This lecture by Joseph Bottum was three months ago. It is based on his book An Anxious Age.
I do not think I can do justice to it in a blog post. In fact, the Q&A may be the best part, even though he seems to be rambling in his answers.
I might describe the overall theme as being that liberal-progressive politics is a substitute religion that is Protestant in character, with progressives serving as the elect. A few comments.
1. Although he is hardly the first person to offer this hypothesis, he is perhaps the most eloquent.
2. It is a very uncharitable hypothesis. It violates the Caplan Turing test (no progressive would recognize himself or herself in Bottum’s description).
3. Jonathan Rauch, during the Q&A, points out that if one were to apply similar reasoning to the Tea Party, it might also come across as a substitute religion. I think that Bottum’s best answer is to suggest that the Tea Party religion emerges as a reaction against the progressive religion.
4. The news in recent weeks has prominently featured the severe punishment meted out to business executives for violating speech norms. This may fit the religious zealotry paradigm.
5. Bottum suggests that a better term for progressive intellectuals than “elite” is “elect.” A difference is that an elite must prove its merit. An elect starts from an assumption of superiority and proceeds from there.
I am most interested in this last point. I think that it raises some interesting questions:
Do conservatives and libertarians also have an “elect” mindset? By that, I mean a mindset in which you believe that you occupy a moral high ground that others do not.
I believe that the three-axes model would say that conservatives and libertarians also have an “elect” mindset. It would say that the progressives think of themselves as the elect that fights for the oppressed against the oppressors, conservatives (including Bottum) think of themselves as the elect that fights to preserve civilization against barbarism, and libertarians think of themselves as the elect that fights for liberty against coercion.
As an aside, On my Krugman/Rothbard post, a commenter wrote,
Surely Rothbard’s intellectual lows of racism, sexism, and homophobia are lower than Krugman’s straw man arguments.
Bottum would put this comment squarely in the column of the new Protestantism. The evils of racism, sexism, and homophobia are, according to Bottum, examples of the metaphysical evil that has replaced original sin, witches or the devil. I got the sense that the commenter is excusing Krugman’s unreasonable tactics by using Rothbard’s views on race, gender, and sexual orientation as some sort of moral trump card. I hope that interpretation of the comment is wrong.
I cannot speak for Rothbard’s admirers, having never been one myself. But it would not surprise me if some of them share, or at least are willing to excuse, his troglodyte opinions. The point I was making in my original post is that both Rothbard and Krugman attract rabid followers who would never question the master’s words. Whereas with me, you will often have commenters who write, “I usually agree with you, but in this instance….” And I prefer that sort of audience.
I usually agree with you, but in this instance….
“It is a very uncharitable hypothesis. It violates the Caplan Turing test (no progressive would recognize himself or herself in Bottum’s description).”
I think the fact supports the point. Someone who doggedly believes in their moral superiority never, IME, recognizes another’s criticism in him/herself.
“Do conservatives and libertarians also have an “elect” mindset? By that, I mean a mindset in which you believe that you occupy a moral high ground that others do not.”
Some, of course. Others, not so much, and I think determining the ratio would be borderline impossible.
Ironically, failure to take a more cosmopolitan view of religion than “there’s two categories: my One True belief system, and everybody else’s false sects” is itself an almost stereotypically fanatically religious trait. If I tell a fundamentalist Christian that a good way to explain their beliefs is to consider Jesus as an unexceptional element of the same category as Allah, Shiva, Zeus, etc., I’m probably not about to pass an Ideological Turing Test. Does that prove me wrong?
Well, yes, but largely because the Incarnation is a much more metaphysically complex claim than the others are (strictly transcendental monotheism, personification of a deity through avatar–with no notion of a hypostatic union, which would be strictly impossible to an immaterialist–and polytheism).
So, yeah, kind of. And to be strictly clear, I am not saying that proves the opposite. I am only saying that it isn’t that hard for any Christian to reject those comparisons as being inaccurate to any of the central claims of Christianity.
For a political view of this, I would recommend Voegelin, particular the works collected under the title, ‘Modernity Without Restraint’.
