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Sohrab and the Chocolate Factory
If you’re a regular listener to the Commentary Podcast, you probably came to know Sohrab Ahmari in his capacity as a contributor to that enterprise. Sohrab’s immigration to America from Iran and subsequent conversion to Catholicism have also produced a much-discussed memoir – From Fire by Water – and another outgrowth; the curious creation of an entirely new branch of conservatism, which he calls “David French-ism.” Setting aside for a moment that nascent political movements love to identify heretics and then place them on trial in order to better indulge the narcissism of small differences (this gets the juices of the true believers flowing), what is this thing and why should we care?
The definition he gives of this philosophy is that it essentially consists of a “polite, (David French-ian) third way around the cultural civil war.” That’s it. The notion of “liberalism” itself is called into question as liberalism is inherently agnostic about ends, and cares considerably more about the means by which cultural and political questions are sorted out. This is clearly seen by Ahmari and those at First Things as some type of bug, not a feature. David has done a better job of defending himself from this spurious straw-man than I likely can, but I’m more interested in the other side… in what French-ism’s flip side “Ahmari-ism” consists of.
What is its goal? Again, Ahmari: “[T]o fight the culture war with the aim of defeating the enemy and enjoying the spoils in the form of a public square re-ordered to the common good and ultimately the Highest Good.”
What is it that Sohrab really wants out of politics? An Everlasting Gobstopper, obviously. (Record Scratch…) Whaaat? Follow me for just a moment while we go on a wee side journey.
The fundamental unreality of the whole situation baffled me until I began to contemplate this contretemps from a different perspective – that of a morality play. In this play, Sohrab takes on the role of Charlie Bucket, from Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, in which the titular hero is a poverty-stricken yet well-meaning urchin living in a Dickensian hellscape. Eating candy seems to be the primary obsession of this wasted and evil society; indeed, the consumption of Wonka treats provides the only meaningful release from the suffering induced by the grinding poverty afflicting the Bucket family, and Charlie in particular. The Wonka Company itself essentially forms the confines of the public square around which everybody gathers in the Wonka-verse.
In the story, other vices which bedevil the world are also put on display such as avarice, sloth, and gluttony. Note how cleverly this ties into the crises of morality which supposedly inflict America? Obesity, opioids, pornography, and divorce… Tell us, Sohrab:
How do we promote the good of the family against the deracinating forces arrayed against it, some of them arising out of the free market (pornography) and others from the logic of maximal autonomy (no-fault divorce)? “We should reverse cultural messages that for too long have denigrated the fundamental place of marriage in public life.” Oh, OK. How do we combat the destruction wrought by drugs (licit and illicit), by automation and globalization and other forces of the kind?
Hm. This sounds very similar to the Dahl’s-eye view of society that Ahmari holds up as being the natural outcome of the “Liberal” order: a culture which appeals primarily to the basest instincts and leaves people in a Bucket-like spiritual penury, constantly looking to inhale the next treat and forget the searing pain of their miserable existence.
The ill-considered conflation Ahmari engages in is to equate “Liberty” with “License.” This linguistic sleight of hand intentionally divorces liberty from its necessary counterpart: responsibility.
But as you know, the story moves on. In the midst of this hedonism and debauchery, a great light appears on the horizon: Wonka himself is offering Golden Tickets contained within his sweets representing an opportunity to tour the facility where the candy is made. For the Buckets, the ticket means salvation; to be raised from the slough of despond into a kind of secular heaven.
For those with less pure motives, the ticket turns out to be poison. As Charlie and the assembled crew of heathens are ushered through Wonka’s factory, they are picked off one by one by the various temptations contained therein… not because Wonka is a sadist, mind you, but by their own intemperance. (I will leave you, gentle reader, to decipher the meaning of that particular allegory.)
Be that as it may, Ahmari advances the argument that the indulgence made possible by liberal values (the temptations of the factory) will ultimately get you sucked up a chocolate pipe, dropped down the trash chute (you’re a rotten egg, Veruca!) or generally waylaid because those same liberal values “failed to retard, much less reverse, the eclipse of permanent truths, family stability, communal solidarity, and much else.” But what are those permanent truths? Who gets to decide them and more importantly: who gets to enforce them? Ahmari is coy about this part, but if you read between the lines, the plot becomes clear.
