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I was afraid that in relying on a review I might have been unfair to Alan Wolfe in this post. But reading this interview in Mother Jones has assuaged my conscience.

Wolfe confirms my worst suspicions by offering his list of “great” figures in American history:

MJ: Who in American history would you put in the greatness camp? Who’s made this a priority?

AW: Well, for the first hundred years of the existence of our nation-state, the greatness idea was essentially a conservative idea. So its great advocates were Alexander Hamilton, at the time of the constitutional convention; John Marshall, very conservative US Supreme Court Justice; Abraham Lincoln; and, into the turn of the century, Theodore Roosevelt. I also argue that, in the 20th century, the mood shifted, and greatness swung in the direction of the Democrats, and of liberals. So that Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Teddy’s cousin, and the Kennedy-Johnson years really embodied the idea of greatness in the 20th century.

This list is virtually a who’s who of the great centralizers (UPDATE: and proponents of territorial expansionism, as Marcus points out) of American history – the political figures who made a point of disregarding the constitutional limits placed on government power in the service of their agendas. You may think (as I do) that at least some of these men were justified in what they did. It is, for instance, hard not to credit Lincoln for extirpating the scourge of slavery from our shores, despite the cost in blood and freedom that it required.

But that’s kinda the rub. Wolfe doesn’t seem to recognize that all these projects of “greatness” have costs associated with them that may well outweigh their purported benefits. I mean, who now looks back on the presidency of LBJ as one of greatness?

I just wish that people who advocate this or that policy of “greatness” or “purpose” or “world-transformation” would be up front about what following said policy will entail. Like, “American boys (and, increasingly, girls) will die and kill to implement my vision about what a better world would look like.” Could such a policy be sold in all candor to the public? Just asking.

Wolfe is optimistic that we can be bullied into it, though:

MJ: Turning back to home, a big challenge is going to be to convince Americans that they have more to gain than to lose from a stronger national government. What are the prospects for making that case?

AW: It is difficult, and I don’t pretend otherwise. As I argue in the book, greatness has really been the minority taste, where we seem to be more comfortable with the other tradition generally. Nonetheless, one of the ideas that really emerges from a study of the past is the idea of using the presidency in what TR would have called a tutorial manner, bully pulpit, politicians who are willing to engage with the American electorate in the form of playing an educative role. We’re probably a long way from that. Right now we seem to be in a more populistic kind of mood, where the people just express themselves and politicians run around and try to do whatever they’re articulating at any particular moment. I hope that this mood is one that was produced by the initial shock of 911, and that as we have more time to absorb that into our consciousness, we’ll come to realize how unsatisfactory that way is of responding, and Americans will come to appreciate that politics does involve leadership, and that a leader is one who speaks to our higher ideals and then tries to move us in those directions.

Get it? The president can “educate” us into doing the right thing. And given that the office has of late been occupied by men of such sterling character, who wouldn’t jump at the chance to be educated by them?

(Also, what’s up with the puffball interviewer at the allegedly leftist Mother Jones? Could they ask Wolfe one tough question? Just because someone bashes George Bush doesn’t necessarily mean he’s on the side of the angels, y’know.)

A good corrective to proponents of “greatness” would be this essay by Robert Higgs.

End of rant.

Today the Philadelphia Inquirer carried a review of Alan Wolfe’s new book How America Lost Its Sense of Purpose and What It Needs to Do to Recover It. Wolfe, a sociologist and author of several popular books, contrasts two approaches to American power:

Most Americans, Alan Wolfe believes, belong to “the party of goodness.” Preoccupied with virtue, individual freedom, and the pursuit of self interest, they fear that “too strong a government, too ambitious a domestic agenda, and too overreaching a foreign policy” will corrupt the very values that make this nation exceptional.

Wolfe prefers, however, the “party of greatness,” which involves “maintaining and extending liberty and equality; empowering government to promote the common good; and using force to defend and spread our principles abroad.” Unlike the party of goodness, proponents of “greatness” are willing “to bend principle, and sometimes law and custom, to achieve their goals.”

So Wolfe is presumably a fan of the Bush administration, right? No way! The Bush administration has used the language of greatness to mask an agenda that primarily serves private interests. To restore greatness we need high minded leaders devoted to the public weal like John McCain, Joseph Biden, and Wesley Clark.

Now surely Alan Wolfe has been around the block and must be aware that the language of “greatness” has frequently been used as a cover for the pursuit of private advantage. But Wolfe seems shocked that the Bush administration would do such a thing.

