As a college freshman way back in 1967, I became enamored of the novels and ideas of Ayn Rand. In the decades since, my writing and speaking has been influenced in profound ways by that late philosopher and novelist's fertile mind and artistic sensibilities. I also held positions in various organizations and publications promoting her work.
During those years, I referred to myself by the name she gave to her philosophy. I was an "Objectivist" and I promoted "Objectivism."
But I no longer use those terms in self-description. Nor am I involved in any Objectivist organizations, publications, or "movements." For anyone interested, I'd like to explain precisely why, and where I now stand.
Without getting into complicated specifics, my
essential philosophical ideas have not much changed, as anyone reading my nonfiction or fiction would quickly realize. The Randian influence is deep and unmistakable.
However, my views about the
validity, usefulness, and desirability of a formal movement of "individualists" who are organized in ideological groups and hierarchies, which are run and policed by designated "representatives" or "intellectual heirs" (including self-proclaimed
ones), have changed, and radically. In fact, even during the years I was mired within the
"movement," I argued against any such organizational structures,
as being in contradiction with the substance of individualism. (For
example, if you can find a copy, in a recorded lecture, "Organized
Individualism? Building the Objectivist Community.")
Anyone
who takes seriously the lessons of Rand's novel The Fountainhead would have to reject any such
creature as an "organized Objectivist movement." (For those familiar with the novel: Can you imagine its individualist hero, Howard Roark ,
subjugating himself as a "member" or "follower" or even "student of Objectivism"?) For some years, Ayn Rand allowed such an organized movement to be established to promote her philosophy; it was called the Nathaniel Branden Institute. It later imploded disastrously -- ostensibly because of personal issues between herself and its founder, but actually because of the issue of "intellectual representation."
Rand had designated the eponymous head of NBI as her "intellectual heir and representative," her public spokesman and champion -- the supposed embodiment of her ideas. In practice, that meant he was a professional yes-man, required to perfectly reflect and champion her ideas -- not his own. That inevitably proved to be untenable: A philosophy of individualism cannot be promulgated as a dogma. Yet the nature and structure of an organization aiming to perfectly embody somebody's entire philosophy -- to the letter and without deviation -- mandates and encourages dogmatism.
If you read Rand's own
published statements in the immediate wake of the NBI debacle, you'd see
that she learned that lesson explicitly. She wrote that she always
had been dubious about an "organized movement of Objectivists" and never
wished to be the head of one, let alone forced into the role of trying
to police "misrepresentations" of her philosophy. She also -- again
explicitly -- stated she would never again authorize or endorse any such
Objectivist organization. But she was barely cold in her coffin before a new, self-proclaimed "intellectual heir" (never and nowhere
did she ever designate him as such) declared that, with her death, that
restriction no longer applied. He then created an organization, the Ayn Rand Institute, which essentially mirrored the disastrous approach of NBI.
I
participated for a long time in a different, competing Objectivist organization, one that
positioned itself as hostile to the notion of any intellectual gurus,
hierarchies, and dogmas. But I still found the core problem had not been
effectively addressed -- because it began with the label of the philosophy itself.
Ayn Rand had developed her personal philosophical system and
slapped a label on it, one in which she also declared a proprietary
interest: "Objectivism." This put her admirers in a moral quandary. Were
only those who agreed with Rand's every significant utterance
"Objectivists"? Or could one call himself an "Objectivist" if he agreed
with most of her philosophical essentials, but disagreed with her on
this or that specific application or inference? And if the latter, where, exactly,
did one draw the lines?
Years (and may I say, lives)
have been wasted in an absurd tug-of-war among individuals and organizations over the "moral right" to use Rand's invented label in self-description. People have built their entire self-esteem (and careers)
upon that "Objectivist" title; upon their "loyalty" to specific utterances and positions
of Rand's (and those of her self-appointed, posthumous interpreters); and
upon whether or not particular notions are "essential" to Objectivism.
The determination of what is and isn't "essential" is completely
arbitrary and subjective, ranging from the utterly dogmatic
("Objectivism is everything and only what Rand wrote and said of a
philosophical nature") to the utterly relativistic (e.g., notions by
various self-proclaimed "Objectivists" who equate that term with moral and political views
Rand herself loathed and denounced).
I saw that the basic error of Rand -- as
an advocate of independent judgment and individualism -- had been to
ascribe a label to her personal philosophy (with all its countless
implications), but then try to limit and restrict its "authorized" use by others...unless they
conformed completely to every dotted "i" and crossed "t" of her own
interpretation. Understandably, she imposed these restrictions about use of the label lest others publicly "misrepresent" her and damage her reputation. Yet this put sincere admirers
in an impossible position: either slavishly nod and parrot Rand's every
utterance, or abandon the label "Objectivist." If the former, then being
an "Objectivist" means being a dogmatist -- which contradicts the
individualist epistemological and moral basis of the philosophy. If the latter, though, then
the only real "Objectivists" are those who abandon the label, in order
to preserve their own intellectual independence and moral integrity.
Absurdly, five decades after they first arose, these debates continue to rage throughout the small and insular Objectivist subculture. Nearly a decade ago, I happily abandoned that subculture and its baggage. At
my age, life had become far too short to remain mired in such
pointless and preposterous preoccupations. To what end? Will the "winners" of the rhetorical battles swell their chests with pride that they -- and only they -- are the
"true Objectivists"? Will that have the slightest substantive impact upon
the course of their lives, let alone upon the course of the world outside their skulls?
Finally, from a personal, practical, and professional standpoint, using the shared label also meant having to constantly, publicly disavow a multitude of idiots and
scoundrels masquerading as "Objectivists," and bizarre notions
advanced as "Objectivism." Sadly, that included some of Rand's own private foibles and erroneous ideas. Like the "Scarlet Letter," the label has become a way for
ideological enemies to employ "guilt by association" smears, linking the decent people using it to odious others, and to their dubious views. I have no
time or interest in answering for the private quirks and weird ideas of total
strangers, with whom I would be lumped by a shared, artificial label, but very
little else.
As a principled individualist, I answer only for myself. (And I use the term "principled individualist" purely descriptively, and not capitalized.)
I
cannot tell you how relieved and liberated I have felt for the past decade to be light years
removed from "the Objectivist movement," and from its unproductive distractions. I remain proud of many things I accomplished during my years of involvement in that movement. But I wasted
way, way too much time myopically mired in a silly, rhetorical tug-of-war
over an unimportant label.
So, I no longer use the label "Objectivist." I neither have nor seek any affiliations or involvement with organs of "the Objectivist movement" -- which is "moving"
nowhere, and which is an oxymoron, if you take seriously the point of The Fountainhead. I leave such petty preoccupations to those with far more years left
to fritter away.
If you wish to label me anything, try my name.
Likewise, if you want to argue with my ideas, try arguing with mine -- not Ayn Rand's, or
Leonard Peikoff's, or David Kelley's, or anyone else you care to name.
Showing posts with label individualism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label individualism. Show all posts
Sunday, September 17, 2017
Friday, July 22, 2016
Independence Day 2016
Note: I posted this on my Facebook page on July 4, 2016. I neglected to post it here, but I would like to give this message a greater permanence than a passing comment on social media. Here was my message:
I AM TAKING THIS MOMENT to remember and honor what too many have forgotten: the idea that makes America unique in the history of the world. That idea -- embedded in our founding documents and defended with the blood of countless patriots -- is individualism. It is the moral principle that the individual is an end in himself, and not a sacrificial pawn of kings, dictators, legislative bodies, "majorities," or collective Society itself. And as a moral end -- not a mere means to the ends of others -- the individual has inviolate rights to his own life, and to the liberty to peacefully pursue his own happiness. Our Declaration of Independence celebrated not just an independence of colonies from another faraway country, but something far more profound: the independence of the individual from the forcible interference of others, no matter how great their number or "need."
