When the Cold War ended, there was much discussion over the future look of American politics. With the big bad Soviet bogeyman gone, how would American politics face the challenges of a world without clear-cut ideological boundaries? One reason conservatives hated the Clinton years was that the answer they offered was the kind of wonky, policy-driven tinkering that disdained discussion of the deep roots of social and political questions. All their disdain for what they continue to call "the nanny state" have to do with the kind of minutiae the Clinton's loved to discuss in detail, and for which they were amply rewarded with more than moderate popularity. While conservatives continued to control Congress, grand, controlling conservative narratives - from the PNAC group that wanted to re-fight the Iraq war, to the impeachment nonsense - were roundly rejected by the American people. Conservatives felt the American people needed a new controlling paradigm, a battle cry to rally folks around the flag. The American people, with more than a little justification I might add, felt they had a controlling paradigm, one that disdained grand, world-changing schemes and plans and focused on the modest proposals for tinkering with social betterment at home.
The alternative the conservatives have offered - and despite the many differences among various groups we should never forget that conservatives rallied around Bush until it was clear they were backing a hobbled loser - has been on display since January 20, 2001. I clearly remember the summer of 2001, in those halcyon days before the terrorist attacks, when it seemed Bush would be limping to the finish line of 2004, with America ready for a change. Indeed, lest we forget how miserably awful they were back then, the reaction among many voters that is commonplace today - i.e., we would rather be rid of them sooner rather than later - was already in place before the end of that long, hot summer. Had the terrorist plot been foiled, or had it not happened at all, we would be looking back on George W. Bush as a one-term President, the memory of which would be more the source of jokes than cause for national embarrassment.
What we have now, however, are the tattered remnants of conservative ideology still controlling much of our elite discourse. Part of the disconnect between much of what passes for political commentary these days can be written off to elitism. A large part, however, revolves around themes that are still part of conservative ideology, which, unless the polls are lying, has been rejected by the American people. That is, while our elites continue to shuffle the deck chairs on the sinking ship of state, the people are safely rowing away in life boats. It might be all well and good for conservatives to bemoan the lack of moral purpose the American people seem to share with them; that disguises the fact that the "moral vision" conservatives continue to try to sell lacks a serious moral center, and the American people are much wiser than our elites, preferring a certain pragmatic anti-ideology to the idea that we need grand controlling narratives in order to survive.
Part of the reason the Republicans will lose next year's Presidential election - and they will lose, no matter who they nominate - is the Republican candidates continue to debate and argue within a very narrow vocabulary, a vocabulary most voters understand does not describe the world they inhabit, and serves no function whatsoever other than an ideological one. I for one am tired of those on the left who see dangerous spooks and specters behind the possibilities for Republican dirty tricks stealing the election next year. All one need do is consider the fact that the Republicans seem ready to support a borderline sociopath - Rudy Giuliani - for the Presidency; said man has all the self-destructive characteristics of those same ideologically driven men and women who currently infest our federal bureaucracy, and are held in lower esteem than used-car sales personnel. The only thing better for the Democrats than Rudy getting the nod would be for Newt to enter the mix next fall; I know of fewer people whose entire careers center around their own fantasies of being the white knight of American history.
The American people are a practical lot; while our pundits and journalists look for the Great American Hero to rescue us from our malaise, they look for the next person who will actually work in their interests, and respond to their desire for actual policy-making. This is not the stuff of great political narratives, to be sure. We have lived, however, for the past six years, within a bad political novel centered on a failed political narrative, a vocabulary of nonsense and criminality that has driven the entire country a bit beyond the brink of despair. I believe a time of relief from ideology is in order. Pragmatism is not the stuff of great novels and heroes. I think, however, the American people no longer need heroes, or need to be the director of world-wide salvation. I think all of us yearn for something so banal our pundits refuse to accept it - a little practical governance.
Showing posts with label new realities and realignments. Show all posts
Showing posts with label new realities and realignments. Show all posts
Monday, June 11, 2007
Sunday, June 10, 2007
New Realities & Realignments: Blogs, Pundits & the Changing Face of Our Public Discourse
If you check out this post at Hullabaloo, and scroll through the comments, you will see that I wrote a comment that someone else actually noticed. I rarely comment on the blogs I read - I suppose that's wrong, since that's part of the point of all this; the more popular blogs, however, have too many regulars with too many on-going arguments irrelevant to the point at issue (plus you have to add in the whole troll factor) to have a serious dialogue - but I was moved to do so because Digby was using the media uproar over Paris Hilton's in-then-out-then-in jail experience as an entry point to discussing the banality and absurdity of our present media culture. The point I made was two-fold:
(I) Yes, our old media culture - television "journalism", print "journalism", talk radio - is broken, most likely irretrievably broken. Critiques of the media based upon our own frustration, and that alone, do nothing but feed a sense of helplessness and apathy that, in the long run, are detrimental to forging new ways of doing public discourse.
(II) Lest we forget, this entire discussion is happening within a medium that is quite literally rewriting the rules of who is and is not a serious player in our national conversation. We need to remember that we bloggers, even the bad ones and little ones, are part of a larger phenomenon that had already changed the way we discuss politics, and discuss discussing politics.
I am, quite frankly, amazed at the frustration, even rage, such established pundits as David Broder and Joe Klein feel towards the liberal blogs, with their constant criticisms and carpings. Were these and other pundits more honest, they would understand that what they wrote was never for popular consumption at all. Rather, they were part of a small clique of influence peddlers, traders in Washington conventional wisdom, the main purchasers of which were the various behind-the-scenes figures in Washington who move the levers of power like Frank Morgan behind the curtain in The Wizard of Oz. They should be ignoring our criticisms, because we were never supposed to read what they were writing in the first place.
Of course, perhaps that is part of the source of the anger - the great unwashed are rising above their stations, commenting upon things for which we have only limited understanding, voicing opinions when our task is to imbibe their wisdom. The disconnect between established pundits and the left-wing blogs demonstrate that, far from being the arbiters of wisdom and deep thoughts, our pundits are fallible human beings, entrenched in ideology and occasional sycophancy, while the huddled masses post to breathe free of the the suffocating mass of irrelevant verbiage. We bloggers show a greater grasp of relevant detail, of the import of various stories, and of nuance than is too often demonstrated by our elite opinion-shedders.
