A Fundamental Analysis

[Milady is an Emerson lover. She tells me that both the author, Diggins, and Ronald Reagan have misinterpreted the great transcendentalist. Geroge Will seems to share their mistake -- if milady's right and it is a mistake). I love Will's observation of James Madison as "the wisest" of the Founding Fathers. I also admire Will's candor expressed in the following line: "Hence Reagan's unique, and perhaps oxymoronic, doctrine -- conservatism without anxieties." No form of government is without anxieties and Will does us a service by reminding us of that fact. Methinks I am growing fonder of Mr. Will's commentaries.]

The Limits Of Sunniness

By George F. Will

The Washington Post

Sunday, February 11, 2007; B07

In this winter of their discontents, nostalgia for Ronald Reagan has become for many conservatives a substitute for thinking. This mental paralysis -- gratitude decaying into idolatry -- is sterile: Neither the man nor his moment will recur. Conservatives should face the fact that Reaganism cannot define conservatism.

That is one lesson of John Patrick Diggins's new book, " Ronald Reagan: Fate, Freedom, and the Making of History." Diggins, a historian at the City University of New York, treats Reagan respectfully as an important subject in American intellectual history. The 1980s, he says, thoroughly joined politics to political theory. But he notes that Reagan's theory was radically unlike that of Edmund Burke, the founder of modern conservatism, and very like that of Burke's nemesis, Thomas Paine. Burke believed that the past is prescriptive because tradition is a repository of moral wisdom. Reagan frequently quoted Paine's preposterous cry that "we have it in our power to begin the world over again."

Diggins's thesis is that the 1980s were America's "Emersonian moment" because Reagan, a "political romantic" from the Midwest and West, echoed New England's Ralph Waldo Emerson. "Emerson was right," Reagan said several times of the man who wrote, "No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature." Hence Reagan's unique, and perhaps oxymoronic, doctrine -- conservatism without anxieties. Reagan's preternatural serenity derived from his conception of the supernatural.

Diggins says Reagan imbibed his mother's form of Christianity, a strand of 19th-century Unitarianism from which Reagan took a foundational belief that he expressed in a 1951 letter: "God couldn't create evil so the desires he planted in us are good." This logic -- God is good, therefore so are God-given desires -- leads to the Emersonian faith that we please God by pleasing ourselves. Therefore there is no need for the people to discipline their desires. So, no leader needs to suggest that the public has shortcomings and should engage in critical self-examination.

Diggins thinks that Reagan's religion "enables us to forget religion" because it banishes the idea of "a God of judgment and punishment." Reagan's popularity was largely the result of "his blaming government for problems that are inherent in democracy itself." To Reagan, the idea of problems inherent in democracy was unintelligible because it implied that there were inherent problems with the demos -- the people. There was nothing -- nothing-- in Reagan's thinking akin to Lincoln's melancholy fatalism, his belief (see his Second Inaugural) that the failings of the people on both sides of the Civil War were the reasons why "the war came."

As Diggins says, Reagan's "theory of government has little reference to the principles of the American founding." To the Founders, and especially to the wisest of them, James Madison, government's principal function is to resist, modulate and even frustrate the public's unruly passions, which arise from desires.

"The true conservatives, the founders," Diggins rightly says, constructed a government full of blocking mechanisms -- separations of powers, a bicameral legislature, and other checks and balances -- in order "to check the demands of the people." Madison's Constitution responds to the problem of human nature. "Reagan," says Diggins, "let human nature off the hook."
"An unmentionable irony," writes Diggins, is that big-government conservatism is an inevitable result of Reaganism. "Under Reagan, Americans could live off government and hate it at the same time. Americans blamed government for their dependence upon it." Unless people have a bad conscience about demanding big government -- a dispenser of unending entitlements -- they will get ever larger government. But how can people have a bad conscience after being told (in Reagan's First Inaugural) that they are all heroes? And after being assured that all their desires, which inevitably include desires for government-supplied entitlements, are good?
Similarly, Reagan said that the people never start wars, only governments do. But the Balkans reached a bloody boil because of the absence of effective government. Which describes Iraq today.

