Civilization and Its Enemies: The Next Stage of History

by Lee Harris

Book Overview

Forgetfulness occurs when those who have been long inured to civilized order can no longer remember a time in which they had to wonder whether their crops would grow to maturity without being stolen... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0743257499
• ISBN13: 9780743257497
• Release Date: February 2004
• Publisher: Free Press
• Length: 232 Pages
• Weight: 2.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

The danger of Forgetfulness

CIVILIZATION AND ITS ENEMIES: THE NEXT STAGE OF HISTORYThe over-whelming sentiment of Lee Harris's timely Civilization And Its Enemies The Next Stage of History is pretty much summed up in the Preface when he asserts: "The subject of this book is forgetfulness."Harris, who could be described as a "philosopher's philosopher," convincingly places 9/11 into perspective with carefully crafted arguments reminding the reader that we have learned little from the past.Concepts such as who the enemy is and why it is imperative to react ruthlessly are extensively examined in the light of past historical events as the French Revolution, World War 1 and the teachings of the great political philosophers.No doubt, the book is a riveting attack on many naive liberal ideals that refuse to believe that the enemy is motivated by a fantasy ideology bent on destroying the very foundations of Western democratic principles and ideology no matter what it takes.Harris argues that it is a grave mistake to adopt out-dated rationalizations espoused by many intellectuals that the enemy can be a viable negotiator, notwithstanding that they may be misguided, misunderstood or politically immature-that in the end things can be worked out. This naïve and complacent view of the world as it should be and not as it is a gross misunderstanding of the collision we are presently facing. Unless, as the author points out, we are prepared to look seriously at the historical stakes in America's world-historical gamble, we will completely misunderstand the enemy.To explain the notion of "world-historical gamble," Harris relies on the writings of the German philosopher, Hegel, who believed that that such gambles arise from situations of historical impasse or deadlock for the human race. In such instances, it is vital that mankind doesn't ignore these situations and bury its head in the sand, as if they don't exist. This would be far more dangerous than taking the "world-historical gamble." Many other concepts examined within the context of the present day crisis are origins and importance of leadership, team spirit, tolerance, the origin of the enemy, the rare virtues of the West, ruthlessness and Hegel's origin of civilization.Harris's gets top marks for his clear and precise writing that contains a great deal of substance that avoids generalizations that are often the shortcomings of books of a similar nature. You get a sense that Harris knows what he is talking about without talking down to his audience.The above review was contributed by Norm Goldman editor of Bookpleasures.com

A Well-Timed Warning

It would be a shame if Lee Harris' Civilization and Its Enemies is dismissed as a partisan attempt to rationalize the War on Terror or if it gets lost among the masses of books that try to explain how 9/11 changed the world. Civilization and Its Enemies is a Physics and Politics for the 21st Century. Like Walter Bagehot, Harris makes the argument that civilization's success can set it up for downfall. Sustained peace and prosperity leads to complacency, and the members of a successful civilization are apt to forget that the natural state of people in the world is neither peaceful nor prosperous.Harris does for politics what Frederick Turner, in works such as Beauty: The Value of Values and The Culture of Hope, did for aesthetics. Like Turner, Harris argues for the importance and necessity of shame in shaping our cultural values. Like Turner, Harris creates a kind of counter-myth to challenge the classical, non-partisan liberal ideology that has dominated the West since the triumph of the Enlightenment. Harris deals with the origins of leadership, the importance of team spirit, the evolution of tolerance, along with many other forces that have shaped our current liberal democratic societies.Harris interprets and synthesizes the work of a wide range of political philosophers, but the heart of the book focuses on a handful of Hegel's observations on the origins of civilization. Now, I've always found Hegel to be obscure and convoulted, so I can't speak to the accuracy of Harris' interpretation, but it seemed to me that, through Hegel, Harris gets to the unpleasant truth about our civilization. As members in good standing of enlightened societies, we repress the fact that our liberal democracies (and civilization in general) were formed through illiberal methods.Harris faces up to a truth that most civilized people try to ignore, namely that they may have enemies who, for no reason that would motivate one of Adam Smith's rational actors, want to kill them. Ignoring the enemy won't make them go away, Harris argues, but neither will pretending that they really aren't enemies. There are some conflicts in this world that cannot be "worked out," no matter what we'd like to think.Throughout the book Harris makes the case for accepting and encouraging the genuine good that can come out of a messy reality, rather than trying to force reality to conform to transcendent ideals. We in the West often forget, Harris argues, that our society is better--that is more just and more moral--than any that has ever existed in human history. It is ridiculous, Harris suggests, to judge a country like America harshly because it doesn't live up to the unachievable criteria of idealists.Overall, Harris makes a strong argument that civilization is a fragile and precious thing, not to be taken for granted, or damned because it is, like all things of the Earth, imperfect. The book is clear and well-written--he even makes Hegel understandable. I'd recommend this book not only to

