Which comes first, the Principle or the Place?

Caleb Stegall wrote a thoughtful counter to all of the critical reviews of James Cameron’s new film Avatar. It drew a huge response and one of the respondents (# 24 December 2009 at 7:13 pm) brought up a point which delves into a deeper issue for those living on the Porch:

But I think that this sort of rhetoric does serve as a good springboard for some troubling questions of Front Porch Republicanism. The Front Porchers’ reverence for community is admirable; but their reverence for community-above-all-else (as I understand it) is not. Those Front Porchers who are men and women of faith may value their creeds above their communities, but to read their writings, one could draw the conclusion that faith was merely worth preserving as one cog in the communal machinery. This is one issue that Front Porchers should address–i.e. is there a higher good than “community” and are there spheres in which it is appropriate for an individual to act and think as a cosmopolitan rather than a local?

In another post, I discuss Patrick Deneen’s essay “Patriotic Vision” in which he recognizes the tension between Principle and Place. It would be nice to see a fuller treatment of the question on the Porch itself.
And to stir the pot a little, I’ll toss in a quote from that Front Porcher Fav, Edmund Burke: “To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.”
(Since pasting parts of this post in the comments section of Caleb Stegall’s article, D.W. Sabin and John Wilson have made some helpful responses # 29 December 2009 at 12:02 pm & # 29 December 2009 at 1:21 pm)

Free and/or Virtuous Society

In a previous post, I presented an example in favor of Patrick Deneen’s thesis that Modern Ideals are inherent to Modern Institutions. The example I gave was India, which has been modernizing technologically, but has also been importing the worst aspects of our culture e.g. hemlines are getting shorter in Bollywood Films. Moreover, the children of Eastern Immigrants to America are cohabitating, contracepting, and divorcing at rates no different from Americans.

Deneen linked that post on Front Porch Republic and Peter Lawler responded in the comment section. He raised some interesting problems which are worth delving into.

1)He says Harvey Mansfield is not a PoMo Con because he is Aristotelian and not a Thomist. But is a commitment to Thomism something all PoMo Cons share? Would James Poulos characterize himself that way? The reason why I associated Mansfield with Postmodern Conservatism is because he is trying to provide an alternative philosophy of man for Modern Institutions.

This seemed to have been JPII’s goal also. He did not oppose the Modern Ideal of Freedom with the Ancient or Medieval Ideal of Virtue; instead, he argued for a “Free and Virtuous Society.”

2) Lawler does not think India is a good example; He refers to their traditional values as ‘creepy’. Having just read Aravind Adiga’s White Tiger, I might be inclined to agree. The novel portrays a traditional society in the midst of modernization. Adiga depicts the ‘Old Ways’ in the most unsavory light. The Hindu religion and the hierarchical family structure are sources of injustice in the story; on the other hand, the hero which emerges from it all is a bundle of all the terrible ideals we associate with modernity: a skeptical and rootless individual. The novel could be read as confirming Lawler’s Tocquevillian observation that things in India are “getting better and worse.”

Replacing the Declaration with Darwin

Carson Holloway has an article on Darwin in the Public Discourse. We’re all aware of Herbert Spencer’s Social Darwinism, which was a political philosophy of the right. What is more interesting is Darwin’s influence on the Left, in this case, John Dewey.

Holloway explains that Dewey welcomed Darwin’s views because it allowed him to reject the fixed standard of “the law of nature and nature’s God” which was enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. Like President Obama, Dewey could now stress “change” and “hope” in the future. But Holloway goes on to state the following problem:

Dewey’s politicization of Darwinism, however, seems to lead him into incoherence. For him, we must not concern ourselves with “the good” or “the just” in any ultimate sense, but should merely seek incremental progress in goodness and justice. But how can we speak of improvement, or betterment, without some sense of “the good”—without implying that we have some knowledge, however imperfect, of what is simply good? How can we speak of “increments” of justice without some intuition of “the just”?

I would say this is where Darwin’s influence on Dewey ends and Hegel’s German Idealism begins. The moral standard for Dewey is fixed, just as it was for the Founders. Unlike the Founders, however, Dewey does not find that standard in Nature, but History. The Absolute Moment, which will be realized in the future within human history, provides the measuring stick for our practices today.

Tocqueville's take on Private Judgment

Peter Robinson interviewed Paul Rahe, who has just published a book titled Soft Despotism: Democracy’s Drift. The book is an anaylsis of our current state of affairs in light of Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. In the interview, Rahe discusses the four institutions which shielded Americans from the desire to surrender their liberty to the state in the past:

1) Local Government
2) Civic Associations
3) Family
4) Church

The first two cultivate a do-it-yourself attitude. The third provides a safety net of stability and comfort for individuals who would otherwise experience anxiety. Where Rahe gets Tocqueville wrong is on the fourth institution, religion. Rahe describe it in the same terms as the first two: cultivation of a do-it-yourself attitude. Indeed, he depicts Tocqueville as saying that it encourages skepticism toward authority. I, however, remember Tocqueville’s take on the matter as more akin to his view on the family: a source for certain truths in a world that seemed to be more and more in flux. But don’t take my word on it. Here is a direct quote from Mr. T himself:

General ideas respecting God and human nature are therefore the ideas above all others which it is most suitable to withdraw from the habitual action of private judgment and in which there is most to gain and least to lose by recognizing a principle of authority. The first object and one of the principal advantages of religion is to furnish to each of these fundamental questions a solution that is at once clear, precise, intelligible, and lasting, to the mass of mankind….This is especially true of men living in free countries. When the religion of a people is destroyed, doubt gets hold of the higher powers of the intellect and half paralyzes all the others. Every man accustoms himself to having only confused and changing notions on the subjects most interesting to his fellow creatures and himself. His opinions are ill-defended and easily abandoned; and, in despair of ever solving by himself the hard problems respecting the destiny of man, he ignobly submits to think no more about them…Such a condition cannot but enervate the soul, relax the springs of the will, and prepare a people for servitude.

For Tocqueville, the skeptic is more, not less, susceptible to surrendering his freedom due to his uncertainty about the biggest questions.

The Young and the Productive

David Brooks’ article is very helpful in seeing what is at stake in the current healthcare debate. Obamacare promises to reconcile two apparent opposites:

1) Cover 31 million Americans who are currently uninsured.
2) Bend the cost curve

Now these two claims are incompatible since it should increase costs to cover people who were previously not covered. Brooks explains how these incompatible claims will be made compatible:

1) Cut Medicare payments
2) Raise taxes in the future (the present Congress requests future Congresses to do this.)

