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Part III

So any talk of American Exceptionalism in the sphere of political economy wants some careful thinking in light recent tribulations. That some of this thinking must go right to the root of assumptions long held by American conservatives only heightens the urgency.

Read the rest of Part III of my series on Exceptionalism.

Comments (28)

Paul,

I was waiting for Part III before I posted my comments. I'm afraid I found Parts I & II mostly one long straw man argument, albeit one I basically agreed with (with the caveat that we should keep in mind Lydia's excellent defense of the positive goods associated with an "open society"). The reason I say this is that Lowry and Ponnuru begin their essay with two brief mentions of an "open society", and I will reproduce both quotes for folks who might not be familiar with their essay:

We aren’t Tories, concerned with preserving the prerogatives of an aristocratic elite or defending tradition at all costs. Instead, we’re advocates of the dynamism of an open society.

AND

What do we, as American conservatives, want to conserve? The answer is simple: the pillars of American exceptionalism. Our country has always been exceptional. It is freer, more individualistic, more democratic, and more open and dynamic than any other nation on earth.

In both contexts, by linking "open society" with "dynamism" and "dynamic" I think they are referring not to Mill's ridiculous ideas about free speech and bad ideas, but rather they are thinking of America's openess to innovation and its fertile ground for capitalism. As you yourself give them credit for in Part III, their essay soon goes into detail as to how America has always been a special place for entrepreneurial risk-takers and folks wanting a good return on their capital (Virginia Company anyone?) Lowry and Ponnuru don't quote him, but whenever the topic of American exceptionalism comes up, I like to haul out de Crèvecoeur's "Letters from an American Farmer":

What then is the American, this new man?...Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labors and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world...The American ought therefore to love this country much better than that wherein either he or his forefathers were born. Here the rewards of his industry follow with equal steps the progress of his labor; his labor is founded on the basis of nature, self-interest; can it want a stronger allurement?

So I think your long attack on the idea of an "open society" is not really an attack on the idea of American exceptionalism as articulated by Lowry and Ponnuru (who anyway go on to explicitly define the American creed as "liberty, equality (of opportunity and respect), individualism, populism, and laissez-faire economics."

Finally, with respect to Part III, since I am familiar with many of the recent arguments you have been making concerning the problems with our financial system, I'll just make two closing comments:

1) Your closing questions, especial question (3), fails to account for how public policy has not only socialized risk but actively contributed to private-sector folks distorting risk (via Fannie and Freddie and CRA and the rating agency monopolies, etc.);

2) I still think you tend to see the glass half empty, especially when thinking about the American economy over the past 30 years -- for every sad story like GM, there is an equally amazing story like Microsoft or Apple or Wal-Mart. Does our financial system make it more difficult for a future Bill Gates to start a company? I would guess that California's budget woes, regulatory environment, and likewise the federal government's budget and regulatory environment would have a bigger impact on a future Bill Gates than the hijinks of Goldman Sachs. But I think you are right to ask the question and worry.

If conservatives (including Lowry and Ponnuru) want to repudiate the historical doctrine of the open society -- that is, the Millian doctrine -- no one will be more happy about it than me; but the doctrine does have a historical pedigree that ought to be properly understood, and that cannot be avoided when invoking the phrase.

If (by way of an exaggerated analogy) someone said, "a pillar of American exceptionalism that we have to defend is Communism," and then to the immediate objections answered, "no, no; by Communism I simply mean strong community spirit" -- we would have some trouble going along with it, no?

Mill's ideas may well be ridiculous (I certainly think so), but they have been woven into the very fabric of our law, and this has been immensely abetted by all the habitual praise for America as an open society -- as in open to all ideas, opinions, movements, schools of thought, etc. By this imposition our tradition is traduced.

I'm afraid that by the same token, Paul, if one condemns uberhaupt a phrase that has come to be widely understood (esp. through an entire book, in the context of the Cold War, much more recent than Mill, to exactly this effect) as standing for opposition to totalitarian Communism and for freedom of thought and discussion in the free world, one should understand if other people have some trouble going along with such blanket condemnation.

This is just in response to your last paragraph. Looking forward to reading Part III.

Paul,

Again, what Lydia said. I especially liked her earlier comment about the ability in this country to sit down at our computers and blog about President Obama's evil policies and our ability to go to bed at night not in the least bit worried about any consequences for speaking the truth. Is it an abuse of the English language to describe our ability to do this in America as the ability of an "open society"? I think not.