Because of Reagan's role in the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Diggins ranks him among the "three great liberators in American history" -- the others being Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt -- and among America's three or four greatest presidents. But, says Diggins, an Emersonian president who tells us our desires are necessarily good leaves much to be desired.

If the defining doctrine of the Republican Party is limited government, the party must move up from nostalgia and leaven its reverence for Reagan with respect for Madison. As Diggins says, Reaganism tells people comforting and flattering things that they want to hear; the Madisonian persuasion tells them sobering truths that they need to know

Why We Are In Iraq

Project for the New American Century

Statement of Principles

June 3, 1997

American foreign and defense policy is adrift. Conservatives have criticized the incoherent policies of the Clinton Administration. They have also resisted isolationist impulses from within their own ranks. But conservatives have not confidently advanced a strategic vision of America's role in the world. They have not set forth guiding principles for American foreign policy. They have allowed differences over tactics to obscure potential agreement on strategic objectives. And they have not fought for a defense budget that would maintain American security and advance American interests in the new century. We aim to change this. We aim to make the case and rally support for American global leadership.

As the 20th century draws to a close, the United States stands as the world's preeminent power. Having led the West to victory in the Cold War, America faces an opportunity and a challenge: Does the United States have the vision to build upon the achievements of past decades? Does the United States have the resolve to shape a new century favorable to American principles and interests?

We are in danger of squandering the opportunity and failing the challenge. We are living off the capital -- both the military investments and the foreign policy achievements -- built up by past administrations. Cuts in foreign affairs and defense spending, inattention to the tools of statecraft, and inconstant leadership are making it increasingly difficult to sustain American influence around the world. And the promise of short-term commercial benefits threatens to override strategic considerations. As a consequence, we are jeopardizing the nation's ability to meet present threats and to deal with potentially greater challenges that lie ahead.

We seem to have forgotten the essential elements of the Reagan Administration's success: a military that is strong and ready to meet both present and future challenges; a foreign policy that boldly and purposefully promotes American principles abroad; and national leadership that accepts the United States' global responsibilities.

Of course, the United States must be prudent in how it exercises its power. But we cannot safely avoid the responsibilities of global leadership or the costs that are associated with its exercise. America has a vital role in maintaining peace and security in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. If we shirk our responsibilities, we invite challenges to our fundamental interests. The history of the 20th century should have taught us that it is important to shape circumstances before crises emerge, and to meet threats before they become dire. The history of this century should have taught us to embrace the cause of American leadership.

Our aim is to remind Americans of these lessons and to draw their consequences for today. Here are four consequences:

• we need to increase defense spending significantly if we are to carry out our global responsibilities today and modernize our armed forces for the future;

• we need to strengthen our ties to democratic allies and to challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values;

• we need to promote the cause of political and economic freedom abroad;

• we need to accept responsibility for America's unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles.

Such a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity may not be fashionable today. But it is necessary if the United States is to build on the successes of this past century and to ensure our security and our greatness in the next.

Elliott Abrams, Gary Bauer, William J. Bennett, Jeb Bush,

Dick Cheney, Eliot A. Cohen, Midge Decter, Paula Dobriansky, Steve Forbes,

Aaron Friedberg, Francis Fukuyama, Frank Gaffney, Fred C. Ikle,

Donald Kagan, Zalmay Khalilzad, I. Lewis Libby, Norman Podhoretz,

Dan Quayle, Peter W. Rodman, Stephen P. Rosen, Henry S. Rowen,

Donald Rumsfeld, Vin Weber, George Weigel, Paul Wolfowitz

[From: http://www.newamericancentury.org/]

Meaning Without Mendacity

The subject is meaning, by which I do not mean the meanings we give words, but rather the meaning a lot of people declare they are seeking in their lives, the meaning life is supposed to have if – as they say – it is to be judged worth living. Even though meaning (as normally conceived) is largely ineffable, some religious people associate meaning with a gift from God, a fullness life would not have were it not for their devotion to the almighty. To religious people, meaning possesses some of the characteristics of “ultimate value.” Others, people of the New Age persuasion, see meaning as a state of being to be sought by “enlightenment,” and enlightenment is to be obtained by grasping the deeper meanings with which Being itself is supposedly endowed.