Lets look at the first one. Who will decide what Medicare payments are cut and what criterion will they use? A technocrat, a government bureaucrat with scientific expertise, will do so on the basis of “productivity.” In other words, the person’s medical costs will be covered if he is deemed productive member of society. This tips the scales in favor of the young and industrious in society.

This doesn’t mean the young have it made because there is still number two: Raise taxes in the future. Remember, taxes will be raised later, not now. It will be the young and productive who get stuck with the bill.

Lexus And/Or the Olive Tree

The PoMo Con argument, or hope, is that we can separate modern institutions (Democracy, Capitalism, Science) from modern values (individualism, moral relativism, atheism). If this separation can occur, then these values can be replaced with a more robust understanding of who we are and our place in the cosmos. Harvey Mansfield succinctly summarizes the argument, “John Stuart Mill in the public sphere and Aristotle in private.”

Front Porcher Patrick Deneen’s counter to this argument is that modern values are wedded to modern institutions so one must either accept or reject the project in toto.

One way to test this question is to look at globalization and immigration issues. Easterners make a distinction similar to the one made by PoMo Cons above. They say yes to modernization (institutions) but no to Westernization (values). Have they been able to do so? Has India, which is a rising economic power, been able to maintain its traditional culture? Have Easterners who have moved to the U.S. been able to instill their values in their children? The early returns do not look good: Bollywood and ABCD’s.

Political Science versus Political Philosophy

Today is rather commonplace that Government professors refer to their disciplines as political science. The belief is that politics (and economics for that matter) should be modeled after the natural sciences. In order to achieve this, the study of human affairs will be reduced only to the quantifiable. Students should study charts and graphs which are black and white and thus non-debatable. If a fact cannot be assigned a numerical value, then it is not a fact or at least not matter for the political scientist to consider.

This method replaced the older view which studied the words and deeds of statesmen and the works of political philosophers i.e. the study of arguments. Arguments cannot be quantified, yet they are the lifeblood of politics. What sustains the interest of students (and citizens) is not polling data, but the give and take of debate. The more thought provoking question is not whether health care reform will pass this year, but whether it should pass.

Harvard’s Harvey Mansfield has argued for a return to the more traditional model. In an essay titled “How to Understand Politics”, he argues that the Humanities gives us a more complete picture of human nature.

One theory that political scientists adhere to is ‘rational choice’ which reduces human beings to calculators. Mansfield points to characters like Achilles in Homer’s Iliad as a counterexample to this assumption. Achilles does not calculate every move. Instead, he disregards his material self-interest in favor of glory and honor. The Humanities reveals the complex motivation of human beings which the more scientific theories fail to account for.

Elsewhere, Mansfield discusses that this scientific reduction of human motivation is part of a larger project of modern political thought to implement ‘rational control.’ One consequence of this view is the ability to predict future events, say elections. Yet the inability of political scientists to accurately predict such things calls into question the possibility of such control.

While unable to guarantee any of its answers, a humanistic approach towards the study of politics might yield a truer account of public affairs.

Euripides on Elvis

I have never understood The Bacchae by Euripides and the various interpretations of it have rung hollow. With that in mind, I was surprised to find myself nodding in agreement over Robert Reilly's take on the play:

Euripides and the Classical Greeks, from whom our Founders learned, knew that Eros is not a plaything. In The Bacchae, Euripides showed exactly how unsafe sex is when disconnected from the moral order. When Dionysus visits Thebes, he entices King Penthius to view secretly the women dancing naked on the mountainside in Dionysian revelries. Because Penthius succumbs to his desire to see "their wild obscenities," the political order is toppled, and the queen mother, Agave, one of the bacchants, ends up with the severed head of her son Penthius in her lap -- an eerie premonition of abortion.

The lesson is clear: Once Eros is released from the bonds of family, Dionysian passions can possess the soul. Giving in to them is a form of madness because erotic desire is not directed toward any end that can satisfy it. It is insatiable.

Reilly then applies this reading to an indictment on pornography.
I would link Reilly’s argument to Carson Holloway’s critique of pop music. The logic behind such music, e.g. Rock N’Roll & Rap, can traced back to Rousseau and Nietzsche who argued IN FAVOR OF Dionysian 'madness' i.e. music should indulge and even inflame one’s passions. What was criticized by Euripides and Plato is encouraged by the late Modern thinkers and is accepted as a matter of course by us today.
Elvis, a symbol of the Sex, Drugs, and Rock N’Roll since the 60’s, might vindicate Euripides on this point. Like King Penthius, his desire for the Bacchic frenzy led to him to a bad end. While it might not qualify as Tragedy, it was rather pitiable finish.

Why would a Democracy support a Dictator?

An argument that opponents make against post WWII U.S. Foreign Policy is that the U.S. was hypocritical in its support of Freedom. One of the examples given is the U.S. overthrew Mohammed Mossadeq, who was the democratically elected leader Iran in 1953. The U.S. then installed the Shah of Iran, who ruled the regime as a despot. His despotic rule caused a backlash and in 1979 the Islamic Radicals revolted in the Iranian Revolution. Thus the rise of the Islamic Radicalism can be laid at the footsteps of the U.S. Foreign Policy or so the argument goes.

Dinesh D’Souza discusses this example in a debate with Ward Churchill. He points out that Mossadeq was appointed, not elected. And to top it off, he was appointed and ratified by the SHAH himself. Afterwards, a power struggle ensued between Mossadeq and the Shah and the latter lost. At that point, the doctrine of the lesser evil comes into play. Who is the lesser evil at the moment? On one side, you have Mossadeq, a Secular Socialist who would certainly ally with the Soviet Union and allow its influence to spread throughout the Middle East. (His nationalization of an oil company two years before confirms his Socialism.) And on the other side you have the Shah, a bad guy for sure, but one whose evils would be limited to a particular place. Given these options, the U.S. decision to support the Shah does not seem that sinister (I’m assuming here that the Reagan’s characterization of the Soviet Union as the Evil Empire is on the mark.)

In regards to Islamic Radicalism, D’Souza points out the Khomeini actually supported the Shah against Mossadeq in 1953. Given the options, it makes sense that a religious fundamentalist would support a king over a secular socialist. In that case, it is plausible the Revolution would have occurred regardless of what the U.S. did.

The issue comes up at the following points in the video:

104:30-106:30; 107:10-108:10
109:00-111:30

Harvard's Michael Sandel goes Public

Michael Gerson has an op-ed today on the Communitarian Michael Sandel. Professor Sandel is making several of his lectures available online at http://justiceharvard.org/. What makes Sandel an anomaly on campus is that he is willing to critique the cultural libertarian view which says, “that government's only job is to set fair rules and procedures; it is entirely up to free individuals to choose the best way to live.”

