Returning to Kirkean Principles

We need, as a nation, to return to Kirkean principles. 

I recently read a book that is, shamefully, obscure, even in conservative intellectual circles: Russell Kirk's The American Cause. Published in 1957, this short read (only 137 pages) provides readers with a powerful and pithy defense of American culture. Kirk very astutely observed that many of our fellow countrymen -  though well-meaning and, undoubtedly, patriotic - lacked the ability to properly articulate what it was exactly that they loved about the American way of life. Short of platitudes and hollow shibboleths (i.e. freedom, liberty, natural rights, etc...), many of us fall short in defining the distinct nature of this great country. 

In comes Kirk...

The America that Kirk describes is not simply an "experiment" or a collective of people with abstract rights, but a uniquely awesome inheritance. The conservatism of Kirk puts enormous emphasis on our shared history (Yoram Hazony calls this "historical empiricism"). When we look back at history - late 18th and early 20th century European history, in particular - what we find are a series of imprudent, Godless revolutions that, ultimately, failed in remarkable fashion. The Jacobin revolution in late 18th century France is, by far and away, the most cited by conservative intellectuals like Kirk. Edmund Burke's magnum opus, Reflections on the Revolution in France, is the most important book to read on this subject matter. Burke, better than anyone else, explained why the Jacobins were as profoundly and unmistakably wrong as they were in their reckless tactics and fundamentally short-sighted goals: freedom from everything, including their past inheritances. 

This leads me to an important point: Freedom is a word that is far too liberally flung around without any consideration for its greater meaning. What is it exactly that we ought to be free from or of? Should we be free of societal obligations? No. How about free from social etiquette? Absolutely not. Or perhaps free from our inherited Western traditions? Hell no. While Kirk of course thought that freedom from a totalist state and economic freedom were noble goals, he did not argue that freedom, in  and of itself, was a good that ought to be achieved.  Freedom, in its most absolute sense, connotes a kind of dystopian, anarchistic libertarianism. And Kirk did not think fondly of libertarianism, nor with its compatibility with conservatism. 

Kirk noted that our Founders thought "Unrestrained Liberty...as dangerous as unrestrained power." 

This from Kirk's must-read 1981 essay, Libertarians: the Chirping Sectaries:

What else do conservatives and libertarians profess in common? The answer to that question is simple: nothing. Nor will they ever have. To talk of forming a league or coalition between these two is like advocating a union of ice and fire.

Kirk, in that same essay, stated that "a libertarian conservative is as rare a bird as a Jewish Nazi." I wrote about this in much greater detail in the Russell Kirk Center's University Bookman. You can find that here.  

In sum, Kirk is defending an inherited Christian country whose Founders emphasized Communitarianism, subsidiarity, and ordered liberty. It is a little, easy-to-read book that you can revisit again and again. It should probably be regarded as a fundamental text in American civics courses. We still teach that, right?


at No comments:
By

The Country Will Be Saved By Those Who Love It



Earlier this month I attended 9/11 remembrance and memorial ceremonies, as well as carried on my annual tradition of walking down to ground zero, now the 9/11 Memorial. This year it was after a long work day that included a couple of different public ceremonies and in a downpour. Not unlike the downpour we had today and the lighter rain yesterday while attending the NYC opening of the Vietnam Healing Wall. Both of those ceremonies amongst so many kind-hearted and patriotic Americans and the contemplation while walking the memorials become increasingly rejuvenating for me. No matter how hard things get, or how bleak things seem for American life, culture, and society right now, the long-term, long-game optimist in me slowly comes back into view. 

It was my default setting in life originally, born perhaps from a combination of a Norman Rockwell-esque painting of a home town and a necessary coping mechanism to upbringing ravaged by mental health issues for my entire memory. While I am a tough love critic and very much a hardened realist in matters of politics and public policy, military service and a deployment, neither familial nor country-dysfunction has beat out of me the nostalgic romantic at heart. It is of course an aestheticism, that almost requires a certain amount of worldview steeped in traditions and intact and strong families, especially as I get older. The often quoted "Never Forget" heightens the importance to tell stories and common narratives the older we get. More and more Americans are born every year that will never have a memory of 9/11, which means they'll also never have memory of how truly united the country was in the days, weeks, and months after it, and how much that opportunity was botched by our government, culture, and society every year ever since. 

