Wage Slave by Day, Gentleman by Night

In the debate between Liberal and Practical Arts (Business, Science, Engineering), the Tocquevillian position would be to see truth and error on both sides.

In an Aristocracy, Liberal Arts was originally an education for a “Free” man. Free meant being free from work. Of course, that is because others did the work for him.

In a Democracy, the hereditary aristocracy is abolished so that commoners would be free. But all that really means is we all have to work now. Even the supposed natural aristocracy of the Americans (Gates, Buffet, etc.) have to work long, hard hours too. Americans of all stripes must labor to feed, shelter and clothe their bodies. Majoring in a trade then is necessary.

But we’re more than just bodies. And so thinking about how to acquire food, shelter, and clothing for our family, while necessary, is insufficient. We also have to think hard about politics, culture, and religion too. As that jobless Socrates once said, “The point is not to live, but live well.” Which means we have to study the Liberal Arts. Basics, the first two years of college, have been watered down in a variety of ways: AP Tests, Dual Credit, and substitute courses (Business Ethics can replace the Introduction to Philosophy class). Revitalizing those courses coupled with lifetime learning ought to do the trick. Indeed, the popularity of businesses like The Teaching Company reveal that man cannot live by bread alone.

Friend Request

Aaron Sorkin and David Fincher present us with a look at the Millenials in their film, The Social Network.

David Brooks summarizes the film's backdrop:

In “The Social Network,” the director David Fincher and the screenwriter Aaron Sorkin imagine that these two Harvards still exist side by side. On top, there is the old WASP Harvard of Mayflower families, regatta blazers and Anglo-Saxon cheekbones. Underneath, there is the largely Jewish and Asian Harvard of brilliant but geeky young strivers.

Ideals like Honor animated “the Greatest Generation” and can be seen in the WASP's of Harvard. One of the WASP’s in the film says they will not attack the strivers because “we are gentleman of Harvard.” Unfortunately, the film shows the strivers outfoxing the WASP’s.

Eduardo Saverin, one of the strivers, fits Brooks’ description of an “Organization Kid.” He is obedient, hard-working, and a careerist. But he is also a “flat soul” as Allan Bloom described in The Closing of the American Mind. He is not inspired by anything really greater than himself. He is a faint shadow of the WASP's.

That his best friend would be Mark Zuckerberg in the film should not be surprising then. Zuckerberg is like the Organization Kids in all ways except one: he is disobedient (Facemash) and disloyal (stabs Saverin in the back). He is more consistent than Saverin because he realizes friendship is out the window too when there are no principles guiding one’s life. Lacking any anchor in family, church, or tradition, Zuckerberg’s individualism (selfishness) reigns supreme; however, the last scene suggests Zuckerberg pays the heaviest price of all. He is on his labtop, sitting in the dark, hitting the refresh button over and over, hoping a girl will accept his friend request. His pettiness causes him to be alone, wishing he has friends.

The film shows the degeneration of the college elite: honor bound Winklevii to the loyal Saverin to the machiavellian Zuckerberg.

Guess who's coming to dinner?

Men today are more sensitive and likely to help their wives with the kids and housework. They have clearly changed from the patriarchal men who we see portrayed in Mad Men. We’ve gone from Don Draper to Ross and Chandler in Friends. (Or Jim from The Office for our current TV watchers.) Feminism and Political Correctness, both children of the Sexual Revolution, have made women’s lives better in this regard.

On the other hand, it has also given us Joey, or worse, his alter-ego, Tucker Max. The Sexual Revolution has to take the blame for him since his type isn’t possible without the Pill and the corresponding celebration of Libertinism. Mad Men shows us that Don Draper had such proclivities, but was restrained by the public shame such behavior would receive. Women’s lives today are much worse in this regard.

We live in a time in which men are told to be sensitive to be women's needs, while bombarding them with images which can only desensitive them.

Be very afraid...

That is the underlying subtext of Mark Lilla’s piece titled “Reading Strauss in Beijing” in the New Republic. Lilla says many of his Chinese Graduate Students are interested in reading Leo Strauss and Carl Schmitt. They want to study these philosophers so they can implement these ideas in China. Unfortunately, Strauss and Schmitt were critical of modern ideas we all take for granted today e.g. democracy, separation of church and state, free markets etc. He implies these thinkers were fascist or at least had fascist sympathies. Modern Liberals should put them in the ‘scary’ category along with Neocon (Bush’s) foreign policy and the Medieval Catholic Church.

A minor point in the article is that Strauss was interested in Jewish and Islamic political philosophy, but not Christian. Lilla does not explain why but I think it is because Christianity makes a distinction between church and state (Render unto Caesar...) which is useless to Strauss who wants to make religion a means to a political end. Judaism and Islam are more amenable to civil religion than Christianity. If Strauss was a fascist, then Christians would not be his natural allies.

