Quoting Reinhold Niebuhr

Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971), awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom, 1964

In analyzing the modern failure in each of these areas of thought [rationalism and naturalism] we have suggested that the difficulty arises from the lack of a principle of interpretation which can do justice to both the height of human self- transcendence in the organic unity between the spirit of man and his physical life. The modern mind interprets man as either essentially reason, without being able to do justice to his non-rational vitalities, or as essentially vitality without appreciating the extent of his rational freedom. Its metaphysics fails to comprehend the unity of mind and nature, of freedom and necessity, in the actual life of man. In similar fashion it dissipates the sense of individuality, upon which it insists with so much vehemence in the early Renaissance, because it cannot find a foundation in either nature, historical social structure, or universal mind for this individuality. It lacks an anchor or norm for the free individual who transcends both the limitations of nature and the various social concretions of history. It’s inability to estimate the evil in man realistically is partly due to the failure of modern culture to see man stature of self-transcendence. 

Reinhold Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny of Man, Vol. 1:  Human Nature, 123-124

Email to a Trump Voter

I'm so old I almost entitled this a "Letter to a Trump Voter"

The following is the gist of an email sent to a friend who reported voting deplorables". What follows is my response about this, written about a week post election.
for Trump. This person is a traditional Republican, well-to-due, college educated, and normally cautious in temperament. Afte the revelation of Trump's bragging about being able to grab "pussy", my friend reported thoughts of a non-Trump vote, but then made a late decision to pull the trigger for Trump, citing Clinton's comment about "

I'm sorry for having been so tardy getting back to you, but while I suppose I'm "over the election," I'm still trying to understand it. I was quite shocked that a person like Mr. Trump could be elected president of our nation. And of course, therein lies the key. I think that voters like you and the subject of the Post piece were willing to make a gamble that members of the establishment of the Republican Party were unwilling to make. I was impressed (and reinforced in my attitude) by the rejection of Trump, either by silence or outspoken, from Bushes 41 & 43 to Powell & Rice to Sasse and others (not up for re-election) to Romney. Even the likes of Ryan & McCain gave only back-handed support. Also,  "conservative" and Republican opinion leaders like Kristol, Frum, Brooks, Douthat--I could go on. I'll stop.  No, this was a primal scream. I did not anticipate persons such as yourself and the subject of the Post piece, who have not suffered the absolute and unarguable decline that many in the Rust and Farm Belt have experienced, would vote for a populist candidate. (He performed a hostile takeover of the Republican Party.) 

Although I agree that our political process is marked by extreme dysfunctionality and needs serious reform, I was not willing to gamble. (Besides supporting some very different public policy positions from that of the Republicans & Trump.) Clinton, I had hoped, would move toward serious reforms while having a firm grasp of the rudder and reality (not the TV kind). But because he's an odd Republican (a party of one, in effect), Mr. Trump may support policies that make sense. These policies would include infrastructure repair and upgrade that entails a measured fiscal stimulus, term limits for Congress, minimum wage hikes, limitations on financial speculation, reform of the ACA without removing millions from coverage, and so on. To the extent he can shepherd sound public policy through Congress, all the better.  

As to "the deplorables," it was an impolitic statement for Ms. Clinton to have made. Not false, but not precise either. 50% is too high (I hope), but too many of Mr. Trump's most vocal supporters were too remarkable for exhibiting and promoting deplorable traits. Too many of this supporters have one or more of the deplorable traits (or the whole basket) to which she referred. I have no problem branding racism, misogyny, Islamophobia, and celebration of violence as deplorable. But to me, in the end, there was one overwhelming "deplorable" that outweighed them all: the character, temperament, and underlying message of Trump himself. Every time I think of him I hear myself repeating, "What a horrible person." ("Deplorable" would work as well.) 

 I understand that many Trump voters were willing to overlook his patent faults and frightening statements to send a message of anger, fear, and rejection to our political elite. Elites, both Democrat and Republican, have let the sores fester for too long. Unlike my perception of Trump voters, I'm was not (and am still not) willing to risk burning down the house to rid it of termites. I'd be happy to learn that my worst fears are unfounded. But in the days since the election, Mr. Trump has given me little grounds for hope. I still see him as a demagogue in political practice and as a despot in the making by temperament. (Richard Nixon at least had the virtue of hypocrisy; he said and did some admirable things and tried to hide the spiders in his mind.)  

I will remain vigilant and active. Time will tell. 

The Trump Diaries 23 Nov. 2016

When I was more buff & had happier thoughts

What's on my mind? Damn, it's Mr. Trump.

I have to say that while I hold Mr. Trump in low regard, he is not without a set of skills. He is shockingly ignorant about the Constitution, American government, and public policy. He has a tiny attention span and speaks in a 4th-grade vocabulary. He doesn't read books or anything of any nuance or complexity. He's addicted to Twitter and easily distracted. He is ill-tempered and easily baited. But he is very accomplished at one thing: he's a master salesman.

His sales pitch, his hype, sold enough "Trump" to get him past the Electoral College minimum. So what does he do now? Here's where it gets interesting. He has just disavowed any intention of pursuing Hillary Clinton further on any criminal charges. (Not that it's his choice, but that's another matter.) During his interview with NYT, he came across as open minded about climate change. He has signaled an infrastructure upgrade plans that mimics (on first glance only) the recommendations of Paul Krugman and others. Trump has not gone after gays or gay marriage, unlike his attacks, explicit and implicit, on Muslims, Mexican-Americans, and immigrants in general. In the meantime, his appointments have been of toadies and cronies. What's going on?

