Douthat: Liberal Gloating Misses Societal Decline
Ross Douthat has a thought-provoking column in the New York Times. He notes that liberals are engaged in the time-honored practice of post-electoral gloating. He points out that their smug pleasure about how they've "won the future" might be misguided:
Maybe it’s too soon to pierce this cloud of postelection smugness. But in the spirit of friendly correction — or, O.K., maybe curmudgeonly annoyance — let me point out some slightly more unpleasant truths about the future that liberalism seems to be winning.
Liberals look at the Obama majority and see a coalition bound together by enlightened values — reason rather than superstition, tolerance rather than bigotry, equality rather than hierarchy. But it’s just as easy to see a coalition created by social disintegration and unified by economic fear.
Consider the Hispanic vote. Are Democrats winning Hispanics because they put forward a more welcoming face than Republicans do — one more in keeping with America’s tradition of assimilating migrants yearning to breathe free? Yes, up to a point. But they’re also winning recent immigrants because those immigrants often aren’t assimilating successfully — or worse, are assimilating downward, thanks to rising out-of-wedlock birthrates and high dropout rates. The Democratic edge among Hispanics depends heavily on these darker trends: the weaker that families and communities are, the more necessary government support inevitably seems.
Likewise with the growing number of unmarried Americans, especially unmarried women. Yes, social issues like abortion help explain why these voters lean Democratic. But the more important explanation is that single life is generally more insecure and chaotic than married life, and single life with children — which is now commonplace for women under 30 — is almost impossible to navigate without the support the welfare state provides.
Or consider the secular vote, which has been growing swiftly and tilts heavily toward Democrats. The liberal image of a non-churchgoing American is probably the “spiritual but not religious” seeker, or the bright young atheist reading Richard Dawkins. But the typical unchurched American is just as often an underemployed working-class man, whose secularism is less an intellectual choice than a symptom of his disconnection from community in general.
What unites all of these stories is the growing failure of America’s local associations — civic, familial, religious — to foster stability, encourage solidarity and make mobility possible.
He talks about how misguided the Republicans have been in casting these voters as nothing more than "lazy moochers or spoiled children seeking 'gifts' (as a certain former Republican presidential nominee would have it) rather than recognizing the reality of their economic struggles."
But if conservatives don’t acknowledge the crisis’s economic component, liberalism often seems indifferent to its deeper social roots. The progressive bias toward the capital-F Future, the old left-wing suspicion of faith and domesticity, the fact that Democrats have benefited politically from these trends — all of this makes it easy for liberals to just celebrate the emerging America, to minimize the costs of disrupted families and hollowed-out communities, and to treat the places where Americans have traditionally found solidarity outside the state (like the churches threatened by the Obama White House’s contraceptive mandate) as irritants or threats.
He says this is a great flaw in the liberal vision and that transfer payments are not a sufficient foundation for middle-class success. He says this reality is a judgment on the confidence with which many Democrats assume Election Day was a sign of progress rather than decline.
The comment thread to the piece suggests both that he hit a nerve and that some Democrats are not ready to consider this possibility.
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Dec '11
Re: Douthat: Liberal Gloating Misses Societal Decline
It doesn't really matter why does it? Whether its dishonest people acting poorly, or our failure to keep honest people honest, is immaterial. We have legitimized barbarism. It is a legitimate choice now to consider our neighbors as the vehicle to one's social absolution, and to consider our neighbors the vehicle that we lessen the impact of the cruel hand of fate.
Once they have accepted that your neighbor's life is yours to exploit, how do you convince them that "no, I am sorry about your extremity, or that you find poor people smelly and would rather not get close enough to them to help them or maybe be made to feel uncomfortable by their suffering, your neighbor is not yours to do with as you will."
At this point they have accepted and made peace with being barbarians too lazy or fat to loot my house and then sack it honestly. I can respect trying to loot my house and sack it one's self, at least then nobody is trying to pretend its moral.
Jun '10
Re: Douthat: Liberal Gloating Misses Societal Decline
Douthat has it exactly right. The Democrats are inheriting a collapsing society, and with it a collapsing economy. They assume that their re-distributive policies will always find a source of income. They fail to see that any system can be overloaded to the breaking point. The only question left to answer is whether these policies are based on foolish ignorance, or deliberate malice.
