I think of alienation as a sense of detachment from one’s own society. It’s looking out at the society you live in and thinking, “That’s not mine” and feeling no connection, no links—seeing it as distant, as hostile, even seeing it as boring. We should never underestimate the power of boredom in social life. That kind of alienation was very much on display in the last election and in some people’s—especially early on in the Republican primaries, in the most devoted Trump supporters—there was a sense that “This society isn’t ours. We have got to blow this up and try again.” I think that’s dangerous in general, but it’s particularly dangerous to conservatism because conservatism in a sense is a sense of attachment and ownership and defensiveness of one’s own society.
…I think America doesn’t deserve that. We have a lot of problems, our institutions are in real trouble, but things are not nearly as bad as the way in which Trump described them.
Later in the interview (conducted by James Pethokoukis):
I think Twitter encourages the worst of our instincts and habits in modern America, especially in our political culture. My inclination to respond to the speeding up of everything by slowing down.
I agree. I let most of my posts sit for several days before they appear. Sometimes I wish commenters would do the same (although lately the comments have been better than they used to be).
In the article to which the interview refers, Levin writes,
The vague feeling that what had become of our society was somehow remote and incomprehensible—that it was insane, or at the very least not America as we knew it—was a prominent feature of the kind of frustration that many early Trump supporters articulated. The idea that there was something fraudulent about our social order and its institutions was everywhere in Trump’s rhetoric—directed at various points to the electoral process, the media, the political parties, the legal system, the judiciary, the IRS, the FBI, and on and on among our institutions. The sense that this incomprehensible fraud perpetrated on the public by its own elites had robbed America of hope was key to the willingness of many on the right to overlook Trump’s own shortcomings and welcome the potential for disruption that he introduced.
…The sense of lacking a stake in the nation’s governing institutions—the feeling that those institutions are remote and unresponsive—makes it difficult to know what to do when they fall into your possession.
here is a concise version of the conservative creed:
we value long-standing institutions and practices. They have stood the test of time, which is a trial-and-error process carried out across generations confronted with essentially the same kinds of problems rooted in the nature of the human person.Change and adaptation in response to new circumstances is best carried out through the institutions and traditions formed by that process rather than around them so as to give us a chance to build incrementally on what works in order to address what does not.
A sentence to ponder:
shifting emphases of our two broad political coalitions suggest an underlying shift in our common life from an American politics that expresses above all a yearning for freedom to one that at least alongside that expresses a powerful yearning for solidarity.
Think of what the left’s yearning for solidarity as expressed on college campuses. Think of what the right’s yearning for solidarity as expressed in hostility to immigrants. Is there a more constructive way to channel a desire for solidarity?
Arnold, is there are a more constructive way to try to engage people you disagree with – such as those seeking prudent limits on immigration in the interests of the existing American society – than attributing to them personal “hostility to immigrants” and comparing them to the violent anti-speech mobs on campus?
I don’t see much “yearning for solidarity” between the Left and its various opponents. The Left just wants to dominate. The rest of us would like the Left to leave us alone.
Why are you beating on Arnold about this?
I’m “beating” on him by objecting to the tendentious way he characterizes people who reasonably disagree with him about an highly consequential social issue?
Yeah. Do you object to his characterization of the left “as anarchists, Antifa (anti-fascists) and other far-left radicals?” Or do you whole-heartedly agree?
Where did Arnold characterize the left in general as consisting of those types? I would find such a characterization objectionable, although, not being on the Left myself, I probably wouldn’t bother to call him on it.
You don’t identify any unfairness in my objection to a small portion of Arnold’s post (most of which I agree with), you just seem to be unhappy that I posted the comment. Which is not very interesting.
“We value longstanding institutions…” Of course, this sentiment only makes sense in fundamentally democratic societies. Would not apply to medieval fiefdoms or the current institutions in tyrannical countries.
For another thing, it assumes that the longstanding institutions are not exactly the things that lots of other people are feeling alienated from.
Longstanding institutions as the antithesis of alienation is downright silly.
Trump had to exaggerate. There is plenty to criticize Trump for. I don’t get almost any of what people actually criticize him for.
The difference between Trump’s exaggerationa is that they wereally directional true. WasIt seemed reasonable, but I realize it is a big investment. Especially when it seems unknown. Looking at it like a team effort, we could look at which streets already have some coverage and which are most in need. It would also be beneficial to have the same system so we can help each other with technical difficulties. Clinton’s “half his supporters are deplorable” directionally true, or was it, as I believe, a lie to hide the truth?
