A little something about the whole ‘Obama needs to be cautious because this is still a center-right nation’ thingamajig. (Hilzoy derides it; Sirota has been tracking it; Ramesh Ponnuru questioned the intelligibility of the proposition. No doubt you’ve noticed some of this discussion going around.)
Way back two years ago, I blogged a review of Micklethwait and Wooldridge’s Right Nation. Here was my verdict: “The authors basically have a Louis Hartz ‘liberal consensus’ argument. Do a change-all ‘liberal’ to ‘conservative’. Which is really a substitution they ought to think through a bit harder. Since they cite much of the same evidence Hartz cited for his thesis way back when.”
Consider “Liberalism in America: A Note for Europeans” by Arthur ‘vital center’ Schlesinger, written in 1956, anthologized in The Politics of Hope
Accepting the theory of America as essentially a liberal society, how can one distinguish the liberal and conservative tendencies within that society? Some of the New Conservatives tell us that the liberal believes in the perfectibility of men, while the conservative has a conviction of human fallibility and of original sin. Yet no one has preached more effectively to this generation of the reality of human imperfection than the liberal (in politics, at least) Reinhold Niebuhr, while it was Andrew Carnegie, a conservative, who used to say of man that there was no “conceivable end to his march to perfection.” And it would be hard to argue, for example, that the words of Dwight D. Eisenhower, the conservative, show a greater sense of the frailty of human striving or the tragedy of the human condition than those of the liberal Adlai Stevenson.
Similarly, it is difficult to believe that the crucial distinction lies in the attitude toward the role of the state. Thus the conservatives Alexander Hamilton and John Quincy Adams and the liberal Franklin D. Roosevelt agreed in advocating government direction of the economy, while the liberal Thomas Jefferson and the conservative Herbert Hoover agreed in wishing to limit the power of the state.
Nor does the distinction lie in the question of civil freedom. Some liberals have been majoritarians with a limited concern for the rights of minorities; some conservatives have been valiant defenders of the liberties of conscience and expression. Nor does it even really lie in the question of private property. While conservatives have been the more vigilant champions of private property, liberals have perhaps stood more consistently for the rights of property in Locke’s original sense of a product of nature with which man mixes his labor.
All this ambiguity and even interchangeability of position testify once again to the absence of deep differences of principle in American society. “Each is a great half,” wrote Emerson of the liberal and the conservative, “but an impossible whole. Each exposes the abuses of the other but in a true society, in a true man, both must combine.” In elaborating on the character of each “great half,” Emerson went on to define the diverging tendencies which liberalism and conservatism have embodied within the American consensus. His distinction, I think, is still useful today.
But when it comes to political dominance, there is no question which half is which.
Even under a conservative administration, these liberal impulses will continue to have effect. Even the Republican party, on the whole, is “conservative” only in the special American sense. For all its tendencies toward ignorance and self-righteousness, that party is far from blind reactions and will, in the end, accept the arbitrament of reason and debate.
A couple years later, Schlesinger had a lot of this liberal wind knocked out of him.
It’s interesting that we are getting so much reverse Schlesingerism from conservatives now. Maybe I’ll follow up later with a bit more analysis. Rhetorically, it’s pretty simple, although a bit inconsistent: you do your best to dismiss/denature your opponent’s philosophy as, at once, foreign to the American political tradition – hence inevitably shallow-rooted in this soil. And as merely a shallow-rooted ‘me-too’ imitation of authentic American political traditions and values. So conservatives can shift from tarring Obama as a dangerous European Muslim socialist to downplaying him as a conservative copycat (he wants tax cuts!) without missing a beat. But liberals like Hartz and Schlesinger did much the same for quite a while there. (Schlesinger is actually a clearer case.) Intellectually, it’s a bit more complicated. I think I’ll leave it at that for tonight.
{ 30 comments }
Paul 11.23.08 at 5:11 pm
A “Center-Right Nation” ? One wonders how academe comes up with these nebulous labels !
Steven Attewell 11.23.08 at 6:12 pm
I always thought of Louis Hartz as a despairing socialist rather than a triumphalist liberal; whereas Schlesinger was always a triumphalist liberal (although within the realm of history, he’s often considered more of a neo-progressive than a consensus historian).
CK Dexter 11.23.08 at 8:08 pm
The American co-opted, narrowed definition of “liberal” is the source of a great deal of confusion — and I can’t help suspecting that in this sham debate about whether America is “center-right”, both sides are failing to clear up that confusion.
