The New Ugly
Bari Weiss writes at Tablet (a Jewish outlet) that American liberalism is in danger from a new ideology -- one with dangerous implications for Jews. I know many of you are not Jewish, most of you are not, but it's worth reading because it bodes poorly for our entire society.
In short: "American liberalism is under siege. There is a new ideology vying to replace it."
To understand the enormity of the change we are now living through, take a moment to understand America as the overwhelming majority of its Jews believed it was--and perhaps as we always assumed it would be.It was liberal.
Not liberal in the narrow, partisan sense, but liberal in the most capacious and distinctly American sense of that word: the belief that everyone is equal because everyone is created in the image of God. The belief in the sacredness of the individual over the group or the tribe. The belief that the rule of law--and equality under that law--is the foundation of a free society. The belief that due process and the presumption of innocence are good and that mob violence is bad. The belief that pluralism is a source of our strength; that tolerance is a reason for pride; and that liberty of thought, faith, and speech are the bedrocks of democracy.
The liberal worldview was one that recognized that there were things--indeed, the most important things--in life that were located outside of the realm of politics: friendships, art, music, family, love. This was a world in which Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg could be close friends. Because, as Scalia once said, some things are more important than votes.
Crucially, this liberalism relied on the view that the Enlightenment tools of reason and the scientific method might have been designed by dead white guys, but they belonged to everyone, and they were the best tools for human progress that have ever been devised.
Racism was evil because it contradicted the foundations of this worldview, since it judged people not based on the content of their character, but on the color of their skin. And while America's founders were guilty of undeniable hypocrisy, their own moral failings did not invalidate their transformational project. The founding documents were not evil to the core but "magnificent," as Martin Luther King Jr. put it, because they were "a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir." In other words: The founders themselves planted the seeds of slavery's destruction. And our second founding fathers--abolitionists like Frederick Douglass--made it so. America would never be perfect, but we could always strive toward building a more perfect union.
I didn't even know that this worldview had a name because it was baked into everything I came into contact with--my parents' worldviews, the schools they sent me to, the synagogues we attended, the magazines and newspapers we read, and so on.
I was among many millions of Americans cosseted by these ideals. Since World War II, American intellectual and cultural life has been produced and protected by a set of institutions--universities, newspapers, magazines, record companies, professional associations, labor unions, cultural venues, publishing houses, Hollywood studios, think tanks, historical museums, art museums--that aligned, broadly, with those principles. As such, they had incredible power--power that demanded our respect because they held up the liberal order.
No longer. American liberalism is under siege. There is a new ideology vying to replace it.
No one has yet decided on the name for the force that has come to unseat liberalism. Some say it's "Social Justice." The author Rod Dreher has called it "therapeutic totalitarianism." The writer Wesley Yang refers to it as "the successor ideology"--as in, the successor to liberalism.
At some point, it will have a formal name, one that properly describes its mixture of postmodernism, postcolonialism, identity politics, neo-Marxism, critical race theory, intersectionality, and the therapeutic mentality. Until then, it is up to each of us to see it plainly. We need to look past the hashtags and slogans and the jargon to assess it honestly--and then to explain it to others.
The new creed's premise goes something like this: We are in a war in which the forces of justice and progress are arrayed against the forces of backwardness and oppression. And in a war, the normal rules of the game--due process; political compromise; the presumption of innocence; free speech; even reason itself--must be suspended. Indeed, those rules themselves were corrupt to begin with--designed, as they were, by dead white males in order to uphold their own power.
...Critical race theory says there is no such thing as neutrality, not even in the law, which is why the very notion of colorblindness--the Kingian dream of judging people not based on the color of their skin but by the content of their character--must itself be deemed racist. Racism is no longer about individual discrimination. It is about systems that allow for disparate outcomes among racial groups. If everyone doesn't finish the race at the same time, then the course must have been flawed and should be dismantled.
Thus the efforts to do away with the SAT, or the admissions test for elite public schools like Stuyvesant and Lowell--for decades, the engines of American meritocracy that allowed children of poor and working-class families to advance on their merits, regardless of race. Or the argument made recently by The New York Times' classical music critic to do away with blind auditions for orchestras.
In fact, any feature of human existence that creates disparity of outcomes must be eradicated: The nuclear family, politeness, even rationality itself can be defined as inherently racist or evidence of white supremacy, as a Smithsonian institution suggested this summer. The KIPP charter schools recently eliminated the phrase "work hard" from its famous motto "Work Hard. Be Nice." because the idea of working hard "supports the illusion of meritocracy." Denise Young Smith, one of the first Black people to reach Apple's executive team, left her job in the wake of asserting that skin color wasn't the only legitimate marker of diversity--the victim of a "diversity culture" that, as the writer Zaid Jilani has noted, is spreading "across the entire corporate world and is enforced by a highly educated activist class."
...America is imperfect. The past few years and the problems they have laid bare have rocked my faith like no others before. But the ideas this country is based on truly are exceptional, worthy of our relentless defense and more. They are under siege by Trumpism, but also by those who suggest that the solution to our problems lies in obsessing on race; in suggesting that some Americans are more righteous or more cursed than others by dint of the circumstances of their birth; and in tearing down rather than renewing. That leaders and philanthropists charged to protect and nurture our community are entertaining, and at times embracing, such nihilistic and anti-American ideas is a scandal.
It is not by chance that Jews thrived in a world in which liberalism prevailed. The idea that we should judge each person not by their station or their family lineage but by their deeds; that human beings have agency--these are revolutionary ideas that are, at root, Hebrew ones. We should never be shocked that any ideology that makes war on these true and eternal values will inevitably make war on us.
