by
Charles H. Featherstone
by Charles H. Featherstone
Recently
by Charles H. Featherstone: But
Isn’t That the People’s Job?

The folks
over at n+1 have a
review of Inderjeet Parmar’s new book, Foundations
of the American Century: The Ford, Carnegie, and Rockefeller Foundations
in the Rise of American Power, an intriguing history of
how the Rockefeller
World Empire came to use America to rule the world as the foundations
came to create and dominate “policy” in the 1930s and
1940s:

The trustees
of the large foundations comprised a cozy group of men –
well-heeled, white, and Protestant – who were raised in the
same milieu, attended the same colleges (over half graduated from
Harvard, Princeton, or Yale), and belonged to the same social
clubs. Such men could not help but share a worldview, and for
most of 20th century there was no one in the room to argue the
other side. Internally united and externally unimpeded, they acted
with a speed and resolve that was impossible for elected politicians.
While government officials mired themselves in political debates,
foundation leaders acted: they commissioned research, trained
students, launched pilot projects, cultivated allies among foreign
governments, and built networks of experts. By the time the government
overcame its inertia on an issue, it found a smooth and well-marked
trail stretching ahead through the wilderness.

It is easy
to overlook this quiet trailblazing because the big foundations
rarely pushed extreme agendas, at least not at home. Unlike the
think tanks of today, the Ford, Carnegie, and Rockefeller foundations
were, and continue to be, studiously nonpartisan. They sought
above all technocratic order: a strong federal government, a class
of experts ready to guide it, and a docile public eager to follow.
Abroad, they combined their faith in the rule of experts with
the belief that the ideas and institutions best suited to the
poorer countries of the world were those of the United States.

Central to
this new ability to control was the creation of area studies programs
in the post-WWII United States:

Along with
the State Department, the foundations channeled millions of dollars
to US universities to establish area studies programs, with the
understanding that such programs would generate men who could
then advise or serve the US foreign policymaking establishment.
Area studies was wide-ranging by design, encompassing language
instruction, economic and political assessments of fledgling countries,
ethnographic research, and graduate training. The particular endeavors
that received funding, however, inevitably concerned the areas
and topics that were of the greatest strategic importance to the
United States.

The creation
of area studies programs were part of the American imperial project,
and always have been. Even today, with Middle East and Islamic studies
programs and departments under fire for being insufficiently pro-American
or pro-Israel (because very people who actually hate a subject actually
study that subject in any great depth to master culture and language),
they are still integral to producing people who can function as
“experts” for the state. One of the reasons I have done
nothing of “value” with my Master of Arts in Arab Studies
from Georgetown is there is so little that can actually be done
with that degree that doesn’t somehow involve serving state power
or objectifying the very people I studied. (And yet the Georgetown
program still doesn’t meet with Bernard Lewis’ and Frank Gaffney’s
approval!) I decided early on I wasn’t going to help anyone draw
red circles on targeting maps or make “loans” for fraudulent
development projects. (Oh, wait, that’s right, the whole notion
of economic development is fraudulent…)

Area studies,
in the case of the Middle East and Islam, broke the long relationship
that linked the study of Islam with the study of Hebrew, and the
study of the Qur’an with biblical knowledge. Once upon a time, most
Old Testament scholars in the West had to be at least familiar with
Arabic (before the discovery of Ugaritic, Arabic was the go-to language
when problems arose in interpreting the meaning of biblical Hebrew),
and most scholars of the Qur’an knew their Bible. Not to refute
the Qur’an (most 19th century intellectuals were not so crass),
but to be able to place the Qur’an as literature and scripture in
time and place. Now, Old Testament scholars need never study Arabic,
and most Islam scholars in the west are ensconced in history and
area studies departments, and have little knowledge of Christian
scripture, belief and practice.

And all because
knowledge was used to dominate. And not enlighten.

August
27, 2012

Charles
H. Featherstone [send
him mail] is
an anarchist, seminarian, songwriter, sometime essayist and Jennifer’s
ever-loving husband. He blogs here
and here.

Copyright
© 2012 Charles H. Featherstone

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