1. So I’m in Baltimore as a discussion leader on a conference on utopias–if anyone knows what’s really going on Aeschylus’ PROMETHEUS BOUND you need to let me now by 930 in the morning. It is true that all utopias that are real projects for reform are about “blind hope,” what Prometheus gave to man. Because he also gave man fire and the arts and sciences and such, he actually enhanced our factual awareness that each of us is ephemeral. But we also either aren’t obsessed with that fact or are somewhat unridiculously undaunted by it. We have this vague sense that we can make ourselves free like the power-God Zeus. But even Zeus is bound by necessity, which we forget, of course, when we imagine, like Marxists or transhumanists, that we can turn the realm of necessity into the realm of freedom. To be governed by blind hope, of course, is not really to be a free and responsible person or a Socratic etc. But some Socratic might say that the Christians are also governed by blind hope–in faith in things unseen. And the Christian God is a lot like Prometheus–a God who is animated by love of and pity for man and is willing to suffer for us to be healed or delivered from the misery of our mortality. A Prometheus fan might even say that Jesus didn’t really know what suffering is. He suffered quite temporarily as a mortal man. Prometheus’ sentence, so to speak, is immortal suffering. He reminds us, of course, that to be delivered from our mortality would not necessarily to be delivered from our suffering. But the difference between Christian and techno-utopian hope: The Christians have the reasonable view that they can’t possibly save themselves. When they combine that awareness with atheism, they become existentialists or governed by the thought that there’s no escape but death from the miserable absurdity of who we are as ephemeral specks caught between two abysses. Well, it was therapeutic for ME to think that through a bit.
2. Why the young aren’t as conservative as they should be? In addition to everything Pete mentioned, let’s tell the truth and admit that the conservative media is worse than it used to be. And then there’s the discrediting of “neocon” foreign policy and the whole American empire, American exceptionalism thing. Why? We lost and so lots of money and a significant number of lives were lost for what’s perceived as no good reason. Finally: The issue of gay rights and same-sex marriage–which is a disaster for the Republicans among the young.
3. The young are conservative when it comes to entitlements and all that. But also fatalistic–not trusting either party on that front.
August 24th, 2012 | 3:58 am
Peter, Your take on Aeschylus sounds “fine” to me, but your take on the reception the students have to such material unfortunately sounds “accurate.”
How do you make the fine insights in a way that can meet the accuracy of todays students?
I agree-students today are skeptical of the recent wars, they are generally pro-gay marriage, and they are willing to start cutting back on entitlements.
Politically, they care about their bodies much more than I did at their age. They may have a taste for sky-diving, but they know how to read the numbers about entitlements to their favor.
They’re fatalistic to be sure, but they are ignorant regarding wars that need to be fought, marriage as more than a civil right issue, and generational social responsibilities to the elderly.
No matter how much Aeschylus is taught, they seem to be oblivious. Are they spoiled? Yes. Are they to be blamed? Not entirely. Are they so stupid that they cannot recognize their own limits and dependence? I wonder.
When it comes to politics, most of the thoughtful youth I know like Ron Paul. Egads! I agree with your observation that they don’t like either party, and that the parties don’t mean as much personally as they did in the past. This Paulism could be a Texas thing, but the students I know don’t care for party politics. In their partisanship, they hate partisanship.
I can give all the reasons as to why we have political parties, why the parties are the way they are, the history of the parties, etc. I explain why students who don’t like Obama, but hate Mitt Romney even more, are simply letting Obama win again if they write in Ron Paul. None of it sticks. They want to vote for their preferred candidate, and so be it.
Attachment to the idea of American exceptionalism is weak. All they know is Glenn Beck–even after they have taken my class and have been introduced to the Declaration, the Federalist, Tocqueville, etc.
This only goes to show how bad a teacher I am!
So I don’t know with today’s youth, but I must teach them nonetheless. I try not to think what I just wrote when I speak in my class. The great writers and statesmen of American politics and the great tradition of political philosophy are much greater than me. I try to point to this as something students need to know. Sometimes I make a breakthrough. Usually I pound my head against the wall.
August 24th, 2012 | 6:38 am
The question may be, how far are we willing to march into the morass of progressivism to placate the ‘young?’ I’m not willing to concede any principles in order to get a bunch of unwashed, tatooted, and drooling slackers to vote with me. Besides, they either don’t vote anyway and or vote Democrat because most of them are on some form of gummint assistance and have been since the day they were born.
August 24th, 2012 | 8:11 am
The young who have nothing more real and serious to lose than their Ipads can afford to make political decisions without regard to consequences. That’s why they either like Ron Paul or the OWS mouths because what happens after you have cut the Gordian knot isn’t important to them yet.
