Anglosphere

I have always loved Julie Burchill. There is nothing remotely like her mix of sentimental Bolshevism, working class cultural nostalgia, British patriotism and militarism, Judaeophilia, loathing of Germany and (usually) America, detestation of the British upper classes, personal libertinism combined with a hardnosed understanding of the consequences of such behavior, and her devotion to sixties-era British hipness and seventies punk rock. She is often wildly wrong, but always entertaining.

This recent piece on the upcoming UK election is nicely done. Ms. Burchill offers this beautiful passage about the impact of Margaret Thatcher, whom she depicts as a one-woman whirlwind of pent-up creative destruction:

[A]s some smart-aleck said, we must change or perish. And who should break our long postwar consensual slumber — not with a snog but with a short sharp smack around the head with a handbag and a cry of “Look smart!” — but the Iron Lady herself.

Mrs Thatcher meant, and still means, many things — some of which she is not yet aware of herself, as we are not. Only death brings proper perspective to the triumphs and failures of a political career; it is only with the blank look and full stop of death that that old truism “all political careers end in failure” stops being true. Only a terminally smug liberal would still write her off as an uptight bundle of Little Englandisms, seeking to preserve the old order, however hard she worked that look at first; voting for her was something akin to buying what one thought was a Vera Lynn record, getting it home and finding a Sex Pistols single inside.

She was just as much about revolution as reaction, and part of any revolution is destruction. Some of the things she destroyed seemed like a shame at the time, such as the old industries — though on balance, isn’t there anything good about the fact that thousands of young men who once simply because of who their fathers were would have been condemned to a life spent underground in the darkness, and an early death coughing up bits of lung, now won’t be? It’s interesting to note that while some middle and even upper-class people choose to go into “low” jobs — journalist, actor, sportsman, plumber — which pay well and/or are a good laugh, no one ever went out of their way to become a miner. “Dogs are bred to retrieve birds and Welshman to go down mines,” said some vile old-school Tory; not any more they’re not, thanks to Mrs T.

Her appetite for destruction was more often than not spot-on. Mrs Thatcher was hated by the old Tory establishment because she, more than any Labour leader, brought down the culture of deference, of knowing one’s place. This led to the very British cultural social comedy of left-wing poshos such as the Foots being outraged by the upstart, while outsiders who should on paper have been Labour voters recognised her as one of them.

One of my younger friends, a very angry, talented, Anglo-Punjabi man of profoundly working-class origin, remembers as a child crying inconsolably for days when Mrs Thatcher was unseated by her own party. It says it all that the Queen far preferred the company of the Labour Prime Ministers Wilson and Callaghan than she did the Conservative Thatcher; the Queen could smell the lack of respect on Mrs T, and it put her back up no end.

As to the current election, Ms. B. sees no hope of a “Mad Outsider” candidate akin to Thatcher. It won’t be Blair:

How weird is Blair? Not weird enough for me, though obviously too weird for some. I shall vote for him because he has banned foxhunting, and because he took us into a just war against a vile dictatorship; I’d be hoping for a few more of those during the next term, which I suppose makes me one weird woman voter, obsessed as we are meant to be with peace, childcare and fluffy bunnies. On the other hand, I find the current Labour cultural cringe towards Islam — to “make up” for the war, as if Saddam Hussein hadn’t single-handedly been responsible for the deaths of more Muslim people than the entire British and American armed forces put together! — extremely offensive, as a woman.

Hoping for a few more of those! I doubt it. Tony has had a political near-death experience as it is. But the sentiment is appreciated.

A favorite here – Lex notes in the ad to the left that Bennett’s The Anglosphere Challenge is “One of (the) most important books I have read in recent years” – inspired two current analyses. First is “Sphere of Influence?” by Keith Windschuttle in National Review. Second is Natalie Solent’s “Evolving political forms and common culture: the Anglosphere” at Samizdata.

Speaking, as Jonathan does, of Dalrymple, this seemed an interesting remark:

“If we live entirely in the moment, as if the world were created exactly as we now find it, we are almost bound to propose solutions that bring even worse problems in their wake.”

Dalrymple’s words reverberate nicely (reminding us of our adolescent, self-centered plans that so often failed despite our energy and good intentions). From his current City Journal article, “The Roads to Serfdom”, his bitterness arises from the uncomfortable fact Britain continues to ignore the good advice Hayek gave in WWII. Perhaps, given the breadth of affection for socialism (which he contends was confused with a sense of community prompted by the common enemy of the war), such insights could not have been appreciated. He acknowledges that in England, the government has moved beyond the role of husband, with his conclusion “Our Father, Which art in Downing Street.”