Trump wants to retain power. (Of course, all presidents want to retain and deploy power, the only differences arise from the ways they find to do so and their self-imposed limits, such as honor, shame, the judgment of history, and so on.) To maintain power, Trump has to enlist support from elites; people who run and control institutions that allow our society to function. Elites are (on the whole) better educated, more tolerant, and more grounded in science and other realities about how the world works than most Trump supporters. In fact, like all contemporary politicians, Trump must attempt to bridge these two constituencies. Also, it's now obvious that Trump will remain infatuated with his business operations while seeking to lead the American government. How will he keep all of these interests happy?

In order to do so, you can expect to see a very pragmatic Trump. This pragmatic, power-seeking Trump, will prove tempting, deceiving, and perhaps useful to those who oppose him in principle as a demagog and pretender. "Forget about prosecuting my old friend, Hillary Clinton? No problem" he's in effect saying. He says things potentially reasonable about climate change and he says that we'll dig and drill like crazy for more fossil fuels? No problem! Like any demagogue (and any politician, the difference is one of degree), he'll try to say things that disarm us. The challenge for we American citizens and the rest of the world is to gobble up the tasty bits thrown at us without dropping our guards. I'm hoping that the American public will prove smarter than the average guard dog.

Trump is the master of bait and switch sales. He made a lot of money doing so. (Not to mention having avoided paying taxes on a great deal of it.) But I suspect that Trump has few returning customers. He plays for the one time win, as in a prisoner's dilemma, but running a government creates an iterated (repeating) game, and we (should) learn not to fall for his blandishments. Too many failed to see this before the election, but they are seeing it now. Slowly, deliberately, we must drain the power of this huckster.

Peter Turchin: Prophet

Scientist as prophet

Peter Turchin's most recent article (at the increasingly important Evonomics.com website), "I Use the Science of Predicting the Rise and Fall of Societies", presents an excellent introduction to Turchin's work of late. I'm a fan of Turchin's (see some earlier reviews and comments here and here). I'm embarrassed that I haven't yet read Ages of Discord, but I certainly will. (#backlogged) This piece provides a concise summary of his project and his findings. 

But I have a bone to pick with it. 

Turchin writes of his theory: [T]his is a science-based forecast, not a 'prophecy'." He continues: "It's based on social science" involving "broad social trends and deep structural causes of these developments". Turchin goes on to eschew predictions of occasions as precise as an election outcome or the fate of an individual; he's talking about trends and structures, not events.  He likens himself of Isaac Asimov's character Hari Seldon his Asimov's sci-fi classic, Foundation. Like Seldon, Turchin believes that he discerns patterns that foretell an era of decline. But unlike Seldon, he does not recommend retreating to wait for the future; instead, Turchin advocates using this knowledge to shape current events. Turchin writes: 

[I]n Foundation Seldon’s equations told him that it would be impossible to stop the decline of the Galactic Empire—Trantor must fall. In real life, thankfully, things are different. And this is another way in which the forecasts of cliodynamics differ from prophecies of doom. They give us tools not only to understand the problem, but also potentially to fix it.

Turchin rejects the Sheldon course of action that retreats in the face of what he sees as the immutable future. Instead, Turchin argues for action through what I would describe as reason, dialogue, and democracy. Turchin writes: 

[T]he only way forward is through an open discussion of problems and potential solutions and a broad-based collective action to implement them. It’s messy and slow, but that’s how lasting positive change usually comes about.

Turchin rejects any inevitability (unlike Sheldon) and believes that we can avert disaster because we can act. His peroration (and that's the best label) sums it up quite well. It deserves the italics: 

Our society, like all previous complex societies, is on a rollercoaster. Impersonal social forces bring us to the top; then comes the inevitable plunge. But the descent is not inevitable. Ours is the first society that can perceive how those forces operate, even if dimly. This means that we can avoid the worst — perhaps by switching to a less harrowing track, perhaps by redesigning the rollercoaster altogether. 

It's a slim reed to grasp at, but I'll take it. 

But wait, what's the bone that I had to pick with this? You may discern that I have great admiration for his project, and I do. No, the bone--about the size of a chicken wishbone--is this. Turchin claims not to engage in "prophecy." I think that he does engage in prophecy. Of course, if by prophecy one means predicting the future, such as fortune telling or soothsaying; no, of course, he's not doing that. But there is a biblical sense of prophecy that I think is applicable to his effort. The great prophets of the Hebrew tradition conveyed a message to the people: turn away from your evil ways or you will suffer a loss of favor with the Lord. Their message was not the forecast of an inevitable future, but of choices to be made. Follow the way of the Lord or suffer the consequences. Turchin, in a contemporary, scientific idiom, is saying the much the same thing. Like Biblical prophets, he may want to shun the mantle, but I think that its too late for him. He won't know where this will lead him because it depends upon what further research and thought and discussion reveal to him, but I don't think he can--and I hope he won't--shun the mantle. 

