Conservatism

Coming of age with The American Conservative

I must begin by thanking Jordan Bloom for the invitation to become a contributor to The Mitrailleuse. Some readers may know me from my intermittent blogging from about 2009 to 2011 for The American Conservative. Others might even know me for my frequent appearances in roughly the same period at Mondoweiss. And perhaps a few might know me for my first book that was released in 2011, Rabbi Outcast: Elmer Berger and American Jewish Anti-Zionism. In April, the book I’ve been at work on ever since will be released, The Socialist Party of America: A Complete History.

Introducing myself effectively is in many ways exceptionally timely this month with the demise of The New Republic. As an intellectually curious young person who came of age at virtually the very moment of the September 11 attacks, I learned to have a particular hatred for The New Republic at the tail end of its recently much-ballyhooed heyday. I’m mature enough now to have an appreciation for those who are lamenting the apparent demise of the public intellectual and their forum in political magazines as a matter of principle. But in all candor I remain blind to the greatness and romance surrounding TNR, and in particular Leon Wieseltier’s back-of-the-book.

And the reason for this, frankly, is because my adolescent romance for the life of the mind – from politics to literature to ideas – was with The American Conservative. I still remember well when I was 17, first seeing and reading the first issue in the magazine section of Borders at White Flint Mall; two institutions now joined in meeting their reward by TNR, which memorably blasted the premier of TAC as “Buchanan’s surefire flop” (only in the recent coverage did I realize that this was a tasteless reference to The Producers, in the company of their charming headline on the vindication of Iraq realists in 2004, “Springtime for Realism”).

Some background is in order: I was a Jewish kid from Bethesda, Maryland who got his GED as soon as he turned 16. I was in community college for the next two years at the same time I was actively pursuing a highly unstable brew of radical involvements on both the left and right, fancying myself some kind of journalist-revolutionary (like 12-year old Henry Hill, I was living in a fantasy). The critical point of departure for my intellectual journey was some time just after 9/11, as I was becoming enamored with Justin Raimondo, who proved a formative influence to be sure, and discovering that his seemingly half-crazed notion about the Trotskyist roots of neoconservatism was very much true – it turned out my father knew several of them through the Harvard Young People’s Socialist League (Elliott Abrams, Josh Muravchik, and Daniel Pipes well; Bill Kristol just slightly. Anyone curious as to why he didn’t become a neocon should read his recent book on new urbanism).

In other words, the much-storied New York Jewish intellectual tradition, that Carol Kane assured the young Alvy Singer was a wonderful cultural stereotype to be reduced to, was in many ways a birthright. And yet I fell in love with TAC. In that first year or two as America was being conquered by Iraq, I still had high hopes for the Green Party, and even on the eve of TAC’s premier was startled to see Rod Dreher’s “Crunchy Cons” cover story at National Review and knowing there had to be a much, much, much better forum for this (by the time the book came out in 2006, I was of course well past recognizing that the typical figure covered in the book, if asked why they weren’t involved with the Green Party, would simply answer “because I like a steak every now and then”). When I was 18 and first living on my own, I subscribed to four magazines – The American Conservative, The Progressive, Chronicles, and an intriguingly semi-serious short-lived left-anarchist bi-monthly called Clamor.

I hardly need revisit the intellectual climate that surrounded the launching of the Iraq War, and why it was no contest between TAC and any more mainstream magazine – even the sincerely antiwar and often thoughtful liberals at The American Prospect could never stir the intellectual passions. Nor does a great deal need to be said here about what slowly but surely disillusioned me with the radical left, though to this day a large part of me is mystified as to why Bill Kauffman (or for that matter Jim Webb, at least in his career as a politician) is considered anything but a perfectly kosher man of the left. (more…)

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Adam Gurri on telescopic morality

From Front Porch Republic:

There is one version of the history of modern media that is a story primarily about a drug, developed to make its users feel anger with delightful intensity. Refinement of this drug has made some great leaps in a very short time — it used to be you had to wait until a certain time of day to get it. Then you had to deal with having it mixed in with a lot of filler material. Now you can go straight to the social media site of your choice, where you and your fellow junkies can trade images of victims overlayed with condemning quotes, or infographics which expose injustice in striking bar and pie charts. And now the shared experience of other people’s outrage has become part of the concoction, and it is immeasurably more potent as a result.

