Ricochet vs. The Fractured Republic

 

I’m reading Yuval Levin’s book, The Fractured Republic, and it’s very good. His main premise is that America has moved from a period of consolidated culture (1930s – mid-’60s) into one of diffusion, and both parties are trapped in nostalgia for their respective “glory days.” The Democrats pine for the mid-’50s through the ’60s (high percentage of unionized workers, civil rights protests, War on Poverty via federal programs, etc.), and the right wants to restore the Reagan years (tax cuts, deregulation, moral majority, etc.). He says it’s impossible for us to return to either vision of America, given our current diffuse culture and atomization.

Anyway, in his chapter “Subculture Wars,” he writes:

The problem we face is not the risk of cataclysm, but the acceptance of widespread despair and disorder in the lives of millions of our fellow citizens. We risk getting used to living in a society that denies a great many of its most vulnerable people the opportunity to thrive. Making the case against such acquiescence in the torpor and misery of so many would mean calling people’s attention to just what it these Americans are being denied – to the possibility of flourishing, and to its appeal.

Social conservatives must therefore make a positive case, not just a negative one. Rather than decrying the collapse of moral order, we must draw people’s eyes and hearts to the alternative: to the vast and beautiful “yes” for the sake of which an occasional narrow but insistent “no” is required. We can do this with arguments up to a point, but ultimately, the case for an alternative that might alleviate the loneliness and brokenness evident in our culture requires attractive examples of that alternative in practice, in the form of living communities that provide people with better opportunities to thrive. Especially when we are in no position to enforce or enact our ideals as national norms, social conservatives need to emphasize and prioritize such modeling of alternatives – illustrating the possibility of a more appealing form of modern life by living it.

I consider Ricochet an example of just such an appealing alternative: compared to the cesspool that is Facebook and Twitter, it is a community in which conservatives can model a respectful, entertaining, and vibrant exchange of ideas and opinions.

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  1. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Thaddeus Wert: Especially when we are in no position to enforce or enact our ideals as national norms, social conservatives need to emphasize and prioritize such modeling of alternatives – illustrating the possibility of a more appealing form of modern life by living it.

    The problem is that the state feels threatened by any such alternatives, and has been working overtime over at least the past 120 years to stamp them out.  It’s pretty hard to run an adoption agency differently than what the state wants. It’s hard to run a school system independently of the state. It’s hard to run a social welfare system independently of the state. The Great Society wiped out the mutual aid societies. And on and on.

    So yes, we need to model those alternatives, but that won’t be allowed without a lot of rancor, bitterness, and fighting.

    • #1
  2. Arizona Patriot Member
    Arizona Patriot
    @ArizonaPatriot

    Thaddeus Wert:

    Social conservatives must therefore make a positive case, not just a negative one. Rather than decrying the collapse of moral order, we must draw people’s eyes and hearts to the alternative: to the vast and beautiful “yes” for the sake of which an occasional narrow but insistent “no” is required. We can do this with arguments up to a point, but ultimately, the case for an alternative that might alleviate the loneliness and brokenness evident in our culture requires attractive examples of that alternative in practice, in the form of living communities that provide people with better opportunities to thrive. Especially when we are in no position to enforce or enact our ideals as national norms, social conservatives need to emphasize and prioritize such modeling of alternatives – illustrating the possibility of a more appealing form of modern life by living it.

    We form such living communities.  They’re called churches.  They’ve been under heavy assault for a long, long time.  People don’t want to hear it.  They only hear what the churches are against, and yeah, we’re against all of that stuff like abortion and homosexuality and even heterosexual sex outside of marriage.

    The unpleasant fact is that people often make bad choices, mess up their lives, and are completely resistant to the idea that they need to change.  This goes for me, too, not just everybody else.  The common culture condemns us as evil and hateful for pointing this out, which is “blaming the victim.”  Well, the “victim” is usually to blame, at least in part, and is often the only person in a good position to fix their own life.  It isn’t easy.

    My church is trying to do more on the positive side, with community outreach focusing on being “for” people.  Things like adopting local schools, doing fix-up days to improve their facilities, and providing winter coats, shoes, underwear, and socks for needy families.

    • #2
  3. Thaddeus Wert Coolidge
    Thaddeus Wert
    @TWert

    Arizona Patriot (View Comment):
    My church is trying to do more on the positive side, with community outreach focusing on being “for” people. Things like adopting local schools, doing fix-up days to improve their facilities, and providing winter coats, shoes, underwear, and socks for needy families.