His terminology is different, but many of his claims echo Bottum’s. I haven’t read “An Anxious Age” yet, but I am guessing on some particular points, but from the lecture, it seems like they also see the retreat from Christianity (particularly Catholicism in Voegelin’s case) as a retreat from a more complete and sophisticated explanation of Man to something older and simpler, but ultimately less satisfying (precisely because it explains less of what it means to be born, live, and die a human being.)
OK, I think I’m just gonna come out and say it…
(First of all … great article, excellent Socratic discipline.)
But no – libertarianism IS superior to those other 2.
Civilisation/barbarism and oppressor/oppressed are not just different ways of looking at the same reality as liberty/freedom.
Liberty/freedom is a constant – under all circumstances policy must be examined thru this lens – always. Anytime in history and anywhere in the world we must remain vigilant – it’s really a human nature thing.
The other two though are by comparison always changing, plastic, floating variables that differ by time and place and culture.
1000 years ago or today in different places even US and UK these things change and shift. Older generations always see youngsters as more uncivilised and people often see other cultures that way too. Liberty though is our universal constant, our hard measurement of our world and our compass morally and in policy.
So libertarianism is correct – even with it’s different flavours. The others are just political means by which votes can be captured – adjusted to any landscape.
As arrogant as it sounds I kind of know this as I was a libertarian before I even knew it existed.
“Do conservatives and libertarians also have an “elect” mindset? By that, I mean a mindset in which you believe that you occupy a moral high ground that others do not.”
To the extent that libertarians ground their ideologies in moral or ethical principals regarding aggression and coercion, I think the answer to some extent is yes, but not nearly to the degree that progressives do. This may be somewhat self-serving, but recall what Jonathan Haidt said about libertarians: they tend to be the least emotional and the most analytical. I suspect this innoculates them a bit from the nasty vice of casting political issues into religious terms. Emotion is a huge part of any religious experience. How committed a Christian can you be if you’re not moved by stories of the Virgin birth, the crucifixion and resurrection, etc? If you’re not an emotional person by nature…?
Conservatives, on the other hand, may be somewhat insulated from “politics as religion” by, you know, actual religions. It’s also hard to think of yourself as any sort of elect when you’ve been cast in the role of underdog since roughly the English Civil War.
This is the central neoreactionary argument: Progressivism is a christian sect with the god-ist serial numbers filed off. Acts like one. Treats heresy like one. etc.
I love the term elect.
Iit’s hard to disentangle the New Religion aspect from the New Tribalism (ala the Phyles from Neal Stepehnson’s The Diamond Age) aspect.
I think the Three Axis Model (thank you for that, BTW!) describes Cognitive Tribes, not religions. Presumably different New Religions with distinct characteristcs will apeal to each of the Cognitive Tribes.
That said, I view the Tea Party as primarily a tribal movement (so do it’s detractors!). But Progessive arguemnts make more sense if you view them in religious terms, as in “the problem with fossil fuels is that they are fulll of carbon,” is really meant to be “the problem with fossil fuels is that they are fulll of SIN.”
Libertarianism certainly has an “elect”, but it naturally limits itself by its very philosophy- the eschewing of coercion.
The only reason to bring up racism, etc., when it is orthogonal is to discredit someone out right. It completely protestant.
Whereas with me, you will often have commenters who write, “I usually agree with you, but in this instance….”
I usually agree with you, but in this instance…
If libertarianism is a religion, it is not an organized one…
Interestingly, one could see libertarianism as the most religious of the three: it holds certain truths such as equality, consistency, and utility to be self evident, and it can be clearly derived from those fundamental precepts. As such, libertarianism is the most fundamentalist of the three and the most likely to hold true to its crucial core. It hence does not need an elite or an elect, as its followers can trust the truth they derive for themselves.
Conservatism and progressivism, in contrast, are more like cults. They shift with the times and, consequentially and crucially, their followers therefore require continuous received wisdom delivered from an elect. The elect may change — e.g., from Eisenhower conservatives to Goldwater conservatives to Rockefeller conservatives to Reagan conservatives to neocons — but the tent is large and heretics will be burned only when necessary.