"I do not think," He says, "that freedom of choice -- even freedom of choice under fair conditions -- is an adequate basis for a just society." For Sandel to say something like that on a campus which is filled with professors and students who assume it as a matter of fact is quite gutsy. Gerson’s nicely summarizes Sandel’s Communitarianism:

This equation of justice with freedom, he says, is unrealistic about the way human beings actually live. Our views of right and wrong, duty and betrayal, are not merely the result of individual free choice. All of us are born into institutions -- a family that involves our unconditional love, a community that elicits feelings of solidarity, a country that may demand a costly loyalty. Sandel argues that a liberal individualism cannot explain these deep attachments. We are "bound by some moral ties we haven't chosen."
Sandel, in the good company of Aristotle, contends that knowing "the right thing to do" in any of these institutions requires a determination of its purpose. And the purpose of government is not only to defend individual rights but also to honor and reward civic virtues -- patriotism, self-sacrifice and concern for our neighbor. This third definition of justice, by nature, is a moral enterprise.

Right before your very eyes

Gregory Wolfe, editor of IMAGE Journal, has a interesting set of posts on the state of Catholic literature today. He says most Traditional Catholics subscribe to the ‘myth of decline’: Catholic Letters has fallen off since the mid-twentieth century when writers like Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, and Flannery O’Connor were around. Wolfe points out that these critics probably would not have appreciated these writers if they had been alive at that time. Take Waugh’s reception by his fellow Catholics for instance:

Even as conservative a writer as Evelyn Waugh had to write a long, impassioned letter defending his satirical novels to the Archbishop of Westminster, after he had been attacked in the British Catholic magazine The Tablet. Poor Waugh had to do the worst thing possible for a satirist and comedian—he had to explain his jokes. (In his novel Black Mischief he had described a campaign by white colonialists to bring contraception to the native African population, with hilarious and unpredictable side effects—as a form of undermining anti-Catholic thinking.)

Another argument in the myth of decline thesis is that these mid-twentieth century writers wrote ‘muscular’ prose. Think of Flannery O’Connor’s use of the Grotesque as an example of this. Wolfe responds that such a method was needed at the time, but that our own age requires a different tact:

But what happened when the century moved on, past world wars and into a less overtly dramatic time? When it came to a writer like Walker Percy—whose credentials as a traditional, Mass-attending Catholic are not in question—that cultural change can be seen clearly. Percy put it quite bluntly: the world he lived in was not the stark world of his Southern friend Flannery. His was a South of golf courses and gated subdivisions, not bleak homesteads set off in the woods.
For Percy, the absence of God was still an issue, but he felt that it had been submerged by prosperity, that modern unbelief and despair had become domesticated, anesthetized by shopping malls, new-fangled pills, and inane movies.
In such a world, God is not likely to be heard in shouts but in whispers.

This might be the weaker part of his argument because a case could easily be made that Walker Percy tried to shock his readers just as much in the same way that O’Connor ever did.

That aside, Wolfe concludes his posts by mentioning some contemporary Catholic writers, like Ron Hansen, Alice McDermott, and Andre Dubus. His concern, and it is one worth discussing, is that Traditional Catholics are failing to recognize that they are living through a type of literary renaissance as we speak.

Who are you going to trust?

The most recent Harry Potter film, the 6th in the series, is actually the best one so far. And it is directed by David Yates, who made the 5th film, which might be the worst in the series.

A criticism leveled against the series is that it presents Harry’s rule-breaking as praiseworthy. For example, Dumbledore lists it as one of Harry’s virtues in the second book.

Yet it is clear that Harry is not a rule-breaker in the ‘rebel without a cause’ sense. There are two types of rules, moral and legal, and Harry never breaks the former. To my knowledge, he never commits intrinsically evil act or does evil so good may result. The legal rules he breaks are general, not absolute, because they are meant to capture the majority of cases and thus do not apply in emergencies.

Of course, what gets parents up in arms is that an adolescent does not know when a particular situation is normal or extreme and so they are apt to break a rule which ought to have been obeyed.

The solution to the above problem can be found in Rowling’s stories itself. Harry, it must be admitted, does not seem concerned about abstract rules. On the other hand, rules given by a flesh and blood person do interest him. In those cases, Harry always looks for signs of credibility and if he finds them, then he is willing to defer his judgment. Take the most recent film. Professor Dumbledore asks Harry, more than once, to trust him on a matter in which Harry disagrees with him. And Harry obeys. The film ends on a note in which it appears that Dumbledore was mistaken and that Harry should have handled things his own way. But I suspect that is Rowling’s way of keeping the reader/viewer in suspense and that Dumbledore’s judgment (and by implication, Harry’s submission to it) will be vindicated by the end.

The message then is not to disregard rules; instead, we should defer to them when they are promulgated by the credible authority. Moreover, we should do so even when the rule might not make sense for the moment. Our concern for rules should not be because they are ends in themselves, but because we trust the person behind them.

Social Conservatives and Libertarians: why we might not be able to get along

Hunter Baker has an interesting post in First Thoughts on the differences between Libertarians and Social Conservatives:

“My fellow panelist (Doug Bandow) will speak better for libertarians than I can, but I think it is fair to say that in their view, the reason we choose to live together in political association rather than as hermits in the woods is so that we can enjoy the benefits of mutual defense and commerce. Thus, all the government we really need is a military to protect against external threats, police to protect against internal ones, and maybe courts to enforce contracts between individuals.
Social conservatives, in contrast, line up more or less with Aristotle, who insisted that political life is about more than just mutual defense and commerce. Instead, political associations exist to enable us to develop a civic friendship whereby we will discover moral excellence as a community.
For social conservatives, that Aristotelian civic friendship means there is value in turning the law to certain moral purposes beyond things like mutual defense and enforcing contracts. Instead, we hope to make law in such a way that it promotes human flourishing and prevents or discourages things that lead to decay and decline.”

I appreciate Hunter offering Aristotle’s thought, not Edmund Burke’s, as representative of social conservatism; however, I would parse the divergences with Libertarians this way:

1) The nature of freedom. Libertarians are concerned ONLY WITH exterior freedom-meaning they are worried about the pressure the state can apply. Social Conservatives, on the hand, are concerned with a deeper understanding of freedom, interior freedom. There are things other than the state which can enslave you e.g. your appetites. A drug addict or alcoholic is free according to a Libertarian, but not according to a Social Conservative.