But by the same token, I don't think we are any less free or open as a society for wanting to spy on folks who blog about jihad and use their internet writings to arrest and convict them for treason. Which is to say that just because we live in an "open and dynamic society" doesn't mean we can't make moral judgements and act on those judgements.

Finally, with respect to Mill and Fitzjames Stephen, I thought you'd enjoy this older Roger Kimball post about the subject, which first introduced me to Stephen's work:

http://www.newcriterion.com/posts.cfm/eating-people-is-wrong-isnt-it-3890

I would suggest strengthening this essay by directly referencing the works of Willmore Kendall, who was a founding editor of the National Review. "The Conservative Affirmation" and "Willmore Kendall Contra Mundum" contain many of his essays on the open society and his opposition to the concept. Particularly of interest is the article he authored with the Thomist Frederick Wilhelmsen called "Cicero and the Politics of the Public Orthodoxy" (http://www.mmisi.org/ir/05_02/wilhelmsen.pdf)

From the essay:

What happens when, over time, the expectation of rescue by public authorities in the event of panic and crisis, becomes so deeply ingrained in the financial architecture that risk is systematically underpriced across the world? In such a circumstance, might we not speak of a stealth socialism already extant before the public bailouts; might we not suspect that, on the assumption of public rescue, bankers’ risks were borne more cheaply than they ought to be?

Um-huh. We might suspect that.

William, I shall give Kendall his due soon enough.

Lydia and Jeff -- effective opposition to Communism consisted not in open society idealism, but precisely in the willingness of one very important society to emphatically close itself to a whole set of ideas surrounding the Communist enterprise. To refer again to my Part II essay, I'll take my stand with the American tradition that slammed the door -- hard -- on a whole set of modern lunatic enthusiasms, beginning with Jacobinism* and all the way through to Nazism and Communism. You can call this tradition an aspect of the open society if you like, but I prefer better precision in terminology.

______
* Even the ostensible victims of the Sedition Act of 1798, Jefferson's Republicans, took a more callous view of the matter when they were in power. I recommend Leonard Levy's The Legacy of Suppression for a striking work by a careful liberal scholar appalled by what he find when he investigates just how "open" the early Republic was.

Paul,

Jonah Goldberg has weighed in on the debate:

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ODJhN2U5ZTNiZTBhYmYyZWE1MTQ5ZDJiZWE2YTdlZGY=

I like his idea of using the phrase "free society" as opposed to "open society". Of course, even the word "free" is open to possible mischief with respect to how we interpret its meaning, so I suspect the problem is that when you say you want "better precision in terminology" I would argue it is very tough to pin down what is exceptional (and good) about America in just a couple of pithy phrases without elaboration.

Paul, do you support locking people up in prison for being Communist sympathizers? Not spies, but advocates of Communist ideas?

I didn't think so.

I prefer greater precision in language, too.

Ponnuru responded very generously as well.

Not today, I wouldn't, Lydia. But when Communism was a pressing threat -- back when, say, the Smith Act (which caught up sympathizers, not just active agents) was written -- sure, I'd favor the direct proscription of Communist doctrine, with strong legal penalties backing it. That's where prudence comes it. You can be a lot more open and tolerant when you're not staring down the barrel of the active and effective Commintern.

Let me add that virtually all of the 20th century structures and institutions deployed in the fight against Communism were also used against Nazism and Fascism. The HUAC exposed a huge ring of brownshirt militias, with active forces at nearly 5000, in the late 1930s, for instance. The HUAC was actually on the verge of issuing a massive report on Japanese subversion on the West Coast in the early 1940s. This report was due to go public in December of 1941.

The Iron Curtain fell during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. By my recollection, the proscription of membership in the Communist Party was not a major weapon, perhaps not a weapon at all, in his arsenal. "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall" was, however. A strong vision of freedom of dissent, freedom of thought, of, in fact the _free world_, the _free West_, from which people behind the Iron Curtain were being imprisoned, was a huge part of what brought down Communism. The dissidents in the Soviet Union struggled for political freedom, and Americans believed that our country was worth preserving against Communism because we were a free country and as such a light to the nations. When you say, Paul,

effective opposition to Communism consisted not in open society idealism,

I think you're ignoring a whole lotta facts about the Cold War itself, which was if anything a war of ideas. And one of the ideas on our side, like it or not, was a kind of "classical liberal" notion of freedom of debate and dissent that you are now throwing out wholesale. If conservatives are the only ones who still wish to preserve those ideas of free inquiry, so much the better for conservatives.

