that deal in different ways with American Exceptionalism:
First, I may have once linked to this, but this is Charles Murray's 2009 Irving Kristol Lecture before AEI, entitled "The Happiness of the People." (And Berchmans: It's based on the Federalist Papers! :))
And second, here is Jim Manzi's much discussed essay in National Affairs entitled "Keeping America's Edge." (I haven't actually finished this one yet, but it's interesting).
[If either of these have been discussed on here before and I missed them, my apologies for doubling up]
Sunday assorted links
1 hour ago
We've discussed Murray's lecture before. My main disagreement was I didn't buy Murray's "poverty builds character" shtick (but then again, I didn't buy my mother's "swimming lessons are good for you" nonsense either). Character ain't going to feed me. (Yes, yes, I know the importance of culture; I'm being flippant.)
ReplyDeleteAs for Jim Manzi, I read this piece a bit back when David Brooks nominated it as one of the best stories of 2009. Great stuff -- I normally don't like the guy (at least what you send me, Esquire), but he was refreshingly candid about inequality, the false rhetoric of 'school choice' and the need for immigration.
What I found a bit disturbing: one, his objection to increasing funding for 'social welfare programs,' like, um, unemployment insurance. I don't think anyone who has looked at the statistics on how long the average American has remained without a job in this recession would so blithely call to flip the switch on their only sustenance. Then again, Murray would probably say that people with nowhere to turn would either wander the desert for 40 days and emerge cleansed, or somehow strengthen their community/church and family ties and get through things. I'm not so optimistic.
I have to say the same thing about Manzi's dictum to immediately drop GM and AIG. You two may disagree with me on this, but I don't think President Obama wanted to own any part of either company. And perhaps spending the billions of dollars on sustaining GM may not be worth it for GM, but I suspect that was never the issue. The big point was to ensure that a massive number of people (yes, in politically important sectors like Michigan and the unions) not lose their jobs overnight. Perhaps that's something to sniff at -- creative destruction and all that -- but, again, we have forgotten what real unrest looks like. I don't want to find out.
There's a crucial difference between the utopian liberalism of the 1960s of Great Society fame and the one espoused today. Those were ideological calculations that people thought would solve the problems of the day. But AIG, for instance, wasn't -- it was seen as a pragmatic, 'hold your nose,' kind of thing that even people in industry and business felt was necessary (despite their anti-government reflex). There was no ideological dispute in this case; many Republicans and right-wing economists, for instance, endorsed TARP and the bailouts, because they knew they were necessary.