“Sam’s Club” Republican Ross Douthat has been tapped to replace evil neocon genius Bill Kristol on the New York Times op-ed page. I enjoy Douthat’s writing, which is generally thoughtful, and he has an interesting perspective as a conservative who seems genuinely concerned with addressing economic insecurity and inequality. Predictably, he’s a virtual heretic among many “movement” conservatives.
I have to say, though, I feel pretty much the same about the NYT op-ed page as I do about cable news shows: I realize it’s influential, but my general policy is to totally ignore it.
What now for conservatives? Andrew Bacevich says they should advocate restraint–economic, personal, cultural, and in the foreign policy sphere. He contrasts this with the liberal culture of “unchecked individual autonomy,” “Ponzi scheme” capitalism, and neoconservative foreign policy. Damon Linker replies that what Bacevich advocates is tantamount to a culture of authoritarianism.
I agree with Linker that there’s no going back to a pre-modern culture and politics of authority–and we wouldn’t want to even if we could. (I’m also not sure that’s what Bacevich is proposing; in his book The Limits of Power he writes quite positively about the movements for expanding human freedom in the 20th century and laments conservatives’ opposition to them; see pp. 26-27.) Yet I don’t think Linker grapples seriously enough with the problem that some forms of liberalism face: if freedom of choice is the highest good, then it’s difficult to make the case for any restraint on human appetite. This is true even if freedom is only the highest political good, as that arch-liberal Lord Acton held. The reason is that sometimes we have to choose collectively in light of a greater good than the sum of individual desires.
Or at least it seems to me. A Millian harm principle might get you a good distance toward curtailing human selfishness, but is it enough, for instance, to get us to care for the environment, even if that might mean lowering our material standard of living? Or to work toward justice for people living in absolute poverty? Linker is right in my view to defend the “modern, liberal order” that “valorizes consent and individual choice,” but somehow that order needs to be balanced with a sense of limits and restraint. Bacevich’s writing thus can provide a useful corrective.
I’m not going to provide a best books of the year list, but here’s a sampling of those that got their hooks into me enough to generate some more or less in-depth blogging (needless to say, most of these weren’t published in 2008):
The ATR household is off to visit family for the better part of the next week, so blogging will be light–well, even lighter than usual.
Here’s a sampling of what I’ve been reading ’round the Web lately:
Christopher has several posts on l’affaire Rick Warren that are, as usual, very much worth your time. (See here, here, and here.)
Congrats to John Schwenkler, whose blog Upturned Earth has been absorbed into the ever-expanding conservative media empire that is Culture 11.
Lynn reflects on the movie Milk and how different the atmosphere for gay rights in California has changed since the 70’s (n.b.: a couple of f-bombs).
I thought this article on St. Joseph at Slate was neat.
Jennifer reminds us that it’s T-minus one month till the Lost season premiere! (And don’t forget Battlestar Galactica on January 18th!)
Alan Jacobs and Noah Millman discuss intereligious dialogue at the American Scene. This is something I haven’t given as much thought to as I’d like. (See here, here, and here.)
Not surprisingly, beef has the highest CO2 emissions per pound, but surprisingly high also are cheese and shrimp. I wonder if transportation was included in the figuring.
This talk from the E.F. Schumahcer Institute was delivered in May, but it still seems entirely relevant to our current predicament.
Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t bring you Christmas wishes from Ronnie James Dio (along with the rest of the Dio-era Black Sabbath line-up).
Since content will likely be light this coming week, I thought it would be an interesting exercise to offer up some representative posts from the previous four Decembers since I started blogging, as a kind of retrospective.
(Note: some of these originally appeared on my first blog, “Verbum Ipsum,” but have been imported to WP; consequently, there may be some broken links here and there.)
Michael Brendan Dougherty has a smart article in the new issue of The American Conservative about the post-election “whither conservatism” talk that has been roiling the Right. The one thing that doesn’t seem to be receiving much of the ballyhooed conservative re-thinking, Dougherty points out, is the Iraq war, and foreign policy more generally.
