That’s the job of the professor, according to many influential theorists who belong to the MLA. Anyone who doesn’t teach in opposition to the hegemonic establishment shouldn’t get to teach. The job of the professor is to transform the young by authoritatively encouraging them to negate established authority as merely a veiled vehicle for oppression. So our literary theorists are the opposite of Burkeans, who give a preferential option to tradition and reform it only with caution.
One big issue, of course, is whether the history of America is mainstreaming radicalism. Our theoretical professors seem to agree with our Court that words are just weapons to maximize liberty, and we’re getting better and better at doing that over time.
This mainstreaming radicalism thesis works with the rights of women, although only to a point. The radical feminists haven’t yet deconstructed the family or modesty completely. Nobody really believes that the effects of radical thought on mainstream marriage or sexual life has been altogether positive, and “radical feminism” has been displaced largely (outside the academic world) with a chastened defense of women’s rights (and some appreciation of the dilemma of the resulting birth dearth, lonely single moms, and all that).
It works to some extent with “gay rights.” Although same-sex marriage remains a bone of contention, most Americans agree with, say, Rorty, that it’s progress that were less cruel and stigmatizing and all that when it comes to homosexuals. But it’s not simply progress, they seem to add, to identify one’s sexual life with dignified autonomy and nothing more.
It doesn’t work with the “Christian socialism” Rorty embraces or the general confidence of radicals of the recent past that capitalism would implode and be replaced by something better or more in accord with “social justice.” One lesson of Obama is that people have no confidence that bigger government can cure what ails us or really produce changes that will make our lives better or more virtuous. And I can say that without agreeing with Mr. Beck that anyone who uses “social justice” in a sentence is a conspiratorial evildoer. The free market is better appreciated and defended today than it was a generation ago. And only our radicals didn’t learn a lot from what we’ve found out over the last generation about horribly monstrous and massively murderous communism really was. (So the our war against communism was a bigger and more noble deal than even our cold warriors thought at the time.)
It doesn’t work with FDR’s rhetorical invocation of a randomly expanded list of rights, most of which haven’t caught on and shouldn’t. It doesn’t work with LBJ’s scheme for government eradicating the culture of poverty and satisfying every American’s hunger for beauty. So today’s Beckian anti-progressives–and today’s radical liberals–probably make too big a deal out of the transformational effects of the New Deal and the Great Society.
It doesn’t work with the alleged right to an abortion, despite the best efforts of our Court to bring the controversy to an end. The pro-lifers may be the radicals on the way to be mainstreamed, recent studies show
It doesn’t work with true or non-politicized religion. Americans remain remarkably resistant to every form of civil religion and whatever happens to be the newest form of the new atheism. Religion, studies show, functions less as a popular antidote and more as a defense of personal virtue against impersonal History (or promiscuous progressivism) and the impersonal market. People know that that they’re more than History fodder and more than autonomous or radically displaced individuals.
I’m all for “teaching the conflict,” of course–in the sense of teaching why there are good reasons why Americans are morally conflicted. So I remain opposed to the scientism of too many “studies show” course and the ideological identity propaganda of too may “studies” courses.
All this is a prelude to a endorsement of the excellent Burkean analysis of Mr. Jones below, with the caveat that Burke probably isn’t enough in our untraditional times.
September 22nd, 2010 | 11:25 am
Link fixed.
September 22nd, 2010 | 11:55 am
thanks, karen. that’s why i don’t link much.
September 22nd, 2010 | 1:33 pm
Sorry, the link still doesn’t seem to be working. Not too difficult to fix it in the browser, though.
September 24th, 2010 | 1:01 am
Doesn’t it suck that making a decent conservative argument these days has to acknowledge that it doesn’t agree with Glenn Beck? This truly stupid man’s ideas are what are considered conservative arguments these days. I say, for once and for all, f**k Glenn Beck. But this would require me to deal with his arguments–even if everything that he says piggy backs on Claremont, ISI, Russell Kirk type arguments. But you know the fanatic from the reasonable man when he moves from an issue of whom you have associated yourself with an argument that has nothing to do with who you have hung out with.
I can say I know and am friends with persons who have opinions that make Rev.Wright and William Ayers look like Ollie North. This is typical of living amongst folk who have spent their lives in academia. I vehemently disagree with them, but I can take them into a way to think about politics.