It is all too easy to become frustrated with the failure of analysis and logic, the fantasy-mongering, and outright duplicity of too many of our establishment political opinion commentators. If we focus too long upon them, however, we can forget that we bloggers occupy a unique space in a pivotal point in our nation's history. I don't subscribe to the theory that the left-wing blogs are monolithic; indeed, if they were, there would be fewer of them, and even those few would rarely be of the quality one finds among quite literally hundreds of examples soaring through Ted Stevens' intertubes. Yet it is all too easy to find great writing, sound analysis, keen insight with a simple click of the button - and great arguments as well over fundamental differences, a good sign that this is indeed a movement, and it is in its infancy, struggling for identity.
We also need to remember that we bloggers, more I think than any other single factor, have changed the face of our public discourse. In fact, while I doubt it could ever be shown empirically through social science data, I believe that the liberal/lefty blogs are the major factor in the decisive election held last November. By refusing to concede even an inch to the failing narrative of the Republicans and their co-dependent media partners, I am convinced that the Democratic victory is due to the insistence that the controlling narrative of our public discourse was no longer functional, and we liberal/lefty bloggers are rewriting our national script each and every day.
So, along with hauteur of the courtier dismayed at the rabble proposing what the blessed should be disposing, we also might weigh in that most insidious of the old seven deadly sins - envy. The pundits are mad as hell that their attempt to assert control over our national dialogue continue to fail. David Broder can spin his tales of fantasy all he wants; Joe Klein can continue to pretend he has wisdom and understanding of public policy out the whazoo (that's a technical term, by the way); Thomas Friedman can continue to pretend he knows anything about foreign policy in reference to the Middle East; Charles Krauthammer can continue to claim that George W. Bush is Winston Churchill reincarnated. All these things and more can continue to be written, but their relevance is exactly - nil. These people, and all the rest of our typing class, no longer tell us what to believe or think or how to vote. Indeed, one doubts they ever did, yet because there was no feedback mechanism through which critical voices could be heard, they could pretend that they did so. Such pretending is futile now.
To be as succinct as possible here, let me give a bit of a battle cry for all of us bloggers, from level "A" to level "Z" - we are the future. We are the bearers of the narrative of who and what we have been as a nation, and more important, who and what we are to become in the future. The future of America is in our quite capable keyboards. I do believe we should stop whining about how crappy the old media is (although we should never stop calling them on their nonsense) and get on with the business of taking our country back.
(I) Yes, our old media culture - television "journalism", print "journalism", talk radio - is broken, most likely irretrievably broken. Critiques of the media based upon our own frustration, and that alone, do nothing but feed a sense of helplessness and apathy that, in the long run, are detrimental to forging new ways of doing public discourse.
(II) Lest we forget, this entire discussion is happening within a medium that is quite literally rewriting the rules of who is and is not a serious player in our national conversation. We need to remember that we bloggers, even the bad ones and little ones, are part of a larger phenomenon that had already changed the way we discuss politics, and discuss discussing politics.
I am, quite frankly, amazed at the frustration, even rage, such established pundits as David Broder and Joe Klein feel towards the liberal blogs, with their constant criticisms and carpings. Were these and other pundits more honest, they would understand that what they wrote was never for popular consumption at all. Rather, they were part of a small clique of influence peddlers, traders in Washington conventional wisdom, the main purchasers of which were the various behind-the-scenes figures in Washington who move the levers of power like Frank Morgan behind the curtain in The Wizard of Oz. They should be ignoring our criticisms, because we were never supposed to read what they were writing in the first place.
Of course, perhaps that is part of the source of the anger - the great unwashed are rising above their stations, commenting upon things for which we have only limited understanding, voicing opinions when our task is to imbibe their wisdom. The disconnect between established pundits and the left-wing blogs demonstrate that, far from being the arbiters of wisdom and deep thoughts, our pundits are fallible human beings, entrenched in ideology and occasional sycophancy, while the huddled masses post to breathe free of the the suffocating mass of irrelevant verbiage. We bloggers show a greater grasp of relevant detail, of the import of various stories, and of nuance than is too often demonstrated by our elite opinion-shedders.
It is all too easy to become frustrated with the failure of analysis and logic, the fantasy-mongering, and outright duplicity of too many of our establishment political opinion commentators. If we focus too long upon them, however, we can forget that we bloggers occupy a unique space in a pivotal point in our nation's history. I don't subscribe to the theory that the left-wing blogs are monolithic; indeed, if they were, there would be fewer of them, and even those few would rarely be of the quality one finds among quite literally hundreds of examples soaring through Ted Stevens' intertubes. Yet it is all too easy to find great writing, sound analysis, keen insight with a simple click of the button - and great arguments as well over fundamental differences, a good sign that this is indeed a movement, and it is in its infancy, struggling for identity.
We also need to remember that we bloggers, more I think than any other single factor, have changed the face of our public discourse. In fact, while I doubt it could ever be shown empirically through social science data, I believe that the liberal/lefty blogs are the major factor in the decisive election held last November. By refusing to concede even an inch to the failing narrative of the Republicans and their co-dependent media partners, I am convinced that the Democratic victory is due to the insistence that the controlling narrative of our public discourse was no longer functional, and we liberal/lefty bloggers are rewriting our national script each and every day.
So, along with hauteur of the courtier dismayed at the rabble proposing what the blessed should be disposing, we also might weigh in that most insidious of the old seven deadly sins - envy. The pundits are mad as hell that their attempt to assert control over our national dialogue continue to fail. David Broder can spin his tales of fantasy all he wants; Joe Klein can continue to pretend he has wisdom and understanding of public policy out the whazoo (that's a technical term, by the way); Thomas Friedman can continue to pretend he knows anything about foreign policy in reference to the Middle East; Charles Krauthammer can continue to claim that George W. Bush is Winston Churchill reincarnated. All these things and more can continue to be written, but their relevance is exactly - nil. These people, and all the rest of our typing class, no longer tell us what to believe or think or how to vote. Indeed, one doubts they ever did, yet because there was no feedback mechanism through which critical voices could be heard, they could pretend that they did so. Such pretending is futile now.
To be as succinct as possible here, let me give a bit of a battle cry for all of us bloggers, from level "A" to level "Z" - we are the future. We are the bearers of the narrative of who and what we have been as a nation, and more important, who and what we are to become in the future. The future of America is in our quite capable keyboards. I do believe we should stop whining about how crappy the old media is (although we should never stop calling them on their nonsense) and get on with the business of taking our country back.
