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Bourgeois Culture Isn’t Coming Back
Two law professors, Amy Wax and Larry Alexander, recently stirred up some excitement when they published an op-ed arguing that America should return to bourgeois values. The position they presented was thoroughly conventional on the right, having been reiterated over the decades by Irving Kristol, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Charles Murray, R.R. Reno, and many more. Naturally then, the liberal legal establishment went nuts, denouncing Wax and Alexander as racist xenophobes. A movement was started to take away Wax’s 1L course (because it’s really not fair to force entry-level law students to take classes from a racist xenophobe). It was exactly the sort of silliness we’ve come to expect from liberal academia.
Very little of substance was said by either side in the ensuing debate, with the left mostly repeating, “This is all very offensive,” and the right mostly repeating, “You are emotional and intolerant.” I don’t think the op-ed was offensive, and I agree that the left is emotional and intolerant. Nonetheless, I’m beginning to think that this particular piece of conventional (conservative) wisdom may have passed its sell-by date. It was good advice for someone, somewhere, but it may not apply to our particular time and place, for reasons that this incident itself helps to illustrate.
Whether it’s “protect the guardrails” or “preach what you practice” or “restore bourgeois values,” there is an underlying premise to this argument that may just be incorrect. We are presuming that most Americans (but particularly the prosperous and influential liberals whose behavior we most hope to influence) still share a substantive moral outlook of a sort that could ground healthy cultural mores. Here is what Wax and Alexander’s description of the sort of “guardrails” they would like to see rebuilt:
Get married before you have children and strive to stay married for their sake. Get the education you need for gainful employment, work hard, and avoid idleness. Go the extra mile for your employer or client. Be a patriot, ready to serve the country. Be neighborly, civic-minded, and charitable. Avoid coarse language in public. Be respectful of authority. Eschew substance abuse and crime.
That all sounds very nice, but what sort of moral outlook grounded those norms in the period they remember so fondly? First and most important, there was widespread deference to a broadly Judeo-Christian and traditional morality. That supplied the basis for all kinds of derivative social and moral precepts, spelling out the obligations one had as a spouse and a worker and a citizen. Second, the hardships of the earlier 20th century (the Great Depression and the World Wars) instilled a sobriety and discipline in American culture, which helped bolster all those good, Franklin-esque bourgeois values. Prudent advice about working hard and saving money is much easier to sell when a society has fresh, painful memories of experienced hardship. Third, there was still a pretty strong sense of ethno-cultural solidarity among Americans … but especially white Americans.
The importance of this third item (historically) is hard to evaluate. Both the alt-right and the left are inclined to think it very important, while I am sure Alexander and Wax would dismiss it as trivial and very much dispensable. I used to agree with them, but of late I am more uncertain. That is, I very definitely do not wish to help forge an ethno-national sub-culture (and neither do Alexander and Wax!), but I worry that it may have been a more important factor than I previously believed in the rosily-remembered mid-century, and that there may actually be a non-trivial connection between collapse of a common bourgeois culture and the decline in racism. In any event, it would be interesting to see more liberals argue that case intelligently, instead of flinging accusations.
However we rank these three “sources of solidarity,” it’s clear that they’ve all declined dramatically since the mid-20th century. Liberals are offended (perhaps rightly) by the ethno-nationalism, but they’re scarcely less offended by traditional morals, and the foundation of shared hardship is simply a thing of the past. It’s fine to rhapsodize about a common culture with shared bourgeois values, but what if we just don’t have the necessary components anymore? We can’t expect liberals to preach things that they just don’t believe.
A defender of the bourgeois-values camp might object: Are we really sure that affluent liberals don’t have the appropriate beliefs? After all, their on-the-ground lifestyles look pretty bourgeois. What Robert Putnam calls “neo-traditional” marriage (contracted among affluent professionals who establish themselves professionally before marrying, then devote enormous energies to their offspring), is nearly as stable as the “Ozzie and Harriet” model of the 1950s. Affluent liberals love safety, security, and decency in their “safe space” neighborhoods and campuses and workplaces. Why can’t they preach the relevant values to the masses? In the eyes of someone like Charles Murray, affluent liberals just look like hypocrites, nominally holding to a more libertine and subversive moral outlook even as they hoard the goods of bourgeois living for themselves.
