Bullies, conservatism and liberalism

I can't wait to read this book, Rod! I just reread Brideshead Revisited, having not looked at it in over a decade, and boy, is it powerful. Waugh manages to capture both the grandeur and vacuousness of the aristocracy that at once so repelled and attracted him. I've been interested, though, to read the reviews of the movie that just came out. Unlike with the marvelously subtle, nuanced, and elegant PBS mini-series from the early 80s, this is a Brideshead for the "Gossip Girl" crowd. The ambiguous, romantic "friendship" between Charles Ryder and Sebastian Flight has apparently become a full-blown love affair, completely with a passionate kiss, and the complex (and often sympathetic) Lady Marchmain has been turned into a monster whose Catholicism ruins the lives of everyone in her family. At least this is how the movie is being portrayed in the reviews. Has anybody out there seen it? If so, could you manage to tell me if the movie's any good, while staying on Rod's topic??

Speaking of which... I HAVE noticed that, among my friends, the liberals tend to have had worse childhoods than the conservatives. Most of them are children of divorce, have alcoholism in the family, were abused (either emotionally or physically) or were in some way let down by "the system" that was supposed to protect them. The conservatives I know seem to hail mostly from happy, in tact families. Obviously, this is just anecdotal, but it makes a certain amount of sense. Those for whom "the system" has worked wish to "conserve" that system, and those for whom it didn't... well, you get the point.

Wolfe said that the bullies in school grew up to be conservatives and the kids they picked on became liberals.

That's just silly. It is almost entirely more likely it's the other way around: That children of conservatives are more likely to be bullies. (And hence grow up to be conservative.)

And there's a *gasp* from the audience, but I'm really not trying to indict anyone here. I'm not saying it's due to their parents being conservatives, it is incidental.

Bullies are, almost always, the 'most powerful' students, both in terms of physical strength and unpunishableness. (i.e, powerful parents)

While the stereotype of 'jocks' vs. 'nerds' is somewhat silly once you get into the real world, it has been my experience that, indeed, nerds have parents who value education, and jocks have parents that value physicality, even though it's almost never to that extent.

And thus, statistically speaking, liberals do value education more, and thus are more likely to have 'nerds' for children, who are more likely to picked on.

This, incidentally, might have nothing to do with how children are raised morally. It's entirely possible that, if the 'nerds' found themselves with as muscles, they'd behave just as immorally.

In addition, extremely powerful people are more likely to be conservative (Eventually, although there's sometimes a rebellion), and, when they were children, were often protected entirely from the consequences of their actions.

Of course, all this flips around once you get into a school where the powerful parents are liberals. Or a school where black bullies bullying white students are protected via calls of 'racism'.

Yeesh, I really messed up that last post.

I meant to say about Orwell, that he was becoming more and more of a free marketer, and he becoming more and more of a conservative culturally.

Wasn't it Tom Wolfe who once added to the expression that "a conservative is a liberal who was mugged, a liberal is a conservative who was arrested."

I think that people make a conscious decision to become either a liberal or conservative. A lot of their growing experiences form their opinions but they can evolve from their original stance. Ronald Reagan was leaning left in his early days while Garry Wills drifted left in the sixties. I have seen this happen to a lot of folks I knew as I got older.

I think the analysis here is a little too one-size-fits-all. Some people certainly respond to bullying by adopting "liberal" philosophies. If you can delegitimate people's sense of their own power, or the ability to enforce that power, you might be able to prevent others from bullying you again. In other words, undermine the established order because it shelters and empowers your victimizers.

But it seems equally likely to me that many people who are bullied would tack towards a more "conservative" philosophy -- become one of the ones with power, find a way to be part of the established order, and suddenly the bullies are your fellows and much more likely to leave you alone. And this also gives those so inclined the option of bullying others now that there's someone lower on social ladder. Why tear down the established order when you can make it work for you?

Have a look sometime at The Glittering Prizes, the 1976 BBC miniseries released tomorrow on video, as it happens, a quarter-century after its final showing on select PBS stations in 1983 (for which, while an NYU junior, I took an NYC bus downtown to buy my first VCR, c. $400).

