Walt's been away for a couple of days, emerging timidly from his woodland retreat to prowl the streets of three cities on the shores of the lower Great Lakes: Toronto, Detroit and Buffalo. It used to be fairly easy to tell which side of the border you were on. Now, I'm not so sure.
Just after WWII, Toronto was a small, sleepy, provincial city -- a collection of towns, really. People used to go to Buffalo for a good time. (Can you imagine?) The American border cities were where you found the nightlife and the excitement.
And the business. Detroit's booming auto plants turned out millions of exciting new cars every year, and people bought them. Canada's "Little Three" went along for the ride. Even Buffalo had businesses of some sort, not just dollar stores and pawn shops.
Then came the 60s and 70s. Toronto grew like Topsy and reorganized itself as "Metro" -- the city that worked. Torontonians started thinking of their city as "the Little Apple" -- Canada's answer to New York. Peter Ustinov called Toronto "like New York, if New York were run by the Swiss".
At the same time, the American cities of the rust belt fell apart, or, in the case of Detroit, got burned down in the race riots which marked the "civil rights" era of Kennedy, Johnson and, yes, Nixon. In my view, America has never recovered from the impact of the social engineering policies of that time and the economic turmoil of that time.
Detroit is a hollow shell. Buffalo is, by one recent estimate, the third-poorest city in the U.S.A. You can trace the beginning of the end back to the Kennedy-Johnson era and the liberal humanist economic and social policies of that time. See America in Our Time, by Godfrey Hodgson (Vintage Books, 1976).
What happened to Toronto? See following post.
Showing posts with label Godfrey Hodgson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Godfrey Hodgson. Show all posts
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Friday, September 3, 2010
Liberal ideology in ruins
When I started this blog some 14 months ago, I told myself that I would never devote a post wholly to a lengthy quote from a source, without adding my own comment. Never is a long time...
Looking at the many pages of America in Our Time (see previous post) which I've dog-eared, I've come across just such a long quote, worth sharing without further comment. This sums up Godfrey Hodgson's analysis and argument admirably. The emphasis is mine.
The American governmental and intellectual elite made a discover in those years [1960-72] that can be compared to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. They had assumed that they could study the world with objectivity. They had also assumed that they could change it by exerting money, or force, or both, with surgical dispassion, without themselves being changed. They found that can't be done.
They supposed that they could intervene in Indochina as if from Mount Olympus and that their intervention would have no effect on the United States. They were wrong.
They supposed that it would be possible to eliminate segregation in the South without changing the social relations or political institutions of the country as a whole. That was wrong, too. And when they discovered that mistake, they went on to imagine that they could get rid of the poverty and discrimination that they had rather belatedly discovered in the North without that effort, either, having any great effect on themselves. And that was the worst miscalculation of all.
They discredited their own doctrines. They lost the confidence of the majority...
Such a dénouement...raises the possibility that it wasn't so much that something went wrong with their plans as that there was something wrong with the liberals' perception of reality all along. And in fact if we look once again at the major assumptions of the liberal consensus...it is plain that each of them has been at least apparently or partially discredited in one way or another by the events of the sixties. As a system, the liberal ideology is in ruins.
Looking at the many pages of America in Our Time (see previous post) which I've dog-eared, I've come across just such a long quote, worth sharing without further comment. This sums up Godfrey Hodgson's analysis and argument admirably. The emphasis is mine.
The American governmental and intellectual elite made a discover in those years [1960-72] that can be compared to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. They had assumed that they could study the world with objectivity. They had also assumed that they could change it by exerting money, or force, or both, with surgical dispassion, without themselves being changed. They found that can't be done.
They supposed that they could intervene in Indochina as if from Mount Olympus and that their intervention would have no effect on the United States. They were wrong.
They supposed that it would be possible to eliminate segregation in the South without changing the social relations or political institutions of the country as a whole. That was wrong, too. And when they discovered that mistake, they went on to imagine that they could get rid of the poverty and discrimination that they had rather belatedly discovered in the North without that effort, either, having any great effect on themselves. And that was the worst miscalculation of all.
They discredited their own doctrines. They lost the confidence of the majority...
Such a dénouement...raises the possibility that it wasn't so much that something went wrong with their plans as that there was something wrong with the liberals' perception of reality all along. And in fact if we look once again at the major assumptions of the liberal consensus...it is plain that each of them has been at least apparently or partially discredited in one way or another by the events of the sixties. As a system, the liberal ideology is in ruins.
Book review: America in Our Time
Just call me Mr. Persistent. [Not Mr. President? ed.] I have finished a long but rewarding slog through America in Our Time by Godfrey Hodgson. It's tough going, like hard-rock mining, but I found so many nuggets that posting them all here would probably take me until the end of year.
Mr. Hodgson is British, and therefore takes a more objective view of America than do most American writers. It's hard to be objective about your own country. Here's what the author says of his feelings for the USA.
Since I have been critical of some beliefs held by most Americans, and of most of the beliefs of some Americans, let me make this defense: that everything I now about the United States has been taught me by Americans and that few of my judgments are not shared by at least some Americans.
In other words, don't be one of those Americans who says no outsider can understand the country.
In America in Our Time, Hodgson deals with the major problems of American society: the war; a faltering economy in which the rich get richer and the poor get poorer; what to do about the growing black (and brown) underclass.