That was the revolutionary idea underlying the American Revolution. Never before in the history of the world had that principle been recognized by any other nation or group -- which is why the history of the world is one of chronic, blood-soaked barbarism of man against man. The American conception of individual rights created the original "safe space": a moral barrier around each individual, a barrier against the force, fraud, and coercion of his fellow man. It declared him to be sovereign within that safe space, as long as he, in turn, did not use force, fraud, or coercion against others.
This idea -- even grasped and implemented imperfectly -- led to the creation of the greatest, most prosperous, most progressive (and I mean that word in its literal sense) society and economy in the history of the world. It created more opportunities for more people, higher living standards, and -- yes -- greater happiness than any society anywhere, at any time. America became a beacon of freedom and hope that beckoned to millions around the world, millions who uprooted themselves, crossed vast oceans, and came here with nothing in their pockets -- just for the chance to "make something of themselves."
America was the home of the self-made individual. It was a place where anyone could literally make and remake himself, becoming whatever he wished, without interference. All because of the principle upon which the nation was established: that the individual was a moral end in himself.
Barbaric tribalism is the default position of humanity. It is what happens quite automatically when the sovereignty of individuals is not respected and enshrined into law. Gang warfare is what happens when the social barrier to mutual exploitation -- the principle of individual rights -- is obliterated.
If we are now seeing a horrific, headlong reversion to barbarism -- abroad and here -- it's because generations of "intellectuals," chafing against legal limitations on their power over unruly individuals, have declared all-out war on the philosophy of individualism at the heart of the American project. They have looked at the achievements of individuals and proclaimed "You didn't build that!" and that "It takes a village," instead. They have glorified dictatorial philosophies and praised the thugs that imposed them on their societies. They have enabled, ignored, and rationalized inhuman savagery against millions of individuals. They have obliterated the idea that the individual is a moral end, in order to reduce him to a helpless means to their ends.
On this Independence Day, as we have fun with our friends, eat our hot dogs, and enjoy our fireworks, can we please pause to remember (if we were ever taught it) the true nature of the "independence" bequeathed to us by our ancestors? Can we grasp, if only for a single fleeting, quiet moment, the moral principle that made America distinctive, and then great? Can we soberly re-dedicate ourselves to that principle, and -- following the example of those who spilt blood for it -- vow to weave it anew into the fabric of our society and laws?
If you lack the self-esteem to do that for yourself, then do it for your spouse, or your kids. Or in memory of those heroes before us, who gave their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor so that their ungrateful children could enjoy lives better than their own.
I AM TAKING THIS MOMENT to remember and honor what too many have forgotten: the idea that makes America unique in the history of the world. That idea -- embedded in our founding documents and defended with the blood of countless patriots -- is individualism. It is the moral principle that the individual is an end in himself, and not a sacrificial pawn of kings, dictators, legislative bodies, "majorities," or collective Society itself. And as a moral end -- not a mere means to the ends of others -- the individual has inviolate rights to his own life, and to the liberty to peacefully pursue his own happiness. Our Declaration of Independence celebrated not just an independence of colonies from another faraway country, but something far more profound: the independence of the individual from the forcible interference of others, no matter how great their number or "need."
That was the revolutionary idea underlying the American Revolution. Never before in the history of the world had that principle been recognized by any other nation or group -- which is why the history of the world is one of chronic, blood-soaked barbarism of man against man. The American conception of individual rights created the original "safe space": a moral barrier around each individual, a barrier against the force, fraud, and coercion of his fellow man. It declared him to be sovereign within that safe space, as long as he, in turn, did not use force, fraud, or coercion against others.
This idea -- even grasped and implemented imperfectly -- led to the creation of the greatest, most prosperous, most progressive (and I mean that word in its literal sense) society and economy in the history of the world. It created more opportunities for more people, higher living standards, and -- yes -- greater happiness than any society anywhere, at any time. America became a beacon of freedom and hope that beckoned to millions around the world, millions who uprooted themselves, crossed vast oceans, and came here with nothing in their pockets -- just for the chance to "make something of themselves."
America was the home of the self-made individual. It was a place where anyone could literally make and remake himself, becoming whatever he wished, without interference. All because of the principle upon which the nation was established: that the individual was a moral end in himself.
Barbaric tribalism is the default position of humanity. It is what happens quite automatically when the sovereignty of individuals is not respected and enshrined into law. Gang warfare is what happens when the social barrier to mutual exploitation -- the principle of individual rights -- is obliterated.
If we are now seeing a horrific, headlong reversion to barbarism -- abroad and here -- it's because generations of "intellectuals," chafing against legal limitations on their power over unruly individuals, have declared all-out war on the philosophy of individualism at the heart of the American project. They have looked at the achievements of individuals and proclaimed "You didn't build that!" and that "It takes a village," instead. They have glorified dictatorial philosophies and praised the thugs that imposed them on their societies. They have enabled, ignored, and rationalized inhuman savagery against millions of individuals. They have obliterated the idea that the individual is a moral end, in order to reduce him to a helpless means to their ends.
On this Independence Day, as we have fun with our friends, eat our hot dogs, and enjoy our fireworks, can we please pause to remember (if we were ever taught it) the true nature of the "independence" bequeathed to us by our ancestors? Can we grasp, if only for a single fleeting, quiet moment, the moral principle that made America distinctive, and then great? Can we soberly re-dedicate ourselves to that principle, and -- following the example of those who spilt blood for it -- vow to weave it anew into the fabric of our society and laws?
If you lack the self-esteem to do that for yourself, then do it for your spouse, or your kids. Or in memory of those heroes before us, who gave their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor so that their ungrateful children could enjoy lives better than their own.
Thursday, March 24, 2016
The Republican Crack-Up, Revisited
Perhaps the smartest political observation I've read in a long time
comes from Joel Kotkin, a conservative Democrat and a noted demographer.
In the March 20, 2016 issue of the Orange County Register, he wrote a fertile column about the rise of Donald Trump in the Republican Party. Kotkin's piece was laden with excellent observations, but none so important as this:
This is a great insight, and it explains pretty much everything that has gone wrong with our nation politically for the past century.
The Democrats are a coalition of interest groups held together with a general unifying ideology: big-government progressivism. The Republicans, by contrast, are a coalition of interest groups without any single unifying ideology. Historically, their only basis for unity has been their shared enemies: the Democrats (and various points in the Democrat agenda). Members of the GOP have little in common ideologically -- only occasionally overlapping interests (often for diverse reasons), but mostly opposition to specific Democrats or specific Democrat initiatives and policies (again, for diverse reasons).
Put another way, there has been no basis for Republican unity in principle, except perhaps for a strong national defense. However, on matters of domestic policy, constitutional limitations on government power, economics, immigration, trade, civil liberties, individual rights...on just about everything you can name, Republicans are all over the map. There's no single principle, let alone broader political philosophy, that holds the party factions together.
