 back to Think Tech. I'm Jay Fidel. This is Keeping the World Company. We're going to talk about the global demise of civil society with our special guest, Dean Rosenfeld and our co-host Tim Apachella. Welcome to the show, you guys. We're going to talk about the global demise of civil society. What can be done about it? I'm going to enter the subject through a call on a status report on what's going on in the propaganda war around Israel. Jean, you're first. What is the status of the propaganda war around Israel? I think probably the best indication we've had of that recently is the two votes in the Nations and the Security Council, the United States vetoed a resolution for a ceasefire in Israel. So they took it to the General Assembly and only the United States and eight other nations, including Nauru and Paraguay, and only Austria was the only major other nation in Czechoslovakia to stand with the United States for Israel, and it passed in the General Assembly. It has no bite, but it indicates world opinion. Yeah, and world opinion is weighing heavy, and national opinion is weighing heavy on Joe Biden. So through Jake Sullivan, he is telling the Israelis that they should stop the war, essentially, by the end of this year, that's two weeks away. So what does this tell us? The United Nations General Assembly vote, the fact that Joe Biden is responding to the same kind of pressure that created that vote, what does it tell us about, you know, global and national opinion over maintaining civil society and dealing with terrorism, Jean? It seems to tell us that global world opinion and sympathy is trending much more strongly toward the Palestinians, largely due to recording in all of the media now on the status of the people in Gaza. Every major agency and every major newspaper is reporting that it's a humanitarian crisis. And yet, in an interview with an Israeli IDF spokesman, he could not bring himself to say that it was a crisis. The most he could say is that it was a challenge. So with this kind of weak pushback, Israel doesn't really stand a chance in the propaganda war right now. Yeah, you know, I saw most recently that a poll taken by a responsible agency, I forget which one it was, said that 70% of the Palestinians polled in both Gaza and the West Bank supported Hamas, which is very troubling, but that doesn't get to the news. All the media, including cable, which, you know, I have watched over the past few years, you know, are looking for raw meat. And they are following that track of criticizing Israel for its bombing strikes. I don't think it's accurate. And I really have to search harder to find news that I feel is accurate. And it's not a bubble, you know, it's not that I'm looking for news that's consistent with my view of the world. I'm looking for news which I would treat, you know, in the first minute of the news report as accurate, as fair and balanced, and reporting the facts. But I am not finding that in the news sources that I have been looking at. What is your experience, Jane? Well, just this morning I read that the 70% is a bit of an exaggeration. And most they have a strong plurality of support. Support for Hamas has gone up in the West Bank from 12% to 44% since the war started. And as you know, settlers in the West Bank for some time have been attacking Palestinian villages. And the Israeli police and security officials have been supporting them more or less by omission or commission. And that the support for Hamas in Gaza has gone up significantly. But this is not to say that Hamas has majority support. It does not. Okay. Well, let's take that one step further before we really mix it up. And that is, what does it show us? The vote in the General Assembly, the way the United States public opinion is working, what does it show us about the value on civil society, the value on calling on peace, the value on preventing massacres? What does it show you about the direction historically of the world today? I know that's not a small question. No, it's not a small question. And it depends on what part of the world you're looking at and what time frame. We know that Geert Wilders has a plurality in the Netherlands and is putting together a coalition to rule. And Geert Wilders is an Islamophobic individual from way back. And he is also anti-Semitic, which is unusual for the Netherlands. And this has produced some sense of alarm because, as you know, the Netherlands of all countries in the world has been most supportive of the Jews even during World War II. So that's somewhat alarming. On the other hand, we have in Poland, Donald Tusk, the moderate candidate, has just been able to defeat the ultra-conservative proto-fascist candidate. And he's putting together a coalition. So you see this, there's a kind of a really strong contest going on in the world, reflecting the polarity that exists now between the Russia-China axis and the axis of resistance, the Shiite axis of resistance in the Middle East, and the United States and the European Union and its allies in Asia and the Pacific. So we are seeing a bifurcation in the world, which we often see between before major wars, and this itself is alarming. The decline of civil society has more to do with the violence that accompanies these struggles, political struggles in each country and also among countries in the decline and threat to alliances, like NATO, for example, and also the decline of globalization, which did support the Pax Americana because it enabled friendlier relations between nations, which perhaps didn't have much in common, like the United States and China, but nevertheless in which their national interest in prosperity coalesced. So the idea of mutual interest has made a kind of a pilgrimage from world prosperity and lifting up third world countries into the first world to another emphasis on national identities, political conflict, and actual wars and aggressions. So this promotes violence, promotes polarization, promotes dehumanization of the other and sets the stage for war. Well, we have often explored the notion that the way to peace is through war, and that's proven out a