Neocons: New Deal Conservatives

In this debate with Congressman Paul Ryan, David Brooks argues that the debate over the size of government is misguided; the central question should be the effect on character of the citizenry. For this reason, he is okay with FDR’s New Deal, but not LBJ’s Great Society. Social Security did not corrupt character the way welfare did.

Irving Kristol, the godfather of neoconservatism, also distinguished himself from other conservatives in his arguments against the Welfare State. The criticism made by mainstream conservatives was the Welfare State was either inefficient, unconstitutional, or both. Kristol said, the welfare created dependency among its recipients. The perverse incentives had an immoral effect on the lives of the indigent.

Brooks ends his speech by saying all Conservatives want to turn back the clock; they just disagree about how far they want to go back. For example, Tea Partiers want to go back to the Founding. Claremonsters want to remove the Progressive Era (Founders + Lincoln alone). Brooks himself would draw the line at 1965.

For him, what matters is not the color of your skin, nor the size of the government, but the content of your character.

Pomo Cons and Neocons: Making their peace w/ Big Gov’t

Distinguishing himself from mainstream American conservatism, Pomo Con Peter Lawler joins Neocons like David Brooks by arguing that safety nets such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are constitutional. In this post, he explains that while it might be “manly” to brush off the government’s help, such a position will not win elections.

Of course, a policy’s popularity does not mean it is necessarily constitutional. Or does it? Even the Originalist Scalia says he accepts the New Deal’s (and I suspect the Great Society’s) programs. He gives a three pronged criteria for why he accepts it, but not decisions like Roe v. Wade, Casey v. Planned Parenthood, and Lawrence v. Texas:

1) plausible

2) popular

3) easy to apply

The 2^nd criterion is a variation of what Lawler mentioned. The New Deal and Great Society programs were popular at the time they were passed. Moreover, they were passed by the LEGISLATURE. On the other hand, the Roe and the subsequent cases were and still continue to be controversial decisions. The Culture War questions are not settled and can still be contested. But some form of a welfare state will be with us for the foreseeable future and it is time to make peace with that fact.

Mainstream Conservatives are not satisfied with turning back the clock 40 years; for them it is double or nothing, as the debate below reveals. Paul Ryan, a rising star in the Republican Party, is debating Neocon David Brooks on limited v. energetic government:

Publius on Wikileaks

Wikileaks publication of State Department documents has caused an interesting debate over the necessity of government secrecy v. the public’s right to know. The Federalist Papers discuss this topic in some depth:

It seldom happens in the negotiation of treaties, of whatever nature, but that perfect secrecy and immediate despatch are sometimes requisite. These are cases where the most useful intelligence may be obtained, if the persons possessing it can be relieved from apprehensions of discovery. Those apprehensions will operate on those persons whether they are actuated by mercenary or friendly motives; and there doubtless are many of both descriptions, who would rely on the secrecy of the President, but who would not confide in that of the Senate, and still less in that of a large popular Assembly.

Publius would say the release of the documents will discourage foreign diplomats from speaking frankly to the U.S. State Department in the future.

Harvey Mansfield summarizes another Federalist passage on the topic:

Unity facilitates "decision, activity, secrecy, and dispatch." Note secrecy in this list. Secrecy is necessary to government yet almost incompatible with the rule of law (the exception being when congressional committees meet in "executive," i.e. secret, session). Yet secrecy is compatible with responsibility because, when one person is responsible, it does not matter how he arrives at his decision. To blame or reward him, one does not have to enter into "the secret springs of the transaction," as would be necessary if responsibility were shared.

Whatever discussions went on between President Obama and foreign officials about Iran is ultimately irrelevant. What matters is the final product, the policy he endorses in the end. So it doesn’t matter that the Saudi King asked the President to “cut the head of the snake” since he did not do so.

The last argument is from me. The New York Times is providing the megaphone for Wikileaks on this story. By the Times own admission, it has not released everything:

The question of dealing with classified information is rarely easy, and never to be taken lightly. Editors try to balance the value of the material to public understanding against potential dangers to the national interest. As a general rule we withhold secret information that would expose confidential sources to reprisals or that would reveal operational intelligence that might be useful to adversaries in war. We excise material that might lead terrorists to unsecured weapons material, compromise intelligence-gathering programs aimed at hostile countries, or disclose information about the capabilities of American weapons that could be helpful to an enemy.

The criteria it has used for deciding what documents to release and what to hold back is ‘national security.’ Obviously, this is the same criterion used by the State Department for not releasing ANY of the documents. Who is a better judge on this matter? Who has training, and more importantly experience, on this matter? Let’s even grant the State Department has self-interested motives for not releasing the documents. Does that mean the The New York Times doesn’t? What makes journalists so disinterested?