And certainly, if by “deeper meaning” we mean knowledge not given immediately by the senses or knowledge not apparent by an exercise of common sense, it must be so that Being does possess a deeper meaning. We do not learn the secrets of, say, quantum mechanics by sitting and watching sunsets; we must seek the deeper meanings of the world if we wish to acquire such knowledge. But then, neither the religious people nor those of the New Age would agree that that’s what they mean by the meaning they seek. Meaning has to be . . . well, something deeper than mere knowledge.

If by the word “obtain” we mean something like “reaching out and taking hold of,” then I am of the opinion that meaning is unobtainable. We may experience something like the Buddhist satori or Christian salvation, but when the rush of emotion passes, we still find ourselves wondering, “Is this it? Is this the meaning I’ve been seeking?” We may of course, answer “yes” and spend the rest of our lives in relative happiness, content with the meaning we have “obtained” from our experience.

But even the most devoted Christian convert or New Age devotee must occasionally examine the joy he or she has “gotten” and wonder how this joy differs from others. If they’re clever with words they may even manage to express the difference in a satisfying manner, but finally – if they’re really into thinking about such things – they may admit that what they were seeking as a meaning in their life was much more than merely “joy.” They were seeking meaning and to them meaning, at the very least, has to be something that produces joy. And that means it is not simply the joy produced. Once we face that realization and come to grips with the difference between the things that give us joy and the experience of joy itself, we may find ourselves in possession of an understanding of meaning that gives us a leg up on our search for it in our lives.

Meaning – in the meaningful sense – is an emotional experience, a feeling of worth, of value, of direction and purpose. It is a particular kind of joy, but it is not associated with an object “out there.” It emerges out of the simplest sort of internal realization, and that awareness is of oneself as a valuable person. By this I do not mean what a New Age therapist might prescribe as an affirmation repeatedly addressed to oneself in the hope that the “inner self” will sooner or later believe it to be true. I mean the reasoned acknowledgement of one’s value as a person in the world.

But again, I do not mean the sort of value we are presumed to have from the simple fact of being born. If that value were real in any sense other than the legal sense, questions of meaning would never arise. Real value emerges out of a person’s honest assessment of him- or herself as a being of positive worth. Let’s look at a few examples to see how that assessment might be made by people who might normally think of themselves as of no value to themselves or anyone else.

Consider the factory worker who has repeatedly been told that he is “only a cog in a wheel-gear,” a replaceable part, an expendable, and who, even if he has paid no attention to those assessments, might feel bored with the job he’s doing. How might this “worker bee” find meaning in his life. Well, lets say he is employed in Adam Smith’s famous pin factory, where we are told – and it’s true – that by working on an assembly line 20 workers can produce 100 times more pins than the same 20 men could produce if they each were working alone. The worker who merely sharpens the points after the pins are assembled, may trick himself into thinking his life is meaningless, but when he begins to think of himself as a member of a team that has made pins available to the world at a price that would never have been possible without him and his team mates, his life takes on more meaning than it had before.

Consider the woman who works “only” as a mother and housekeeper. Because she is not paid wages, or because her work does not seem as much fun or as stimulating as the work of the man in the pin factory, or the banker who provided the financing for the operation, she might feel that her life has no meaning. But this one is too easy. What can possibly be more meaningful than the work of a good mother, not to mention the less obvious fact that the good man, her husband, could not be nearly so productive as a pin factory worker if she were not taking care of the home front. The two of them are also a team, applying separation of labor theory to the family’s needs.

Consider the man who is out of work, taking welfare payments in order to live. Not much more need be said in order to see that he could easily feel his life has no meaning, no value. Can this man possibly find qualities in himself that might permit him to value himself as a person? Can nobility possibly exist in the bread line? Well, of course. The unemployed man knows in his heart when he is not doing all he can to find employment … and consequently, there must exist the man who knows the opposite, that he is exerting every effort to change his circumstances. In this man’s case we may find greater difficulty seeing how he could possibly find meaning in his life, but given that his circumstances are only more noticeable than the banker who could not see into the future and thus made more bad loans than he might have, or the entrepreneur who has miscalculated the market and gone bankrupt, harming all those he had employed, and we see that there are elements of nobility that may or may not express themselves in all of us when misfortune comes our way. The man in the bread line may hold his head meaningfully high when he knows he is doing his best to improve his circumstances.