Wtf? Could we please have an edit button?
Probably the big difference of Trump versus HRC is she really made few mistakes in election but she was never able to come back from them while Trump just kept going over these mistakes.
Otherwise, I would say HRC lost control of the election narrative in which the Clintons since 1992 were all to blame for what was wrong for the last 30 years. (Remember in 1992 we got the two for one deal?) Trump would state everything wrong of outsourcing and immigration the last 30 years which according to my Calendar goes make to the Reagan administration. And I never quite understood how HRC did not relate any improvements in our Post-Reagan world. Or if Trump stated how bad today was for African-Americans, how did HRC not bring up 30 years ago was the center of crack inner city gang wars and their lives a better today. And I always wondered why it was the Clinton’s fault for outsourcing to China stuff? Why wasn’t it Koch Brothers or General Electric?
I wonder if HRC would have won if she had run as an updated Bill (e.g., no Defense of Marriage Act or Don’t ask, don’t tell).
She would have won the election, but possibly not the primary. People of color made her the nominee, and by a pretty thin margin. The price was she had to renounce Bill’s centrism on social issues.
I wonder if HRC would have won if she had run as an updated Bill
Yes, she would have won people like Bill Clinton a lot better and he was an ace campaigner. He does not drop the deplorables crap and he was much better at rebounding his mistakes. Ds underestimated how much conservatives really hated feminist HRC the last 24 years. Remember the 1992 cookie bakeoff? And she did take a lot of the bullets of the conservative media in her husband’s Presidency.
In terms of History, we have to remember than WJC victory in 1992 was almost as weird as Trump’s victory in 2016. Literally nobody thought a Democrat could win in 1992 after the Iraq War victory in spring 1991.
It is simply not true that “nobody thought a Democrat could win in 1992 after the Iraq War victory in spring 1991.” By November, 1992, the economy was having real trouble and the media was making that a very, very big story. Many people saw Bush as elite and out-of-touch, not really caring about much of the country (HRC learned in 2016 how dangerous that is).
Environmental issues were also getting big play. That was perfect for a ticket that included Al Gore, who had a reputation as an environmentalist. Check out this Time magazine cover dated February 7, 1992.
http://content.time.com/time/magazine/0,9263,7601920217,00.html
You also have to realize that the Iraq War victory was very incomplete. Bush had deliberately refrained from destroying the Republican Guard, which meant Saddam Hussein was still in power, still making trouble for his people and for the United States. By November, there was a widespread perception of Bush as sort of a loser, not really able to make things right. Kind of a tired old man, a man of the past. Now if the Democrats could only nominate someone young, someone oriented to the future …
Arnold,
In light of everything that has happened in the last few years, have you changed your mind on anything. This essay is about diagnoses and remedies. I don’t feel like the GOPe or libertarians have changed at all though. Other then changing rhetoric, are there any actual policy changes you’ve undergone.
I look at conservatives and I see something that wholeheartedly failed to conserve anything, including many of its supposed principles. Shouldn’t that be seen as a failure requiring a correction. I’m not sure merely softening tone will be enough.
Arnold can answer, should he deign to do so (and I don’t mean the sarcastically), but I think he has stated that he has gotten somewhat more “conservative” on immigration.
But let me explain why libertarians don’t have to change. Our beliefs are based on principles that are contingent on the “interwebbing” of all the other principles.
So, if we feel that immigration is at odds with national defense or the solvency of the welfare state, we can change our short-term political position relative to where the facts and society have moved, but we don’t have to change the principle.
What is the principle with immigration?
The most you ever get out of libertarians is, “I’m vaguely for controlling the border, but I support high levels of legal immigration and I’m against any kind of realistc enforcement regime (deportations, etc).” This isn’t functionally different from the republican/democratic official platforms of the last few decades, which was mainly vague tough rhetoric that on a practical ground level meant ignoring it as much as possible. It hasn’t been effective at controlling immigration.
“But let me explain why libertarians don’t have to change. Our beliefs are based on principles that are contingent on the “interwebbing” of all the other principles.”
This definitely seems to be part of the problem. Admitting that X is wrong cascades down some built up system, so one either refuses to say X is wrong or at best half heartedly admits X is a problem but isn’t enthusiastic about dealing with it.
You just aren’t listening. I do it more elsewhere for obvious reasons, but I constantly ask “why is 20 Million Mexicans equal to diversity?”