I think this view fundamentally misunderstands the ethos of America’s prosperous classes. It’s not really right to call their lifestyles “neo-traditional.” It would be nearer the mark to describe them as “neo-Epicurean.” They don’t really believe in virtue per se; instead they find meaning in a widely distributed range of experiences. Highly-valued commodities include education, fulfilling careers, diverse cultural experiences, intimate relationships, and sex. These are not the highest priorities for tradition-minded Christians or Jews. Our upper classes have left that behind, and are now centering themselves around a kind of neo-pagan good-life philosophy.
Epicureanism has its attractive points, but it’s not great at ennobling the common man. In any given society, there will be relatively few people who have the wherewithal to live the good life, and to those who don’t or can’t, the neo-Epicurean doesn’t have much to say. It’s inherently an elitist perspective. Since the American ethos contains significant anti-elitist currents, that creates certain problems. Liberals also retain some neo-Marxist commitments that mix rather badly with their breezy affluence. That partly explains why they’re in such a tangle of moral angst, sweating bullets (and throwing temper-tantrums) over every variety of “privilege” and howling over every “microaggression.” They can’t really reconcile their personal philosophy with their broader social commitments.
Nevertheless, the neo-Epicurean ideal isn’t going away. It’s too important for giving meaning to the lives of upper-middle-class Americans. In light of that, urging liberals to “preach what they practice” just isn’t going to help anything. They are preaching what they practice, when they tell everyone to stay in school, do what they love, and explore their sexual identity. That advice just doesn’t work out nearly so well for people with fewer material and social resources. It certainly isn’t a promising foundation for a new bourgeois culture.
Affluent liberals have plenty to answer for, and working through the tensions in their current commitments will be a daunting task. Still, the charge of cultural hypocrisy may actually be ill-founded. They aren’t closet traditionalists who refuse to let the less-fortunate in on the secret. They’re silver-spooned bohemians who honestly don’t have any answers to the question of why non-elite life is still worth living.
I’m not sure how we’re going to navigate this deep cultural divide, but it might help to start with a better diagnosis. We may also need to accept that a common bourgeois culture probably isn’t in the cards for American society, at least not in the near future. Conservatives may still be hanging onto the bricks, but the mortar is just gone.
Published in General
In my experience, they aren’t just standoffish. They are incredibly hostile. Nobody hates-and I don’t use that word lightly-red America more than a liberal artist. I was heavily involved in theater for several years in Alaska; most of the people I met in those circles were very very far left. I never knew such hatred and vitriol existed, and I came from Massachusetts! After a while, I just got sick of it-I didn’t want to spend my life around people like that, so I moved on to other things.
Isn’t it odd when the alleged sensitivities of the artist don’t extend to about half the country, many of whom are in the working class that many artists purport to be fond of. It’s partially why I get my art fix from that produced by other generations. And it’s intriguing that Alaska–thought (at least by me) to be the refuge of those seeking a last frontier of freedom–has attracted a heavily blue artist class. Speaking of the arts and Massachusetts, I was in Northampton a short while ago. Don’t get me started.
I think this particular variety sees the relatively wholesome lives of the normals as a rebuke.
lol :) My husband doesn’t even want to go out to dinner in Northampton anymore, because, he says, of the people. Which is too bad, because there are some good restaurants there, but oh well. :) If you ever in the area again, let us know-we live nearby, and maybe we could have a meet up, and we promise we won’t go to Northampton. Northampton is very far out there, even for Massachusetts.
Obviously, Alaska is a very red state, but there is definitely a leftist contingency there-just as there is a conservative contingency in Massachusetts. There are all kinds of different people, everywhere you go :)
I think it may have more to do with money; most-certainly not all, but most of the artistic people I met took it for granted that they should receive government funding, and as far as they are concerned, anyone who doesn’t want to fund them is a barbarian. But yeah, values-or the lack thereof, in some cases, also play a big role.
Eh, maybe, but we also have a $20 trillion debt, and in a few years when it hits the fan the freebies may be unaffordable. E.g., have you ever seen this video?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w__PJ8ymliw
I am, too – we already agreed that the reason their lives aren’t as chaotic is because they do observe a lot of these customs and taboos themselves.