Which explains why America has moved inexorably to the left over the past century, since the first Progressive Era. You have leftists, represented by the Democratic Party, who know exactly what kind of a society they want, and why. They have an underlying worldview, a Narrative, buttressed by academic theories and rationalizations, and translated into long-term policy goals. By contrast, the Republicans have none of this, and (perhaps except for Goldwater and Reagan) they have not had a leader who imposed upon the party, from the top, a unifying worldview, Narrative, theoretical rationale, or policy goals.
And it has finally led to what many are now acknowledging to be an impending crack-up of the Republican Party.
A Warning from 1996
Not that any of this should be a surprise. In fact, I anticipated the party's disintegration in a long 1996 monograph titled The GOP's Foreign Imports, published by the Institute for Objectivist Studies. In that essay, I observed that "Within the GOP, a philosophical meltdown is occurring." In words that could have been written today, I described how "the Republican majority in Congress is paralyzed and adrift, its energy gone, its direction uncertain." And, foreshadowing the emergence of Trumpism today, I noted: "Meanwhile, the populist/nationalist insurgency of commentator Pat Buchanan in the GOP presidential primaries impelled his nervous rivals to compete with him in bashing big business, immigrants, and imports."
Sound familiar?
I cited an earlier column I'd written, in the January 1995 Freeman, in which I had said: "The GOP stands precariously on deep philosophical fault lines, and already we're hearing rumblings of coming tremors that could shatter the...coalition.... Torn by ideological contradictions, the GOP is coming apart at the seams."
In the monograph, I elaborated:
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
I went on in the monograph to identify a number of warring ideological factions within the GOP.
Warring Philosophical Factions
First were the "pragmatists" -- "the ballast of the Republican Party," made up of "unprincipled champions of consensus, convention, and compromise. Philosophically vacuous but personally ambitious, pragmatists stand for everything...and nothing." These are most prominently represented by the members of the party Establishment.
Then were what I described as "anti-individualists." These come in several varieties. First are the "conservative welfare statists," who believe in big, activist, "compassionate" government social programs -- but who (in contrast to the Dems) promise to distribute and redistribute government goodies on the cheap. So they don't talk about repealing ObamaCare, for example, but instead "taking the best parts of it and making them work better." Unlike the unprincipled pragmatists, these Republicans (the George W. Bush/John Kasich types) are sincere...but they are liberals at heart. Which is why they have been described as "Democrat Lite."
Another variety of anti-individualists are the "tribalists." I described them as those who "draw their personal identities from collective affiliations. They believe there are inherent conflicts of interests among men that pit their group against all others in a battle for status. This prompts them to see themselves as victims of powerful elites, group favoritism, and dark conspiracies.... These 'angry voters' are drawn to divisive demagogues, from Huey Long to George Wallace to Ross Perot to Pat Buchanan." (And today, of course, to Donald Trump.)
I further subdivided the tribalists into two factions. First, "nationalists, [who] believe there are inherent national, racial, and/or cultural conflicts of interest," and who can be found "shouting 'America First!'" because "they see themselves in a 'cultural war' to preserve our 'national identity' from foreign and minority influences. They thus reject foreign trade, treaties, immigration, and racial/ethnic integration." The second faction are "populists, [who] define themselves not by nation or race, but by economic class. They believe there's a fixed national economic pie to be divided, so any gains by others must be at their expense. They thus see themselves as 'little guys,' exploited by a privileged elite of bureaucrats, businessmen, and bankers." (Trump deliberately appeals to both factions.)
In addition to the various sorts of pragmatists and anti-individualists (e.g., conservative welfare statists and tribalists), there is an anti-Enlightenment faction within the GOP: those who reject the Enlightenment values of reason, individualism, the pursuit of personal happiness and fulfillment, self-realization, and personal choice -- usually on religious and/or cultural grounds. They (wrongly) identify such premises with personal subjectivism and moral relativism, and as an antidote, they advocate the subordination and sacrifice of the individual to the broader society and religious dogma. In short, they promote conservative cultural collectivism. These are the "social conservatives" who believe that government should impose Judeo-Christian values on society, by law if necessary, in order to advance social cohesion and keep unruly, self-indulgent individuals in line.
Finally, the GOP harbors a minority of "individualists...the most intellectual and principled elements on the Right," consisting of "economic conservatives and political libertarians, as well as Objectivists." These are the champions, respectively, of free markets and free trade; of "constitutional conservatism" and limited government; and of the Enlightenment worldview of reason and individualism. But today, this principled minority finds itself increasingly marginalized and outnumbered within the GOP. The hostility of the pragmatic Establishment toward "constitutional conservative" Senator Ted Cruz provides one example; the primary results provide another.
A Coalition Shattered
I wrote all of this in 1996. Twenty years later, nothing has changed -- except that the 2016 GOP primaries have revealed, with painful finality, that these logically irreconcilable factions have no rational basis for continued cohesion. At the outset of the primary season, a host of candidates vied for the Republican presidential nomination, representing every shade of pragmatist (Christie, Gilmore, Pataki, Graham, Trump), conservative welfare statist (Kasich), tribalist (the populist/nationalist Trump), religious social conservative (Carson), cultural collectivist (Huckabee, Santorum), constitutional conservative (Cruz, Fiorina, Jindal), libertarian (Paul), and economic conservative (Rubio, Bush, Walker, Perry).
Now, ask yourself what any of these factions have in common. Can individualists (constitutional conservatives, libertarians, and Objectivists) make common cause with nationalist or populist tribalists? Can advocates of reason and individual liberty make common cause with conservative collectivists? Can anyone from any faction who is serious about his principles make common cause with -- or trust -- the unprincipled pragmatists?
Moreover, with the presidential nomination of Trump the Tribalist (and unprincipled pragmatist) looming ever more likely, the last pretenses of any principled distinctions between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party have been obliterated. We are likely to face two competing forms of statism, and two equally authoritarian and thuggish candidates for our nation's highest office.
Abraham Lincoln famously said, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." During the 2016 election cycle I have been raising the alarm about the rise of Trumpism in the GOP precisely because it deprives individualists of any hospitable home in a viable major party. And also because whether Trump wins or loses, we have finally, sadly reached my long-predicted crackup of the Republican Party.
So...where do we go from here?
The Path Forward
Our first task is to face and grasp the cause of the problem. The problem is intellectual chaos. In terms of vision, philosophy, goals, policies -- of Narrative -- the GOP is everything, and nothing. That's why even with an electoral majority in Congress today (as in the early 1990s), the Republicans cannot rally around a single alternative to (say) ObamaCare, or a proposed budget, or a policy to deal with the looming disaster of runaway entitlement spending, or even a coherent strategy to deal with ISIS. Philosophically divided, the party is paralyzed by indecision; too many logically incompatible values, principles, and agendas are clamoring for collective agreement, with each splinter faction trying to impose its own on the others.
That can't happen. Collectivist decision-making may work for those who embrace collectivism; they are used to sacrificing individual interests for the sake of the group. But it emphatically does not work for those who champion individualism, by which the ultimate evil is sacrificing one's values for the sake of group "harmony." Those who embrace constitutional conservatism, free markets, and individual rights on principle cannot sacrifice their principles and go along with the statist agendas of pragmatists, tribalists, and social conservatives, in the name of "party unity." (The same can be said of sincere, principled social conservatives.)
No, individualist ends can only be advanced by individualist means.
In my opinion, bright, articulate advocates of principled individualism who aspire to public office should stop trying to "convert" or "take over" the Republican Party. That's a fool's errand, a futile waste of time, and a contradiction: You can't impose individualism on others.
