A legit question to Obama supporters

If Eva can ask Clinton supporters a question, I figure I get one too -- although this is a less practical and more basic one. Here goes...

When I'm arguing with my Obama-supporting friends, inevitably the "unity" thing comes up. More particularly the fact that Obama likes to reach out to conservatives -- "broadening the coalition," so to speak. (By most accounts he's doing a good job of it.) Temperamentally, Obama wants to expand the Democratic Party out to include people who are substantially further right than he is; there isn't much doubt about that.

Why?

Everyone says this like it's a good thing and I just don't get it. There are plenty of reasons not to let conservatives near our party -- for starters, the historical fact that everything they touch turns almost immediately to shit -- but there aren't any reasons for it. The Democratic coalition is plenty big already, and it'd be unstoppable if only we had an infrastructure to turn it out (which will come from the left, not the center or right). We don't need conservatives; why would we want them?

Funny, sounds a lot like my list of least favorite people in general

Right Wing News recently polled 'right-of-center' bloggers to see who their 'least favorite people' on the right are. I'd be curious to see how many people on the street could name a conservative public figure who's not on this list.

18) Ted Stevens (4)
18) Olympia Snowe (4)
18) Mel Martinez (4)
18) Sean Hannity (4)
18) Lincoln Chafee (4)
17) Bill O'Reilly (5)
14) Lindsey Graham (6)
14) George W. Bush (6)
14) Mitt Romney (6)
12) Arnold Schwarzenegger (9)
12) Rudy Giuliani (9)
8) Andrew Sullivan (11)
8) Chuck Hagel (11)
8) James Dobson (11)
8) Ann Coulter (11)
6) Arlen Specter (12)
6) Pat Robertson (12)
4) Larry Craig (13)
4) Michael Savage (13)
3) John McCain (17)
2) Pat Buchanan (18)
1) Ron Paul (23)

Above: all they've got left.

And If You Haven't Had Enough Racism Yet...

Apparently I should just post things that conservatives (I'm assuming the Final Club guy was conservative- if not, let's just categorize that as probably conservative for now) say and let them speak for themselves. I don't think anything I write could do more to persuade someone to hate conservatism than that Final Club piece and this (which I have no idea why it wasn't published by The Indy...):

Save the Whales, Kill the Babies
The Left's Latest Nefarious Plan: Suicide in the Name of Mother Nature
By Frances Martel

America's environmental lobby has grown desperate. Throughout the 1990s,
when Hillary Clinton was President, foreign policy was the ongoing
background joke to the sitcom that was the American federal government
(memorable one-liners from that series included Waco, universal health
insurance, the Rwandan genocide, and Monica Lewinsky). The Clinton's
interests were difficult to decipher, as their apparent goal became an
assault on the wellbeing of every American and, later, the best interests of
everyone on the planet. Thus went into the books eight years of history,
where the President and his wife (co-President would be a more apt term)
frisked about the White House grounds, creating mischief for subordinates
and interns like a modern-day Zeus and Hera. With the worst interests of the
people in mind, the political environment for the nature crowd was ideal.

Then any environmentalist's worst nightmare came to life.

In the blink of an eye, they became pass=E9, and the influence that had ris=
en
with the fall of the Berlin Wall crumbled at the base of the World Trade
Center. They lost sympathy in the White House and became completely
irrelevant to American concerns. They were relics America was more than
ready to donate to the Clinton Presidential Library's collection.

So, for a few years, they hired mercenary leftists like Jake Gyllenhaal to
star in movies like "The Day After Tomorrow" and played Dr. Frankenstein on
the political corpse of Al Gore, giving his eyes a faux twinkle =E1 la Bill
Clinton and his hips the salacious curves of Michael Moore. They remain
perplexed that, somehow, the invasion of Afghanistan remains more important
than the dwindling population of giant armadillos. They are in awe when the
death of Saddam Hussein in Iraq attracts more attention than the death of
Yan Yan the Panda in the Berlin Zoo.

"Surely this is a farce!" they exclaim to each other, "The vast right-wing
conspiracy has brainwashed Americans into caring about issues that affect
human beings!"

