To commemorate its 35th anniversary, noted international affairs magazine Foreign Policy brought together a diverse group of 16 public intellectuals to “to speculate on the ideas, values, and institutions the world takes for granted that may disappear in the next 35 years.” Each thinker selected one and then expounded on why their choice would in fact fade away in a short essay.
Princeton ethicist Peter Singer authors the lead essay, contending that “during the next 35 years, the traditional view of the sanctity of human life will collapse under pressure from scientific, technological, and demographic developments.” Singer is prominent in his field, and is acknowledged as one of the leading scholars in the area of animal rights. He has gained public visibility by staking out a radical view of animal rights (basically that they should enjoy complete protections) and other issues in bioethics. Based on my previous encounters with his work, I fully expected to him to make the case that the human being was going to lose its place as anything special in nature; needless to say, I greatly disagree with this sentiment.
After reading Singer’s piece, however, I was suitably impressed. His view was well-reasoned and surprisingly moderated; in fact, I must say that I mostly agree with the professor. It does seem likely that, as Singer suggests, we’re moving toward sanctity of personhood rather than sanctity of life.
When the traditional ethic of the sanctity of human life is proven indefensible at both the beginning and end of life, a new ethic will replace it. It will recognize that the concept of a person is distinct from that of a member of the species Homo sapiens, and that it is personhood, not species membership, that is most significant in determining when it is wrong to end a life. We will understand that even if the life of a human organism begins at conception, the life of a person�that is, at a minimum, a being with some level of self-awareness�does not begin so early.
Nevertheless, I have a major quibble with Singer: I think he underestimates the strength of religion in the United States. His vision is indeed grounded in science, and is thus the place that our ethics are ultimately evolving toward. Yet opposition, as he acknowledges, is strong among religious conservatives; religious ideals are strongly rooted in American culture and remain tremendously influential. While Europe will have no difficulty adopting a person-centric view of rights, the idea will face powerful opposition in the United States.
In the developing world, moreover, religious sentiment is often even stronger. So, though Singer’s view in this particular case will be vindicated in Europe and ultimately perhaps everywhere, it’s unlikely to gain world-wide (or American) acceptance within 35 years.
The next essay is a prediction of the demise of political parties by former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso. This was, for sure, one of the least persuasive essays. Cardoso spoke in sweeping generalities that are far from universally applicable; he also made no mention of the impact of different political cultures and structures in different countries. His view is, frankly, completely unjustifiable and without any deep support or evidence.
Christopher Hitchens follows that up with a piece on why there’s a good chance that the Euro will collapse. As usual, the essay is well-written and literary; in this case, however, that hurts the strength of Hitchens’ argument. The case that the Euro will collapse is certainly there; the EU has proven to be a tenuous and politically weak institution in that it’s dominated by member-states and their parochial concerns. A divergence between the European economies that the EU is unable to bridge may very well lay the groundwork for a collapse, as the concept of the unified currency is predicated on the idea that Europe really is one economy. Hitchens, however, spends a bit too much time on the literary and cultural flourish, and ends up putting style over substance. In the end, I’d say that the Euro has an even chance of going either way, depending on whether the Europeans can get their act together in time.
After Hitchens comes Shintaro Ishihara, governor of Tokyo and a Japanese nationalist. He predicts that Japan will become a strong and interventionist Asian power. The general concept underlying this thinking–that the great power competition in Asia will compel Tokyo to adopt a security posture grounded in realism–has been discussed before on this blog, and I remain supportive of the theory. The movement toward a more traditional foreign policy, in fact, has already gained widespread acceptance among the elite, as expressed by the serious bipartisan effort to amend Japan’s constitution and remove its mandate of pacifism.
That said, Ishihara advances a radical and extremely nationalistic position that strains credulity; it’s as if he’s writing a propaganda article rather than an analytical opinion piece. While I grant that Japan has historically been quite militaristic in its relations with other states, Japan’s post-war social transformation greatly weakened that impulse. In terms of both logic and empiricism, it seems highly unlikely that the island-state is about to experience a resurgence in militarism.
It clings to a hopelessly idealistic and historically illegitimate constitution handed down by U.S. occupation forces nearly 60 years ago to block Japan�s reemergence as a military power. Japan now entrusts its survival to the United States, has forsaken independent thinking, and has become spineless.
“Illegitimate constitution” and “spineless” are hardly the words of analysis; they are the words of propaganda, which in this case misconstrues history to advance the author’s point. Japan’s constitution was not illegitimate; it was imposed from outside, but was accepted fully by the Japanese people. It has become the fixture of Japanese politics and the Japanese accept it as the binding law of the land. This is the definition of legitimacy, and there’s no way to deny that the post-war constitution is now the legitimate foundation of Japanese civil society. And yes, after fighting the Japanese over control of the Pacific in a total all out war, the United States didn’t wish to see its nemesis rearm and resume the fight in the future. What’s the author’s point?
The idea that Japan is dependent on the United States for its survival and has become a “spineless” client state is simply wrong. The Japanese don’t have a nuclear deterrent, true, but they retain the ability to quickly construct one if necessary; and by not maintaining nuclear weapons, the Japanese have eased tensions in the rest of East Asia, heretofore helping to keep the strategic environment stable. The author avoids mentioning, moreover, that the Japanese military (strongly defensive in posture) is among the world’s most well funded and most effective. The Japanese can guarantee their survival well enough on their own. And Tokyo has a strong security relationship with the United States because that’s in the interests of Japan, not because Japan is subservient to Washington.
