Your Humble Blogger has, as my Gentle Readers will be aware, recently spent a good deal of time attempting to understand the conservative mindset. I don't really know how well I succeeded, but I do feel I understand it a lot better than I did before. Fundamentally, the point is (a) simply to understand people, which is always a Good Thing, and (b) to guard myself against falling into the trap of arguing against Straw Men.
Dennis Prager, on the other hand, evidently loves to argue against Straw Men. And that's interesting, too, as the Straw Men he constructs are his ideas of what I believe. If they aren't what I believe (and they are not), that's an interesting gap right there. Of course, Mr. Prager might not be honestly protraying his understanding, but at least he is presenting Straw Men he expects his listeners to find substantial, and even that difference, between what I believe and what he wants his listeners to thing I believe, is interesting.
Anyway, I'm going to do a close reading of his most recent Townhall column; he lists "the major differences that are tearing America apart" with the view of both the Left and the Right. I will, by the way, be assuming that he more or less accurately portrays the view of the Right. I will be quoting more from the original source than I really feel comfortable doing under the Fair Use exemptions, so please, if you are going to read the rest of this, follow the above link and read the original. Then not only can Your Humble Blogger feel better about his position vis a vis the laws governing intellectual property, but you can correct me if I smash the context too much.
Church and State: "The Left believes in removing America's Judeo-Christian identity..." I, for one, have no problem with the Hindus, Atheists, or Animalists in this country, and feel that they have as strong a claim on its identity as I do. So to that extent, he's right. On the other hand, I recognize that the Christian cultural roots are so deep and so firmly embedded into the society that nothing is ever likely to uproot them. I do not feel, as he seems to think I would, that a strict separation of Church and State—far stricter than the one we have now—would uproot our society's Christianity, nor would I want it to (most days).
"The Right believes that destroying these [Christian] symbols and this identity is tantamount to destroying America." Oh, come on. America was culturally Christian before the Pledge of Allegiance even existed, and well before it contained the religious reference. Tantamount to destroying America indeed. Hah!
America in the World: "The Left regards America as morally inferior to many European societies ... and it does not believe that there are distinctive American values worth preserving." Hm. I think that this is one of those places where the Left is in wide disagreement. I do not think that American society is morally inferior to that of, say, France, but I find the whole comparison extremely difficult to make. I do think that there are distinctive American values worth preserving, and among those are democracy, the safeguarding of civil rights, and a sort of Yankee can-do-it-ism that often expresses itself in technological advances. I do find many aspects of American culture troublesome from a moral and ethical standpoint, but I expect I would find that true of Utopia as well. I'm that way.
"The Right regards America as the last best hope for humanity... " Well, and despite everything, so do I, in a lot of ways. Of course, I recognize that the feeling is irrational, and that good ideas (and foodstuffs) are as likely to come from South America as anywhere else, but I can't help feeling that the richest society in history has to be the best hope for the world.
The worst threat:"The Left believes that impersonal companies, multinational and otherwise, with their insatiable drive for profits, have a profoundly destructive effect on the country." I agree with this entirely.
"The Right believes that the legal system, particularly trial lawyers, lawsuits and judges who make laws, is the greater threat to American society." If that is what the Right believes, they are welcome to believe it.
Diversity:The Left believes multiculturalism should be the ideal for American schools and for government policy." Yep. Of course, I have trouble defining multiculturalism to my satisfaction, but I do think that America is better when it encompasses and celebrates both cultural differences and overlaps than when it suppresses the differences in favor of the overlaps.
"The Right believes that the Americanization of all its citizens is indispensable to the survival of the United States." And welcome to that belief, as I want none of it. Unless by Americanization Mr. Prager means something like Due Process of Law, etc., but I don't think he does.
The Boy Scouts:"The Left believes that the Boy Scouts as currently constituted pose a moral threat to society." Er, when I think about the Boy Scouts (which I rarely do), I think of them as being largely a force for good, but having the potential for being more of a force for good than they currently are. There is a nasty exclusiveness to the entire endeavor, of which the furor over gay scoutmasters (to which I assume Mr. Prager refers) is only one example.
"The Right believes the Boy Scouts continue to be one of the greatest moral institutions in the country." Ok, I'm not going to rank them, but I suspect I would have a hard time thinking of twenty-five better moral institutions. And if I did rank them, I'd undoubtedly still think that the top five moral institutions could improve their moral standing as well.
The whole liberty/equality thing: "The Left believes in equality more than in liberty. ... For example, the Left believes that for the equality's sake, men's clubs must accept women." Well, I do believe in equality before the law, and I don't think that liberty is an acceptable reason for discriminatory practice. On the other hand, I draw a distinction between fundamental liberties and secondary ones, often at great length. I don't think that the liberty to exclude women from a forum where business deals are being made is all that fundamental, but I do think that the freedom of association is fundamental. In other words, I'm conflicted about this issue, and would want to view the cases individually.