The typically pacific environmentalists have chosen to go out with a bang,
however, and their latest creation, the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement,
might be the last nail in their coffin. VHEMT (pronounced "vehement"- how
clever and revolutionary!) calls for its members to remain childless,
arguing that the damage human beings cause to the environment is so great
that the world would be a much better place without us. And founder Les U.
Knight- again, so clever I don't know whether to laugh or cry- might be one
of the more moderate members of the American extinction crew; he proposes it
should be completely voluntary and occur within a time frame that is
appropriate, while colleagues like author Alan Weisman propose the Chinese
solution: a governmental mandate to prohibit families from having more than
one child.

"Let's unite in peace and love and not make any more kids" sounds like a
great idea for Starbucks poets and basket weavers from sea to shining sea
(Cambridge to San Francisco), but it might take the more sensible populace
of the United States a little time to warm up to the idea. Not to mention
that, upon suggesting this American genocide, they seem to be forgetting a
significant chunk of the American population that will be at a complete loss
when understanding their argument: the illegal aliens. How exactly, I
wonder, will the nature lobby explain to Guadalupe from Mexico, who crossed
the Rio Grande with four children in her arms and another in her womb at age
20, that "as long as there's one breeding pair of homo sapiens, there's too
great a threat to the biosphere," as Knight has been quoted as saying? How
are they going to explain to Guaycoloro from Peru that he needs to sheathe
himself with a condom before ravaging his wife after a drunken night on the
town with his futbol buddies or initiating an extramarital affair with a
minor? Something tells me that Native South American culture is not
particularly well suited to this idea of family planning in the name of
nature, and culture shock is not something that should happen between
residents of the same nation.

If we really want to integrate these scorned and unwanted fiends- pardon me,
completely faultless, angelic, and beloved newcomers, like child molesters
Alejandro Bautista and Ruben Hernandez-Juarez- into our nation, we can't be
touting all these radical ideas that will only alienate them further from
American society. In fact, we should be adapting to the changing times. Any
little alteration in our culture will be a formidable bridge upon which
these undocumented immigrants can cross into our society. Despite the minor
damage we will cause to nature by having more children, the open-arms
approach to immigration that elevating the American population will usher in
is sure to make those that disrespect the meaning of citizenship and come
into this country to commit felonies feel just like they are back home. And
when they acquire the right to vote, maybe they will vote for the reforms
VHEMT and Weisman are calling for.

(Here's the link to the GOP-Open email that contained this gem. The list archives are public, so please don't attack me for confidentiality etc. etc.)

Kansas' Grand Old Politburo

I thought I'd just add a comment on the hilarious news out of the Kansas Republic Politburo, err, Party. A lot of people that would otherwise probably be Democrats have signed on with the Republicans because for a long time the Republicans have been the only show in town; when you're almost sure that the Republicans are going to be the ones dispensing jobs and patronage, it makes sense to be on the winning team, whether or not your beliefs actually line up.

Kathleen Sebelius's election was facilitated by a split between moderates and hard-liners during the Republican primary. Now that Sebelius is one of the most popular governors in the country, and now that she's easily won re-election,  the Republicans aren't looking like the only show in town anymore. 

Obviously the move to shun Republicans who support Democrats is intended to keep people on the reservation, but I think it'll probably backfire and have the opposite effect. More Democrats are being elected at all level--we also kicked out Phill Kline, who used the Kansas AG's office to harass innocent women.

Not only did Nancy Boyda (whose been great so far this Congressional term, by the way) win an encouraging victory, but Todd Tiahrt, the Congressman for the Wichita area, is more vulnerable than he gets credit for.

In the last election, a no-name with no credentials and no campaign ended up with about 35% of the vote. It shouldn't be impossible to get that next 16% with a real candidate, plus an organization on the ground. Places like Wichita are where the 'Fifty State Strategy' can pay off, and of course it did pay off in Topeka/Lawrence in 2006. 

Any Future for Academe?

There are a couple of great accounts by Harvard bloggers of their graduations: Ryan and Pablog deserve a read. These images are haunting me today -- the weirdly forced ceremony, the sense of total detachment -- (the thought that in two years I'll be dealing with this) -- and they got me thinking about the value of academia & formal education in today's political climate. Are we wasting our time at Harvard?

