The Unrighteous Traffick: Slavery in Rhode Island

The Providence Journal is publishing a series on the place that slavery holds in RI history, calle The Unrighteous Traffick. The index to the text of the series can be found here (here's part 1 and part 2 with 5 more to follow). (There is also a multimedia presentation that can be found at the "front page" of the ProJo website). I suspect that most Americans don't associate Rhode Island and slavery, but as a vital link in the Triangular Trade, RI certainly played it's part. Newport came of age during this time and was one of the hubs of the trade. How could a colony found on the ideals of religious freedom as espoused by such as Roger Williams or Anne Hutchinson simultaneously encourage and profit from chattel slavery? I suspect the series will help answer some of these questions.

Master of Arts in History: Complete

Well, after 3 years, I've finally completed my part-time pursuit of a Master of Arts in History. As I noted before, my MA Thesis is complete. Since that post, I successfully passed (with distinction) my 1 hour, Comprehensive oral exam (3 Professors vs. me) on American History. As a non-traditional student, I took a truly non-traditional approach. I majored in American History and minored in Medieval History and was allowed to write my thesis on a Medieval topic. I think that--because I wasn't as "boxed in" as many typical graduate students--I was able to convince the program director to follow this course. The fact that I also took a couple supplementary American classes also helped. So, in a sense, I had a double major of American and Medieval History. Most of all, I had fun. I'll graduate magna cum laude in May with an MA in American History, an ability to translate Latin and as a member of Phi Alpha Theta. OK, enough self-congratulation, but this is a long way from where I started my college career (with markedly less inspiring academic results--let's just say I survived)! Someday I hope to go for a PhD, but with two young children and a full-time career as an engineer, that'll simply have to wait. Meanwhile, I'll keep doing scholarly work and work toward publication. And I'll also keep blogging.

Thesis Complete, Boards Next, What Next?

I handed in my MA Thesis yesterday and will be sitting for my oral comprehensive test a week from today. Though I haven't been blogging, I've been trying to keep up with things and noticed Ralph Luker's post about how the AHA's Anthony Grafton had mentioned fellow (and unfortunately now former) history blogger Invisible Adjunct in his article "What We Owe Our Young: Honest Information about Placement" in the latest Perspectives. I always enjoyed the Adjunct's blog and her honest and open posts offered me a glimpse into a world that I had toyed with entering. In the end though, I became content with the idea of stopping at the MA (for now) because I don't need to pursue a PhD for professional reasons. In this I'm lucky.

Ralph mentioned scaling back the amount of PhD programs to around 50 overall and around 100 MA programs as one way to relieve the pressure on the academic institutional-based history job market. I can see where doing so would benefit the academic-centered History job market, but I get the sense that many PhD holding historians already look at MA "only" historians like they're cute little pups who just couldn't hang with the big boys. [Not all, of course, and Ralph, Jonathan Dresner and Sharon Howard are but a few of those who have been open and welcoming to non-PhDers. One benefit of history blogging is its ability to offer non academics entre into scholarly historical discussion. As such, even without the Master's degree, I've felt like my opinions and (sometimes naive) theories have been considered fairly, for the most part.] Because I work outside of the history field (I'm an engineer), I don't need to play some of the games behind the walls of academia to which Ralph alludes. Because I don't need the degree as an avenue to employment, I think I have at least a bit more autonomy than on average and I can ignore the eyebrow raising and dismissiveness of any who might think not having a PhD somehow makes me less of a historian. (Besides, as one of my advisors told me, good scholarship erases artificial boundaries).

I come at this from the angle of a non-teaching Historian. Based on my experience, I've come to believe that an institution could make itself very attractive to History PhD-seeking people if they would remove the teaching and residency requirements and generally make it easier for "non-traditional" professionals to follow a PhD track. So while Ralph thinks fewer MA and PhD programs would help the academic market, I support a fundamental restructuring of the PhD program to accomodate those who want a PhD but don't want--or need--to teach. In short, some schools should offer programs that put an emphasis on research-only type PhDs. I think the field would benefit as a whole and that the pressure on PhD holders to fight for a spot in academia would lessen a bit. Anyway, I'm rambling and must be off to my real job. I'll be back in a week or so as an all but degree-in-hand Independent Historian. Wish me luck!

All Still Quiet on the Blogging Front

I mentioned that things would be quiet around here for awhile. Despite a few posts a couple weeks ago, I've managed to stay away. Well, I'm getting down to crunch time now. The Thesis revisions are completed, final printing will be done in the next couple days and then next week I have my boards. After that, I'll resume normal blogging. Thanks to those who have been checking up on me.

History Carnival - Two Selections

History Carnival XXIV has been wonderfully compiled by the Elfin Ethicist. As time is short whilst I continue prepping for the comp's, I'm limited to two items that piqued my interest.

First is this review by Jason Kuznicki over at Positive Liberty of America’s Constitution: A Biography by Akhil Reed Amar. Jason uses the review to examine the contrast between "Whiggism" and criticism and the result is a fine piece of historiography.

Second is a blog post/encyclopedia article preview by Jeffrey J. Cohen that explains how postcolonial theory is useful to medievalists.

Finding a Place for 9/11 in American History - New York Times

Joseph Ellis is trying to put 9/11 in historical perspective. In particular, he asks, where does it rank in the list of events that have threatend the American republic? His "goal is not to offer definitive answers but rather to invite a serious debate about whether Sept. 11 deserves the historical significance it has achieved." Thus, he gives us his list--in order--of the greatest threats to America in its history:

...the War for Independence, where defeat meant no United States of America; the War of 1812, when the national capital was burned to the ground; the Civil War, which threatened the survival of the Union; World War II, which represented a totalitarian threat to democracy and capitalism; the cold war, most specifically the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, which made nuclear annihilation a distinct possibility.

Sept. 11 does not rise to that level of threat because, while it places lives and lifestyles at risk, it does not threaten the survival of the American republic, even though the terrorists would like us to believe so.

There is one debate for historians: how would we rank them? And does 9/11 even belong?

But he has another question:

What does history tell us about our earlier responses to traumatic events?

My list of precedents for the Patriot Act and government wiretapping of American citizens would include the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798, which allowed the federal government to close newspapers and deport foreigners during the "quasi-war" with France; the denial of habeas corpus during the Civil War, which permitted the pre-emptive arrest of suspected Southern sympathizers; the Red Scare of 1919, which emboldened the attorney general to round up leftist critics in the wake of the Russian Revolution; the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, which was justified on the grounds that their ancestry made them potential threats to national security; the McCarthy scare of the early 1950's, which used cold war anxieties to pursue a witch hunt against putative Communists in government, universities and the film industry.

In retrospect, none of these domestic responses to perceived national security threats looks justifiable. Every history textbook I know describes them as lamentable, excessive, even embarrassing. Some very distinguished American presidents, including John Adams, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt, succumbed to quite genuine and widespread popular fears. No historian or biographer has argued that these were their finest hours.

It may be a bit strong to say "no historian," but it is certainly the case that most have agreed with Ellis' general point. He concludes:

It is completely understandable that those who lost loved ones on that date will carry emotional scars for the remainder of their lives. But it defies reason and experience to make Sept. 11 the defining influence on our foreign and domestic policy. History suggests that we have faced greater challenges and triumphed, and that overreaction is a greater danger than complacency.

I'll grant that we have faced greater threats in our history, but none of those threats have had the same characteristics as this particular threat: international, non-state centered (though sometimes state-sponsored) terrorism. The sides are pretty hardened as to whether one believes the current Administration is justified in some of their domestic policies aimed at safeguarding the nation. But Ellis is being too simplistic in his analysis by implying--or believing--that all of these conflicts were fundamentally the same in character. It is nothing new to say that 9/11 revealed a new and different threat. Professor Ellis doesn't seem to believe that a new and different threat requires a new and different response.

US News: Presidents At War

U.S. News & World Report has an issue on Presidents at War that I plan on perusing. Looks like a lot of good stuff for those of us who like to contemporize Clio.

A Bleg about Durant's Story of Civilization

I was wondering what Historians think/thought of Will Durant's The Story of Civilization series. I have one of the volumes--Age of Voltaire--but have read only portions (and not closely). I have read a few journal reviews that basically say the series is designed for the general reader and that it does a good job of presenting a comprehensive narrative of world history (albeit over 11 volumes!). Most of the reviewers say that scholars will always be able to pick some things apart, but that average folks are well served getting their history from Durant. Nonetheless, has the series held up over time and is it worth having in the bookshelf of your average Historian? TIA!

