Some Preliminary Thoughts
Posted on September 17th, 2008
by Daniel Larison |
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Patrick Deneen has an outstanding post reflecting on the financial crisis, and as I mentioned earlier in the week Andrew Bacevich has an article adapted from The Limits of Power in the previous issue of TAC that discusses the relationship of the mentality of endless consumption and the pursuit of continued and expanded hegemony. Following on Prof. Bacevich’s article and working from the title of his book, the easiest way to summarize our predicament is the failure to understand our limits. We do not recognize that means are always limited and resources are finite. Rather than treating credit as a sometimes necessary mechanism, we treat it as a way of life, and our institutions are structured around the deferral of responsibility and the demand for instant gratification that credit represents. More than that, credit was once extended to borrowers who possessed some real property, and now it is extended to those who have none.
As the temporary ability to pay increases, restraint recedes and a culture of feeding and exciting appetites grows. As virtue is the moderation or even denial of appetites, moral integrity in society as a whole weakens as this culture gains ground. When limits to our consumption seem to fall away, the desire for acquisition and domination becomes stronger and it begins to be expressed in our relations with the rest of the world. We begin to define our interests to satisfy unbounded desire, and so the scope of what we believe is rightfully ours expands until it encircles most, if not all, of the globe, and we are then violently offended when our claims are challenged. Coupled with this desire is the fantasy that technology will gradually overcome or address every limitation, so that every barrier to growth will fall sooner or later. The expectation of progress makes us impatient when our excesses lead to collapses, and when those collapses happen responsibility is deferred again and pinned on useful scapegoats whose punishment will allow us to return to our previous unrestrained habits.
I wonder if this period of time will be memorialized as the Roaring Oughts forty years from now?
Well, during the Roaring 20’s, we actually built stuff: factories, railroads, telephone & electrical networks. Physical, tangible things that provided jobs and the possibility of a better life. What have we made in this country over the past decade other than a stack of very complicated IOU’s and interesting ways to view porn-on-demand?
Superb summary, DL. And quite right.
This is essentially the same argument that the late Christopher Lasch made in The Culture Of Narcissism and other works. It was correct when he made it, and it’s even more correct now. For way too long, the American motto has been “bigger, better, faster, more.” While it’s increasingly clear that we’ve reached the end of our ability to live without recognizing either the limits of American expansion or the paucity of a culture based primarily on consumption, neither our leadership or the majority of the populace have caught on the the new reality. I see no signs of the vast majority abandoning the comfort of denial anytime soon.
What a superb post.
It seems to me that your conservatism never conflated “is” with “ought” the way that movement conservatism has, particularly regarding the market. (”If credit is made available, it is by definition a good thing! Because the market is perfect!”) The mentality you describe applies to mainstream writers who have never been described as “conservative,” too, though, such as Thomas Friedman.
We do not recognize that means are always limited and resources are finite.
I’ve always said– if the US were omnipotent and omniscient, I’d be a neoconservative.
(Ah, but could we then be benevolent? That’s a pretty old quandary, though, which probably won’t be resolved on this comment thread).
Anyway, what a great, concise post.
FWIW, a conservative defense of Obama, from ex-NR Publisher Wick Allison.
I wonder, now that I own AIG, can I FOIA internal accounts and figure out who made real money on the last 2 years’ of activity?
I wonder, now that I own AIG, and AIG insures my car, and my premium is due…can I just write the check to myself?
This is what happens when you turn a Means into an End.
American conservatism used to describe a set of “right” procedures as much as preferred social outcomes. Prudence, caution, skepticism, dispassion, honesty, humility and integrity were among those characteristics that informed the definition of conservatism. If the possession of the above character traits made someone a conservative, action in accordance with those traits could be described as conservatism.
Politics exorcized the methodology of conservatism out of the definition of conservatism and in doing so, destroyed its ability to generate positive outcomes. Usually, the quality of a result is determined by the quality of the process used to engender the result. American conservatives used to believe in moral behavior in the classical liberal sense–and in its essentialness to positive consequences. Now, thoroughly corrupted, all they seem to care about is tribal identification with the concomitant assumption of good intentions. They’ve dropped all pretense of being concerned with methods or outcomes.
Modern conservatives somehow convinced themselves that the good social results of personal, private moral behavior could be replicated en mass by vast amounts of reckless, irresponsible, inappropriate, immoral initiatives by the state. They gave into the temptation of power and statism, and now we’re reaping the consequences of their, and the country’s abandonment of actual conservatism over the past 50 years.
Conservatismâ„¢ is dead. Long live conservatism.
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