Friday, June 08, 2007
New Realities & Realignments IV: What is Berlin to Me? (Isaiah, that is)
I mentioned in the first of these posts that I would be discussing various philosophical and theological ideas in reference to our current situation. While they may seem irrelevant, they help me to get a handle on the possibilities inherent in our current historical moment. I do believe that we are living through a classic period of realignment - not just political, but ideological - and the opportunity is there to offer up possibilities for moving forward that have little to do with the past. In order to do this, however, there are some old ideas that could serve us very well, should we attempt to take them up and use them in our current circumstances. For me, the most pregnant variation on classical liberalism is that of Isaiah Berlin, especially in the essays included in the small volume The Crooked Timber of Humanity. A theme runs throughout these essays, or perhaps themes, which run something like this:
-The Enlightenment ideal that all human ends, being amenable to rational discussion and analysis and therefore susceptible to rational solution and resolution is untenable precisely because the multiplicity of real human ends are often contradictory. The peaceful resolution of human ills is neither logically nor practically feasible.
-In recognizing the diversity of real human ends and the means to achieve them, we can either despair for any resolution of serious human conflict, or we can celebrate the reality of this diversity, even as we recognize the irreconcilable nature of this diversity.
-Rather than a liberalism that sees itself as the end of human intellectual, moral, and political development, Berlin sees liberalism as offering human beings a way of recognizing the historically contingent nature of their own social and more preferences, seeing the humanity in other, incompatible ends and means, while still allowing individuals and societies the power to adhere to their own social and political ways.
-Rather than the "tolerance" of contemporary liberalism, a tolerance that is at once condescending and paternalistic, Berlin prefers liberal pluralism. Being a pluralist requires only that one see, for example, the humanity of other human societies, their social, political, religious, and moral choices as a real possibility even if one does not, nor perhaps even could not, make those choices for oneself. It does not require the impossible necessity of standing back from one's own social milieu; it only requires the imaginative leap into other, different social milieus to see the human possibilities inherent in them.
-Pluralism does not negate the reality of difference and conflict; indeed, part of the appeal for me of liberal pluralism is the hard-nosed realism that sees in human social difference the potential for serious conflict. Of course, this begs the question of what kind of conflict and whether such conflict can ever be satisfactorily resolved. By recognizing that human conflict is rooted in real difference, however, we are freed from our delusions that we have something to offer other benighted peoples that they lack; pluralism is a nice anti-imperialist ideology from the word "go".
I do not wish to minimize the potential threat from fundamentalist terrorism. We have already lost many men and women to those who are committed to destroying American dominance. The Bush Administration, however, has responded in exactly the way the terrorists would want us to, pouring gasoline on a fire that already rages out of control. The alternative offered by a liberal pluralistic approach would give us both the ideological and practical context within which to mould a response that would aid us moving against those forces that see the US as a global threat to their way of life while at the same time making real strides to reduce not just the appearance of such a threat, but the threat itself. By moving away from the idea that the US has something to offer the world - call it democracy, or freedom, or whatever - that those countries we threaten lack, we would no longer be in a position to endorse the kind of stupid exercises like our current Iraq debacle. Rather, we could return to hunting al-Qaeda as an international law enforcement activity, reduce our military and other presence in the Muslim world, and move to listening to rather than dictating to those who differ from us.
Of course, such a pluralist position would involve us giving up the grandest illusion of them all - the false myth of American uniqueness. Should we toss that bucket of spoiled fish down the ideological crapper, we might actually be on our way to improving our stance in the world. As it stands now, we are the biggest of the rogue states, simultaneously hated and feared, but with too much muscle for others to take on in any serious fashion. Should we abandon the idea that we are God's gift to the other nation-states of the world, we might actually make some progress.
By recognizing that others are different and still fully-fledged human beings, perhaps we can actually develop policies that not only recognize differences, but celebrate them rather than plowing them under in the name of abstract, and largely phony and truncated, ideas such as freedom, democracy, capitalism, etc. These are great ways we have of organizing our social and political life. Should we decide that they are not for everybody, and see in other ways of living equally human possibilities for being in the world, we might actually make some progress.
-The Enlightenment ideal that all human ends, being amenable to rational discussion and analysis and therefore susceptible to rational solution and resolution is untenable precisely because the multiplicity of real human ends are often contradictory. The peaceful resolution of human ills is neither logically nor practically feasible.
-In recognizing the diversity of real human ends and the means to achieve them, we can either despair for any resolution of serious human conflict, or we can celebrate the reality of this diversity, even as we recognize the irreconcilable nature of this diversity.
-Rather than a liberalism that sees itself as the end of human intellectual, moral, and political development, Berlin sees liberalism as offering human beings a way of recognizing the historically contingent nature of their own social and more preferences, seeing the humanity in other, incompatible ends and means, while still allowing individuals and societies the power to adhere to their own social and political ways.
-Rather than the "tolerance" of contemporary liberalism, a tolerance that is at once condescending and paternalistic, Berlin prefers liberal pluralism. Being a pluralist requires only that one see, for example, the humanity of other human societies, their social, political, religious, and moral choices as a real possibility even if one does not, nor perhaps even could not, make those choices for oneself. It does not require the impossible necessity of standing back from one's own social milieu; it only requires the imaginative leap into other, different social milieus to see the human possibilities inherent in them.
-Pluralism does not negate the reality of difference and conflict; indeed, part of the appeal for me of liberal pluralism is the hard-nosed realism that sees in human social difference the potential for serious conflict. Of course, this begs the question of what kind of conflict and whether such conflict can ever be satisfactorily resolved. By recognizing that human conflict is rooted in real difference, however, we are freed from our delusions that we have something to offer other benighted peoples that they lack; pluralism is a nice anti-imperialist ideology from the word "go".
I do not wish to minimize the potential threat from fundamentalist terrorism. We have already lost many men and women to those who are committed to destroying American dominance. The Bush Administration, however, has responded in exactly the way the terrorists would want us to, pouring gasoline on a fire that already rages out of control. The alternative offered by a liberal pluralistic approach would give us both the ideological and practical context within which to mould a response that would aid us moving against those forces that see the US as a global threat to their way of life while at the same time making real strides to reduce not just the appearance of such a threat, but the threat itself. By moving away from the idea that the US has something to offer the world - call it democracy, or freedom, or whatever - that those countries we threaten lack, we would no longer be in a position to endorse the kind of stupid exercises like our current Iraq debacle. Rather, we could return to hunting al-Qaeda as an international law enforcement activity, reduce our military and other presence in the Muslim world, and move to listening to rather than dictating to those who differ from us.