Nov '12
Re: Douthat: Liberal Gloating Misses Societal Decline
Mr. Douthat assumption is that the Left and Progressives actually care about seeing the middle class expand. I would argue that the Left & Progressives don't care about the middle class at all. What they care about is "progress" or, more cynically, the absolute power to achieve progress.
So, in terms of middle class values, ie, stable families, unwed mothers, faith, transfer payments, etc., I don't think they really care at all about those issues. In fact, fractured social groups are better for them because it allows them to create an ever-greater number of "interest groups" to pander to and extract votes from.
Re: Douthat: Liberal Gloating Misses Societal Decline
SunnyOptimism: Mr. Douthat assumption is that the Left and Progressives actually care about seeing the middle class expand. I would argue that the Left & Progressives don't care about the middle class at all. What they care about is "progress" or, more cynically, the absolute power to achieve progress.
So, in terms of middle class values, ie, stable families, unwed mothers, faith, transfer payments, etc., I don't think they really care at all about those issues. In fact, fractured social groups are better for them because it allows them to create an ever-greater number of "interest groups" to pander to and extract votes from. · 1 minute ago
I am not sure whether those are their motivating issues either, but a read through the comments is most instructional. It's a bit of a "two different worlds' thing, but it helps to understand what motivated them.
Sep '10
Re: Douthat: Liberal Gloating Misses Societal Decline
If you'll read through the comments you'll see the nub of the argument that Conservatives have to make. A conservative (or social conservative, I suppose) believes that the breakdown of the family leads to rapidly increasing inequality and a dependency class, to harken back to Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan's work on the destruction of the black family.
The Liberal-Progressivist-Leftie (take your pick) dogma is that plutocrats cause the breakdown of the family and that Progressivists are just undoing the damage that Thurston Howell III and his merry band of Rockefellers have unleashed (all while twirling their snidley whiplash moustaches).
Sep '10
Re: Douthat: Liberal Gloating Misses Societal Decline
Mollie Hemingway, Ed.
SunnyOptimism: Mr. Douthat assumption is that the Left and Progressives actually care about seeing the middle class expand. I would argue that the Left & Progressives don't care about the middle class at all. What they care about is "progress" or, more cynically, the absolute power to achieve progress.
So, in terms of middle class values, ie, stable families, unwed mothers, faith, transfer payments, etc., I don't think they really care at all about those issues. In fact, fractured social groups are better for them because it allows them to create an ever-greater number of "interest groups" to pander to and extract votes from. · 1 minute ago
I am not sure whether those are their motivating issues either, but a read through the comments is most instructional. It's a bit of a "two different worlds' thing, but it helps to understand what motivated them. · 4 minutes ago
Agreed. The comments are very instructive.
Nov '12
Re: Douthat: Liberal Gloating Misses Societal Decline
Mollie Hemingway, Ed.
I am not sure whether those are their motivating issues either, but a read through the comments is most instructional. It's a bit of a "two different worlds' thing, but it helps to understand what motivated them. · 1 minute ago
Hi Mollie,
I did actually read the entire article and many of the comments over the weekend. I was also struck by how "offended" many were by Douthat's exposure of the inherent flaw in the liberal ideology. Liberals scream like stuck pigs anytime anyone talks about reforming our system of transfer payments or you get slandered as a "hater" or "neanderthal" if you talk openly about the deeper societal and family issues. And yet, there is no urgency to fix the underlying problems with Lefties, only a desire to heap more "progress" on top of all the old "progress" that has completely failed...
Aug '11
Re: Douthat: Liberal Gloating Misses Societal Decline
While we're reading through the comments, can we all agree that Sandy Lynn is either a hilarious spoof of a NYT reader or the worst kind of person?
May '12
Re: Douthat: Liberal Gloating Misses Societal Decline
Hi Mollie,
I did actually read the entire article and many of the comments over the weekend. I was also struck by how "offended" many were by Douthat's exposure of the inherent flaw in the liberal ideology. Liberals scream like stuck pigs anytime anyone talks about reforming our system of transfer payments or you get slandered as a "hater" or "neanderthal" if you talk openly about the deeper societal and family issues. And yet, there is no urgency to fix the underlying problems with Lefties, only a desire to heap more "progress" on top of all the old "progress" that has completely failed... · 0 minutes ago
Google Murray's Coming Apart and you'll find many entries with the same liberal contempt for anyone who observes and laments the unraveling of our social fabric.
