http://www.amconmag.com/article/2010/feb/01/00036/
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He reserved his real fury, though, for those self-appointed guardians who decry the “economic provider-state” but seek a “moral provider-state.” He was particularly frustrated by the growing evangelical movement within the Republican Party, a frustration he explained in Prejudices (1983) and Conservatism: Dream and Reality (1986). “From the traditional conservative’s point of view it is fatuous to use the family—as the evangelical crusaders regularly do—as the justification for their tireless crusades to ban abortion categorically, to bring the Department of Justice in on every Baby Doe, to mandate by constitution the imposition of ‘voluntary’ prayers in the public schools, and so on,” he wrote. Such laws actually assault the family by proscribing its legitimate authority, striking at the core of family rights. In the end, they are totalitarian in spirit, since “the surest sign of despotism in history is the state’s supersession of the family’s authority over its own.”
What Conservatives Really Want
The central issue in our political life is not being discussed. At stake is the moral basis of American democracy.
Budget deficits are a ruse, as we've seen in Wisconsin, where the Governor turned a surplus into a deficit by providing corporate tax breaks, and then used the deficit as a ploy to break the unions, not just in Wisconsin, but seeking to be the first domino in a nationwide conservative movement.
Conservatives really want to change the basis of American life, to make America run according to the conservative moral worldview in all areas of life.
Conservatives believe in individual responsibility alone, not social responsibility. They don't think government should help its citizens. That is, they don't think citizens should help each other. The part of government they want to cut is not the military (we have 174 bases around the world), not government subsidies to corporations, not the aspect of government that fits their worldview. They want to cut the part that helps people. Why? Because that violates individual responsibility.
Above all, the authority of conservatism itself must be maintained. The country should be ruled by conservative values, and progressive values are seen as evil. Science should have authority over the market, and so the science of global warming and evolution must be denied. Facts that are inconsistent with the authority of conservatism must be ignored or denied or explained away. To protect and extend conservative values themselves, the devil's own means can be used against conservatism's immoral enemies, whether lies, intimidation, torture or even death, say, for women's doctors.
conservative values that caused the global economic collapse: lack of regulation and a greed-is-good ethic.
http://www.truth-out.org/print/67907
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Repug/conservative VRWC has fucked America, will it fuck more, and is unstoppable.
My guess is the unions will be busted in WI. Then with the Repugs refusing to lend states money, some states/cities/counties will declare bankruptcy, wiping out the pensioners, and all union contracts.
Then the Repug/conservative VRWC will come back with more tax cuts for super-wealthy and corps, raising SocSec age, reduced SocSec payouts, while raising taxes on everybody else.
Nisbet's critique of the Family Values crowd rings true. I suppose he thought that the trends were irreversible, rather than seeking a way to stem the decline.
The same thing most other human beings do. Not, of course, whatever sensationalist characterization serves the end of driving traffic to that site.Quote:
What Conservatives Really Want
The real concern, of course, is what those who believe such tripe are motivated to do, driven in no small part by the pure ideological bubbles within which many live today. The end result is a boutons. All hail the new community.
My biggest gripe about "Family" is that it's important to Republicans unless you're an immigrant, in which case they are perfectly happy deporting your Mom and Dad.
This article perfectly captures Nisbet's thinking, and Nisbet perfectly captures the problems that many of us who used to consider ourselves republicans have with the modern-day Republican Party.
The description of ecumenicalism, militarism and libertarianism as characterizing today's republican party is so spot on I sent the entire article to three other people.
Great find, Marcus, thank you ever so much.
hmm.
Apparently the attempt to quote a quote is failing. I just wanted to agree with Marcus' selection of the quote regarding the 'particular fury'.
Nisbet was one of the great minds of the late 20th century.
Such is the result of interest group politics. Of course, those who have a narrow view tend to be more motivated.Quote:
Originally Posted by LnGrrrR
The problem, of course, is that the definition of the family was too fixed, yet still that the breakdown in family and local community as a way of life will lead to an increase in social pathologies. The family is seen as the enemy of the perfectly rational, atomized individual. The family is also seen as an enemy, imo, of a corporatized economy built on mass consumption, and of course, a state that expects subjects so loyal they will die for it.
But, that's what we wanted. We wanted an ever powerful government, one that can annihilate any other nation's army on Earth. We want mammoth government spending in other areas. We want all of these consumer goods. Why, the family can't provide that.
