BOOKS BY GEORGE F. KENNAN
American Diplomacy, 1900–1950 (1951)
Realities of American Foreign Policy (1954)
Soviet-American Relations, 1917–1920 (2 vols., 1956–58)
Russia, the Atom, and the West (1958)
Russia and the West under Lenin and Stalin (1961)
Memoirs, 1925–1950 (1967)
From Prague after Munich: Diplomatic Papers, 1938–1940 (1968)
The Marquis de Custine and His “Russia in 1839” (1971)
Memoirs, 1950–1963 (1972)
The Decline of Bismarck’s European Order: Franco-Russian Relations, 1875–1890 (1979)
The Nuclear Delusion: Soviet-American Relations in the Atomic Age (1982)
The Fateful Alliance: France, Russia, and the Coming of the First World War (1984)
Sketches from a Life (1989)
AROUND the CRAGGED HILL
A Personal and Political Philosophy
GEORGE F. KENNAN
On a huge hill,
Cragged, and steep, Truth stands, and hee that will
Reach her, about must, and about must goe;
And what the hills suddennes resists, winne so;
Yet strive so, that before age, deaths twilight,
Thy Soule rest, for none can worke in that night.
—John Donne
Contents
Foreword
PART ONE
Chapter One: MAN, THE CRACKED VESSEL
Chapter Two: FAITH
Chapter Three: ON GOVERNMENT AND GOVERNMENTS
Chapter Four: THE NATION
Chapter Five: IDEOLOGY
PART TWO
Foreword for Part Two
Chapter Six: EGALITARIANISM AND DIVERSITY
Chapter Seven: DIMENSIONS
Chapter Eight: THE ADDICTIONS
Chapter Nine: FOREIGN POLICY, NONMILITARY
Chapter Ten: FOREIGN POLICY, MILITARY
Chapter Eleven: WHAT IS TO BE DONE?
Epilogue
Index
Foreword
. . . sad cure, for who would loose,
Though full of pain, this intellectual being,
Those thoughts that wander through Eternity,
To perish rather, swallowed up and lost
In the wide womb of uncreated night,
Devoid of sense and motion?
—John Milton, Paradise Lost
I approached the writing of this book with much hesitation. I could not have any certainty as to what would come out of it. The undertaking appeared to require—to some extent, at least—abstraction, which has never been my dish. It threatened also to lead me to theory, which to me, as to Goethe, has always been gray, in contrast to the green quality of what he called “the golden tree of life.” It had always seemed to me safer, less pretentious, and, perhaps, more useful to illustrate general beliefs through the medium of specific examples, leaving it to the reader to draw his own picture of their implications.
I was far from being alone, I suspect, in entertaining such reservations. I seemed to recall that Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once said something to the effect that he had never been able to state his own philosophy of the law in any pure form—only through the corpus of his dissenting opinions. And I was reminded of Anton Chekhov, the playwright, who, when asked to explain at a rehearsal in the Moscow Art Theater his interpretation of the way one of his characters should be played, could only say, “Don’t you see? He wears checkered trousers.”
But I was pressed to recognize that this, in my case, was not enough. A number of recent writers had given themselves the trouble of trying to extract from the welter of my past writings—from lectures on international affairs, from books on diplomatic history, or from cryptic sentences in commencement speeches or other oratorical efforts—something resembling a coherent personal and political philosophy. They professed to have come away frustrated, or at least bewildered. The pickings, they said, were slim, and sometimes even added to their confusion.
What weight there was behind these complaints I could not judge. But I was moved by their effort. It implied a belief, or at least a suspicion on their part, that behind all these suggestive specific examples there must have been something to be said by way of generalization that I had not said but that would be worth my saying.
This foreword, like most forewords, is being written after the completion of the book. (How else could one know to what a foreword should be applicable?) I see, on looking it over, that this work, like all the others I have written, ended up, whatever the original intent, as essentially a collection of critical observations. The difference is only that in this instance I have attempted to take the high ground, avoiding all detailed preoccupation with current problems and trying to stick to the broader dimensions of things—the ones that might still be expected to be visible and significant in future decades as well as years.
Whether the result, bearing this character, represents a betrayal of the original intent to put forward something resembling a personal and political philosophy, I cannot say. But I find myself, at this point, wondering whether any work of personal philosophy, however impressively abstract and theoretical, has not in essence been, or could be, anything other than just such a product of observation and of critical appraisal.
I find sustenance for this questioning in two passages, widely separated in time, among things I have recently read. The first, a passage from Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France, reads as follows:
. . . I cannot stand forward and give praise or blame to anything which relates to human actions and human concerns on a simple view of the object, as it stands stripped of every relation, in all the nakedness and solitude of metaphysical abstraction. Circumstances . . . give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing color and discriminating effect.
