By way of another corrective, in my last post I was rather hard on secular rationalism, at least in its current form. There is one question that secular rationalism cannot answer, and it is a fundamental question, perhaps THE fundamental question: what's the point of it all? meaning life. Religion, of course, is quite adept at answering this question. We are born, we struggle, and we die for the glory of god. I live in a christian culture and my own thinking has no doubt been shaped by this in ways that I will never fully apprehend, but in the sort of crass way that popular christianity has answered that question, there is a conditional: if one lives for the glory of god, then one will be rewarded with life ever-lasting in the kingdom of god. Such is the basic premise, the governing intentionality, which most christians would accept, but which leaves open the more ethical and instrumental questions of just how one goes about glorifying god. That question, of course, has been a matter of considerable dispute, with the first schism between the more global catholic versions set against the more nationalist protestant versions setting the tone for ever finer distinctions down to what Pankaj Mishra referred to as "DIY fundamentalist versions of ebbing, if not irretrievably vanished, religious faiths." This may be a surprising statement, considering the passionate intensity of many evangelicals today, and I wouldn't want to discount the genuine religious faith that some evidently do possess, but those who protest the loudest, at least on the political stage, seem to be equally in thrall to a different god -- satan. I say this with a sense of smug self-assured irony, but consider this for a moment: who among the current crop of politicians would resist the temptations satan offered to christ?
Enough said. In a sort of Nietzschian version of the historical dynamic, the enlightenment thinkers of the 18th century killed off god. It wasn't exactly their intent, and many of them were committed christians, but it was clear enough that the existing political order might accommodate god, but it could not accommodate the various and sundry schisms. Since the reformation at least attempts to impose a state sanctioned religion simply intensified the passion of those who thought god might be better glorified otherwise. In consequence, they individualized and privatized the whole question of religion -- that is to say, the individual might exist for the glory of god, but not the state. Different individuals, in the privacy of their conscience, might decide to glorify god in different ways, and the state existed, at least in part, to protect the individual's liberty to worship as they chose, so long as it remained a private matter. I am not suggesting that the individual's worship be held in private as a closeted secret. They were free to proselytize, and it was more or less assumed that ethical considerations implicit to religious worship could gain broad consensus and become the law of the land -- e.g. prohibitions against stealing, murder, adultery or the like -- but the state itself was constrained. They could not establish a religion and declare it THE only allowed form of worship. This was an enormous shift, hard to over-emphasize. Initially, of course, it was intended to protect the private individual from impositions by the state, but it also declared religion irrelevant to the interests of the state. The state could go about its principle function of ending the war of all on all, imposing order on chaos, regulating the lives of men, all without religion, and as a consequence, one is left with one over-whelming existential question: what kind of god is irrelevant? A dead god. Though we still stew about christianity, and likely will for another millennia, the history of mankind is littered with the corpses of deities rendered irrelevant. Though I wouldn't name my chihuahua christ or jesus, no one seems to question the impropriety or the irony implicit in the name we did give him -- Thor.
Again, enough said. The increasing irrelevance of god, ostensibly, freed us to create our own values in a valueless universe, and with the ascendence of science, to include the dismal science of economics, there was one domain where god seemed particularly irrelevant -- man's material well being. We were no longer subject to (and subjects of) the benevolence of either an capricious god or the even more arbitrary sovereign he selected to rule over us. There was, of course, still nature and nature's god, but unlike the god of Abraham, that god at least was increasingly comprehensible. A dry summer could still ruin crops, and the various plagues could still destroy families, but science promised, if not an immediate control, then at least a progressive control over the malign forces of nature. This had enormous economic consequence as it became increasingly clear that individuals with ideas, individuals who could quite literally capitalize on the emergent sciences, not only amassed considerable wealth for themselves, but also contributed to material well being of mankind which appeared more and more to be the prima facia value in a valueless universe. Not only was religion individualized and privatized, the political economy too was individualized and privatized. Adam Smith formulated a notion of political economy already in the wind that puffed the sails of the commercial vessels plying the seas -- to borrow a phrase of Mishra's, "the classically liberal and modern cosmopolitan vision of self-interested and competitive individuals," who in serving themselves and their private interests, served a public interest as well. And so, the idea of "self-expansion," particular the self-expansion of individual wealth that provided individual men of talent the freedom to act broadly in the world, while providing the mass of men, those who served the particular interests of the those men of talent, with a freedom from the worst forms of penury. Thus, again to borrow a phrase from Mishra, "self-expansion -- through unlimited growth of production, and the expansion of productive forces -- steadily replaced all other ideas of the human good in the eighteenth century."