The MacGuffin of the 1971 adaption of the book Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is that Everlasting Gobstopper I mentioned above. Getting that Gobstopper is the point of the Moral Journey that Ahmari thinks “David French-ism” isn’t up to handling.
His goal it seems is nothing short of gaining control of the factory to start churning out those Gobstoppers. What if you don’t like Gobstoppers? It is known that the Gobstopper is the ultimate truth of the candy universe, and all who deny it are wrong at least, and fools or evil at worst.
What do you think “a public square re-ordered to the common good and ultimately the Highest Good” means? Gobstoppers for all whether you like hard candy or not.
But there’s a little hitch at the end of the tale we all need to know:
Do you see what happened there? It seems in the end that even Charlie Bucket is more of a French-ite than an Ahmari-ite.
Not to get our pop culture metaphors hopelessly tangled, but if we’ve learned nothing else this year perhaps it is that we ought to be skeptical of placing those in power who would ruthlessly enforce their own judgment over what ultimate good consists of?
Remember: “They don’t get to choose.” Enjoy your Gobstoppers.
Published in Journalism
Isn’t part of what is in contention here what is politically possible? You might be able to force through some political victories by being a royal jackass, but how “sticky” will these victories be? What will be the electoral consequences.
My guess is, the difference in the tactics is based on difference in theories on what causes changes in political sentiment. Must you lay the foundation for political change before the legislation or does the legislation itself change people’s minds and push people to change their opinions in the direction of the passed legislation.
Did I nail it?
It’s an interesting thought. Ahmari is almost explicitly advocating a top-down style of governance while David is advocating a bottom-up scheme.
I think Jonah Goldberg used to make a similar argument. Small government is only a means to an end, not an end in itself. If monarchy were to deliver the benefits and flourishing of limited government republicanism then he would be for that. To me, the only inherent worth of small government is that it seems to be the least bad option for achieving “the good”. Notice, that means there are no good options.
So, this is part of something I’ve been noodling for some time…
In the old days, the route to social respectability was paved on a very narrow path. That path included things like marriage, career, children and above all these other things: religiosity.
An outward lack of religiosity was a surefire route to being considered socially unacceptable in a different time. That isn’t the case so much anymore. This sort of social hegemony that Christians enjoyed in this country has largely come to an end. This, in combination with the tragic revelations of clerical abuse give one the impression that many Christians feel pressure from both inside and outside of their movement.
Ahmari’s attitude is hardly surprising given these pressures, but it is no less reactionary in its nature.
I don’t necessarily disagree – the point being that at the very minimum having a limited government implies a limit to the amount of mischief it can manage.
That is a positive value unto itself.
I think that this is essentially a disagreement among the devout. The two categories are: 1) those who wish to use politics to achieve religious goals, and 2) those who believe that following Jesus has little to do with day-to-day politics.
It seems to me that the very engaged Catholics, plus the strongest Protestant fundamentalists (think Bob Jones University) believe that properly exercising their faith means getting it written into the legal and constitutional code of the state- essentially asserting that Jesus is a Republican and wants Republican policy platforms to both reflect that and to inspire conservative Christians to fight in the political realm for the platform. Thus, for Sohrab Ahmari, enthusiastic new Catholic, it is critical that Catholic theology drive US law. For David French, libertarian evangelical, if US law is the critical factor, it is just as easy for the national law to be fashioned to reflect sharia as the Apostle Paul.
Abortion is evil, gay marriage counters all of human civilization for about 90,000 years. I am not persuaded that the church grew because it held political power- it certainly did not at the time of its most explosive growth. Anabaptist theologian John Yoder was a hypocritical pacifist who preyed on women, but his observations about “power over” and “power under” were pretty sensible and reflected actual history (see this explanation by left-wing pacifist pastor and theologian Greg Boyd). I don’t agree with Dr. Boyd politically about anything whatever, but I think he has it right here (and he is a tremendous Christian pastor even though he is a nut regarding politics and present day pacifism).
The disciples were mostly martyred, the early church was persecuted, and Roman law certainly did not reflect Christian principles. His kingdom is not of this world- Cal Thomas came to recognize that and left The Moral Majority.