The second of the passages, this one from a recent book review by my good and esteemed friend Stuart Hampshire (a real philosopher, as I am not):
We know what we are doing when we actively devise experiments, actively verify and test our beliefs, actively direct our interests and inquiries toward useful and concrete questions. . . . A sequence of abstract thought, and also the stream of our passive impressions together form a sea of ignorance, in which we shall drown, if thought and feeling are cut off from our active interest. . . . Unless we purposefully turn our eyes to look at something that interests us as individuals, we shall literally see nothing in the world, and we shall understand nothing in the real world unless we remember that we freely choose the direction in which to look.1
This book represents just such a turning of the eyes to a number of things that interest me as an individual. If the reflections this arouses lack any apparent universal applicability, whether in time or in space, this is because the writer sees little unity in the phenomena observed. But this does not preclude the possibility that there will become apparent to the attentive reader a unity the author himself has been unable to discover. Should this be the case, the effort embodied in what follows will be doubly rewarded.
- Review by Stuart Hampshire of The Jameses: A Family Narrative, by R. W. B. Lewis, in New York Review of Books, October 10, 1991, p. 4.
Foreword for Part Two
Gentlemen, why in heaven’s name this haste? You have time enough. No enemy threatens you. No volcano will rise from beneath you. Ages and ages lie before you. Why sacrifice the present to the future, fancying that you will be happier when your fields teem with wealth and your cities with people? In Europe we have cities wealthier and more populous than yours, and we are not happy. You dream of your posterity; but your posterity will look back to yours as the golden age. . . . Why, in your hurry to subdue and utilize Nature, squander her splendid gifts? Why hasten the advent of that threatening day when the vacant spaces on the continent shall all have been filled, and the poverty or discontent of the older states shall find no outlet?
—Lord Bryce, The American Commonwealth (1888)
In the first part of this treatise, I came as near as I could to reflections and reactions that might have relevance to the situation of mankind everywhere. I must now turn to those that pertain specifically, if not exclusively, to the problems of my own country. And there are a few words that might well be said by way of preface to these following chapters, lest their content might lead to other, and unjustified, conclusions.
I am well aware that the United States of this day is very much a polyglot country, and that within this country people of my particular native milieu, commonly described by the modern acronym “Wasps,” are now a minority, and a dwindling minority at that. With the fading from the national memory of many of the aspects of that milieu has gone the currency of many of its values. I, too, have retained only a portion of those values; for no generation retains in toto the values of its predecessors, and least of all do they remain unchanged when the subject has lived extensively in contact with other cultures and outlooks. But some of those values—the bulk of them, probably—have been retained; and these, as they find reflection in this book, will no doubt be widely questioned or challenged.
For all of this, the United States is for me, if only because I was born and reared in it at the outset of this century and served it as faithfully as I could for some twenty-seven years in the American Foreign Service, a country like no other country. One may hope, of course, to have some usefulness even beyond one’s country’s borders; and that hope I, too, from time to time, have indulged. But there can, for the likes of me, be only one final center of loyalty and concern. Such a center, however strange it now is to me, and I to it, could be only the country into which I was born. The world at large, as a possible center of this sort, would be too broad for these frail shoulders.
Nor do the strangeness of much of the place and the narrow limits of my direct contact with it constitute any total barriers to understanding. There are many aspects of American life that are spread fairly evenly across the country and are not only observable for anyone living anywhere within it but actually press themselves upon his or her consciousness, whether he or she likes it or not. The television screen pours out a never-ending stream of images reflective in one way or another of life across the nation, as do the other great advertising media—images seldom thoughtfully reflective, to be sure, sometimes even designed to mislead, and yet instructive even in their very conceptual shallowness and their obviously ulterior motivations. To live anywhere in this country, in short, is to live in a great deal of it.
Still, the question will arise, at least in some minds, What makes him think that his views on this country would be worth our reading? He is not an expert on it. He has never given special study to its problems. Why should his views have value beyond those of hundreds of other elderly people who, precisely because they recognize similar limitations in themselves, don’t write books?
The question is well placed. And my answer to it is only that in writing on this subject, as I am about to do, I am simply trying to respond to the demands of some critics that I try to identify, somewhat more specifically than I have ever done in the past, those of my views and reactions—of my prejudices, if you like—that might be said to be of a philosophical nature. And if, then, there are those who think that this purpose might be served by a sketch of the way this country and its problems look to one who has led such and such a life and has been exposed to such and such influences, then here it is; and this, without apologies for its limitations.
It will be necessary to move swiftly over many of these problems. It will not be possible to do more than to touch very briefly on certain of the questions at issue, and then only from the standpoint of their wider significance. This is not another book about American society in general as it nears the end of the century.
But here these views shall be exposed, as well as I can state them. Some relate to existing physical conditions of American society. Some relate to its habits—habits so deeply ingrained as to approach the status of addictions. Others relate to prevalent attitudes that find their expression in the media and in the utterances of political and other leaders. That some of them will be attractive targets for outraged disagreement, I have no doubt.