It didn't work, at least not as well as might have been expected. There were a couple of cracks in the golden bowl. The first resides in human nature, in what might be called the psychology of desire. While the up-ending assurances of religious thought, particularly christian thought, still held some sway, it was not as convincing as it had been in the past when the poor were poor and kings were kings by divine right of succession. While the biblical assurance provided by Luke that the least among us will be the greatest in heaven, such assurances weren't quite as satisfying when the emergent kings of the world were so clearly and self-assuredly "self-made men." Thorstein Veblen outlined the emergent dynamic in his Theory of the Leisure Class, noting first the invidious comparison that arose between those who had and those who had less. Those who had more, particularly those who had a lot more, clearly enjoyed more material well being than those who had less, particularly those who had a lot less. It was an obvious, self-evident truth. While the Beatles might opine later that "money can't buy me love," it remained that there's no cosmetic quite like money, lots of it, and even the most repugnant, the most malignant of males could buy a supermodel wife from the Ukraine if they had enough of it. While cupidity may have been one of the seven deadly sins, its very presence on the list provided assurance that it was natural, inevitable, and perhaps even laudable, insofar as it fueled "self-expansion." Veblen called it pecuniary emulation, the desire not only to have what others have, but more, to become what the other is. This notion of pecuniary emulation has been popularized as keeping up with the Joneses, and it has been denigrated on a couple of lines, not least that it gives over one's idea of one's self to others, but in doing so has set up an impossibility. While the continuous struggle to get more may lead to "self-expansion," much of it is mere puffery because it will never result in "self-fulfillment" as long as there's a Jones out there with more. One keeps puffing until the balloon pops and what then?
The second crack in the gold bowl lies in the structural dynamic of capitalism, it produced winners and losers. As I outlined in my previous post, the greed implicit to the self-expansion of individual wealth could be viewed as moral good so long as it was "fair" or "just" or demonstrated as Rawl's characterized it, "justice as fairness." Which implies a couple of things, not least that the game itself is well-regulated, and that it is played on a level playing field. The phrase "all men created equal" was intended to capture this thought, insofar as all men are equal before the law, and all men have an equal opportunity to find their happiness in a superfluity of property. Athletics perhaps provide the best analogy for how it all should work. It is competitive, and there will be a winner and loser for each contest, as well as a world champion at the end of the season. It is expected as well that each team will play to win. If that is not the case, then the whole contest falls apart, and so in the capitalist game, it is expected that each team will play for "expansion." It is also expected that each team will play by the rules. If that is not the case, then here again the whole contest falls apart, and so in the capitalist game, it is expected that each team will abide by the regulatory regimes and legal structures in place, and that infractions will be called out by the legal system, and penalties applied. These "expectations" provide what might be called "formalized trust." From there, it can be assumed that there is an equal opportunity for each team to win, and that the best team will win. And finally, it is assumed that rewards follow on success -- why else would anyone compete in the first place? -- and so in the capitalist game the reward is money.