None of these cases may actually come to pass. The factory worker, the housewife, and the unemployed man may all curse their circumstances and bemoan the lack of meaning in their lives, and when they do take that easier road, they will all be telling the absolute truth: their lives will have no meaning. Oh, they may each of them turn to some alternative source of joy – the church (as a social club), alcohol, daytime television – but unless those alternatives somehow convince them of their value as human beings, their lives will continue to seem meaningless. We may not know how to define it, but we know real value when we see it.

Something else may also happen with these people. They may indeed recognize themselves as valuable human beings, making pins, raising children, seeking work, and they may all, while living their meaningful lives, seek also to find greater meaning. They may seek to improve their education, to volunteer meaningful assistance to their community (through their church, perhaps), or they may merely set an example to others of how, even in dire straits, a person can still express noble qualities.

It should be easy enough to see that when we are already leading meaningful lives, we find ourselves energized. When we are leading meaningful lives, and know it, we see all around us the mirrored effects of meaningfulness working in the world. We see life becoming a living thing, in no way resembling the zombie-like existence of the man who feels victimized by “things.”

Joy, you see, is never an input to the human psyche. It’s what the psyche produces when it is in the presence of beauty or of greatness … and what can be a greater presence than the recognition of one’s self as a valuable and meaningful person … a thing of beauty that shall be a joy forever.

Spinoza on Hope

Spinoza did not define "Hope" but if he had it would have gone something like this:

Hope is a mixed emotion of joy and sorrow associated with the idea of some future thing that we imagine as the cause of the emotion.

We are joyful when the idea of the future thing is more powerful in our minds, sorrowful when we are assaulted by fear that the future will not contain the thing hoped for. Hope differs from expectation in the degree of certainty we feel toward the future thing, expectation being the more certain. The object of an expectation can be either joyful or sorrowful, depending on the nature of the thing expected. The object of hope, on the other hand is always associated with joy.

With these definitions in mind we can see that hope would not be hope without the presence of a creative mind to imagine some future world in which may exist the object hoped for. A scientist, for example, might notice an anomaly in the current views held in some particular area of concern and, after some thought, conceive of a hypothetical solution to the problem. He would then set about experimentally to prove or disprove his theory, hoping to prove it but fearful that he might not.

On the other hand, a highly credulous person might be given a treasure map that he trusts completely to be valid. If he were a man of the "busy" sort he might hope to someday find the time and resources to search for the treasure. But he might nonetheless expect that if he had the resources the treasure would certainly be found. Such a person might spend his entire life wishing and dreaming, deriving a measure of joy out of the certainty that the treasure is where the map says it is.

We lead rational lives when we are able to transcend our hopes, questioning, first, whether their objects actually exist, and second, acting on the basis of the answers we obtain. The treasure seeker might, for instance, ask, "Why do I trust this map?" and being rational, may finally see that his trust is a product of the joy he feels in the expectation that the map is valid and that the treasure actually exists. He might then put the map away as an interesting artifact of human credulity. He would have learned something of value. But if he concludes that the map is indeed valid and that his reasons for believing so are beyond question, then he might safely and rationally center his life on the hope that he might someday be empowered to undertake the exploration. The emotions of his hopes would fluctuate as his efforts tended toward or away from his goal.

The ethical man hopes to lead the life he has imagined as the life a good man should lead. He may even have a rationally derived view of how such a man would behave when faced with temptations that might deflect him from his ideal. But even if the man has never swayed from "goodness," the joy he would derive from leading such a virtuous life would nevertheless always be tempered by the sorrowful thought that someday he might be unable to do the right thiing, even knowing it. He would hope to never fail but would never be free of doubt.

So, if we are human, as opposed to robotic creatures, we hope for something. We may even hope that someday the words of men like Jesus of Nazareth might be taken seriously, and that the superstitions that have grown up around him would be dispelled. We might then expect our lives to be filled more with treasure than with dubious maps.