Beck may think he is doing the nation a favor by reading silly and pious historians, but he needs to shut the f**k up. He has not done the research, he doesn’t know the folk who do it, and he doesn’t know the intention of their research.
I agree that there needs to be an understanding of American citizenship, but Beck is a BAD influence. He is ignorant, especially in his so called knowledge. He is the type who thinks that intelligence and proof can be demonstrated by a footnote. He says–look at all the books I have read, I must be smart. This is asinine.
What an a**h**e Beck is. Footnotes and books read? Really? This makes your paranoid argument more persuasive?
Foundersism–even with footnotes–cannot square the tension between equality and liberty. It cannot make a reconciliation for an emphasis on rights that is in tension with an emphasis on duties. It can’t answer the issue of the distinction between a constitutional majority and mob law. It can’t deal with the question of the rule of law and its inherent weakness–especially in extreme situations. I could go on, but wh y bother.
Glenn Beck is an idiot. He speaks of Faith, Hope and Charity (the theological virtues), but if he had studied Thomas he would recognize the natural/cardinal virtues as being paramount for political living in terms of community–or at least as Locke says, living one amongst another (which in itself is closer to Beck than he would admit)–courage, moderation, justice, prudence.
Once again, Beck is an idiot.
Sorry for my rant.
September 24th, 2010 | 2:57 am
Of course, Beck can’t even deal with the important issues Mr. Lawler deals with. In what way is the Xian understanding of the human being as “pilgrim” the true understanding of being human. Mr. Lawler provides a phenomenlogy of being human that comports with a noble life as it is lived in suburbia and Wal mart and PetSmart. He is brilliant in his defense of the worthiness of such a life–that is, it fulfills the adequate civic and spiritual characteristics which need be for some sort of popular self-government in the context of an increasingly centralized and nationalized administrative and regulatory state. However, one of the great things about Mr. Lawler’s point of view is that the influence of so-called statism is entirely overrated. Liberal fascism overstates the case–in fact humans may be more on their own and for their own as the fascistic state grows. We become more and more lonely and lost in the cosmos as we seek more and more for statist solutions to solve problems which move us way beyond from bowling alone to simply living alone.
Glenn Beck has nothing to say to this real phenomenon.
September 24th, 2010 | 8:19 am
Lawler is brilliant and Beck sucks. Maybe both exaggerations, but ones I can believe in. Still, Lawler can’t fix the link, and Beck probably could.
September 24th, 2010 | 10:14 am
John, I wonder if Beck and Palin is as good as it gets given our defense of the virtues of “the man in the jogging suit”?
September 24th, 2010 | 11:02 am
Whatever his many failings may be, Beck understands a reality that academics and philosphers do not about our contemporary situation. It is not necessary to come up with a philosophical, or even reasoned, defense of an idea. All that is necessary is to get enough people willing to demand something and have the votes to throw anyone out of office who objects.
Get five votes to agree with you on the Supreme Court and it does not matter what Edmund Burke thought about anything.
September 24th, 2010 | 2:20 pm
Chuck, you’re right about the reality thing. But i think what john wants and doesnt find in beck’s world is room for real talent, statesmanship or magnanimity. The point of my question was to get some comment on whether such a politics was possible or even necessary today given the postmodern conservative defense of the nobility of jogging suit petsmart shoppers. Churchill liked a good jogging suit, by the way.
September 26th, 2010 | 1:46 pm
Democracy is a cannibal, watch Beck, preferably with tobasco sauce.
The wonderfully automatic nature of things in this excitable age that is that if the Tea Partiers win, they shall be subsumed by the same interests that have subsumed every other populist movement in history. The populist, above all else, wants to be in charge. They may assert their genesis is in opposition but it is never anything more than a philosophy of the marching boot. It is enough to be simply against.
September 27th, 2010 | 1:04 pm
I dunno, I kinda like Beck. He is what he is..primarily an entertainer who talks about the gummint…from a anti-statist perspective. How bad is that?
And, why would smart guys like D.W., Peter, and my pal, John, get so upset?
I refuse to believe they’re expressing the frustrations of the ‘ruling class,’ or the ‘edumacated class’. I do, I do!