They implicitly propagate rather than explicitly defend them, true.
In practice, a lot of them seem to like dead white men a lot more than they’re willing to admit they do.
They’re not monolithic on this kind of issue. On a side note, elementary education in music does tend toward simplistic fare because it’s elementary – but that matters less than there not being a monolithic “they”.
Yes, it is odd. It’s an oddity to rebuke them for, but hopefully not an oddity to abandon the culture to them for. Theatre people (and they do seem to like spelling it with -re) do seem to be particularly egregious in this respect. Cooperating for the sake of cultural preservation can take a very thick skin.
In many cases, cooperation isn’t possible. It takes two to cooperate, and many leftists, especially leftist artists, are totally unwilling to cooperate with conservatives, and that is putting it mildly.
I do think that both you and Titus have a point; we can’t abandon the culture to the left, and conservatives are not doing enough to preserve it. In most cases, cooperation with hard core leftists is just not possible, but we could branch out and do our own thing, and we should. It’s not enough to complain about liberals destroying the culture; we have to do our part to preserve it, and right now, we aren’t, and I totally include myself in that.
Yep. The culture wars are over and we lost. Actually, we were so busy waging and winning and congratulating ourselves on winning the economic wars and the Cold War that we never really fought the culture wars. Nevertheless, defeat or abdication, the culture ship has sailed. It’ll be a generation at least before that changes. And culture is upstream from politics and economics. The cultural changes have economic consequences. The Financial Crisis is a direct outgrowth of the changed culture. Example … when Nixon was President the US population was about 200 million. There were roughly 30 million single family homes with 3 or more bedrooms. There were also roughy 25 million 2 parent families with 2 or more children … the kind of family that needs and can afford a 3 bedroom house. The market is more or less in balance. Ok. Flash forward to 2005. There are still roughly 25 million 2 parent families with 2 or more children …even though the population is now about 300 million. But now there are roughly 72 million houses with 3 or more bedrooms. Where are the extra 2 parent families to need and afford that extra housing? Because they are not there, creative financing is required to get those houses sold. Result … disaster.
It is a upper middle class solution that doesn’t always fit. The idea that people can live productive happy lives without higher ed is foreign to today’s thinkers, even conservatives. How in the world does school prepare one for the work world? When you are in school, it is fake situations, and it is all about you. When you go to work, it isn’t about you and it is real. Forget the fries, and you have a mad customer, a problem you have to solve.
Banfield’s explanation also fits with Glenn Reynolds “Reynolds law”. Which I think is kind of like Cargo Cult thinking. Getting there is what is important, not arriving.
Wax did not push education as an answer, but impulse control.
I just meant compulsory public education. It would be appropriate for many people to continue beyond, but I think a majority of American kids are ill-served by the
leftist indoctrinationeducation they’re getting beyond 8th.Amen to that!
If we’re going to keep corporate welfare, we’re not going to have bourgeoisie culture.
If we have welfare, period, we’re subsidizing anti-bourgeois values. If we have head of household tax filing status, we’re subsidizing anti-bourgeois values. If we have a marriage penalty in our tax system, we’re subsidizing anti-bourgeois values. If we have an Earned Income Tax Credit, we’re subsidizing anti-bourgeois values. If we have Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid, we’re subsidizing anti-bourgeois values.
Frankly, it’s a testament to the accumulated social capital of American culture that we have any bourgeoisie at all, given how hard our government works to encourage us to spend profligately, have sex profligately, and rely on the government for our education, housing, health care, and retirement.
All right, so I didn’t get back to this as quickly as I hoped, but I still love MFR’s analogy and actually started enjoying it even more watching her defend it across the thread. I think it says quite a lot about the splits along the right these last couple of years. When a politician starts appealing explicitly to the angry “oranges” (ha!), some of your educated and influential “reds” say “Oh, whoops, we should have been over there all along! Shame on us for leaving our people inadequately defended!”
Some others, more obviously of purple hue, say, “What? No. This orange platform is not what we stand for, and we may have our disagreements with liberals, but they still have their moments. Unceremoniously dumping them in the street sounds like a bad idea, especially if these are the alternative candidates. Pass.”
