Liberals: Then and Now

Over the past, say, thirty years, while the Right has been on the offensive, liberals in America have been confused. Way back when, liberals had moral theories of society locked up, but somewhere along the line, conservatives took control of the discourse on morality. How did liberals cede it? Generally speaking, I think it boils down to complacency.

As anyone with a liberal arts education knows, the term "liberal" does not just apply to dirty hippies. In the beginning, liberals were right about the direction to take society. Not only were they right, but they put things into a morally imperative context. By way of example, let me put up a few quotes from noted father of sociology Emile Durkheim, who I would consider to be part of the liberal intellectual tradition.

On the value of equal opportunity to society as a whole:

"If societies attempt - and they should attempt - to eliminate external inequalities as much as possible, it is not only because the undertaking is a noble one, but because in solving this problem their very existence is at stake."

On the justification for government regulations:

"Yet, apart from the fact that it is incorrect to say that any form of regulation is the product of constraint, it so happens that liberty itself is the product of regulation."

On the moral underpinning of the interdependence Democratic ideology recognizes and Republican ideology rejects:

"We may say that what is moral is everything that is a source of solidarity, everything that forces man to take account of other people, to regulate his actions by something other than the promptings of his own egoism, and the more numerous and strong these ties are, the more solid is the morality."

Contrast this ethic of togetherness, this moral basis for things like regulation that liberals today intuitively support, with the "leadership" of liberals like John Kerry and Hillary Clinton. Why did our leadership descend to this level? Well, there is no easy answer, but part of the solution is that it upsets wealthy corporate donors to make bold moves. Plus it's just plain scary to take the risk of going out on a moral limb to support something that hasn't been focus-grouped. But mostly I think liberals got used to being right all the time, and it made them lazy.

For most of the post-war period, there has been a cordial bipartisan spirit of collegiality in Congress. The only problem with this system of relative honesty and meritocracy is that it screws Republicans - since they are wrong all the time, working together honestly and in good faith would allow superior policies to be enacted, thus by definition precluding their own policies from ever coming to fruition. So when Republicans took over in 1994, that spirit of collegiality was one of the first things to go, and since then Democratic bills and amendments haven't been allowed. Democrats let their persuasion skills atrophy. They saw that things were easier when you were right, and that all you had to do was trot out some figures to back that up, and as long as the other guy did the same thing, your right figures would prevail. When the other guy stopped playing the honest truth game, being right was no longer enough. Demorats fell for the seduction of Pleasure Island, and they turned into donkeys. (Or do I mean donkeys? I definitely don't mean Pleasure Island.)

At any rate, a book happens to have just come out that offers the most direct treatment of this issue yet: Being Right Is Not Enough, by Paul Waldman. As a bonus, an initial inspection of the book's website promises the most comprehensive treatment of politics and foosball in some time. Unfortunately, my tried and true methodology of judging books by their covers (who could argue with that?) may not prove sound in this instance, as closer inspection reveals that it doesn't reach quite the depth of foosball coverage I was hoping for. But I digress. Waldman basically argues for the kinds of things I argue for on this blog, including a more morally compelling presentation of a unified progressive vision.

So this fall, the winds are at the Democrats' backs. We'll probably take some territory in the Senate, and we'll almost certainly win the battle for the House, and then we'll take our Risk card and wait for our next turn in 2008. But so far, the best that party leaders seem to be able to offer by way of vision is that We're Not Quite Republicans. And it's too bad, because when you look at what will actually happen, you can see that we actually are still right. Emile Durkheim was an uncommonly brite man, and I'm not saying we need to reinvent the wheel here by starting from scratch on the liberal tradition - we just need to reconnect it to our morals.