I like Sohrab Ahmari, but I think that David French has the better of this argument.
To say you do not like someone is NOT an ad hominem argument. In that fallacy, one refuses to debate the issue by attacking the persons on the other side rather than their argument. Teachout certainly does deal with the issues. In the passage you label, he is merely saying that David French is not actually the focus of Ahmari’s actual argument (and that is fine with him since he does not respect French very much.) True, calling him “Pastor French” might be a bit much.
Either the values espoused and publicly toed were beneficial to the building and maintenance of a productive and free society or they were not.
Whatever the case may be, it is not clear that doing away with those public commons structures has produced more liberty or a more productive society.
Rejecting people as a result of their failure to endorse one particular set of beliefs a priori and irrespective of what their actual values are seems fraught.
I tend to care more about people’s values than their affiliations.
Only if you have a problem with pastors. For the religious types, it’s a title of respect, although Ahmari obviously meant it ironically.
Yes it has. French seems to think that a neutral public square will or could ever replace it. I don’t. The replacement is either nihilism which is no foundation for any society let alone a free one, or some other replacement without the track record of Western Civ.
Not to get overly semantic, but that still isn’t value unto itself. The value of limited government is only it’s purported effect on some other value (like living the good life as I see fit, loving my neighbor as myself, turning the other cheek, etc). If tribalism, monarchy, or direct democracy could get me there then I would favor those things.
Now, see? This is what I’m talkin’ about!
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stephaniemcneal/straight-pride-parade-claim-controversy-boston
I guess I did know who he is then, as I now remember him from the Commentary podcasts. Didn’t strike me as a culture warrior on the podcasts. I don’t even remember him being a huge Trumper.
Social media has the culture wars covered. Otoh, theres a huge brain drain going on in conservatism right now, and David French and other thinkers should spend their time on bigger issues than drag queen and bathroom policy.
I don’t think Ahmari really has any idea what he is advocating for, and that is a big part of the problem.
But if he is advocating for a strong central government that aggressively intervenes in the economy to transfer wealth and power from the fat cat business owners to “the workers” then I don’t see a lot of space between that and Bernie Sanders or AOC.
It’s safe to say he’s not advocating that.
The goals for young conservatives seem to be to join a think tank, read a lot of economic theory, write columns for niche publications, and do a podcast.
We don’t seem to be helping young conservatives learn how to actually work to achieve conservative ends.
Then I don’t know how to interpret the selection you quoted and praised earlier. He seems to explicitly saying what you are saying he explicitly isn’t saying.
Well generally I would say that my advice to young Conservatives is this:
Get a job and live a good life where you model the values you want to see reflected in the world around you. Don’t be afraid to say that your values are desirable and virtuous and lead to enjoying the sort of life you have.
That is an element of the fundamental confusion that is going on here – the idea that somehow gaining control of the political structure is the thing that will return the nation to its supposed glorious past. You can’t do that without millions of individual people actually living those values in addition to preventing the left from overwhelming the barricades… but the weird contradiction I think is that doing just one or the other is insufficient.
What do you say to the people who’ve done all that, and yet still see the country rushing toward Socialism with open arms?
Because that describes our current crisis.
What you describe is a passive approach. In comparison, the left is extremely active and controls all the levers of culture. They have been very successful fundamentally transforming the nation, both when in power and when out of power.
Things are never as bad as people seem to think.
I literally can’t help it if some people insist upon channeling their inner Eeyore to distraction. Yes, the country has problems. No, those problems aren’t fatal. If you haven’t noticed, things seem to be going in the correct direction at the moment – the economy is growing, employment is nearly full, the rate and actual number of abortions are each at historic lows, teen pregnancy is down, crime is back in ranges we haven’t seen since the early 60’s… I could go on.
The point is that even though there are issues that we need to address through the political system such as Entitlements, many of the cultural indicators that worry conservatives are pointing up.
When I woke up at 5 o’clock this morning to go to work, it hardly felt passive. It felt disturbingly active. Even so, I try to pass those values of hard work, industriousness and thrift on to my kids and model them for the larger community. We could all stand to do the same.