couple of times. So wow, that's a, you know, what Gene said is really bowling me over, Tim. What's your reaction? And I think an interesting comparison is the way you and I have examined the increasing divisiveness in this country under Trump. We've seen things divide. And Gene's talking about a much more global divide. What's your reaction? My reaction is, particularly regarding the prosperity concept. And I think that's a big reason why Bill Clinton really pushed hard on the NAFTA concept, particularly to include China in global trading. We tend not to go to war with our trading partners. Now, obviously the bigger the trading partner, the less avoids you'll have with going to war. China has become the United States' major trading partner. Go to any Walmart or any Target and you'll find that 95%, if not more, of all products on the shelves are being manufactured in China. And that was at the expense of the Midwest and in the Northern states where manufacturing dried up and went away because it was supplanted by cheaper labor and trading agreements. So the idea that small nations, third world nations get to share in the prosperity pie, if you will, that's an important concept. And it's worked quite well for the most part for the last 30-some odd years. Yeah. And to Gene's point about violence and how that unravels cooperation and it becomes, like all humans, we become desensitized to violence, war, and it becomes more and more order of the day, if you will, that people accept it. Look at the United Nations and their role over the last 40 years. I mean, it's diminished to, I don't know what it's diminished to, but it's certainly not a peacekeeping deterrence to war and conflict in this world. So the unraveling of civility and, you know, the ability to keep peace amongst nations is unraveling. Yeah, you know, before this show began, I was watching a YouTube documentary about water in Israel. Israel is way advanced beyond any of its neighbors in desalination and in creating water. There is no water shortage in Israel, which is remarkable because when the State of Israel was organized, it was pretty dry. It was desert like its neighbors. But now there's water everywhere. There's more water than they can use. As a matter of fact, they provide water for some of their neighbors and including, you know, Gaza before this war. And I say to myself, gee, that's an institution, a technology that brings people together like trade, make the desert bloom, which is what the Israelis have done for a long time. And then I think of Ukraine, where Vladimir Putin blew up the dam and stopped agriculture for miles around, hundreds of miles around. And that damages everybody in the room. So you say to yourself, that's an indicator of civil society. It's an indicator of helping your neighbor. It's an indicator of, you know, making technology work for everyone so that everyone benefits. But there are those in this world who would blow up a COVID dam. There are those in this world who would, you know, be happy to blow up the Israeli water installations. And I ask Gene about that. You know, it's more than just knocking off the elements of democracy and rule of law and civil society on the governmental level. It's a different approach to cooperation in general that we have. And that unravels, to use Tim's word, the situation, the collaboration among nations and groups faster than ever before, at least in our memory. What do you think, Gene? Well, of course, you had the increase in violence, instability, and fear among the population. The choice is much more personal and much more selfish, which is to remain safe. And we see people really horrified by the conditions of the Palestinians in Gaza, who are, in essence, the field of battle upon which the war is waged because of the behavior of the enemy who has attacked deliberately to increase chaos. And you increase chaos by such things as attacking infrastructure. And water can be used as a weapon, too, as Israel is using water from the Mediterranean, presumably to flood the tunnels, the 300 miles of tunnels, under which Gaza, the city of Gaza, rises. And that undermines the city of Gaza as well. Then we have, in another way in which infrastructure is, to some extent, weaponized by China in its Belt and Road Initiative to seduce the unaligned world to its view of wanting to replace the United States as a superpower and replace our currency with its own currency. So people's desire for prosperity and safety is probably among the most primitive desires and plays out politically so that if your safety is compromised, what do you do? You look to defend yourself. You look to defend yourself by aligning yourself with strong men because they're strong and they're father figures. And with somebody with the biggest weapon system or protective system. And to some extent, this mentality has brought about a government in Israel that, again, uses one instrument largely to control its own national security, and that is military. Yeah, Tim. Yeah, just to tag on to what Gene just said, great point, Gene, because if you look at our media, not only in the United States but around the world, it's pretty much fear-based. There's a lot of evil things out there in the world plays, a lot of boogeymen. And if you're bombarded by fear-based messages day in and day out, guess what happens? You become fearful. And when you become fearful, you make decisions based on fear and not confidence and trust in your fellow partners and in your fellow man. And then you begin into concerns about safety and what's your mausoleum response to that? You're going to go to a fear-based approach to ensuring your safety, which is usually military or some kind of response like that. So on a more global point is that we live in a fear-based society and we've got to be able to balance that with information about our friends, neighbors, country, other countries in a less fearful way. Well, there's another element I want to throw into the conversation. It's not just the major powers and it's not just dividing the world into people who create fear and people who are afraid. There's a third