2) Human nature and Bioethics. The Libertarian values Autonomy so he recognizes no authority outside of the self. In this scenario, redesigning human nature through biotechnology is permissible. The Social Conservative values Human Dignity and which requires a transcendent reference point. Tampering with human nature then would be playing God.

Putting Locke in a Locke Box-or at least his image

David Brooks and Stephen Hayward are worried about the undue influence of guys like Limbaugh and Beck. Hayward writes, “We've traded in Buckley for Beck, Kristol for Coulter, and conservatism has been reduced to sound bites.”

Peter Lawler, on the other hand, appears to take a broader look at the conservative movement as a whole:

In general, I wonder whether the Founders=Locke=good and the Progressives=Germans=bad narrative has run its course or needs a lot of supplementing at this point. A lot of younger conservatives see that part of our problem today is our promiscuous libertinism, and that it might be caused by our inability to keep Locke (or the spirit of calculation, contract, and consent) in a "Locke box." Increasingly, all of life is being turned over to a self-indulgent view of "autonomy," and that really does erode both a proper understanding of love and a manly spirit of self-government.

Anyone familiar with Claremont Review will recognize that Lawler is taking aim at the “narrative” which is popular there. For people at Claremont are more concerned with the growth of government than with the Culture Wars. Postmodern Conservatives see the latter problem as being more worrisome as every aspect of our lives becomes more and more Lockean.

Thomas G. West, who has popularized the Founders=Locke=good storyline, would and has contested Lawler’s portrayal of Locke. But I wonder if the Straussian distinction between intention and influence comes into play here. Regardless of Locke’s intention, his influence or role in the history of political philosophy is that his thought represents autonomous individualism. And it is the influence which has to be put into the ”Locke box.” (A similar argument could be made for Machiavelli and ‘Machiavellian’.)

Big Government Health Care PSA

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Ken Thomas of No Left Turns posted this video by former UD students.

"Would you like that with Nature or History?"

Bill Clinton was the first sitting President to speak before a Gay Advocacy group. At times he sounds like a moral relativist in the speech: “Our ideals were never meant to be frozen in stone or time.” And again here: “We are redefining, in practical terms, the immutable ideals that have guided us from the beginning.”

Yet moral relativism cannot be his final position since he wants to be able to say things like this: “So I say to you tonight, should we change the law? You bet. Should we keep fighting discrimination? Absolutely.” The injustice of discrimination only makes sense if there is a fixed standard of morality it fails to live up to.

Where, one wonders, does Clinton find that standard? Is it in the “law of nature and nature’s God” as the founders argued in the Declaration of Independence? Clinton’s answer is no because “….when we started out with Thomas Jefferson's credo that all of us are created equal by God, what that really meant in civic political terms was that you had to be white, you had to be male, and that wasn't enough -- you had to own property…” (For a counter to the hypocrisy charge, read Thomas G. West’s response)

Where does this fix standard exist if it isn’t found in our nature? The alternative proposal in modern times (think Hegel) is History. Clinton says, “Indeed, the story of how we kept going higher and higher and higher to new and higher definitions -- and more meaningful definitions -- of equality and dignity and freedom is in its essence the fundamental story of our country.” He also talks our imaginations being “limited” but it will be “broadened” in the future. We can see here the Progressive notion that history itself is a rational process which provides an evaluative standard. The End of History or the Absolute Moment is the measuring stick which all previous ages must stack up against. This is why Modern Liberals can say we are “better off” in 2009 than 1909 and the people of 1909 were “better” than ones living in 1809.

The Marxist version of history as a rational process has long been discredited, but the Progressive understanding is alive and well among Modern Liberals. Consequently, the real debate between Conservatives and Liberals today is not over an absolute or relative standard of morality, since both believe in an absolute, but whether Nature or History is foundation for it.

Leisure: working hard or hardly working

Having just finished Sertillanges’ book The Intellectual Life, I was struck by the similarities and differences between it and Josef Pieper’s Leisure: The Basis of Culture.

Both authors share the same concern: they are living in a world in which the life of the mind is being marginalized. Pieper discusses how the world of work is consuming all other aspects of life, especially the activities which encourage reflection. Sertillanges sees industrialists playing dice when they could be reading Pascal instead.

The authors diverge on the question of what constitutes the intellectual life. Pieper maintains a firm distinction between philosophy and work. As a professor once told me, “Philosophy is NOT useful...it is completely useless! That is why it is so important.” Philosophy, in this picture, is an end in itself. It enables a person to escape the confines of the cave and to see reality as it is.

This permits Pieper to present Philosophy in joyful terms. It is akin to festivity. Like other forms of festivity, we do not see them in utilitarian terms. Instead, they are the moments in which we escape, at least momentarily, our work-a-day world.

Sertillanges, I think, would reject such a distinction. He sees philosophy as a type of work. A nobler type of work, but work nonetheless. The intellectual has obligations to his fellow man which require him to sacrifice his private wants for the sake of a greater good. He must return to the cave and share what he has learned with others. Or better yet, encourage them to leave the cave also. This presentation of philosophy subordinates it while at the same time revealing how much is at stake when one engages in it.

This debate, whether the contemplative or active life is superior, goes all the way back to Aristotle. Thus, I’m not embarrassed to say that I can’t solve it. Pieper and Sertillanges are both Thomists, so you have to look at other sources for the divergence. Plato was an important influence on Pieper and you can see it in his understanding of philosophy as type of “divine madness.” Sertillanges, on the other hand, argues that the Intellectual, to be a true Intellectual, must accept Divine Revelation. That doesn’t seem right since it would disqualify Aristotle; however, one can see that revelation’s aid transforms the philosopher’s attitude toward others. The Platonic view cultivates an indifference towards those mucking around in the cave, while the religious view suggests charity towards one’s neighbor. Christian revelation, which is believed by many to subordinate politics, might actually take it more seriously than Platonic Philosophy in this picture.

Films for the Queue

I was talking to some friends about films and question arose whether there any contemporary ones have anything thoughtful religious themes in them. Here are the ones that came to mind:

The Mission: Robert Joffe has been praised because he raises ethical dilemmas which have no cookie cutter solution to them. The fact the Vatican has put this film on its ‘Greats’ list shows that the Church is not taken aback by the questions it raises.

Gattaca: This is a Sci-Fi film that deals with problems traditional religious believers are especially concerned about. The film takes place in the future in which designer babies (or as I like to say ‘re-designed babies’) are now the norm. A Catholic woman decides to buck the trend and go natural. This God-child, a term meant reference his inferiority, has to compete in a world in which workplaces are only interested in Human Beings 2.0. The film, I suspect, will be seen as more and more prophetic as “science is put in its proper place.”

