Fascinating observation by Patrick Deneen, on an emerging minority voice on the marginal Right that's taking up the critical stance toward the American narrative espoused half a century ago by the New Left. In short, Deneen points out that there's a growing critique on the Right -- voiced by conservatives like Andrew Bacevich, Daniel Larison, Bill Kauffman, the folks at The American Conservative, Deneen himself, and others, including, I hope, me -- of the American project and the ideological assumptions undergirding the way Americans see our nation and its purpose in the world. As Obama and Obama-ism is reclaiming the mainstream sense of patriotism (which is hard to distinguish from pie-eyed universalism, Enlightenment liberalism and nationalism), some on the Right are embracing a more critical Realist view of America. Deneen:
It may indeed be the case of a rejuvenation of pre-Reagan conservatism, drawing deeply from the works of such authors as Kirk, Weaver, Niebuhr and other "pessimists" (or, I would submit, Realists) may doom any such New/Old/Paleo conservatism to irrelevancy in the American narrative. However, if some of its basic message has remained the same, times have decidedly changed. Faced with a collapsing economic system, the undoing of the American-led Post-World War II global consensus, the growing evidence of environmental and moral depletion all around us, the message of conservative realism may be ripe for a re-hearing and reassessment. Everywhere people are realizing that the message of optimism - don't worry, be happy, and pay for it tomorrow - was in fact a message of deception, duplicity and fraud. Neither the mainstream Left nor Right appear capable of speaking meaningfully to the import of this moment. Ironically, the very moment that the Left has re-connected to its message of "liberal faith" may be the very moment when that faith is proven to be too much evidence of things unseen. In the meantime, a critique of the American narrative - combined with a reconsideration of "Another America," a tradition of localism, community, self-government based in limits, a culture of memory and tradition, undergirded by faith and virtue - may have found its moment.
Deneen says he is not talking about repudiating patriotism, but of understanding it in a new, traditionalist way. Which is to say a very old way indeed.
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Hugh Henry,
So sorry, but am having dreadful problems with your demonstrative pronoun 'that'. I shan't quote your entire text, but you can't ask me to stop 'that' without an antecedent.
I shall most certainly continue to reference your postings, just as others here reference mine.
Now, if Rod decides that I am to be limited in whose postings I may address, well, it is his blog and I shall follow his rules precisely.
Otherwise, you can't make the sort of incendiary statements you do about homosexuals and not expect to receive a certain amount of opposition. One may refer to a gas chamber as a modified public shower, but the purpose was just as evil. So it is with many of your positions vis-à-vis people you wish to subjugate to your own personal whims.
Pray note - I have never asked you to stop commenting on my posts, even tho' many of your comments reflect either an inability to read or the lack of a sense of humor.
I was thinking about the 'new' political schools last night. It seems to me that a degree of pragmatism is failing in most political streams.
An example. No sensible person wants to see the economy crash and burn. Yet, neither the 'new' left nor the 'new' right have offered any truly practical solution to the current problems.
Perhaps there are none, perhaps existing solutions will be adequate...or maybe we need to rethink the whole system. All I read, regardless of the source, left or right, new or old, are the same two patterns: We have to save these spendthrifts or tank the whole economy or We have to let these people suffer the consequences of their actions, regardless of cost to the rest of us.
Neither strikes me as new. Neither strikes me as practical.
Here is the source (pdf):
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2009/pdf/hist.pdf
I have it in spreadsheet format at work, and I'm not going to recreate that here. I do encourage all and sundry to look at the pages in the linked document labeled "as percentages of GDP". Table 1.2 in particular will let you track receipts (revenue collected), outlays (spending) and the deficit/surplus.
Here's a snippet. The columns are year, total GDP in billions of dollars, total receipts, total outlays, and net deficit or surplus all as percent of GDP.
