Liberalism And Conservatism

[poliphilo]

David Mamet had a piece in the Village Voice the other day about how he's no longer a liberal. Only he didn't just say "liberal" he said "dead head liberal" or something equally colourful. it's sort of depressing- because predictable- how famous literary types cross the stage from left to right in the course of their careers. No-one ever makes the journey in the other direction, do they? 

Why does it happen? Is it because these guys become wise, or because they become old and rich? Mamet says his conversion grew out of the realisation that he doesn't want to change people any more. They are fine as they are. They all want money and advancement and security and stuff but- on the whole- within the structure of existing law- they rub along pretty well together and don't do one another much harm. This leads him to a neat definition of the difference between liberalism and conservatism. Liberals believe people can change for the better, conservatives believe they're pretty much stuck the way they are- and that's fine.

Mamet is a benign conservative. If he doesn't want to change the world, it's because he thinks it works pretty well the way it is. Others are despairing conservatives. My man Balzac for example: his people are awful, just awful- driven by greed, ambition, lust,  revenge. If he supports the political status quo- as he does, even though it disgusts him- it's because it puts some sort of restraint on all these utterly selfish egos. 

This is where he differs most radically from Dickens. Dickens is a liberal. For him human nature is fundamentally good and his plots habitually hang on the possibility that the wicked man may turn from his wickedness and live. Institutions, for him, are corrupt and corrupting. Do away with the workhouse, the Court of Chancery, a Utilitarian system of education- and things will improve. Balzac disagrees profoundly. Do away with the straitjacket of institutions and the madmen run wild.

When Dickens writes a fairy story, he writes A Christmas Carol- in which a miserly old man is changed overnight into a cheery philanthropist. Balzac has his misers too- and they all of them die stretched out upon their moneybags. No-one, in Balzac, so far as I can see, ever changes- except for the worse. When he writes a fairy story he writes Le Peau de Chagrin- in which an ambitious young man aquires a magic skin which shrinks every time he makes a self-serving wish- and when it finally shrinks to nothing, he dies.

Dickens was one of those few who, for all the despairing heaviness of his later life, never stopped being a liberal. I admire him for that. To be a liberal is to entertain hope. As you get older you see how history repeats itself and bad people triumph and good people let you down- and the conservative position becomes ever more and more attractive and harder to oppose. Better to stick with what we've got for fear of something worse. But where does a conservative turn to for hope? To religion or occultism or some weird, fetishistic worship of the state and its symbols- to that great foetid, glittery heap of  treasure and old bones.  

I'm sorry Mamet has gone over to the other side. I believe I undestand why he's done it and why it seems like the rational and grown-up thing to do. There's something childlike in the way liberalism is always grasping after some unreachable star.  It keeps failing. It gets shown to be foolish again and again and again. There's no dignity in it.

But then I don't greatly value my dignity.

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

"brain-dead"- that's the one!

I do admire the American constitution with all its in-built checks and balances. It's like the game of stone, scissors, paper. No-one ever has ultimate power.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

Right. We admired your system of government and then improved on it.

But we have one problem -- the thing has grown too damned big. It's possible for folks to dip their snouts in the trough and rake off unconscionable sums of money for themselves and their friends with hardly any accountability...and an ever-bloated bureaucracy creates nonproductive and non-accountable [union] jobs that will be held by an ever-expanding number of people who can be counted on to vote for candidates that will continue to expand the bureaucracy. The feeding trough just keeps getting biggier and messier. [sorry for multiple edits on this...]

I'm also deeply disturbed by the messianic fervor with which folks are supporting Barack Obama. When large numbers of them are chanting a full-throated chant, it's scary how much "Yes We Can" sounds like "Sieg Heil."

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I think Western democracy is going through a bad patch. Over here in Britain no-one (I exaggerate of course) turns up to vote any more and the membership of political parties just drops and drops. There is a widespread disenchantment with the political process and with politicians of every type. What comes next I shouldn't like to guess, but it could be something significantly nastier than what we have now.

[oakmouse]

I have a nasty sinking feeling that Nick Griffin may play a role in what comes next. Not that America has any cause to point fingers; we've got our own equivalents, and I'm thinking of rereading "It Can't Happen Here" to remind me that yes, it can and quite possibly will.

[msjann65.livejournal.com]

I just read it, and let me tell you that it raised the little hairs on the back of my neck.

[oakmouse]

Terrifying, isn't it? My dad pointed me at it when I was in college and Unca Ronnie had just gotten elected for his first term. I thought it was scary then; it's much more so now.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Nick Griffin is quite smart. His followers aren't. Whenever BNP candidates are elected to office they swiftly demonstate incompetence and unfitness. This gives me hope.

But, yes, a lot of people who feel deserted by the mainstream parties (and rightly so, because they have been deserted) are likely to turn to the extremists.

[oakmouse]

That's good to hear. It's not quite so easy to put the nasty ones in office if their henchbeings are incompetent.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

We have a significant chunk of the population actively engaged in the political process via the blogosphere, I think. I hope. The notion that an "Army of Davids" as Glenn Reynolds of Instpundit puts it, can shine the clear lights of ridicule and outrage into the darker corners of political chicanery is helping.

I know that I am significantly more engaged in the political process (meaning I think about it and I vote) now that I can keep tabs on the miscreants via the blogosphere. I never fully trusted the traditional media but now there's a really good point-counterpoint going.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

On the other hand the mocking scrutiny of the blogosphere erodes faith in the institutions of democracy. These are restless and uncomfortable times.

[msjann65.livejournal.com]

I agree with you about Obama. There is something that just does not feel right about all this "messianism". Also the demonization of the opposition. For gosh sakes, that USED to be a Republican trick! And look what that got us!

[msjann65.livejournal.com]

Remember "Flip-flop, flip-flop" four years ago at the GOP convention?

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

To be honest, I don't -- that convention took place here in Philadelphia and we were pretty worried about what the moonbat crazies might do to our city. Fortunately the disruption was de minimis.

"Flip flop, flip flop" was a chant in derisive homage to John Kerry, I imagine.

By the way, demonizing the opposition isn't the exclusive preserve of one party or the other. They both do it. For every Karl Rove, there's an equal and opposite James Carville.