Let’s not jump on the “values” bandwagon

USC history professor Kevin Starr has written an introspective piece for the Los Angeles Times on the New Deal’s authentic origins and on his corrective aspirations for tomorrow’s Democratic Party. Despite its introspection, the piece is misguided historically and ill-advised in its chastising aspirations. 

I’ll get to its pitfalls momentarily, meanwhile here is what I trust is a fair abridgement of Professor Starr’s op-ed for those in a hurry:

Today's Democratic Party leaders have apparently forgotten … that the social programs that came of age during the New Deal had their origins in Judeo-Christian tradition, even more than in secular humanism…. But now the Democratic Party elite — the activists, the pundits, the big-bucks donors — have succeeded in pitting social democracy against the very values … that gave rise to social democracy in the first place…. Let Democratic movers and shakers take one last look at those they are demonizing, because many are their brothers and sisters, social democrats driven into exodus by party excesses….

And here’s an abridgement of my argument: Balderdash.

To be a bit more articulate, let me guide Professor Starr back to last century’s premier American historian, Richard Hofstadter, who cogently argued in his still magnificent The Age of Reform that political and economic pragmatism dwelled at the core of the New Deal – not some loose thread of Judeo-Christian tradition that frankly any Western political philosophy could lay claim to in a pinch.

Until the New Deal’s advent, observed Hofstadter, progressive thinkers on the whole were utopian moralists with their feet fixed just about everywhere except on planet Earth. Yet in the 1930s they began grappling with the "urgent practical realities" of everyday life -- more urgent than ever, of course, because of the Great Depression's toll on human welfare. With their heads forced out of the clouds, progressives tackled as best they could the problems of the newly unemployed, the long-term impoverished, farmers with goods to sell but no markets to sell in, banking and investment calamities, and so on. In short, events compelled progressives to rapidly transform from twinkling idealists to practical thinkers.

Conversely, until the New Deal it was conservatives who exuded that kind of hard, practical, dollars-and-cents ideology. No theory for these boys. They were utterly down to Earth. In point of fact, left-leaning Hofstadter found this old-style conservatism rather praiseworthy, writing that its adherents had "set up [the nation's] great industrial and communications plant and founded the fabulous system of production and distribution upon which the country prided itself."

With the onset of national ruin and the "economic experimentation" of FDR's brain trust, however, conservatives became, well, unglued. They flipped ideologically, dousing themselves less with "hard facts" of everyday life and instead with what Hofstadter called their "high moral indignation" over New Deal doings. In reaction they offered little more than "cliché-ridden" theories, "hollow" platitudes and a lot of sermonizing about our needing "better morals" -- all of which offered nothing for those experiencing real pain. Hence conservatism scooted from practical thought to simplistic idealism and thereby replaced progressivism as the party with its head in the clouds.

That’s the essential political history behind the New Deal. Its roots were watered by whatever worked. That “traditional values” cited by Professor Starr can be found in what worked is indisputable, of course, but let us not revise the New Deal’s historical essence.

I understand what the professor is shooting for – and that, simply, is an effective Democratic counterclaim to Republicans’ exclusive claim on religious values. But that’s a dangerous road to travel, as Republicans themselves are now discovering.

It is dangerous because there are too many competing religious values upon which a political party can formulate anything resembling a consensus on coherent public policy, and dangerous because of the fast-shuffling demagogic element required to successfully appeal to all manner of doctrinaire religionists. While today’s Democratic Party is still based, albeit shakily, on the pragmatic promise of the historic New Deal, the modern Republican Party is skating on the thin ice of religion-cum-politics – and its nose-diving polling stats clearly point to a fractured electorate and a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. 

Democrats were once assailed by Karl Rovian forerunners as the party of Three R’s: Rum, Romanism and Rebellion. Yet if Republicans persist in their present-day course they’ll be doomed as the long-term minority party of Religionists, Reactionaries and Radicals.

Undeniable is that strains of the Social Gospel influenced the modern Democracy, but contrary to Professor Starr’s invented tradition, the New Deal was, at its heart, a 20th-century experiment in social stability by means of political pragmatism. We honor its legacy and can live up to it only by respecting its true genesis.

Comments

[Roy Thomas]

PM -

Very nice historic review. What is occurring in America today, and has its roots, as you point out, in the 1930's and later, is a de-evolution (as it were), which has now transformed itself, as predicted by several scholars of the time (1940s, 1950s), into a neo-facists Corporatism. By any definition, the USA is no longer a democracy (minimally this would require a free press, which we no longer have).

With the help of a corporate controlled media, Americans remain and are maintained in a 'state of ignorance' while Corporate America rapes the Constitution and drains federal money into the private sector.

Anything contradictory to those goals will be seen as 'antagonistic' by the right --

W.r.t. logic, soveriegn welfare, etc. Forget it; they are not on the table at this time.

With a $300 billion war on Iraq (which is getting worse by the day - contrary to what right wing propagandist argue) - it is only a matter of time before the hens come home to roost (economically, and perhaps terroristic).

We are living in insane times - built on the backs of right wing ignorance, hate and bigotry.

[Tom Ball]

There seems to be a deliberate attempt to draw everything that defines this nation as resulting from the roots of religion.

Now, I don't doubt that the policy of this nation has been heavily influenced over the years by various forms of faith, particularly Christianity.

The genuinely disingenuous aspect to all this is that the right-wing is working tirelessly to portray this faith-based upbringing (if you buy that) as one that is of their 'Strict Father' perception -- an animal far different from the 'Nurturant Parent’ form of faith practiced by progressives.

In essence, the conservative SF religion is that of the 'malevolent dictator', while the progressive NP religion is that of the 'benevolent creator'. So even if you buy the religio-foundation of America (which I don't), you are still being led down a grossly misdirected road in believing that the religiosity is that of the conservative strict father than that of the progressive Nurturant Parent.

In essence, the Conservative SF version is their stand in for their Strict Father morality -- installed as an attempt to define this nation as a "Christian Nation" and implement those SF characteristics thusly associated -- banning abortions, subordinating gays, punishing unwed mothers, limiting speech, etc.

Sorry for the choppiness of this comment, but I am in a big hurry. Hope it makes sense! For more on the Strict Father vs. The Nurturant Parent, please go here.

[Tom Ball]

Sorry, that url should be:
http://www.politicalstrategy.org/archives/001120.php

[Jane Hawes]

What the "Christian values" crowd forgets is that Christians don't have a monopoly on "Christian" values. Adherents of every religion (and not a few who profess no religion at all) value peace and compassion (although, come to think of it, the "Christian values" crowd seem to have forgotten about those). What sets Jesus apart to believers is not His teaching (although that is important), but His identity. Jesus is to us the Christ, the Son of the living God. And the "values" crowd who are so set on turning our republic into a theocracy would do well to remember what Jesus said to Pilate: "My kingdom is not of this world."

[Bonnie]

The problem with the values argument is that the Dems go about it in the wrong way. The Bush supporters claim they are moral and righteous when they are not. What the Dems should be pointing out is that the people who claim to be moral values voters are at the least confused and at the most hypocrites. They are anti-abortion (I personally do not allow any of them to use the term pro-life around me); but they support the war. In my opinion, all the people who voted for Bush voted for liars, war, torture, death, and destruction. And, we should throw that in their faces every day, every hour, every minute. They have no moral authority over me because the things that Bush stands for most--lying, war, torture, death, and destruction--are NOT and never should be considered moral values. He has murdered 1,500+ Americans by sending them to fight a war based on lies. Where is the moral value in that? He has said he would do it again even knowing now that there were no WMD's. That my friends is not war as a last resort. Bush and Cheney should be impeached and then sent to The Hague and tried for crimes against humanity because there is no moral value in their administration. The Dems just need to project that they will support programs that will make this country and its people grow better and better every day. Doing what is best for the country and its people is the only moral value needed. The Republicans work only for the party and for the rich. They don't give a damn about the rest of us including the people who voted for them who make only an average living. And, I did not even get into the issues of the death penalty and its supporters.

[Tom Spencer]

Phil --

Nice post. I was teaching the New Deal just the other day and making many of the same points.

I talk about the pragmatism of the New Deal and also about how Hoover was trying to do the same things but on a smaller scale.

I love to tell these conservative folks that their beloved Hoover was deficit-spending and trying to do the same things as FDR. It really gets their goat!

It's great to see you've got a blog!

I do hope all is well. Feel free to e-mail me if you'd like.

[bellatrys]

Well, I'm not sure if Sinclair Lewis counts as a scholar, but he sure did predict it - sexism, racism, anger at higher education, exploitation of white-trash-male resentment of absolutely everyone and everything that wasn't him that he blamed for his problems, except the plutocracy, jingoistic contempt for rule of law, all expressed through bible-thumping radio punditry, and use of trumped-up wars to distract the people from the failure to follow through on campaign promises - back in 1935.