I’m figurin’ if the TPers don’t cleanse the American stables the nation may be on the verge of a ‘come-to-Jesus-moment,’ where our primary objective will be to hide the ammo while seeking salvation.
September 27th, 2010 | 3:31 pm
Great post with enjoyable comments from all of you. I really liked Glenn Beck the first time I saw him. I always go right back in time to Independence Day fireworks on the Mall in 1976 when I was 11 years old and had my first real experience of pride in being an American when I hear someone like Beck or Palin speaking. Then I shake it off and remember that I’m 45 and don’t see the world as an 11-year-old anymore. The second time I saw his show I realized he was annoying and dorky so I stopped paying attention. I don’t think there will be tea-party style radical change in the U.S. Even if things turn for a while toward conservatism in reaction to Obama’s time in office, it’ll probably continue to be see-sawing back and forth between conservatives and liberals jostling for power and lots of wrangling. Business as usual.
September 28th, 2010 | 1:33 am
I always find myself agreeing with John and D.W. so i feel in good company. Beck is not the anti-statist perspective Robert. The fact that you have succumbed to such a ludicrous assumption does not speak well for either your empirical data or Beck or your ability to comprehend that anyone who is blatantly contradictory doesnt worthy being followed. Firstly, the man doesn’t even pretend to represent an ideology, how could he? That would assume he has one, i.e. he has contemplated the possibility in conjunction with some epistemological understanding of the capacity of politics to fulfill its purpose ep. Aristotle. Secondly, he since he fails to contemplate epistemology his metaphysical understanding of the world i.e. his supposed religious fundamentalism doesn’t manifest itself appropriately in the realm of politics due to primarily i believe blatant misunderstanding of the purpose of religion in “shaping politics” (see strauss). So I understand why he is called radical by so many, he is couching religious fundamentalism with small government but showing where the strong manifest themselves (his will to power is not veiled). So don’t pretend like real straussians shouldn’t dislike Beck. we should he is very dangerous and its all because he failed to read Nietzsche and comprehend the purpose of rumination. etc.
September 29th, 2010 | 2:31 pm
Ben, dude, a quick note, because I’m thinking of blogging an apologetics for Mr. Beck.
Thanks for your critique. I tend to agree with you re: my “ability to comprehend.” I sometimes daydream a bit and to be honest it was something of a problem during my school days.
And, yes you Straussians are a bit confusing albiet very smart, and if you were a Voegelinian you’d appreciate the good professor’s abhorrence of ‘ideologies.’ I don’t think Voegelin would be unhappy about Beck’s lack of ideology, and perhaps he’d think that he was less of a threat because of it.
I may be wrong about how our Straussian friends understand/interpret Beck but it seems to me to be predicated on a rather hubristic intellectualism that comes perilously close to engaging in a world-immanent perspective.
Beck may have failed to ruminate thoroughly on Nietzsche, but he is clearly conscious of existence in the tension of the human and divine.
September 29th, 2010 | 5:27 pm
Hubristic intellectualism is something I hate more than almost anything except Hubristic fear mongering based on a flawed metaphysics and a nonexistent epitomology. That’s not necessarily straussian though nor is it my critique of him. Obviously to get good rating Hubristic intellectualism alienates his entire audience apparently including you. Whereas Hubristic fear mongering gets great ratings! I’m against beck because he firstly fails to offer us some means to an end he has elaborate ends but what are his means as I stated he fails the straussian noble lie test so he cannot be endorsed as sufficiently political. Secondly his ends are based on a false assumption that people have thought about the issues enough to make real judgments possible. I’d you’re going to negate the noble lie and give the people a choice and the ability to enact change it’s important they understand the issue.
September 30th, 2010 | 10:33 am
Ben, I’m pretty sure that the vast majority of ‘Beck-heads’ “understand the issue.” Dr. Beck, without benefit of our fine university system is teaching millions and millions of plain, old Americans about the founding, or perhaps, I should say ‘his’ version of the founding.
Actually, you should ‘comment’ on his website and ‘thank’ him for stopping the rather obvious American decline into disorder. I’m pretty sure Beck, almost single handedly, has halted the decline by his radio and TV efforts, and has now focused the mob of unwashed so that they might defeat not only those Neocons on the Right who, in the spirit of the ‘Noble Lie,’ seek wars in the Levant in order to facilitate ‘democracy’ but also the psycyhopathological commie-Dems, who destroy their young.
