At TAP today, I have a column that's in part a nod towards Matt's new book, and in part an effort to reframe the foreign policy debate as a question Superman vs. Jack Bauer:The rhetoric of international affairs has long had a militaristic, and even self-consciously heroic, character. The "Greatest Generation," after all, is remembered for bravely saving the world from the menace of Hitler, not for the UN and Bretton Woods and the Marshall Plan, initiatives that ushered in an era of international cooperation and created structures that largely headed off further violent conflict between great powers. The moment was popularly defined by its heroism, even if its lasting legacy would be the work that went into preventing the necessity of such dramatic interventions in the future. This came out in the cultural products of the moment. Superman, created in 1938, appeared on the cover of his comic shaking Hitler and Tojo by the scruff of their necks. Similarly, his patriotic contemporary, Captain America, was originally portrayed clocking Hitler in the jaw. Neither one received cover art that depicted diplomacy.Yet the internationalist vision was more deeply interwoven into our cultural fabric than we often realize. Superman and Captain America were superheroes of an odd sort: Tremendously powerful beings whose primary struggle was often to follow the self-imposed rules and strictures that lent their power a moral legitimacy. Neither allowed themselves to kill, and both sought to work within the law. Given their strength, either could have sought world domination, and even if they didn't, could have been viewed with deep suspicion and even hatred by those who were convinced they one day would seek world domination. It was only by following ostentatiously strict moral codes that they could legitimize their power, and thus exist cooperatively with a world that had every right to fear them. Indeed, soon enough, both were forming communities of likeminded super beings (The Justice League for Superman, the Avengers for Captain America) and generally operating much like, well, the nation that birthed them. As Spiderman -- a later hero who, like so many heroes, bought into the idea that rules and restraint separated the good guys from the bad guys -- liked to say, "with great power comes great responsibility."There's a whole lot more, on Jack Bauer and the sort of anxieties his character exhibits, and on Iraq and the way its impeded a discussion of these fundamental differences in foreign policy philosophy. Check it out.(Photo used under a Creative Commons license from Flickr member No One.)