Something to Ponder from Reinhold Niebuhr

Romanticism asserts both the vitality of nature and its primitive and organic unities agaisnt the universalities of rationalism. It therefore either defies every principle of form and order (as in Nietzscheanism) or it emphasizes primitive and inadequate natural forms of unity (Blut und Boden) [Blood and Soil]. It thus becomes an instrument of decadence, hastening the destruction of bourgeois civilization without offering a way to a new order. Signficantly the lower middle classes (individuals who desparately flee from their isolation into unities of race and nation, and persons without a sense of history who rediscover history in terms of primitivve tribalism) are the instruments of this decadence. 

The Nature and Destiny of Man: A Christian Interpretation Vol. 1 Human Nature (1941) by Reinhold Niebuhr (50)

Who Ya' Gonna' Call? Trump Busters!

Perhaps this dates me, but then consider my Five Venerables!

Whom do I trust?

This is a list of persons whom I’ve come to trust when considering our current political situation. Not that I agree with them in every instance or every detail, nor they with me, for that matter. But I trust each of them to think deeply and cogently about how we ought to act as a citizen of a democratic polity and about what we ought to know to act in the best interest of ourselves and those around us.

The first five on the list are a special group that I call “The Five Venerables” (two years in China) because everyone in the group is over 80 years old (and Lukacs over 90). Among the five, only Wills has written directly about Trump (reminding me of his days writing about Nixon and making Nixon’s enemies list). But the other four have written deeply about values, political and cultural, and provide a deep perspective. (And I’d be astonished if each is not horrified at the thought of Trump). The rest of the list is simply in the order that they came to me as I looked around at reading lists, Twitter feeds, and so on. I’ll try to say a bit about each and where you find them.

1.    John Lukacs. His Democracy and Populism: Fear and Hatred (2005) is a must.

2.    William (Patrick) Ophuls. A Buddhist teacher and political scientist, a source of deep and challenging insights on ecology, politics, and how we can build a better world. See my blog for book reviews.

3.    Garry Wills. Scholar-journalist, he’s written about Trump (and other topics) at the New York Review of Books blog site (free access).

4.    Ursula LeGuin. The Sage of Portland.

5.    Wendell Berry. Farmer-poet of Kentucky who can celebrate and understand “rural people,” something that has been neglected.

6.    David Frum. The Atlantic and Twitter. The former employee of the G.W. Bush administration has been a real beacon speaking out against Trump, and to me, an affirmation that the challenge goes beyond any Republican-Democrat divide.

7.    James Fallows. The Atlantic and Twitter

8.    New Yorker writers. Outstanding coverage: Remnick, Cassidy, Davidson, Osnos, Gopnick, and others.

9.    Fareed Zakaria. CNN and The Washington Post. He wrote the book Illiberal Democracy (1997), even more important now.

10. Anne Applebaum. The Washington Post and Twitter. An expert on Eastern Europe, she’s watching the same phenomena unfold on both sides of the Atlantic.

11. E.J. Dionne. The Washingon Post and his books.

12. Andrew Sullivan. New York Magazine. Another self-described conservative who deserves a special shout-out.

13. David Brooks. New York Times.

14. Ross Douthat. New York Times.

15. Francis Fukuyama. Political scientist. Twitter, academic journals, and popular press. Books.

16. Jack Goldstone. Political scientist. Popular press & his blog NewPopulationBomb,  as well as academic publications.

17. Thomas Homer-Dixon. Political scientist. Books & popular press. His website.  Especially concerned with climate change and its implications for society and politics.

18. Peter Turchin. Academic biologist turned historian who writes about historical dynamics. Check out his most recent book. Evonomics.com & PeterTurchin.com

19. Daron Acemoglu. Academic economist. Popular articles and books.

20. David Sloan Wilson. Evolutionary biologist and founder of Evonomics.com (critiques traditional economics and provides new paths)

21. Joe Stiglitz. Nobel prize-winning economist. Books and Project Syndicate website.

22. Paul Krugman. New York Times.

23. Andrew Bacevich. Academic specializing in foreign affairs. Books.

24. Cass Sunstein. Legal and political polymath. Writes popularly for Bloomberg.

25. Stephen Walt. IR scholar writes for Foreign Policy Journal and Twitter.

26. Timothy Snyder. Historian of the Holocaust and Eastern Europe.  

27. Thomas Edsall. New York Times.

28. George Lakoff. A linguist with interesting ideas & suggestions about political communications. Books & articles.

29. Jonathan Haidt. Social psychologist. Books and articles. Present on Twitter.

30. Timothy Egan. New York Times.

31. Joseph Tainter. Anthropologist concerned with societal collapse & sustainability. Books and Youtube.

32. Bruce Bartlett. Worked for Republicans. Twitter.

33. Jeff Salzman. Integral theorist & teacher. Podcast & blog The Daily Evolver.

34. Nick Hanauer. Twitter, popular press & book.

35. Eric Liu. Twitter, popular press & book (with Hanauer).

36. Eric Beinhocker. Economic theorist. Twitter & books.

37. Ezra Klein. Vox.com & podcasts.

38. Ian Baruma. Project Syndicate and books.

39. Robert D. Kaplan. Books and articles (e.g., Atlantic, Foreign Policy)

40. Robert Wright. Books and bloggingheads.tv.

41. Ian Bremmer. Twitter, books, popular press.

42. Robert Reich. Facebook, books, Financial Times (gated)

43. Jeffrey Sachs. Twitter, Boston Globe, books.

44. Rick Pearlstein. An independent historian who chronicles the rise of the right.

I’m sure that there are many others whom I missed. Please make any suggestions.