But I do have to note that progressives are increasingly leaving reality behind — at exactly the same time they are hailing themselves as “reality-based”. Very cult.
What are Rothbard’s alleged opinions?
It is actually worse than this hypothesis. You are the unelect simply because you refuse to repeat the catechisms.
Arnold, be careful. You are a plain-speaker.
So don’t be so quick to take their word for it.
What the hey…Just for fun, the first story googling Don sterling is how he didn’t want to pay JJ redick that much because he is white. That may be racism but really nobody knows what it is. But we can’t talk about it because if you don’t come out the boilerplate shocked (shocked!) Outrage you yourself are suspect.
I have a hard time even finding the transcripts. I’ve noticed the story is the story nowadays. It is creepy. And dangerous.
Krugman has all but said himself that he forgives his own fast and loose play because of how bad his opponents are.
Or, which religion are they? Libertarians seem to view the unelect as unreached. Perhaps because we remember when we only knew the zeigeist and didn’t feel evil.
do you read Freddie DeBoer? probably too far left to be called “progressive”.
http://fredrikdeboer.com/2014/05/03/sooner-or-later-theyre-going-to-come-for-people-you-do-like/
DeBoer suggests that someday leftists might be penalized for calling Israel an “apartheid” state. Fat chance of that. More likely, the far left will penalize relatively “moderate” leftists for failing to keep up with the party-line de jour.
I’m pretty sure DeBoer was referencing the mild ruckus over Secretary of State Kerry’s Apartheid speech which was recorded, unbeknownst to Kerry, by Josh Rogin.
Which turns out to be an awful example for him, because it all fizzled into nothing.
The point of his post is that adhering to liberal social norms is a good, ‘high-trust’ equilibrium, and if you stop cooperating in the prisoner’s dilemma because it benefits you just this once, then you will just set up a perpetual tit-for-tat cycle in the ‘low-trust’ equilibrium, which means eventually your side will get hit.
But that’s not necessarily true at all. Again, look at what happened to Kerry. Namely, nothing. So maybe you stop cooperating and start the tit-for-tat when you feel your side has achieved a definite, lasting competitive advantage. So that while you may lose a goal or two, here or there, on average your team is going to score much more often, and definitely win the game.
This is like two countries agreeing to not use nuclear weapons when they are both evenly matched with a few nukes each, and then one side arms to the teeth and realizes the other side lagged behind. Now it’s time to go nuclear. Yes, you may lose a city or two, but the other side will be utterly destroyed and lose everything and your conquest with be perfect and permanent.
So the question is, who has the strategic comparative advantage in the free-speech war? It seems to me that the progressives do, with their ability to gang up on any heretic of the evolving orthodoxy of political correctness.
I completely agree, except the “mild ruckus” over Kerry’s remark was just one media report, followed by mostly pro forma objections by the usual tired, old American Jewish organizations, requiring Kerry to make a non-apology apology, since, after all, American Jews are a core Democratic constituency. There was no media lynch mob out to get Kerry.
Yes, that’s a good , concise way of putting it. DeBoer is saying it’s foolish to excuse lynching, one day your friend will be in the tree. But if you look around and see that your friends dominate 90% of the lynch mobs, and can always retaliate against the lynchings of the enemy, then it makes perfect sense to encourage lynching.
There are numerous illustrations of the complete imbalance of communicative power between Right and Left, which liberates the Left from any fear of retribution. Three examples: (1) although both sides are responsible for a government shutdown, it is taken for granted that most of the public will be convinced to blame the Republicans; (2) the inability of the Republicans to get any traction on Benghazi – a story of such epic incompetence and dishonesty by a Republican administration would have been beaten to death by the MSM for months; (3) the ridiculous overkill in the coverage of the Christie bridge scandal, simply because Christie (virtually indistinguishable from a Democrat on almost every national issue) was viewed as a threat to Hillary’s coronation.
“Do conservatives and libertarians also have an “elect” mindset?”
Yes they treat wealthy people as the elect. They constantly refer to them as “job creators”. The 2012 GOP convention’s major complaint about Obama was his “you didn’t build that” remark about rich people.