Glory Road, but not Quite Historical

Glory Road purports to be the true story of the famous Texas Western basketball team "with history's first all African American starting lineup" that "took the country by storm." It should be no surprise that--for the sake of making a good story--the creative license taken by the film's director and writers leaves out some important context and just plain fudges some of the facts.

Providence Journal sports columnist Bill Reynolds caught up with Al Lopes, an African American from Providence who attended Kansas University and happened to play against that Texas Western team (and lost) prior to their historic run. As Lopes tells Reynolds, "There's a whole generation of kids who are going to think that Don Haskins and Texas Western integrated college basketball," he says, "and that's just not the truth."

"We had three black starters and Texas Western had four," Lopes says. "And it was no an issue at all. None whatsoever. And this was in Lubbock, Texas."

In fact, Lopes says race was never an issue during the two years he spent at Kansas, even though Kansas played against several teams that were all-white. That the only leagues that weren't integrated back then were the ACC, the SEC and the Southwestern Conference, a fact Glory Road fast breaks around.

It was a game Kansas thought it had won when [Jo Jo] White, who later starred for the Boston Celtics, hit a shot from deep on the left side at the end of the first overtime.

"I caught the ball when it came through the basket," Lopes remembered. "Game over."

Not quite.

A referee ruled White had stepped out of bounds on his shot. The game went to another overtime, Texas Western won and then went on to the Final Four, where it beat Adolph Rupp and all-white Kentucky, a game on national television in which Haskins started five black players, the cinematic spine that runs through Glory Road, the implication being that that Texas Western team changed basketball.

"All that game did was speed up the integation of the ACC and the SEC," says Lopes. "Nothing more. But the movie sends the message that that game integrated college basketball, and that is a gross distortion of history."

So the more Lopes watched Glory Road the more the inaccuracies bothered him. And it was more than just the things that were in the movie that were flat out wrong. Like the movie saying that Haskins was in his first season at Texas Western, not his fifth, or that Haskins recruited the black players in his first few moments on the job, no matter that in actuality several of them had been there three years. And it was even more than he thinks the makers of Glory Road abuse the concept of creative license.

"It doesn't give credit to the coaches and schools that had the moral character and fiber to recruit the best players, regardless of color," Lopes says. "In my opinion Glory Road is a slap in the face of all those coaches who integrated college basketball long before Texas Western came along."

Coaches including Joe Mullaney at Providence College, who was recruiting black players in the late 1950s. Coaches like Ted Owens, who recruited Lopes at Kansas two years before Texas Western burst into the national spotlight. . .

The year after Texas Western won the NCAA title the SEC integrated. The next year it was the ACC. The country was changing. The future was at the doorstep, and there was no stopping it from getting inside the arena. History had come to the basketball court, right there with dunks and jump shots. Complete with a kid from Providence who ended up 40 years later in one of the featured games in a hit movie.

A Liberal Reading List and A Question About Liberal Historians

Yup, still working at the real job and cracking the books, but I thought I'd call attention to Johan Goldberg's Liberal Reading list (no, he's not joking). He penned a similar list for Conservatives a while back. Incidentally, Historian Richard Brookhiser recommends Schlesinger, Jr.'s Age of Jackson and some of Goldberg's readers also recommended Liberalism and its Challengers by Alonzo Hamby. Both lists are worth taking a peak at and reading those selections may help tone down some of the demogoguery that is already too prevalent in contemporary political "discussion." That being said, Goldberg has asked Brookhiser the following--potentially incendary--question.

Since Rick is our in-house historian and he raises the example of Arthur Schlesinger Jr. -- no stranger to the pressures of politics on historical analysis -- I thought I might ask him for a comment about something I raised in today's column. I wrote "The inability of leading liberal historians to understand their own times is a fascinating subject and worth discussing more elsewhere." Maybe this could be elsewhere?

So, Rick, if you don't mind, what do you think about the issue?

I think Brookhiser offers a very good answer.

We can look at historians of their own times, and historians of other times. Obviously the former are hampered if they do not understand a lot about their own times. One could argue that the latter are hampered too: aren't your judgments of past events enhanced by your feel for the events under your nose? I think writing about the politics of the 1990s helped me write about the politics of the 1790s. Stabs in the back, deals, personal destruction--the founders did it all too. Michael Barone and Kevin Philips help us put Timothy Pickering and Aaron Burr in context.

And yet, engagement with the present can be a distraction from focusing on the story of the past. It can even be a distraction from focusing on the story of the present. It loads you up with assumptions, which may turn out to be wrong or right. But your job is to get inside your subject's head and see where he takes you.

The Rhine River wins the Cliopatria for Best Series of Posts

Before I go, I have to mention that Cliopatria has awarded The Rhine River as having the Best Series of Posts, and deservedly so. (Heck, I nominated it!!) Ironically, my series on Methodology was also nominated, so I ended up nominating my competition and losing. That's OK, Nathanael's series on Geography and History is truly well worth reading. Congrats to him!

All Will Be Quiet on the Blogging Front

In anticipation of some rough academic sledding, here's a heads up that blogging will probably quite light for the next month or two. Within a couple weeks I should be doing the final revision of my MA Thesis. Meanwhile, I've begun prepping for my oral comprehensives. Plenty of work to do without embarking on independent study here at Spinning Clio.

The good news is that once I've completed both tasks, which should be by the end of February, I anticipate jumping back into blogging with both feet. Up until now I've tried to balance my history blogging with my academic endeavors and have usually tried to err on the side of those tasks that led to the MA. Occasionally, the two have corresponded (like on the Barbary Pirates, or Methodology or Whigs), but usually they haven't. Now, with the Big Stuff imminent, it's time to buckle down.

I've already read Inventing America at the suggestion of my advisor and have been given some additional direction from the members of the board as to the areas to which I should pay closer attention. The unwritten rule here at PC is that one is responsible for historiography in only those areas in which one did coursework...but there have been known to be "surprises." For myself, I've tried to cover it all, but I do have some gaps in the Age of Jackson, the Gilded Age, the Progressive Era and anything post-WWII. I'm strong in Colonial->Early Republic, pretty well-versed in pre-Civil War through Reconstruction and also have a Diplomatic History Survey course to thank for anything from the Revolution to 1918. Additionally, like nearly everyone else, I've got WWII covered.

As a non-traditional, non-academia tracked student, I took the courses I wanted without fear of their applicability to my future in the Ivory Tower. As such, I minored in Medieval History and--by going the extra mile and taking a couple extra American courses--was allowed to do a MA Thesis in the Medieval "realm," which is probably where I have the most fun. (Probably because of the relatively apolitical nature--at least for me--of the subject matter).

So, I'm not saying I won't be around, but it'll be slow for a while. Check back towards the end of February if you think of it.

The Suicides of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams

I'm far from the cutting edge of bioethics, so I'm not familiar with the work of bioethicist Margaret Pabst Battinbut. However, according to Bradford William Short, perhaps historians should get interested in her work pretty quickly. According to Short, Battinbut makes the following assertion in her new book, Ending Life: Ethics and the Way We Die:

[T]he fact that the death dates for both Adams and Jefferson fell on a historic anniversary — the fiftieth anniversary, not the forty-ninth or fifty-first [of the Fourth of July]— may seem to stretch beyond the point of sheer plausibility the claim that this was mere coincidence. But when appeals to coincidence are insufficient, we must look for explanations in common circumstance or common cause, or for causation from one case to the other. . .

Furthermore, the issue of synchrony — whatever the individual explanations for their deaths — also leaves us with the further question of coordination. Did Adams and Jefferson think alike but act independently? Could they have had some joint understanding, reached perhaps in 1813 — when each had been corresponding with a physician, Adams with Benjamin Rush about a horse's deliberate stumble and Jefferson with Samuel Brown about lethal drugs — that they then recalled later on? Did their physicians or families think alike but act independently, or perhaps in concert? Could their families and caregivers have lied about the precise dates of their deaths, seeking to lend their demises a greater grandeur? Or was there a more orchestrated plan here, known only to these two men, or to their physicians and families, that accounts for the extraordinary "coincidence" or "grand design" of their deaths? Could it have been the mode, so to speak, to die on the Fourth if at all possible, by whatever means? After all, not just Adams and Jefferson, but three of the first five presidents of the young United States died on the 4th of July. In 1831, just five years after the deaths of Adams and Jefferson, James Monroe, the fifth president, did so as well (emphasis in original).

The idea that both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams committed suicide--either coincidentally or as part of a conspiracy--is new to me. Given that it is being used to support an argument for legal suicide, etc., I suspect that Battinbut is doing some serious Clio Spinning. Perhaps we have a nominee for the next Carnival of Bad History?

More on Jeffrey Hart (but no synthesizing!)

