A retort to Dr Peter McMahon's "Global Neo-imperial Fantasies Come Unstuck".
Published On Line Opinion, Australia, 1/11/2005
Con George-Kotzabasis
The utopia builders, a la McMahon, have set up their boutiques in the global market to sell their soddy product. After the collapse of the historically misplaced Communist utopia, with its Gulag Archipelagos and its Killing Fields, the Left's sorcerers apprentices are now concocting their new mantric utopia of "global governance'', to take the place of the displaced one.
Two fundamental contradictions haunt your argument, and ultimately bury the phantoms of the Neo-cons and of neo-imperialism that you raised in your piece. You state that "in the 1970's a new global system was emerging". Your phantoms however, the Neo-cons, were only in power in 2000. By this time the system was already robust and on its course. The Neo-cons were not fabricating a new version of it, as you claim, but were merely its new "managers". And in the aftermath of 9/11, they were also trying to protect it. That was the reason why they went to war, not oil.
The second fundamental flaw in your argument is, that while you claim that "human experiences are too diverse to bend to the logic of one homogeneous society... Or one global market", your panacea for the ills of "global neo-imperialism" is "global-scale governance". At the same time you concede that such "governance"will have "to bend to the logic of...One global market". But how will you put in place such governance upon such "diverse" non-homogeneous societies? Didn't the recent failure of the EU to unite in reference to the amendments of its constitution, which is, moreover, culturally homogeneous, teach you anything?
Your remedy of "global-scale governance", is intellectually unhinged and cannot be taken seriously. All you accomplish with your piece is to replace the "phantoms" of the Neo-cons with your greater phantom of universal governance. By such intellectual credentials, Plato would never allow you to enter his Academy.
Published On Line Opinion, Australia, 1/11/2005
Con George-Kotzabasis
The utopia builders, a la McMahon, have set up their boutiques in the global market to sell their soddy product. After the collapse of the historically misplaced Communist utopia, with its Gulag Archipelagos and its Killing Fields, the Left's sorcerers apprentices are now concocting their new mantric utopia of "global governance'', to take the place of the displaced one.
Two fundamental contradictions haunt your argument, and ultimately bury the phantoms of the Neo-cons and of neo-imperialism that you raised in your piece. You state that "in the 1970's a new global system was emerging". Your phantoms however, the Neo-cons, were only in power in 2000. By this time the system was already robust and on its course. The Neo-cons were not fabricating a new version of it, as you claim, but were merely its new "managers". And in the aftermath of 9/11, they were also trying to protect it. That was the reason why they went to war, not oil.
The second fundamental flaw in your argument is, that while you claim that "human experiences are too diverse to bend to the logic of one homogeneous society... Or one global market", your panacea for the ills of "global neo-imperialism" is "global-scale governance". At the same time you concede that such "governance"will have "to bend to the logic of...One global market". But how will you put in place such governance upon such "diverse" non-homogeneous societies? Didn't the recent failure of the EU to unite in reference to the amendments of its constitution, which is, moreover, culturally homogeneous, teach you anything?
Your remedy of "global-scale governance", is intellectually unhinged and cannot be taken seriously. All you accomplish with your piece is to replace the "phantoms" of the Neo-cons with your greater phantom of universal governance. By such intellectual credentials, Plato would never allow you to enter his Academy.
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