Many refuse to consider that Wall Street has any responsibility for the 2008 financial meltdown but say it is all the fault of the government forcing bankers to make risky loans to poor people. I don’t see how anyone can hold that view since the bankruptcy of Lehmann Brothers started the panic and I am unaware of any law that required Lehmann Brothers to buy mortgages.
This is why I pur a lot of blame on the fed and the rope a dope of implicit bailout followed by ad hoc followed by getting tough followed by the old joke “NOW is the time to panic!”
I almost never think about “the rich” per se.
BTW, not to brag or nuthin but I’m the guy who coined the term lame and brothers.
But we live in a world of incentives and reports are that they really were surprised they didn’t get bailed out.
I realize it is super annoying, but I’m annoyed too.
It just occurs to me, do you hear many libertarians criticizing consumers for taking food stamps, or do you hear libertarians criticizing the incentive system in the case of the poor as well.
This is the problem, I think. Racism is now a big thing basically because of voting blocks. See? I can’t even blame Democrats themselves!
I have a difficult time understanding the argument. The value judgements embedded in “racism, sexism, and homophobia” are human generated. They are consequences of human incentives. The devil, original sin, magic… are not.
Had a chance to listen to the audio version last night. You were right; very articulately put, and a rich, compelling thesis, but it does badly flunk the “I know you better than you know yourself” bias test. That said, I think his “politics as affirmation” interpretation has a lot of merit. I guess to be fair to progressives, one way to look at their mentality is to say that they have sacralized the Whig theory of history. The Whig theory of history is not meritless; progress has happened. Unfortunately, the temptation of simply declaring whatever you and your friends happen to believe to be “Progress” and then labeling anyone who disagrees as evil or defective and an enemy to be defeated, mostly for the purpose of self-flattery and the thrill of victory, is apparently too great for most people to resist, especially if they live or work non-ideologically diverse areas.
Ultimately, I guess I don’t see much point in crying about this stuff, because you’re not going to be able to reason people out of this kind of mentality. I think maybe the more important question is where do these people go from here? David Brooks documented–pretty well, I thought–how the ’60’s New Left changed as they became part of the establishment (or the new “elect” if you want to borrow Bottum’s term). These people will, I think, have to change further in the coming years. Donald Sterling fiasco not withstanding, the racism, sexism, homophobia, exploitation, and other various evils that take the place of original sin in the progressive theological corpus have been in retreat for a long time. They’re not going to go away, but these aren’t mighty dragons to be slain, anymore, and sooner or later the public at large is going to catch on to the fact that while racism, sexism and the like still exist, America isn’t exactly Nazi Germany; it’s a pretty swell place to live, and progressives are just being silly if they pretend otherwise. Our post-protestant elect will need a new boogeyman sooner rather than later, methinks.
“You were right; very articulately put, and a rich, compelling thesis, but it does badly flunk the “I know you better than you know yourself” bias test.”
Perhaps the “I know you better than you know yourself” test is not such a great indicator of the validity of a thesis. After all, leftists themselves invariably flunk that test. Maybe they’re onto something there, notwithstanding the other deficiencies of their outlook.
By the way, say what you want about Rothbard’s economics and opinions, but his three-volume work of early American History (1600-1776), Conceived In Liberty is outstanding and well worth your time. It’s free in e-book form at the Ludwig von Mises Institute webpage, and I recommend listening to it as an audiobook. It’s not perfect, but if I were teaching a High School class about the period, it’s definitely the book I would use.
A lot of the comparisons between libertarianism and liberals/conservatives seem to ignore the the fact that the liberals and conservatives are much more effective groups politically.
Perhaps the “religious” aspect of liberals and conservatives isn’t so much a reflection of their beliefs as much as it’s an attribute of how they become effective political advocates. In the same way organized religion gains power by becoming “religious”, political movements gain power be becoming “religious” – by ironing out small inconsistencies with superficiality, they gain more people.
“Religiosity” could just be what happens when you try to encapsulate large number of different people. More people usually means more stupid. It’s nice to be small and idealistic and to be able to say that you hold to a common core of ideas, but can you become powerful and effective while doing so?