The Exorcism of Emily Rose: This is not a typical horror film. The priest is not depicted as a wild-eyed shaman, but as a cautious and composed man. The film presents the views of the religious believer and the skeptic, but ultimately sides with the former. Loosely based on a true story.

Signs: Unlike any Aliens movie, the film’s title has a double meaning as the deeper question the film raises is whether coincidences are the evidence of Providence at work or merely the result of random chance. Shymalan shows his familiarity with ID arguments as he forces the viewer to take a stand on the meaning of the final events of the film.

Brideshead Revisited: This is the BBC series, not the recent remake. The director of the 2008 version explicitly rejected the religious elements in the earlier series and wanted to “depict God as a villain.” Evelyn Waugh who wrote the novel, is certainly turning over in his grave on that one. Moving on, Catholicism permeates the story and the popularity of the novel and series in England shows that the anti-Catholicism, which was so virulent in the country, has been mitigated in the last fifty years.

I have left off several contemporary films like Therese, Bella, and Into the Great Silence. This is not because I have not seen them, but because I didn’t like them. In regards to the first two, the filmmakers have dropped the ball when it comes to engaging the culture. The sentimentality, which is rampant in the films, is not a help to the Church and in some instances might even be hindrance.

24’s Tortuous Logic

Last Spring, President Obama released the “Torture Memos” in an effort to close “a dark and painful chapter in our history.” Instead, he reignited a national debate on the issue. Fox’s hit show, 24, incorporates news items like this and for many Americans, provides the framework in which to think about the problem. An espionage series occurring in real time, the show depicts U.S. Government agents combating terrorist threats to the country. With a storyline like that, the show can look at the torture question from a variety of angles and vantage points. The thoughts and emotions of the interrogator, suspect, and victims are all on display for the viewing public to see and discuss. Tonight’s episode will be debated tomorrow at the water cooler.

The most recent season, especially, supplies ammo for both sides. The pro-torture camp can cite the show’s hero Jack Bauer, played by Kiefer Sutherland, who constantly talks about “national security” and “doing what’s necessary.” On the other hand, there are plenty of incidents, from mistaken identities to blowback, which provide fodder for torture opponents. Nevertheless, 24’s attempt to be balanced should mislead the viewer into thinking the show’s writers are neutral; far from it. There is an underlying preference for interrogation techniques so advanced, they would make even Dick Cheney blush. For instance, take this quote from Jack Bauer in the season finale:

“You took an oath. You made a promise to uphold the law. When you cross that line, it always starts off with a small step. Before you know it, you're running as fast as you can in the wrong direction just to justify why you started in the first place. These laws were written by much smarter men than me. And in the end, I know that these laws have to be more important than the 15 people on the bus. I know that's right. In my mind, I know that's right. I just don't think my heart could ever have lived with that. I guess the only advice I can give you is... try to make choices that you can live with.”

Bauer has conceded nothing to the other side up till this point, but he appears to acquiesce, at least partially, to the anti-torture camp. But notice he is placing the burden of proof on them. Jack’s testimony that he could not live with the deaths of innocents is meant to convince the listener of the guilt he would most certainly feel in that situation too. In other words, the person who tortures has a clear conscience while the person who does not will be burdened by guilt. The anti-torture advocate has a hurdle to overcome which the pro-torture defender does not.

What Jack leaves out of the moral equation is the guilt which will come from torturing the suspect. Furthermore, he places the responsibility for the deaths of the innocents on the wrong set of shoulders. The interrogator did not place a bomb on the bus, the terrorist did.

Regardless, this reevaluation of the scenario is still unable to address a host of other problems. The people on the bus are certainly innocent while the suspect probably is not. Moreover, even if the interrogator is not personally responsible for the attack, he will surely feel guilt of some kind. Finally, placing guilt on a set of scales is rather subjective. When the stakes are so high, ‘what your gut tells you’ can be a bit fuzzy. All of these complications suggest scrapping Bauer’s view and looking elsewhere for a solution.

In an earlier episode, the character Jonas Hodges, played by Jon Voight, says the following: “But do not forget that every war worth fighting involves collateral damage. And what we're doing is fundamentally and absolutely necessary.”

Hodges is a villian in the show, but his reasoning is eerily similar to Bauer’s. Both justify ‘necessary’ actions despite the collateral damage which results. Even their situations are similar, something Hodges points out to Bauer. They were both employed by the government to do unsavory things and are now being attacked by that same employer for those very actions. Jack is unable to rebut Hodges’ claim about their similarities, so he simply dismisses it.

Bauer’s defenders would probably argue that Hodges engages in actions Jack would never do, like directly attack innocent civilians. But Jack is open to doing such things, which he demonstrates when he tells FBI Agent Renee Walker to ‘visit’ a guilty Secret Service Agent’s wife and two year old child in order to get the him to reveal critical information. Bauer does not flinch when Walker’s boss, Larry Moss, questions the morality of torturing innocents in the name of the greater good. Even a toddler is not immune to Bauer’s utilitarian calculus. The difference, in the end, between Bauer and Hodges is only a matter of degree; Hodges is willing to attack more innocents.

By displaying Hodges claim and Jack’s curt dismissal of it, the writers hint at the moral equilavence between the show’s hero and villian. This can only be hinted at because most viewers would be unwilling to admire Jack if he was no different from Hodges. This is probably why we never see Jack torture a child or the wrong person. By hearing his words, but not seeing the corresponding deed, the viewer’s disapproval is averted. Traditionally, the line between heroes and villians has been a clear one: there are certain things bad guys will do, which good guys will not. As Larry Moss tells Bauer, “It’s the rules which make us better, Jack.” But more and more, we are seeing writers and directors say that line is fuzzy. From The Dark Knight to 3:10 to Yuma, the traditional division of labor is either called into question or eliminated altogether.

24 does not go that far, but the suggestion is there. The belief that the old distinction no longer suffices is based on the idea that we live in a world more complicated than the one our parents grew up in. The complexity of the world creates situations and dilemmas which were unimaginable before now. This is the justification for why Jack has to do things which we find morally questionable.

