Charles Pierce did an interesting and thorough job of examining David Brooks’ latest column. I might be tempted to just leave it at that, but there’s a nugget of something I agree with in the Brooks column. I mean, overall, it’s one of the most astonishingly crazy things Brooksie has ever had published. He literally complains that the Vietnam War Memorial doesn’t do honor to “just authority.” For that alone, he should be put in a North Vietnamese reeducation program. Apparently, he’d learn something…probably in more ways than one.
At its root, Brooks’ column is a long complaint about how Americans have grown cynical and disrespectful of just authority. He believes that the designs of recent monuments (for FDR, World War Two, the Korean and Vietnamese Wars, Eisenhower and MLK Jr.) are indicative of a cultural discomfort with celebrating power and authority. Again, I defer to Mr. Pierce in taking this apart piece by piece, but Brooks hits on something that has been on my mind in a different context. The following is garbled nonsense, but parts of it I agree with:
But the main problem is our inability to think properly about how power should be used to bind and build. Legitimate power is built on a series of paradoxes: that leaders have to wield power while knowing they are corrupted by it; that great leaders are superior to their followers while also being of them; that the higher they rise, the more they feel like instruments in larger designs. The Lincoln and Jefferson memorials are about how to navigate those paradoxes.
These days many Americans seem incapable of thinking about these paradoxes. Those “Question Authority” bumper stickers no longer symbolize an attempt to distinguish just and unjust authority. They symbolize an attitude of opposing authority.
I have to work hard to salvage any of that, but I have been concerned about how the Left is reflexively in a Question Authority mode. Lord knows, for at least fifty years our elites have been justifying that disposition, and the last twelve years have been particularly devastating. Our government has been operating on a lot of assumptions that really ought to be contested and debated. But I think one of the Left’s biggest problems is that taking a really strong anti-authority stance is disempowering. After a while, the cynical disrespect for authority winds up being just as delegitimizing to the federal government as the right-wing’s “the government is the problem” rhetoric. Failing to distinguish between power properly exercised and power misused winds up politically marginalizing the Left and leaving the government without defenders.
And this anti-government disposition plays out differently on the Left and the Right. On the Right, there is a positive agenda, which is to get elected and then paralyze and starve the government. On the Left, it’s just an invitation to drop out. You can see this in the differences between the Tea Party, which is very politically engaged in our elections, and the Occupy movement which is more interested in changing the conversation.
As the Left, or at least the Far Left, concludes that the whole edifice is rotten and must be torn up root and branch, it tends to cede the field of legitimate power to those who move in to fill the void. Whether because of the influence of the military-industrial complex or the power of corporate money or for some other reasons, many on the Left are concluding that “legitimate” power isn’t possible and is not worth pursuing.
And this leaves legitimate government programs vulnerable. The problem, as I see it, is one of demoralization and of an inability to believe in any unique or distinguishing role for America to play on the international stage. Who are we, after all, to exercise any leadership in the world when we have Abu Ghraib and Gitmo and torture and phony wars on our hands? When we have granted our elites the power to act, they have brought many disasters upon us. Perhaps our best bet is to deny them the power to act. One can focus on the treatment of Native Americans, the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow, the decision to use the Atom Bomb, the excesses of the Cold War, our misguided military adventures, and our increasing income disparity and political dysfunction, to paint a very negative and delegitimizing picture of our country. Of course, that’s very one-sided. One can also focus on the political genius of our founders, the courage and conviction of Abraham Lincoln, the great political maneuvering of our elites through the riptides of the Great Depression, the rise of communism and fascism, and the atomic age. You can focus on the far-seeing wisdom of the folks who created the modern international system for conflict resolution, humanitarian relief, and nuclear non-proliferation. You can focus on the great sacrifices the American people have made for the well-being of others.
I think the Left needs to find a vision of power that it finds legitimate and that it wants to obtain and wield. And it has to go beyond the mere preservation of the accomplishments of the mid-twentieth century. We need to get to a point where we are comfortable replacing our Question Authority bumper stickers with Seize Authority bumper stickers. I say this because no one gives power to people who won’t even seek it. The Tea Partiers are seeking power. We, on the Left, are really not.
You outdid yourself with this post. It is wonderful.
I see the Far Left as infantile, emotional, we want our own way babies. I don’t see any concrete facts or how to do anything that would help the situation.
It is easier to gripe about Obama, then to think about what can be done.
It also makes the whiners not responsible for anything. If the politicians in power are rotten, then when the Far Left whines about this and they do so endlessly, they are abdicating responsibility for changing anything. That would take thought and effort.
I do think they are like the Tea Party in a lot of ways.
The Far left is basically saying that they are powerless to change anything. That means they are lazy. It is easier to say it’s all Obama’s fault.
What you do is hard. You put a lot of thought into what you read and write.
All I can say about Brooks is that he has a $4 million dollar house. He doesn’t even write well. Something is very wrong that he has a op ed column at the NYT.