The reds end up looking less purple and sometimes disavowing many aspects of their own heritage in solidarity with the oranges. The purples may just end up isolated and perhaps bitter, or they may take on a bluer tinge.
As occasionally happens, I’m not really sure what Titus is after here, other than the fact that he obviously wants to valorize the oranges. But I too am curious what “institutions” we neglected or should have built or whatever. I mean, the main “red” institutions that I’ve been part of have been churches, or things affiliated with churches (like my kids’ parochial school). Those still exist. Our more disaffected populations have regrettably abandoned them in too-large numbers. I would never suggest that we should just shrug and leave them to stew in misery… but what exactly should we do? Keep in mind that I was raised Mormon, so we were pretty big on the whole evangelizing thing, and now at least some portion of what I do could loosely be termed “Catholic apologetics”. I’m all for bringing people the Gospel, but there’s only so much you can do to make them drink. And I don’t think it would be right to say that conservatives gave up on getting people to church. There’ve always been a considerable number of people who were extremely interested in that, but we just haven’t always been as successful as we’d like.
What other institutions should we be building or resurrecting or conquering?
I think the decline of the churches and families both bring us back to this general point about the negative cultural effects of neo-Epicurean mores. Amy pointed out above that Christians aren’t the only people who have families; WC asked why our neo-Epicureans can’t tell other people to build families when they’re doing it themselves. The thing you have to get here is that our elites do build and value families, but the way they do it is not very appropriate for the circumstances of the less-elite. There are some social practices that work moderately well for the affluent, educated, and already-fairly-disciplined, but that don’t work out well at all for the less-advantaged.
So, for instance, the neo-Epicurean ideal calls for a marriage sometime in one’s late 20’s or early 30’s, after extensive education has been completed, with a person to whom your are deeply attached, under circumstances conducive to at least one (but probably both) of you continuing in well-established careers and laying a solid financial foundation for the family and the kids (once they come along). We might say, it’s a “for better” vision of marriage, not so much “for worse”. It’s supposed to include high levels of personal fulfillment and affluence, as well as a sturdy foundation for raising elite offspring. And, frankly, it’s working out great for some people. But, quite obviously, there are quite a lot of Americans for whom that kind of alliance is never going to be in the cards. “Getting qualified” for neo-Epicurean companionate marriage would be a wild dream for some people. Does that mean they should never get married? No… but the neo-Epicureans who dominate our cultural bastions have nothing to say about how other sorts of marriage might work. Epicurean cultural cues have also given people some very unfortunate paradigms about how courtship and marriage “ought” to be, so that they themselves tend to conclude that they or their partners just aren’t up to it. It’s maddening to traditionalists like me to see these large numbers of people who are living together and raising multiple kids and still saying, “Well, we’re not really sure we’re ready for marriage yet.” Huh? You’ve been together for years, doing all the defining things married people do. You’re already de facto a family. What more information could you possibly need? Considering it all through the neo-Epicurean paradigm, though, you kind of get it. They just expect marriage to be something that, for them, it will never be.
The Epicurean/Judeo-Christian split is really glaring when it comes to discussions of same-sex coupling. I’ve been involved with some of these discussions of how Christians can be appropriately welcoming and pastoral towards the same-sex-attracted without jettisoning our moral teachings. To my liberal-Epicurean friends this is all just fairly horrifying… how can you agree that some people are non-voluntarily attracted their own sex and deny them the gratification of those desires? Cruelty! Barbarism! Sexual satisfaction just occupies a very different role in our respective world views.
Some similar issues arise with respect to work, and here the reds and blues get into some interesting tangles because in some ways the blues really are much more savvy to the demands of our present workforce; we really don’t need a lot more workers who have no rarified skills but a committed nose-to-grindstone attitude. Just preaching Franklinesque platitudes won’t solve our labor problems, and not a lot of people seem set on making them worse just to create the sort of jobs they think people ought to be doing. On the other hand, it’s still true that many jobs require a lot of drudgery, and not everyone is going to be compensated with all the relishes that effete liberals seem to feel they should have. And once again… Epicureans attach so much importance to fulfillment and career-building that it’s difficult for them even to say anything to people who don’t have much prospect of fulfilling careers. Their whole idea about the role work should play in one’s life and identity is totally geared towards high-status and fulfilling work. It actually makes a certain sense to them (at least psychologically and emotionally) to have benefits readily available for people who aren’t able to have those kinds of careers. And they’re wildly in favor of more education to ensure that poor people’s kids can have it better.
