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Think the world is on fire? Obama’s national security adviser says things are better than ever
http://www.vox.com/2016/8/18/12387600/susan-rice-voxBetween ISIS attacks, Russian aggression in Syria and Ukraine, and Brexit, it can feel a lot like the world has been falling apart these past few years.
So it’s surprising — and perhaps a little disconcerting — to learn that Susan Rice, President Barack Obama’s national security adviser, is actually optimistic about the state of the world right now.
"This is a much more hopeful and positive period in history than we have seen certainly in our lifetimes," she told me in early August when I sat down with her in the White House to talk about the Obama administration’s foreign policy. "I tell my kids this: that they couldn’t be luckier to be living in this world at this time."
It’s easy to dismiss this as simple happy talk from an administration defending its foreign policy record. But this optimistic view is central to how the Obama administration views the world — and is also at the heart of one of the central contradictions of Obama’s foreign policy.
So it’s surprising — and perhaps a little disconcerting — to learn that Susan Rice, President Barack Obama’s national security adviser, is actually optimistic about the state of the world right now.
"This is a much more hopeful and positive period in history than we have seen certainly in our lifetimes," she told me in early August when I sat down with her in the White House to talk about the Obama administration’s foreign policy. "I tell my kids this: that they couldn’t be luckier to be living in this world at this time."
It’s easy to dismiss this as simple happy talk from an administration defending its foreign policy record. But this optimistic view is central to how the Obama administration views the world — and is also at the heart of one of the central contradictions of Obama’s foreign policy.
If you apply the "veil of ignorance" argument (that is, assume you have no idea what part of a society you would be in: your race, gender, social class at birth, etc.), there has never been a better time to be alive in US history. Apply it worldwide (so that you wouldn't know what country you'd be born in), and it's also true.
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