So I keep reading that America is exceptional. That’s not surprising. And that unexceptional fact is both good and bad.

1. Tocqueville finds both religious madness and an insane materialistic restlessness in America. The French have pretty much stayed with that criticism, still viewing us as Puritanical workaholics. So to be a Eurocentric American liberal today–or to be for change our liberals now believe in–is for being less Puritanical (on, to begin with, sex) and for adopting the more laidback French work ethic (withe the assistance of a more generous public safety net).

2. But Tocqueville also thinks being Puritanical is something in which we should take pride. The Puritans weren’t all that nuts. And they took popular enlightenment, civic responsibility, familial morality, the dignity of worthwhile work well done for everyone, and the equality of all human creatures with dead, unprecedented seriousness. The idealism at the core of our idea of equality has an irreducibly Christian element, as do our strengths when it comes to the family, citizenship, work, and charity. So as I’ve said before: When some French or Spanish guy calls you Puritanical, the appropriate response is: “Yes, thanks a lot, you should be more Puritanical too.” (For what happens to young Americans when they turn to today’s Europe to cast off their repressive American moralism, see Woody Allen’s repulsive VICKIE CHRISTINA BARCELONA.)

3. But the French–and also our friendly English critic Chesterton–are right to criticize the excesses of Puritanical America–prohibitionism, for example. This just criticism, whether it comes from Tocqueville or Chesterton, is more culturally Catholic than anything else. (It’s the darn prohibitionism that kept our immigrant Catholics from voting for the moralistic isolationist Bryan that so many Porchers admire.) The French rightly saw (for a while) that our Puritanical prohibitionism had morphed in the direction of bizarre and tyrannical health and safety legislation–concerning smoking, for example. They also saw that it had morphed more broadly in the direction of our humorless political correctness.

4. But Chesterton should have appreciated more than he did that Bryan’s struggle against Darrow was finally on behalf of defending our creedal belief in the equal significance of every human being against a Nietzschean form of Darwinianism. Bryan and Chesterton certainly shared the view that our Declaration’s creed was really about the equal significance of every human creature, and it depended upon a foundation for that personal significance in God and nature. So for Eurocentric liberals today our “fundamentalist” Darwin denial seems to be a peculiarly American form of redneck insanity. But even if it’s finally misguided, there’s something profoundly dignified and genuinely egalitarian about it. It should cause us to think, more broadly, about the question of whether even “the Laws of Nature” of our Declaration really account for who we are as persons.

5. So I have a lot more to say. I haven’t touched on either our Lockeanism or our progressivism (except its perverse Darwinian element) yet.

So I’ve written before about the ClimateGate scandal here as symptomatic of technocratic elitism or the current trend to exhaust all political experience and judgment into the categories of modern science. In other words, the problem is unrestrained scientism, or the view that science has a monopoly on the market of reason and that the explanatory scope of science is unlimited. However, part of the problem is not merely one interpretation of the proper relation between science and politics but the very nature of modern science itself, which struggles to combine its commitment to disinterested, objective inquiry with its attendant moral attachments.  In other words, from its inception modern science has always been a volatile combination of theory and advocacy—the ClimateGate debacle is merely one telling exemplar of this longstanding difficulty.

The tension between theory and advocacy within modern science is noticeable from the very beginning, maybe especially in the account Descartes gives in the 6^th Discourse of the reasons for publishing the Discourse at all. In essence, Descartes attempts to continue the argument already articulated in the 1^st Discourse, that the ultimate standard is what is “useful for life”, and that he could not keep concealed what he discovered about the true nature of physics without “greatly sinning against the law which obliges us to procure as much as is in us the good of all men”. Many commentators have noticed that this is not just the only place in all of the Discourses, even in all of Descartes’ writing, where he ever so brazenly asserts a categorical moral obligation but also that there seems to be no basis for it in the provisional morality sketched out in the 3^rd Discourse. Shortly thereafter, Descartes famously describes the ends of science: it will make men “wiser and more able than they have been up until now” and therefore effectively “renders ourselves like masters and possessors of nature”. Science surely has purposes at which it aims and Descartes explicitly proposes that the “conservation of health” is “without doubt the first good and the foundation of all other goods in this life”. The problem here is that the legitimacy of these goods, let alone their superiority to other claims to the good, is not itself scientifically demonstrable though stated with absolute certainty. Modern science simultaneously claims to be free from moral attachments and openly advocates for a particular conception of the good—it somehow navigates the plane of pure theory and pure practice at the same time.

