Conservatives have historically argued against progressive policies on a variety of fronts: the unintended consequences of change, the primacy of the individual over government, the dangers of a growing bureaucracy (or more generically, "big government"), the importance of traditional values and local control, the worry of people growing too dependent on government, etc. With increasing vehemence, though, conservatives have begun to argue that kind-heartedness, compassion, and a sense of community are actually evil: that they lead inevitably to Nazism and death camps.
Political debate has always been hot and heavy in this country, with conservatives swinging hard and heavy and making some pretty wild claims: the pro-British Tories in the 1770s decried the "rats of democracy"; the pro-slavery Southern planters in the first half of the 1800s said that slaves were better off than if they were free; the Social Darwinists said society would be better off if the poor were allowed to starve to death, because their death would improve the gene pool. But the compassion equals evil argument didn't really get laid out in detail until Ayn Rand's writings, where she actually did argue that people with compassion and concern for others were leeches who drained society of its competitive life blood.
Just as Ayn Rand took the Social Darwinist argument and made it more virulent, the conservative author Jonah Goldberg brought a new, more extreme twist to the argument, literally saying that progressives like FDR were ideological soul mates of Hitler and Mussolini's brand of fascism. This easily debunked book has become the right's excuse for accusing everyone arguing for progressive causes of being a Nazi.
Glenn Beck is, of course, the present day leader of the pack when it comes to this kind of invective. Here's his latest insight on the subject:
[Note]: The following is written from a perspective emphasizing developmental potentials which have been at least somewhat realized. I freely acknowledge-and have elsewhere argued-that the history of liberalism is a lot more complicated and problematic than this account alone would suggest. The repeated tardiness of liberals to champion racial justice would be an obvious case in point, precisely the sort of point that as a radical I have made on various different occasions. However, that example is much less a failing of ideology than a failing to live up to the ideology. Clearly, liberalism by itself has repeatedly failed to address the broader needs of justice. However, radicals have often been most effective by challenging liberalism simply to live up to its promises, and it's in that spirit that the following is written.
In his diary, "One liberalism through the ages", Dan makes a very strong case for seeing liberalism as centrally concerned with promoting and defending autonomy. This makes considerable sense to me as a way of distinguishing liberalism from libertarianism, and as exposing some of the flaws involved in libertarian attempts to pass themselves off as "classical liberals" with a legitimate claim to the liberal tradition.
In addition to his arguments, I would point to Harvard psychologist Robert Kegan's subject/object schema of cognitive development, in which the self is understood in terms of a subject/object relationship, with the subject structures of one level becoming objects at the next higher level. In this schema, the Level 3 "traditional" self is defined by its social surround, the roles and relationships of the society around it, taking as objects the named kinds of things that the society defines as having a stable existence, not just physical objects, but also individual attributes and dispositions, which makes a great deal of sense, since cultures the world around are defined in part by how they divide up the world analytically, and put it back together synthetically into a functioning whole.
Level 4, in turn, takes as objects the traditional self and the social surround it is embedded in, it operates on a principal of autonomy, "self-authorship", which does not necessarily reject the objects of the society it lives in, but does view them critically, as capable of modification, alteration, and reinvention, as well as regarding it as quite possible to invent wholly new objects. The Level 4 self-Kegan calls it the "modern self"--is autonomous in a way that simply isn't possible for the Level 3 self, because it can step back and question the social assumptions that the Level 3 self is embedded within.
Historically, the emergence of the Level 4 self as a relatively more common phenomena corresponds with the emergence of liberalism in the development of modern Europe. It gets its first big boost in the Italian Renaissance, based in city-states that flourished on trade, which brought them in contact with a wide range of cultures, and thus creating a condition conducive to developing the capacity to reflect back on their own culture, observing it-at least partially-with eyes that had learned to observe and come to understand something of the culture of others. It gets a second big boost with the Protestant Reformation, with it's central focus on the individual Christian conscience, and the subsequent Protestant/Catholic wars, which ultimately could only be resolved by adopting a practice of religious tolerance, which further enabled people to critically reflect on religious beliefs that had once been like the ocean in which all swam together. And it got it's third big boost with the Enlightenment, which was a veritable celebration of the power of human reason to reflect upon the world, and make it anew.
On Friday, Bill Moyers Journal featured a nearly hour long interview with Karen Armstrong, religious scholar, former nun and author of books such as Muhammad: A Biography Of The Prophet, The Bible: A Biography, and The Battle for God. A major focus of the interview was her focus on compassion.
In his introduction, Moyers, "Karen Armstrong is now on a mission to bring compassion, the heart of religion, as she sees it, back into modern life."
BILL MOYERS: Last year, at an annual gathering of the leaders in technology, entertainment and design, she received their highly prestigious TED Prize, a $100,000 cash award that, like the genie in the lamp, also grants the recipient a wish.
Clip:
KAREN ARMSTRONG: I wish that you would help with the creation, launch and propagation of a Charter for Compassion -- crafted by a group of inspirational thinkers from the three Abrahamic traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and based on the fundamental principle of the Golden Rule.