Didn't know Tablet was Jewish.
Crid at October 16, 2020 2:43 AM
Kendi Not Everybody Wants
JD at October 16, 2020 4:53 AM
Not exactly new thoughts. But maybe secular Jews will be more open coming from this source. Hope springs eternal and all that.
Ben at October 16, 2020 7:41 AM
Progressives had a pretty nasty antisemitic streak in them back in the day.
When they rebranded as liberals, they tamped down that streak. Now that they feel free to go back to being progressives, that streak is also free to fly its flag.
Ben, the secular Jews will once again be shocked when it comes for them. They didn't learn the lesson from Stalin and the Soviets, they certainly won't listen now.
I R A Darth Aggie at October 16, 2020 9:06 AM
I'm not Jewish but I feel "Jew-ish." For most of my life, I have had an inordinate number of friends and co-workers who are Jewish. Eventually I became a Philadelphia lawyer (need I say more?). I fell in love with and married another lawyer of Roman Catholic background. He's adopted, though, and guess what the checks into his adoption, plus genetic testing revealed? Bio-dad was an Ashkenazi Jew! I shouldn't have been surprised, nu? We have two kids who are officially on the Endangered List, under the category of those who would be targeted by anti-Semitic monsters. So, yeah, I have an inordinate affinity for the Jewish people and our common Judeo-Christian roots.
But because of this cultural Critical Theory/Socialist madness, I have exactly one Jewish friend left with whom I can have candid and open-minded conversations. He's definitely on the spectrum and I think that's why he just sees things as they are and cherishes the fact that he can discuss these observations with me.
Pretty much every other Jewish person I know is unfailingly loyal to what they consider liberal principles (so am I!) but basically unaware of and/or unwilling to look at exactly the complete reversal of Liberalism that Bari Weiss writes about. Liberalism is no longer even remotely liberal, although it claims to be under the cover that they are the only ones who care about poverty and injustice. And those of us who find ourselves cast out of the Liberal tribe because we see the horror of the new totalitarianism are immediately branded crazy and Nazi--no more dialogue or good-faith arguing allowed. And I really do miss the sharp and funny intellectual conversations that I was used to having with my Jewish friends and colleagues!
RigelDog at October 16, 2020 10:57 AM
No mention of the role her previous employer, the NYT, or MSM, her industry, have played in creating that which she now laments.
As for the Hebrew tradition of liberal thought; there was a Jewish fellow who warned about casting pearls before swine (Matt. 7:6). The rest of the warning reads: "lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces."
Which is a fair simile for where we find ourselves.
How did liberalism get so perverted?
Spiderfall at October 16, 2020 11:21 AM
Liberals became what Twain labeled Merlin in A Connecticut Yankee, "an old numskull, a magician who believed in his own magic." Democrats came to believe their own propaganda.
The Democrats insist they, and they alone, passed Social Security. In reality, it was passed on a bipartisan basis. When President Eisenhower wanted to get rid of it later, he was told too many of his own party had voted for it and he would not have the votes to end it.
Democrats believe they, and they alone, brought forth the 1964 Civil Rights Bill. The reality is that the House version that was sent to the Senate got stuck in A Senate committee, trapped there by a Mississippi Democrat. Republican Everett Dirksen (R-IL) and Democrat Hubert Humphrey (D-MN), along with two other senators, one from each party, conspired to use a procedural trick to get the bill before the entire Senate. Once put before the Senate, it was enacted on a bipartisan vote. In fact, a larger percentage of Republicans voted for it than Democrats.
Democrats believe that their candidate, and only their candidate supported a Civil Rights bill in the election of 1948. In reality, both Harry Truman and Thomas Dewey supported a the passage of a civil rights bill in their platforms. Support for civil rights from both parties is why Southern Democrats formed a splinter party and ran Strom Thurmond for president.
Democrats believe they were leading the charge on civil rights when in reality civil rights in the US has always been a bipartisan effort.
Conan the Grammarian at October 16, 2020 11:45 AM
Oh, this “new” thing has a name, iand it is communism. She mentioned Rod Dreher. He has new book out called, “Live Not By Lies”:and it’s aimed at Christians, especially Catholics, but the first 3 chapters are worth reading for anyone. He does a deep dive into the history of communism and how it slowly crept into society taking more and more freedoms as it grew, until finally it owned everything. It’s really similar to what we are seeing today. As I say, it’s aimed at Christians and I’m not sure I agree with all of his conclusions, but those first chapters are worth your time even if you don’t practice any particular faith. He also did a podcast with the Spectator where he discusses his findings.
Sheep Mom at October 16, 2020 12:48 PM
In the real world, the greatest contributions of both money and time to charity, from food banks to whatever, are given by conservative religious people. The most radical dems do almost no actual charity, they just talk big.
The urge of the left to tell everyone how to live is truly scary. You may not have incorrect thoughts. Don't you dare criticize recycling or windmills or organic food or plastic bag bans.
cc at October 16, 2020 3:16 PM
One of the most sacred tenets of the radical left is that the state should take care of its most helpless citizens. So, the left does its charity with your money.
Conan the Grammarian at October 16, 2020 3:40 PM
Nice passage:
For now — somewhat privately, because it requires more explanation that casual conversations permit— I'm going with "infantilism."Those pressing our culture in this new direction are unread, untraveled, unaccomplished, dependent on the support of others, presumptive of that support, and desperately self-important.
…As are we all, until we step out of diapers and begin the business of growing up.
Crid at October 16, 2020 6:58 PM
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