Introduction to Geopolitics

Reader’s Digest 
means the bureaucratic influence of big government, as well as
the spread of “political correctness.”

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The unsuspecting American imagines that we are safe from socialism because
he knows the people will never vote for it. But socialism can be put over by a
small minority.
(Sharp, 2000a, p. 89)
The power of the Soviet Union, and particularly the Soviet Communist Party,
is due to the fact that, while in a sense the Soviet state has moved into a power
vacuum in Europe and Asia, the Soviet Communist Party has moved into a
moral vacuum in the world.
(Sharp, 2000a, p. 89)
Sharp shows how the 
Reader’s Digest
was able to connect the US’s global
geopolitical agenda to the concerns and actions of the individual citizen. Wars in Korea
and tensions in Berlin, for example, were represented as the necessary outcomes of a
mission bestowed upon the US because of its national character. The Cold War was
portrayed as a conflict over values: US humanitarianism versus Soviet totalitarianism.
Moreover, the “battle” was not geographically distant. The 
Reader’s Digest
made link-
ages across spaces and down geopolitical scales, so that an immediate threat to the fabric
of society was constructed. The result was that geopolitical agency was essential for all
Americans, whether they were fighting Communism in a foreign land or working as a
farmer, teacher, shop assistant, etc. in Nebraska. The 
Reader’s Digest
made this clear
in 1952:
This is where 
you
come in. No-one is too small or insignificant, too young or
too old, to be shackled and regimented, or pauperized and destroyed. . . . By
its all-encompassing timetable sooner or later [the “communist masterplot”] 
has to reach you.
(Sharp, 2000a, p. 93)
Individual morality as a form of everyday geopolitical agency remained an important
theme for the 
Reader’s Digest
after the Cold War. Increasingly, “domestic danger”
became the geopolitical focus of the magazine, as the threat of Russia and Communism
declined through the 1990s (Sharp, 2000a, p. 151). Continuing a theme that began with
the New Deal program, in 1994 the 
Digest
noted that “[t]he barbarian’s are not at the
gates. They are inside” (Sharp, 2000a, p. 152): continuing the magazine’s reference back
to the classical ages of Rome and Greece, made accessible by the Hollywood biblical
epics discussed earlier (McAlister, 2001). Who were the barbarians? Surprisingly, it was
the American government itself, or more specifically the portrayal of an increasingly
powerful central government and, in the argument of the 
Digest
, a consequent culture
of dependency upon government services. In themes that loyal readers would be able
to trace back to early discussions of Communism, government intervention (or degrees
of Communism) created the potential of moral decay.
In sum, the 
Reader’s Digest
offered a commentary on US global geopolitics that
assigned an exceptional nature to the country that demanded a global presence. Partici-
pation in wars across the globe, and other forms of political intervention and presence,
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were related to the everyday life experiences of the readers by a representation of the
American nation as one embracing particular moral standards and norms. In this manner
geopolitical agency was portrayed as a daily necessity for the individual; as Communism
and big government threatened American communities and, by extension, the US’s
ability to conduct its humanitarian mission for the whole world.
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