Of course, such a pluralist position would involve us giving up the grandest illusion of them all - the false myth of American uniqueness. Should we toss that bucket of spoiled fish down the ideological crapper, we might actually be on our way to improving our stance in the world. As it stands now, we are the biggest of the rogue states, simultaneously hated and feared, but with too much muscle for others to take on in any serious fashion. Should we abandon the idea that we are God's gift to the other nation-states of the world, we might actually make some progress.
By recognizing that others are different and still fully-fledged human beings, perhaps we can actually develop policies that not only recognize differences, but celebrate them rather than plowing them under in the name of abstract, and largely phony and truncated, ideas such as freedom, democracy, capitalism, etc. These are great ways we have of organizing our social and political life. Should we decide that they are not for everybody, and see in other ways of living equally human possibilities for being in the world, we might actually make some progress.
Thursday, June 07, 2007
New Realities and Realignments III: Richard Nixon, Father of the Contemporary Republican Party
We are often told that the Republican Party is the party of Lincoln, of Theodore Roosevelt, of Ronald Reagan. We are to view these men as the standard-bearers of true Republican values - of strength, honor, integrity, gritty, manly patriotism, and the willingness to endure in the face of overwhelming odds and against severe criticism. All these traits are indeed part of the make-up of each of these men (yes, I said something nice about Reagan). Yet our contemporary Republican Party, despite the bleating of the current presidential candidates, is not the party of Reagan. We are living in the last days not of the age of Reagan, or perhaps of Barry Goldwater-style Republicanism. No, our current Republican Party models itself after our most tragic President - Richard Milhouse Nixon.
It is necessary to understand this point, upon which I shall elaborate below, if we are to understand our current situation. I am writing so much background material here, so much historical information because we cannot move forward unless we are clear-eyed about where we've been. I apologize if this is boring, but all of this is more for my own benefit than anyone else's, and I rarely bore myself so please bear with me.
The first thing that it is important to remember about Nixon is that he never got over two defeats - first for the Presidency against John Kennedy, second for the governorship of California against Pat Brown. Despite journalistic nonsense during the 2000 campaign post-game, Nixon indeed was more than willing to go to court to challenge Illinois' election results precisely because there was more than enough evidence to show that the Daley machine threw the entire state in to the Democratic camp. I do believe that he resented his advisers refusal to move forward more swiftly and publicly. When he lost the governor's race for California two years later, it was quite clear in his bitter remarks about not having Dick Nixon to kick around any more that he viewed his defeat as a personal repudiation.
It is also important to remember that, with all his flaws of character, temperament, and intellect, Nixon was the embodiment of many of the values of post-WWII America. Indeed, his many flaws, as well as his virtues, were precisely what made him so emblematic of the United States as it struggled to redefine itself in light of the new reality of American hegemony in the world. In other words, both his rise, in 1946, and his fall, in 1974, bookended the period of American singular domination of the world scene and its eventual slow decline in the face of changing world circumstances.
With the take-over of much of the machinery of the Republican party by various right-wing groups in the run-up and aftermath of the 1964 Goldwater debacle, I believe Nixon saw his main chance to manipulate feelings over the pace of social change. The Johnson Administration's growing obsession with Vietnam only added to the possibilities for a Republican candidate in 1968. With a combination of cunning, cleverness, and ruthlessness (using unofficial campaign adviser Henry Kissinger as a plumber for information on Administration peace efforts with North Vietnam, as well as a monkey-wrencher of the worst sort was a stroke of evil genius), combined with Humphrey's refusal to repudiate Johnson (who apparently still had his VP's manhood safely in his hip pocket) until late in the campaign gave Nixon enough breathing room to eke out a victory (although, as T. H. White's The Making of the President, 1968 points out, had the election been held no more than five days later, the trend back to Humphrey and the Democrats would have given the election to Humphrey). While many saw Nixon as a moderate, and a President who was not given to partisan concerns - it was repeated over and over again by journalists who claimed to "know" Nixon that he had chosen Maryland governor Spiro Agnew to be his partisan hatchet man - he actually ran his administration upon the principle that the principle reason fro gaining power was the maintenance of power. The entire machinery that led to his eventual resignation was put in place almost immediately upon his inauguration, with only the flourishes of the plumbers being added after the leaking of the Pentagon Papers in 1971.
As a diarist over at The Daily Kos notes here, the playbook for turning the federal bureaucracy into an arm of the Republican Party is not an invention of Karl Rove. Rove, rather, is using the rules set forth a generation ago by one Fred Malek, of whom Rove is merely a protege. Malek was clever, malicious, sneaky, ruthless, and ultimately stupid. I add the last epithet because he actually put it in writing that one should never put things in writing (kind of like the bogus notion that primitive people are afraid of cameras because it might capture their soul; only in this case, putting things in writing might reveal that these people don't have souls).
Whether it's Ronald Reagan's congenial so-called eleventh commandment ("Thou shalt not speak evil of your fellow Republicans"), George H. W. Bush's use of what was called "blue smoke and mirrors" by two journalists to win the 1988 Presidential election - flag burning and Willie Horton were the precedent on the eve of the end of the Cold War and the first Gulf War were followed by the lack of any serious rationale for his re-election other than the idea that the Presidency was a Republican office are emblematic of Nixonian ideals. The harassment of President Clinton over non-existent scandals, the stealth campaign of George W. Bush in 2000 and the ruthlessness followed by self-defeating stupidity of the ensuing elections up through last years Republican debacle all show the hallmarks of the Nixonian idee fixe - both sides are corrupt, but only Republicans get in trouble for it, so why not go whole hog and corrupt the entire machinery. Power is, after all, its own reward as the Democratic Party has shown time and again (does anyone think FDR was elected four times out of selflessness?). These ideas are at the heart of much Republican whining over the media - when Democrats are caught engaged in dirty politics, it's considered all part of the game; in their eyes, the Republicans pursue no worse strategies than Democrats, but are held to a different standard by the press and the public. It all goes back, of course, to the refusal to recognize that dirty politics led to Nixon's first defeat in 1960. Whether it's Rush Limbaugh playing the victim card, or the pimping of phony voter fraud cases (aided and abetted by America's favorite past-time, racism), there is a direct line to Nixon's narrow loss to JFK that has to be remembered.