Scripted by Frederic Raphael (Darling, Two For the Road, Far From the Madding Crowd, Eyes Wide Shut), the veteran English screenwriter/novelist/reviewer/classicist, the six-parter follows from the early 1950s to the mid-1970s the winding fortunes of a dozen or so Cambridge undergrads as they establish themselves in the worlds of Hollywood, the media, and literature. In his career-making role, Tom Conti plays Adam Morris, Raphael's alter ego, a Jewish lad on scholarship, whose high-born roommate Donald deepens his exposure to the world of unthinking anti-Semitism, country houses, and Catholicism. Adam acid wit and penchant for puns feeds on the slights and pigheadedness he observes. As time goes on, he reveals the "liberated" literary types among whom he works in swinging London and Hollywood, mid-60s, to be no saints either, their savage brew of backstabbing careerist egotism, casual infidelities, alcohol and family abuse, and surrender to phony media values leaving him wondering exactly what it was they had liberated themselves from were this the promised land after all (A Promised Land is the title of one of Adam's early novels). The mid-1970s Labour-fuled "winter of discontent", with its high taxes, brain-drain and malaise presided over by time-serving careerist political phonies ostensibly of the left, also stripes red under Raphael's lash. The cream of Britain's esteemed repertory system rounds out the cast, including a young Nigel Havers as a gay classmate at Cambridge later jailed in a gay-pickup sting, Mark Wing-Davey (Zaphod Beeblebrox on The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy) and Steve Plytas (Kurt on Fawlty Towers) as Adam's faithless movie collaborators, and Barbara Kellermann (BBC's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) as Adam's adorably adoring wife Barbara.

Those familiar with the split on American TV between shows shot on film (The Mary Tyler Moore Show) and shot on video (All in the Family), tied to the show's ambient styles, will see the two styles alternated in The Glittering Prizes to fine effect: background and context-setting sequences on film, sharp emotional conflict on video. Long before you've spent a quarter-century with Adam and his once-and-former Cambridge circle over three DVDs, you'll come to think of them all as friends, and salute the best thirty video dollars you've ever spent. It is one of the crowning ornaments in the history of English-language television.

I'm inclined to agree with both Wolfe and with DavidTC; I'd say the causality runs both ways. I was bullied somewhat in grade school (not nearly as badly as Rod, but significantly) and was let alone in high school but was still somewhat of a loner. Though I generally characterize myself either as "moderate" or "unclassifiable", if forced to go one way or other, I'd classify myself as on the liberal side of the fence. Thus, the concept of bullied-becomes-liberal, bully-becomes-conservative makes intuitive sense to me.

I would point out a couple things. Rod is conservative, but a liberal conservative. ;) In short, if you drew a liberal-to-conservative spectrum, Rod is on the right, but left-of-center for the block that could be considered "right" or "conservative". That's an oversimplification, of course, but I think it's fair, especially in view of the howls Rod often draws from his fellow conservatives who accuse him of being a crypto-liberal. Thus, the generalization may be truer of Rod than it might at first blush seem.

Rod emphasizes his desire for justice and ties that to the order that is supposed to prevail and be maintained by society, and hence connects the quest for justice with conservatism. I get the point, but there may be more to it than that. In general (and somewhat stereotypically, I admit), it is the liberals who most vigorously seek justice: think of the civil rights and women's movements (in their seminal days, before they went off the tracks in the late 60's and early 70's), think of the labor movement, think of the New Deal and the Great Society. One may disagree with aspects of these movements or think that they lost their way, but they were all originally championed by liberals (and opposed by conservatives), and they were all in search of justice, for minorities, women, old people, workers, etc. who had been treated unjustly by the economic structures of the mid-20th Century and by discrimination.

On the other hand, I can't really think of many of the great conservatives who have emphasized "firm moral order -- upholding the rights of everyone...no matter what one's background", or who have emphasized justice. Usually the argument is that the given order is so complex that changes tend to have unforseen and sometimes disastrous consequences (Burke), or that the given moral order is necessary to functioning of society. While I tend to agree with both of these ideas (which is why I'm not that liberal), I think they are distinct from concepts of justice and protecting the weak, in principle, at least.

Consider that almost every movement by the weak and powerless (in colonial nations, among minorities, among women, among workers, etc.) to attain justice has been opposed by conservatives (the one exception being the fight for the rights of the unborn, which logically should be a liberal cause, but isn't). No matter how eloquently, conservatives have tended to uphold the current order, even if it is unjust (sometimes by arguing that it isn't really unjust). After all, Chesterton, whom I like as much as anyone here, argued quite jovially and sincerely against giving women the vote, and Buckley was originally opossed to the civil rights movement on the grounds that it was too much, too fast (to his credit, he changed his mind years later, as we know).

The point is not to tar conservatives--I would agree with Rod that we need a firm moral order grounded in a traditional understanding of ourselves and the world to have a just society, and that this is a conservative idea. My point is that those who are considered conservative (who, as DavidTC points out, tend also to be those with the power) often seem not to draw this conclusion, but rather use the established order to protect their privileges even at the cost of injustice to others. This is often what happens when you "stand athwart history and shout, 'Stop!'"

Perhaps this is part of the issue behind the so-called "culture wars". Perhaps the conservatives are concerned about traditional morality and values, but not enough concerned enough with applying them justly, whereas liberals are concerned with justice but not enough with the stable values that make justice possible. It's a thought, anyway.

