Right before college, I picked up a copy of Thomas Friedman’s The Lexus and the Olive Tree. It was the first political/current affairs book I read by choice, and I loved it. I had developed a very cursory, semi-regular reading of The New York Times and therefore got to know Friedman and his column. I liked his style of writing. His schtick, his analogies, his anecdotes, his folksy-techno terms, which he would coin regularly, all made him very accessible. His “Golden Arches” theory, for instance, stands out—that no two countries with a McDonald’s had ever been to war with each other because, foremost, they’re too economically intertwined and a war would be too costly. I liked this theory, and I wanted it to be and remain true. In general, Friedman seemed both cosmopolitan and smart. I saw myself as smart, too, and I aspired to be cosmopolitan.
From Friedman there at the end of the Clinton ‘90s, I learned, among other things, that there was nothing to fear from globalization. He wrote about many topics, but trade and globalization had become his wheelhouse. We—all good people of the world—could have the new tech, often imported things that made our lives better and easier without having to get rid of our traditions and cultures. We could have both that proverbial “Lexus” and “olive tree.” We were becoming a more interconnected world, thanks especially to the internet and free trade, and we were to embrace that. I didn’t know much about the politics behind globalization, but it all made sense enough, and it fit with my emerging worldview and view of myself. It seemed like a no brainer.
At the same time, from Friedman and the ABC evening news, I learned that there were some people out there in the US and in the world who just didn’t get it. Protesters had shut down the World Trade Organization negotiations in 1999, for example, in what would later be called the “Battle in Seattle.” Those people seemed angry and misdirected, and unkempt. I did not understand what they were upset about, and their methods seemed counterproductive—they weren’t winning me over. Same with those rioters who, around that same general time frame, rocked the streets of DC and Davos ahead of World Bank and IMF meetings, respectively. Tom Friedman assured me through “Senseless in Seattle” and other columns, and through Lexus, that these people in the streets had it wrong. They were sophomoric Luddite “flat-earthers,” standing in the way of progress. They were fighting an uphill, bound-to-lose battle against forces beyond all of our control. They were only making things worse for themselves. These people who created such havoc in Seattle were naive utopians and reactionary isolationists at the same time—perhaps even anti-multicultural, anti-cosmopolitan. If only they knew: if they had the faith, the hard work, the education and training (which we could get them, if needed), and the technology, which was ever cheaper and more available, they too could plug into the globalizing world and be winners. They too could have the Lexus and the olive tree, like Friedman had and I would.
I kept up with Friedman through college. With broad sweeps and theories of the larger world, his column was often a nice cheat for me, in lieu of reading all the drier reporting pieces. When nineteen hijackers slammed planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon on September 11, Friedman gave me the language to articulate a response. He was neither totally hawkish nor totally dovish-apologetic. He told us we had to respond--go to war, yes--but unlike Dick Cheney and the people at my church, he did not view the world in such Manichean good-vs-evil terms. He seemed more sensitive to history and nuance, context and causation. He was smart, and this impending war would have to be smart, too, involving good tech and intelligence and knowing the enemy--not just firepower. In addition to being mass murderers, those nineteen men and the organizations and followers who supported them, I learned, were flat-earthers also, albeit much more destructive than the WTO protesters.
At the same time, the second intifada was raging in Israel and Palestine, and more than most mainstream commentators, Friedman seemed to be somewhat knowledgeable of and sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, as I was becoming. He had after all pursued Middle Eastern studies, as I was, and had served as Jerusalem bureau chief for the Times, as I might. Yet still, he told it like it was and sliced apart any liberal-leftist apologies for terror and told the hard truths to the Palestinians that other softy liberals would not. (Some of those Palestinians, I learned, also belonged to that same flat-earther anti-progress camp, along with bin Laden and the Seattle misfits.)
Friedman and I had our first major disagreement in 2003, over the Iraq war. He, with great influence, famously argued for the war. I, with less influence and not famously, argued against it. But I did not part ways with Friedman over that disagreement. I did not "cancel" him. I still read him regularly. I was learning, and I told myself it was good to read smart people I disagreed with. I would be forged into the pragmatic liberal, who both understood the hard truths and included the rough edges. I was not an anti-war radical or anything, especially as I was in ROTC. I was a serious budding intellectual (and soon to be commissioned, globetrotting philosopher-naval officer). Yes, I was against the Iraq war, but on Afghanistan, I agreed with Friedman and many of the good liberals (and conservatives): fire away, but with restraint and ethics of course, in the name of finding Bin Laden and also human rights, and then also nation-building. Several months later in 2003, even on Iraq, Friedman and I were on common ground again. Yes, he had argued for it and I against it, but now we both believed we had to fight it better. The Bush administration was not fighting this thing smartly, intelligently. Friedman skillfully triangulated: remaining a supporter of the war, criticizing Bush, and yet criticizing the anti-war left at the same time for being too self-righteous and not serious. “We can do it better.” I less notably tried to do the same, clarifying my original opposition yet emphasizing “the fact that we are over there now...we must remain until the job is completed.” After the March invasion bubble had been burst, after that disagreement, I was back on the same team as Friedman. We would press ahead with our Marshall Plan for the Middle East and the rest of the world if needed.
In general, I still felt that I shared a worldview with Friedman, especially as I was globalizing myself, through study, through the military (the cigars at sea or drinks in Hong Kong port visit version, not the grunt in Iraq version), through volunteer work—in Egypt, in Bahrain, in Japan, in Canada, in Uganda. Especially when I got to compare myself to those truck-driving, flag-waving, my-country-do-or-die dolts in South Texas, where I was also stationed. Especially compared to those enlisted (i.e. "less educated") sailors, who disproportionately hailed from places like South Texas. We officers, graduates from Notre Dame, Annapolis, Villanova, Rice—we were more cosmopolitan. At least, that’s how I saw myself.
In subsequent years, Friedman and I would go our separate ways, however.
No comments:
Post a Comment