The problem even rears itself at the level of the actual exercise of science: science begins in hypothesis which drives the application of method but is not itself the result of method. The replacement of prudential judgment by algorithmic method can’t be simply decisive—we still need recourse to our pre-methodical or pre-scientific consciousness or, to borrow from Husserl, our natural consciousness, to be able to develop a hypothesis in the first place. In other words, science is still parasitic upon recourse to experience unvarnished by the mediation of scientific categories. Descartes responds to this problem in the Dioptrics:

For it seems to me that the reasons follow from one another in such a way that the last are demonstrated by the first which are their causes; the first are demonstrated, and reciprocally, by the last which are their effects. And one ought not to imagine that I commit here the fault which logicians name a circle; because experience, rendering these effects for the most part very certain, the causes from which I deduce them do not serve so much to prove them as to explain them. But, quite the contrary, it is they that are proved by them.

Descartes here weighs in on an old problem found in Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics regarding whether logic can be construed as a mode of discovery or a mode of presentation; in some sense, both Descartes and Aristotle have to give experience its proper due. The deeper problem I’m pointing to in this post is the relation between theory and practice, or within the scientist himself, the tension between the nearly self-less experience of wonder and the self-willing project of transforming a hostile, natural world, newly subdued. In the Discourse, Descartes struggles to coherently combine the desire to know with his brand of scientific marketing—transforming the world is a project and that requires some serious public relations work. Our current ClimateGate mess shows how science today has inherited this dichotomy between theory and practice, or between the goodness of knowing and the advocacy of that which is believed, sometimes without clear and distinct evidence, to be known. It is still the case that not just experience but pre-scientific reason must be given its due as the ground of our arguments and intuitions regarding what good is, and towards what our scientific efforts should aim.

Ponnuru and Lowry respond to their critics. I’m the sure the sphere will be all over this within hours.  But a few particularly egregious points are worth noting.

1) Ponnuru and Lowry claim that Obama rejects American exceptionalism in favor of the “Wilsonian project of relocating American greatness not in our fixed constitutional principles but in our supposed ability to transcend those principles.” This is silly for a three reason, apart from the atrocious grammar.

a) The “Wilsonian project” in no way excludes American exceptionalism. Nor could anyone who’s ever read Wilson think so.  Instead, it offers a different view of what makes American exceptional than Ponnuru and Lowry’s. That view may be unconvincing, or even pernicious. But it attributes the same quasi-providential status to the American regime that they insist on.

b) The difference between “Wilsonian” exceptionalism and the NR kind doesn’t revolve around transcendence of constitutional principles. It’s a disagreement about what those principles are, and the rank order among them.  Does the Constitution’s promise of a “more perfect union”  trump  its formal limitations of government? Are the blessings of liberty material as well as political and juridical? To condemn progressivism as hostile, as such to founding principles is to avoid the argument on the merits, and to ignore the long history of sincere attempts to articulate a left-wing conception of American values.  Regrettably, that’s the tendency of the whole piece.

c) Ponnuru and Lowry admit that Obama has explicitly acknowledged America’s exceptional principles and role. But they dismiss this with the observation that it  “would be remarkable if any president did not say such things.” Which is true enough. But in that case, the argument becomes trivially psychologizing: Obama SAYS he believes in American exceptionalism, but he doesn’t really MEAN it.  As far as I can tell, Ponnuru and Lowry present no evidence for that conclusion except some quotes in which Obama suggests that the election of a black man, namely himself, to the presidency was sort of a big deal.  I guess that can be seen as narcissistic.  But I seem to recall a similar sentiment expressed in the pages of NR and Commentary back in November.

2) The psychologizing continues a few paragraphs later when Ponnuru and Lowry reaffirm their contention that liberals, progressives, etc. support the policies they do because they  secretly think Europe is cooler. Support for mass transit is highlighted: “we suspect that much of the enthusiasm for these subsidies among liberals is based on mass transit’s association with Europe.” Well,  I know a lot of progressives and mass transit enthusiasts. And I can’t think of a single one who appreciated the reliable trains, quiet buses and streetcars, and clear bike lanes found in many European cities BECAUSE they’re European. Actually, many Americans find it pleasant and convenient to travel this way. And they wonder, not unreasonably, if it wouldn’t be nice to enjoy similar infrastructure at home. It’s true that arguments for mass transit often fail to consider the real differences of the American landscape and lifestyle.  But that’s a serious question worth debating in particular cases–what works in Berlin may also be good for New York, but probably not for Tucson –rather than the status envy of Upper West Siders.

