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One Nation, Two Cultures

by Gertrude Himmelfarb

There are enormous differences between neoconservatives and so-called libertarians. One main debate is whether America exists to benefit rich, childfree married adults or rich, childfree singles. Yep, you have to hand it to the moral imaginations of neoconservatives and so-called libertarians.

Though neoconservatism and libertarianism seem to be the two most common ideologies, that is not the two cultures explored in this book.

Gertrude Himmelfarb contrasts ultra-liberalism with neoconservatism. Other views are left out. That way if Himmelfarb can paint the world as a choice between neoconservatism and ultra-liberalism, neoconservatism wins, no matter how bad it is.

She is right about at least one thing. Ultra-liberals and neoconservatives are polarized and adamant in sticking to their beliefs. If one were to look at the pages of The Nation and The National Review now and in the 1970s, one notices few changes. They have hardly budged.

A few of the better arguments in One Nation look similar to an excellent summary of trends and circumstances offered by Jean Bethke Elshtain in the journal Society. To summarize Elshtain:

· More for old, less for young.

· Less marriage and family.

· High crime, but glee over recent slight declines. (It is worth noting that if a factor causes only one in 10,000 more people in a given year to commit murder, that is enough—all other things kept constant—to quadruple the homicide rate from the 1950s. Small numbers of individuals can cause huge increases in crime and misery.)

· Awful education.

· Poor civic engagement.

· Acceptance of adult as perpetual adolescent.

· Nonfamily groupisms: Race, gender, ethnicity, wealth, social status, sports, religion--and various interest and entertainment groups.

· Increased tolerance for various forms of selfishness, less tolerance for morality.

· Self-worth measured primarily by money.

· Loss of interest and confidence in moral truths, especially in public policy.

She is among many who make the good point that what passes for “civil society” is often a way of “evading the hard choices involved in any social policy.” The Communitarian idea of “civic life” is a bunch of empty-headed fools sitting around shooting the bull about the world in vague blather rather than an engagement in thorough reasoning. Criticizing bad policies is “too risky” or too boring. Civil society is often conceived as simply being nice. Many civil society interest groups are major contributers to demosclerosis. Frankly, It is better to be bowling alone than bowling with The Natioanal Sludgehead Ambassaders of Kleptopia.

Despite what some say, rancor is not a major problem in American politics. In some countries legislators literally duke it out. Their democracies are not threatened with collapse. Himmelfarb is in good shape noting that “value-free” laws are rare. Almost all laws are legislated morality, no matter what clichés about legislating morality insist. The people who excoriate direct moral language simply use indirect moral language.

This is not without intriguing ideas: For example, power markets encourage habits of "rationalization.” America cares for children in rhetoric. It is indifferent or hostile in practice. Like others, she splendidly notes that keeping the explicitly moral out of schools is horrible. Schools already teach values—do not cheat, do not vandalize, be on time, be polite, return borrowed items, do not assault others, Channel One is educational, football victories are important, and so on—the question is which values. Some research mentioned elsewhere suggests that character education, reduces discipline problems and vandalism and increases attendance and academic performance.

She occasionaly admits that elites in opposing cultures have similarities. Opposing elites can wallow in mediocrity and destruction and not face many horrible consequences. They can do scummy things with less risk because they can afford body guards, health foods, personal trainers, gated communities, super lawyers and so on, no matter what political side they are on. Various opposing cultures are infected with what Roger Shattuck phrases as “the morality of the cool.” (About two years ago I saw pathetic sight of grown men lining up outside a sporting goods store on the morning the latest sports icon of the century of the 15 minutes released a new athletic shoe.)

Much of this work, however, sees the world simply as a neoconservative to ultra-liberal spectrum--a spectrum that is simple, elegant, and wrong. There are plenty of other “oppositional cultures” in many dimensions: earth-firsters, freedom-firsters, religion-firsters, institution-firsters, and so on. The Cato Institute is a better friend for rich hedonists than Hugh Hefner.

For a book ostensibly about morality, this work has a near absence of the words harm and benefit. To culture warriors, morality is a matter of assigning arbitrary rules, making sure the rules get lots of publicity, and demonizing opponents over minor issues. Cultural warfare rarely serves moral ends. It serves interest groups on various sides. Ultraconservatives and their opposites need each other to keep their own power strong, like a bizarre sports league where a few franchises have most of the money and power for contracts and the other 28 teams exist are stuck with leftover players. Cultural issues also have the rhetorical benefit of being concrete, entertaining and emotively loaded. I doubt that politicians are more corrupt and philandering than in the past. Media coverage of politicians' personal lives has probably changed more than the personal lives.

According to Himmelfarb, mere opposition is a sign of “all too familiar relativism.” .

One Nation has a few good general philosophical points, but it is bad at policy and social science, Some of her points against welfare are good, but many of the causal claims fail to account for other relevant factors such as heredity. This work has too much Communitarianism. Rights are put in scare quotes by Himmelfarb--as if rights have little to do with morality. She concurs with Charles Murray that all government benefit programs keep growing. I can think of plenty of programs that have shrunk.

She asserts that covenant marriages and premarital counseling induce too much doubt? Why? She offers no evidence. It seems to me that counseling will mostly prevent marriages that should not happen. Counseling should strengthen marriages that are right.

She describes marriage commitment funds--couples putting aside money for their retirement or punishment in the event of divorce--as too materialistic, immoral, and unspiritual, but that is only if people choose to believe that is the case. People have no problem separating monetary and non-monetary concerns in their lives and operating with both monetary and non-monetary concerns in their lives. Yet writers think when it comes to families, people should only operate in a purely spiritual mode. Couples, apparently, should blindly believe with carefree innocence. And if they get burned, the same writers will probably scold them for being so naive to marry a bum or bumette.

The author makes the good points that reforms not made also have unintended consequences, that citizenship should be more than sociability, that national politicians often campaign on issues no bigger than those handled by small town mayors, that retreat from the public domain is understandable, yet reprehensible.

She badly—I mean badly--conflates religion and morality. The religious revival shows few signs of being a moral revival. It looks more like a feel-good revival: Go to church, read a shallow newspaper, watch TV, listen to a Gospel Rock CD, drive a Lexus, assert arbitrary rules, then excoriate opponents on some trivial issue such as school prayer. Gospel rock has little more to do with morality than does a bill rights for airline passengers. Even within conservative Christianity there is at least one branch that thinks other conservative Christians are self-absorbed corporate windbags.

At some points in the past self-discipline and other bourgeois virtues received greater reward. Increasingly, rewards and resources are shifted to parasitism and self-indulgence.

If you want a simple, conventional nonsense point of view, this is the book for you. If you want to know to understand the variety of the American experience or what ways of living are best, this is not the book.

—Book review article by J.T. Fournier

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