Let us prey

Michael Gerson in a recent WAPO editorial suggested that "It is one of fate’s cruel jokes that conservatism should be at its modern nadir just as the Republican Party is at its zenith — if conservatism is defined as embracing limited government, displaying a rational, skeptical and moderate temperament and believing in the priority of the moral order."  I am not sure which "conservative" party he has been looking at over the past few decades, but I am not convinced its actual behavior could ever be defined as he has defined it.   Even so, conceding the definition, it is broad enough to fit just about anyone.  I could be a conservative under his definition, though I would restate and reorder the principles slightly.  I too believe in "the priority of the moral order," but I would also point out that, for some areas of human endeavor, profit and self-interest as motives are inconsistent with anything resembling a moral order.  I too believe in "displaying a rational, skeptical and moderate temperament," but I would point out that moderation is  might simply be called "civility" in other contexts.  Additionally, I would point out that, as values, "rationality and skepticism" are incompatible with any system of thought that insists, first and foremost, on "faith," regardless of the object of "faith."  Finally, I too would embrace "limited government," but limited by what and to what?  Therein lies the crux of the matter.

OK, so, for starters, let me say that capitalism, even that (especially that) conceived in the ideal purity of Adam Smith's vision of the "free market," is amoral.  Here, I have to admit I have a relatively simple view of morality.  I believe that suffering is real, and that anything increasing the store of suffering is immoral, anything decreasing it is moral.  It doesn't take a great deal of thought to discover that no action is ever perfectly immoral or moral, or that there is a broad streak of utilitarianism in my thinking, particularly when it comes to governments and their actions.  For example, the rich man may suffer when his wealth is taxed to feed the poor, but the greater good among the greater number is served by feeding the poor and eliminating their greater suffering.  This, of course, could be deliberated, and the rich man may disagree that the greater good is served, but democracy, as such, tends to serve that streak of utilitarianism, the greater good for the greater number, as the cumulative effect of serving my individual good holds sway.  Moral action, aimed at a moral order, would seek to limit suffering, but capitalism is not aimed at either increasing or decreasing the store of suffering.  It is aimed at profit.  A capitalist may establish a grocery chain, and that grocery chain may have the salutatory effect of feeding the masses, but within a capitalist system, the grocery chain does not exist to feed the masses.  It exists to create profit, and at the end of the day, when profit and morality come into conflict, as they inevitably will, profit will win out.  If the owners don't attend to profit, the chain will ultimately fail, along with any salutary effects it might have had.  In this respect, one might argue that, not unlike democracy, capitalism tends to serve that streak of utilitarianism, as the cumulative effect of serving profit holds sway.  More are fed than not when grocery chains across the nation attend to profit and continue in their existence.

So, when Gerson says "Conservatives believe that human beings are fallible and prone to ambition, passion and selfishness," I tend to agree.  Again, I could be a conservative.  Within my simplistic moral universe, I should also mention, however, that we are prone to selfishness, if for no other reason than my suffering is immediately and incontrovertibly "real," while another's suffering is always a matter of surmise.  If I grow hungry and suffer, I feel it in my gut, literally, but if another grows hungry and suffers, I may experience pangs of empathy and suffer along with them, but I do not suffer in the same way or to the same extent.  As individuals, we are hardwired to "selfishness."  We are not, however, alone in the universe, and when I say "I suffer," there is likely to be another who says "me too," and again democracy tends to serve that streak of utilitarianism, a greater good for a greater number, as the "me too" becomes the concerted political action of "we suffer."  If the "we" represents a majority, so much the better, but if the "we" represents a minority, it is contingent upon others who feel those pangs of empathy, of compassion, and have sufficient moral imagination to suffer along with those who do, actually, suffer.  Again, moral action, aimed at a moral order, would seek to limit suffering, but capitalism is not aimed at either increasing or decreasing the store of suffering.  It is aimed at profit.  Consider another example.  A capitalist may establish a chain of "elder care" homes, and those elder care homes may have the salutary effect of providing for a segment of the population that is helpless and vulnerable.  Nevertheless, so long as the elder care home is "private," it may capitalize on serving a need, even a moral need, and it exists only insofar as it can turn a profit serving that need.  When morality and profit come into conflict, the care will  be sacrificed for the profit -- e.g. when an elder can no longer afford to pay for their care, what happens to them then?   The owners may regret the necessary action -- they may even take on some patients "pro bono" -- but there are limits to the amount of charity that can be extended without putting the enterprise at risk.   Consequently, the necessary action may be regrettable, but it seems clear enough.