3) Victor Davis Hanson is praised for the observation that  America exceptionalism is connected with the lack of a feudal past. Ponnuru and Lowry admit that ” Sadly, a worse institution took root here, but never became part of the national psyche.” The worse institution, of course, is slavery. But anyone who can say that slavery and the ideology of white supremacy NEVER became PART of the national psyche  really should not be taken seriously as a guide to the American character, although how large a part and for how long are open to dispute. Don’t take my word for it, though. Go back to point (1)–all you need to do is read Wilson.

That’s Countess Sophya’s (Mrs. Tolstoy’s) objection to the “Tolstoyan” movement that had grown up around her husband with his encouragement. In THE LAST STATION, we see that Sophya understands her husband’s great novels better than his ideological disciples. We also see that those novels (and the old genius himself) stand somewhere in between Sophya’s selfish obsession with personal love and the the Tolstoyan (and Tolstoy’s own) political principles–directed as they are toward a kind of selfless or disembodied love of the people or humanity as a whole. The novelist says that love is the only answer, but without being as clear as he should be (or while being very conflicted) about what love is. Women, we learn, are more realistic and less puritanical than men, and the cure for ideological fanaticism in some young men is the loving seduction of a good woman. One reason WAR AND PEACE is so realistic, we also learn, is that Mrs. Tolstoy constantly reminded her husband of what a man or woman would really do or say in this or that situation. So this movie shows us what’s wrong with even the seemingly noble intentions of ideologues, as well as the crucial and perplexing distinction between the personal profundity of great literature and the silly and dangerous utopian literary politics of even many great authors. We also learn that evildoing ideologues especially want to win control over the moment of death–purging it of wives and priests and anything else that would compromise a kind of fake Socratic nobility. Tolstoy, we’re charmed to discover, was no Socrates; he, for one thing, actually loved and liked and was endlessly aroused in all sorts of way by his wife (who gave him 13 children and apparently 48 less-than-serene years). We leave the theater with a renewed appreciation for the highest purpose of private property. This movie deserves to win almost as many awards as CRAZY HEART, and if I were Oscar tyrant I would give the best actress award to Helen Mirren.

UPDATE: Too bad Helen didn’t win. BUT it was great to see Sandra Bullock and THE BLIND SIDE and real charity honored. It was also great to see real courage in an unpopular war honored with THE HURT LOCKER. And we can say the same about the redemptive themes of our country music with Jeff Bridges and CRAZY HEART and T-Bone and THE WEARY KIND. It was also refreshing to be almost completely spared politically correct speeches and to see AVATAR limited to techno-awards and so to see James Cameron stuck in his seat watching his ex-wife getting that director Oscar.

There’s nothing more embarrassing than someone from an older generation commenting on the present one. Think of the aging hippie professor, clad in jeans and t-shirt, trying to prove his bona fides by showing he is hip to his students’ latest taste in music. It never fails but to provoke amused giggles from the back of the classroom, followed up by the inevitable tweet : “I mean this guy is so out of it; that’s stuff, like, from a month ago.”

Having repented of my foolishness a couple of weeks ago in bringing to our readers’ attention an article by Charlotte Allen on the current sexual mores of the young, I now repeat my folly by turning to the parallel issue of, precisely, the musical tastes of the young. I say parallel because the article I now commend suggests that the music of yesterday is the prolegomena to the sexual mores of today. Put more simply, who says rock says hook up. The author is the renown philosopher Roger Scruton, and the essay can be found at http://www.aei.org/article/101717 or, in the fuller version, at http://www.american.com/archive/2010/february/soul-music. And we will all await, as we did last time when the youth movement spoke up to set matters straight on the effective truth of the alpha male, for commentators still in touch with the current generation (is it X, Y, Z or AAprime?) to show us where, perhaps, Scruton may have gone astray.

Scruton is a wonderful writer and an expert on music (among a thousand or so other things that he has studied and mastered). The current essay, “Soul Music,” is highly reminiscent of the famous chapter on music that appears near the beginning of Allan Bloom’s Closing of the American Mind. Bloom’s chapter is also on the music of the youth. Interestingly, too, Bloom and Scruton both begin from Plato, referring to the Republic. The theme is that music shapes the soul, and thus shapes the way of life or the regime. (“The ways of poetry and music are not changed anywhere without change in the most important laws of the city” Republic 424c). And sure enough, as our music has changed, so have our mores and laws, in the direction, as Cole Porter put it even before the revolution in rock, of “anything goes.” And consider for a moment not the music but the lyrics of that one:

In olden days a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking,
But now, God knows,
Anything Goes.

Good authors too who once knew better words,
Now only use four letter words
Writing prose, Anything Goes.