29 April 2017 (always an auspicious date): 

It's time to do a quick update of my Trump-busters list. I don't think that anyone deserves to get bounced, and a couple of crucial additions are necessary: 

45. Masha Gessen. If the list was based on value, she'd be near the top. This Russian native now living in the U.S. has proven to be an invaluable voice in understanding Trump. She writes at the NYRB. I highly recommend her pieces. (Which I often post to my Facebook page.

46. Sarah Kendzior. This American, writing out of St. Louis, is an anthropologist whose specialty is Central Asia (now that's really remote!). And Central Asia's specialty, among other things, is dictatorships and kleptocracies. She provides a lot of fine analysis. You can find out about here at her website. 

All stop at these two because they're crucial and I'll update this prn. 

Some First Thoughts

I'm slowly recovering my mojo after the election, and as I would do after a losing jury trial, I'd move past my emotional bender and begin to perform an autopsy. What went wrong? What should I have done differently? Why didn't I anticipate X? Why on earth didn't those morons agree with me! (With the last statement I realize that I have to back off into clinical mode.)  It's a slow, painful process, but a necessary one. In fact, my reading and thoughts will be mulling over this election and the reality surrounding it for some time. The good news? If you don't care about this stuff (or my take on it), you can stop reading. Relief is just a click away. 

The following is a Comment (which I rarely post) on a blog post entitled "It's Not About Hillary." The blog is provocative (to me), written by a Brit ex-pat I've met here in Bucharest. What follows is my first serious reflection on events after the election, following commiserating with friends and relatives. (I've changed just a few words; I can't resist endless tinkering with my prose.)

You're right: it wasn't about Clinton. Regardless of her perceived faults, from full-blown Clinton Derangement Syndrome to her patent mistakes and faults, anyone with any modicum of political judgment knows that she was a landslide loser in the faults category. The president-elect is a liar, a bullshitter, a tax-and-draft dodger, a misogynist, and a racist who promotes violence. He has the temperament of a spoiled, petulant little boy, the character of a huckster, and the experience of a used car salesman. (He is a terrific salesman. He sells baloney and people buy it. Once.) He has no real friends, only toadies and cronies. Who admires Donald Trump? (Envy? Yes.) He is a man of low character, without a moral compass, a sociopath. I wish none of this were true! If this had been a loss to Mitt Romney, character and moral compass would not be the topics of discussion. Trump is sui generis in American politics. 

The sui generis aspect of Trump is that U.S. electoral college system (not the voters) have elected a classic demagogue. A nation that followed FDR and refused the blandishments of Father Coughlin, Huey Long, and other crackpot demagogues in the Great Depression now succumbs to this? A nation that put aside Joe McCarthy and George Wallace surrenders to this huckster? This is like a second fall, a loss of innocence, the end of American exceptionalism.  

How do we account for this? Going back to the original point, it's not about Hillary Clinton. She’s a Methodist do-gooder who developed political savvy and power through mastery of the material and the system--surely intimidating to the weak-minded males. The smart, hard-working girl who left behind the lackadaisical boys like Donald Trump. But Trump had inherited wealth and privilege, but his voters, especially the less educated white males that voted as a minority group (which they increasingly are), don't have this cushion. The class clown and bully just beat the smart, ambitious girl for class president--and that's about how seriously many voters thought about this election. Clinton had to have grave character faults--A liar! A crook! Benghazi! Emails!--because Trump voters needed justification for their license, their willingness to set aside tradition and civic decorum to vote for this monster from their damaged ids and egos. 

But why take this reckless risk? That’s the deeper question. I agree with those who see this vote like Brexit, only this choice will have more tangible, significant consequences. But the common thread is that the herd is spooked. What is making them so restless, so willing to trample the Establishment? Voters act as if they were young French radicals eager to "Épater la bourgeoisie!" But these people want the good life, the middle-class--if not fabulously wealthy--life. The establishment has made mistakes and has ignored the festering problems of working class America, but this willingness to risk the political order to express grievances is classic, but not rational. The cost of the balm will very soon exceed the temporary satisfaction. The hangover will become apparent soon. 

If you think that the media was unfair to Trump, you're wrong. The media created Trump—a classic television "celebrity.” He received a free ride early because he drove ratings higher by his antics. Only later--much later--did conservatives who take political principles seriously raise a hue and cry, and they work mostly in print. Only two general newspapers endorsed Trump, and many prominent conservative intellectuals spoke out against Trump. But who was heeding them? The degree of Establishment (elite) unity opposing Trump was impressive, but the voters were out to goose the elites, come what may.  

I’m headed back into the books, deeper into history and political thought. Arendt, Niebuhr, Lukacs, Lippmann, Ophuls--those who've lived and written about dark times. The American body politic is ill and needs serious and sustained attention. But first, we must know the disease and follow the lead of the those who have identified the symptoms and chronicled the outbreaks. 

In response to the Reply, I wrote the following: 

Despite the fact that I'm an older white male from small town Iowa, I have a hard time picturing myself the member of an oppressed minority. However, I do understand that much of middle America has been left behind for a variety of reasons, and that elites, Democrat & Republican, have been negligent in addressing these simmering problems. The Republicans, the worst offenders, but that's an apparent point. See, e.g., Kansas.  