Like actual chemically-induced pleasures, in excess this anger is a sickness. It consumes your waking thoughts, and takes your vitality with you when it leaves. When the dose is administered, an extreme form of tunnel vision sets in. You get sucked into a monomaniacal focus on the object of some injustice, far away from you or anyone you know, and are temporarily unable to see anything that is actually a part of your life. You lose sight of vulgar morality, the stuff that really matters, and succumb to the siren song of telescopic morality. You rage at things you cannot control at the expense of time you could be investing improving the state of affairs around you, for your family, your community. The long term effect of mainlining telescopic morality is utter hollowness; ethical triviality.

Denounce Ferguson protesters but remember to forgive

“Instinct is something that people have got away from! It belongs to animals! Christian adults don’t want it!” – Amanda Wingfield

Since the days of Aquinas and Dante, the capacity for reason has been the defining feature of man. The leopard acts by instinct. Man is endowed with better capabilities. Christian theology holds that free will and logic are God’s gift to humanity. Without them, we would be left grazing in a field, not striving for better or to achieve oneness back with our Lord.

If using reason to make sense of the world is man acting at his best, what should we make of the recent events in Ferguson, Missouri and the ensuing “protests” across the country? The killing of unarmed black teeanger Michael Brown by a white police officer has predictably aggravated race relations in the U.S. Rather than focus on the clear-cut evidence of the case — which appears to exonerate officer Darren Wilson of wrongdoing — the shooting is being used to prove a point about police discrimination in America. The means of distribution are simple: destruction of private property and interference with commerce. In other words, brute thuggery and ignominious acts of violence.

From a practical standpoint, the disruption of people’s everyday routine doesn’t accomplish anything outside of ratcheting up annoyance. A casual look at social media reveals that most folks are annoyed rather than sympathetic when a few delinquents shut down a major highway. The random acts of disturbance are doing little to support the cause of equitable punishment.

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Stand up, and do what exactly?

Remember #BringBackOurGirls? The short-lived social awareness campaign to rescue hundreds of abducted girls in Nigeria has long petered out. For a brief moment earlier this year, the world focused on the plight of innocent girls kidnapped by the Islamic radical group Boko Haram. Even the First Lady joined in the crusade. Millions of Facebook and Twitter messages later, and we’re nowhere close to bringing back our girls. The campaign was high on emotion and low on substance; the perfect reflection of our tech-obsessed, low attention span culture.

Mollie Hemingway should understand this. Normally, The Federalist contributor is a thoughtful writer with an agreeable view on culture, politics, and personal relations. In the post-Christian era where traditional distinctions are blurred more than ever, she provides some sanity to combat the forces of relativism.

But in a recent piece, Hemingway displays an angry frustration with the feminist cyberwarriors that have been hogging so much of the media spotlight. Topic of her disgust: the radical feminine vitriol aimed at shabby dresser Dr. Matt Taylor. After successfully landing a spacecraft on a comet 310 million miles from Earth, Taylor was chastised for wearing a bowling-style shirt embellished with scantily-clad women. A slur of insults and death threats followed. Even science-loving women were offended by the apparel.

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Conservatarian: Down with unnecessary labels

Charles Cooke of National Review is one smart cookie. His cover story on the cult of charlatan Neil deGrasse Tyson is a must-read for anyone dubious of progressivism. Like many of his polemics at Bill Buckley’s legacy publication, Cooke deftly tarnishes the idol of simple, left-wing secularists who scoff at Bible-toting bumpkins in flyover country. Truly, few things top a good takedown of a cultural icon.

With such talent, I was disappointed by the title and subject of Cooke’s forthcoming book. Don’t get me wrong: I’m sure the thing will be well-written and full of keen insights laced with erudite quotations. But the name turns me off. Cooke is calling the book, The Conservatarian Manifesto: Libertarians, Conservatives, and the Fight for the Right’s Future. It sounds like a cool, promising subject brought down by a neologism that will fit shoulder-to-shoulder in an ocean of increasingly pedantic political labels.