"What do we, as American conservatives, want to conserve? The answer is simple: the pillars of American exceptionalism. Our country has always been exceptional. It is freer, more individualistic, more democratic, and more open and dynamic than any other nation on earth."

Nice that Ponnuru finds it all so goshdarn simple. But what, I wonder, would Kirk or Weaver or Nisbet have thought of this statement? There is absolutely nothing remotely spiritual about any of these things; the answer given is a completely secular, if not materialistic, one. If that's what conservatism is then, as A. Bunker once said, "Include me out."

I'll concede that the rhetorical appeal to freedom was huge, Lydia. I'll not so readily concede that the open society ever formed a very effective part of that appeal.

Reagan more than most men knew what steel was needed to face down the Commies. The man fought Commies as a union organizer, for Pete's sake. That Reagan knew the truth about Communism is what set so many men free.

But look, let's say Hungary in 1956 had managed to break free of the tyranny of the Soviet Union. Let's say Eisenhower had acted with dispatch and effectiveness to secure the freedom fighters there from Communist domination.

Under your rubric, let us further say that the free Hungarians, judging survival the supreme law, immediately took the step of outlawing Communism -- in thought word, and deed. Would you still let them be called "free Hungarians"?

Would the conservatives of that age have been right to cut them off from support for failing to live up to the Open Society?

Or, more pointedly, would you say that the American-Spanish Cold War alliance was at base a betrayal of who we were as Americans? (Franco was rather more rough on dissent than America has been, to be sure.)

What do we, as American conservatives, want to conserve? The answer is simple: the pillars of American exceptionalism. Our country has always been exceptional. It is freer, more individualistic, more democratic, and more open and dynamic than any other nation on earth.

Lord, have mercy.

Exceptionalism on these points is a pathetic reason to be a conservative. What happens when America is no longer exceptional? Nothing left to conserve?

Individualism, democracy, openness and dynamism have one thing in common: they say absolutely nothing that matters. Each of these qualities can be used for good ends or bad. A nation might possess them all and still be a moral and spiritual wasteland. Indeed, that is where the embrace of these qualities as fundamental values ultimately leads.

Patriotism is horribly cheapened by this formula. A man might love and even lay down his life for his American home, his American family, his American neighbors, his American this, that and the other - but if he has been victimized by "individualism", if he has been disenfranchised by "democracy", if he has been deceived by lies promulgated under the rubric of "openness", if he has been rendered unemployable by "dynamism" - in short, if he doesn't sing the praises of the national ideology, his very Americanness is called into question. And that sort of thing always ends badly.

Paul, questions about alliances are hardly going to settle anything. I should hope that an alliance with Franco would have been distasteful (to put it mildly) to a lot of men of good will. And yes, Spain under Franco was a significantly un-free country, from all I've heard. Who we make alliances with and what countries are as free in good ways as we are could easily be categories that overlap only partially. It's hard to make cut-and-dried rules about how much repression we should tolerate in an ally. By the time you get to a country like China that literally murders, cannibalizes, and sells the bodies of its political dissidents, I think we should be engaging in very serious distancing and cutting off of friendly relations.

As you yourself have pointed out, these things come in all sorts and degrees. I can think of one country right off the top of my head (which-shall-not-be-named) that is significantly more free in many important ways than all its neighbors in its vicinity, that I believe we should treat as an ally, but that has a number of laws suppressing freedom of dissent by its own "right wing" and also Christian missionary activity which I believe are stupid, ill-conceived, and (for that matter) in some cases detrimental to its own best interests.

Or how about Canada? It's a sorta-kinda-free country now. You can't read Romans 1 on the radio, but (I'm pretty sure) you can still talk on the radio about how bad and repressive the "human rights" panels are.

In all these cases, there would be nothing wrong with people within the countries working for the repeal of the laws on the grounds that they are repressive of a proper freedom of dissent, speech, and thought. In fact, I think that would be good.