The world has gone mad today
And good’s bad today,

Stop. “Good is bad today.” Porter saw not only where mores were heading, but what was to be a precise linguistic transformation.  Kool! Of course, the dictum “anything goes” would be strictly libertarian, whereas the new ethic is in fact more restrictive: it permits only that which allows anything to go, while excluding anything that does not. This is what is known as political correctness or the dogmatism of relativism.

Returning to Bloom, he was known best for his attack on rock music. One line stands out: “life is made into a non-stop, commercially prepackaged masturbational fantasy” (p.75). His chapter on music, incidentally, is commonly thought to have been the reason for which this work of theory was able to burst out from beyond the narrow circle of academic readership to find its way to the top of the New York Times best seller list, earning him the envy and enmity of the academic establishment. Not even John Rawls, in his wildest, er, philosophical fantasy could top that.

There is more to the last point about selling books than meets the eye. I can testify to this first hand, for I knew Alan Bloom, as he once jokingly said to me, “before he was Alan Bloom,” meaning before he became a household celebrity. No one can say that Bloom knew he would become famous by writing Closing, as its success remains at the end of the day one of the more inexplicable events of modern culture. Still, I think its popularity was not a one-thousand percent accident. Bloom attacked rock music in large part to create a scandal. For a philosopher to jump into the mosh pit and talk about hip hop and MTV was to make him a shock jock avant la lettre. And the purpose was not so much to sell books–though the man could sure spend money!–as to try to reach and educate a portion of the youth generation. He attacked rock–he says as much at the beginning of his chapter–because he knew that modern youth would defend it. Indeed, he thought it was about the only thing they would defend as such, i.e., not on relativistic but absolute ground. And this was the kicker in his pedagogy: Defending something absolutely and with indignation is a precondition for philosophical inquiry. You have to love something first to be capable of beginning the ascent; you have to be in the thrall of a prejudice, to cling to something absolutely, before going through the wrenching experience of giving it up and opening up to the pursuit of truth.  A student open-minded to everything would remain that way forever. “If a student can … get a critical distance on what he clings to, come to doubt the ultimate value of what he loves, he has taken the first and most difficult step toward the philosophic conversion.” (p.71) Bloom no doubt meant most of what he said about Mick Jagger, but the analysis was secondary to his “rhetorical” purpose of engaging some of his students and helping them to get some satisfaction.

Roger Scruton’s article is much more about music per se than Bloom’s chapter, but the two together make for some good reading. Make sure you get the version of the Scruton essay that contains the musical clips, and have your headphones ready.

That’s the question Michael Weingrad asks in the inaugural issue of The Jewish Review of Books.

The article has taken heat from fans of the many Jewish fantasy authors. But most of them have missed the point. Weingrad isn’t asking whether Jews write fantasy or enjoy reading it. Instead, he’s concerned with why there aren’t any compelling fantasy “worlds” that incorporate Jewish folklore and tropes the way Narnia and Tolkein’s Middle Earth develop  Christian ones.

But is that really such a puzzle? In the first place, the landscape of most fantasy novels is essentially the numinous forest of the Teutonic Dark Ages. It is not so much a Christian world as a world on the cusp of Christianity: a pagan Götterdämmerung.

Jews can, of course, appropriate this setting for literary purposes. But I don’t think it has the same imaginative gravity that it does for Christians. Similarly, the warrior values that animate a lot of fantasy are not traditionally Jewish. One could, I suppose, write a story around around a learned rabbi–but surely that would not be as interesting as one focused on knights, errant wizards, and chieftains of mounted hordes. Finally, as Weingrad notes, there’s no fantasy without evil. And Jewish teaching on this subject is extremely ambiguous; unlike some Christian doctrines, Judaism tends to deny evil as a force independent of and opposed to God.

For these reasons, Jews drawn to speculative writing may have an affinity for the science fiction over fantasy. The technological rationalism and optimism of much science fiction is also, in a way, more American–and America has offered the broadest field for Jewish literary efforts since World War II.

But Weingrad neglects a “fantasy” genre founded by Jews, and arguably shaped by Jewish preoccupations. That’s the superhero comic book invented in the 1930s by the likes of Robert Kahn–Bob Kane to you. There could never be a Jewish Narnia that would preserve the features many readers find compelling (I confess that I always vastly preferred Tolkein, whose work is richer and less didactic). But the universes of Superman, Batman, and the rest are worthy counterparts.

PS: A related question is whether fantasy is essentially conservative. One of the more interesting recent fantasy writers, China Mieville, thinks so–and has developed his urban, industrial, and democratic “Bas Lag” world as a direct competitor to Tolkein’s Middle Earth, which he considers implicitly reactionary.

ADDENDUM: I found some related arguments in the excellent post and conversation here.