I wonder how the United States will interpret its security treaty with Japan if our nation decides to confront China, perhaps even militarily, in the dispute over the Senkaku Islands, a part of Okinawa with potentially valuable seabed resources.
If Japan consciously decides to engage China militarily over that dispute, then I would surely hope that Washington would refuse to come to Tokyo’s aid, for such a decision would be among the most ill-advised and disastrous Japan could make. Such a Japan would not be an ally that the United States should remain partnered to. Fortunately enough, the chances of Tokyo making such a decision are quite slim, despite the author’s professed belief otherwise.
Ishihara’s essay is a propaganda piece, pure and simple. His reasoning is flawed and the course he advocates would lead Japan to ruin. While the general theory that Japan is becoming more assertive in its relations with foreign powers is right on target, the author’s interpretation is, I contend, deranged and irresponsible.
After Isihara is a bizarre and confused article predicting the end of monogamy. From what I can gather, the author thinks that societies around the world are going to embrace free-love and having simultaneous recognized relationships. Needless to say, I find the argument rather… unpersuasive, although readers are invited to judge for themselves.
Following that is an absolutely brilliant essay by Harvard professor Harvey Cox, arguing that religious hierarchy is in serious trouble and likely to collapse. I fully agree with Professor Cox, and can do no better than to quote him at length.
In this environment, religious hierarchy is crumbling fast. The notions of consumer choice and local control have stormed the religious realm, and decentralization of faith is now the order of the day. Religious leaders who once could command, instruct, and expel now must cajole, persuade, and compete. […]
Grappling with choice contributes to a religious maturity unavailable to someone who simply accepts what is passed down from above, and for that reason it could actually strengthen the capacity of the religious to cope with the challenge of secularism. Of course, the lack of recognized authority could also lead to fragmentation. But even that has an upside. Pentecostalism, for example, has no hierarchy, but its divisions and rivalries have generated an entrepreneurial energy that has made it the fastest growing Christian movement in the world. They have proven that sometimes religion without hierarchy can endure, and even thrive.
Minxin Pei follows with why he thinks the Chinese Communist Party will disappear, and I generally agree. China is definitely going to shift away from dictatorship and toward more democratic institutions. My one caveat would be that the Party may very well survive, but in name only; meaning that, for all intents and purposes, the old Party would be dead. Lord John Browne on why the cars of the future will hardly emit anything dangerous is decent enough, I suppose, but it seemed fairly bland compared to rest of the articles; surely he could’ve gone into a little more depth on this obviously important issue, as he has done in print before. Same with Professor Lawrence Lessig’s argument that the public domain will disappear, which was unnecessarily alarmist and short-sighted. Among the rest of the predictions, there are only two I find of interest.
Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s founding father, discusses the increasing importance of demography. In his view, “it will gradually dawn on governments that immigration alone cannot solve their demographic troubles and that much more active government involvement in encouraging or discouraging procreation may be necessary.” Lee, now retired from government, is unusually perceptive and honest among former politicians, and his views always deserve consideration. In this case, I think he’s right to point out the important position that demography will occupy in the future; I think he’s also right to say that governments will take a more active role in trying to shape demography. Nevertheless, he puts too great of an emphasis on government authority. In Asia it’s true that governments will naturally play a major role in regulating procreation; indeed, they do so already. Yet political culture in the Western world is different, and I suspect that Western governments will play less of a role in fertility decisions than Lee imagines.
Finally, international relations scholar Richard Haass contends that sovereignty will be weakened during the next 35 years. He makes some important points.
Nation-states will not disappear, but they will share power with a larger number of powerful non-sovereign actors than ever before, including corporations, nongovernmental organizations, terrorist groups, drug cartels, regional and global institutions, and banks and private equity funds. Sovereignty will fall victim to the powerful and accelerating flow of people, ideas, greenhouse gases, goods, dollars, drugs, viruses, e-mails, and weapons within and across borders. All of this traffic challenges one of the fundamentals of sovereignty: the ability to control what crosses borders. Sovereign states will increasingly measure their vulnerability not to one another but to forces of globalization beyond their control. […]
States will also willingly choose to shed some of their sovereignty. This trend is well under way, most clearly in the trade realm. Governments agree to accept the rulings of the World Trade Organization because, on balance, they benefit from a rules-based international trading order, even if a particular ruling impinges on their right to protect national industries. Global climate change is also prompting limits on sovereignty. The Kyoto Protocol, which runs through 2012, requires signatories to cap greenhouse gas emissions. One can imagine an even more ambitious accord in which a larger number of governments, including the United States, China, and India, would accept stricter limits based on a recognition that they would be worse off if no country accepted such restraints.
Nevertheless, I must sound a cautionary note. Speculations on the demise of sovereignty have been proffered before, and yet the system has remained remarkably resilient. One must only look to the troubles facing the European Union to see that sovereignty continues to be at the core of the international system. So while the flows and exchanges he mentions, along with the growing importance of supranational institutions, will contribute to a weakening of sovereignty, sovereignty will by no means disappear. In terms of security, foreign policy, and power, especially, sovereignty will remain alive and well.