Reading the Blogverse (or Blogosphere) this morning, I was thinking about what it is that makes me have such a hard time with sentiments like this one, from Nathan Newman (Ill try and get to the AIDS issue soon )
As Leo knows, unlike some on the left, I never said other tragedies, even those with American culpability, excused or even explained the attack in any way. In the weeks after 911, I was actually encouraged that the pain suffered by Americans seemed to be leading to a broader focus and sympathy for others suffering poverty and violence around the world– symbolized by the “why do they hate us” question, but looking even deeper in many commentaries.
Then my ex- emailed me a chain letter (she does that ) talking about the whole Toby Keith flap (he wrote the Angry American song, and was disinvited from an ABC televison celebration on the 4th of July):
Both KZLA and Keith have disappointed me with the song “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue.”
I have enjoyed many of the patriotic songs that have come about or come into popularity after September 11. Alan Jackson’s “Where Were You” never fails to make me cry with it’s message of love being our greatest weapon and I appreciate how much Aaron Tippin appreciates his country in “Where the Stars and Stripes and the Eagle Flies.” Keith’s new song, however, is everything that is despised by the people who hate country: close-minded, narrow, and injected with far too much testosterone.
Keith is living in a world of black and white where we are right and they are wrong, but it is gray that is the color of compassion. It is the color of knowing that killing 5,000 innocent Americans to make your point is wrong, even while understanding the harm our American way of life and foreign policy has done to the “have nots” of the world. I can’t say that I think we should turn the other cheek to the attacks, but I also cannot say that I think our response has been a valid one. There is no easy answer in a gray world, but Toby Keith seems to think there is. He is not just advocating war, he is celebrating it!
And a light went on in my head
Were talking the Big Rematch. Rousseau v. Hobbes, in a cage match, with the heart of America as a prize.
As I remember it (all the books are, of course in boxes) Rousseau first argued that we all lived, naturally, peacefully, and in harmony with our own inner nature and that of the world. Then society, property, and science divided us. As I recall he later tempered this in The Social Contract; but his basic philosophical thrust was that realizing our inner natures was the highest human goal.
Hobbes, on the other hand, is famous for his quote that life in the state of nature was solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. And that it was only through the imposition of social control, first in the form of feudal or tribal society and then in the form of national society that he considered to be the Leviathan, that we could lead our lives.
In one worldview, people are fundamentally good, and it is only through the wrong actions of governments and societies that they are led to do wrong.
In the other, people are fundamentally selfish and violent, and it is only through the restraint imposed by society that they can live together.
I want really badly to believe in one argument
but in reality, I know I believe the other.
I aspire to Fitzgeralds position; of being able to contain two contradictory ideas at the same time
I’ll let you know if I get there.
Date: 07/08/2002 00:00:00 AM
Remember that Rousseau raised his own kids as “noble savages” and they turned out to be seriously screwed up.
Date: 07/08/2002 00:00:00 AM
I think Steve is onto something, though; the relationship is between the individual, the society in which they live, and government.Clearly, the ‘unspoken’ norms of informal society are being replaced by the formal structures of bureaucratic/legal government.But we keep forgetting that the relationship isn’t just between the individual and government.A.L.Edit- corrected spelling…doooh!!
Date: 07/07/2002 00:00:00 AM
Nathan, maybe your comments on society reveal a basic difference between “liberals” and “conservatives.” Every conservative of my acquaintance views society positively, and is less enthusiastic about government. Most liberals, on the other hand, do appear to treat society and government interchangeably, as nothing more than different labels for the same concept.I like “capitalism.” At heart it’s built on nothing more than economic freedom and property rights. It means that the house I live in, that I busted my hump for over many years, belongs to me. What you call capitalism is nothing more than the excesses of human greed. Communists didn’t seem to make any leeway in eliminating that, despite their abolition of capitalism. Rather, they appear to have concentrated it in the hands of a political class.
Date: 07/07/2002 00:00:00 AM
Unfortunately, Rousseau has won the hearts and minds of American liberals (by which I mean leftists). The whole “noble savage,” anti modernity, Luddite proclivities of the Left’s spokesmen has made simplicity of thought indistinguishable from stupidity, and to avoid making a value judgement between the two has elevated stupidity to a virtue.I would be drawn towards the Libertarians if I did not consider them utopians. Hell, I’d favor anarchy if I believed we could all trust each other unconditionally. But there are some nasty SOBs out there, and preaching tolerance and charity towards them is best left until we exterminate the most virulent and see if the waverers among them pause. Chamberlain thought Hitler was a man he could do business with, and that Churchill represented a far greater threat to peace. FDR thought he had a special relationship with Stalin that could keep the Soviets’ worst impulses in check. After Desert Storm there were still plenty of people who said “What a shame we attacked, now we’ll never know if sanctions would have worked” – many of them are the same ones today telling us that sanctions are killing a zillion Iraqi babies a week.On the other hand, as repugnant as I find the heirs of Rousseau, Hobbes gives me the creeps as well. I’m not buying into a massive authoritarian state as mankind’s best hope. Wishful thinking maybe, but I still like to think that giving us the maximun practical amount of freedom, and restricting government intrusions into public and private life to the minimun required to provide basic safeguards is the best way to let people make the most of their lives.Even folks with whom I strongly disagree probably accept my last statement. Definitions of my “maximum freedom” and “minimum safeguards” are where the disagreements lie. It’s certain that many Europeans have different definitions from I, for example.
Date: 07/07/2002 00:00:00 AM
Don’t be so sure. I’ve always felt that the genius of the Founders was their ability to cage Rousseau’s optimism in a structure Hobbes would have been proud of…
Date: 07/07/2002 00:00:00 AM
Rousseau won. His concept of individual self-determination and self-realization carries the day.The whole ’60s counter-culture thing was Rousseauian, and that concept has become all of ours, including me, world view.D’Souza covers the topic quite well in “What’s So Great About America.”
Date: 07/07/2002 00:00:00 AM
I like Rousseau but, while he may occasionally talk about the noble savage, I don’t buy that people are so wonderful in the abstract. Society is where people find their better selves in many cases. In fact, it is modern libertarian conservatives who think society can be profitably reduced to its individual level and lose nothing of value. It was Thatcher who famously said there was no such thing as society, only individuals. It is society that makes people think beyond their family and tribal survival to the sympathy that would make us deal with the social conditions leading to mass death in Africa. I am actually pretty Hobbesian in my basic viewpoint on the abscence of government– I like nice organized unions, organized welfare states, and all sorts of regulation to keep the capitalist war of all against all in check.