Instead, I think they should aim to establish themselves first as champions of individualist principles and values on platforms outside the party apparatus, before entering politics. Perhaps through the media -- columns, talk shows, entertainment, public speaking platforms, etc. They should acquire a reputation and public following that way -- independently -- and then enter politics.
Ronald Reagan achieved public fame first as an actor, then as a public speaker touring the country. His famous speech for Barry Goldwater in 1964, "A Time for Choosing," established his "brand" as a principled, articulate conservative. So, when he launched his political career, he already was well-known and well-liked. Because his brand had been so firmly established, he didn't even bother to go up through the party ranks. His first run for political office was to be governor of California -- not for some smaller office. Similar examples of this "independent outsider" strategy could be cited, including Arnold Schwarzenegger and, yes, Donald Trump. They established attractive brands as individuals first. Then they just marched in and entrenched beachheads within the GOP, pushing aside hostile Establishment rivals by the sheer numbers and force of their followers.
Those of us who do not aspire to public office should look to support qualified, articulate, attractive, principled outsiders who do. (It's one reason I supported Carly Fiorina early this primary season. I wish that Trump's distracting celebrity presence hadn't obscured her many merits.) A second choice would be political insiders who have demonstrated a long track record of standing firmly on principle against the corrupt Establishment within the system. (It's the reason I currently support Senator Ted Cruz against the tribalist Donald Trump and the conservative welfare statist Governor John Kasich.)
As for those of us who don't want any direct involvement in politics, but who still wish to promote the kind of changes that affect politics, I have said for years that the place to focus is not politics, but culture. Ayn Rand and Andrew Breitbart were both courageous visionaries, and they both agreed -- in Breitbart's memorable words -- that "politics is downstream from culture." What affects culture more directly are stories. Not think tanks, not college professors, and not the abstract ideas and theories that flow from either -- but ideas as they are dramatized and romanticized in the form of narratives.
We urgently need to reclaim and romanticize the Western Enlightenment/individualist worldview in popular entertainment. We need the constant celebration of individualist virtues and values in art. We need to patronize and encourage the good stuff, not merely fight the bad stuff. Negating negatives is not the same thing as producing positives.
Similarly, we need to honor, and to defend from attack, those who champion and protect our basic American institutions. This includes our police and military, our entrepreneurs and self-made individuals, our great historical leaders and cultural icons (including America's Founders). We need to extol their virtues as virtues. We need to celebrate their lives, giving them awards and recognition. Today's kids are tomorrow's leaders, and they need not only fictional models, but real-life exemplars of individualist virtues.
But yes, as a corollary to our positive efforts, we do need to declare war on today's artistic nihilism, whose toxic influence creates the sort of morally vacuous, shapeless entities who are fit for nothing but a welfare state or a collectivist colony. And yes, as a corollary to creating and defending values, we do need to confront evil's enablers -- especially its academic, political, and media enablers. We can't remain mute as our culture's values and institutions are under assault.
However, we must always remember that fighting evil is a secondary task. Our civilization is perishing due to over a century of nihilistic assaults on its basic philosophical values. That nihilism has created a void, a cultural vacuum. You don't fight a void; you fill it.
Our primary focus -- as George Washington put it -- must be to "raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair."
Advancing a New Narrative
Note that all of this has very little to do, at least directly, with the Republican Party: taking it over, deposing its corrupt Establishment, fighting over its platform provisions at conventions. It has very little to do with politics, period -- at least not directly. It dwells instead on the task of affecting the culture that lies upstream from politics.
The left has long understood the importance of "narrative control," which is why they have colonized Hollywood and the arts. As a result of their efforts, we can now throw facts and logic at people till the cows come home; but because our enemies have shaped the narratives by which people assimilate and interpret facts, we always lose the arguments. They process everything we say to fit a Core Narrative embedded in their brains, the dominant storyline that guides their lives and integrates their thoughts.
We need to take charge of that storyline. We need to advance a new Core Narrative for our American culture, but one rooted in individualist premises.
We need to hammer that Narrative home in every venue, using every media, cultural, and political platform. The Core Narrative of American Individualism needs to be translated into thousands of specific stories and examples, into countless variations on its basic themes, and then applied to new contexts in fresh ways. We need to see it manifested in novels, plays, and movies. We need it in TV shows and historic documentaries and biographies. We need it in video games, and children's picture books, and songs, and poetry.
The Individualist Narrative needs to be romanticized, honored, championed, and defended. And its enemies need to be challenged, opposed, mocked, and fought -- just as they have done for over a century against ours.
This is not primarily a political battle. It is a battle for hearts and minds, over what it means to be human. It is a battle over the nature of our fundamental ideals, values, motives, and purposes.
It is a cultural war.
But it's not a cultural war whose goals are to be defined and represented solely by social conservatives versus cultural leftists. It's time that those of us who are principled individualists march onto the cultural and political battlefields as a third force, armed with our own Narrative.
Successful political parties unite interests under a broadly shared policy agenda. The Clinton Democrats may seem ethically challenged, condescending and bordering on dictatorial, but they share basic positions on many core issues and a unifying belief in federal power as the favored instrument for change.
In contrast, the Republican Party consists of interest groups that so broadly dislike each other that they share little common ground.
This is a great insight, and it explains pretty much everything that has gone wrong with our nation politically for the past century.
The Democrats are a coalition of interest groups held together with a general unifying ideology: big-government progressivism. The Republicans, by contrast, are a coalition of interest groups without any single unifying ideology. Historically, their only basis for unity has been their shared enemies: the Democrats (and various points in the Democrat agenda). Members of the GOP have little in common ideologically -- only occasionally overlapping interests (often for diverse reasons), but mostly opposition to specific Democrats or specific Democrat initiatives and policies (again, for diverse reasons).
Put another way, there has been no basis for Republican unity in principle, except perhaps for a strong national defense. However, on matters of domestic policy, constitutional limitations on government power, economics, immigration, trade, civil liberties, individual rights...on just about everything you can name, Republicans are all over the map. There's no single principle, let alone broader political philosophy, that holds the party factions together.
Which explains why America has moved inexorably to the left over the past century, since the first Progressive Era. You have leftists, represented by the Democratic Party, who know exactly what kind of a society they want, and why. They have an underlying worldview, a Narrative, buttressed by academic theories and rationalizations, and translated into long-term policy goals. By contrast, the Republicans have none of this, and (perhaps except for Goldwater and Reagan) they have not had a leader who imposed upon the party, from the top, a unifying worldview, Narrative, theoretical rationale, or policy goals.
And it has finally led to what many are now acknowledging to be an impending crack-up of the Republican Party.
A Warning from 1996
Not that any of this should be a surprise. In fact, I anticipated the party's disintegration in a long 1996 monograph titled The GOP's Foreign Imports, published by the Institute for Objectivist Studies. In that essay, I observed that "Within the GOP, a philosophical meltdown is occurring." In words that could have been written today, I described how "the Republican majority in Congress is paralyzed and adrift, its energy gone, its direction uncertain." And, foreshadowing the emergence of Trumpism today, I noted: "Meanwhile, the populist/nationalist insurgency of commentator Pat Buchanan in the GOP presidential primaries impelled his nervous rivals to compete with him in bashing big business, immigrants, and imports."
Sound familiar?
I cited an earlier column I'd written, in the January 1995 Freeman, in which I had said: "The GOP stands precariously on deep philosophical fault lines, and already we're hearing rumblings of coming tremors that could shatter the...coalition.... Torn by ideological contradictions, the GOP is coming apart at the seams."