"People were kind to each other." 

I'm no stranger to kindness. If you're born and raised in the upper Midwest its basically an article of faith, albeit a passive aggressive one. But the italicized quote above comes from a born and raised, lifelong New York friend of mine and its relevant because the reputation for direct and "mean tweet" talk that New Yorkers have. The longer I am a New Yorker myself the more I gravitate to such directness. It's a refreshing shortcut, totally at odds with the labyrinth of city government and the subway if you will, or the gears and levers that make up the city itself. That spirit of kindness, love, and unity in those days becomes increasingly bittersweet nostalgia with each passing year because we're also more and more divided over the last twenty years. 

Consider how we've grown apart in the two charts from a recent Gallup poll on attitudes below. 


On many of these issues the country has grown further and further apart along partisan lines. Yet I suspect, at least a good portion of this isn't people becoming more extreme, but the American societal establishment and elites mismanaging the country a bit more, decade after decade -- eroding trust along the way. And indeed a fair portion of the erosion is prior to 2003, to 2001. What I think is happening in this era more and more is people are realigning and resorting to where they actually want to be. This is exactly what happens at the 11th hour of history's great fights. If you're going down, you want to go down fighting for what you actually love and believe in. More than anything, that is what is happening. 

So what's going on? Well increasingly, Republicans think the federal government has too much power and that immigration should be decreased. And Americans overall (Republicans, Democrats, and Independents/unaffiliated) are increasingly gravitating to those two positions too. Other issues where we've grown apart are smaller in makeup. Republicans now have increasingly have far more confidence in police, but anyone who has followed the news cycle the last half-decade could've guessed that. The striking differences the other way. The gap on humans as the cause of global warming or climate change has grown, as well as K-12 satisfaction, and abortion being legal under any circumstance. Again, all of these positions the public is gravitating more toward the Republican position in general, especially if the Republican position on abortion is more nuanced and not absolutist and without exceptions the other way. The other emerging difference that sticks out, like immigration, was stressed by then-candidate and citizen Trump in 2016 -- foreign trade. Increasingly, Democrats, becoming a knee-jerk anti-Trump party, embrace free trade, unrestricted mass immigration of whatever legality, and are increasingly doubling-down on globalization. The problem is that almost no one else is coming with them. 

"What's happened to you?" 

As a former Democrat, albeit a more blue dog or old school Kennedy-type of Democrat, I no doubt have angered a lot of friends who think I've betrayed them. The above italicized quote was tagged with an article I wrote with Gavin Wax earlier this year where we argued that re-electing President Trump offers the best chance at peace. Read the article for yourselves and be the judge. Have I changed? Or has everything else changed and I've perhaps expanded my media and research diet and had a lot more life experiences... 

On economic and family matters, on war and peace -- I'm not a Democrat anymore and haven't been for years because they have nothing to offer me. I'm a Republican because they're increasingly gravitating to the positions I already held. I've changed my mind on a few issues here and there, but it's not the big issues that realign people. In 2003 I thought the Iraq war was a bad idea, and in 2023 I think U.S. involvement in the war in Ukraine is dangerous and downright suicidal for civilization. The stakes are high and I have no patience, tolerance, or time anymore to pander to those who want to be socially accepted by a LinkedIn page. If anything, my only regret is that I did not realign earlier. I had been frustrated with the direction of the Democrats for a lot longer and stayed far too long in an official capacity. Two decades ago my political beliefs broadly speaking were pro-middle and working class and patriotic. Today, they are pro-middle and working class and patriotic. They were also anti-authoritarian and anti-war. Today, they are anti-authoritarian and anti-war. Twenty years ago, the word "progressive" was barely in the Democrat zeitgeist. Today, it's everywhere and those progressives are too authoritarian and busybody for my liking. They also tend to dislike all tradition and the received wisdom from the past, and my biggest deal-breaker, they tend to be very unpatriotic. I don't need you to be super patriotic. But this rampant anti-American and anti-Western sentiment is completely self-defeating. 

This is a good country. Most people like this country. And they want their kids, if they have them, to grow up in a better country, with more opportunities than they had, just like all prior generations of Americans wanted. Which brings me to another deal-breaker, which has more and more evidence for it by the day, family demographics. 