Both democrats and republicans are liberal in the old sense of the word: giving priority to the protection of rights — social/moral/personal liberties for the democrats and property/market/cultural rights for the democrats. This places them both squarely on the political right, since for the last century and a half the distinctive feature of progressive politics is a recognition that either: A) the actual welfare of all people outweighs the absolute value of any person or group’s rights or B) rights are a fairy-tale.
So, America’s “right,” but what to make of “center-right”? I suggest it should mean encouraging general welfare within the boundary of liberties (economic and individual), whereas on the leftish end of the right would promote a balance of general welfare and protection of liberties (allowing for impingement upon both).
If so, then would not “center right” be a reasonable description of mainstream democrats and republicans? I.e., people who like highways and medicaid but not socialism? People who like helping poor people but like to preserve them as a class? People who like to support policies geared toward the national good (economic, health, military, education) but only provided it doesn’t interfere with (democrats) my right to pursue pleasure and (republicans) my right to pursue wealth?
conservativechic 11.23.08 at 9:18 pm
Neither party can claim to be “THE” United States, the “real” intent of the founding fathers. Neither ideological system can, either – it whitewashes the intense debate held while the basement of our country was being dug and the foundation being built.
It’s rather like denominations: there is no “real” Christian denomination that has managed somehow to hold onto the only correct interpretation of Christian faith; some may come much closer than others to a robust orthodoxy, but they’re all part of the faith, just as differing political ideologies are all still American political ideas. The liberal illuminati and the conservative hawks may both attempt to claim being the “real” America, but unfortunately, many Americans fail so deeply to exercise critical thinking that most citizens don’t even know what they actually think, anymore.
bianca steele 11.23.08 at 11:46 pm
I’ve been wondering for a while what “the liberal consensus†was really supposed to be. Obviously, it required compromise from both the right and the left. For Hartz, as I remember, “liberal†means basically “centrist.†But his liberalism is a socioeconomic ideology only; he’s not especially interested in secularism, or individualism, or other traits of liberalism as it’s often more generally defined.
What’s curious is how people can possibly interpret “the liberal consensus†who are certain “liberal†only, properly, means “classically liberal.†(See, for example, this post at Acephalous), I guess they think Buckley really intended to save liberalism from the American leftists who didn’t truly understand what the word meant!
But Schlesinger’s logic is kind of funny. He starts out saying, given that all America is L, it is clear we must find a way to divide America into L and not-L. Of course you can say anything you want after that. Though as you say, John, it’s mostly a rhetorical trick to introduce what he really wants to discuss, and to get out of the way the fact that he’s somehow required to give lip service to the “America is essentially liberal†idea.
John Holbo 11.24.08 at 1:27 am
“A “Center-Right Nation†? One wonders how academe comes up with these nebulous labels !”
Rather , one doesn’t wonder. Because this one is the fault of pundits.
“I always thought of Louis Hartz as a despairing socialist rather than a triumphalist liberal; whereas Schlesinger was always a triumphalist liberal (although within the realm of history, he’s often considered more of a neo-progressive than a consensus historian).”
Yeah, that’s exactly why I think Schlesinger is the clearer case.
“What’s curious is how people can possibly interpret “the liberal consensus†who are certain “liberal†only, properly, means “classically liberal.â€
Yeah, that’s an important part of the rhetorical game.
Dave 11.24.08 at 11:03 am
Surely where you place the ‘center’ rather depends on where you’re placing the ‘left’ and ‘right’?
Certainly if we were to accept the proposition voiced above in #3 that “the distinctive feature of progressive politics is a recognition that either: A) the actual welfare of all people outweighs the absolute value of any person or group’s rights or B) rights are a fairy-tale” as a description of the ‘left’, then that ‘left’ is a long way out there, orbiting somewhere around punitive confiscations and arbitrary acts for the good of the revolution [unless there is some kinder, gentler reading of the disparagement of all ‘rights’?]
And if the ‘left’ is that far away, then the ‘center’, like it or not, is always going to be pretty dam’ ‘right’ by comparison, is it not? Since most people in the US polity, I think, would not care to be told that their ‘rights’ are a fairy-tale.
[N.B. I agree, at an abstract level, that ‘rights’ are a fairy-tale. But of the various fairy-tales believed in by different cultures, they seem to me to be entrenched in the US situation sufficiently that stating them publicly to be a fairy-tale, or behaving as if to suggest that they were, is necessarily a self-marginalising act. Akin to being a monarchist in France, at least, not to raise any more explosive possible examples involving atheism and various states around the world…]
CK Dexter 11.24.08 at 2:41 pm
“[rights] seem to me to be entrenched in the US situation sufficiently that stating them publicly to be a fairy-tale, or behaving as if to suggest that they were, is necessarily a self-marginalising act. Akin to being a monarchist in France…]
Agreed, but being a true progressive in America _is_ akin to being a monarchist in France. That said, to whatever degree that the American left is on the left end of the political right, it’s because of occasional sympathies with my option (A) rather than (B).
