Paul’s very thoughtful post about balancing political passion and pragmatism in an academic career (see below) made me think of two things, which are somewhat orthogonal to the thesis of the post, and so I post these separately.
First, he raises the very important question about mission, saying that he’d rather have the chance to critique the views of his friends than to attack those of his enemies. This makes good sense to me. However, after the stir the posts this past week about gender and the academy created, one thoughtful commentator said, in effect, why is the Left so intent on cannibalizing itself when there serious bad guys to defeat. It was, at the time, an important question to me, and remains so.
Nonetheless — and putting aside the question of the purported leftism of this blog, which is in reasonable dispute — I suppose I’m more interested in creating a space where we’re not on the attack, but rather, as Michael Walzer once wrote, “just trying to get the arguments right.” Sometimes that’s attack, and sometimes it’s retreat, and sometimes it’s coddle and reflect. There is room for political antagonism in the blogosphere, but I doubt this will be the space for it.
In that vein, this should be a place for serious discussion, but also for some levity, which is the second point Paul’s post raised for me. Has the Center-Left lost its sense of humor? When did it happen?
I suppose Wonkette, Al Franken and Jon Stewart, among others, have tried to help us recover it in popular media, but I wonder if others have also basically stopped reading Wonkette and watching the Daily Show since the election ended. Have we lost the Hobbesian strategy of using humor to deflate the pretensions of our interlocutors, if not ourselves?
This flight from levity may be reasonable. The nation is at war with a loathsome enemy that many liberals refuse to acknowledge — and at the same time has conducted this war with seriously disturbing methods — while the leadership of the country fails to call for sacrifice from the public much beyond continued consumption. Domestically, myopia plagues this administration as much as avarice. So there is lots to be worried about, and I’m not sure where levity can be found, under the circumstances.
Any thoughts Paul? Others?
Posted by Administrators on April 18, 2005 at 10:36 AM
Comments
Hmm…I like the idea of a space to “get the arguments right” for the American Left. Many commentators have characterized the 2004 election as the beginning of our own period of out-of-power reflection, analagous to what the Republican Party experienced between 1960 and 1968. During this period, so the story goes, the conservative party turned inward to debate its goals, political strategy, and philosophy, and laid the foundation for its victories over liberalism in the eighties and nineties.
Bill Bradley, in an op-ed in the NYT, recently noted that the Right has a much stronger organizational structure than the Left; its various subdivisions are more cohesive, its think-tanks are more prominent, its financial resources are greater, its support structure for political candidates is better, and its use of cutting-edge political tecniques (direct mail, 10 years ago…and the use of marketing-style niche targeting, in this past election) is better. Perhaps this blog, and others like it, can serve as a small link in a nascent liberal structure that will help our long-term political chances.
That said, let’s look at our approach. To put it bluntly (and quickly), I think that any focus on advancing a culturally liberal agenda is likely to do us more harm than good politically. I think this explains my reticence to argue and re-argue about issues such as many of those raised in the feminism/academia post. Quite frankly, 75% (or more) of Americans (including myself) view the nuclear family as the bedrock of society. Advocating approaches that drastically affect the nuclear family will only bring electoral defeat upon our liberal heads. In a similar vein, I would like to downplay the Democratic Party’s emphasis on issues such as abortion, LGBT rights, and school prayer. Instead, I think liberals would be better served with a renewed emphasis on our economic and social policies.
Hopefully people won’t be too mad that my post is mainly a re-hash of “What’s the Matter with Kansas”…
Posted by: Jeff V. | Apr 18, 2005 7:44:15 PM