With that in mind I present this fascinating essay by Henry Farrell (of Crooked Timber, also an assistant prof at GWU), using Michael Bérubé's argument with David Horowitz to explore "different kinds of procedural liberalism" in academic environments as vs. politics. It's lengthy, but worth reading at length. The bits that got me:

Bérubé’s ideal academy is one that has a place for conservatives, and for people whom he disagrees with radically. Indeed, this is key to the “pragmatic anti-foundationalism” that underpins his specific form of procedural liberalism. Substantive liberals – those who believe in the importance of equality etc – don’t have a monopoly on the truth. Therefore, we need procedural liberalism too, where “any reasonable proposition can and should be debated from any reasonable angle.” This is a pretty uncontroversial claim in itself...

When one is acting as a scholar, one has a clear duty to be faithful to one’s vocation, to acknowledge uncomfortable facts, and to give due respect to viewpoints that are not one’s own. The duty of the professor to the student is not to impart the professor’s values to the student, but rather to help the student to understand his or her own values more clearly... The duty of the politician, in contrast, is precisely to use argument to express one’s own beliefs and, where possible, to sway others towards them so that one’s political goals can be achieved.

The academic can of course act as a politician, but only outside of the classroom. Not only are his roles as educator, and as a citizen engaged in politics distinct from each other, but they are profoundly different; as Weber describes it, they serve different gods. The political realm is one of unending struggle between different and antithetical ethical standpoints, each of which has adherents who want it to win. Here, it is incumbent on the politician to ensure that her point of view prevails, and to use whatever means are available in the electoral system to do so. While the truly responsible politician recognizes the tensions between lofty aims and the morally compromised tools that she must employ, and even that her own point of view is not unassailable, she fails in her responsibility as a politician unless she participates actively and wholeheartedly in the political struggle. The scholarly realm (within the social sciences) is one of debate where one starts from the premises that no point of view is foundationally right. Thus, the teacher imparts two important kinds of moral lesson to her student – lessons that allow the student to clearly articulate his own views to himself, and lessons that allow the student to recognize in principle that no point of view provides an account of the world that is complete and foundationally grounded.

So. Basically, what Farrell says here is that academic liberalism is incompatible with argumentative political liberalism (or any political ideology). In theory. But Farrell goes on to take case studies of people who don't adhere to these norms:

In practice, however, even within small-l liberalism, I suspect that there are limits to the accommodation that should be granted to specific individual students... Students who persistently and belligerently refuse to recognize in principle that other points of view may potentially hold some truth prevent seminars from becoming genuine intellectual exchanges, and need to be discouraged, if necessary in very strong terms, from so doing. They’re acting to stop the university from doing what it should be doing, from providing a proper environment for people to pursue the academic vocation.

Farrell then differentiates -- and this is where I depart from him -- between bomb-throwing types like David Horowitz, who deserve only scorn, and students/academics with legitimate intellectual cases for conservative/extreme positions. He writes:

a liberal (in the broadest sense of the word) academic should deal with Horowitz in a very different way than she would deal with John, or with a conservative scholar within the academy who was arguing in a reasoned and honest way that conservatives should get more of a voice. She should deal with him as a political actor, using the tools of political debate. She should under no circumstances take him seriously, where taking him seriously would give him political traction. She should, however, take the aforementioned conservative scholar very seriously indeed, and do her best to push students like John [a loud, aggressive, conservative] to adhere to the basic rules of academic argument, without at the same time asking them to change their substantive values.

Thus the need to distinguish between different kinds of procedural liberalism, which should work in different spheres of activity. As Weber argues, different spheres of social life are governed by different principles; the vocation of the academic is not that of the politician. While a small-l liberal should recognize that it’s healthy that both politics and the academy are populated by a wide range of viewpoints, including some that she is violently opposed to, she should recognize that these viewpoints interact in very different ways in the two spheres, and that the proper standards for vary dramatically from the one to the other.

I find this contention, that more "serious" conservatives deserve greater respect in academia than their political-activist counterparts, rather silly and more than a little depressing. Because the point that Farrell doesn't grasp here is how contested this "procedural liberalism" really is.