See, I can’t really agree with most of your comment even though I appreciate the kind words.
This is very complicated. And it’s hard to calibrate your ideals with your pragmatism. People who are out there complaining about Obama’s policies from the left have every right to do so. It’s imperative that some people do that. It’s also just plain human nature.
The problem is deeper and more convoluted than people on the left not supporting the president.
Organized pressure from the left can be constructive and helpful to the president if it is done correctly.
The Occupy Movement has carved out some space for him to maneuver in the middle.
FDR could argue to the Titans that he was saving them from far more radical politicians and their supporters.
The real problem I see is that the Left has grown cynical about our government to a degree that they see themselves as in opposition to power rather than the legitimate wielders of power.
And there are many, many reasons for that, most of them totally understandable.
What is the Left doing?
OWS is pretty much gone.
Not proposing any ideas that could work is worthless.
Complaining is one thing, but what would they do?
I don’t see anything constructive on the Left at all.
I can’t make excuses for the whining that is constant.
It is irresponsible to throw up one’s hands because things are difficult.
They have put themselves in limbo.
There is a certain degree of nihilism involved with the Occupy Movement, but it isn’t worthless. It helped move us out of the austerity death-spiral we were caught in.
But whatever its value, Occupy is no substitute for actual vision and a plan for winning power. The Republicans have that. From ALEC to voter purges to Supreme Court decisions to a strategy of total obstruction to union busting, they have a concrete and interlocking vision and strategy for taking and holding power. And they don’t fret about the legitimacy of that power either. We’re outmatched and visionless. And I’m not talking about the president who had a vision and took power. I’m talking about the Left.
OWS was great. It moved the topic of the 1% to the foreground and that is still up and running.
I think it was a temporary movement and another movement would have to start that would plan.
I don’t include OWS in the Left.
They put themselves at risk and they did a bang up job.
It takes fortitude to start breaking down a power structure.
Citizens United is a real blow to free elections.
ALEC has lost some big company support.
The deck is stacked against the 99% and that’s where we have a real job getting back any kind of balance.
What scares me about the Republicans is their cold cruelty.
Boo:
You know what one of the problems are, right? Versailles, and I’m not just talking about our corrupt, corporate media.
then what are you talking about?
The elite class in this country. From the banksters, to most of the polticians, to Bobo, Chunky Bobo, Craphammer and beyond.
I wish that were so. I’ve come to the opinion that his vision was written for a different time, and has been rendered kind of obsolete already by the asset bubble collapse and financial recession.
If you run the numbers on the different pillars of his “new foundation” for the American economy, it’s not necessarily a hugely optimistic exercise. If you test the various hypotheses (universal health care, green jobs, college graduates, etc.) based on job creation so far, you can simplify the equation for the next decade plus or so for this country’s economy as (barring some new economic revolution like PCs/internet) savings from increased energy efficiency get turned into higher retail purchases. Like, that’s it, really. That’s certainly been the story of the recovery. Retail has dramatically outpaced any other recovery metric.
We buy shit until we die. We maintain. And also move all our aircraft carriers into the South China Sea. Just in case.
Mark Lilla has been getting at something like this for a while, as in this piece from two years ago in at http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/may/27/tea-party-jacobins/?pagination=false
His conclusion is worth a long quote:
We are experiencing just one more aftershock from the libertarian eruption that we all, whatever our partisan leanings, have willed into being. For half a century now Americans have been rebelling in the name of individual freedom. Some wanted a more tolerant society with greater private autonomy, and now we have it, which is a good thing–though it also brought us more out-of-wedlock births, a soft pornographic popular culture, and a drug trade that serves casual users while destroying poor American neighborhoods and destabilizing foreign nations. Others wanted to be free from taxes and regulations so they could get rich fast, and they have–and it’s left the more vulnerable among us in financial ruin, holding precarious jobs, and scrambling to find health care for their children. We wanted our two revolutions. Well, we have had them.
Now an angry group of Americans wants to be freer still–free from government agencies that protect their health, wealth, and well-being; free from problems and policies too difficult to understand; free from parties and coalitions; free from experts who think they know better than they do; free from politicians who don’t talk or look like they do (and Barack Obama certainly doesn’t). They want to say what they have to say without fear of contradiction, and then hear someone on television tell them they’re right. They don’t want the rule of the people, though that’s what they say. They want to be people without rules–and, who knows, they may succeed. This is America, where wishes come true. And where no one remembers the adage “Beware what you wish for.”
You do know what movie was on TV the other night, right?
I have to pick just one?
All the King’s Men .. and I know it’s fiction .. but it is kinda about Huey Long .. obviously .. you can say he was corrupt .. a bully .. or whatever .. but he had a vision .. and he was unafraid of using every lever of power to make his vision happen … that means he unafraid of kicking those days version of the Blue Dogs in the groin .. if that’s what it took
The Left is in some ways a mirror of modern conservatism.