We also wanted to maintain our adolescence, to live the life that we couldn't live growing up. Naturally we thought by killing the family we'd be happier, that there wouldn't be any repercussions. I think one day we'll realize that we finally got the world to be what we wanted it to be at age 13.
Or, the 'family values movement' was on to something, but it became more about pushing a specific view of how family life should be, rather than advocating the importance of family life for a free people living in such an individualist age.
Naturally, the Nisbet view is more nuanced and harder to sell, though we know in our gut he's f-ing right.
Or, too much power and $ accrues to the state and the capital markets in the liberal age for the family or any other former community bulwarks to stand a chance of a resurrection.
Who nobody has ever heard of, though isn't that always the case?Quote:
Originally Posted by EVAY
No problem. You might also check this out: http://www.c-spanarchives.org/program/ID/1693Quote:
Originally Posted by EVAY
Well, the role of the family in protecting community values has traditionally been that of passing on those values to the next generation. That role has been under stress since the movement away from a rural based society wherein families were the true economic unit.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marcus Bryant
The large influx of immigration waves in the latter part of the 19th and early part of the 20th centuries held off the impact of some of the urban migration because the immigrants tended to live together through the first generation, again allowing the passing of traditional values, while the second generation diluted the immigrant values by blending with whatever American values they picked up in schools, etc.
The family economic unit was stressed when the fathers had to leave the home to work outside of it in factories or offices.
It was further stressed when children began to move away from their family of origin to accept higher paying (i.e. 'better' in the American Dream concept) jobs in different neighborhoods or cities.
Thus, what was once normal, seems radical today. We have destroyed an imperfect, yet humane way of life to chase abstract perfections.
The movement of women into the work place helped finish off any notion of family other than a grouping of atomized individuals. That's one of the reasons why Nisbet seems to have 'given up' on the notion of reversing the tide.
The American culture today is one of atomized individuals...so to the extent that anyone passes the cultural values on, they are passing on values of atomization and extreme individuation.
yeah. the only reason I know of him is that I taught from some of his Social Change Theory books in colleges.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marcus Bryant
He was way too conservative for many academics in his era, but he was an intellectual giant, I think.
Right. Has this necessarily made us happier/more content?Quote:
Originally Posted by EVAY
The social aspect of man is what the economists and the scientists and the planners always forget. That is, the irrationality, local loyalties, the need for belonging, and the need for meaning. Modernity has failed, tremendously in this regard.
And so somehow what passes for 'conservative' thought today is an attempt to force, de jure, an approximation of what ecumenicals think represented a 'better time', by focusing only on certain aspects of that time, i.e., prayers in schools, etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marcus Bryant
It has not only failed, but the failure itself is what is behind these misdirected attempts to recapture it pretending that everyone in this pluralistic, multi-cultural society can revert to an earlier, more socially cohesive time by forcing the values of once dominant group, i.e. christian fundamentalists, on everybody else.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marcus Bryant
The genie is well and truly out of this bottle.
Instead of focusing on the broader social needs that are going unfilled. (Naturally that includes the term "social" so it's probably socialist.)Quote:
Originally Posted by EVAY
Mainstream conservative ideology focuses on order. Mainstream liberal ideology focuses on equality. Both are built on an assumption of individual autonomy.
The whole idea of the government reviving community values by passing state and federal laws to promote them is fundamentally misguided if not perverse.Quote:
And so somehow what passes for 'conservative' thought today is an attempt to force, de jure, an approximation of what ecumenicals think represented a 'better time', by focusing only on certain aspects of that time, i.e., prayers in schools, etc.
The accretion of community/family-friendly laws correlates with the marginalization of family and community in reality, just as the accretion of law in general attests to the moral wickedness of the people, or a certain degree of social disorder.
Good point. What did Aristotle say about the law?Quote:
Originally Posted by Winehole23
I think a problem lies in the assumed homogeneity of thought of individuals (pure rational man). That the average individual would sell their parents if they could make a buck.
Man was stripped of humanity to create a humane society. Man had to fit the models the academics and professionals created. (Nisbet was famous for not clouding his writings with statistical analyses).
A problem for this political age is that there is no neat tale that can pin the blame on one side. The other is that this has been going on for over a century.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marcus Bryant
Probably one of the more interesting articles linked here in a while.Quote:
Against what he saw as this dubious backdrop, Nisbet marshaled not only the tradition of conservative pluralism but also the tradition of sociological thinking. As expounded by thinkers like Émile Durkheim and Max Weber, Nisbet argued, sociology teaches the value of seeing human beings as men-in-society, not as lone creatures in conditions of rational abstraction. Sociology thus exposes the liberal social-contract tradition of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and John Rawls for what it is: an attempt at omnipotence based on disregard for the social sphere that can provide only a distorted picture of the human animal.
