, we have the left pointing their fingers at Russia still, and the right directing their disdain at China—each identifying their preferred enemy as being at the root of our current crisis. It is more urgent than ever, as we approach our next election on November 5, for us to ask ourselves what is at the heart of our democracy. What does freedom really mean? Lincoln once said, “The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty. Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of liberty.” The question for us is to find a way in which we strive for mutual trust which allows us all to say that neither of us needs to rule over the other. If I can claim that nobody is better than me, then others can claim that I’m no better than anyone else. Either way, we all want to resist surrendering to mass hysteria, or letting our own personal feelings be replaced by manufactured versions of public opinion—to resist letting democratic free thought become thoughtless conformity. If we were to think of the difference between selfishness and individualism, we would rightly assume the former is an instinct whereas the latter is about judgment. By identifying with individualism but keeping our distance from selfish impulses we can emotionally relate to one another and keep ourselves resistant to demagogues and despots. We Americans have always fought hard for our liberty, and our passion has always been driven by equality. So while we all recognize that America’s future greatness and power rests our faith in individual advancement, we must also be mindful of how important it is to cultivate the democratic virtues of character and the common good. We must remind ourselves that the speed of technology and social media can be deployed for both negative and positive means of communication. And in response, we must continue to elevate and give proper attention to the slowness of culture, the arts, and the humanities as urgent and vital counter friction as we’ve done so in the past—for they are essential to the health of our democratic heart and all of us as individuals.

Together in solidarity with love, courage, and cosmic optimism as ever,

Phong H. Bui

P.S. This issue is dedicated to the remarkable lives and works of our mentors and friends James Chance (1953–2024), Sidney Felsen (1924–2024), Barbara Gladstone (1935–2024), Martica Sawin (1929–2024), Ben Vautier (1935–2024), and John Wilmerding (1938–2024). It would be difficult to imagine the height of punk culture of the late 1970s without the charismatic singer, saxophonist, composer of The Contortions. Similarly, when we think of the richness of our visual culture in the last five decades, we’re deeply grateful to the profound commitments of the latter five in each of their singular gifts respectively: from the printmaking of Sidney Felsen through the legendary Gemini G.E.L.; gallerist extraordinaire Barbara Gladstone; the art historical significance of Martica Sawin in her writings on surrealism and the New York School; artist provocateur/cofounder of Fluxus Ben Vautier; and the scholarly curating and first-rate collecting of John Wilmerding. Their labors of love are results of our free and open society, for it would be impossible to imagine such firmaments of self-invention in any authoritarian regime. Additionally, we are grateful to two of our long-serving Production Assistants par excellence, Joel Danilewitz and Patrick Hill, whom we are sending on to their next chapters with enduring enthusiasm. We’re also grateful to our two extraordinary artist friends Adam Bartos and Tony Bechara for their co-sponsorship of our Architecture section. Lastly, I’d like to thank our most esteemed colleague Alison Scott-Williams for her resilient and fearless leadership in the last four years as President of Studio in a School. On behalf of Agnes Gund, Hasna Muhammad, and the rest of our board of directors, I send Alison and her family our best wishes as she undertakes her new journey as a new executive vice president and chief operating officer of Lawrence University.