    That is exactly  what Levin suggests social conservatives do. Build small subcultures that illustrate to the larger community universal truths and actions that work.

    • #3
  4. Tim Wright Inactive
    Tim Wright
    @TimWright

    Levin is arguing, in my opinion, for accommodating the power of a very destructive liberalism. For an alternative viewpoint, on confronting the administrative state and the cultural hegemony of liberals, read this excellent, piece at AG..

    https://amgreatness.com/2017/12/15/disruptive-politics-in-the-trump-era-yuval-levin-or-victor-davis-hanson/

    Tim

    • #4
  5. The Cloaked Gaijin Member
    The Cloaked Gaijin
    @TheCloakedGaijin

    Thaddeus Wert:the right wants to restore the Reagan years (tax cuts, deregulation, moral majority, etc.).

    2 + 2 does not stop equaling 4 just because some people are bored with facts, history, self-reliance, Christianity, and old white men.

    • #5
  6. Kozak Member
    Kozak
    @Kozak

    I’ve got to disagree. The Democrats hate the America of the 50’s and early 60’s.   They loathe the “Leave It to Beaver” , “My Three Son’s” America of suburban middle class values and the era of undisputed American power and leadership around the world. Their entire program since about 1967 is the utter destruction of that America. And they are nearly there….

    • #6
  7. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Tim Wright (View Comment):
    Levin is arguing, in my opinion, for accommodating the power of a very destructive liberalism. For an alternative viewpoint, on confronting the administrative state and the cultural hegemony of liberals, read this excellent, piece at AG..

    https://amgreatness.com/2017/12/15/disruptive-politics-in-the-trump-era-yuval-levin-or-victor-davis-hanson/

    Tim

    That article is a very good overview of the situation.

    This reminds me of the efforts of the progressive era to take control of education away from parents and put it in the hands of educational experts.  Much of it didn’t succeed until after World War II, but it was an important goal from the beginning. I wonder if Levin is offering the PTA solution: Parents can still be involved in their children’s education by going to work in the PTA, doing bake sales and volunteering to help the pros run the educational system, which will demonstrate model behavior. Others want to disrupt the existing system by taking over their children’s education. Some do it by homeschooling, which is also a way of demonstrating model behavior. Some churches do it by running their own schools. But they’ve had to fight every step of the way. And the public schools still wield an enormous influence, and put great economic pressure on the private ones to conform. Where it goes from here is a good question.

    • #7
  8. Stina Inactive
    Stina
    @CM

    This sounds like a precursor to a multi-party system.

    If the destruction of our heterogeneity results in such fractured sub-cultures, then why continue to purse a dual party system? How do you coalesce multiple, divergent cultures into one party enough to invoke some political change?

    Arizona Patriot (View Comment):
    They’re called churches. They’ve been under heavy assault for a long, long time. People don’t want to hear it.

    Churches are also under assault from within.

    I live in one area and travel 30-40 minutes away to attend a church I find biblical (who is going through a rector-search atm, so hoping it stays that way). But the result of this is it is very difficult to form community with people so far away. Yes, it is far. I’d give anything to have a church 10-15 minutes away with people in my neighborhood attending it. Its far easier to build community around that.

    • #8
  9. Kate Braestrup Member
    Kate Braestrup
    @GrannyDude

    The Cloaked Gaijin (View Comment):

    Thaddeus Wert:the right wants to restore the Reagan years (tax cuts, deregulation, moral majority, etc.).

    2 + 2 does not stop equaling 4 just because some people are bored with facts, history, self-reliance, Christianity, and old white men.

    This strikes me as important. If the FF’s vision was a good one, one that comes closest to accommodating the twin realities of organic human frailty and human aspiration, it will tend to keep stubbornly resurfacing. The track record of central-government Big Brother control is not only dismal because of the human misery it caused, but also because it is intrinsically weak—precisely because it doesn’t account for what a human being actually is. For that matter, it doesn’t account for what reality is; fantasy-based systems eventually fall apart.

    Andrew Klavan says he measures success not in terms of some final triumph, but day-by-day. If, today, there is a little more freedom  than there was yesterday, count that as a win.

    • #9
  10. Derek Simmons Member
    Derek Simmons
    @

    Arizona Patriot (View Comment):
    The unpleasant fact is that people often make bad choices, mess up their lives, and are completely resistant to the idea that they need to change. This goes for me, too, not just everybody else. The common culture condemns us as evil and hateful for pointing this out, which is “blaming the victim.” Well, the “victim” is usually to blame, at least in part, and is often the only person in a good position to fix their own life. It isn’t easy.