Doug Kern agrees with Jeffrey Hart that conservatives would be well-served to apply Burkean thought to contemporary times...but that's about it:

The great shame of Hart’s essay is not simply that it fails, but that it fails at a task that urgently needs to be done right. Conservatism aches for the wisdom of Edmund Burke and Russell Kirk as it confronts the novel challenges of biotechnology, immigration reform, and nation building, to name just a few. Now more than ever, the conservative masters of old must speak clearly. Hart is right in this respect: we do need “Burke interpreted for a new constitutional republic and for modern life.” But it will not suffice to sprinkle Burke over a hodge-podge of snobby, disjointed attitudes and call it conservatism. Conservatism deserves better.

Kern in particular takes issue with Hart's version of "proper" religion (if you will):

Hart’s dismissal of unappealing religious faith is, well, unappealing.

“Religion is an integral part of the distinctive identity of Western civilization. But this recognition is only manifest in traditional forms of religion -- repeat, traditional, or intellectually and institutionally developed, not dependent upon spasms of emotion. This meant religion in its magisterial forms. […] The representation of this metaphysics through language and ritual took 10 centuries to perfect. The dome of the sacred, however, has been shattered. The act of reconstruction will require a large effort of intellect, which is never populist and certainly not grounded on emotion, an unreliable guide. Religion not based on a structure of thought always exhibits wild inspired swings and fades in a generation or two.”

Let me make a confession. I had intended for this essay to be humorous, light-hearted, and sarcastic in a smart-alecky way. But every time I re-read the above paragraph, I became too angry to maintain any cocky façade. My objections are manifold:

• Theological disputes are notoriously divisive, inflammatory, and hurtful. In the above paragraph, Hart engages in such disputation for no good reason. No one on the Right wants internecine religious warfare. Why does Hart provoke it?
• Conservatism does not have so many friends that it can afford to alienate millions of Americans who adhere to “emotive” faiths.
• Pentecostal and Evangelical faiths have thrived in this country since before its inception. No traditional American conservatism can dismiss them so glibly.
• Intellect, when applied to religion, cannot construct anything unto itself. Many professors of religion possess towering intellects, but lack belief. Many theologians of great subtlety are not especially kind, charitable, or pious. Indeed, it could be argued that intellect is even more unreliable than emotion in matters of the spirit.
• Faith, not intellect, is the key to spiritual renewal. Many religions “not based on a structure of thought” possess faith in great abundance. Does Hart care?
• Do any of these religions “not based on a structure of thought” have names? Or is it easier to demean them in the abstract?
• The fate of the mainline churches should give any thoughtful commentator pause before extolling the praises of “intellectually and institutionally developed” religions over emotive religions.

I omitted one sentence from the above quotation because it deserves special scrutiny:

“What the time calls for is a recovery of the great structure of metaphysics, with the Resurrection as its fulcrum, established as history, and interpreted through Greek philosophy.”

I have no idea what these words mean. They sound terribly erudite. They encompass an impressive capitalized noun. Individually, they make sense. Together, they are nonsense. How can the Resurrection be a “fulcrum” for a structure of metaphysics? What is meant by “established as history?” What will Jews and atheists use for a fulcrum? What on earth is Hart talking about?

Plato's Child may have the answer:

Jeffrey Hart's WSJ screed on conservatism features this curious paragraph:

What the time calls for is a recovery of the great structure of metaphysics, with the Resurrection as its fulcrum, established as history, and interpreted through Greek philosophy. The representation of this metaphysics through language and ritual took 10 centuries to perfect. The dome of the sacred, however, has been shattered. The act of reconstruction will require a large effort of intellect, which is never populist and certainly not grounded on emotion, an unreliable guide. Religion not based on a structure of thought always exhibits wild inspired swings and fades in a generation or two.

Contrast with Paragraph 83 of John Paul II's Fides et Ratio curious no?

83. The two requirements already stipulated imply a third: the need for a philosophy of genuinely metaphysical range, capable, that is, of transcending empirical data in order to attain something absolute, ultimate and foundational in its search for truth. This requirement is implicit in sapiential and analytical knowledge alike; and in particular it is a requirement for knowing the moral good, which has its ultimate foundation in the Supreme Good, God himself. Here I do not mean to speak of metaphysics in the sense of a specific school or a particular historical current of thought. I want only to state that reality and truth do transcend the factual and the empirical, and to vindicate the human being's capacity to know this transcendent and metaphysical dimension in a way that is true and certain, albeit imperfect and analogical. In this sense, metaphysics should not be seen as an alternative to anthropology, since it is metaphysics which makes it possible to ground the concept of personal dignity in virtue of their spiritual nature. In a special way, the person constitutes a privileged locus for the encounter with being, and hence with metaphysical enquiry.

For more on the debate, first read Jeffrey Hart's "The Burke Habit" and then read the following posts in the below order (which isn't the order in which they were originally posted):

Synthesizing a Running Debate: Hart's New Conservative Consensus

Synthesizing a Running Debate II: Hart's New Conservative Consensus

Synthesizing a Running Debate: The Rebuttal

Synthesizing a Running Debate: White House Reaction (Plus a few more)

UPDATE: Finally, the New Criterion blog Armavirumque has much more on the Hart/Neuhaus portion of this debate.

Additionally, Joseph Knippenberg has more thoughts.

Synthesizing a Running Debate: White House Reaction (Plus a few more)

Jeffrey Hart's column on modern conservatism has gotten plenty of reaction. Now it's coming from high places, indeed. Kathryn Jean Lopez at NRO has posted a link (Word Doc) to a response from an unknown, White House "muckety-muck." (Also see here, here and here, respectively, for my synthesis of this debate. To keep it in context with the aforementioned, I'd categorize this as part of the [WILSONIANISM] discussion thread). Here is the response (with a few minor formatting edits):

Responding to Professor Jeffrey Hart

1. It is an odd time for Professor Hart and other skeptics of democracy to make their case, particularly in the context of the most recent report by Freedom House, which shows that freedom has made greater advances in more culturally diverse nations and regions than ever before. One of the marks of serious conservatism is a regard for the concreteness of human experience and an openness to the evidence around us. After all it was Rousseau, not Burke, who wrote, “Let us begin by laying the facts aside, as they do not affect the question.” It is important for us to place facts at the center of the debate about democracy.

In that spirit, consider the words of the American Enterprise Institute scholar Joshua Muravchik: "Since the fall of Portugal's military dictatorship in 1974, a tide of freedom and democracy has washed over the globe. Every region has recorded strong gains, including even such a poor and troubled area as sub-Saharan Africa and the socially mutilated lands of the former Soviet empire." Until now, Muravchik writes, the Muslim world has remained a stubborn exception – but that is no longer the case. Most of the countries that have moved closer to freedom in the last year were Muslim countries. Mr. Muravchik has hope that we are “at the start of a tectonic shift toward liberty across the Muslim world.”

According to Freedom House's director of research, Arch Puddington, "The global picture thus suggests that 2005 was one of the most successful years for freedom since Freedom House began measuring world freedom in 1972.... The Freedom in the World 2006 ratings for the Middle East represent the region's best performance in the history of the survey..."

It appears as if cultures are not as intractable as Professor Hart asserts, at least when it comes to their capacity to make room for democracy. And of course if cultures really were as “intractable” as Professor Hart seems to suggest, then virtually no reforms – including the “reformation of manners” – would be possible.

2. Professor Hart neglects to mention a key fact: we did not go to war with Iraq simply to impose a democracy there. We also acted in large measure because in the judgment of the President and a strong majority of members of Congress, Iraq was a threat to American national security and a destabilizing force in the Middle East. Saddam Hussein was an international outlaw, a malevolent figure who over the years demonstrated an insatiable appetite for violence, war, and weapons of mass destruction.

It is true that the United States has insisted on staying in Iraq until democracy takes root in that land rather than, say, imposing a military dictatorship. Our course of action is right and wise, humane, and very much in our national interest.

3. Professor Hart asserts, "The Republican Party now presents itself as the party of Hard Wilsonianism, which is no more plausible than the original Soft Wilsonianism..."

The Republican Party and above all, President Bush, are advocates of spreading democracy. But to believe in the power and appeal of democracy does not make one a "hard Wilsonian" – and it certainly does not place one outside the mainstream of conservatism. In the words of conservatism's greatest and most influential figure in modern times, Ronald Reagan:

"We must be staunch in our conviction that freedom is not the sole prerogative of a lucky few, but the inalienable and universal right of all human beings. So states the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which, among other things, guarantees free elections. The objective I propose is quite simple to state: to foster the infrastructure of democracy, the system of a free press, unions, political parties, universities, which allows a people to choose their own way to develop their own culture, to reconcile their own differences through peaceful means. This is not cultural imperialism, it is providing the means for genuine self-determination and protection for diversity. Democracy already flourishes in countries with very different cultures and historical experiences. It would be cultural condescension, or worse, to say that any people prefer dictatorship to democracy.” (June 8, 1982 Westminster Address, emphasis added)

President Bush’s views are wholly consistent with those of President Reagan – and contrary to those expressed by Jeffrey Hart.