Russell Arben Fox has a thoughtful meditation on the prospects for his brand of “left conservatism” in a bluer America. Hard to believe that we were talking about a permanent Republican majority four years ago. All the more reason to be wary of overconfident (or dire, depending on your view) pronouncements about the triumph of liberalism. In politics there are no permanent victories; I fully expect a conservative resurgence at some point (though hopefully only after it’s had sufficient time to sit in the corner and think about what it’s done). In that vein, John has some thoughts on conservatism’s future that are worth checking out.
In the wake of talk of a new conservative-libertarian fusionism on the right, these remarks from political theorist Jacob T. Levy make for interesting reading. I used to consider myself a libertarian, and even voted Republican in the late 90s and early oughts, but was soon driven away from the GOP for reasons to familiar to re-hash. (Hint: it rhymes with Schmorge Schmush.) Since then I have definitely moved to the Left on a number of issues (primarily economic and environmental), but still retain some vestigial libertarian tendencies (a Millian anti-paternalism still looms large in my political make-up). Moreover, though, I feel no sense of identification with the contemporary American Right (especially the newly-“Palinized” right), however much I admire some of the writing and thinking going on among the smart, young “reformist” conservative set clustered around publications like Culture 11 and the American Scene. For better or worse, I am now–de facto at least–on the Left.
And yet–I’m not completely comfortable with progressive cultural or social positions. (I’m pro-gay marriage, for example, but opposed to embryonic stem cell research, in addition to being a squish on abortion.) And, though it’s often overstated by conservatives, there is a strain of anti-religious hostility among liberals and a drive to enshrine a completely secular worldview. Meanwhile, my small-l liberalism is rooted in a more conservative (philosophically speaking) and religious worldview that emphasizes both the dignity and the fallenness of human beings. So I can’t work up quite the same zeal for marching into the brave new future that some “progressives” seem able to muster. (This sensibility also makes me uncomfortable with the earnestness and certitude of parts of the religious Left; possibly it’s just a character flaw on my part.)
Indeed, I sometimes toy with calling myself an “anti-progressive” liberal, though I suspect that would breed too much confusion. More apt, perhaps, would be “pessimistic liberal.” I think liberal (“negative”) freedom is necessary for a tolerable society, but also leads to bad consequences. And I think government action is necessary–more necessary than libertarians will admit–to ameliorate those consequences (like vast inequalities or environmental destruction). But I don’t think we’ll ever reach a progressive promised land (or return to a conservative golden age); at best, we’ll muddle through, hopefully making incremental improvements to our lot and that of our neighbors.
The American Conservative asked an eclectic group of thinkers on the Right (broadly speaking) to offer their endorsements for the election. Interestingly, by my count there are four Obama voters, two McCain voters, and twelve people who say they will either vote third party, write someone in, or not vote at all. This isn’t too surprising given that TAC leans paleocon and John McCain tends to push paleo buttons, especially on foreign policy and immigration questions. It remains to be seen whether the fractious dissident conservatives (a curious amalgam of realists, disillusioned neocons, libertarians, and traditionalists) can make some impact on the direction of the American Right after the election and the (presumed by nearly everyone at this point) GOP bloodbath.
Under some circumstances I might be sympathetic to the argument that handing both Congress and the presidency to the same party is a bad idea. After all, our system of government is based on the principle of checks and balances, and one-party rule can lead to corruption and abuse of power in short order.
But look at it this way: if you think that Barack Obama’s stated policies are superior to John McCain’s, then you’re going to want a Congress that will enact those policies. And if you think the positions of congressional Democrats are better than those of Republicans, you don’t want a president who will veto them. Republicans understandably want to hold onto as many seats in Congress as they can, but if you favor liberal policies, then having more Democrats in Congress and a Democrat in the White House is a good thing. It’s not that complicated.
A Thinking Reed 