element in the room and that is climate change and climate change is coming for us. Climate change is going to wreck havoc on this planet. It is wrecking havoc. Wait till the next grouping of climate change disasters and to the extent that we might have had institutions and infrastructure or at least the possibility of developing them a few years ago, to the extent that they were in the news cycle a few years ago, they're no longer there and our efforts are failing and disappearing. And that means that humanity is really not addressing this issue and it's biblical in the sense that we can have all the squabbles we want but at the end of the day, don't argue with mother nature. Jean, how does that play into what you were talking about? It increases the potential for chaos and fear and poor selfishness but at the basic level, how you behave in your daily life really determines whether your institutions of law and order really work. Even if law were to break down, if you had a population that was so united in its norms and its consensus about what is right and wrong, life would go on in an orderly fashion. It's when those norms and values are undermined by forces that convince you that those that in essence are governing you are the evil state or the secret enemy or the global conspiracy. When you undermine that, the norms as well as the laws, then you get into a very, very difficult stage and it's really right for warlordism basically, which is authoritarianism. But with respect to climate change, it's happening now just like we are in essence in the prodrome or the early stages of a world war, a hybrid world war. We are also in climate change now and it is affecting already the more vulnerable island nations of the world. And just because it isn't, you know, flooding New York City quite yet, it hasn't reached that critical mass doesn't mean it's not happening in other places in the world. Jakarta, for example, is becoming unsustainable as the capital of Indonesia and they're building another capital. Wow. You know, later on today, we're going to have a show with Rabbi Itzhel Krasunjansky and the question before the house, which I'm sure he'll have something to say about is, why is this out of Passover, you know, why is this Hanukkah different from all Hanukkahs? And it's really a question with some meat on the bones. But let me, you know, ask you a question I told you I was going to ask you before the show began. Is this just a cycle thing? Gene, you know, maybe, you know, it's a sign curve. It goes up, it goes down like the stock market, you know, if it's up, you know, it's going to go down at some point in vice versa. Or is this special? Is this a phenomenon that we are living in, an inflection point to use that term? That is different than your view of the past as a historian. Well, the past encompasses a variety of factors too vast to discuss here. But in general, yes, we know that the United States and Europe have been marked by a philosophy called the doctrine of progress culminating in Francis Fukuyama's infamous essay called the end of history at the end of the 20th century, kind of an apocalyptic coda to Western civilization in which he said, we have now reached the apogee of development and we don't we can look forward now to peace, prosperity, and, you know, a wonderful material lifestyle, which of course didn't hold out very long. But yes, what happened after Rome fell at the Dark Ages, they're called the Dark Ages anyway. And in different parts of the world in China, you have had enormous loss of life at times when dynasties have fallen incomprehensible. The greatest loss of life has not been in World War Two and World War One. Actually, I was just reading it. It's been in these huge overturns of populations in China, we talked about the mandate of heaven, some sessions back and how we have to understand where China is coming from and wanting to quell any kind of dissent, that's what they fear more than anything else. So yes, there, there, there, you cannot basically most boundings of most states, nation states, a lot of them happen through war and violence. That's how they come to be. So we may be going through another period of war and violence. And by the way, these are not generational, or in some way, patterned as people who wrote the fourth turning would have you believe they don't happen every four generations. They happen randomly. But you can kind of mark the, the, the principles that undergird a tendency to go into one of these chaotic states marked by violence and disorder. Yes. And we've had it even within the United States. Of course, the Civil War stands out in with that regard. Well, here, here we are, Tim, and I have a question for you. I mean, the general sense is that for the lack of these institutions, for the lack of civil society, for the possibility of war, a lot of people will die. I don't think they really understand that. And there's no where you can go. There's no way you can run to if this, this, you know, the cycle continues in a straight line. So, A, what will that be like? And do people understand what it will do to them, how it will affect them? And B, this is a hard question. It's a bifurcated question. Like the world is bifurcated. This question is bifurcated. What can we, should we do? Oh boy. Okay, let's go to how it affects them. You know, history is only as good as people are willing to pick up a book and read it and learn from it. We are a written society. We have these, you know, these vast books of knowledge. We have the education system to remind us of what our past has been and where that may lead to in the future. And so like most humans, though, we have this foggy memory of situations that we've already been through. I'm thinking of the 1930s as, as far as a sleepwalk to fascism. No different when it comes to, you know, the breakdown of civility. What does that lead to? I mean, basically, it's a lack of respect for authority and social norms. And we seem to see a fair amount of amount of that right now, specifically in Congress. But that's what every generation complains about is that those younger