4. Professor Hart writes, "George W. Bush has firmly situated himself in this tradition [Wilsonianism], as in his 2003 pronouncement, 'The human heart desires the same good things everywhere on earth.' Welcome to Iraq."

President Bush’s statement had to do with human aspirations; it was not a blueprint for American foreign policy. And as a statement of human aspiration, it happens to be true. Perhaps Professor Hart could tell us which race, ethnicity, or nationality prefers subjugation to freedom. Which people relishes life in the gulag, or the lash of the whip, or the midnight knock of the secret police? Who among us wants (in the vivid words of Orwell) a jackboot forever stomping on their face?

5. The chief concern conservatives have with Woodrow Wilson was not his belief in the power and appeal of democracy – which after all was shared by Presidents Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, and Reagan, among others; rather, it is the means by which Wilson chose to pursue the end (as well as his fundamentally unrealistic understanding of power). Woodrow Wilson had far too much faith in the League of Nations and far too little faith in the capacity of liberal nation states to be engines of change and progress. University of Virginia Professor James Ceasar put it this way:

“It is thus completely false to claim, as so many do, that American internationalism began with Woodrow Wilson and that its only form has been ‘idealistic.’ American internationalism existed long before Woodrow Wilson. Indeed, its spirit can arguably be traced right back to the Founders and their frequent assertion that the American Revolution and founding were of interest not just to the United States but to ‘the whole human race,’ although they understood full well the nation’s limitations of strength at the time. What distinguishes Wilsonian or liberal internationalism from some of the more conservative variants is not its commitment to promoting universal principles – almost all American internationalists have shared this objective – but its insistence on changing the nature of international affairs and somehow overcoming a reliance on the unit of the nation-state. Conservatives never imagined dispensing with the primacy of the nation in the conduct of foreign affairs. Theirs has always been an internationalism with a realist face, based on national power and national resolve. It has been the kind of internationalism that might look forward, in Alexander Hamilton’s words, to a time when America would be ‘able to dictate the terms of the connection between the old and the new world.’”

6. The notion that President Bush’s advocacy for democracy is rooted in a utopian belief in “the fundamental goodness of mankind” is simply wrong. The President believes democracy can prevail in other countries and other cultures because he believes it is most consistent with deep human realities.

It’s probably worth pointing out in this context that America's Founding Fathers were among the most eloquent exponents of self-government in history – and they were eminently practical people. They did not believe men were angels; rather, they believed we needed to build a system of government that took into account human imperfections. Madison wanted to make republican government possible “even in the absence of political virtue.” Ambition needed to counteract ambition, he said. To favor self-government, then, is a prudent course of action intent on constructing a system of government based on human nature, in all its strengths and all its weaknesses. Reinhold Niebuhr put it well: “Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.”

7. The President’s policies are anchored in part in an empirical fact: we are witnessing the swiftest advance of freedom in history. But they are also grounded in a particular view of human nature – and in the truths articulated in the Declaration of Independence. In the “enlightened belief” of the Founders, Lincoln said, “nothing stamped with the Divine image and likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on, and degraded, and imbruted by its fellows.”

President Bush’s policies are consistent with America’s “ancient faith;” he believes “liberty is the design of nature,” which explains why it leads to human flourishing. In an essay that appeared in the Fall 2004 issue of The Public Interest, James Ceasar and Daniel DiSalvo wrote on the foundational principles of the Bush foreign policy and concluded this: “Not since Lincoln has the putative head of the Republican party so actively sought to ground the party in a politics of natural right.”

8. The President understands that for liberty to take root in a society more than an election is required. Elections are vital – but they do not by themselves constitute a vibrant democratic culture. This requires certain civic habits, which take time to develop – and which elections themselves can help develop. And elections can also help delegitimize a brutal and bitter insurgency, as we saw in El Salvador in the 1980s and as we are now seeing in Iraq. Elections by themselves cannot defeat an insurgency; but they can certainly contribute to its demise.

9. Professor Hart writes, "The fighting in Iraq has gone on for more than two years, and the ultimate result of 'democratization' in that fractured nation remains very much in doubt…"

Surely Professor Hart knows that the fighting in Iraq is being driven by a relatively small (though certainly lethal) number of terrorists and Saddam Hussein loyalists who want to strangle Iraqi democracy in its crib. Yet the last year has proven to us all that the people of Iraq desperately want freedom. They have shown admirable courage in three extraordinary elections – elections in which they turned out in greater numbers to vote (percentage-wise) than do Americans. It is wrong to argue that democracy is unwanted simply because (a) violence exists in Iraq less than three years after its liberation – and after more than three decades of almost unimaginable cruelty and terror; and (b) Iraq is not Denmark.

Our own democratic development – which was gradual and halting and involved us in a “fiery trial” that cost more than 600,000 American lives – is a reminder that we must be patient with others. Working democracies need time to develop – and as they develop, they will reflect their own cultures. In the United States we've taken a two-century-long journey toward equality and social justice – and this should make us patient with other nations at different stages of this journey.

10. Professor Hart makes the point that “the long-range influence of the Iraq invasion on conditions in the Middle East as a whole" remains “very much in doubt.”

It's true enough that we cannot know with certainty what the long-range influence of the war to liberate Iraq will be – so let's examine what we do know right now.

We know that we are seeing more movement toward democracy in the broader Middle East than ever before in human history. In an astonishingly short period of time (historically speaking), we are seeing democracy make progress in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, the Gulf States, among the Palestinians, and elsewhere. Does that mean that democracy will take root everywhere, all at once? No. Does it mean that there won't be setbacks along the way? Of course not. But the ice is breaking in a region of the world that has never really known freedom – and that ought to be grounds for encouragement.

We also know what people in the region are saying. According to the Lebanese leader Walid Jumblatt (who in the past has been a bitter critic of American foreign policy):

"It's strange for me to say it, but this process of [democratic] change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq. I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting [in January 2005], 8 million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world. The Syrian people, the Egyptian people, all say that something is changing. The Berlin Wall has fallen. We can see it.'"

Saad Eddin Ibrahim, a democratic activist in Egypt, put it this way: "it is a Middle East in which those who believe in democracy and civil society are finally actors, even though we still face big obstacles." Mr. Ibrahim originally opposed the invasion of Iraq. But it "has unfrozen the Middle East, just as Napoleon's 1798 expedition did. Elections in Iraq force the theocrats and autocrats to put democracy on the agenda, even if only to fight against us. Look, neither Napoleon nor President Bush could impregnate the region with political change. But they were able to be the midwives,” Ibrahim has said.

Saad Eddin Ibrahim's judgment is consistent with that of Bernard Lewis, one of our era's greatest Middle East historians. In an essay written last year for Foreign Affairs magazine, Professor Lewis wrote this: "… the Iraqi election may prove a turning point in Middle Eastern history no less important than the arrival of General Bonaparte and the French Revolution in Egypt more than two centuries ago."

And the distinguished Middle East scholar Fouad Ajami, in an essay titled "The Autumn of the Autocrats" (May/June 2005 Foreign Affairs), wrote this:

"The entrenched systems of control in the Arab world are beginning to give way. It is a terrible storm, but the perfect antidote to a foul sky. The old Arab edifice of power, it is true, has had a way of surviving many storms. It has outwitted and outlived many predictions of its imminent demise.

"But suddenly it seems like the autumn of the dictators. Something different has been injected into this fight. The United States – a great foreign power that once upheld the Arab autocrats, fearing what mass politics would bring – now braves the storm. It has signaled its willingness to gamble on the young, the new, and the unknown. Autocracy was once deemed tolerable, but terrorists, nurtured in the shadow of such rule, attacked the United States on September 11, 2001. Now the Arabs, grasping for a new world, and the Americans, who have helped usher in this unprecedented moment, together ride this storm wave of freedom."

On matters Middle East, I will cast my confidence with Bernard Lewis and Fouad Ajami even above Jeffrey Hart.

