Christopher Owens with a review of a book that helps reference the decline of Modern American society. 

 

With Robin di Angelo's race baiting White Fragility now topping bestseller lists, the times we live in can be infuriating to reasonable people. How did we get ourselves into such an ideological mess? Especially one where the way to overcome racism is to admit to crimes you have not committed i.e. admit to being racist.

Thankfully, there are sensible articles and books still being published, but the time has come to educate oneself in a way not seen since your school days. We must be able to examine these times, the issues and the roots behind them in order to move forward and not fall into traps prepared by the wokerati.

First published in 2018, The Once and Future Liberal has two functions. Not only does it give us a trajectory on which to reference the decline of modern American society, but it also examines how the paths taken by both the right and the left have led us here.

Beginning by lambasting the hopes of liberals in a political system that has produced four terms for Democratic presidents since 1980, Mark Lilla spells it out in stark language when he writes that:

Liberals have become America's ideological third party, lagging behind self-declared independents and conservatives, even among young voters and certain minority groups, We have been repudiated in no uncertain terms. Donald Trump the man is, frankly, not the greatest of our worries. And if we don't look beyond him there is very little hope for us.

Lilla then goes on to break down recent American history into two distinct periods: the Roosevelt Dispensation (lasting, roughly from 1945 to 1980) and the Reagan Dispensation (from 1980 to the present day). These are important to mark because, Lilla argues, we see how America shifted from being a kind of collective enterprise among its citizens post WWII into an individualistic capital gain, helped along the way by liberals retreating into identity politics and universities while conservatives went their way into influencing politics.

This demonstrates a simple, but telling, difference between the two camps: the belief in Republican circles is that the role of president is ultimately that of a figurehead (hence Republican view strength as being in control at local and state levels) whereas Democrats view the president as a kind of father figure who will solve everything with an illegible squiggle at the bottom of a legal document, explaining why they put all their energy into presidential campaigns.

Immediately, it's easy to spot the major flaw in this line of liberal/Democrat thinking: what about Congress and the Senate? Aren't they important as well? Hence why, whenever the likes of Clinton and Obama don't live up to expectations, the sniping from the left wing of the Democrats become much more visceral. Although Republicans have a wide array of supporters themselves, they seem to understand the importance of unity in public. Probably from watching Democrats tear themselves apart as they are doing at the moment.

Moving on to discuss the concept of the personal being political emerging from a king of political romanticism that:

... strangely ... had its roots in the same time and place as Reaganism: the affluent new suburbs of the 1950's. We live with two idealised images of that world ... favoured by the right, good paying jobs and modern technology gave Americans unprecedented prosperity and well being ...The other image, favoured by the left, is that of an air conditioned nightmare in which men commuted to work (and drank too much), women puttered around the house (and popped pills) ... children in cowboy hats pretended to murder one another (transferring their hatred of their parents onto their playmates).

I'm sure you're very familiar with both images. They are incredibly potent, it has to be said: the concept of modernity vs. the dark underbelly that this promotes. Although Lilla dismisses the both of them as very useful myths, he pinpoints this period as being one of an identity crisis: when everything was seemingly perfect for the American middle class, some began to question their existence (heavily influenced by the French existentialists) and ended up joining organisations like the Catholic Charismatic Renewal.

This was the beginning of the generational conflict of the 1960's. While parents, happy to have survived the Second World War, were busy enjoying prosperity, their off springs (who had never known war) were pondering the meaning of life.

Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

The key issue, as Lilla examines in painful detail, is that the melding of the personal and political created a new type of activist. One who fought for civil rights for black Americans and opposed the Vietnam War, but also one who indulged in drug taking and appropriating Eastern mysticism for their own ends. These were the people who, as the 1970's progressed, started to focus more on infiltrating universities and building up an ideologically pure autonomous zone which was environmentally friendly, socially aware and intellectual.

Notice the lack of concern for, or connection to, the working class? As the post-war Roosevelt Dispensation began to collapse due to changing times, the same activists were fretting over identity politics than looking at inner city decay and job losses. Hence why, when Reagan was elected, America really was reborn into a place of individual prosperity. And all these so called 'radicals' could offer was a further retreat into identity politics.

Lilla is plainly exasperated by this self-defeating attitude among his tribe, arguing that it is merely Reaganomics in reverse, and much more self-destructive. He offers a description of a typical college town which seems very pleasant, if bourgeois, until he mentions the lack of anything resembling a working class setting, and "...the homeless men and women who flock there and whose job it is to keep it real for the residents." Correctly concluding that this retreat is both a farce and a tragedy, he also makes a point in discussing the ideological bankruptcy that now dominates the Republican Party (and allows them to elect Trump), concludes that the Reagan Dispensation is over and is hoping for the beginning of a new dispensation.

Although the fast pace of the last few years have rendered the book somewhat outdated, it's a decent starting point for those who wish to understand how the most powerful country in the world is able to rip itself apart in such spectacular fashion and how the once influential radicals of the 60's now state up their own arseholes for "problematic" issues.

Mark Lilla, 2018, . The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics Hurst & Company ISBN-13: 978-1849049955.

⏩Christopher Owens was a reviewer for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland. He is currently the TPQ Friday columnist. 

The Once And Future Liberal

Christopher Owens with a review of a book that helps reference the decline of Modern American society. 

 

With Robin di Angelo's race baiting White Fragility now topping bestseller lists, the times we live in can be infuriating to reasonable people. How did we get ourselves into such an ideological mess? Especially one where the way to overcome racism is to admit to crimes you have not committed i.e. admit to being racist.

Thankfully, there are sensible articles and books still being published, but the time has come to educate oneself in a way not seen since your school days. We must be able to examine these times, the issues and the roots behind them in order to move forward and not fall into traps prepared by the wokerati.