may change the way you think

This book is a rare combination of common sense, depth of thought, breadth of knowledge, originality, and analytical and logical sophistication. Harris writes well, and at times humorously, but (with the possible exception of the first chapter), this is not a predigested easy read. The first chapter offers a stimulating interpretation of the motivation of the perpetrators of 9/11; the attack was less a means to an end (e.g., strike terror in the US population as a means to cause US withdrawal from the Middle East) , than a theatrical demonstration, for the benefit of other Muslims, that Allah favors the triumph of Islam and the fall of the Great Satan. "Fantasy ideologies" are able to thrive because of the decline of political realism in states whose existence and wealth has not been earned by their own effort, but are (ironically) protected by the current international order. The central theme of the book, however, is the concept of the enemy: why enemies must be overcome in the founding of a civil society as well in its maintenance, why rational self-interest cannot explain the origin of social order (contrary to Hobbes and many others), and why the category of the enemy itself tends to be forgotten or dismissed by successful societies. Such societies also forget the ruthlessness that was historically required to achieve their success and which, Harris argues, is also required for their continuing survival. By the same token, the enculturation of a non-rational, intuitive sense of shame and a similarly instinctive sense of trust are necessary for the suppression of internal violence, hence the survival, of all societies, including liberal ones. Harris defends and carries out what I would call a naturalistic approach to social and political theory, which gives priority to careful study, analysis, and interpretation of actually existing societies and their origins. The opposite approach, developing an abstract ideal concept and comparing existing societies to it, inevitably finds the real world to be hopelessly defective. Starting with abstractions can be dangerous, too, since it obscures what has been accomplished up to the present and therefore what we stand to lose, fails to recognize and even disparages essential elements of social survival, and diverts attention from what might actually be accomplished in the future. Harris addresses problems from multiple angles, e.g., a counterintuitive historical analysis of the contribution of ancient Spartan society to Western freedom, convincing arguments against European political theorists from Rousseau to Marx, discussion of the role the Protestant conscience played in providing a social infrastructure for modern Western society, a defense of objective criteria in the comparison of cultures and what different cultures might learn from one another in a more hardnosed approach to multiculturalism, and a critique of the abstraction bias that is a built-in threat to the plausibility of academic t

A Reality Check on Our Fantasy Ideologies

After 9/11 most of us sought out answers to who the perpetrators of this mass murder were, what was their motivation, and what was the bigger picture of what this meant. The conspiracy theorists, both from the political Right and the Left, were the first to offer answers. Most of these answers didn't square with the facts as we slowly learned them. Official sources of information about 9/11 were intentionally vague and focused on some notion of evil terror masters. The reason for the reticence of government to disclose what they knew, when they knew it, and who knew it, only much later became apparent - people inside and outside of the government of our purported ally Saudi Arabia were involved in subsidizing and supporting the terrorists. The U.S. government could not come right out and disclose what it knew for fear of a public outcry for retaliation against the Saudi state, possibly resulting in a worldwide economic depression if the price of oil became destabilized. Many of us in the public searched in vain on the net for reliable sources of information about the events surrounding 9/11, until the lone, clear thinking voice of Lee Harris appeared first with an article in the Spring 2002 issue of Policy Review entitled Al Queda's Fantasy Ideology. Later this article, and its sequel, Our World Historical Gamble appeared at TechCentralStation.com. One of the reasons for Lee Harris's ability to clearly discern the bigger picture is his transcendence of political ideology. If you want to find a book that confirms your political ideology or conspiratorial world view, or as Harris would call it your Fantasy Ideology, about 9/11 and the subsequent invasion of Iraq, I suggest you not read this book. However, if you want to clearly understand the war with Iraq, terrorism, and the larger implications involved from a deep thinker who can write plainly, then I would suggest this book. Harris explains how tolerance and reason are dead end solutions to terrorism. We have often heard the popular phrase about 9/11 "Never Forget." Harris takes the concept of forgetfulness to a different level of understanding about how our institutions have forgotten how civilization was first created. The dust jacket on the book explains that Harris graduated with honors in philosophy from Emery University, studied at divinity school, wrote mystery novels for years, and ended up running an auto glass tinting business. All of this prepared him to be the early lone voice of clarity about 9/11 and the unfolding drama in world events. Lee Harris is the man for our times. And Civilization and Its Enemies is one of the few readable but in-depth analyses of the Post 9/11 world that avoids the populism of most books.

Absolutely Must Reading

The catastrophic event that has come to be known simply as 9/11 was unique in American history. We had been brutally attacked. But by whom? Not by another country, as we soon discovered. Not by some vile dictator or head-of-state, as we later discovered. So who? Who was the enemy? Then, of course, came the question: Why were the World Trade Center and the Pentagon attacked in the first place? Why would someone deliberately, maliciously murder thousands of ordinary, innocent people? "Civilization and Its Enemies" is an attempt by Lee Harris to answer these and other questions. The work is a brilliant analysis of the current geopolitical situation and how it came to be what it is. More significantly, it provides an insight into the historical precipitates and intellectual foundations and foibles which may account for the 9/11 tragedy. "The subject of this book," says Harris on the opening page, "is forgetfulness." Modern civilization has forgotten how it became civilized in the first place; it isn't knowledgeable of the long period of cultural evolution involved; and it doesn't remember the tremendous amount of labor, cultural and intellectual, that went into the development of civil society. Moreover, modern civilization has forgotten about a category called "the enemy." This concept of the enemy -- someone who is willing to die to kill another -- had been discarded from our moral and political discourse. And that fact, according to Harris, has left modern civilization vulnerable to attack by those who are the enemy of civilized society. This is an interesting thesis and, at first glance, may appear to be an implausible explanation for the 9/11 tragedy which was, according to the author, an end in itself and not a means to some other political or social end. Many contemporary observers may find this latter statement problematic since we are so accustomed to thinking in terms of warfare as a means to an end. Harris suggests that our ordinary understanding about what wars are and why they are fought is not applicable to the current conflict with terrorism. The nature of the game, so to speak, has changed and so has the enemy, and 9/11 was a manifestation of that change. So, who is this enemy and what is his intent? How did civilization get itself into this situation where it became so vulnerable to this enemy? What is the historical backdrop? What were the social and cultural influences? Who or what is really responsible? What can modern civilization do, if anything, to protect itself? Harris's discussion of these questions takes the reader on a tour through the development of civilization from antiquity to the present day, forming the framework with which he analyzes our current dilemma and providing a rationale for his conclusions. One of the most interesting of his discussions has to do with what Harris calls "fantasy ideology" and the related "transformative belief." He also points out the difference between abstract reasoning and concrete reaso