JOLLY DAYS

The Times They Are A Changin'

David Brooks' op-ed today is a direct response to James Bennet's silly piece a few days ago. Bennet wrote a People magazine analysis of the election — Brooks quietly provides a true analysis.

Brooks feels that the country is debating what amounts to a conflict of visions. I agree. I think the lies and divisiveness of the public debate are a product of change — not personality; we are in the midst of a possible paradigm shift. A lot is at stake.

…the argument we are having about international relations is the same argument we are having about domestic affairs, just on a larger scale. It's a conflict between two value systems. One is based on a presumption of a world in which individuals and nations should be self-reliant and free to develop their own capacities - forming voluntary associations when they want - without being overly coerced by national or global elites. The other is based on the presumption of a crowded world, which emphasizes that no individual or nation can go off and do as it pleases, but should work instead within governing institutions that establish norms and provide security.

Brooks places this as a rural/urban dissidence, but that seems forced to me. The central problem circles not so much upon the competing visions, but upon the players. Both left and right have fanatical ideologues, cackling and trashing, driving the debate towards spectacle.

Both sides need to marginalize these shrill voices. Coulter and Moore, Buchanan and Al Sharpton, need to be put in the rubber room of their respective ideological homes. Centrist Democrats and centrist Republicans can have a reasonable debate only if those who would poison the well are removed from the vicinity.

Brooks calls this a debate between internationalism and freedom. I would amend that to say it is a contest between a pro-active approach to one that makes collegial assumptions about international affairs. I heard one Dem in an emblematic statement say that “you cannot install a democracy in a country, it has to grow from within.”

The mistake in that idea is that our country was formed on a large continent with brilliant founders. We are the only country founded on an idea. It was relatively easy for democracy to grow here. Other countries inherited from their colonial past some experience of democracy. Most countries have the momentum of history to contend with; the likelihood of their growing a democracy on the parched soil of historical failure is unlikely.