More fundamentally though, I’m with the “party of goodness” in getting nervous when I hear talk of “national greatness” or “America’s purpose.” Why should we think America has a purpose beyond secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity? I’m still enough of a Lockean to believe that governments exist primarily to protect the lives, liberty, and property of their citizens. That is the purpose for which they are established, as T.J. and co. pointed out.

But some have never been satisfied with that and have wanted America to have a more exalted, transcendent purpose. (e.g. being a “light to the nations,” “making the world safe for democracy,” even putting an end to evil). But where, pray tell, does this purpose allegedly come from? Are we talking about some Hegelian History-with-a-capital-“H” here? Or divine purpose maybe?

But as a Christian I believe that precisely two social entities – Israel and the catholic Church – have been endowed with a divine purpose. Beyond that, I can see no grounds for thinking that America, or any other nation-state, is the bearer of any kind of transcendent purpose. Such messiaic claims usually result in massive bloodshed and tyranny.

The idea of a government that protects the life and liberties of its citizens and helps them to live in relative peace and proseperity in order to pursue their own ends has always aroused suspicions from certain intellectuals on the Left and the Right. They yearn for a political order that directs its subjects to some kind of transcendent purpose. But history seems to show that those kind of regimes have a tendency to subordinate ordinary people and their happiness to the whims of those fortunate enough to be on top.

Graham at Leaving Münster (a very good site, by the way) writes a thought-provoking post on what it means to be “pro-life”:

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been anti-abortion. Okay, I know the party-line: we’re not anti-abortion, we’re pro-life. Well, that’s bollocks.

I’m not even sure what “pro-life” means? We’re in favour of Life? As in, existence or as a concept? Surely if we wanna be pro anything, we need to be pro the living. And that doesn’t stop at birth.

I know people who are anti-abortion who couldn’t give a toss about campaigns like Make Poverty History or One or the whole issue of trade justice. How is that pro the living? Or is it simpy the unborn living with which we concern ourselves?

And how do we make sense of those who voted for Bush because of his stand on Abortion but didn’t seem as bothered by the innocent deaths of Iraqi babies and their mothers?

How on earth is that pro Life?!

This isn’t just about the nutters who blow up abortion clinics (pro Life?) or hassle women on their way in (pro the living?), it’s about being consistent. And, surely, the only consistent life ethic is, er, a Consistent Life Ethic.

I agree with a lot of what Graham is saying here, and I’ve expressed strong sympathies with a “consistent life” ethic before.

Still, as I mentioned in a comment over there, I am somewhat wary of including under the “consistent life” too much in the way of specific policy prescriptions on a variety of issues. Not because I think issues other than abortion (or war, capital punishment, etc.) are unimportant, but because I think there are well-intentioned people on various sides of issues like trade.

Trade is indisputably a “life” issue in that it affects the very livelihood of billions of people. Nevertheless, what the right trade policy is depends a lot on (among other things) complex empirical information requiring analysis and interpretation.

Some people who are very much on the side of the poor think that trade liberalization is the best way to increase the material well-being of the world’s poor. Others favor various schemes of “fair trade.” For the layman it’s often not clear what the best policy is.

Plus, there is a chance that throwing a lot of disparate positions together may dilute the focus of a “seamless garment” approach. As Mary Meehan has written:

Although an advocate of the consistent-ethic philosophy, I have long thought it a mistake to toss welfare issues into the mix as though they are on the same level as abortion, the death penalty, euthanasia, and war. Whether one supports rent subsidies or the food stamp program is just not on a par with whether one supports direct killing. And some Democrats, including pro-life ones, are so eager to support government social programs that they forget their Jeffersonian, small-government roots. An immense and powerful government invariably threatens civil liberties and tends to view citizens as its wards instead of its masters.

Maybe I’m being too pedantic, but if we’re going to talk about a consistent life ethic, then we’re talking about certain normative positions. Everyone (or nearly everyone) agrees that it’s important to help poor people improve their standard of living. Where disagreement arises is over the question of means – what welfare program, what trade policy, etc. will best do the job.

By contrast, the rightness or wrongness of abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, and war are fundamentally normative questions that don’t require a great deal of empirical evidence to resolve.

Graham correctly points out that not knowing what the answer is can become an excuse for not doing anything. We shouldn’t say “Oh trade policy is too complicated” and think that justifies taking no action.

Which is why I think C.S. Lewis (“Another Lewis quote??” Yes, I know, C.S. Lewis is virtually the patron saint of this blog. So sue me) was right in saying that what we need is professionals in the various fields, motivated by Christian love, to help devise policies that will put the Golden Rule into practice:

The second thing to get clear is that Christianity has not, and does not profess to have, a detalied political programme for applying “Do as you would be done by” to a particular society at a particular moment. It could not have. It is meant for all men at all times and the particular programme which suited one place or time would not suit another. And, anyhow, that is not how Christianity works. When it tells you to feed the hungry it does not give you lessons in cookery. When it tells you to read the Scriptures it does not give you lessons in Hebrew or Greek, or even in English grammar. It was never intended to replace or supersede the ordinary human arts and sciences: it is rather a director which will set them all to the right jobs, and a source of energy which will give them all new life, if only they will put themselves at its disposal.