The latter has no plan for actually governing; that’s not what they’re interested in holding power for. (That would be “looting.”) But they have a clear vision of what to do when they’re out of power to gain power, and how to hold onto it when they have it. They are undermined because their efforts to hold onto power are invariably overwhelmed (so far) by the catastrophic impact of their policies on the 99%.
The Left has a pretty good idea what it wants society to look like – how it would govern, if left to its own devices – but no clue as to how to get there. One even sees this at the local level. Progressive “reform” candidates often run ludicrously ineffective campaigns, and even if they are elected, can’t build coalitions or stay in office. And even though it’s much easier to make change happen at a local level, the vast majority of Left activists ignore their own cities, and either care more about things halfway around the world or scorn the public policy process entirely. But by golly, if they argue the facts long enough, surely everyone will come to agree.
The left understands good public policy. The right understands power. It’s an uneven fight.
I disagree that the Right has no plan for governing. Tearing down all constraint on business, gutting union power, and strengthening the police powers of the state is a plan for governing. You and I don’t like it but it is a plan.
I don’t think it’s just the Left that has been questioning authority for the last sixty years. I think it is a generational thing. The rise of the Right has a lot to do with questioning authority only they see authority as the Established Left even though the Left has not been established since 1980. Even the Tea Party started as a revolt against government, before it was taken over by the Republican Establishment. The children of the sixties were not just the hippies. There was also the buttoned down conservative world. But in that conservative world there was much more distrust of authority and much more cynicism than in previous conservative generations. Much more conscious hypocrisy, too.
The succeeding generation that came of age in the ’80s is much more cynical then the ’60s generation. Much more hopeless too, but I suppose that ties together.
The latest generation that came of age in the ’00s is MUCH more trusting than either their parents or their grandparents. They have a belief in the essential goodness of Man that neither previous generation had. Boomers felt Man was Evil but Salvageable. Gen X’s felt man was Corrupt and Unsalvageable. Millenials feel Man is Good but Gone Astray. Boomers distrusted their school teachers. Gen X’s despised them. Millenials trust them.
These feelings transcend Left and Right and can be seen in both camps.
What birth years do Gen X’ers cover?
Per Wikipedia, 1960 through 1980. I see them as the children of Boomers, hence 1963 to 1995, although the later Gen X’s would have more the character of the Millenials because it’s what happened during your formative years that molds you, actually by definition of “formative years”.
Excellent post, thanks.
Good work, Mr. Booman. Yes, Brooks is making a valid point, for once. You can’t really run anything without some individual or some group or some group of groups holding the reigns of power. So let them be the best people for the job. And the rest of us, at least in our system, are supposed to help ensure that.
On questioning authority indeed.
Like running red lights.
Questioning authority …defying authority, actually…from the bottom rungs of the societal ladder.
As above, so below.
In the Bronx at night…and I have never in my long driving life seen this in the U.S…people are simply driving through red lights. Lots of people. I have been working quite a bit recently in the South, East and Central Bronx and I drive to the gigs because subway and bus connections are very complex east and west in the Bronx. You almost always have to take a subway down into Manhattan and then change to go back into the Bronx again or wait for interminably slow and sparse buses. After the first couple of red light runners I simply gave up believing in green lights and slowed way down at each one to make sure I wasn’t going to be broadsided. This is at 10 or 11PM, not early morning. Main streets, too. Later at night? Fuggedabudit!!! A driving free-for-all. Bet on it.
Each level of society has its own way of “questioning authority,” of course. Defying authority, actually. Running red lights, driving maniacally on highways and getting fucked up on drugs is the way this particular segment does it. The 1% do it by flouting financial laws and scamming trillions. Other classes and levels do it other ways. Cheating on income tax…an almost universal flouting of the law. Marching in protests meant to stop cities from functioning. Joining gangs. Carrying concealed weapons and using them. Etc., etc., etc. And on and on it goes.
Why?
Because most U.S. citizens now perceive…quite accurately…”the law” as being an almost Kafkaesque joke, something that comes down on certain people for very little reason other than to serve as a punitive example and ignores huge disobediences as a matter of course. As a matter of impotence, really. There are simply too many laws to be able to enforce them all. This is the biggest reason for Ron Paul’s popularity, by the way. He promises to cut the government down to a manageable size and then truly “enforce the law.”
Obama is caught up in all of this. He is establishing a surveillance state in an attempt to be able to “enforce the law.” And that will fail too, because it will merely amp up the resistance to it. Just as hackers and spammers are always a step ahead of the establishment’s attempts to stop them, so will be the “questioning authority” lawbreakers. There is only one possible solution, and that is in some manner downsizing the government. Break up the Union or slash the law-making machine down to an effective size. People see thieves like Jaime Dimon being put into positons of high authority and the little lights begin to dawn.
And little by little the rule of law breaks down.
From the top
Bet on it.
From the top.
Bet on it.
Watch.
AG