We've all been either amused or outraged by the rightwing evocation of latte sipping, sushi-eating, volvo-driving, New York Times reading, etc. , etc. and etc. progressives. It's almost surreal to listen to the defenders of the rich and connected attempt to tar those concerned about inequality of opportunity, health care, climate change, or what have you, with accusations of smug condescension toward the masses. It's a classic technique; deflect attention from the content of your opponents argument by criticizing his demeanor or his - usually speculative - motivation. The latest example of a de facto conservative aristo damning progressives as members of a coddled elite, self-righteously patronizing their social inferiors, can be found in a recent column by George Will on the lessons about the much maligned modern welfare state that he thinks we should take from Downton Abbey.
I admit that I enjoy the looking at the trappings of the the aristocratic lifestyle of the inhabitants of the Abbey. Nevertheless, the whitewashed picture of class relations in the early 20th century that is put forward, revolving as it does around a sentimental veneration of the upper classes, is, to put it mildly, annoying. When the hard realities of working class life in Great Britain during this period are allowed to intrude, it is only in the form of vignettes that are quickly resolved, often through the agency of the manor house aristocracy. But the fact that the Crawleys, to give one example, paid for their cook, Mrs. Patmore, to buy eyeglasses, simply obscures the fact that such an act would not necessarily have been the norm, and Mrs. Patmore's fear that if her vision failed to the extent that she could not continue to perform her duties, she would be put out of her position with no way to survive in a society with little or no safety net, reflects a reality that was all too common at the time, especially for women.
The depiction of the tidy, mutually rewarding relationships between the folks below and above the stairs in the Abbey reflects a time-honored refrain that has often been evoked in defense of the rigid British class system - a fact that has not been lost on some conservatives who, to Will's chagrin, have dared to approve. He quotes academic Peter Augustine Lawler who, according to Will sees "the Abbey as a welfare state conservatives can revere":
Everyone — aristocrat or servant — knows his place, his relational responsibilities. . . . The characters aren’t that burdened by the modern individualistic freedom of figuring out one’s place in the world. . . . Many of the customs that seem pointlessly expensive and time consuming, such as dressing for every dinner, are employment programs for worthy servants given secure, dignified places in a world where most ordinary people struggle. . . . The nobility of living in service to a lord. . . . What aristocracy offers us at its best is a proud but measured acceptance of the unchangeable relationship between privileges and responsibilities in the service of those whom we know and love.”
Will's response to this apologia for long-ago mores, when, as Archie and Edith Bunker
sing, we "didn't need no welfare state ... you knew you you were then," almost sounds like the noises libeals make. He exclaims that "to be 'given' a 'secure' place amid 'unchangeable' relationships is not dignified, it is servitude." Almost makes you think that perhaps Will that noticed who it is who's doing all the drudge work in the Abbey while being made to feel lucky to be able to shine master's shoes and do up milady's buttons - after all, it's that or the workhouse. Almost, but not quite. The hint of liberal sympathies quickly fades as Will proceeds to articulate the lesson he's learned from Downton Abbey:
... if progressivism prevails, the United States will be Downton Abbey: Upstairs, the administrators of the regulatory state will, with a feudal sense of noblesse oblige, assume responsibility for the lower orders downstairs, gently protecting them from “substandard” health-insurance policies, school choice, gun ownership, large sodas and other decisions that experts consider naughty or calamitous.
Will seems oblivious to the fact that it was the
introduction of the welfare state in Great Britain during the period between 1906 - 1950 that permitted those who would otherwise be condemned to life scrubbing floors below stairs
to escape the risky paternalism of the manor house. Nor were they escaping from one set of paternalistic overlords to another. The modern welfare state was not (and is not), conservatives to the contrary, the creature of a benevolent government of self-regarding elites, but rather a government that is answerable to the people it serves. Its development depended on the the self-assertion of the working and middle classes, and was accompanied by the parallel development of such mechanisms of mass expression as labor unions and by the extension of the franchise to those previously excluded. Economic self-determination is far more multi-faceted than the conservative emphasis on the dignity and rewards of work can begin to suggest.
Will's confusion about the nature of aristocratic paternalism and progressivism stems from a disorder common to conservatives, a tendency to view economic life and social relations through an extremely narrow moral filter that equates wealth with virtue and poverty with moral failure. It is the failure to appreciate the complexity of our economic relations and an exclusive focus on that one questionable moral precept that leads Republicans in the U.S. today to reduce efforts to confront the problems of poverty to the issue of "moral hazard." It is the heart of the argument that looks at inner city misery and sees only the moral culpability of the ravaged victims. And it is also the root of the self-righteous self-regard that allows a wealthy nitwit like Tom Perkins to suggest that because he's managed to accumulate more taxable wealth than others, he deserves he deserves more say in government.
The disgust that Will expresses at the depiction of the genteel paternalism by which the writers of Downton Abbey seek to make Edwardian social and economic inequality more acceptable to modern television viewers, is akin to the Randian revulsion wth the idea that a reciprocal bond might exist between the haves and the have-nots, no matter how tenuous. His belief that the modern welfare state mirrors the old-fashioned ideal of paternalistic Edwardian manor house society, an ideal uncodified and consequently rarely realized, is simply an extension of his discomfort with the conception of legally enshrined social obligation that is the foundation of such a state.