When I was a staff writer at National Geographic, I often faced a frustrating problem when drafting a story: I’d want to include a personal insight or perspective that emerged from weeks or months of reporting, but that usually wasn’t allowed. Your opinions and beliefs don’t really matter here, my editors would remind me. Journalists are not participants; we are observers.
Shorter version: No one cares what you think.
So when it happened — when I was desperate to include my POV in an article — I’d search for someone else, anyone else to say out loud what I could only say to myself. An expert, a “character,” a literary or historic reference, a famous quote — anyone or anything but me.
This is not a problem here, of course. Out of Babel is a place where I can say whatever I’d like. Then again, anyone — including you, dear reader — can easily play the role of editor and dismiss my peculiar POV with a sad shake of the head and a silent There He Goes Again! These posts can be minimized as “Alan’s opinion, ad nauseum” instead of being seen as a fair and accurate rendering of the world we share.
Which is why Walter Russell Mead caught my ear again. He says out loud what I’ve been thinking since at least 1983. And he’s certainly an expert.
Mead is the Ravenel B. Curry III Distinguished Fellow in Strategy and Statesmanship at Hudson Institute, the James Clarke Chace Professor of Foreign Affairs and Humanities at Bard College, and the Global View Columnist at The Wall Street Journal.
In a recent interview with Tablet magazine, Mead talks about The A(braham) Bomb:
All over the world, there’s this kind of overwhelming Abrahamization of human culture, human society, human political thought. There is really nothing comparable to this in the intellectual and cultural history of the human race. But you don’t hear very much about it. You don’t hear people talking about it very much. You don’t hear people thinking about what it might mean. So maybe we should be doing a little bit more of that.
I’ve given it a shot. Many shots, in fact. And while my impact has been (what’s the charitable way of saying this)… my impact has been limited, I’m delighted to point to other people who beautifully summarize an idea I’ve been trying to articulate for most of my adult life.
Here’s Mead:
I especially like Mead’s focus on the world’s two most popular political movements — liberal democracy and Marxism — which he says are secularized forms of the Abrahamic narrative.
Put another way: Yes to human progress, says the secular world, but a hard No to Abraham and his large and painfully deluded family.
Is this “Abrahamization” just Walter’s peculiar POV? Or is Mead describing something that’s demonstrably and objectively true? If the latter, then what are the consequences for us, here and now?
If this A(braham) Bomb really exists, then what should we do with something so explosive and historically transformative?