Increasingly, Republicans are becoming not merely the "family values" party like the 1980s and 1990s, but simply the party of parents, the party of families. In the 2022 midterms, underwhelming in many respects for Republicans, married men broke for Republicans by 20 points, married women did by 14 points (very little gender gap there), and unmarried men did by 7 points. Only unmarried women broke for Democrats by 37 points. It is my contention that no matter how hard things get, you can rebuild and save a country with the former coalition and have no chance at all with the latter. The family, tradition, and patriotism nexus grows stronger by the year. It is from the younger, the single, the supposedly righteous, but often self-righteous and sanctimonious cohort that increasingly wants to drive the bus in this country. But let's consider the long-term math here. Below are the states that are having more kids since the end of Roe and the ones having fewer. The states in green are seeing population growth on top of the more children they already did have for the most part, the states in red in graph terms are having fewer kids, and if they are blue or purple states will run the risk of becoming red. 

A party that thinks it's going to "win the future" does not try to lawlessly import with great speed and little care for common sense an entirely new voting population. It doesn't try to cheat through using public health as an excuse to unconstitutionally change laws, and it doesn't try to lock everyone into failing public schools and call parents domestic terrorists if they disagree with the state regime curriculum or want to run for school board. 

This is why I've often said on Twitter: "you can lose now, or lose later -- but you will lose." (The rhetorical negative that I'll turn positive in a moment). 

But this is why it is the Democrats who are in trouble. Yet even if you are a Democrat -- if you are patriotic and love this country, if you're raising a family, and if you don't want to criminalize your opposition -- you're fine in my book. 

The positive side is quite simply: the country will be saved by those who love it. And that is a better story. That is a story people never forget. It is why veterans and service members of all political stripes and demographic backgrounds can get along so well, even if they have little to nothing in common. One team, one fight, all gave some, some gave all. 

If America is a bus, and the people, the children on the bus are the future. Don't you want someone driving that bus who loves the bus, the people, and the children? A patriotism of tough love is always fine, and should be encouraged. But a lack of patriotism, or those who actively dislike America and the American people, and put nearly every other interest first -- that's a dealbreaker. What parent would want to have someone driving the bus who dislikes the bus and the people in it? 

And the problem is those who most want to drive the bus today dislike the bus. And so we've been given no choice. 

It'll be families, patriots, veterans, first responders, homemakers and caretakers, family and household economics, a national and protectionist industrial policy, and a more civic-oriented, communication society and culture like the one advocated for here at The Frank Forum that'll bring back, build, and renew this country. 

Another first this September -- after all of these years, I finally went into the 9/11 Memorial Museum as well (tickets below). It was consistently and accurately described as "sacred and hallowed" space. Language that reminds me of how Gettysburg National Battlefield has been described, as sacred and hallowed ground. 

This phrasing, this story, was referenced by President Lincoln during the Gettysburg Address: "we can not hallow this" ground, before adding that "the brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract." But indeed the country remembered and benefited too, from those words. Because the country needs stories. Needs a common story. Common principles and values. A common understanding, and some common sense again. 

And that is the new inevitability. 


Yes, the country will be saved by those who love it. And that's a beautiful thing. 


Troy M. Olson is an Army Veteran, a lawyer by training, and the co-author of the forthcoming book ‘The Emerging Populist Majority.’ He lives in New York City with his wife and son. You can follow him on Twitter and Substack at @TroyMOlson

at No comments:
By

Sohrab Ahmari's Pugilistic New Book


My Twitter (or sorry, X!) "For you" feed has been ensconced in pictures of Sohrab Ahmari's new book, Tyranny, Inc.: How Private Power Crushed American Liberty - and What to Do About It.

Here are just a few examples:


I had to know: what was all the hype about? 

So I got my hands on a copy:


Me, in between the pages of Sohrab's new provocative book.

 

If I had to sum it up in a sentence, I would say: Sohrab's book is a scathing repudiation of neoliberal orthodoxy. A self-proclaimed conservative, the Compact editor decouples conservatism from some of its widely-accepted shibboleths like "free trade" and "deregulation". He instead promotes what Oren Cass and others affiliated with the National Conservative movement coin "conservative economics", which they posit is, unlike laissez faire economic theory, conducive to promoting the "common good". 