If you prefer "free society" to "open society," well and good.

A man might love and even lay down his life for his American home, his American family, his American neighbors, his American this, that and the other - but if he has been victimized by "individualism", if he has been disenfranchised by "democracy", if he has been deceived by lies promulgated under the rubric of "openness", if he has been rendered unemployable by "dynamism" - in short, if he doesn't sing the praises of the national ideology, his very Americanness is called into question.

Jeff, I'm going to be blunt: I assume the hypothetical man you have in mind _would_ lay down his life but isn't being called upon actually to do so. I'm going to tell you that if such a man is a grumpy "conservative" who spends all his time comparing America unfavorably to all manner of horrific countries (whose behavior continually gets a pass and excuses made for it), who thinks that outsourcing clothing manufacture to Guatamala is, by some contorted logic, nearly as bad as the Gulag, and certainly deserving of more condemnation by him (piously, he tells us, because America is _his_ country), who continually sees the cup as half empty and scarcely ever has a good or grateful word to say for America as she presently is, even as he enjoys her bounty every time he gets up in the morning, and who exhibits nothing but contempt for his fellow conservatives and sneers at their patriotism, then I'm going to call his Americanness and patriotism into question too. For good reason.

Please understand that I do not have you, Jeff, in mind at all when I say this. That would be very far from my intention. But I'll bet you've known people more or less like this, as have I.

Looking at Cold War alliances certainly does not provide a perfect context for examining this, but I was hoping it might help. I was especially hoping that it would draw out the fact that there is no identity between "advancing the cause of the open society" and "defeating the Communists." In fact it seems clear that the two could be in a position of extreme tension. Consider this statement you made:

In all these cases, there would be nothing wrong with people within the countries working for the repeal of the laws on the grounds that they are repressive of a proper freedom of dissent, speech, and thought. In fact, I think that would be good.

I disagree. In the Hungarian case especially. A country newly freed from Soviet tyranny, with Red Army tanks on the border and subversives active everywhere, would be crazy to begin a push toward an open society patterned on another society thousands of miles away, much less on a brittle abstraction. I would be instantly suspicious of anyone who took the opportunity of liberty from Communism to start agitating for such reforms as would allow Communists to agitate at well. Once the threat recedes, sure; but not when it is a pressing matter of survival.

In other words, in this hypothetical Hungarians would be wise to close their society to Communist opinion -- precisely to preserve their liberty.

Paul, I can think of all kinds of ways of "closing their society to Communist opinion" short of "outlawing Communism -- in thought word, and deed..." which I hope you meant as an exaggeration in any event. The government should outlaw thoughts?

For example, think of the curriculum in the public schools. Now there's a fertile field for "closing opinions." I'm all on board with discrimination in government positions, too. I also think that spying on Communist groups and other groups likely to be subversive is perfectly legitimate and based on the mere common sense acknowledgment that they are probably up to no good. And when they _are_ hatching actual plots and your spying gets you info. to that effect, throw the book at them. And while I don't know if it would be relevant in your hypothetical Hungary, immigration practice is a huge field for perfectly legitimate government discrimination, because coming to and living in a country that isn't yours is not a right, and the host country can perfectly well "make it up as it goes along" as far as what the dangers are _now_ and what sorts of people it doesn't want to be inviting in droves. We would have done well to be a lot more careful about this ourselves during the Cold War.

By the way, to clarify: I can definitely see proscribing the direct advocacy of violent overthrow of the government. Where you lose me is with arresting all members and fellow travelers of such groups, as in the Smith Act. It would be like taking the jihad sedition law and adding to it that not only the imams who advocate jihad can be punished but also everybody who belongs to their mosques. Now, I can think of all kinds of ways of discouraging belonging to their mosques: For example, refusal to renew the visas of aliens who belong to their mosques, and then enforcing their deportation. Or sending secret agents to check out what he's "preaching" and punishing him for direct incitement to terrorism and jihad. But just rounding up the whole bunch for membership is (one place) where I get off the bus.

By the way, for those interested:

Liberal invokes "fire in a crowded theater" to advocate that the government decide what the facts are and what facts we are allowed to use. Oh, he says it's "ironic," but he can tell that to the marines.

http://blog.seattlepi.com/jimtaylor/archives/205709.asp

It seems to me that in this context we need _more_ advocacy of the free society on the right, not less.