"The Right believes that for liberty's sake, associations must be free to choose their own members." You know, I find this argument appealing, too. Of course, associations are also free to avoid exclusion, and I am free to find distasteful any association whose main purpose is exclusionary.
Condoms: "The Left believes that when schools give out condoms to teenagers, they are promoting safe sex." Yes, I do.
"The Right believes that when schools give out condoms, they are promoting more sex." Well, and there's a good deal of truth to that, too. Of course, I am not particularly bothered by 17-year-olds or even 16-year-olds having protected sex; I think it’s a short-sighted choice that is more on the level of smoking than drunk-driving. Unprotected sex, for a 16-year-old, is a ghastly error, and in this case I am willing to accept the trade-off.
Crime: "The Left believes that poverty, racism and psychopathology cause violent crime." Cause? No, I don't believe that they cause crime. I believe that they contribute to it, in much the same way that horseshit contributes to roses. The criminal impulse may flower anywhere, but we sure fertilize it.
"The Right believes a lack of self-control, lack of religious practice and lack of good values are the primary causes of violent crime." Hm. Even if I were to accept these, what are the primary causes of a lack of self-control, lack of religious practice and lack of good values? I would say that racism and psychopathology, where they exist, are incompatible with religious practice and good values, and detrimental to self-control. Poverty is, in my opinion, detrimental to self-control, and in our current society is often associated with conditions detrimental to religious practice and good values.
War: "The Left believes that 'war is not the answer.'" Much of it does, depending on the question. Some of the left thought that war was the answer in, for instance, Central Europe, or Afghanistan, but not in Iraq. Some of the left still believes that worldwide proletarian revolution is the answer to all questions. And, of course, many believe that war is never the most perfect solution.
"The Right believes that war is often the only answer to governmental evil." Often? Again, if that's the belief of the right, they are welcome to it.
Redintegro Iraq,
-Vardibidian.
Boy, if that column is representative of Mr. Prager’s intellectual honesty, I don’t think I’d trust him with my goods . . .
But I do have to ask a couple of things. First, why “last, best hope”? Is part of sharing this supposed American Judeo-Christianity the acceptance of a millenarian belief that America is as good as the world is going to get before the world ends? It’s one thing to say that America is the world’s best hope, but “last best”?
Second, why so much emphasis on the danger that something will destroy America? We’re a society 250 million strong: wealthy, pious, educated, and possessed of the most potent military in the history of the world. And altering the Pledge of Allegiance is tantamount to destroying America?
Investment in this kind of millenarian and alarmist rhetoric seems to me the hardest part of The Right, as Prager presents it, to fathom.
Well, but isn’t the protection of our IVSRs exactly what Conservatism is all about? The Conservative mindset must by its nature focus on threats to our IVSRs, and the necessity for Conserving them.
Thanks,
-V.
Well, true, and I don’t fault conservatives for seeking to conserve. What puzzles (and repels) me is the lack of any judiciousness or historical perspective in considering the magnitude of a threat to IVSRs.
Conservatives, according to Rossiter, ought to attend to history. America stood for over a century without any Pledge of Allegiance, and it managed to win two World Wars without the presence of the phrase “under God” in the Pledge, so I fail to see how the addition or removal of those words is tantamount to destroying America.
Of course, all this is mostly evidence that Prager writes like a right-wing political hack, not as a thinker of any depth or stature.
the code word for this is “rome.” since 9/11 righties have taken to describing everything they like about the world as “rome” – sometimes in quotes – and everything they dislike as a threat to “rome.” they’re really into the “war of civilizations” thing and they gas their jets with fears of cultural apocalypse. “last best hope for humanity” is playing to that crowd.
lesseeeeeee…
church and state, uh, as quoted, that there are so many people who think that we need a christian government or satan will take over is all the evidence you need to show me to win my support for continued separation. without doubt religious fervor has a terrible effect on public affairs.
america in the world: honestly, as much as i agree with your exploration, i think his description fits leftists in the united states, barely. the demonizing of socialists in the united states, that campaign’s impact on things like public health, education, worker safety, nearly everything… a person would have to be pretty-darn-dense to not notice that ordinary people in western europe, canada, and japan are living well and the bottom is much less drastic than it can be here. the writer is conflating domestic policy concerns and foreign policy concerns very craftily.
it’s such a huge area to cover, things like slavery and colonialism, racism and xenophobia, comparisons of government goals and forms. they, in all the combinations we keep dreaming up, are our moral comparison, nobody in the east gets our moral goat like western europe.
the worst threat: righties are never willing to face the thing that i think totally sinks their screaming arguments against civil litigation, in favor of corporate power – that most of those huge, costly suits are brought by one company against another, and that in spite of how much they hate judges making law, the status of corporations as individuals is itself a legal precedent.