A moment's reflection, however, reveals that the game is neither well-regulated, nor is it played on a level playing field. First, of course, the rules are politicized and subject to change, with or without notice. On one end of the political spectrum, there is the persistent and easily falsified belief that the so-called market is "self-regulating." It persists because it is partially true, particularly at a very high level of abstraction. People do not buy antiquated or inferior products and when no one buys them, they tend to disappear from the bazaar. Likewise, people do not pay more than they need to pay, and when there is more than one person hawking a product, the one selling at a lower price will sell more. The very nature of competition, in short, regulates the market. If it were true that the market is entirely self-regulating, that the visible left hand of government doesn't need to fuss with the invisible right hand of the market, then we would need no laws what-so-ever. Such is the so-called free market, which no one really wants. The right claims to want it, and are rather vociferous in their support of it, but what they really want is, to borrow a phrase from Rousseau, "acquiring without obstacle and possessing with security." To continue the sports analogy, imagine for the moment that I am a clever sort and have invented a better sort of baseball bat, one entirely within the existing rules, but one that improves a player's batting average by, say, 20% -- a huge competitive advantage. So long as we have this advantage, we can expect to win almost all games and reap the rewards associated with winning. Consequently, there are two things I DON'T want to happen. I don't want the commissioner to change the rules and declare the bat illegal, and I don't want other teams to use the bat. I want to use the bat "without obstacle," and I also want to secure my "rights" to the bat. I want patent protection so I can "possess with security." All of which seems perfectly reasonable. It was, after all, MY idea and I should reap the rewards of that idea, but one should note that the game is no longer played on a level playing field. Whether one thinks of it as my advantage, or my opponents handicap, the odds of winning have been tilted in my favor. The game falls apart. Why should others play if I'm always going to win? The commissioner, looking at the situation from the left, must do one of two thing to re-level the playing field and preserve the game. He must either declare the bat illegal and "regulate" its use, or he must allow other teams to use it. The commissioner has restored "fairness" to the game, and preserved it, but neither option seems "fair" to me, as an autonomous, self-enlarging individual.
But wait! There's that and more! Before I go on to note that the social democracy that I tend to favor is not "socialism," per se, nor is it by any stretch, "communism." Social democrats are not unlike the commissioner in the baseball analogy. They love the game and want to preserve it for future generations, and know that, to do so, they must make communal decisions "for the good of the game" that are nevertheless inimical to the autonomy of individuals. There were two historical turning points that helped foster a greater appreciation for an interventionist state, the first being the great depression, the second being the great war. The great depression brought into being what might be called the Keynesian consensus, which, in the standard version, argues "that private sector decisions sometimes lead to inefficient macroeconomic outcomes which require active policy responses by the public sector, in particular, monetary policy actions by the central bank and fiscal policy actions by the government, in order to stabilize output over the business cycle." Keynesian economics is principally conservative -- that is to say, it is intended not to displace capitalism, but to rescue capitalism from its own inherent flaws --and so it advocates, not a state economy, but rather "a mixed economy – predominantly private sector, but with a role for government intervention." It serves, in short, the role of the commissioner in my baseball analogy above. There are a couple of dangers, and I am willing to acknowledge, as Judt put it, "the real harm that was done and could still be done by over-mighty sovereigns" -- when the commissioner becomes, so to speak, the commissar. There are at least two legitimate concerns, and "coercion is the first." We should be clear here however. All states are coercive in the sense that they intervene in the lives of people. As Judt again puts it, "political freedom does not primarily consist in being left alone by the state," and a commissioner who does nothing, who allows me to use my bat as though nothing had changed, has actively decided that I may continue to capitalize on my advantage and effectively dominate the game. I am reasonably certain others would object to my dominance, and there lies political freedom. It "consists in retaining our right to disagree with the state's purposes and express our own objections and goals without fear of retribution." The second objection is that interventionist states can get it wrong. Well, no shit sherlock. We all know the paths of hell are paved with good intentions, and as Judt suggests, the more involuted and complex the economy, the more likely macro level interventions will produce unintended consequences at the micro level. Yet here again, however, the commissioner stymied by a fear of error, who does nothing, may be committing an even greater error. By doing nothing, whether out of an ideological aversion to coercion or an enervating fear of error, he is simply promoting my interests above the interests of others and the game as a whole. To paraphrase Judt slightly, the benefits of the state's action or inaction must be weighed against the risks. We do not want to suppress the individual knowledge and initiative that led me to create the magic bat in the first place, but then too neither do we want a single team's dominance to effectively end the game. The commissioner's decision will "vary by circumstances." Before and after, those with a stake in the game should be able to suggest and critique his decision, but the decision "should not be dogmatically pre-ordained." It should address the particular problem occasioning it, and the solution it seeks will always be optimal, not ideal.