Sohrab, instead of bogging the reader down with charts and unpalatable quantitative methodology, provides powerful and humanizing anecdotes from individuals who have fallen victim to the neoliberal order. This is, I find, a compelling and attractive way to make a case to the lay-reader. Throwing numbers and regression outputs at readers is, not only ineffectual, but obnoxious and pedantic. 

This leads me to a broader point: so many academics lack the ability to communicate to a broad audience. Instead, they speak only to other academics in their immediate circles. Books like these, I believe, die in obscurity because they are fundamentally unreadable. Sohrab, though, by humanizing the toll that hegemonic liberal economic theory has had on average working Americans, provides us with something that could have as much influence as Murray's The Bell Curve or Deneen's Why Liberalism Failed, epochal books written by academics who understand how to actually communicate a message to the masses. 

Give it a read...then, give it another read. This is, I feal, a book of great import. The post-liberal movement, which Sohrab, Deneen, and others are spearheading, is already penetrating the political mainstream, with the likes of Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Senator Josh Hawley (R-MI) offering their praises on the back of the book. 

New Deal-conservatism may just be the future...



at No comments:
By

Have You Read This Book? (You Need To)


The in-fighting on the American political right continues with each passing day. 

Why, though, do these factions (the NatCon populists and the FreedomCon libertarians) have such disdain for one another? Sure, trade policy has become increasingly thorny, and don't even get me started on foreign affairs...But the squabbling runs deeper than these differences in policy prescription. It is almost as though there is a colliding of worldviews here. 

Yoram Hazony, in his all-important and surprisingly palatable work, Conservatism: A Rediscovery, explains the reasoning for the internecine skirmishing on the right. 

Ultimately, Hazony explains, these fissures aren't new. In 18th century America, these same ideological cleavages existed. The Hamiltonians were nationalists who believed in tradition and, what Hazony calls, "historical empiricism" (the idea that our future ought to be guided by the trials and tribulations of our ancestors, as opposed to pure reason alone), while the Jeffersonians were enlightenment-rationalists that believed in the primacy of reason and the individual, with little deference paid to our ancestor's lived experiences. While these differences may seem rather abstract, or even overly philosophical, the feuding between these factions was very real. The Hamiltonians thought that the Jeffersonians were dogmatic in their allegiance to pure, unadulterated notions of liberty and indifference toward religion, while the Jeffersonians saw the Hamiltonians as monarchical anti-liberals who worshiped the nation to an egregious degree. Do these differences sound familiar?

It is, in fact, true that history repeats itself. The populist-libertarian divide that we see today isn't all that different from what occurred in 18th century America. 

Let's dive a little deeper...

Hazony, who is pretty unabashed in his preference for the Hamiltonian and Burkean worldviews, makes things crystal clear. Today's populist-conservatives give primacy to the nation over the individual. This is, in effect, a repudiation of liberalism (enlightenment liberalism, I mean). The populists are, for the most part, Communitarian, in that they believe that the family, church, and nation are far more important than the lone individual. Libertarian-oriented rightists (Hazony would just call them liberals, and rightly so), are "blind to the nation". They see any degree of state involvement or impingement on civil liberties as an afront to the American experiment. 

In his words:

A dogmatic belief in the individual's freedom has moved liberals to destigmatize - and, eventually, to actively legitimize - sexual license, narcotics, and pornography, as well as abortion, easy divorce, and out-of-marriage births, until finally the family has been broken and fertility ruined in nearly every Western country.

These are strong words, but there may be something to them... Liberalism, in its advocacy for unlimited choice, has placed individual desire well above the "common good". 

To be clear, though, Hazony at no point says that freedom of the individual is unimportant. Rather, he posits that today's libertarian-types have over-emphasized it in a way that is detrimental to our societal fabric. I am mostly sympathetic to this view...

Hazony's views on the family are particularly interesting:

In a conservative society, one is not relieved of the responsibility to honor one's parents at the age of eighteen or twenty. On the contrary, this obligation remains throughout life, and it only grows more difficult as one's father and mother become infirm with age.  

