US Relations
June 24, 2020
By AHNZ
Fair test- what’s New Zealand’s history of accepting the United States of America’s proposals on NZ foreign policy? Do Kiwis prick up their ears to listen and thank Uncle Sam for his friendly tips about how they ought to govern?
The short answer: No.
Longer answer: Hell no!
Longer answer with evidence below. But, first, a little background on our United States friends…
Americans are Radically Pragmatic
Americans (ie the USA) and New Zealanders are very different people. The strain of Statism in the American runs far more deepy than in his Kiwi cousin because of their built-in Pragmatism. The New Zealander, in his soul, wants to understand how and why things work and is quite willing to pull things apart or even go without until he understands causes. Even when something works, he will invent and re-invent alternatives because he cares about causes.
For an American it is enough that something works, no need to ask questions. If something doesn’t work, the American throws it away. For Kiwis, functional vs broken is not a binary proposition; Kiwis know that broken things might only be partly broken and can be repaired. Kiwis repair and salvage things. Americans dispose of things; They are Pragmatic.
American Pragmatism was codified in the C19th by the likes of William James (image above) and John Dewey but it is still alive and well today with American thinkers such as Stefan Molyneux and Jordan Peterson.
James championed materialism, writing that consciousness was not a first principle but a phenomena of matter. He wrote books with such titles as Does Consciousness Exist and Pragmatism, A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking. It was an older, Protestant, way of thinking that shows why Americans are different to New Zealanders; James has simply put older religious ideas into a philosophical framework. The Pragmatist cares little for truth, he care about what works; What is practical.
American Problem Solving
The American Pragmatist wills his doubters to be subdued rather than reason with them. New Zealanders gaze in wonder at the plethora of other will-to-power and mechanical means by which Americans try subdue reality itself.
Even an American’s “natural birth” is an epidural delivery so the mother is numb and the doctor (midwives not up to the task in America, apparently) is in full control. We’ve all seen the extraordinary full-head dental correction metal headgear Americans are willing to deploy upon their children to make their teeth look right. Yanks do the same to their children’s legs and spine, or did, as was shown in the film Forest Gump (image right.) To not instantly submit to the American policeman is to risk being beaten and detained; They’re always well armed and ready to shoot first and question later.
Instead of taking a pencil into space, the Yank had to invent and jigger up some fancy zero-gravity ballpoint pen. American cats are de-clawed, New Zealand cats are taught not to damage our furniture. Americans traditionally use spurs and whips and like to break their horses by mechanical means whereas a Kiwi would establish a relationship with his animals. Americans crave practical, mechanical, impositions so much they even circumcise their babies for no better reason than principle for principles sake. Why?
USA and NZ: Divergent Evolution
New Zealand and the United States have the same common ancestor: Britain. Both populations left the Mothership for a new life in a new land but the circumstances were different and this is what accounts for our divergent evolution.
When English Civil War losers bugged out to America they were fleeing the Victimhood Culture Puritans who had taken over. Led by men like Sir William Berkeley (image left) they re-produced a Britain that was already moving on and leaving them behind. Thus, a new nation was founded on an almost Bicameral set of master/slave defaults belonging to the middle of the C17th. Meanwhile, back ‘home’, the British Mothership continued to evolve for another 200 years..
“Godley’s fellows were a High Dignity Culture people whose Old World had become unbearably uncivilised to them. When the same had happened 200 years previous this Anglican stock departed old England for New England: For Virginia, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania. Here, they set up their own independent territory at their own expense.” – On The Government of Colonies; AHNZ
So it was that when New Zealanders departed the British Mothership it had come a long way. Master/Servant class relations had evolved toward greater equality rather than frozen as a mater of national pride or identity as in America.
Colonising leaders such as Robert Godley (left) also came to New Zealand still thinking of Britain as home. They were an extension of a larger world rather than escaping it. Americans, in particular, severed that connection with their War of Independence only about 100 years in¹. New Zealanders also became independent after a war but it was against our will. Thus, time and circumstances make for two related but divergent populations.
For the New Zealander, ‘jack is as good as his master’ and we treasure fairness and egalitarianism. The American treasures freedom as a reflex to the fact that they are so very culturally un-free. Like the Celtic clansmen and their chiefs who settled the Carolinas and other expanses south of Charlottesville, the modern Americans continue to default to a strong master/slave mentality. That is why the American is receptive to being controlled by practical, mechanical, solutions and obeying aristocratic commands.
It is also why the policy that works in the USA is backward and unsuitable for New Zealand and it is why we don’t listen when they tell us what we should do. On the other hand, however unsuitable, the American’s advice will certainly be practical and quite possibly the right thing to do…
History of American Advice to New Zealand
1845: US Consul to NZ proposes removal of the British Flag from the Bay of Islands would restore the old American trade ties with Maori. Hone Heke takes it as a practical suggestion but NZ Government resents this very much, repeatedly reiterating the flag and fighting a whole war over it.
1865: US Confederate the warship, CSS Shenandoah, makes port in Victoria just beyond Melbourne. It’s there to repair damage suffered while fighting the US Civil War. The local US Consul insists these Confederates be arrested as pirates! The Australians, following the same Imperial policy as New Zealanders, tell Abraham Lincoln’s man where he can stick it.
1899: USA assumes a partition of Samoa to the livid fury of NZ PM Seddon who strongly desired it for his own Pacific Empire. “A great betrayal,” he says.
1908: President Roosevelt sends ‘The Great White Fleet‘ to New Zealand, courting military alliance. A spectacular election year diversion for PM Ward who, none the less, spurned US military support for Britain’s.
1943: First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt visits American-occupied New Zealand to praise our hospitality and kindness. New Zealanders had already been rebelling against these sentiments with riots and even the murder of Roosevelt’s servicemen.
1966: President Lyndon Johnson personally visits New Zealand to solicit more Kiwi military support for his Vietnam War. PM Holyoake wasn’t happy about it, responding with a token increase. In 1970 PM Kirk tells the Yanks to shove it entirely, withdrawing all troops from a war running into 1975
1979: The New Zealand Government Air Service (Air New Zealand) deliberately obscures its flight plan alterations to avoid United States Air Traffic Control from lodging an objection to their tinkering. New Zealand Government pre-emptively telling Americans where they could shove their advice before the Americans knew it was time to open their mouths! The objectionable latitude and longitude was instead substituted for the word “McMurdo” to which USA’s McMurdo Station would not complain or un-authorise. As a result, flight 901 followed its computer flight path directly into the second-highest volcano in Antarctica (Erebus.) Everyone, 257 people, on the plane were killed but nobody had to suffer an American’s suggestion.
1985: USS Buchanan denied entry- USA suggests the ANZUS treaty be honoured but NZ PM Lange tells them to shove it for 33 years. So things remain until November 2016.
New Zealand fails the test by consistently electing to determine its own policy and being first in line to ignore the Americans of the day- even when they were probably 100% right! The NZ PM has no credibility at being back-seat-driver to the US President. No more than Kiwi’s historical fondness for governing advice issued from Washington.
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1 From this point of view, the The American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) was fought because the state of British culture was leaving radical Pragmatism behind. “At the time of Cook’s return to England in 1771, the romantic and evangelical movements were already beginning to colour men’s thoughts, with their concepts of the “noble savage” and the “brotherhood of man”. (McLintock, 1958.) Founded upon resistance to such epistemological paradigm changes, the American colonies had no choice but to preserve their ways by succeeding or else join the rest of the Western World in its firmware upgrade.
Ref. Hydroxychloroquine; NZB3
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