BILL MOYERS: The Golden Rule: "Do not do to others what you would not like them to do to you." That universal principle of empathy and respect is at the core of all major religions.
Karen Armstrong's Charter for Compassion was launched last year with an interactive website, charterforcompassion.org. There, people of all faiths can submit their ideas about what the Charter should say.
Recently, she traveled to Geneva, Switzerland, and gathered with a group of international religious leaders to draft the guiding principles of her charter for compassion. Karen Armstrong, it's good to see you again.
KAREN ARMSTRONG: It's great to be back. Thank you.
While this was not the only topic of their discussion, it was a central element. Woven together with it were a number of other important ideas, or perspectives, which are not new for those familiar with her earlier work. These include an insight into fundamentalism that is sorely needed in our world today, which was the subject of her book, The Battle for God. Some of this she clearly restated, some remained implicit, and a small part, I think, was a bit mis-stated. But it is all important, because it provides a radically different way of understanding the clashing belief systems behind what Bush had branded the "war on terrorism."
If I could summarize these points-a bit too briefly, perhaps-in my own words, they would be:
(1) Fundamentalism is a response to wounding and alienation.
(2) Violent fundamentalism is a political movement.
(3) Violent fundamentalists are at war with their moderate co-religionists.
(4) Moderates in all religious traditions must restore compassion to its central place in their religious practice, both for themselves and the world, and to draw fundamentalists back into fruitful dialogue.
Although Armstrong did not discuss it, there is an important, though implicit distinction between violent fundamentalist extremists and fundamentalists who may support violent extremists, but can also turn against them. This distinction is extremely important in trying to think clearly about how to deal with the mess we've inherited from the Bush regime, particularly in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
My earliest memory of my little cousin Billy is a summer vacation when I was nine and he was four. Our parents had bought us a magic set. I was older and bossier so I was the magician. Billy, with his big doe-eyes and innocence, was my assistant. He would squeak, "Abracadabra!" and I would make things disappear. But try as I might, it only worked on quarters, not Billy. He would always be there, standing shy and quiet and wide-eyed, by my side.
Last week Billy was sent to Iraq. He joined the Delaware National Guard just after high school because he needed support for college tuition. Then September 11th happened, National Guard enlistments skyrocketed, and the tuition benefits were cut. Already enlisted, Bill completed basic training and was sent to Saudi Arabia. At least it wasn't Iraq.
He came back home, got married, got a job and then got called up. Just a few days ago, my little cousin - now 25-years-old - kissed his family goodbye and left for war. This time, the main stage.
Billy's father, my uncle, is a Republican and was originally a fanatical supporter of the war. We got in an argument about preemption once. He told me that if another attack struck New York City where I live and I was hurt, he couldn't live with himself knowing that we could have prevented it by attacking Iraq. He wanted revenge on anyone who might have hurt me or anyone else for that matter. I couldn't agree, couldn't believe that American lives are more important than Iraqis, couldn't imagine preemptively attacking every bad guy in the world, couldn't imagine what that would mean to freedom and liberty everywhere, couldn't imagine that the real motives were anything but oil. We agreed to disagree.
But now everything's changed. Today, my uncle hates the war, more than Saddam, more than Osama, more than anything as far as I can tell. He wishes he hadn't given my mom such a hard time for the anti-war protests she joined. He wishes he'd joined them, too. Like before he couldn't see the truth about the war but now, through tear-filled eyes, it's clear.
At one point, 60% of Americans thought that Saddam Hussein was involved in the September 11th attacks. Today, according to a recent poll, 60% of Americans think the government misled us in making the case for war. I wonder if it's the same 60%.
I wish more of my friends knew people serving in the war, but most of us had parents who could afford college and our friends could afford college, and their friends, and so we don't know anyone desperate enough to enlist. I wish no one were ever that desperate. I wish the choices presented to us by our government at this point weren't either to attack or abandon but to actually aid the Iraqi people from whom we've taken so much. I wish the war on terror was really a war on poverty, not a war on Arabs and Muslims. I wish there were better options for solving our world's conflicts, that a strong United Nations could have pressured both Iraq and the United States to respect human rights and international law. I wish that a strong United Nations today could help revive and reconstruct Iraq with the credibility that America's go-it-alone shock-and-awe strategy long ago squandered.
I wish I could go to sleep at night feeling secure that war is only used as a desperate and unfortunate last resort not a blunt tool wielded casually by empire. I wish millions of Americans were blocking every intersection in every small town demanding and end to this war. I wish that President Bush and members of Congress and every one of us felt just as frightened for all the American servicemembers in Iraq as I feel for my cousin. And I wish everyone in the United States experienced as much compassion for the Iraqis, too, knowing that we're all in this world together - that with each Iraqi or American death, we would all cringe with the sorrow and fear that it might be one of our loved ones we'll never see again. I wish that everyone could look at the war with that state of mind.
But mostly, I wish that I were nine years old again holding a plastic wand with Billy by my side thinking that, with just one "Abracadabra!", I could make him reappear standing next to me. Or make this war disappear for that matter.
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