11. It’s not at all clear what the alternative is for those who nay-say democracy in the Middle East. It is a region of the world that has generated anger, resentments, and toxic anti-Americanism. In the past, Western nations were willing to make a bargain – to tolerate oppression for the sake of stability. But this bargain did not bring stability or make us safe; it merely bought time while problems festered and ideologies of violence took hold. And on a clear morning in September 2001, in the heart of New York City, on the outskirts of Washington, D.C., and in a rural field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, that ideology of violence struck the United Sates with deadly fury.

We have learned we cannot turn a blind eye to oppression just because the oppression is not in our own backyard. No longer should we think tyranny is benign because it is temporarily convenient. Tyranny is never benign to its victims, and our great democracies should oppose tyranny and advance freedom where we can. That is something with which conservatives, for prudential reasons, should agree.

Meanwhile, there has been some additional reaction to Hart's characterization of the abortion issue over at the First Things blog. Specifically, Richard John Neuhaus, who first wrote:

Jeffrey Hart of Dartmouth, assuming the mantle of Edmund Burke, had an essay in the Wall Street Journal opining on the meaning of conservatism today. Along the way, he declared that the unlimited abortion license established by Roe accords with the social “actuality” of modern life and that it is therefore a form of very un-Burkean radicalism to try to overturn the abortion regime in the name of what he describes as the abstract principle of “right to life.”

Father Gerry Murray of St. Vincent de Paul Church in Manhattan wrote what I think is a very effective response to Hart, his friend and former teacher. In the course of his further response to Fr. Murray, Hart says this:

“Some years ago, as I recall, Father Richard Neuhaus asserted in his magazine First Things that because of legal abortion the United States ‘regime’ is illegitimate. That’s right, ‘illegitimate.’ Of course this easy chair insurrectionary, this Jacobinical priest, did not become a genuine insurrectionary such as John Brown. Neuhaus knew only too well that the real insurrectionary John Brown received justice at the end of a rope. Neuhaus did not even go to prison, for, say, refusing to pay taxes. Thoreau had gone to prison over the Mexican war.

“For Neuhaus to call the United States government, or ‘regime,’ illegitimate in his journal was a waste of trees, though it probably appealed to dreamers.”

Oh dear. “Easy chair insurrectionary,” “Jacobinical priest.” And here I always thought of Jeffrey as a friend. At least he has always been very cordial when we met in the company of friends.

As for my Jacobinical ways, he is referring, of course, to the famous–I suppose he would say notorious–symposium in FIRST THINGS of November, 1996, in which Robert Bork, Charles Colson, Robert P. George, Russell Hittinger, and others reflected on the “judicial usurpation of politics,” of which the Roe decision was several times cited as a prime example. I wrote the introduction and the symposium was titled “The End of Democracy?” Many excitable critics at the time tended to ignore the question mark.

The FIRST THINGS symposium generated considerable controversy at the time. Commentary published a counter-symposium, but then a year or so later did a graceful about-face and ran another symposium on judicial activism that substantively agreed with the original FIRST THINGS argument. It is an argument that has become a commonplace in the pages of National Review, with which Jeffrey Hart is closely associated, and in many other venues.

What was thought to be a radical idea at the time–and what Jeffrey Hart apparently still thinks is an impermissibly radical idea–is that we could reach a point, if the judicial usurpation of politics continued unabated, at which the American political order would be morally illegitimate and democratic government effectively ended.

To deny the possibility that the American polity could descend into a form of tyranny, in this case judicial tyranny, is, I believe, a form of national hubris, and precludes the possibility of any rational consideration of what is meant by the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate government. . .

If I may be permitted to gently tweak Jeffrey Hart, whom I persist in thinking of as a friend, I note that he began this discussion by invoking Burke and ends it by invoking Lenin. A curious conservatism indeed.

And then added:

In a December 30 posting in this space, I commented on some intemperate and inaccurate remarks by Jeffrey Hart of Dartmouth. Referring to the FIRST THINGS symposium, “The End of Democracy?”, he described me as a “Jacobinical priest” and “easy chair revolutionary.” He has now added that the symposium reflects “the spirit of Che Guevara.” My friend Jeff, be it noted, is a great proponent of civility in public discourse. . .

Jeff’s attack on FIRST THINGS and on me personally came in the course of his response to Father Gerry Murray’s very persuasive critique of what he had written about the “radicalism” of trying to overturn Roe. Now Roger Kimball, co-editor of New Criterion, has weighed in with a civil but devastating examination of Hart’s misreading of Edmund Burke on political prudence. The unlimited abortion license, Hart claimed, is an entrenched social fact and, in addition to invoking Burke, he invoked Lenin to the effect that facts are stubborn things.

Now Jeff has returned with further comment. He writes, “Richard Neuhaus understates what actually happened in his magazine First Things in 1999.” (At the risk of appearing to quibble, the symposium was in November, 1996.) The symposium was titled “The End of Democracy?” and Jeff writes, “[Neuhaus] now says that some people thought the question mark unjustified–that is, they thought democracy in fact had ended with Roe vs. Wade!” No, Jeff, that is not what I said. Check out the December 30 posting here and you will see that I said this: “Many excitable critics at the time tended to ignore the question mark. ” It would seem that Jeff Hart is among the excitable critics of the symposium who are determined to ignore the question mark.

Jeff writes: “Robert Bork objected to Neuhaus’s observation that we ‘have reached the point where conscientious citizens can no longer give moral assent to the existing regime.’” Stubborn fact: I never said that, and I rather doubt that Robert Bork ever said that I said that. I said that, if the judicial usurpation of politics, as exemplified by Roe, continued unabated, we could reach a point at which the American polity would become an illegitimate regime. The manifest purpose of the symposium was to contribute to abating the judicial usurpation of politics. Those with a greater respect for facts than Jeffrey Hart has exhibited in these exchanges are invited to press the “Search” button above and read the entire symposium in order to find out who said what.

In support of his claim that Roe is socially, legally, and politically entrenched, Jeff concludes his latest volley with this: “A CNN/USA Today poll has shown that 65 percent of the American people now oppose repeal of Roe while only 29 percent support repeal, more than 2-1.” This, too, is deeply misleading. Those who have been following the pertinent survey research over the years have frequently pointed out that polling questions which depict Roe as permitting abortion in “some cases” or in “the first three months of pregnancy” typically result in a majority opposed to overturning Roe. Most people still do not understand the reach of the abortion regime imposed by Roe. When asked, if they favor limitations on the abortion license–e.g. waiting periods, parental notification, only in the first three months or in instances of rape, incest, or direct threat to the life of the mother, etc.–it typically turns out that approximately 75 percent of the people think abortion should not be legal for the reasons that 95 percent of abortions are procured. The defenders of women’s “reproductive rights” (a phrase adopted by Jeff Hart) are rightly anxious about the future of the unlimited abortion license imposed by Roe.

I am afraid that Jeffrey Hart has not distinguished himself in his WSJ essay or in his responses to critics. The rejoinders by Father Murray and Roger Kimball, however, are very much worth reading.

Ron Nelson also offered his general impressions:

Hart's article is essentially a quick, shotgun look at the ideas being bounced around conservatism today, and I'd say he does a pretty good job in summary form. though I think he misses the boat on a couple of issues. Below, I'll make an attempt at walking through the good, the bad and the ugly.

The Good

• Hard utopianism, soft utopianism, Wilsonianism, and the Republican party. For me these all seemed to fall together with the Wisonianism described essentially being a facet of soft utopianism and the Republican party being the ones who are promoting it. If the Wilsonianism in question really is a form of utopianism, the flaw in both is the failure to recognize the twistedness of human nature. Sure, we want to believe that "the human heart desires the same good things everywhere on earth", but I tend to lean more towards the idea that "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?" How does that connect to the Republican party? Well, Republicans are currently the ones who are on the utopian soap-boxes with the belief that the world can be made a better, if not a perfect, place through the free-market and exported democracy, a la Iraq. The Republican party is hardly the bastian of conservatism that so many seem to think. Just look at the budget under this administration and you should be able to tell that in a heartbeat. President Bush misplaced the magical veto pen back in 2001 and no one has been able to find it since.
• Religion. I'm just going to quote and leave it at that. I think Hart says it very well:

What the time calls for is a recovery of the great structure of metaphysics, with the Resurrection as its fulcrum, established as history, and interpreted through Greek philosophy. The representation of this metaphysics through language and ritual took 10 centuries to perfect. The dome of the sacred, however, has been shattered. The act of reconstruction will require a large effort of intellect, which is never populist and certainly not grounded on emotion, an unreliable guide. Religion not based on a structure of thought always exhibits wild inspired swings and fades in a generation or two.