Neither Krugman or I really care that whites (however defined) become a minority. Defining Americans by race or ethnicity is a habit, but not a good one. Nativism is an atavistic response by the ignorant (sorry, I can't sugar-coat this) to perceived loss of status. (Read Richard Hofstadter). It's true that too much immigration taxes the ability of society to incorporate new arrivals, and the U.S., is--perhaps more than any other nation--"a nation of immigrants". 

The tribalism that Trump plays upon is truncated, small-minded form of community. Christianity and Islam met their success--and for the Catholic Church, continues to have surprising success--because of their universality. The liberal tradition inherited and seeks to expand this outlook. The American experiment has extended the idea of universality with its "novus ordo seculorum", but it regresses at times. My only hope that the election of this demagogue, this man with all the markings of a would-be despot, doesn't ruin the noble experiment. 

And in response to another Reply that asked "Atavistic and ignorant are just insults. Please can you explain why nativism is bad?", I wrote: 

"Nativism is an atavistic response by the ignorant (sorry, I can't sugar-coat this) to perceived loss of status."  

No, these are not intended as insults, but as descriptions, although I realize that the connotation of each is negative. 
Nativism, in U.S. history & in U.S. political discourse is anti-immigrant sentiment. I suspect my Puritan ancestors may have opposed my Irish Catholic ancestors, but these tides come and go as assimilation occurs and economic circumstances vary. Nativism is not based on reasoned argument about the effects of immigration, but the perceived need for scapegoats based on social and religious prejudice. Immigrants are different, and different is hard for most folks to deal with. Nativism is atavistic because by definition atavism is appeal to a more primitive form of social allegiance, the tribe of native born Americans (excluding, of course, the first native born Americans (i.e., American Indians). While civil society is a must, tribalism is a regression on social and political organization and belief.  

Ignorant has a pejorative connotation, and I intended that, but the plain truth here (and I'm revealing my conservative bona fides here) is that most of the electorate is ignorant--lacks knowledge of and about--what goes on in the political economy. They feel those effects exquisitely, but they look for scapegoats rather than causes (of which there are many). Of course, this is true for all of us (I'm one who believes strongly in the reality of human finitude), but we are not all equally endowed to comprehend different aspects of the world. E.g., don't ask me to fix your car. Indeed, a pressing problem, one long known (centuries?) is that most of the voting public is abysmally ignorant about government and political affairs and are prone to believing the ridiculous. (Obama a Muslim or foreign-born, the most recent manifestations.) 

The U.S. has for for all of the 20th and 21st centuries placed limits on immigration, which have been difficult to enforce, mainly because the American southwest has always been marked by Hispanic culture and families. Culturally and ethnically, the Rio Grande has never been a real divider. The net flow of immigrants is in recent years turned back south, but it's a problem that the U.S. can (and has) lived with for decades. 

Andrew Sullivan Haunts Me

Last spring I posted a discussion of an article by veteran political commentator Andrew Sullivan about Donald Trump as a classic demagogue. The article was on target, citing Trump's features as a would-be despot based on insights from Plato to Eric Hoffer. After that article in New York Magazine, as far as I could tell, Sullivan went silent on the topic. Then, on November 3, he published this article, "America and the Abyss". I read through it quickly a couple of days or so after publication, and at that point it appeared that Clinton would win. I didn't ponder it deeply, feeling the anticipated relief of an iminent reprieve. 

Today, feeling stronger, I went back and began the autopsy. Like millions of Americans, I was stunned, confused, angry, and mortified that so many Americans would fall for this con man. In  reading Sullivan's article, I felt the trauma anew. He prayed that he was wrong, that this would not come to pass, that his worst fears were the rantings of a deluded man. If he is deluded, so am I. However, I believe that he--and many others like him--are Cassandras whose foresight goes unheeded, leading to the ruin of many. I hope that he and I and others like us are wrong, that Trump will not wreck the republic, that at worst he will only pursue policies that I find counter-productive, not unconstitutional, and that all of his decisions will be rational; that my troubled sight is a mere mirage that does not reveal a rough beast. But I don't believe that this leopard will change his spots. 

Sullivan opens his piece: 

The most frustrating aspect of the last 12 months has been the notion that we have been in a normal, if truly ugly, election cycle, with one extremely colorful and unpredictable figure leading the Republican Party in an otherwise conventional political struggle over policy. It has been clear for months now, it seems to me, that this is a delusion. A far more accurate account of the past year is that an openly proto-fascist cult leader has emerged to forge a popular movement that has taken over one of the major political parties, eroded central norms of democratic life, undermined American democratic institutions, and now stands on the brink of seizing power in Washington. 

After addressing the possiblity that his fears are overblown, Sullivan continues with this appraisal of Trump:

Donald Trump is the first candidate for president who seems to have little understanding of or reverence for constitutional democracy and presents himself as a future strongman.This begins with his character — if that word could possibly be ascribed to his disturbed, unstable, and uncontrollable psyche. He has revealed himself incapable of treating other people as anything but instruments to his will. He seems to have no close friends, because he can tolerate no equals. He never appears to laugh, because that would cede a recognition to another’s fleeting power over him. He treats his wives and his children as mere extensions of his power, and those who have resisted the patriarch have been exiled, humiliated, or bought off.  

