utterly random.
Metternich was a baller. i know no other part of his name. He was a 17th century Austrian statesman and diplomat and, later, prince. He befuddled, decieved, cajoled, and just generally mentally bitchslapped Czar Alexander. It was impressive. He was very Rasputin-esque. Alexander was a chump.
I have decided that that seems like a cool skill set/ occupation. Sophistry, persuasion, people skills. These things never go out of style.
I was thinking, at the time, 'why don't we have some dude pulling this kinda shit nowadays?'. Russia could've easily pwned Austria and all her pussy-ass allies, had it come to that. But by playing on Alexander's religious fanaticism, indecisiveness, and mystifying desire for acceptance by the European Community, Metternich got Alexander to pass up a golden opportunity to conquer Turkey, save oppressed christians, and generally fulfill the ancestral dreams of his people. It was bizarre. And baller.
So, like i said, why doesn't this shit happen now. The UN is a big group of diplomats, but everyone calls them useless. No cool, manipulative, high-stakes statecraft is going on. No American ambassadors ever talked fuckin' Stalin out of invading any pissant Asian countries. At least not that i've heard of.
I hypothesize (why am i writing an essay? it's interesting, that's why) that there are 2 reasons for this falling out of style: polarization and democracy.
Polarization means, in this case, too much homogeneity and too much heterogeneity. In those days, the rulers of all of europe (including, sort of, russia) were pretty culturally homogeneous. A lot of the same basic beliefs. Christianity being the main one. BUT, they were very politically divided. They were all scared shitless of each other, and were always on the verge of war. Metternich was big into Balance of Power, trying to keep them all from killing each other. Remember, this is before either world war. Clearly, trouble was brewing. Everybody was expansionist, and everbody was a rival, and it was anybody's game.
Nowadays, Europe is all pacific and EU-ized. THey're a big, happy, second-world, socialist love-fest. They have become politically, as well as culturally, homogeneous. (note. This is, in very large part, conjecture or wild extrapolation from very limited facts. Correct me if you can). The US, Canada, Australia, Japan and some of South America are pretty much in the same boat. We're gonna compete with each other economically, but nobody really expects the Germans to march on Paris AGAIN. Pearl Harbor is pretty frickin' safe, as far as i can see.
On the other hand, those NOT in the big happy socialist love-fest are both culturally and politically very different from us. The South American dictators/juntas, Pinkish China, and pretty much everything between Turkey and India, are all coming from very distinct cultural and political places, and we don't really 'get' them too well. We can't figure out what makes them tick. The tricks and tactics and rhetorical devices we would use on each other don't really apply. This was true even back then. Nobody, Metternich included, tried to do any advanced statecraft maneuvering with the Ottoman Empire's leaders. In the end, England implemented the highly nuanced strategy of saying 'knock it off, or we'll shoot you', and then they sunk the Turkish fleet. That was the most advanced level at which we could deal with these guys.
SO, the reason no Metternichs are around today is that everybody is either too homogeneous or too different. There's nobody left that we understand, but also deeply fear and hate. Well, actually, that's not quite true. I think that a lot of Europeans probably hate American jingoism and imperialism and such, and we scare everybody shitless, including ourselves. At this point, we all understand each other pretty damn well, and are coming from cultural and ideological frameworks at least as similar as those of Austria and Russia circa 1820. So why isn't Bush being courted and flattered and cajoled by a new breed of Austrian diplomats trying to thwart our expansionist ambitions?
I'm gonna blame this one on democracy, or at least on media-driven, volatile democracy. Alexander didn't give a flying fuck what the Russian people really thought. And they probably either worshipped him or were completely indifferent as they ate their goulash in Siberia. Like any good old-school Monarch, Alexander cared about God, himself, and his aristocratic buddies (thus Metternich's influence. peer pressure). The actual russian people were barely a factor. But nowadays, neither God nor narcissism nor all the aristocratic buddies in the world will keep you in power for long if you piss off more than 50% of the seething, emotional, news-watching masses. This was true in England at the time, actually.
(why am i writing this??? feel free to stop reading. this is, obviously, much more about European politics than about me. Self-disclosure comes back in towards the end, if you wanna skip ahead)
So the Turks are killing the Greeks. Really, they're genociding the Greeks, and occasionally selling batches of them into slavery. They hanged the Greek Patriarch and all his bishops from the gates of the cathedral in Constantinople. The British masses were pissed. They wanted to go help out their christian brethren against the wacko Turks. But Prime Minister Castlereagh is like blahblahblah, balance of power, the Turks keep the Russians at bay, we don't want to get into a big messy war of occupation, etc, etc (pussy). He was doing the exact same thing as Metternich: playing it safe, protecting British national interests, using statecraft instead of messy military interventions. But the democratic brits are not having it. So basically, he holds out against massive public outrcries for about 2 years of gruesome genocide, till he says 'I am hated and shunned by everyone. When people see me on the street, they cross to the other side'. He then committed suicide, and Lord Byron composed a poem suggesting that his headstone read "stop, traveller, and piss". Cheering crowds attended his funeral. This shit, clearly, would not fly.
so yeah. That's why they don't even try any more. No President cares what the great political minds of Europe think about our foriegn policy. All that matters is to avoid pissing off Farmer Jim badly enough that he pulls his cock out of Bessie and votes for somebody else.
WHERE AM I GOING WITH THIS?????? I'll tell ya.
So, .....fuck it. i'm hungry. i'll finish this in like a half hour. right now, i'm gonna go get food. So, notes for my next entry, which will complete this and get to the goddamn point: voting. malleability of the masses. Demagoguery. Keystones. Domino. 'The Tipping Point'. Big Personality Theory/ The Cult of Personality. Rasputin/ The Man Behind The Man/ The Jesuitical Method/ The Royal Confessor/ Wormtongue (remember, Rohan, not Gondor). Ok. I'll be back.