Please understand that I do not have you, Jeff, in mind at all when I say this. That would be very far from my intention.

Thanks, Lydia, for clearing that up. You had me going there for a minute. ;-)

Paul asks: "What happens when, over time, the expectation of rescue by public authorities in the event of panic and crisis, becomes so deeply ingrained in the financial architecture that risk is systematically underpriced across the world?"

Well, indeed. There's no point in carrying on pretending that there's any "free enterprise" system, worthy of the name, left to preserve. We've fallen into a crony-capitalist banana republic and we can't get up.

Jeff C.: I can't speak for Lydia, but, reading through her characteristically trenchant remarks, I couldn't help thinking of Daniel Larison.

I can't for the life of me figure out what the point of 'American Exceptionalism' is. It seems to be a lot of cheerleading because America is better in some ways than other countries. That's fabulous and all, but even if it's true who cares? The US has serious structural, cultural, economic, political, etc etc problems, but at least we're the soberest drunk in the room? Forgive me for not joining the party. Consider the 2008 election as a parallel. Suppose McCain was indeed a better candidate than Obama. I'm not convinced, but suppose it's true. He's still a doddering old fool and a complete waste of space. Only a nutter could pull the lever for McCain and brag about his good sense afterward.

It's too much to ask in this day and age for people to simply love America because America is; She has to be great as well. Why the hell is someone named Ramesh Ponnuru lecturing me on what America means anyway?

We've fallen into a crony-capitalist banana republic and we can't get up.

Yes, yes we have. So I'm serious when I pose the question: what is more likely to manifest in the American future, juntas or technicals?

Gosh, Matt Weber, that was a dreadful comment. Especially the bit about Ramesh Ponnuru. But if you'd rather someone named Ronald Reagan lectured you on it, you're welcome to it. And America used to be even greater, and Americans took justifiable pride in that then, too, so pride in American exceptionalism is hardly some product of the degenerate 21st century or even, for that matter, the degenerate final decades of the 20th.

Pride in your people is natural and inevitable; but then that has nothing to do with American exceptionalism. I'm not the only one who's noticed it seems to have more to do with jingoistic imperialism than patriotism properly understood. Since jingoism is the Republican shtick, it's no wonder that they're completely unreasonable about it.

Also, Steve, Larison hardly says anything negative about America. He has a lot of negative things to say about Republican columnists and politicians though.

Speaking of Larison, here he criticizes the Lowry/Ponnuru piece on it's own terms.

http://www.amconmag.com/larison/2010/03/01/still-taking-exception/

One aspect of American exceptionalism (and I wonder, Paul, if you would agree with this) that we do well to keep in mind is the combination of religious freedom for Christians with relative religious fervor of Christians. I think it would be fair to say that America has the highest combination of those two things in the world. Europe is much farther down the post-Christian road, and Christians are terribly persecuted in many other countries.

It is no accident that there are British people who say that in terms of morality, public decency, and other goods, America is the last bastion of what they thought their country stood for. It may be hard for those of us who see so much public _indecency_ in America to appreciate this, but I think the remaining influence of Christianity in America is one of the reasons that it is worse elsewhere than here.

The historical reasons for the higher levels of belief in God and in other tenets of Christianity and of widespread (often evangelical) Christian fervor in America, as contrasted with Canada, England, and Europe, are interesting to speculate on, but I won't do so here. Sociologically, though, the fact is nothing to sneeze at.

I think there is also a connection to the much higher level of freedom for home schoolers in the U.S. than in Europe and also the high degree of respect for parental rights in the U.S.


**********************************************************

(To separate this from the previous points.)

The right to keep and bear arms is also a biggie. One of those "cowboy" things, thank God. Note that in the U.S. we have a country that is not just in a state of anarchy but where self defense is still respected. In other words, the rule of law is considered compatible with a robust right of individual self defense. What a concept. Try explaining that to a European sometime. Not too long ago an actress in England was cooking in her kitchen when some "youths" approached the back of her house in what she saw as a threatening manner. Looking at them through the window, she--gasp--brandished the knife she was using for cooking. They went away. She called the police, who told her she could get in trouble for brandishing the knife.

Yeah, America is the greatest country in the world. Because, inter alia, insanity like that is not becoming at all common here. Yet.

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