MedLawPlus.com®
|
Article Archives (12-06-2004)
Hef Takes Shanghai
Playboy Enterprises, Inc. announced that it is opening a club in Shanghai, China. "It's very exciting actually to be thinking about going on a bunny hunt in China," said Christie Hefner, Playboy chief executive. Hugh Hefner shall be at the club's opening in 2006 (same year as a new club shall open in Las Vegas).
All kidding aside, I see Playboy's entry into China (where pornography is officially outlawed) as just one more sign of the communist country's long slide into American style capitalism. "And so?" you may ask. I respond by reference to the McDonald's Theory of world conflict resolution, which states that no two countries both possessing McDonald's restaurants have ever gone to war with one another! Just think of it. Had Norman Schwarzkopf demanded in the terms ending Gulf War I that Saddam allow the opening of a McDonald's restaurant in Baghdad, there would never have been Gulf War II. Although my last comment is blog hyperbole, the underlying point is real. When American culture (as opposed to the US Army), invades a country, it pulls that country into the family of world nations leading to peaceful resolution of international disputes.
Osama's biggest nightmare would be a Playboy club in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Could his al qaeda recruiters really compete with the Playboy bunnies? You think I am joking? What was the last trip many of the 9-11 hijackers took prior to their day of infamy? Answer: Las Vegas to patronize its strip clubs. The war we are now engaged in, which the president calls a war against terrorism, is something more elemental: it is a cultural war of ideas.fn1 The prize is the minds of the people of the Muslim world. Bin Laden initiated this war in order to have a cause to rally his people behind. We obliged by invading traditionally Arab land in Baghdad without the support of the international community using a rationale (i.e., Saddam's possession of WMD) which later proved to be completely false. Game on. Instead of the army, we should have sent the Playboy bunnies and Ronald McDonald. The rest of the world is helpless against the onslaught of our most effective weapons.
The allure of American culture is a real asset in the global marketplace of ideas. Joseph Nye, Dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, coined the term "soft power" to describe this strategic asset. Our culture's popularity with people of other nations grants our nation influence in foreign affairs it otherwise would not possess. The ultimate power in any country is the will of the people. A government may defy the will of its people for a time through intimidation and misinformation; however, that time is increasingly limited in today's modern information age. By seducing a country's people with the attractiveness of our culture (which includes our government's public policies), we can achieve diplomatic victories that otherwise would require the use of hard power (i.e., military might). Mr. Nye believes the neo-cons advising Mr. Bush have seriously damaged our nation's soft power by totally ignoring international public opinion.fn2 I agree with Mr. Nye and add that the neo-cons have overlooked the power of the Bunny. The US government should subsidize the expansion of Hef's Bunny kingdom to every regressive corner of the globe. They're worth more than an armored brigade on the ground.
JJR
12-06-2004
----------------------
Update (12-12-2004):
This just in from the Washington Post:
Victoria's Secret has arrived in Tehran. So have the Gap, Diesel, Benetton and Black & Decker. * * * [B]illboards that once would have been reserved for revolutionary slogans and portraits of Iranians killed in the war with Iraq now advertise Calvin Klein. link.
Hah! We have finally rolled out our big guns against one of the members of Mr. Bush's "axis of evil". Once we soften them up with Victoria's Secret and Calvin Klein, we pummel them with Ronald McDonald and the Playboy Bunnies. The Ayatollahs don't stand a chance!
|
|
|
