Mark Lilla is always worth reading, even if he is not always convincing. His latest book makes a straightforward argument that can be reproduced in a syllogism: The Democratic Party is the only hope for America; identity politics is tearing the Democratic Party apart; therefore the country is imperiled by identity politics.
The Clash of Traditions
Professor Samuel Huntington photographed in his office at Harvard University. (Rick Friedman/Corbis via Getty Images)The late political scientist Samuel Huntington’s famous book The Clash of Civilizations (1996) argued that culture, not economics or ideology, was the key to understanding world affairs after the Cold War’s end. Different civilizations, he argued—he identified nine, including the Western, Orthodox, Islamic, Sinic, and Hindu—with different histories, religions, and values, were now reasserting themselves after a brief period of quiescence. These different civilizations would inevitably clash with one another and with liberalism, an ideology that presumed itself universal, but which was actually the product of one of those civilizations, the Western. To expect non-Western civilizations to reject their own cultures and adopt liberalism wholesale, he argued, was folly.
National Sovereignty, Political Idea of the Year
The year 2016 demonstrated the enduring relevance of political ideas. A political idea is distinct from and more fundamental than a stance on a policy or issue. It is a way of understanding political phenomena in light of a worldview. A political idea connects the dizzying array of available facts, forming a coherent vision of what is really happening in the world.
Nearly every political idea involves at minimum three components, corresponding to these questions:
- What is a good society—in other words, what should the world look like?
- Why doesn’t it look that way?
- What would set things right?
Scholars, journalists, and analysts have attributed Trump’s victory, Brexit, and other nationalist advances to the forces of populism, demagoguery, and xenophobia.
Endgame of American Culture
When America’s most sophisticated social scientist warns that America is on its last legs, it is time to start paying attention. Charles Murray has come to the conclusion that Donald Trump is “an expression of the legitimate anger that many Americans feel” about the state of the country.
The Trump phenomenon was to be predicted, writes Murray in a recent essay. “It is the endgame of a process that has been going on for a half-century: America’s divestment of its historic national identity.”
Snubbing the Anglosphere
In response to: The Anglosphere: A Viable Global Actor or Simply a Culture?
Samuel Gregg rightly concludes that the political cooperation required for the nations of “the Anglosphere” to act as an effective international bloc rests upon choices by leaders. Cultural ties and longstanding security relationships open possibilities, but pursuing them requires conscious decision. To elaborate on Gregg’s analysis, one would have to consider what presuppositions and concerns guide Anglosphere leaders’ foreign policy. Before we even get that far, though, we are likely to encounter resistance. The Anglosphere concept is dismissed by many as either fantasy or an exercise in nostalgia. It obviously strikes a chord that keeps it in circulation, though, notwithstanding…
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The central question addressed by Samuel Gregg in his timely ruminations about the Anglosphere is how ready and willing its member nations are to “collectively shape the global order” through collaboration beyond that in which they already engage. His chief contention is that, while the nations of the Anglosphere jointly possess the necessary economic, demographic,…
Samuel Gregg’s thoughtful Liberty Forum essay on the prospects for a functional “Anglosphere” leaves me perplexed. He is no Pollyanna on the matter, but to my mind he underestimates some monumental intellectual and practical difficulties confronting statesmen who would try to move the English-speaking peoples from ad hoc cooperation in various areas, animated by real…
The Yanks Made Us Do It
In response to: The Anglosphere: A Viable Global Actor or Simply a Culture?
The central question addressed by Samuel Gregg in his timely ruminations about the Anglosphere is how ready and willing its member nations are to “collectively shape the global order” through collaboration beyond that in which they already engage. His chief contention is that, while the nations of the Anglosphere jointly possess the necessary economic, demographic, and military means to be much more assertive globally, certain key political leaders lack the will to turn it into a more assertive player. Of these reluctant leaders, one is said to be President Obama. “Of all postwar American presidents,” Gregg writes, “Obama seems the least…
More Responses
Samuel Gregg rightly concludes that the political cooperation required for the nations of “the Anglosphere” to act as an effective international bloc rests upon choices by leaders. Cultural ties and longstanding security relationships open possibilities, but pursuing them requires conscious decision. To elaborate on Gregg’s analysis, one would have to consider what presuppositions and concerns…
Samuel Gregg’s thoughtful Liberty Forum essay on the prospects for a functional “Anglosphere” leaves me perplexed. He is no Pollyanna on the matter, but to my mind he underestimates some monumental intellectual and practical difficulties confronting statesmen who would try to move the English-speaking peoples from ad hoc cooperation in various areas, animated by real…
Constitutional Moments
This lengthy essay is adapted from a “Constitution Day” talk delivered at several universities over the past month. It attempts to understand the country’s current predicament in light of the Founder’s “constitutional moment.” Our problems are neither a matter of mere policy nor of “values.” They are institutional, and The Federalist has much to teach us about the dynamics of institutional failure and reform. The essay contains a section on the country’s disastrous financial condition; readers who do not need that reminder (or can no longer bear it) may wish to skip that part. A videotaped version of the talk, including…
Responses
I admire all of Michael Greve’s essay and agree with much of it. Like him, I worry about the long-term solvency of the United States. Like him, I doubt the capacity of partisan politics as currently structured to address that problem. And like him, I am a dyed-in-the wool Madisonian institutionalist who views changes of…
If something can’t go on forever, Herb Stein instructed us, it won’t. The relief that bad arrangements will not get eternally worse yields once more to alarm, however, when we contemplate how they will stop going on forever. With ample warning before we face mortal peril, and sufficient reservoirs of probity, good will, and intelligence…
