How over the last century did American compassion (a response) expressed in the form of foreign aid shift into a self-serving anxiety (a reaction) creating the most neurotic and self-destructive population on the planet. In the language of Simple Reality it was, of course, the American collective false self in pursuit of plenty, pleasure and power.
It’s sad to watch the people within a community whether a tribe, city, nation or a community of nations evolve from expressing compassion for one another to expressing a growing fear and suspicion. “When Belgium was invaded by the Germans in World War I, the civilian population was saved from starvation by a gigantic relief program organized largely by citizens of neutral America and headed by Herbert Hoover.”[i]
Sometime in 1949 the worldview of America shifted from compassion and cooperation to fear and competition. Following World War II the U.S. loaned or gave billions of dollars in foreign aid to western European nations who were struggling to recover from the war. The Marshall Plan and Truman Doctrine were a godsend to millions of devastated populations not under the control of the USSR. Then fear of Communism in America began to cause a shift in national identity from that of generous community wanting to help her neighbors to an identity of a suspicious, paranoid and mistrustful potential victim of some of those neighbors.
“The consequence was an almost complete militarization of foreign aid. Every new program, every dollar, was justified in terms of its contribution to the military strength of the ‘Free World.’ The spirit of Point IV [the Truman Doctrine] was neglected. The economic aspects of the Marshall Plan were replaced by assistance for the purchase and production of weapons. Significantly, the name of the agency in charge of foreign aid was changed in 1952 from Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA) to Mutual Security Administration (MSA). Military aid for NATO allies, begun on a moderate scale in 1949, doubled and redoubled after the outbreak of the Korean War, an event interpreted [the operative word in this process] in Washington as indicating the readiness of the Soviet Union and her giant Communist satellite, China, to use war as an instrument of world conquest. The military aid mission became the characteristic instrument of foreign aid, established in scores of capitals around the world, supplying American weapons and training in their use. At the same time, thousands of foreign military officers came to the United States for special training. The cost of such training was part of foreign aid. The United States also expanded its network of bases around the world and paid generous rent to the host governments. Military aid supposedly was to be used exclusively to increase the defense capabilities of the ‘Free World.’ Inevitably, however, it also strengthened authoritarian regimes against internal dissent, as in Spain or exacerbated tension between regional enemies whose differences had nothing to do with the Cold War, as with India and Pakistan.”[ii]
And thus, in like manner, most of the world’s communities joined the U.S. in choosing the road to ruin rather than the path to peaceful co-existence. And now the people of America have lost their way for want of a new story. “We have now squarely to face this paradox. We have increased human hunger by feeding the hungry. We have increased human suffering by healing the sick. We have increased human want by giving to the needy. It is almost impossible for us to face the fact that this is so. The truth comes as a shocking discovery for we have all been brought up in the Christian tradition in which caring for the least of our brethren has been counted the highest virtue.”[iii]
Just as we have turned to the principles of Simple Reality to explain the human descent into chaos, we can rely on the insights of that new worldview to lead us in a new sustainable direction.
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Supplemental Reading: Change, The ABC’s of Simple Reality, Vol 1
#36 All the Fear Money Can Buy
[i] Smith, Gaddis. “What We Got for What We Gave.” American Heritage. April/May
1978, p. 73.
[ii] Ibid., p. 70.
[iii] Ibid., pp. 79-80.