I approach the stating of these views with many hesitations. Tocqueville, in undertaking the writing of the second volume of his work on America, said, in a letter to a friend, “It seems to me at this point that I am walking on air, and that I must inevitably fall, headlong and helplessly, into the vulgar, the absurd, or the tedious.”1 At the risk of taking the divine as an example for the ordinary, I must confess to similar anxieties as I confront the writing of the second part of this book. But I see, as Tocqueville plainly saw, no alternative to the effort.
Precisely because these views will be out of accord with so much of what passes as the conventional American wisdom of the day, they may seem to convey a negative and pessimistic view of American society, even one that challenges its very worth. This being the case, I should probably preface them with a word or two of explanation.
American politicians never miss a chance to refer to the United States as “this great country.” So insistently do they do this that if their motives in doing so were less obvious, one might suspect that they were trying to overcome a certain uncomfortable doubt about this in their own minds. We could do, it seems to me, with less frequent reassurance on this point. But they are, of course, right. The United States is a great country—if only in size and populousness and in the significance it has attained over these past two centuries as a factor in the world community. And the fact that the ways in which it is great are not, to some of us at least, the ways in which a great many Americans, including politicians, see its true greatness as lying does not controvert the general assertion.
For me to try to identify the various elements of the country’s greatness would be, inevitably, to sound pompous and condescending. We are dealing, here, with something far larger than any one of us—something of which each of us is only a tiny part, and of which our judgment can never be more than imperfect. And it would come with ill grace for any of us, claiming as we do to be a part of the whole, to list the virtues in which we ourselves, by implication, profess to share.
But beyond that, the country has plenty of faults to balance off against whatever virtues it could be said collectively to possess; and if it is indeed great, a signal aspect of its greatness lies surely in its quality as a vast human battleground on which there is fought out a titanic contest between not just the virtues and deficiencies of its own life but many that are shared in high degree by most of the advanced countries of the world. The outcome of this battle is indeterminate; only one thing is certain: it will lead to no total victory for one side or the other. For that, human nature and human affairs are too complicated.
In this very indeterminateness—in the limitations of our vision and our power—there lies the same tragic quality that has always marked the great moments of human history. And in this sense America, if a great country, is also a tragic one. But tragedy is a dialectical concept, implying the confrontation between positive and negative phenomena. If the positive aspects of American civilization, as I see them, were not present in a measure at least comparable to the negative ones, even the element of tragedy would be absent, and America would be a very pitiable spectacle indeed. And all I can add, to what I have already said about its greatness, is that this—as a pitiable spectacle—is not at all the way I see it.
- The French original: “Ici, il me semble que je suis en l’air, et que je vais dégringoler infailliblement, sans pouvoir m’arrêter, dans le commun, l’absurde, ou l’ennuyeux.” Letter of May 26, 1836, to one Bouschitt, as cited in the introduction, by Françoise Mélonio, to the Robert Laffont edition of Tocqueville’s major works (Paris, 1986).
Index
Page numbers listed correspond to the print edition of this book. You can use your device’s search function to locate particular terms in the text.
abortion conflict, 67, 123, 145
accidents, chance and, 36
Adams, Henry, 44, 56
on effect of power, 56
Adams, John, 43n
ad hoc committees, 235–36
advertising, 159, 167–73
communications industry and, 167
influence of, 168–69
junk mail and, 171–73
in New York Times, 170
television and, 167, 169
truth and, 169–71
Africa, 201–2
afterlife, 39
Age of Jackson, The (Schlesinger), 71
aid programs, 199–202
Air Force, U.S., 225
airplane, 161, 164, 166
Alaska, 150
alliances, 185, 194–98, 222–24
“American Century,” 182