As we move forward to next year's election and consider all the changes in our country over the past few years, we have to remember the patron saint of the Republican Party isn't Abraham Lincoln or even Dwight David Eisenhower. It is the Trickster himself. With that in mind, should deciding for whom to vote be an issue?
It is necessary to understand this point, upon which I shall elaborate below, if we are to understand our current situation. I am writing so much background material here, so much historical information because we cannot move forward unless we are clear-eyed about where we've been. I apologize if this is boring, but all of this is more for my own benefit than anyone else's, and I rarely bore myself so please bear with me.
The first thing that it is important to remember about Nixon is that he never got over two defeats - first for the Presidency against John Kennedy, second for the governorship of California against Pat Brown. Despite journalistic nonsense during the 2000 campaign post-game, Nixon indeed was more than willing to go to court to challenge Illinois' election results precisely because there was more than enough evidence to show that the Daley machine threw the entire state in to the Democratic camp. I do believe that he resented his advisers refusal to move forward more swiftly and publicly. When he lost the governor's race for California two years later, it was quite clear in his bitter remarks about not having Dick Nixon to kick around any more that he viewed his defeat as a personal repudiation.
It is also important to remember that, with all his flaws of character, temperament, and intellect, Nixon was the embodiment of many of the values of post-WWII America. Indeed, his many flaws, as well as his virtues, were precisely what made him so emblematic of the United States as it struggled to redefine itself in light of the new reality of American hegemony in the world. In other words, both his rise, in 1946, and his fall, in 1974, bookended the period of American singular domination of the world scene and its eventual slow decline in the face of changing world circumstances.
With the take-over of much of the machinery of the Republican party by various right-wing groups in the run-up and aftermath of the 1964 Goldwater debacle, I believe Nixon saw his main chance to manipulate feelings over the pace of social change. The Johnson Administration's growing obsession with Vietnam only added to the possibilities for a Republican candidate in 1968. With a combination of cunning, cleverness, and ruthlessness (using unofficial campaign adviser Henry Kissinger as a plumber for information on Administration peace efforts with North Vietnam, as well as a monkey-wrencher of the worst sort was a stroke of evil genius), combined with Humphrey's refusal to repudiate Johnson (who apparently still had his VP's manhood safely in his hip pocket) until late in the campaign gave Nixon enough breathing room to eke out a victory (although, as T. H. White's The Making of the President, 1968 points out, had the election been held no more than five days later, the trend back to Humphrey and the Democrats would have given the election to Humphrey). While many saw Nixon as a moderate, and a President who was not given to partisan concerns - it was repeated over and over again by journalists who claimed to "know" Nixon that he had chosen Maryland governor Spiro Agnew to be his partisan hatchet man - he actually ran his administration upon the principle that the principle reason fro gaining power was the maintenance of power. The entire machinery that led to his eventual resignation was put in place almost immediately upon his inauguration, with only the flourishes of the plumbers being added after the leaking of the Pentagon Papers in 1971.
As a diarist over at The Daily Kos notes here, the playbook for turning the federal bureaucracy into an arm of the Republican Party is not an invention of Karl Rove. Rove, rather, is using the rules set forth a generation ago by one Fred Malek, of whom Rove is merely a protege. Malek was clever, malicious, sneaky, ruthless, and ultimately stupid. I add the last epithet because he actually put it in writing that one should never put things in writing (kind of like the bogus notion that primitive people are afraid of cameras because it might capture their soul; only in this case, putting things in writing might reveal that these people don't have souls).
Whether it's Ronald Reagan's congenial so-called eleventh commandment ("Thou shalt not speak evil of your fellow Republicans"), George H. W. Bush's use of what was called "blue smoke and mirrors" by two journalists to win the 1988 Presidential election - flag burning and Willie Horton were the precedent on the eve of the end of the Cold War and the first Gulf War were followed by the lack of any serious rationale for his re-election other than the idea that the Presidency was a Republican office are emblematic of Nixonian ideals. The harassment of President Clinton over non-existent scandals, the stealth campaign of George W. Bush in 2000 and the ruthlessness followed by self-defeating stupidity of the ensuing elections up through last years Republican debacle all show the hallmarks of the Nixonian idee fixe - both sides are corrupt, but only Republicans get in trouble for it, so why not go whole hog and corrupt the entire machinery. Power is, after all, its own reward as the Democratic Party has shown time and again (does anyone think FDR was elected four times out of selflessness?). These ideas are at the heart of much Republican whining over the media - when Democrats are caught engaged in dirty politics, it's considered all part of the game; in their eyes, the Republicans pursue no worse strategies than Democrats, but are held to a different standard by the press and the public. It all goes back, of course, to the refusal to recognize that dirty politics led to Nixon's first defeat in 1960. Whether it's Rush Limbaugh playing the victim card, or the pimping of phony voter fraud cases (aided and abetted by America's favorite past-time, racism), there is a direct line to Nixon's narrow loss to JFK that has to be remembered.
As we move forward to next year's election and consider all the changes in our country over the past few years, we have to remember the patron saint of the Republican Party isn't Abraham Lincoln or even Dwight David Eisenhower. It is the Trickster himself. With that in mind, should deciding for whom to vote be an issue?
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
New Realities & Realignments II: The Cold War Ends, But Not For Our Elites
It is worth remembering, to keep some perspective on our current historical moment, that those young people graduating from high school this year were born the year the Berlin Wall fell, democracy came like a thief in the night to Poland and Hungary, and China, poised on the brink of revolution, killed the only true heroes it has produced in what was then 41 years of communist rule, as tanks and troops rolled through Tiananmen Square. I remember quite vividly the events of early June; I shall never forget (possibly because they kept playing it over and over and over . . .) CNN's footage of a single man standing before a line of tanks, halting them in their path. I am quite sure than tank commander and driver had orders not to roll over him in broad daylight (killing people happens much more easily in confusion and darkness, after all), but it nonetheless provided a beautiful image for the power of a lone individual. He refused to budge, even moving back and forth when the tank tried to swerve around him.
The destruction of China's last best hope for true democracy came at a time when Poland was moving peacefully to multi-party democracy, Hungary had opened its borders to Austria, causing a flood of East German refugees to the west, and perestroika and glasnost, still disavowed by hard-line Cold Warriors, had opened a small window of light in to the workings of the Soviet Union.
