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These changes, Brzezinski claims, have led to the triumph of
pragmatism. Hence there is no longer any need for nationalism, ideol–
ogies or integrative ideals, with the exception, as he adds later, of
American liberalism. Pragmatism means the rise of true equality and
the exercise of reason in world affairs. Passion, religiosity and emotion,
he contends, are the reactionary sentiments of those who cannot face
the future or delight in the cultural irrationalities of the generation
gap. Among these, the antiquarian Marxists and "totalitarian" New
Leftists, abetted by the New York Revolutionary Cultural Establish–
ment, pose a truly reactionary threat to the technetronic age, because,
he concludes, they understand much of what it means and yet oppose it.
Brzezinski is best writing about his own field. When he turns to
consider the future of the Soviet Union, he writes an interesting essay
on its current industrial and ideological lethargy. The Russians, he
argues, have built a society which shuts out rapid technological and
social change for the sake of preserving a reactionary social model. And
he predicts that the Soviets will fall behind in goodsmanship, technology
and influence, and that they will not serve as a model for world in–
dustrialization. The key
to
change in that society will be, he writes,
growing pluralism, cooperation with the United States and political
integration in the world community. This will come about gradually
through the attrition of old Soviet leadership and the desire of new
technological classes to free themselves and their work from ideology.
Although Brzezinski has apparently buried the cold war banner, and
even praises Marx now that he appears to be irrelevant, he justifies
a division between East and West on other grounds. The United States
represents the future, and Russia the past, and therefore, almost any
kind of industrial development will eventually triumph over the Soviets.
Technology-and not capitalism or the United States, apparently -
is
anti-Communist.
In some ways this evaluation is intriguing. Obviously, the Soviet
Union, as a society today, offers little to emulate in the way of social
freedoms. The vast distortions of Soviet industrialization map a devious
route toward modernization, and one which other nations will not
want to reproduce. Probably, most would, if they could, choose the
American way, that is, if they could somehow be able to re-create those
impossibly opportune conditions of the nineteenth century. Or they
might let us develop them, which may well happen. That plainly is
what the author intends.
The heart of the technetronic revolution and the core of Brzezin–
ski's argument center around the United States. Most of American
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