American Commonwealth, The (Bryce), 111
American Indian, 143
American Philosophical Society, 246
Aristotle, 54n
Army, U.S., 226
art, sexual urge and, 18
Ascetics, 48n
atheism, 44
Augustine, Saint, 54n
authoritarianism, 62n
authority, 25–27
and arrogance of power, 27
rivalry and, 25–26
self and, 25–26
subordination to, 25
automation, 101
automobile, 160, 161–65, 173, 178
community and, 161
crime and, 163
environment and, 162–63
power of, 165
unsociability of, 161–62
wastefulness of, 162
autonomy, 29, 44
bereavement, 36
Bible, 40–41, 47, 50
Big Bang, 42
body count, warfare and, 220
Bohlen, Charles, 98
Boisdeffre, Le Mouton de, 217
bourgeoisie, 97
brainwashing, self-respect and, 22
Brazil, 143, 253
brotherhood, 31
Bryce, james, 111
Brzezinski, Zbigniew, 189n
Buckminster, Reverend, 57n
budget deficit, 158, 200
Bullitt, William C., 30, 142
Bundy, McGeorge, 214
bureaucracy, 118, 122, 139, 146–49, 239, 254, 256
Congress and, 149, 233
democracy and, 146, 148–49
foreign policy and, 187–88
government and, 118, 187–88, 233
individual and, 148
parochialism and, 187–88, 210
U.S. and, 146–49
Burke, Edmund, 12, 133n, 134–35
Bush, George, 123–24, 143n, 189n, 215
business, 185–86
busing, 129
California, 136, 150
Calvinism, 43n
Canada, 86, 204
Western European Union and, 223–24
canals, 159–60
Canterbury Tales, The (Chaucer), 162
Carter, Jimmy, 188n
Casablanca Conference (1943), 218
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 187
Chamber of Commerce, U.S., 225
chance, mortality and, 35–36
Chaucer, Geoffrey, 162
chauvinism, national, 78, 79
Chekhov, Anton, 11, 22
China, Imperial, 71
China, People’s Republic of, 143, 223, 253
China lobby, 193
Christianity, 40–42
Judaism and, 50
church, 48–51
leadership of, 49
Churchill, Winston, 218
Church of England, 50
citizenship, 144, 254
civilization:
American, 32–33
European, 117
individual and, 27, 28
population growth and, 100
pretenses of, 29
Civil War, U.S., 213
class structures, 99
Clausewitz, Carl von, 212, 213n, 221
Cold War:
end of, 180, 184, 195, 214
residual habits of, 195, 198, 200, 202, 210
collective, political, 81–84
Commerce Department, U.S., 187
communication, 105, 150, 159, 256
advertising and, 167
communism:
demise of, 119, 120
mortality and, 98
community, automobile and, 161
computers, 105
unemployment and, 107
Congress, U.S., 137, 172, 206
bureaucracy and, 149, 233
Council of State and, 237, 239, 240, 244–45, 247
foreign policy and, 189–90
shortcomings of, 137–38
see also House of Representatives, U.S.; Senate, U.S.
Congressional Record, 236
conservatism, 98
Constitution, U.S., 157, 198, 245
Eighteenth Amendment to, 66–67
consumerism, 99, 168
Council of State (proposed), 235–49, 256
advisory status of, 237
basic requirements of, 236–38
classified information and, 240–41
Congress and, 237, 239, 240, 244–45, 247
finances and, 237
geographical distribution and, 244–46
membership in, 237, 241–43
nature and function of, 238–40
need for, 235–36
panel for, 243–48
president and, 237, 240, 247
quarters of, 239
services available to, 240
staff of, 239
subjects to be addressed by, 239
task of, 240
courage, 51–52
creativity, sexual urge and, 18
crime, 158
automobile and, 163
Croatia, 91
Czechoslovakia, 86
death, 36, 39
Marxism and, 98
decentralization, 149–51
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, The (Gibbon), 116
Defense Department, U.S., 187
deficit, 158, 200
democracy, 59, 60, 116, 158, 159
in Africa, 202
American vs. parliamentary, 65–66
bureaucracy and, 146, 148–49
direct, 135
egalitarianism and, 117
government and, 63–65, 68, 71, 72–73, 117–18, 133–34
nation-state and, 76
parliamentary, 65–66
plebiscite and, 135–38
representation and, 133–34
Tocqueville’s apprehensions about, 67–68, 117–19, 140–41
Democracy in America (Tocqueville), 117
desegregation, 126–27
destruction, warfare and, 220–22
dictatorial authoritarianism, 62n
dictatorship, 59, 60, 64
totalitarian, 61–62
diplomacy, 191
government and, 192
multilateral, 185, 203–5
privacy and, 209
shuttle, 191
dirigisme, 103, 252
Discourses (Machiavelli), 54n
Divine Injunction, 46–48
division of powers, 64, 65
domestic service, 125–26
Donne, John, 7, 37
Dostoyevski, Fyodor, 41
drug abuse, 158
economy:
growth of, 100–101
wealth and, 121–22
education, 32, 158, 159
environment and, 33–34
military and, 230–31
segregation and, 128–30
status and, 124
television and, 176–77
egalitarianism, 116–41, 254
democracy and, 117
domestic service and, 125–26
elitism and, 130–33
government and, 133–40
individual and, 140–41
law and, 123
Marxism and, 119–20