In November, something wonderful happened. I shall never forget sitting and watching Tom Brokaw stand in front of images of East Germans dancing on the Berlin Wall, the guards who had orders to shoot them just a day or two before standing around with nothing at all to do. Within days, it seems, the sledge hammers came out, and cement and rock went flying as the first real cracks and holes appeared in a now-redundant wall. I think I cried a little, because too many had died because of this wall, and breaching it, in the end, was all too simple*.
Even as freedom marched down the rusted Iron Curtain (Bulgaria, reading the signs of the times, created a committee for constitutional reform and declared open elections for mid-year, 1990; after the Czech army killed protesters, a crowd gathered in St. Wenceslaus Square in Prague, and the regime fell like an over-ripe peach; the only violent revolution was in Romania, where Ceaucescu fought to the bitter end, his and his wife's bitter end at the receiving end of a firing squad caught for all the world to see on video tape), there were some who just didn't realize what was happening. Those "some" included the President of the United States and his national security/military team, who decided, for reasons I have yet to fathom (like the Iraq invasion Bush 41's son would later initiate, the reasons for this particular fiasco always seemed to change) invaded Panama. Even as democratic revolutions flared across the communist world, the United States engaged in 19th century gunboat diplomacy with a nation so small and powerless, it shares currency with the United States.
Within two years of what historian John Lukacs called the anna mirabilis, the Soviet Union ceased to exist after a failed coup attempt destroyed the last tatters of Soviet credibility. I won't soon forget those tense few days when the world poised on the brink, waiting to see if Pres. Gorbachev would survive, if Russian tanks in Red Square would mimic their Chinese cousins, the DC commercial classical station interrupting a string quartet to blast out the Beatles' "Back in the USSR" when the coup collapsed, and the terrified and exhausted faces of Gorbachev and his wife as they stepped off the airplane that brought them back to Moscow (they had been vacationing with their grandchildren at the time; one wonders at the stress upon them just on a personal level). The final nail in the coffin of the Cold War had been pounded down, and . . .
Nothing happened. Rather than change decades of public policy towards Cuba, South America, indeed most of the Third World, the United States engaged in one of the biggest orgies of triumphal nonsense one has ever seen. This was the time of The End of History; we were "the lone superpower"; communism was part of "the dustbin of history" (as neo-cons quoted their favorite Marxist, Leon Trotsky, in what must have been a bit of delicious irony); a "New World Order" was declared on the eve of the American-led multi-national military campaign to remove Iraq from Kuwait. While there was some initial discussion of a "peace dividend" - all that money that had gone to support a military establishment geared to a no-longer-existent threat moving to domestic spending, or perhaps tax cuts - it was soon clear that our bloated military-industrial complex was addicted to the idea that it was still necessary. The "lone superpower" rationale became the rationale for not just continuing to funnel money to the Pentagon, but to actually increase spending. The collapse of Cuba's main source of income increased rather than abated American retaliation for a former neo-colony's absurd decision to act as a sovereign state.
When Bill Clinton was elected President, his back-turning to the world was part and parcel of the general feeling in America that it was time to direct our energies towards domestic reform and restructuring. While the neo-cons and their think tanks continued to churn out all sorts of position papers and declarations, usually starting with phrases like, "It's still a dangerous world . . .", Pres. Clinton reflected the mood of a large portion of the United States when he quite consciously looked upon the rest of the world as potential trading partners and markets for American goods, rather than a Manichean world of good and evil, us and them. When an American cruiser turned back from the port in Port Au Prince, Haiti, the media and their neo-con allies screamed that America had been humiliated, thus necessitating the eventual landing of American troops in Haiti - again. Another interpretation of this event was that, perhaps, it was no longer necessary to engage in this kind of bully-boy tactics, and it might be better for an American ship to be taking care of piracy in the South China Sea, maybe. In other words, the neo-cons were still thinking of the US as "the lone superpower", while Clinton might well have been thinking in practical terms of what the US could actually do with its military, rather than just stand (or float) around and look tough.
In the years since - the best chronicle is the recently-deceased David Halberstam's War in a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton, and the Generals - the debate has gone back and forth over the role of the US in the world, but the range has been extraordinarily narrow. One thing that never gets questioned is the idea that the US is "the lone superpower". Yet, what has being the lone superpower brought the US? Indeed, is the US the world's lone superpower? Is the phrase even meaningful in a world that, perhaps, has outgrown the need for such an ungainly, undisciplined behemoth?
*In a documentary on the events leading up to the collapse of the Berlin Wall, it was revealed that the East Germans desperately wanted to continue in power. It was only when Mikhail Gorbachev refused to take a call from the East German leader on the eve of the events in question that the order to shoot to kill was rescinded, at the last possible minute. With the Soviet Union no longer getting their collective backs, the East Germans knew that any attempt to use force would have ripped their country apart, and quite possibly have begun a new European war, with the Russians staying neutral. They opted for self-induced euthanasia over a period of about a year to a more brutal suicide.
The destruction of China's last best hope for true democracy came at a time when Poland was moving peacefully to multi-party democracy, Hungary had opened its borders to Austria, causing a flood of East German refugees to the west, and perestroika and glasnost, still disavowed by hard-line Cold Warriors, had opened a small window of light in to the workings of the Soviet Union.
In November, something wonderful happened. I shall never forget sitting and watching Tom Brokaw stand in front of images of East Germans dancing on the Berlin Wall, the guards who had orders to shoot them just a day or two before standing around with nothing at all to do. Within days, it seems, the sledge hammers came out, and cement and rock went flying as the first real cracks and holes appeared in a now-redundant wall. I think I cried a little, because too many had died because of this wall, and breaching it, in the end, was all too simple*.
Even as freedom marched down the rusted Iron Curtain (Bulgaria, reading the signs of the times, created a committee for constitutional reform and declared open elections for mid-year, 1990; after the Czech army killed protesters, a crowd gathered in St. Wenceslaus Square in Prague, and the regime fell like an over-ripe peach; the only violent revolution was in Romania, where Ceaucescu fought to the bitter end, his and his wife's bitter end at the receiving end of a firing squad caught for all the world to see on video tape), there were some who just didn't realize what was happening. Those "some" included the President of the United States and his national security/military team, who decided, for reasons I have yet to fathom (like the Iraq invasion Bush 41's son would later initiate, the reasons for this particular fiasco always seemed to change) invaded Panama. Even as democratic revolutions flared across the communist world, the United States engaged in 19th century gunboat diplomacy with a nation so small and powerless, it shares currency with the United States.