But you seem to be assuming that immigration is some disaster. Where is it?
Andrew,
But you seem to be assuming that immigration is some disaster. Where is it? Have you seen California politics for a c conservative? At this point, my kids can’t believe that in the 1980s our area was Reagan Country and I have played Reagan’s Prez. speech about his vision of America.
1) In theory, the high immigration has weakened the native wages. However, I don’t know if this $.25/hour or $1.00/hour, but short term I have not seen running out seasonal agriculture workers in California and Texas helps coal miners employment.
2) In terms of Obamacare programs, it is the working Hispanic-American families that are benefiting the most. And long term, it is believed that working class Hispanic-Americans are hurting working class White-Americans. And it is true most working class workers in SoCal are Hispanic-Americans.
3) I think a lot of the issue of immigration the long term realities. Most Hispanic-Americans are not illegal aliens, however a lot of Hispanic-Americans have illegal aliens in their extended ancestry. About half of the illegal aliens I have ‘known’ were Grandmothers of a citizen friend.
But you seem to be assuming that immigration is some disaster. Where is it?
How is this not a disaster?
“This definitely seems to be part of the problem. Admitting that X is wrong cascades down some built up system, ”
Here you are trying not to understand. That certainly isn’t what I said. You certainly describe the human condition of cognitive dissonance, which libertarians clearly suffer from far less than anyone else. What I’m talking about is that I can believe in freedom of immigration because I also believe in maximizing private property and eliminating welfare. But I can also hold that in my head while realizing roads aren’t privatized and Democrats and Republicans are united in growing de facto welfare incentives and united in pretending to be in opposition resulting in nothing getting done about the border.
I suppose that if all other things are held equal, it would be better to allow then oppose immigration.
But all things aren’t equal. Not even close. Isn’t that obvious?
At what point does one admit that reality differs from “all other things held equal” enough that the original principle isn’t particularly important for deciding action on the ground.
Maybe its just a matter of intuitions. The first question I ask is “is this good for the people I love.” Libertarian principles may sometimes be the correct answer, and sometimes may not. Libertarians seem to start with a different question.
First of all, we have different weightings and even signs on various positives and negatives. I consider most of the things you think are negative to be negative, I just differ in how big a problem they are and what I’d be willing to give up to change them, and if they can be changed.
But because I’m not willing to signal more than full agreement with you, you basically keep calling me Bryan Caplan. And I’m not even sure what he really things.
I’m trying to get you to listen, and I mean that in the best way possible.
What I just said was I can support limits on immigration now. But we also just had a dramatic drop in immigration.
I don’t feel like I had to change anything to get there.
What I did was corrected my assumption that immigrants committed more crime.
I increased my valuation of cultural cohesion.
I looked at how crazy liberals were being by saying that basically any questioning of CURRENT immigration policies was “deplorable” as a means to de-platform debate participants.
All this fit within my web of mental models and principles.
I also decided that liberals are not really for freedom of movement, they are using immigration as a cultural Trojan horse to blow up norms and cram down progressivism. They aren’t allowing immigration, they are seeking to subsidize it. They want progressive votes and that is as far as their support goes. That isn’t libertarian.
I don’t even think they will be successful in that goal, but they are very successful in their rhetoric against conservatives as racist, except when they show they aren’t racist which means THEY ARE SECRET NEFARIOUS RACISTS! They do this mainly to win elections and then implement completely unrelated goals. So, I move my support a little over to the underdog side.
How on earth could I sit on this gold for days?
All those comments seem reasonable 🙂
Though I’m really talking about Arnold, not yourself.
Arnold’s comment on Trump winning the election was something to the effect of “what will it take to appease these animals, deporting people by force in the night.” Yeah, that’s realistically what it would take to keep an electoral majority that respects my rights.
I’ll agree I put a very high negative value on immigration because I think there is a qualitative change in the effect when you go from a minority to a majority. I’ve seen that first hand in Baltimore. I would be less worried if the math was different.
There are other areas with libertarians. For instance, you’d think they could address the immense social failure that “consenting adults” sexuality has had on most people, but they don’t. I’m not even talking government here, just acknowledging that maybe its OK to tell people its wrong to fuck sometimes (even if you use a condom).
I would also think the opioid crisis would be a firm reminder that legalized drugs aren’t a cure all for that area of concern either.
