From Albion’s Seed to Mr. Trump, a Tocquevillian tour with Mr. Poulos–race is in it, religion is in it, & democracy. It’s really good writing. I’m now listening to Democracy in America on audiobook–the first English translation is on librivox, by the way–& I was thinking about the difference between the politics & religion of North & South only to run into this column. I guess I don’t have to bother writing. I’m just here to recommend it.
More postmodern conservatism
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I printed Poulos’ column and got about half-way through before heading to work.
More later.
Maybe.
M. If you have any questions or remarks, please share!
Having still only read part of the column. . . I had the thought the North and South were settled for different reasons: personal liberty in the North; commerce in the South.
Yes–I’m not rereading Tocqueville–he also makes a point of this.
There is of course a deeper matter of religion underlying the habits, giving meaning, for example to liberty.
Then the different races that peopled the North & South added all sorts of other differences.
For example, the much more important place of honor & manliness in the South.
It seems that novelists, rockers, & military men are better in the South, all things considered. This is probably not an accident… Maybe the South is now better able to deal with social disintegration / individualism, as least with good leadership.
Well, I read the column and remain unswayed. ?Why is it that all the “intellectuals” always fall back on race. Race is significantly less important today I would submit, although for the minorities, there is evidence of voting patterns that don’t reflect what is good for them.
I would submit that religion is still the most important issue, but that it is no longer defended as once it was, so those who benefited the most from it (the lower classes) now have nothing but government to fall back onto – a destructive concept if there ever was one.
Mr. Poulos agrees that religion & the religion-falling-into-atheism is the big deal. But that religion has more than a little to do with the races that brought it to America, English vs. Scotch-Irish. Of course, at that level, race is tied up with a way of life, not a scientific theory of race…
The other point he makes is that race matters more to Americans than social class. This, I think is pretty obvious in the case of minorities. If it should be the case that the majority of the white majority disagrees, that would be tricky to think through–because white people brought both the politics & the religion to America, as the first points suggests…
I would say, lots of groups of people, if you see those who understand themselves as groups, do something else than enlightened self-interest or self-interest rightly understood would advise. But that shows how important politics is–they’re very hard to persuade to change & there’s rarely anyone interested in that job of persuasion…
Race is of course far less significant now than it was two or five generations back. But unless people are persuaded that it’s insignificant–it is significant. & I cannot think of anyone in public American life willing to say, race is insignificant. That’s a significant fact!
“Race is of course far less significant now than it was two or five generations back. But unless people are persuaded that it’s insignificant–it is significant. & I cannot think of anyone in public American life willing to say, race is insignificant. That’s a significant fact!”
Well, true, but despite the race baiters (mostly democrats) it is becoming less and less of an issue. The black minority STILL hasn’t figured out they are being played and seem to often have fallen into the trap that this life is good, when there is much more that could be gotten – including peace.
Whites, OTOH, are slowly dissipating the old White Guilt that the democrats have propagated for so long. The younger generation is not nearly so ready to accept all this is their fault. So I foresee that race will continue to die out as a factor in any politics. For the moment it is a major factor only in democrat policy – and that mostly aimed at keeping them agitated. BLM is a great example. It is inherently a communist movement with no real facts to back it. Yet these agents provocateur have managed to set off race riots (or at least black riots) all over the country. Only in Milwaukee has there been any sense from blacks that their riots are destroying their OWN areas and driving out businesses that they need. So they can learn, if oh, so slowly.
But you notice there is little interest or agitation on the white side. None of them find any of this either interesting or useful – or their problem. THAT would suggest that race is less important than the article suggests.
I hope you’re right. But you should remember, lots of whites are liberals & have no interest in changing their views.
& it still is true we should ask ourselves: Why isn’t any major public figure saying, race is not a big deal anymore?
Because major public figures are all old people. Note Marco Rubio is not talking about race. Rand Paul is not talking about race. They are the (relatively) younger ones.
I think as the power evolves to the younger generation, there will be attitude changes. Or at least I hope so. I note a lot of my childrens’ peer group appear to be much more conservative than my generation was at their age; I was always the one who stuck out for my views, which really haven’t changed radically since I was about 18. Refined perhaps but not really different.
I’m afraid that America’s youth, especially the influential ones, brought up on the arrogance of college–you’re America’s future leaders!–think that socialism plus libertarianism is the only political future. I’d rather be wrong than right, as usual…
We’ll see whether these Senators have much of a career left in them; or much influence. I hope they’ll do some good for your country, but they have not hitherto done much but destroy whatever chances they once had to lead the party or conservative movement or some factions of either…
You do bring up a great problem: Who are America’s young politicians? Dems are damned by their corruption to be stuck in the Sixties. Not sure the GOP has what it takes to put forward talented young politicians. 2016, with its hallowed, much-ballyhooed field was more or less a slaughter…