Within two years of what historian John Lukacs called the anna mirabilis, the Soviet Union ceased to exist after a failed coup attempt destroyed the last tatters of Soviet credibility. I won't soon forget those tense few days when the world poised on the brink, waiting to see if Pres. Gorbachev would survive, if Russian tanks in Red Square would mimic their Chinese cousins, the DC commercial classical station interrupting a string quartet to blast out the Beatles' "Back in the USSR" when the coup collapsed, and the terrified and exhausted faces of Gorbachev and his wife as they stepped off the airplane that brought them back to Moscow (they had been vacationing with their grandchildren at the time; one wonders at the stress upon them just on a personal level). The final nail in the coffin of the Cold War had been pounded down, and . . .
Nothing happened. Rather than change decades of public policy towards Cuba, South America, indeed most of the Third World, the United States engaged in one of the biggest orgies of triumphal nonsense one has ever seen. This was the time of The End of History; we were "the lone superpower"; communism was part of "the dustbin of history" (as neo-cons quoted their favorite Marxist, Leon Trotsky, in what must have been a bit of delicious irony); a "New World Order" was declared on the eve of the American-led multi-national military campaign to remove Iraq from Kuwait. While there was some initial discussion of a "peace dividend" - all that money that had gone to support a military establishment geared to a no-longer-existent threat moving to domestic spending, or perhaps tax cuts - it was soon clear that our bloated military-industrial complex was addicted to the idea that it was still necessary. The "lone superpower" rationale became the rationale for not just continuing to funnel money to the Pentagon, but to actually increase spending. The collapse of Cuba's main source of income increased rather than abated American retaliation for a former neo-colony's absurd decision to act as a sovereign state.
When Bill Clinton was elected President, his back-turning to the world was part and parcel of the general feeling in America that it was time to direct our energies towards domestic reform and restructuring. While the neo-cons and their think tanks continued to churn out all sorts of position papers and declarations, usually starting with phrases like, "It's still a dangerous world . . .", Pres. Clinton reflected the mood of a large portion of the United States when he quite consciously looked upon the rest of the world as potential trading partners and markets for American goods, rather than a Manichean world of good and evil, us and them. When an American cruiser turned back from the port in Port Au Prince, Haiti, the media and their neo-con allies screamed that America had been humiliated, thus necessitating the eventual landing of American troops in Haiti - again. Another interpretation of this event was that, perhaps, it was no longer necessary to engage in this kind of bully-boy tactics, and it might be better for an American ship to be taking care of piracy in the South China Sea, maybe. In other words, the neo-cons were still thinking of the US as "the lone superpower", while Clinton might well have been thinking in practical terms of what the US could actually do with its military, rather than just stand (or float) around and look tough.
In the years since - the best chronicle is the recently-deceased David Halberstam's War in a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton, and the Generals - the debate has gone back and forth over the role of the US in the world, but the range has been extraordinarily narrow. One thing that never gets questioned is the idea that the US is "the lone superpower". Yet, what has being the lone superpower brought the US? Indeed, is the US the world's lone superpower? Is the phrase even meaningful in a world that, perhaps, has outgrown the need for such an ungainly, undisciplined behemoth?
*In a documentary on the events leading up to the collapse of the Berlin Wall, it was revealed that the East Germans desperately wanted to continue in power. It was only when Mikhail Gorbachev refused to take a call from the East German leader on the eve of the events in question that the order to shoot to kill was rescinded, at the last possible minute. With the Soviet Union no longer getting their collective backs, the East Germans knew that any attempt to use force would have ripped their country apart, and quite possibly have begun a new European war, with the Russians staying neutral. They opted for self-induced euthanasia over a period of about a year to a more brutal suicide.
Monday, June 04, 2007
New Realities and Realignments I
One of the great things about my little vacation was an opportunity to read stuff I haven't had a chance to read in years. One of them was a collection of essays by Isaiah Berlin, The Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in the History of Ideas. I first read it the summer I was married, fourteen years ago, and have read an essay or two in it but not the whole thing at once since. I have also started a later collection, The Proper Study of Mankind. All of this is a springboard to reflections on our current situation, an analysis that may or may not be correct, but certainly helps me figure out where we are, and maybe - just maybe - where we are headed.
When George Bush was re-elected in 2004, my wife and I were both quite down about it. "I don't understand it," she told me. My response was, "Maybe people have to let things get really bad before they want to change." I said that thinking people were accepting of the status quo until a crisis emerged that forced them to question their acceptance of it. I also thought, at the time, that things couldn't get much worse than they already were. I honestly couldn't imagine the level of base criminality and stupidity, not just of the Administration, but of elected Republicans in general. I feel quite chastened as I think about this now; the pervasive corruption of the entire Republican establishment should serve as an object lesson to all those who wonder about our political culture. There is little that impedes the corrosive and seductive effects of power when those who hold power believe themselves ordained by God to rule.
In the two-and-a-half years since the election, a series of political and cultural and natural events have highlighted (as if there was ever any question) the evident failures not just of the Bush Administration, but of the Republican Party and its dominant ideology. Hurricane Katrina and the failure to save New Orleans, Terry Schiavo, the on-going war in Iraq (for some reason, our dismal performance in Afghanistan, allowing the ousted Taliban to reform is rarely mentioned; consider it mentioned), the pervasive corruption and unresponsiveness of the Republican-led Congress, the destruction of the integrity and independence of the entire federal bureaucracy as the Bush Administration used it to serve narrow, partisan ends. This list, of course only highlights the most egregious and most obvious faults and flaws. It would seem, however, that the total effect of these has been to create a situation where not only the President, but Congress, too, sinks in public esteem (although that is a general institutional rating; Democrats in Congress, especially when they are acting in the public interest, get much higher scores than when they capitulate to dominant narratives of "bipartisanship"). The public clamors for release from the Bush Administration and its misrule. How are we to navigate these strange waters in which we find ourselves?
