I appreciate your morning links, and have stopped by quite a few recent days to check things out.

To your comment above: having studied SD for seven years now, I certainly know its ideas pretty well, as do you and many others. But I'm finding it more and more shallow and unsuccessful at it aims, which I take are towards clarifying problems and understanding root dynamics. Of course the real proof of the pudding is whether it, or anything like it, actually suggest new solutions.

I don't think SD does, though I hold out hope that maybe it will in the hands of foreign policy experts.

I mentioned my lack of faith in this "colorization" method of SD. Your comment demonstrates my complaint: after you are finished colorizing conservatism, liberalism, fascism, etc, you end with this:

"We need new solutions to new problems".

Now, I grant you lots of good faith, and I know your writing exceeds this short paragraph many, many times over. I'm not taking this as your final word on anything. Don't misunderstand. Yet if SD reveals that "we need new solutions to new problems", then that is almost exactly where things stood before colorization. That sort of colorization meets categorization leading to lack of delivery of anything substantial is a microcosm of the entire SD project, and frankly most applications of Wilberian thought both serious and nonserious.

I said "almost" because, in truth, the struggles today are hardly new, at the root. Plenty of new clothes and window dressings, but that's about it for the novelty.

Now, let me hone in a bit. You say, "The post-modern, relativistic "sensitive self" (liberalism) is incapable of dealing with egoic, authoritarian values systems (Islamofascists)."

I know this is SD scripture chapter and verse, but how about for the purposes of discussion, we shine a skeptical light on its validity, rather than just assuming its true (an assumption, it bears noting, that underpins all of SD , because no one has seen any studies verifying its accuracy).

Developmentalism (my shorthand for everything SD and everything Wilber) is one way of looking at WWIV, and, specifically, American attitudes towards impending war.

Why can't it be that most people simply don't understand how geopolitics works?

Why can't it be that most people simply don't understand leadership at the level of world government?

Why can't it be that the fact that "war is hell" in and of itself makes most people recoil at its prospect? (I mean, it's not like people only recently starting hating war; anyone think that ancient Greek mothers, for example, relished their sons never coming home from war?)

Why can't it be that the grab for power, land, and political control is seen as a timeless human dynamic that, when it coalesces through history given various factors, must be fought in the same way its always fought -- cold-blooded, focused, undeterred?

I'll stop here, but my feeling, stronger by the day, that the various levels found in SD, Wilber, Foucault are simply not instructive, and have no real bearing on wars fought by humans -- situations that, through history, don't exactly have the reputation of being clean, linear, rational, or predictable.

I mean, can anyone point to a proposal to deal with Islamofascism forwarded as a result of an SD/Wilberian analysis that doesn't suffer from pie-in-the-sky naivete or head-in-the-sand ignorance? (Not to mention, of course, sophistry.)

md

You write, re: my question:

To wit, the simple answer, I think, is the humanitarian/national interest question is a false dichtomy. Progressive realism, yellow, integral foreign policy, recognizes that humanitarianism, properly done is the single greatest promoter of our national interest.

I know you go on to raise many other points, but I'm sorry, I can't let what I see as a falsity pass. There is just no evidence that "humanitarianism, properly done is the single greatest promoter of our national interest." Do you have any? Sounds like sloganeering, to me.

Also, I should add that I see no argument why my question is a false dichotomy. I chose my words carefully -- "secondary" means that, at the very least, humanitariam concerns are important; just not first in line, as many people (apparently you) want it to be. The question gets right to the heart of why we fight, or not; what we must endure if we do; and, by extension, what our enemy is. Concentration on humanitarian concerns in lieu of national interest concerns (which may involves several countries with a common national interest in relation to Islamofascism) leads directly to complacency in the populace, and even the leaders. So, sorry, I think reducing the question to a false dichotomy is instead an evasion of dealing with its implications.

One last thing: The American foreign policy is "reactive"? Wow, that's a deusy. Didn't they get lambasted in liberal and anti-war circles for being the exact opposite? Namely, "preemptive war" and how morally wrong that is, and such and such. I don't think this is at all a fair point; and in even thinking about it, how does one not have sympathy for the 'effin difficult position people like Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice, etc. are in, when, quite literally, they are damned if they do, and damned if they don't?

difficult stuff, this WWIV,
md

p.s. I should have added that your suggestion of a "Dept. of Reconstruction/Infrastructure" is an inspired one. I don't know whether it is practical or not (what's your take?) but in any event, kudos on the idea.