Obviously, aspects of this claim are true. The Spanish Inquisitors never had to deal with a ticking time bomb scenario. Modern Technology creates a whole host of possibilities which have never been contemplated before: the number of casualties, the speed of the attack and so on. Yet torture is not new; it is as old as civilization itself. The situations might change, but the principles at stake do not. The questions raised by torture are in the end simple and straightforward: Do the ends justify the means? Is there such a thing as an intrinsically evil act? If so, what particular acts would fall under that category? Is torture one of them? These are the fundamental issues at the heart of the debate. And it does not matter whether we are discussing it in the modern or middle ages.

Obama and Brooks: disciples of Edmund Burke?

Gabriel Sherman discusses the Obama-Brooks bromance in the New Republic today. It turns out both of them are fans of the political philosopher Edmund Burke. (Sam Tanenhaus drew a connection to Obama and Burke in his “Death of Conservatism” article also.) This is surprising because Russell Kirk had crowned Burke the father of modern conservatism. What is it about Burke that could attract these three very different figures?

Burke’s most famous book, Reflections on the Revolutions of France, disavows abstract principles in favor of ‘prescription’ or what we would call tradition. Kirk buys into all of this. Obama and Brooks, on the other hand, are probably interested in the first part-disavowal of principles. President Obama prides himself on being post-partisan and a pragmatist. David Brooks has made a name for himself for NOT being a doctrinaire conservative. Peter Lawler has said about Brooks, “He has the ambiguous title of being the most conservative columnist at the NY Times.”

Burke’s (and Kirk’s) disavowal of principles is the reason why Harry Jaffa has argued against this particular vision of conservatism. Practices presuppose principles and their divorce leaves the former without a guide. The result is the reduction of Burke’s prescription to our current President’s pragmatism. Orginal Burkeans like Kirk opposed innovation; today's Burkeans demand change.

Mad Men are Bad Men

Mad Men is entering its third season and has earned rave reviews from critics. In regards to its cultural commentary, Ross Douthat summarizes a typical liberal view of the show:

Mad Men, she [The Nation’s Anna McCarthy] writes, is "concerned with
demonstrating the progress we've made in gender relations since the alienated
years before the women's movement," and with dramatizing "the disaffection of
midcentury suburbia's 'lonely crowd' and the oppressive expectations of the
feminine mystique," not to mention "the hatefulness of conformist WASP culture.

Since Conservatives usually oppose ‘progress,’ one would expect that they would hate the show; however, Rod Dreher argues, “Surely conservatives don't want to be in the position of defending a social order that degraded women, subordinated blacks…” I hope not. Moreover, Conservatives should contest Gordon Gekko prototype presented in the show. Unfortunately, Gekko is stil popular among many Conservatives today.

The characters in Mad Men want to come across as virtuous (family men who work hard) while in secret they are not (domineering husbands and neglectful parents who are never at their desk). Lacking goodness, they are unhappy too-a point missed by this POMO Cons post.
Don Draper, the show's lead, is an updated version of Fitzgerald's Gatsby. As Thomas Hibbs puts it, he "is the ultimate self-made man, an identity thief who wants to escape from his past." Like Gatsby, we see Draper's divided self as he constantly tries to sustain a myth. The difference between the two is we pity Gatsby, but not Draper. To this point, someone recently told me he stopped watching the show because "there was no one to root for." Whether or not Draper repeats Gatsby's swimming mishap, we can be fairly certain where he will end up.

What's love got to do with it?

David McCullough’s success is the result of his ability to rehabilitate the reputation of Presidents (John Adams, Truman) who have been unpopular for sometime now. His mo is to focus less on their statesmanship, which is controversial, and more on their personal lives, especially their relationship to their wives. Thus, Adams and Truman’s stock with the public has gone up, not because of their handling of public affairs, but because of the love letters they sent their significant others.

McCullough’s book on Adams was made into an award winning series on HBO. The series was actually better than McCullough’s book because it focused more on Adams role in the great events of his time. His relationship with his wife is given less and less attention as the series progresses. And in the last two episodes, which deal with his Vice-Presidency and Presidency, it does not play an important part in the story at all. If McCullough should be praised, then it should be for revealing to Hollywood (and to the Academy) that there is a public who is hungry to learn more about our Founding Fathers. Who knew?

How do you like your heroes?

Whether it is film (Star Trek), television (Battlestar Galactica), or print (Harry Potter), our most recent heroes seem to be made out of the same mold.

1. He is guided by instinct. This isn’t to say the hero is unintelligent. Kirk’s “aptitudes scores are off the charts,” while Starbuck is a flight instructor. Harry does well on his exams, though he only seems to be tested once a year. What is important is that none of them deliberate when they’re in a dilemma. Instead, they instinctively or intuitively react to the situation. Often, they are praised for not thinking. Moreover, they are contrasted with characters who are characterized by their rationality: Spock, Apollo, and Hermione. Notice that none of these other characters are villains. They’re either sidekicks or backups to the heroes. They’re praised for their braininess, but their subordinate status is never in doubt.

2. He has a propensity to break rules. The hero is not a rebel, but he is not an establishment man (e.g. Percy) either. He works within the system-until an emergency arises. This usually annoys the establishment to no end. Spock tells Kirk, “I would cite protocol, but I know you would ignore it.” Starbuck has to be thrown into the brig a few times and Dumbledore actually praises Harry for his rule-breaking. Of course, the rules they break are never moral principles, only legal ones. Legal rules, the product of finite minds, cannot cover all cases. Emergencies reveal the need for practical wisdom or prudence-the ability to judge what solution will work in a unique situation. And it is this ability to think outside of the box which distinguishes the heroes from their supporting cast.

3. He is very young. All of the characters know someone significantly older than them who you would expect to be the actual hero. The cult of youth is at work here, but not in its most pernicious form. Captain Pike, Commander Adama, and Professor Dumbledore are all portrayed as venerable, yet they are never on center stage. Pike’s self-sacrifice is noble, but Kirk has to rescue him. Adama orders others around while Starbuck is in the battle. Dumbledore usually shows up at the end of the final scene to clean things up. They’re never in the thick of it, like the youngsters are. The celebration of youth is clear, although mild.

The “If only” school

Its tough being a Commie because the most famous instantiation of your philosophy, the Soviet Union, produced the Show Trials, Gulag, and Berlin Wall. You’re not going to win any popularity contests that way.

Consequently, the Red strategy is to argue that Stalin’s Russia was a distortion of Marxist-Leninism. “If only,” they say, “Trotsky had been in charge, then we would have seen the humane face of Communism.” The thuggish Stalin had the sophisticated Trotsky killed so the true teaching was never implemented.