generations, they don't, you know, they don't respect authority and, you know, how things should be. Well, that, that's been going on for thousands of years of generations complaining about that to your tougher part of the question, what to do about it? I don't know, Jay. I mean, don't just be honest with you. If I, if I knew that I'd be on all the best talk shows in the world, it comes from how you're taught, what your environment leads you to believe, what, you know, what your parent structure, your home structure has taught you about living with your neighbors and your friends and being a contributing member of society and learning to tolerate people that are different from you and what their actions and behaviors are different from yours. And it's, it's a matter of education about patience and tolerance. And because we are in a highly fast technological age right now where we expect things very quickly, we have lost patience. And, you know, you can go back 50 years ago. I mean, this situation in Israel, people would say, Oh, well, this is just the beginning of the war. But because we expect things done much faster and with an accelerated rate of speed, we want it done in two weeks. And I believe that is also a big problem of our expectations on how fast things should be resolved and how fast we should expect things from other human beings. And they don't measure up. You know, we've talked often about, you know, the problem with an isolationist populist government in this country. And, and actually, it's happening in a number of countries. And I just, I wonder, you know, in, you know, in a better world and a better attempt at avoiding, you know, the terrible result that might otherwise occur, it would be good to educate people about global affairs. Because in this country, including in Congress, people don't really look at global affairs. They, they should, they shrink from global affairs. Don't you think that a global mentality or global appreciation would help? Absolutely, but you know what? America is a vast geographic continent. And guess what? We're insular in our way of thinking. We don't like soccer because it's a foreign sport. You know, don't show me anything that's foreign because I only want to be exposed to the things that I'm familiar with. When I travel across Europe, guess where I want to go? I want to go to McDonald's. Why? But because it's something I'm familiar with, something I'm comfortable with. By the way, I never go to McDonald's in or out of this country. But the bottom line is, we're an insular society, and that leads to a certain amount of ignorance. And when it comes to global affairs, we're, we're, we're horrible at it as, as Americans. And I won't say what region is worse than others, but you can guess. Yeah. Well, Gene, let me go to you. You mentioned what, what, what has happened in, in the Netherlands. And what has happened in Poland and their two different results. And it leads me to ask you, you know, isn't it possible that the Netherlands can reverse that? It's also, I suppose possible that Poland can reverse what is not. Can't people see what's going on? It's like, it's like the people who would lose social security in this country, because of the conservative Republicans, don't they see that voting for a conservative Republican is like shooting yourself in the foot? Is this something where people could become aware of the problems we have been discussing? And reverse the direction and go for a more civil society, develop better values, or return to better values as the case may be, and correct our course before it's too late? Is that possible? Well, yes, it's all possible. I chose those two examples going in different directions just to, to point out that today there is no dominant side, but there is a contest between. It's a very active contest. So you, it's like battles in a war, one battle will go one way, another battle will go another way. We don't know how the war is going to end. But let's look to the Iowa caucuses that are coming up. The Iowa caucuses are kind of famous for being an exercise in democracy, but it's true that all politics is local. And that democracy is stronger the closer you get to the people who actually need representation and they have a greater say in it than the Iowa caucuses really are an example of how American democracy can work because we are a democracy within a republic. And it's the problems in the constitution that have to do with its application to the present world where people live in cities that doesn't work. It used to be that American democracy or the republic function better because it represented an agricultural nation where people were spread out in the territory. Now we're clumped and people in cities don't have near the representation that people in the countryside do. And because the countryside tends to be more traditional, conservative, and unfortunately less educated cosmopolitan, the country represents a minority view. The majority of the most recent 10 presidents were elected without a majority of the population. So it's in our institutions coupled with the fact that it doesn't quite fit the society that we've evolved into that matters. But back to the Iowa caucuses, here you see what the grassroots is thinking basically. And it will show up in the vote in the republican caucus because that's the critical one. There is no opposition with the other party. Now the rest of the country doesn't necessarily operate that way. But we can get kind of a sense of how people are thinking. What are the issues? Is it abortion? Is it the economy? Is it the foreign wars that they want? And is it isolationism? We will tend to see that. And I think that we should take note because of course there's always going to be more of a fixation on what is local and not what is global. I might add Tim's right. However, if you go to France or any other country in the world, I don't think the general population is very alert to global affairs either. I think what happens is if we elect individuals that we trust to run our government, those that's the educated class. There's nothing wrong with