There is a culture war, and we need it, argues Carol Iannone on NRO’s The Corner.
I don’t like martial metaphors, but I strongly agree with Carol Iannone that there are basically two worldviews competing irreconcilably in the United States today.
One, called progressivism, derives from the ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and tends to blame all human problems on imperfect social institutions. Individuals devoted to this worldview concentrate great effort on the perfecting of institutions according to their idea of social justice, which evolves as new problems are created by their efforts to transform society and its institutions.
Their opponents refer to this fundamental problem of progressivism as the Law of Unintended Consequences.
In addition, progressives of all stripes require the development of an aristocracy consisting of political, economic, social, and cultural elites who can implement the proper management of society.
The other worldview, best described as classical liberalism, acknowledges that social conditions circumscribe individuals’ choices, but they nonetheless argue that people have freedom of choice within the conditions under which they live. Such classical liberals argue for political liberty and allowance of social mobility, an essential element of which is the acceptance of the concept of personal responsibility, the willingness of society to allow people to reap the consequences of their actions, both good and bad.
As Iannone notes, a prominent progressive writer who says there isn’t any real culture war going on in the United States has argued that there are more important issues than culture, specifically income redistribution:
I heard a talk on C-Span a couple of weekends ago by Irene Taviss Thomson, emeritus professor of sociology at Fairleigh Dickinson, whose new book is Culture Wars and Enduring American Dilemmas. The idea behind the book is something we’ve heard from people on the Left and the Right many times, that the culture wars are over, if they ever really existed; that there are more important things to deal with. . . .
During the Q&A, she was asked about growing income inequality, and she said that the attention given to the culture wars takes attention away from that issue, which is something we should be addressing. With this the picture became clear. People who declare the end of the culture wars have their own agendas, in this case, income redistribution, and are shortsighted as well. Perhaps the major factor behind poverty, unemployment, underemployment, crime, imprisonment, and so on, is the fatherless household. The liberal view for many years was to diminish the importance of the intact two-parent family and to promote single motherhood as equal if not superior, with the effect of greatly enlarging the underclass and multi-generational poverty and dysfunction. Is it rocket science to see this connection and others like it, between cultural choices, economic well-being, and expanding the middle class?
Meaning: the progressive agenda has had unintended consequences in this area, as has been documented extensively by opponents of the progressives’ denigration of the family, which the progressives refer to as a laudable and overdue transformation of the family and/or an extension of rights to others. But as Iannone notes, there are other consequences, in this case an increase in economic inequality in the society.
As Iannone also notes, Thomson, like other progressives, ” resents the conservative emphasis on individual responsibility.” That’s their Rousseauean roots poking up out of the ground once again.
Whether we want to talk about it as a war or something else, there are indeed two irreconcilable worldviews at work in the United States today. Recognizing that fact and understanding that culture is the greatest influence on individuals’ worldviews is essential to any program for lasting reform of the United States political and social cultures.
Until the great majority of the American people acknowledge and accept the assumption of personal responsibility as the essential element behind a free society, there will be no lasting change. Such cultural reform, however, must be done through persuasion and positive endeavors—on both the producer and consumer sides—and not through merely complaining or political pressure.
Such a cultural awareness appears to be manifest in the Tea Party movement and other expressions of public resentment against the rise of the progressive agenda during the past couple of years (which is a more aggressive version of the agenda that characterized the entire decade of the 2000s).
That’s all to the good, and it’s critically important for adherents of the classical liberal worldview to support positive efforts toward cultural reform.
But what if families are not “falling apart?” The divorce rate, for one, has been falling for some 30 years. And believe it, there are plenty of crappy, dysfunctional families headed by parents on the Right. As for “baby boomers,” that covers more than 70 million people — too many, at any rate, to draw grand generalizations.
Besides, why would any woman want to marry a sociopath, a term that describes at least 60 percent of all black males and maybe even more females?
