The Geopolitics of Christmas

A great secular follow-up to my "The Wonderful Commercialism of Christmas" from a few days ago.

"The Geopolitics of Christmas" is a great secular follow-up piece to my "The Wonderful Commercialism of Christmas" from a few days ago. It also illustrates an essential point left unspoken in that essay.

If anything comes clear in this excellent piece by Ian Morris, it is the degree to which hard power (e.g., the geopolitical pre-eminence of the Christian English-speaking powers since the 18th Century) shapes and changes the cultures of the rest of the world. This is perhaps the single most important argument for the continued leadership of the United States: the desire that dominance produces in others to emulate American ideas of liberty, human rights and so forth. A Chinese-led world would not only not value those things, but would see both ancient and modern Chinese values -- both Confucian and Communist -- as better, superior, and the way to success.

In a great many respects, that would be a much darker world indeed, not least for the Chinese. — RDM 

by Ian Morris
Dec. 30, 2015

For Ch…