If an action increases the store of suffering in the world, it is immoral and those that perpetrated the act have behaved immorally.   Having said this, however, I need to make a couple of subtle (perhaps over-subtle) points.  First, there is a distinction between immoral behavior and an immoral person.  The focus should be on the former, not the latter.  When Gerson writes that "human beings are fallible," it does not mean, at least by my estimation, that we are all immoral, are all "sinners," are all "fallen," or anything of the sort.  The owners of the elder care facility may be driven by profit, and that motive may lead to immoral acts, but one should at least credit the idea that they established an elder care center and in doing so may have intended a fully moral purpose -- relieving the suffering of the elderly and infirm.  The necessary act may be regrettable, but it is, after all, "necessary," and a failure to do what is "necessary" puts the enterprise, and consequently many more elders, in harm's way.  The focus should be on relieving the "necessity" driving the immoral act, not on the dispensation of "blame" for those perpetrating the act.  The latter may make us feel better, but it does little or nothing to relieve suffering in the world.  Second, the "necessity" of an act does not relieve moral responsibility.  As the owner of a facility that must kick an elder to the curb when they can no longer pay, I may not be an immoral person, but that does not relieve me of responsibility for my act or release me from responsibility to address the necessity that motivated it.  Indeed, it relieves no one of responsibility -- no one.  If the goal is a moral order, then it is incumbent on us all to relieve the suffering of all.  Third, I am not a utopian.  I do not believe a world without suffering is possible, or even desirable in the final analysis.  The struggle for a moral order is an ever-ongoing struggle, in part because we live in a world of "necessity," in part because we live in a world of "unintended consequences."  There is no perfect order, and the belief that a perfect order is not only possible, but imminent, has caused more suffering than resignation to the Sisyphean labor of simply creating a "more" moral order.  The belief in a perfect system, lends itself to what might be called (somewhat simplistically) "if only" thinking. "If only" there were no apostates, or no religions at all,  or no liberals, or no conservatives, or no contentious countries, et cetera.  Imagine!  "If only" is a call to eliminate suffering by eliminating those who cause us to suffer, and while there is something noble about the dreamer who dreams of a perfect order, without fail, when there is a real attempt in the real world to make the dream come true, it quickly becomes the nightmare of the guillotine, the concentration camp, the gulag. 

 In short, in a moral order, we cannot expect perfection, but nevertheless we all have a responsibility to relieve the suffering of those among us who suffer.  We all live, so to speak, in an old boat.  It breaks down here, breaks down there, unexpectedly.  Fixing this problem causes that problem, and the task of keeping it afloat is never ending, frustrating, but we are all in the same rickety old boat together.  We might suggest that "it isn't my problem," or "there's nothing I can do," or worst of all, "it's inevitable," but in seeking to become a "more" moral order, there really are no excuses, particularly in our ostensibly democratic society where we all share equally in the election and accountability of our governing leadership who HAVE taken on the problem as their problem, who ARE empowered to do something, and who ARE charged to meet and overcome the emergent "necessity."  Having said that, however, it would take a rather rosy view of humanity to believe that those who aspire to governing leadership also aspire to the creation of a moral order.  There are any number of motives to seek governing leadership, and we don't need to think either long or hard to discover that most are immoral and malignant -- not least the twin emoluments of power for the sake of power and of greed that outstrips any reasonable conception of human need.  As Gerson suggests, we all "tend to become swaggering dictators in realms where we can act with impunity — a motor vehicle department office, a hostile traffic stop, a country under personal rule," and perhaps likewise we all tend to become ostentatious kleptocrats in realms where we can take with impunity.  The framers of our constitution, perhaps, understood this better than most.   Gerson along with a host of others suggests that "It is the particular genius of the American system to balance ambition with ambition through a divided government (executive, legislative and judicial).  The American system employs human nature to limit the power of the state — assuming that every branch of government is both dedicated to the common good and jealous of its own power."  There is, however, plenty of reason to suspect little dedication to the common good, much jealously of its own power.  It doesn't take a genius to understand that if a "divided government" does indeed "limit the power the state" and those who govern the state, then the solution to that particular problem is to "heal," so to speak, the "divisions" and bring the three branches of government under the control of a single party.  It opens the door and holds it open for the swaggering dictators and ostentatious kelptocrats. 