Though I've stretched this analogy to the point of breaking, let me stretch it just a bit more and amplify that last point. It should be clear enough that I will be displeased by any decision that limits my use of the magic bat or makes it more widely available to others. The only action that will fully please me -- and I mean the ONLY action -- will be a set of decisions that allows me use of the bat and prohibits others from using it. The only action that will please members of other teams -- and here again, I mean the ONLY action -- will be the precise opposite, a set of decisions that either prohibits my use use of the bat or allows others to use it. In reality, the decision will likely be a hybrid -- e.g. allowing the use of the bat, but protecting my ownership in it by allowing me to sell rights to its use. I am not completely happy, but at least I'm benefiting from my knowledge and initiative. The other teams are not completely happy, but at least they have access to the bat. The commissioner would likely justify his decision by pointing out that the game would benefit from higher batting averages. True aficionados may appreciate a pitcher's duel, but the average fan wants to see more scoring. We don't want to discourage innovative thinking that benefits the game, so he protects my rights to the bat, gives me a patent, and allows me to sell it to other teams. Consequently, the commissioner satisfies his governing imperative to protect the good of the game, while at the same time appeasing conflicting parties.
My point here is rather simple. We would like to believe that, as Americans, "we all want the same thing," and that the differences in parties are just "slightly different ways of going about it." Well, bull shit. Judt is more polite, but it should be clear that "the rich do not want the same thing as the poor." In most cases their public interests are categorically opposed. As Judt puts it:
Those who depend on their job for their livelihood do not want the same thing as those who live off investment and dividends. Those who do not need public services -- because they can purchase private transport, education, and [health care] -- do not seek the same thing as those who depend exclusively on the public sector. Those who benefit from war -- either as defense contracts or on ideological grounds -- have different objectives than those who are against war.
And, of course, the list goes on. The bottom line is this: "societies are complex and contain conflicting interests." Although we are "encouraged to dismiss [those differences] as an incendiary encouragement to class hatred," the differences nevertheless exist and "to deny the distinctions [and advantages] of class or wealth or influence" -- to simply deny that MY bat gives ME an advantage and take a laissez faire approach and do nothing -- is just a way of promoting MY set of interests above others. Right now, we are living in denial. The sorts of hybrid solutions that mediated interests for the good of the nation are increasingly abandoned in favor of policies that serve the interests of a very small minority, the interests of the very rich. It is unmitigated bull shit to think that their interests ARE the interests of the nation, but increasingly they are the only interests that count. Whether income disparity is the symptom or the disease, there has clearly been "a collapse in intergenerational mobility" of the sort that had signaled equal opportunity in the past, and in contrast to those who came of age in the immediate aftermath of the second world war and the baby boomers, "children today in the UK and in the US have very little expectation of improving upon the condition into which they were born." Not only do the poor stay poor, but there has been slippage (or the fear of slippage). The absolute number of jobs may go up and down, but the relative quality of the jobs available, particularly for those who lack the sorts of technical training and expertise that seems to drive our "knowledge based" economy, have been on a steady decline. They pay less, are less secure, and benefits, when you can get them, seem increasingly less beneficial. "The unemployed or underemployed lose such skills as they have acquired and become chronically superfluous to the economy," an "economic disadvantage for the overwhelming majority [that] translates into ill health, missed educational opportunity and -- increasingly -- the familiar symptoms of depression: alcoholism, obesity, gambling and minor criminality." Losers! Sad!
