In November I closed by indicating that I would follow up with some thoughts about our cultural trend in the direction of Europe and on how difficult our choices will be in diverting ourselves from this disastrous path.  Over the holidays I revisited a 1995 collection of essays edited by Digby Anderson for National Review under the title This Will Hurt: The Restoration of Virtue and Civic Order and was reminded that we didn’t just lately develop the social and cultural decay that have led us to this point.  It was the second of two collections on the issue, the first being an in-depth description of the problem entitled The Loss of Virtue: Moral Confusion and Social Disorder in Britain and America.  I recommend them both.  Clearly, they represent further evidence of the old adage that “the more things change, the more they remain the same”.

Shortly after the publication of the second book, Digby Anderson wrote an article in National Review in which he summarized the essential points in both collections.  Parts of it are worthy of quoting at length:

“So what is the significance of the new talk about virtue, the reassertion of personal responsibility, the ache for order, community, ease, and goodness?  It is not trivial.  Even the renewed use of moral language is very important.  But it is not enough to put the clock back.  That demands both an intellectual project and a revolution in human commitment.  The project is to disentangle the strands of the Enlightenment legacy, to mark, for instance the proper limits of rationalistic scientific understanding, to re-anchor law in morality, to make pleasure a by-product, not a goal, to reassert the moral aspects of social problems, to redeploy social sanctions such as stigma.  This will hurt.  But what will hurt even more is a new human commitment and for this to ask: how much is modern man, even conservative modern man, willing to give up for virtue?  The problem does not lie with the clock.  Its hands can be moved in either direction.  The problem is whether men want to turn its hands back, want to do so enough to suffer the consequences.”  Pretty strong stuff, huh?  But that’s where we are.

People often ask me, what have morality and all this talk about virtue to do with our enormous economic problems?  My answer:  almost everything.  In fact, the free market cannot and will not survive without the realization of and renewed emphasis on the fact that most of the virtues required for its successful operation are those that the market itself cannot produce, and by the way, neither can science nor technology.  David Brooks makes the point quite well as related to the current European crisis when he notes: “The scariest thing is that many of the people browbeating the Germans seem to have very little commitment to the effort-reward formula that undergirds capitalism.  On the one hand, there are the technicians who are oblivious to values.  For them anything that can’t be counted and modeled is a primitive irrelevancy.  On the other hand, there are people who see the crisis through the prism of some cosmic class war.  What matters is not how people conduct themselves, but whether they are a have or a have-not.  The burden of proof is against the haves.  The benefit of doubt is with the have-nots.”

Further to the point, Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal appropriately notes that “Europe’s crisis is not simply fiscal and monetary; it’s also a crisis of vision and character”.  Hmm, wonder where those things come from?

The genius of our founders provided us with a system that they hoped would protect our republic from the various tyrannies originating from our basest human instincts, and in a recent visit to the Federalist Papers I am reminded that arguments based on virtue, civic or otherwise, played almost no role in the debates on the ratification of the Constitution.  In fact, a case can be made that the Constitution is intentionally designed to function without reference to, or even in spite of,  deficiencies in human virtue.  However, notwithstanding their pragmatic approach to its design there is significant evidence of their presupposition that such a system was suited only for those men of deep understanding of and appreciation for the civic and moral virtues necessary for its success.  One can search history in vain for a classically liberal or conservative economic theorist, including Adam Smith (who was after all a moral philosopher), who could conceive of any free market system surviving in an environment of cultural nihilism and moral relativism.  Folks, our country’s problems are not primarily with government policy and economics.

Since Aristotle we in the West have been instructed that, by our nature, we are directed to an end beyond our nature, the ideal fulfillment of which requires certain virtues.  St. Thomas Aquinas expanded and elaborated on these virtues and identified those that require habitation–temperateness, courage,  justice, and prudence–as well as instruction often reinforced by law, both natural and human.  As it has turned out, these virtues and the laws informed by them over the centuries have served us pretty well, but I would bet that if Madison and Hamilton were here to survey the current situation, they would quickly see that we have stretched their model pretty far on stored moral capital and would probably recommend that we need to significantly replenish it very soon.

