Universalism, Rethought

Ever since I heard President Clinton's speech to the Class of 2006 at Princeton University, an interesting thought has been brewing in my head. While I am usually skeptical regarding any sort of universalism (see my article on Ms. Hirsi Ali or the Muhammad Cartoons), there could be a way of bringing about "shared values" that President Clinton spoke about.

In his speech, President Clinton gave a concrete example of how opinions (and values) can change over time. In Indonesia, he said, after the war in Iraq began, approval of American actions was down to 30%. However, after the tsunami, where approximately 30% of Americans gave money in aid for tsunami victims and countless NGOs from the US and other countries (like the Netherlands and UK) came in to help rebuild the lives of the victims, that same approval rating was up to 58%. Therefore, as a result of an empathetic struggle to rebuild Southeast Asia, where the citizens of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and India saw that Americans actually cared about their well-being, relations between America and those countries (in particular, Indonesia) improved considerably.

The key point in the above example is that the opinions and values of the region evolved not through some propaganda offered up by the American government, but through the hard work and monetary contributions of American citizens. If the government of the US had been the key player in the Indonesian relief effort, there may have been any number of suspicions regarding why the US government was so interested in helping Indonesians. However, when American people, a diverse and characteristically discordant group, come together in an effort to rebuild the region, such suspicions fall away. There is no worry of a conspiracy existing between all the different groups that came to the aid of the Indonesians - the multilateral and non-governmental nature of the effort prevented that. Therein lies the key to a practical universalism.

By avoiding "uni-traditional" and governmental actions, the world can work towards the sort of "shared values" that President Clinton speaks of. If the actions are "uni-traditional" (ie, all the aid groups come from within Western nations), immediately there is the worry of conscious manipulation of another culture's values by the aiding culture. If the actions are governmental, there is a similar worry of governmental conspiracy to colonize the region they are aiding. Thus, in order to achieve the shared values that President Clinton feels would result in "more friends and fewer enemies," any actions causing a profound effect on a region (whether culturally, economically, or physically) must be taken by multi-traditional and non-governmental entities. That is, a relief effort in any part of the world must, in order to succeed in the long-term, possess participants from as large a cross-section of the world as possible. Then, any cultural effect caused by the effort, be it a direct result of the effort or an indirect consequence, will be seen not as a malicious trick by any one group, but rather a coming together of people in an effort to improve the lot of their fellow person, resulting in the growth of a basic set of shared values.

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As a side note, I would like to say that President Clinton's idea about NGOs is similar to what I suggested as a possible solution in Iraq. The diverse nature of NGOs would prevent any sort of focused influence effected by any one country. As a result, the shared values that arise will be, as the president said, "general and embracing and [would] work everywhere," rather than being values perceived to be imposed upon Iraqis by the Coalition of the Willing.