Sullivan concludes his indictment of Trump's deficiencies and breaches of the mores of demcracy with this conclusion: 

We are told we cannot use the term fascist to describe this. I’m at a loss to find a more accurate alternative.

I, too, have avoided the "f-word", and I've stuck with "demagogue", an older, more generic term, but I don't know that my distinction holds up well up scrutiny. Sullivan also decries the duplicity of the Republican Party in attempting to ride this rough beast, a choice that has an all too errie precedent: 

[The Republican] party, like the conservative parties in Weimar Germany, has never seen fit to anathematize him, only seeking to exploit his followers in the vain and foolish delusion that they can control him in the future in ways they have not been able to in the past. 

This man has no friends, no confidants, only toadies and those with whom he can deal by domination. 

I differ with Sullivan's harsh judgment of the Democrats and the Clinton campaign in highlighting Clinton's vanilla competance. But he does raise a troubling issue: How can the Democrats succeed by "advancing a bloodless rationalism that has never been a match for the tribal national passions of the right."? This presents a deeply troubling ethical and practical dilemma. How can the rational, the prosaic, that gets things done, contend for the minds of those for whom simple and emotionally compelling answers  are most persuasive? Is humankind to remain a "2,000,000 year old man", as Jung (quoted by Ophuls) describes humanity? For now, that is certainly true. How to fight fire with fire when you know the fire will burn you? 

Sullivan references a precedent that I thought consoling, but he deflates my hopes with this comment: "Even the criminal Richard Nixon was eventually restrained and dispatched by a Republican Establishment that still knew how to run the country and had a loyalty to broader American institutions. Such an Establishment no longer exists. " The Republican Establishment now is a far cry from that of the 1970s,  when many, if not most, were genuinely shocked at Nixon's abuses of power. But I fear Sullivan is correct, the current Republican Establishment lacks the moral courage to stand up to this man. A few have, but far too few. 

Like Sullivan, I never believed that this could happen, that a large enough group (but not even a plurality of voters) could bring this type of politics to America. This marks the end of American exceptionalism. Sullivan writes: 

I have long had faith that some version of fascism cannot come to power in America. The events of the past year suggest deep reflection on that conviction. A political hurricane has arrived, as globalization has eroded the economic power of the white working classes, as the cultural left has overplayed its hand on social and racial issues, and as a catastrophic war and a financial crisis has robbed the elites of their credibility. As always in history, you still needed the spark, the unique actor who could deploy demagogic talent to drag an advanced country into violence and barbarism. In Trump, America found one for the ages. 

So I'll end the same way Sullivan ends his piece, even though Election Day has passed: "Do what you can."  

Quotes from Ophuls, Pt. 6

A day ago, I thought I'd write a post-election blog today. But I don't have the heart to write something now. So continuing the quotes from Ophuls, with their insights and provocations to deeper thought, must suffice.

[T]o use Marxist language to make a point contrary to Marx, the state, not the private capitalist, was the true expropriator, and increased national and state power was both the end and the means of this expropriation.This is one powerful reason, among many others, why the Marxist solution to the problems of Hobbesian political economy has failed so badly: by appealing to the original agent of expropriation for salvation, it puts the fox in charge of the chickens. Seizure of the means production by the state does not alter the fact of expropriation; rather, it  replaces one class of exploiters, the monopoly capitalis ts and their political lackeys, with a "new class"of appartchiks and commissars, such as the corrupt nomenclatura that ran the former Soviet Union. 111

The free market is therefore an ideological fiction. Not only did the market system have to be created by the government in the first place, but it can continue only to operate with continuous government intervention and support thereafter. However, because of the disproportionate power of corporations, the economic tail wags the political dog. The upshot is the worst of both worlds: a top-heavy and heavy-handed state bureaucracy layered over a distorted and somewhat corrupt market economy. 118

An especially pertinent point:

Ironically, the supposed "conservatives" of American politics, that complain the loudest about many of these changes, especially moral decay, are the most laissez-faire with respect to the economic enterprise and technological innovation that produce them. In return for higher levels of production, we have to pay the price in lost social cohesion and political autonomy, as the values of "efficiency" and "exchange" implicit in achieving greater productivity have invaded the sociopolitical realm. (The supposed "liberals" of American politics are just as deluded as the "conservatives": equally addicted to material progress, they also want to conquer nature with technology; but they foolishly believe that economic production as possible without economic power, that ordinary citizens can call the political and social tune when, in fact, it is economic and technological enterprise that pays the piper. In short, with the collaboration of all parties, the technological servant has become the political master.) 171

Quotes from Ophuls, Pt. 5

The quotes today from Requiem for Modern Politics all concern television. When reading these quotes, ask yourself: would Donald Trump be a candidate for president if television as a medium didn't exist?

Television is not an informative medium at all, but a dramatic one: it transmits images, not ideas; it evokes emotions, not thoughts; and it arouses passion, not deliberation. Indeed, at its worst, it is frankly inflammatory. 81
 

Reading is active: the reader translates printed words on a page into mental images, which takes imagination and thought. Viewing television is passive: the viewer absorbs ready-made images, which takes neither thought nor imagination. Because reading exercises the mind, whereas television entrances and even stupefies it, citizens no longer deliberate but instead respond to events with raw emotion. Television is theIf refore antithetical to the traditional understanding of politics and citizenship in the liberal tradition. 82
 

Finally, if the goal of civilization is greater consciousness, a position held in one form or another by virtually everyone from Plato to Freud, then television is indeed the enemy of civilization: to use Fruedian language, it fosters more id and less ego, more unconscious emotional reaction and less of the reality principle. In effect, television is psychoanalysis in reverse. 86 [Italics mine]

"If the goal of civilization is greater consciousness": Is this the goal of civilization? If not, what is? What creates "greater consciousness"? 