We are witnessing a slow, steady retreat from victory in the Middle East and, I fear, a prelude to significantly more conflict down the road and the unfortunate loss of more American lives.  Why?  Because of the political imperative of troop withdrawals to accommodate the political timeline of the Obama administration.

Is there another possible rationale for an announcement now of additional withdrawals in Afghanistan in 2013?  This policy flies in the face of the pressing need for a more assertive stance with Pakistan and will clearly result in the latter’s further questioning of America’s will in the region.  Yet we get the following comment from a White House spokesman:  “We have been very clear that we do not seek permanent bases in Afghanistan or a long-term military presence there that would be a threat to Afghanistan’s neighbors.”  What does this mean?  Look at the neighborhood–Central Asian states plus China, Iran, Pakistan.  How can it not be in our strategic interest to have a long-term commitment there, particularly when there is a very high risk of their return to failed-state status?

Then there is our premature and unwise military departure from Iraq.  Here we have the obsession of Obama to atone for the sins of the original engagement and for its implications for him of the image and legacy of colonialism.  Again we provide evidence of our fecklessness and lack of will in the region, severely damage the progress that has been made to establish a viable state, invite Iran and other subversives to foment civil war, and worse, we show complete disdain for the sacrifice of thousands of American troops who produced victory when all seemed lost before “the surge”.  And, as John McCain has pointed out, this withdrawal will have serious consequences for Afghanistan as well, providing plenty of doubts on the part of both friends and enemies about our willingness to honor our commitments there.

The announcement this week of the administration’s plan for “a leaner, cheaper military” only compounds the problem and further confuses the message with phrases like “the tide of war is over” and “the question this strategy answers is what kind of military we will need after the long wars of the last decade are over”.  Is this the President’s “mission accomplished” banner?

Of course, this flawed policy is designed to appease the American left (along with Ron Paul and his followers who can be disruptive within the GOP) and any downside will be laid at the feet of the “original sins” of the Bush administration, but I wonder how much longer this President can avoid ownership of and accountability for what is very likely to be a failed Middle East policy.  The answer probably depends on the immediate prospects for the threat from Iran, and after the recent policy decisions we should know the answer very soon.

The world lost a true hero in December with the passing of Vaclav Havel, the first post-communist president of Czechoslovakia, whose efforts on behalf of human freedom are legendary, richly deserving of the Nobel Prize, for either Peace or Literature or both.  How ironic that his death coincided with that of his complete opposite, Kim Jong Il of North Korea, whom I trust will receive his just reward, but who, unfortunately, departed this life in bed.

As a colleague and soul mate of fellow dissident Natan Sharansky, Havel made a convincing case for preemptive intervention to liberate oppressed people and was an early supporter of U. S. intervention in Iraq, saying “The world could not be indifferent forever to a murderer like Saddam Hussein”.  The key word for him was “indifference”, which he considered a major danger in the world, and in an inspiring 1978 essay he warned of “the attractions of mass indifference and the general unwillingness of consumption-oriented people to sacrifice some material certainties for the sake of their own spiritual and moral integrity”.  For him, the trump for indifference was the truth, which he considered inherently a moral enterprise.  He was an intellectual of the first order and, along with Pope John Paul II and Alexander Solzhenitsyn, was hugely responsible for the intellectual leadership of the discrediting of the  lies and the world’s indifference to them that ultimately undermined Soviet communism.

