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"Humankind's history is bound up with pleasure," is
the opening sentence in Beyond Pain: the role of pleasure and
culture in the making of foreign affairs (2002, Praeger Publishers),
the new book by Thomas Breslin, FIU's vice president for Research
and associate professor of International Relations.
The statement begs the question: Who wouldn't choose
pleasure over pain? Human nature notwithstanding - given the proclivity
toward both conflict and pleasure - Breslin believes that historians
focus more on war and violence even though times of peace and
mutual accommodation are more prevalent. "Those periods of
tranquility receive very little attention," he commented.
"History highlights wars, rather than the periods in between
them when diplomats are working to prevent wars."
In the early 1980s, during his involvement with
the nuclear arms freeze movement, Breslin dwelled on this issue,
which gave rise to the concept for the book. He plunged into a
research inquiry to study how countries achieve their foreign
affairs goals. Specifically, he wanted to determine whether non-violent
means - pleasures ranging from sex, wine and precious metals to
money (often bribes), art and public spectacles - were effective
during different times and in different countries and cultures.
The result, after some 20 years of exhaustive research
using primary and secondary sources, was Beyond Pain, which presents
a 2000-year overview of the ways in which pleasure has been effective
used to defend and advance the foreign affairs interests of states.
When he embarked on the project, Breslin concentrated on his personal
area of expertise, Chinese culture and history, and subsequently
studied other states/cultures. In the book, he demonstrates how
China, Persia, Rome, Byzantium, Britain and the United States
have used these means, which vary from culture to culture, at
a fraction of the cost of militarized policies. Some of Breslin's
comments on tools used by different nations and cultures:
China: "The Chinese started with sex, but moved
into the power of food and luxury goods. They were utterly convinced
that if you get people to change to a Chinese-style diet, they
could accommodate to the Chinese government. …The Chinese
always made money. They gave out luxury goods and developed a
secondary market that was far more profitable than the gifts to
foreign leaders. Their bribes pumped foreign commerce. The cost
of bribery was between 4 and 20 percent of militarized foreign
policy, so it was relatively cheap."
Rome: "The strength of the empire is typically
considered the Roman Legion. But the Legions were only effective
where Roman merchants had corrupted the locals and created a market
for Roman goods. They created a demand for wine and Roman luxury
goods. The merchants made it possible for the Roman Empire to
expand as much as it did. In terms of the development of an empire,
military might by itself was not constructive. You had to create
markets, you had to make money."
Venice: "Venice brought into continental Europe
the diplomatic practices of the Byzantines and the Arabs, which
date back to the Romans. Venice was very practiced in the use
of the bribe, they made effective use of it."
Britain: "They were probably the best in modern
times, up to end of 19th century…they put a wall of money
between themselves and their enemies. They used money to buy the
flesh and blood of allies. They were seduced in the 20th century
into abandoning that very successful policy."
The chapter on America notes the use of sex, money
(foreign aid), education (Fulbright Scholarships), music (cultural
presentations abroad) and tourism to advance the national interest.
A recent example close to home was the 1994 Summit of the Americas
in Miami. To further the goal of creating an economic sphere in
the Americas led by the U.S. - and to strengthen local interests
in foreign trade and investments and in national politics - Miami
successfully made the winning bid to host the first hemispheric
summit in 27 years. Breslin writes:
As did the Byzantines and the Venetians centuries
before, the polyglot people of Miami, which also terms itself
the "Magic City," put on a wondrous show of hospitality
for the foreign leaders and their entourages. Urban beautification
projects were widespread parties were the order of the day.
…Lubricated by the vast outpouring of pleasure, the Summit
of the Americas in Miami was generally accounted a success.
Despite the Summit's success, Breslin believes that
the Clinton administration's cutbacks in diplomacy and foreign
aid reduced the possibilities of what could have emerged from
the historic event. That move has escalated in what he sees as
an ominous, broader trend for the nation.
"I'm very concerned because the U.S. seems
to be abandoning the use of money and other approaches for a much
more militarized approach - from the time of Jimmy Carter and
Ronald Reagan onward. There's a bias against diplomacy. We are
now going back to a new wave of enthusiasm for increasingly sophisticated
weaponry and military command systems and the fixation on these
means blinds us to simpler, less expensive and more ingratiating
methods that are time tested over the centuries.
"Those no real country I no of that has
been doomed by being generous toward its neighbors. On the contrary,
violence tends to be corrosive in the long term."
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