Along with Delumeau's sprawling history of the idea of sin, I am also reading Simon Schama's equally ambitious Citizens (must be a French phase; hope it doesn't last too long). One of Schama's arguments is that the Revolution developed, in part, because of a sense of crisis over the nation's finances. Various royal ministers during the reign of Louis XVI attempted to deal with national debt without any consistency; indeed, subsequent ministerial cohorts would repudiate the policies of their predecessors. By the time the Estates-General was called, there was a sense of crisis among the people that was not necessarily shared by various crown ministers. The disjunction seemed to be that the King's ministers, regardless of policy preference, believed the red ink could be rid through various policies. The newly politicized bourgeois and their representatives in the E-G, however, did not so believe. Eventually, this divide became too great to sustain the regime as it had existed.
The unanswered question, of course, is was the national debt a crisis? It obviously became one; whether or not the flow of money from the government could be stopped through a stern application of political will cannot be answered because, quite simply, politics had ceased to function at the end of the ancien regime. No one was willing to make the crucial decisions, the unpopular decisions necessary to set the ship of state aright. Even the Revolution, as it developed, didn't deal specifically with the financial quagmire; rather, it treated it as symptomatic of institutional problems that could only be solved through the steady and progressive abolition of various older governmental forms.
The years of Republican governance were years of governance by crisis management. Every event, every public pronouncement, every piece of legislation - it all seemed to relate to some pending horrid national nightmare. Even the pre-9/11 Bush Administration treated something as relatively inconsequential as embryonic stem-cell research as something akin to a crisis. The problem, of course, is the past decade really saw few crises. The September 11th attacks, whatever else they signified, were not a crisis. An event of significant national import to be sure. Not an event necessitating a radical shift in our entire national life, however.
Part of the problem that comes with seeing events, big and small, as crises is there is no sense of perspective. Crisis management is a kind of administrative skill, really only necessary to oversee the unfolding of events with a coolness and clear-headedness that, for all their vaunted and alleged skills, the Republicans and Bush Administration officials seemed to lack. Tossing about on the winds of crisis is no way to exist, let alone govern.
The Obama Administration's outstanding virtue is its refusal to bow to pressure to view governance as crisis management. The Republican opposition, and their currently most vocal constituency, the Tea Baggers, are dedicated to crisis. Their view, not only of our current economic, social, and cultural predicament, but the Administration of Barack Obama is one of on-going crisis. The nation is in peril. Our country is facing the destruction of its most treasured values. The Constitution is in peril. Obama is a socialist bent on overturning our capitalist system. He's coming after our guns, our money, our fetuses.
Unlike the historical example of the French at the time of the Revolution, I think this gap between the perceptions of the governing class and a vocal constituency of the state is not one that could lead to trouble. For one reason, the Tea Baggers just aren't that numerous. For all the noise they make, and for all the press and Republicans dote upon them, they really have no power other than attracting attention. For another reason, while there might be good reason to see our various economic woes as a set of crises to be addressed more forcefully than the President and his advisers have up until now, the never-ending stream of crises under George W. Bush has made us a little numb to the call for solidarity in the face of impending doom. We elected Barack Obama in part, I think, precisely because he has a cool, detached demeanor. He presents himself as someone who understand that we face "problems", not "crises". Furthermore, he presents himself as someone with the competence to address these "problems" without resorting to overheated rhetoric.
While this makes for a more calm approach to federal governance, it makes blogging a little boring. In 2007, there was an abundant supply of Bush Administration folks saying and doing stuff that was just outrageous. Now, out of power, these same folks continue to say outrageous stuff, but it only seems to impact a bunch of liberal bloggers who think it actually means something. Rather than the daily outrage, we have the long slog of the health care reform debate; the impending financial reform and regulation debate; and, one hopes sometime soon, a serious discussion of cap-and-trade legislation. This is government-in-normal-time that seems so unfamiliar precisely because we have become inured to so many voices in positions of authority demanding attention to this or that national crisis.
It's kind of nice, actually.
Virtual Tin Cup
