In today’s episode of the Telos Press Podcast, David Pan talks with Miles Yu about his article “Escape from Civilization’s Predicaments,” from Telos 201 (Winter 2022). An excerpt of the article appears here. In their conversation they discuss the main problems with using the idea of civilization as a way of understanding today’s geopolitical conflicts; the meaning of ideology and its effect on politics; why it is more important to think of ideology than of civilization as a way of understanding politics; how the inability of Americans to see the importance of ideology in the world has affected U.S. foreign policy; what kind of foreign policy would emerge out of the focus on ideology; why Marxism as an ideology has maintained its appeal both for countries such as China and for U.S. intellectuals; and what strategies the United States has in this ideological conflict. If your university has an online subscription to Telos, you can read the full article at the Telos Online website. For non-subscribers, learn how your university can begin a subscription to Telos at our library recommendation page. Print copies of Telos 201 are available for purchase in our online store.
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Telos Zoom Discussion Join Telos editors Mark Kelly, Tim Luke, Adrian Pabst, Marcia Pally, David Pan, and David Westbrook for a discussion of the causes of the U.S. failure in Afghanistan and the long-term consequences. To attend, register here: https://uci.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMpf-ivqjMrEtVVTMSia1pfo_L9E2H-bwwk We look forward to seeing you there. Among the discouraging quandaries that the European Union has had to face in recent years, no one could have imagined that the United Kingdom and the United States, our historical, crucial allies, would turn their back on the EU, thus leaving it exposed to the global influence to Russia, Turkey, and Iran, not exactly friends of our open societies and polity. It would have been equally impossible to predict that so many supposedly enlightened, tolerant, and democratic European citizens would rally around xenophobic and anti-Semitic political parties while reviving the most obtuse and primitive ethnocentrism. All these ills, and most of all of Brexit and its aftermath, were interpreted by many as a fatal blow to the EU, in combination with other indicators that seemed to point to a general design failure of its unifying project. Nevertheless, many reliable commentators have expressed faith that the EU, at long last, would react to this long-standing issue. As an occasional feature on TELOSscope, we highlight a past Telos article whose critical insights continue to illuminate our thinking and challenge our assumptions. Today, Frederick Wertz looks at Elliot Neaman’s “The New (Old) Discourse on the American Empire and the War in Iraq” from Telos 132 (Fall 2005). In an article written in the midst of a heated debate about American imperialism and the War in Iraq, Elliot Neaman takes a step back from the fray and takes a look at the development of the contemporary discourse surrounding the issue. While the debate may or may not have evolved significantly from where it was in 2005, Neaman’s analysis of various critiques of American empire has enduring aspects that pertain far beyond the scope of American foreign policy. By looking at various pro- and anti-empire positions from both the Left and Right, we can draw meaningful lessons about the development of discourse and the interpretation of history. |
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Critiques of American imperialism are easy to find at the domestic and the international level, especially in today’s partisan and reactionary political climate. The contemporary discourse is beginning to focus on the decline of the American empire, despite the fact that there is very little consensus as to whether or not America ever even had an empire to begin with, in any objective historical context. 
