They can see it. They can smell it. They can touch it. But they do not fully comprehend it. That being said, there are Democrats who do understand but it is their leadership and the activists who are running the party and it is to them whom I refer.
Posted on 04/19/2005 5:19:42 AM PDT by pabianice
Contempt for religion costs Democrats more than votes
8 One day in January I was meeting with a longtime friend, a smart and experienced publisher, and we were talking about the recent election and the inauguration. My friend was shaking his head, as many Americans have been doing since election day, wondering why so many people voted for Bush when it did not seem to be in their economic interest to do so. I said that I thought I understood, and that it was Harold Bloom’s engaging, provocative, sometimes wacky book The American Religion, among other things, that had helped me see more clearly why Republicans are victorious and secure and Democrats are defeated and unsure. Like Nixon and China, Bloom and religion are the least predictable of pairs. But Bloom did what few have done: he inhaled practically every word written about American religious life; he read nearly every page produced by the leaders and promoters of Mormonism, Christian Science, Seventh-day Adventism, Pentecostalism, and other sects. And he tried to come to grips with the unique dynamic and appeal of American expressions of faith.
My understanding did not begin with Bloom’s book. It began where Bloom taught, at Yale, in 1967—a time and place where George Bush, John Kerry, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and others all crossed paths. I wrote about that period in a piece called “The Tribes of Yale,” which the Village Voice published in the summer of 2003, about a year before the national election. What I experienced at Yale—and never forgot—was not just the haughtiness of the rich on the right (which I expected), but the contempt and superiority of the newly emerging elite on the left...
(Excerpt) Read more at bostonreview.net ...
WOW...what a GREAT READ!! Thanks for posting.
Excellent article. The contempt Democrats have for the beliefs most Americans hold is far and away their biggest handicap.
The author makes excellent points about the dichotomy involving the fact that individuals need institutions that can partially shelter them from the storms of the market. The big problem is that the only such institutions liberals seem to be able to imagine are those of a pretty thoroughly discredited past, and invariably involve coercion of the individual.
Institutions that allow people to pool their power voluntarily are what is needed.
Curiously, at the end of the piece, the author goes into a little flip where he seems to walk away from the logical foundation he has just built and turn into a Democrat again.
It turns out he can't imagine a country driven by people who are united by their belief in individual effectiveness. He thinks it's impossible. Like a Liberal Democrat, he doesn't trust their competence to think for themselves, just because they're ordinary folks. I think he is overlooking the evidence of his senses (and ours) of the cohesion we have seen—in the armed forces, in the joint actions of talk-radio listeners, home schoolers, bloggers, Freepers, and volunteer campaigners for Bush—of all these non-elites whom he doesn't think can survive the economy of individuals.
He does great work here, but his conclusion is not supported by the rest of his piece, or by reality.
Oddly enough, the institutions of the future he says we need (and I more or less agree) to help protect individuals may be evolving from exactly the groups you mention.
He recognizes that the old paradigm of trade union, political party, and ethnic group power is being replaced by individual empowerment, and that the idea of a personal relationship with the Divine is a major part and indicator of that conversion. But at the end he seems to miss the fact that this is a positive and not a negative change. He remains nostalgic for what he admits was a divisive and corrupt system which forced people to go along to get along.
Still, there is more perception and apparently sincere thought in what this fellow wrote than in a thousand typical screeds by other writers of his political persuasion.
They can see it. They can smell it. They can touch it. But they do not fully comprehend it. That being said, there are Democrats who do understand but it is their leadership and the activists who are running the party and it is to them whom I refer.
"It turns out he can't imagine a country driven by people who are united by their belief in individual effectiveness. He thinks it's impossible. Like a Liberal Democrat, he doesn't trust their competence to think for themselves, just because they're ordinary folks. I think he is overlooking the evidence of his senses (and ours) of the cohesion we have seen—in the armed forces, in the joint actions of talk-radio listeners, home schoolers, bloggers, Freepers, and volunteer campaigners for Bush—of all these non-elites whom he doesn't think can survive the economy of individuals."
You've touched on a significant insight that also explains why "intellectuals" and "elites", since the early days of classical liberalism, have never been inclined to support free market "laissez faire" approaches to economic theory. The idea that "the invisible hand" or "creative destruction" moves markets to achieve the greatest efficiencies and, thus, the greatest good, through the multitudinous decisions made by billions of individuals each and every day, beyond the ability of any centralized governmental entity to control and direct, is anathema to these people, regardless of the evidence of hundreds of years of experience.
I dunno....if both the state and corporations have large amounts of power, they will try to corrupt the market and undermine freedom in their own interest.
Bush correctly sees that the government has too much power and control, but his solution does not consist of shrinking the government. Nor does he see any need to diminish the power of corporations.
Yes.He gets so much right, then he turns into Lyndon Johnson at the end.
The thing you have to understand about Democrats is that liberals are fascinated by the impersonal Great Idea. The idea that there is a top-down, One Best Solution which the government can identify and impose. And which the masses of little people can all just accept and benefit from.
That isn't reality. One of the best ways to understand that is to look at your furniture. You selected it for your family, and you bought it new - or, even more ideosyncratically, you paid top dollar for antique furniture. You could have picked up furniture which was entirely servicable at a tenth of the price or less, used, but you didn't. You went into the showrooms and looked around until you settled on something which best suited what you thought your living room would look like. And ultimately the leftist project is a fantasy of imposing "efficient" fabrication of the furniture "you need."
It is a sterile concept. The leftist masks that sterility by use (abuse, really) of words such as "social" and "public" - but ultimately leftists never mean anything else by those words than "government." Thus, LBJ's "Great Society" program was nothing other than a conceit that he would create a great government. "Socialism" is nothing but governmentism - all too clearly, if expressed that way, tyranny.
A fascinating piece, well worth the time. I think it's especially provocative because of the way it ends--in a critique of individualism, especially the individualistic appraoch he sees in the Bush Ownership Society program. It's a very "Catholic" approach, certainly one that relies heavily on Catholic social teaching. This is the kind of political discourse we ought to be having--instead of the hateful name-calling the Dems generally have substituted for it.
You are correct. I think this is due to the fact that the author has indeed studied this issue quite diligently. So diligently in fact that he really comes very close to being able to draw correct conclusions. However, in being close to drawing an accurate conclusion he demonstrates how far away he actually is.
It seems the author had his nose pressed tightly against the glass as he closely observed guys like Pastor Joel Osteen, or interacted with the Moody Bible student in Chicago. But the author demonstrates that while he observed intently, he never actually participated in the spiritual offer conveyed by Pastor Osteen, and therein lies the reason for missing an accurate, insightful conclusion.
The author seems to grasp many things, but then when pressed for a conclusion he makes what appears to be forced conjectures because he simply does not know what to really make of all this.
Jesus said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No man comes to the Father except through Me."
The author comes very close to grasping this point, but in the end he does not make that transition through faith that is necessary to provide the insight he appears to be seeking.
ping to read later, looks quite good so far. "the Tribes of Yale" most intriguing.
ping for later
LOL! Great post.
I think you nailed my own opinion exactly. While I can agree that these "modern" times are quite disconcerting to a number of people, I still believe that moving control back to the people holds the maximum benefit for all. Gov. solutions are the wrong way to go.
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