1985 4,141.5 17.7 22.9 –5.1
1986 4,412.4 17.4 22.4 –5.0
1987 4,647.1 18.4 21.6 –3.2
1988 5,008.6 18.2 21.3 –3.1
1989 5,400.5 18.4 21.2 –2.8
1990 5,735.4 18.0 21.8 –3.9
1991 5,935.1 17.8 22.3 –4.5
1992 6,239.9 17.5 22.1 –4.7
1993 6,575.5 17.6 21.4 –3.9
1994 6,961.3 18.1 21.0 –2.9
1995 7,325.8 18.5 20.7 –2.2
1996 7,694.1 18.9 20.3 –1.4
1997 8,182.4 19.3 19.6 –0.3
1998 8,627.9 20.0 19.2 0.8
1999 9,125.3 20.0 18.7 1.4
2000 9,709.8 20.9 18.4 2.4
2001 10,057.9 19.8 18.5 1.3
2002 10,377.4 17.9 19.4 –1.5
2003 10,808.6 16.5 20.0 –3.5
2004 11,499.9 16.4 19.9 –3.6
2005 12,237.9 17.6 20.2 –2.6
2006 13,015.5 18.5 20.4 –1.9
2007 13,667.5 18.8 20.0 –1.2
The historical numbers are quite instructive.
1940 96.8 6.8 9.8 –3.0
1941 114.1 7.6 12.0 –4.3
1942 144.3 10.1 24.3 –14.2
1943 180.3 13.3 43.6 –30.3
1944 209.2 20.9 43.6 –22.7
1945 221.4 20.4 41.9 –21.5
1946 222.7 17.6 24.8 –7.2
1947 233.2 16.5 14.8 1.7
Look to the table for the rest of the 40s and through the 50s. They managed, right after WWII to generate surpluses and come very close to balanced budgets for nearly 15 years.
Oh, and anyone looking to blame a previous administration or credit a current one, be sure to use a three-year offset. That seems about right for measurable effects of changes in fiscal policy.
panthera,
I haven't made any remotely "incendiary" remarks about homosexuals or anyone else, nor do I have any desire whatsoever to "subjugate" them, or anyone else.
The reason I am asking you not to reply to my posts is that you never *do* reply to *my* posts, as opposed to what I must assume are voices in your head that are not *my* voice.
Rather you appropriate me as the object of what seems to be a paranoid rage that you harbor toward someone or something, but not toward *me,* whom you only talks *at* or *past* but never *with.*
For the umpteenth time, I ask that you honor my request please not to reply to my posts or to use my posts as a pretext for paranoid rage.
And I ask that Rod or whomever else arbitrates this threads to please note that I have asked panthera for the umpteenth time to please back off of the trollish harassment that he or she continues to subject me to.
"I find this supposed rejection of the Enightenment troubling. What do these people hark back to?" Jon
TR: I meant to deal with this, but got on to something else.
I don't know what people are meant so I don't know what they hark back to. Although it's not entirely necessary that they'd be purely pre-Enlightenment. Some who reject elements of the Enlightenment prefer the things after it like Romanticism or Modernism or Postmodernism. Considering who we mean it's possible they're more influenced by things like scholasticism, Neo-Thomism, the Oxford Movement, or even the Traditionalist school. Although some might actually be influenced by Romanticism or Postmodernism as well.
The Enlightenment is often associated with the idea that reality can be known, reason is the main authority, and individual rights are paramount. There are many on the Left who reject those ideas as well. There are more romantic forms of socialism that emphasize the collective and emotional experience. Conservatism that rejects the Enlightenment is, to a large extent, about rejecting the French Revolution and to a lesser extent Jeffersonism. There is revelation which transcends reasons, some things about reality are unknown/unknowable, and taken too far individual autonomy can lead to chaos or nihilism.
Scientists generally agree with the last part. The authoritative discoveries of science are not subverted by popular will or individual conscience. If the individual believes the Universe appeared 10,000 year ago by magic the individual is in error. Indifferentism to the truth or false claims of science is therefore anathema.
Jon,
My students are going to learn that last paragraph of yours by heart this coming semester!
Thank you for putting in writing what I have long sought to express.
quote:
Scientists generally agree with the last part. The authoritative discoveries of science are not subverted by popular will or individual conscience. If the individual believes the Universe appeared 10,000 year ago by magic the individual is in error. Indifferentism to the truth or false claims of science is therefore anathema.
end quote
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