• Free-market Economics. This is one of the pieces that seems to have gotten the folks over at The Corner all in a tizzy, but I happen to think is dead on. The biggest argument they seem to have is with the use of the word "utopian" but I don't really see the problem. Looking at the 3rd definition in the Merriam Webster Online Dictionary shows a utopia as "an impractical scheme for social improvement". Like it or not, the free-market is often invoked as an end all scheme for social improvement. "Just let the free-market work and everything will be better" seems to be the mantra that is often used. Unfortunately, this sometimes seems to result in a base pragmatism that doesn't take into account basic human longing for some seemingly impractical things - like beauty and a protected environment. Sometimes, just because there is a market for something, doesn't mean it should be pursued.

The Bad and the Ugly
You get both in one fell swoop here because, for now at least, there is only one glaring problem in the article.

• Abortion. This is probably not too much of a surprise. It seems to me that Hart swings well into the pragmatic here and wants to say that we abortion should not be such a big deal simply because it isn't going to change. Just because a thing isn't going to change, doesn't mean it shouldn't be fought for. It seems to me that you could just as easily point to his wonderful call for a "recovery of the great structure of metaphysics" as tilting at windmills as well, but that doesn't make any less an admirable goal and desire. If it is true (and I believe it is) that abortion is an atrocity, then to dismiss the desire to end it as being impractical is simply wrong. Whether or not it is achievable is beside the point.

What's missing? I suppose to some degree it is attached to free-market economics, but I would like to see some discussion from conservatives at the level of Professor Hart discuss economies of scale and localism as opposed to the multi-national conglomerates that control the current economic climate.

Edit: Peter Robinson has posted an email response from Jeff Hart regarding the abortion part of his article. I don't think it holds up very well and still have the same question: If the abortion question should be dropped because it is impractical, or as he states, the result of social and political change, then why is it not just as impractical to wish for a return to the Resurrection as the fulcrum of a great metaphysic?

Finally, I think that this is about it. The debate has reached critical mass and, well, I've got work to do, too. Like I mentioned earlier, I may get a chance to consolidate and better synthesize the debate for posterity. We'll see.

Synthesizing a Running Debate II: Hart's New Conservative Consensus

Alexandra von Maltzan has pointed to a few other blogs (including her own) that have commented upon Jeffrey Hart's original piece. (For earlier posts, see both my original synthesis and the second, which includes Hart's specific rebuttal regarding his Pro-Life Utopians). [NB: For the sake of maintaining some sort of consistency within the bounds of this debate, I've inserted the same topical headings I used in the first post where I deemed appropriate.]

Alexandra herself asks:

So what about a more Libertarian Republican Party? A more libertarian conservatism? In all probability wouldn't be able to put together any kind of sizeable majority, at least not for the foreseeable future. A successful conservatism that was based in the Northeast and Midwest, balanced the budget, shrank the government, protected the environment and beauty, and made its peace with legal abortion?

There's a reason for the GOP's big-government turn in the last decade, and it's not just malice, corruption and incompetence, it's that some kind of a big-government turn is what the American people wanted from the post-Gingrich Right.

Bush defeated Al Gore in 2000 not in spite of, but because of his willingness to promise spending increases, to co-opt Democratic ideas on Health Care and Education, and to invent an effective language of "compassionate conservatism."

Steve at Secure Liberty addresses three of the issues broached by Hart:

[PRO-LIFE UTOPIANS]
He describes the abortion debate as "libertarian" rather than liberal. Libertarian for whom? The unborn child? It certainly is liberating for the mother, but what of the father? Regardless of the body in which the child resides, it is the equal responsibility of the father and mother. He describes the pro-life position as "utopian" and in a political respect, perhaps he's right. But step a few years into the future. Premature babies can survive earlier and earlier. Ultimately the law must at a minimum follow the Roe framework and permit bans on abortion following viability. Viability is a moving target that will ultimately include the entire term, at which point, abortion, as we know it will be banned.

[FREE MARKET UTOPIANS]
Hart says that the current conservative mind doesn't value beauty. I disagree. What the current conservative mind doesn't value is beauty purchased with public funds. Teddy Roosevelt did a wonderful thing in establishing the National Parks. It was also a fiscally prudent investment in real estate. Hart says that stewardship of the environment belongs to liberals, but is that fair? Does Hart consider that one of the largest supporters of the outdoors and open spaces is the NRA? Do liberals even know that? The conservative mind should seek to balance the nonmonetary goals with monetary goals. When environmental legislation ignores the effect on business, it will never be effective. Most legislation proposed by liberals is of this type. Even my liberal environmental law professor realized that business must be incented and encouraged to use more environmentally friendly approaches and develop environmentally friendly products and processes. Technology, not legislation, has driven most of our environmental improvements in the last 30 years. The goal of legislation needs to be to permit reasonable business activity, and encourage improvements in environmental technology. Liberals are hardly at the forefront there.

[THE SOUTH]
Lastly, Hart turns sanctimonious and smug as he insults those from outside of the Blue State centers as lacking in intellectualism and culture. He seems to be considering only certain types of education, intellect and culture, and on that basis he's right. Boston has more classical music performances annually than any city in the world other than Vienna. I bet it doesn't have nearly as many country music performances as Nashville...or even lowly Branson, Missouri. Hart says earlier in his piece, "[m]en do not all desire the same things", and yet he conveniently ignores this in deciding which "culture" he considers valid. Is a fine French restaurant in Manhattan culturally superior to a fantastic BBQ/Ribs restaurant in Georgia? Who says? I guarantee you I'd prefer the latter.

Sigmund, Carl, and Alfred also had a word or two in defense of the South:

[THE SOUTH]
Hart goes on to note and concoct an anti intellectual mindset in the south and is supported by (with appropriate, but barely restrained) liberals and pseudo-intellectuals.

With all due respect to Professor Hart, Dartmouth English department guru, his thesis is no watershed in understanding the American political landscape. His ideas are no more than a lightweight effort. While those ideas may appeal to college sophomores (on the east coast), they are essentially without merit.

A look at the the New York Times Bestseller list, for example, reveal that only one of the authors on that list grew up in proximity to a large east coast center. Only one.

In fact, if you were to look at the artists, writers and actors in New York- or any other large city- it is clear that a disproportionate of them come from outside the area. A classic example of that is the author, Kate, of Small Dead Animals. We have noted that truth here, in our review, The Art of the Blog:

While we tend to think of urban areas as the origins of the arts, a fair argument can be made that the notion is illusory. In point of fact, great art and artists for the most part, have their roots in rural areas. In other words, it is the views and perspectives from those outside major coastal urban areas that seem to have a profound impact on our collective psyche. It is true that the arts proliferate in those urban areas, but as we said, many of the most influential artists were born or grew up in rural or decidedly 'second class' urban areas, a long way from the bright lights of the great white way.

It is quite understandable that artists from around the country would gravitate to larger cities- that is after all, where the finest arts schools are to be found. That in turn, is a function of population and centers of immigration, and not a matter of geography.

The real questions that need to be addressed by Professor Hart are as follows:

• If the population centers of the northeast/west coast are the centers of intellectualism and the arts, why are so many from outside the area so successful?
• Along those same lines, why aren't there more 'home grown' success stories?
• Why are the education levels in these centers and bastions of the arts, so poor?
• Why do so many business leaders and government leaders hail from small towns?
• Why are do many Nobel Prize winners come from decidedly non 'center of the universe' towns and cities?

There are a thousand and one similar questions- a lifetime of research for a cultural anthropologist.

Residents of the 'center of the universe' cities do not patronize their arts institutions. There would be no Broadway, or even Off Broadway, if the tourists couldn't make their way into town. The lights on the Great White Way would be turned off if Aunt Mary from Omaha couldn't make her way to see Bob from Sioux Falls sing his heart out at the Wintergarden. The same holds true for the museums, tough admittedly, in the NYC mating ritual, a pre coital ritual museum tour is mandatory. That said, with each dollar rise in the 'suggested donation', the number of local visitors declines.

What passes for high art in 'centers of the universe' do not necessarily pass muster elsewhere. At some point, the authors of the Vagina Monologues, as someone noted, will not share a bookshelf with Shakespeare, Miller or Dr Seuss.

That hallowed NYT Bestseller list wouldn't be worth a damn if people outside the 'centers of the universe' didn't purchase and read those millions and millions volumes. Actual NYC book sales aren't all that impressive.

In the end, it seems as if the red states contribute mightily to the blue states artistic and intellectual pursuits. Certainly, red staters are appreciative for the bagel shops that blue staters brought to the south and elsewhere.