I think they poo-poo crime. Basically, as long as we don’t get back to the absolute heights of the crack epidemic in the early 90s, we are supposed to just decide that crime isn’t a big deal. For a variety of reasons this is wanting. They only seem to care when someones rights are violated by a government, but freelancing thugs are OK.
Also, although they make a big deal about the injustice of affirmative action in all its forms, they don’t do much about it, and they spend a lot of time calling other racists.
Deep down I suspect this a bit of problem of society not having a defined existential enemy to ‘Blame’ and ‘Fear’. That was the role of the Soviet Union and a brief time after 9/11 Radical Islam. Now there is nothing to solidify the society today.
Is there a better defined way to more constructive way to channel a desire for solidarity? Yes, I believe that is our job in corporate Global America. For all the complaints about Corporations supporting diversity, I suggest that the most successful Global Companies have to be diverse in all global markets. (I was not high up on the ladder and dealt with fellow workers in Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Most of Europe and Australia.) And one reason why I believe Trump, unlike European nationalist, was able to keep the Right Center voters, he did use a lot of CEO language to supporters of working together for America. And notice Trump is struggling with this CEO belief with his administration and his firing of ‘on-compliant’ Comey is perfect illustration.
1) Corporate America 85% cares about bottom line so there is a lot of former non-economic activity in thriving community. Corporate giving is only Giant Checkism.
2) Personally, I think the US waste billions supporting defense of other nations that hurts our workers. However, a lot people, Megan McARdle, stated she like this public good of the US being world’s police.
3) Corporations don’t like to responsible for the well being of their workers and other institutions. This is the reason why Tyler’s dream of a ‘Corporate/Factory/Mining Town ends up collapsing in the long run. (Meaning 30+ years.) So everything is fine on the way up, but once the money diminishes the Town collapses.
Anyway, I wish people would analyze the reality that Trump won with a lot of right center voters and HRC got a lot of working class voters. (And not all minorities are college SJWs.)
It helps their narrative to think all their enemies are toothless hillbillies on SSDI. The idea that the SSDI crowd votes D, and the people voting for Trump are mostly middle class people reacting against what SSDI has done to their communities, just doesn’t compute.
Politics is a C-shape. The most conservative people are two year degree holders in a trade. It only get more democratic in either direction form there.
Spend 50 years weaving racism into the conservative movement and eventually you are going to end up with a large amount of racists in the conservative movement and a racist in the WH.
It’s a pity places like LA, SF, MA, NY, Chicago, Baltimore, Philly, and Detroit have been dominated by conservative policies for so long. I’m sure if liberals/progressives were in power in those places they would have created utopias for those suffering from all that conservative racism by now.
Ya’ think Philly and Detroit have been dominated by Dems? Don’t know much about state politics, huh?
Always blame the urban hellhole. Meanwhile, the fattest, least educated and poorest people in the country are in states dominated by conservatives. Wonder why?
On the other end of the spectrum, the states that had the poorest showing in the education department are listed below:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/karstenstrauss/2017/02/03/the-most-and-least-educated-states-in-the-u-s-in-2017/#152b699071be
http://stateofobesity.org/lists/highest-rates-adult-obesity/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/americas-richest-and-poorest-states_us_57db167be4b04fa361d99639
I hope my post was deleted for too many links.
I can provide them.
The least educated and the poorest states in the US have been dominated by conservatives for decades. As an aside, the states with the highest obesity rates have been dominated by conservatives(obesity seems to be big on this site).
And quite frankly, anyone who talks about these things after watching Kansas for the last four years seems to be really out of touch.
…so conservative = racist = low education = obese. Got it. If I was a conservative I might be offended.
And Kansas…got nothing.
Out of touch? Possibly. Confused? Definitely.
You probably missed this, but honest question from the “Losing health insurance that you do not want” thread. You mentioned you’d had a lower back procedure with a $80k reimbursement. Assume Arnold’s self-insurance model (that you don’t pay health insurance or a much smaller amount). Would you have paid $80k out of pocket for the surgery? Or dealt with the lower back pain? What would your reservation price be if you were paying out of pocket? Since this is something you dealt with for years presumably there would be ample time for any research and negotiation.
I would have paid anything to become a moving human being again.
And my talk about conservatives running things was to point to areas that have done so for decades and are now poor, stupid and fat. And have been for a long time.
An accurate response to the urban hellhole meme.
>I would have paid anything to become a moving human being again
Thanks. Hope it worked.