In the monograph, I elaborated:
The party has long maintained a "big tent," sheltering many opposing ideological factions. Cementing this uneasy alliance weren't shared premises, but shared enemies.... The primary contest [of 1996], noted U.S. News & World Report, quickly became "a slugfest over the ideas and identity of the Republican Party," a battle that "exposed a network of fissures and fault lines that is dividing the party and encouraging Democratic hopes of retaining the White House in November."
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
I went on in the monograph to identify a number of warring ideological factions within the GOP.
Warring Philosophical Factions
First were the "pragmatists" -- "the ballast of the Republican Party," made up of "unprincipled champions of consensus, convention, and compromise. Philosophically vacuous but personally ambitious, pragmatists stand for everything...and nothing." These are most prominently represented by the members of the party Establishment.
Then were what I described as "anti-individualists." These come in several varieties. First are the "conservative welfare statists," who believe in big, activist, "compassionate" government social programs -- but who (in contrast to the Dems) promise to distribute and redistribute government goodies on the cheap. So they don't talk about repealing ObamaCare, for example, but instead "taking the best parts of it and making them work better." Unlike the unprincipled pragmatists, these Republicans (the George W. Bush/John Kasich types) are sincere...but they are liberals at heart. Which is why they have been described as "Democrat Lite."
Another variety of anti-individualists are the "tribalists." I described them as those who "draw their personal identities from collective affiliations. They believe there are inherent conflicts of interests among men that pit their group against all others in a battle for status. This prompts them to see themselves as victims of powerful elites, group favoritism, and dark conspiracies.... These 'angry voters' are drawn to divisive demagogues, from Huey Long to George Wallace to Ross Perot to Pat Buchanan." (And today, of course, to Donald Trump.)
I further subdivided the tribalists into two factions. First, "nationalists, [who] believe there are inherent national, racial, and/or cultural conflicts of interest," and who can be found "shouting 'America First!'" because "they see themselves in a 'cultural war' to preserve our 'national identity' from foreign and minority influences. They thus reject foreign trade, treaties, immigration, and racial/ethnic integration." The second faction are "populists, [who] define themselves not by nation or race, but by economic class. They believe there's a fixed national economic pie to be divided, so any gains by others must be at their expense. They thus see themselves as 'little guys,' exploited by a privileged elite of bureaucrats, businessmen, and bankers." (Trump deliberately appeals to both factions.)
In addition to the various sorts of pragmatists and anti-individualists (e.g., conservative welfare statists and tribalists), there is an anti-Enlightenment faction within the GOP: those who reject the Enlightenment values of reason, individualism, the pursuit of personal happiness and fulfillment, self-realization, and personal choice -- usually on religious and/or cultural grounds. They (wrongly) identify such premises with personal subjectivism and moral relativism, and as an antidote, they advocate the subordination and sacrifice of the individual to the broader society and religious dogma. In short, they promote conservative cultural collectivism. These are the "social conservatives" who believe that government should impose Judeo-Christian values on society, by law if necessary, in order to advance social cohesion and keep unruly, self-indulgent individuals in line.
Finally, the GOP harbors a minority of "individualists...the most intellectual and principled elements on the Right," consisting of "economic conservatives and political libertarians, as well as Objectivists." These are the champions, respectively, of free markets and free trade; of "constitutional conservatism" and limited government; and of the Enlightenment worldview of reason and individualism. But today, this principled minority finds itself increasingly marginalized and outnumbered within the GOP. The hostility of the pragmatic Establishment toward "constitutional conservative" Senator Ted Cruz provides one example; the primary results provide another.
A Coalition Shattered
I wrote all of this in 1996. Twenty years later, nothing has changed -- except that the 2016 GOP primaries have revealed, with painful finality, that these logically irreconcilable factions have no rational basis for continued cohesion. At the outset of the primary season, a host of candidates vied for the Republican presidential nomination, representing every shade of pragmatist (Christie, Gilmore, Pataki, Graham, Trump), conservative welfare statist (Kasich), tribalist (the populist/nationalist Trump), religious social conservative (Carson), cultural collectivist (Huckabee, Santorum), constitutional conservative (Cruz, Fiorina, Jindal), libertarian (Paul), and economic conservative (Rubio, Bush, Walker, Perry).
Now, ask yourself what any of these factions have in common. Can individualists (constitutional conservatives, libertarians, and Objectivists) make common cause with nationalist or populist tribalists? Can advocates of reason and individual liberty make common cause with conservative collectivists? Can anyone from any faction who is serious about his principles make common cause with -- or trust -- the unprincipled pragmatists?
Moreover, with the presidential nomination of Trump the Tribalist (and unprincipled pragmatist) looming ever more likely, the last pretenses of any principled distinctions between the Republican Party and the Democratic Party have been obliterated. We are likely to face two competing forms of statism, and two equally authoritarian and thuggish candidates for our nation's highest office.
Abraham Lincoln famously said, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." During the 2016 election cycle I have been raising the alarm about the rise of Trumpism in the GOP precisely because it deprives individualists of any hospitable home in a viable major party. And also because whether Trump wins or loses, we have finally, sadly reached my long-predicted crackup of the Republican Party.
So...where do we go from here?
The Path Forward
Our first task is to face and grasp the cause of the problem. The problem is intellectual chaos. In terms of vision, philosophy, goals, policies -- of Narrative -- the GOP is everything, and nothing. That's why even with an electoral majority in Congress today (as in the early 1990s), the Republicans cannot rally around a single alternative to (say) ObamaCare, or a proposed budget, or a policy to deal with the looming disaster of runaway entitlement spending, or even a coherent strategy to deal with ISIS. Philosophically divided, the party is paralyzed by indecision; too many logically incompatible values, principles, and agendas are clamoring for collective agreement, with each splinter faction trying to impose its own on the others.
That can't happen. Collectivist decision-making may work for those who embrace collectivism; they are used to sacrificing individual interests for the sake of the group. But it emphatically does not work for those who champion individualism, by which the ultimate evil is sacrificing one's values for the sake of group "harmony." Those who embrace constitutional conservatism, free markets, and individual rights on principle cannot sacrifice their principles and go along with the statist agendas of pragmatists, tribalists, and social conservatives, in the name of "party unity." (The same can be said of sincere, principled social conservatives.)
No, individualist ends can only be advanced by individualist means.
In my opinion, bright, articulate advocates of principled individualism who aspire to public office should stop trying to "convert" or "take over" the Republican Party. That's a fool's errand, a futile waste of time, and a contradiction: You can't impose individualism on others.
Instead, I think they should aim to establish themselves first as champions of individualist principles and values on platforms outside the party apparatus, before entering politics. Perhaps through the media -- columns, talk shows, entertainment, public speaking platforms, etc. They should acquire a reputation and public following that way -- independently -- and then enter politics.
Ronald Reagan achieved public fame first as an actor, then as a public speaker touring the country. His famous speech for Barry Goldwater in 1964, "A Time for Choosing," established his "brand" as a principled, articulate conservative. So, when he launched his political career, he already was well-known and well-liked. Because his brand had been so firmly established, he didn't even bother to go up through the party ranks. His first run for political office was to be governor of California -- not for some smaller office. Similar examples of this "independent outsider" strategy could be cited, including Arnold Schwarzenegger and, yes, Donald Trump. They established attractive brands as individuals first. Then they just marched in and entrenched beachheads within the GOP, pushing aside hostile Establishment rivals by the sheer numbers and force of their followers.