But that does not mean conservatives should abandon the liberal project altogether. Far from it. For Nisbet, the basic values of modern liberalism—the dignity of the individual, the moral sovereignty of the people, and the possibilities of reason—are noble and defensible values vital to Western civilization, worthy of conservatives’ defense. Liberalism has only faltered to the extent that it has become unmoored from the social traditions in which it emerged. The great expounders of modern liberalism, like John Stuart Mill, were right to value what they valued—but they were wrong to imagine that a healthy form of individualism could blossom anywhere without reference to social organization. With that in mind, the task of conservatives is to reassert the importance of context—of vibrant and plural social organization—for the proper flourishing of liberal commitments.
“The symbols of liberalism, like the bells of the church, depend on prejudgments and social tradition,” Nisbet wrote. “In large part, the present crisis of liberal thought in the West comes, I believe, from the increasing loss of correspondence between the basic liberal values and the prejudgments and social contexts upon which the historic success of liberalism has been predicated.” Nisbet wanted to save liberalism from itself, and to do so he understood the necessity of saving things that seem illiberal: tradition, authority, hierarchy.
Doesn't stop each side from trying to blame the other endlessly though, does it?Quote:
Originally Posted by Marcus Bryant
There's too much $ in it, perhaps. But that's the standard simplistic view of problems in American life.Quote:
Originally Posted by EVAY
There's a natural need to impose one's view on the world, instead of seeking to change one's self, or at least to be content to live the life you think should be lived.
Would not the proper response to Nisbet's critique of modern Western life to be to live as rich a family and community life as you can? Or is it more bemused fatalism as we view the continual descent of modern man?
Well said. I'm sure that corps would rather a single man/woman, rather than one with a family, because then the single person won't be distracted by things at home.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marcus Bryant
Additionally, there is hatred of the family on the left too, in the form of those who demonize people who wish to have children. I've seen quite a few crazies on Salon and other sites that harass people for having children, as they're helping to pollute. (My polite suggestion for all of those people are to off themselves now, to help out with the problem.)
I'm hoping that there will be a correction, a pendulum swing. I can't imagine many people of my generation (20 to 30 or so) are looking at the effects of continuous warfare and seeing it in a positive light.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marcus Bryant
Ignorance isn't bliss, but there's enough damn folks trying to maintain their stupidity that one could be forgiven for thinking so.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marcus Bryant
Perhaps yes as to the family life. To go much beyond the immediate family in this society is to experience so much individuation in values that any attempt to integrate oneself into said society is to invoke a deluge of cognitive dissonance.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marcus Bryant
Doesn't it seem though that what we are describing is precisely the appeal that the extremes of either end of the political spectrum represent?
Isn't it possible that only in the far extreme can the clarity and singularity of thought be sufficiently pure in this day and age to be compelling and, resultantly, energizing?
To be wiling to exist within the 'medias res' of modern american political thought seems to me to imply a willingness to accept the possibility that truths can be coexistent with uncomfortable beliefs.
Hell, to be willing to exist with a 'medias res' today implies rationality, which is inherently anathema to both extremes.
Eh, I don't think so. In some ways, you're correct. But such clarity has to be tempered with reality, or else you end up like [insert Godwin's Law here] Hitler in Germany.Quote:
Originally Posted by EVAY
Moderation can be a virtue unto itself; it's rare though that people talk about that. (Note: I don't think moderation should occur in every area, of course. You have to have some standards that you won't go below.)
I'm optimistic that we will eventually swing back that way. The key word being optimistic.
Impose is a bit too strong, but I think that one should make their views known. By all means, change your self is the evidence dictates, but don't let things you know to be wrong fly by without a token effort at resistance.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marcus Bryant
To oversimplify, right wing anti-family attitudes show up in matters of employment, business, and war. Left wing anti-family attitudes show up in matters of racism, feminism, environmentalism and all the other isms. The family is seen as an impediment to correct attitudes and goals in these areas.Quote:
Originally Posted by LnGrrrR
In which case traditionalism seems downright revolutionary, in my opinion.Quote:
Originally Posted by EVAY
Would that it was energizing as well as revolutionary.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marcus Bryant
And in fact Hegel would argue that if traditionalism is the synthesis of the two current extremes, that it will itself become the future thesis, at which point it would in fact be energizing as well as revolutionary.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marcus Bryant
But it is precisely that lack of 'tempering reality' that simplifies the far extremes and makes them attractive to those who would prefer not to think. Moderation is indeed a virtue. It is simply not a virtue that is very exciting to most people, and I would argue, is not a very attractive virtue in current American society.Quote:
Originally Posted by LnGrrrR
Thus, moderates are disappearing from elected office in America.