Robert Service and Christopher Hitchens look into this claim on Uncommon Knowledge. Service argues that Trotsky would have been more aggressive than Stalin in pushing Communism globally. For Trotsky, the Cold War would have heated up as he would have disposed of the proxies and just invaded the countries directly. The topic is an interesting one because it bears upon the question of whether Communism should be taken seriously as an option today. And Chavez seems to be persuading many Latin Americans that it is viable as they “lurch to the left.”

Internet's porn problem

That it is a problem is not a self-evident proposition to readers of The Atlantic Monthly. Fortunately, Ross Douthat is brave enough to engage them on this issue. He makes a series of arguments obliterating the fantasy-reality distinction which Libertarians hide behind. Unfortunately, his attack stops there as he concludes the piece taking a realist “put-up with it” position.

I wonder, however, if his realism is really just a form of resignation. He concedes too many arguments in the second half of the article. For example, he thinks that there is no correlation between porn use and violence. But Paul Hunker, an U.S. government attorney, has reported that thousands have been arrested because of this very thing. Douthat also seems to think that the Internet cannot regulated. Like David Rowan, he thinks censoring the Internet is “like trying to catch the wind.” Yet Michael Cook has discusses how many countries are working on the problem. Australia’s “internet traffic has to pass through a handful of “pipelines” which could be filtered.” Malaysia recently signed a contract with Internet Traffic to filter their websites. And Harvard Law School reports that Iran “has one of the most sophisticated government filtering systems in the world.” (Usually, I do not cite Iran for examples of good governance, but just because it is bad in some things, that doesn’t mean its bad in all things. Thinking only in black and white categories, like U.S. is the Great Satan, is exactly what we fault Muslim Fundamentalists for.)

Anyway, this is where the debate needs to go. Constant technological innovations suggest an effective filtering device could be created. There just has to be a market for it. The only reason there isn’t one is because of the fatalist tendency of good guys like Douthat on this question. Where there is market, there is way.

Tocqueville on the recent Town Hall Meetings.

The debate over National Healthcare took a new turn as a series of Town hall meetings heated up as constituents challenged their representatives over the matter. Tocqueville would have been delighted to see these meetings being used a vehicle to express public opinion and encourage citizens to engage civic affairs:

Town meetings are to liberty what primary schools are to science; they bring it
within the people's reach, they teach men how to use and how to enjoy it. A
nation may establish a free government, but without municipal institutions it
cannot have the spirit of liberty.

Policymakers should take these episodes seriously in regards to discerning the public mood on the Health Care issue, especially if they want to get reelected next term.

Political Science, Ancient and Modern

Peter Robinson’s recent interview with Harry Jaffa has inspired me to reread his magisterial work, Crisis of the House Divided: An Interpretation of the Issues of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates. In the work, he practices a political science in which the purpose is to study the words and deeds of statesmen. For Jaffa, a student of politics should study the rhetoric, oratory, and diplomacy of the great figures of the past. Anyone who has taken a course in political science will tell you that this is NOT what you will do in a typical course in the subject today. That doesn’t mean Jaffa’s method is new, but rather old, or better yet, classical. He wants a return to classical political philosophy.

This approach was rejected by Alexander Hamilton in favor of our current science:

The science of politics, however, like most other sciences, has received great
improvement. The efficacy of various principles is now well understood, which
were either not known at all, or imperfectly known to the ancients. The regular
distribution of power into distinct departments; the introduction of legislative
balances and checks; the institution of courts composed of judges holding their
offices during good behavior; the representation of the people in the
legislature by deputies of their own election: these are wholly new discoveries,
or have made their principal progress towards perfection in modern times.

Hamilton is overstating his case in regards to the ancients being unaware of procedural devices; nevertheless, it is true the emphasis was not on ‘mechanisms’ like Checks and Balances.

After two hundred years though, there have been plenty of events to suggest the classical method should still have a role in political science. Every great crisis (The Revolutionary War, Civil War, and the Great Depression etc) required a great statesman to steer us through it. Even our current dilemmas, Iraq and the Fiscal Crisis, reveal the consequences of poor leadership. A return to study of statesmanship might be in order.

Is John Rocker mad or bad?

This MercatorNet article talks about how the APA (American Psychiatric Association) plans to expand the category of mental disorder to include lust, greed, and gluttony. These habits were traditionally considered to be vices to be reformed and not disorders to be treated.

Another example which illustrates the author’s thesis is when the racist baseball player John Rocker was asked by the MLB Commissioner to see a psychiatrist i.e. racism is a psychological, not a moral, problem. Whether his comments were mentally disturbed or immoral will affect how we perceive, and thus evaluate, his words: Should Rocker lie on a couch, pop pills, or be held accountable for his actions?

'National Greatness' Conservatives and their Golden Calf

Patrick Deneen has noticed that many conservatives of late have been talking about reigniting our space program and sending someone to Mars. He sees all of this talk about grand projects as mistaken because it diverts attention away from our inability to live together here.

Besides the current Mars talk, another example that people have become enamored with 'grand' projects is David Brooks' notion of national greatness conservatism. Fellow Neo-Cons followed suit and after 9/11 put forward the project of democratizing the Middle East.

I wonder if the desire to undertake grand projects is the result of Michael Novak’s “empty shrine.” Proponents of Liberal Democracy argue that the shrine (society’s governing ideal) must be empty because we live in a pluralistic society. But if the desire to worship or at least submit oneself to an ideal is natural, then we shouldn’t be surprised to see the shrine filled with all sort of extravagant projects. If Moses does not deliver God’s commandments in time, then the people will have their Golden Calf in his stead.

Lincoln-Douglas Debates on moral relativism

Walk into any Barnes and Noble and you are bound to run into a book display celebrating the 200th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth. Unfortunately, a book you will not find in that collection is Harry Jaffa’s Crisis of the House Divided: An Interpretation of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, which was published fifty years ago. Jaffa was recently on Uncommon Knowledge and he talked about what originally drew him to him this debate. What Lincoln and Douglas are ultimately arguing about is whether morals are relative or absolute. Or to put it in Jaffa’s words, “Do the people make the moral law or does the moral law make the people?”

Take Douglas, for instance. His “popular sovereignty” argument is that slavery’s existence is simply a matter for the people in each state to vote up or down. And since the people's will is never unanimous, might or the majority makes right. This is just a variation of the doctrine of moral relativism which states that moral principles are a product of the people’s will. Thus morals are subjective and will vary from place to place which is why Douglas believes popular soveriengty is the solution to the slavery issue.

In contrast, Lincoln argued that the equality principle, embodied in the Declaration of Independence, is made by God, not man. The approval of slavery is a failure to live up to the moral law. This is a textbook presentation of moral absolutism.