Quotes from Ophuls, Pt. 4

 William Ophus, sage

N.B. Please read the quotes for today and consider the circumstances of the current election season.

More participation, for example, is often put forward as the panacea for our political ills. But this is a singularly inappropriate remedy – unless those who participate do so in a responsible and public spirited fashion, which is less and less the case. 68

Our myth, of course, is that in partisan debate "the marketplace of ideas" will result in good ideas driving out bad. But the actuality seems to be that all marketplaces, including those including that of political discourse, are dominated by Gresham's law. So slogans and symbols have driven out reasoned discussion; and systemic mendacity has largely preempted reasonable argument. Public discourse in a hyper pluralistic polity therefore generates heat, not light. In fact, that is the real purpose, for the winners of the political struggle are those who build the hottest fires under the politicians feet. 69-70

In effect, politics is now a spectator sport: the moral and social vacuum left by the decay of Lockean society has been filled by an ersatz media community. 78

Quotes from Ophuls, Pt. 3

The drama of modern politics is a tragedy in which the hero, his supposed enlightenment being but another name for hubris, has become the author of his own impending doom. 54

The inexorable tendency of all forms of polity based on liberal premises, as Hobbes himself made explicit, is to compensate for the decline in civic virtue of the individual by increasing the political power of the state – the story of modern politics in a nutshell. 55

The so-called American revolution was, in fact, a rebellion, reluctantly undertaken only after much brooding and many efforts to obtain a redress of grievances. Thus it was fought not to overturn colonial society but to overthrow Royal authority. Nor did the American aristocracy ever abandon its cultural and philosophical allegiance to the mother country or to European civilization in general. In fact, the Founding Fathers exemplified (and were seen by their European contemporaries as exemplifying) the best of the Enlightenment civilization, combining philosophical learning and high principles derived from natural religion with practical reason and political skill. 58

Quotes from Ophuls, Pt. 2

Despotism may govern without faith, liberty cannot. Religion is much more necessary in the republic which they set forth in glowing colors than in the monarchy which they attack; it is more needed in democratic republics than in others. How is it possible that society should escape destruction if the moral ties not strengthened in proportion as the political tie is relaxed? And what can be done with the people who are their own masters if they are not submissive to the deity?

Alexi de Tocqueville 29

[M]arx, as much biblical prophet as political philosopher, brokes decisively with Hobbes and the Enlightenment mainstream by brining religion back into politics. The Marxist sovereign has the duty to . . . end the class domination and social oppression that has marred all previous history. When this overweaning objective is joined to the general enlightenment drive for social perfection, the result is an ideological crusade for an earthly paradise – in effect, a secular religion. By resurrecting the eschatological element that Hobbbes had tried to exclude from politics, Marx unleased a new era of quasireligous warfare, both withing and between states. . . . As a political doctrine, Marxism therefore combines the autoritariansim of Hobbes with the very worst aspect of premodern politics: the religious element that Hobbes tried so hard to get rid of. 42

The usual way of putting it is to say that women have escaped an anomalous and inferior status to take their rightful place in the modern world. But it would probably be more accurate to say that capitalism has finally succeeded incorporating the last major class to resist the blandishments of the market system. 52

Quotes from Ophuls, Pt. 1

All quotes are taken from Requiem for Modern Politics by William Ophuls. All quotes are his unless otherwise indicated. I'll post a few quotes each time with the intention that they will act as thought seeds. Is this guy nuts or is he on to something? 

The major advances in civilization are processes which all but wrecked the societies in which they occur.

Alfred North Whitehead (xv)

Of course, all political paradigms contain inherent contradictions and therefore generate problems that must be solved.The job of the statesman, as opposed to the mere politician, is to preserve the paradigm by dealing effectively with these problems. However, if political wisdom and skill are lacking or if the contradictions are very deep, small problems eventually coalesce into a large problemmatique that challenges the old paradigm. At this point, more reform, however well conceived, no longer suffices and may even make matters worse, so pressure builds up for a fundamental change in regime. (26)

The challenge is to find a way of going beyond a moral individualism without losing the individual along the way. (27)

Requiem for Modern Politics: The Tragedy of the Enlightenment & the Challenge of the Next Millennium by William Ophuls