Those of us who do not aspire to public office should look to support qualified, articulate, attractive, principled outsiders who do. (It's one reason I supported Carly Fiorina early this primary season. I wish that Trump's distracting celebrity presence hadn't obscured her many merits.) A second choice would be political insiders who have demonstrated a long track record of standing firmly on principle against the corrupt Establishment within the system. (It's the reason I currently support Senator Ted Cruz against the tribalist Donald Trump and the conservative welfare statist Governor John Kasich.)
As for those of us who don't want any direct involvement in politics, but who still wish to promote the kind of changes that affect politics, I have said for years that the place to focus is not politics, but culture. Ayn Rand and Andrew Breitbart were both courageous visionaries, and they both agreed -- in Breitbart's memorable words -- that "politics is downstream from culture." What affects culture more directly are stories. Not think tanks, not college professors, and not the abstract ideas and theories that flow from either -- but ideas as they are dramatized and romanticized in the form of narratives.
We urgently need to reclaim and romanticize the Western Enlightenment/individualist worldview in popular entertainment. We need the constant celebration of individualist virtues and values in art. We need to patronize and encourage the good stuff, not merely fight the bad stuff. Negating negatives is not the same thing as producing positives.
Similarly, we need to honor, and to defend from attack, those who champion and protect our basic American institutions. This includes our police and military, our entrepreneurs and self-made individuals, our great historical leaders and cultural icons (including America's Founders). We need to extol their virtues as virtues. We need to celebrate their lives, giving them awards and recognition. Today's kids are tomorrow's leaders, and they need not only fictional models, but real-life exemplars of individualist virtues.
But yes, as a corollary to our positive efforts, we do need to declare war on today's artistic nihilism, whose toxic influence creates the sort of morally vacuous, shapeless entities who are fit for nothing but a welfare state or a collectivist colony. And yes, as a corollary to creating and defending values, we do need to confront evil's enablers -- especially its academic, political, and media enablers. We can't remain mute as our culture's values and institutions are under assault.
However, we must always remember that fighting evil is a secondary task. Our civilization is perishing due to over a century of nihilistic assaults on its basic philosophical values. That nihilism has created a void, a cultural vacuum. You don't fight a void; you fill it.
Our primary focus -- as George Washington put it -- must be to "raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair."
Advancing a New Narrative
Note that all of this has very little to do, at least directly, with the Republican Party: taking it over, deposing its corrupt Establishment, fighting over its platform provisions at conventions. It has very little to do with politics, period -- at least not directly. It dwells instead on the task of affecting the culture that lies upstream from politics.
The left has long understood the importance of "narrative control," which is why they have colonized Hollywood and the arts. As a result of their efforts, we can now throw facts and logic at people till the cows come home; but because our enemies have shaped the narratives by which people assimilate and interpret facts, we always lose the arguments. They process everything we say to fit a Core Narrative embedded in their brains, the dominant storyline that guides their lives and integrates their thoughts.
We need to take charge of that storyline. We need to advance a new Core Narrative for our American culture, but one rooted in individualist premises.
We need to hammer that Narrative home in every venue, using every media, cultural, and political platform. The Core Narrative of American Individualism needs to be translated into thousands of specific stories and examples, into countless variations on its basic themes, and then applied to new contexts in fresh ways. We need to see it manifested in novels, plays, and movies. We need it in TV shows and historic documentaries and biographies. We need it in video games, and children's picture books, and songs, and poetry.
The Individualist Narrative needs to be romanticized, honored, championed, and defended. And its enemies need to be challenged, opposed, mocked, and fought -- just as they have done for over a century against ours.
This is not primarily a political battle. It is a battle for hearts and minds, over what it means to be human. It is a battle over the nature of our fundamental ideals, values, motives, and purposes.
It is a cultural war.
But it's not a cultural war whose goals are to be defined and represented solely by social conservatives versus cultural leftists. It's time that those of us who are principled individualists march onto the cultural and political battlefields as a third force, armed with our own Narrative.
Saturday, November 16, 2013
How "The Wizard of Oz" Refutes the Liberal Narrative
I have been pondering for several months how this classic childhood film presents a remarkable metaphor for the failure of the liberal/progressive/statist view of government. Consider the plot:
A group of humble individuals finds their lives disrupted by frightening events beyond their control. Their entire world is literally turned upside-down, and they find themselves in strange, scary new circumstances. Now, they fear they are out of control of their lives, and they are terribly anxious about their future.
One victim of the disaster seeks a return to her normal world. Another believes he hasn't the courage to meet the fearful challenges ahead. A third fears he lacks compassion and dedication. Yet another wonders whether he has the brains to survive on his own.
From a bunch of "little people," they are told about a wondrous far-off city, where a great and powerful wizard will provide them everything they seek and need -- merely by magical decree. Desperate, they embark upon a difficult pilgrimage to that city of power and favors, which is topped by a towering monument. There, acting like craven beggars, they visit and supplicate themselves before the all-powerful wizard, pleading for his aid. And he promises to fulfill their heart's desires.
But there is a catch. The supplicants are told that first they must pay a price for his help: They must agree to go out and do the wizard's bidding, undergoing a host of ordeals on his behalf. The price of his help is servility. Intimidated, they agree to do so. They perform the tasks he has ordered, suffering terribly, but mastering every challenge along the way.
At last, they return in triumph and insist that the wizard keep his end of the bargain. But he balks and refuses, accusing them of insolence and improper deference to one of his exalted station.
Suddenly, an innocent young pup pulls back the curtain. The Great and Powerful Wizard is revealed to be nothing more than a pathetic old con man: an incompetent fake, who had achieved his power and status over the little people only through his ability to spin glowing Narratives that promised them whatever they wanted . . . and told them whatever they wanted to hear.
In the end, the adventurers come to a shocking realization. Each discovers that, all along, he or she already possessed all the brains, heart, and courage to live happy lives, to produce whatever they needed, and to accomplish great things. They learn that, all along, they could have stood self-reliantly on their own, solving their individual problems creatively and productively, without paying endless tribute to, or accepting endless abuse from, any fraudulent, conniving, self-appointed "wizards" living parasitical lives of luxury in some distant center of power . . . .
All right, folks: Having now revealed "The Wizard of Oz" as a highly subversive Narrative of individualism, one that brilliantly mocks and fatally skewers the "progressive" Narrative, I wonder how long it will be before the Regime tries to ban it?
Friday, October 05, 2012
Election 2012 and the Clash of Narratives
"Why Let the Rich Hoard All the Toys?"
So asks New York Times's columnist Nicholas Kristof, in an op-ed that constitutes a perfect, and revealing, distillation of the progressive Narrative—the Narrative that has become the central, if unacknowledged, issue of the 2012 presidential election.
Kristof writes:
Imagine a kindergarten with 100 students, lavishly supplied with books, crayons and toys.
Yet you gasp: one avaricious little boy is jealously guarding a mountain of toys for himself. A handful of other children are quietly playing with a few toys each, while 90 of the children are looking on forlornly—empty-handed.
The one greedy boy has hoarded more toys than all those 90 children put together!
“What’s going on?” you ask. “Let’s learn to share! One child shouldn’t hog everything for himself!”
The greedy little boy looks at you, indignant. “Do you believe in redistribution?” he asks suspiciously, his lips curling in contempt. “I don’t want to share. This is America!”
And then he summons his private security firm and has you dragged off the premises. Well, maybe not, but you get the point.