It would be no surprise that Progressives have a difficult time understanding the value of the two-parent family. First, of our current crop, the most prominent Progressives are baby boomers, who, all their lives, tried to undermine the successes and virtues of their fathers, looking for success in other ways (often in attacking everything their fathers stood for).
More than that, Progressivism has little to offer regarding the production of wealth. It’s more about the consumption of it. If families are falling apart and that leads to poverty, it is as mysterious as a comet falling to earth, or the result of a lack of privilege. That is, a condition of victimhood. It has nothing to do with the policies and values they espoused.
This article seemed to use many words to not say so much. The culture war as it exists today follows this narrative: Dependency and Centralized Unipolarity vs Independence and Decentralized Multipolarity. The Dependents and those they Depend on usually fall within the same socio-political hierarchy. The Independents are less hierarchical, but none the less generally fall under a fairly cohesive realpolitik body.
These two large forces are in direct conflict with one another, and it is not always obvious what person or group belongs to which of the two sides. One would not group a global corporation, or a nation with liberal international free-trade policy in with the Dependent group; but in fact that is where they belong. Global Corporations facilitate the dependence of people upon them, and in turn are dependent on national governments compatible to their cause of annihilating local free markets through over-regulation while opening global free trade to the monolithic financial entities who are able to pay-to-play in the global system.
One also would not group the localized urban agricultural communities or organic farmers in with the Independents. Yet both groups strongly advocate Food Sovereignty in the sense of facilitating the Independence of individuals in their local communities.
Individual personal responsibility being the stated standard, one would conclude that it is the Independents that should win out. I am convinced that the Independents will win out regardless.
A planned centralized system can only become so large and so complex that it eventually will collapse of its own weight.
An unplanned based on the exchange of goods produced by tens of millions of (mainly individual) entities who are not only self-sufficient, but who produce a tradable surplus, is an *organic* system that is ultra-redundant and essentially as unstoppable as the march of evolution.
We should be careful about what side we choose to lend our weight to; no narrative is entirely what it seems and it is absolutely counter-product to invest ones resources in a system that can only ultimately collapse- a system that also may ultimately be counter our stated code of ethics of promoting and facilitating personal responsibility.
Yes there is a culture war going on, and the first battle begins in your own mind.
I must say, I hate it when someone tries to shut down debate by claiming that the issue has already been settled — thereby requiring the other side to defend the right to raise the issue in the first place.
It’s a juvenile tactic that belongs in a high-school debate-team competition. Unfortunately, to those not familiar with the tactic, it can also be very effective.
A useful way to combat it, in my experience, is to ridicule it. That shouldn’t be too hard here. How can Prof. Thomson claim that the culture wars are over? Has she read a newspaper lately?
[…] Culture, S.T. Karnick argues, as do many, that politics in America can be neatly divided into “two irreconcilable worldviews”: I don’t like martial metaphors, but I strongly agree with Carol Iannone that there are basically […]
Outstanding post, and exactly right. Many of our current debates come down to Locke v. Rousseau.
David Braybrooke used to teach a graduate seminar called “Rousseau as a Rigorous Thnker.” I told him it must be a very short seminar….
[…] Virginia, there is a culture war. As noted, it’s the one that has been raging for two centuries between Rousseau and Locke. […]
Jean-Jacques surely has a lot to answer for, but his thinking was nothing if not complex and nuanced. There is a reason why he has been hailed as a patron saint on both left and right. But he’s no more a 21st century progressive than Plato is a proto-Marxist. Yes, Rousseau located the hallmarks of humanity in its perfectibility and natural pity and yes, he saw man as an historical being working to improve his lot. By the same token, he flatly denies the most basic notion of modern progressivism, namely, that widespread enlightenment eventuates in moral progress. So, go pick on some other Frog.
I’ve been thinking about this for a long time, since I read Freedom and Its Betrayal. I notice that much of what government is doing now is trying to tell us how to stop being fat, how to stop eating junk food, how to stop being mean, etc. and they seem to feel entitled to get in our faces about every last thing, because they will straighten out the world and make it run better. They wanted to make people feel better about having sex, so they took away the guilt. Well, what’s more shameful than raising children in poverty because the more important work was prevented by the complications?