Having lived in or around 5 of the 7 locales on my list (incl both LA and SF) as well as a couple locales on yours, I’ll take Tennessee over CA any day.
Best case CA can create your racism-free, conservative-free utopia and leave the middle of the country for the conservatives to wallow in our BBQ ribs, houses costing less than $1M, and lack of school debt.
The comment elsewhere on this chain that politics is a “C” is probably closest to reality. Liberals/progs are the extremes (most poor and most rich). Conservatives are in the middle. Per your Forbes link, “The state with the lowest percentage of high school diploma holders is California.”
Also, your disdain for poor and uneducated people is fascinating, because if one were to judge intent from the consequences of one’s policies (which I generally don’t do), it would lead one to believe that Progressives despise the poor and uneducated and want to drive them out of their cities and states by pricing them out (especially of the housing market).
Then, they heap disdain on them for not voting to impose LA policies on Tucson, when it is LA policies that drove them out of LA to the more affordable Tucson in the first place.
It’s also an interesting attempt at a point, considering that within states, college education and wealth tend to correlate with political conservatism. Once this is pointed out, progressives seem to immediately switch from “progressives smart and rich, conservatives dumb and stupid” to “progressives poor and oppressed, conservatives rich oppressors.” The cognitive dissonance one sees in people hellbent on defending their tribe at any cost is a curious thing.
Umm, no.
Wow, what a brilliant rebuttal.
I don’t know what happened to my other post.
Basically, I pointed out that there is significant net migration from “liberal” states into conservative ones (particularly from the coasts toward the interior south), especially among the poor and uneducated, because leftist policies have driven up the cost of living (especially housing) and driven out industries that employ unskilled labor. So of course poor people live disproportionately in ‘red states:’ they’re much more hospitable to poor people.
Are you seriously going to argue that the reason San Francisco and NYC are so rich in terms of median income is because of brilliant leftist economic policies? Which ones? High minimum wages? High taxes? Hyperregulation?
Because there’s an obvious reason why there are no poor people in SF or NYC: it’s too expensive, indeed almost impossible to be poor there. The poor, uneducated people there weren’t educated and enriched by progressivism; they were driven out, into states with more low wage jobs (lower taxes, fewer regulations) and lower costs of living.
IOW, you’ve gotten causality backwards. If left-leaning states/cities had such good policies, poor people would be fleeing into places with high minimum wages, rather than out of them into places with low minimum wages.
Links: min. wage and worker migration: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166046216301156?dgcid=raven_sd_via_email
Migration trends:
https://www.redfin.com/blog/2017/04/movement-out-of-california-driver-of-u-s-migration.html
“California did lose 3.5 million people to other states in the 2010-2015 period. It’s sad to see family, friends and co-workers chase their dreams elsewhere. And that’s more than any other state.
The much-heralded Texas, a top destination for departing Californians, had the second-biggest loss of residents in these six years: 2.5 million. Then came New York, 2.4 million, and Florida, 2 million.
People move. And big states will lose plenty of people, no matter what.
Tiny in comparison
Remember, California is huge. So, that outflow of 3.2 million folks translates to an average annual 1.55 percent of California residents moving out of state during the 2010-15 period.
No state had a lower per-capita movement rate than California. Yes, we Californians are the least likely to move out! Next best state for keeping its citizens? Texas at 1.6 percent annually, then Ohio and Michigan at 1.8 percent.
Note: 2.3 percent of Americans moved across state lines annually in 2010-2015. Worst exit rates? Energy-rich states in cold climates: Alaska 11.6 percent, Wyoming 5.4 percent and North Dakota 3.89 percent.”
http://www.ocregister.com/2017/01/18/numbers-bust-the-myth-theres-no-great-exodus-from-california/
Way to completely ignore the net trend of migration into South/Southwestern states.
And intra-california migration is informative too. E.g. migrants leaving the Bay Area for Sacramento
http://www.governing.com/gov-data/census/2010-census-state-migration-statistics.html
State level migration patters from 2010 census. Sorry, but people voting with there feet suggests you over-esteem the policies of your coreligionists.
Umm, I love people that respond to posts without reading the link they are responding to. In this case, it clearly addresses net migration.
“Taking the most charitable view of those who disagree…”
Donald Trump may be racist, but at least he’s not racist enough to openly support (public and private) upfront institutional discrimination in favor of his own race, at the expense of others, especially at educational institutions, while everyone pretends ‘it isn’t racism when we do it.’