It is, perhaps, the most enduring hypocrisy of the conservative is the claim that they "embrace a limited government," or that they "protect and defend" the constitutional division of power to insure the limited power of the state.  Had that been the case, conservatives would have followed through on the constitutional imperative and at least considered the appointment of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court.  The executive appointment and senate confirmation of the judicial appointment is the very essence of the division of powers imagined by the framers of the constitution.  Instead, they obfuscated and gambled on the next election.  It was a risk, but as it turned out, a risk worth taking because they won the election, both in the executive and the legislative and can now insure a conservative majority within the judicial.  These are not the actions of those who "embrace a limited government" on moral, or ethical, or even philosophical grounds.  These are the actions of people who wish to remove particular limits on the power of the state and impose others, and they now have the undivided power to do so.  If this makes some conservatives, like Gerson, take notice, it is perhaps the dawning realization that we, the American people, have selected a governing leadership that is immoral and malignant.  

If "the moral striving of finite and fallen creatures who treat each other with a respect and decency" defines conservative, then count me in as a conservative.  When Gerson tells us those "virtues" are "often rooted in faith," this is just abstract enough to seem edifying without actual commitment.  The other enduring hypocrisy of the conservative is the claim that they embody a "rational and skeptical" temperament.  When one says, "rooted in faith," the follow up question is "faith in what?"   The moment one answers this question, no matter how one answers, by definition, we have given up rationality and skepticism on at least that one thing, the object of faith.   Gerson doesn't say, but the mass of Americans would answer the question "faith in God," meaning not Allah, but the Christian God --meaning not Mohammed, but Christ -- and from there, of course, it grows ever narrower, ever more sectarian.  To misuse Gerson's words, "in the midst of all our justified skepticism, we can never be skeptical" of this one thing, the object of faith.  If those who seek governing leadership are often motivated by the twin emoluments of power and greed, what Gerson doesn't say, at least not directly, is that the mass of the governed behave like suffering (and often insufferable) sheep.  If a moral order aims at the relief of suffering, for the mass of humanity, the moral order most in demand is indeed a moral order rooted in faith, in the  unquestioned authority of a good shepherd who demands obedience, and gives in return, salvation.  If this makes some conservatives, like Gerson, take notice, it is, again, the dawning realization that we have placed our faith, and given over undivided, unlimited power to a "finite and fallen creature" that is anything but a "good shepherd." Ann Coulter's book title perhaps says it all, "In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome!"

