230
PARTISAN R.EVIEW
coming of industrialization and modernity than those who only see the
attractive consumer goods, improved services, medical care, leisure, enter–
tainments, and the other myriad glittering prizes. As to the cost of indus–
trialization, be it the destruction of the natural environment or of the
traditional community, the object of my book is not
to
protest against
it, but simply to notice what is happening, which at present, it seems to
me, is that very large numbers of our fellow humans beings are voting
with their feet and with their money to support movement in this par–
ticular direction.
I certainly agree with your point about one of the possible ideolog–
ical explanations of the rise of evangelical Protestantism. There is also a
social and political aspect of those phenomena that should be noted.
There can be little doubt that those most interested in the conversion of
males are their wives and daughters. They have discovered that conver–
sion makes men behave more responsibly , and keeps them away from
alcoholism, gambling, and beating their wives, as well as from political
activism, womanizing, and swearing. Converts tend to become hard–
working and reliable employees and the result is prosperity. This is a
weighty fact that supports your assertion that these mass conversions
amount to much more than a cargo-cult acceptance of an alien creed.
Robert Packenharn: I
have two observations, the first of which
would like to address to Dr. Arias Calderon. I don't quite understand
how you get from arguing that there is one dominant power to the
idea that there is only one dominant model imposed on the rest of the
world. America is not totally dominant globally, economically.
It
is true
that the model of econorrUc liberalization is rooted here in the U.S. , but
it is not imposed elsewhere. Veliz's notion of people reaching towards it
is accurate. It seems to me that this goes with your own points about
diversity; there are alternatives.
If
countries are not buying into them, it
is because they don't want them. I don't see how one gets from the idea
of a dominant 1T1iIitary power to the idea that this dominant power is
imposing itself on others.
Ricardo Arias Calderon: I
am simply saying that there is a cost to not
having alternatives.
Frank Heuberger:
It seems a bit naive to me to portray the U.S. sim–
ply as an economic and political offering out there in a global market of
societal systems, free for the asking to customers £i·om all socio-economic
environs to choose from it whatever part they think is of value to them.
I happen to agree with Dr. Arias on that point. With the collapse of the