I think Levin actually understates the problem. The bank bailouts of 2009 were probably the largest wealth transfer in the history of humanity. That is far beyond “a culture we dont recognize.” That is the exact opposite of the culture we desire…and still years later nothing has been done to avoid it in the future (not too far off is my bet). And that’s just one example.
Then why do a lot of conservatives dislike Silicon Valley tech companies? They did not receive bailouts and yet you hear lots of complaints about their support of diversity?
Who are you listening to?
Diversity is a political signal/football. If you talk a lot about it, you are de facto stating your side. So, the other side disagrees just to make sure you know which side they are on.
I really wish we could give Trump some sodium pentathol. Because merit-based immigration seems like something he’d support if he didn’t have to try to troll democrats with his initial offer.
Well, didn’t Trump attack Rubio on being the Facebook candidate because he would agree with a lot of educated worker visas? And Tech companies have a lot of diversity in their ranks although it is heavy Asian-American and Asian Immigrant. Also, didn’t Trump favorite Steve Bannon complain about the number of Asian-American or Immigrant CEOs?
If we were to build on what works, wouldn’t that mean that we should build on Medicaid and Medicare and Social Security? Those are institutions that mostly do the job they were created to do. If he’s genuine in favoring incremental and tried and tested solutions, then he should be pushing for an expansion of Medicaid. This is the problem with Levin’s rhetoric, it’s a bait and switch. He pretends that he’s talking about volunteer fire departments and little league teams, but it turns out he’s really talking about KaiserPermanente and Blue Cross. That’s not Tocquevillean civil society, so why bother pretending that it is? No wonder he’s popular with Paul Ryan and Republicans, he offers simple answers that on closer inspection are really nothing at all.
Medicare and Social Security “work” because many more people pay into them than take out from them. That ain’t gonna continue. You can’t build on that any more than you can say, “I only need six hours of sleep cause I drink five cups of coffee. If I go up to eight cups, I’ll only need to sleep four.”
Medicaid actually reduces mortality rates in many communities where it expends. Primarily because Medicaid = free Oxy = death. I’ve seen zero proposals to address that issue, so don’t be surprised when people out in middle America aren’t gung ho about Medicaid expansion when it mostly reminds them of their out of work nephew on SSDI and pills.
People mostly get treatment they need, for free in the ER if it comes down to it. When you expand these programs your mostly just paying hospitals for things they were already doing, but adding additional marginal consumption that isn’t always that effective.
Probably the person that needs insurance most is a middle class person with assets to use and a chronic condition. None of the recent reforms would help him because he means tests out of subsidies and non-subsidized is unaffordable.
“Medicaid actually reduces mortality rates in many communities where it expends.”
Do you mean *increases* mortality rates in communities where it *expands* due to access to drugs? Otherwise I’m not sure what to make of this sentence.
I am only aware of the Oregon study (and its follow up study) that found medicaid had negligible impact on health outcome.
Yeah, typo. You got the context.
…there was a sense that “This society isn’t ours. We have got to blow this up and try again.”
To me, it comes down to the forms and impositions of governance. Notwithstanding the abrupt executive exertions of FDR in that arena (which, after all, were purportedly in response to crises faced by the country), most social change in the last 100 years in this country has been the result of legislation approved or denied by debate and discussion, compromise and consensus, among representatives chosen by “We the People” or close enough to be cloaked that way.
Even the radical 1960’s social change known as The Great Society was thus adopted.
But, perhaps since the Roe v Wade SCOTUS decision of 1972, social change seems to have primarily been a matter of the greater number of members of our social fabric dragged, screaming and kicking, into a social environment that they have not been persuaded of, but rather has been forced upon them by the Supreme Court, or by regulatory/agency/bureaucratic promulgations, none of which provide the open path of accountability that legislative representation does. As a result, beliefs and institutions that had been the warp and woof of the social fabric have been summarily transformed, eliminated, or offended…., and only a shifting sands type of post-modern “make it up for yourself” replacement has been proffered in their place.
Your mention of alienation and detachment brings to mind “la nausée” of Sartre, and the “ennui” of Camus. The threads that used to weave together to form a print or pattern seem now just a tangle. What is there left for individuals to grasp onto for comity?