plebiscite and, 133–40
representative government and, 133–40
segregation and, 126–30
socialism and, 119–22
in Soviet Union, 119–20, 124n
species and, 140–41
Tocqueville and, 117–19
in U.S., 122–25
ego, 23, 25, 28
power and, 55, 57
Egypt, 198
election, see vote, voting
elitism, 130–33
defined, 130
elections and, 131–32
responsibility and, 131–32
U.S. and, 130
voting and, 131–32
employment:
farming and, 102–3
immigration and, 154
and urban vs. rural life, 102–3
energy, 159, 162
entertainment, 159, 168
environment, natural, 88, 142, 155–56, 158, 202
automobile pollution and, 162–63
foreign policy and, 186
free enterprise system and, 103–4
junk mail and, 172
overpopulation and, 104, 142–43
environment, social, 32–35
education and, 33–34
technology and, 106–7
espionage, 209
ethics, 51
religion and, 52
Europe:
military policy and, 223–24
as regional association, 204–5
U.S. forces in, 224
U.S. relationship with, 196–97, 223–24
European Community, 204
UN and, 90–91
Evans, Daniel, 143n
faith, 36, 37–52, 251
Christianity and, 40–42
church and, 48–51
Divine Injunction and, 46–48
ethics and, 51–52
human nature and, 37, 44–45
merciful deity and, 44–46
natural law and, 69
original sin and, 37–38
Primary Cause and, 42–44
false modesty, 22
farming, 102–3
Faust (Goethe), 18
federal government, 118, 123, 144, 148
power of, 67–68
Fellowship of the Ring, The (Tolkien), 251
Florida, 150
Foreign Affairs, 208
foreign policy, military, 212–31
alliances and, 222–24
destruction and, 220–22
Europe and, 223–24
Japan and, 223
military establishment and, 225–26
military planning and, 226–28
national service corps and, 226
NATO and, 223, 224
nuclear warfare and, 214–16
political situation and, 217–18, 221
Third World and, 224–26
total war concept and, 216–18
training and, 229–30
UN and, 222–23
unconditional surrender policy and, 218–20
foreign policy, nonmilitary, 180–211, 255
aid programs and, 199–202
bureaucracy and, 187–88
business and, 185–86
Congress and, 189–90
environment and, 186
espionage and, 209
formal alliances and, 185, 194–98
global interests and, 184–86
governmental machinery and, 186–92
human rights and, 71–72, 206–8
implied alliances and, 198–99
Japanese Security Treaty and, 194–95
lobbies and, 190, 193–94
morality and, 208–10
multilateral diplomacy and, 185, 203–5
NATO and, 194–98
parochial interests and, 181–84
president and, 187
privacy of negotiations in, 209
State Department and, 189–92
Third World and, 199–203
UN and, 184–85, 203–4
Foreign Service, U.S., 112, 146
neglect of, 191–92
forgiveness, 31
France, 76, 80, 197, 212, 218, 223
freedom, 70, 71
free enterprise, 120, 159, 252, 255
environment and, 103–4
government and, 103–4
transportation and, 159, 166
uniformity and, 151
French Revolution, 76, 133n, 212
Freud, Sigmund, 20
Fulbright, J. William, 157
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), 186
Germany, Federal Republic of, 196, 197
Germany, Imperial, 80
Germany, Nazi, 219
Germany, unified, 220, 223
Germany, Weimar, 170n
Gibbon, Edward, 48n, 116
global interests, 184–86
global warming, 143n
God:
Divine Injunction and, 46–48
holy spirit and, 45–46
human rights and, 70
image of, 45
individual and, 45–46
Jesus Christ as Son of, 40–41
man and, 42–44
as merciful deity, 44–46
Nicene Creed and, 45
as Primary Cause, 42–44, 47–48
rights and, 70
Scripture and, 45
worship of, 48–51
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 11, 18
Gorbachev, Mikhail S., 72, 214, 215
government, 53–73, 157–58, 251–52, 254
American vs. parliamentary, 65–66
bureaucracy and, 118, 187–88, 233
centralization of, 123
constituencies and, 233
constitution and, 66–67
daily life and, 178–79
decentralization of, 149–51
democracy and, 63–65, 68, 71, 72–73, 117–18, 133–34
diplomacy and, 192
division of powers in, 64, 65
egalitarianism and, 133–40
federal, 67–68, 118, 123, 144, 148
forms of, 61–68
free enterprise and, 103–4
functions of, 54
human rights and, 68–73
ideals and, 54
individual and, 55–56, 144–45
initiative and referendum and, 135–36
junk mail and, 172
law and, 122–23, 133–34
machinery of, 186–92
morality and, 53, 54, 58
natural law and, 69
necessity of, 53–54
nondemocratic vs. democratic, 63–65, 68, 71, 72–73
political clique and, 58–61
power and, 55–58
regimes and, 59
representative, 133–40
self-interest and, 60
size and, 143–46
societal problems of, 157–58
tasks of, 54–55
totalitarian, 61–62
transportation policy and, 159–60, 162, 165–67
two voices of, 60–61, 211
uniformity and, 59
see also Council of State
Grazia, Sebastian de, 53n–54n
Great Britain, 195, 196, 205, 218, 223