That kindergarten distribution is precisely what America looks like. Our wealth has become so skewed that the top 1 percent possesses a greater collective worth than the entire bottom 90 percent, according to the Economic Policy Institute in Washington.
And it is the reigning social Narrative that should be challenged during the waning days of this election campaign.
The progressive's Narrative is erected on a zero-sum, tribal socio-economic model. In this model, the tribe's wealth ("national income," "Gross National Product," etc.) is collectively owned, and exists in a limited quantity. Those premises are illustrated in standard economics texts by means of "pie charts" indicating various "shares" and "distributions" of "national" wealth.
Given these premises, it follows that any one tribal member's "excessive" accumulation of personal riches could not have been individually produced ("You didn't build that!"), but was instead swiped from the tribal pot of wealth, and thus acquired at the expense of everyone else. It further follows that the moral task of the tribal leaders (the President, Congress, regulators, etc.) must be to tax away that "excess" (stolen) wealth and pour it back into the collective pot, so that everyone in the tribe will have access to his equal "fair share."
It is appropriate that Kristof chose a parable of children in a kindergarten to illustrate the progressive worldview. For progressivism is not a mature, adult philosophy, but a juvenile story—an immature, childish Narrative about how the market economy supposedly works. More specifically, it is a primitive Narrative, one rooted far back in mankind's distant tribal past. This timeless Narrative has been resurrected and propagated endlessly in classic myths, allegories, and parables, such as Robin Hood, the Sermon on the Mount, Dickens's "A Christmas Carol," and Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life." It remains the central plotline of endless novels and films in which rapacious (more recently, carcinogenic) corporate tycoons crush the souls, jobs, and lives of hapless, hard-working "little people." Arguably, it goes back to the Prometheus myth in ancient Greece: After all, Prometheus didn't create fire as his gift to man, but stole it from the gods (Zeus: "Prometheus, about that fire—you didn't build that!")
Here, we see this same primitive, childish mythology put forth on the op-ed page of the New York Times, by an educated, pampered, and (hypocritically) wealthy member of the elite progressive media. In his parable of a schoolboy "hoarding" all "the" toys, the unstated premises are: All the toys are collectively owned by the kindergarten; they exist to be shared equally and in common; and this one greedy kid's "hoarding" of contents taken from the collective toy box imposes losses on all the other kids.
Kristof's juvenile myth reveals, by implication, another tacit premise of the "progressive" Narrative. Observe that in this zero-sum social world, the kid hoarding the "toys" had nothing to do with the toys' production, or with their presence in the kindergarten. ("Kid—you didn't build them!") Yet, somehow, the "toys" are just there. The kindergarten has been magically, mysteriously, but "lavishly supplied with books, crayons and toys."
Supplied...how? and by whom?
From before the days of Marx, the left's zero-sum Narrative evades those questions and their answers. It evades the issue of production and those who make it possible: individual producers. In the progressive Narrative, they simply do not exist. Goods and services are simply here, like the fruit that appears each year on apple trees. As liberal pseudo-economist John Kenneth Galbraith wrote decades ago in The Affluent Society, "the problem of production has been solved"; the real problem now, he said, was "fair" distribution of what was produced. Likewise, to Barack Obama, since business people "didn't create that" wealth, the goal now is to "spread the wealth around." (Note: "the" wealth, not somebody's wealth.)
So what, exactly, is "the problem of production"? What was the "solution"? Who solved it? Don't they deserve to be compensated handsomely for solving it? And by what moral right does the tribe—which did not solve the problem of production—come in and seize the fruits of those who did?
None of these questions are raised or answered by progressives. Liberalism, socialism, "progressivism," Marxism, fascism—i.e., collectivism of any variant—all begin with the unexplained presence of wealth in the world; those who actually created it are causally irrelevant. After all, if "the" wealth is here causelessly, then those who have acquired a lot of it must be takers, not makers.
Morally, so-called "social justice" represents a negation of justice plain and simple. More fundamentally, it constitutes a war on causality. It is an effort to seize effects (goods and wealth) while denying their cause (individual producers). Of course, it never occurs to "redistributors" that when you do that, you remove all incentive for those unacknowledged producers to continue producing—and that you will create a society with an overall shrinking "pie" of wealth. In short: a society such as the one we are experiencing today.
But to those mired in this Narrative, facts do not matter. Real-world consequences to real people do not matter. The only thing that matters is affirming, advancing, and protecting the Narrative.
It was not until the Agricultural Revolution that men began to break free of the zero-sum existence of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle. For the first time, production allowed men to increase the food supply—to expand the size of the "pie." No longer did one person's gain entail another person's deprivation. With the gradual increase of production under a division of labor, and with free trade among those producing specialized goods, the "pie" of wealth began to grow rapidly. With the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions, living standards, which had remained at subsistence levels since the dawn of man's presence on Earth, suddenly began to soar, and so did life expectancy.
But while the zero-sum social world was disappearing, the zero-sum Narrative did not vanish from the minds of men. People still tried to fit the events and changes around them into a familiar explanatory matrix, and to populate the morality play in their heads with new casts of heroes and villains. As centuries passed, tribalism morphed into feudalism, then nationalism, then various forms of ideological collectivism: socialism, communism, fascism, racism, Nazism, not to mention collectivism's religious-based variants. Whatever their differences, all still clung to the basic plot of the story: of a brute conflict among individuals and classes for limited wealth in a zero-sum world, and of the need for the tribe to suppress individual greed, for the common good.
And so it remains, even now. Despite the fact that the capitalist system of individual freedom, private property, and free trade has led to the greatest explosion and broadest distribution of wealth in history, it clashes with the interpretive story that gives many people a profound sense of meaning and worth, and with the multitude of social institutions in which that worldview is deeply embedded.
In this, the Twenty-First Century, it is ironic that a Narrative drawn from mankind's primitive, brutal, tribal past is labeled "progressive."
And it is a sad commentary on the current state of philosophy and politics that individuals who bitterly cling to this childish, atavistic Narrative occupy editorial offices of our major newspapers, positions of leadership in our cultural institutions, and, of all places, the Oval Office of the White House.
That this election race is even close is appalling. An abundance of dismal facts and ominous economic statistics ought to weigh decisively in voters’ minds against rehiring Barack Obama. But the Romney campaign, for the most part, simply recites and repeats those facts and statistics as if they “speak for themselves.”
However, facts never speak for themselves. Facts always must be put into some context—some interpretive framework.
Team Romney has amassed—and in my opinion, has been squandering—millions of advertising dollars hammering away at the terrible economic statistics…statistics that every voter already knows. Meanwhile, Team Obama has been spending its money telling a story about those statistics, providing voters a matrix for interpreting them. In this competition, the supposed Romney cash advantage over Obama is irrelevant. As pollsters Pat Caddell and Doug Schoen warned Team Romney a few weeks ago, “Message beats money every time.”
This election is all about Narrative. By "Narrative," I mean more than a campaign theme, or even a guiding abstract philosophy. I mean a story that
concretizes and communicates that theme or philosophy in a compelling,
personal way. To reach the minds and touch the souls of those who do not
think in terms of statistical and ideological abstractions—and even to
motivate
those who do—campaign messages must be personalized
and dramatized.
The 2012 election ought to offer a clear choice between two campaign Narratives. But for too long, Team Romney has abdicated on the responsibility of presenting its own Narrative, and passively let itself play the villain role in Team Obama's Narrative.