    Can’t add; only repeat.

    • #10
  11. genferei Member
    genferei
    @genferei

    The vision of the 50s and 60s as somehow less fractured and intensely partisan than today seems to be at odds with the lived reality. Any reasonable biography of Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson or Nixon (or their contemporaries) demonstrates exactly the cleavage between elites and ‘normies’, internationalists and nationalists, idealists and pragmatists, interventionists and isolationists, State and Pentagon, press and people, … as we see today.

    I haven’t read Levin’s book, but this passage:

    We risk getting used to living in a society that denies a great many of its most vulnerable people the opportunity to thrive. Making the case against such acquiescence in the torpor and misery of so many would mean calling people’s attention to just what it these Americans are being denied – to the possibility of flourishing, and to its appeal.

    could, in period appropriate language, come from any of a score of Abraham Lincoln speeches. (Perhaps this is exactly the point Levin is making.)

    We are not as special as we think.

    • #11
  12. I Walton Member
    I Walton
    @IWalton

    Modern society is too complex to be governed centrally, so nostalgia for the success of centralizing, global war time economy and post war monopoly and prosperity is nostalgia.   The conventional wisdom didn’t understand why there was so much prosperity in the post war world.   In contrast the desire for limited government isn’t  nostalgia, because most Americans alive today haven’t lived in such a system, they lived in the post war or post post war world.   They know about it by reading and thinking.  So there isn’t some middle ground where we can meet and sort out our conflicting nostalgias, nor can conservatives live so well that they show liberals that freedom works.  Most of our prosperous citizens live in two parent homes and have kids and go to work and live traditional lives and, for some reason, they are liberal and think that the way they live isn’t available for their inferiors.  We tend to have things backward, the more complex, diverse, and large a population the less it can be governed centrally and the more decisions and power must be decentralized.   This isn’t a conflict of equal but slightly different world views that can be sorted out.

    • #12
  13. Ansonia Member
    Ansonia
    @Ansonia

    Re: comment 2

    You’re right. The victim might be only partly to blame. But he or she is the only person who can take charge and steer the ship, so to speak, in a better direction.

    • #13
  14. Ontheleftcoast Inactive
    Ontheleftcoast
    @Ontheleftcoast

    When Levin writes this

    The problem we face is not the risk of cataclysm, but the acceptance of widespread despair and disorder in the lives of millions of our fellow citizens. We risk getting used to living in a society that denies a great many of its most vulnerable people the opportunity to thrive…

    No.

    The problem isn’t “the acceptance of widespread despair and disorder in the lives of millions of our fellow citizens.” The problem isn’t nostalgia. Nostalgia serves different purposes for Left and right. Civil Rights/union/Great Society nostalgia is how the Left gets money from the baby boomers as it consolidates its hold. For the Right, nostalgia is the way to not see the true horror of what the Left is up to, because the implication of seeing it is that business as usual, politics as usual won’t fix it. That’s how “conservatives” could decide that HRC was the mature adult whom they should support.

    The problems are the Left’s deliberate and systematic destruction of classical liberalism – which is where Left and Right used to be able to meet – and the growth of the administrative state; this was originally a Progressive project but many so-called conservatives nurture it because their careers depend on it.

    It is true that the inaction stemming from despair will allow this to metastasize further.

     

    • #14
  15. Chris Campion Coolidge
    Chris Campion
    @ChrisCampion

    Arizona Patriot (View Comment):

    Thaddeus Wert:

    Social conservatives must therefore make a positive case, not just a negative one. Rather than decrying the collapse of moral order, we must draw people’s eyes and hearts to the alternative: to the vast and beautiful “yes” for the sake of which an occasional narrow but insistent “no” is required. We can do this with arguments up to a point, but ultimately, the case for an alternative that might alleviate the loneliness and brokenness evident in our culture requires attractive examples of that alternative in practice, in the form of living communities that provide people with better opportunities to thrive. Especially when we are in no position to enforce or enact our ideals as national norms, social conservatives need to emphasize and prioritize such modeling of alternatives – illustrating the possibility of a more appealing form of modern life by living it.

    We form such living communities. They’re called churches. They’ve been under heavy assault for a long, long time. People don’t want to hear it. They only hear what the churches are against, and yeah, we’re against all of that stuff like abortion and homosexuality and even heterosexual sex outside of marriage.

    The unpleasant fact is that people often make bad choices, mess up their lives, and are completely resistant to the idea that they need to change. This goes for me, too, not just everybody else. The common culture condemns us as evil and hateful for pointing this out, which is “blaming the victim.” Well, the “victim” is usually to blame, at least in part, and is often the only person in a good position to fix their own life. It isn’t easy.

