I had originally planned this as a two-part series concluding yesterday, but it struck me mid-morning yesterday that the series needs a conclusion. Wednesday we explored whether conservatives really believe in democracy, and while some do not I believe most do. Yesterday we looked at the three-legged stool of the conservative movement, and how each leg looks back to a different "golden age" for its vision of America. I suggested yesterday that the differences in those visions outweighed their commonalities, but today we'll explore a key point they share, and one that distinguishes conservatism from progressivism.
Oh, and please wait til dawn to go outside, because your intrepid Kossologist looked at the stars for you, and ... you'd probably rather not see them for yourself.
More below the fold....
Conservatism - The Rubble and the Rabble, Part III
This was planned as a two-day series on where the conservative movement stands today. It was spurred by my listening to three conservatives on Bill Maher's Real Time last week, and a sense that conservatism is a movement that no longer knows what it believes. We first explored whether conservatives really believe in democracy, or whether they simply believe in their right to rule regardless of elections. Yesterday we looked at the "three-legged stool" of the conservative movement: economic libertarianism, nationalistic militarism, and religious fundamentalism. I suggested that each "leg" looked to a different "golden age" as its vision for America, and that their differences outweighed their commonalities.
Today we'll conclude the series by looking at those commonalities, including one key vision that I believe distinguishes conservatism from progressivism. But first, something I'd intended to include yesterday:
All three conservative "golden ages" predate Rosa Parks.
Even some conservatives have admitted that the modern conservative movement was built on subtle (or not at all subtle) appeals to racism and sexism. Whether a given "leg" is trying to turn the clock back to the early 19th century (economic libertarianism), the early 20th century (religious fundamentalism), or World War II (nationalistic militarism), all of those "golden ages" predate the civil rights and women's rights movements. That made conservatism attractive to a lot of people, many of whom did not especially want aristocracy, theocracy, or militarism. The conservative movement offered them the promise of a return to a time when white males - whatever their social standing - were at least standing higher than women and people of color.
Indeed, I dare say many rank and file conservatives don't want to go all the way back to any of those "golden ages." Turning the clock back to 1950 or so would do. Some of that appeal has to do with the anomalous economic conditions that enabled the incredible post-war boom: the U.S. accounted for almost 50% of world GDP because other industrial economies lay in ruins; the U.S. held over 90% of the world's gold, received from our allies in payment for munitions and materiel during the war, with the dollar and other key world currencies on the gold standard; and the U.S. was still the world's largest oil exporter. For the ordinary white male working in America, that was indeed a "golden age."
By 1970 all of those conditions had changed or were about to change. Other industrial economies had rebuilt from World War II and were again emerging as competitors. The costs of the Vietnam War had drained U.S. gold reserves to a point that President Nixon was about to replace the gold standard with the petrodollar monopoly. And the U.S. was about to hit domestic peak oil, after which we became a net oil importer. Median family incomes have barely kept pace with inflation since.
But most of us weren't told about those extrinsic conditions, and many Americans saw different reasons for that stagnation. Whether described as "cultural decay" or simply as white males having to compete for jobs and education with women and people of color, the social changes of the 1960s were widely perceived as the root cause of the malaise. Turn the clock back to a time before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Birmingham bus, many reasoned, and we'd be back to the boom times.
So it should come as no surprise that the ascendancy of the conservative movement began in Philadelphia, Mississippi - where three civil rights workers had been murdered in 1964 - with Ronald Reagan's first campaign speech and a ringing endorsement of "states' rights." The Southern Strategy begun by the Nixon campaign became a central element of the conservative movement: subtly (or not at all subtly) promise white males that if they vote for Republicans, the calendar will go back to 1950 and the world will be fine.
And the disparate and conflicting policies of economic libertarianism, religious fundamentalism, and nationalistic militarism could seem to hold together - and win elections with the glue of racism and sexism - because all three visions share a common element:
Life is an eternal, live-or-die conflict with an enemy.
All three visions see the world as eternal conflict, and require the viewer to find and focus on an enemy. The three visions might sometimes name the same enemy, but they come at it from different directions.
Nationalistic militarism looks for a foreign aggressor. They first had Adolf Hitler, then Josef Stalin and his successors. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989, militarists went looking for another enemy, and found one in radical Islam. Saddam Hussein, or Osama bin Laden, no wait, it really was Saddam Hussein, or maybe Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - oh heck, all of Them - was the new Hitler. In case the connection might be lost, conservatives seized on a new word: Islamofacism.
Religious fundamentalism looks for "evil-doers," either abroad - Bush often used that term to describe radical Islam - or here at home. The culture war pits Christians against feminists, LGBTs, secularists, Hollywood, etc. in a war for American souls. If government fails to act as a purifying agent of spiritual renewal, the doctrine of propitiation warns that a vengeful God will use a natural disaster, or a terrorist act, or an economic collapse to smite us all.
With economic libertarianism - which is at its core a continuation of Social Darwinism - the enemy is weakness itself. To be poor is to be deserving of one's own destruction, as in laissez faire capitalism wealth is both its own source and its own justification. Competition is a sacrament, and the market recognizes only predators and prey. The welfare debates of the 1980-90s were filled with claims of "coddling the poor," saying this merely perpetuated poverty because it gave them no "incentive" to get out and work. The unstated premise: a society which cares for its weak only encourages weakness. If America is to be a strong people, we must let only the strong survive.
A clear distinction.
And this offers the clearest distinction between conservatism and what I see as progressivism. For at its core, progressivism sees our lives as a cooperative effort, where we seek to enlist allies. We engage in debate because we believe the best ideas emerge from reasoned discourse, and we see open hostility as the least useful way to resolve problems. While we sometimes have no other option, we recognize that win-or-die conflict is the most dangerous, most expensive, and most harmful alternative. Even when you win, the victories are often Pyrrhic and lingering resentments often toxic.
We are a social species whose survival rested - and still rests - on our ability to communicate and cooperate, to solve together those problems we could not solve as individuals. Our species' most implacable enemy is our impulse to find and focus on an enemy, to abandon the complexities of cooperation in favor of the simplicity of conflict. That impulse brings out our basest, most primal instincts: us-or-them, kill-or-die.
That is a distinction we progressives must remember as we search for solutions to the many challenges we face as a nation. However much some conservatives may wish to wage political warfare, we dare not give in to that temptation. For if we do, we become what they want us to be: not fellow Americans but enemies to be destroyed.
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And speaking of enemies, when did the stars decide to be so petty?
Aries - Your sign is the ram, but you don't have hooves. Time to scrub between those toes.
Taurus - You have been exceptionally nice lately. Stop making us look bad.
Gemini - The world is your oyster. Think of us as the annoying grits of sand that you turn into pearls.
Cancer - It's almost tax time. The one receipt you really need fell into that crack behind the file drawer.
Leo - You are always kind to animals, so think of us as two-legged animals with attitudes.
Virgo - Yes, we get it. You finished your taxes in January because you kept everything organized. Don't rub it in.
Libra - Knocking on wood scares away ghosts. Knocking on ghosts scares away furniture.
Scorpio - Three words should be your guide: "No audit, please."
Sagittarius - The sun is finally shining on your life. But we hid your sunglasses.
Capricorn - Go out and howl at the moon. But please shave your palms and trim your claws before dawn.
Aquarius - Everything is coming up roses. And you planted tomatoes.
Pisces - Don't forget whatever that was.
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Happy Friday!