The United States has now declared that it is going “to help India become a major world power in the 21st century. We understand fully the implications, including military implications, of that statement.” The official spoke on condition of anonymity. (here. Read the whole thing.)

If this is true, it is a major, major step.

The alignment continues to shape up. Anglosphere (Australia, hopefully UK will stay in) + Japan + India + (Israel?) + others on one side. China, Iran, Hezbollah, NK, France, maybe Russia, on the other. I like our cards.

The Bush administration is remolding the world and building an alliance structure to keep the peace and preserve democratic capitalism for decades, maybe centuries. Bush the supposed dolt is a visionary on a breathtaking scale. His recent appointments show that he is absolutely serious about kicking the UN and the World Bank into being useful. Picking Karen Hughes, his most trusted consiglieri, to run the USA’s public diplomacy means that this is a top-rung priority. Everything he is doing is meant to achieve world-transforming results.

Meanwhile, what is Chirac doing? He is draining his bladder in his pants at the prospect of having to compete with Estonia, nickle-and-diming on the deal that would allow some competition in services. Some Union. It isn’t even a free trade zone. What a joke. Europeans have forgotten how to reproduce. They once overran the world and grabbed much of it at swordpoint, and ransacked it and kept the proceeds. You don’t have to like it, but they used to be players. They can’t even face the prospects of a fouled diaper anymore, let alone playing in a league that includes the mammoth world powers of the next Century, India and China. Stick a fork in Old Europe.

What are the Chinese doing? Everything wrong, politically. Scaring their neighbors into an alliance against them. Very much like Kaiserian Germany, another economic powerhouse but political retard. Ludwig Dehio said that a country which feels itself rising to the status of a world power is overcome by a demonic sense of its own energies and potential greatness, which leads it to act provocatively, cause an alliance to arise around it and against it, and then lunge for hegemony in defiance of the odds. But the European countries based on land could not grasp the nature of the offshore power, England, then America, and one after another went down to defeat — Imperial Spain, Bourbon France, Napoleonic France, Kaiserian Germany, Hitlerian Germany — then on a worldwide scale, Soviet Russia. Will China play this role next? What I hope will happen is that China will be confronted by such an array of power that it won’t roll the iron dice. Instead, it will get across the chasm of political and cultural reform needed to become a free and open society with legitimately elected government. All this will of course be “with Chinese Characteristics”, as they might put.

Keep your eye on this India business. It is perhaps the biggest thing going amidst a whole boatload of major initiatives.

OK, this is cool. Jim Bennett now has a website to promote his new book The Anglosphere Challenge: Why the English-Speaking Nations Will Lead the Way in the Twenty-First Century. The website has a synopsis of the book. We’ll let the man speak for himself:

The Anglosphere Challenge is a new and different look at where globalization and information technology are taking the world, and specifically the USA and the other English-speaking nations. Unlike most of these observers, Bennett believes that these forces will not create a borderless world, nor will the process of globalization lead to a homogenized world culture. Instead, Bennett argues that what is emerging is a series of distinct but overlapping globe- spanning linguistic-cultural phenomena, which he terms “network civilizations”. (The Anglosphere, or English-speaking network civilization, is the first but by no means the last of such entities.) Within these network civilizations, cultures with strong civil societies can cross intra- civilizational boundaries with ease, widening the scope of easy interaction, particularly for smaller, entrepreneurial ventures. The task of the emerging era, then, is one of creating political forms of cooperation appropriate to these network civilizations. Bennett argues that such a form, which he terms the “Network Commonwealth”, is already emerging. Unlike national or imperial forms of organization, network commonwealths are characterized by extreme decentralization and lack of compulsory mechanisms. Network commonwealths will serve to replace the trade and defense functions once performed by large economic states. Bennett’s book contains a detailed discussion of the English-speaking world and why its strong civil society, and resultant entrepreneurial market capitalism and constitutional government will likely result in the Anglosphere’s retaining the lead role in the next stages of development, the multiple and simultaneous scientific-technological revolutions sometimes called the Singularity, and the emergence of the Network Commonwealth..

The site also has excerpts from the book, and the annotated bibliography. Check these out. They will make you want to get the book if you haven’t already.

I finished reading the book a while ago. I just need a chunk of time to write up a detailed review. Bear with me.