Trial of a Thousand Years: World Order and Islamism, by Charles Hill

This book is part of a Hoover Institution project styled the Herbert and Jane Dwight Working Group on Islamism and the International Order, the purpose of which is “a deeper understanding of the struggle in Islam between Muslims keen to protect the rule of reason and the gains of modernity and those determined to deny the Islamic world its place in the modern international order of states”.  In this, it does a fairly good job, primarily tracing the world order from the founding of Islam in the early Middle Ages through the re-ordering mandated by the Treaty of Westphalia that ended the Thirty Years’ War through all of the various attempts to upset that order including the current attempt by the Islamist opponents of order.  Much of this history was familiar to me from other readings, so the most interesting part of the book was the author’s attempt to describe how we might proceed from here, post-9/11.  In doing so, Hill describes six issues on which the Islamists and the West are at odds and the potential for resolution of the differences in each case.  Good analysis, but not much encouragement.

Why Niebuhr Now?, by John Patrick Diggins

I have long been fascinated by the theology and philosophy of Reinhold Niebuhr, but he is a dense and difficult read for me.  This relatively short book helped me greatly in understanding his thought.  The “why” of the title involves the currently popular position Niebuhr’s thought seems to hold among leading politicians and thinkers on the issues involving America’s role in the world.  The author carefully works through the theological and philosophical points, comments on how Niebuhr’s theology affected his worldview, and then closes with arguments on the misuse of Niebuhr’s legacy from both the political right and left.  Very well done.

The Crusades, Christianity, and Islam, by Jonathan Riley-Smith

This turned out to be a really fun and I believe important little book.  Essentially it chronicles the vast mythology, half-truths, and manufactured truths about the Crusades, largely distorted by the language  and imagery of 19th century European imperialism and the beliefs of 20th century Muslims, traces this legacy into modern times, and clarifies them one by one.  The author, a widely-respected scholar in Middle Eastern history and a recognized expert on the Crusades, has been fighting an uphill battle for the truth in these matters for most of his career, with little help it seems.

God, Philosophy, Universities: A Selective History of the Catholic Philosophical Tradition, by Alasdair MacIntyre

MacIntyre has been a big favorite of mine from the time I first read his After Virtue many years ago.  I have also gained enormous respect for the Catholic intellectual tradition over the years and MacIntyre does a great job in chronicling the history of the development of this tradition and the evolution of the core elements of Catholic philosophical thought, in particular its assimilation of reason and faith.  He then describes and bemoans the disintegration of the core curriculum caused by the specialization driven by the advent of the large research university model and the resulting deterioration of the unity of the shared enterprise among the disciplines, a concern which I share.

I’m sure you are getting more than you want of the constant dribble of the triviality of much of the interplay among Republican primary candidates and I don’t want to add to the frustration, but I can’t avoid a few shots.  First, I have been appalled at the demagoguery from several candidates, primarily Perry and Gingrich, with their attacks on the “job destruction” and “vulture capitalism” involved in Bain Capital’s generally successful corporate restructuring and turnaround strategy under Mitt Romney’s leadership, a strategy which in many cases saved companies from total failure and ultimately preserved many times more jobs than were displaced.  This is a textbook example of creative destruction, a core principle of capitalism best characterized by Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter, and without which there is no long term economic growth.  It is an essential component of classical liberal economics, of which we need more, not less.  It is difficult enough to defend free market capitalism in this environment without a circular firing squad among people who should know better.  And the notion that several so-called conservative Republican Presidential candidates are reduced to an attack on these practices is beyond negative campaign tactics, it is an embarrassment and it gives Barack Obama cover for similar attacks with impunity in the general election campaign.

David Brooks thinks that this election is about averting national decline.  No argument there, but he further thinks that President Obama is abandoning the larger issues to the Republicans, which I wish was the case, but I don’t see the evidence.  They are alarmed for sure, but except for Gingrich, I don’t see the large vision or the grandiosity for sweeping reform.

One thing is certain about the Obama strategy:  The wraps are off. This much has been made crystal clear by the State of the Union address and various bus tours to the election swing states.  There is not even the pretense camouflaging the class warfare strategy and this represents a huge calculated risk that the electorate is as economically illiterate as I fear, that the economic anxiety factor is as pervasive as has been noted by many observers, and that the Republicans have no clue as to how to respond.  And in fact a little of all three will contribute to Obama’s re-election, which will almost certainly speed American decline.

