1. Thanks to Kate for the comments on Aurora. I can’t say anything yet.
2. Just back from the ISI Honors Program. One political fact: Couldn’t find anyone who’s enthusiastic about Romney. But fact no. 2: In 2008, there’s was a lot of self-indulgence about sitting the race out to punish the Republicans for their corruption and incompetence and even significant Obamaconism, but this year the general attitude among conservatives of various stripes is all about resolutely doing your somewhat distasteful duty. The main reason among the ISI crowd: religous freedom. The Mormon issue doesn’t seem to move anyone one way or the other, although young people certainly have a lot of curiosity about what Mormons really believe.
3. ISI students tend to be someonewhat more “neocon” in foreign policy than ISI faculty. But in neither group can you find any defenders of the Iraq intervention or Bush’s second inaugural. So one reservation about Romney concerns foreign policy. But to be fair, the reservation about Obama on that front is much more fundamental.
4. There was a lot of interesting discussion about whether America is a Declaration country and whether that’s a good thing. Brad Watson, with his West Coast spirituality, said yes and a very good–maybe perfect–thing. Pat Deneen’s answer to the two questions: yes and it’s a bad thing. The more typical answer: It’s not and that’s a good thing. One speaker said Chesterton says yes and that’s on balance a bad thing. That answer is plain incorrect–Chesterton really says yes and on balance a good thing. The speaker actually acknowledged in the question period that Chesterton was too naive about how “creed” can have the effect of decimating “culture.” My own view is that “the typical European criticism of America” misses how multicultural on the big issues America has been.
5. It was a really great week overall–the students were more impressive than ever. There’s literally nothing else in America remotely like that “experience.” Most impressive were the seekers and searchers, about whom I will say more later. Inspired by the conference in a way, here are my over-the-top comments on conservatives and intellectuals.
July 21st, 2012 | 9:03 am
#3 is a shame. Not of course, on their opposition to the fevered 2nd inaugural. But buying into the liberal and/or paleo AmCon take on Iraq, alas.
July 21st, 2012 | 11:42 am
It is a positive, of course, that these students are ‘buying into the liberal and/or paleo AmCon’ foreign policy position.
July 21st, 2012 | 11:58 am
On the curiosity about what Mormons really believe, these scholars might consider consulting some fellow scholars who ARE Mormon and reading their extensive writings, such as Terryl Givens of University of Richmond, Richard Bushman if Claremont Graduate and emeritus at Columbia, and others who can be found at web sites like maxwellinstitute.byu.edu and mormonscholarstestify.org. Mormons are actually slightly overrepresented in academia nationally. The polutical and social views if Mormons are described alongside those of other American religioys groups in the book American Grace, by Putnam of Harvard and Campbell of Notre Dame. A good overview of Mormon beliefs and history is tbe new book by Bowman.
And if course there us the option of actually sitting in on a Mormon worship service in ypur neighborhood. The times and places can be fpund at mormon.org. You can read all of the curricular materials used by Mormons to teach each other at http://www.LDS.org, including copies of the King James Bible that Mormons use, the Book of Mormon, and the Doctrine & Covenants, as well as the manual used.to train Mormon missionaries. There is also streaming video of the sermons given at the General Conferwnces of the LDS Church held in the 22,000 seat Conference Center in Salt Lake every April and October. An enlightening exercise would be trying to figure out whether an average Protestant would object to a particular sermon, especially one that speaks of the teachings and atonement of Christ.
July 21st, 2012 | 12:33 pm
Well president Bush in the 2nd inaugural really did “pour” on the american exceptionalism.
“Free” + “Freedom” + “Liberty” was basically repeated endlessly.
Very Interesting/suspect take on Rousseau.
“There were also lots of deep lectures than ranged across all sorts of great books and millenia of history. But there was no PowerPoint…”
Isn’t this extreme prejudice against PowerPoint a sort of branding cache?
I mean once you are past the whole hang up on using pictures instead of just words in a blog format… It makes for a decent presentation, plus it can be organized by point. I am not a Microsoft shill, I am just saying…(Is this organized revolutionary action to topple Microsoft/Capitalism, and bring about revolutionary change?)
