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ghettos and their problems. White guilt - a later growth and often
mixed, consciously or unconsciously, with white racism - has done little
to alleviate the problems . To throw money at ghettos, watch it get
stolen, and then shrug one's shoulders at the impossibility of helping
"them," pretty well sums up much of the relevant history . Yet it is also
true that black demagogues, often themselves on the take, have
compounded the damage. Already a black leadership is emerging which is
facing the fact that, in the late twentieth century, most of the oppression
of blacks in America is the work of other blacks. But the kind of
approach with which Jesse Jackson, his assiduous work in the high
schools, and his associates are now identified can, if resolutely sustained,
do more to help than anything previously tried has accomplished.
In post-Cold-War foreign affairs, I think the implications of a
significantly expanded American elite are likely to be benign, though not
dramatically so. This development should tend to diminish the self–
righteousness in the formulation of Ameri can foreign policy, and thereby
be conducive to somewhat greater realism in the framing of actual
decisions. In this connection Henry Kissinger's new book,
Diplol1lacy,
is
relevant. It is a rather curious book . Its main thrust is against the
moralistic, Wilsonian element in the making of foreign policy . To be
against this is all right, at least by me. But Kissinger's way of being
against it is peculiar and largely unrealistic . He tends to take this stuff at
its face value, to exalt it, even to flatter it, as an actual and peculiarly
American force in history, quite distinct from the pursuit of self-interest.
He tends to ignore the distinction between rhetoric and policy al–
though, as President Nixon's chief adviser, he must know more than
most people about that. In fact, neither self-interest nor self-righteousness
is either absent from or peculiar to Ameri can foreign poli cy. Most
countries tend to combine the two, often without being quite aware of
what they are doing. Universally, self-interest shapes most of the policy ,
while self-righteousness tends to dominate the formulation .
America is not an exception to this law, though Kissinger incessantly
seeks to suggest that it is. Thus, he suggests that the Treaty of Versailles
was shaped by the ethical and moralistic concerns of President Wilson, as
expressed in the doctrine of self-determination. But self-determination, as
practiced at Versailles, was simply the disintegration of the Austro–
Hungarian and Ottoman Empires at the hands of the victorious French
and British Empires, to the mutual advantage of the latter, except when
one of them saw some advantage in a double-cross, as Britain did with
France over the Sykes-Picot Agreement. The moralistic Wilsonian bit no
doubt meant a lot to Woodrow Wilson personally. But in terms of in-