Imperial Russia and, 227
greatness, foibles and, 31
Greece, 198
growth, 253
ideology and, 100–101
Hampshire, Stuart, 13
Hawaii, 150
Henry VIII (Shakespeare), 53
heredity, 32–35
personality and, 32–33
and stratification of society, 33
Herod I (The Great), King of Judea, 41
Hitler, Adolf, 219
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Jr., 11
Holy Spirit, 45
Divine Injunction and, 46–48
Hopkins, Harry L., 189n
House, Edward M., 189n
House of Commons, 134, 180
House of Representatives, U.S., 245
human rights, 68–73
extension of, 71–73
God and, 70
government and, 68–73
leadership in, 207–8
morality and, 207
natural law and, 69
obligation and, 70
U.S. foreign policy and, 71–72, 206–8
Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs Bureau, U.S., 206
humility, 49, 52, 57
ideals, government and, 54
ideology, 96–107, 252
automation and, 101
defined, 96–97
free enterprise and, 103–4
growth and, 100–101
Marxist, 97–98
middle class and, 99
science and, 105–7
urban vs. rural, 101–3
illness, 36
immigration, 151–56
employment and, 154
environment and, 155–56
illegal, 154
limits to, 154–55
overpopulation and, 152, 153
poverty and, 153–54
imperialism, 146
Imperial Russian Military Academy, 213n
India, 143, 253
individual:
bureaucracy and, 148
civilization and, 27, 28
egalitarianism and, 140–41
God and, 45–46
government and, 55–56, 144–45
leadership and, 258
Marxism and, 36
power and, 55–56
industrial revolution, 122
initiative and referendum, 135–37, 140
injustice, social, 122
Institute for Advanced Study, 105–6
intelligence, foreign policy and, 209
international aid programs, 199–202
International Development and Humanitarian Assistance, 199
International Monetary Fund, 186
Iran, 224
Iraq, 65, 88, 154, 224
isolationism, 183–84, 186
Israel, 198
Israel lobby, 193
Italy, 153, 223
Japan, 220
U.S. military policy and, 223
U.S. Security Treaty with, 194–95
Jesus Christ, 40–41, 45
Jews, Judaism, 40
Christianity and, 50
Job, 47
John the Evangelist, Saint, 40
Jomini, Antoine de, 213
junk mail, 171–73
environment and, 172
juvenile delinquency, 163
Kedourie, E., 74
Khayyam, Omar, 17
Kissinger, Henry, 189n
Korea, Democratic People’s Republic of (North), 84n, 195, 223
Korea, Republic of (South), 84n, 198, 223
Korean War, 194
Kremlin, 97
Kuwait, 154
language, 175–76
Latin America, 196
law:
egalitarianism and, 123
government and, 122–23, 133–34, 144–45
plebiscite and, 135
referendum and, 137
law and order, 54, 157
leadership, 26, 178
of church, 49
in human rights, 207–8
individual and, 258
polls and, 139
League of Nations, 85
Lenin, V. I., 97
Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol (Burke), 134–35
liberalism, 98
status and, 124–25
liberty, equality vs., 118
Library of Congress, 240
Libya, 224
lobbies, 256
foreign policy and, 190, 193–94
love, self-denial and, 39
loyalty, 51–52
luxuries, 121
Macaulay, Thomas, 180
McFarlane, Robert, 189n
Machiavelli, Niccolò, 60
Machiavelli in Hell (Grazia), 53n-54n
Mahan, Alfred T., 213
man, 17–36, 251
authority and, 25–27
chance and, 35–36
conflicting impulses of, 17–18, 27, 45
demonic dimension of, 28–32
Divine Injunction of, 46–48
environment and, 32–35
equality of, 131
ethics and, 51–52
faith and, 37, 44–45
God and, 42–44
greatness and, 31
heredity and, 32–35
judgment and, 24
modern, 38
mortality and, 35–36
natural law and, 69
nature and, 38–39, 142–43
overestimation of, 22–28
self-regard and, 20–21
sexual urge and, 18–20
social nature of, 23
soul of, 38–40, 44–45
underestimation of, 21–22
Manifest Destiny, 182
Marine Corps, U.S., 225–26
Marshall, George C., 45n, 247
Marx, Karl, 99, 122
Marxism, 77, 252
death and, 98
egalitarianism and, 119–20
human individuality and, 36
as ideology, 97–98
uniformity and, 121
Mary, Virgin, 45
mass hysteria, 82
mass psychology, 62n
means, ends and, 258
media, 60, 124, 177, 192, 199, 235, 236
polls and, 138–39
thought and, 176
melting pot, 127–28, 150
Metempsychosis (Donne), 37
Mexico, 204
middle class, 99
Middle East, 198, 200
migration, 32–33
Military Education and Training, 201
military policy, see foreign policy, military
Millay, Edna St. Vincent, 29
Milton, John, 11, 177
morality:
behavior and, 38
foreign policy and, 208–10
government and, 53, 54, 58
human rights and, 207
warfare and, 221–22
mortality:
communism and, 98
man and, 35–36
regimes and, 59
movies, 169, 175, 176
multilateral diplomacy, 185, 205
UN and, 203–4
nation, 74–95
chauvinism and, 78, 79
democracy and, 76
emergence of, 75–76
emotional fragility of, 84
international community and, 84–91