As soon as it became obvious that Romney would be the
Republican standard-bearer, the Democrats launched an incessant campaign to
“position” his image in the minds of voters, so as to render him unelectable.
As Al Ries and Jack Trout wrote in their marketing classic, Positioning: “The easy way to
get into a person’s mind [i.e., to establish an impression, or “position”] is
to be first.” And: “If you didn’t get into the mind of your prospect first
(personally, politically, or corporately), then you have a positioning
problem.”
The Democrats were first to “position” Romney’s image with swing voters, by advancing a fabricated-but-toxic personal Narrative about the candidate—and by tying him to a broader-but-equally-toxic philosophical Narrative about the Republican Party. A Reader’s Digest–style condensation of that storyline would go something like this:
The Democrats were first to “position” Romney’s image with swing voters, by advancing a fabricated-but-toxic personal Narrative about the candidate—and by tying him to a broader-but-equally-toxic philosophical Narrative about the Republican Party. A Reader’s Digest–style condensation of that storyline would go something like this:
Barack Obama is not responsible for today’s horrible state of affairs. The Republicans, led by George W. Bush, created the terrible economy that's making you suffer. You are poor because the Greedy Rich, which the GOP champions, are stealing from you by not paying their "fair share" of taxes and by outsourcing your jobs to China. And Mitt Romney is the poster boy for all of this evil: He’s a cold-blooded rich guy whose Bain Capital outsourced jobs, and who thus made obscene wealth at your expense. We must repudiate Romney and his greedy Republicans, and compel the thieving rich to pay their “fair share”—by re-electing Barack Obama and endorsing his policies of “fairness.”There is the leftist “social justice” morality play, complete with heroes and villains—a philosophical Narrative also tied to personal Narratives about Romney and Obama. Of course it is a ludicrous distortion of reality. But thanks to the default of the Republicans, it has been the only explanatory Narrative out there for voters to consider.
Month after month, the Democrats unleashed an unending barrage of attacks on Romney’s personal character, on his days at Bain Capital, on insinuations of tax-avoidance and secret off-shore accounts. The aim was to paint a portrait of a rich swell who made money off the suffering of Little People—a callous, greedy, rapacious bastard without a hint of compassion.
The smears have largely worked, because of how deeply ingrained the zero-sum mindset has become. It provides millions with a simplistic explanation of the world. Those who hold that outlook, especially those ideologues who purvey it, cannot conceive of "win-win" economic relationships. The plot structure of their economic Narrative demands that each cast member play an assigned role either as rapacious villain or exploited victim. Independent creators? Peaceful traders? They are not part of the class-conflict morality play.
And in response to all of these smears, the Romney camp did…exactly nothing. One year ago, most Americans knew little if anything of Mitt Romney; in their minds, he was an empty suit. Yet Team Romney sat idly by as the Democrats filled that suit with the image of Ebenezer Scrooge.
Sadly, the Romney camp still has not responded aggressively to this Narrative with one of its own. The zero-sum Narrative has been allowed to dominate the national conversation, unchallenged. And in the absence of a counter-Narrative, it continues to win by default. That is because you can't beat something, even a childishly absurd "something," with nothing.
Now, ask yourself the following: Do you think the typical voter has any clue what Bain Capital is and actually does? Has Team Romney ever made an effort to explain it? Or has it tried instead to avoid—evade—any mention of Romney’s private investment company, thus lending credence to the suspicion that he has something to hide?
Yes, Team Romney has facts, events, and logic on its side. Team Obama, by contrast, has only a campaign Narrative: a scary personal Narrative that it concocted about Mitt Romney and his past, wedded to a broader philosophical Narrative that blames all our current woes on past Republican ideas and policies. And in the battle between Republican purveyors of facts, and Democrat purveyors of a Narrative, the storytellers have been winning.
What Team Romney should and must do is better articulate an optimistic, modern counter-Narrative that is rooted in our nation's unique values: the Narrative of American Individualism.
In this Narrative, prosperity comes, not as "fair shares" doled out from a zero-sum, collective tribal pot, but from individual creativity. The American individualist Narrative is one of personal productivity and free trade. It is an inspirational Narrative of private economic growth and expansion. It is an aspirational Narrative of seeking opportunity—not subsistence. It is a harmonious Narrative of peaceful, voluntary, win-win market exchanges—not of ruthless gang warfare over fixed chunks of wealth. It is an uplifting Narrative filled with the names of heroes: of Edison, Eli Whitney, James J. Hill, Cornelius Vanderbilt, the Wright Brothers, and all the great inventors and achievers of today's Information Age.
Team Romney has yet to clearly articulate this vision, or to paint the alternatives in stark terms that will be clear to voters. To do that, they must challenge the basic premises that lie at the root of Team Obama's own Narrative: its primitivism, its tribalism, its zero-sum view of wealth-creation-and-distribution, and its ugly assumption of inherent, irreconcilable conflicts of interest among people fighting among themselves for subsistence shares from a limited store of wealth.
This proud repudiation of guilt for his own wealth would completely deflate Team Obama's toxic personal Narrative about him. And without that Narrative—or the broader zero-sum, tribalist Narrative on which it rests—Obama would have absolutely nothing to say.
Properly articulated, the positive, upbeat Narrative of American Individualism could inspire voters to reject, decisively and perhaps permanently, the Narrative of Zero-Sum Progressivism. Consider: Voters consistently tell pollsters that they regard themselves as "conservative" over "liberal" by a two-to-one margin. Affirming the individualistic inclinations of the electorate, recent polling by Rasmussen confirms that only 31 percent of voters think the government should help troubled mortgage-holders; that only 20 percent of American adults believe it is possible for targeted government programs to help the housing market; that an overwhelming 64 percent of adults think there are too many Americans dependent on the government for financial aid; and that a whopping 83 percent favor a work requirement as a condition for receiving welfare aid.
Does that seem like an electorate philosophically primed or personally motivated to endorse the progressive, zero-sum Narrative and to rehire Barack Hussein Obama? Or rather, does it seem like an electorate ready for the inspirational appeal of a philosophical and personal Narrative rooted in American Individualism?
This election should not be merely a clash of politicians, but of basic cultural Narratives. For hundreds of centuries, the Zero-Sum, Tribalist Narrative gripped people in privation, conflict, and tyranny. It is the Narrative of primitivism and the past. By contrast, within the course of little more than two hundred years, the American Individualist Narrative established the greatest, freest, wealthiest nation in the history of the world. It is the Narrative of modernism and of the future.
We should, and we must, decide whether our country's future should be shaped by a Narrative appropriate to the centuries ahead, or by one from the darkest days of centuries past. That is what should be debated during the final month of the 2012 election campaign.
Now, it is up to Mitt Romney to seize this historic opportunity.
—Robert Bidinotto
For some background and previous thoughts on this topic, see my earlier essays, "The Narratives That Guide Our Lives" and "A Meditation on the Progressive Narrative."
UPDATE: This essay proved sadly prescient, as Team Romney failed in every respect to grasp the importance of the "Narrative" issue, and thus sank to resounding defeat in an election that could have been won. On November 11, 2012, little more than a month after I wrote the preceding, Greg Sargent of The Washington Post published an extraordinary article, "The Secret to Barack Obama's Survival." It confirms, in stunning detail, how explicitly Team Obama crafted precisely the "Narratives" I described above. For those who think I am misguided in my theory, or exaggerating the power of Narratives, Sargent's article will prove eye-opening.
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