The infighting in the Republican party is beginning to look a lot like the kind of conflict and disunity that the left has often been accused of having. At least, that's what I thought yesterday, before I looked through the Brooks looking glass (A House Divided and Strong) where up is down and left is right. He writes:
"Conservatives have not triumphed because they have built a disciplined and efficient message machine. Conservatives have thrived because they are split into feuding factions that squabble incessantly. As these factions have multiplied, more people have come to call themselves conservatives because they've found one faction to agree with."
Disunity = Strength?
Brooks is trying to save the Republican party from itself. It's currently fractious and internal factions are fighting for predominance. The theocrats vs the traditionalists is playing in a local party near you. The party is also fracturing on policy, particularly social security privatization and the intervention in the Terri Schiavo case. This isn't good for the party and plenty of media outlets have covered the growing disunity in the party. Brooks works his magic and turns this into a positive. A fractured party is a big one, a fighting party is a philosophically based one with a vibrant intellectual exchange.
He continues his alchemy by dismissing the importance of conflicts over policy. He charges that policy is only important if you have no philosophical base, like the liberals. That means conflicts on the right over policy are meaningless. On the left, they're a death knell.
Are you with him now? A fractured party arguing over policy is the equivalent of a large party with a strong philosophical center. Neat trick. Brooks declares that in disunity lies strength. How terribly Orwellian he's become, no?
The Luxury of the Beltway Elites
But he's not done. He tops off his magic show with a bonus trick. We all know that the left is referred to as elitist, it's deemed to be full of intellectual latte-sipping snobs. But Brooks doesn't let that stop him. He manages to slam the "liberal elite" for not being able to discuss a favorite philosopher. No notice to the poor left put on the spot - if he can't spout off on the wonders of a favorite philosopher then he's just an empty suit, a policy wonk with no foundation for his policies.
I studied philosophy in college. It's been a while, but I could talk a bit about Kierkegaard, Sartre, Descartes, Heidegger, Hume, Socrates, or Nietzsche as well as a few lesser known Christian philosophers/theologians like Plantinga, Tillich,
Barth, or Calvin. But I'd just be spouting. I'd be pulling what I know of them out of the far reaches of my brain to satisfy the intellectual elitist snob asking me to do so.
If Brooks wants a real philosophical discussion, he shouldn't ask me to give a multi-hour treatise on my favorite philosopher. He should instead ask me what I believe philosophically. If he asked that, I could answer with some intensity. I'd talk about the limitations implicit in being a foundationalist and the fear of becoming unmoored through relativism. I'd talk about the myth of objectivity and the power in understanding that all "knowledge" requires underlying assumptions about truth. I'd talk about the difficulty in identifying and challenging those assumptions, the humility that comes with realizing we cannot know anything but despite that inability we must and will have a world view that informs us and tells us what we believe to be true. I would discuss the social contract that exists in human civilization, the necessity of honoring it, the humanity implicit in caring for one another - individually and societally. I would praise utilitarianism while acknowledging its limitations, endorse an approach to life that balances justice with mercy. I would be able to go on for hours if this were the conversation that Brooks wanted to have. It's not.
Brooks complains that liberals have not had a public philosophy debate, that we're good at talking about rights but not about universal order. He suggests that we're not as "conscious of public philosophy because modern liberalism was formed in government, not away from it", that our influences aren't ones to encourage reliance on "dead white guys".
We could take Brooks' advice and spend the next year having a nice public intellectual debate about which philosophers are right. But somehow, instead of giving us a common foundation for political activity I suspect we'd simply be labeled liberal elitists who aren't in touch with the average American. Arguing about human nature and the American character may be an interesting intellectual exercise, it may even be necessary in some circumstances. But for the most part, real liberals don't live in the rarefied world of philosophical discussions.
They live in a world where jobs are going overseas, gas prices are at a record high, medicare funding is being cut, war is being fought and friends are being killed,where housing costs are spiking and a fourth of the children here go to bed hungry at night. They also live in a world where they're grateful to be Americans, where working class men and women are the first responders in this war on terrorism and are proud to be so, where every day people take care of each other, where family still matters and kindness counts. They live in a complex world where it's not all good or all bad, but it's certainly a struggle these days. They don't have time to talk philosophy. They're busy with work and family. They believe in the American dream and fight the sneaking suspicion that it's out of their reach. And when they realize it is, they continue on to make sure their children can reach it.
These are the liberals that make up the Democratic party. With them you'll find intellectuals, philosophy loving latte drinkers, members of the middle and upper class, along with a handful of the uber-wealthy. But those folks aren't the core. And the core doesn't have time to talk philosophy.
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