I have decided that that seems like a cool skill set/ occupation. Sophistry, persuasion, people skills. These things never go out of style.
I was thinking, at the time, 'why don't we have some dude pulling this kinda shit nowadays?'. Russia could've easily pwned Austria and all her pussy-ass allies, had it come to that. But by playing on Alexander's religious fanaticism, indecisiveness, and mystifying desire for acceptance by the European Community, Metternich got Alexander to pass up a golden opportunity to conquer Turkey, save oppressed christians, and generally fulfill the ancestral dreams of his people. It was bizarre. And baller.
So, like i said, why doesn't this shit happen now. The UN is a big group of diplomats, but everyone calls them useless. No cool, manipulative, high-stakes statecraft is going on. No American ambassadors ever talked fuckin' Stalin out of invading any pissant Asian countries. At least not that i've heard of.
I hypothesize (why am i writing an essay? it's interesting, that's why) that there are 2 reasons for this falling out of style: polarization and democracy.
Polarization means, in this case, too much homogeneity and too much heterogeneity. In those days, the rulers of all of europe (including, sort of, russia) were pretty culturally homogeneous. A lot of the same basic beliefs. Christianity being the main one. BUT, they were very politically divided. They were all scared shitless of each other, and were always on the verge of war. Metternich was big into Balance of Power, trying to keep them all from killing each other. Remember, this is before either world war. Clearly, trouble was brewing. Everybody was expansionist, and everbody was a rival, and it was anybody's game.
Nowadays, Europe is all pacific and EU-ized. THey're a big, happy, second-world, socialist love-fest. They have become politically, as well as culturally, homogeneous. (note. This is, in very large part, conjecture or wild extrapolation from very limited facts. Correct me if you can). The US, Canada, Australia, Japan and some of South America are pretty much in the same boat. We're gonna compete with each other economically, but nobody really expects the Germans to march on Paris AGAIN. Pearl Harbor is pretty frickin' safe, as far as i can see.
On the other hand, those NOT in the big happy socialist love-fest are both culturally and politically very different from us. The South American dictators/juntas, Pinkish China, and pretty much everything between Turkey and India, are all coming from very distinct cultural and political places, and we don't really 'get' them too well. We can't figure out what makes them tick. The tricks and tactics and rhetorical devices we would use on each other don't really apply. This was true even back then. Nobody, Metternich included, tried to do any advanced statecraft maneuvering with the Ottoman Empire's leaders. In the end, England implemented the highly nuanced strategy of saying 'knock it off, or we'll shoot you', and then they sunk the Turkish fleet. That was the most advanced level at which we could deal with these guys.
SO, the reason no Metternichs are around today is that everybody is either too homogeneous or too different. There's nobody left that we understand, but also deeply fear and hate. Well, actually, that's not quite true. I think that a lot of Europeans probably hate American jingoism and imperialism and such, and we scare everybody shitless, including ourselves. At this point, we all understand each other pretty damn well, and are coming from cultural and ideological frameworks at least as similar as those of Austria and Russia circa 1820. So why isn't Bush being courted and flattered and cajoled by a new breed of Austrian diplomats trying to thwart our expansionist ambitions?
I'm gonna blame this one on democracy, or at least on media-driven, volatile democracy. Alexander didn't give a flying fuck what the Russian people really thought. And they probably either worshipped him or were completely indifferent as they ate their goulash in Siberia. Like any good old-school Monarch, Alexander cared about God, himself, and his aristocratic buddies (thus Metternich's influence. peer pressure). The actual russian people were barely a factor. But nowadays, neither God nor narcissism nor all the aristocratic buddies in the world will keep you in power for long if you piss off more than 50% of the seething, emotional, news-watching masses. This was true in England at the time, actually.
(why am i writing this??? feel free to stop reading. this is, obviously, much more about European politics than about me. Self-disclosure comes back in towards the end, if you wanna skip ahead)
So the Turks are killing the Greeks. Really, they're genociding the Greeks, and occasionally selling batches of them into slavery. They hanged the Greek Patriarch and all his bishops from the gates of the cathedral in Constantinople. The British masses were pissed. They wanted to go help out their christian brethren against the wacko Turks. But Prime Minister Castlereagh is like blahblahblah, balance of power, the Turks keep the Russians at bay, we don't want to get into a big messy war of occupation, etc, etc (pussy). He was doing the exact same thing as Metternich: playing it safe, protecting British national interests, using statecraft instead of messy military interventions. But the democratic brits are not having it. So basically, he holds out against massive public outrcries for about 2 years of gruesome genocide, till he says 'I am hated and shunned by everyone. When people see me on the street, they cross to the other side'. He then committed suicide, and Lord Byron composed a poem suggesting that his headstone read "stop, traveller, and piss". Cheering crowds attended his funeral. This shit, clearly, would not fly.
so yeah. That's why they don't even try any more. No President cares what the great political minds of Europe think about our foriegn policy. All that matters is to avoid pissing off Farmer Jim badly enough that he pulls his cock out of Bessie and votes for somebody else.
WHERE AM I GOING WITH THIS?????? I'll tell ya.
So, .....fuck it. i'm hungry. i'll finish this in like a half hour. right now, i'm gonna go get food. So, notes for my next entry, which will complete this and get to the goddamn point: voting. malleability of the masses. Demagoguery. Keystones. Domino. 'The Tipping Point'. Big Personality Theory/ The Cult of Personality. Rasputin/ The Man Behind The Man/ The Jesuitical Method/ The Royal Confessor/ Wormtongue (remember, Rohan, not Gondor). Ok. I'll be back.