What is especially interesting is how moral relativism is applied today. Cultural Liberals, who believe history is moving toward greater and greater freedom, usually presuppose moral relativism when arguing for their causes: abortion, gay marriage, etc. Yet they would think Lincoln, not Douglas, belongs in their pantheon of heroes. If the L-D Debates reveal anything, it is that such Progressives should reevaluate their first principles. The rock of moral absolutism can better secure human rights than the shifting sands of moral relativism.

Out of Town

I'm taking off for a week to get out of town so my blogging will have to be in hiatus until then.

Eastwood's Straw Men

Having just watched Gran Torino, I was surprised to find Eastwood taking another shot at the Catholic Church. The last one was Million Dollar Baby, which drew a lot of controversy over its message over euthanasia. In both films Eastwood plays a cantankerous old man who bullies a young, inexperienced priest. He always gets the better of the conversation, leaving the Priest slack-jawed.

If he means it as simply a ribbing, then the films would not have anti-Catholic animus I am suggesting. But in both movies he engages the priests in a serious conversation and at a crucial moment in the story. And both times Catholicism is depicted negatively.

In Million Dollar Baby Eastwood’s character, Frankie Dunn, has to decide whether he will euthanize a loved one (Hilary Swank’s character). He goes to the priest, Fr. Horvak, for advice. At this point the viewer might think the previous conversations were not to be taken seriously since Frankie sought Fr. Horvak and not the other way around. Moreover, he would expect Fr. Horvak, as a representative for Catholicism, to explain the Church’s teaching on euthanasia. Instead, he says, “Forget about God or heaven and hell. If you do this thing, you'll be lost. Somewhere so deep you'll never find yourself again.” A professed agnostic couldn’t have said it better himself. The implied standard is the autonomous individual and being “true to yourself.”

In light of this scene, I can see why Michael Medved argued that the film’s story is just a cover for a pro-euthanasia tract. The Catholic Church is the most visible and vocal opponent of euthanasia so putting a priest in such a conversation and then distorting the Church’s teaching is one way to get people to come around on the issue; A dishonest way, but a way nevertheless.

Gran Torino, Eastwood’s most recent film, deals with gang violence. He plays Walt Kowalski, an old man in a crime infested neighborhood who decides to do something about the violence. Having made fun of the priest, Father Janovich, the entire film, Walt wants to go to confession with him before he faces the local gang. Again, the viewer might think the earlier conversations between the two did not really reflect Walt’s intentions since he is willing to confess to Fr. Janovich now. But his confession turns out to be a big joke as his list of sins is so insignificant that Fr. Janovich becomes disgusted with him. During the entire film, Janovich has suspected Walt has been hiding something and he is right about that. Walt killed an unarmed man in the Korean War and received a medal for it. The guilt has plagued him ever since. Unfortunately, he confesses that to Thao, the boy he is mentoring, not Fr. Janovich. And the reason for that is obvious: he doesn’t take the “Padre” and his Church seriously. To add insult to injury, Eastwood puts these words in Fr. Janovich’s mouth at the end of the film: “Walt definitely had no problem calling it like he saw it. But he was right. I knew really nothing about life or death, until I got to know Walt... and boy, did I learn.” The young priest is taught how the world really works by the seasoned stoic. Humility is a virtue, but at the very least Eastwood could have depicted the Padre with some self-respect.

The Opium Wars & Drug Legalization

MercatorNet has an excellent article outlining the history of the Chinese Opium Wars. What I want to focus on here is the last stage of the history. Due to the Treaty of Tientsin in 1858, China was forced to legalize the importation of opium which eventually led to the domestic production of the drug. Here is the result:

The prevalence of opium consumption in China skyrocketed in the 19th century,
from about 3 million opium smokers in the 1830s, to 15 million opium addicts by
1890, or about 3 percent of the population at the time. According to the Chinese
delegation to the International Opium Commission of Shanghai (1909), this
increased to about 21.5 million by 1906. Others put the number close to 40
million people in 1890, or about 10 percent of the population, growing to
unknown levels from there. According to official Chinese figures, opium
consumption affected 23.3 percent of the male adult population and 3.5 percent
of the female adult population of China in 1906. Other estimates ranged from 13
percent to 27 percent for the male adult population of the country. By any
estimate, China was consuming between 85 percent and 95 percent of global opium
supply at the beginning of the 20th century. Never before or since has the world
known a drug problem of this scale and intensity.

Drug Legalization led to a proliferation in its use. This seems to be a rather obvious fact and a reader might wonder why the author chose to belabor the point with so many statistics. It might be because this obvious fact is not so obvious to many today. I have come across several people who deny this claim, though it seems self-evident to me.

Millennials on Marriage: "Not Yet"

James Poulos has pointed out an interesting debate between Ben Domenech and Conor Friedersdorf over why Millenials are waiting to get married later than earlier generations.

Here is Ben:

But I say the simplest answer is true: American men today delay the act of

reproduction and union because they devalue it. Because technology and culture
(today, technology is culture) unite to encourage them to devalue it — to favor
distraction over maturity, personal growth over familial growth, and self over
society.

Conor offers a different set of motives: 1) Today’s women are focused on their careers. 2) Parents want to offer their children every material advantage, just like their own parents did. 3) They want to avoid a divorce, which was pervasive in the previous generation.

Ben’s response to the first point is that more and more women today are leaving the workforce. My response to the second point is that Boomers spoiled us when they did that, hence the term 'Trophy Kids'. And the third point I am willing to grant. But I would develop Ben’s argument about the “self over society.” Tocqueville describes it terms of love of material well being (we call it consumerism):

To build enormous palaces, to conquer or to mimic nature, to ransack the world
in order to gratify the passions of a man, is not thought of, but to add a few
yards of land to your field, to plant an orchard, to enlarge a dwelling, to be
always making life more comfortable and convenient, to avoid trouble, and to
satisfy the smallest wants without effort and almost without cost. These are
small objects, but the soul clings to them; it dwells upon them closely and day
by day, till they at last shut out the rest of the world and sometimes intervene
between itself and heaven.

The ubiquity of McMansions and dozens of creature comforts is another reason why Millennials delay marriage and children. Families weigh us down as we try to climb the economic ladder. Tocqueville decried this comfort-seeking mentality and believed it would make us soft. Borrowing an argument from Peter Lawler, I would point out the inevitability of death and how it forces us to reevaluate our priorities. Lying in your deathbed has a way of changing your outlook on things, especially when it comes to how you lived your life. Better to take that perspective now than later.