When I took a course entitled “Introduction to Political Theory” as a freshman at the University of Iowa in 1972, the course reading  requirements included Plato’s Republic, Machiavelli’s The Prince, John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty, a selection of Karl Marx that included The Communist Manifesto and The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, and Theodore Roszak’s The Making of a Counter-Culture: Reflections on the Technocratic Society and Its Youthful Opposition. You may notice that one of the assigned authors was not like any of the others. Roszak’s book was only published in 1969, and he was not then (nor is he now) among the pantheon of great political thinkers. But the book was as important and influential on me as any of the others. As an ardent young Republican, this book introduced me to a way of thinking about politics and the contemporary world that I’d not been exposed to before (which was true of the other authors as well, but I at least had heard of them). Roszak discussed thinkers such as Herbert Marcuse, Paul Goodman, Norman O. Brown, and Lewis Mumford. What this book did was to critique the liberal consensus of American politics. And back then at least, this included both Republicans and Democrats. In later courses in contemporary political thought (with Lane Davis and John Nelson), the critiques of modernity, industrialism and technology, and liberalism (as a system of thought) became more distinct. I never wanted to throw out the liberal system (in this way I’m very much a conservative), but I appreciate these critiques and regard them (to some extent) as better templates than our current system. And now, with Requiem for Modern Politics: The Tragedy of the Enlightenment and the Challenge of the New Millennium by William Ophuls (1997) I’ve encountered a sustained and summary critique that captures all most everything that I’ve found suspect in social, economic, and political thought and action in the modern world.

For any reader of this blog, my affinity for this book should come as no surprise. In 2014 I had the good fortune to read both Plato’s Revenge and Immoderate Greatness, briefer, more recent books by Ophuls that focus on a vision of a new politics (Plato’s Revenge) and the inevitability of civilizational decline (Immoderate Greatness). Requiem follows his initial work, Ecology and the Politics of Scarcity Revisited (1992; earlier version 1977)(on my to-read list). Ecology focuses a great deal on ecological issues and less on the political and social theory, while Requiem is very much a work in political, social, and economic theory. (Can these three realms be separated? Not really.) In fact, Ophuls dispenses with most of contemporary social science, finding what he needs in the works of Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Jefferson, Tocqueville, Lippmann, and others among the pantheon of great political and historical thinkers. There is no mention of John Rawls in this book. His self-imposed limitation does not impede his argument—it strengthens it. However, he does make one decisive move that distinguishes his work from that of his august forbearers in this field: he bases his work in the science of ecology, something that he emphasizes in all of his works. And, in conjunction with ecology, he necessarily incorporates thermodynamics, complexity theory, and evolution in his explanation of how we humans exist in nature.

His work can be described as one long diatribe (not intending a negative connotation here) against liberalism, and all that has flowered from it: capitalism, industrialism, scientism, and excessive rationalism. The root of Ophuls’s account starts with Hobbes and continues, with modifications, to Locke, and then the tradition blossoms out into a wider array of thinkers. Put simply: liberal culture, which seeks to maximize the liberty of the individual and free him or her from the constraints of tradition in politics, religion, family relations, and economics, is a parasite that destroys its host. In politics and society, liberalism feeds off of family, civil society, and mythic traditions; capitalism feeds off of traditional values, and industrialism feeds off the of environment. In each of these realms, I write “feed,” but the relationship is parasitic, not symbiotic. All of these parasitic systems weaken and will eventually destroy the hosts upon which they depend. Now lest you think Ophuls a fire-breathing radical (I believe he is best described as a prophet), he is careful to base his arguments on traditional commentators and well-supported facts. Nothing that he writes here hasn’t been said before, but nowhere in a single work have I found the critique so thoroughly and convincingly expounded. (Although I must say that he mostly ignores Hegel, although he recognized Fukuyama’s riff on Hegel as a prominent alternative perspective.)

When reading this work, anyone other than the most committed intellectual radical will find something shocking in Ophuls’s contentions. Ophuls castigates the entire liberal tradition, which at least until populism—a profoundly anti-intellectual, non-rational movement that took over the Republican Party—was the basis of all American political assumptions. America is, and always has been the liberal society, par excellence. One can quibble about this observation or that, but Ophuls’s critique is radical in the most basic sense of the word: he strikes at the root. Ophuls doesn’t want to make the mistake of many radicals—destroying that which is valuable in the dominant liberal tradition. The recognition of the dignity and human rights of the individual are values that Ophuls recognizes and wants to preserve. (Ophuls gets down to the details of governance in his book Sane Polity: A Pattern Language (2012) (review forthcoming).

Some of the criticisms that Ophuls levels are not unique to liberalism or modernity. The creep of government, the liability to fall from youthful idealism to crotchety despotism—the Roman historians, Ibn Khaldun,  and Gibbon all described these conditions centuries ago. (And Francis Fukuyama has updated them in his most recent book, Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy (2014)). And not every fault is equal. An argument exists that the U.S. government is too big, too expensive, and too intrusive, but who wants to surrender the feed bag? The military, science, the middle class, the poor (who receive the smallest piece of the pie)? And is the intrusion, at least in economic affairs, so great? Some intervention is needed to protect consumers from corporations and to preserve the integrity and viability of markets. So while these are real concerns, they don’t rise to the level of his more fundamental critiques.

Ophuls has performed a great service with this book: he has criticized some of the key assumptions of our most cherished ideas; he has questioned the very nature of our collective enterprise, and he has done so without rancor and with a sincere care for the values worth preserving and further cultivating. This work is a profoundly mature and thoughtful work. The work is fundamental, and he describes it at the beginning:

I envision a politics of consciousness deeply rooted in a renewed erotic connection to nature and to the mysterious and sacred realm out of which both man and nature arise. But destruction is the precondition of creation. We must therefore begin by examining modernity on its funeral pyre, for it is from the ashes of the old order that the phoenix of the new will rise. (xv)

In the coming days, I’ll post some quotes from Ophuls, hoping to plant seeds of thought in interest readers.