    My church is trying to do more on the positive side, with community outreach focusing on being “for” people. Things like adopting local schools, doing fix-up days to improve their facilities, and providing winter coats, shoes, underwear, and socks for needy families.

    Speaking of socks – if you haven’t heard of them, you’ll like them.  For every pair sold, they donate a pair.  From their site, they say the number 1 requested item at homeless shelters is socks.

    https://bombas.com/

    • #15
  16. Chris Campion Coolidge
    Chris Campion
    @ChrisCampion

    I’m going to make broad generalizations here.  Here There Be Monsters:

    I have some Democrat friends who say, paraphrasing here, that they’re happy to pay taxes.  That spreading the wealth around is inherently good, because it helps people.

    I’m paraphrasing with a broad brush, but that’s essentially it.  So, if you buy into this, then you are saying that whatever the government does is good, because it’s all (mostly) designed around providing the things to people that they cannot provide for themselves.  This spectrum of “help” ranges from roads to methadone.

    What gets lost in all of this is how much the individual suffers, when he or she is helped too much.  When he or she is put in a position where they don’t have to be responsible or accountable for their choices.  Once that is removed, you have built a slave – a person who is now a slave to the “help” they did need at one point, maybe to get past a bad set of circumstances (job loss, illness, addiction), but who has transitioned to a place of permanent assistance.

    The fractured republic is fractured, in that those who believe the government is there to help – in all things in all aspects of your lives – means that there is no limit on government power.  No conceivable limit on power.  It’s already there.  Education.  Health care.  Earnings.  Retirement.  The chair you sit in and the food you eat – all of it, regulated, with the power to deny production inherent in the regulation.

    Limits do not exist anymore, because all aspects of your life are already, in some way, allowed by the government.  Not assisted by, but granted to you, by the whims of politicians and bureaucrats, all of whom are beholden to this great, all-encompassing, an enormous swallowing, of the people, as individuals.

    Ironically, the less you can choose, the less free you are.  All “help” that comes from government is in the form of a reduction of choice, in one way or another.  When the government says “Thou shalt”, are you more free, or less free?  Who are you, as an individual, if you acquiesce to this inherent limitation of freedom?

    Answer:  You’re a Progressive, which may mean the ultimate devolution for the grand experiment known as the United States.  When you separate the people, and one half pays for everything and the other half only takes from those who earn, we’re not united as a people.  We’re united into tribes.

    From one, we are now many.

    • #16
  17. Derek Simmons Member
    Derek Simmons
    @

    Chris Campion (View Comment):
    When the government says “Thou shalt”, are you more free, or less free? Who are you, as an individual, if you acquiesce to this inherent limitation of freedom?

    Answer: You’re a Progressive

    It’s the intended fruit of the multi-decade push by Progressives for “multi-culturalism”. Assimilation is hard and so it is no longer pushed or even “nudged.” There is some rate–likely never to be accurately known–at which an existing culture can effectively assimilate an alien culture desirous of assimilating. Whatever that threshold rate is, we have intentionally exceeded it. GOVCO has exceeded it because creating “identity enclaves” works to the advantage of The Left. And GOVCO only ratchets left. Neither the D’s looking for voters and self-regard, nor Rs looking for cheaper labor live directly with these fruits. The “Elites” of all political persuasions having sown the wind are reaping the whirlwind. Trump is the unintended and unexpected consequence of this multi-decade push. All the whining and seeing portents and reading tea-leaves will not reverse the trajectory to again favor the “Elites.”

    • #17
  18. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Chris Campion (View Comment):
    What gets lost in all of this is how much the individual suffers, when he or she is helped too much. When he or she is put in a position where they don’t have to be responsible or accountable for their choices. Once that is removed, you have built a slave – a person who is now a slave to the “help” they did need at one point, maybe to get past a bad set of circumstances (job loss, illness, addiction), but who has transitioned to a place of permanent assistance.

    And this is where we’re never going to convince anyone of the value of giving up the govt aid and living free again if we can’t get the Chamber of Commerce and the Ex-Im exporters to give up their govt aid and live free again.

    • #18
  19. Chris Campion Coolidge
    Chris Campion
    @ChrisCampion

    The Reticulator (View Comment):

    Chris Campion (View Comment):
    What gets lost in all of this is how much the individual suffers, when he or she is helped too much. When he or she is put in a position where they don’t have to be responsible or accountable for their choices. Once that is removed, you have built a slave – a person who is now a slave to the “help” they did need at one point, maybe to get past a bad set of circumstances (job loss, illness, addiction), but who has transitioned to a place of permanent assistance.

