Part of the problem, Josh, is that people are more interested in (usually unwittingly) virtue signalling than virtue. Also, though one's opponents may not be able to articulate it, there usually are legitimate concerns embedded in even odious positions. I see this throughout our society: the would-be virtuous act without wisdom or understanding, and the supposed villian often has a legitimate concern. Even the smug person thinking "those fools are just wasting their time," who sits on the sidelines, doesn't escape the vice of selfishness cloaked in tolerance.
I would say that the largest root of all of this is a simple scientific fact. As many sociological studies show, most people have limited moral development, and the typical person cannot think far beyond their cultural norms. Depending on the study, "most" means 80-90%. For them, "being a good person" just means "doing what the majority recognizes as good" ... even though popular culture is festooned with contradictions. Or, to put this another more simple way, "being a good person" to most means people pleasing.
Speeches such as Frederick Douglas' have a way of cracking through a myopic moral understanding, making it possible for a person to break through into true moral understanding, to reveal even the contradictions of one's own commitments. One can admire the wisdom of the founders and still acknowledge the profound moral hypocrisy, and hopefully, recognize that we're all doing that to some extent, whether that person is the social justice warrior or the cultural conservative.
Well said: "One can admire the wisdom of the founders and still acknowledge the profound moral hypocrisy, and hopefully, recognize that we're all doing that to some extent, whether that person is the social justice warrior or the cultural conservative." This self-awareness is, in fact, what a liberal arts education tries to accomplish.
Sorry I'm a couple of days late to this, but it's a splendid offering, Joshua, with many excellent resources. I'm especially pleased by that opening video of Douglass's descendants, which is new to me. I can place myself comfortably in sympathy with your complex introduction to the Obama speech., and the speech itself. It's a post I might have offered myself, in kind if not quality, seven years ago, but can't now. The balanced vision you offer has, I think, been called for from us from the start, but for me, the past seven years alter the analysis. I'd be curious to read someone's deep, careful journalism examining the response to Trumpism by stage of life. What has it meant to a 20, 30, 40-year-old, with those life experiences, compared to someone decades older? I got to live most of my life with that complex vision of the nation's flaws and its mitigating ideals joined to an experience and a sense of the nation ever advancing closer to the ideals, no matter, still, how far. That sense culminated with the Obama victory. Even the losing candidate, John McCain, recognized its significance. But what followed has to be taken into account. It's too early fully to do that, but King's faith-bound, hopeful arc of the moral universe has been twisted, for those who could envision it so long bending slowly in the right direction. As complicated as the analysis was before, its even more so now.
You make a great point. I'd forgotten that reference to MLK in Obama's speech. And I suppose I agree that it's no longer self-evident (maybe never was) that there is any moral arc to the universe whatsoever. That was a tempting line for U.S. history when it seemed like there was a steady expansion of civil rights over time (if not a complete realization of universal justice). We're now seeing some major setbacks for gender equality, for racial justice, and for sexual freedom. So I get where you're coming from.
This is also true for working-class people. When I came of age in the 1990s, in Montana, there was still enough money for quality public schools in rural areas. After the decline of logging and mining, in part due to highly educated activists now known by MAGA types as "the elite," my home community and many like it have become wastelands of addiction, poverty, and hopelessness. Californians or other monied types come in, buy up the scenic real estate, drive property taxes up, and people born and raised in the area have to fight to stay put. I didn't stay put -- I went to college in Tennessee, graduate school in Nebraska, and worked for many years in Iowa. I now live in Pennsylvania, where my wife's family is based. Opportunity, for me, meant getting out, not deepening my roots. So I understand the defiance that people who did fight for their birthright feel, even as I find their propensity for conspiracy theories and hate speech truly appalling.
