|
|
|
| Current Issue |
|
|
| Resources |
|
|
|
Confronting Democracy's Flaws
| Article
# : |
10165 |
|
|
Section : |
BOOK WORLD
|
| Issue
Date : |
8 / 1993 |
3,120 Words |
| Author
: |
Lee Edwards
Lee Edwards is senior editor for the Current Issues section
of THE WORLD & I. His latest book is The Power of Ideas: The
Heritage Foundation at Twenty-five. |
OUT OF CONTROL
Zbigniew Brzezinski
New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1993
231 pp., $21.00
When the man who predicted the fall of communism in his prescient work, The Grand Failure, declares that we are on the brink of global turmoil, policymakers and ordinary citizens alike should take heed. When the only true challenger to Henry Kissinger as the meistersinger of realpolitik declares that the major crisis confronting the world, and the United States, is not political, economic, or environmental but moral, a prudent person, regardless of his faith, will consider carefully what he has to say. Indeed, as important as The Grand Failure was in analyzing the fundamental flaws of totalitarianism, Zbigniew Brzezinski's newest book could be even more important if it makes us confront the serious flaws of democracy.
In Out of Control, a powerful, tightly reasoned book of only 231 pages, Brzezinski argues that the world is in crisis on the eve of the twenty-first century because (a) humanity is still recovering from the "organized insanity" of twentieth-century politics, dominated by the "coercive utopias" of Hitlerism and Leninism; (b) there has been an unprecedented political awakening of mankind with the emergence of sharply divergent goals between developed and undeveloped countries that could produce global cleavage; and (c) it is unclear whether the United States, the only extant superpower, possesses the necessary moral leadership that can help produce a genuine global community. If America does not exercise effective international authority, then a situation of intensifying global instability--including the possibility of regional wars, nuclear proliferation, and even North-South conflict--could well follow.
Impacting all of the above and leaving little margin for error, Brzezinski says, is the unprecedented pace of global change, driven by mass communications. The world, he suggests, is like an airplane on automatic pilot, with its speed continuously accelerating but with no defined destination. As a political scientist, he believes that politics remains the best medium through which mankind can organize itself into a responsible, cooperative world community, but (and this is where one is surprised and intrigued) he asserts that any such politics must rest on defining the proper limits, "ultimately moral in character," of any such society. When a world is in danger of going out of control, as he believes our world is in this postutopian age, the only way to gain control and shape
...
Read Full Article
Look for this article in Ask.com
|
|