The way I see it George Bush’s second inaugural was his version of America as a Declaration country. So poor Brad Watson is sort of redundant, and clearly fighting against “History”(namely the factual content, the ideas, ideal, puffery/rhetoric/sophistry latched unto).
If Iraq was less of a failure, Brad Watson would have a much easier time.
The way I remmember Marx, is fairly close, to the summary you provide for Rousseau. Technically of course given the branding when teaching “Marx” one is rather unfairly up against the whole history of “Communism”.
To be less European about it (that is not to depend upon mischaracterizations of dead Europeans…) It is somewhat easier to simply say “trademark”, here we can even get to discussing american exceptionalism(its constitutional structure) more narrowly as a distinction between our trademark law and that of the Europeans.
European trademark law is heavier upon “place” or geographical indicators, see Champagne, vs. Louisiana hot sauce(most of which are made elsewhere).
rewrite for Marx:
He explained that in a modern, sophisticated society they’ll be a “new class” of people (the Bourgeois, who own the means of production) attempting to distinguish themselves by their devotion to ideas(about products). They would be driven much more by vanity(profit) than love of truth or concern for others, and their main impulse would be displaying their superiority in the public square/market(especially if they are a service mark). They would be the source of the fashionable , dogmas—kinds of popularized science and other forms of self-helpy expertise–that would tend to displace religion and patriotism(Think Mad Men, and a good chunk of our service marks, i.e. lawyers,actors, sports stars, rock stars and politicians). The new dogmas wouldn’t really be more true than the older ones, and they would have the huge practical disadvantage of “deconstructing” moral virtue as most people experience it. (but such deconstruction serves to orient people to “new” products, manufactured by those who own the means of production, or maybe even entrepreneurial upstarts like snowqueen icedragon.)
In some ways, and for rhetorical effect when argueing for higher worker wages/ shares of “surplus labor value” Marx did pour on the vanity aspect of Rousseau. That is it is this “vanity”or “fetishim”(exceptionalism/trademark) when put into a commodity, that prevents it from trading at its material cost. (pricing power, because if it is “exceptional” it evades the concept of marginality/marginal utility/ substitition.)
While it is true that our trademark is rarely tied to geographic indicators like the French,(exceptions based on zip code, real estate 90210, et al.) it is also true that the Declaration of Independence as an abstract proposition is going to be just as true in any nation. So the question might be one of actualization, and the realization that some people can vote with feet. Is anyone moving to Canada if Obama is re-elected? (good ridance/this time I mean it!) Albeit is that a proposition of marginal american exceptionalism, Canadian exceptionalism, Romney exceptionalism or Obama anti-negative exceptionalism? No one knows, but it is a typical american joke.
July 21st, 2012 | 4:29 pm
Raymond, Thanks for the very useful list of Mormon sources. I actually know some of them.
On Iraq: There were a variety of presentations on the theme American imperialism is caused by self-esteem issues. And it was noted that our imperialism is a feature of our progressive transformation that began in 1898 and continued with TR and Wilson etc. But that, of course, might be called “Eastern Progressivism.” Midwest progressivism–which is a big source for today’s “American conservatism”–is isolationist. It didn’t help the image of the Iraq war at ISI that there was a highly impressive professor from one our military academies with some distinguished service in Iraq who explained in great detail how the Americans were duped and confused in the way the war was conceived and conducted. He didn’t diss–and in fact praised in equal detail–the actual performance of the American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. He did call attention to the high suicide and very high divorce rates that plague our troops in very recent years, and he added that morale is low because troops don’t see good and enduring effects–victories–as the result of their service. For some, the lesson of the Iraq invasion etc. is that Americans suck at being imperialists.
Brad Watson didn’t talk about the Iraq war. My problem with his presentation was that his case for American exceptionalism is based on opposing a too homogeneous and in my view somewhat outdated view of progressivism. But he still did a fine job, especially in the way he brought Hume into the mix.
July 25th, 2012 | 4:13 am
[...] Random Comments … corruption and incompetence and even significant Obamaconism, but this year the general attitude among conservatives of various stripes is all about resolutely doing your somewhat distasteful duty. The main reason among the ISI crowd: religous freedom. Read more on First Things (blog) [...]
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