I don’t think either of them amount to “punitive confiscations and arbitrary acts for the good of the revolution”. For example, any social end accomplished by the state and paid for with taxes has its true basis in A, while B can be a premise of nuanced versions of any political theory, including liberalism.
tofubo 11.24.08 at 2:58 pm
given the makeup of the leadership of the country the past 28 years, it is a center-right nation
given our choice this year, on a left-right, 1-10 scale, we had a six in hillary and an eight in mccain, obama split it down the middle w/a seven (and his cabinet and other white house office picks so far are hardly progressive or leftist)
what are we to do that are a 5 or actually left of center ??
Dave 11.24.08 at 3:16 pm
@8: Of course they can. It’s just a cryin’ shame that Lenin, Stalin, Mao and chums came along and gave people the unjustifiable idea that when you start talking about them not having any rights, you’re going to steal everything they own, and then shoot them, and send their kids to Siberia, and probably rape their grandmother just for fun while you’re at it.
Fantasy or not, rights-talk is going to beat out no-rights-talk by a country mile as long as solid historical examples like that hang around just waiting to be dragged up inconveniently. Maybe it would be wiser, and more ‘progressive’ [and is that ever a loaded term to throw around, BTW], if one could come up with a vocabulary that didn’t carry with it the cold tang of barbed wire and tundra?
Martin James 11.24.08 at 3:37 pm
So is Joe Lieberman center-left or center-right because he’s where America would vote if the parties were taken out of the picture.
In fact, I would argue that since Connecticut is a a center, center-left state (American scale) and Lieberman represents a non-party based concensus, then the USA is actually a little to the right of Lieberman. In other words, if he’s center-left then the USA is Center and if he is center- right, then America is right, center-right.
I think you need to ask about issues that aren’t directly part of party battles to discern the values from the party identities.
For example, if you asked people about the number of people in jail in the USA(which many left-leaning sociologists would say is very high because of the USA not being left enough) and whether they are fairly incarcerated those answers would be fairly illuminating about whether the USA is center -left or center right.
In terms of pendulum swings, I think the democrats had trouble for a while because they accomplished their goals sufficiently (civil rights, safety -net policies), then similarly with the Republicans (the 1980 Reagan issues: crime, inflation, taxes, regulation and defense). I think the right side of the center is just not that scared about those Reagan issues. Scary people are locked up, inflation and taxes are low, defense is getting lots of money and regulation is squelched by lobbyists.
Of the Reagan issues Obama only ran against 3 of those and only then obliquely: taxes on the rich, regulation on the environment and defense in its aggressive goals. I think Obama thinks too many people are incarcerated unfairly but he sure as heck didn’t run on that issue, likely because he thinks the USA is center-right enough not to agree with him.
CK Dexter 11.24.08 at 4:17 pm
At 10:
“Of course they can.” Yes, _can_; my point was it’s not reducible to that, they are not identical to the premises of radical socialism (as my suggestion that almost any form of state, including any state with taxation, can draw on these principles should make clear).
“rights-talk is going to beat out no-rights-talk…” My point was entirely descriptive: what is, in fact, right or left, not a normative claim that one ought to endorse right or left or a denial of the pragmatic value of rights talk.
“Maybe it would be wiser…if one could come up with a vocabulary that didn’t carry with it the cold tang of barbed wire and tundra?”
That would miss the point: the link of barbed wire and tundra to progressivism is not a trivial one (and that the proximity of the american left and right is an essential one–that they are degrees of the same kind). If, as I suggested, to be progressive is to value the general welfare over individual and group rights, then the risk of senseless crimes against individuals and groups is a risk that’s essential to progressivism (allowing forms of progressive politics that accept higher and lower degrees of that risk). Liberalism and the right try to play it safe: like avoiding risky surgery and letting the disease kill us slowly. Whether this is preferable or “good” or not is a separate issue, of course.
burritoboy 11.24.08 at 7:04 pm
“Fantasy or not, rights-talk is going to beat out no-rights-talk by a country mile as long as solid historical examples like that hang around just waiting to be dragged up inconveniently.”
And people who talked right-talk all day long managed to:
1. when defeating the Paris Commune, executed 20,000 people, many of them randomly (one rule was to execute any Communard who had a watch or eyeglasses).
