I cannot find a single thing to disagree with in Andrew Bacevich's view of the kind of conservatism we need right now. Excerpt:
Given our current predicament, what exactly should principled conservatives view as worth conserving?Let's take a quick inventory.
The Left has won the culture war, and, at least in the near-term, its victory is irreversible. In social relations, the right to choose trumps all other considerations: to fornicate, marry, breed, abort, divorce, and abandon. That a single mother with six kids should opt for another eight because she feels like it captures the distilled essence of the cultural moment that we have entered. Somehow ritual expressions of support for "family values" don't quite provide an adequate response.
When it comes to economics, faux conservatives--Ronald Reagan in the vanguard--collaborated with liberals in abandoning even the pretense of prudent fiscal management. The blindingly obvious result: debt and dependency. "Today," writes Niall Ferguson in a recent Los Angeles Times op-ed, "America is Argentina." Just so. We can't pay our bills so we pretend we'll never have to. Those in power pay lip service to our collective obligation to future generations and then cynically ignore that obligation, appropriating trillions in the hope that somehow or other we can spend our way out of the hole that we've dug for ourselves. The only obligation with which the present generation is likely to keep faith is a self-assigned one: to binge, vainly trying to satisfy its own appetite for consumption. What exactly in this Ponzi scheme should conservatives be exerting themselves to preserve?
In foreign policy, thanks in no small part to neocon rabble-rousing, the United States committed itself after 9/11 to an open-ended war aimed at asserting some form of benevolent hegemony across the Greater Middle East. This stupid idea has cost the country dearly, yet, to be fair, it represented a logical extension of the assertions of "global leadership" by the "sole superpower" relying on "global power projection" that had long since become commonplace across the political spectrum (the far Left and Old Right excepted). Should true-blue conservatives be working to perpetuate the celebrated American Century? Or should they wish to ring down the curtain on all that the American Century in our own day has come to represent?
He goes on to say conservatives ought to dedicate themselves to reminding people of the cost of individual autonomy, of the imperative to learning to live within our means again, and of refusing the temptation to believe that it's America's duty to remake the world in our own image. I think this modest agenda is right, and it's perhaps a sign of cultural despair that this is about the best we can hope for. I hate to say it, but I cannot see that he's wrong that conservatives have lost the culture war; I am inclined to think we have to retreat to defensible positions -- that is, to places where we can be left alone to raise our kids like we want to, with minimal interference from the state -- which may end up making me into something of a libertarian (ironically enough).
Another, even more melancholy point: I was reading something today about the staggering sums the government is borrowing to try to save the economy from total meltdown, and thinking about how heavy the yoke of public debt is going to be on me and my children for the rest of our lives. I don't understand how the country can pull out of this one. I'm a pessimist, so I'm almost certainly seeing things too darkly. But there you are. Our future is ransomed for our present. So, what is worth conserving?
We rapidly approach this moment, foreseen by You Know Who:
"A crucial turning point in that earlier history occurred when men and women of good will turned aside from the task of shoring up the Roman imperium and ceased to identify the continuation of civility and moral community with the maintenance of that imperium. [Emphasis mine -- RD] What they set themselves to achieve instead . . . was the construction of new forms of community within which the moral life could be sustained so that both morality and civility might survive the coming ages of barbarism and darkness. If my account of our moral condition is correct, we ought also to conclude that for some time now we too have reached that turning point. . . . This time, however, the barbarians are not waiting beyond the frontiers; they have already been governing us for quite some time. And it is our lack of consciousness of this that constitutes part of our predicament. We are waiting not for a Godot, but for another -- doubtless quite different -- St. Benedict."
Add to Del.icio.us
Add to Technorati
Add to Digg
Add to Newsvine
Add to Facebook
Add to StumbleUpon
Subscribe
Franklin,
I'll be brief and say that your argument founders on its basic assumption that the U.S. ever has been what you describe as "a moral Decalogue based culture."
The achievement of "a moral Decalogue based culture" -- and likewise the achievement of a culture based on the Law of the Jewish Prophets as restated and expanded upon and embodied by the Christian Messiah -- those are achievements that have be different parts of American and of cultures at different times and in different places in the courses of their respective histories.
But it is not right to say that any of those attempted achievements have yet been realized or actualized in the history of the U.S. or of any other culture, such that blame for whatever aspects of American or any other culture of which you -- Franklin Evan -- disapprove can blithely be laid at the feet some historically realized "moralistic" culture of which you likewise disapprove, but which, has never really existed at all, not at any time, or in any place.
Speaking as a Christian, I can say that while I would like to see the Christian ideal "conserved" as an ideal which as much of the culture as possible can draw upon as a moral north-star to chart any "progress" it might make going forward through history, that while I am "conservative" to that limited extent, I nonetheless see the Christian project as mostly a "progressive" and not a "conservative" enterprise, in the since that much work still needs to be done in history, much progress still needs to be, to realize or to actualize the Christian ideal.