To be sure, Cooke is far from the first thinker to utilize the term “conservatarian.” His “manifesto” seems like an attempt to pioneer its launch into the popular lexicon though. The book’s synopsis describes Cooke’s offering as a “call to arms” that can “help Republicans mend the many ills that have plagued their party in recent years.” That’s not necessarily a bad thing. I also don’t find anything wrong with libertarians or conservatives. From a political perspective, I easily identify with the non-aggression principle of libertarianism. When it comes to worldly matters and personal disposition, I hoist my flag with Tory conservatism. And on some issues, such as the plight of the poor, I can be a downright bleeding heart liberal.

But what’s the difference? And should it really matter what label we use?

These are questions that constantly come up when discussing political matters. Matters of governance are often talked about in terms of ideology, rather than the utility or ethical nature of the law. Balancing the budget is called a “conservative” policy. Easing punishment for drug offenders is seen as “liberal.” Rarely is public policy talked in terms of common sense. That’s because ideological labels are a tribal contest. Each has their cheerleaders and detractors, similar to professional sports. The difference is that Nancy Pelosi’s collagen-stuffed face can’t be fixed with a skirt and pompoms, and Karl Rove is about as agile as an obese penguin.

Lumping ideas into firm categories leaves out the messiness that follows public policy. Just like spouses, there is no perfect government. Logrolling exists for a reason. Democracy, whether representative or pure, is a give-and-take system. Laws come out of the legislative process with all kinds of inputs from people with varying perspectives. No policy embodies the core philosophy of Edmund Burke or Paul Krugman. Compromise is the only universal in representative government.

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Keep digging: ISI employee Stephen Herreid doubles down on character assassination

Grand inquisitor, Intercollegiate Studies Institute employee, and amateur blues musician Stephen Herreid feels very threatened that I said he should apologize to Artur Rosman for this disgusting post, so he decided to publish my email to him and insinuate that I’m guilty of conservative treason. You can read it here. Honestly I think I come off pretty well.

I mentioned that he works at ISI and that I hoped the number of articles — really, there are a lot, this is not a one-off thing — he has written going after trads and porchers hadn’t been encouraged by his superiors; he says he found that “menacing.” Boo hoo. I know many who share the concern that the institution, for which I have great respect and have benefitted from professionally, not devolve into GOP/conservative movement boosterism of the sort Herreid seems to wish he was the vanguard of. He edited the acronym ISI out of my email to him, presumably because he knows what he’s doing is shameful, so I note it here in the hope that this sparks some conversation.

There’s a lot wrong with Herreid’s post; I said if he didn’t apologize he could expect to hear from the blog, by which I meant this space, not the Daily Caller, which is not a blog. He knows that, but frames the piece around the Daily Caller so he can claim I’m holding a double standard, criticizing him for his ad hominem attack while working for a publication founded and edited by a person who defended Romney’s 47 percent remark. I suspect he also knows that there’s a big difference between making an intellectual argument about tax-payers and tax-receivers and attacking the character of the poor.

He claims:

J. Arthur Bloom … criticized me in an email sent to my place of work, made allusions to my employers that I found menacing, and seemed to me to be trying to use a reputable, patriotic, pro-free-market publication to intimidate me into apologizing for my defense of the American way. I cannot respect that, even if Bloom does claim to represent a publication that I very much admire.

If Herreid thinks it’s necessary to treat Rosman the way he did to defend the American way, then there’s really nothing further to be said. The ends justify the means. Vote GOP. And if Herreid feels intimidated that I said I’d blog about him, well, maybe he’s not the brave defender Christendom needs.

The Mitrailleuse will continue to be a place where well-intentioned people of the left and right can discuss ways to get away from people who conduct themselves like Mr. Herreid.

Update: I’m reminded of something a wise person once wrote to me: “It is very easy to convince yourself that you’ve dealt handily with the devil without selling so much as an inch of your soul. But the devil knows the difference, and so do you.” Just so.