The point I gathered from Freedom and Its Betrayal is this: Life is messy and you have particular things you individually need to focus on to make it past the struggle. We are not the Creator and we don’t have much control, and we shouldn’t pretend to.
[…] that topic that has engendered our latest discussion. Over at The American Culture, Sam Karnick discusses what I think are essential differences between Progressivism and modern conservatism (a.k.a. […]
Spot-on, Fortunato. Rousseau’s idea of liberty is the foundation for the modern, progressive notion: liberty means people do what we aristocrats say they should want to do.
Another aspect of Rousseau’s thought that often gets bypassed by his modern followers is his stance on arts, which is hardly liberal (or even conservative, for that matter) The Letter to D’Alembert On Spectacles for instance makes clear that theatre and escapism in general are not welcome in his brave new world. Rousseau was a strong believer in didactism like most of his contemporaries but with a calvinistic bent fully his own.
Rousseau’s thought is dangerous because it’s disorganized and self-contradicting. Remember the “John Kerry agrees with you” ad? Same goes with Rousseau. You believe in democracy? Rousseau agrees with you. You think totalitarianism is the only way to build a perfect society? Rousseau also agrees with you. You think religion has an important role to play in society? Rousseau agrees. You believe in a strict separation of Church and State? Rousseau still agrees. The list is endless. Rousseau’s free-wheeling thought reminds of Nietzsche and it’s no surprise their posthumous political fortunes were so mixed to say the least.
You’re right, Sam, whether it’s a war or not, these two worldviews are simply incompatible. A few things related to this.
Many conservatives, broadly speaking, are pessimistic about America and her future. They often point to the creeping welfare state and many Americans seeming embrace of it as proof that our commitment to personal responsibility is waning. The left has made this argument as well, recently saying how much people like their social security and medicare (according to some polls), because they get mad when politicians say they are going to change it. Dick Armey, getting grilled by Andrea Mitchell recently, pointed out that the reason for this is that they don’t have a choice. Americans have been “investing” in these programs for decades, so why should they be happy if all those dollars disappear?
I would argue that there is something in the broadly American character that does not embrace dependency. Americans know that something for nothing doesn’t exist, that it destroys character, etc. Americans are also a caring people, thus they are susceptible to the bogus promises of leftist politicians about equality and helping people. Obama didn’t run as a progressive leftist, even though he is one. He was popular until he started to govern like one.
I think the conservative “movement” is beginning to understand the absolute importance of worldview and the basic assumptions that go into them. There is an increasing focus on the roots of progressivism, thanks to the likes of Glenn Beck, Jonah Goldberg and others, and the Tea Party movement. The American people need to be educated about the stark differences between America’s Founding values and the perversion of said values in the Progressive era of the early 20th Century.
Unfortunately, most of those who inhabit the cultural influence professions, and thus influence the thoughts of average apolitical Americans, embrace the progressive worldview. That is a big part of what needs to change if America is to experience true cultural renewal.
You’re right, Fortunato, to point out how Rousseau’s followers have discarded his strong endorsement of religious beliefs and its presence in the public square. Rousseau’s advocacy of distinctive national belief systems that would strengthen the power of the state has been enthusiastically embraced by his followers ever since, and their jettisoning of religion, and in particular Christianity, removed an important brake on the state’s ambitions and an otherwise powerful force for individual rights.
What’s bemusing is that Rousseau would probably have been extremely contemptuous of his posthumous offspring, most notably with respect to religion. One of the fiercest disagreements between Rousseau and Voltaire was about the place of religion in public life, which Rousseau regarded as paramount whereas Voltaire was very much the proto-secularist. Also, Rousseau hated atheism – he severely rebuked Voltaire (again) and other atheistic/anticlerical philosophers over the Lisbon earthquake which they tried to frame as evidence of the non-existence of God.