Edited on November 19, 2012 at 6:03pmApr '11
Re: Douthat: Liberal Gloating Misses Societal Decline
SunnyOptimism: Mr. Douthat assumption is that the Left and Progressives actually care about seeing the middle class expand. I would argue that the Left & Progressives don't care about the middle class at all. What they care about is "progress" or, more cynically, the absolute power to achieve progress.
So, in terms of middle class values, ie, stable families, unwed mothers, faith, transfer payments, etc., I don't think they really care at all about those issues. In fact, fractured social groups are better for them because it allows them to create an ever-greater number of "interest groups" to pander to and extract votes from. · 24 minutes ago
I would like to avoid ascribing motive to people especially nefarious motives. The problem with liberals is that they are incredibly superficial in their view of humanity and the economy. This is what drives their policy choices. They prefer things that look good on the outside even if they are hollow on the inside because they are incapable of seeing the hollow center to their policies. They favor grand and quick gestures, that fail to have sticking power for the most part.
Jun '10
Re: Douthat: Liberal Gloating Misses Societal Decline
Mollie Hemingway, Ed.
I am not sure whether those are their motivating issues either, but a read through the comments is most instructional. It's a bit of a "two different worlds' thing, but it helps to understand what motivated them. · 16 minutes ago
Your average rank and file liberal is motivated by altruism. They fail to understand that their leaders are motivated by power. Revolution in the name of the proletariat was an ideal for Marx, but the means to end for Russian Bolsheviks. Lenin and Stalin knew that the proletariat existed for their use, first to man the barricades, and later as forced laborers. The communist party in the end became the new ruling class, the only thing it was ever really intended to be.
Oct '10
Re: Douthat: Liberal Gloating Misses Societal Decline
This is all fairly obvious, though, isn't it? There's a reason many of us are predicting that Obama's coalition will collapse in 2013. I don't think liberals are unaware of the social problems they have created, at least not the older ones. Charles Murray's recent book on the decline of the working class's social and human capital did resonate with most liberals, I think, even if they won't admit it.
Aug '12
Re: Douthat: Liberal Gloating Misses Societal Decline
Didn't Charles Murray's new book make this exact argument?
Part 2,325 in why the blue model is doomed.
Of course the left knows this and is betting that in the aftermath of the entitlement state collapse Americans will have become more like Europeans and cry out for even bigger government to piece everything back together. Given the progressive march through the institutions is already complete I'm inclined to agree with them that too many Americans are now serfs instead of free citizens to resist the siren call of socialism after the storm hits.
Sep '10
Re: Douthat: Liberal Gloating Misses Societal Decline
I would recommend Charles Kesler's book on Obama to all of you if you haven't read it. The progessivist view is that there really isn't any human nature at all. Its all infinitely maleable human emotion and sentiment.
Sep '10
Re: Douthat: Liberal Gloating Misses Societal Decline
Agreed, and I'm not sure which scenario is worse.
Nov '11
Re: Douthat: Liberal Gloating Misses Societal Decline
What we on the Right call "societal decline" many on the Left call "progress."
Apr '11
Re: Douthat: Liberal Gloating Misses Societal Decline
I am depressed enough about the election and the direction of American society that I am in no mood to subject myself to the gang of jackals and hyenas who post comments to the NYT.
Apr '12
Re: Douthat: Liberal Gloating Misses Societal Decline
For the left, the ideology is power.
Feb '12
Re: Douthat: Liberal Gloating Misses Societal Decline
That's the fundamental difference, isn't it? Hopefully, to a conservative, Goodness is known as function as well as a virtue. If the Good breaks down so does a society. That Douthat's sorta meta-point. Any advance the Left gains at odds with this will be unsustainable because it's predicated on a dysfunction. Attempting to rub out or minimize these consequences by government program doesn't negate the corrosion to public and private virtue. So, the last resort for the Left is to insulate itself by labeling its critics mean-spirited, evil, uneducated, or unenlightened which you see in the comments section.
Am I wrong?
Aug '10
Re: Douthat: Liberal Gloating Misses Societal Decline
The proof of Douthat's accusation is as simple as it is ancient:
America's culture declines; cui bono?