So what's new about that? Nothing. In fact, the book was written in 1976 and the period Mr. Hodgson analyses -- very critically and in profound depth -- is 1960-1972, the era of the Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon presidencies.
The war referred to is Vietnam. The book is full of insights which apply, in spades, to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. All you have to do is change the names and it becomes plain why we're not winning in the Middle East and are not going to win.
The economy? Hodgson says the economic expansion of the 50s-60s can't continue for ever, especially with the USA exporting ever-increasing amounts of capital and jobs. Right. And he says that, contrary to conventional wisdom, a rising tide does not lift all boats equally.
Moreover, he makes the point that the war was a terrible drain on America's treasure, and therefore at least partly the cause of the failure of the War on Poverty. Right on all counts.
As for the black underclass, Hodgson writes of the rise and fall of the "civil rights" movement. He speaks of the contentious issues of the day: integration of schools, busing, affirmative action. He paints a picture of the disillusionment (and radicalization) of blacks, and the growing backlash of resentment in the white communities.
Even at that close remove, the author could see clearly that true integration had not been and probably would never be achieved. Right again.
Why should you read this book? Because it will remove from your eyes the scales of the prevailing liberal ideology. It will explain why the Tea Party -- which is not a conservative but a populist movement -- holds such attraction for so many Americans today. Here's a quote:
The point of departure of this book was the idea that, for a few years on either side of 1960, American politics and society had been ruled bya consensus, and that this consensus in turn rested on an ideology. ...I have called that ideology "liberal".
The "liberal ideology" was not confined to intellectuals. It was also taken for granted by bankers, industrialists, clergymen, politicians and even by many military men.... It was, in fact, the ideology of the elite.
The liberal ideology was...the operational creed of a great nation at the height of its confidence and power. [But] the great events of the years covered by this book tore consensus to shreds....
The consensus disintegrated, and the liberal ideology fell into discredit.
People! History does repeat itself! Read this 35-year-old book and you will find in it a compelling and valid introspection of the malaise of the present time. How is it that no-one sees that when it comes to foreign policy, race relations, and fixing America's economy, our government is trying to reinvent the wheel?!
We are applying the same bandaids to the same wounds, treating the symptoms -- not the causes -- of the same old diseases? When are we going to wake up?
America in Our Time was published in 1978 by Vintage Books, a division of Random House. It's slow reading, but worth the effort.
Mr. Hodgson is British, and therefore takes a more objective view of America than do most American writers. It's hard to be objective about your own country. Here's what the author says of his feelings for the USA.
Since I have been critical of some beliefs held by most Americans, and of most of the beliefs of some Americans, let me make this defense: that everything I now about the United States has been taught me by Americans and that few of my judgments are not shared by at least some Americans.
In other words, don't be one of those Americans who says no outsider can understand the country.
In America in Our Time, Hodgson deals with the major problems of American society: the war; a faltering economy in which the rich get richer and the poor get poorer; what to do about the growing black (and brown) underclass.
So what's new about that? Nothing. In fact, the book was written in 1976 and the period Mr. Hodgson analyses -- very critically and in profound depth -- is 1960-1972, the era of the Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon presidencies.
The war referred to is Vietnam. The book is full of insights which apply, in spades, to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. All you have to do is change the names and it becomes plain why we're not winning in the Middle East and are not going to win.
The economy? Hodgson says the economic expansion of the 50s-60s can't continue for ever, especially with the USA exporting ever-increasing amounts of capital and jobs. Right. And he says that, contrary to conventional wisdom, a rising tide does not lift all boats equally.
Moreover, he makes the point that the war was a terrible drain on America's treasure, and therefore at least partly the cause of the failure of the War on Poverty. Right on all counts.
As for the black underclass, Hodgson writes of the rise and fall of the "civil rights" movement. He speaks of the contentious issues of the day: integration of schools, busing, affirmative action. He paints a picture of the disillusionment (and radicalization) of blacks, and the growing backlash of resentment in the white communities.
Even at that close remove, the author could see clearly that true integration had not been and probably would never be achieved. Right again.
Why should you read this book? Because it will remove from your eyes the scales of the prevailing liberal ideology. It will explain why the Tea Party -- which is not a conservative but a populist movement -- holds such attraction for so many Americans today. Here's a quote:
The point of departure of this book was the idea that, for a few years on either side of 1960, American politics and society had been ruled bya consensus, and that this consensus in turn rested on an ideology. ...I have called that ideology "liberal".
The "liberal ideology" was not confined to intellectuals. It was also taken for granted by bankers, industrialists, clergymen, politicians and even by many military men.... It was, in fact, the ideology of the elite.
The liberal ideology was...the operational creed of a great nation at the height of its confidence and power. [But] the great events of the years covered by this book tore consensus to shreds....
The consensus disintegrated, and the liberal ideology fell into discredit.
People! History does repeat itself! Read this 35-year-old book and you will find in it a compelling and valid introspection of the malaise of the present time. How is it that no-one sees that when it comes to foreign policy, race relations, and fixing America's economy, our government is trying to reinvent the wheel?!
We are applying the same bandaids to the same wounds, treating the symptoms -- not the causes -- of the same old diseases? When are we going to wake up?
America in Our Time was published in 1978 by Vintage Books, a division of Random House. It's slow reading, but worth the effort.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)