minority elements and, 91, 94, 95
nationalism and, 76–81
patriotism and, 77–81
plebiscite and, 83
political collective and, 81–84
regional association and, 92–95
UN membership and, 84–86
National Academy of Sciences, 143n, 246
National Defense Committee, 225
National Defense University, 230
national deficit, 158
nationalism, 76–82, 252
emotional intensity of, 77
as mass hysteria, 82
nation-state and, 76–81
pathological patriotism and, 78–81
patriotism and, 77–78
personal vs. collective, 81–82
romanticism and, 78–79
self and, 76–77
Nationalism (Kedourie), 74
National Security Council, 187
original concept of, 189
State Department and, 189
national service corps, 226
natural law, 69
nature:
man and, 38–39, 142–43
population and, 142–43
Primary Cause and, 42–44
scientific manipulation of, 34–35
unpredictability of, 33
Navy, U.S., 148n, 225, 230
negotiations, privacy of, 209
New Encyclopedia Britannica, 96
New Jersey, 136
New York Times, 143n
advertising in, 170
Nicene Creed, 45
Niebuhr, Reinhold, 18, 82n, 183
Nixon, Richard M., 188n
noninterference, 207
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 205, 215
U.S. foreign policy and, 194–98
U.S. military policy and, 223, 224
nuclear weapons:
first use of, 215–16
fixation on, 214–15
North Korea and, 195
proliferation of, 215
objectivity, 23
old age, chance and, 36
Open Door principle, 71
original sin, 37–38
overpopulation, 102, 201
environment and, 104
immigration and, 152, 153
Third World and, 102
Oxford English Dictionary, 130
Pakistan, 198
Panama, 210
Pan American Airlines, 148n
Paradise Lost (Milton), 11
parliamentary democracy, 65–66
parochialism, 187–88, 210
patriotism, 77–81
periodicals, 169
Persian Gulf War, 210
personality, 31
environment and, 33–34
heredity and, 32–33
Philippines, 198
plebiscite, 83
democracy and, 135–38
egalitarianism and, 133–40
law and, 135
Poindexter, John, 189n
Policy Planning Staff, State Department, 190, 247
political collective, 81–84
politics, 26, 55
cliques and, 58–61
military policy and, 217–18, 221
philosophy of, 27–28
World War II and, 217–18
polls, 135, 210
effects of, 138–39
leadership and, 139
media and, 138–39
wording of, 137
Pope, Alexander, 106
population:
civilization and, 100
nature’s tolerance and, 142–43
U.S. and, 142–43
pornography, 19, 29
Portugal, 223
Postal Service, U.S., 171–72
poverty, 120, 124
farming and, 102–3
immigration and, 153–54
power, 26
Adams on effect of, 56
arrogance of, 27
centralization of, 67
competition for, 58–59
ego and, 55, 57
elected representatives and, 138
equality and, 118
of federal government, 67–68
government and, 55–58
guilt and, 183
individual and, 55–56
intoxication of, 56
mass hysteria and, 82
national context of, 76
proximity to, 56–57
self-regard and, 57
prayer, 43
Primary Cause:
faith and, 42–44
merciful deity and, 47–48
Prohibition, 66–67
proletariat, 97
contemporary poor vs., 99
Protestantism, 50
psychology, 82
public interest, private enterprise vs., 104
public transportation, 162, 164, 166–67
publishing, 168–69
radio, 167, 175
railroads, 159–62
reading, 175–76
Reagan, Ronald, 188n–189n
referendum, 135
law and, 137
see also initiative and referendum
Reflections on the Revolution in France (Burke), 12–13
regime, 60
mortality and, 59
total, 61–62
regional association:
Europe as, 204–5
nation-state and, 92–95
UN and, 92, 93, 94
U.S. and, 204
religion, 45–51
ethics and, 52
representative government, 133–40
responsibility, 44
elitism and, 131–32
Riga, 128
ritual, 49
rivalry, 27
authority and, 25–26
robots, 101
Roman Catholic church, 49–50
romanticism, 78–79
Roosevelt, Franklin D., 188n, 217, 218
Rubáiyát (Khayyám), 17
rural, urban vs., 101–3
Russia, Imperial, 85, 87n
Great Britain and, 227
Russia, Republic of, 86
Russian Orthodox church, 39, 49
saints, 30–31
savings and loan disaster, 103
Scandinavia, 120, 125, 139
Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr., 71
science:
ideology and, 105–7
manipulation of nature and, 34–35
Scowcroft, Brent, 189n
Scripture, 45
secrecy, foreign policy and, 209
segregation:
busing and, 129
education and, 128–30
egalitarianism and, 126–30
forced, 127
uniformity and, 127–28
self, 20–28
authority and, 25–26
nationalism and, 76–77
overestimation of, 22–28
totalitarianism and, 21–22
underestimation of, 21–22
self-judgment, 24
self-love, 18
self-regard, 20–21, 26, 27
man and, 20–21
power and, 57
Senate, U.S., 157, 198, 199, 245
sexual urge, 18–20
Shakespeare, William, 53, 132, 153
shuttle diplomacy, 191
single-issue voting, 136
size, government and, 143–46
Smith, Page, 43n
social behavior, 21