diversity: here we have the belief that american society is what it was yesterday or last week or two years ago, in spite of evidence that the changes brought by immigrants and by attending to all our many ways of living have made us nearly unbeatable in the business sphere. we are the most flexible player on the field and it has so paid off.
boy scouts: easy to love, easy to hate, little brown uniforms that make me wince. public school is a much better preparation for reality but it’s too dirty for ideologues huh.
liberty and equality: concentrate on flexibility. where liberty means people can choose more freely, it’s good. where equality means people can choose more freely, it’s good. where ideals of either are used to dominate or repress, they suck. control freaks are not healthy.
condoms: hormones promote sex. that’s why we’re all here, we want to fuck, we like it. it dominates our existence. i’m sick of righties trying to rewrite nature, failing, and the rest of us paying the public health bill, the environmental bill, whatever. it’s pretty convenient to label every accident as a moral failing, as though a 12-year-old could ever be considered negligent in the adult sense. sex ed programs are supposedly lax but i see abstinence letting a lot more adults off the moral hook.
crime: the combination of nature and nurture here seems plain to me which means i’m wrong, but, i’ll say it anyway. nature says, fight for what you need. nurture says, ask for what you need. the american nature/nurture blend: “go ahead and ask! nobody has to listen to you.” now somebody tell me what results to expect from that.
war: the bumper sticker the righties have been buying says, “except for fascism, communism, and slavery, WAR DOESN’T SOLVE ANYTHING.” sorry guys, armies beat armies, but political and economic problems are solved elsewhere. and what’s with this eagerness to arm the government, or to give the government the right to define good and evil? oh never mind.
about crime again, i was brushing my teeth and thought about need and asking and such and something about the bands of color in the toothpaste…
american nurturing:
ask for what you need
(you may not get it)
(people may not listen to you)
if at first you don’t get it, ask again
(shame on you for not getting it)
(shame on you for having to ask)
third try: time to join a gang
american nurturing
ask for what you need
(you may not get it)
(people may not listen to you)
second try, ask again
(shame on you for not getting it)
(shame on you for having to ask)
time to join a gang
(i find you strangely attractive)
(you’ll need a good lawyer)
The Right regards America as the last best hope for humanity
Piffle. Everyone knows that our “last best hope” was (or will be) the Babylon project. Even Republican former candidates for the House of Representatives know that.
Just in case anyone didn’t know where the original was from: “We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best, hope of earth.” —Abraham Lincoln, annual message to Congress, Dec. 1, 1862. So I think Prager is simply calling on echoes of Lincoln to lend credence to what he’s saying. One could dig deeper and suggest that he’s saying something about a world divided against itself, or that anti-American forces are like the rebel South, but I doubt he intended that. I’m guessing it’s just a fixed phrase, with no deeper intent.
Thanks, Jed, for giving us the original. Given the context in which Lincoln was speaking, I think his use of the phrase much more appropriate: the United States were the home of the experiment of representative government, untried, or tried only briefly, elsewhere. If it failed here, its promise for all might be irretrievably lost. The American experiment has now succeeded to the point where it seems to me that the United States can no longer reasonably claim “last, best hope” status. Representative government has become the international standard.
Another query on history: is the ideological divide in this country any deeper now than it has been at many points in the last century? If this is tantamount to civil war, hasn’t this war been going on for a long time? It’s gone on for all my adult life, anyway, and neither the 50s nor the 60s look like they were eras of good feelings, nor the 30s . . .
OK, here we go.
David, I like your poem, and I think you are spot on about Rome. I suppose I should emphasize that I have no idea whether Mr. Prager really believes this crap, but that there is clearly money to be made by selling it, and the conservatives do seem to like selling the story of the Fall of Rome.
Jed: Thanks for the reference, which I should have known. I suspect that Mr. Prager was referring only indirectly to Lincoln, and more directly to Pres. Reagan’s second inaugural, but even Lincoln was not loath to suggest that unless he should be followed so that “government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.” Even if we grant that the threat was greater then than now, it’s still hyberbole. I’m inclined to give Mr. Prager a break on the use of “last, best hope.”
Chris: I don’t have any idea whether the ideological divide in our country is in fact deeper than at any time in the last century. I suspect that far more people, on both sides or on every side, either do not really believe in democracy as such, or do not believe that our elections are free and fair, and that therefore the number of people who view a large number of our elected officials as illegitimate is higher now than at any point in the last century. I can’t really sustain that argument without doing a lot more work than I am currently willing to do, though.
Redintegro Iraq,
-Vardibidian.
One thing you haven’t highlighted is Prager’s conflation of the “right” with that subbranch of Christianity: American fundamentalism.
This is as valid as his sweeping statements ingathering all “Left” into a single set of viewpoints & agendas.
Some interesting room for discussion out there: