Group Summary

In Nick's March 5th post, he talks about the ideological and imperialistic tone of Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points. The Fourteen Points symbolized the United States' strengthening role as a global power, suggesting the amendments Europe needs to make following the war with emphases on the United States' liberal and democratic values. While Nick points out that Wilson's rhetoric recalls an imperialistic tone, calling for the world to "be made fit and safe to live in," I do think that the setting in which the Fourteen Points was written in should not be lost. The Fourteen Points responded to World War I and its aims, although idealistic and maybe far to generalized, were meant to inspire peace and hopes of prosperity in Europe in the aftermath of the war. When Wilson writes that "every peace-loving nation,...like our own, wishes to live its own life [and] determine its own institutions," he seems to be referring to the peaceful and respecting stance European countries can take in the future instead of the hostile  and suspicious ones that helped lead Europe into war initially. Although relations to imperialism can be made here, I think it is more important to understand the democratic and independent sentiments Wilson wished to instill in Europe. In Alex's March 10th post, Alex critiques the vagueness, indeterminacy, and perhaps contradictions of several points in Wilson's Fourteen Points. Alex points out that in several points, Wilson suggests that people in specified countries need to be evacuated and redistributed. Although his intent is to create more balanced and culturally-united countries so that internal feuds between different cultures would not arise, Wilson fails to take into account what exactly would be required to do such a reorganization, including reformation of governments, territorial lines, and internal feuds. Wilson's Fourteen Points was not an official document incorporated into European countries' rebuilding plan following the war--therefore, I think it is okay that Wilson's points are so vague. The significance of the Fourteen Points is not so much the specified steps it suggests Europe should take, but rather the democratic undertone that signified America's growing influence on Europe. The Fourteen Points represents a generalized ideology for peace, fair trade, and democracy that, while symbolic of what values America believed Europe should follow, did not represent a document that could ever be fully utilized or implemented.