Books, Films, Media Reviews--Robert Kaplan and the Importance of Hard Truths Spring 05

Stubborn Reality

"To know the worst is not always to be liberated from its consequences; nevertheless it is preferable to ignorance." Isaiah Berlin, The Originality of Machiavelli

I can't think of a quote that captures Robert Kaplan's journalistic genius better. Or his potential importance for correcting the way Americans view themselves and the world.

Lots of us probably read Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince back in college. To this day the adjective "Machiavellian" means "coldly realistic" for most educated people in America and in the west.

I've been reading Kaplan for years and I'd encourage you to take a look at his work. I think his kind of realism is pretty important right now.

He writes regular pieces for The Atlantic Monthly and he's published a series of fascinating and best selling "travel and foreign policy" books.

His book titles include:

Soldiers of God--a report from among the mujahidin in Afghanistan during their war against the Russians. He predicted what was to come after that war when almost nobody else got it

The Ends of the Earth--an intimate journey among "the least" from West Africa to South East Asia

Eastward to Tartary--a trip through the Balkans, the Middle East, and the Caucasus--basically, the deeply troubled modern remains of the fallen Ottoman (Turkish) Empire

The Coming Anarchy--a pretty accurate prophetic vision so far of the post Cold War world

An Empire Wilderness--a look at America's transition from nation-state to a new kind of empire, a process that Kaplan thinks is well underway and inevitable

How to sum up Kaplan's writings? If the publishers of the Rough Guide asked Machiavelli himself to write a series of travel guides about some of the most desperate parts of the current developing world, you'd probably get something like Kaplan's books and articles.

His stuff is unflinchingly real, detailed and intimate. I've learned more about the developing world from Kaplan than from any other writer or journalist.

No one who reads him regularly is surprised by the course of the war in Iraq over the past couple of years.

And he's just as honest about the west and the US. He has little patience for Americans (including some of our most significant politicians) who insist on seeing the US and the rest of the world through sentimental and traditional American ideological lenses.

His most recent AM piece described the indigenous proxy armies the US military is training in Africa and throughout the developing world. Those local extensions of American power will play a key role in bolstering America's relatively new imperial role.

He's fun to read and different because he's no leftist railing against American empire and he's even less of a sentimental conservative nationalist who refuses to acknowledge the obvious reality of American imperial power in the world.

He does his best to describe things the way they are and then lets the chips fall where they may.

I'd describe his worldview as a kind of "high paganism." He has a frankly realistic and tragic sensibility. His perspective isn't fatalistic, and he is sometimes surprisingly hopeful given his regular subject matter, but he knows in a deep way that life for most of the world's people is brutal and unfair and without a lot of happy endings. The title of his very first book, Surrender or Starve, pretty much sums up the kinds of choices he believes many poor folks face in the worst parts of the developing world.

Why is his writing and journalism important? To answer that I return to Isaiah Berlin's quote. Even though knowing the worst doesn't always free you from the consequences, sometimes it does.

His clear eyed view of some of the most intractable problems and some of the most challenging situations around the world offer the possibility of addressing those challenges in a realistic and pro-active way. Westerners and Americans have little real idea of what life is like for most of the world's population. Romantic and sentimental images won't create effective solutions. That much is certain.

And when Americans operate out of self-delusional images about themselves (i.e., "We're the most generous nation on earth and we're a peace loving republic that has no interest in imposing our will on other people) there's much less chance to respond in a practical and life giving way to the concrete realities that most folks around the world recognize.

Kaplan's kind of realism could be the start of a better and more realistic theology, mission, and public witness for American Christians. We have a hope for transformation that Kaplan's neo-paganism doesn't, but many of us could probably learn something from his courageous willingness to look at things more honestly than most people do.

I've often prayed that God would raise up a Charles Dickens for the 21st century. Someone who would be a realistic and artistic voice for the masses of the urban poor and the dispossessed around the world.

No sign of anyone or anything like that on the horizon. While we're waiting, there's no reason why someone like Robert Kaplan can't help us get a little closer to true.

"...it appears to me more appropriate to follow up on the real truth of a matter than the imagination of it..." Machiavelli, The Prince