I am also reminded of my mother, a life-long practicing Catholic, who was distressed by the outcomes of Vatican II. She once said to me that she’d prayed all her life to St. Christopher, yet in addition to virtually outlawing the Latin Mass that was her spiritual backbone, Vatican II had declared Christopher a non-Saint. She then wondered, how was she to continue to believe in any of the other tenets of Catholicism which had thus far guided her life?
Yuval Levin’s “The Great Debate” is a nice compare/contrast of the political left & right.
The idea of being force into a consensus you didn’t agree with is a big part of it. Some of it is non-democratic, such as the Supreme Court/Bureaucracy. Some of it is non-governmental, the Bobo Consensus dominates your employer or TV. Pretty soon it will dominate the democratic beyond repair. In a multi-cultural country people don’t vote on issues, they vote on tribes. It’s not even a failing really, how could people so fundamentally different even reach a consensus on certain issues.
I expect my children to have injustices foisted on them without any ability to refuse and without any concern for their well being on the part of the one foisting the injustice. How could I possibly find solidarity in that?
Some of it is non-governmental, the Bobo Consensus dominates your employer or TV. Pretty soon it will dominate the democratic beyond repair.
1) Isn’t some Bobo Consensus at your employer because they sell to all consumers and many foreign nations? For all the complaints about Bobo Hollywood, have you seen the Movie Grosses of Blockbusters? The ultimate Bobo kids movie, Zootopia, grossed almost $700M in foreign markets. And realize, Disney has to work with a lot of foreign workers and companies to maximize their profit here.
2) I remember one of the more ridiculous stats of the 2016 election was HRC counties won had 66% of the US GDP. (Yes I know this very poorly measured.) So it appears the Bobos (both conservative and liberal) are successful economically.
3) A BIG complaint in the election was trade deals so why are we not including Koch Brothers as Bobos? They run tight organizations.
“Isn’t some Bobo Consensus at your employer because they sell to all consumers and many foreign nations?”
No, its about prog cultural signaling. Asian countries participate in a global marketplace too and they don’t engage in any of that prog crap.
“Change and adaptation in response to new circumstances is best carried out through the institutions and traditions formed by that process rather than around them”
When I’ve heard Levin speak, I have some sympathy for where he’s coming from, yet I think this sentence highlights the difference between his conservative view and my more libertarian outlook.
If the institutions and traditions that he speaks of have a monopoly on power and people are not able to go around them when there are shortcomings, then change is not going to happen quickly enough, perhaps not at all.
How do conservatives expect needed changes to develop if exit is not an option?
Your comment includes some phrasing that seems to beg the question:
“change is not going to happen quickly enough,” What is “quickly enough”? Who determines that? Is all change, every change, good for the common weal? Can quickly-enough change be detrimental to it? Can change happen too quickly? Does quickly-enough change tend to impermanence v slower change tend toward the opposite? Or vice versa? Is it possible that Newton’s 3rd Law has a social “change” aspect to it?
“needed changes to develop” Who decides if a change is “needed” if not the heavier balance of the polity? “We the People” encompasses the entirety of society, not just a segment, a single activist group, or a single presidential administration. When the tail wags the dog, does that not result in an unstable imbalance? Short-term [benefit? satisfaction?] at the expense of longer-term stability?
“perhaps not at all.” Maintenance of the status quo should always be an acceptable option. Absent persuasion that a proposed “change” may be beneficial to the common weal, perhaps status quo should be the *preferred* option.
On the issue of change, I am a fan of the “Chesterton’s Fence” parable, as well as Henry Hazlitt’s “Economics in One Lesson,” which preaches that “The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.”
Thanks for listening.
The idea that there was something fraudulent about our social order and its institutions was everywhere in Trump’s rhetoric—directed at various points to the electoral process, the media, the political parties, the legal system, the judiciary, the IRS, the FBI, and on and on among our institutions.
Hits home for me. The whole Black Lives Matter whirlwind of riots and protests based on some cause celebre type media-driven stories, innumeracy, ignorance, and resentment was a big example of this. You felt like a lot of people probably knew better or should have known, but continued to peddle the same lines over and over because, it was profitable in some way to do so.
(1) What’s interesting to me is how readily Kling/Levin apply “time tested” “trial and error” validation to government institutions (the same way they might private institutions). Government is, after all, a cartel. It is resistant to forces of trial and error and competition, and has both the will and the way for self-preservation. Over time, it seems reasonable to expect that it will become more closed, insular and sclerotic — governance by the governors, for the governors. What did Jefferson (I think) say? A revolution every 20 something years?