Judt quotes Camille Paglia in an epigraph: "My generation of the sixties, with all our great ideals, destroyed liberalism, because of our excesses." There is some truth to that. On the one hand, there was the initiation of the culture wars that played out on American television between Archie Bunker and his son in law known with partial affection as Meathead. There were any number of ironies implicit in All in the Family that seem obvious now, but weren't quite so obvious at the time. As a prototypical urban industrial proletariat, Archie Bunker should have been a leftist, should have seen clearly, to borrow a phrase from Judt, "the relationship between 'workers' and 'socialism,' but the new left, represented by son in law, had left 'socialism' behind. There was something of what Emerson would call the "nonchalance of boys assured of their next meal" in Meathead. He was clearly a mooch, living with and off his in-laws, but he was going to school, graduate school, and so his situation felt transitional As Judt put it, "the baby boomers, entering university in the mid-60s, had only ever known a world of improving life chances, generous medical and educational services, optimistic prospects of upward social mobility and -- perhaps above all -- an indefinable but ubiquitous sense of security." The old left represented an "inherited collectivism," and "with its roots in working class communities and union organizations, could count on the instinctive collectivism and communal disciple (and subservience) of a corralled industrial work force." There was much to be pooh-poohed insofar as the instinctive collectivism also seemed to mean an unexamined conformity to social norms, not least the existing racial and gender hierarchies, but also -- and perhaps above all -- the proto-nationalistic patriotism that perpetuated the Vietnam war. The new left, as Judt points out, "rejected the inherited collectivism of its predecessors," in part because they rejected the very substance of their subsistence. They could not see themselves working in traditional factories, mines, or transport industries, and besides the unions that represented (and controlled) the workers were no less, perhaps more corrupt than those who owned the means of production. Although social justice was still a concern of the new left, it meant something entirely different. There was a universality to the new "social justice" and it was reflexively inclusive of marginalized populations, but it asserted "every person's claim to maximized private freedom and unrestrained liberty" and it asserted the individual's "autonomous desires" AGAINST not only the restraints implicit in the instinctive conformity of an Archie Bunker, but also the institutionalized constraints represented by the political system, particularly the draft, which represented the ultimate form of imposed conformity, but also, for those of draft age, a clearly definable threat to one's personal sense of security. One could loath both Johnson and Nixon, without irony, because clearly a corrupted and corrupt government WAS the problem.
The ironic legacy of the 60s was, of course, the 80s. The old right had always been against collectivism, at least the sort of collectivism espoused by a union oriented "socialism" or, god forbid! out and out "communism." They didn't need to reject it, in part because, as Judt points out, "socialism -- under all its many guises and hyphenated incarnations -- has failed." Just to prove the point, the evil empire collapsed. Although I tend to agree in almost every respect that it was indeed an evil empire, I also tend to agree with Tony Judt that its collapse opened up a vacuum. Its totalitarian excesses have been well documented by the likes of Popper, Hayek, and Berlin, but its collapse also meant that capitalism was the only game in town. The attendant celebration, along with the Francis Fukuyama's declaration of the "end of history," however, turned out to be premature. The principle alternative to capitalism was now thoroughly discredited, and the prophets of free-market capitalism -- that is to say, those who advocated "acquiring without obstacle and possessing with security" -- were vindicated after spending the post-Rooseveltian years shouting in the wilderness.
The old right, however, was suspicious of out and out individual autonomy with its attendant "do your own thing" moral relativism. Collectivist political action was one thing, social conformity another, and as Judt points out "conservative philosophers of an earlier age understood this well, which was why they resorted to religious language and imagery to justify traditional authority and its claims on the individual." They still do, but with an ironic twist. If the new left "in the 60s identified with 'marixism' and radical projects of all sorts, while simultaneously disassociat[ing] themselves from conformist norms and authoritarian purposes," the new right identifies with an evangelicalism and its equally radical projects, while simultaneously disassociating themselves from the social conformity and larger social goals associated with catholicism and the more mainstream protestant denominations. Religious imagery and belief became, in effect, a marker of identity -- or, to borrow a phrase, an "extension of individual self-expression and anger," above all else the fury of righteous indignation that has become indistinguishable from hate. Just as the new left waved Mao's little red book or quoted Das Kapital, the new right thumps the Bible, not so much because they had read and fully accepted its message -- indeed, part of the point of what Mishra calls "DIY evangelicalism" is that one didn't need to bother with the 1000 year old discussion of theology that informed catholicism -- but because doing so seemed to outrage an authority that now seemed to discriminate against them. The universality associated with the new left's "social justice" was reflexively inclusive of marginalized populations, but by questioning and ultimately addressing some of the institutionalized constraints inflicted on minority populations, they had not exactly advantaged the various minority populations over the majority populations -- and plenty of statistical evidence can be mounted to show the continued invidious differences between whites and the various marginalized populations -- but the majority population felt the relative loss of what advantage they had. The new left did succeed in marginalizing the instinctive attitudes of Archie Bunker, the so-called deplorables, and here I need to underline the word "instinctive." Within a rational secular frame of reference, there is little in the way of evidence to justify the various discriminatory hierarchies -- little in the way of addressing them except blind bigotry and prejudicial preference -- but there it was, welling up from within. If it isn't rational, if it isn't exactly what they say I'm SUPPOSED to feel, then it nevertheless is exactly how I DO feel, and aren't MY feelings as important as the next guys? Various forms of southern evangelical protestantism, with over a century of practice, were already prepared to validate and vindicate those instinctive attitudes, and if it wasn't rational, it was religious. They could now feel themselves to be THE repressed minority, as Damon Linker put it, "living in a country in which a range of authorities within civil society constantly convey the message that same-sex marriage is good and opposing it is bigotry, in which pornography is ubiquitous, and in which gender is increasingly treated as a human construct entirely disconnected from nature, marriage, procreation, and a divinely authored order of things."