But before commenting on how to respond, back to the question of the pending national decline.  The New Criterion recently published “Is America in Decline: A Symposium”, with essays by a number of contributors, most prominently Charles Murray with a paper adapted from his new book, Coming Apart: The State of White America.  In it, he outlines a fascinating analysis of the trend in what he calls “the founding virtues” among non-Latino white Americans aged 30-49.  Two of them are virtues in themselves–industriousness and honesty–and two of them refer to institutions through which right behavior is nurtured–marriage and religion.

The results of the study are worthy of analysis in all their complexity, but the essential finding is that as recently as a half century ago there was a civic culture that embraced all classes of Americans.  Today that is no longer the case.  Americans have formed a new lower class and a new upper class that have no precedent in our history, and it is not the emergence of classes that is new, but rather the fact that for the first time these divergences break on core values and behaviors.  And for all four of the founding virtues, the statistical divergence breaks between those with at least a bachelor’s degree and a professional background and those with no higher than a high school diploma and with blue collar or low level white collar employment.  I won’t go into the data, but the statistical divergence is compelling and, as Murray indicates, the divergences in the founding virtues essentially divide the two classes into two different cultures.  They simply differ on some of the most fundamental dimensions of life and this is manifest in both their cultural and geographic isolation from each other.  This does not bode well for the American exceptionalism that was built on a common sense of the American way of life based on the founding virtues that Murray has identified.

So if this divergence in civic culture is a reality, how do we respond?  The progressive left has a view, which is espoused by Robert Reich thusly: “Obama must show America that the basic choice is between two fundamental views of this nation.  Either we’re all in this together, or we’re  a bunch of individuals who happen to live within  these borders and are mainly on their own”.  This is the communitarian strain that runs through the progressive worldview, and it results in the preference for only public delivery of public goods, which drives the entitlement welfare state, more government supervision of fairness and social justice, etc., a model which has proven to be a disaster.

Interestingly, another, more conservative view backed by some specific proposals, is from Rick Santorum on the Republican primary campaign trail.  He understands that Reich is correct to an extent.  A nation is not an agglomeration of autonomous individuals, it’s an organic system of family and social relationships and he proposes a limited role for government in assisting local entities with incentives such as increased child tax credits and other enabling initiatives to help sustain these relationships.  Maybe some help here, but too much reliance on government handing out checks and not enough emphasis on the restoration of civic culture and the work ethic.

The bottom line is that there is no viable political response yet in the offing to the major dilemma of this generation, which is the solution to the structural displacement of employment and economic  opportunity and the American Dream by the unrelenting competitive pressures presented by the globalization of markets.  This is not just a problem for income inequality, but has implications as well for the class divergence and decline in civic culture that Charles Murray has identified.  And much of the decline can be traced to the failed Great Society programs of the 1960s and some further policy mistakes in the early Nixon years of the 1970s.

We also instinctively and empirically know that this cultural and economic dilemma is largely a result of our deeply flawed public education system, but we do not yet have the political will to properly respond to it, and I don’t see any of the Republican Presidential candidates talking in large enough terms about it.  Thankfully, there are a number of state Governors who are talking the talk and walking the walk, however, and they deserve our attention, encouragement, and support.  And remember, elections have consequences.

As if it wasn’t pretty obvious with the premature troop withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan, the latest plans announced by the Obama administration for a significantly smaller military send two very distinct messages: (1) a crass political choice to allow the entitlement regime to continue to crowd out defense spending and avoid a confrontation with the budget realities of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and Obamacare and (2) a clear message that America is reducing its global standing and leadership a la Western Europe.  Gone will be the capacity to engage two major war fronts simultaneously, and the projected spending levels as a percentage of GDP after the cuts will be at the level of 1940, not a very good year.  The administration’s game attempt to characterize this decision as a “strategic shift” as opposed to a pullback was belied by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s demeanor and I think he knows that this is a major retreat.