social injustice, 122
socialism, 77, 98
egalitarianism and, 119–22
soul, 38–40
man’s inner conflict and, 44–45
sovereignty, 87–88
Soviet Union, 84, 97–98, 103, 121, 123, 143, 196, 197, 223, 252, 253
breakup of, 184–85
egalitarianism in, 119–20, 124n
nuclear arsenal of, 214–15
Soviet Union, postcommunist, 85, 86
Spain, 86, 223
Spanish-American War, 146
special interests, 190, 256
foreign policy and, 193–94
species, individual and, 140–41
Stalin, Joseph, 97, 98, 252
State Department, U.S., 146, 147, 187, 193, 200, 206, 248
foreign policy and, 189–92
NSC and, 189
Policy Planning Staff of, 190, 247
secretary of, 188, 190–91
Supreme Court, U.S., 145, 239, 241, 246, 247
Switzerland, 84n
technology, 105–7
television, 112, 173–77, 178
advertising and, 167, 169
antisocial nature of, 173–75
children and, 174–75
education and, 176–77
in legislative chamber, 138
national uniformity and, 150–51
passivity induced by, 173–74
reading and, 175–76
thought and, 176–77
in U.S., 138
Texas, 150
Third World:
emigration and, 153–54
overpopulation and, 102
UN representation of, 199
U.S. aid to, 199–203
U.S. foreign policy and, 199–203
U.S. military policy and, 224–26
Tocqueville, Alexis de, 33, 113–14, 123, 126
apprehensions of, 67–68, 117–19, 140–41
egalitarianism and, 117–19
on inequality, 120n
Tolkien, J.R.R., 251
totalitarianism:
anonymity and, 144
cruelties of, 61–62
self and, 21–22
total war, 216–18
transportation, 159–67
automobile and, 160–65
canals and, 159–60
crime and, 163
free enterprise and, 159, 166
government and, 159–60, 162, 165–67
health and, 163
pollution and, 162–63
public, 162, 164, 166–167
railroads and, 159–62
urban community and, 160–61
Treasury Department, U.S., 187
Turkey, 198
unconditional surrender, 216, 218–20
unemployment:
automation and, 101
computer and, 107
uniformity:
government and, 59
Marxism and, 121
segregation and, 127–28
television and, 150–51
United Nations, 70, 72
Environmental Program of, 186
equality in, 88–91
European Community and, 90–91
General Assembly of, 68–69, 89
intermediate status in, 85
membership in, 84–86
multilateral diplomacy and, 203–4
negotiations and, 209
nondemocratic states and, 64
prestige and, 90
proliferation of nations in, 85–86
protocol and, 86–87
regional associations and, 92, 93, 94
Security Council of, 185
sovereignty and, 87–90
Third World nations in, 199
Universal Declaration of Human Rights issued by, 68–69, 70
U.S. foreign policy and, 184–85, 203–4
U.S. military policy and, 222–23
world community and, 85–86
United States:
burden of presidency of, 66
decentralization and, 149–51, 155
economic growth and, 100–101, 103
equality in, 117, 122–25
governmental machinery of, 187–92
greatness of, 114–15
nuclear arsenal of, 214–15
plebiscitary tendency in, 133–34, 139–41
presidential power in, 68
self-image of, 145–46
sweeping solutions favored by, 144–45
as unique example, 182
“Wasp” values in, 111–12
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, The, 68–69, 70
universe, 42
urban, rural vs., 101–3
vanity, 25
Victorian England: Portrait of an Age (Young), 232
Victorians, 29
Vienna, Congress of, 86
Vietnam War, 210
vote, voting:
elitism and, 131–32
failure to, 118
initiative and referendum and, 135–37
legislative process and, 133–34
on single issue, 136
War College, U.S., 227
warfare, see foreign policy, military
war of annihilation, 216–18, 220
wealth:
character and, 123–24
economy and, 121–22
perquisites of, 124
Western European Union, 223
Wilson, Woodrow, 71, 188n, 209
military planning and, 227–28
World Bank, 186
world trade, 186
World War I, 71, 80, 209, 217, 218, 219, 220, 226
World War II, 80, 98, 148n, 184, 214, 220
civilian deaths in, 222
politics and, 217–18
unconditional surrender and, 218–19
worship, 48–51
Yeltsin, Boris, 83n–84n
Young, G. M., 232
Yugoslavia, 84, 184–85
Copyright © 1993 by George F. Kennan
All rights reserved
First published as a Norton paperback 1994
The text of this book is composed in 11.5 Bembo with the display set in Bernhard Modern Roman and Bernhard Tango. Composition and Manufacturing by the Haddon Craftsmen, Inc. Book design by Jo Anne Metsch
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
Kennan, George Frost, 1904–
Around the cragged hill: a personal and political philosophy / by George F. Kennan.
p.cm.
Includes index.
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State, The.2. Political science—Philosophy.
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International relations.I. Title.
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