Hometown Hero

[Marcus Bryant]

http://www.amconmag.com/article/2010/feb/01/00036/

[Marcus Bryant]

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 cons ution 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.”

[boutons_deux]

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

==========

Repug/conservative VRWC has ed America, will it 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.

[Marcus Bryant]

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.

[Marcus Bryant]

What Conservatives Really Want

The same thing most other human beings do. Not, of course, whatever sensationalist characterization serves the end of driving traffic to that site.

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.

[LnGrrrR]

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.

[EVAY]

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 e enicalism, 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.

[EVAY]

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.

[Marcus Bryant]

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.

Such is the result of interest group politics. Of course, those who have a narrow view tend to be more motivated.

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.

[Marcus Bryant]

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.

[Marcus Bryant]

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.

[Marcus Bryant]

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.

Who nobody has ever heard of, though isn't that always the case?

[Marcus Bryant]

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 e enicalism, 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.

No problem. You might also check this out: http://www.c-spanarchives.org/program/ID/1693

[EVAY]

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.

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.

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.

[EVAY]

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.

[Marcus Bryant]

Thus, what was once normal, seems radical today. We have destroyed an imperfect, yet humane way of life to chase abstract perfections.

[EVAY]

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.

[EVAY]

Who nobody has ever heard of, though isn't that always the case?

yeah. the only reason I know of him is that I taught from some of his Social Change Theory books in colleges.

He was way too conservative for many academics in his era, but he was an intellectual giant, I think.

[Marcus Bryant]

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.

Right. Has this necessarily made us happier/more content?

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.

[EVAY]

Thus, what was once normal, seems radical today. We have destroyed an imperfect, yet humane way of life to chase abstract perfections.

And so somehow what passes for 'conservative' thought today is an attempt to force, de jure, an approximation of what e enicals think represented a 'better time', by focusing only on certain aspects of that time, i.e., prayers in schools, etc.

[EVAY]

Right.

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.

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.

The genie is well and truly out of this bottle.

[Marcus Bryant]

And so somehow what passes for 'conservative' thought today is an attempt to force, de jure, an approximation of what e enicals think represented a 'better time', by focusing only on certain aspects of that time, i.e., prayers in schools, etc.

Instead of focusing on the broader social needs that are going unfilled. (Naturally that includes the term "social" so it's probably socialist.)

Mainstream conservative ideology focuses on order. Mainstream liberal ideology focuses on equality. Both are built on an assumption of individual autonomy.

[Winehole23]

And so somehow what passes for 'conservative' thought today is an attempt to force, de jure, an approximation of what e enicals think represented a 'better time', by focusing only on certain aspects of that time, i.e., prayers in schools, etc.

The whole idea of the government reviving community values by passing state and federal laws to promote them is fundamentally misguided if not perverse.

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.

[Marcus Bryant]

The whole idea of the government reviving community values by passing state and federal laws to promote them is fundamentally misguided if not perverse.

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?

[Marcus Bryant]

I think a problem lies in the assumed geneity 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.