Hey, I thought I was the only person you called Eeyore
Conservatives have shown a huge aversion to trying to enter academia (we’re a minority there not just because the lefties keep us out, but because we tell ourselves not to even try – work, don’t teach, etc.).
Conservatives have shown a huge aversion to trying to make good movies (Gary McVey likes to make the point that we do not need another God is Not Dead VIII, the undeadening). We tell ourselves that Hollywood is immoral and we should avoid it.
Conservatives aren’t out there writing broadway musicals about the founders (I’d pay good money to see Aaron Burr, the musical).
Conservatives are writing books – but only for ourselves. Strictly political wonkery and history. That’s not bad, but what about popular fiction? What about teen fiction? If we have the better grasp of truth, we should tell it through stories. Stories tell truths, but the popular fiction market is filled with dreck.
Are conservatives trying to take over our local or state governments? Say what you will about the loss of California, but we should be honest that the California GOP also did a bang up job of committing suicide in the mix. We’ve given up a lot of winnable territory.
The thing is, these are all bottom-up tasks, not top-down. And they’re also how the Left got into these places to begin with.
Okay, Eeyore!
The major problem with David French is that he believes a ‘neutral public square’ involves not speaking out against and boycotting NFL teams for allowing players to engage in overt anti-American behavior while on the job-boycotts he apparently believes to be worse than contributing articles to a paper that hires Sarah Jeong, or for that matter choosing to kneel during the Pledge of Allegiance in the first place. A neutral public square is a conservative and classically liberal legal goal, not some idealized social end of power without a bully pulpit or laws and regulations without motivating agendas, and tolerance is a reciprocal virtue, not an end in itself.
I don’t appreciate Sohrab’s seeming opposition to classical liberalism, but its prominent writers and/or public intellectuals like French that have fueled this unfortunate ideological backlash within the Right. I will at least give French credit for generally being, to my perception, sincere in his myopia…..all too often his fellow travelers don’t truly wish to advance the social or cultural conservatism prioritized by many Republicans, and view a strawman of the classical liberal worldview as a way to try and avoid the compromises inherent in coalition politics, allowing Progressives to advance their worldview through control of institutions without overtly alienating the conservative base that once comprised their audience.
Nothing but love for you, A^2.
Our country has also been marching toward massively expanded 2A rights, right-to-work, pro-life laws, and RFRA legislation (I have mixed feelings on the latter, but whatever). Republicans have been doing quite well at taking power in state government and enacting real policy. The major source of setbacks was Obama and Trump’s done an admirable job in turning back the clock on that.
We often win; not as often as I’d like and not without real set-backs. But (contra some pro-Trump folks) it didn’t start in 2016 and (contra some anti-Trump folks) it accelerated after 2016.
Just as a follow-up to that, the Left is in a very scary place at the moment: Sanders, AOC, Pelosi, Harris, etc. We have genuine reason to be scared for our country’s future.
My issue is that we are — and have been — more successful at fighting back than is commonly credited.
I think that Jonathan V. Last has an interesting take on this in The Bulwark today in the lead article, “Sohrab Ahmari’s ‘Culture War’ Is Really Just About Donald Trump.” https://thebulwark.com/sohrab-ahmaris-culture-war-is-really-just-about-donald-trump/
One thing that the Left and Right (or at least some factions of the Left and Right) have in common is that they both believed the United States is going to hell or is already a hell.
The Left is outraged that the US still doesn’t have single payer health care and a 15 dollar per hour minimum wage, not to mention a federal anti-discrimination law that includes the LGBTQ community.
The Right is outraged that abortion is legal, people are engaging in sex outside of marriage, children are being born out of wedlock and divorce is common while men are allowed to use women’s bathrooms if only they say, “I feel like a woman.”
I think they are both wrong in the sense that things were much worse in the 1970s when the Soviet Union seemed ascendant, Americans were waiting in line for hours to get gasoline for their cars and the Iranian mullahs held our citizens as hostages.
This isn’t to say that everything is perfect. It’s just that I don’t buy the doom and gloom being sold by some commentators. I think individual autonomy, properly defined, is a very important thing. The key words are “properly defined.” These days individual autonomy is a term being distorted to mean, “The Left gets to impose its views on everyone else in all places and at all times.” That’s not liberty. That’s big government.