More on American Exceptionalism [Victor Davis Hanson]
Very good piece [referencing Lowry/Ponnuru's]; couple of thoughts:
1) American exceptionalism — Perhaps it derives in part from our putting a higher premium on freedom and liberty than, as in the French and other European cases, egalitarianism and fraternity; also, we were truly the first multi-ethnic state that sought to embrace a common culture rather than carve out cultural or racial fiefdoms. By 1820 there were already all sorts of sizable blocs of European ethnics, and so America no longer thought of itself as of merely English descent. I might quote as a dissent from this theory Obama’s moral equivalence on exceptionalism — remember he said that we are exceptional only in the sense that everyone else, from the Greeks to the Brits, thinks they are exceptional, too.
2) Proletariat — Perhaps it would be better, when speaking of an early rural society, to talk of an absence of peasantry: We had no concept of a large underclass of only quasi-free people attached to barons as serfs; instead, yeomen agrarians were the Jeffersonian ideal, a nation of independent farmers rather than peasants (as John de St. Crevecoeur wrote).
3) A gun-owning society, unlike Europe — On the theory that an armed citizenry would fight any federal effort to overturn individual liberties: That tradition later made our citizenry more comfortable with firearms, with obvious advantages for our military
4) “We in Europe are the Obama” — Obama also fails to see the irony that only an exceptionally free and proud America could have provided the military umbrella necessary to Europe’s development into an essentially disarmed socialist society — one dependent militarily and economically on the U.S. largely because we are so unlike it. Or, as a French intellectual whispered to me at a party not long ago, “There is only room in the West for one Obama — and we in Europe are the Obama.”
Obama also fails to see that American exceptionalism resulted in a degree of freedom and affluence for millions impossible elsewhere, which in turned fueled his own romantic idea of utopianism, e.g., because America was so rich and leisured, an Obama could indulge in criticizing it for not being consistently perfect.
Good point on Obama’s distancing himself from American traditions; he is a paradox since his own success would be impossible in Europe or in Africa or Asia, and yet even in his privilege he sees himself as often antithetical to the very conditions that made him.
A question remains: Much of Obama’s comfortable leftism is a product of careerism; for a prep-school kid who went to Occidental, Columbia, and Harvard and ended up in Chicago, his chic redistributive and radical ideas were sort of like medieval churchmen wearing crosses — it was part of entré into the club.
So it is hard for Obama to question an orthodoxy that for him was amazingly lucrative and opportune in careerist terms. Without a race-class-gender grievance mindset, and without a fault-America-first worldview, Obama would never have risen so far so fast in the circles he navigated. His only challenge now is to disguise and manipulate before an edgy public the thoughts, associations, and assumptions that have been second nature to him for 30 years but which are proving to be an anathema to the American people. He is our first president to be entirely unfamiliar with the productive classes of the private sector, without experience in anything much outside of universities and grievance politics. Consequently, he is increasingly bewildered that he can’t sway foreign heads of state and now the American public with the same old “hope and change” vacuity that so wowed Ivy League totems.
The Cultural War is a Civil War
4 hours ago
I saw a pretty cutting blog post somewhere -- can't remember where now, and I'm too lazy to Google -- about this Hanson post. It noted that two things: first, Hanson's point about the absence of serfs and peasantry conveniently ignores slavery (as most people who rah-rah America tend to). Second, his notion about guns and Europe fails to account for Switzerland, whose residents all have a huge stash of arms right next to their funny shoes and clocks.
ReplyDeleteI'm also less impressed by Hanson's notion -- often repeated by Obama himself -- that his success would be impossible in Europe or Asia. What exactly does this mean -- that there aren't rag to riches stories other countries?
And then there's the weird argument that Obama's "comfortable leftism is a product of careerism." Now, I'll grant you the Ivy Leagues may be full of unabashed liberals, but they also produce equally obnoxious conservatives. It's not some sort of cultural requirement that people feel they cannot ignore (consider the younger conservatives on the Supreme Court -- Alito and Roberts, for instance -- as evidence).
And I love this notion that Obama was a "prep-school kid." Excellent stuff, since it implies Obama hangs with the same crowd as the rich kids who went to, say, Choate. That's just not accurate.
He also neglects to mention Finland which, according to the 2007 Small Arms Survey, ranks right behind Switzerland, with an average of 45.3 guns owned for every 100 people. (Switzerland ranks in with an average 45.7 guns per 100 people.)
ReplyDeleteEurope is much more gun-owning than Hanson gives credit: 7 of the top 20 countries in the aforementioned survey are European.
Here's the data:
http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/files/sas/publications/year_b_pdf/2007/Annexe5_Civilian_firearms_arsenals.xls
"... consider the younger conservatives on the Supreme Court -- Alito and Roberts, for instance -- as evidence."
ReplyDeleteEvidence of what? You've got an elite federal bureacracy in this country -- most of whom are products of these "Ivy Leagues full of unabashed liberals" -- who made their careers precisely because of their comfortable leftism. Having actually worked in government, I can say to you that this notion is very true. When working for government, I kept my conservatism to myself precisely because of the periodic right-bashing I lay witness to.
But back to the "evidence" you cite: pointing to two Supreme Court conservatives as your evidence that our culture really is more politically balanced is not only patently false, it's also bad math. For every two "obnoxious conservatives" there are scores of comfortable leftists in government making their careers bashing conservatives. So you want to give more weight to these two than to the rest? What kind of evidence is that?
And lastly, I think Hanson does not go far enough in his critique of Obama. As far as I can tell, not only is Obama unfamiliar with the productive classes of the private sector, he probably has never fired anyone. That is, when you work in a field where your job is constantly on the line, the choices you make become a bit tougher. Between his stints as an law intern, community organizer, and law professor, has Obama ever had to make really -- and I mean really -- tough choices?
I cannot fully trust anyone to be President who has never had to the opportunity to make tough decisions, like who to fire.
VM: I did not point to the two Supreme Court justices as "evidence that our culture really is more politically balanced." I pointed to Roberts and Alito because they were conservative, went to Ivy League schools, and have still enjoyed fine government careers.
ReplyDeleteAs for your Presidential criteria: I'm sure Obama confronted difficult choices when he was a state senator, or even a U.S. Senator. It's not clear to me that those involved in the private sector necessarily make for better leaders (though we will no doubt see this debate play out well in the Calif. race featuring Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman).