A Universal Explanation for Everything (2011)

 Originally published as a Facebook Note July 30, 2011. Apparently the phrase I sought is actually "merit goods."

As President, Barack Obama struggled to articulate the "sentence" for even his best policies

If you’re like most people, life on Earth is becoming steadily more mystifying. Your head is full of questions like: Why can’t the government agree on a budget? Why is economic inequality growing so inexorably? Why is Barack Obama such an ineffective President? Will the U.S. ever have a coherent energy policy? When will our eyes meet, when can I touch you, and when will this strong yearning end?

            You may suspect that there are answers to these questions, and that such answers are long, tedious, and ultimately indeterminate. If only, you say, you had a friend intelligent enough to give you a concise explanation for all this!

            Unfortunately, you don’t, unless by chance you’re friends with Andy Heaton. However, Mr. Heaton is extremely busy, and doesn’t have time for this sort of random musing about universal explanations for everything.

            I, on the other hand, have nothing but time. Moreover, I am so confident that I can give you a concise explanation for everything that I am about to go on a two-paragraph tangent, so sure am I that you will still be paying attention when I finally get around to it.

            This summer I participated in Coe Reads, a group that read and discussed the book Drive by Daniel H. Pink. It’s about motivation… specifically, what motivates people. Pink argues that people are motivated by a sense of purpose, the need for autonomy, and the desire for mastery of a skill. With regard to sense of purpose, he tells an anecdote—twice! It must really have impressed him—about Clare Booth Luce visiting President John F. Kennedy. Ms. Luce told Kennedy she was worried that his presidency was too scattered and directionless, that the most successful people could be summed up in a sentence. For example, “Abraham Lincoln saved the Union and freed the slaves.” Kennedy, she worried, didn’t have a sentence, suggesting that his administration lacked a sense of purpose.

            I found this argument a little hard to swallow. Do I have a sentence? Do I want one? I would feel like one of T.S. Eliot’s butterflies, “pinned and wriggling on the wall.” Would my sentence be, “He taught political science and wrote funny songs?” Or, maybe, “He bored students and tried to be funny?” Or, worse yet, “Wasn’t he the guy who… no, I’m thinking of someone else.” So, no sentence for Bruce. And yet, the concept stuck with me.

            Here’s the universal explanation of everything: In America, the right has a sentence. The left does not. The center does not.

            That’s it. I’m going to be rattling on a while longer, but that’s the explanation. If you’re tired, you are free to go.

            The right’s sentence has been, at least since the 1980s: “The government is dysfunctional and corrupt, and it ruins everything it touches.” Think about it. Nearly every conservative organization, from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to property rights types to the Tea Party is arguing some version of this sentence. If you’re not conservative, you may protest that you find this sentence inaccurate, or unfair, or simplistic, or whatever. That may be true, but it is beside the point. The point is, it exists.

            The rest of American conservatism can be summed up in another sentence: “Our culture is under threat.” Whether from Muslims, or gays, or socialists, or the mainstream media, or college professors, or environmentalists, or atheists, or secular humanists, or Mexicans, or artists, or flag-burners, or non-supporters of the troops, or whatever other group they want you to fear, the message is consistent and clear. Hunker down, pull together, defend the Constitution and the flag and traditional marriage.

            The left and center in American politics have different perspectives, but they are united in this. They, separately and together, are an incoherent cacophony of political voices, each with their separate claims on the public’s attention, but ultimately failing to drown out the drumbeat of governmental failure. This theme has been articulated so strongly, and so consistently, that it is part of the national zeitgeist now, and no amount of moral or evidentiary claims to the contrary are going to change that any time soon. President Obama, like Clinton and Carter before him (and numberless failed Democratic candidates), may be the socialist his enemies claim, but there’s no room to find out. The rhetorical game of American politics is played on a tilted field, and even in the heady days of 2008-09 Obama was playing inside his own 30. Now, judging from the Democratic position-of-the-moment on the debt limit, they’re playing inside their own 10.

            This may be as it should be, but as someone who tries to stay neutral and on the sidelines, I’m having trouble with a political spectrum where “left” is defined as not-cutting-taxes-and-spending-quite-so-much. It seems to me that government has a useful role to play in our society, or any society for that matter, and that if Mr. Norquist ever does succeed in drowning it in his bathtub we may be the worse off for it. So, from a somewhat sympathetic spectator, two words of advice to the non-conservatives among us: public goods. Look this concept up, learn it, and preach it. Whatever you want to do—save the polar bears, defend gay rights, get people the health care they need, save arts endowments or public broadcasting—can’t be done unless the public is first persuaded that government has a useful role to play.

            This can’t be done overnight, and I’m afraid Obama, if he survives to be reelected as Clinton was, will see his administration drift the way Clinton did. But the conservatives didn’t write their sentence into the public’s brain overnight, either. It took decades of effort from conservative organizations and intellectuals, from the Heritage Foundation to the National Review to Newt Gingrich to FOX News to the numerous projects of the Olins, Scaifes and Kochs. It will doubtless be a long hard slog, but it needs to be done, if only because conservatism isn’t the answer to everything, and countervailing forces are as American as the Constitution and the flag.