Conservatism conserves what was once revolutionary. At least the good aspects. In theory.Quote:
Originally Posted by EVAY
But that's exactly my point. As politicians move to the extreme, they will have to keep moving in that direction or be cast out as a non-believer. Look at the right wing, and how many people call out former conservatives. As it gets more and more extreme, politicians will have to keep up (just like banks had to keep up with other banks by using CDS/etc/etc). Look at Glenn Beck lately, for an obvious example.Quote:
Originally Posted by EVAY
Eventually, there will be a line crossed, and public sentiment will swing around. Then moderation will be hailed as the hallmark of great men, sober giants reflecting on the extreme dichotomy of opinion that's been inflicted upon this great nation.
And eventually, moderation will be seen as boring, and we'll swing back the other way. (Heck, some of that occurred even during Obama's run for presidency.)
For an unrooted people with little in the way of understanding, an ideological lens through which to see the world is appealing. A way of understanding without the effort to acquire it.Quote:
Originally Posted by EVAY
Moderation in temperament comes from seeking understanding. Not necessarily moderation in thought, but the effort leads to respect for honest differences in opinion.
Perhaps the greater the vitriol, the greater likelihood that opponents are fighting over the same space. Or that the differences are slight rather than huge. If you accept the notion of a centralized state/business apparatus, then the pitch of American politics should not be surprising as the two general sides duke it out for the power, wealth, and prestige accruing.
Disclosure.Quote:
Originally Posted by EVAY
Once upon a time I tried to read Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit with some philosophy grad students here in Austin. We read it line for line in our meetings at Milto's Pizza.
It was really hard, even for the PHL grads, and of course like simpletons and babes we read it in English. We only got about halfway through, and there was little agreement about the meaning of the terminology or even basic themes. Eventually, it bored us to death.
When we'd review things we just read, hilarious things would happen. People would start saying the opposite of what they said ten minutes ago, and the people who you'd think would be in natural agreement, who in fact agreed ten minutes ago, would argue the opposite too.
For me, trying to understand Hegel is like trying to set foot twice in the Heraclitean river. In Hegel's favor, existence is like that too.
Unfortunately the very high price Hegel pays for the "realism" of his PHL related to change, is unintelligibility. Trying to describe the philosophy of GWF Hegel is like trying to describe the waves or a sand dune.
(tlacuache)
(tecate)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marcus Bryant
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The transition from free capitalism to forced collectivism is easy and will hardly be noticed when a population has lost the sense of social and moral participation in the former. Everything that separates the individual from this sense of participation pushes him inevitably in the direction of an iron collectivism, which will make a new kind of participation both possible and mandatory.
St. Paul called it a curse and a cradle of sin. What did Aristotle say?Quote:
Originally Posted by Marcus Bryant
IIRC, that the laws should be few and unambiguous.
Thanks. Do you recall where he said it, by any chance?
(might look it up someday)
Am looking for it myself. Entirely possible that I mis-attributed it to him, so I will enter an apology in advance.
Maybe I got drunk and read some Bastiat.
The United States is a nation of laws: badly written and randomly enforced. ~Frank Zappa
The more corrupt the republic, the more numerous the laws. ~Tacitus
http://www.quotegarden.com/justice.html
Eh, I don't think that sort of scenario could exist in any country as large as ours. If it were the case, there would just be a whole ton of court precedents to follow instead of laws.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marcus Bryant
Still, we don't have a law for every precise situation.
Though the Congress has attempted to do so.
I'm glad that this thread is sufficiently boring.
Damn, this is nice.
Boredom is significantly underrated.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marcus Bryant
Without a doubt. Will it last?Quote:
Originally Posted by Winehole23
(burps)
With respect to your question, one must as ever beware the vanity of thinking we do/do not live in momentous times.
20 years, 200 years...what's the diff?
We need to get over ourselves in a hurry.
Well, WH, the times may or may not be momentous. But they are sure as hell interesting.Quote:
Originally Posted by Winehole23
And I'm still pissed at the Chinese guy that said 'May you live in interesting times."