Hazony is describing the East-Asian idea of filial piety, something that has been largely forgotten in our modern age. Hazony, though, takes this point further than most, even in the conservative ecosphere. To Hazony, the concept of the nuclear family is insufficient. The nuclear family consists of a mother, father, and a few children. To Hazony, this is small potatoes. Rather, he advocates for the "traditional family". This includes the extended tribe: grandma, grandpa, aunts and uncles... A crucial difference! The traditional family also implies obligations. It is your duty to stick around to take care of your folks when they are old and ill. Moving out and leaving them in the dust is out of the question! In fact, you may even have grandma and grandpa living with you! 

Anyway, there's a lot I can say about this book. All (or mostly all) positive. Whether or not you agree with Hazony's particular brand of conservatism, his description of the contemporary climate on the right is flawless. A must read!

 



at No comments:
By

Why Sidewalks Matter


Alan Ehrenhalt, one of America's leading Communitarian voices, wrote another salient piece for Governing last week. The topic of this article: sidewalks. Sidewalks, Ehrenhalt contends, can function as a venue for casual association. 

Ehrenhalt recalls a time when he and his friends would gather on the sidewalk for hours at a time:

When I was a kid on the South Side of Chicago, we didn’t have front porches. We and our neighbors would congregate during summer evenings on the placid sidewalks of Everett Avenue, trading gossip and opinion while standing around in little knots of weak-tie fellowship.

What, though, does Ehrenhalt mean by "weak ties"? Well, weak ties, in contrast to strong ties, represent casual relationships, like those between two neighbors in an apartment building or peripheral acquaintances that smile and nod to each other in the grocery store.  While these passing interactions may seem trivial, they are actually an immeasurably important component of robust community life. If two people walking past each other on the sidewalk stop for a quick chat, or even just a brief exchange of niceties, they are, in essence, communicating something very important: that this community is a safe space and one that respects social etiquette. 

But what if the sidewalks are in shambles? Then where do the two neighbors go to shoot the breeze? A lack of adequate infrastructure is detrimental to people's ability to engage in social interactions.  

Ehrenhalt notes that many city governments allocate little in their budget to sidewalk maintenance and construction:

A recent study by the urban planner Todd Litman concluded that the average city spent about 1 percent of its infrastructure budget on sidewalks, even though walking accounted for 11 percent of residents’ trips every day and pedestrian fatalities constituted 17 percent of all traffic deaths.

 More people ought to be talking about this...

And, sadly, it is low-income communities that bear the brunt of this neglect. Not only do folks in these forgotten municipalities lose out on valuable social capital by not having walkable sidewalks, but they face an appallingly high risk of being killed by automobiles speeding down the road. People should not have to fear this in their communities. 

More attention has to be paid to infrastructure, as it can facilitate much needed societal connectedness in towns across America. And, ultimately, more people need to read publications like Governing and Public Square: A CNU Journal. These publications understand the importance of the Communitarian spirit and the positive role of proper city planning. 


at No comments:
By

Here's to You, Oliver Anthony!


At this point, everyone and their mother has opined on the precocious Oliver Anthony and his out-of-the-blue new single, "Rich Men North of Richmond." Who knew that there were so many accredited music critics out there! Same as the Barbie movie and Oppenheimer, most people are disinterested in what the editorial staff at whichever publication thinks of Anthony's song. 

And yet here I go throwing my two cents in! Ha! 

For what it's worth, I thought it was great. He tapped into some very real feelings of blue-collar disenfranchisement. We ought not forget that there are tens of millions of folks out there in the heartland that feel totally abandoned by our unfortunate elite. Are these feelings invalid? Of course not! But some - and I won't name names - feel as though these grievances are unfounded. And need I mind you that much of Anthony's burgeoning fanbase is composed of ardent Trump voters? Trump, like Anthony, also tapped into these same populist sympathies. 

What are we to make of these people? Are they just misguided, illiterate rubes? Some people actually think this way...

Remember this from Lincoln Project co-founder, Rick Wilson?:


Disgusting...

Or what about this from Jonah Goldberg, who apparently sees small donors as a threat to Democracy?:


These people make by blood boil...

They hate you. And they think you are stupid. 