Another point in an email from my son, Owen, in relation to the gay marriage issue and some other things, “I think that the big issue between Conservative and Liberals, specifically the Religious Right and the Atheist Left, is that the RR believe that Love can include chastisement. Love isn’t 100% approval. That’s not in any definition of Love that I recognize, but it is the ENTIRE definition as far as the AL are concerned. Can you say, “I love you, but X is wrong.”? Or is that just a way of Not Loving? See, I think that Love includes improvement/discipline. But I think that the AL point of view doesn’t allow for that and as a result the entire RR worldview seems like an oxymoron to the AL. And I think that that disjointed view of the basic meaning of words is what causes the huge rift in ideology that we’re discussing.”
So back to Socrates and what do you mean by that word? I found this especially interesting because the more recent forms of parental love that are encouraged require loads of unconditional love. That breeds a certain heedlessness of consequences into society and also a sense of entitlement that makes entitlement spending by government seem only right and good.
Consequences? Necessity? I have found with the young that speaking to them about such things either brings a glimmer of understanding or just makes them angry.
August 24th, 2012 | 8:56 am
Of course, we might remind our Prometheus fan that the risen Christ still bears his wounds and is united to his Church, which is groaning in travail until the general resurrection.
Also, we might usefully consider that, while Prometheus certainly did suffer for man, he didn’t really teach his followers how to suffer well themselves. If anything, the arts are supposed to help us avoid suffering.
August 24th, 2012 | 9:01 am
“I can give all the reasons as to why we have political parties, why the parties are the way they are, the history of the parties, etc.”
But the thing is… the main purpose of political parties in America is to create coherent majorities out of the huge amount of cultural diversity we have, and that only works when the parties can maintain the illusion that they are more than the sum of their parts. They can’t be seen as no more than vehicles for the lobbies that support them. But that’s exactly how they are viewed today. The Republican Party is the party that looks out for big business and conservative religious groups. The Democratic Party is the party that looks out for Unions and minorities.
So… the rational thing to do, if you’re not part of any of those groups, is to pick the side that’s working for a group that you’re at least sympathetic with. Thus, young people may know that the Republican Party’s official position on entitlements is better for them in the long run, but they presume that the official position is just a cover for creating another vehicle for furthering big business interests. They know, however, that the Democrats are serious about gay marriage.
All theoretical ramblings, of course, as I don’t think I can be considered a “young person” anymore.
August 24th, 2012 | 11:31 am
While your deadline is past, I think an interesting way of reading “Prometheus Unbound” would’ve been in light of Bacon’s technological utopia in “New Atlantis.” Both works can bear a number of different readings, but I think the most interesting are those given by some Straussians (I’m thinking particularly of Ralph Lerner, who taught the book to me) who see warnings in Bacon’s description of the flatness of the Atlantans and in the nearly unlimited power wielded by Salomon’s House. Reading these two together could yield a number of interesting questions about the ontological meaning of science and about its politics.
As for the young, I’m afraid you’re absolutely right. I’m in my late twenties, and the feeling among my peers is pretty much that the conservative media is laughable (although they don’t really pay much attention to it until some humorist has decided to deride it). While it should be spending time re-explaining the foundations of conservative thought, it merely spouts the same tired old talking points and often devolves into name calling or weirdness typified by Todd Akin’s recent comments.
On “gay rights/gay marriage,” they nearly all subscribe to liberal consensualism because they are all post-sexual revolution. We accept all the freedom bequeathed because it’s fun, but having been chastened by AIDS and divorce, we contracept and delay marriage in order to avoid the pain of duty. Most are confused about what being opposed to gay marriage actually means, as the deployment by advocates of SSM has encouraged them to dismiss all arguments to the contrary out of hand. They know that no one is actually preventing anyone from loving whoever they like, or from spending their life with whoever they like, but they still buy the “legalize love” type language. When challenged, most can’t articulate good reasons for why the government should recognize marriage at all because they already hold the contractual view of marriage as opposed to the conjugal view argued for by Girgis and George. So they think that as long there is going to be a legal institution called marriage, it should be open to whoever wants to take part in it (except for those who want marry more than one person at one, or those who want to marry their sisters, but if they raise a big enough stink, we’ll probably approve of that, too). That marriage is an institution that arose to deal with the natural consequences of sex between men and women, that it can be sacramental, occurs to them as either outdated or a matter of only private interest.
That’s why it falls to conservatives of influence to keep making and re-making our case. As Allan Bloom saw, at a time when people no longer can coalesce around old cultural ideals (however much they may recognize the need for them), education is more important than ever. Unfortunately most of the education in conservative “social” ideas young people get is from out of touch leaders of the Christian right (not to say they are all out of touch, but many simply don’t know how to speak to a culture that has passed them by) and the media clowns who skewer them.
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