Soft Power in a Hardened World (Edited)

By Pastor Marcia Moret Sietstra

Sept. 19, 2004

Is. 61:1-2, Luke 4:18-19

Imagine for a moment a student coming home after graduating from college and telling the congregation in his hometown that he feels called to a special mission, and then laying it out for them. Well, that’s what Jesus did when he returned to his hometown synagogue and read from the scroll of Isaiah, the prophecy Elizabeth just read. In effect he said, ”I am fulfilling this prophecy…I’m the one to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free and to proclaim the Lord’s favor.” Do you think a few folks turned to their neighbors and whispered, “Who does he think he is?” because even though Jesus had become somewhat famous around the countryside, he had not done much in his native Nazareth.

But at the moment I’m less interested in what Jesus said, than in what he didn’t say when he quoted Isaiah in the temple that day. I have placed the Isaiah text in your bulletin first, in the left column. Beside it you will find the words Luke tells us that Jesus said, on the right. If you look closely you will notice that Jesus left out a part. He did not proclaim “the day of vengeance of our God.” His listeners were well-versed in the oral tradition and I’m quite certain they would have noticed this omission. Why did Jesus do it? Could it be because Jesus refused to justify violence in God’s name?

Jesus preferred what today might be called “soft power”. Before I explain soft power, let’s look at its opposite—hard power. Everyone is familiar with hard power. Hard power is the ability to make others do what you want—usually by threats or inducements. Do this, or I will force you to do it. The bully who commands behavior on the playground is using hard power. The boss who commands behavior is using hard power. When the United States uses bombs and missiles in a war, that’s hard power. When the United States offers payment to another country to get them to do what we want, that’s hard power too, even though they are being induced with a “carrot” instead of a “stick” in that case.

Soft power, on the other hand, is the ability to capture the minds and hearts of people. Professor Joseph Nye of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard put it this way: “Hard power is the ability to get others to do what we want, while soft power is the ability to get others to want the same thing we do.” Hard power is based on coercion while soft power is based on attraction.

Most businesses use soft power because they need to attract customers. A business owner has to treat people fairly and offer a product they want in order to get them to buy their product. When a business does that successfully, that’s having soft power.

Good marriages rely on soft power. In a marriage, I suppose it’s possible to rely on hard power, e.g. for the larger of two individuals to say, “I’m bigger so I can force you to do what I want.” But in the long run, a marriage based on the hard power of coercion will not be a healthy or successful marriage. For one thing, the weaker partner will find ways to get back at the other one.

Here’s an example: If my husband came home and said, “ I’ve decided that because I earn more money than you do, I am going to choose where we go on vacations from now on. Pack your bags for the experimental aircraft show in Osh Kosh.” About how much cooperation do you think he would get from me?

But a marriage based on soft power is one in which each partner gets the other one to want what s/he wants by attraction, by wanting what is good and right for both of them. If my husband came home and said, “I know you would like to go to the beach for vacation, but I would love to go to an aircraft show in Osh Kosh. Can we talk about a way that we can each get what we want for a few days, maybe spending some time at the beach and then the air show?” Now that’s using soft power, getting me to want what he wants, by treating me fairly so I want to treat him fairly, and by respecting my needs and wishes. Soft power is demonstrating values that make people want to cooperate with you.

Democracies rely on soft power. To get elected, leaders have to get people to vote for them, so they have to win their cooperation by getting people to want the outcomes that they want. A dictator simply coerces the people to follow him, that’s hard power.

Now the bible never says democracy is the best form of government, but we see strong support for it when we look at the politics of Jesus, because we see a predisposition in favor of soft power, not the hard power of military might. We see in Jesus a constant concern for finding non-violent ways to resolve differences. We see an emphasis on what is compassionate and fair for all. And we see consistently (Hebrew as well as Christian scriptures) a concern for those who have the least power. “I have come to bring good news to the poor…to let the oppressed go free.”

The term “soft power” was coined by Joseph Nye, until very recently Dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, Chairperson of the National Intelligence Council and Assistant Secretary of Defense in the Clinton Administration. He has recently published a book in which he explains how badly the world needs soft power today. He says we need leaders who care about ethics and values, leaders who respect other cultures and ideas, leaders who are admired for their moral messages and their compassion on behalf of distant neighbors. Because leaders like this inspire peaceful change and cooperation.

Hard power has limits. Vietnam was a lesson in the limits of hard power. We had the military strength to win that war, but we could never win the hearts and minds of the people—and so we never won that war. Iraq may be another example of what happens when you have the military hard power to destroy a government but lack the soft power, the credibility to attract the support of a large percentage of the Iraqi people.

James Joseph, Director of the US-Southern Africa Center for Leadership and Public Values at Duke university explains (paraphrased): America today has a huge reservoir of hard power, that is military might, but we have dismantled our systems of soft power. We used to be seen as a nation committed to helping the poorest nations of the world. We are today proportionally spending less than half of what we used to on non-military foreign aid. When Americans are surveyed, the public perception is that we spend about 15% of our gross domestic product on non-military foreign aid. The truth is that the United States is spending less than 1/10 of 1 %. Did you know that the U.S. gives a smaller proportion of its economy to foreign aid than any industrialized nation in the world? On the list of donor countries, the U.S. is 21st.

If we are to preserve our moral authority in the world, we need always to ask whether our foreign policy is in the common interest of people around the world—those with the least power whom Jesus cared so much about—or whether our foreign policies are at the expense of weaker nations.

Each of us has the responsibility to think about how we can use soft power in our own lives, and how we can encourage our leaders to use soft power. This is the model that Jesus gave us—to live as individuals and a society in such a way that people will want to emulate us and cooperate with us.

Perhaps there is a time for hard power as well, that’s a discussion for another day. But of this much I am convinced, Jesus showed a clear preference for soft power, the power of moral authority and respect. May we be able to do the same. Amen.