First published in 2018, The Once and Future Liberal has two functions. Not only does it give us a trajectory on which to reference the decline of modern American society, but it also examines how the paths taken by both the right and the left have led us here.

Beginning by lambasting the hopes of liberals in a political system that has produced four terms for Democratic presidents since 1980, Mark Lilla spells it out in stark language when he writes that:

Liberals have become America's ideological third party, lagging behind self-declared independents and conservatives, even among young voters and certain minority groups, We have been repudiated in no uncertain terms. Donald Trump the man is, frankly, not the greatest of our worries. And if we don't look beyond him there is very little hope for us.

Lilla then goes on to break down recent American history into two distinct periods: the Roosevelt Dispensation (lasting, roughly from 1945 to 1980) and the Reagan Dispensation (from 1980 to the present day). These are important to mark because, Lilla argues, we see how America shifted from being a kind of collective enterprise among its citizens post WWII into an individualistic capital gain, helped along the way by liberals retreating into identity politics and universities while conservatives went their way into influencing politics.

This demonstrates a simple, but telling, difference between the two camps: the belief in Republican circles is that the role of president is ultimately that of a figurehead (hence Republican view strength as being in control at local and state levels) whereas Democrats view the president as a kind of father figure who will solve everything with an illegible squiggle at the bottom of a legal document, explaining why they put all their energy into presidential campaigns.

Immediately, it's easy to spot the major flaw in this line of liberal/Democrat thinking: what about Congress and the Senate? Aren't they important as well? Hence why, whenever the likes of Clinton and Obama don't live up to expectations, the sniping from the left wing of the Democrats become much more visceral. Although Republicans have a wide array of supporters themselves, they seem to understand the importance of unity in public. Probably from watching Democrats tear themselves apart as they are doing at the moment.

Moving on to discuss the concept of the personal being political emerging from a king of political romanticism that:

... strangely ... had its roots in the same time and place as Reaganism: the affluent new suburbs of the 1950's. We live with two idealised images of that world ... favoured by the right, good paying jobs and modern technology gave Americans unprecedented prosperity and well being ...The other image, favoured by the left, is that of an air conditioned nightmare in which men commuted to work (and drank too much), women puttered around the house (and popped pills) ... children in cowboy hats pretended to murder one another (transferring their hatred of their parents onto their playmates).

I'm sure you're very familiar with both images. They are incredibly potent, it has to be said: the concept of modernity vs. the dark underbelly that this promotes. Although Lilla dismisses the both of them as very useful myths, he pinpoints this period as being one of an identity crisis: when everything was seemingly perfect for the American middle class, some began to question their existence (heavily influenced by the French existentialists) and ended up joining organisations like the Catholic Charismatic Renewal.

This was the beginning of the generational conflict of the 1960's. While parents, happy to have survived the Second World War, were busy enjoying prosperity, their off springs (who had never known war) were pondering the meaning of life.

Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

The key issue, as Lilla examines in painful detail, is that the melding of the personal and political created a new type of activist. One who fought for civil rights for black Americans and opposed the Vietnam War, but also one who indulged in drug taking and appropriating Eastern mysticism for their own ends. These were the people who, as the 1970's progressed, started to focus more on infiltrating universities and building up an ideologically pure autonomous zone which was environmentally friendly, socially aware and intellectual.

Notice the lack of concern for, or connection to, the working class? As the post-war Roosevelt Dispensation began to collapse due to changing times, the same activists were fretting over identity politics than looking at inner city decay and job losses. Hence why, when Reagan was elected, America really was reborn into a place of individual prosperity. And all these so called 'radicals' could offer was a further retreat into identity politics.

Lilla is plainly exasperated by this self-defeating attitude among his tribe, arguing that it is merely Reaganomics in reverse, and much more self-destructive. He offers a description of a typical college town which seems very pleasant, if bourgeois, until he mentions the lack of anything resembling a working class setting, and "...the homeless men and women who flock there and whose job it is to keep it real for the residents." Correctly concluding that this retreat is both a farce and a tragedy, he also makes a point in discussing the ideological bankruptcy that now dominates the Republican Party (and allows them to elect Trump), concludes that the Reagan Dispensation is over and is hoping for the beginning of a new dispensation.

Although the fast pace of the last few years have rendered the book somewhat outdated, it's a decent starting point for those who wish to understand how the most powerful country in the world is able to rip itself apart in such spectacular fashion and how the once influential radicals of the 60's now state up their own arseholes for "problematic" issues.

Mark Lilla, 2018, . The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics Hurst & Company ISBN-13: 978-1849049955.

⏩Christopher Owens was a reviewer for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland. He is currently the TPQ Friday columnist. 

2 comments:

  1. Christopher

    This is a fascinating review wnich nicely feeds into thee debates and discourses around Identity Politics that I have discussed in my recent two TPQ afrticles.

    Far from being dated, this book is still very much rdelevant although it cannot obviously discuss what is becoming another front in America's pefrpetual culture wars: Covid-19 and lockdown.

    Spoiler Alert: I am examining "White Fragility" as part of an article I am writing for TPQ on black identity politics in the era of BLM. Don't hold back in your responses to it if and when it is published!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Barry,

      thank you for your kind words.

      Yes, I was a little harsh in declaring it outdated. But I do think the last few weeks have produced such a seismic shift in the progression of the wokerati's ascent into the mainstream, and the impact this has had on public discourse has been toxic. Obviously, that's not Lilla's fault so I would hope he either extends the book or writes a companion piece.

      Looking forward to reading that. I bought a second hand copy from Amazon and am fully prepared to find it as infuriating as 'Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race'.

      Delete