Procedural liberalism, the idea that you cannot grasp absolute truth -- which Farrell isolates as the root of academic discourse -- is now a partisan position, and a characteristically liberal/progressive one at that. In this day and age, to make any statement that involves subjectivity, context, or hints at relativism immediately identifies the speaker as a liberal, and places them within this political fight. It thus cannot function as the overarching modus operandi that it is intended to.

After all, the whole conservative ethic, Republican Party and all, is predicated on pure value judgments and an understanding of the world that operates with absolute confidence; this is why it encloses religious fundamentalism, militarism, and economic orthodoxy so well. It's not by coincidence that conservatives are so often derided as thinking of things in "black and white" -- they do.

And this kind of conservatism stands, at its most basic logical structures, in active opposition to procedural liberalism. It rejects context (hence, constitutional orginalism) and change (hence, the same-sex marriage fight). It cannot abide any suggestion that gods are fallible or principles imperfect; it cannot conceive of its opponents as anything other than traitors or lunatics. (George Lakoff explains both these mindsets, and shows how they operate, very well in Moral Politics.) It is sworn to destroy the entire field of academic discourse. An intellectual scorched-earth policy.

Understandably, this places academic procedural liberalism in a pretty bad situation. It claims to neutrality, and to containing within itself a healthy intellectual debate, even while it is being attacked at the roots by this toxic, destructive absolutist conservatism that has zero interest in "reasoned argument," whihc is in fact quite seriously opposed to it.

I keep picturing the opening scene from Cold Mountain, where the Confederate soldiers stand vigilant guard in their trench, helplessly unaware that the Union is tunneling underneath them planting explosives.

FURTHERMORE, academic liberalism is totally incapable of engaging this strain of conservatism, since all the Weberian principles that underly liberalism -- and this is Farrell's mindset -- insist on friendly coexistence and healthy disagreement. If you permit this kind of conservatism to continue, it disrupts and discredits procedural liberalism, but if academics oppose it they abandon their own core principles. To actively defend liberalism, then, becomes anathema to liberalism. And as a result we get Henry Farrell, who even as he recognizes the threat from a showman like Horowitz remains unable to address the threat from conservatism itself, making limp, tepid prescriptions like the one I quoted above:

A liberal should...take the conservative scholar very seriously indeed, and do her best to push John to adhere to the basic rules of academic argument, without at the same time asking them to change their substantive values.

Unfortunately, if you do not change the substantive values of these people, they will destroy academia and liberal thought as we know it. That has been their stated goal from the beginning. But out of loyalty to his increasingly frayed intellectual system Farrell cannot argue for their destruction. Nor should he be expected to; he'd be a traitor to his ideas.

As a result the academic establishment stands entirely undefended against conservatism, waiting to be destroyed.

--

This will sound bleak, but I don't see a way out of this paradox. Academics are damned if they do and damned if they don't. An institution like Harvard, which will undoubtedly defend its claim to anti-foundational neutrality, will at best become marginalized and increasingly irrelevant as intellectual/political production is left wholly to the activist spheres and people who are more willing to stick up for their ideational systems. We are already seeing that marginalization of the elite universities ("bastions of liberalism," "Kremlin on the Charles" etc.), and it's not a short leap from that to the marginalization of academia as a whole.

As a result, and this will sound apocalyptic, I have to question whether -- for us -- it's worth spending our time on academic pursuits. What (aside from a leg up in the job market) is a B.A. from Harvard going to get us? What about an M.A.? It doesn't look like it's going to prepare us very well to engage our nation's critical issues, that's for sure. If anything I suspect it might saddle us with some totally unhelpful intellectual baggage.

(Speaking personally, I know I'm deathly afraid of getting caught in academia, winding up 30 years from now bearded in an ivory tower writing silly articles about 19th century art and refusing to ever leave Cambridge because my faithful cat would get lonely. This is a realistic scenario for me.)

So what do the rest of you think? Can we wring value from our Harvard experiences, and can we fend off the conservative threat while maintaining the integrity of procedural liberalism? And if not, what is the alternative?