Anyway, Anthony appears very genuine. And his message is, ultimately, very Communitarian. In a video he recorded in his car yesterday, Anthony reiterates that the song has created a positive and unifying energy. "What are the next steps to make life better for people?", asks Anthony. "What can you do for your neighbor? There used to be such a strong sense of community in this country, and you still see it a lot in small-town America, but even there it's dying out." Anthony, make no mistake about it, is a dyed-in-the-wool Communitarian. His goal, beyond anything else, it seems to me, it to restore Americas civic culture through his music. Amen to that!

We want more!


at No comments:
By

Fatherhood and Baseball


My son is now a toddler. Which means as a father you transition into the role of a goalie. Doing your best to keep him from putting things in his mouth, walking somewhere he shouldn't, and in general pulling out all of the authoritarian instincts you'd rather not have but all of us do as humans. Or putting it more realistically and optimistically, the protection instincts. And just like the freedom vs. order battles we have as we get older, I will say that it's better to eventually fall down and learn rather than constantly have an overly-protective parent lurking about all the time. But there will be a time and a place for that. As the years go by, one of these places will be the sport of baseball. 

 I'm just out of my rookie season as a new Dad, but as your role expands with each passing month and year, you get more and more to do, which is good. I find myself preparing and planning the future for the family more and more down to the smallest detail. My wife and I are planning to eventually move from our "starter home" to a "family forever home" for instance. And the detail on my mind the most has nothing to do with the home and everything to do with proximity to downtown Little League baseball fields. 

 My father was a home salesman and a road warrior but he was a bit less busy in the summer as home show season was over. He'd set aside time and coach my Little League and youth baseball teams. It was the most time we ever spent together when I was that age and I imagine the story repeats itself all across the country, or at least it did for a few generations. The ending of Field of Dreams works for a reason after all. But I think about those baseball fields, and aim to make sure the home where our children make most of our memories is nearby. Now maybe the children won't like baseball? Would I be a bit disappointed? Of course. But I'd adjust. Because as the years go by you realize that the game, as great as it is, was just the excuse. 

 This is my second blog for The Frank Forum, a space dedicated to the revitalization of America's distinct civic culture. Both articles deal with fatherhood and families as the theme and I'll confess that will almost always be the case. For those that want to read more distinctly political, historical, and policy writings my Substack, Twitter, and occasional op-eds and upcoming book co-authored with Gavin Wax will provide plenty of that. But when Frank invited me to contribute here and I read what he was trying to accomplish I realized it complimented what I was trying to accomplish too, just as our conversations over the past few years have done that. I'm growing increasingly fond of the communitarian word as well. For while America was founded to secure the blessings of liberty, the founders also understood that such a nation could not long endure without the "little platoons" of association, the Tocqevillian-observed civic culture, and in the case of much of what I'll write about here and elsewhere, without the family. 

 Families are an obstacle to the left's ambitions. Families are also the renewal and recovery point for this country. The coalition that makes it easier to raise a family in this country will rightfully govern for a long, long time, and nationally, it offers our best chance of civic renewal and recovering a communitarian a moment that compliments our individual liberties rather than competes with them. Herein lies the real future of the right. Populist as well as communitarian in the most time-tested and tradition-minded of ways. It won't be easy, but great things never are easy to build up and make great. For if this American song in the 21st Century is to soar, and if we do not pick up and reconnect with communitarian traditions, we're vulnerable to more and more cultural and economic collectivism, statism, and the same old disastrous road to serfdom the well-meaning liberty-minded people were so worried about in the middle of last century. 


at No comments:
By

Alone Together



I have good news, and bad news.

The good news: People are finally starting to report on America's chronic loneliness epidemic. "Why is that good news?", you may ask. Well, the fact of the matter is that problems aren't solved until they are first addressed. So the fact that I'm hearing more about loneliness is ultimately a good thing. As per my last post, even this administration, for all its faults, is acknowledging the problem. In May, if you recall, the U.S. Surgeon General released an 80+ page report detailing America's fallen civic state. Loneliness, the report posits, is akin to chain-smoking. 

But anyway, this is a positive development. For too long, our leaders and their cohorts in the legacy media have swept this problem under the dusty rug of delusion. The flimsy façade of normalcy has triumphed over the truth.