2. genocided the American Indians and stole their land (i.e. proved in fact that property rights are a fantasy), meanwhile endlessly whining about their rights being violated.
3. regularly collaborate with the vilest of fanatics, including using them to massacre threats like Ebert and Noske making deals with the Freikorps to murder hundreds of KPD members.
4. Were perfectly willing to accommodate a regime in the American South in which terrorism was endemic (at minimum 3,400 recorded definite lynching deaths), property rights for Negroes were non-existant, attempts to establish property rights were regularly met with state-sponsored ethnic cleansing, local governments maintained extensive brutal internal security apparatuses including political gulags, and on and on.
Dave 11.24.08 at 8:30 pm
@12: yeah, bummer, ain’t it? At any point in what I said can you find evidence that I approve of or sympathise with any such activities? Why does their recital to you constitute some kind of point?
My point was that, in a polity which is, as a matter of historical fact and cultural consciousness, absolutely and unequivocally founded and centred on the concept of individual rights – whether you like it or not, whether you think it justified by the historical record or not – a vocabulary of ‘progressives’ that even hints at challenging that concept is going to sink like a lead balloon.
No, those you oppose are not nice. But throwing up historical examples of their vileness, even if it ought to have argumentative traction, doesn’t. It will be recuperated into the tradition of rights-talk itself, as a further argument for adhering to the rules of peaceable, property-owning, majoritarian conformist politically-correct mediocrity of purpose. The argument that there was another side to all that, a side brutally oppressed and justified in violent resistence to other’s rights-bearing assertions, was lost some time during the reign of Stalin, and it was having a hard time even before then. Sad, but true. People who continue to believe otherwise, and might choose to use phrases about the antebellum South like “extensive brutal internal security apparatuses including political gulags”, have taken themselves so far outside the mainstream that they are almost literally talking to themselves, and themselves alone.
SamChevre 11.24.08 at 8:48 pm
Were perfectly willing to accommodate a regime in the American South in which terrorism was endemic (at minimum 3,400 recorded definite lynching deaths) over the 100 year period from 1865-1965.
Right. And that, make no mistake, is a major blotch on the US record. BUT it’s 4 orders of magnitude smaller than the death toll due to the various totalitarianisms of the left in the 50 years from 1915-1965.
So rights aren’t a perfect protective; but the historical evidence is that they make things much much better.
burritoboy 11.24.08 at 10:22 pm
“BUT it’s 4 orders of magnitude smaller than the death toll due to the various totalitarianisms of the left in the 50 years from 1915-1965.
So rights aren’t a perfect protective; but the historical evidence is that they make things much much better.”
The “Communists killed more people” argument isn’t as compelling as you seem to think it is.
First, the “rights-talk” crowd simply tended to completely fall down on the job when they encountered opportunities to make some cash or hold power (usually the holding power thing as a necessity to make some more cash) – if the Indians’ property rights get in the way of making some cash by peddling the land to Eastern European and Scots Irish agriproles, those Indians’ property rights are going to be thrown against the wall. And the “rights-talk” people aren’t going to do anything about it, except maybe write books decrying it a hundred years later. Let’s admit it, unless you got your property deed from God or Adam, all property-rights (usually) are is one form or another of “my ancestors killed off the other people who wanted this land/property/etc.”
“People who continue to believe otherwise, and might choose to use phrases about the antebellum South like “extensive brutal internal security apparatuses including political gulagsâ€, have taken themselves so far outside the mainstream that they are almost literally talking to themselves, and themselves alone.”
I.E. Dave implicitly declares that he’s going to defend the property he stole from American Negroes by violent force, and if you don’t like it, he’ll either:
a. kill you and burn your house down
b. (more nicely) organize a political movement ensuring that his “property rights” to what he stole will be “defended”. Of course, that political movement will always inherently rely upon the possibility that Dave will simply perform plan A if you don’t give him what he wants when he executes plan B (or rather, if the Negroes don’t give up their evil habit of mentioning that Dave stole their property and that his talk of property rights is just completely incoherent).
Thanks, Dave, for admitting that you and I agree: both of us agree that property rights as currently understood are (usually) nothing more than solidifying previous acts of violence. Of course, we differ in that you don’t really think there’s any such thing as justice, and I do think there’s justice and want a just state.
Martin James 11.25.08 at 12:16 am
So Burritoboy, why not go the whole enchilada and explain what justice is without using the term (or a proxy for) “rights”.
Dr Zen 11.25.08 at 6:09 am
From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs. Justice ensues.
Martin James 11.25.08 at 3:06 pm
Dr. Zen
“From each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs.”