Anyway, you get the picture. It’s not that Christianity is the only philosophy that can justify working and raising a family. But ordinary people do need both mores and a broader philosophy that provides some guidance and sustenance in harder times. The neo-Epicureans cannot offer that. They just do not know what a person should do with himself if he isn’t destined for the good life.
So what associations are open to poorer Americans? They’ve dropped out of church; the unions are destroyed. What associations or at least shows of solidarity except catastrophes exist in America that cross class boundaries?
Aside from Trump rallies, which don’t seem to leave anything behind, what organizations are there to even bring the opinions of poorer Americans into politics?
Middle-class Americans have various such occasions.
What would politicians even know about the lower classes?
But in a way, that’s exactly the point, isn’t it?
Elite life is so structured that you don’t have to be noble to get and stay married; plain old self-interest is on your side. As anyone who has been married can attest, even with the help of self-interest, marriage requires self-discipline, patience, tolerance, an ability to delay gratification and so on… virtues that turn out to be applicable to all other endeavors in life as well, hence the close connection between marriage and overall thriving, whether of individuals or communities. A bunch of not-unusually noble people can nonetheless create a culture in which nobility is far more likely to emerge as a value and even a self-reinforcing characteristic of the whole.
We structure welfare benefits (to name one example) in such a way that a noble disregard for short-term self-interest is a precondition for getting and staying married or, for that matter, finishing school, getting a job, delaying childbearing and all the rest, then of course most people will fail to do these things, and the cumulative effect of all their individual failures will be a culture in which this and associated virtues are much rarer than they need to be.
This is why the conservative emphasis on personal responsibility when it comes to the problems of the poor is unsatisfying to me: I am too aware of my own sins (a tendency toward laziness, ennui, despair) to imagine that my life is good because I am. I live (and always have) within a sub-culture that is constantly teaching and reinforcing my good behavior and (sometimes painfully) discouraging misbehavior. In other words, I might be pretty good, but I am definitely very lucky.
It’s all ok. I just heard Ben Shapiro tell everyone listening at Berkeley or–like me–on youtube, that poor people are poor because of their choices, no one owes them anything.
Conservatism is doing great.
That was part of his proof that America is the mostest bestest thing in the world, by the way. Bourgeois & beyond–this is oligarchy in full!
I’ve thought about this post since it went up and I really have nothing to add. Well said Rachel – it’s a rather depressing reality but determining our policy goals for the future requires recognizing that reality and not pining for a past that will never come again.
I don’t agree that culture is at all what is keeping elites married at higher rates than the poor. Not even slightly. I see no expectation among these people that they should stick it out in a tough marriage. Divorce is rarer than among the poor, but still common and unstigmatized. I literally believe that the differences are entirely explained by finances.
They’re still welcome at church, Titus. If they’re not willing to come, what are we supposed to do about that?
They’re still welcome some other places too. Having four young kids, I spend quite a bit of time going to free community events… two-bit festivals and rec center Halloween parties and that sort of thing. Poor people can come to those. The recreation departments here in St. Paul also have zillions of sports programs. They normally cost $25-35 to join, but the website makes very clear that they’ll waive the fee for families that can’t afford it. Of course the public schools also have sports teams and theater productions and so forth. I take my kids to plays at the Children’s Theater when I feel like I can afford it, which isn’t so often because it’s a little pricey… but they also have a pretty generous $5 ticket program for families poorer than mine. You basically just have to fill out about six lines’ worth of household information, easily available on their website. The kids’ museums that we go to (which have family-friendly member events and all that) also regularly advertise their low-income-family deals. (Well, except for the art museum, which is just free for everyone all the time. Actually that’s also true of our city zoo and conservatory too… voluntary donation only. Everyone welcome.)