In the end, I keep coming back to the liberal arts education that taught me to reflect on history, my identity, the variegated and elusive nature of truth, and the value of cultural diversity. Something as simple as learning Spanish taught me the folly of believing the Bible could be the inerrant Word of God (if translating a simple joke from English to Spanish proved impossible, how could the Bible possibly be morphed from Hebrew and Greek into English without violence to the meaning?). I still think we are sacrificing our heritage of rationalism -- which is part of what Obama is alluding to -- in favor of things like "employability." We do have an intellectual history worth celebrating, and I think it still could offer a way forward. In fact, I see it as the best antidote to what ails us now. Woke activism sees itself as the antidote to Trump, but I see it as another kind of fundamentalism. The moderate, rational, middle is where I'll always belong.
Thanks for those insights about life in Montana. What you describe is a kind liberal-elite prestige gentrification, with otherwise typical effects. It sheds light on some MAGA anger. It also raises the question, or, better, the challenge, to those who experience it, of extending empathy to those urban populations who have so long been victims of the more common gentrification and similar economic marginalization.
Regarding your closing thoughts about a moderate middle, we so far seem to be very aligned on these issues. It might be that if we focused on particular kinds of policies we might find areas of notable disagreement, but I don't see standing between the excesses of woke activism and Trumpism as necessarily at all positioning one as a moderate. Those extremes are so far apart that the middle is not the only place to stand between them. I'm a firmly committed big-L FDR-Johnson, New Deal-Great Society liberal, which is distinct from the far left that, going back to the Bolsheviks and earlier, has always disdained it, and I reject those extremes. I like to think of it these days, to adapt Churchill on democracy, as the worst political philosophy we have except for all the others.
I'm embarrassed not to have read the Paine or even heard of the Franklin "rules" but appreciate having both at hand to read. Perhaps some family reading today at the cookout. Thanks, Josh.
Paine is a treasure. Franklin, too. Whenever I have a little more linear time, I'll add another post to my American literary history section. Crevecoeur's Letters from an American Farmer is next in that queue.
Part of the problem, Josh, is that people are more interested in (usually unwittingly) virtue signalling than virtue. Also, though one's opponents may not be able to articulate it, there usually are legitimate concerns embedded in even odious positions. I see this throughout our society: the would-be virtuous act without wisdom or understanding, and the supposed villian often has a legitimate concern. Even the smug person thinking "those fools are just wasting their time," who sits on the sidelines, doesn't escape the vice of selfishness cloaked in tolerance.
I would say that the largest root of all of this is a simple scientific fact. As many sociological studies show, most people have limited moral development, and the typical person cannot think far beyond their cultural norms. Depending on the study, "most" means 80-90%. For them, "being a good person" just means "doing what the majority recognizes as good" ... even though popular culture is festooned with contradictions. Or, to put this another more simple way, "being a good person" to most means people pleasing.
Speeches such as Frederick Douglas' have a way of cracking through a myopic moral understanding, making it possible for a person to break through into true moral understanding, to reveal even the contradictions of one's own commitments. One can admire the wisdom of the founders and still acknowledge the profound moral hypocrisy, and hopefully, recognize that we're all doing that to some extent, whether that person is the social justice warrior or the cultural conservative.
Well said: "One can admire the wisdom of the founders and still acknowledge the profound moral hypocrisy, and hopefully, recognize that we're all doing that to some extent, whether that person is the social justice warrior or the cultural conservative." This self-awareness is, in fact, what a liberal arts education tries to accomplish.
Wow, Jason. Spot on. I’m copy-pasting this comment for mulling over later!
Sorry I'm a couple of days late to this, but it's a splendid offering, Joshua, with many excellent resources. I'm especially pleased by that opening video of Douglass's descendants, which is new to me. I can place myself comfortably in sympathy with your complex introduction to the Obama speech., and the speech itself. It's a post I might have offered myself, in kind if not quality, seven years ago, but can't now. The balanced vision you offer has, I think, been called for from us from the start, but for me, the past seven years alter the analysis. I'd be curious to read someone's deep, careful journalism examining the response to Trumpism by stage of life. What has it meant to a 20, 30, 40-year-old, with those life experiences, compared to someone decades older? I got to live most of my life with that complex vision of the nation's flaws and its mitigating ideals joined to an experience and a sense of the nation ever advancing closer to the ideals, no matter, still, how far. That sense culminated with the Obama victory. Even the losing candidate, John McCain, recognized its significance. But what followed has to be taken into account. It's too early fully to do that, but King's faith-bound, hopeful arc of the moral universe has been twisted, for those who could envision it so long bending slowly in the right direction. As complicated as the analysis was before, its even more so now.