Sounds like raising a family. Hmm, so I guess justice is being a family.
Dave 11.25.08 at 3:50 pm
I never stole nothing, thanks. And I do agree with BB on a whole raft of points. I just think that your strategy for doing something about it is a complete waste of time. As evidenced by the fact that, for example, the discourse of civil rights has done a lot more for the plight of African-Americans than have absolutist demands for just compensation for things done to their ancestors 200 [or 100, or 50] years ago.
There is no justice, there’s just us. And when fallible human beings start thinking they can institute a reign of absolute justice, they end up doing more harm than good. You’ll either realise that sooner or later, or go to your grave convinced that if only people had listened to you, we wouldn’t be in this mess. Fine, whatever floats your boat. But to reiterate, you’re wasting your time.
And friend Zen, snappy quote, but a little dated. I remember a fun book by Murray Bookchin, “Post-Scarcity Anarchism”, which related how everything after the revolution would be wonderful, now that industrial society had developed the ability to give us anything we wanted. A remarkable achievement to miss the goal at both ends – ‘needs’ are infinitely expandable, but the resources of the Earth are not, alas…
burritoboy 11.25.08 at 11:07 pm
“So Burritoboy, why not go the whole enchilada and explain what justice is without using the term (or a proxy for) “rightsâ€.”
Go and read where Socrates tells you what justice is.
Martin James 11.26.08 at 1:09 am
Naturally, without the veil of ignorance, I prefer Aristotle’s ideas on distributive justice.
As for Plato, are you referring to the part where Socrates says that Justice is keeping the Ring as far away from burritoboy as possible?
But seriously, how could the Native Americans have had their land stolen when then didn’t believe anyone could own the land? You can’t steal what someone doesn’t own, right?
CK Dexter 11.26.08 at 2:30 pm
At (@?) 20:
“There is no justice, there’s just us. And when fallible human beings start thinking they can institute a reign of absolute justice, they end up doing more harm than good.”
This is a false disjunctive: either rights talk or totalitarianism. Indeed, a “reign of absolute justice” becomes a bit nonsensical once we give up rights talk. Though I agree that rights talk is very practical when talking to the simpleminded. But this discussion wasn’t about the best rhetorical strategies for persuading the public or making political progress–it was about what center-right means and whether the US is so or not, which might mean talking like grownups about the way things are, not the way we wish they were.
At 22:
“But seriously, how could the Native Americans have had their land stolen when then didn’t believe anyone could own the land? You can’t steal what someone doesn’t own, right?”
You want to think that one through, Immanuel? Theft is taking what does not belong to you. If nobody owns it, to claim and enforce ownership is, morally speaking, theft.
Socrates’ much maligned politics is usually deeply misinterpreted. Justice is harmony: every note in its place makes a song. By definition, if someone doesn’t belong somewhere, then they do not so belong. That’s neither elitism nor totalitarianism. To refuse your mechanic’s offer to perform your heart surgery isn’t withholding any rings from anybody, Frodo.
David 11.26.08 at 2:33 pm
I don’t think you can say that being on the left is a matter of rejecting the ideas of rights. There were Lockean or Ricardian socialists who believed that the worker had a right to the proceeds of his labor.
Martin James 11.26.08 at 4:25 pm
CK Dexter
Not in most Anglo countries. Theft is
“Knowingly obtains or exerts unauthorized control over the property of another, with intent to deprive the owner of his or her property;”
No other owner, no theft.
Well, under your morals what originally creates ownership, the Divine Right of Kings?
Well, you’ve certainly illustrated THAT point.
Ok, you’ve got me there…y damn tin ear for justice…
lemuel pitkin 11.26.08 at 5:09 pm
how could the Native Americans have had their land stolen when then didn’t believe anyone could own the land?
Good point. You see, all Native Americans held the exact same beliefs, and none of them — poor things — understood that an individual or group could have exclusive rights in a particualr piece of land. Just like we learned in 3rd grade. Yup.
Martin James 11.26.08 at 6:35 pm
Lemuel,
Actually in third grade I learned that history is bunk.
Righteous Bubba 11.26.08 at 6:40 pm
Henry Ford is obviously the go-to man for ideas about history.
Martin James 11.26.08 at 7:34 pm
Do you mean to tell me Henry Ford it it first?!? No way! I thought Mrs. Brooks in 3rd grade made it up.
VersoBubba, You mean this whole financial crisis was just to make the Fords grovel for money? That’s soooo cool!
lemuel pitkin 11.26.08 at 8:00 pm
Actually in third grade I learned that history is bunk.
Might as well stick with bullshit then.
Comments on this entry are closed.