The most important point to consider when trying to make sense out of our current political dilemma is that the public, more intelligent than the combined wisdom of our pundits and national journalists, recognize not just malfeasance but maladministration, and seek a remedy within the context of the available options. For too long, our political choices have ranged over a very narrow band of acceptability; with the Bush Administration's - indeed, the Republican Party in general - abject failures, there is the realization that the kind of taboos that have existed for a quarter century no longer apply because the circumstances within which we find ourselves are unique. Bill Clinton attempted to govern within these new realities, and was remarkably successful at it. The struggle, in the six-and-a-half years since George Bush's election, has been over the plurality that refused to recognize these changed realities - and our dominant media's refusal to grant these changes the status of acceptability. From redefining what "liberal" and "conservative" mean to rethinking the role of the United States in world affairs to questions of domestic policy from taxes to suburban sprawl, we have tried to engage an entire new way of living as the United States, while our dominant media and politicians continued to pretend we had just won World War II and were the biggest kid on the block with the biggest stick (the "lone superpower" delusion).
Over the coming weeks I am going to examine the changes that I think have occurred, what they mean, how the public has reacted to them, and the obstinate refusal of our dominant elites to grant these new realities the status they deserve. Let me state my theses - yes, they are plural - clearly, as I shall be defending and fleshing them out over time:
- The end of the Cold War caught our elites by surprise. Most have continued to act as if the US "victory" provided an opportunity for us to act unilaterally as the "lone superpower", aided and abetted by media elites who continued to live within this no-longer-controlling paradigm. The public, however, has reacted differently, and only now are politicians catching up.
- As the Goldwater campaign of 1964 was to conservatism, the 1972 defeat of George McGovern was a Pyrrhic defeat of liberalism. McGovern's campaign and platform, even with all its limitations, failures, and comedic aspects, reflects a post-Cold War political ideology that events have finally allowed to flourish. We are, now, McGovernites.
- Our dominant media elites, while certainly craven and stupid, are also blinded by their adherence to outmoded ways of thinking and presenting the world to us. The most interesting aspect of this disconnect is the public, by and large, recognize the reality not given by the elites' interpretation, and refuse to go along with their dominant narrative. Thus the elite call the public stupid, ignorant, misguided, or even unethical or immoral. Rather, it is the elites who are ignorant, blind, and stuck in a past that no longer applies.
- There are intellectual and historical tools available for interpreting what is happening, the best including the views on pluralism voiced by Isaiah Berlin and Charles Taylor, on pragmatism and social hope voiced by Richard Rorty, and inclusion voiced by Miroslav Volf.
When George Bush was re-elected in 2004, my wife and I were both quite down about it. "I don't understand it," she told me. My response was, "Maybe people have to let things get really bad before they want to change." I said that thinking people were accepting of the status quo until a crisis emerged that forced them to question their acceptance of it. I also thought, at the time, that things couldn't get much worse than they already were. I honestly couldn't imagine the level of base criminality and stupidity, not just of the Administration, but of elected Republicans in general. I feel quite chastened as I think about this now; the pervasive corruption of the entire Republican establishment should serve as an object lesson to all those who wonder about our political culture. There is little that impedes the corrosive and seductive effects of power when those who hold power believe themselves ordained by God to rule.
In the two-and-a-half years since the election, a series of political and cultural and natural events have highlighted (as if there was ever any question) the evident failures not just of the Bush Administration, but of the Republican Party and its dominant ideology. Hurricane Katrina and the failure to save New Orleans, Terry Schiavo, the on-going war in Iraq (for some reason, our dismal performance in Afghanistan, allowing the ousted Taliban to reform is rarely mentioned; consider it mentioned), the pervasive corruption and unresponsiveness of the Republican-led Congress, the destruction of the integrity and independence of the entire federal bureaucracy as the Bush Administration used it to serve narrow, partisan ends. This list, of course only highlights the most egregious and most obvious faults and flaws. It would seem, however, that the total effect of these has been to create a situation where not only the President, but Congress, too, sinks in public esteem (although that is a general institutional rating; Democrats in Congress, especially when they are acting in the public interest, get much higher scores than when they capitulate to dominant narratives of "bipartisanship"). The public clamors for release from the Bush Administration and its misrule. How are we to navigate these strange waters in which we find ourselves?
The most important point to consider when trying to make sense out of our current political dilemma is that the public, more intelligent than the combined wisdom of our pundits and national journalists, recognize not just malfeasance but maladministration, and seek a remedy within the context of the available options. For too long, our political choices have ranged over a very narrow band of acceptability; with the Bush Administration's - indeed, the Republican Party in general - abject failures, there is the realization that the kind of taboos that have existed for a quarter century no longer apply because the circumstances within which we find ourselves are unique. Bill Clinton attempted to govern within these new realities, and was remarkably successful at it. The struggle, in the six-and-a-half years since George Bush's election, has been over the plurality that refused to recognize these changed realities - and our dominant media's refusal to grant these changes the status of acceptability. From redefining what "liberal" and "conservative" mean to rethinking the role of the United States in world affairs to questions of domestic policy from taxes to suburban sprawl, we have tried to engage an entire new way of living as the United States, while our dominant media and politicians continued to pretend we had just won World War II and were the biggest kid on the block with the biggest stick (the "lone superpower" delusion).
Over the coming weeks I am going to examine the changes that I think have occurred, what they mean, how the public has reacted to them, and the obstinate refusal of our dominant elites to grant these new realities the status they deserve. Let me state my theses - yes, they are plural - clearly, as I shall be defending and fleshing them out over time:
- The end of the Cold War caught our elites by surprise. Most have continued to act as if the US "victory" provided an opportunity for us to act unilaterally as the "lone superpower", aided and abetted by media elites who continued to live within this no-longer-controlling paradigm. The public, however, has reacted differently, and only now are politicians catching up.
- As the Goldwater campaign of 1964 was to conservatism, the 1972 defeat of George McGovern was a Pyrrhic defeat of liberalism. McGovern's campaign and platform, even with all its limitations, failures, and comedic aspects, reflects a post-Cold War political ideology that events have finally allowed to flourish. We are, now, McGovernites.
- Our dominant media elites, while certainly craven and stupid, are also blinded by their adherence to outmoded ways of thinking and presenting the world to us. The most interesting aspect of this disconnect is the public, by and large, recognize the reality not given by the elites' interpretation, and refuse to go along with their dominant narrative. Thus the elite call the public stupid, ignorant, misguided, or even unethical or immoral. Rather, it is the elites who are ignorant, blind, and stuck in a past that no longer applies.
- There are intellectual and historical tools available for interpreting what is happening, the best including the views on pluralism voiced by Isaiah Berlin and Charles Taylor, on pragmatism and social hope voiced by Richard Rorty, and inclusion voiced by Miroslav Volf.
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