You make a great point. I'd forgotten that reference to MLK in Obama's speech. And I suppose I agree that it's no longer self-evident (maybe never was) that there is any moral arc to the universe whatsoever. That was a tempting line for U.S. history when it seemed like there was a steady expansion of civil rights over time (if not a complete realization of universal justice). We're now seeing some major setbacks for gender equality, for racial justice, and for sexual freedom. So I get where you're coming from.
This is also true for working-class people. When I came of age in the 1990s, in Montana, there was still enough money for quality public schools in rural areas. After the decline of logging and mining, in part due to highly educated activists now known by MAGA types as "the elite," my home community and many like it have become wastelands of addiction, poverty, and hopelessness. Californians or other monied types come in, buy up the scenic real estate, drive property taxes up, and people born and raised in the area have to fight to stay put. I didn't stay put -- I went to college in Tennessee, graduate school in Nebraska, and worked for many years in Iowa. I now live in Pennsylvania, where my wife's family is based. Opportunity, for me, meant getting out, not deepening my roots. So I understand the defiance that people who did fight for their birthright feel, even as I find their propensity for conspiracy theories and hate speech truly appalling.
In the end, I keep coming back to the liberal arts education that taught me to reflect on history, my identity, the variegated and elusive nature of truth, and the value of cultural diversity. Something as simple as learning Spanish taught me the folly of believing the Bible could be the inerrant Word of God (if translating a simple joke from English to Spanish proved impossible, how could the Bible possibly be morphed from Hebrew and Greek into English without violence to the meaning?). I still think we are sacrificing our heritage of rationalism -- which is part of what Obama is alluding to -- in favor of things like "employability." We do have an intellectual history worth celebrating, and I think it still could offer a way forward. In fact, I see it as the best antidote to what ails us now. Woke activism sees itself as the antidote to Trump, but I see it as another kind of fundamentalism. The moderate, rational, middle is where I'll always belong.
Thanks for those insights about life in Montana. What you describe is a kind liberal-elite prestige gentrification, with otherwise typical effects. It sheds light on some MAGA anger. It also raises the question, or, better, the challenge, to those who experience it, of extending empathy to those urban populations who have so long been victims of the more common gentrification and similar economic marginalization.
Regarding your closing thoughts about a moderate middle, we so far seem to be very aligned on these issues. It might be that if we focused on particular kinds of policies we might find areas of notable disagreement, but I don't see standing between the excesses of woke activism and Trumpism as necessarily at all positioning one as a moderate. Those extremes are so far apart that the middle is not the only place to stand between them. I'm a firmly committed big-L FDR-Johnson, New Deal-Great Society liberal, which is distinct from the far left that, going back to the Bolsheviks and earlier, has always disdained it, and I reject those extremes. I like to think of it these days, to adapt Churchill on democracy, as the worst political philosophy we have except for all the others.
I'm embarrassed not to have read the Paine or even heard of the Franklin "rules" but appreciate having both at hand to read. Perhaps some family reading today at the cookout. Thanks, Josh.
Paine is a treasure. Franklin, too. Whenever I have a little more linear time, I'll add another post to my American literary history section. Crevecoeur's Letters from an American Farmer is next in that queue.
Crevecoeur I *have* read, and I should return to his Letters.
Thank you for this, Josh. I wasn’t familiar with the Douglas speech, or the story, or Odetta’s song.
By the way, if you ever have any interest, Tulsa is home to the Bob Dylan Center and archives. As well as the woody Guthrie Center. Very cool stuff.
Thanks! I think the song is originally Leadbelly’s. I learned it via Taj Mahal.
Thanks for this Josh. I hope you’re doing ok. We are in our new Ohio house this week.