You're right about David Brooks--- he should switch to beig a mainline pastor, thus raising the wisdom level of both conservative pundits and mainline pastors. But he should develop a sense of fairness. He opposes, for example,
" the forces of dehumanization on the one side — rabid partisanship, social media, porn, bigotry"
I hate how people oppose partisanship. What if one side is right? Was it partisan in 1930's Germany to oppose the Nazis in every way? Also, social media-- social media has a lot of good aspects, including family and hobbyist discussion groups, but everyone acts as if it's all politics. Porn, of course is bad, but I wonder if DB really opposes R-rated movies, for example, or gay porn. And "bigotry" is an empty term.
I'm glad you're thinking about vice. It's a real problem. I am not so sure a majority supports vice. Does a majority of people support child porn, or S+M porn, or gay porn? Or even ordinary porn? HOw many women want to keep porn legal? Even for men, with any vice, including porn and drugs and liquor, there are a lot of people who indulge in it but who would sincerely support ending it, ending their temptation and humiliation.
I don't take "partisanship" as the decision to choose a favored political party. It's the decision to let your tribalistic loyalty to your chosen political party fry your brain, letting yourself fall into all manner of human psychological failure modes like confirmation bias, herd mentality, etc.
And yes, it's a big problem.
The comparison to Nazi Germany is a little strained because I think multiparty systems work differently here. Two-party partisan politics opens us up to a little more brain-frying than in the European systems. Something about having two sides dials up the tribalism -- us and them. We start to view unwieldy and diverse coalitions in black and white terms.
There was plenty of room to be an anti-Hitler (or at least Hitler-skeptical) conservative in Weimar Germany until the very end. It didn't exactly work out, but that viewpoint had electoral representation, in a way that being an anti-Trump conservative does not. I'm inclined to believe that dissolving the other rightist parties did a lot to consolidate Hitler's support on the right. And Trump receives a lot more support on the right today than he deserves, because he's the only game in town.
This isn't a call for starting more parties, by the way, which is a pipe dream under the US Constitution.
Lots of good stuff in the post!
You're right about David Brooks--- he should switch to beig a mainline pastor, thus raising the wisdom level of both conservative pundits and mainline pastors. But he should develop a sense of fairness. He opposes, for example,
" the forces of dehumanization on the one side — rabid partisanship, social media, porn, bigotry"
I hate how people oppose partisanship. What if one side is right? Was it partisan in 1930's Germany to oppose the Nazis in every way? Also, social media-- social media has a lot of good aspects, including family and hobbyist discussion groups, but everyone acts as if it's all politics. Porn, of course is bad, but I wonder if DB really opposes R-rated movies, for example, or gay porn. And "bigotry" is an empty term.
I'm glad you're thinking about vice. It's a real problem. I am not so sure a majority supports vice. Does a majority of people support child porn, or S+M porn, or gay porn? Or even ordinary porn? HOw many women want to keep porn legal? Even for men, with any vice, including porn and drugs and liquor, there are a lot of people who indulge in it but who would sincerely support ending it, ending their temptation and humiliation.
On your last point about vice, there’s a large segment of American society that isn’t for the vice, but is for the right to engage in the vice.
I don't take "partisanship" as the decision to choose a favored political party. It's the decision to let your tribalistic loyalty to your chosen political party fry your brain, letting yourself fall into all manner of human psychological failure modes like confirmation bias, herd mentality, etc.
And yes, it's a big problem.
The comparison to Nazi Germany is a little strained because I think multiparty systems work differently here. Two-party partisan politics opens us up to a little more brain-frying than in the European systems. Something about having two sides dials up the tribalism -- us and them. We start to view unwieldy and diverse coalitions in black and white terms.
There was plenty of room to be an anti-Hitler (or at least Hitler-skeptical) conservative in Weimar Germany until the very end. It didn't exactly work out, but that viewpoint had electoral representation, in a way that being an anti-Trump conservative does not. I'm inclined to believe that dissolving the other rightist parties did a lot to consolidate Hitler's support on the right. And Trump receives a lot more support on the right today than he deserves, because he's the only game in town.
This isn't a call for starting more parties, by the way, which is a pipe dream under the US Constitution.
Even the Nazis were right about some things: the Treaty of Versailles was unjust toward Germany. Communism was a grave danger.
You said, "The American leadership class can re-adopt a vision that they abandoned long ago of our people as our country’s greatest asset. "
This would relieve so many, so, so many, problems in our nation.
Thanks.