Lots to think about in this thread. Thanks all.

Jim, I think you're right: if you have been pushed around by liberals, or in the name of liberal values, that's what bullying will look like to you. Same if you were pushed around by conservatives, or in the name of conservative values. I think too it's normal to emotionally identify Bullies as being the Other, and to fail to see your own capacity for bullying. I am quite sure that there were people I bullied without even being aware of what I was doing. I hope I have the opportunity to learn about it, and repent of it, in this lifetime.

I remember in 4th grade, my father overheard me on the phone talking with a classmate about the awful things we'd done to a new boy in our class. My father gave me such a dressing down about my cruelty that he reduced me to sobs of shame for what I had done. He made me call that child on the phone and apologize to him, right then and there. The kid was Johnny Perry. He and his family moved away the next year. Sometimes I wonder what happened to him. I was a real rat bastard to him, and I wish he'd have knocked my block off. But there was only one of him, and a bunch of us, and he was friendless, and a stranger.

There are probably more Johnny Perrys in my past, I regret to say.

Anyway, it seems to me that conservatives are understandably more associated with the status quo, so they defend the bullies who now stand. Liberals fight the old bullies to put into place a new class of bully. It sounds like a glib equivocation, but I really do think that's simply human nature. It is also in the nature of the bully, I believe, to be largely unconscious of his or her bullying. They believe that those who get the back of their hand -- the poor, the rich, the black, the white, the dumb, the smart, whoever the out group is in a particular society -- deserves it.

When the status quo is (politically, culturally) liberal, then you can be sure that conservatives will be marginalized and probably even bullied. And vice versa. Like I said, it's human nature.

I find that incredibly simplistic. There are also theories floating around that liberalism, socialism, etc in the UK are "second son" qualities (this obviously breaks down when you look at the Hitchens family).

Orwell's politics were influenced by his class and his experience. He was a very complex fellow, though, and hardly an identikit socialist. This was the man, don't forget, who shortly before his death secretly denounced some 35 "fellow travellers" including Charles Chaplin and JB Priestley, a chillingly McCarthyite move for a hero of the left.

Whilst his strong socialist ideals did lead him to Spain, he was one of the earliest British socialists to come up against the harsh nature of the Comintern. But overall, a thinker of the left and a commentator on the British class system, in which I suspect he saw himself as hors de combat.

Evelyn Waugh was just a snob and his adherence to the dominant party of the landed rich was part of the kit he adopted for acceptance. You could be a socialist if you were a toff like the Bloomsbury group or the Mitfords, or an outsider like Wilde and Bernard Shaw, but nobody seeking to fit in would even think of risking it. That kind of eccentricity comes at a price.

It's not at all right to compare Orwell and Waugh, really. Orwell had intellectual pretensions; his writing aimed to have substance and to change minds. Waugh as a social-climbing English conservative had to make do with a reputation as a considerable wit and stylist.

Margaret, something worth considering is that people who had happy childhoods don't often grow up to write books about how great it all was.

Posted by: Rod Dreher | August 11, 2008 4:58 PM

So true, Rod. I think about that a lot. I live in Beaufort, SC, and a good friend of mine here is the novelist Pat Conroy ("Prince of Tides," etc...). Back in my 20s, I worked for him briefly as a research assistance. He was living at his beach house on Fripp Island at the time, finishing up "Beach Music," and he used to have my husband and me over for dinner fairly regularly. I'll never forget one night, we were sitting drinking wine, and he piped up with this statement: "Anyone who tells you they grew up in a happy family is lying. There's no such thing as a happy family." I was 27 years old, and uncertain of my politics, and wanting so desperately to be liked and respected by this man... but I remember thinking, even then, that something was wrong here. While he absolutely believed what he was saying, I had proof positive that it wasn't true, because I HAD grown up in a happy family. Perfect? No way! But loving and cheerful and committed, with four children and two parents who are still married to this day, and are, for the most part, best friends.

But you're right. These are not the stories that get written. And I think, maybe, our culture suffers for it.

Hmm, interesting. I think that I'd tend to agree that bullying is all about exposing those who don't conform to the prevailing order, and when that order is conservative the conservatives will be the bullies, but when that order is liberal the bullies are the liberals.

There's one caveat: these are relative terms when you're talking about school children. In a quite liberal town and school, the bullies may still pick on those who wear less expensive clothing, etc., because their parents' anti-materialist attitudes are a luxury of their wealth, not a practical reality of their penury. Even in parochial or private schools where uniforms are the norm, the cost of one's shoes, hair accessories, and so forth will be assessed to a penny, and those who don't measure up will be targeted for their nonconformity.