During the age of COVID-hysteria, for example, little was said about the countless deaths of despair across the country. While the bottom-third of every major news network had a real-time ticker of COVID cases and casualties, there was no such ticker for cases of mental illness and suicide. We are social animals; isolation will kill us. 

At least we are paying attention now... 

The bad news: People are hurting. We are feeling the effects of being alone. 

This from The Hill:

Nearly 30 percent of American households comprise a single person, a record high. Scholars say living alone is not a trend so much as a transformation: Across much of the world, large numbers of people are living alone for the first time in recorded history. 

It is incumbent on us to stand athwart this "transformation". We must never except this as the new normal. Because if we do collectively shrug our shoulders and become indifferent to this reality of increased atomization, we will be, in effect, sowing the seeds of our own national coming apart. 

Alright, enough of this doom and gloom...

I do genuinely believe that we can rebuild a communitarian culture. It will take small communitarian acts. 

An example:

My friends and I just recently started a new tradition: Beer and wings night. On the first Saturday of every month, our little group goes to the neighborhood bar to drink and socialize. While this may seem trivial, it actually is not. This is, in a very micro sense, a small step towards a civic revival. If more people could get together and form book clubs, poker nights, and beer and wing nights, our country would be in much better shape. 

So...what are you waiting for?

 

 

at 3 comments:
By

Communitarianism in Florida


"The one greatest predictor of your longevity and health is your level of social interaction", University of Miami School of Architecture Professor Joanna Lombard told town planner Victor Dover. People, in short, need each other. To live atomized, lonely lives is not only sad and dull; it is actually bad for your well-being. 

Last May, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy admonished Americans that feeling isolated and lonely is as detrimental to your health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. The lengthy report, titled Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation, painted a rather grim picture of, what the late Amitai Etzioni would have referred to as, America's "Radical Individualist" cultural ethos. 

From the report:

Loneliness is far more than just a bad feeling - it harms both individual and societal health. It is associated with a greater risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia, stroke, depression, anxiety, and premature death. The mortality impact of being socially disconnected is similar to that caused by smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day. 

This should scare you. By forgoing social interaction and civic engagement, we are, in effect, killing ourselves. While working remotely in your pajamas and binge-watching Netflix is fun and convenient, it is so unhealthy. 

Professor Lombard, however, says that city planning can encourage social-connectedness. A city replete with verdant walkways, bicycle lanes, and balconies and front porches can facilitate a healthier and less atomized citizenry. 

Lombard and Dover look to Lake Wales, Florida as a case in point. "When I look around at Florida and I see who's doing what", Lombard said, "I feel like Lake Wales has all the pieces." 

This short interview prompted me to look into Lake Wales. "Where is this magical communitarian paradise?", I wondered. Lake Wales is a small city of approximately 17,000 residents situated in Polk County, which is in the central part of the state. 

It is breathtakingly picturesque.



Robert Steutville writes about the interview in Public Square:

Dover's interview is part of a planning effort that Dover, Kohl & Partners is helping to lead for Lake Wales, Florida. The Lake Wales Envisioned Initiative is working with the City, citizens, and other groups, to plan a healthier, economically stronger, and more sustainable future for the suburban municipality in Central Florida, a town that is at the heart of a current mass migration into the Sunshine State. 

New Yorkers, in particular, have been moving to Florida in droves. In April of this year, Selim Algar wrote in a New York Post op-ed that the mass exodus of New Yorkers leaving for Florida "wasn't just a pandemic thing." "According to new figures from the Florida Department of Highway Safety" Algar writes, "10,824 Empire Staters swapped out their licenses in the first three months of this year." 

People crave community, and if there is a dearth of societal bonds in their current ZIP code, they will flee to somewhere else. In this case, Florida. 




 

at 1 comment:
By

The Right's Circular Firing Squad

Sohrab Ahmari, Ross Douthat, and David French


Can't we all just get along? Of course we can't; that would be too easy!

The squabbles between the "new right" and the libertarian-oriented free-marketeers continue, and they show no signs of abating. In fact, the fissures look to be expanding, as NatCons ramp up their attacks on "zombie-Reaganism" and more establishment-types accuse populists of being undisciplined and overly pugnacious. 