Professor Bainbridge disputes Hart's political construct of the United States and highlights one aspect of the push/pull within the contemporary American conservative movement:

[WILSONIANISM]
Two parts jumped out at me as being worthy of discussion or, perhaps more precisely, highlighting. First, the role of the nation:

Soft utopianism speaks of the "nation-state" as if it were a passing nuisance. But the Conservative Mind knows that there must be much that is valid in the idea of the nation, because nations are rooted in history. Arising out of tribes, ancient cosmological empires, theocracies, city-states, imperial systems and feudal organization, we now have the nation. Imperfect as the nation may be, it alone--as far as we know--can protect many of the basic elements of civilized existence.

What Hart doesn't discuss here is the possibility that the United States is not a nation-state but rather a state-nation. Albert Wesibord writes:

What is a "nation," as we ought properly to use the term? Historically, a "nation" (a term derived from the Latin nascere, to be born) is developed from the "tribe," an enlarged "clan," which is, in turn, an enlarged "family" or "kindred." The "nation" has a base of common ancestry and blood relationship without which there could be no family, no kindred, no clan, and thus tribe. Various tribes of common origin may bind themselves into a brotherhood of "phratry" but when this occurs no "nation" has as yet developed, only the basis for one. ... At what point then did the United States become a "nation"? In our opinion never, for this process was blocked by slavery of the Africans and by an overwhelming non-English immigration from Europe.

Or, as Wikipedia puts it:

The term "state-nation" is sometimes used, for nations where the common identity derives from shared citizenship of a state. It implies that the state was formed first, and that the sense of national identity developed later, or in parallel.

Hence, Everett Ladd argues that "America is an idea -- a set of beliefs about people and their relationships and the kind of society which holds the best hope of satisfying the needs each of us brings as an individual."

This is a distinct challenge for American conservatism, especially the Anglophile strain represented by Russell Kirk, which looks back to English Tories like Edmund Burke for historical precedent and guidance. American conservatism thus finds itself torn between the polar extremes of nativists desperate to preserve a purported Anglo-American culture and open borders business types who seem to care nothing for cultural traditions (think National Review versus WSJ editorial board). One hopes for a middle ground, in which American remains open to anyone who embraces the "American idea," regardless of race or creed, while also striving to ensure assimilation to that idea.

That's it for today. Perhaps at some future point I'll combine these three posts (and any further ones) into a comprehensive narrative and make it available for perusal somewhere. . . .

Synthesizing a Running Debate: The Rebuttal

Like a runaway train that I can't get off, the debate over Jeff Hart's attempt at defining American conservatism has begun anew with a rebuttal from Hart. This can be filed under the "PRO-LIFE UTOPIANS" part of the previous post.

First, Peter Robinson passed along Jeff Hart's comments in which Hart specifically addressed some issues brought up by a Fr. Murray. For the sake of clarity, I'm posting Fr. Murray's email first (as provided by Kathryn Jean Lopez):

Jeff's treatment of the abortion crisis in America is seriously flawed. Let me elaborate:

He writes: "Roe relocated decision-making about abortion from state governments to the individual woman, and was thus a libertarian, not a liberal, ruling."

"Decision making about abortion" is a phrase that masks the reality: The Court decriminalized the killing of unborn children, and created a "right" of the mother to put her offspring to death at her discretion and without any justification for this act beyond that she thinks she needs to do it in order to be happy. The descriptive "libertarian" serves to deflect the stigma of endorsing what most liberals have long sought, and almost all conservatives have resisted, that is, the abortion license.
The libertarians justify almost anything in the name of personal freedom, but that presumes in the case of abortion that an unborn child is not a person, entitled to personal freedom not to be killed before birth at the request of his mother. Science tells us who is human as opposed to non-human animals; legal reasoning by the justices in the majority can either affirm this reality, or drift into bogus abstractions about legal personhood not being a correlative of being human. They've done it before in the case of slaves. By the way, what is the libertarian position on slavery?

"Planned Parenthood v. Casey supported Roe, but gave it a social dimension, making the woman's choice a derivative of the women's revolution. This has been the result of many accumulating social facts, and its results already have been largely assimilated."

If Jeff means by "its results have been largely assimilated" that abortion is a non-topic of social discussion and political battles, I suggest a phone call to the people opposing Judge Alito would reveal major anxiety caused by the plain fact that that the ranks of those who have not assimilated the "social facts" are large and influential, and that the will of the non-assimilationists may soon carry the day.
"Roe reflected, and reflects, a relentlessly changing social actuality."
Roe was pure judicial power of the Warren Court sort that legislated liberal preferences from the bench at a time when the prospects of legalizing abortion through the legislative branch of the various states were growing dimmer as the anti-abortion movement did the good work of alerting people to what abortion is, the killing of children (not the mere elimination of human tissue). The use of "relentlessly changing social actuality" to describe the ever present assault of liberalism upon the just laws fostering a social order that protects the lives of unborn children sounds like a capitulation without a struggle to the liberals' dogged fight to legalize abortion.

Relentless forces can become attentuated; so-called irresistable social forces can be effectively resisted; what is needed is will. A social revolutionary movement only becomes a social actuality, as opposed to an insurgency upon the reigning order, when it overthrows that order. I suggest that the success of the conservatively and religiously led anti-abortion movement in keeping abortion at the center of American politics reflects that legalized abortion does not enjoy the status of a social actuality, meaning an unassailable and fixed social arrangement, legally protected, reflecting the will of the American people. We live under a legal regime created and imposed by liberal justices who rejected the will of the people expressed in the laws passed by their representatives, and "discovered" a previously unknown right to abortion in the Constitution. This legal regime is fragile and under constant assault.

"Simply to pull an abstract "right to life" out of the Declaration of Independence is not conservative but Jacobinical."

There is nothing abstract about an unborn human being, and likewise the metaphysical laws that govern human life are not abstractions, but rather the solid ground that makes a just society possible. My right not to be killed, without justification, at the discretion of another person is not an abstraction, it is the fundamental condition of the existence of any justly ordered community of persons. What is an abstraction is Roe, in which unborn human are not persons, and the killing of such non-persons is legally sanctionned and protected by the state against any interference.

Babies before birth are people, and to treat them in any other way requires entrance into the horrible world of evil ideas (lies) that result in evil (unjust) actions. The Roe justices that gave us abortion would have liked the country to march into that world with them; they have been and will be unsuccessful as long as we do not concede the fight.

Jeff is wonderful friend and my admired teacher, but he has gotten this wrong, and will no doubt hear the same from numerous bewildered fans. I will be interested in his response to criticisms.
Fr. Gerry Murray
[ed: I've edited the original format as posted by Lopez for better blog reading]

Thus prompted, Hall responded:

My brief discussion of abortion in the edited "Wall Street Journal" version of the final chapter of my recent book was a political, repeat political, analysis. The "polis" here is the very large one, the United States. When I stress "political" analysis, I mean of course what is and not what some people wish might be.

Here we should ask why there existed no large demand for abortion in 1900, indeed not in 1950. Something major must have intervened between then and now.

There intervened the changing situation of women, first slowly and then more rapidly. Women's suffrage in 1912 was advocated by only one of the three political parties in contention, Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive ("Bull Moose") party. In 1920, women received the vote.

A number of social realities drove the changing situation of women. Anyone can name many of these, since they changed much else as well.

There is the familiar fact of the movement from farm and farmhouse, to the city, and with it labor intensive farm production -- offspring useful as workers -- to office and factory. Today only about 3 percent of the population lives on farms. Family accommodations are very different in the city than in the more spacious farm house. Offspring are no longer needed for labor intensive farm work. Medical advances reduced infant and child mortality. Fewer children perpetuated the family, a widespread goal. Women joined the workforce in large numbers during World War II.

The cumulative result of all these has been the "women's revolution," which Diana Trilling correctly said has been the only successful revolution during the Twentieth Century. National Socialism failed, so did Communism.

The result of the women's revolution has been a social reality utterly changed from what it was in 1950, let alone 1900. Women are all through the colleges and universities, appearing earlier as students, then as faculty, now numerous faculty. Dartmouth did not become co-educational until the 1970s, and now is about 50 percent women.Women now are in occupations of all kinds, medicine, law, executives, CEO's the military, even astronauts. We have assimilated the women's revolution, take these results for granted. But they are spectacularly different from what prevailed fifty years ago.

That is the social actuality. In thinking about that, Edmund Burke provides a model of the thinking process. He is the origin not only of conservative thought, but of all realistic thought about society. In his "Reflections on the Revolution in France" (1790) he attacked abstract political theory in the form of the Rights of Man, seeing this as one cause of the French Revolution. Against that he put an analysis of actual English society, seeing that actuality possesses a complexity beyond the reach of such theory (we would say "ideology"). Such theory, such ideology, abbreviiates and de-rails thought. Burke refused to re-rail thought.