These things really are not closed to poorer people. My kids’ school is in one of St. Paul’s lowest-income neighborhoods, and Frogtown (the poorest neighborhood in the Cities, according to the Charles Murray SuperZip map) is closer to three of the museums we love than my house is… within walking distance if you’re willing to go a mile or so on foot, or a short tram or bus ride if you prefer that. And I think free access to city transportation is also available to the poor if they go to City Hall and fill out a form.
So yeah, you have to exercise a *bit* of initiative to get these things free, maybe filling out an online form or talking to a person at a desk. At some level, though… what can we do for people who aren’t willing or able to take any initiative at all to access stuff? I’m not saying all of this to be mean or to imply that poor people’s problems are all their own fault. But honestly, when I think about the things that I do with my family and kids, very few of them actually call for significant financial resources (or any!). I grant that you couldn’t live in my neighborhood if you were broke and unemployed. I eat nicer food than most low-income people probably, and to send their kids to my kids’ school, people without money would be reliant on the financial aid office’s beneficence (and actually they do give scholarships to several low-income kids, but I’m sure not to everyone who applies because then the school would go broke). Fewer apple orchard trips, perhaps, for poor kids; the orchards are all commercial. But poor kids could play on the same sports teams my kids do, go to the same museums and zoos, see the same plays, go to most of the same parades and parties and community events, and kneel next to my family in the pews at church. How do they not have access to anything?
I don’t think we should just sit in judgment over suffering people, but I do think we need to be realistic about the extent to which the problems of some subcultures run deeper than just “too many slammed doors”. Many/most of the social/cultural institutions that I use are perfectly accessible to people without money, but they don’t come. Why not?
I have also just noticed that in the title (eek!) and many times in this piece, I use the term “bourgeoisie” (the noun) when I really mean “bourgeois” (the adjective). That’s kind of embarrassing. Could someone fix that? I don’t think I personally can do it.
I wouldn’t say entirely finances, but that’s very relevant. I mean, raising spectacular and accomplished offspring is also a big thing for elites. That’s not just a question of finances; it also involves connections and immersion in a generally functional culture and so forth. If you don’t see much prospect of raising spectacularly successful offspring, that won’t be nearly so motivating for you. Finances are part of a whole web of things, but I think I am broadly in agreement with Frank that a “for better” marriage philosophy has little to offer by way of practical advice for those who have it “worse”.
Mrs. Lu, I don’t know that you’re supposed to do anything. I’m sure you’re as good a mother as imaginable, & that’s a lot.
Now, you personally aside, Who’s supposed to do anything for anyone else?
I’m with you to a large extent when you say, America requires no slammed doors to end up with misery & massive separation of the classes. I’m sure you know Charles Murray’s work better than I can.
But I am looking for the answer to that question. I think lots of Americans are. & I don’t think they’re as patient as I am-
But the point is that they do to a significant extent need to help themselves. That’s not the only thing. And realistically, sometimes people just reach a level of disaffection where they wreck most of the institutions and structures that could potentially have helped them and we all end up worse off. That might happen here, as it has many times through history.
As someone who doesn’t want that to happen, I think we need to be willing to process painful truths. The neo-Epicureans need to face up to certain truths about how their good-life philosophy is grossly inadequate to the needs of many of their compatriots. One good way they could help there would be by at least not sabotaging Christians and other traditionalists who do actually have something to offer the poor other than handouts. But the populists also need to face some hard truths, like the fact that it’s mostly liberals these days who are putting on Shakespeare and maintaining art museums, and the reason poor white kids mostly aren’t seeing those productions or admiring Monets, isn’t because bouncers barred the doors to them. More likely it’s because those subcultures are so desiccated that the kids don’t see this as something worth doing. Even if the Epicureans indirectly had something to do with that, we can’t really expect them just to fix it. People need to be willing to put their own houses in order.
Ma’am, Monets for poor people is not a winning strategy for America-
I think what you and I share is that we’ve both ridden the Greyhound buses. It gives us a different view of “the poor” than is commonly described in this thread. :)
I didn’t say that culture has never matter, or can’t matter again. I am saying that the difference you are seeing between the poor and the not poor on this subject isn’t cultural.
I will say however that the days of almost no divorces were the result of the obvious and immediate consequences of doing so (like starvation). A world as prosperous as ours is never going to have low divorce rates again.