People say, “The Church ought to give us a lead.” That is true if they mean it in the right way, but false if they mean it in the wrong way. By the Church they ought to mean the whole body of practicing Christians. And when they say that the Church should give us a lead, they ought to mean that some Christians–those who happen to have the right talents–should be economists and statesmen, and that all economists and statesmen should be Christians,and that their whole efforts in politics and economics should be directed to putting “Do as you would be done by” into action. If that happened, and if we others were really ready to take it, then we should find the Christian solution for our own social problems pretty quickly. But, of course, when they ask for a lead from the Church most people mean they want the clergy to put out a political programme. That is silly. The clergy are those particular people within the whole Church who have been specially trained and set aside to look after what concerns us as creatures who are going to live forever: and we are asking them to do a quite different job for which they have not been trained. The job is really on us, on the laymen. The application of Christian principles, say, to trade unionism or education, must come from Christian trade unionists and Christian schoolmasters: just as Christian literature comes from Christian novelists and dramatists–not from the bench of bishops getting together and trying to write plays and novels in their spare time. (Mere Christianity, pp. 79-80)

Of course, layman also have the responsibility of sifting through the conflicting claims of experts. “Christian economists” and “Christian statesmen” tend to come down on different sides of constestable issues just like everyone else. Maybe the problem is that they haven’t fully integrated their faith with their secular training? Is this a role that, say, Christian colleges should fill?

I guess my main point is that ethics tells us what ends we should seek, and what means are morally permissible in seeking them, but it doesn’t tell us what are the most efficient or effective ways to meet those ends. That belongs to the messier world of empirical investigation, so maybe we should be careful about elevating certain methods to the level of first principles.

John the Confessing Evangelical continues his series on Marian devotion.

I find this pretty sensible:

There is a difference between occasionally addressing Mary in the second person as a form of “literary apostrophe” (as FDN put it in the comments to my first post), such as is found in certain hymns (see v.2), and directly addressing her, as someone who is listening to what we say, as part of our regular devotional life. Also, since the Reformation the Ave Maria and the rosary have acquired such specifically Roman Catholic connotations – and Roman Catholic doctrine and devotion in this area have become so much more extreme – that it seems next-to impossible to “reclaim” them (and is it even all that worthwhile doing so anyway?).

There is also a difference between giving an Evangelical interpretation to an existing practice (encouraging late-medieval Christians to treat the Ave Maria as “a meditation in which we recite what grace God has given her”), consistent with Luther’s conservative approach to Reformation, and reviving a questionable (and optional) practice that has all-but died out in the Evangelical Lutheran Church.

Lots of good discussion in the comments, too.

In last night’s press conference (which preempted the O.C. – @#$!!*&!) President Bush suggested cutting the rate of Social Security benefits for the top 70% of earners, while keeping the rate of increase the same for those in the bottom 30%. Seems like a reasonable step to me.

He also distanced himself from the “Justice Sunday” crowd:

He also urged the Senate to allow an up-or-down vote on his stalled judicial nominations. But he disagreed with allies who have said Democrats were blocking some of those nominees because they opposed people of religious faith.

“I think people are opposing my nominees because they don’t like the judicial philosophy of the people I’ve nominated,” Bush said. “I don’t ascribe a person’s opposing my nominations to an issue of faith.”

Never let it be said that we’re all negative all the time here!

Just to show that we’re fair and balanced here at VI, allow me to direct you to this post from Dave Paisley at Disaster Area. Mr. Paisley, in the course of a review of Jim Wallis’ God’s Politics, makes a pretty reasonable quasi-case for the Iraq war.

His conclusion?

I think merely that the war isn’t as bad an idea as Wallis thinks. It may not have been the best approach, but it may well succeed at changing the face of the Middle East.

Not exactly a ringing endorsement, and all the more compelling for that.

I’d definitely like to see New England, the Deep South, and the Southwest, but the Upper Plains states? Ummmm….

Make your own map here.

From Thomas Fleming, author of The Illusion of Victory: America in World War I, a little historical background.