In other words, the gradual change typically favored by conservatives (and market-oriented economists) is directionally suboptimal when it comes to government. It is better described as death by a thousand cuts. The increased share of the economy owned by the governing elite seems to be an upward ratchet — the political economy of legislation/regulation makes it harder to repeal than pass (because of widely distributed costs for narrowly distributed benefits). It’s not just a feeling that institutions are “remote and unresponsive” — those institutions are, in fact, remote and unresponsive and that has costs that build up over time. The people who control government have little or nothing in common with huge swaths of the country and people are right to distrust them. It’s the old “who would you drink a beer with” test–Donald Trump wins in a landslide.
(2) I think Righty solidarity is reactionary and therefore different from Lefty solidarity, but in general, solidarity seems driven by the consequences of losing elections. Anti-immigration is very clearly a proxy for the realization that non-elite “white” people have been given the cultural boot. The Left is the first to tell you that demographic shift means that “white” or native people (outside of the governing class) don’t matter because the old “working class” has been swapped out with a newer, better, cheaper one (ala Christophe Guilluy). Lefty solidarity (intersectionalism) has unabashedly been about dominance — we don’t like you, and we’re going to win this game of politics by importing people who will take our side — whereas righty solidarity (which might otherwise prefer political disarmament, or liberty) seems more about survival. [Of course, it seems likely that decades ago, the shoe was on the other foot.] Shameless plug here: http://bit.ly/2qsbPTX%5D
(3) Ultimately, I disagree with Levin that our institutions aren’t all that bad. If anything, the feverish, panicked meltdown that has accompanied the tiniest dip in the establishment stature suggests that our institutions are a good deal worse that I thought. “Social Justice” had a tremendous amount of velocity after 8 years of President Obama and the bureaucracy, including powerful agencies like Justice, Labor, Education, and State, self-selected for a particularly ideological bunch, who like the president, saw themselves as anything but ideological. It was their intelligence and character that made them right about everything, just like the characters in the West Wing. When they discovered it wasn’t their birthright to rule, they did not take the news well and it’s scary to think what another 4-8 uninterrupted years of cultural ascendancy would have done to their psyche.
While I agree that institutions are indeed remote and unresponsive, I would think that if the perception of that were such a big factor, then people on the right should’ve rallied behind someone like Rand Paul, who wanted to dismantle much of the distant, unresponsive institutions. Instead, many on the right basically just took their inevitable growth for granted and decided to weaponize them to their advantage (which really just means putting someone from their team on the thrown for self-esteem purposes; who actually benefits from government institutions doesn’t change much noticeably from one admin to the next).
I very much agree on the last point; as someone who thinks a 10% cut in gov spending is basically a good start, the sheer hysteria that arises over the threat of a <1% cut is pretty disheartening. On this front though I think Trump's election is actually indirectly encouraging, even to a classical liberal who disagrees with many of his policies, because he showed you can flout all the political norms and taboos and win. A libertarian or traditional small gov conservative who before would have balked at proposing a small cut to a redundant agency for fear of the backlash might now realize that he could try abolishing the agency altogether and still survive. My hope is some such politicians, even ones who aren't in Trump's camp, will take his election as license to be more 'extreme' (since reducing the size of the state in any significant measure is now viewed as extreme).
*throne, not thrown.
I regret that I’m too late to the party on this one to make writing a comprehensive comment worthwhile. Suffice it to say that Levin is depressingly off base in his article and diagnosis on a number of points, and it’s clear he would benefit a great deal from engaging with some non-progressive critics.
But just one point. What is particularly strange about his call for salvaging reverence for existing institutions is that all of the conservative publications which host his works are practically daily chronicles of the irremediable compromised nature of these institutions, testifying to both their capture and compromise by progressives, how they have been warped to serve purposes other than the those claimed, how the inheritance of trial-and-error-derived organizational capital has been squandered, and how the few voices on the right that dare make the attempts he prescribes fail in practically every instance.
I guess I’d like to know is what would Levin accept as a set of conditions that really did justify a ‘Flight 93’ mentality and associated poltical approach? I have a feeling he’d rationalize waiting until it’s too late.
The biggest problems come when the ‘culture we don’t recognize’ is made local.
People are being intruded upon by the regulatory state to enact laws from a different society – and this hasn’t ever sat well with anyone. However, Puritans are never able to back down…
He makes false assumptions; that America is a society, and that it is ours, whoever we are. There is no gestalt.