being an educated elite. I mean they can take the burden off the local population and conduct wise policy. But when you undermine that with the conspiracy theory that that is a deep state working against the people. Sort of like England did the revolutionary colonies. Then we have a real problem when people buy into that. Well, Tim, we've been talking about the competition, the inflection point of whether we are going to be able to retain civil society. And if we don't, you know, what happens both on a national and global basis and on an individual basis. But what we're faced with here is a high leverage situation. That is the possible election of Donald Trump in November, who has made statements to suggest that he would be an autocrat. He would try to be a dictator. He would hollow out the government point loyalists to every position and do whatever he wanted on any given day. This has an effect on the global process because he could destroy the EU, destroy NATO. He could make foreign policy decisions without good advice, which are very bad decisions. So I think we're faced with a kind of situation that you and I have been talking about for several years. That is what happens if he gets into unrestrained power. So I know this is another hard question, but what does happen, Tim? Well, to use your phrase that you use often, we'll be in deep kimchi. And that's just the way it's going to be. I mean, you will see a remarkable change in the way our society, the United States at least, is governed. You'll see an erosion, I believe, of our democratic ideals, certainly the rule of law, and the hollowing out of our institutions. And to follow up on a promise I made yesterday on my show, I have contributed $15 to Nikki Haley as a lifetime Democrat slash independent. Why did I do it? I had to do it. Why? Because the one that shall not be named needs to be stopped. And the only real way to do it is to make sure that one individual shall not receive the GOP nomination for President of the United States in 2024. So to go back to the unraveling of civil society, remember, to be civil means we have to hang together. And Ben Franklin said it best. If we don't hang together, we will most assuredly hang separately. Yeah, for thy neighbor. It's biblical. So let me go one step further on that and say, suppose Trump is elected and he destroys the EU and destroys NATO, what does happen? Is this all going to be accelerated? Are we going to have a war over it? What's going to happen? You will see chaos on the global stage. United States, believe it or not, is still that shining city on the hill. And our leadership counts for something. You can forget about that world leadership on the world stage because we'll be embroiled with our own mess. And Donald Trump will be the creator of that mess. And I say that with full confidence. One last thing for you, Jane. You spoke about what happens in the dark part of the cycle, if I can still call it a cycle, where people die. And it has to be a kind of reemergence if any afterward. Right now there are something over 7 billion people in the world. And I find myself asking myself, what happens in the case of the war that will hopefully bring us peace? The war that will deal with all these hot spots and autocrats and aprids failure to care about our neighbors. How many billions will die? I know you don't think about it, but I think about it. How many billions will die? Well, we don't know. And perhaps they won't, depending on random factors beyond our can. But we have to prepare for worst case scenarios. We have to do war games just like militaries do and have something on the shelf we can turn to. The problem is that in this type of government, a republic, a democracy, you can't move the ship of state any faster than the people are willing to go. So, testing and understanding and analyzing where the people are at, looking at the Iowa caucuses, looking at the various primaries that are going to be going on, the way the winds shift, will give us a better idea of that. Now, with respect to Trump getting back into office, I've said all along I don't think that's going to happen. Should it happen? Is it the demise of American democracy? Not necessarily. A very good argument was put forth recently in the New York Times. I wish I could remember the author. Rare was maintaining that even though we're going through a very tough time right now, and we're very polarized, our institutions have held. We may not all have the justices in place on the Supreme Court that we want, but the Supreme Court is functioning. The House of Representatives may not be conducting the hearings you want to hear, but it is functioning, as is the executive branch. The one thing in which I disagree with institutions holding during a second Trump presidency with, but I disagree with, is the one thing that we're all focused on. He wanted to nullify an election, a presidential election, for their first time in history. And even though the military during his presidency restrained themselves and restrained him, because that is an organization that he cannot really replace the individuals in this civil service, he has a plan to replace civil service officers that don't agree with those that do. And that is concerning, but the military, he can't do that. And as long as the military holds for our institutions, we will be okay. We're out of time. I'm sorry, there's much more ground to cover. Let me only add that I think we're in an unprecedented time where the national phenomena that we talk about, the national predictions that we make, have international consequences perhaps more than they ever did. And so we, and we can't figure them out because we don't know how fast the news travels or where it lands or how people react when it lands. Anyway, thank you very much to Mapichela Co-host for a great season of great shows, American Issues Take One, and this show too, Keeping the World Company. And Gene Rosenfeld, a very, very favorite scholar in history and humanity. We really appreciate you coming on. Wish you a great Christmas season and see you both next year. Aloha. Thank you, Jeff.