Since WWII, the U.S. official doctrine is that it is the legitimate guardian of freedom in the world. To Sheldon Wolin, this signs the ideological drift from an open “constitutional imaginary” to a dictatorial “power imaginary.”
| This post is part of a reading series on Democracy Incorporated by Sheldon S. Wolin. To quickly access all chapters, open the book title tab on the Authors & Books page. Disclaimer: This chapter summary is personal work and an invitation to read the book itself for a detailed view of all the author’s ideas. |
According to Sheldon Wolin, a citizenry sees itself through two distinct but complementary ways: a constitutional imaginary and a power imaginary. This chapter examines how the latter has justified a state of permanent global war in U.S. policies.
“The constitutional imaginary prescribes the means by which power is legitimated, accountable, and constrained (e.g., popular elections, legal authorization). It emphasizes stability and limits. A constitution partakes of the imaginary because it is wholly dependent on what public officials, politicians in power, and, lastly, citizens conceive it to be, such that there is a reasonable continuity between the original formulations and the present interpretations.” By contrast, “The power imaginary seeks constantly to expand present capabilities. Hobbes, the theorist par excellence of the power imaginary and a favorite among neocons, had envisioned a dynamic rooted in human nature and driven by a ‘restless’ quest for ‘power after power’ that ‘ceaseth only in death.’1 But, according to Hobbes, unlike the individual whose power drives cease with death, a society can avoid collective mortality by rationalizing the quest for power and giving it a political form.”
Hobbes’ political theory unfolds this way: Power is exercised among individuals to their overall detriment because man is a wolf to man. The solution for a stable and secure state of living is to entirely confide our individual power to one common entity. And in order to definitively avoid the dread of permanent aggression between people, this political authority must never be disputed once established. Hobbes referred to this absolute authority as the Leviathan, the overpowerful mythical creature mentioned in chapter 41 of the Book of Job in the bible.2
To him, therefore, political authority is anything but natural. The government of men has to be the object of a contract because the ravages of raw power from all individuals, in the state of nature, prevent everyone’s durable satisfaction. The legitimacy of power takes shape with Hobbes, says Sheldon Wolin, under the form of “a permanent contract, a constitutional imaginary, which provided the basis for the power imaginary.”