David French, a prominent anti-Trump conservative and former editor of The Dispatch, has a Twitter feed inundated with the kind of leftist rhetoric you'd expect from Buzzfeed or Jacobin. Jonah Goldberg has also been a leading anti-populist voice on the right, often criticizing the still burgeoning MAGA cadre. 

But make no mistake, French and Goldberg are highly intelligent. In fact, I would recommend listening to The Remnant (Goldberg's podcast) or going through French's old substack, French Press (archived on The Dispatch website.) What you'll find is, mostly, thoughtful commentary. Unfortunately, much, though not all of it, has been tainted by anti-Trump fanaticism. 

Goldberg going after Gorka:


The pugnacious populists, however, don't get off scot-free. Oftentimes, their social media presence is unnecessarily combative and, sometimes, tasteless. Though there's nothing wrong with critiquing the old GOP playbook (in fact, I encourage it!), there's a thoughtful way to do it. 

Josh Hammer, who I am a big fan of, lays it on a tad thick here:  

If our goal is to take on the radical left, this is no way to do it. We may disagree on economic policy, foreign interventionism, and decorum - but we can all agree that far-left decadence is facilitating the erosion of the West's moral and cultural fabric. Either we hold our noses and join forces, or we succumb to a very dangerous movement.  


at No comments:
By

Who is the Communitarian Candidate?



Of the dozen or so Republican and Democratic candidates who have announced White House bids so far, who among them are talking about the revitalization of America's civic culture and communitarian spirit? The answer: few, if any. Outside of the occasional "we are stronger together" platitude, both parties seem to care little about restoring a Tocquevillian America. 

The progressive left and the National Conservative right both seem to be accepting, if not blatantly supportive, of the burgeoning role of the State in American affairs. And, as Tocquevillians posit, an encroaching State diminishes the robustness of community life, made up of families and small localities. In fact, in many ways, these two factions, who claim to despise one another, are actually very much alike. 



Will Hoyt eloquently describes this kind of horseshoe theory in a recent article for Front Porch Republic:

Current-day iterations of progressive and conservative positions tend to generate excitement because they are billed as new, be that iteration the current New Left critique of FDR's reliance on southern Democratic Jim Crow-oriented political machines to secure a New Deal, or the current New Right "common good" critique of neo-con belief that Catholic social teaching and American founding principles are compatible, or the Trump-inspired critique of "theocon" agendas and Reaganite economics. Ultimately, though, each of these ascendent political ideologies privileges a strong, massively centralized state...

So back to the candidates...

Who are the ones that are falling into the right/left political horseshoe, and who are rising above and promoting a communitarian image of America? Again, we are looking at slim pickings here. But, there is one candidate in particular that stands out to me...


Marianne Williamson

I know, I know. You're thinking I've lost my mind. But the fact of the matter is that Marianne Williamson is, at least rhetorically, the most communitarian candidate in the pack. Though she is often brushed away as some sort of tarot card-reading loon, she offers incredibly thoughtful and intelligent insights about the state of American society. 

I often think about this moment in the 2020 Democratic primary debates:


Williamson, instead of opining on what kind of healthcare policy we should adopt, dared to question why so many Americans get sick in the first place. And it's undoubtedly true that a healthy community life is contingent on a healthy citizenry. Policy prescription, though, falls short. Williamson understands that what is needed is an ethos change. Or rather, a spiritual reawakening. 

Or better yet, check out this exchange she had with Sean Hannity last month (skip to 6:00):


Here, Williamson suggests that we combat the inevitable human feeling of alienation with love and community. "We are here to love one another", she says, "We do not feel deeply at home on a spiritual level on this planet because this world is not based on love the way it should be." It doesn't get more communitarian than that...

Now, I also understand that Williamson is obviously a progressive. She does not necessarily see an expanding federal government as a bad thing. That's not very Tocquevillian. But, no one is perfect!

Do yourself a favor and watch this 1997 talk from Williamson on volunteerism and the civil sector. What you'll hear is someone who embodies small-c conservatism and civic life. 




 







 

at 2 comments:
By
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

Wendell Berry, RIP

By Frank Filocomo Over the last week or so, my social media feeds have been inundated with tributes to the late, great Wendell Berry, who pa...