    And this is where we’re never going to convince anyone of the value of giving up the govt aid and living free again if we can’t get the Chamber of Commerce and the Ex-Im exporters to give up their govt aid and live free again.

    Remove the incentive from politicians, to give both of these things away, and it stops.  How you do that is the hard part.  The deconstruction of the incentive apparatus, that is, at core, what the USG “provides” now.  It’s an apparatus built to feed itself, self-propagate.

    We keep electing cowards, we’ll get more of the same.

    • #19
  20. Eridemus Coolidge
    Eridemus
    @Eridemus

    @Derek Simmons

    (the inherent limitation of freedom is) the intended fruit of the multi-decade push by Progressives for “multi-culturalism”. Assimilation is hard and so it is no longer pushed or even “nudged.” There is some rate–likely never to be accurately known–at which an existing culture can effectively assimilate an alien culture desirous of assimilating.

    They might want assimilation but only on their terms, certainly not as a nation of thought variety that used to be allowed in spite of greater sameness of social norms (like dress and sexual orientation). Progressives certainly don’t want assimilation before they have re-molded the existing culture for greater sameness of thought.

    I have been puzzled for a long time WHY there is this undemocratically hatched push to “celebrate diversity” mixed with a clearly inconsistent push to enshrine only one political mindset; in other words, the establishment seems determined to create a cultural “rainbow” yet tries to hammer all the ribbons into a single political position.

    I don’t have the deep answer, but I have noticed that “diversity” is okay only in shallow areas like music, restaurant flavors, hair styles, etc. as long as one has permitted reasons for making such personal choices (such as being an immigrant or minority). However, there is no tolerace for “deviant” ideas, hence the boycotts of conservative radio advertisers, prohibited questioning of (manmade) climate change, etc. I’m guessing the “progressive” vision is to mold populations in order to make belonging to “me too” movements the badge of acceptance, which can be manipulated as special government-dependent groupings. The progressives defined your sub-group, celebrated you, and their version of government is there to protect you (no matter who it stomps down)…so pay the party-led government your allegiance!

    The kinds of self-expression still allowed will only be the surface symbols of the sanctioned affiliations. The commoners can point with pride to their memberships (instead of variety of thought) and that will pass for individualism that human egos crave…just as long as the subgroups do not hold constraint of government tendencies. Any better theories?

    • #20
  21. Front Seat Cat Member
    Front Seat Cat
    @FrontSeatCat

    Eridemus (View Comment):
    @Derek Simmons

    (the inherent limitation of freedom is) the intended fruit of the multi-decade push by Progressives for “multi-culturalism”. Assimilation is hard and so it is no longer pushed or even “nudged.” There is some rate–likely never to be accurately known–at which an existing culture can effectively assimilate an alien culture desirous of assimilating.

    They might want assimilation but only on their terms, certainly not as a nation of thought variety that used to be allowed in spite of greater sameness of social norms (like dress and sexual orientation). Progressives certainly don’t want assimilation before they have re-molded the existing culture for greater sameness of thought.

    I have been puzzled for a long time WHY there is this undemocratically hatched push to “celebrate diversity” mixed with a clearly inconsistent push to enshrine only one political mindset; in other words, the establishment seems determined to create a cultural “rainbow” yet tries to hammer all the ribbons into a single political position.

    I don’t have the deep answer, but I have noticed that “diversity” is okay only in shallow areas like music, restaurant flavors, hair styles, etc. as long as one has permitted reasons for making such personal choices (such as being an immigrant or minority). However, there is no tolerace for “deviant” ideas, hence the boycotts of conservative radio advertisers, prohibited questioning of (manmade) climate change, etc. I’m guessing the “progressive” vision is to blend populations all the better to make belonging to “me too” movements the badge of acceptance, which can be manipulated as special government-dependent groupings. The progressives defined your sub-group, celebrated you, and their version of government is there to protect you (no matter who it stomps down)…so pay the party-led government your allegiance!

    The kinds of self-expression still allowed will only be the surface symbols of the sanctioned affiliations. The commoners can point with pride to their memberships (instead of variety of thought) and that will pass for individualism that human egos crave…just as long as the subgroups do not hold constraint of government tendencies. Any better theories?

    You said it – masterminded by the father of lies – right becomes wrong and wrong becomes right.  The more “progressive” we are becoming, the less free – until all rights are regulated…..

    • #21
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