One can question the sincerity of the new right's faith -- that is to say whether the faith derives from the need to vindicate their sense of oppression, or whether their sense repugnance and oppression derive from the "divinely authored order of things," but ultimately it probably doesn't matter. It is the autonomous freedom to act on ostensibly praiseworthy private attitudes and a freedom from the "irritating public constraints" which most exercise their emotions. The goal so eminently to be desired remains a "maximized private freedom and unrestrained liberty," and it doesn't take a genius to see that the greatest limitation on the autonomous desires of the autonomous individual brings us back to money. The greater one's wealth, the greater one's liberty to act in and on the world, and when one has money, plenty of money, one can act on their righteous indignation at the moral decline of society that no longer seems to endorse their attitudes. "However legitimate the claims of individuals and the importance of their rights" -- insisted upon both by the aging new left and the emergent new right -- "emphasizing these carries an unavoidable cost: the decline of a shared sense of purpose." I can hear the protests already. There can be a strong sense of collective indignation, as demonstrated both by the crowds at a Trump rally and those who gather against the Trump rallies, but they are both just that -- protests -- and, as such, in and of themselves, point only to a negative purpose. By definition, protest concedes authority, whether the social conformity of political correctness or an actual political authority embodied in the state, and condemns its imperatives and impositions, whatever they might be. As Trump perhaps is discovering, it is one thing to protest, quite another to govern and for that one needs not only a shared sense of purpose, but a common set of assumptions about the world. The old right and the old left were both essentially rational secularists. While religion was important, and it no doubt formed the values of Calvin Coolidge as much as they formed the values of FDR and his advisors like Henry Wallace, they were nevertheless men who operated in the world and on the world, and they did so for the good of the game. Although a stanch economic conservative, Coolidge in today's world would, oddly, be considered a social liberal and very un-Trumpian. He felt "the diversity of peoples was a detrimental source of conflict and tension in Europe," but "it was peculiar for the United States that it was a 'harmonious' benefit for the country" and we "should assist and help immigrants who come to the country." As a governing prescription, however, the old right's economic imperatives, an economy predicated on "acquiring without obstacle and possessing with security," failed miserably under Coolidge's watch in 1929, and what replaced it was not socialism, but what Judt called, the compromise of social democracy, which accepted both capitalism and parliamentary democracy "as the framework within which the hitherto neglected interests of large sections of the population would now be addressed." It was, ultimately, a redistributive governing imperative, initiated, so to speak, for the good of the game. While the old right's economic imperatives failed miserably, however, they still served the peculiar interests of a small minority, the wealthy, and it was perhaps the peculiar genius of Nixon, augmented by Reagan, who saw an opportunity to serve that minority in the complacencies of social democratic success and the excesses of the counter-culture. In the end, we are left with, as Judt puts it, "the freestanding person, the unbound self, the un-beholden citizen," and the chaotic descent into protest, and counter-protest, until, ultimately, we will need rescue from ourselves.
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