Now, Ben, can you ‘imagine’ (“imagine there’s no heaven…”) a free country with the Neocons and librul, commie-dems cast far from the levers of power. A country where us’n Americans is-a runnin’ things.
I gotta feeling you’re going to be a Beck-head pretty soon.
September 30th, 2010 | 11:49 am
“his version of the Founding” the operative term.
Mr. Beck is a performer and inasmuch as the citizenry is reduced to a spectator, he has found himself in the right place at the right time and verity has nothing whatsoever to do with it.
Half-truths work fine nowadays.
September 30th, 2010 | 1:18 pm
“….and verity has nothing whatsoever to do with it. ”
Really, Mr. Sabin, really!!!!!
Well, I’ll be waiting for your citations of Brother Becks’ lies..and, I’ll tell you what, I’ll even accept ‘distortions’ of the truth.
Hell, I’ll tell you what, DW Sabin, I’ll even take a couple of “half-truths”!
You know, you Porchers come over here and disrupt our little conversations, then you get upset when we hurl the “Leftist” or “commie-dem” epithaph your way. And, btw, there’s a whole lotta ‘kumbaya’ going on over at the Porch. When are ‘you people’ going to discuss serious stuff, again?
September 30th, 2010 | 5:12 pm
This is ludicrous. Beck is not a populist. He is typical elitist who tries to pretend like he is one the proletariat. I think that my points have been misunderstood, and for that I am sorry. Here is what I am trying to say, because I think you’re right my opinion has come across as hubristic intellectualism. I am claiming that Beck is a Straussian in the sense that he A. Has the Will to Power, B. See’s himself as superior to the masses, and C. believes he is right because he believes in God. So, my point is 1. This sort of individual must remain “properly veiled” to quote Machiavelli and Strauss and 2. convince the public of his “noble lie.” However, he does neither of those to things, not because he is some radical who wants to start a populace movement to restore honor. Rather, he is a political elitist who has opinion which he wants to assert on to the world. This is not that controversial and as such they way he goes about it lack epistemology i.e. my assertions on Strauss, and lacks, though I know this blog disagrees with me on this issue, a proper metaphysics (I take a Wittgensteinian approach, Lawler takes a dualistic approach). What I want from you Robert, is a concession that he is not a populist he is a political elitist who lies, but lies poorly and for the wrong reason, that being his own misunderstanding. He isn’t an intellectual giant, he isn’t even a Hubristic Fear-Mongering giant. He is a person who can talk really emphatically about stuff that he thinks he believes in, but hasn’t actually spent the time to actually contemplate it deeply. As is evidenced by the fact that he doesn’t moderate his position with Hegelian synthesis.
October 1st, 2010 | 3:36 pm
Beck has never claimed to be a philosopher; he may be Aristotle’s spoudaios (aner) however, and if that’s the case, Beck’s just fine.
Your analysis appears predicated on preconceived notions.
“I am claiming that Beck is a Straussian in the sense that he A. Has the Will to Power, B. See’s himself as superior to the masses, and C. believes he is right because he believes in God.”
Does he have the “Will to Power” because he seeks to participate in the public political dialectic? How do you know he believes he’s “superior to the masses?” And, his publicly proclaimed belief in God is rather refreshing in this immanenist world..or at least I find it so. In understanding the divine/human participation in existence he is far superior to many of his enemies.
“He is a person who can talk really emphatically about stuff that he thinks he believes in, but hasn’t actually spent the time to actually contemplate it deeply.”
Again, this seems to be an analysis conducted from a very biased perspective and one that reveals a certain and decided antipathy. Why? What has Beck done that so upsets you? He wages verbal battle against the consolidating forces, the radical, psychopathological Left, and does so with a humor that leaves his foemen deeply wounded.
His analysis, while it might not please a philosopher, brings a certain historical knowledge to those who are for all intents and purposes paying the bills, carrying the burden placed on them by Barry and his party. I can understand why consolidators, Leftists, and commie-dems might not appreciate Brother Beck, but for the life of me I can not understand why any gentleman of the right would bear such harsh judgement agaisnt this man?
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