I do think that whether the target of bullies will end up liberal or conservative depends on his reaction to the bullying. Some of those who are bullied think, "If I had the power, I would protect people from these bullies," and others think, "If I had the power, I would make the bullies pay, and teach them what it feels like to be the victim." Those who end up desiring both justice for the bullies AND mercy for the bullied are probably Crunchy Cons. :)

I am glad to hear Rod say he wasa bully to certain people. Not that I think poorly of Rod, but when I first read this post this morning my first thought was that he was probably bullied by the "in-crowd" and the jocks but was probably the bully (admittedly mental rather than physical) of the nerds. How did I come to that? Easy. Generally the smart nerd kind of picked on those kids who hung out with the nerd not because they were smart, but because they were still outcasts; ie., still nerds. I know this. I did this.
Rod's clearly a smart person, and I assume he's as human as the rest of us.

Margaret, something worth considering is that people who had happy childhoods don't often grow up to write books about how great it all was.

I remember when I was in graduate school I was talking with a friend of mine, an undergraduate, about how so many of our friends seemed obsessed with their unhappy childhoods, and how this seemed to motivate them to express themselves in various creative outlets, or at least gave them a lot of material. My friend and I seriously pondered whether our own relatively happy childhoods were actually a serious handicap to us if we wanted to pursue either careers or avocations in the arts.

Salamander's experience overlaps with my own a bit.

I finished high school, 1980, in a posh Connecticut town (Wilton), had no interest in the Harvard-bound, hypnotized sweet "freedom" whispering in my ear from every classmate and counselor, it seemed: I was up to my elbows at home in libertarian economics after reading Harry Browne's self-help classic How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World, and attended a Cato seminar at Dartmouth in the summer. At Hillsdale College soon after, my alienation from the GOP-right atmosphere saw me bail to NYU after a spring break back to Wilton, 1982, on which I had the great fortune to meet Henry Hazlitt, then 87, across town (I had written him c. 1979, asking about colleges).

New York was much more my style, especially as the Anglophile/Europhile/Thoreauvian humanist in me muscled aside the economist dictating my major. I escaped the boredom of the cookie-cutter Fortune 500 suburb in which I summered during NYU (White Hills, East Lansing) by blasting The Clash through my walkman-knockoff while mowing the lawn. But I never "converted" politically to Democratic liberalism as a result, my early libertarian inoculation having lasted thirty years, so far, as of this summer. And while working in Borders stores throughout the 1990s, I was awash in liberal/middlebrow litcult, though my colleagues seldom discussed politics, which was just as well: you were entirely likely to find People or Entertainment Weekly on the breakroom table, though never The New Republic or The Nation (save from my own break-browsings, or those of one or two rarest of others).

As a result, I've never quite fit in, anywhere. And that's not a complaint.

I think we're all wounded, liberal or conservative, and it's the measure of our character how we respond to it. Violent-minded, war-hungry conservative obviously exhibit personal failure; nothing is simply objective "politics", with no connection to human minds and hearts. Excuse-making, PC-bullying liberals the same. But of both conservatives and liberals are some wonderful qualities. It's such a shame that the U.S. is so locked into its futile system where the only two parties allowed any power are both so miserably useless and corrupt.

I grew up in West Texas. The bullies (at least among the girls) were universally from the country club set and their daddies were all big shots in local Republican politics.

Now, I don't know if any of them were actual "conservatives" as opposed to Republicans who worshiped at the shrine of the almighty dollar, but they were the oppressors in my school.

Rod,
I'd suggest your experience being bullied is why you're a communitarian rather than why you're a conservative. Libertarianism is the refuge of the bullies of the world and those who, like Waugh, aspire to the "freedom" the bullies' power grants.

Q: What's the difference between a run-of-the-mill bully and an aristocrat?

A: Parents with money and/or connections.

In my childhood, we had examples of both types. The former were obstacles to enjoying life, overcomeable (nothing is easy). The latter were our lords and masters, doling out largesse and pain as the deemed.

There's your social order, Rod. Morality does not enter the picture.

Anonymous at 7:15 a.m., your comment is excellent. We are indeed all wounded in some way, at whatever points on a political spectrum we describe ourselves. Our response to that does demonstrate our character.

But secularism ("liberalism") has been the status quo now for about 44 years. So in that sense, being "liberal" is actually now the new "conservatism."

I was always bullied in American grade school (German background ['60's America still churned out scores of Germans = Nazis films], divorced parents [makes for precocious seriousness], good @ spelling and reading, but always batting or punting "outs" on team games during gym), and yet I am conservative (culturally and morally) and libertarian (politically, tho I've been told that my anti-abortion, anti-euthanasia and anti-drugs stance disqualifies me, since according to the interlocutor, those 3 were THE litmus test issues for true libertarianism).