Three discussions of differing values, "left" to "right" in America, sidestep some semantic confusion as to whether modern-day conservatives are mossy Tories, or ascribe to what, when Burke was writing, might be called "liberalism." What Ever, left, right, blue, red, purple-orange -- sometimes contrast clarifies thought.
Economist Arnold Kling refers to Nobel winner Robert William Fogel's compellingly-titled The Escape from Hunger and Premature Death, 1700-2100 : Europe, America, and the Third World for measures of consumption. He notes that in 1875, food/clothing/shelter accounted for 74% of total consumption (including leisure). In 1995, they accounted for just 13%, leaving 87% for leisure/education/health. Is this related to the idea of a rising "happiness index"?
Jonathan Chait in The New Republic says contemporary American conservatives are not really practical, or receptive to evidence. In a Dostoyevskian thought experiment, he concludes that they, imprisoned by first principles, probably wouldn't change their minds if God Himself endorsed evidence to support liberal programs. Chait concludes that liberalism's aversion to dogma makes it superior as a practical governing philosophy.
A Wall Street Journal article on the worldview of modern conservatives says:
...while Americans may complain about the daily struggle of their lives, they expect hardship on the path to a better life. It's the old biblical story of wandering in the wilderness in order to find the promised land...
What Americans will not tolerate is pessimism, defeatism and stagnation.
This last goaded one of our literary-form-preoccupied correspondents to a rare excitement.
In the heat of the 2004 election season, she wrote:
This tells us a lot about the stories that move us.
(1) The American Liberal (AL) story is about designing context and improving conditions, removing hardships (poverty, discrimination, oppression, etc.) from the public path, literally cleansing the environment of impediments (Contamination Motif frequently embedded here). Or, more frequent in civic myth, the hero helpfully removes obstacles from the weaker one's path. The melodramatic rescue of the damsel or the child (Lassie or Superman). Or, the children's story where the child finds the fallen infant squirrel and nurses it to health with a dolly's bottle, then has the best pet in the neighborhood and all the kids come to see.
(1-AL) may also introduce excitement by targeting, vanquishing, or unmasking the Bad Magician who is Messing Things Up and creating Bad Conditions for The People. Probably the closest vernacular to this is The Wizard of Oz, which I've always found to be a little bit creepy.
At its best, it's about bonding. Its method is taming stress, removing the need for individual heroism. I think the target feeling tone is tenderness and relief.
(2) The American Conservative (AC) story is about ennobling the struggle through the obstacles toward a morally-harmonious goal. Bonding is subsidiary to the task. It's the Hero's Journey, the willing traveler being initiated and alchemically changed en route by his engagement of the vicissitudes he encounters on the path. It's not about "they ought to provide" a poison-free environment, but about, oneself, taking on the ordering labor of the Augean Stables. To take on his task he must embrace his exceptionalism, face his demons, and put behind him his mother's hearth and the expectation of being taken care of. The target feeling tone is optimism, courage-in-challenge, ingenuity, and a different kind of relief: the fullness and wholesome pride (often shared and reciprocal among comrades) of completion. At least for today.
In this vein, the Hero will empower even the lowliest as his allies. He will bond to achieve the task and the path. But he will not give away his task's resources for some abstract idea of selflessness, except occasionally in the context of chivalry or noblesse oblige to children or the old. He will fight fiercely anyone who steals his provender, even if the bandit claims a noble purpose.
My subjective literary sense is that the Hero (2-AC) straddles and engages the whole range from the mundane to the transcendent; whereas the Helper/Rescuer (1-AL) is bound to one or the other [see i and ii below], often in rapid succession but without a rational link.Significantly, the foundational AL Big Myth of removing obstacles for the purpose of beneficent homeostasis is what arises in the religious context of the Hope for the Consummation of the Redemption of the World. The ancient contention is that the whole creation "groaneth and travaileth," but will be "delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God." (St. Paul to the Romans 8:21-22). Satan, bound and burning. The Corrupter destroyed. All conditions green and uncontaminated.
It is not breaking news that a tendency to welfare statism is basically a substitute religious vision. But since the covertly religious narrative to which it jumps prematurely is the End One, the unfolding of the story is debilitated. It sidelines the narrative with something like the New Yorker cartoon of a mathematician. You've probably seen it. A blackboard is covered by abstruse formulae, and in the final brackets you read something like ...y/2 x (a) [and then a miracle happens]. I believe there's a caption, Could you be more specific?
How do you tell that story as a story? It's about a quivering oceanic feeling of hope and bliss and subjective filling-in of the unimaginable specifics. It's about "I have a [unspecified] Plan!" as Candidate Kerry explained. The story of (1-AL) can inhabit only the two discrete levels of the mundane or the archetypal, that is: (i) Anecdotes of "need" and "helping;" or (ii) Thrilling uncompromised pursuit of uncontaminated perfection, method and means of effectuation undetermined at this time.
The question faced by the polity is, what attitudes produce the finer narrative, and a finer experience of life?
She does go on and on.
Instapundit, and a faulty link at The Corner, along with our wide and wild acquaintanceship, brought us to this.
Update: The Conservative Philosopher lobs a compare-&-contrast pitch into this territory under the rubric of authority.
"Chait concludes that liberalism's aversion to dogma makes it superior as a practical governing philosophy"
There could be few things more dogmatic than Leftist political correctness.
Posted by: John Ray | February 21, 2005 at 02:15 AM