Peggy Noonan thinks that a ruling President Obama signed this week might prove to have cost him re-election.  I wouldn’t go that far, but it just might cost him the support of Roman Catholics from the right, left, and center, a big hit for a Democrat.  He signed off on a Health and Human Services ruling that says that under ObamaCare, all Catholic institutions–schools, hospitals, charitable organizations–will be required to provide and pay for insurance coverage that includes contraceptives, abortion-inducing drugs, and sterilization procedures, subject to heavy fines for non-compliance.  This is a massive assault on the conscience clause that has historically protected religious institutions, primarily those engaged in health care, from state infringement on their right to conduct policy consistent with their creed, and it has been assumed to be applicable to their affiliates as well.  In effect, Catholics are being required to leave their Catholicism at the door of their employment.

Ironically, this decision came almost at the same time that the Supreme Court unanimously held that a Lutheran school’s decision to dismiss a teacher is an internal policy issue that cannot be challenged under federal employment laws.  So it would appear that the Court might be sympathetic to the Church, and certainly we should hope so, because the conscience clause is an important linchpin of the genius of the first amendment protection of free exercise of religion.  Pardon me if I am tempted to chide many of my Catholic friends who have been playing with fire in supporting this guy and now have been burned.

I have no doubt that Meryl Streep will win an Academy Award for her portrayal of Lady Margaret Thatcher in “The Iron Lady”.  From all I have read, including several reviews, it is a remarkable performance.  However, I probably won’t see it because all indications are that it is not enough concerned with her public life while active politically in saving Britain from complete collapse and helping win the Cold War.

Recently, I read an interesting article by Daniel Yergin in which he commented on some of his recollections of meetings with Thatcher as Prime Minister.  One of these was a staff meeting, not included in the movie, incidentally,  in which one Conservative staff member suggested a possible “third way” between left and right on policy proposals, at which point she interrupted him by slapping a copy of Friedrich Hayek’s The Constitution of Liberty on the table, declaring “This is what we believe”.  Some years later, in an interview with Yergin, she reminded him, “It started with ideas, with beliefs.  You must start with beliefs.  Yes, always with beliefs.”  Are you listening, Mitt?

And here is one of my own favorites from her in 1981: “To me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies in search of something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects.”  This is The Iron Lady I want to remember.

How do you turn “Obama’s Huge Blunder” (see the February issue) into a political win and paint the inept Republicans into a tight corner?  Answer:  you set a trap that they cannot avoid by converting a major issue involving the first amendment right to the free exercise of religion and the long-established freedom of conscience in religious matters into one that is focused on an entirely bogus debate on women’s health and access to contraception.  There are three types of people: those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who wonder what happened.  Guess where the GOP fits on this scale?  Right.  They wander right into the perfect storm of what was a setup from the outset and just about the only thing that could bail Obama out of a real problem with a huge constituency.  Some people are just very difficult to help.

If anyone can get them back on top of the real issue here, there is serious business at stake, namely a major foundational principle that is slowly, but surely, under attack by this regime at every turn.  For the Obama crowd is intent on converting the essence of the free exercise clause, which stands for freedom of religion, to one that is limited to freedom of worship, a huge difference that will serve to privatize religion in this country and relegate it to the margins, if not eliminate it entirely from discourse in the public square.  Remarks like “we are a nation that guarantees the freedom to worship as one chooses” are heavily coded,  very instructive, and worthless.  This is Euro-secularist talk.

Meanwhile, the administration “accommodates” its faith-based constituency on the left by merely switching the problematic mandate for free birth control services from the religious institution to its insurance provider, a gimmick which changes nothing of any moral substance.  In addition to its constitutional violations, it is a mandate forbidden by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993.   How stupid do they think we are?  The Catholic Church v0ws to continue the fight.  They have been late to the game while helping Obama pursue “social justice”, but I hope they are finally wise to the duplicity of this administration, and they now deserve the strenuous support of all persuasions loyal to our founding traditions, whether faith-based or not.