In 1791, he analyzed further. In effect he turned the social structure of the "Reflections" into the social process of "Thoughts on French Affairs."
He recognized now that the complex forces bringing about the French Revolution had accumulated to the point, had acquired such irresistible power, that the ancien regime was doomed. In a passage Matthew Arnold celebrated as one of the great moments of intellect ("The Function of Criticism at the Present Time," 1865) Burke wrote:

"If a great change is to be made in human affairs, the minds of men will be fitted to it; the general opinions and feelings will draw that way . . . and then they who persist in opposing this mighty current in human affairs, will appear rather to resist the decrees of Providence itself, than the designs of men. They will not be resolute and firm, but perverse and obstinate."

That this was a painful admission by Burke is shown by what immediately preceded it: "I have done with this subject [the French Revolution], I believe forever. It has given me many anxious moments these past two years."

The philosophes of the Rights of Man had not caused the Revolution. Nothing abstract could have brought about such an upheaval. The accumulating social forces has brought it about. It should be added that Burke achieved the realization contrary to his own preferences. Only a year before, in the "Reflections," he had eloquently mourned the march of the Paris mob on Versailles, the humiliation of the Queen, the fact that at Versailles "chivalry" had not leaped to her defense. He proclaimed: "The glory of Europe is gone forever." Now Burke, against his deepest preferences, recognized the inevitable. That is why Arnold celebrated this as a great moment in the history of thought, a triumph of fact and analysis.

In the successful women's revolution we now stand at such a moment as Burke did in 1791. Women in the educational process, pursuing careers that may take years of preparation and also are later very demanding of their time, are going to demand -- in fact are demanding -- control of their reproductive capability.
For a free people, such as ours, who make the laws under the Constitution through their representatives write the laws, it follows that as a derivative of the women's revolution the demand by women for control of their reproductive capability will be reflected in the laws.

No one is "for" abortion; nor do women seek it to "make them happy," as Father Murray avers. To use that phrase is to trivialize the woman's decision. That phrase stands at a distance, in fact a galactic distance, from the actuality of her decision. It is clearly intended to make discussion useless. And discussion is the basis of American government, from the main cabin of the Mayflower and the Compact, to the new England town meeting, and to the Congress of the United States. I do sympathize in a way with Father Murray's preference for no discussion.

The actuality in elective abortion is that the woman is not willing to derail her life because of an unwanted pregnancy, a life she had worked for many years to shape, perhaps studied and worked. That now is an actuality different from the situation of most women fifty years ago. The women's revolution has happened. And in the "town meeting" the women's voice, and that of those who understand what the women's revolution means, will be heard and heeded.

Father Murray uses the term "unborn child," apparently meaning anything back to the first fertilized cell. But the woman knows what a "child" is and what it is not. Killing a child can be penalized as murder. Even when abortion was illegal it was never penalized as murder under United States law. Such use of language as "unborn child" does not advance analysis. For analysis to get anywhere, there must be agreement on the meaning of the words being used.

Now, no woman is obliged to have an abortion if her convictions are opposed. The convictions of many women, no doubt a majority, are not opposed. There is the political problem for those who would outlaw abortion. And of course the women's revolution has happened. We are living with its results. The year 1950 is not going to be restored, any more than the ancient regime was going to be restored after the Revolution. I didn't think I needed to say that revolutions have consequences. As Burke said in effect, to resist the inevitable effects of revolution is to throw sand into a urricane.

The facts of the social reality have changed a great deal, and actual people make actual decisions within the actuality they inhabit. The taking of interest once was banned. So was cadaver dissection. And so forth . Who remembers what was in the Syllabus of Errors? Who cares? Historians.

We hear of a "right to life," those three words taken from the Declaration, where they are accompanied by the other "unalienable" rights, to liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

But the Declaration was written in 1776, the Constitution in 1787, and ratified. All such "unalienable" rights are made effective only through the constitutional process, the deliberate sense of the people, based on their collective experience. Until such "rights" become law they are only theoretical rights. It will not do the condemned man on his way to the gallows much good to assert his "right to life." And it will not do the conscript much good to demand his "right to liberty." Until such rights are defined and become effective under law they remain a abstractions. Under the Constitution, such "unalienable" rights in fact become alienable, as men are hanged and conscripted. To assert such abstractions as if they existed apart from law is Jacobinical, exactly the kind of political abstractionism against which Burke protested so effectively.

How the abortion issue will play out, I do not of course know…. If, as is conceivable, Roe is overturned -- I'm not sure this is really likely, given what seems to be majority opinion -- the issue will revert to 1973 and devolve to the state legislatures. There may be a checkerboard of approaches legislated, many states simply legislating laws that amount to Roe. According to polls, a majority at the present time does not favor the overturn of Roe.

In fact, 83 percent of elective abortions take place during the first trimester. After that, they diminish rapidly, as one would expect. Only a very small number takes place in the third trimester. The statistics are available from the CDC.
The idea that abortions, in a free society, are going to be banned during the first trimester, let alone at the first moment of conception, strikes me as, to put it mildly, extremely unlikely. One American, one vote, period. The Constitution is a majority rule document, though buffered against transitory majorities.

As I said at the beginning, I offered a political analysis, that is an analysis of what is, rather than some idea of what should be. In my edited chapter published in The Wall Street Journal, I offered reasoned analysis, based on fact. The women's revolution happened. It is not going to be repealed. Father Murray's widely circulated missive -- how widely circulated I wonder-- changes nothing. As Lenin said, "Facts are stubborn." Lenin there had a realistic moment, realism also known as conservatism.

Cheers,
Jeff
[ed: I've edited the original format as posted by Robinson for better blog reading]

Kate O'Bierne also joined in the fray:

The leaders of the modern women's movement recognize what Jeff Hart apparently doesn't, i.e. they lack public support for their abortion-on-demand agenda. Abortion rights supporters fiercely fight to keep the issue in the courts insultated from public opinion, because the majority of Americans oppose the majority of abortions. Feminists prefer judicial fiat to "town meetings" where women's voices would be heard because opposition to their agenda includes a majority of women. It seems that most women don't see their fertility as an enemy of their equality. In 2003, a poll commissioned by the Center for the Advancement of Women found that 51 percent of women thought abortion either should not be allowed or should only be available in cases of rape or incest or to save the life of the mother. Another 17 percent of women thought abortion should be available but with stricter limits. The same poll found that of the top twelve priorities for women, keeping abortion legal was second to last, beating by one point the importance of increasing the number of girls who participate in organized sports (another top priority of the feminist activists whose goals don't enjoy the allegiance of American women).

Kate Michelman notes with alarm, "Since 1995, states have enacted nearly 400 restrictions on a woman's right to choose." Gloria Feldt, the past president of Planned Parenthood, complains that the White House and both chambers of Congress are controlled by "anti-choice politicians," and "the state legislatures are overwhelmingly anti-choice." Twenty-five years ago, when Democrats held a 292-seat majority in the House, 125 of those seats were held by po-life Democrats. Michelman, Feldt, and other abortion absolutists seem to believe that some strange alchemy has handed such a poitical advantage to pro-life politicians given their constant claims that their abortion-on-demand agenda enjoys the broad support of voters. They could use a dose of Burke's realism.

Ramesh Ponnuru adds:

Anyone trying to reduce the prevalence of abortion and to impose legal restrictions on it is up against some very powerful social forces and trends, and Jeff Hart is right to point that out--even if he neglects the forces working in our favor. He has offered what he calls a "political" analysis; but as Kate points out, polling data (and election results) allow for a considerably more nuanced verdict than his.

So does history. Hart implies that widespread abortion became a social phenomenon only after the 1960s. This is untrue--read, for example, Marvin Olasky's Abortion Rites for a discussion of the prevalence of abortion in the middle decades of the nineteenth century, and of the largely successful legal campaign to combat it. There was nothing inevitable about the outcome of that campaign back then. If the outcome is inevitable now, it will require more demonstration than Hart has given.

Hart is also quite right about the deliberative nature of American government and about the value of discussion. Would that the courts had not short-circuited the process of deliberation on abortion. But I wonder if Hart's insistence on the value of discussion is in tension with the rest of his analysis, which posits that discussion is pointless because the continuation of abortion on demand is historically inevitable.

One might also question whether the word "Jacobinical" advances discussion. To accept Hart's strictures against "abstraction" would mean that we could never criticize positive laws from a moral standpoint. Burke did not make such a claim, and we would be foolish to follow him on this point if he had. Engaging in such criticism, and trying to persuade our fellow citizens to take the criticism to heart and change the laws, is a crucial part of deliberation. If that were all we criticized Robespierre for, we would not have much of an indictment.