Me? I'm old enough to be ready for a little boredom.
So it would seem, but these are very hard to create from scratch where they are not already strongly in evidence.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marcus Bryant
Preferably both, but that's well put.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marcus Bryant
Fuck it, I just started reading The Politics anyway. Thanks for the misattribution. :tuQuote:
Originally Posted by Marcus Bryant
It's still worth trying though. You can't win if you don't play.Quote:
So it would seem, but these are very hard to create from scratch where they are not already strongly in evidence.
(faking it til he makes it)
I'm more pissed at the fuckers who made it so interesting, but I know what you mean.Quote:
Originally Posted by EVAY
Quote:
Originally Posted by EVAY
Quote:
Originally Posted by Faust I, in a bar I think
@MB:
(Mr. Smarty Pants level of veracity, right?)
Tacitus worshipped the primal simplicity and robustiousness of Germania. He lusted for their tribal unity and martial frenzy, and preached it as morality among the Romans.Quote:
Mr. Smarty Pants gets his information from books, magazines, newspapers, the internet, radio, and television. He also includes facts he has overheard at parties.
Afterthought: inasmuch as living a bored, boring life betokens a stable public order and personal plenty it is to be prized for itself. It too is perishable from the earth.
(gastric disturbance)
(Phoenixx)
What Bork sees as logical flimsiness on Nisbet's part is, to some of us, the difficulties encountered by an over-Jesuitical thinker (Bork) with a genuinely conceptual thinker (Nisbet).
Nisbet's views on the militarization of American society would most likely get him branded as a RINO by contemporary 'conservatives.'. That is, if they even knew who he was.
http://www.amconmag.com/mccarthy/201...ouglass-adair/
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A diversity of small-scale institutions is the means of maintaining pluralism on the large scale, and the intermediary institutions beloved by traditional conservatives fit this bill. But again, one cannot take the health and survival of these institutions for granted. If they disintegrate, the foundations of constitutional pluralism are undermined. From above, these institutions are menaced by national power. From below, they are threatened by atomization, an entropic individualism that breaks down small-scale institutions into a homogenized mass of elementary particles. Not only are individuals cut loose from institutions unlikely to be able to mount the kind of power necessary to resist encroachments from above, but the decay of civil society may leave a hunger for “community” that national power (or nationalism) swoops in to fill. Robert Nisbet has described this risk in The Quest for Community and elsewhere.
The Madisonian system, then, is jeopardized from three directions: from consolidated national power, from binary oppositions that take on national proportions, and from social entropy. All of these are potent forces, and even if they chip away at constitutional pluralism only gradually, over time they will still destroy the edifice.
Does pluralism have any defense? Patrick Deneen has been willing to contemplate “subsidizing localism.” But this calls to mind a warning from Nisbet in his 1978 essay “The Dilemma of Conservatives in a Populist Society”:
The same rush to Washington, D.C. for handouts or participation in the power structure is to be seen elsewhere: in the universities and schools; in the churches – eager for some new tax exemption or to promote some new welfare reform; in the labor unions; in just about every sector indeed of American society. The family is important: there must, therefore, be a plethora of Federal laws and agencies protecting women and children. The local community is important: there must, therefore, be a vast community redevelopment act passed by Congress and an appropriate bureau established. So it goes. Given present currents, one has the sense that if the move toward decentralization and localism did become major, it would culminate in some new Federal Bureau or Department, doubtless titled “Department of Decentralization and Localism.” But I am being cynical. The dilemma of the conservative is, however, a very real one. The great question that must be faced and answered by conservatives is that of the relevance in our time of such values as the family, neighborhood, locality, religion, social rank, voluntary association, and, alone making these possible, limited political government.
I no longer believe that conservatism as described by Nesbit has a voice in organized politics.
The Democratic Party wants to conserve certain things like water and forests and the existing flora and fauna status quo. And they are prepared to legislate requirements to make people conserve those things.
The Republican Party wants to conserve the social status quo of the 1950's and is prepared to legislate requirements to make people conserve those things.
What Nisbet is describing is the conservation of a cultural normative set and societal, political contract (including non-intrusive government) that stopped being characteristic of the direction of the Republican Party during the Presidency of Richard Nixon.
Aside from political rhetoric, Republicans have had no interest in non-intrusive government for at least three decades.
Modern Republicans accuse someone of being a RINO if they are in favor of increasing taxes on anyone for any reason. Nothing else counts. Nothing.