I admit that I have not read Coulter's book, and doubt that I could bring myself to do so, particularly if I had to spend actual money on it.  I am reacting to her title alone, which strikes me as obscene on any number of levels.  It conjoins and then makes a two-fold substitution of two common phrases, the official and unofficial mottos of the United States, and are familiar because they are on our money.  The first, of course, is "in God we Trust."  To substitute Trump for God, and subsequently to place faith in him thumbs its nose at the first two injunctions of the decalogue -- "thou shalt have no false gods before me."  The second, of course, is e pluribus unum, out of many one.  The substitution makes little sense, out of many awesome! unless one thinks of Trump, rising from the sea of commonality, like some Nietzschian ubermensch, as a quasi divine expression of a profane awesomeness.  Having said that, the obscenity is compounded because it reveals conservatism, not for what it professes to be, but for what it has become and what it is.  Gerson wants to believe in a "type of conservatism — a conservatism of intellectual humility and moral aspiration," which he claims "also has the advantage of being organic."  I am not certain what he means by this, but his characterization of the organic reminds one more of the weeds grow "with tenacity in hidden places, eventually breaking down the cement and asphalt of our modern life."  To be frank, I'm not at all sure that's what I or anyone else wants, a reversion to what?  a "pre-modern" life?  There is a sort of pre-lapsarian fantasy implicit in any wish for the disintegration of the modern, a reset to a better, greater time -- to a lost golden age.  Different folk will ascribe a different time, a different place, a different cause for the lapse into the modernity that appears to cause us so much grief, and a different path back to the lost golden age.  Nevertheless, as Gerson notes,  it appeals to people "who probably wouldn’t use words like 'nadir' and 'zenith'"-- to people who have been been left out or left behind by the lapse into modernity -- and perhaps even more to people who have "played by the rules" and "provide examples of hard work, personal responsibility, unfailing decency, family commitment, quiet faith, inspiring compassion and resilience in adversity."  It appeals to people who feel "cheated," and the impulse to seek out an avenger is as old as the cult of Mithras, or for that matter the cult of Christ -- the "good shepherd" who comes bearing a sword -- who promises not peace, but division -- who portends the apocalyptic reset to the golden age before.   If Trump has revealed anything, the potential recruits of conservatism are not the hard working folk who inspire compassion and resilience in adversity -- traits that are really inherently neither conservative or liberal -- but resentful folk who feel cheated and want an avenger who will set things right for them.

Nature and power abhor a vacuum.  If Trump fulfills the promise of a limited government -- and as Heuvel points out in another WAPO editorial, his colloquy of cabinet picks, almost all of whom oppose the very agencies they were chosen to lead -- an overarching goal seems clear enough,  "stripping the federal government of its power, in nearly every arena."   To do so does not return power to the people, nor does it even return freedom to the people, it merely  "strengthen the hand of private enterprise."  This is not a prescription for a moral order, but an amoral order.  As just one example among the many cited by Heuvel, "Trump has also telegraphed his intention to smash organized labor and attack workers’ rights.  His pick for labor secretary, fast-food executive Andy Puzder, is an outspoken enemy of minimum-wage increases with an appalling record of mistreating employees."  He is the chief executive of the company that controls Carl's Jr. where "the Labor Department has uncovered violations of labor laws in 60 percent of its investigations of Puzder’s restaurant chain locations."  While a violation here, or a violation there, can be written off as anomalies, sixty percent suggests that, as management, he encouraged the abuse of "hard working folk," usually by failing to pay even minimum wage or over-time wages for their work.  Puzder, on the other hand, has an annual salary of at least 4 million a year, which, to put it in perspective, is $1,923.00 per hour as opposed to the $7.25 minimum wage.  As AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka recently said, Puzder’s career has been 'defined by fighting against working people.'”  If money provides freedom -- a freedom from penury and the freedom to do as one chooses -- the conservative insistence on limited government does little to free the people, a good deal to free the plutocrats to push the people further and further into a wage serfdom.  "With his sham populism giving way to shameless plutocracy," it is difficult to accept the false pieties of Gerson, his homiletic belief that "humans have a dignity that, while often dishonored, can never be effaced."  Trump and the conservatives have not only dishonored, but virtually effaced anything resembling the dignity of a rational and skeptical approach to government, preying instead on the most irrational fears of the faithful while offering up an equally irrational hope for a savior.   They have betrayed anything resembling a moral order, preying instead on the weakest among us with amoral abandon.  The conservative faithful hear "let us pray," while the conservative leadership has long understood it as a call to "let us prey."