Anti-Climacus

QUOTES FOR THE EVENING: One of my friends taught American Political Thought over the summer, and asked me if I had anything from the 20th century to recommend (the distinction between political theory and plain ol' writing about politics is hard to make after Dewey). I suggested Irving Howe's "New Styles in Leftism" (among some other things)--it's a fine example of what an analytic mind can do with the stuff of contemporary politics, the sort of thing I imagine most bloggers would not mind writing. It also, as I have mentioned to a few people, prolonged my stay on the left for a couple of years: here was a voice that could be perceptive and critical, but still find room for solidarity with broader liberal causes.

I received the book I leant back a few days ago, and decided to read the essay again (it had been a few years). A few things jumped out at me:

"Somewhere amid the current talk about 'alienation' an important reality isbeing touched upon or pointed to. There is, in our society, a profound estrangement from the sources of selfhood, the possibilities of human growth and social cohesion. But simply to proclaim this estrangement can be a way of preserving it. Alienation is not some metaphysical equivalent of the bubonic plague, which constitutes and irrevocable doom; it is the powerlessness deriving from the human failure to act. It is neither a substitute for thought, nor a dissolvant of human will, nor even a roadblock in the way of useful work. To enter into the society which in part causes this estrangement and by establishing bonds with other men to transform the society is one way of partially overcoming alienation."

The younger me read that and thought, "yes, that's a very good justification for trade unionism or participation in politics" (these are the examples Howe himself uses). What I see now is a thought about the person who holds themselves back from the world around them: they feel it unnatural to be a human being on their own precisely because it is unnatural, and it's only through the commitment to others that social and political life can bring that one overcomes perceived distance. One's position is never irrevocably set; there is much that can be done once an individual joins together with others, and for this end we have been given the family, the church, and society.

Also:

"Generational clashes are recurrent in our society, perhaps in any society. But the present rupture between the young and their elders seems especially deep. This is a social phenomenon that goes beyond our immediate subject, indeed, it cuts through the whole of society; what it signifies is the society's failure to transmit with sufficient force its values to the young, or, perhaps more accurately, that the best of the young take the proclaimed values of their elders with a seriousness which leads them to be appalled by their violation in practice.

In rejecting the older generations, however, the young sometimes betray the conditioning mark of the very American culture they are so quick to denounce: for ours is a culture that celebrates youthfulness as if it were a moral good in its own right. Like the regular Americans they wish so hard not to be, yet, through wishing, so very much are, they believe that the past is mere dust and ashes and that they can start fresh, immaculately."

In trying to assess the causes of what became known as the 'new left' and the cultural rift of the 60s, Howe returns again and again to... the failure of the older generation to properly transmit its moral values. Well. And youth disdains history and puts facile hope in progress to solve all our problems.

I don't claim all that much for the quality of my conservatism, but these seem like sentiments a conservative may at least conditionally accept. That the above passages can be written by someone clearly within the liberal tradition gives some hope for the possibilities of political discourse.