(via Justin Logan)

Another one from Reason – Gene Healy with a sharp piece on how ending the judicial filibuster could backfire on Republicans. Ending the judicial filibuster, Mr. Healy argues, could provide a precedent for ending the legislative filibuster as well. And that would be problematic for anyone who favors limited government:

But the second possible endgame to the filibuster battle should worry you, unless you think too little legislation is a major problem in American life. There’s a chance that the G.O.P.’s nuclear gambit could eventually lead to the death of the filibuster as a whole.

That would be disastrous. The theory underlying the Constitution is that, in political life as opposed to economic, transaction costs are good. As James Madison explained in Federalist 62, the Senate itself was designed in part to curb “the facility and excess of lawmaking.” The filibuster isn’t part of the Constitution, but it helps augment some of the Constitution’s checks on promiscuous legislating. Since many of the constitutional checks on legislative overreach have eroded over the years, the filibuster is even more important today.

[…]

What ought to happen instead is a return to real filibusters. The Jimmy Stewart–style filibuster became a rarity in the 1970s when then–majority leader Mike Mansfield ushered in a two-track system whereby the Senate could move on to other business when a credible threat to filibuster was presented. In the modern era, real filibusters only occur when the majority sees political advantage in the spectacle. In 1988, for example, in the midst of a filibuster fight over campaign-finance legislation, then–majority leader Robert Byrd ordered the arrest of Republican senators boycotting a quorum vote. Three Capitol policemen forced their way into Sen. Bob Packwood’s office, grabbed Packwood by his ankles and both arms, and carried him feet first onto the Senate floor. “The knock on the door and the forced entry smack of Nazi Germany, smack of communist Russia,” wailed Senator Arlen Specter. “I rather enjoyed it,” said Packwood.

Washington needs more of this sort of thing. If the Democrats really think Janice Rogers Brown is a threat to the Republic, they ought to be willing to get hoarse-voiced and incoherent keeping her off the D.C. Circuit. And if Republicans are committed to these judges, they ought to be willing to sleep on cots in cloakrooms. For their salaries, perks, and power, the least they can do is give us a show.

Reason’s Jesse Walker on Democrats desperately seeking values voters:

In the real world, instead of a GOP desperately trying to be hip, we see Democrats desperately trying to be square. Half a year after the election, they’re still looking for the magic bullet that will win those “values voters” who purportedly cost them the presidency. Mother Jones ran a cover story in March—March!—declaring that what’s “worse than conservatives’ pretense of moral superiority is liberals’ pretense of superiority to morals.” The New York Times Magazine published an essay in April—April!—on how “any meaningful re-evaluation of their approach to moral values…will require more intellectual rigor.” Hillary Clinton is reframing herself as Joe Lieberman; Joe Lieberman is reframing himself as Jeremiah. The result is a sort of reverse Poochie effect: If there’s anything more painful than watching a politician or pundit pretending to be 17, it’s watching him pretend he believes in a force greater than himself.

That’s not to say the project is doomed. There are two ways I can imagine the Democrats reaching the values demographic without much pandering condescension: the way I’d like them to do it, and the way they’ve always done it in the past and show every indication of doing again.

The first option is to embrace the ethic of live and let live, in either libertarian or federalist form, and to take the populist side each time a neighborhood church runs into trouble with the zoning board or a homeschooler faces ridiculously restrictive regulations.

The second option is pious lecturing of the sort that doesn’t speak to people’s faith so much as it speaks to their anxieties. Conservatives are only just learning to mau mau the media and government with tactics and language on loan from political correctness. Liberals, by contrast, have a century’s experience of acting as moral scolds. Progressive Era reformers drew heavily on pietist Protestantism, and their successors have merely continued the secularization of self-righteousness.

It’s a good point; I mean, do politicians really need more excuses to wield arbitrary power over people’s lives? Also, Mr. Walker’s invocation of federalism suggests an alternative to much of the recent liberal flirtation with some kind of communitarianism.

The problem with communitarianism, if I may be so bold, is that it often seems to want to avoid returning meaningful power to actual communities. Rather, it ends up looking like the same old bureaucratic liberalism clothed in a new language. The “community” is the nation, and the federal government, as the community’s instrument, should enforce “community standards.”

This view, however, fails to take pluralism seriously – there is no “national community” as such – and doesn’t reckon with the fact that government regulation is a clumsy and heavy-handed way to enforce community standards. In genuine communities standards or norms tend to be enforced in much more informal and organic ways.

Obviously communities sometimes go wrong and there are cases where most of us think federal intervention is justified (e.g. Jim Crow). Nevertheless, a genuine commitment to community would require a devoluiton of power allowing communities to develop their own standards and make their own decisions (and their own mistakes). As sociologist Robert Nisbet spent his career arguing, communities only flourish when they have something to do. Once the state starts doing everything for people, communities atrophy from lack of purpose.