{"id":7060,"date":"2019-02-20T17:38:58","date_gmt":"2019-02-21T01:38:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/?p=7060"},"modified":"2020-10-18T11:39:41","modified_gmt":"2020-10-18T18:39:41","slug":"lilla-the-once-and-future-liberal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2019\/02\/20\/lilla-the-once-and-future-liberal\/","title":{"rendered":"Lilla: THE ONCE AND FUTURE LIBERAL"},"content":{"rendered":"

THE ONCE AND FUTURE LIBERAL: After Identity Politics<\/b><\/a> (Harper, 2017) is by Mark Lilla, a professor at Columbia University, and is much more explicitly about politics than most books I read. (Because my concerns extend far outside the relatively narrow realm that divides the political parties in the US.) But it links to the previous books reviewed in its reaction to the current president.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s a critique about the side I\u2019m on, and I need to know where or if my side needs to improve. It\u2019s a theme that\u2019s become common; Francis Fukuyama has a recent book on this subject called IDENTITY, and the theme is a recurrent refrain in David Brooks\u2019 columns in the New York Times, where he expresses regret at the loss of common American values of community. (Which I don\u2019t think ever existed, in the MAGA formulation, precisely because the population of the US has become more multicultural and inclusive of anyone other than heterosexual Protestant white families.)<\/p>\n

Summary:<\/p>\n

The author\u2019s thesis is that liberals have \u2018abdicated\u2019 their traditional role of leading the country, despite notes of \u2018resistance\u2019 to Trump and his right-wing media complex. The basic reason is that liberals have become the party of identity, wherein recognizing differences is more important than finding a unified set of values. [I\u2019ll give him that point \u2013 it\u2019s hard to win elections without having some kind of unifying set of values for the electorate to rally around.]<\/p>\n

He considers the past century or so as having been formed by two \u2018dispensations\u2019 \u2013 the first was Roosevelt\u2019s, which set a tone and set of expectations that lasted until the \u201860s disrupted them; and then Reagan\u2019s. Despite changes in presidencies, these two eras are distinct. One was about shaking hands; the other about a rainbow. Neither side now has any common goals; they live in caves. Compare the homepages of the Republicans \u2013 a list of values \u2013 and Democrats \u2013 a list of constituencies. <\/p>\n

It *should* be about shared citizenship. The liberals need a new orientation.<\/p>\n

P21. Recalls how it felt when Reagan was elected, denying the malaise detected by Carter. And then in \u201989, when the Berlin Wall came down. Reagan\u2019s themes were about self-reliance, building wealth, the free market, and that government *was the problem* — i.e. the individual, the entrepreneur, was the most important element of society. This trend got worse under Clinton; Republicans became hysterical, shutting down the government, impeaching Clinton for trivia, and became even worse under Obama, reacting to the recession, and giving the likes of Glenn Beck audiences for conspiracy theories.<\/p>\n

P59. Liberals responded largely by retreating to the universities. The original American identity was to both country and church. With the civil rights movements, personal identity became more important. Images from the 1950s\u2014suburbs, traditional families\u2014led to early \u201860s \u2018identity crisis\u2019. It was a political romanticism, 71b, the search for meaning, that everything connects. <\/p>\n

And so in universities, both students and curricula focused on personal issues \u2013 not wider ones, not engagement with the world. Personal brands became important, the Facebook model.<\/p>\n

And the locution \u201cSpeaking as an X\u2026\u201d as if one\u2019s identity as an X made one immune from criticism or argument. There was no objective basis for discussion. [ The latest book by Jonathan Haidt, with Greg Lukianoff, which I haven\u2019t read yet, The Coddling of the American Mind<\/b>, seems to be precisely on this topic. ] At least Marx looked at the big picture, the historical forces, p92.<\/p>\n

P99. Now neither side has a political vision of American destiny. Liberals have an opportunity under Trump, but are sabotaging themselves by the continued focus on identity. It could be a \u2018reset moment.\u2019 <\/p>\n

Author offers four lessons: about institutional vs. movement politics (i.e. it\u2019s about winning elections); the priority of democratic persuasion over self-expression; the priority of citizenship over personal identity. And the need for civic education in an increasingly individualistic nation.<\/p>\n

Thus: Black Lives Matter is not the way. Most voters are clueless\u2014Trump\u2019s followers are mobs, not citizens who could pass a citizenship test. Both sides now actively undermine the idea of citizens. <\/p>\n

And so: passion and commitment, knowledge and argument, curiosity about the world outside your head and about people unlike yourself. Willingness to sacrifice for fellow citizens; ambition to imagine a common future.<\/p>\n

\\\\
\nNow if only he dared image what that common future might be \u2013 what would make both sides happy? Harari\u2019s humility might be a step\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THE ONCE AND FUTURE LIBERAL: After Identity Politics (Harper, 2017) is by Mark Lilla, a professor at Columbia University, and is much more explicitly about politics than most books I read. (Because my concerns extend far outside the relatively narrow … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-notes","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7060"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7063,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7060\/revisions\/7063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}