But I make no apology for being "conservative" in the sense of continuing to hold to that ideal as a measure of both past and future "progress."
And I certainly make no apology for not holding Christianity, let alone the Christian ideal, completely or even very largely to blame for any and everything about American or any other culture of which you -- Franklin Evans -- disapprove.
It would be worth your while to consider whether or not Andrew Bacevich is the *only* one who is flinging indiscriminately the contents of "a sh*t-crock-pot."
Monkeys at the zoo have manners that remind me of yours, at least in this particular case.
Though it was nonetheless entertaining, Hugh, I do regret that you've wasted such an heroic attempt at brevity on a false conclusion: I made no such assumption that the U.S. ever has been what [I] describe as "a moral Decalogue based culture." What history shows us is a long string of Christian moralists claiming that it was (or at least was attempting to be), and jumping from that claim to the accusation that our social ills were a direct result of our "straying" from that culture (or attempt), and in Bacevich's case making a clean landing after the jump into the implied "necessity" that we must return to it.
But allow me to be fair, a bit. How else should I have taken this:
The Left has won the culture war, and, at least in the near-term, its victory is irreversible. In social relations, the right to choose trumps all other considerations: to fornicate, marry, breed, abort, divorce, and abandon.
What other interpretation do you believe better describes the clearly implied conditions that have been defeated?
Franklin,
The "culture war" that Bacevich refers to is a conflict that has raged for several decades now over whether or not social norms ought to move *even farther away* from being in accordance with Christian ideals *than they already were* before "the culture war."
What I continue to regard as your rather simian "social" demeanor in this particular case is just one indication -- among many, many more -- that Bacevich is correct that his faction has lost or is losing and your own has won or is winning "the culture war."
Which makes me wonder why you feel the need you do to fling "sh*t" from pot-full of "crock" at Bacevich.
In any event, if your lack of civility at present is any indication of what we stand to "gain" from moving even further than we already have from your dread "moral Decalogue based culture," then I can only answer by paraphrasing the question of a character (Oliver Twist) created by a moralistic Decalogician (Charles Dickens) from an early phase of "the culture war": "Please, sir ... can I have [no] more?"
Well, Hugh, it becomes clear that you feel the need to "defend" Bacevich from sh.. um, mud-slinging on a personal level. You will, perhaps, remember the difference between ideas and the person(s) expressing them? Be that as it may...
That was a clear answer, albeit predictable, and I thank you for your honesty.
...several decades now over whether or not social norms ought to move *even farther away* from being in accordance with Christian ideals *than they already were* before "the culture war." My emphasized part fits nicely into my parenthetical "attempts" to make the US society based on Christian "ideals".
Do, please, forgive those last scare quotes. Are you sitting down? I have no basic disagreement with those ideals, quite as much from their proven track record as well as that they match closely with other, longstanding sets of ethics and morals. Indeed, that the founders looked to them as a solid foundation for our country is quite praiseworthy, when they had other sets that they might have emphasized. They also did something way back then which I personally point to as the source of your (you, Bacevich, general) complaint: they secularized the ideals and made them accessible to all, regardless of their religious or moral tradition.
So, what is our actual timeframe here? "Several decades" is a bit vague for my taste. I'm 53 years old. My immigrant parents were born in the 19-teens and 20s. Their parents were well embedded in 19th century European culture, both mainstream (Austria-Hungary) and oppressed (Ottoman empire). With that, I disclose that my moral tradition is as much post-Revolution Europe as it is modern American. Do we look further back than that for the baseline from which we "already were" distanced? Is there a point in US history -- and it can be a quarter-century, as you wish -- where Christian ideals can be said to have at least held the majority?
My cultural consciousness starts in the late-40s early-50s. I have two sisters, 7 and 10 years my elder. I witnessed the birth of suburbia, the "controversy" of rock and roll, the "free love" of the 60s and 70s (though I personally missed out on much of it, being rather behind the curve in social and emotional maturity), the removal of "blue law" influences, the disappearance of prayer in the classroom and the appearance of minorities with the removal of segregation. I watched my peers morph into the me-first-me-always generation. And, I note that the vast majority of them were or are Christians.
So, that's my baseline, so to speak. What's yours, or more to the point, what's Bacevich's?
"Okay, Derek."
Huh? Who is Derek? Who are you talking to? Why is the first post in the comments section addressing somebody named "Derek"?
Post a Comment
By submitting these comments, I agree to the beliefnet.com terms of service, rules of conduct and privacy policy (the "agreements"). I understand and agree that any content I post is licensed to beliefnet.com and may be used by beliefnet.com in accordance with the agreements.